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#5
He is a mess, writhing on Sam’s lap - scalding hot skin and clenching so tightly it was almost painful for Sam to keep bucking up into him. The way he twists on top of Sam makes it hard to get a hold of him, to keep Sam’s cock from slipping out of him with the next thrust.
The angle is less than perfect, but it seems to work for Higgs.
This phantom of black and gold - a mere man whose eyes were closed in pleasure. Low noises were spilling from Higgs’ lips, hot and sharp little breaths. How impossible a sight. Sam makes sure to hold onto the fabric over his hips tightly, to fuck him hard.
(He is the fucking god particle. He can take it.)
Where it is visible above his collar, the column of his throat shows dirty streaks of black. It stands in sharp contrast to the flush that travels from Higgs’ neck all the way up to his hairline. What has he done now?
They had taken off the bare minimum of clothes for this to work - Sam wonders if the rest of him is covered in dirt, too. (Or in blood.) The only reason that Higgs’ hood is down at all and exposes his face is that he keeps arching his body into Sam’s.
Sam can appreciate the way Higgs scrambles to keep his hands off Sam, even while he is dependent on Sam’s grip on him in order not to topple backwards on the ground. Even while Higgs is taking Sam’s cock so good.
But knowing how much Higgs is gagging to be touched, the lack of skin feels like a rebuke. Higgs would, of course, never admit it until Sam had him like this, but that didn't make it any less true. Higgs yearned for touch in any way he could have it.
Even posting stupid orders that would take Sam halfway across the fucking region on foot - if it meant Higgs could goat him into fucking him, it apparently was exactly what he would do. And Sam would take him up on it, too.
The best thing about fucking Higgs is the way he looked so helplessly overwhelmed, how Higgs shifts on his knees to take the next harsh thrust - and whines out loud when Sam slips free, his teeth clicking with how quickly he forces his mouth shut.
Sam laughs.
Higgs glares at Sam, the effect destroyed by the way his pupils are dilated and his lips bitten red. The flush on his cheeks. He looks ruined.
On a sudden impulse, Sam pushes him down onto his stomach on the cot before Higgs can protest. When he tries to turn, Sam drags Higgs’ hips back sharply to throw his balance off. One of his legs is still stuck in his pants, and it makes him just clumsy enough for Sam to use that to his advantage. In one fluid motion, he aligns himself and slips back inside. Higgs jolts beneath him and yelps.
There is some shuffling when Higgs fights to get his hands under him. Followed by a sound that would have been a laugh, if it didn’t break halfway through on a moan. “Didn’t... Didn’t think you had it in you, Sammy.”
He didn’t quite manage to sound smug. Sam huffs at him and savours the breathless little shouts that Higgs muffles into his arms when Sam picks up the pace - fucks into that maddening heat if his. Always so fucking loud, but biting down on every sound that wants to escape now.
Despite the snark, Higgs doesn’t fight him for it this time. He gave up the pretence. Even if only for a moment.
The little old cot protests with how hard Sam snaps his hips, one of Higgs' hands shooting out to grip the metal framing with white knuckles. It doesn’t take much like this.
Sam stills when Higgs goes rigid under him for long moments. Higgs drops flat on his stomach, panting for breath. Sam goes down with him, pressing his full weight into the body under him.
He earns a shocked gasp from Higgs when Sam reaches to hook his arms around the other’s elbows. Tightens his hands on the fabric over Higgs’ forearms and aligns their bodies, chest to toe. Like this, he could reach deep.
He gives an experimental thrust, Higgs letting out a gloriously loud sound. Something almost closer to pain than pleasure.
“Stop?” Sam asks close to Higgs’ ear. A wicked shiver runs through Higgs.
For a long moment, Higgs only pants harshly. Then.
“D-don’t stop.”
There is very little that was more satisfying than the way Higgs cries out with every thrust when Sam keeps fucking him.
They have barely caught their breath when Higgs slips out from under Sam. He seems apparently unconcerned with anything so mundane as afterglow. Without much care, Higgs rights his clothes, while Sam sat up on the cot.
Higgs has taken most of the damage, but he rearranges the layers of fabric with no complaint. There is very little left to do but throw those pants out anyway. If Higgs is a little unsteady when he fastens some clasps, Sam isn’t gonna comment on it.
He comes close to where Sam was to pick something up from the table near the cot, wincing at a sudden movement and goes to adjust his stance. Sam reaches out to steady him on impulse. Higgs draws away from Sam’s hands immediately, the expression on his face one of cool indifference.
He straightens and clicks his tongue almost as if in reproach, a slow grin on his face. The stretch of his lips became a sharp contrast to the tear tracks on his face. Higgs doesn’t bother to wipe at them.
“Oh, but it isn’t like that between us, Sammy.”
It irks Sam. How Higgs is so distant so quickly. It isn’t that Sam expects anything, but still. And really, Higgs is barely presentable, he looks taken apart so well - but he has already built his armour back up. As if he feels none of it.
Sam wonders how many more pizzas their little escapade would span. If the next time there would be something as stupid as champagne to go with it. If there were any more deliveries left to make.
He is almost fully dressed now, and really, there was only the mask left to summon, and Higgs would vanish in a flash of sparks.
That just won’t do.
Sam rises from the cot. He catches a surprised Higgs by the neck and kisses him. Higgs startles, suddenly rigid. Sam doesn’t care. He presses on even when the other’s lips are unyielding. The line of Higgs’ jaw gets looser when Sam catches the side of his face too, turns the kiss dirty and lingering.
Higgs takes an unsteady breath between them, hands coming up to grab at Sam’s shoulder. He is clumsy with it, kissing back with desperation. Sam drags him closer, feels Higgs’ hands wandering, clenching into the front of his jumpsuit.
They draw back after long moments, still against each other. Higgs pushes at Sam's chest like an afterthought. It does little to dispel the closeness.
Higgs takes a step back, closes his eyes for a long moment and, finally, slips the hood back on - and when he next raises his head, there is the glint of gold on his face.
“Back to the game, Sam,” and before Sam can stop him, he vanishes in a flash of sparks.
Sam leaves the final pizza unopened on the little shelf in the corner of the bunker.
#1
The first time he makes a delivery to Peter Englert, Sam is irritated but none the wiser. (Looking at it afterwards, he should have known. The name was a stupid little pun.)
It is only a quick detour for a man who was very clearly a little odd by the way he had worded the request with such a flourish, but then wouldn’t even greet Sam at the terminal. Well. Preppers did tend to be a little odd. (Frankly, Sam wasn’t sure that they weren’t all. A little odd. A little battered and broken.)
He put the pizza on the delivery shelf and stepped back.
Little Lou giggles at him. Sam stands there for a long moment, watches the shelf mechanism snap back and the holo-message flashes above the terminal. It is the default screen, nothing added to it.
There were a number of people who had hidden behind their anonymity in the early days. But now, people tend to reach for contact of any kind. Humanity was starving. Not because of the BTs or the Mules or the time fall. All of them did their fair share, but in the end, the sheer lack of contact with each other might kill them first.
Sam, for all that he doesn’t like to be touched, could understand that the inhabitants of distant shelters need to talk for a minute or two. But maybe Peter is an exception.
Something feels off.
It is probably nothing.
#2
The second time, Sam has it all figured out.
He is furious enough to pack the damn package on top of his other cargo and secure it tightly. It wouldn’t do if it falls off. Wouldn’t want to disappoint Peter. (Maybe this sudden burst of anger was why he didn’t even consider calling it in. The thought of not going didn’t even cross his mind.)
He’d left Lou in Deadman’s care. So he takes a reverse trike and drives the whole way from Mountain Knot City. Carefully avoiding bumps and steep drops. He is fuming silently the whole way, gritting his teeth when he almost crashes a few times.
As soon as the system pings him when he enters the parameter, Sam stops the bike to breathe. He carefully detaches the cargo and carries it over to the robotic voice, identifying him. He stops dead in front of the terminal.
And drops the stupid pizza on the floor.
“What the fuck do you want?” he was done with this nonsense. “Higgs,” Sam asks the empty space around him. It’s only a moment that he is left wondering if he’s just going to stand there, talking to himself like a fool.
But Higgs could never resist a twist in his game. Sam startles at the figure appearing at his shoulder; nonetheless, he steels himself from stepping aside even when their shoulders almost brush.
“Ah”, Higgs sounds annoyingly delighted and picks the pizza up in a flourish “, Wonderful. Splendidly done. Not a scratch,” he is in that full outfit of his, mask and all. “There really is no other like you, Sammy.”
When Sam takes a swing at him, he only catches thin air, and a moment later, Higgs reappears in the door that swings open. He gestures with a flourish.
“Why don’t you come inside?”
He blames it on the anger fuming in his veins. But Sam follows him down the corridor. The shelter was tiny. Cramped. And half the wall was covered in a multitude of articles and photos. Of Sam’s face. He cursed out loud.
Higgs followed his look and just waved him off. “Yes, yes. You know, keep your friends close, your enemies closer,” he gives a grin over his shoulder, then shrugs. “Or something to that effect anyway.”
Unfazed, Higgs opened the box and gave a dramatic moan of pleasure at the smell. Sam cursed silently this time.
“Do you want some?” he asked, peeling a piece out of the carton.
Sam stood there dumbfounded. After a moment of very uncomfortable silence, he watched Higgs shrug and sit on the ground and detach a slice from the pizza with the utmost care. What the fuck.
“Are you gonna eat that with the mask on?” Sam finds himself asking, instead of any of the things he wants to say. Higgs looks right at him (and it feels like that is a very bad thing indeed.) Golden particles catch at the rim of his hood just before he pushes it back, staring at Sam with an incredulous look.
“Now why would I do that?” and he lifted the pizza slice high to catch the melted cheese of the tip before taking a generous bite. The sound Higgs made was something close to pornographic. He took bite after bite, ignoring the Sam who stood right by the bunker door, frozen in place. For the last bite, he tongued along the thin crust before taking a bite, staring right at Sam.
“Enjoying the show?” He licked some grease from his fingers, tongue lingering on his lips. That finally startled Sam out of his stupor. He’d had enough of this game. He crossed the distance, grabbed Higgs by the front of his cloak and backed him into the wall. “Quit playing games.”
Higgs had his hands lifted in mock-surrender and tilted his head back in a lazy gesture. “But they’re so fun.”
Higgs lifted a hand to his face, licking at his fingers, savouring the taste of the pizza - or simply taunting Sam - and in a bout of madness, Sam pressed closer to him, pressed a. Thigh between Higgs' legs and sharply up.
Higgs’ breath catches in his throat, he stills, body frozen. His eyes are wide, and those stupid fingers are pressed idly against his lips. Sam growls at him. “Drop the fucking act. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Because Sam has it figured out. Higgs was flirting. The madman with the golden mask and death at his fingertips, so full of malice and cruelty. This was his way of flirting.
Higgs' grin is sharp. “Can you handle it?”
Sam grabs the fabric over his crotch, pressing insistently just to hear Higgs gasp. “Keep your hands to yourself”, Sam growls at him, and Higgs does.
It was so different. Higgs was so different - when his head fell back and his Adam's apple bobbled when he swallowed and gaped. There is no malice in him like this. He almost looks young. This was the mask of Higgs that is the most dangerous: it makes him seem innocent. And he was not. He was not.
Sam cages him against the wall, steadily pumping his cock between them. Higgs is thrumming with tension, but he keeps his hands pressed flat against the wall, never trying to touch Sam.
In reward, perhaps, Sam finally gives in to his own need. He draws out his own cock and aligns them to stroke them together. It’s the control he has over the touch, the mood of the day that allows him leeway. Things are never entirely black and white.
Higgs’ eyes shoot open, and Sam is ready to snark right back at him, but he only looks down between them and watches silently. It’s too dry and too harsh, but Higgs just groans and pants as he stares at Sam’s hand between them. Until he tilts his head back and spills between them.
He whines when Sam keeps working them both, but never tells him to stop. So Sam keeps a brutal pace for all but half a minute and then finds himself tumbling right over the edge. He falls forward into Higgs, wondering at the smell of him. He felt real. He felt mundane.
Higgs still doesn’t touch him, but he eventually huffs at Sam, still out of breath. “Rude,” his voice is harsh. Sam makes a disbelieving noise, until he realises that Higgs is talking about still being caught against the wall, Sam so close to touching him some more. He bristles.
“Shut up,” and to his surprise, Higgs does. They clean up in silence. Sam leaves without looking back.
He comes back. Of course, he comes fucking back - and this time there is no pizza. There is only Higgs on his knees and that clever tongue.
He grins up at Sam when he folds in one fluid movement, mouths at him through the fabric, soaking it through with spit. He leans back just the barest bit, licking his lips.
“I bet I can get you off like this, but I think you’d enjoy it more if I swallowed you down, don’t you think?”
Sam grabs him by the hair to yank him back. It looks like it hurts the way his neck has to bend, but Higgs only smiles lazily, turning his head to nose at the inside of Sam’s wrist. He lets him go as if burnt, and Higgs has to catch himself on a hand to shift forward.
Higgs stares up at Sam. He almost looks earnest when he offers, “Your call.”
Sam moves quickly, and Higgs matches him. He has barely pushed his pants down when Higgs is back all over him, hands knotted together in front of, him when he swallows Sam down whole. It punches a moan from Sam, but Higgs is groaning in tandem with him, the vibration like a shock through his nerves.
Higgs is playful - of course he is - drawing back to blow cool air on the crown of his cock after a little while. But Sam has found a little cruel streak inside himself, and he grabs him by the back of the head and forces him forward. Higgs moans at that, adapts so prettily and lets Sam fuck his mouth like it’s all he wants.
The next time Sam passes by is because Higgs called again.
The door is cracked when he arrives. It seems reckless as hell - but then again: who would dare go against Higgs these days? Sam isn’t sure what he’s doing so close to a base and so yet so far away.
He goes down the stairs and rounds the corner to see Higgs completely focused on the book he is holding up over his head. Sam leaves his gear by the door and scans the room. There are some new photos - maybe some things rearranged. He still hasn’t figured out the pharaoh mask in the corner. What the hell is the deal with that?
“What didn’t bring my pizza?” Higgs finally calls when Sam straightens and stands by the door. Sam looks at him unimpressed, the lazy sprawl of him on the cot - he isn’t wearing his shoes and has his feet propped up on the wall. He looks almost comfortable.
“Figured you were rather planning for something else”
Higgs grins in delight. “Sam. Don’t tell me you’ve come here just because of me?” He moves fluidly to stand in front of him and grabs him by one of the hooks on his jumpsuit to pull him close enough to stand between his legs, heedless of the way Sam tenses.
His grin turns predatory so quickly that Sam almost pushes him away.
“Wanna fuck me?”
He didn’t expect Higgs to want that. He had always seemed rather happy with Sam's hand on his cock and his mouth on Sam’s. Higgs seemed to have his own share of issues with touch, though he hid it better than Sam, and it didn’t seem quite as straightforward.
The cot was barely spacious enough for one grown man. They could have made it work, but Higgs had hopped up onto the desk and drawn Sam between his legs.
“Come here,” he drawled, half leaning back on the desk and spreading his legs to make space for Sam.
“Turn over”
Higgs baulks and hesitates. Sam wants to laugh, wants to scream at him, “How? How can you even be so real? So human?” and he realises with startling clarity that this is the same man who would kill thousands and instil fear in every major city. (This was still the very reason why he was so dangerous.)
He grabbed him by the throat. Too hard. And he expected Higgs to snarl at him - but what Sam gets is a wide-eyed look, and he freezes so completely it’s startling. Sam gently touches his hand on him, brushes a thumb along the line of his jaw.
“Come on, Higgs,” he tries for gentle over forceful and is surprised how quickly it works. Sam gives him the room to hop off the desk and turn, but only barely. He bends Higgs forward over the desk. He goes willingly, but the tension isn’t gone from him.
There is a slick dripping down the inside of his thighs. It was sloppy and dirty, and sinfully perfect when Sam dipped inside. Higgs makes a noise like gagging, a hand suddenly flying back and grabbing at Sam’s hip. Sam feels his bare hand like it’s another brand on his skin, but he allows it - pressing forward until his pubic bone rests flush against him.
“You good?” Sam asks when they are still, and Higgs gives a breathless noise that might have been a laugh.
“Don’t stop on my account,” and he fails to sound anything but desperate, his hand slips away to brace against the desk. Sam draws the most delicious noises from him.
The push and pull between them keeps Sam off-balance. (It seems to keep Higgs balanced.)
“I’m hoping you’ll remember that there is still a pizza to deliver,” Higgs tells him when he returns from the bathroom. His hair looks a little wet. The clothes he wears seem to be another set of the same ones he always wears. The base layer of it is some simple military issue top and bottom.
He doesn’t quite manage to look harmless. Or soft. There isn’t a single angle to him that isn’t sharp and biting. At his words, Sam looks at him in disbelief. He had only just fastened the last of his gear back into place. Higgs - looking languid and relaxed as he walks over to the terminal - laughs at the expression on his face.
“Don’t worry. I’ll reset the timer for you,” and he hits a single key with a flourish. Always with the drama and the acting. “There you go. 30 minutes.” He grins maddeningly. “No need to deliver it right now, of course.”
Sam curses at him, but it has no bite, only resignation. Higgs laughs when Sam leaves.
#3
Sam brings him the stupid pizza eventually, puts it down right in front of him on the desk. Higgs grins at him, looking up from another book in his lap only for a moment, when Sam moves away to get rid of the carrier plates on his shoulders. It’s Higgs' mistake to not even look back at Sam - it’s easy to bind his hands behind his back, even when he struggles hard for a moment before going limp, grinning and letting himself be dragged down to the floor.
“Ooohh. Kinky.” Higgs drawls, stretching out on the floor like he has something to prove. He knows exactly the way he looks, all long, hard lines of him. If it weren’t for those tattoos on his face and the scar patterns over his battle-shaped body, Sam would be tempted to call him pretty. If it weren’t for the manic glint in those eyes.
“Am I the entree then?” Higgs taunts when Sam strips him of his bottoms with ease and pushes the long sleeve as far up as it will go.
“I was sure you’d see yourself more as the main course,” Sam tells him and earns a delighted laugh.
“Of cour-“ Higgs snaps his mouth shut when Sam drags nails down his chest. Sam gives him a grin that feels foreign on his lips and is almost certain the surprise on his face is genuine.
Higgs is half suspended over Sam’s lap, his bound hands probably digging into his spine as one of his legs is high over Sam’s shoulder. He is shaking, gasping open-mouthed. If this is an act too, it’s a good one. But Sam isn’t quite done.
He spreads his fingers inside the body below him wide, watching Higgs jolt and moan. (It’s so satisfying to have him like this. To deal in pleasure, where Higgs deals in pain. And still take him apart so well.)
When he pulls his fingers out, Higgs bites his lip so hard he draws blood. Sam slides his cock just along the crack of him, the head catching on the rim but sliding further down. Higgs whines.
“Do you want it?” Sam feigns disinterest. “Beg me."
Higgs bares his teeth, makes a sound that is almost a hiss. But it is a mild protest and Sam has all the time in the world to wait him out, to drag the head along his rim, just barely giving in-
“Please”, Higgs’ voice is barely audible when he hisses it. His throat is bare. Now that he’s given in, he can’t seem to make himself stop. “Please, please.”
Sam stops himself from saying “There you go”, but as soon as he’s inside Higgs, he can’t seem to shut up: “Gonna fuck you so slow. So good.”
Higgs is out of his mind with it. It’s obvious like this: without the hood, with his face towards Sam, he looks like something out of cheap porn. Gasping and groaning, his mouth hanging open, his eyes screwed shut like he can’t quite take the feeling of being fucked.
After, Sam has just enough coordination left to roll to the side and loosen the knot that keeps Higgs's hands tied. He drags the strand free. For a moment, they both stare at the ceiling.
Higgs is breathing heavily next to him, eyes unseeing. It takes long minutes for his chest to stop expanding and falling quite so rapidly. His head drops to the side, eyes closed, and lips smiling. Actually fucking smiling. Not a grin. Not a lopsided thing.
It’s gone in a heartbeat when he sits up.
This time, Higgs doesn’t care for the mess between his legs. He gets dressed and deposits the pizza carton on the floor between them. Sam huffs and is just about finished righting his clothes when Higgs bites into his first piece of the pizza.
Higgs makes a face that is so disgruntled that Sam can't help but laugh at him.
“It was hot when I brought it,” Sam tells him.
Higgs takes another bite and grumbles. “And whose fault is that it’s cold now?” But he keeps eating anyway.
Sam finds himself not leaving. Higgs gives him a pointed look when he stares and waves his hand in a flourish to gesture him to sit down. Sam does. And he does actually take a piece of the cold pizza, too.
“Is this all you ever eat?” Sam finds himself asking.
“Nah,” Higgs says, but doesn’t elaborate.
Higgs reaches over, and there is a sliver of skin becoming visible between his pants and the shirt that rides up for a moment. (A scar that looks old and distorted and shockingly deep). He’d seen it before. Of course, he had. But it was quite different noticing an old scar while you were fucking someone senseless and focusing on it clearly.
Higgs settles back and takes a bite out of the pizza.
Sam isn’t sure if he really didn’t notice or if it was a dare.
He doesn’t want to ask, but he can’t quite stop himself.
“How-”
“I’ve let you skirt the lines. But this isn’t quite part of our game,” Higgs' tone has changed completely. It’s icy. “Do refrain from ruining it, would you?” His eyes are cold and threatening from one moment to the next. The darkness in his gaze might swallow Sam whole. And use his bones to pick its teeth clean.
Sam realises that this is what makes him dangerous. This is what inspires the terror and the loyalty of his men and the fear of the whole continent equally.
It’s there and gone in a flash.
(Sam knows with a startling clarity that Higgs’ mind is broken. It’s a manic twisted thing. And if he had any sense of self-preservation, Sam would get as far away from him as possible.)
Higgs holds out the wine bottle to him. “Don’t make me drink alone, Sammy.”
Sam takes a sip. And they fall back into easy silence.
There is a slice of madness to him, sure. But worse are the bits and pieces that are calculated, how Higgs is aware of what he is doing. How to do more. How to do worse. There are no excuses to be made.
#4
With pizza number four, Higgs stops him from dropping it by the door and takes it from his hands instead.
“Okay, so new plan,” he sits square on the floor, right where he stood a second before and opens the package with a serious expression. “Hot pizza first. Then fucking.”
He is like a child, thinks Sam when Higgs motions for him to sit as well. And he pushes that thought to the back of his mind as quickly as it came, remembering High’s aim with a gun and his apathy towards the people on the other end of his muzzle.
The more Sam sees Higgs eat, the more he wonders about his eating habits. The first time had been for show, but every time after, Higgs had seemed to be wolfing the food down. Sam doesn’t know what to make of that.
He is not hungry, so he just takes a few steps through the small room. Sam eyes the cot in the corner of the room again.
“Do you really sleep here?”
Higgs follows his gaze and shrugs. “As good as anywhere else, " he really doesn’t seem to care much. Sam wonders at that, too.
And while Sam stands and considers the increasing number of bits and pieces he seems to learn about him, Higgs finishes the pizza with surprising speed (or maybe Sam had let his mind wander for too long).
The searing kiss catches him off guard. But Sam adapts quickly.
Higgs tried to twist away from him when Sam slipped his fingers back inside him with a squelching noise, spreading the mess dripping pearly white out of him. Unheeding of the other’s resistance, Sam pushed his fingers deep.
“Ah. What. What the hell - Sam”
“Can you come again like his?”
Higgs laughed at him.
“Don’t know how old you think I am, but-”
“I have all the time in the world,” Sam mimics Higgs’ own lazy drawl. It earns him a shocked look. “And only think it’s fair I get a little reward for all my hard work.”
A wide-eyed Higgs struggles for a response, and Sam knows he is gonna comment on the flaw in the logic. Sam doesn’t care. He doesn’t use his words like Higgs to craft whole structures of manipulation.
He’d much rather use his hands. So he simply presses his fingers upwards, curling them. Higgs almost swallows his tongue on the noise he tries to suppress.
But Higgs lets him finger him through oversensitive nerves, even when his body twitches. Sam wants to make it last. Higgs scrambles against him, heedless of where his hands touch until Sam catches them in his free hand and forces them still. It earns him a full-body shudder. Sam is almost sure that Higgs isn’t aware how badly he trembles, how he bares his throat to Sam.
(If Sam could stand it, he’d bite down on the skin of his throat, he’d suck bruises along Higgs’ jaw. He’d mark Higgs up everywhere he could reach.)
There are hurt little noises, Higgs keeps making, a muscle in his thigh spasming with how tense he holds himself to keep Sam right where he is.
Good, Sam thinks. I want you just like this.
When Higgs finally does come, his body arches upwards in a tight bow, and Sam keeps wiggling his fingers until Higgs twists and turns enough to dislodge him.
Sam has realised that this is what he wants. He wants to hold Higgs down and take. But he wants the place he carves out of him to be anything but pain or trauma. He doesn’t know if he is succeeding. But Higgs comes back and back again - there are long days of almost silence from him and his people afterwards.
It feels almost as if Higgs likes to be taken down almost as much as he enjoys taking others down.
Higgs sends BT after BT - each creature more horrible than the last. They devour people whole.
He doesn’t care. He doesn’t.
So Sam clearly shouldn’t either.
#5
It takes a long time before Higgs asks for another pizza. He writes “on behalf of his elderly father,” and Sams knows that this is as close as saying “please” as Higgs will ever get when he isn’t out of his mind with pleasure.
Sam hates him. But he goes. And he brings the stupid pizza. (And he actually watches Higgs eat it too.)
He isn’t usually cruel about it. But this time, Higgs shoves Sam back onto the cot and straddles him, half-naked already. He barely lets Sam touch him, just scissors his own slick fingers inside himself with little patience and shares biting kisses with Sam. He takes Sam’s cock with a hitching sound caught in his throat - and that’s when Sam grabs at him and gives him what Higgs clearly wants: hard and careless.
#?
Sam goes back after. After Pizza number 5. It’s this counting system in his head now. The one time he’d gone back after that fifth pizza, the door was locked and sealed. He didn’t see Higgs again. Well. He did. Only that wasn’t the Higgs he could touch - it was the one that would wage war like it was all he’d ever known.
It was easy to detach the other version (warm and playful and almost sane on the outside) from the one shot at him with deadly accuracy. It doesn’t help that the apparent puppeteer had been a puppet all along.
(Still a terrorist. A murderer. A madman.)
By the time this reaches you, I will have been condemned to the Beach.
(Didn’t I tell you all along that this game of ours would have to end?)
Sam stares at the mail from “Peter Englert”.
It doesn’t seem like it has been written recently. Or maybe it had.
He reads through it and thinks, “Fuck you, Higgs. Fuck you.”
I have unlocked the entrance to my private quarters. You may peruse my secrets to your heart’s content.
(You wanted to know, didn't you?)
Sam aches.
Fuck. You.
And he goes. He always does.
When he arrives, he turns Lou’s pod to sleep mode.
Sam goes inside. The room looks different. What had been slightly disordered notes had become something... manic. But he doesn’t care much for the walls. (They seem like a decoy almost.)
The journals. The journals.
He doesn’t know what to feel about them. He desperately wants to reach through the pages and - he doesn’t know what he wants. They read like a confession to Sam - even if there is no apology in his words, no regret. There is only a grim acceptance of the end.
In the journals, Higgs sounds more like the version of himself that Sam had known when they met in this bunker of his. Younger, more ambitious. More scared. Like a human instead of the herald of death. Frankly, he also sounded like he’d given up on humanity somewhere along these lines, like he’d given up on caring about life.
(Sam feels used. From the first moment on, Higgs had cared nothing about him. Only: why wasn’t he here in these journals? Why was he protected between only Higgs and his own knowledge?)
There is a part of Sam that wants to take the place apart. Sam leaves it exactly as it is.
He wants to fight Higgs some more. Wants to see him crack.
He wants to hug him so hard that it hurts. (And that thought does hurt.)
There were so many conflicting wants in Sam. And they were all useless and void.