Hello, it is no longer Wednesday but I am back to update this story! My apologies for the delay. Rather than spending the beginning of last week getting this story edited and ready for you all, I wrote a whole different story. Then I did get a start on editing this one but it's a story from the beginning of 2022 so needed a lot of tweaking! On the day that I was meant to finish it off, I wrote another story :D Lots of exciting creating happening! But here I am. At long last. Like I said, this story was written more than two years ago now. It's a new one for me. We delve into Sammy's faith here - or lack of it. Sammy is the long-term boyfriend of Jessie and James' son, Justin. He's having a hard time here and someone he isn't expecting - Misty's father, Jordan - uplifts him in a way that he isn't expecting :3 I hope you enjoy!
Ages:
Sammy: 29
Johnny Jinn (James' son with Misty's mother, Lynne): 2 and a half
Jordan: 32
Just a heads up, this chapter contains hints of drug addiction, overcoming addiction and struggles surrounding religion because of that!
Sometimes you can't truly comprehend someone's impact in your own life until it's almost too late. And worse, you can't fathom your own impact on other people's lives until the very end of your collective story all together. This is a tale of both of those things. And although I wasn't part of this very moment, it's an occasion that my mind keeps wandering back to.
I simply can't help but think of it.
Sammy was starting to be unable to remember a time that he didn't have a dull ache in the center of his forehead, caused by the gigantic knot in his brow. He hadn't noticed it at first. Like the way that spring sent new shoots erupting from the ground while you were too busy waiting for the skies to clear, he didn't notice it until it was unable to be ignored. And then once it had become plain to him, it was like an itch that he couldn't scratch.
An itch that would never go away.
He was unable to remember a time before he had that gigantic knot in his brow. And this was the thought spinning around in his mind rather than the words displayed out on the two pages in front of him. Though he had tried to kid himself that he comprehended them perfectly, he had remained sitting listlessly on the sofa with sentences disappearing into the ether, unable to be claimed by a single soul.
The more that time passed and the longer that ache throbbed in the center of his forehead, he could pretend no more. And at long last, with a sigh that could have given the greatest of tornados a run for their money, he cast his beloved book to the other side of the sofa.
In the instant that he rid himself of one of his formerly greatest companions, he no longer stopped being the only person in the living room. And because he had tossed his book away from him, he couldn't pretend that he had better things to be engaging with.
"Up?" the two-year-old who had toddled into the living room to join him broke the silence but, of course, he was clueless that he was barging into quiet time anyway. Johnny Jinn held insistent arms outwards, repeating himself in case he hadn't been heard the first time. "Up?"
Sammy set another tornado free from inside of him. He was glad that he didn't have to kid himself that verses in that book were having any kind of effect on him. But how he wished he had still been clutching that black bound cover in both of his hands.
How excellent it would have summed up his mood to disinterestedly peer over the top, he thought.
Eventually, he had to set breath free for a different reason. And he went to give Johnny as much of his full attention that was left, running a hand through limp locks of his. If he behaved with any more weariness, then surely his tattoos etched there would have skulked off his skin!
"Sure, you can get up here if you want." Sammy told the child. For a second or two, it was as if the grease that was occupying his unwashed locks had caused his hand to stick, hovering there. "Nobody is going to stop you."
After some time, his hand had slid away from the web of hair and alongside its twin, spoke to the child with more animation than his uninflected tone was able to muster.
Johnny might have been unaware of the moment that he had been walking in on, but these words didn't go over his head. As soon as he heard the permission from his brother's boyfriend along with gestures of encouragement too, his little fists clasped together by his sides. And in doing so, the toy that he was holding received a loving squeeze.
Brow knotted in concentration and eyes on the prize, Johnny Jinn began his journey in trying to climb up onto the sofa with Sammy.
How strange to not be offered any aid, the child thought to himself, but was unable to express this sort of notion at all.
Thankfully, it rolled off him like water off a feathered creature's back and took it in his stride as he did a lot of things, kidding himself that it was some sort of test rather than Sammy not really wanting him to join him.
If he had not wanted company, he would have said, wouldn't he?
Labored grunts and determined noises later to which Sammy glumly watched while not even offering a hand of help, Johnny was proudly standing on the sofa cushions while the older male still slumped. Johnny didn't bother to stop himself from voicing how proud he was to have succeeded in his solo mission.
It felt even better to have achieved it all by himself.
"Yay." He murmured, the rocket ship toy with colorful blasting off plumage still squeezed so tightly in his grip that you would have thought he had climbed a mountain and was worried about dropping it down from his great height. "Play?"
Johnny's knuckles stopped being so white around the rocket ship and it even started to be offered out towards Sammy, for he often was one of the first people to play with him.
However, on this day, it seemed to Johnny Jinn that Sammy had perhaps forgotten how to be fun. It might have even slipped his mind what the space rocket toy was for!
The man looked down at the boy with added darkness in his hazel gaze and with pools of sunken tiredness clinging to the skin all around and below. He looked as if the last thing that he wanted was to play. And unfortunately for Johnny Jinn, it wasn't the last thing on Sammy's mind to keep this opinion to himself.
That hand of his that had prior been sullied with a sign of his own sadness waved again and though he didn't quite reject the child completely, it was as if he had really lost all prior knowledge that had been incredibly basic to him in the months before.
It seemed he needed to be re-taught everything all over again.
"You go ahead and play." Sammy encouraged. Well, it was hard to describe his vapid tone of voice as encouraging in any way, shape or form but that was how he imagined it sounding in his head. He must've caught on to the little boy seeing him with a slope in his neck for he added: "I'm a little bit busy right now. But you knock yourself out."
There could have easily been a time where Johnny Jinn took these words exactly how he heard them and got into some sort of mischief that led him to giving himself a black eye! Yet fortunately, on that day, there still was some semblance of people being watched over because this very typical scenario surrounding the child did not occur.
Instead, he had a moment of quiet where it dawned even on him that Sammy didn't look that busy – far from it. In fact, when he had toddled into the room, he was tossing a book to the one side with surliness on his face and an attitude like he didn't have the energy to read a single word, let alone lovingly pore over verse upon verse like he would have usually done.
Johnny could inadvertently feel the cover of that book underneath his foot as he had hopped up onto the sofa. He had never understood why Sammy had worshipped it so anyway. It was never really that interesting from his point of view.
The child was preparing to voice this opinion, or at the very least, pose the fact that he could show Sammy far interesting things to do with the black book that came adorned with a gold cross etched into its lovingly thumbed cover.
Thankfully, something else occurred there and then so that neither Sammy nor Johnny would have to learn a tough lesson.
The petulant male wasn't filled with gratitude initially when someone else joined them in the living room. But he would have to learn not to be as hasty with his attitude when, after Jordan swooshed past the door frame while intending to head elsewhere, he spotted Johnny Jinn standing with his feet on the sofa instead.
This caused a bulky frame to push through the door, a looming male then standing there with his hands on his hips. Towards Johnny Jinn's turned back, Jordan tilted his head and he looked at the little boy with all the knowing in the world.
Johnny was none the wiser. Sammy tried to stop his whole attitude from bleeding outwards like a red wine stain sullying a pristine tablecloth. The ursine man's voice boomed and put an end to anything before it started. He seemed particularly light on his feet on that day, and it was even more noticeable in comparison to Sammy's especially glum countenance.
"Put your feet on the floor where they belong!" Jordan ordered in a firework boom of a tone, the way he came behind Johnny and tickled underneath his armpits in the process of picking him up contrasting his falsified stern instructions.
That forged voice of Jordan could have given anybody a fright at the best of times and especially a toddler. Johnny Jinn, however, could sense the beaming grin that was dying to erupt from him from him from the moment that he felt those strong hands and it caused him to do the opposite of buckle in fright.
Johnny melted into a fit of giggles, not resisting being picked up off the sofa and even relishing in the fact that he had been captured by that familiar giant. In addition to this, he proved that he hadn't been wounded by Sammy's unusual lack of interest in him and moved on quickly, seizing the opportunity for a different playmate as soon as they were handed to him on a plate.
"Play?" he asked, the rocket ship toy of his having to get used to being shoved into various holds on that day. Johnny Jinn slammed the plush toy into the chest of Jordan, leaving it lingering there and his hands instead bashing over his breastbone like an instructional drum. "Play!"
An invisible fishhook tugged Sammy's eyebrow but nothing to get excited about as he observed, listening to the way that the toddler turned his request into more of a statement. In hindsight I wonder if part of Sammy wished he would end up being given a lecture!
But I suppose that even in the mood that he was in, he understood that he was just a child. And he had a whole lifetime to learn hopefully less harsh lessons than his own deck of cards had dealt to him.
"Oh, I suppose that I would be delighted to play with you." Jordan hummed, throwing Johnny up and down for good measure as he prepared to comply. Seemingly for just a moment, more of Sammy was invisible rather than just the hook tugging up his eyebrow. "You know what? I think your daddy has a snack for you for before play time." Johnny Jinn landed in the strong arms of Jordan for the final time. "He's in the kitchen with Jorgie."
Jordan had been about to head right out of the room without even talking to Sammy. But then he had changed his tune. Not that it was all that obvious from the way that Johnny Jinn had moved closer and closer to the ceiling before settling in Jordan's strong hold!
For the first time that day, Johnny's expression matched the man he had previously left behind on the sofa as he started to see Jordan through far more narrowed eyes. He hoped that he would be successful in stifling back the true noises of his stomach and even would be able to keep the nature of them hidden.
Johnny Jinn did this as best as he could for a couple of moments and then, while his entire young body lounged against the body of Jordan in great contrast to the expression that he was mustering, he made sure that his initial wish would still be granted.
"Then play." he insisted. And after not too much of a need for a lingering gaze into the expression of Jordan, he seemed happy with the idea of tootling off to the kitchen to fill his belly up before a long session of whizzing around holding his toy rocket ship in the air alongside the much bigger male.
If anyone existed who could give him a run for his money and sprint longer and further than him then it was definitely Jordan! So, he supposed that it would make sense that he needed to get fueled up for it.
He made his rocket ship follow him rather than lingering on the bigger male's chest when he darted off. He assumed that even if he had forgotten it, Jordan would be hot on his tail anyway.
He was wrong.
You see, it was challenging to ignore the expressions that had been lacing Sammy's features on that day and with everything that had been occupying his mind in recent months, it was especially hard to turn a blind eye to. You wouldn't like to risk it.
Even so, Jordan didn't exactly go about addressing it in the most conventional ways. He waited for quite a few seconds for Sammy to at last stop filling his own line of vision with something entirely uninteresting and non-existent on the ceiling before he even made it clear that he too had noticed somebody else in the room.
His fingers joining together in unison across the breadth of his broad chest, Jordan began to approach Sammy. As he did so, funnily enough, his fingers broke apart from only just merging.
Forming the shape of a weapon, they started to gesture to the sulky male from the second that words escaped from his lips.
"Sammy, right?" Jordan tried to humor him and, not that it really dawned on him, but he might have made quite a mistake in doing so! If anybody had been watching, they would think that this was entirely unplanned. That in some unusual twist of fate, names really had been forgotten.
Although he had longed for any sort of respite moments before, Sammy didn't take hold of this opportunity with open arms, and he did not realize he was getting a chance to feel a facial expression other than frowning.
"What…?" Sammy wondered, feeling tension in the center of his forehead soften as his eyebrows instead moved closer to his hairline rather than breaking the distance like a formidable pair. He prepared to take his time in overthinking, making sure that his hearing hadn't been deceiving him.
It had not.
Jordan didn't burst out into laughter at his own jest. Perhaps even he understood that it was out of place but wanted to do it anyway.
At long last going the full way, he invited himself to sit down with Sammy. And as he did so, he was forced to clear the way next to the other man whose eyelashes were still batting together, running through the past in his mind.
"Messing with you." he clarified, Sammy's mind taking a break from ruminating when he had a chance to jump at the sudden shift in weight on the sofa. He had tried not to. But he still wasn't entirely sure what was going on. Jordan lifted the black book from underneath him and tried to hand it over to the other male. "Reading?"
He had absorbed Johnny Jinn's way of speaking, it seemed. It was difficult for that not to be the case with how much time he spent around that little boy but still, even Jordan knew that it was no accident. He stared, waiting for the book to be accepted. Jordan waited and watched still as, in an unusual twist of fate, Sammy seemed not to want to look at what was being offered to him, let alone touch it.
He, however, eventually did it out of habit as much as anything. A small book was clutched between hesitant hands. A jolt of truth caused Sammy to speak his mind, his lips moving as if his own words brought an acidy taste into his mouth.
"Yeah. Well, trying anyway." Sammy started to shift his own weight on the sofa and not because he was trying to balance it out from the sudden, heavy presence of the man who took up a lot more space. His gaze wandered to what was in his hands, but he felt nothing. He spoke a little of that sensation. "I don't know." His voice made him speak. Jordan already got the feeling that he did very much know but just wanted to buy himself time. "The words are hardly making any sense to me."
Straight away, Jordan nodded his head as if he understood but he took a couple of seconds to show off what he really wanted his actions to portray – and that was to draw backwards as he listened. It was his turn to run possibilities through his mind and go over them. Now that he was no longer handing a book over to Sammy, his hands clasped together over his chest once more.
Then, out of nowhere, his weight bobbed on the sofa all over again. Sammy, who at least could read people as well as before if nothing else, was savvy to the reason for this.
"Oh, do you want me to go and fetch Morgan for you?" Jordan suggested, one of his hands breaking away from the other to push his hair back out of his eyes except, for once, it didn't seem to need taming. "She usually helps me with reading when the words all blur together."
For a split second, I can't help but presume that Sammy believed that Jordan was acting naïve for the second time in a very short space of time, pretending he was misinterpreting his words all over again. Maybe he was. Maybe Sammy couldn't be fooled.
Regardless of whether it was an act or not, if Sammy took the time to look across at him and try and gauge things from his face, the sofa subtly vibrating as Jordan's leg shook near the ground below, it soon appeared that he was telling some semblance of the truth. Even if it was a ploy to get him talking more.
Then again, why would someone bother to do that? These thoughts descended on Sammy like a sticky heat.
Why would someone behave so long-windedly just for the possibility of talking to him and get to the bottom of whatever was bothering him?
Sammy's unctuous locks managed to sway a little as he shook his head, still looking over at Jordan as he didn't feel comfortable looking at what was in his hold.
"No, it's okay." He answered dully at first, already observing the way that Jordan's head was quick to bob up and down, his often restless eyes wandering to various points around the living room. He seemed not to be surveying the homely clutter all around. "I don't think I even want to understand anyway." Sammy had to deal with Jordan's searching gaze back on him again after he let this slip. A hand roaming through his locks, he tried to divert the attention elsewhere. "You wouldn't understand."
It's quite challenging to express these words without sounding like a churlish child. It's especially even more so when you possess the sunken emptiness and pouty attitude that Sammy possessed during those seasons of his life!
However, although Jordan had to hear these words in a puckered-lipped manner, he was seemingly well equipped to deal with them and soon enough perhaps surprised even himself by feeling his head bobbing up and down all over again.
Hands brushing over his chest for another time but that time to wipe crumbs away from his t-shirt that he had found, Jordan let murmuring noises of agreement escape long before he confirmed that he was feeling this way.
"Yeah, I've only lived two different lives on earth so I probably wouldn't understand a thing." Jordan's reply came. In the moments that these words formed themselves, all gestures died down and he sat there with as much stillness as he could and with long limbs tucked over each other rather than splayed out.
He didn't look over at Sammy coyly. Didn't look over at Sammy with a knowing diamond in his iris. In fact, he didn't glance over at him at all. He did such a good job in acting as though these words too were completely unintentional that, for a good few moments, they went over the fuzzy head of the other male.
Immediately when the cogs turned within his mind enough to realize that it had sounded like he was putting him down, Sammy knew that he had to rectify the situation.
Experiencing his almond eyes having a bit of extra strength and urge to see the world with a bigger surface area, he portrayed the opposite of Jordan's body language and tried to appear as if there was more of him than there was as his initial move was to make sure that they hadn't gotten off to the wrong foot.
Sammy's eyes spoke of pleading for forgiveness long before his head swung from side to side.
"That's not what I meant. I don't think you need to be so-" he was in the middle of reassuring Jordan for potentially one of the first times in his life when realization struck him like a tree branch being treated to an electrical currant. "Oh." Sammy was roughly swallowing when Jordan allowed his movements to accompany his ruse, legs clasping even closer together and interlinked hands resting against his lap. "Nice one."
In his position, a good many people might have thanked Sammy in return for his almost compliment, even if it was bordering on begrudgingly for the way that he had been tricked in such a manner. Tricked in a good-natured way. But tricked, nevertheless.
Jordan, however, went on to not offer gratitude in return and instead, after allowing his position on the sofa to mellow out for a couple of moments and watching Sammy's gaze grow narrowed and thoughtful all over again, he was encouraged to find differing words instead.
Though he might have had qualms usually about taking the black book out of Sammy's hold, on this day he guessed that it was perfectly okay to tuck it between his own digits instead.
"Is this not really doing it for you at the moment?" he wondered. Sammy didn't know why he felt this way, but he knew he wasn't mistaken by the sensation of his shoulders drawing upwards towards his earrings for a couple of moments. Then, understanding lent itself to him. Such a callous way for him to address his faith. "I guess that's normal."
Soon enough, he had to allow his ear lobes and the bones of his shoulders to break the distance all over again and for him to focus on the second part that came instead.
Did he say that? Did Jordan really think that how he was feeling was normal? Because it sure as hell felt completely alien to Sammy.
Sammy didn't like to show squirming on the sofa but that was exactly how he had felt. While it had been foreign and hollow for him to be holding the book in his hands that he once effortlessly pored over for hours, it was somehow even worse that it was no longer there for him, and he had to be discussing this sort of thing with Jordan of all people.
And it wasn't even because it was him, Sammy told himself. Did he really want to be confessing any of this to absolutely anyone? It was a sin, was it not?
"I just don't have the energy to pretend that I'm whole enough to feel comforted by any of the words in here." Sammy responded after taking the time and thinking about it. Out of his peripheral vision and as he sat on the sofa with him but through no fault of his own felt like nobody was there at all, Jordan knew he wasn't mistaken in the way that he saw an Adam's apple bob up and down. "Have you ever felt like that?" Sammy wanted the sofa to swallow him whole. "Like everything that once made you feel halfway decent just doesn't cut it anymore?"
He had tried to put the focus onto Jordan, but hotness had spread from the tip of his tongue to his cheeks at the words he had set free like a caged animal. It was interesting how Jordan had just observed that relatable sensation of a throat bobbing up and down for Sammy and as soon as he had registered that in another person, it was being experienced by him.
As well as kidding himself that his Adam's apple was growing and taking over all his throat, Jordan pressed the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he paused, considering, his leg longing to twitch for some familiarity.
Was this a trick?
If he answered honestly, was it going to end badly for him? Or worse, Jordan silently agonized with the stance of a stoic, was he going to make things harder for Sammy? Was he going to live to regret hearing Jordan open up about the things that he too had experienced?
Jordan decided that it was a trick.
Drawing backwards on the sofa while giving the impression that he was merely considering and being a good listener, he knew that there was no effortless way out of it. In the end, it was honesty that won out and it could not be tamed.
A risk of vulnerability sometimes inadvertently coaxed it out of both parties.
"Well…" Jordan's voice started and for half a second, Sammy's neck grew so slanted as he prepared to listen that it almost ended up on the broader male's shoulder. Neither of them noticed. The wider of the two was trying to speak through a tightening throat. "I wasn't too much older than you when I lost the love of my life in one of the worst ways and she was the truest happiness I had ever known."
In retrospect, I once believed that Jordan ran the biggest risk when he pretended to Sammy that he didn't have a clue what was going on. But then I heard this part of the story, and it was easy to realize that the more gigantic risk was speaking of a tale from his past.
Sammy could have grown eerily silent, reprimanding himself that not a single thing that he had been through could ever compare to the pain of that. Or worse, he could have portrayed the opposite and his hoarse voice fill with hostility, thundering into Jordan that it wasn't a competition and there was enough sadness in the world to go around and be shared between both of their lives.
Jordan fortunately had faith that honesty was the best policy regardless and was able to see that, while Sammy didn't react in either of these ways, nothing could have prepared him for what did occur.
Jordan's natural jovial glint in his eyes mellowing down as he remembered these times didn't weigh Sammy down like chains dragging him to the bottom of the ocean. In fact, it nearly encouraged him to rip away whatever was dragging him down.
Sammy started to lean further off the sofa, as if there was no longer room for the two of them in that little bubble.
"So, you do understand?" he began and though inclination took over Jordan that made him long to nod his head straight away, his impulsive self somehow knew that he must hold it back to see where else Sammy proceeded to. "So, you… Think that all of this is pointless too? That it's a waste of time?"
Thank goodness Jordan managed to hold back the bobbing of his head. He wasn't, however, able to hold back his urge in the next couple of seconds and he went with whatever seemed right.
His broad stature turned in the direction of the other male, almost accidentally knocking his head clean off with the way that Sammy's skull was still closely slanting towards him as he considered things within his own mind long before he got another jolt of confirmation.
"What do you mean, Sammy?" he asked him straight. His name tumbled out of him not as a method of comradery but to get him to focus harder in some ways. There could be no beating around the bush. Everything had to be perfectly clear. In times like this, things needed to be perfectly clear.
Although it was hard to wash away any residue of the heartbreak and turmoil that Sammy had been going through with actual water or otherwise as he tried to kick his addiction for the first time, he had an undeniable quality of ants in his pants the longer that he conversed with Jordan.
It was as if he needed permission to doubt. He needed permission to give up.
Everything that he had held inside of him was being set free. Anyone just had to hope that Jordan would be sturdy enough to catch it for him.
"Well, you're alive for a second time, aren't you?" Sammy posed to him and this time, Jordan couldn't quite hold back his nod of the head in the same way. It was paired with a quizzical look, but it came all the same. "And you've never even read any of this, let alone believed. Have you?" he continued, for the first time in his life a gesture down towards that book of his being almost a slap of direction rather than a point of adoration. "So, it's pointless, isn't it…?"
When another urge to nod his head following a question from Sammy came, Jordan managed to resist it and he instead watched that ring clad hand slap down on the cover of a book that he had once held so close to his chest that it was almost as if those secret pages were a lover.
The slap woke him up a little bit. And then looking over at Sammy and seeing the helpless urgency in a pair of eyes that had seemed not to have slept in weeks put him in a whole other headspace that he hadn't realized he had possessed before.
Like me, in that moment, it dawned on Jordan just how much he needed Sammy to be around and even if he was frazzle eyed and frantic then it was better than him not being there at all. And his beliefs from his point of view were bewildering at times– even a little ironic in comparison to how he had chosen to behave in other areas of his life.
But in that moment, he almost wanted to nurture faith for Sammy because it became apparent that it was slipping.
Somehow, Jordan managed to show all of this in the next few sentences that he uttered.
"Dude, I know you want me to, but I can't tell you what to do and I can't promise that what you believe or won't believe will have some sort of enormous effect on the rest of your life…" Jordan began. Somehow it didn't haunt him too much to see almost a younger version of himself trapped inside the tired gaze of Sammy that was a mask for his intrinsic fright. "It might be the second hardest thing that you are called to face right now." A continuation came. This was almost a slap too. This time in the face of Sammy. "But you need to find answers within yourself and by yourself."
I know that many moments exist in Sammy's life that he looks back and describes the wind being completely and utterly knocked out of his lungs. This instant was certainly one of them.
As he looked back at Jordan – seeing a version of a person that he could potentially become while he was mirroring the young version of a man who had once been – he had no air seemingly left inside of him as it was the last two sentences that desired his attention first and foremost.
But then like a scab that could not help but be picked at and the kind of annoying wound that you can't help but give attention to, with a gaze that did not know where to look and water longing to prick at the corners of eyelids, Sammy for some reason focused more wholeheartedly on what Jordan had first uttered.
And as if there were great eruptions coming from there, Sammy wiped his eyes and his nose promptly and fiercely.
A voice sounded thickly from more than just plain emotion.
"I don't want a guarentee." he argued. It was funny how vulnerability and hostility could be two sides of the same coin. And it was a balancing act of which one would be displayed out of a cry for help. Or if both would. Sammy's defensiveness at last showed its face. But then it was gone without a trace. "I just… thought that you understood." He concluded. He didn't need to say his conclusion, but it could still be heard from his lips like a breath into the wind. "Apparently not…"
Eyes of brown displayed an appearance of someone who had irises the color of reeds that grew at the bottom of the sea. Jordan still managed to stand up to the young face of himself as he saw that as much as he saw Sammy the way that he was meant to be seen.
"Sammy…" Jordan tried again. Maybe his own name should have been read upon his lips. Instead, he gathered his thoughts by pushing back his own locks and he knew he had to address the person that truly existed there and then and was not a long-forgotten specter of the past. "I think you do. And I think that's okay. You have so freaking much to figure out right now…"
Jordan and Sammy didn't often speak of what was going on in the life of Sammy and how he chose to medicate the numbness he rarely could escape and that is an understatement. You might have thought that Jordan would have learnt from his own past and taken every opportunity to speak from the heart and learn but that wasn't always the case.
Still, he wasn't stupid. And his heart had sunk from the moment that he heard the news that Sammy was in hospital from at long last having indulged way too much in the poison that he embedded into his veins.
Once upon a time it was a solace. Like love, it was a warm blanket of comfort. And then it almost ripped all the air away from his lungs for it never to return.
It had been a long road since then. Sammy always looked as if he had barely slept a wink. Because he probably hadn't. It was the same way for Justin. He hardly dared take a moment of sleep just in case Sammy was snatched from him once and for all while he slumbered.
He blamed himself secretly. Blamed himself outwardly. He was riddled with guilt.
Jordan watched all of this. He hardly said a word about it unless he was asked to.
It seemed in these moments he was being asked to. And he was forced to confront more than shadows of the past as the dam of Sammy's emotions was growing weaker with every passing second.
It started with a dribble from the nostrils. And then his eyes started weeping. They didn't have the energy to forlornly flutter shut as he at last replied to Jordan.
"I just want to be okay…" Sammy confessed, the rigidness of his hand that moved to grip onto locks belonging to his own skull speaking of how far away he felt from being the slightest bit okay. He tried not to hiccup his next words, but it was to no avail. "A-And I just want to believe..."
And in the same manner that he didn't need to add his words of apparently not moments before, there and then the words of but I just don't could easily be read upon his lips. Not as an afterthought because they were very much a forethought. But as instead a display of what needed a great amount of bravery to be spoken with a head held high.
A whisper to the wind just had to suffice. And Jordan knew that for himself, what had to suffice was speaking from the heart and not really knowing where things were going as a hand reached out and gripped at the back of Sammy's neck.
It was almost unintentionally too constrictive. But it was an act of comfort. So, Sammy took it in his stride and savored it.
"You will be." Jordan told him at the moment that a clumsy hand slapped against bare skin. "And you will do if you're meant to so don't worry about that. But by God, Sammy, please…" he continued. He might have used the wrong words to say to someone who was finding it hard to call upon that deity. But maybe it was absolutely everything that he needed to hear. "You need to learn to stop living your life based on an outcome. I know you used to believe. And you used to love believing. You need to figure out what is right for you and be happy to have done that, and not because of the rewards that may or may not follow…"
This was more of a slap than any level of Jordan's comfort could have been. How difficult it must have been to hear. At the best of times and certainly during those moments of one's life.
Sammy squirmed. But Sammy didn't shun. He didn't nod his head and he felt the pressure of Jordan's hand growing ever further. He tried to listen. He didn't have the heart to nod. Jordan just had to have the faith that what was meant to be absorbed was being absorbed.
Whether he took it on board or not. Whether he ended up resenting him because of what he chose to say. Jordan would have to be okay with whatever outcome. And he knew he would be. He had learned a very long time ago that you had to let go of the reins.
And not that he voiced it, but it would be a massive blessing to aid Sammy just a tiny bit in being able to behave in the same way.
"I don't believe just because of the promise of the rewards that follow…" Sammy slurped back his tears after his first instinct was to disagree with what Jordan was saying. Well, disagree was a strong word for how he did it! It was hard for anything in Sammy to be sturdy in those moments and especially with Jordan lingering so close by.
Again, another risk was taken. And I learn that the best changes in life are made with an extra special leap of faith. From yourself, and from the person nudging you to where you need to be.
"You do a bit…" Jordan disagreed in return, the unmoving hand of his moving from the back of Sammy's neck and for just a moment, it was patting the side of his face. Sammy had to sniff back harder. The last thing that he wanted was to Jordan to feel tears that might have slid down there. Jordan wasn't fazed. He was too busy adding: "But it's okay. Because you are a good person. And I don't say that about a lot of people." Sammy twitched. It was almost a full fidget. "I've lived enough lives to know that your kind of person will be really okay in the end. You can't help but be."
And with that, Jordan chose this to be the moment to remove any sort of contact away from Sammy. Maybe he thought that he deserved it from the way that he decided to disagree with him during the first few moments of his wisdom. Or more realistically, another, bigger part of him knew when the time was to pull away.
Jordan knew when the moments to speak were and he knew when reassurance and words needed to be offered. But perhaps more importantly, he knew when people needed to be left to their own devices. He was a full advocate in finding strength in numbers. But he had enough time on his side to also know when the time was for a person to use that support as a springboard and take a leap of faith all by themselves.
It seemed as though his decisions had all been good ones when Sammy found his voice a few more times on that day.
"I sure hope so…" Sammy answered, that time not disagreeing with Jordan. He felt that he had been pulled away from and he wiped the ends of his eyelashes with trembling fingers as he knew deep inside of himself that he was trying to find the strength to be okay there and then.
But the truth was, he was not okay there and then. In the future, he would be sturdy, and he would be in control, and he would believe. But for the next couple of moments, things needed to erupt from him.
And if there was anything that Sammy was going to do then it was be true to every single action of his as it came to him – regardless of it they were seemly or not.
Jordan had been pulled away for quite some time and Sammy was trying to be okay for quite some time. It was no longer working. It was time to be okay with not being okay. That touch on Sammy's eyelids to try and dab the tears away turned into an encouragement of more water to come.
Hot tears spurted from his eyes. He started sobbing, his shoulders shaking up and down. The floodgates had opened. All that was left was emotion. And Jordan knew it was time to revisit his prior decision and Sammy started to feel an arm around his shoulder as he continued to get everything off his chest and to send tears that he no longer needed streaming out of his eyes.
Initially, Jordan just let him get on with it. But eventually as minutes passed, he had a little bit of a smile taking over his face. Not a malicious one, far from it. For one of the first times in his life, Jordan was having a fond elevation of the lips for Sammy.
He nudged him.
"How are you doing right now…?" he was almost humoring him! He could perfectly see. He didn't think any less of him. If anything, he could kid himself that he could see the weight lifting from his shoulders as the water was set loose out of his eyes.
Sammy could hardly catch his breath for sobbing. He might have kept some of his needle habits swept under the carpet but from that moment, he was going to try a different approach towards his emotions and allow them to be seen for exactly what they were.
Tolerable. Very, very tolerable. Powerful! But they could be lived alongside.
Sammy's voice was thick with every inch of that, but he was still understood by Jordan.
"I'm doing okay." He slurped, untucking part of his black jumper away from his belt and using the end hem to dab at his eyelids. Thankfully he knew better than Jordan and knew better than to wipe his nose there too. "I guess I'm just realizing that life as I knew it is over and I've got some big steps to take to figure out what I really makes my heart happy."
And with that, Jordan doesn't know how he did it, but after his mouth moved and his chest twitched a couple of times, he managed to stifle back his laughter! He could have set that free as well and pretended that it was tears, and he was sobbing right alongside Sammy. But that would have been cruel. Even crueler than letting his laughter go.
Jordan wanted more than anything to act on that impulse. But instead of making his giggles known, he spoke of them with a fond smile instead. And for the first time in Sammy's life, he felt the weight of Jordan's head resting against his as he was supported on that day by someone that he wasn't expecting.
"God, you are so dramatic, aren't you?" Jordan uttered perhaps the wrong words to Sammy. But it was counteracted with the level of touch and comfort that he had offered to him, so it had to be okay!
Sammy really wanted the sofa to gobble him up this time. He wanted to wriggle right away from Jordan. But in the end, he was glad that he stayed and that he lingered because in the end, he stopped being comforted by just the one person.
It was touching how on that day; Johnny Jinn hadn't bounded into the room again quite so promptly as he had done the first time. Maybe even he had suspected that something was going on. Either way, he eventually made his presence known all over again.
At first, he spoke words that could have undone all the collective progress. But thankfully, just like with Jordan with Sammy, we needed to have more faith in Johnny too.
"Crying?" Johnny Jinn wondered, expressing maybe even a silly question for a two-year-old from the way that liquid was still streaming down Sammy's face! Sammy only had half a second to feebly nod. Jordan had even less than that to honestly nod. For a moment, it seemed that the child didn't really care. "Oh."
Johnny's plush toy rocket fell to the ground and a fist started to bed into the pocket of jeans that were coated in goodness knows what. Nobody thought anything of it at first. It wasn't unusual for a child of that age to find interest in bedding hands into several spaces.
But then, everybody thought and certainly felt everything when, eventually, Johnny Jinn successfully pulled out what he had been looking for. He offered it out towards Sammy. However, it was Jordan who stepped in there first, before the weeping male felt complied to take it or he burst into even more tears at the sentiment.
"Oh. Well, that's so kind of you but you can keep your own. Sammy can have mine." Jordan smiled down at the child, not having the time to reach down and pat his head because he needed to get on with making the trade.
The colored ink and food splattered crusty tissue that Johnny had been offering to Sammy was encouraged back into his pocket when it should have been a bin and Sammy was encouraged to accept a (surprisingly) perfectly clean handkerchief from Jordan.
And fortunately, Johnny Jinn was seemingly okay with that trade. In fact, he was as perky and inquisitive as ever and his mood hadn't been dampened by the realization that Sammy really hadn't been interested in him at all earlier in the day.
He shot forward, reaching for something off Jordan's lap.
"Story time?" he wondered, taking hold of the book with hands that had thankfully been mopped up by James following his snack time. Not that, for once, Sammy would have minded either way. Johnny Jinn's orbs of the ocean swung towards that same male. "You read to me?"
A child filled with such unbridled enthusiasm, Johnny could be, along with a relentless child who didn't take no for an answer. It could have been a very long and painful road if he felt let down by the answer that everybody guessed Sammy would respond with.
But, he seemed to smile at Sammy so very earnestly in the moment that he made his request, leading one to really believe that he suspected something bigger than himself and would be okay with whatever disappointments came.
"O-Oh…" Sammy began, sniffing some more into a no longer clean tissue and following suit by stuffing it into his own pocket. Jordan didn't know where to look as the decision needed to be his and his alone. For the first time in quite a while, he had the strength to allow his lips to quirk upwards in both corners. "I don't think anybody really wants to hear any of that today."
And with that, Johnny Jinn was rejected again. Even if his request might have been only for the benefit of Sammy seeing as he usually had no interest in that particular book.
But contrary to how it could have gone, he didn't really feel like this had been the case because, on Sammy's lips, even he could read the words come here and the child was soon enough reached for.
Johnny felt himself sinking against a lap that felt so very familiar and incredibly welcomed. He had perched there quite a lot over the past few months. But it felt warmer and more inviting than he remembered. He didn't hesitate to snuggle back against him.
Sammy certainly wasn't going to let this opportunity pass by either and held the child as close as he could to him without too much more of his emotion spilling out of him! And as for Jordan, he managed to hold what was his tongue for a couple of seconds.
But then after Johnny lost interest in holding the book between his spotless hands, Jordan took a chance by taking hold of it instead. Sammy felt a nudging motion all over again before Jordan put forth his intention.
"I'd like to give a go reading it to you, if I may?" Jordan began, leaving Sammy unable to hide the surprise from behind his eyes as Johnny nestled further against his lap and they both turned to look over at the broad male. Those wide shoulders twitched into a shrug. Following suit, a smile etched across Jordan's mouth. "I'd like to see if I can understand more of it without Morgan helping me."
And with that, Jordan waited for permission from Sammy before he got started. Unlike you would have suspected, his granting of permission wasn't all that grandeur. It was the tiniest nod of the head. It was the smallest speckle of a relinquishing of shoulders. But it was a start. And Jordan knew that it was a yes.
Sammy's journey with his faith had always been a long time coming and it would be an even longer road ahead. But with unsuspecting people like Jordan shoving you onto the right path and Johnny Jinn there to innocently barge into you on the way – well, this meant that it was always going to be the one that felt good along the way, let alone right at the very end.
It was a brave moment when he decided to start all over again and fall in love with all that he had ever known for better reasons. And this journey wasn't the only time that he would ever start all over again. But that's for another tale.
For this tale, we end it by mentioning what a sight it was for James when he took a wander around his house to see what had happened to his son and not only saw that little boy but the man who was very much his son too being read intricate words by Jordan.
Jordan didn't always understand all of it. And he was perfectly okay with not understanding all of it. In fact, it was his misunderstanding of it all that drew him even closer to Sammy. Understanding didn't always lead the way. Sometimes acceptance was way better.
And if anybody had acceptance in their heart on that day than it was certainly James who held a hand over his heart and had his daughter on his hip as he leaned up against the door frame and witnessed story time of a whole other level to unfold. But that acceptance would get passed to Sammy eventually.
Acceptance for what had been. Acceptance for what was to come. Acceptance of the mistakes that he had once made. Acceptance that it was a chapter of his story. But it wasn't his whole story. Nobody could comprehend his whole story. Not even the infinite number of deities that could promise of a better tomorrow.
It's still being written right now. And what an exciting thing! Because it is the exact same thing for each of us too. We just have to believe in ourselves. In our journey. In the mystery of it all.
You can always start again. It's never too late. Never too late at all.
The End.
There you go, thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :) I remember writing this so very well. I was quarantining because me and my family had covid and I was starting to feel better so I wrote this idea that I'd had for quite a while. But I obviously wasn't feeling that well because it wasn't going well and I had to stop and pick it up again and in those days it was rare for me to write in more than one sitting! And then, for some reason, every time I tried to edit it, I just wasn't happy with it. And now, I really quite like it! So I think it needed to incubate for a number of years and now it's ready to join the rest of them :D I like the parallels between Jordan and Sammy. Losing someone to cancer and a drug addiction are two very different scenarios. But their lack of faith following these struggles is the same. They are both men who feel extremely deeply - often to their own detriment. But how wonderful that Jordan could be a mentor here. I hope that he enjoyed being quite fatherly here seeing as his chance to be a dad to his own children often slips away from him :) Thanks again for reading and I'll be back on the 28th to update Rocket Daze so if you're a reader of that too perhaps see you there!
Amy signing out :P