driftfleet | Happy Twenty...Somethingish...

[...that eventually turn darker when she gets cold in the middle of the night and burrows a little closer to the other source of warmth in the bed. Hunger that feels carved into shaking hands and aching muscles, and hurt and betrayal a mile deep. She dreams of Sam in a luxurious room, and a woman with dark hair and eyes, and in some distance part of herself Nami wants to backpedal right out of the room when he throws the woman down on the bed, because it's obvious where this is going, right?

Then he pulls the knife, and suddenly it's horrifyingly apparent what all that painful hunger is for.

---

She wakes up soon after with a strangled sound and rolls straight off the bed.]

[Sam's reaction to his own memories isn't so abrupt and vocal — it's more of a festering sad dream, the kind that leaves you restless when you wake up. He'd known a little about Nami; he knew her childhood was rough, knew that Arlong played a heavy hand in that and had taken her mother ruthlessly from her, but it's one thing to hear about it and another to feel it.

He wakes up not from the terrible sensation of loss, of hunger and weariness, but from Nami's dramatic flailing. Jackknifing up to sit, he looks over with a wild head of hair and trips over himself in the tangle of sheets in his attempt to peer down at her from the bed.]

Whoa!! Are you alright?

[Freaky memory-dream later, concern right now.]

No. [She almost flinches at the sound of Sam's voice, which is stupid, but she's still waking up, sorting out threads of that dream from reality. Takes her a moment to realise she's on the floor, but...ugh. She can still taste blood and it's vile. Her stomach is roiling. What a horrible dream.]

Bad dreams. That's all.

[Like you'd ever drink blood, seriously.

Right?]

..... Um. Bad dreams about... uh, your childhood?

[He's just. Wondering. Because memories have been passed around, but...

He's kind of hoping you didn't get anything from him. :|]

[Nami gives him a sharp look from the ground, because that was an awfully specific question. But it doesn't take more than a moment for her to remember the planet they're visiting when he asks, and her look morphs into one of confusion.]

...no. No, I uh.

...dreamt about you, actually.

[That couldn't possibly have been real. She sits up, wincing as low level nausea settles in, but this time at least it just feels like a hangover. Haven't had one of those in a long time.] I think it was just a dream, though. Weird one.

... Oh.

[Maybe a little concern colors his face, alright?

Because... Well, maybe if he focuses on her side, this'll be infinitely easier.]

I um. I dreamed about — after Arlong. You mapping things.

[You can fill in the blanks on that, right?]

[Just a bit. Nice distraction, Sam-- there's a moment where she looks at him blankly before she breaks into a rueful smile, eyes sliding away to look at the blankets.]

That must've been dull. Unless you have more of an interest in mapmaking than I realised.

[She's not stupid enough to think that's all he saw, but she can hope, right? It's not exactly a secret, but it's also not stuff she cares to inflict on other people.]

[His smile is a bit strained, and most certainly sad.]

... No, it was...

[Terrible. Sad. Awful.]

I'm sorry you had to go through that kind of thing.

[He's been hungry before, but despite all of his father and brother's exotic and often self-destructive ways of living, it really hasn't been common that he's gone too long without a meal. Likewise, he didn't have to worry about being unloved where he was essentially boxed in. He was, and he had his brother and father, or at least one of them mostly. Even if things were rough, he at least had that.

Sometimes he can't help but wonder if he should have appreciated it all more, seeing how other people have had to cope in their adolescence.]

Edited 2016-11-05 10:46 (UTC)

Don't be.

[Softly. She pulls her fingers through her hair to smooth out the tangles, wondering how to put this. What she's been through is child's play compared to so many other people. It hurt like hell, but it's also over.

..hmm.]

Arlong is a monster, and I hate that he ever came to my village. But he's also imprisoned now, and he's never getting out... and if he hadn't been a part of my life, I'd never have met Luffy. [It's one amazing thing that came out of years of grief, and so she'll look on the bright side.]

I've moved on. And I'm happy, so. My crew makes me happy. [She meets his gaze with a lopsided smile.] So it's okay.

[He smiles a little, proud to hear it from her. She's always been strong — stronger than him in a lot of ways, really. Curling his arms around his knees and leaning back against the bed-frame, he can't help but feel a little warmer.]

You make your crew happy.

[A bit of a grin.]

... And alive at least half the time, honestly.

Damn straight. [Yeah, let's not dwell on Arlong. She still dreams about him sometimes, you know? Sometimes they're nightmares and sometimes she's murdering him. Half and half.]

My life's an open book, anyway. If you're ever curious about anything, all you need to do is ask.

[Which is a genuine offer!

...she's not thinking about what she dreamt at all. Because what the fuck. But let's see what the response is there.]

[His eyebrows raise slowly, and he swallows a lump.

It feels... wrong, to say otherwise for himself.

She's offering that kind of incredible thing, to be so open with him — which is really a sign of trust, right? — that he feels like... he really has no option but to be the same. Because what kind of asshole is he, to accept that but deny her his own story? Especially when she knows so much of his painful history?]

... The same with me. I mean... You know a lot of terrible crap.

So, um. Same.

[And there's the invitation. Nami bites her lip, fingers plucking a little at his blanket.]

I know a lot, but not all of it. But I don't think it'll change things, no matter what you tell me. [Let's be real, she's already heard worse stuff than what he could possibly tell her now. She hesitates.]

I dreamt you were drinking blood.

[And just like that, he pales.

And glances away, shame flooding his features, hand rubbing down his chin.]

... I, uh... I see.

[Yeah, Sam, very informative. Good job.

It's clear that it's nothing good. Not that... the memory would have suggested otherwise.]

... I was.... um. I was. A long time ago.

[Oh, Sam. The confirmation makes her stomach turn, but she feels guilt for provoking that kind of reaction from him. But still. She has to know.]

...

Tell me about it?

[It's a small voice asking a not so small question.]

[Sam... adjusts to sit a bit more comfortably, blowing out a puff of air.

He hasn't really told anyone about this in detail. Not really.]

Um. When I was a baby, uh. I was infected with something supernatural, and it gave me powers, when I was older, you know? And — um... After... Dean had died back then, I was... really, really lost. I was — a lot of things. I mean, he was my brother, and he died to keep me safe, and he was dragged off to Hell. Because he wanted to keep me alive. I was in a bad place. I mean, I couldn't... kill myself, because then it'd ruin everything Dean did for me. It'd have made it all in vain.

[He glances at her, worried about her reaction. And he feels particularly small, but he does trust her with this. She knows so much already; what's it matter, if she knew this, too?]

So instead I drank a lot and threw myself at a lot of dangerous stuff. It was bad. I wanted to take out the demon who'd taken Dean from me. Lilith, her name was. Strongest demon we knew.

But this other demon, Ruby, she helped my brother and I a lot, before he died. She even risked her life for us, offered it up when things were bad. She made it out, and she found me. And she stopped me from getting myself killed, and offered me a way to take out Lilith. I was already immune to Lilith's powers thanks to the weird... supernatural part of me, so she couldn't outright kill me, not like the others.

... And Ruby offered a way to make my powers stronger, so that I could stop her.

[You totally know where that's going, right.]

Edited 2016-11-25 23:03 (UTC)

[Ruby. That'd be the dark-haired woman she saw then, right? But he drank from her, and Nami's brow furrows with more concern the more she thinks about that. It's not hard to see the craving he had for that blood-- she felt it for herself.]

Demon blood. Right? [That's. Horrifying, as a concept.] You were, uh...

[She breaks off, colouring slightly. She could have stood to have seen something a little less sexually charged.]

[He nods.]

The demon blood, it let me pull demons out of bodies. The stronger I got, the easier it was for me to do — the more vessels I saved in the process. It felt... good. [He ducks his chin, blushing a bit as he goes on.] I knew it wasn't... something hunters would really approve of, but I figured... since I was already cursed with demon blood in my veins already, I might as well help people and work on killing Lilith.

Ruby and I, we were a really good team.

Eventually...

[He waves a hand, unsure how to say it.]

I guess we were, um. Together.

[C-cough.

A moment of quiet. Still hurts to think about... how it all ended up.]

She was there for me when nobody else was. And we — y'know. And I liked her. A lot. I loved her, I think. [He's definitely not going to look at Nami while he admits it, that's for sure.] Yeah, I loved her.

And then Dean came back, and... er, well, you know Dean.

[Damning himself to save others. Sounds about right. The idea of it is enough to turn her stomach. Not the idea of sleeping with a demon-- she has no real context for what a demon really is, other than an enemy in general, and she's more than familiar with the many ways sleeping with the enemy can be beneficial, even if she's never done it literally. And Sam's sex life is not something she cares to pry about.

Drinking that stuff. To be strong. Blood. It puts her in mind of Hody Jones, to be honest, downing that shit to be stronger than he should be...

Sam's an addict. On a far worse scale than Sanji with his cigarettes, or--]

What was the down side? [Abruptly. She remembers what happened to Hody in the end. It wasn't pretty.] You can't drink stuff like that without repercussions, can you?

[He bites his lip.]

Down side? After a while, I had to have it routinely, or I'd start having withdrawals... I only drank from Ruby — to try to keep the other vessels safer, y'know? And I did stop using the powers after Dean found out. For a while, I did. But then I needed to use them or I'd get my ass killed, and... It just sort of all started back up again, and...

[He's trying to defend himself to Nami, because it's what usually happened, and he doesn't — he knows Nami's different than Dean in plenty of ways (look at her crew, after all, she's used to the unusual power thing), but he already feels the scrutinizing and the blame and the judgment, even if she isn't looking at him like that. The memory of the blood makes him itch. It's not like he wouldn't deserve more scolding, really.]

Dean and my - well, my dad away from home, Bobby... They gave me an intervention. It was... one of the worst things I'd ever experienced. So... I broke out and ran long and hard. And Ruby helped me. [He purses his lips, quiet for a moment.] And of course, it was a trick. We were told that killing Lilith would prevent the apocalypse. Turns out... killing her would begin it. Ruby knew. She'd been wanting that all along.

[He shakes his head, scoffing at himself.

It still sucks to think about, obviously.]

Been mostly clean since then.

Edited (5000 edits later) 2016-11-30 01:07 (UTC)

'Mostly...'

[She quirks a tired smile.]

Sounds shitty, Sam. I meant what I said, though. [It's fucking horrifying to be perfectly honest, but that's Nami's squeamishness. She makes a face.]

Your life still continues to suck, I see.

... Yeah. Some hunters wanted me to keep using, and then — a curse made it hard to resist, and things like that. In order to lock up Lucifer, I had to go back to... Yeah.

[Ha.]

I brought some of that on myself.

[He holds up a hand, as a just-in-case for any objection there may be.]

But. Not all of it. And I've — tried to change. For the better. So... I mean... As long as I try my best moving forward, I'll never be that person again. That's what matters. Right?

[A curse made it hard to resist. Which pings a distant memory for her, and Nami has a horrid notion-- she glances up at Sam.]

Adstring. When half the town was running around crazy and Sanji-kun got super-addicted to-- [Well, never mind what he was addicted to.] He wasn't the only one. You were really sick, after.

[Wha —

... Oh, shit, she's right. He hadn't even included Adstringendum in his thought process. He looks sheepishly at her and shrugs.]

... That was one of them, yeah. Wasn't the worst detox of my life, but.

I didn't... tell anyone because, y'know. I was ashamed of it.

[He still is. He's pretty sure that's normal, for addicts. Right?]

No, I don't blame you. It's okay, I was just-- surprised.

[Which makes her wonder who he drank from, and then her mind tries to go down a rabbit hole of was it willing and shit was it just Crowley and she shakes her head and decides not to think about it at all. It's just. Rude. This is one of those things she doesn't need to know the details. Just the bare outline is enough.

What's concerning is if he can be triggered by the Animus being assholes, he can sure as hell be triggered by the Atroma. She frowns, but she doesn't mention it. Just files it away.]

This is definitely... something I never expected to hear. And I won't deny the concept of it makes me twitch a bit. [She smiles just faintly.] Your world is dark in far too many ways.

...you can trust me with this, though.

Happy Twenty...Somethingish...

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