by Aidan Wayne
“Here,” Dovid said, taking Sam’s hand. “I love you and I love that you’re here, but I don’t even want to do the math for what time it is for you right now, considering how long your flight was and when you had to leave and all that. What would you like? It’s late enough that if you wanted to go straight to bed—”
“Actually, since you mentioned it before, I wouldn’t mind a shower. That might help refresh me too.”
“Of course. And maybe after that food? I’m always starving after a long flight.”
“I could eat,” Sam said, sounding like he was smiling.
“Great.” Dovid pulled him in for one kiss before he stepped back. “How does baked mac and cheese sound?” Sam had mentioned how much he liked it, but that he didn’t make it often because there was only so much one person could eat at a time.
“It sounds lovely.”
Dovid grinned. “I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”
After Sam grabbed a change of clothes and closed the door behind him, Dovid went to the kitchen. Both to pull out the mostly-prepared mac and cheese he had in the fridge and stick it in the oven to fully bake, and to distract himself from thinking about a naked Sam who was literally a room over.
Thinking about something else. Right. Cooking.
Right.
“So?” From Rachel, who sounded like she’d poked her head into the kitchen. “How’s the reunion going?”
Dovid sighed. “I am so in love with him.”
She laughed. “We knew that months ago.”
“Yeah,” Dovid said, feeling dreamy. “And he’s here. With me. In my apartment! Rachel, he’s here.”
“And I’m really, really happy for you. Also happy for this mac and cheese I’m going to be able to eat. Want me to set the table?”
“No, it’s okay. It’ll give me something to do.”
“While he’s using your shower, you mean?”
“Rachel!”
“What? Do you deny it?”
Another sigh, this one defeated. “No.”
“I mean it, if you’re loud tonight—” a short pause “—well, I’ll give you a bye since it’s the first time you’ve seen him in person in like half a year—”
“More than that,” Dovid said knowing his face was on fire. “And you can please, please stop talking about it like that. At least while he’s here. Please. Because it’s...” He swallowed. “It’s not funny.”
Sam meant so much to him. Dovid was honestly more happy holding his hand than he had been having sex with Olivia or Brian. And sex was something important to Dovid yeah, and something he’d been lighthearted about with Rachel before...
But the idea of Sam hearing about that and thinking maybe Dovid was joking was awful.
“Okay,” Rachel said. “Hold up. What’s really going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“You stopped me from making a joke that we literally have been making since we were like fifteen years old and then got all quiet and broody. What’s going on?”
Dovid moved away from the oven and turned to lean against the counter. “Sam’s homoromantic asexual,” he said.
“What?” Rachel squeaked. “But he—but you—”
Dovid saved her. “Yeah I know. He’s not sex-repulsed like you are, and he really likes kissing and cuddling and stuff, but it came up back when I visited. Sam hadn’t had any experience because he didn’t really care one way or another. Figuring out what he liked...stuff, uh, stuff feels good for him and he enjoys what we do, but he doesn’t, um, need it like I do. And he’s kind of self-conscious about it. So I’d appreciate if you didn’t joke so much about it while he’s in a position to actually hear you.”
“Okay, yeah,” Rachel said, because she wasn’t an asshole. “Yeah, of course.”
“Thanks,” Dovid said. “It just... He already deals with feeling like a disappointment so much. We’ve talked about this in particular through a whole lot. And everything I can do to keep him from feeling horrible is kind of, uh...”
“I get it,” Rachel said quickly. “No problem. I’ll keep a lid on it. Or I’ll try to. If I do anything out of reflex—but I’ll work really hard on keeping a lid on it.”
“Thanks.”
“And...and you’re really happy? With, um, with that?”
Dovid nodded immediately. It wasn’t even a question. “So, so happy. You have no idea. If he were sex-repulsed and hated being touched and stuff it’d be...harder. But I would have dealt. The way things are like this? Not a problem. Not even remotely a problem.”
“Okay. Okay, well good. Cool.”
“Yeah. So go away. I’m setting the table. You’re not getting any food until Sam’s here.”
“Technically he is here,” Rachel wheedled.
“Nope.”
“Ugh, fine, fine.”
Her footsteps moved away from the kitchen, presumably her going into the living room with her laptop. Dovid, true to his word, busied himself with taking out dishes and utensils and setting a table for three (three!). Then he went to check the mac and cheese before proceeding to pull together an easy salad.
When he heard footsteps again, they were heavier than Rachel’s. “Hey, you,” he said, turning to throw a smile over his shoulder.
“How did you know it was me?” Sam asked.
“You’re heavier than Rachel and you walk differently,” Dovid explained, taking the completed salad and moving to set it on the table. “Easy.”
“Oh,” Sam said. And he didn’t say anything like “wow that’s amazing” as if Dovid had some weird superpower. “That’s very interesting! Though it makes sense. I tend to clomp down stairs for instance, and Charlie walks much more deliberately.”
“Yeah, exactly. But clomp down the stairs?” Dovid thought back to when he’d been in Sam’s apartment. Sam hadn’t gone up and down the stairs any louder than anyone else. “I mean, you use the stairs kind of fast, but not super heavily.”
“Really! My mother always said—” And then Sam stopped. Cleared his throat. “A-anyway, going down fast has led to some accidents actually. I’ve tried to be more careful in recent years.”
“Accidents?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you? I split my head open a few years back.”
“What!”
Sam laughed. “It’s nothing so exciting. I was going up and down the stairs in a building that had a fairly low cement overhang. And, well, as you know, I’m quite tall. The third time I was on my way down I, well, I forgot to duck.”
Dovid winced.
“Yeah. I slammed my head into the overhang. And then proceeded to fall the rest of the way down all of the stairs.”
“Oh my god!”
“Mm-hm. It wasn’t all that bad really. There was a lot of blood, but I was assured that head wounds bleed a lot. I only needed about four stitches.”
Dovid reached for him and Sam obligingly walked forward until Dovid could grab his sleeve. “Glad you’re okay,” Dovid mumbled.
Sam chuckled. “I’ve been okay for about four years now, if we’re talking about that particular incident.”
“Any other horrible injuries I should hear about?” He was trying to sound casual but there might’ve been a hint of real fear.
“Nothing since the car accident,” Sam said gently. “Nothing to worry about. And I would have told you if there had been.”
“Good to know.”
The timer beeped, startling them both, and Dovid grinned ruefully. “Dinner’s ready,”
The sound of quick steps. “I heard beeping!” Rachel announced. “Is it ready now?”
Both Sam and Dovid laughed.
* * *
After dinner, all of them went through the motions of getting ready for bed, with it being about eleven. It was even later for Sam, who was eight hours ahead
. Dovid was really looking forward to crashing; it’d been a day filled with nervous-happy anticipation. He was also looking forward to having Sam in his bed with him. Falling asleep with him, being able to touch him, and not just as a voice in his ear.
He might have been thinking about this particular moment a lot over the last few months.
“Ready?” he asked once Sam walked out of the bathroom smelling like mint toothpaste.
Sam dropped a kiss to his hair, and Dovid sighed into it. “Ready,” Sam said. “Only...”
“Yeah?”
“I have something I’d like to show you first.”
“Oh, okay. What?”
“Want to go sit on the bed?”
Yes. Yes he did. Dovid went, and he could hear Sam rustling through something in his bag in the corner. Then Sam was sitting next to him again. Dovid immediately cuddled into his side. “So?” he asked.
“It’s this,” Sam took Dovid’s hand and placed a piece of paper in it.
“Uh,” Dovid said, feeling a little taken aback, “you...know I can’t read this, right?”
“I know, sorry. I just wanted to give you something a little concrete before I told you. I was going to wait til actual Valentine’s day, but I decided on something else while on the plane and, well, I wanted to tell you as soon as possible.”
Dovid licked his lips. “Tell me what?”
“It’s, um, it’s my letter of resignation. I gave in my two weeks. Erm. Two weeks ago.”
Dovid shot up so fast he almost smashed into Sam’s chin. “You what? What—you—really?”
“Really.”
“Oh my god,” Dovid said, throwing his arms around Sam. “Oh my god, oh my god. You quit!”
“I did quit.”
“Fuck,” Dovid breathed. “Oh my god. Can I kiss you? Is that appropriate? Is this a kissing moment?”
“It could be a kissing moment,” Sam said, smile in his voice.
Dovid wasted no time, pulling Sam in and then pressing him down to the sheets. “I am so proud of you,” he said in between licks and nips and more kisses. “Fuck, you are so amazing. I’m so, so proud.”
“You know,” Sam said breathlessly, “I’m rather proud of myself too.”
Dovid hugged him tight, tight, tight, planning to never let go.
Chapter Thirteen
“Hello, everyone. My name’s Sam, and welcome to another episode of Let’s Play Dire Straits. Today might be a bit of a boring video I’m afraid, as I have an awful lot of harvesting to do. I’ve fallen quite a bit behind in keeping up with my resource collection, and I really do need to build up my supplies before winter rolls around again. My third winter in-game too! Can you believe I’ve managed to play this long without dying a grisly death? I feel like some congratulations might be in order, for the third-year anniversary.” Sam tilted his head, considering. “Actually, I do know a way to celebrate! We could make a brookie. For those of you who don’t know, a brookie is a dessert in-game food item that we are able to mix together and cook up in our oven. I just have never made one before myself, as the ingredients are all tricky to get. That being said, it seems like a good quest to set out on. So yes, I’ve decided. After I’m done with harvesting, it will be brookie ingredient collection time.”
Sam continued to gather his resources; first huge bundles of grass, then twigs, moving on to the dried fruit and meat, as he continued to chat with his viewers. He did narrate gameplay as well, but since he was primarily doing repetitive work, he had to fill a lot of in-game activity with other talking.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, after glancing over at the notes he had started writing up to prepare talking topics for his videos, “I might get a bit more serious here, for a moment.
“My in-game anniversary isn’t the only accomplishment I have to share. As some of you might know, today is also the first month anniversary of me leaving my job and moving to YouTube full time. It was an incredibly scary, exciting endeavor, and it’s because of all of you that I was even able to do this in the first place. I wanted to say thank you for that, from the bottom of my heart. I’m so much happier in general nowadays, and making gaming and YouTube my job—my career is a large part of that. Of course, as many of you are aware, my channel first started getting popular when Dovid, from Don’t Look Now, plugged it, unbeknownst to me.
“It was incredibly overwhelming at first, but, well, this is how it turned out so I can’t complain! Dovid and I struck up a friendship soon after; another fairly well-known fact, I should think. I remember quite a few of you who were pleased by the first collaboration we did, back when Dovid visited Ireland last July for his Europe Tour. Sorry about only doing a couple more since then, by the way. It’s a little more difficult to sync up, what with the time difference, and if we’re talking to one another, we prefer to focus on each other and less so on recording. And, well, this has been a bit of a ramble so far, I suppose, but I assure you I’m getting to the next point.”
He looked back down at his notes. “The long and short of it is that Dovid so enjoys sharing himself with his viewers. It’s a part of him, being able to let you all into his life. But he’s mentioned to me, just in passing, how things had ended rather poorly the last few times he tried to be open about his more personal relationships. People will speculate all the same, about someone who is in the public eye the way he is, and, well, lately he’s been more self-conscious of it, I think. Not wanting to cause trouble for, ah, the one he cares about. So I thought, you know, maybe doing this might relieve the pressure somewhat. And he has utterly no idea about what I’m saying now. Though he will once I upload this video. So he’ll find out around the same time as all of you do. Though I might send him the release link early, just so he has an idea of what to expect once the video goes live.”
Sam shook his head, smiling ruefully. “Goodness but I’ve been going on, haven’t I? I’ll just come out with it then. Dovid and I have been dating for quite a while now. It’s, ah, it’s quite serious, and it’s certainly been long enough that I feel comfortable speaking about it, especially as I know it’s something he’s been keeping from you strictly for my benefit. I’m utterly, completely mad about him, and I know there’s an even split between people who are scared to use the word, and people who use it every chance they get, but I’m firmly in the latter camp. I love him so very, very much. And, well, I just wanted to share. And also give him the option to do so as well, if he wished to.
“And look at that, I’ve prattled on long enough to get everything all tidied away and reach the end of this video. I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future; if I ever feel stalled on something to say, I’ll just talk about Dovid.” Sam chuckled. “Though you might get sick of that. Anyway, another huge thank-you to all who have watched me play, and next time we’ll start farming for those brookie ingredients. As always, I’m Sam, and this was Dire Straits.”
* * *
Rachel Rosenstein: What did you DO?
Sam frowned at his phone, puzzled. Though they had each other’s numbers, he and Rachel didn’t often text back and forth, instead mostly sticking with emails. It was a better medium for how they discussed things, which were often in-depth explanations of games, or editing, or some such like that.
Sam Doyle: Sorry? What do you mean?
Rachel Rosenstein: He’s actually crying with happiness?? He got a video link from you and is IN ACTUAL TEARS.
Sam couldn’t help his grin, at that.
Sam Doyle: I’m glad he liked it, then.
Rachel Rosenstein: Am I going to be allowed to watch this video??
Sam’s grin only got wider.
Sam Doyle: Oh sure! You along with everyone else.
* * *
@dontlooknowdovid: Hey, guys! Figured this would be faster than doing a video. B/c I couldn’t wait. For those who haven’t heard or just want the confirmation: Yes. Yes,
I’m dating @playitagainsam & I am SO HAPPY & in love. Still baffled that I get him?? He chose ME??? But eternally grateful <3<3<3
* * *
“Hey, you,” Dovid said, when he picked up.
“Hello,” Sam replied, as he went to sit on his couch. He tended to pace while he waited for a phone call to connect, if he was able to move around. Nervous energy, along with the general social anxiety he never quite managed to shake, even when he knew it’d be Dovid on the other end. “Good morning.”
“Back atcha. Happy Monday! Though I was kind of surprised? I thought you were going to your family’s Easter Monday dinner thingie.”
Sam cleared his throat. “Actually, I decided to skip it. Though I did make plans to meet Charlie and Anna for drinks later this evening, since they’re in town.”
“Wha—really?”
“Charlie was a little taken aback when I told him I wasn’t coming, and I think a touch disappointed, but he didn’t kick up a fuss, which was nice.” Sam had been most worried about Charlie’s reaction. Charlie did have a good relationship with their parents, and so sometimes it was difficult to make him understand that Sam...didn’t. And Sam had never out-and-out decided to miss a family event before.
“Oh wow,” Dovid said. “Um, okay. Wow. How, um, how are you feeling?”
“My heart’s in my throat a bit,” Sam said honestly, voice starting to get a little shakier. “I, erm, it—it was a difficult conversation to have. To tell them I wasn’t coming.”
“I’m sure,” Dovid said quietly. “I’m sure it was really hard to do that. God, you’re so brave. I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you. I don’t... I don’t regret doing it. Though I suppose I regret having to have done it.”
“I get that. Yeah, of course.”
“It’s only, since I left my father’s company, it’s...you know it’s been so much worse. As though since I’m not there for him to summon at work, they need to make up for the missed time. With, um, with the nastiness. And I suppose I just got fed up to the back teeth with it. So I—I decided it was time to maybe...not give them the chance. To do that to me.”