Notes: The title belongs to BNL. Also, here be slashy undertones.
_____________________
The light was on in his apartment.
It had taken forever in the emergency room, between the paperwork and the endless waiting, and all he wanted was to come home, collapse into his bed, and sleep until he couldn�t sleep anymore. Donna dropped him off at the curb, telling him that Leo had said not to come in before noon tomorrow, and she hadn�t noticed the light in his window. He was glad.
He didn�t want to have to explain. Not now. Not to her.
He paused outside for a moment before making his way into the building, looking at the Christmas lights twinkling in the trees that lined his road. He almost didn�t want to go upstairs, almost didn�t want to face him. For the first time since he was a child, he was gripped by an almost overwhelming urge to cry. He hadn�t cried when his father died, or even after he had been shot. But now, tonight, as he stood staring blankly at the lights swaying in the slight December wind, he wanted nothing more than to curl up on his couch and cry himself to sleep.
He swallowed, choking back the lump that had formed in his throat, and unlocked the door to the building. The halls were quiet, and his shoes made a dull rhythmic thump as he climbed the stairs to his apartment. The door had been left unlocked for him, and he smiled a little. Even though he didn�t really want to have to deal with anyone tonight, it was nice, in a way, to know that someone was waiting up for him.
The key had been an impulsive decision, and until now it had never been used. He had offered it hurriedly on one of those nights during the summer, when they had been lying curled together on the couch, and immediately regretted it, worrying that Sam might read too much into the offer. But he had just given him a tiny smile and slipped it in his pocket, and it was never spoken of again.
He looked up sharply as Josh stepped into the apartment, and the dim light from the lamp by the window caught and held in his blue eyes, igniting the worry there. �How did it go?� he asked, coming to help Josh shrug out of his coat, awkwardly working around the unwieldy bandage on his hand.
Josh considered joking about his fear of rectangles, but sighed instead, sinking down onto the couch and nodding towards the other window, which had been boarded up. �I guess you know what happened,� he said.
�Why?� asked Sam, and the question was so simple, so natural. There was no easy answer though, so he just shook his head, then buried it in his hands, running his fingers uneasily through his hair.
�A million different reasons,� he tried to explain. �And none at all.� He looked up to see the confusion in Sam�s eyes, and he hated himself for putting it there, for causing that young face to crease with worry and fear. �Anyway, it�s over,� he said, and he didn�t know if he was lying to Sam or himself. �I�m cured.�
Sam smiled thinly, sensing the irony in Josh�s voice. �That ATVA guy must be some miracle worker.�
�Oh, he�d like to think so,� Josh said with a small smile. Then he noticed that Sam was shivering, and realized for the first time that the room was freezing. �Damn, what did you do, shut off my heat?� he asked, standing up to walk over to the thermostat.
Sam waved a hand towards the window as he stole Josh�s seat on the couch. �It�s the boards. They don�t keep in the heat. I tried to call a guy, but they won�t come until Saturday.�
Josh turned to look at him as he pulled the blanket off the back of his chair. �You tried to get someone to fix my window?�
He could swear that Sam blushed a little as he shrugged. �I thought it might be nice for you to come home to a house that wasn�t, you know, broken."
�Thanks,� he said sincerely, tossing the blanket to Sam. He paused near the doorway to the kitchen and waved towards it. �You want�anything? Coffee or something?� Sam shook his head, and Josh discovered that he had run out of pleasantries and small talk. He drew in a slow breath, finding himself again fighting off the tears that had nearly overwhelmed him on the way into the building. It was bad enough that he wanted to cry at all. He wouldn�t do it in front of Sam. Instead, he sat down on the other end of the couch and pulled the end of the blanket over his feet.
�So you went to the hospital,� Sam observed, gesturing towards his hand.
�Yeah, Donna�� he trailed off, then started again. �Leo made me go.�
Sam raised his eyebrows. �Leo was still there?�
�He waited for me.� He considered saying more, but didn�t. What Leo had said to him, he would keep to himself. He was suddenly struck by a wave of exhaustion, and tried to stifle a yawn, but Sam noticed and stood abruptly.
�I should go. You�you should sleep. I�m sorry�I should have thought�� he stammered briefly before turning to pick up his coat from the chair it was slung over. �I just�I thought�well, you might want to, I don�t know, talk to someone�� he trailed off, apparently giving up, and turned for the door. �I�ll see you tomorrow.�
As he reached out for the doorknob, Josh felt a strange panic engulf him, and before he could stop himself, he whispered, �No.� Sam turned back around, and he saw his own fear reflected in those endless blue eyes. �Please, I�� He couldn�t find the words, but they didn�t seem to matter, because Sam dropped his coat and came back, sitting down next to Josh and pulling the blanket up over both of them.
�What is it?� he asked. �What�s wrong?� But Josh couldn�t answer him. He had no answers, only an overpowering fear of being left alone here in this apartment, with the wind howling through the boarded up window and the heat being sucked from the room by the disarray that remained in the aftermath of his madness.
�I�� he waved a hand ineffectually at the room, then gave up. �Just�stay? Please?� He hated how pitiful his voice sounded, hated the undeniable need that surged up in him, hated his fear, but Sam just nodded, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and stayed.
When he lifted his head to look at Sam, he was shocked to see tears sparkling in his eyes. His expression must have asked the question for him, because Sam answered without him having to ask. �I just�I hate this. I hate that you�re going through this and there�s not a thing in the world I can do to help. There�s�I just wish�� he shook his head, and a tear found its way out of his eye to trace a thin streak down his face. Josh reached out a finger to wipe it away gently, and the feel of the hot water on his skin set something off in him.
He broke down then, and cried in Sam�s arms.
Sam held him against his chest, letting his tears soak his shirt, and he whispered to him. Josh didn�t know what he was saying, couldn�t concentrate on the words, but the sound of Sam�s voice slowly relaxed him, and the shame he felt at crying in front of this man was replaced gradually by a feeling of peace and a strange sense of rightness�that this was where he was supposed to be, that he was safe here.
His tears eventually subsided, and he was too exhausted to move, too emotionally drained to even think of getting up. So he lay his head in Sam�s lap, and Sam wrapped the blanket around both of them and sat there running his fingers through Josh�s hair until he fell asleep.
And when he slept, for the first time since Rosslyn, he didn�t dream of gunfire.