Tracing the long scar, Sam licks Josh tentatively, as if there were still stitches where instead there is only healing skin. It's not an open wound anymore, though, and Josh's blood has better places to rush than that flat stretch. His legs are pinned under Sam's bare chest and arms so he can't thrust, even with Sam's fist closed hotly around his cock. He struggles not to move.
The pressure that Sam applies with his tongue is light, but it peels away layers of sense memory until Josh finally twitches on the bed and pushes his hands into Sam's hair.
Sam jerks his head up. "Is that -- does it hurt? Should I stop?"
"No, it just tickles. It's good but kind of unnerving." He brushes his thumbs along Sam's cheekbones. "You don't have to stop. Do whatever you want."
That's the point anyway: Sam is supposed to do whatever he wants or needs to do, and Josh is supposed to lie here, taking it and ignoring the fact that he's being teased out of his mind. He lets out something ridiculously close to a giggle. The quick, rough grind of Sam's knuckles against his thighs startles him into looking down again, and the darkness of Sam's eyes sobers him -- as much as possible considering the amount of wine he drank to keep up with Sam earlier.
Suppressing a groan, Josh drops his head back onto the pillow for a second before sitting up. He tugs Sam upward, too, and keeps a grip on Sam's shoulders. "I'm serious. It's okay."
"No, it isn't." Sam's face is creased with honesty and hurt that looks permanent, like the wrinkles in Josh's suit by the end of any given day.
Josh has never been as good at soothing people's feelings as he is at cleaning up political messes, and sometimes he fucks those up, too. He rarely gives up without trying, however.
"You're right," he says finally. "It isn't okay, not out there, not where people fire guns and not where they die and lie and let down their kids."
When Sam's gaze slides away, Josh cups his chin. For this interval, he doesn't let Sam say what he wants, just keeps talking, and kissing Sam between sentences to prevent interruption.
"But, Sam, it is okay in here. I'm not lying, and I'm sure as hell not dying." He pauses to kiss Sam deeply and pulls away licking his lips. "Not even if you never finish what you've started."
"What I've started?"
Josh doesn't have to wait long for the slight curve of Sam's mouth to betray his understanding.
"Have we eaten of the insane root," Sam mutters, sighing as his fingers trail up Josh's legs and surround his erection, "that takes the reason prisoner?"
"Uh, I don't know about you," he says, grinning, "but I think I'd have to say no to that, unless Congress declared grapes a root when I wasn't looking."
"It's a Shakespeare quote, you idiot." Sam squeezes him, and Josh arches, gasping.
He slides his hands down Sam's neck, around his back, and over his ass to draw them closer together. The renewed heat makes Josh suck in a breath just behind Sam's ear, and he releases that air slowly. "You're not going to start reciting sonnets next, are you?"
"I hadn't planned on it, although --"
"Good." His tongue catching on stubble and amusement, Josh licks across to the barely visible glint of a smile. He tastes sweat and tears and their fermented insane root of choice. "Because you should know by now that I get much more turned on when you recite statistics."
Sam huffs in surprise. Josh kisses him hard, but Sam leans back a moment later.
"Sam," he grunts.
"Josh." With both hands Sam pushes him back onto the bed, then mouths a line down his body. Stopping at the scar again, Sam flicks his tongue against it. "It's okay."
The room is dark, and maybe nothing has changed, and Josh is unsure that he's done any better at fixing this than anything else. But he doesn't get to try anymore; what happens next is out of his hands whether Sam's body is or not.
Sam lifts his head and, even through the shadows enveloping them, Josh can feel that gaze as strongly as he can feel Sam jacking his cock. What gets him, though, is Sam's mouth -- as if he expected anything else.
"I'm not lying," Sam says, eyes wide and lips wider over Josh's scar.
His hips buck, pushing his cock in and out of Sam's fist, while Sam sucks and licks and bites that strip of newer flesh so hard that the rest of Josh's body feels numb in comparison. He comes because it's what Sam wants and because he can't help himself.
Josh is breathing too hard to talk, so he clenches his hands around Sam's shoulders until Sam crawls up the bed and he can bend his legs around Sam's. Sam moans a little, and Josh kisses him again -- quick, simple touches of lips, tongue, and teeth while they reacquaint themselves with air. Then Josh urges Sam into driving against him, into rubbing and flexing, into coming with deep shudders that sound exactly like sobs but wash over them like relief.
Sam's palm skids across the scar one more time as he whispers, "Josh, yes, yes, Josh," over and over.
His silent mantra is that it's okay; except it both is and isn't. There's no tension left in him -- or in Sam, as far as he can tell for now -- but there is a tingle deep in his chest. It feels as if all those doctors sewed him up without telling his body to work again and Sam had to finish the job.
Josh will probably never get used to that gift, but he's getting better at accepting it. He folds his arms like gauze more tightly around Sam, and neither says another word.
--The End--