sam and steve holding hands: the saga
it starts off as a joke more than anything. sam and steve like to poke each other to tease and bug the other. sam pokes steve’s arm and goes down, past his elbow, until steve finally laughs and grabs his hand to stop him. sam laughs too, and they share the moment really sweetly, letting their hands linger a little, calling it laziness but really feeling the comfort of the other’s touch.
then it becomes about stress. sometimes steve gets too worked up about a case, takes his anger out on his work (the papers and boxes of information they have to sort through are almost constant, so he’s got a good outlet.) on those stressful days, sam will pull up a chair across from him and rest a hand over steve’s. it’s nothing more than a reassuring touch, really, but it softens steve’s tense muscles and allows him to smile a little bit. days where sam has too much weight on his shoulders tends to bring the same outcome. steve likes to sit next to sam when that happens, though–offer the comfort of body heat and solidness when sam starts to fall apart a little bit. it’s appreciated every time.
it becomes a gesture of solidarity, after this. sometimes, they’ll be standing next to each other, and steve will gently reach over and grab sam’s hand. it’s reassuring, as always, and sam will sometimes give a little extra squeeze, conveying the support and comfort that can’t really be spoken with words right now. they’ll stand there and linger in the contact for a few moments.
one day, though, after feelings start to really surface, the handholding becomes more intimate, even without a romantic relationship. sam sometimes takes steve’s hand in both of his own when they have heart to hearts. steve starts to twine their fingers when they’re standing side-by-side before a battle. the de-stressing hand touching becomes caressing, gentle cradling. intimacy without, you know, intimacy. they fall into that pattern quicker than they fell into this whole thing at the start.
they crash into each other eventually (they always do, don’t they?), and the first night they sleep together, steve makes sure that sam’s hand is clutched firmly in his own. they make love and cling to each other, and their hands are pressed together, intertwined, touching and feeling and holding on, and it’s beautiful and warm and so, so familiar. sometimes, sam thinks that his home is just in the palm of steve’s hand.
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