Chapter Text
Darkness overshadowed the towering trees, giving everything an ominous feeling. The ground was still wet from a storm that had taken place earlier, and mud made the pathways slick and unsafe.
Sam gave no heed to any of this.
Breath punched out of his lungs in ragged pants as he ran barefoot and blindly scared through the trees. Bare feet smacked against the ground and sunk the further he got away.
Loud footfalls could be heard in pursuit of him forcing his legs to move faster despite the sharp scratches of branches.
If he was some damsel in distress, he’d probably have fallen at some time, but as a man that wasn’t new to this situation, he knew there was too much at stake to stop.
“Sam!”
The angry yell had him cringing even as he hauled himself over a log. Blood seeped down from his shoulder where the hot iron had burned his skin. Bruises ached with each twist of his body and if Sam was a better man, he’d have acknowledged that his night shirt wasn’t just sticking to the sweat on his back.
But he wasn’t a better man.
He was worthless.
He was pathetic.
He was a coward.
Coward enough to fly out of the house when his boyfriend started throwing dishes, when he knew he deserved every piece of broken glass embedded into his skin.
Hands came out of nowhere and gripped his shirt, not only ripping it, but sending him crashing to the ground. Heavy weight landed on his back, keeping any movement minimal and ineffective.
His mouth opened in a scream, but his face was shoved into the mud. Suffocating, Sam tried to throw the weight off of him, but soon the loss air slowed everything down, making him wonder why he was struggling in the first place. Muzzily scared, all he could do was hope his boyfriend would let up in time before everything went black.
Sometimes Sam’s hopes were entirely foolish.
*
The beeping of the alarm clock pulled Sam from his nightmare and into the atrociously colored room that he inhabited. Cooling sweat made his clothes stick to him uncomfortably, and a part of him debated whether or not he should shower.
A quick glance at the clock told him that he should be hauling ass downstairs to meet the other tenants of the household. Hopefully, none of them will get close enough to notice his funk.
Slowly, he levered himself up to a sitting position. Taking a deep breath as motivation, he pushed himself up into a standing position even though he wanted nothing more than to curl up and never face the world again.
The kitchen was a cheery place of pastel colors and abstract paintings. There was an island in the middle of the room, big enough to seat about twelve people in high chairs that swiveled. There were already four people in the room, one that was at the stove, and the other three were doing various things from their chairs at the island.
The one closest to Sam was a short man (Though in retrospect, anyone who's not Sam usually is short) of about five foot eight inches. He was a handsome man with blond hair that almost fell across his forehead above mischievous blue eyes. There was a slenderness to him that suggested muscle, but one couldn’t tell with the over sized clothes that he wore. A lollipop dangled from between quirked lips and if Sam didn’t know better, he’d bet this man spent a lot of his time laughing.
The man next to him was also very good looking with sparkling green eyes and dark blond hair that was held back in a messy ponytail. He sort of reminded Sam of those well drawn anime men that has girls falling over in their seats. The ones that were almost feminine in their slenderness, even when obvious muscles lay between well clothed bodies.
There was an air of elegance around him and he looked at ease in his dark green button down and dark blue jeans.
The last of the occupant was a woman about the same height as Cai with dark auburn hair and blue eyes. She was slender, but she practically vibrated where she was standing. There was no doubt that she was pretty, but the way she held herself slightly slumped over, was an obvious indicator that she wasn’t aware of it.
It was her that noticed him first.
Her unblemished face lit up in a smile and she bounded across the room.
“You must be Sam! I’m Anna! The candy crusher is Gabriel and the other one is Clide.”
The man with the lollipop pouted. “Candy crusher?” He asked at about the same time the other man asked, “Hey! How come I’m the ‘other one’?”
Anna ignored them in favor of grabbing Sam’s hands. “So! Tell us a little about yourself like… What’s your favorite color? Have you ever dyed your hair? Any siblings? Favorite Band? Oh my God! Do you like animals? Do you have a girlfriend? Boyfriend? What about-”
“Good God Anna breathe for a moment.” Gabriel said as he fondly looked at the energetic girl and laughed when she blushed bright red.
His gaze turned sharp and malicious, though, when his eyes ventured toward Sam. “Let me guess.” He said, leaning back in his chair and rolling his lollipop around in his mouth. “Favorite color… I’m going to say black, because with the way you're standing gigantor, I can only guess you’re emo to the core. I’d say you like attention so you’ve probably dyed your hair outrageous colors to make sure daddy dearest would notice you.”
“Gabe stop it.” Anna hissed.
Gabriel ignored her and pressed on. “I’d say you come from a big family, which to me spells out the inferior complex thing going on with your siblings. Favorite band…. hmmm…. I’m going to say Three Days Grace. That angsty enough for you? I think you secretly like animals, but you won’t admit it. As for a girlfriend, I bet you’ve got a girl who's got a boat load of self esteem issues. That sound about right?”
The man sounded so sure that for a moment Sam had to look down at himself to see what he was doing to make someone have that sort of impression of him. All he could see was an over sized white sweater and ripped blue jeans that he hadn’t gotten around to fixing yet. Maybe he’d have to change a few things in his wardrobe so that he wouldn’t be seen as attention seeking.
He doesn’t want to place that sort of burden on anyone, especially not a stranger.
“Gabriel Novak! That was totally uncalled for!” Anna exclaimed. She looked ready to murder someone.
“Anna, it’s OK.” Sam said, straightening his back. He wasn’t going to let this man think that he was going to demand attention from anyone. “My favorite color is actually green and depending on the type, blue. I haven’t ever dyed my hair. I have two brothers; one younger and one older. My favorite band will have to be Metallica. I was born on it and I will die on it. There is nothing wrong with animals and I am quite partial to dogs. I don’t have a girlfriend or a boyfriend.” Then to defer the focus from himself, looked at Anna and asked with a painfully cheerful smile, “What about you?”
She looked elated that he asked. Sam found out three important things in the next three minutes of his life. One, that Anna was a total tree hugger. Recycling was her motto. Two, she was single handedly the most cheerful person he’d ever encountered and three, Gabriel stared way to intently and way too long for it to be socially acceptable.
“Now kids, you best be sittin’ done here soon otherwise this foods gonna go to waste.”
Sam visibly jumped. He had totally forgotten that there was a fourth person in the room. The woman at the stove was beautiful, with a wide bone structure laid over with lean muscle and velvety brown skin. Her face was modelesque, with high cheekbones and a straight nose that was set over full lips.
With an unwavering gaze, she caught his eyes with her dark brown ones, almost like she knew everything with a glance. Her hair was pulled back into a thick rope of black, but some strands fell forward framing the sharp angles of her face.
Sam dropped his gaze and quickly shuffled his way to the table.
“Mind your manners boy.” The woman said, tapping him lightly on the head with a whisk. “You’ve introduced yourself to everyone but me.”
Startled, he quickly set out to rectify his mistake. “Oh, sorry, um. My name is Sam.” He said, eloquently as he held out his hand. When she grabbed it, he was shocked at the strength she displayed. “Well, Sam.” She replied, “I am Mayella. I’m the cook of this house.”
Unsure what to say, he just tried to make himself smaller and offered a smile.
Dinner turned out to be a wonderful ensemble of chili, cornbread, and green beans. No one really paid much attention to him, except for Clide, who had scooted as close to him as was socially acceptable. Anna was in deep conversation with Gabriel, who looked apathetic to whatever was being said.
“So where you from Sam?” Clide asked, ignoring his food to look at him, which in turn made Sam too nervous to eat. So, he pushed the food around to look like he was at least enjoying Mayella’s hard work.
“Lawrence, Kansas.” He replied, “What about you?”
The other man smiled darkly, and shrugged. “All over. My family was an interesting group of hippies. We never stayed in one place long enough to call it home.”
“Really? That sounds more like a gypsy lifestyle.”
“I wish. How cool would it have been to claim that I was gypsy? But, no, we were definitely hippies.”
“So, what led you to South Dakota?”
There was another shrug. “I was decent at dancing.” That explained the slenderness. “So, when I decided a nomadic life wasn’t what I wanted, I looked to find places that could help me get on my feet.”
“That’s amazing. It’s awesome that you took charge of your own life.” Sam was honest in his sincerity. It must of been hard to go from moving around constantly to spending extended periods of time in one place.
Again, Clide shrugged like it wasn’t that big of a deal. “It’s a little hard.”
“Taking charge of your own life?”
The blond haired man laughed at that. “That too, but I meant staying in one place.”
Sam was shocked, even though he had just been thinking the same thing. “Are you not comfortable here?”
“Oh I’m comfortable here and honestly I know deep down that this is what I want, but sometimes there's an itch underneath my skin that tells me to move. Tells me to pack up and get going. It’s like even though I don’t have a destination, it doesn’t really matter. I’ll still find what I’m looking for.”
“So does that itch translate to how you dance?”
Clide looked startled, like he couldn’t believe Sam said something like that. For a moment, he felt stupid and thought he offended the man, until he breathlessly replied, “Yes.”
He looked mystified, and it made Sam uncomfortable enough to shrink in on himself.
Luckily, that was when Cai decided to make an appearance. She came floating through the door and made a beeline to the food on the stove.
“Hey Cai. What have you been up to?” He asked. There was a groan and Gabriel made a slicing motion over his neck. There wasn’t any exaggeration on the man’s face and that worried him.
Confused, Sam looked back at the woman at the stove and was startled as she turned to look at him.
“Whoa. You’re not Cai.” And she wasn’t. Her face was a little rounder, and there was a darker sprinkling of freckles over her face.
Apparently, she wasn’t to offended by his faux pas and instead a warm smile lit up her face. “Nope!” She said cheerily. “I’m Irene!”
They shook and he ducked his head in apology. "Sorry for my mistake. I hadn't realized that when Cai said sister, she meant twin."
Irene waved a dismissive hand and breezed past him. "She normally doesn't. I think it makes her feel like she's protecting me." Which didn't make any sense to him, but it wasn't his place to question so, his he didn't ask. After that dinner passed a little more comfortably. Mostly, because Irene turned out to be a real talker and her rambles made his presence fade into the background. Every once and a while Anna or Clide would make some comment to him, but they were never anything he had to elaborate with more than one worded answers.
Sam almost felt like he was accepted.
He wasn’t really sure he deserved that.