driftfleet | Action/Video.

Entry tags:

Action/Video.

Who: Sam Winchester and you
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: The Space Bar or SS Bloodsport
When: The 9th - sometime these next few days.
(Note: feel free to take your time tagging this if you have a calibration with him! Or we can wrap it up quick or plan out the ending, whatever you prefer! No rush.)

[ACTION.]

[So — Sam got updated. Thank fucking christ. Nami, you'd better be ready for him to excitedly knock on your door at some point. You can also find Sam at The Space Bar, where he's right back to bar-tending. Feel free to stop by if you need him. But as everyone settles back into normalcy aboard the fleet, Sam makes a new entry to the network. Gotta air out that dirty laundry business.

A few days after they've returned home:]

[VIDEO.]

So, um. That was something, huh...?

[He clears his throat, drums his fingers on top of an old red book.]

Let's just clear the room — I wanted to apologize for... anyone who had gone into my head, or whatever you want to call it. I know there's a lot in there that isn't exactly pleasant to deal with. But I'm cool with it. I mean, I remember it all, and I'm totally fine with everything. So if you're worried about the whole trespassing thing... I'll get over it.

I'm just... I'm sorry, because I know some of it was... Yeah.

[He's dealt with worse. Far worse.]

There are some things for me to be thankful for, right now, in better news; I got a quick trip back home between the Marsiva and the Bloodsport. See, um... My brother, he made it out of a predicament in one piece when I was sure he was gone. And I did, too. Somehow. And I got to meet my mom. Like, in the flesh, as herself.

So as shitty as this month has been in some respects... I'm... just happy I've got her and my brother.

[Ehem.]

Anyway. Enough of the sappy serious stuff.

Anyone want to rent out a book? I'm starting to get quite a collection here.

I've got a list, I'll post it for you guys.

[ATTACHMENT://

~~IT by Stephen King~~ (Peggy)
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Rick)
The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Arthur)
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Bucky)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Sawyer)
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss]

... And...

[He holds up two more: All My Friends are Dead by Avery Monson and Jory John, and... The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories by Alisa Surkis and Monica Nolan. He winces.]

Look, I'm not going to kink shame — but someone please take the horse one. You can pass it around like it's The Ring video for all I care.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He puts his hands up in surrender.]

Alright. Alright, you got it. No dragon slayer-ing.

[But he does step into the room, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.]

... How're you?

[So smooth, Sam. Great seg-waying.]

[ she turns her chair with a harsh scrape. wooden feet on metal floor. and when she does, she gestures him to at least sit on the footlocker at the bottom of her bed. peggy's got a pencil in her hand, and she taps it impatiently against her knee. ]

About as well as can be expected. [ so, godawful. ] You?

[He smiles, though he knows it doesn't really fit Peggy's aura. As he perches there, he fans his hands in his lap, the slap of the back of his hands on his jeans.]

Well -- really great actually.

I went home and learned my brother and mom are both alive. I mean -- I hadn't seen my mom in... ever. Alive. Some things are bad, and the calibrations crap messed me up a little, but...

[He smiles a sigh. Really, he almost looks worried he'll offend her, being happy in her presence.]

I'm -- I'm good, this time.

[ she tries to feel pleased on his behalf. truly, she does. but hearing about a slew of someone else's home memories (precipitated no doubt by a coma) only reminds her that she's got no idea what steve will be rising from when he does, inevitably, wake up. more trouble with the law? more war? more death?

she can't help her scowl, but she can try to soften it by degrees. ]

At least someone is.

[ she can try. ]

Not that I'm not happy for you.

[He gives a nod, looking down and setting the books down beside him.]

Um. Yeah. I mean, I can't complain.

... I did want to apologize though.

For being weird in your headspace, and... and fumbling what you were protecting there. I got a little... tripped up.

[If you call jerking back and shoving the vial backward through the air like it was gonna bite him "tripped up".]

[ she hums a moment -- thoughtful -- before deciding to run whole hog with denial. ]

It wasn't real, Sam. None of it was. [ oh, the memories were real enough. but! ] You don't have to apologize for breaking something that isn't broken.

[ she reaches behind and tugs open a drawer. from within, she draws a vial that's identical to the one in her memories. except this one is empty. ]

If it happened in your head, it was real enough...

[His expression pinches a bit when he sees the vial she pulls -- indeed, he looks a bit anxious, though it smooths out considerably.]

It really meant a lot to you. I should have been more careful... fake or not. [He runs a hand over his chin.] These calibrations reminded me of times I'd pushed back. I guess... it just brought back some unpleasant imagery.

It was all I had left.

[ true enough. peggy wouldn't ordinarily have said that much, but she supposes it's rather obvious in hindsight. that's been the one unanticipated upside to the calibrations -- suddenly, discussing steve is a little more easily done. normally so tight-lipped on the topic, she finds herself tossing honest lines left and right. ]

And in there, in the dream-space, it all got a little blown out of proportion.

... It's not all you've got here, though.

[He smiles, sympathetic.]

A lot of people here have your back, you know?

[He'd certainly help with whatever, he's pretty sure. Though... he recognizes how one-sided this all his. He'd gotten to look at everything, and even if she's better off never seeing his nightmare freak show... He still feels like being honest, himself. He eyes the vial with a bittersweet expression.]

I'm... a few years sober.

[... in earth years, anyway.]

... But sometimes I'm reminded of that time in my life, I guess. When I, uh. How do you put it? Mucked things up? I was a real mess. Not including the hair and plaid. I guess once in a blue moon, little things remind me... Like little red vials.

Edited 2017-07-11 07:27 (UTC)

[ she bites back some comment. it would have been unkind; self-centred. there's a portion of her that wants to tell sam why things continue to feel strained, and how steve had came back unconscious from the marsiva.

besides, why does she need to talk about herself when sam so readily discusses himself? ]

Sober? Really? [ she doesn't quite follow, somehow. she's assuming he's talking about a problem with alcohol. ]

[Sam rubs his arm. How to put it... without disgusting her, and fucking up a decent friendship.]

It was a substance in a vial. Red.

Really strong stuff. I'd gotten hooked on it when I was in my twenties... I was kind of really alone at the time -- except for my, um, girlfriend.

She said it'd make things easier.

[He shrugs. Not a bad way to put it, actually.]

It was shitty judgment. And a bad choice in partners. But I didn't really care enough about myself at the time to correct it.

[Man, this feels weird to talk about, out loud.

It's not like he ever does, so that makes sense, but... still weird.]

[ there is a lot to unpack here. a lot to consider, to empathize with, and to ask about. but before she can access any of those helpful feelings? peggy has to clarify one very important point.

well. important to her. ]

Good God, man. Don't tell me it was blood.

[ red stuff. in a vial. and he'd smashed steve's on the rocky terrain of her dreamscape just to avoid touching it. when it comes to sam and sam's experiences, she's prepared to expect the worst. ]

Edited 2017-07-12 16:01 (UTC)

[He looks a bit startled for a moment, glancing up his surprise. He doesn't really expect the jump -- most people don't envision blood as a drug, you know?-- but Peggy has heard a little about home life. It was dumb to assume the logic wasn't quick with her.

Immediately, he looks ashamed.]

... My, uh. Girlfriend's, yeah.

[Well. Better to just jump headfirst than to lie about that anymore. He's not who he used to be; he's learned. This isn't... well, it's not nothing, but it's something to accept. Right? Though now he feels a little regret deep into his shoulders, at her tone. He doesn't want her to hate him -- to be disgusted by him, no matter how much he's come to accept his past.

He talks quickly, not wanting to let that ugly fact linger on its own:]

I don't really know how to explain without looking crazy, but... I'd been infected by something... supernatural, when I was a baby -- my girlfriend had been that same kind of supernatural, and she convinced me the power in her blood could help me kill what ruined my life at the time, and help save innocent people, too.

... I'd just... needed a little boost from her.

[ she likes sam too much, regardless of the bizarre circumstances constantly surrounding him, to do anything but let him see the full brunt of her discomfort. displeasure knots between her brows. and she frowns, jaw twitching with the intensity of it. there is something so terribly wrong about what he's telling her. surely, the twist in her gut is a natural one.

something any rational person might feel.

peggy's eyes don't leave him. she can read the little bits of uncertainty and unhappiness in how quickly he speaks and how readily he moves beyond the explanation. none of it makes perfect sense to her. then again, none of it ever does.

with sam, she's forced to take so much on faith. ]

And a little boost leads to another, and another, and another. [ sober, he'd said. ] I take it she was wrong? [ ... ] Did she mislead you on purpose?

[ peggy progresses as clinically as she can. she's not prepared to offer comfort; not yet. ]

[Boy, yeah. He laughs softly, but it's not a real laugh. There's no humor there — just the sound of someone mentally lashing himself for what he should have predicted would happen, back then. It's not like he wasn't working off logic, you know? But man, was the wool pulled over his eyes. He supposes now... he at least admits they were all pretty duped, by angel and demon alike.]

She wasn't wrong there. I did get stronger... I saved a lot of people with it, too. It made me think it was the right thing — using something bad for something good. But... she was using me, yeah. Because of that, someone really nasty got out of his — prison.

[He so knows it's obvious that he's withholding names and species and all that mumbo jumbo, but he doesn't want to explode her head, okay? How does he even explain this sort of thing??

More lightly:]

... We had a pretty bad break-up.

Better a bad break-up than no break-up at all.

[ it's about as near as she gets to consolation. peggy isn't great at this part; doubly so when she is herself on the back-foot. she leans back in her chair, legs crossed at the ankles. ]

My point yet stands. Whatever your motives, and they certainly sound sympathetic, I can't fault you for dropping something that was never real to begin with. [ and to argue otherwise invites a kind of existential question she doesn't care to answer. ] Doesn't matter. In the end, I poured the whole thing into the East River.

[Look, he's just happy he was mostly able to dance around the whole demon, apocalypse, and devil thing. Even if he already ruined her before with chatter of similar things. It's just... you know. Even if he's coming to terms with it, it doesn't mean he likes people to know. He nearly sighs relief when she continues on - but his brow is quick to furrow.]

Why? I mean...

You just seemed really protective of it, anyway.

The risk was always too great. [ terse -- she nearly fidgets where she sits. ] It was the sort of thing that could never afford to be lost to the wrong hands. There are powers still at play in the world, back home, who would readily kill for the secrets locked up in that blood.

[He knows the feeling, pal. Well, not of that specific scenario, but he knows good and well some things need to be put away. Or else awful things can happen. He gives a short nod, expression one of understanding. She can be as terse and sharp and unhappy as she wants, she'll never outmatch Dean. And that's not exactly a flaw of hers. Nobody wants to match his brother when it comes to being annoyed. He throws things and punches people.]

You did well, then. That's what he would've wanted, right?

To protect the people?

[It's why Sam does what he does.

Even if it hurts like hell, a lot of the time.]

Edited (wording ok) 2017-07-12 20:46 (UTC)

I'd certainly like to think so.

[ telling, then, of the fact that she's never properly discussed the disposal of steve's blood with steve himself. it's come up, but never in a pragmatic or practical fashion. emotions had been running high; it still feels so much like a funeral.

a funeral. her lip curls as she remembers her own, witnessed through steve's eyes. ]

Arguably, there were some merits in the other arguments. God knows what good the secrets locked up in his blood could do.

Yeah, w-well. I know what that's like, I guess. I mean... seeing the merits in blood that might screw you over, anyway; he's a much better example than me, though, so the comparison's pretty lopsided, but...

[He smiles mildly, cutting off his own rambling, because he sounds super uncool.]

Anyway, um. I imagine it's been rough. I'm used to these kinds of intrusions, so I've been... trying not to just lock myself in a room to rot, you know?

[ she bites down on her first instinctive response: he's a much better example than most of us. but that sort of lauding, that sort of chatter, does no one any good. least of all steve. peggy has nothing but the utmost admiration for him, but that's because he is (at heart) only a person.

only human. ]

As much as I might like to stick to my quarters, [ she confesses at last, ] I'm afraid I can't. We're a man down. The first mate's out with a case of a coma.

[ she doesn't say his name again. ]

[He winces.]

Kick you when you're down, then. Sounds like their M.O.

... You want a book to read between your busy hours?

[He holds out IT.]

[ she eyes the book with a certain suspicion. ]

Depends. What's it about?

It's the story of a bunch of kids who have to battle a strange being they call "IT". IT alters its form to match everyone's phobias and fears, in order to stalk after its prey. Mostly... um. Clowns.

[He makes such a face, and even looks a bit... intimidated? Sam Winchester, mighty hunter, intimidated by the thought of clowns.]

... Clowns are the worst.

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