Heat [Omegaverse, Brolby, SamandColbyFic]

Chapter 24

It was about ten minutes later that found them sitting on the couch together.

Sam looked nervous.  His fingers shifted in agitation where they gripped the can of White Claw, his eyes staring out in front of him.  The tears had dried somewhat, but Colby doubted he'd seen the last of them.

"So..." Sam turned to look at him then, and Colby could already see the start of a bruise under Sam's right eye.  For a moment, he almost felt bad for hitting Sam that hard.

Almost.

"So..." Colby echoed, although the end of his word tipped up to be almost more of a question.

"At uh... we should probably start with the rut thing, huh?" Sam asked, pressing his lips together after he'd finished talking.

Colby nodded shallowly.  Fuck... that Friday morning felt like eons ago.

But they still hadn't talked it out.  So much else had just happened in the middle.

"Dude..." Sam was talking again, "I'm so... so fucking sorry..." Yup, here came some of the glassiness to Sam's eyes again.  Colby almost wanted to reach for Sam but... something in his chest still felt too raw.  "I know... I know there's no excuse.  I should have... I dunno, thought about it harder or..."

"What happened?" And that was what he really needed to know.  What had gone through Sam's head?  Because he'd smelled the pheromones, felt how his body reacted to them.

He just wanted to know how Sam had perceived that whole thing.

"I..." Sam seemed to consider his words for a moment.  He blinked hard and Colby watched a tear escape one of his eyes before Sam scrubbed at it.  "I... I remember smelling you.  And like, we've been in the same room before my rut before but like..." He pursed his lips, "I just remembered that it used to bug you, to smell it, but I should have... fuck, I should have thought about it, that it would be different since you presented, but..." He shook his head. "I didn't."  There was so much regret in his voice.

"So you just... so like what even...?" Colby didn't know what to ask.  "You... you grabbed my throat, dude."

Sam let out a hysterical little laugh. "I did, I know, and I..." He swallowed hard, gaze trained on the floor.  "And like, I even realized pretty quickly that it was going to be a problem, me being down there with you, because like... like I could smell the way your hormones reacted to mine and I was going to get out of there but..."

Sam hesitated, and Colby watched him swallow.  "They were just so powerful," He continued, "Like, I feel like they just completely overwhelmed me..." His voice cracked.  "And I don't... like it's my fault, I should have... should've gotten out of there, or not even come down in the first place but..."

"Sam..." Colby cut him off, watching Sam's mouth snap shut as he turned tear-filled eyes to Colby.  Fuck... "I don't... like I don't really like..." He let out a breath.  "Like... I wanna... I wanna tell myself it was the... that hormone thing I have."  He had to.  Because then he could control it, prevent it from happening again. "So like... it wasn't really you, you know?"

"That's what Nadja was saying..." Sam said quietly, and Colby nodded.  "That your hormones might have like... disproportionately reacted to the rut hormones." He looked up quickly.  "Not that I'm like, blaming you at all, I still shouldn't have..."

"Sam." Colby cut him off again. "Jesus, man, let me talk."

Sam's hands clenched spasmodically for a moment, before settling in his lap as he turned red eyes to Colby.  Shit... this was really tearing Sam up, wasn't it?