driftfleet | entry 001

Who: Sam and [OPEN] to all!
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: December 2nd

[When Sam wakes up, he expects to be laying in his bedroom in the bunker, tired from a particularly long case (clown, there was a clown, he's getting too old for this shit—) but nope. He opens his eyes to stare at a completely foreign ceiling, in a completely foreign bunk. He's of course in his nighttime clothes, to boot. No weapons, no phone, no nothing. Okay. He considers all kinds of possibilities, first. Djinn? Some sort of curse? Witchcraft? Maybe even some sort of dream-root-related snafu, or angels being dicks (somehow). There's also that little elephant in the room, in the back of his head: dude, you know exactly how this kind of thing plays out.

He rises up, easy to spot among a milling, small group with his six feet and four inches of [giraffe-necked] height. When he finally sees the high-tech machinery, the casual and potentially oh-so-different newbies wandering, the absurd amount of space out there — he says but one thing in front of the people around him, first and foremost, to break the ice:]

Well. Shit.

[Well shit indeed. He doesn't panic, but he does suddenly crave another vacation, somewhere without rips in space and time (if that's even the case here; maybe he's a captive to some higher power, because that wouldn't surprise him at all). When he's got the broadcasting thing down — thanks Adstringendum for the life lessons on what to do first — he begrudgingly addresses yet another audience, slipping on that polite and professional (and, okay, exasperated) aura that he's good at.]

So, show of hands. How many of you out there have fallen into other universes before? Because this sort of thing's getting kind of old.

... Did anyone from Adstringendum show up? Guys? Don't tell me the PCD's teleporting feature is going on the fritz or something. I know it was kind of too good to be true, but it was going well for a few months there. [Silly Sam, nothing stays good forever. But he hopes, y'know?] Let me know if I'm riding solo here, fellas.

And, uh. This isn't exactly my first rodeo, sure, but it's the first time I've ever... um... been in space. So I gotta ask, for my sanity: where exactly do us new spacemen go from here? Other than shooting jokes about Roswell, New Mexico.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nah, I don't think it's cheating breakfast for dinner is a great example. When I was younger, I used to do that a lot. [Especially if that was what they had to work with. Kids... they'll eat dinner for breakfast, breakfast for dinner, and desert for lunch. Dad being out so often left little room for a balanced diet.] I guess I still do it sometimes.

[His turn, though. He supposes he answered half.]

My dad used to take me camping, too, actually. I kind of hated it, but I guess it was mostly because of all the training.

Why Seattle?

It's what I was eating when my father tried to kill me.

[. . . yeah, her expression hasn't really changed. Nor has her tone: wholly conversational still, although she does cock her head at his example. He kind of hated it . . .]

We used to do training, too. Kind of. He taught me to hunt. Not your kind of hunting - deer, rabbits, birds sometimes. Mostly deer, though.

My friend - my best friend. His name was Ben. He used to live there for a while, and there were some places there that were important to him. Like the Space Needle. I want to see the things that he saw.

[His expression sombers, slight surprise smoothing out. He's so used to horrible shit in people's lives -- it's considerably sad, the more he thinks about it, how easy it is to take that information in. He can't say he knows how it feels, but he does know how it feels that one's father could consider it; his dad had spent who knows how long with that thought, that maybe he'd have to kill Sam. It's not something Sam likes to revisit.]

I'm sorry to hear that.

[He's always sincere, with his apologies.

He's gonna also assume that talking in detail about Ben may end up sad.]

... I've been to Seattle myself. Didn't get a lot of sight-seeing done, though. Maybe I should be nudging my brother on taking more vacation time. I guess it's been so long since we've had a normal vacation, we get antsy when we even try.

[Interesting. His empathy, his sincerity, is obviously real, or else he's a better liar even than Hannibal was. She's surprised she waited this long to test him, but the reason why is obvious now, in the way that he doesn't say any of the things she hates: I'm so sorry that happened to you, that must have been awful, is there anything I can do? There's no pity. No arrogant thought that he can change it or make it better. He can't, of course. Nobody can.]

[You can't change the past - only the future.]

[So she gives him a nod, slight but appreciative, and resolves not to do that again. He's earned her respect by showing her the same. Besides, they're talking about Ben now, at least tangentially, and he really is a happy subject. Probably her favorite. Her warden, her Ben, her best friend Ben.]

I don't think I'd know what to do on vacation at this point, either, honestly, but - I think that's one of the things about these places that can be kind of hard, is that you meet all of these people that you don't have a frame of reference for how they grew up, what they did or experienced because it's so far outside your own experience. Ben and me, we were pretty similar in some ways, but his whole world was crazy, so I thought - if I can touch something he's touched, at least sort of, it might help me know more about him.

[She gives a crooked smile, fond. Mostly for Ben, but partly for Sam, too. Another thing he's earned.]

But, yeah. I think I'd go crazy trying to go on a tour or whatever. Being that normal is kind of foreign at this point.

[He offers a smile in return, shaking his head.]

Foreign's one word for it.

I'm more used to never staying still, though.

Yeah. Traveling all the time. That's a hunting thing, isn't it?

That sounds like it'd drive me crazy, too. The kind of hunting I used to do was just . . . a few hours away, tops.

I guess it could drive you a little nuts, sometimes.

[LMAO UNDERSTATEMENT MY LIFE IS A SHITSHOW]

Sometimes it's nice to vanish from a place, always have something you're heading toward. Other times... it's nice to just stop, stand still for a little while. I used to live in motels mostly — now we don't, and it's made things a little more bearable.

To have somewhere to head back to, anyway. Proper workplace.

[YOUR LIFE IS A MESS SAMMY THAT IS SUCH AN UNDERSTATEMENT]

That's what I like about here. Back home - well, a lot happened, tons of things, but one of them is I lost my family and I lost my home. And I didn't really feel safe anywhere? So I couldn't figure out where to settle. I was traveling for a while . . .

I don't like being forced to stay in one place, but I do like feeling as though there's a place to come back to. If that makes sense.

[He nods. He gets it — he's lost his whole family at one point, too. More than one point. Weirdly. And feeling safe nowhere is a Winchester staple. So he understands.]

What does that make this place then, for you?

[She takes a few moments to think about it. This place, for her . . . She's homeless, isn't she?]

. . . Someplace I can take a little while to figure out who I'm going to be from now on. That's what this place is for me, I'm pretty sure.

[He gives a slight grin, lightening the mood a bit.]

So kind of rehab.

...

Or those awkward phases in high school.

entry 001 | arrival

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