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It reminds Huck of one of those European movies that always seem to be about adultery. When he thinks about it afterwards the memories are always in black and white and while it's happening he never understands the dialogue and no-one has provided any subtitles, so he has to do what he can with impressions and implications and the way Sam touches him, which is sometimes gentle and sometimes not.
He had asked:
"Were you in love with him?"
Huck already knew the answer. He's seen the letters and the photos and the small clause in his father's will that gave away a few small, precious things which weren't enough for Sam. But he feels he ought to ask, that he owes it to people who aren't here to receive the answer themselves anymore.
Sam swallows, and for a moment, with his face turned down to his shoes and his eyes dark with shadows, he looks like the saddest man in the world. And afterwards Huck wonders if that's why he did it, since his heart has always been tuned to the harmonics of grief. Sam startles away from Huck's hand on his cheek, stroking, blunt fingers and ragged nails and Sam's sharp intake of breath proves that he is picking up similar, if not exactly the same echoes. Huck strokes Sam's mouth with his thumb and watches his face fall to pieces, is there to catch the opening breath of Sam's opening mouth: milksweet and tired of pretending. Having lost forever the one he always wanted, Sam will settle. And so will Huck.
The first time at the old place, now empty. An apartment at the expensive end of Brooklyn which still smells of cigar smoke. There is one of his own paintings (fingers and primary colours only) still on the fridge. Huck turns his back on it while he is unbuttoning Sam's shirt. Stumbling stupid and drunk to the bed Sam falls heavily on top of him, half-naked, half-finished, not even waiting for Huck to pull his own jeans off before he starts: jerky thrusts which become more rhythmic as his breathing becomes less so, every hit of mass striking the wing of Huck's hipbone and only after Sam has cried out and come in a blinded burst all over Huck's vintage Smiths tee can Huck finish himself off. He twists but Sam holds him still, kisses his mouth with soft, worried kisses which feel more like the Sam Seaborn he thought he knew. Small huffs of breath, exhaustion, a droplet of sweat trailing down his temple, Sam's head nuzzling Huck's neck. i'm sorry i'm sorry oh god i'm so sorry.
The second time in the back of Sam's car. A slick, black Mercedes and Huck smirks when he imagines what his father would have said about that. A Chevy not good enough for you now, Senator? Sam asks him why he's laughing with a expression on his face like sunlight through a cloud and Huck can't think of anything to answer which wouldn't draw the rain back down. Sam's kisses first this time. Huck leans back against the seat and lets them fall on his mouth like raindrops, opens his lips to touch the taste with his tongue, closes his eyes as Sam's fingers pull in the collar of his shirt. Sam's fingers draw inside the shirt, beneath the undershirt Huck always wears for reasons only he and Sam really understand. Huck starts to get hard with Sam's kisses stinging his throat - stubble and teeth and violent, misused love breaking itself over Huck's body, scrabbling hands inside his pants and bruised on belts and zippers. Both of Sam's hands curling around Huck's cock and Huck's hands around his, a squeeze that raises the levels of pressure in Huck's brain up to bursting, coming across Sam's fists and gasping as Sam slips his head down there, two licks and he's clean, and stained with terror at what they have done.
The third time at Huck's apartment in a bed which isn't big enough for two because Huck seldom needs it to be. Sam lies in it quietly with his shirt discarded on the floor and the top button of his jeans undone, stroking his fingers through Huck's hair and trying to straighten all the curls between finger and thumb. He's twenty-three years old and Sam is thirty years older than that but it is Sam who is turning gentle, wound round in his devotion, slipping so easily into the old patterns of possession. A man named Ziegler need only click his fingers.
"Yes," Sam says, "I was in love with him."
Huck nods, silent. No need for subtitles.