OOM: one of a number of visits from Sam Linnfer

[isaysimplewords]

When Cal and Sam arrived from Milliways, they lost no time in hitting the shower: sand in the bed isn't much fun for anyone, after all.

So now the bottom of Cal's tub is finely coated with sand, but the bed is comfortably sand-free for post-coital lounging.

Comments

[isaysimplewords]

"Cannot," Cal says. "You would have told me."

It's true.

[necessary_child]

"Can too!"

Beat.

"I wasn't just then, but that would completely invalidate my argument."

[isaysimplewords]

"Then maybe you shouldn't have said it out loud?" Cal suggests.

He, after all, cannot read minds.

[necessary_child]

"Yeah, but that'd be less fun," Sam says. "Also-"

Kissing Cal, it turns out, is even more fun than that.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal can't argue with that.

"That is a very good point," he tells Sam when they part.

[necessary_child]

Cheerfully, "I know."

[isaysimplewords]

"But I'm still right."

Just so they're clear.

[necessary_child]

"Nope!"

Pfft, like Sam was going to concede an argument that easily.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal would be confused if he did.

"No, I am," he says decisively. "Because -"

If the kiss argument worked so well for Sam, it'll work doubly well for Cal, right?

[necessary_child]

"You make a very persuasive argument," Sam admits, afterwards.

"But you're still wrong."

SO THERE.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal puts on his very best smug look.

(It's really, really good.)

"If that's what you need to believe," he says loftily.

[necessary_child]

Sam snorts.

"Your manipulative politician ways cannot work on me, mortal."

[isaysimplewords]

"Oh, they will," Cal assures him. "Just give it time. You'll come around."

Eventually.

In a century or two, maybe.

[necessary_child]

Sam, laughing, gives Cal another kiss.

"Hey, you're already Favourite. What more do you want?"

[isaysimplewords]

After that previous conversation, Cal finds this easier to swallow; with Sam having clarified his position, it doesn't sting like it once did.

(Even if Cal still thinks Sam is crazy.)

"A pony?" he says, then hesitates as something surfaces in his mind.

"Actually, there is something I've been meaning to ask you."

For a while now. He's been putting it off for too long, he knows that. He just - wasn't sure of what impression it might make.

He feels more confident now that it'll be fine, though. (That comes with being Favorite.) And Bela can't afford for him to put it off any longer.

[necessary_child]

"--No, I won't marry you. I'm saving myself for the One."

Hey, it was an automatic response.

[isaysimplewords]

". . . what?"

As derailments go, that was a very good one.

[necessary_child]

Sam is talented!

"Well, you said you wanted to ask me a question. I assumed..."

He tries and fails to look demure. It's possibly the innocently fluttered eyelashes that give him away.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal snorts.

"Yeah, I bet Medusa would love that," he says.

Does Cal look like he wants to be turned to stone any time soon?

[necessary_child]

Sam chuckles. "She probably wouldn't care much, actually. Jealousy's more of a human problem."

Some of his brothers and sisters have suffered from it, true, but there's few sins they haven't wallowed in by now and they probably just wanted to complete the set.

[isaysimplewords]

"And she wouldn't have to worry about it for long," Cal says reflectively, thinking of Medusa's casual mention of a couple thousand years having passed for her.

Then he shakes his head, pulling himself back to the topic at hand.

"Anyway."

[necessary_child]

Sam frowns suddenly, looking away.

(He's so good at making himself forget that Cal is going to leave him, as all mortals do.)

"Yeah."

[isaysimplewords]

("Call me selfish, but I can live with it.")

Suddenly, for the moment, it's a little harder to hold that perspective.

Cal hesitates, unsure of whether he should say something or let it go - but what is there that he can say? And why would Sam even want him to say anything?

(Cal had thought that being dead in Milliways had trapped him in a sort of immortality. Remembering his anger and despair over that prospect - over the choice made for him, forever, after he'd died in the name of making them for himself - still makes him feel sick.)

Better just to leave it alone.

Instead, he says,

"- so do you know anything about getting someone out of a contract to sell their soul?"

So much for the delicate introduction to the subject he's had in mind for months now.

[necessary_child]

There is a reason, subconscious or conscious, that several of Sam's closest friends in Milliways are or are approaching immortal; the appeal of people who won't leave him has never yet gone away.

(Of course, sometimes even the people who don't have to leave him do, anyway.)

But it seems that old habits die hard, and he has retained that affection for humans that he had when the alternative was millennia of loneliness. Cal, in particular, has been good at unintentionally shattering Sam's defences.

He blinks, though, at the sudden change in subject.

"Hmm? Only in my world. Why?"

[isaysimplewords]

"Don't worry, I haven't done anything that stupid," Cal assures him. "I'm asking for a friend."

It wasn't stupid of Bela to do it. She was just a kid. It's different.

Cal believes firmly that Bela's parents were worse than his. He also understands what it's like to be scared like that. He can't say for sure that he wouldn't have done the deal himself, if a demon had caught him at the right moment. But for an adult, it's different.

"How does it work on your world?" It hadn't occurred to him that it would at all; Sam isn't that kind of Devil, after all.