Adopt || Solby ||

Chapter 5

The weekend was a mass of awkwardness and strange events. 

One consisted of Colby acting almost haywire all of Sunday, claiming to feel unwell from the moment he left his room but not wanting to worry Sam's mother.

However, the most notable of all events happened at around 1:00 AM; Colby waking the closest in the family to his room, living only a wall away, via coughing, running to the bathroom and vomiting.

Sam groaned in annoyance as he listened, already being half asleep and NOT at all enjoying being so rudely swung back into reality.

He closed his eyes tight and bashed his face into his pillow, pulling the sheets up over his ears, eyebrows knitted as he laid dormant, waiting for silence.

There was one, but it was brief and short-lived, broken only by what could be described as a miserable moan, before cautious footsteps made their way back passed Sam's room.

But they never passed.

Instead, with Sam greeting a rush of angst and confusion, his door creaked open, followed by a moment where neither boy said anything.

Sam hoped Colby would just leave him alone if he pretended to be asleep...

"Sam?"

He'd hoped wrong.

The other boy had whispered into the darkness and Sam sighed breathily into the night, adjusting so he could look at his door.

"What do you want, Colby?"

Colby's shadowy figure remained still by his door, but he could hear the other boy running his fingers along the skirting boards of the entrance.

"I can't sleep in my room," the boy in shadows whispered, and Sam now was able to hear the rawness in his throat and exhaustion that lingered in his body.

"Why not?"

There was another spout of time where both boys were quiet. Sam grew tired of it, but he didn't have to speak of it for Colby to know.

"I-I think the paint on the walls."

"What?"

Sam now sat up in his bed, those gray-pattern covers falling into his lap in a bundle. His bones popped and he let out a noise of satisfaction, flicking his long, blonde hair out of his eyes to see Colby--or rather, due to the lighting, Colby's shape.

"The paint, I don't think it's properly dried. I laid down with the door shut and the fumes made me feel really woozy," Colby explained blandly.

"Then like, leave the door open," Sam replied tiredly with a roll of his eyes, laying back down.

"That won't work!" Colby scoffed, simply watching Sam lay and turn his back to him.

Sam didn't expect it, but in the room there was movement, and then he felt his bed shift near his feet.

"Sam, I know you don't like me, but I'd rather not die in paint fumes," Colby said, prodding Sam's calves with a finger until Sam got irritated, twisted his body around and swatted at his hand. "Please help me?"

Sam, having sat up a bit to get the other to stop touching him, fell still in stature for a long moment.

The way the other spoke the last words so innocent and pleading struck a line in Sam's heart that he wished he didn't have for the sake of wanting to sleep; his more helpful, kinder spot.

He found Colby's eyes in the dark, noting how the flecks of moonlight from his window beamed perfectly in level with those darker blues that stared back at him desperately.

"Fine," Sam sighed, exasperated, shuffling over while pulling the cover with him, turning back to face the wall when his head hit his pillow again.

Colby sat there, unmoving, troubled.

"Um... what?"

Being in a close earshot, he heard the blonde boy sigh and mumble under his breath.

"Get in the bed, you dingus."

His eyes widened momentarily, then he uttered another awkward 'um', before crawling into the space beside Sam on the bed. His eyes made regular checks behind him to the other boy's form, making sure he wasn't doing anything wrong before he pulled the covers to his shoulders and laid on the unfamiliar pillows that reeked of Sam.

Sam felt him shift repetitively, about to snap, until everything went still. Calm. Quiet...

Colby could feel the sinking of the other's breathing on the mattress. He felt it become slower and more steady rather than tense, smiling to himself.

Sam was asleep.

Colby shut his eyes, peacefully, and soon, he was too.

|| A/N: A fairly short chapter just to update and also to give you a bit of background for the boys. Ya'll enjoying this? ||