taking michael misa competence kink too seriously.....
thinking about how sam seems like the kinda guy to attract super hot, super cool, high maintenance girls who look at him like a little court jester. his past girlfriend wanted him to watch her try on 15 different dresses at reformation and pay for her nails, and pick out what color she'd get. and sam is happy to do all of this because despite the rumors, he's a committed guy. a good partner. and he loves a little task, a little responsibility so he doesn't spend all of his rest days playing cod and jerking off.
he starts hanging around misa more and thinks he's different. he's not asking for anything, not making a big deal, but that ends up being exactly the problem. mike will just sit there quietly getting worse. hungry, tired, too hot, too many people talking, shoelace untied, headache starting behind one eye, whatever. he won’t say shit until he’s at the point of being snippy and short and totally retreating into himself, and what's sam to do about this but start paying attention?
he can't just stand there watching mike sway a little on his feet, pale around the mouth, stomach audibly grumbling. he goes, “jesus christ, did you not eat today or are you being haunted?” then he’s guiding mike by the elbow toward the car before he even answers, hitting the drive thru without asking if mike wants anything because of course he wants something, he’s just being weird about having regular needs. he shoves a water bottle into mike's chest because it’s hot out and mike is still wearing a hoodie like he WANTS to get heat exhaustion, so sam gets right in his space to unzip it himself.
for what it's worth, mike doesn't seem to mind. he acts annoyed, obviously. he'll make a face, but he drinks the water. he lets sam unzip his hoodie and tug it off his shoulders. he eats what sam ordered without complaining because sam knows his chipper order. he whines when sam interrupts his scrolling to go "kay, enough screen time, let's go for a walk" but still, he goes. if he told sam to fuck off for real, none of this would be happening. keep happening.
toff notices and kinda acts like his job is being co-opted, like sam is getting in the way or something, but sam's just like, this is what you do when your best friend has the self-preservation skills of a bug flying into one of those zappy lamp things.
it takes 30 days to form a habit and that's about how long it takes for mike to start expecting sam to just know what he needs and do it. not consciously. if you asked him, which reavo had, if something was going on, he'd just go "no, dickie's just annoying." but he starts pausing beside sam when they leave practice, waiting for sam to check if he has his phone, wallet, keys, airpods. he starts handing sam granola bar wrappers and half-empty drinks without thinking. he starts drifting closer when rooms get loud, letting sam put himself between mike and whoever is talking too loud. he’ll stand there with his arms out while sam pulls his jersey over his head and goes "damn, hope your arms aren't broken" and then fully winks.
and sam, who already loves a task, is immediately like oh no. oh this is the best task in the world. he gets so embarrassingly into it. he starts having opinions about mike like it’s his job. he's tired. he's too quiet. too warm. needs food. needs to sit. needs to get out of here before he starts biting people. mike will be like “i’m fine” and sam’s like “you’ve been cranky for twenty minutes."
it turns into this private language where sam just knows best, and he tells mike to do something, and he just does it. for the best really.
arms up.
come here.
sit.
look at me.
and mike is still bitching, still rolling his eyes, still calling sam annoying, but his body is already halfway through listening before his mouth has finished objecting. which is fine. usefully really. definitely not something sam is thinking about later when he’s alone remembering the way mike went limp when sam put two fingers under his chin and told him to drink the damn gatorade.
the worst part is mike isn’t even coy about it. he’s not trying to be hot. he’s just standing there, sixish feet of deeply repressed hockey player, letting sam manhandle him into basic wellness like he doesn’t understand that this is doing irreversible damage to sam’s brain chemistry.
like sam will be rubbing out mike’s shoulder after a game, talking absolute nonsense because silence makes him feel like he’s gonna do something horribly regrettable, and mike is all loose and heavy under his hands, half-listening, making these tiny annoyed sounds whenever sam hits a sore spot. and sam is like yeah, this is very normal, bro stuff, nothing to see here. meanwhile mike’s head drops forward and sam can see the back of his neck and soft tufts of hair there and suddenly sam is having to remember all that stuff he heard during "the talk" about respect and responsibility. it's hard to be respectful and responsible when mike's grinding into his lap, but prolly not even grinding, just trying to squirm away because sam's trying to get a gnarly knot out.
then sam says, “quit moving,” and mike does. he still huffs and makes that annoyed little sound again and it's unfortunately kinda cute, and his body goes loose again. head tipped forward. shoulders heavy. hands useless in his lap. and sam has this insane second of like, oh, okay, so that works. he can just say something and mike might? listen. it seems like too much power to have over some guy, some 2nd round pick nhler who's not even close to his ceiling. and that should not do anything for sam but
obviously it does. because mike is still sitting there, warm and pliant and bitchy, letting sam work his thumbs down from his shoulders to his hips like sam has any business knowing this much about how his body works. letting sam find the sore spots. letting sam tell him when to sit still, when to drink, when to move, when to stop pretending he’s fine. and the whole time mike is acting like this is just sam being annoying, overbearing, which is almost worse because it means he isn’t even trying to be hot. he’s just like this
because it’s not just that mike needs things. lots of people need things. sam has dated girls who needed things and he was good at that, actually. elite, even. he can carry bags. he can wait outside dressing rooms. he can say “the blue one” with enough confidence that it sounds like a real opinion.
but mike doesn’t point. mike doesn’t ask. mike just gets quiet or pissy and sam has to figure it out himself. and you know sam gets off on being right. so maybe sam thinks he wants a high-maintenance girl until he gets one low-maintenance boy who won’t admit he needs anything, and then he develops a full-time unpaid position as michael misa’s emotional support nuisance.
and maybe mike thinks he’s just letting sam be annoying because it’s easier than fighting him.
but sam knows better. or he’s starting to.
because mike can say dickie, stop managing me all he wants, but then he’ll hand sam his battery dead phone, or stand there with his collar crooked waiting for sam to fix it, or drift into sam’s side in a crowded bar there's no way he can leave until sam tells him it's time to go.
OH and you know it all goes downhill when sam hurts his wrist and is on IR for a few weeks. his first practice back, wrist still taped up and useless, the first thing he sees is mike standing in front of his cubby all panting and sweaty and exhausted, hair stuck to his forehead, looking pissed off in that very specific way where he’s OBVIOUSLY dehydrated, and cherny, who sam likes, okay, cherny’s a chill guy, cherny has done nothing wrong except be born stupid in this exact moment, hands mike a yellow gatorade. yellow. and mike takes it because mike will take whatever someone gives him if it means he doesn’t have to ask for the right thing, and sam feels this horrible inescapable rage climb up his throat because mike only likes the fucking red ones, dumbass, but it’s not even about the gatorade, which is the problem. it’s about sam being gone for three weeks and everyone apparently deciding his job was up for grabs, except nobody knows how to do it right. nobody knows mike won’t say he wants red but will drink the whole thing if you give it to him. nobody knows he gets cranky before he gets tired, or that he needs to sit before he admits his legs are cooked. and sam is standing there with one bad wrist and the sudden, humiliating realization that maybe this was never just mike needing him. maybe sam needs it too. needs to be the guy who mike drifts toward without thinking because his body already knows where to go. so he walks over, takes the yellow gatorade out of mike’s hand, says, “wrong one,” like he’s not insane, like this is a normal thing to be territorial about, and mike looks at him for half a second, all flushed and breathing hard and already holding his hand out for the red one, and sam is like. yeah. okay. so this is less acts of service and more whatever disease you get when one guy needs to be handled and the other guy needs to be the only one allowed to do it