does this unit have a soul?

Being married has made Yarrow into an unbelievable sap, who is capable of just up and saying things about soft warm feelings and shit, and who – in the first place!! – has soft warm feelings and shit without always instinctively stomping on them (deflecting is different! that’s just about it being embarrassing for Sam to notice, not embarrassing for Yarrow to feel!). This one isn’t really soft per se but it is very warm: Yarrow wants to live up to Sam’s opinion of him so fukken much.

“I love you,” he says, wide-eyed and too-serious for a moment before he continues: “You gotta switch with me n get in the chair so I can get down n suck ya dick —”

Yarrow goes “Ah pfff,” play-derisive and relieved for what he thinks might be a safely joking out so it can safely stay a joke. “‘f ya gonna be like that about it I’ll give ya a rain check. Ya right, we gotta get some fukken sleep at some point, yanno, n doin that fukken pillow princess shit right ain’t fukken quick.”

If Yarrow still rates being called darlin by Sam after all the stupid words he’s said and terrible ways he’s behaved, there might be redemption for anybody in this world, and he dare not look at it lest it disappear the way the stars do through mackerel clouds.

“Tha’s a'right,” he says vapidly, squeezing Sam for a moment before letting go and swinging around so they’re both facing forward and – he dares it, buoyed by the moment – holding hands; “let’s get on then, dove — ”

It had taken real effort to keep from apologizing immediately for the endearment; this is a significantly better outcome than Sam had even hoped for. He clings to Yarrow’s hand as a wave of relief so strong he nearly stumbles washes over him, rendered stupid and clumsy with relief.

Yarrow lets himself be tugged, but he tugs himself away after just one kiss so that he can say: “Well the fukken smartest shit I done was get with you,” which then requires hiding in additional kisses

“Yarrow -- ”

Yarrow’s left Sam with the blanket, so his hands are free, and they reach out quite naturally to catch Sam’s arms and make sure he don’t fall down or nothing, grinning and glad over nothing. “Made it!”

Any victory is worth celebrating at this point. They just got to keep going!

Sam’s only got one hand with which to cling to Yarrow, still laughing. The relief of sunlight and movement makes this morning feel distant, although he is sure it won’t stay that way.

That sounds enough like a challenge for Yarrow’s instincts to always double down to overpower the red-eared breathlessness in action, even if he remains just as red-eared and breathless in practice. “I mean, we got time - ”

“‘Less you run faster'n I,” Yarrow laughs, with the same boastful challenge as if he’d claimed he would be the faster one himself, for he deems this delivery to be funny. “On three? One, twa, three - ”

It is fun and silly to run pell-mell out of the rain and toward the sunny patch, and it is a great strange relief to be running after all that emotion - Yarrow rushes merrily through the underbrush and half-crashes into a sunlit tree with burs stuck to his leggings, spins himself around the trunk with one hand so he can come around and face Sam as if they’ve won some tiny victory by getting here.

It takes Sam a moment to fold the blanket in on itself so the wet (well, wetter, at least) side is facing inwards, and then he throws himself after Yarrow.

It feels good to be moving and it feels good to stretch his legs properly after -- after all of that. Even the wet leaves he’s running through feel good after all of this.

“Oh yeah?” says Yarrow. “Fukken prove it, pillow boy,” and he kisses Sam quick but hard before aggressively cuddling him into the bed to be a better pillow or something

“You’re letting me sleep over, aren’t you?” Sam says, even if that’s partially for of other, less pleasant reasons. “And you’ve really been awfully nice to me since I got here. And -- here, c’mere -- ”

Yarrow, too, has to roll his shoulders and stretch a little, but just moving at all seems to make him feel better in a way he’s not consciously aware of. “Yeh,” he grins at Sam, and ends up rising to help hold the blanket up with his own back as they get it unrigged.

At last they (mostly Sam, having been in charge of that the whole while) are left holding the blanket above them with their hands. “Awright, one of us can carry it and t'other'n can run fast - we can both run fast, but still, one of us carries ‘e blanket - ”

“I’ll take the blanket,” Sam says, glancing around to make sure there’s nothing that’s been left behind by mistake. “...Wait, here -- ”