Chapter Text
September, 2010
He’s relieved when Hannah brings a friend over. He was starting to suspect she couldn’t like anything but her tennis racket and Beth. She’d always keep to herself, hiding her eyes behind thick-framed glasses, hiding her diary behind her back, hiding her smile behind her hand - a habit she’d picked up because of braces. It was always Beth who got invited to parties and sleepovers, but it’s obvious she’d never attend without taking her sister with her.
Hannah wasn’t stupid, though. She knew what was up. He saw her cutting her wrists in the bathroom once.
The friend, Samantha, looks at him with a tilted head. She’s got ponytails. He thinks she’s cool enough.
“I like your hair,” he says nonchalantly, cause the twins are in the kitchen making lemonade and he kind of feels like saying something.
“Thanks. I’ve grown them myself.”
And then she smiles like it was the smartest thing to say in the history of ever, and he’s very fond of people who can pull off cheesy jokes.
*
April, 2011
He comes home from school one day, only to find Beth teaching Sam how to play Bach’s prelude on the piano. She’s no good at all, her fingers stumbling and stammering, even with Beth trying to correct her as she goes. It’s a mess.
“You’re not bad,” he says when she’s done and cringing with shame.
“Oh, come on. I’ve never heard anything worse!”
“Don’t be dramatic, Sam. Your shower concertos are way worse, I assure you,” Beth laughs, and they all join her.
“Gee, thanks, guys. You’re just afraid of me getting better than you one day,” Sam says to the girl in an accusatory tone.
“You’ve said the same thing when Hannah beat your ass on the court last weekend,” Josh points out, grinning.
Sam lets out an exasperated sigh and slams the keys. He can tell she’s not actually mad at him, though. There’s a smile hiding in that grimace.
“That’s it, assholes, I’m through with your mind-games. I’m ordering a round of Street Fighter and I’m going to crush you, one on one. And then you’re going to beg me for forgiveness. In place of a Dark Lord, you will have a queen! Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Treacherous as the sea, stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me, and despair!”
He watches her slowly standing up on the piano stool and raising her hands dramatically, and he can’t help suddenly feeling terribly attracted to the sore loser.
*
November, 2011
They’re smoking pot in the middle of Emily’s living room. There’s not much of it for eight people (the twins are ill), but Josh’s terribly glad that Mike remembered to bring it. High Em doesn’t care whether or not Mike cheated on her last month. High Em is tolerable and wants to be hugged all the time. He briefly considers giving her his fix.
They’re watching Twilight and laughing at the sheer idiocy of it (even Jessica, who was wearing a Team Cullen shirt unironically a few weeks earlier), and everything is fine until the ballet studio scene.
“Jeesh, she’s the worst. Pepper spray?” Josh exclaims loudly. Sam glances at him quizzically.
“Are you really only now realizing that? That’s not even that bad a scene. At least she’s doing something.”
“I mean, yeah,” Ashley feels like saying. Very. Slowly. “Yeah, but she’s trying to spray a vampire. He’s not even alive.”
“But he smells things? His nose is supposed to be, like, super sensitive, why shouldn’t it work?” adds Chris, desperately trying to get her attention.
“Ultra fast reflexes?” throws Mike, playing with Emily’s necklace absent-mindedly.
“She’s still better than most horror gals, nothing but tripping and hiding.”
“Matt, not everyone has the muscles to punch stuff and leave alive. Sometimes hiding is the only option.”
“Yeah, Sam, maybe, but you have to know how to do it properly,” Josh teases. Everyone in his family knew that he was the ultimate king of hide-and-seek. Mostly seek. There was something in him which made it easier to predict others’ reaction to danger. Or anything, really.
“Oh, do I smell a challenge?”
“That’s probably your fear of losing, the air got kind of heavy” he laughs at her. They both get up with grins.
“It’s just pot, you idiots,” murmurs Emily from the crook of Jessica’s neck.
He and Sam look each other in the eyes for a while, like two very feisty cats. The rest observes them like they're some very interesting zoo specimen.
“I hide, you seek, and the winner gets… what, exactly?”
“A personal slave for a week.”
“That’s grosh, Josh. ”
“Don’t you chicken out, Sammy-Whammy.”
“A weekEND and I’m in.”
“Cool. I’m counting to fifteen. You’re a hot blonde, so you should get less than that, but I promise I’ll be walking very slowly.”
“You’re such a dumbass!”
“One…”
---
There’s a lot of rooms in Emily’s house, which makes the game so much more exciting. And, at the same time, very frustrating. He feels like he’s walking in circles, having already checked everything.
The perspective of becoming a servant for two and a half days for Sam isn’t really that bad a deal. That’s two and a half days spent with her.
He stops for a second because of the abrupt weirdness of this thought. What did he mean by that? Would he say the same thing about Chris or Mike? Did he ever think like this about his last ex? Or does he treat her like a sister, a part of the family? Shit, crap, does he think like this about his sisters?!
Oh, thank fuck, no. It was only a crush. A crush on Sammy.
He thinks that everything is better than the sudden realization of how deep his feelings run, but the literal weight suddenly pinning him to the floor was not at the top of the list.
Sam is laughing like mad, triumphant and warm and perfect on top of him. She kisses him on the tip of the nose, and he’s too dumbfounded to say a single word.
So she briefly brushes her lips with his, and before he manages to register that fact, she starts laughing some more, screaming obscenities about how she got him.
And, yeah. She got him good.
*
December, 2011
It’s weird, but he’s not used to having his parents at home. They’re both alright, it’s just so… odd. The twins seem to share this sentiment, so they end up staying up late in his room, watching terrible horror movies. Beth gets weirdly into it. Hannah, on the other hand…
“Look, I’m just saying. You two would totally look great together.”
“Has Nicholas Sparks totally ruined your brain? My condolences.”
“I know what I’m talking about, Josh! Don’t be an idiot about it, ok? I see how she looks at you when you’re doing that awful impression of Freddy Krueger.”
“Probably because my impressions are flawless, thank you very much!”
“She’s into you, you blind egomaniac!”
“Hey, could you two argue somewhere else?” groans Beth, and for a while they’re quiet.
“I know you feel the same way,” sing-songs Hannah, and he feels his cheeks reddening against his will. “You‘re always around when she’s taking a shower. Do tell, wanna steal her clothes and watch her run around naked?”
It’s too much. The butterflies in his stomach, the heat of his face, his vivid imagination... There are certain things he should not be expected to be able to handle.
“Yeah, maybe, but at least I’m not pining over a guy who’s taken and doesn’t even know I exist!”
Some distressed woman screams in pain, but none of them care. The silence between them is deafening. They’re holding their breaths.
Beth punches him in the arm, and he mumbles “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Tears streaming down Hannah’s face are turquoise in the light of the tv.
*
January, 2012
“You should totally ask Ashley out. Dude, what’s the worst that could happen? It's just some stupid dance.”
“You’re so boring, man. I’m just not going to. And I’m not going anywhere, period. I hate dancing.”
He and Chris are sitting in the corner of Mike’s living room, drinking Heineken. The music’s loud, the colorful lights are blending into one, beautiful rainbow in his hazing vision. And at the end of it…
“What about you and Sam? Did you grow some balls recently?”
He observes her as she’s dancing the tango with Hannah, not minding how it doesn’t match the music. She’s the dominating one, and instead of a rose, there’s an iphone in her mouth. His sister is laughing so hard that if it wasn’t for Sam’s strong arms, they’d both be on the floor.
He tries to ditch the ‘strong arms’ train of thought, but fails miserably. There’s a weird sensation in his stomach, which he tries to drown with another large sip. Chris pats him on the shoulder in a comforting fashion.
“Much sad. Very love. Wow.”
They watch Jessica trying to twerk in thoughtful silence.