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It says a lot about Peter’s current life when he wakes up from his midafternoon nap to a loud shout of “Wake up nerd!” and a body hurling itself on top of him, and he barely even blinks.
“Ouch! Jesus! C'mon Sam, organs. Most of which are vital. Ow ow ow, like the one your elbow is trying to pulverize right now! Move!” He grouses, seriously considering throwing Sam bodily to the ground. He decides against it after a moment of consideration. He doesn’t actually want to hurt him, though clearly Sam doesn’t have the same consideration for him.
Sam shifts a little so that his elbow isn’t so much stabbing Peter’s spleen as poking it fairly invasively, and raises his eyebrow at him.
“So, which of those aren’t vital again?” he asks, poking at Peter’s stomach and making him yelp. “Asking for a friend. A very very broke friend who miiiight be willing to sell your organs on the black market for food money.” Sam stares with an uncomfortable amount of consideration at his chest, like he’s taking mental stock of Peter’s internal bits and mapping out where the expensive ones might be.
“Ah so you’re here to mooch food again. Gotcha.” Peter sighs, giving up the dream of Sam getting off of him and resigning himself to his fate as permanent couch cushion.
“What like you’ve never mooched off of me? Not all of us have working power right now. I can’t use my oven Peter,” he says like this is the worst tragedy to ever befall him. “A man’s gotta eat.”
“Yeah yeah, I get it, you only love me when I feed you, what else is new.” Peter wiggles a little bit trying to avoid all the bony stabby parts of Sam that seem to be trying to impale him. For a guy in culinary school who spends half his time out of class cooking and taste testing he sure does have a lot of boney bits.
“Aw c'mon Parker you know that’s not true,” Sam says, patting his head sympathetically before he rolls off of the couch (and Peter) and onto his feet. “I’m also using you for your body.”
Peter huffs, rubbing at his side where he thinks he might actually bruise from Sam’s stupid pokey body colliding with his own. He watches the blurry outline of Sam walk into the kitchen before he grabs his glasses off of the side table and slides them on his face to bring the world back into focus.
“I wish,” he mutters, following him to make sure he doesn’t use up all of his food. “At least that way I’d enjoy myself when you came around.”
Sam is already digging through his cupboards, pulling out ingredients and placing them on the cluttered counter top. He turns to give Peter an unimpressed glance over his shoulder. “Yeah alright. Like you don’t love it when I cook for you. Plus you were just camped out in my apartment for almost a week last month when your water wasn’t working, so you owe me.”
As much as he hates to ever ever admit this, Sam is right. Their apartment building is probably the worst in New York. It seems like every other week there’s a new issue, whether it be the electricity shorting out, the plumbing exploding (yeah that’s not an exaggeration. It was gross) or frivolous and needless renovations that shut down entire floors to put in weird and suspicious smelling wallpaper, it seemed like there was no end to the problems they had encountered.
Luckily for them, the problems only ever seem to occur one floor at a time, meaning that on days like today when Sam has no electricity he can sneak up to Peter’s apartment three floors above and mooch off of him.
“You gonna make something edible to anyone other than a dragon this time?” Peter asks, leaning with his hip against the counter, closer to Sam than is probably strictly necessary. Sam might be a fantastic cook, but he’s also very liberal with his spices, and Peter’s poor mouth and stomach have fallen victim to more than one of Sam’s culinary adventures in the past.
“You are such a white boy,” is the reply he gets as he tries to peer over Sam’s shoulder to check for any hidden chili peppers that might make their way into whatever the hell his friend is planning on making. “Also, ever heard of personal space?”
Peter laughs, and slides even closer, leaning in until he can catch the scent of Sam’s shampoo, and see every detail of his bright blue eyes as though he’s looking through a microscope. The urge strikes him to take a picture of Sam right now, annoyed yet amused with a green pepper in one hand and a knife in the other, but he lets the thought pass as Sam bumps him with his hip.
“You do realize I’m holding a knife right? I could get an early start on that organ harvesting…”
“Aw Sam, you should really be nicer to me. I mean words can cut pretty deep you know,” Pete says, laughing and ducking out of the way as Sam waves the knife threateningly at the pun.
“Cut it out,” he says, and then groans, closing his eyes in agony as Peter laughs triumphantly. “Ugh I can’t believe puns are contagious. I feel like I need a shower now.”
“What? Don’t like me rubbing off on you?” Peter says, daring to move in closer so that he can wrap his arms around Sam, trapping his arms and rubbing them vigorously. “I think I’m making you better.”
“I think you’re making me pissed,” Sam replies, trying to wiggle out of Peter’s grasp. “Ugh Parker, stop that tickles,” he adds, knowing his mistake as soon as the words leave his mouth.
Peter’s hands are trailing from his armpits down his sides before he can even protest, and Pete can’t help but think Sam is kind of adorable when he’s giggling helplessly and squealing, even if the glare he gets once he relents is terrible.
“I fucking hate you and I’m putting ghost peppers in all of your food,” Sam wheezes at him, a hint of a smile still tugging at his lips even though he’s trying to look angry.
“I think you’d be tried for murder, because that would 100% kill me,” Peter says, finally moving away to let Sam work. He hops up to sit on the table, dangling his legs happily as he watches Sam start to wash the few vegetables he had left in his fridge.
Sam pauses and turns to look at him wistfully. “It’d totally be worth it,” he sighs with a dreamy smile.
“They wouldn’t call it cold blooded,” he muses, swinging his legs in glee. “It’d be chili blooded for sure.”
Sam groans for about a minute straight, long and low and absolutely agonized, while Peter doubles over in laughter, going as far as to slap his knee just to really piss Sam off.
“Stop. No more talking, the genius is trying to work here.”
Peter lets that one go, even though there are a lot of things he wants to say to that, instead watching him work in comfortable silence for a while before he gets bored and picks up a textbook off of the table. He figures he might as well get some studying in if he has his own personal chef with him tonight to take care of the cooking.
“You’re brave. I figured you’d be watching my every move after the ghost pepper threat,” Sam’s voice interrupts him after a long while, closer than he expected him to be. He looks up and finds Sam right in front of him with an eyebrow raised.
“Mmm well I figured if you wanted to kill me you’d have done it already,” he replies with a shrug, prodding Sam’s leg lightly with his foot. “Like during one of the twenty power outages this year. Or maybe by drowning me that one time my apartment flooded…”
Sam laughs, grabbing Peter’s book out of his hand, to which Peter responds with an outraged sound and angry grabby hands.
“If you can read this shit without dying of boredom I figure you’ve gotta be invincible,” he says, turning a few pages and making a face at whatever he’s reading on the page.
“I was reading that.”
“Yeah, well I’m here to save you,” Sam says, smirking as he chucks the book as far back onto the messy table as he can. “It’s dinner time.”
……….
Later with his stomach full of thankfully spiceless food and Sam dozing off on his couch, having fallen asleep watching TV, Peter is struck with the urge to take a picture of him again. His face is lit up blue from the screen, and he looks so peaceful with his lashes against his cheeks, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. If he got it from the right angle he’d look like he was asleep underwater, gently drifting in the waves and…
He shakes his head, hoping to dislodge those thoughts. It really isn’t the smartest plan to fall for Sam, but then again it’s a little bit too late to come to the realization of how stupid it is. He fell pretty much the first time he met him, even if things weren’t exactly perfect.
Sam had transferred to Midtown high when he was a junior, and Peter’s first thought about him had been “this guy is cute and I think I want to punch him.” Turns out that impulse had been accurate, because the first thing Sam had done was hit on Peter’s best friend (and secret crush) MJ, and then call him a nerd.
From that moment on they had struck up a strange antagonistic sort of ‘friendship’ that had mostly been held together by the fact that they somehow ended up being friends with the same group of people. Peter had never really gotten over the whole thinking he was cute thing, but the annoying part had kept him from developing a full blown crush.
By the time graduation rolled around they had been leaning more towards the friendship side of things than being enemies. Especially since they had both come to terms with the fact that MJ was definitely not interested in either of them when she had started dating a girl named Gwen, though she still to this day delights in teasing them about their stupid cliché rivalry over her.
When he had found out that Sam was going to school in New York too, it was only logical for them to look for a place together. It was even more logical to move into separate apartments in the same building when the opportunity arose, close enough to spend time together pretty much every day but far enough away to have their own space. Which they have needed many many times over the three years they’ve been living here.
With all that history behind them, and all the things they’ve gone through Peter can’t pinpoint when exactly he fell in love with Sam. But he can definitely pinpoint the moment that it became an issue at the forefront of his mind.
It was their first year living there, the year of discovery when their eyes had been roughly pried open to just exactly what kind of shit hole they had willingly decided to live in.
It had been a cold December when the third three am fire drill of the week had gone off, and Peter had been pissed.
Not only did he have an exam the next morning, but he’d also been kept up until one by Harry’s most recent emotional breakdown. Not that he blamed Harry, the dude is his best friend, and his dad had just been busted for shady business dealings. That on top of the first year of college. Peter didn’t begrudge him needing a bit of reassurance.
No, it’s the asshole who keeps pulling the fire alarm that Peter was going to kill.
He’d shuffled out onto the street along with the other bleary eyed irritated building residents, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes and tone down the glare enough that he wont scare all of his neighbors. He shivered a little in the cold night air, thanking any deity that was listening that he had thought to grab a sweater and pull it on over his pajamas before he got outside.
Sam hadn’t been as smart.
“It’s f-f-fucking freezing out here,” was the first thing he’d said to Peter. And honestly that wasn’t a surprise. He’d been wearing a pair of flannel pj pants and nothing else, which had done two things to Peter. The first being make him cringe sympathetically, and the second being making his brain splutter a little bit and die because, excuse the weather inappropriate phrase but, hot damn.
“What kind of dumbass sleeps without a shirt on in December,” Peter had teased when he’d finally regained the ability to speak. It was sort of ridiculous how much he’d wanted to kiss Sam at that moment. After all, this was far from the first time he’d seen him shirtless.
Maybe it was something about the snow on the ground, the incongruity of naked flesh and winter’s frost, or perhaps it was the golden glow of the streetlights illuminating Sam’s hair and making each eyelash stand out against his cheeks. Whatever it was, it had Peter more breathless than that first shock of cold that steals the air from your lungs and stings right down into the center of your chest.
That’s when it had hit him. Sam wasn’t just cute in his eyes anymore, he was gorgeous.
“I had a lot of blankets on. I got hot. Sue me,” Sam had huffed, rubbing at his arms as his teeth started chattering. Peter had of course made a show of rolling his eyes at him, even as he had moved to take off his jacket and drape it over Sam’s stupid naked shoulders.
“There you go hot stuff,” he’d said, getting a confused blink in return, like it was unthinkable that Peter would ever willingly give up his jacket and the majority of his warmth for Sam’s sake. In his opinion that was a dumb reaction. Peter would give up a hell of a lot more than just his warmth for Sam’s sake.
“Thanks,” Sam had managed to mutter, too tired and too freezing to bother being snarky.
“Yeah, no big,” Pete had muttered back, trying as hard as he could to tear his eyes away from the strangely alluring sight of Sam shirtless in Peter’s hoodie.
The silence had stretched between them, filled only by the irate chatter of the buildings other tenants and the distant sounds of traffic, until Peter had started to feel antsy. “So… this is bullshit. We really picked a winner with this place didn’t we?”
Sam snorted out a laugh, pulling the hoodie tighter around himself to keep the warmth in, which had the added bonus of hiding all traces of his distracting chest from view. “Yeah well I blame you. You picked it not me.” His voice had been shaky still, like he was barely a second away from the teeth chattering of before, and that really wouldn’t do.
“Oh right, because I could make you do anything you didn’t want to. You were equally into this building dude,” he’s said, starting to feel the cold himself. “Come here.”
“What?”
Peter sighed. “I said come here. You’re freezing, and now I’m freezing because you stole my only source of protection, so now we’re huddling for warmth.”
Sam has stood there looking at him skeptically for long enough that Peter had started to freak out a little, before finally rolling his eyes and snuggling his way up under his arm.
“Fine whatever. And I didn’t steal anything, you offered,” he had said, wrapping his arms around Peter’s stomach and making both heat and butterflies bloom there at merely his touch.
“Yeah. Too early in the morning to argue, so yeah. You win,” Peter muttered, suddenly finding it very very hard to breathe. It wasn’t even a sexual attraction, although he had to admit that he’d often felt that towards his friend too. No, it was just a happiness at having Sam hold him, a pure and deep sense of joy at having him near, so vivid that it was startling.
They’d remained like that until they got the okay to head back inside, and Peter would be lying if he said that in the moment he wouldn’t have traded a good night’s sleep just to stay there with Sam in his arms.
“G'nigh nerd,” Sam had muttered when they had reached the third floor, waving tiredly as Peter continued his way up to the sixth. It wasn’t until he reached his room that he realized that Sam hadn’t returned his sweater. He still wonders to this day if Sam had fallen asleep wearing it, and the thought makes him feel just as fuzzy as it had that night as he closed his apartment door behind him.
Climbing into bed, and burrowing under the covers to get his heat back, that was when he’d first had the conscious thought.
“I’m in love with one of my best friends,” he’d said aloud to his empty room.
And after a revelation like that well… he’s surprised he had managed to fall asleep at all that night.
……….
“Take a picture creep. It’ll last longer,” Sam mutters, mirroring Peter’s earlier thoughts of photographing him and snapping him back to the present. He sounds sleepy, but also content in such a deeply satisfied way that it makes Peter feel like maybe this is exactly how things are meant to be; them together, spending their evenings cooking and dozing and just coexisting as one.
The only thing that’s really missing is the fact that he can’t hold Sam in his arms, or kiss him if he feels the urge.
“Was I staring? Sorry I was just… thinking.”
“Hah! Since when do you think?” Sam scoffs. When he doesn’t get a response he finally opens his eyes all the way, still looking sleepy but now also intrigued. “Okay okay, I’ll bite. What were you thinking about?”
The internal debate doesn’t last as long as it normally does. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s been putting this off for so long, or maybe it’s just that he’s feeling sappy and sentimental, but Peter figures now is as good a time as any to confess his feelings. It’s just the how he isn’t sure on.
Maybe he should stop overthinking and just say something? After all, overthinking has gotten him nowhere in the past.
“I um, I think we should probably stop being friends.”
Sam looks at him like he’s suddenly grown a few extra pairs of eyes. It’s a look full of caution and an almost worried kind of skepticism, like he’s praying this is the world’s least funny joke and is waiting for the punchline, while simultaneously wondering if Peter is high.
Peter immediately feels like a complete fuck up.
Maybe he should have done at least a little bit of thinking before he opened his stupid mouth.
“And date!” he adds quickly, and the 'what the fuck?’ look gets even more intense. “Shit, I’m doing this so wrong. I’m sorry I’m… I’m asking you out right now. And just to be clear, I also still want to be friends if you don’t want to date me. And honestly I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to date me, given how badly this is going.” Peter buries his face in his hands, peeking through his fingers after a moment of silence just to make sure Sam is still there.
Sam’s face is completely unreadable, which is a weird experience since he’s the kind of guy who would totally fail at poker. In fact, sometimes Peter likes to play a game where he’ll just glance at Sam at any given time and guess what he’s thinking about. Their whole friend group was in on it, and after being annoyed the first few times Sam had finally given in to the fact that he’d inevitably be asked what he was thinking about at any given moment, and expected to answer at least somewhat honestly.
“Um… should I go?” Peter asks, rubbing at the back of his neck nervously.
“This is your apartment dumbass,” Sam says after a beat. Then he smirks slow and easy, a look that probably means that Peter is in deep deep trouble. “Ask me again properly.”
Now, Peter might be fairly oblivious and Sam might sometimes have the tendency to be a huge jerkbag, but occasionally Pete manages to get a clue, and he knows Sam would never make a joke out of his feelings. Which means…
Peter grins widely, leaning forward in his seat to better look into Sam’s eyes and says, “Sam… I really really like you. Will you go out with me?”
“Better Parker,” Sam laughs, standing up and moving over to straddle Peter’s lap in one smooth motion.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, hesitating for just a second before he’s leaning in to kiss him long and slow. He bites Peter’s lower lip gently before they pull apart and then grins at him. “Much better.”
“Glad you found it acceptable,” Peter breathes out, his eyes wide and lips turned up into a goofy smile. “But you still haven’t answered the question.”
“What do you think my answer’s gonna be genius?”
Peter wraps his arms around Sam’s waist more securely, languishing in the warmth of having his body settled on top of him. He smiles, a cocky and knowing little upward twitch of his mouth as he leans in to press a soft kiss against Sam’s cheek, his jaw, the side of his neck. He smells so good, like bodywash and the pasta he just made, and Peter wants to hold him there forever, close and perfect and solid in his arms.
“Oh I know what it is, I just want to hear you say it.”
Sam rolls his eyes and kisses him again, just a quick and gentle press of lips that sends a little shock of warmth straight to Peter’s chest.
“Of course I’ll go out with you dumbass,” he answers, and Peter notices then that Sam’s hand is on the back of his neck when Sam starts to play with the little wisp of hair there. “We practically live together anyways, now at least when I sleep over you probably wont put me on your shitty couch.”
“Ah first it was my food, and now you’re just using me for my bed huh? And who said I’d let you sleep there with me anyways?” Peter asks, shivering a bit when Sam’s fingers scratch at the nape of his neck, and tugging him in even closer.
“Oh no, you won’t be in the bed,” Sam tells him matter of factly. “You’ll take the couch.”
Peter barks out a laugh, leaning back a little so that Sam will get the full brunt of his skeptical look.
“And why would I do that?” he asks, letting his fingers move from Sam’s hips to his mid back so that he can stroke slowly up and down his spine.
“You want to make your boyfriend happy. Duh.”
The word boyfriend is like a match, it lights a little fire of happiness in Peter that he doesn’t think is going to go out any time soon.
“Yeah” Peter says, pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose. “I kinda really really do.”
“Okay, this is getting gross,” Sam tells him, making a face. He leans back, glancing at the TV as if to check what’s on and Peter huffs out a laugh.
“Yeah, feelings are awful,” he replies. “You wanna watch a movie?”
Sam grins at him like Peter is his favourite thing in the world and Pete can’t help but wonder if his newly appointed boyfriend has only started looking at him like that today, or if he’s been missing the obvious hints all this time.
“Only if we can make out.”
“You got yourself a deal,” Peter says, squeezing Sam tighter so that he can lift him up and relocate them to the couch. Sam laughs, protesting that he’s not a baby, but Peter doesn’t care. He’s so happy he could probably run around the whole building with Sam piggybacking it the whole time.
“You’re small enough to be a baby. And whiney. And you do make a huge mess..” Peter says as though he’s having an epiphany. “Holy shit, you really are a baby!”
Yeah, Peter thinks as Sam smushes his face as payback and then leans in to kiss him hard, this is definitely going to be a much better arrangement.