The Bolt from the Blue (Working Title)

Chapter 2- Sam

Sam was just thinking about going home when the stranger approached him; the party was far from over, there were still enough people in the room whom he knew well enough to talk to and, best of all, he didn't have to get up early tomorrow. But he just wasn't into it. Some part of him wasn't in the mood- was refusing to get drunk or even sway idly to the music. For some reason, he felt crushingly self-conscious, aware of his every minute action and uncertain of how it would make him look to the others in the room, desperate to appear nonchalant while micro-beads of sweat were forming on his forehead and his eyes were itching to swivel around the room and make sure no one was looking at him.

Had he looked around the room, he would have seen John, now bedecked in civilian garb of a ratty old brown t-shirt and some faded black jeans. He would probably have noticed John, because he was staring at Sam fixedly. They were in almost polar opposite positions: John knew almost no one at the party, save the friend who had invited him and now disappeared into the throng, and had to be up excruciatingly early in the morning.

But he couldn't even think about leaving the party.

First off, he lived alone, an arrangement that had suited him fine until Benji's death. But he now found himself sleeping on Daria's sofa five times a week. She was out of town this evening and so he had begged his old schoolmate Claire, currently doing her PhD, to be allowed to stay with her. She had invited him to the party- a friend of a friend's, she said- and he was so enjoying being surrounded by people he didn't know, who didn't know about Veronica and had never met Benji, that to leave would be stupid. And then he had spotted the man sitting by the window- slender, one leg placed up on the large sill, the knee tucked against his chest- and to leave suddenly seemed inconceivable.

He stared at this figure for at least a full minute before he saw that he was readying to move- to perhaps disappear forever from view- and John realised that he had to make his move now.

He did not usually approach people- all of his boyfriends and lovers up until now had made the first move, even if he had been interested in them for some time- but then John had seen the dead body of someone fourteen months and six days younger than him and he'd realised that this attitude was stupid. John managed to reach the man before he'd even stood; it was then that he remembered that words would be necessary.

"Hello," this was automatic; John still didn't know what he was going to say during the conversation proper.

"Hi," the man replied and John could tell from his expression that he didn't really like talking to strangers.

"I'm John," still on automatic, he shook the man's hand vigorously.

"Sam."

"I don't really know anyone here." This was the first thing that it occurred to John to say- to firmly establish his relationship to everyone else at the party, and maybe slightly explain why he had approached Sam in the first place.

"Ok," Sam glanced around the room- there were at least four people in his direct line of vision whom he considered friends, "Me neither."

"So, what do you do?"

"Politics. But I'm thinking of changing." Sam had had this conversation a million times in the last few months, but this time it didn't seem so repetitive.

"What?"

"I'm a first year." This seemed self-explanatory to Sam; it took John a second to realise he was talking about university.

"Jesus, you're eighteen?"

"Nineteen. Why, how old are you?"

Very, very briefly, John considered lying, but then that seemed creepy. "I'm twenty five."

"You're a mature student?"

"Nope."

"Doing a PhD?"

"No."

"So, what do you do?"

He took a deep breath. "I'm with the police. But I'm coming up to the end of my service."  This was always a controversial thing to tell people, and the last part wasn't even technically true yet.

"So you're a superhero?" Sam's face lit up in a smile.

"Kind of, I guess." John found he was smiling, too.

"That's really cool."

"Thank you." Then John remembered, "Were you leaving?"

Sam paused for just a second, "No."