#SamGabeHSAU, Volume 3
Friendship Caught Fire
"Dean. Dean!"
"For crap's sake, Sammy, what are you screaming about?"
"I need you to drive me to the movies."
"What? Forget it. I'm busy. Ask Mom."
"Come on!"
"Geez, you're annoying. What, d'you have a date or something? When do you get your license, anyway?"
"Four more months. Don't remind me."
-
Sam's actually a bit nervous, walking up to the theatre. What happens now? Does he get to kiss Gabriel again? He really hopes so, but he can't help the feeling these things are gonna be kind of complicated. Will he even get to hold Gabriel's hand? Will he be able to follow the movie with the overwhelming knowledge that he and Gabriel are here on a big-D date, that Gabriel likes him like that? He thinks he'll shake apart waiting for the answer.
"Hey. Tall, dark and cross-eyed. You here waiting for someone?"
Sam turns. "My eyes aren't crossed!"
Gabriel cracks up. Sam grins at him. Gabriel looks good, so good, and what's more, he looks confident. He doesn't have a care in the world, and why should he? He knows Sam's crazy about him. It's Sam who has to worry about the world caving in.
Gabriel buys a stack of snacks more expensive than the movie tickets. Sam helps tote them into the theatre. No opportunity arises for hand-holding. But it does occur to Sam that this date is already different from the ones he went on with Jessica: With her, he worried whether he'd have to hold her hand. With Gabriel, he was worrying if he'd get to.
"I don't even remember the old Tron," Gabriel comments, arranging his snacks in an easy-to-grab configuration around his seat.
Sam watches him work, amused. "It was pretty impressive for its time," he says. "And prescient. It did a good job of forecasting how computers would take over our lives." That last part he just read in a newspaper article, but it sounds good. Impressive.
"You read that somewhere," Gabriel says immediately, and Sam's face falls. Gabriel smirks. "You don't think I'm gonna go easy on you just cause I'm sweet on you, do ya?"
Now it's Sam's turn to smirk. "Did you just say you were... 'sweet on me'?"
Gabriel reddens. "I've been living in the fifties for the past two months, so sue me." He crosses his arms over his chest and sulks melodramatically as the lights go down.
Well, that puts Sam in a pickle. How can he hold Gabriel's hand if he's got them inaccessible like that? Maybe he doesn't want Sam to touch him. Maybe it's a message.
"Psst!" Gabriel's hissing in his ear. "Now would be a good time to pull the yawning trick."
"The what?"
"The yawning trick. You know." And Gabriel takes in a huge breath, reaching for the sky, and slides his arm around Sam's shoulder as he exhales.
Sam giggles. "Well, if you know it's a trick, why bother?"
"Sam!" Gabriel's eyes glow, pleading, in the dark.
Sam doesn't bother with the trick. He just puts his arm around Gabriel's shoulder, letting his hand fall over his chest. Gabriel makes a happy noise. Sam is even more nervous now. But it's a good kind of nervous. Heart pounding, nerves singing, he settles in to watch the movie.