Work Text:
Sam leaves the hospital with a pocketful of prescriptions, a reference to a good therapist, and a face wrapped in gauze. Isaac is there to pick him up in a two-tone beater, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Sam stops, stares at him through the windshield. His posture is always military-perfect, face perfectly inscrutable beneath the bandages. As good as a helmet for hiding behind.
Isaac sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, then forces himself to relax. Eases up on the wheel. Whatever Sam thinks about this, he doesn't voice, just climbs in the passenger seat like they do this all the time.
"Pharmacy first," Sam says, dutiful as always.
"You sound like shit," Isaac says. "Hi, Sam, hi Isaac, thanks for picking me up, you're welcome Sam!"
Sam doesn't reply. Maybe his usual sour grapes routine, maybe he's just too drugged. Isaac does run by the pharmacy first, idly flirts with the pharmacist while she rings up a row of little pill bottles. Orange plastic and white caps, names long enough that Isaac stops reading after the first two syllables. Back in the car, Sam somberly reads every label, squinting through the two small triangles left roughly where his eyes should be.
—
In another timeline, Isaac met Sam at his apartment, and laughed at all the stupid little bottles. "Do you really think these will help?" he asked, and poured every one down the drain.
Sam was irritated, but probably more at the waste of money than the loss of the pills.
—
In this timeline, Isaac doesn't even look twice at them. He already has a plan and some idea of what to do next, but since this is all about Sam, he needs to get Sam on board.
"So, what now, they sending you to a shrink, too?" Isaac tries for nonchalance as he leans against the counter, misses by a mile.
"Yes," Sam rumbles, striding toward the bathroom. A panicky fist clenches in Isaac's chest, then spreads wide. Isaac doesn't clean up the blood in either timeline, so when Sam flicks on the light, it's still - everywhere.
Caked in the tiles, tiny rivers of blood that hardened over the grout lines. Splattered across the mirror, dull browns marring the reflection. Staining the porcelain sink, smears where it pooled in the bowl. The razor, discarded, blunted from impact against the bones of Sam's face.
In that other timeline, it was a deliberate choice to leave the mess behind; vindictive. In this one, Isaac just forgot. He peers around Sam's broad shoulders, takes in what looks like a murder scene.
"Yeah, it wasn't any more fun looking at it when it was fresh, either," Isaac says. He remembers: he thought Sam had killed himself. The rates for veteran suicides are depressing, and Sam internalized too much bullshit.
Sam keeps his mouth shut, which is probably for the best. Isaac can't think of anything the man could say that wouldn't set him off. It's always been easier for Isaac, to be angry rather than scared.
Sam closes the door in his face, so Isaac wanders back to the shitty little kitchen in this shitty little apartment. He looks at those bottles again, with their nonsense names and directions printed in microscopic text. Then he borrows Sam's computer, guesses the right password on his third attempt, and starts researching.
—
Research is almost always a drag, but pill research is somehow even worse. A million fucking warnings and side effects, half a dozen different names for the same damn medication, and too many fucking possible uses for most of them.
Best as Isaac can figure, they've got Sam on antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotics. It's starting to feel like the doctors are just throwing everything at Sam in the hopes that something sticks, something makes him not be their problem anymore. Isaac itches, just under his skin, because he can't tell what Sam actually needs and what's just bullshit.
His first impulse - the one he followed in that other timeline - is to throw it all out, mock the entire institution. Maybe bully Sam into being appropriately ashamed of all these meds, like he belongs in a psych ward more than civilized society.
No. Isaac breathes, and remembers the blood. Remembers the look on Sam's face when he found him, carving his own skin open. Isaac doesn't know what the hell to do with that. Sam is sick. When you're sick, you either tough it out, or you go to the doctor.
There's a whole other timeline for toughing it out, and that way ends in genocide and betrayal. Here, Isaac glares at the screen, and vows to get a second opinion. A third, a fourth even, rattle every soft bastard in a white coat until one of them actually gives a damn and can tell him what Sam needs.
Sam emerges from the bathroom, face bare, carrying a trash bag filled with the bloodied debris of his cleaning attempt. Isaac looks at him, takes in the scars for the first time. They will scar. Giant X in the middle of Sam's face - just like his old helmet, back when they were soldiers surviving everything they shouldn't.
"Wow," Isaac says, hoarse, bones too big for his skin and throat too tight for his words. "Now you really are uglier than me.”
—
They met in basic. At eighteen, Samuel Ortez was beautiful, turning heads wherever he went. Tall, broad shoulders, square jaw, killer cheekbones, dusky brown skin, and eyes so dark and riveting you might as well be caught in their tide.
Isaac Gates didn't know if he was more jealous or turned on, then. Nineteen, and all his bones still fit together wrong, too long, too lanky, face like a pimpled triangle. What he lacked in confidence he tried to make up for in swagger, sharp smiles and sharper wit. He never seriously thought he might be bi until he saw Sam. Then, for the first time in his life, he experienced the chaotic tension between wanting to be someone and wanting to fuck them at the same time.
Clearly, it had to be hate at first sight. Sam was too easy to pick on, anyway. Too serious, too earnest, too eager to be the best soldier he could be. Too kind by far. He'd fall back to help some poor schmuck who was falling behind, at least until Isaac sniped at him, hassled his competitive streak to the foreground.
Isaac once asked him, "Why are you here?"
Sam looked at him with those wide eyes, the same eyes Isaac sometimes daydreamed about plucking out. "I want to help people."
Isaac found that hysterical. "Oh, come off it. You could've been a firefighter or a paramedic if that's true. Why are you really here?"
Sam frowned. That would become the expression Isaac most associated with him, those plush lips turned down at the corners, little furrow marring his brow. "We're at war with an alien race that wants to exterminate our species. This is where help is needed the most."
"Just admit it, you're here, like everybody else, because you wanna squish some bugs." Isaac enjoyed being a little provocative, and really liked winding Sam up.
Sam frowned, and then he started to actually quote from the UNSC handbook. Isaac didn't know anyone had that shit memorized, let alone believed in it. The fuck was he dealing with, some kinda boy scout?
Or worse. Sam was an idealist. Even at nineteen, even in basic, Isaac had already figured out a few realities about war and life. And he knew that idealists were the first to go in any serious conflict.
Sam wouldn't last long. Better not get too attached to his fussy little frown and his big hands and precise speech patterns.
Isaac was a realist. He intended to survive.
—
Isaac starts spending more time with Sam. Tries to be subtle, at first, but gives up quickly because Sam clearly doesn't believe his excuses, and it's insulting to keep trying.
He makes himself at home, even though this apartment manages to be even shittier than his. Doors won't close unless you put some force into it, windows duct taped to the sill, carpet possibly prehistoric and questionably stained. Water runs lukewarm, always, so Isaac refuses to shower here. Not that he feels comfortable in the bathroom anyway. Every time he steps inside - just for a moment - he sees Sam, the razor, the blood, the dribbly bit of cartilage hanging from the bridge of his nose.
He saw worse in the war, did worse, but the incongruity chafes. The violence is supposed to be over, right? Isaac likes violence, pointed in the right directions - and Sam, that isn't. At home, where they're all supposed to just be civilians again, that shit just isn't fair.
There's a message on his phone from Mason Wu. An invitation. It has some appeal, but Isaac's gonna leave it on read until he figures out what the fuck to do with Sam.
Isaac stretches across the ratty couch, trying not to sink too deeply in the threadbare cushion. He hears Sam clattering in the kitchen behind him. "You should rinse the dishes after you use them," Sam says. Bitching at him, as usual.
"Sure, mom," Isaac says, thumb hovering over his message app. Would Mason's offer make this better or worse? He never saw himself as a bounty hunter. But then, they developed very specific skillsets in the army, skills that would transfer well enough to bounty hunting.
But, Isaac saw what Sam does with just a razor in his hand. Imagine a gun. Isaac glances back at him, at the scars still red and raw, healing slowly in the open air. The lines are ugly, jagged, uneven.
Sam didn't just cut his face; he sawed at it. Dug that razor deep as he could force it, and pulled, and pushed, back and forth, and he did that twice. Imagine a gun.
"Are you my guest?" Sam asks.
Isaac glances around the room, exaggerated. "What else would I be?"
"You're here a lot," Sam clarifies. His eyes are always so damn intense, and harder to meet than ever, parted as they are by that hideous scar.
"You telling me to fuck off?"
"No." Sam frowns, because of course he does. "I." Stalls out. Sam always manages to find new lows of awkward, at times Isaac feels it as a physical pain. How one man can have such a total dearth of social skills is beyond him. "Do you want to move in?"
To a place with leaky pipes and faulty A/C? "What, here? Hell no!" Isaac throws one arm wide, then points somewhere. Anywhere. His finger could land on anything and it'd be a solid reason why no one with any self-respect would want to live here.
"I mean," oh, there's a muscle twitching in Sam's jaw now, "Do you want to find a place. To live. With me." Short, flat phrases, not spoken like a question at all.
Isaac has found Sam with a knife and a bloodied face. Who knows what else he'd see if they lived together. Never mind that he now spends more time with Sam than he does anywhere else. Getting a place, that's commitment, that's saying Isaac might give a damn if Sam lives or dies. "Why, is that what you want?"
Sam's nostrils flare, that silent, long-suffering sigh he keeps using, like Isaac is such a strain to be around. Not like Mr. X over there is any more fun, but that's beside the point. The point is, Sam sighs, like he's the one whose patience is being tested. "I asked first."
"Yeah, you kinda came at me from nowhere. Give me a sec to think, okay?" Sam nods his assent, and Isaac swipes open his messages. There it is, the invitation from Mason. A next step, one they'd be good at. One where they could maybe vent some of that violence brewing beneath their skin. One where they'd have an excuse to carry guns again. One, Isaac knows, where he'd always be waiting to find Sam dead the next time he came home.
"How about Hawaii?" Isaac asks, closing the message.
"You... is that all the thinking you've got?"
It's the first, most peaceful place Isaac can think of, so yeah. "C'mon, Earth has great veteran programs, we could find someplace pretty damn nice. No more of this... uh, pretty sure you have mice, you know? I like beaches, you like quiet, let's convert to island life. It'll be great.”
Sam looks more puzzled than opposed, which is all the permission Isaac needs. "Great! I'll get the ball rolling, you start looking for a place in Hawaii. Nowhere that's got its own ecosystem in the walls, get me?"
"I'm sorry." Sam bites his lip, straightens his posture - like it can be any straighter.
"What? Don't back out now, this was your idea." Hawaii. Beaches. Girls in bikinis. Sipping from coconuts. Far from this shithole, far from Wu and his dangerous offers, far from the Covenant's reach.
"I meant, I'm sorry. I upset you." Sam makes an aborted gesture, up, at his ruined face, then drops his hand just as quickly. "You aren't responsible for me. If you're feeling... guilty... you don't have to-"
"Oh my god, I'm not your fucking therapist, don't talk to me about feelings!" Isaac snaps. "I wanna live in the sunshine, all right? I'm just used to hearing you bitch at me all the time, just shut up and - and, fucking, don't give me those puppy eyes. They look awful on you, just doesn't work."
He makes a reasonable impression of storming out of Sam's apartment, but he only makes it to the next block over before his roiling stomach forces him to double over, right there on the sidewalk, and vomit what's left of his lunch.
—
The worst part about finding Sam-
-worse than the blood sprayed everywhere like the aftermath of a Covenant plasma grenade
-worse than the razor clattering into the sink, somehow louder than any antimatter charge
-worse than the smell, throwing him right back to the havoc of a medical tent, the ones the Covenant always targeted like the ruthless animals they were
-the worst part, was seeing how goddamn relieved Sam looked. Eyes like Atlas when he shrugged or however it goes. It's the only time Isaac can remember seeing Sam look entirely at peace.
He's kidding himself if he thinks Hawaii will fix anything. There's probably no fixing whatever's broken about Sam. But, Isaac thinks he can at least get the crazy bastard back on Earth. Get him far enough from every trace of the war and maybe, just maybe, there won't be another round of that fucking self-mutilation shit. Maybe there's another way to give Sam that peace.
—
Isaac gets back to the apartment to find Sam with his old battered laptop out. He leans over the back of the couch, intruding in Sam's space much like an impertinent cat. “Hey, you're looking at houses.”
“There are housing loans for veterans,” Sam says. “It’s still more expensive to move back to Earth.”
Yeah, Isaac already figured. It was pretty clear on their discharge that the UNSC wanted to incentivize their soldiers to settle in the colonies they'd fought to defend. Well, fuck them and fuck space, Isaac has seen enough. “We can manage it. You barely spend your pension.”
“Are you sure?” Sam might be asking if Isaac is sure he wants to move back to Earth. Or, possibly, if he's sure he wants to move with Sam.
The answer to both is no, he isn't sure, but he'll die before he admits that. “Absolutely. I've got my heart set on sand and sunshine now, we can't back out.”
Sam grumbles, but Isaac knows that's not a real objection. He's getting that house in Hawaii. And from there… he'll figure it out. The doctors on Earth are probably better. No aliens, that's a plus.
Whatever it takes to keep Sam with him.