Come Hell or High Water | mxm

4.1

Gord was quiet for a minute after Sam trailed off, studying him with a small frown. His blue polo shirt was rumpled as though he had slept in it; the jacket draped across the back of the bar stool was too light for the weather.

"You paid yer bill?" Gord asked at last.

"What?"

"Stan, he paid his bill?" At the shake of Stan's grey head, Gord pulled out his wallet. "How much?"

"Don't," Sam protested as he caught on, much too slowly. "Can't let you..." He fumbled at his pockets, but Gord had already smacked three red fifties onto the bar.

"Let's get you outta here," Gord said roughly.

It became immediately clear Sam wasn't capable of walking on his own. Knees threatened to buckle under him, and he clutched weakly at Gord's shoulders to keep himself on his feet. Gord put an arm around him, taking his weight with a grunt and supporting him out the door into the swirling snow.

"You got a room at the Super Eight?"

"Can't afford it," Sam muttered against the shoulder of Gord's leather coat, voice thick with shame. "Slept in the car."

"Can't afford it?" Gord repeated, disbelieving. "But you can afford to piss away a couple hundred on booze?"

"Sorry," Sam whispered brokenly. When Gord looked at him there were tears turning to frost on his cheeks.

Gord's tone was softer as he said, "Sam, it's gonna be twenty below tonight. C'mon home. We'll come back for yer car tomorrow."

Voice cracking, Sam started, "Gord--"

"Shut up and let me take care of you, idiot," Gord said quietly, his arm tight around Sam's shoulders.

Sam didn't protest again as Gord helped him across the snowy parking lot and up into the rusty truck, a difficult feat with Sam's uncooperative limbs getting in the way.

Safely buckled, Sam drooped against the door, forehead pressing soothingly into the icy window. Gord started the truck with a protesting rumble and scalding air began to blast from the vents. Darkness eddied through the hypnotic dance of fat, feathery snowflakes beyond the glass. Sam half-woke as Gord manhandled him into the house, mumbling incoherently, but sank immediately into a deep sleep again while Gord tucked the duvet up to his chin.

In the deepest hours before dawn, Sam woke abruptly to pitch darkness, disoriented and deeply ill. He clawed back heavy covers with damp palms and stumbled out of the room, somehow found the washroom.

Every muscle in his body convulsed as the contents of his stomach all came up violently into the toilet, burning his throat raw. His hands shook, barely able to support him as he leaned over the bowl and retched painfully. Dimly, he became aware that he was still fully dressed, the stiff denim of his jeans pressing lines into his hips, polo cold and damp with sweat.

When Sam could move without feeling like his stomach was going to split open, he tottered back down the unlit hall to Gord's guest room, where he had woken up, and fumbled at the bedside table for his glasses. Chill air made sweat go clammy against the back of his neck.

Downstairs in the dark kitchen, Sam rattled through the blinding interior of the fridge, feeling increasingly helpless. The cupboards didn't contain what he was looking for, either, and panic roiled threateningly in his belly.

Gord's voice startled him badly.

"Haven't kept booze in the house since the first time you came 'round."

Sam couldn't look at him. He leaned on his wrists on the counter, shoulders shaking.

"You sober now?" Gord asked, tone flat and clinical.