All I Need For Yule Is You

Chapter 4

Sam turned up next day to his shift, a bit bloated from a lot of spicy chicken curry and a lot surprised to see the small crowd in front of his shop.

"What's going on?" He asked Hadrien at the back of the shop.

"Customers!" The kid whispered happily.

Oh?

"They've been coming in ever since morning!"

"That's great, Hads." Sam absently patted him on the shoulder. Sure enough, a few people were asking about more charms, a few were already carrying vials of perfumes and a fewer were watching Mark and his crystal ball - but still. That was a lot of people. At least half a dozen.

"Coming through, we need more whistling sea shells," Gabi sang and heaved the box behind Sam up to the front. Sam let the unexpected hope swell inside of him for a moment and busied himself helping his cousins.

And it was busy. Almost like the past years. He was so busy carrying crates and counting change and smiling back that he almost stepped on Oliver, who was inexplicably sprawled at the back of the shop, by the box of wiggling worms-on-strings.

Sam blinked. He blinked again- there was no time to do hourly check-ups on the effects of the love potion today- maybe it just took time for the effects to fully show up and maybe it induced hallucinations.

But no. There was Oliver, next to Hadrien, painting something with bare hands. He had a streak of blue across his cheek, green on his fingers, and it seemed like he was the reason Hadrien was now giggling away.

Oliver was laughing too, and damn if Sam had heard any laughter sweeter, at least considering recent times. He scowled, and Oliver's eyes met his, and the other boy quickly straightened. "Hey, Samar." The boy greeted, smiling up at him.

The effect of the smile combined with how… correctly his name had been pronounced- was drastic. Sa-mr. Not Summer. Not even making the 'a' bit too short.

Oliver didn't wait for Sam to say hi. "I was just helping Hadrien make another sign for the front of the shop. I'm on a break," He explained.

"He's really good at hand painting," Hadrien added.

"Oh. Well." Sam forced himself to smile. "That's great. Carry on."

Except Oliver went and took that as his blessing to be around for most of the day.

Which, great. Really. It was a really busy day, and they did need the help. Oliver was carrying around crates and smiling at people and making Ana laugh her boisterous laugh. And the effects of the potion was really kicking in.

"Update." Sam said as he finally found Gabi out. "It's working."

Gabi's smile turned sly. "Oooo someone has a crush… "

"Which is nothing to celebrate because I don't want to be having a crush!"

"It's getting hard to resist?" Gabi crooned in faux sympathy. "Poor baby," She proceeded to ruffle his hair which he'd spent a good twenty minutes arranging in the morning. For no particular reason.

Sam shoved her off lightly. "He's just so-" He waved his hands around, not that that was any more coherent. The crowd of customers had lessened to one for now, and Oliver was intently watching Mark and his tricks. "He's so good."

"Yes," Gabi agreed. "Although your tone isn't matching your words. Why are you annoyed about the fact that there's a cute boy from the shop next door helping your family out?"

"I don't know!" Sam whined. Perhaps it was the fact that whenever he spied Oliver his heart rate spiked and his face felt warm. Perhaps it was the fact that he was getting used to both those effects. And Oliver himself. Which was bad, because there was no guarantee about anything regarding Oliver at all.

And then the love potion would wear out and all this would abruptly end, just how abruptly it had begun.

"I'm going to go talk to him." Sam decided.

"Oh? Regarding what?"

"Things." Sam said, his fingers curling into fists.

"I have a feeling you won't be professing love- Sam, wait!" But Sam was already walking away towards Mark and Oliver. He wasn't sure what he'd say- but he would figure it out while he was talking.

"Hey," Sam started, trying to be friendly, and not stiff as he was feeling. "Mark, Ana called you to help with something." 

"Oh, alright, " Mark stuffed his stuffed animals away and bounded off.

"He's really good at it," Oliver smiled after him.

"We need to talk." Sam blurted out. "If it's not a problem."

"Well, I'm here, so shoot." Oliver nodded encouragingly. Today he had on a woolier sweater with knitted holly leaves. He still had a bit of paint on his cheek from earlier, and his form was oddly luminous in the dimming evening light outside.

"Is this about our talk last evening?" Sam lowered his voice.

Oliver's easy smile faltered a bit, and Sam was beginning to hate himself. But this had to be done. "When I said our shop wasn't doing as good because of well, the coffeeshop?"

"I mean, yeah, it was true in a way, so I'm-"

"Well I was wrong. It was wrong of me to say that. It isn't true- we both did our best and after all it's business so you don't have to be doing… all this." Sam summed up hastily, one word just tumbling out after the other.

"I'm not doing it because-" Oliver was frowning, as if Sam had gotten it all wrong. "It's not a competition."

But it was. It was business.

"You don't owe me anything. I was being rude last evening, and I was having a bad day, and -"

"I'm not doing this because I think I owe you something. No one said anything about owing anyone anything," Oliver was shaking his head, and he looked disappointed, and that made Sam madder. At himself, perhaps, he wasn't really taking notice.

"We don't need your sympathy, Oliver. We're doing fine. So don't feel the need to be doing this and -and helping out in lieu of helping small businesses grow. Or something." Sam said, fighting to keep it polite and his voice levelled. "And definitely don't be buying things you don't need, be it perfumes or info about your future, for the sake of charity."

Oliver shook his head. "I'm not."

"Good." Sam had successfully lost a customer. But he said what he meant.

"I mean I'm not doing it for- Samar-"

"It's Sam. And I have a customer to deal with-" Sure enough a middle-aged man was walking steadily over to them. "-so if you will please excuse me."