sam evans ( werewolf ) . (tamest) wrote in light_of_may, |
It occurred to Sam every day, both when he was dreaming and when he was awake. It crossed his mind with enough regularity that it was always somewhere in his thoughts even it was only whispering in the background, a small voice spreading seeds of doubt and inevitability. If they came for him he would not be able to fight them, he was still their Omega and he would have to go with them. Wouldn't he? Ignorant as he was to what Jo would think of the situation that was what Sam believed because he didn't know anything else. Running away was the single largest act of rebellion he had committed since refusing to turn a human into a werewolf. If -- when? -- they caught up with him they would punish him so severely he would be incapacitated for days. Maybe weeks. Sam knew that as certainly as he knew the sun rose and set every day.
Jo looking away first confused him. Threw him so completely that for a few moments he didn't draw a single breath, just stared past her, to the grass beyond where she was sitting, trying and failing to comprehend what had just happened. Jo outranked him, as everyone did, she was a dominant wolf, one of the core family, she had no need to avert her gaze first. Why had she done that? Sam was still struggling to comprehend that on top of everything else when she spoke again, drawing at least a portion of his attention back to her. The things she said made his chest feel tight, had a lump forming in his throat, his vision starting to blur a little. Sam knew why. Those were nice thing she was saying, very nice things, and he very literally could not remember the last time he had heard anything like that. The tears in his eyes were sad in their own right, mournful of a life he had never been able to lead, a life that he had been denied, really.
Thinking that way frightened him. It was wrong. With one hand he reached up hurriedly to his face and swiped at his eyes, using his glove to clear the tears before they could even have a chance to full form, let alone fall. Sam kept his eyes away from Jo's face because it was suddenly too difficult to let himself look at her, even if he wasn't going to meet her gaze. The word friend was still echoing in his head, taking root there, filling him with a multitude of thoughts and emotions that he just couldn't compartmentalise properly. Not yet.
"I like you too," he said, after a short stretch of silence, his voice quiet and small, meek in a way that was so very like him, his gaze still averted and dropped, though he did turn his face a little more in her direction when he spoke, at least. The most he managed was to settle his focus on her knees, on the edge of the pad in which she had been sketching. Even that had been a challenge when everything was so overwhelming. The idea that anyone you like him, think of him as a friend, was beyond unbelievable to him, and the worst part was Sam's incomprehension of just how wrong that was.