Soup Spoon |Discontinued|

| Ch. 5: Honey |

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            "Alright, wait here for a moment while I go check something, okay?" Sampson holds up a hand towards Foster, who was currently cradling his hand and impatiently tapping his foot, the rhythm getting faster every minute. They weren't by the entrance gate to the property; instead, they had cut through a small trail in the woods and had come up to the fence behind the barn, partially concealed by trees and shrubbery. "I'm just going to see if my grandfather is still in the barn for if he's gone in for breakfast yet."
            "Why can't we just go through the front entrance?" Foster grumbles to himself, his usual terrible mood having come back with the walk. He was snatching leaves off of a low-hanging tree limb for the sake of tearing them off, taking fistfuls of them before throwing them to the ground. 
            "I'm... I got into a bit of trouble last night. I don't want to talk about it, just wait here please." Sampson snaps tiredly, turning on his heel and marching towards the fence. He immediately regrets being rude after hopping the fence, and with slouched shoulders he heads towards the old back door of the barn. He wasn't trying to be rude; he really was just tired and grumpy from hunger. As soon as he had Foster patched up, he'd send him on his way and go get whatever leftovers there were from breakfast.
            When he reached the door, Sampson tried the knob and to his  surprise, it was open. He'd have to remind his grandfather to lock it later in case of vandals, but for now he was glad the old man was forgetful. Peering into the dim light of the barn, Sampson caught no sight of his grandfather, letting loose a sigh of relief. 
            'Luck is just with this boy, isn't it?' Sampson thinks to himself before turning around and peeking his head out of the door. He waves Foster over, and soon enough the boy appears at the edge of the treeline, a few leaves stuck atop his knitted cap and a furrow in his brow.
            To Sampson's surprise, when Foster got to the chest-high white fence he hopped over it effortlessly with his good hand as support, landing on the ground with nothing but a small huff and a quiet thud. Sampson continued to stare unchecked for a moment, but when the brunette's sharp brown gaze made eye contact with him, he clears his throat and immediately looks away, gesturing for the taller boy to follow  him.  
            "We keep all of our preserves and jarred goods in the barn cellar, and we don't have to worry about anyone bothering us down there," Sampson explains to Foster as he crosses the open floor of the barn, patting one of the two family horses as he passes. He pretends not to see the small, warm smile Foster gives the two, concealing his own grin as Foster pats both of their noses on his way over. In the left back corner of the floor is a large wooden door with a metal handle bolted to the edge, and as Sam opens the large door with a strained grunt of effort, he gestures with his head for Foster to go in first, saying "After you, my good sir."
            Foster's eyes immediately lock onto the dark, dusty cellar stairs in apprehension and distaste, his good hand going to pick at the hair on the back of his neck nervously. When Sampson gives another small grunt of effort at having to hold the door open for so long though, the tall brunette breathes out a loud, dramatic sigh and begins heading down into the darkness, ducking his head so as to not bump it on the door above.
            Sampson soon follows, both hands above his head as he slowly lowers the large door above him. Grabbing a thin wooden block off of the first cellar step, Sampson props the door open just a crack before following down after Foster, using what dim light there was to not trip and fall down the stairs. 
           "When you get to the bottom stay close to the wall, I'm going to look around for a lan--" Sampson starts, but is interrupted by the sound of a match sparking to life. There's Foster, already all the way across the cellar, pulling a lantern off a high shelf that Sampson never would have been able to find. "... Never mind, I guess. Go ahead and set that there when you're done, while I look for the... honey... what's wrong with your eyes?"
           "Huh? What do you mean?" As Foster's eyes flash towards Sampson in the dim light of the match, the blonde gets a better look at the strange reflective shine in them. They were almost like a deer's, refracting the light of the match in front of him and turning it into a yellow-green glow in his irises. 
           "... Nothing, never mind. Take a seat on that table over there." Sampson gestures to an old table with only a crate or two stacked on top of it, before darting back behind a few shelves and out of Foster's glowing sight. Shaking his head to clear his confused thoughts, Sam begins his search for the line of honey jars.
            'This mahogany headed menace is going to be the death of me if I don't hurry up and get him this honey, out of this cellar, and off of my farm...'  Sampson thinks to himself, eyes landing on a deep golden colored substance in a dusty jar. It was on the top shelf, and Sampson grunted as he tried to reach for it. His fingertips had only just brushed the bottom of the cool glass when a larger hand appears above his own, grabbing the honey with ease and pulling it off the shelf. Sampson tilts his head backwards, startled to see Foster's own face inches away from his own. 
            "JeSUS CHR-- Don't DO that!" Sampson yelps, jumping a good couple feet away from the brunette in shock. "I almost had that, you know!"
            "Yeah, whatever," Foster snickers, turning on his heel to walk back down the aisle. "I'm not even that tall where I come from, y'know. So what does that make you?"
            "You shut your mouth." Sampson grumbles, following after him. Once they were by the table again, Sampson snatches the jar away from Foster's outstretched hand, mumbling a curt 'thanks'. All he got in response was another snort. Still, despite Sampson's attitude Foster seems to be much more relaxed and content than normal, despite his apprehension of coming down here in the first place.
            "Go ahead and sit down like I asked, please. I'm gonna find some bandages," Sampson nods towards the table, and Foster gives him a sarcastic two fingered salute before slinking over to do as he says. After a few minutes of digging around, he lets out a small 'aha!' before turning back towards the tall boy with a handful of linen bandages, decently clean for being down here for who knows how long. 
           "I still can't believe you said you were going to rub some dirt on this," Sampson shakes his head as he crosses the room and grabs Foster's hand. Foster narrows his eyes as Sampson touches him, but for the sake of getting his wound dressed he doesn't say anything. Sampson winces at the angry wound, before letting go of Foster's hand and opening the jar of honey.
          Using the wooden honey wand tied to the side of the jar with string, Sam gathers a decent amount of of the liquid gold on the end before gently grabbing Foster's hand once more. Letting the honey carefully drip onto the wound, Sampson winces when the brunette lets out a small hiss at the feeling, audibly gritting his teeth. 
          "I know, it's going to hurt for a second but it needs to be done. The honey disinfects the wound, promotes faster healing, and even helps with lessening scarring." Finishing up, he puts the wand back into the honey jar for a moment and begins wrapping the wound in bandages.
          "How do you know this stuff?" Foster mumbles, eyes focused on Sampson's nimble fingers, which were already almost done; it was a small wound and didn't take much wrapping. When he was satisfied, Sam looked around for a pair of shears and then cut the remaining length of linen, tucking the end of the bandage back into the intricate folds.
         "My father used to teach me all sorts of useful stuff like this," Sampson smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "It comes in handy every once in a while, I guess."
         Wrapping up the rest of the linen neatly, Sampson turns around for only a moment to stash the bandages and the shears back where he'd found them. That seemed to be long enough though, because when he turns back around his eyes widen at the sight before him. 
         Foster has the end of the honey wand halfway in his mouth, his expression one of absolute delight. When he catches Sampson looking at him in utter bewilderment, though, he freezes, eyes unblinking and still partially glowing in the dim lantern light. The two stay like that for what feels like minutes at a time, Foster's face growing more and more red with every passing second. Sampson's face feels warm as well; he feels as if he wasn't supposed to see this, wasn't supposed to turn around when he did, but now it's too late to turn back around and pretend he never saw it in the first place. 
         Sampson says nothing, still too surprised to react. Finally, the blonde takes a few slow steps forward, eyes locked on to Foster's. He reaches up, takes the end of the wand, and gently pops it out of the brunette's mouth. The tall boy is still frozen in embarrassment, eyes trailing after Sampson's hand as he puts the wand down on the table. With the way he's acting, like a man caught robbing a grave or something, Sampson is almost positive he had no control over his actions; he'd been raving on about wanting honey the entire walk there, hadn't he?
           Sampson's gaze softens as he notices a trail of honey making it's way down the side of Foster's mouth and chin, and with an exasperated sigh that's mostly for show he takes his thumb and wipes it away, Foster's eyes widening as he does.
           "Were you raised in a barn?" Sampson jokes, his thump staying on the boys chin for only a millisecond longer than it should have before he's pulling it away, getting ready to wipe it off on his trousers. "If you wanted some honey, you could have just asked for so-- hey!"
            Foster's good hand had shot forward so fast Sampson had barely even seen it move, grabbing his wrist in a firm, iron grip. Pinching his honey covered thumb between his fingers, Foster takes Sampson's thumb into his mouth with a primal look in his eyes - a dark, dangerous thing hiding behind a thinly concealed veil of self control - before suddenly biting down on it with too-sharp teeth, hard enough to pierce skin and draw blood.
            Sampson snatches his hand out of the boy's mouth and grip, yelping in pain. Shaking his hand to try and rid himself of some of the stinging, he looks towards Foster with wide eyes and is about to start yelling all kinds of expletives. Then he catches the look on his face; Foster was smiling, smiling wide, a grin stretching across his face from ear to ear like some kind of Cheshire Cat. It was the first time Sampson had seen an actual smile from the strange brunette, one that wasn't a smirk or a sneer of some kind.
            "That was payback for burning me," Foster snorts, before schooling his face once more into it's usual indifference and hopping off the table. "And for taking my leftovers."
           Then he sets off towards the cellar entrance as though nothing strange had just happened,  sticking his hands into the pockets of his thick green canvas coat. Sampson is left alone in the light of his dying lantern to process everything that just happened. After a moment of staring at his lightly bleeding thumb, he realizes he's being left behind and scrambles to put the honey up, bandage is own thumb with the a few linen scraps, and put out the lantern close enough to the dim light coming form the stairs to see where he's going after it's out. 
          His face burning furiously, he rushes up the stairs like the devil is on his heels to where Foster was waiting for him, holding the cellar door open aloft so he could get out. With a small nod of thanks, Sampson averts his gaze from the brunette and puts the wooden block back where he found it. Just as the two close the cellar door and turn to head towards the back exit, the sound of Sampson's grandfather's voice makes him freeze.
         "Sam, is that you in here?" His grandfather stands in the entrance of the barn, peering past farming equipment at the two of them. "Who's that with you there?"
          Sampson takes a moment to make his mouth work, but when he finally does his voice sounds a lot more calm and put-together than he feels.
          "It's me, granda'! This is just a friend of mine from school. I bumped into him on the trail and we took a shortcut through the woods back here!" Sampson throws a smile on his face haphazardly and gives Foster a pointed look that he hopes screams 'follow my lead', before starting to walk towards his grandfather. As they're rounding one of the large support beams out of the old man's sight, Sampson reaches up and tugs Foster's earring out of his ear with a decent amount of ease, lucky it was one of the dangling ones and not one with a back to it. At the brunette's bewildered look, Sam just puts a finger on his lips and shoves the earring into the boy's hand, who pockets it without a word.
            "He fell on the trail and scraped his hand real bad, so I was just patching him up in the barn. I hope it's okay." Sampson says as they get closer, Foster holding up his hand with a very obviously forced smile.
          "Well 'course it's okay," His grandfather gives them both a kind, wrinkly smile in return. "That was nice of you dear. Nice to meet you, young man. I didn't see you at breakfast Sam, d'you two want to do get some while it's still hot?"
          "No, it's okay. I have to be--" Foster tries, but Sampson's grandfather interrupts him, quite pointedly ignoring him with the biggest smile on his face. He kept looking back and forth between the two of them, and Sampson's cheeks reddened even worse at the thought of what he might be thinking.
          "No no, I insist now. You two go wash up, y'here? There's plenty left to spare." His grandfather nodded at them, giving Sampson a hearty pat on the shoulder before hobbling past them and deeper into the barn.
          "Y-Yes'sir, we will." Sampson squeaks out before making a beeline for the house, Foster trailing behind in confusion.  What had they gotten themselves into?

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