Samir
[aw crap this roll again]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) ( fail )
Samir
[GOD DAMN IT SAMIR]
Samir
Quiet is a misnomer.
Plenty happened off-screen to get Samir from his trailer back to civilization. He doesn't remember much of it. He knows that Will and Kiara scraped him off the ground and he was able to clean himself up more or less unassisted and that he agreed because in the moment they had this conversation he was in his right mind to stay with Kiara until he pulls it together enough to function without other people having to worry about him.
Leaving him out in the woods was never an option. Though he is not crippled by the hallucinations and delusions he's suffering he is in fact suffering. Today he wasn't able to convince himself that the voices he's hearing aren't actually voices or that the belief he has that he's receiving threatening messages from someone who's watching him is a false one.
It's a great day to stop by for a visit.
The door does not give River any trouble. She can walk in without finding it barricaded or boobytrapped. But the first thing she sees when she does walk in is Samir knelt in front of the open oven door. He has already dismantled the cooktop and hauled out the racks and yanked the appliance itself as far away from the wall as it can go without filling the apartment with gas.
So he's scrubbing the bejesus out of the oven and doesn't react to the door opening or River walking through it. Could be worse.
River
She had to bat her eyelashes at the doorman to get in. Not that it took much, but she was pleasant and she was personable so the idea of actually letting her up didn't seem like a problem. She was a friend of Kiara's and, very clearly, harmless. What with her gigantic pink purse and her propensity for wearing leggings and the fact that she really didn't seem menacing in the slightest.
It was up the elevator, down the hall, and she knocks before she enters the apartment. The door yields, surprisingly. She wasn't expecting it, and the young woman steps in to see that Samir is, in fact, up and moving... but he has also dismantled the oven and seems pretty occupied with what he is doing.
She shuts the door behind her, unzips her coat-
"Hey, it's River," she announces. He doesn't react to her coming in. She takes a second to linger at the door and observe his movements for a second. Trying to determine a baseline for how this interaction is going to go.
Samir
The noise Sam makes is akin to a growl. As if he just got cut off in traffic or there's a neighbor who's been having a party all goddamn day and they just started practicing tap dancing. Some new irritant introduced to the madness he doesn't recognize as madness today.
Even though she announces her presence Sam does not react beyond that aggravated noise. He pauses in his scrubbing because he reached a point where he needs to adjust the angle of attack. This stupid oven door is right in the fucking way and he can't find a screwdriver to take it off its hinges. He drops onto his ass beside the door and leans across the thing instead.
Not until he does this does he register that the Euthanatos is here. His hair is half-fallen out of its bindings and he's wearing latex kitchen gloves that were yellow up until he started his all-day assault on the kitchen. He's been chewing his lips. They're starting to chap. He hasn't been tending to his physical needs in Kiara's brief absence.
"How the hell did you get in?"
There's no jest in his tone. He sounds suspicious if veering towards angry.
River
"Kiara invited me over, you're at her apartment. It's November thirtieth."
Because, for some reason, she thought it was important to tell him what day it is. There's an understanding there, on some level, that he might not remember- or care- to know the date. That all days could blend together and none of this really ends. She doesn't know what his reality looks like right now.
She doesn't approach, just puts her hands up as if she's surrendering. River dropped her bag off by the door. Let the purse stay there; she didn't bring her gun with her. Or anything, really, that might be more dangerous than a hardback book- which can still be pretty dangerous if you know what you're doing and you're sufficiently angry enough to use it.
"She said I could come in."
Samir
"Yeah, okay."
It isn't a lack of recognition. But River knows Samir pretty well after the last several weeks and she can say with certainty that when they greet each other it is with warmth and empathy. Even when he cracks a joke he does so cautious. He doesn't like to hurt other people's feelings. Despite the leather jacket and the drug dealing and the hacker crap Sam is a decent person.
He's distracted. He looks distracted. He also looks wild-eyed and like he and sleep are having the same pissing contest that he and reality are having.
"WAIT." His turn to hold up his hand and then he points at her feet. "Shoes. Take them off."
He turns away from her then. He's not done cleaning the oven he can't deal with the entryway right this second.
"Fuck..."
River
There isn't a lack of recognition and she seems- no, she is- relieved at that. Arms fall down to her sides and she exhales a long and measured breath. He tells her to take off her shoes, and she nods along as though this is a reasonable request. "Okay," she tells him.
she leaned a little against the door to take her boots off, a bit of a struggle to do without sitting herself smack down in the middle of the floor and wrestling them off too. "Should I leave my socks on?"
They stay if he says yes, and they go if he says no. Boots get set right by the purse and she does make her approach. Doesn't take her coat off just yet, though. She's observing- he hasn't been sleeping. The world is falling apart and something is keeping him awake. Well, strike that, she probably can figure out what that something is.
"Did she say when she would be back?"
Samir
It has occurred to him that he could make this process go a lot faster if he executed a program that packaged up all of the contaminants and shunted them outside. This is what he has done in the past. But the problem with that is he doesn't trust his own magick or else the compulsion is so rooted in muscle memory that he can't override it.
He has been at this task for hours. It will take several more hours to clean up from cleaning up.
So he's returning to the floor when River asks about her socks. He makes that growling noise again and springs back up from the oven like he needs to see the socks in order to make a decision about their fate.
Then he scowls like that's a ridiculous question.
"Unless you're gonna wash your feet," he says. No shit leave your socks on.
For the second time he turns back to his project. Then she asks another question. This time he doesn't growl. He presses his abused lips into a straight line and draws a sharp breath in through his nose and turns back to face her.
"Did who say when she would be back?"
River
Socks are deigned to be acceptable and she nods. She can't tell the difference as to what is a compulsive behavior and what is brought on by his break with reality. Quiet is different for different people; Samir hasn't made overtures that he thinks that he may kill a couple people and think nothing of it (oh, necessity) so this... this is different.
Did who say when she would be back?
"Kiara," she replies, "we didn't talk much about the specifics of when she'd be back."
Which was true, she didn't talk about the specifics, had been given the invitation to come over and had been very emphatic about her desire to come over. She has the urge to ask another question, but waits for the reply of the first one.
Samir
Tension in his jaws that she is not used to seeing. As if he's gritting his teeth so he won't grind them into dust. More than once his eyes flick away from her face to light on something in the entryway and he manages to restrain an outburst until River has finished talking.
"Will you two SHUT THE FUCK UP?"
Two potted plants flank the door. They're just sitting there minding their own business. No discernible reason for him to be yelling at them but situations like this defy reason anyway. He sighs a loud sigh and considers the oven's maw.
Oh right River asked him something. He hauls the mop bucket up by its handle and empties it into the sink rust-colored water sloshing like blood and he mutters something under his breath when he realizes he has to scrub the sink before he fills the bucket with water.
He commences to opening and closing the faucet valve. Over the course of their conversation he does this twenty-three times. Looking at the faucet and not at her. Were not for the fact that he talks River can forgive herself if she thinks he's gone into a trance.
"Well... neither did we." Or if they did then Sam wasn't listening so he hasn't retained the information. "I'll tell her you stopped by."
Like it isn't registering for him that she's here to check on him and not to discuss some other pressing business with the Verbena.
River
This isn't like Samir. She isn't accustomed to seeing him clench his jaw, hasn't heard him raise his voice, hasn't seem him indulge his compulsions because when they've been around each other he seems okay. Hasn't seen him devolve into ritualistic behavior for reasons that seem strange to other people- there are things that she's just seeing and hasn't yet had the inclination to walk away.
You don't walk away from your friends, she has so few of those that the prospect of anything happening to Samir scares her.
He turns the faucet on then off and then on and off again and she's watching that before she looks at him. How intent he is at completing that task. "I'd really rather stay," she tells him, "have you eaten yet?"
She takes a second to look at the kitchen, and begins taking her coat off. Shoes are already gone, so she is content to leave her coat hanging off one of the chairs at the dining room table. Exhales slow, tries to come up with a game plan. He needs to sleep, he needs to be eating something, and if he keeps cleaning he might very well scrub his hands raw once the gloves give out on him.
Samir
"What?"
It isn't that he can't hear her over the faucet squawking on and off. It's that that strikes him as as ridiculous a thing to ask as the question about the leaving her socks on. Paying no attention to what she's doing behind him.
"I'm not hungry."
On a good day he would have been able to ignore whatever he's hearing and whatever he's thinking and he would have been able to talk to River like he was if not in his right mind than at least sitting next to it for a few minutes. With her he makes an effort to act fucking normal. Doesn't often indulge his compulsions and when he does it's easy enough to overlook. Like the fact that he has to pace in front of a doorway four times before he goes through it or the fact that he goes through hand sanitizer like it's been discontinued. He has a minor obsession with order and keeping things clean and organized. That day he came over to help her and Ihsan scry he went through a whole ritual of rearranging things just to set up his laptop at the brunch table.
So he's a little weird. They're all a little weird.
This goes beyond weird. In his right mind Sam does not have a temper. Today he seems about as emotionally stable as a schizophrenic who hasn't taken his medication in three days. Fear is a legitimate emotion to feel in his presence.
Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
River
"You look like you've been working all day, what would happen if you took a break?"
Doesn't suggest that he should take a break, at least, not yet. She sounds concerned, though, and it isn't something that she is actively attempting to hide. She's got an oversized tee shirt on with leggings. Her socks match her shirt (both pink and white and striped- it was a complete coincidence.) He doesn't seem stable, and she should be more than just concerned.
Samir wouldn't normally go off, but she knows she's asking a pretty probing question, that the reaction to said question might not be good, so she's done a good job of keeping distance between them. It's just a few yards. He's a little odd normally, but they're all a little weird.
She is insistent, though, convinced that if she stays then he won't be alone and having her presence there was better than having no presence there because he could hurt himself. He could walk out the front door and nobody could ever see him again. He's so easy to lose, so easy to miss.
Samir
As she's careful-phrasing her question Sam hits twenty-three and huffs out a breath whose tone is difficult for the Chakravat to gauge. Not quite relief because he is still besieged by whatever it is makes up the character of his Quiet but as if a burden has shifted a bit. He rinses out the bucket before realizing how disgusting it is and hauling a large jug of vinegar out from beneath the sink.
"I don't need a break. This place is fucking filthy."
No it isn't. Not by a sane person's definition anyway. A tolerable amount of dust and dirt to someone who does not suffer from a fear of contaminants on his bad days. She has not been to his trailer to judge how clean it is. It is immaculate. Everything has its place and he keeps everything in its place.
This is not his place. This is Kiara's. It's where she sees clients and comes to relax at the end of the day. Sam ought to be resting but rising up out of Quiet is hard work and he's struggling. She can see his physical exhaustion in the way his hands and arms shake as he pours vinegar into the bucket.
No way for him to tell her if he stops working then the voices get louder and he starts to hear blood dripping someplace that he can't find even after an intense session of searching. No way for her to know what will happen if she gets into his personal space when he's like this.
River
"Sam, your arms are shaking," she doesn't know what would happen if she stepped into his space, but she does have to get closer to him, tries to see if she can search his gaze for something that she could hold onto. Something that she could see as an anchor that would keep him from drowning.
He's struggling. She knows that he's struggling, can't turn away from it or ignore what is there.
"What if I cleaned and you sat down for a little bit? You could tell me how you want this done, I'm good with instructions."
She's reaching, he can probably tell she's reaching, or he would if the universe wasn't screaming at him. She can tell he's exhausted, can tell that this is going to be at the very least an argument if she doesn't do this correctly. There are ways that River could push, but she is holding back on these. She inhales slowly, her stomach turns.
Samir
Sam, your arms are shaking.
Either he drops the jug or he pitches it down in a burst of anger. Either way he had just capped it when River reached out to him not with her hands but with her voice so when the jug lands on the other half of the sink it doesn't spew its contents everywhere.
It was a burst of anger. He's breathing heavy and holding onto the counter's edge as she goes on. Asks him what if cleaned for him. He shakes his head.
"Jesus fucking Christ, River, I'm fine." He turns around to face her. Heaves a sigh when he sees a jacket slung off the back of a dining room table. "Dude, what the fuck."
He pulls off one glove and then the other. Careful not to touch the outside of the gloves with his bare fingers as he throws them into the sink next to the jug of vinegar. His eyes have a feverish quality to them that is only growing worse the longer he goes without sleeping.
As if the jacket has personally offended him. Sam snatches it off the back of the table and marches it over to the hall closet to hang it up. They're civilized adults they can use hangers to hang up their shit.
River
He's angry, and she doesn't flinch. Not visibly, not outwardly, though her muscles do tense for a moment and some part of her brain is telling her that staying here is a bad idea but she's not going to just leave him like this. She can take a burst of anger, because she almost expected it. Didn't know when it would come, but she's aware that it's on the table. That he could cycle through any multitude of emotions right now and they would all inevitably fall somewhere that didn't end up going well for her friend.
"Sam, will you stop and talk to me for a minute?" she says. She's held together, intent on staying, intent on being there and intent on making some kind of difference. "Please?"
He's not going to sit still for long, though, so she does follow him. Off to the hall closet, probably shouldn't keep following but she does anyway.
Samir
He isn't so far gone that he's become blind to the world around him. Thus far his hallucinations are only auditory. Hard to ignore them when they're constant and all he's really doing is distracting himself rather than making them go away but it means River is still able to talk to him. That his warped perception of the world isn't actualizing itself.
River pleads with him. Sam finishes wrestling the jacket onto the hanger and shoving it into the closet. Slams the door shut again and turns to face her. Dark skin gone pale from the lack of sleep and she can see bruises blossoming beneath his eyes. Breathing fast for the exertion and his hair is a mess.
"Alright," he says. Placating her without putting his heart in it. He rests a hand on the side of her face and for a second it seems as if he's using her as that anchor she wanted to be.
Whatever feelings he has for her are not enough to pull him out of this. Looking him in the eye as she is River can see underneath the exhaustion and the madness a glimmer of him and she cannot see what he's thinking as he kneads the back of her neck with his fingertips. His hands have started going rough from living out in the woods but all the scrubbing he's been doing today hasn't done him any favors.
It would be easy for him to hurt her. All he'd have to do is--
That thought has him taking his hand off her fast like her skin just burned him and shaking it out. Curling his fingers in on themselves and then cramming the fist into his pocket. His room is off the entryway. It's little more than a mattress on the floor but at least the mattress has sheets on it. Doesn't show signs of his having lain on it yet.
"What're we talking about?"
River
There are some courtesies to be had, you see. The fact that his hallucinations are only auditory is some sort of reprieve, no matter how odd it may seem. An ominous thing, too, because it meant that things could always get worse. And they could get worse; she doesn't know the extent of how he views the world. Doesn't know what this world seems like to him.
He's operating under the idea that he is fine. He's got enough to fight with and it's something that he can only really do on his own. Nobody in Denver could very well drag him out of quiet, no matter how badly they may want.
She leans a little into his hand, keeps her eyes with his and takes respite in knowing that he's not completely lost inside of himself. She smiles at him like she's happy to see him, and though he pulls his hand back quickly for reasons she doesn't know, she does keep her eyes with him. Only once has River ever shied away from eye contact, and once was enough for her.
"You told me once that you thought that sometimes it's better to have an averse reaction than to just... not... have a reaction," she said, "and I think that... you're right? But sometimes, it's nice to have a reprieve."
Keeps her eyes with his, inhales slowly, exhales and then continues, "you said you were fine and I'm just... I'm worried. I don't know how to not worry, but I feel like things will work out in the end."
[Mind 2- projecting "hey, things will be fine."
diff 3 + sphere 2= 5, -1 quint=4]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Samir
That does sound like something he said once.
Hearing his words echoed back at him has Sam frowning. Not only does it sound like something he said once but he can't see how it's relevant. Or he's so distracted by what the world is doing around him that stopping to think about something that affects someone other than him is too tall an order.
"Why are you worried? I'm cleaning the oven, it's not like I'm doing open-heart surgery."
Denial, denial.
River
Why was she worried? He's just cleaning the oven.
"And the gas is off, right?" like this was a reason for her to be worried, because the gas was off and it wasn't going to flood the apartment with something that would suffocate them all in their sleep. She keeps eye contact with him, though, breathes in slowly and exhales just as slowly. Keeps her posture tall and comfortable and seems ready to see whether or not he'll mirror her.
Slowly inhaling, holding for a moment, then exhaling.
Repeat.
It's meditative. That's the point.
[extension!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 9) ( success x 1 )
Samir
"Of course the fucking gas is off."
Still does nothing to try and contain the irritation in his tone. He's tired. He's getting more tired the longer he goes without eating or sleeping. She hasn't known him long enough to know that his paranoia leads him near to starvation when he gets like this but she does know that when he sleeps he sleeps as if he has an enormous debt to pay off.
That she's Working doesn't occur to him. He doesn't think to feel for it. Her resonance isn't strong enough to set off his suspicion.
Subconscious slowing of his breathing. No awareness of why he's doing it. Just feels more at ease in her presence than he had a moment ago.
River
"Okay," she says, smiles and laughs a little like she's the one who has been put at ease by the assurance that the gas was off. Exhaled a long, slow breath, inhaled again.
She's not an archmage. She's not a creature that bleeds true magick and her mere waking sends the heavens into motion. There are small courtesies to be paid, and one of those was the fact that she was no adept and that her tugging at the fabric of creation wasn't loud.
"I mean, I heard you got hurt recently... and you're fine now. You're not bleeding, nothing is broken... and the gas is turned off... and things are going to be okay so, neither of us really have anything to worry about, right?"
Like she's the one that needs to be reassured here.
Samir
"No shit we don't have anything to worry about."
Mood swings. If she's going to distract him from the thing he's using to distract himself then he's going to have to rethink this strategy. Sam heaves a huge sigh. If he were in his right mind he would have recognized that she needed reassurance. Would have taken a subtler tack in trying to soothe her. She knows him. She knows he's gentle and has his moments of selflessness and kindness. This is not one of those moments.
"Come here. Things are totally okay."
He puts his hands on her hips. Leans in to kiss the crook of her jaw.
River
She might feel bad about this later, think it to be emotionally manipulative because she knows when things are normal that Samir is incredibly aware of when people need reassurance. Knows him to be a gentle person, knows that he can be kind and selfless and any number of things that are rare qualities in a person.
He heaves a huge sigh, puts his hands on her hips and she draws inward, he leans to kiss the crook of her jaw and she cocks her head to the side to give him easier access, lets her arms fall over his shoulders while she tried to smooth out his hair.
Things are totally okay, he tells her.
"It's been a really long week," she says, all truth there, "will you come lay down with me?"
Because then she isn't telling him that he needs to rest, she's telling him that she would like his company. That she needs him to be there with her so she can do whatever it is she needs to do.
Samir
The thing about Samir's lifelong avoidance of intimacy hasn't been that he fears contamination as a result of having sex with another person. Of course he knows the risks associated with unprotected sex but what has kept him from intimacy has been the fear that he would do something horrible to the other person. All his life he has had thoughts that have just barged in uninvited and those thoughts have been sexual and violent and they had him for a long time afraid of himself more than he was afraid of anything else.
That fear sublimated into ritual. If he kept to the order he knew he needed in his life then he would maintain control of himself and he wouldn't have to be afraid to be around other people.
Being in a relationship with another person whether it's defined or not is a new experience for him. That he still has dark thoughts about her goes without saying. But the more they share each others' space the less he fears violating hers. Normally.
She could read his surface thoughts if she chose to. Common sense tells River she does not want to read the mind of a man in the midst of Quiet when he's pressing himself to her.
Will you come lay down with me?
"Uh huh..."
---
He is not gentle with her. Starts out gentle one her back is on the mattress but then he starts to breathe faster and before their pants are even off he flips her onto her stomach and anchors his arms and elbows so he can't touch her face or pull her hair or get to her neck.
It isn't as if he's in a trance. He still knows his own name and responds when she says it. Slows down or eases up if she asks him to. But for the first time in their friendship River can say that Samir has fucked her without thinking about what she might need from him. Knows what to do to make her come but that isn't his goal. Rough like he has never been rough and may never be rough again with her.
He's there with her. But the less she knows about what is going through his head while he's there with her the better.
Within a few minutes the madman spends himself. Tires before she does for the first time in the few weeks they've known each other and dares to press a kiss to her mouth before he rolls off of her. Buries his face in the pillow and exhales keen-edged like a child resisting sleep though he doesn't get up yet.
River
She could have known what was going through his head if she had wanted; common sense says that this is the worst of ideas that she could possibly have. No matter how much she may have wanted to understand what his perception of reality looked like right now, there was nothing that she could do to understand that would not also put her at some degree of risk.
Things were rough in a sense that he had never been like this with her, and there are times that she does ask him to slow down, just the once but for the most part she was more there to hold on for the ride. Says his name like there's desperation in it, like the world may well end tomorrow if he weren't there with her right now. But he is there with her-
She's breathing hard and her hips are sore and he's face down on a pillow and she rolls onto her side, raises her hand and combs through his hair, rests between his shoulder blades and draws a slow circle. They'd fucked like he hadn't thought of what she'd needed from him; this was what she needed. She needed him to be there, with ragged breath and working to a point where he can give in to exhaustion.
There. With her. That's what she needed.
"You can rest," she tells him, whispers, "I know things are going to be okay."
Samir
That introduction of fingertips to his hair strikes a harsh chord in him. Then her hand moves between his shoulders and he turns his face not towards her but towards the opposite wall. At least gets it out of the pillow. She can hear him sniff as if his sinuses have found themselves new-congested and release a ragged breath.
A whisper at his back and he rolls onto his side. Gives her his back. Won't fight her off if she tries to put her arms around him but he does put the heel of his hand flush against the ear not pressed into the pillow still. Holds it like that for several minutes until exhaustion reaches its tendrils up out of the darkness and sink him down into it. As he succumbs Sam's hand leaves his ear. Floats to find River's hand if it is over his breastbone and to rest atop it.
Tomorrow the racks will still be soaking in the bathtub and the oven will still be half-dismantled but tonight he sleeps the sleep of the dead. Not even the potted ferns disturb him. It would take the end of the world to wake him.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Saturday, November 21, 2015
After the bonfire
River
Eventually. People leave. Food has been consumed and people start to filter out and she, as mistress and keeper of the campfire, stays behind. She has a responsibility to not burn the city down and, if she was going to be known as an arsonist, she was going to burn down something cool instead of a city park.
River realized while she was staring at the camp fire rebuttoning her mitten-glove-hybrid-things that she doesn't actually remember maliciously ever having set things on fire. Not a single incarnation can she place where she's covered her tracks by setting something ablaze. It actually has to be an absurdly hot fire to render remains into ashes; most people don't think about it. Most people think fire just covers your tracks but, realistically, it's more complicated than that. Luckily, she isn't thinking about needing to cover any tracks.
"... I forgot to record forensic files," she announces to no one in particular. To the best of her knowledge people have left. She might feel bad about it later, but she presumed she lost track of Samir at some point until her hazy brain and relaxed state falls on the bong and-
"Oh, no," quiet, like it's a little travesty because there's a bong and no Samir. She's going for her phone to text him, and she does-
you left your bong. :(
Completely unaware that Samir is, in fact, still somewhere around here and she's just misplaced him.
Samir
If he were the sort of person to go to parties this sort of thing would probably happen all the time. Samir is easy to misplace. Like a scarf or a lighter or one's sense of propriety.
It takes a few seconds for her text message to bounce off the nearest tower and find Samir's cellphone. It's in his pocket. He had gone off to escort Grace and Ihsan back to where they'd parked their cars. With all the magick and all the wards up around the place River was safe for the several minutes the trip took which was long enough for her to forget that he had said that he was coming back.
His phone pings and River hears the ping before he can even pull it out of his pocket to read the message. That would be Sam returning from his escort mission. He steps over whatever she was using as a seat and parks himself down next to her.
"Sad-face," he says.
River
The blanket has since left their possession and, as such, River had determined that she needed to use the park bench for its intended purpose. The bench was cold but relatively snow-free thanks to people's consistent use of it, and for that she was thankful because she was already experiencing the vague sensation of not being able to feel her butt thanks to the weather.
Sad face, he says. She turns her attention to him, adopts the briefest of sad puppy expressions. Traces out where a single tear would fall with her mittened hand. River basically achieves a state of mildly dorky for a minute. She's eaten half her bodyweight in toasted marshmallows, but she's thin so that actually wasn't that many marshmallows.
"When you first came I was actually almost disappointed that it wasn't a clarinet," she tells him, like this is a big confession to make.
Samir
"Seriously?"
As if she's never met him before. But then the thought occurs to him that she has met him before and maybe that's the sort of vibe he puts out. That he would bring a woodwind instrument to a bonfire. Stranger things have happened.
"I mean, if you'd rather have a clarinet I can probably make it into a clarinet, but it'll smell like resin for the rest of its life."
He's not joking. If she really wants a clarinet she's talking to a reality hacker.
"Hey, uh, did you want to go to that thing tonight? The show?"
River
He explains that he could, in fact, make it into a clarinet and it is met with emphatic noooooo headshaking.
"Maybe if it were a clarinet and a bong, because clarinets are terrible by themselves. You made a good call," because it would be a terrible call, what the fuck does one do with a clarinet ever, aside from anxiously await the day that your band director says you can finally play an instrument that is cooler than the clarinet?
It seems to dawn on her, though, that she responded to the middle of what he was saying. She takes a minute and thinks about it before shrugging.
"Sera seemed really distant, I think I got invited so she didn't seem rude. Maybe we can go say hi at the after party? I don't think I can handle a whole set of what they played."
Samir
"Yeah..."
Sad songs will have an impact on anyone but the obviousness of its impact on River was not lost on everyone present. She has had a year. Her year has been documented on Ginger. Her year would have wrecked plenty of other people but she is making an attempt to be present and to enjoy her time.
"I'm not a big fan of parties. Maybe if I had a clarinet bong I'd enjoy them more."
River
"How am I gonna get you to dance with me if you're not a fan of parties?" like this was a big question.
Samir
"I mean... do we live in a world where people only dance at parties?"
River
She gives him a sideward glance, like she's thinking about what he'd said. Putting together a list of pros and cons and weighs that list of pros and cons before she ever gets around to offering it up for public consumption. That, or she forgot what she was doing because River goes into her pocket for her phone. Swipes through whatever pattern she uses to get into her phone and pulls up Pandora-
"... pick a station?"
Samir
"An entire station?"
Must be Grace didn't tell River about the time they played laser tag. They had made reference to it the night they all met up at the bar but Sam had been paying more attention to his phone than the conversation and had barely lifted his head enough to insult the other Virtual Adept.
A lot has changed since then but Sam's change in music is not one of them.
"See if they have Nihilist on there. They're a Swedish death metal band."
And they say romance is dead.
River
"Swedish death metal?" she says incredulously, like she isn't entirely certain what is going to happen when she searches for this.
There is searching, a little bit of idle humming while whatever River normally listens to is playing- which is currently consisting of a Beyonce remix because much of her musical research consists of trying to figure out how she can get her clothes off in a thematically appropriate fashion to this song.
She makes a little triumphant noise when she finds it, creates station and-
"... Swedish death metal?"
Samir
"In hindsight, I should've paid more attention to what the other kids were listening to when I was... you know... a kid."
Death metal deals with dark violent bloody themes why would you not want to listen to that when you're sitting next to a girl with whom you're involved in a sexual relationship.
"Here, can I see that?"
Should River give up her phone Samir kills the death metal and backtracks. Glances up at the stars as if he's accessing his repertoire of movie soundtracks.
Which means Marvin Gaye graces her phone with his voice a moment later. He flicks his eyebrows as if he wasn't expecting that but can live with it anyway. Hands her back the phone and offers her his now-empty hand as if inviting her to dance. He has no idea what he's doing.
River
"Eh-" she gives a dismissive wave at the concept of what other kids were listening to as kids because... eh, why not? She's trying to piece through what the lead singer is actually saying but it's going through so many translation filters for River that it may as well be running through babelfish.com for her.
She does hand the phone over, though. While he's looking through tracks she continues on in conversation.
"Other kids are boring. I listened to classical because it was the only station we could routinely find while we're driving," which was about the time that Marvin Gaye comes through. Her brows raise but she smiles. She gets her phone back and it gets laid on the bench.
She takes his hand and it doesn't seem to matter that he has no idea what he's doing because she does.
"I do this for a living," she tells him. Doesn't get more specific.
Samir
"Okay."
That's all he has to say about that. It's easier to be intimate with another person when all of the lights are off and she isn't interested in talking because she's spent. All he knows about dancing with a woman comes from the movies. He's supposed to take one of her hands in his and put his hand at the small of her back. It's freezing. They're both wearing fingerless gloves with a mitten option.
One could tango to 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' if one knew how to tango.
He's just going to let her lead. She's stoned and he's a gentleman.
River
[I totally know how to lead!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
River
It's all predictable patterns, then variations on the pattern. That's one of the things that she likes about ballroom. You know what you're doing, you have rules and parameters that you can act within those parameters. Then, when you're comfortable, when you've established those rules, you can break them and work through the variations.
There are rules she breaks immediately, like the fact that she actually does take the lead instead of just pulling the poor young man along with her. Gives physical cues of where she wants him to go and how she wants things to move and, for her part, does a very good job of not leaving him out in the middle of nowhere. There are things one doesn't do to their dance partner.
She smiles at him like she's leading an expedition and this cavalier creature he is dancing with has done this dozens of times. What River does not do, however, is warn him when she's going to dip him, presumes he knows it's coming because she gave the physical cues that something was going to happen but? She isn't thinking clearly.
Samir
[WHOA]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 5) ( botch x 1 )
Samir
The way she moves him through the dance one couldn't tell that River was pretty thoroughly baked. It's only as potent as it is because that's how Sam buys it. He only has an apprentice's understanding of the sphere governing the spirit world. Not until he furthers his studies will he be able to awaken the weed he brings to social gatherings and get everyone in the room so goddamn stoned they'll be able to see through time.
One wouldn't think from looking at him that he's a drug dealer. One wouldn't think from looking at her that she's a stripper. Neither of them would judge the other for the revelation and neither has volunteered the information yet.
She isn't thinking clearly.
She dips him and it catches him off-guard. Not only does it catch him off-guard but he startles with it. Then gravity decides it wants to have a turn. Sam can't untangle himself from her fast enough to keep her from sprawling on top of him when he crashes to the ground.
The impact knocks his teeth together and the ground is cold under him but it's kind of funny. Would have been funnier if Sam knew how to fall. Sam does not know how to fall. He didn't play sports and he avoids physical contact.
After the initial stun of it wears off he reaches up to touch her face with his left hand. Cuts her a smile to let her know it's alright.
"Look, I know they say that dancing is supposed to be the vertical expression of horizontal... desire, but..."
River
River doesn't fall in a graceful fashion. She's capable of it, because somewhere along the lines it became important that River knew how to tumble should the ground decide it doesn't want to be her friend anymore. It does not stop her from making a sound that is only best described as a distress call.
So, there she is, on top of a guy she likes looking mildly horrified by the prospect that she might have chipped one of his teeth and now he's not going to talk to her anymore except to send her a dental bill except Samir is a nice guy and he wouldn't send her the bill even if she offered to pay for it and-and-and-
Then his hand is on her face and she looks immediately relieved. Leans in to the gesture and tries to be subtle with the fact that she's trying to be sure his pupils are the same size. (Forensic files is so freaking useful).
"I have a thing for giving attractive men concussions," which was about when she leaned in to kiss him. Brief, yes, but why not?
Samir
Before he can make with a quick quip her lips are against his. It's twenty degrees colder today than it was the day they got stoned and had sex on the banks of Cherry Creek earlier this month. The point of their presence is to ensure the fire dies a good and proper death. That it doesn't take anything else with it.
He tightens his fingers in her hair and lifts up into the kiss. Brief but welcomed. When they pull back he breathes her in off his lips and tunes into the song still playing on the bench and tightens his arm around her waist.
"You wanna get out of here?"
He does know Forces. That fire could be dead in about five seconds if she wants it that way.
River
"Let's bail, I can't feel my butt."
Samir
[forces 2: i just want to test his new dice pool and kill this fire. -1 diff bc quint.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 4, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Samir
[stamina for the lulz]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Samir
[i think i need to reroll that 10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
River
[jesus, dude. Stamina?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Samir
Well beyond dark by the time they quit the place. Ashes not even smoldering after Sam did what he did. She met him when he was still an initiate in the art of space and forces and he has been through a trial in the scant time since they last met but then it seems as if he and she and everyone they know has been through a trial.
He doesn't know about her mentor or his presence in the city. He doesn't know that she was the one who found her friend's body. Twice. A lot he doesn't know about her or about anyone else but he can sense it just as well as he can sense it in anyone else.
Grace and Kiara will tell him their troubles in general and in the future. Tonight River and Samir are two kids alone together. He takes a deep breath before he puts his arm around her waist to walk her back to her car.
---
Considering he hates germs and physical contact and emotional attachment Sam lasts a good long time when he takes River to bed. Tonight is no different. He senses some need in her. Maybe it's one they ought to have talked their way through but that's not the course their relationship took.
She comes first. That is how he operates. Last time he came over he didn't even take his pants off. She didn't care. Tonight will pass the same way unless she drags him up and wrestles off his jeans. They're both freezing from the outside world but they warm each other quick beneath the sheets.
All things pass and this swell does as well. River is about ready to pass out long before Sam would concede defeat and it isn't defeat so much as a cease fire. He's breathing steady and hard but not fast.
"Can I ask you something?" He rolls onto his back and makes a place for her inside his arm. "Why did you..." He rummages around in his discarded pants for his cigarettes. Offers her one. "Why did you leave California?"
River
They could have talked through a number of things, but did not. She seemed fine with this. In truth, she was completely fine with this, being as likable as she is the young woman had secrets to keep and there was some form of catharsis to be had in physical relations with another person. Even at her best, she can't keep up with him. It's part of the appeal, truth be told.
When all things pass she's struggling for air and attempting to recenter herself and he asks if he can ask her something. She looks up and him and nods before she is curling into his space. Knows where she fits on another person's anatomy and is content to be there. She didn't realize how much she liked this, how much she liked being able to curl up with another person and listen to them breathing- hard but steady.
Then, Samir asks her why she left California. She takes a cigarette in hand and almost drops it. Reaffirms her grip as something awkward.
"How much do you know about my tradition?"
Samir
In his rummaging he finds an ashtray sat atop a copy of the Holy Bible in the bedside table. When he finally settles back down he rests the ashtray on his abdomen. Lights her cigarette before he lights his own. Settles back to hold her and listen to her talk.
"Not much. One of my old cabalmates was almost a Euthanatos but she--" He does not say Pulled her head out of her ass. "--didn't pass their initiation."
River
Oddly enough, his response seems to make her seem... relieved. Relieved isn't quite the right word and she knows it. It seems to be the closest approximation and she thinks about it. Looks at Samir and she doesn't shy away from looking at him. Doesn't flinch, doesn't back down, just takes a second to think about what she's going to say and how she's going to say it.
Decides to take the direct approach.
"The guy that came to town to deal with the Nephandus used to be Farrah and I's mentor," she starts, "and... Mike was a really good mentor. It... the mentor student relationship is incredibly important to Euthanatoi, you swear an oath."
River stops, realizing that she's getting off topic and her moment of rambling isn't actually getting her closer to the point. It's strange, she takes a second and takes a long drag off of her cigarette. At one point she stops looking at Samir, not because she can't stand looking at him or because she's too ashamed or if it's any number of things, but rather... because she's thinking. Because she's miles away dredging up the pieces and the elements of a story and has come across the quandary of explaining herself to someone who doesn't know the full details.
And perhaps she's thinking better of it, thinking that maybe she needs to turn around and backtrack and say that she doesn't want to talk about it because-
"Michael MacCarrick and Farrah Esmail were my world, it felt like they were there for everything and... then bodies start popping up and... Mike snapped one day and it-it wasn't like he was himself and I just wrote it off like it was nothing, or like it was just the nature of what we do and... then later, and it was awhile down the road Farrah showed me that it wasn't just the one time, that there were murders all over the place and he'd just-" she exhaled. Harsh.
Samir
If she changed her mind and decided she didn't want to talk about it he would have granted her that much space. It's none of his business but they could all sense the undercurrent of something pulling at her all night. Nothing he couldn't glean from reading it on Ginger but that defeats the purpose of being friends with someone.
They're reaching the point where they have to call each other friends. He has scried a ritualistic dungeon for her. Granted it was for her and Ihsan but Ihsan still thought to call him after they found River's friend dead in a hotel room. That carries with it a weight of responsibility.
He keeps his arm around her shoulders even when she isn't looking at him. His eyes on her profile while hers are on the ceiling.
"Grace made it sound like it was the Nephandus making him do all that."
No surprise over the fact that this was not an incident isolated to Denver. Isn't following the thread she's laid out. The mentor-student relationship is important enough for them to swear an oath binding themselves as such. From the sound of Sam's tone though he's expecting this story to take a darker turn.
River
They are friends, or are as close to friends as River has been with the people she's met in Denver. Sam scried a dungeon for her, he checked on her when she was in a state where she shouldn't have been interfacing with the general population. He's been nothing if not present and supportive and hasn't asked for anything in return, hasn't given her the impression that all of his attentions are one big play for a favor later down the road.
But she's here, ready to dump some horrid secret on him and she wonders...
River purses her lips, takes the time to think about how to proceed. "We didn't know about that. He didn't tell us about the artist, I think if we'd known things would have been different but they could have turned out vastly different here." There's a second where she has the opportunity to ruminate on the fact that Farrah is gone, that she died a gruesome death here instead of a gruesome death in San Diego.
She chooses not to take the opportunity.
"So, Farrah had her evidence and we didn't know what to do- it felt like we have a responsibility to do something. Mike is somebody though, he's got a reputation and it's a really freaking good one. It-" she falters for a second "-I don't know if Farrah felt like this, but I felt like... if we said something to someone else, that they wouldn't believe us. That everything would get written off and swept away and-"
She stops, takes a second to flick the ashes off her half-forgotten cigarette.
"... I'm getting off topic."
She exhales.
"Anyway, we confronted him about the whole thing and... it's like it wasn't him, just like I remember and just like Farrah saw and so... we killed him. Farrah shot him and we buried him in the desert."
Except, of course, he isn't dead. He's very much not dead.
Samir
I'm getting off topic.
"That's alright," he says.
At some point in her explanation as to why the two girls left California Sam started combing his fingers through her hair. As much as he could with his arm beneath her anyway. He is taller than her but he does not have much in the way of manual dexterity.
His cigarette is just about dead. He stamps it out in the ashtray balanced on his stomach and sweeps his own hair back off his brow as she exhales.
And then she comes out with it.
"... oh." A stilling of his finger-combing as he absorbs this. It picks back up when the infophage is complete. "Shit, dude. Does he know you're here?"
River
"Yeah, he and I and Ihsan dealt with the Nephandus that was causing all the problems," she said, "when Farrah died I called him because... I mean, it was just reflex, I didn't know what to do."
She looks at her cigarette, doesn't quite feel like finishing but might in a moment. It gets left in the ashtray, not yet ready to be relegated to the place where all cigarettes go when they are snuffed out before reaching the fruition of their purpose in life.
"What Farrah and I did was a violation of that oath I was telling you about.. and it's- it's just going to be-" awkward doesn't begin to describe it "-I don't know how to say it. It's big, and I'm not going to die or anything-" right now, (don't transgress again)- "I just... I can't go back home now."
Samir
Once her cigarette joins his spent filter in the ashtray Sam picks it up and sets it atop the beside table. An anemic lamp is the only other object on it. A moment's consideration and he transfers the lighter from where it had landed to accompany the ashtray. It isn't an attempt to stall for time. That is a heavy revelation she just laid down but she laid it down on him and not between them. It's a distinction he's aware of.
"That really sucks." A beat. "Do you want to go back?"
River
[Per+empathy- hey, you're not freaked out about that, are you?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
River
Does she want to go back?
She has to think again, but she doesn't spend long on it, "sometimes. I think... it's not so much that I want to go back, it's that I don't want things to be different and they're so incredibly different now."
She lets her hand now sans cigarette, rest on his chest over his sternum. It's as good a place as any, and she feels... connected. She could have backed away, expects the bottom to fall out, expects him to get out of bed and tell her that he's done but Samir hasn't given any indication that he's going to leave, that what she said was too much.
River exhales again.
"And I'm having a hard time processing that and... I know I don't have to be okay, but getting up and telling everyone that I'm fine and everything's perfect here feels fake."
Samir
This is hard for him.
Close as they are to each other he has trouble hiding the fact that his heart is beating fast in his chest or he would be having trouble if River were as aware of his anxiety as he is. Her hand over his sternum and she can feel the thudding of the muscle beneath the bone and it doesn't mean he's about to extricate himself from bed and find his way out the door.
He's concerned about her. He wants to be of some help to her. He wants to take a shower and scrub himself back into some semblance of cleanliness but listening to her is more important than appeasing his madness.
Another exhale. This time Sam puts his hand overtop the back of hers and squeezes it.
"Well... if you're not okay and you're telling people you are, that's..." Now is not the time to get pedantic. It's his turn to exhale. "I mean, you're holding your shit together pretty well. You don't have to all the time. If my best friend died and my mentor voted me off the island, I'd be useless."
Oh wait. That's pretty much the same reason why he left California. Oops.
River
She has no idea why he left California, no idea that they both have this little bit of disaster in common but-
"Why did you decide to move to Denver?"
-it does dawn on her to ask. An odd sort of coincidence that might not have been a coincidence. A strangeness that doesn't strike her as strange at first. She doesn't know it's supposed to, only that Samir and Ihsan are both from LA (a lot of people are from LA) and that now he lives here. She doesn't even know where he lives, just presumes that it's around and doesn't question it.
Perhaps she knows he's anxious, thinks he'll tell her if things aren't okay, if she needs to get up or he needs to leave or any number of things. Otherwise, she seems to stay the course, even as she listens to his heart pound at a tempo that their current state of being doesn't quite mesh with.
Samir
"Because I threw a dart at a wall map, and that's where it landed."
That doesn't answer the question. He made the decision to leave where he was at and come here. That's the heart of the discussion they're having now.
"No--" Like what he just said was supposed to be a joke. "--I mean, yeah, that's why Denver, specifically, but... my cabal sort of imploded. I botched a program I really shouldn't have botched and wound up in Quiet and a lot of things happened while reality and I were having our little trial separation and... I decided it'd be better if I went off on my own for a bit."
River
He decided that it would be better if he went off on his own for a bit. She's listening, stays where she is and takes a moment to look up at him, to take Samir in from a different angle while he's talking to her and relaying his own story.
"That sounds awful," with sincerity, because it did. It sounded awful, having your cabal implode then he said he decided it would be better if he went off on his own for a little while. A bit. He says, doesn't give a real time frame. Says he was in quiet and she winces.
"And lonely, going off alone, anyway... are you staying or going back ever?"
Samir
"I'm not sure."
He's downplaying the awfulness of the situation. Shorthand accomplishes its intended goal and River manages to unpack the rest of the story without having to ask any further questions. Quiet is the inevitable end for Death Mages who commit themselves too well to the dispensation of justice. River knows this in a way that transcends firsthand knowledge.
"I'm not from L.A." At least once the night he came over to help the girls scry Ju-Ju House in New York City he had quipped I'M FROM CANADA in Ihsan's direction. This is information River already has. "There's nothing there that I really need to go back for. If you have family out there, you should... don't rule it out, I guess."
River
Quiet is something River dreads, expects to happen to her someday but not for a long, long time unless she is very, very careful. Certain things have left their mark and a well mind being able to process an unwell experience is its own quiet horror. She wonders what it was like for other people, knows the only thing that kept Adam from acting more on his impulses were his sense of self control and a strict adherence to the laws he upheld. Still, there were exceptions made.
It was part of the problem, when she thinks about it, the disconnect she'd so willingly embraced earlier in the month because of how liberating it was to not be tied down with something so integral to the human condition. She understood aspects of herself, who she'd been, a little better after that.
She doesn't dwell terribly long, takes a moment for introspection and pops back to wherever it was her thoughts had left off.
"Most of my family is either in Cuba or Chula Vista. Nobody wants to go to Chula Vista, so I might be able to avoid awkward social confrontations," she shrugged. Shoulders up, then down.
Samir
"You might."
Sounds like the lead-up to a punchline. One of the many services Samir offers is a dry if self-depreciating sense of humor and the occasional out-blurting of something he ought to have kept to himself. Sex peels away some of the nervousness come from being around her. He likes her. She knows this. He said as much the day they fucked on the banks of the creek.
"If people find out we're banging, you'll have loads of awkward social confrontations to look forward to."
River
"Hordes of angry ex-girlfriends?"
Samir
"Not just one horde. Multiple hordes. Like the finale level of a Left 4 Dead map."
River
She laughed, takes her hand off of his chest and, instead, tries to stifle the bark of laughter. The sound, you see, is delighted. Amused- she likes Sam. She thinks he's funny and she knows just enough about video games to be able to catch the visual.
"Oh my god, really?" She shakes her head, "I'm fucked, Sam."
Samir
Her attempt to stopper her own laugh knocks an answering one out of him. What he just said was total bullshit. No one would care if their relationship became public knowledge. The few people who might form an opinion would offer high fives to the Euthanatos. He does not have any ex-girlfriends at all let alone enough to form one horde.
At least River finds him amusing. Means his attempts at jokery don't pass in vain.
He doesn't have enough game to pull off a segue into another round beneath the sheets. Or at least he doesn't think he does. Whatever the mind convinces itself of tends to become reality and their kind are more proof of the thing than they are the exception.
"You're so fucked." As much as he wants a shower he wants to say something nice to this girl more. He demarcates the two conversations by turning towards her and kissing her soft and slow on the mouth. "I'm glad I met you."
Even if they both had to go through some shit to wind up here. Even if she isn't okay.
Eventually. People leave. Food has been consumed and people start to filter out and she, as mistress and keeper of the campfire, stays behind. She has a responsibility to not burn the city down and, if she was going to be known as an arsonist, she was going to burn down something cool instead of a city park.
River realized while she was staring at the camp fire rebuttoning her mitten-glove-hybrid-things that she doesn't actually remember maliciously ever having set things on fire. Not a single incarnation can she place where she's covered her tracks by setting something ablaze. It actually has to be an absurdly hot fire to render remains into ashes; most people don't think about it. Most people think fire just covers your tracks but, realistically, it's more complicated than that. Luckily, she isn't thinking about needing to cover any tracks.
"... I forgot to record forensic files," she announces to no one in particular. To the best of her knowledge people have left. She might feel bad about it later, but she presumed she lost track of Samir at some point until her hazy brain and relaxed state falls on the bong and-
"Oh, no," quiet, like it's a little travesty because there's a bong and no Samir. She's going for her phone to text him, and she does-
you left your bong. :(
Completely unaware that Samir is, in fact, still somewhere around here and she's just misplaced him.
Samir
If he were the sort of person to go to parties this sort of thing would probably happen all the time. Samir is easy to misplace. Like a scarf or a lighter or one's sense of propriety.
It takes a few seconds for her text message to bounce off the nearest tower and find Samir's cellphone. It's in his pocket. He had gone off to escort Grace and Ihsan back to where they'd parked their cars. With all the magick and all the wards up around the place River was safe for the several minutes the trip took which was long enough for her to forget that he had said that he was coming back.
His phone pings and River hears the ping before he can even pull it out of his pocket to read the message. That would be Sam returning from his escort mission. He steps over whatever she was using as a seat and parks himself down next to her.
"Sad-face," he says.
River
The blanket has since left their possession and, as such, River had determined that she needed to use the park bench for its intended purpose. The bench was cold but relatively snow-free thanks to people's consistent use of it, and for that she was thankful because she was already experiencing the vague sensation of not being able to feel her butt thanks to the weather.
Sad face, he says. She turns her attention to him, adopts the briefest of sad puppy expressions. Traces out where a single tear would fall with her mittened hand. River basically achieves a state of mildly dorky for a minute. She's eaten half her bodyweight in toasted marshmallows, but she's thin so that actually wasn't that many marshmallows.
"When you first came I was actually almost disappointed that it wasn't a clarinet," she tells him, like this is a big confession to make.
Samir
"Seriously?"
As if she's never met him before. But then the thought occurs to him that she has met him before and maybe that's the sort of vibe he puts out. That he would bring a woodwind instrument to a bonfire. Stranger things have happened.
"I mean, if you'd rather have a clarinet I can probably make it into a clarinet, but it'll smell like resin for the rest of its life."
He's not joking. If she really wants a clarinet she's talking to a reality hacker.
"Hey, uh, did you want to go to that thing tonight? The show?"
River
He explains that he could, in fact, make it into a clarinet and it is met with emphatic noooooo headshaking.
"Maybe if it were a clarinet and a bong, because clarinets are terrible by themselves. You made a good call," because it would be a terrible call, what the fuck does one do with a clarinet ever, aside from anxiously await the day that your band director says you can finally play an instrument that is cooler than the clarinet?
It seems to dawn on her, though, that she responded to the middle of what he was saying. She takes a minute and thinks about it before shrugging.
"Sera seemed really distant, I think I got invited so she didn't seem rude. Maybe we can go say hi at the after party? I don't think I can handle a whole set of what they played."
Samir
"Yeah..."
Sad songs will have an impact on anyone but the obviousness of its impact on River was not lost on everyone present. She has had a year. Her year has been documented on Ginger. Her year would have wrecked plenty of other people but she is making an attempt to be present and to enjoy her time.
"I'm not a big fan of parties. Maybe if I had a clarinet bong I'd enjoy them more."
River
"How am I gonna get you to dance with me if you're not a fan of parties?" like this was a big question.
Samir
"I mean... do we live in a world where people only dance at parties?"
River
She gives him a sideward glance, like she's thinking about what he'd said. Putting together a list of pros and cons and weighs that list of pros and cons before she ever gets around to offering it up for public consumption. That, or she forgot what she was doing because River goes into her pocket for her phone. Swipes through whatever pattern she uses to get into her phone and pulls up Pandora-
"... pick a station?"
Samir
"An entire station?"
Must be Grace didn't tell River about the time they played laser tag. They had made reference to it the night they all met up at the bar but Sam had been paying more attention to his phone than the conversation and had barely lifted his head enough to insult the other Virtual Adept.
A lot has changed since then but Sam's change in music is not one of them.
"See if they have Nihilist on there. They're a Swedish death metal band."
And they say romance is dead.
River
"Swedish death metal?" she says incredulously, like she isn't entirely certain what is going to happen when she searches for this.
There is searching, a little bit of idle humming while whatever River normally listens to is playing- which is currently consisting of a Beyonce remix because much of her musical research consists of trying to figure out how she can get her clothes off in a thematically appropriate fashion to this song.
She makes a little triumphant noise when she finds it, creates station and-
"... Swedish death metal?"
Samir
"In hindsight, I should've paid more attention to what the other kids were listening to when I was... you know... a kid."
Death metal deals with dark violent bloody themes why would you not want to listen to that when you're sitting next to a girl with whom you're involved in a sexual relationship.
"Here, can I see that?"
Should River give up her phone Samir kills the death metal and backtracks. Glances up at the stars as if he's accessing his repertoire of movie soundtracks.
Which means Marvin Gaye graces her phone with his voice a moment later. He flicks his eyebrows as if he wasn't expecting that but can live with it anyway. Hands her back the phone and offers her his now-empty hand as if inviting her to dance. He has no idea what he's doing.
River
"Eh-" she gives a dismissive wave at the concept of what other kids were listening to as kids because... eh, why not? She's trying to piece through what the lead singer is actually saying but it's going through so many translation filters for River that it may as well be running through babelfish.com for her.
She does hand the phone over, though. While he's looking through tracks she continues on in conversation.
"Other kids are boring. I listened to classical because it was the only station we could routinely find while we're driving," which was about the time that Marvin Gaye comes through. Her brows raise but she smiles. She gets her phone back and it gets laid on the bench.
She takes his hand and it doesn't seem to matter that he has no idea what he's doing because she does.
"I do this for a living," she tells him. Doesn't get more specific.
Samir
"Okay."
That's all he has to say about that. It's easier to be intimate with another person when all of the lights are off and she isn't interested in talking because she's spent. All he knows about dancing with a woman comes from the movies. He's supposed to take one of her hands in his and put his hand at the small of her back. It's freezing. They're both wearing fingerless gloves with a mitten option.
One could tango to 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' if one knew how to tango.
He's just going to let her lead. She's stoned and he's a gentleman.
River
[I totally know how to lead!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
River
It's all predictable patterns, then variations on the pattern. That's one of the things that she likes about ballroom. You know what you're doing, you have rules and parameters that you can act within those parameters. Then, when you're comfortable, when you've established those rules, you can break them and work through the variations.
There are rules she breaks immediately, like the fact that she actually does take the lead instead of just pulling the poor young man along with her. Gives physical cues of where she wants him to go and how she wants things to move and, for her part, does a very good job of not leaving him out in the middle of nowhere. There are things one doesn't do to their dance partner.
She smiles at him like she's leading an expedition and this cavalier creature he is dancing with has done this dozens of times. What River does not do, however, is warn him when she's going to dip him, presumes he knows it's coming because she gave the physical cues that something was going to happen but? She isn't thinking clearly.
Samir
[WHOA]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 5) ( botch x 1 )
Samir
The way she moves him through the dance one couldn't tell that River was pretty thoroughly baked. It's only as potent as it is because that's how Sam buys it. He only has an apprentice's understanding of the sphere governing the spirit world. Not until he furthers his studies will he be able to awaken the weed he brings to social gatherings and get everyone in the room so goddamn stoned they'll be able to see through time.
One wouldn't think from looking at him that he's a drug dealer. One wouldn't think from looking at her that she's a stripper. Neither of them would judge the other for the revelation and neither has volunteered the information yet.
She isn't thinking clearly.
She dips him and it catches him off-guard. Not only does it catch him off-guard but he startles with it. Then gravity decides it wants to have a turn. Sam can't untangle himself from her fast enough to keep her from sprawling on top of him when he crashes to the ground.
The impact knocks his teeth together and the ground is cold under him but it's kind of funny. Would have been funnier if Sam knew how to fall. Sam does not know how to fall. He didn't play sports and he avoids physical contact.
After the initial stun of it wears off he reaches up to touch her face with his left hand. Cuts her a smile to let her know it's alright.
"Look, I know they say that dancing is supposed to be the vertical expression of horizontal... desire, but..."
River
River doesn't fall in a graceful fashion. She's capable of it, because somewhere along the lines it became important that River knew how to tumble should the ground decide it doesn't want to be her friend anymore. It does not stop her from making a sound that is only best described as a distress call.
So, there she is, on top of a guy she likes looking mildly horrified by the prospect that she might have chipped one of his teeth and now he's not going to talk to her anymore except to send her a dental bill except Samir is a nice guy and he wouldn't send her the bill even if she offered to pay for it and-and-and-
Then his hand is on her face and she looks immediately relieved. Leans in to the gesture and tries to be subtle with the fact that she's trying to be sure his pupils are the same size. (Forensic files is so freaking useful).
"I have a thing for giving attractive men concussions," which was about when she leaned in to kiss him. Brief, yes, but why not?
Samir
Before he can make with a quick quip her lips are against his. It's twenty degrees colder today than it was the day they got stoned and had sex on the banks of Cherry Creek earlier this month. The point of their presence is to ensure the fire dies a good and proper death. That it doesn't take anything else with it.
He tightens his fingers in her hair and lifts up into the kiss. Brief but welcomed. When they pull back he breathes her in off his lips and tunes into the song still playing on the bench and tightens his arm around her waist.
"You wanna get out of here?"
He does know Forces. That fire could be dead in about five seconds if she wants it that way.
River
"Let's bail, I can't feel my butt."
Samir
[forces 2: i just want to test his new dice pool and kill this fire. -1 diff bc quint.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 4, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Samir
[stamina for the lulz]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Samir
[i think i need to reroll that 10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
River
[jesus, dude. Stamina?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Samir
Well beyond dark by the time they quit the place. Ashes not even smoldering after Sam did what he did. She met him when he was still an initiate in the art of space and forces and he has been through a trial in the scant time since they last met but then it seems as if he and she and everyone they know has been through a trial.
He doesn't know about her mentor or his presence in the city. He doesn't know that she was the one who found her friend's body. Twice. A lot he doesn't know about her or about anyone else but he can sense it just as well as he can sense it in anyone else.
Grace and Kiara will tell him their troubles in general and in the future. Tonight River and Samir are two kids alone together. He takes a deep breath before he puts his arm around her waist to walk her back to her car.
---
Considering he hates germs and physical contact and emotional attachment Sam lasts a good long time when he takes River to bed. Tonight is no different. He senses some need in her. Maybe it's one they ought to have talked their way through but that's not the course their relationship took.
She comes first. That is how he operates. Last time he came over he didn't even take his pants off. She didn't care. Tonight will pass the same way unless she drags him up and wrestles off his jeans. They're both freezing from the outside world but they warm each other quick beneath the sheets.
All things pass and this swell does as well. River is about ready to pass out long before Sam would concede defeat and it isn't defeat so much as a cease fire. He's breathing steady and hard but not fast.
"Can I ask you something?" He rolls onto his back and makes a place for her inside his arm. "Why did you..." He rummages around in his discarded pants for his cigarettes. Offers her one. "Why did you leave California?"
River
They could have talked through a number of things, but did not. She seemed fine with this. In truth, she was completely fine with this, being as likable as she is the young woman had secrets to keep and there was some form of catharsis to be had in physical relations with another person. Even at her best, she can't keep up with him. It's part of the appeal, truth be told.
When all things pass she's struggling for air and attempting to recenter herself and he asks if he can ask her something. She looks up and him and nods before she is curling into his space. Knows where she fits on another person's anatomy and is content to be there. She didn't realize how much she liked this, how much she liked being able to curl up with another person and listen to them breathing- hard but steady.
Then, Samir asks her why she left California. She takes a cigarette in hand and almost drops it. Reaffirms her grip as something awkward.
"How much do you know about my tradition?"
Samir
In his rummaging he finds an ashtray sat atop a copy of the Holy Bible in the bedside table. When he finally settles back down he rests the ashtray on his abdomen. Lights her cigarette before he lights his own. Settles back to hold her and listen to her talk.
"Not much. One of my old cabalmates was almost a Euthanatos but she--" He does not say Pulled her head out of her ass. "--didn't pass their initiation."
River
Oddly enough, his response seems to make her seem... relieved. Relieved isn't quite the right word and she knows it. It seems to be the closest approximation and she thinks about it. Looks at Samir and she doesn't shy away from looking at him. Doesn't flinch, doesn't back down, just takes a second to think about what she's going to say and how she's going to say it.
Decides to take the direct approach.
"The guy that came to town to deal with the Nephandus used to be Farrah and I's mentor," she starts, "and... Mike was a really good mentor. It... the mentor student relationship is incredibly important to Euthanatoi, you swear an oath."
River stops, realizing that she's getting off topic and her moment of rambling isn't actually getting her closer to the point. It's strange, she takes a second and takes a long drag off of her cigarette. At one point she stops looking at Samir, not because she can't stand looking at him or because she's too ashamed or if it's any number of things, but rather... because she's thinking. Because she's miles away dredging up the pieces and the elements of a story and has come across the quandary of explaining herself to someone who doesn't know the full details.
And perhaps she's thinking better of it, thinking that maybe she needs to turn around and backtrack and say that she doesn't want to talk about it because-
"Michael MacCarrick and Farrah Esmail were my world, it felt like they were there for everything and... then bodies start popping up and... Mike snapped one day and it-it wasn't like he was himself and I just wrote it off like it was nothing, or like it was just the nature of what we do and... then later, and it was awhile down the road Farrah showed me that it wasn't just the one time, that there were murders all over the place and he'd just-" she exhaled. Harsh.
Samir
If she changed her mind and decided she didn't want to talk about it he would have granted her that much space. It's none of his business but they could all sense the undercurrent of something pulling at her all night. Nothing he couldn't glean from reading it on Ginger but that defeats the purpose of being friends with someone.
They're reaching the point where they have to call each other friends. He has scried a ritualistic dungeon for her. Granted it was for her and Ihsan but Ihsan still thought to call him after they found River's friend dead in a hotel room. That carries with it a weight of responsibility.
He keeps his arm around her shoulders even when she isn't looking at him. His eyes on her profile while hers are on the ceiling.
"Grace made it sound like it was the Nephandus making him do all that."
No surprise over the fact that this was not an incident isolated to Denver. Isn't following the thread she's laid out. The mentor-student relationship is important enough for them to swear an oath binding themselves as such. From the sound of Sam's tone though he's expecting this story to take a darker turn.
River
They are friends, or are as close to friends as River has been with the people she's met in Denver. Sam scried a dungeon for her, he checked on her when she was in a state where she shouldn't have been interfacing with the general population. He's been nothing if not present and supportive and hasn't asked for anything in return, hasn't given her the impression that all of his attentions are one big play for a favor later down the road.
But she's here, ready to dump some horrid secret on him and she wonders...
River purses her lips, takes the time to think about how to proceed. "We didn't know about that. He didn't tell us about the artist, I think if we'd known things would have been different but they could have turned out vastly different here." There's a second where she has the opportunity to ruminate on the fact that Farrah is gone, that she died a gruesome death here instead of a gruesome death in San Diego.
She chooses not to take the opportunity.
"So, Farrah had her evidence and we didn't know what to do- it felt like we have a responsibility to do something. Mike is somebody though, he's got a reputation and it's a really freaking good one. It-" she falters for a second "-I don't know if Farrah felt like this, but I felt like... if we said something to someone else, that they wouldn't believe us. That everything would get written off and swept away and-"
She stops, takes a second to flick the ashes off her half-forgotten cigarette.
"... I'm getting off topic."
She exhales.
"Anyway, we confronted him about the whole thing and... it's like it wasn't him, just like I remember and just like Farrah saw and so... we killed him. Farrah shot him and we buried him in the desert."
Except, of course, he isn't dead. He's very much not dead.
Samir
I'm getting off topic.
"That's alright," he says.
At some point in her explanation as to why the two girls left California Sam started combing his fingers through her hair. As much as he could with his arm beneath her anyway. He is taller than her but he does not have much in the way of manual dexterity.
His cigarette is just about dead. He stamps it out in the ashtray balanced on his stomach and sweeps his own hair back off his brow as she exhales.
And then she comes out with it.
"... oh." A stilling of his finger-combing as he absorbs this. It picks back up when the infophage is complete. "Shit, dude. Does he know you're here?"
River
"Yeah, he and I and Ihsan dealt with the Nephandus that was causing all the problems," she said, "when Farrah died I called him because... I mean, it was just reflex, I didn't know what to do."
She looks at her cigarette, doesn't quite feel like finishing but might in a moment. It gets left in the ashtray, not yet ready to be relegated to the place where all cigarettes go when they are snuffed out before reaching the fruition of their purpose in life.
"What Farrah and I did was a violation of that oath I was telling you about.. and it's- it's just going to be-" awkward doesn't begin to describe it "-I don't know how to say it. It's big, and I'm not going to die or anything-" right now, (don't transgress again)- "I just... I can't go back home now."
Samir
Once her cigarette joins his spent filter in the ashtray Sam picks it up and sets it atop the beside table. An anemic lamp is the only other object on it. A moment's consideration and he transfers the lighter from where it had landed to accompany the ashtray. It isn't an attempt to stall for time. That is a heavy revelation she just laid down but she laid it down on him and not between them. It's a distinction he's aware of.
"That really sucks." A beat. "Do you want to go back?"
River
[Per+empathy- hey, you're not freaked out about that, are you?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
River
Does she want to go back?
She has to think again, but she doesn't spend long on it, "sometimes. I think... it's not so much that I want to go back, it's that I don't want things to be different and they're so incredibly different now."
She lets her hand now sans cigarette, rest on his chest over his sternum. It's as good a place as any, and she feels... connected. She could have backed away, expects the bottom to fall out, expects him to get out of bed and tell her that he's done but Samir hasn't given any indication that he's going to leave, that what she said was too much.
River exhales again.
"And I'm having a hard time processing that and... I know I don't have to be okay, but getting up and telling everyone that I'm fine and everything's perfect here feels fake."
Samir
This is hard for him.
Close as they are to each other he has trouble hiding the fact that his heart is beating fast in his chest or he would be having trouble if River were as aware of his anxiety as he is. Her hand over his sternum and she can feel the thudding of the muscle beneath the bone and it doesn't mean he's about to extricate himself from bed and find his way out the door.
He's concerned about her. He wants to be of some help to her. He wants to take a shower and scrub himself back into some semblance of cleanliness but listening to her is more important than appeasing his madness.
Another exhale. This time Sam puts his hand overtop the back of hers and squeezes it.
"Well... if you're not okay and you're telling people you are, that's..." Now is not the time to get pedantic. It's his turn to exhale. "I mean, you're holding your shit together pretty well. You don't have to all the time. If my best friend died and my mentor voted me off the island, I'd be useless."
Oh wait. That's pretty much the same reason why he left California. Oops.
River
She has no idea why he left California, no idea that they both have this little bit of disaster in common but-
"Why did you decide to move to Denver?"
-it does dawn on her to ask. An odd sort of coincidence that might not have been a coincidence. A strangeness that doesn't strike her as strange at first. She doesn't know it's supposed to, only that Samir and Ihsan are both from LA (a lot of people are from LA) and that now he lives here. She doesn't even know where he lives, just presumes that it's around and doesn't question it.
Perhaps she knows he's anxious, thinks he'll tell her if things aren't okay, if she needs to get up or he needs to leave or any number of things. Otherwise, she seems to stay the course, even as she listens to his heart pound at a tempo that their current state of being doesn't quite mesh with.
Samir
"Because I threw a dart at a wall map, and that's where it landed."
That doesn't answer the question. He made the decision to leave where he was at and come here. That's the heart of the discussion they're having now.
"No--" Like what he just said was supposed to be a joke. "--I mean, yeah, that's why Denver, specifically, but... my cabal sort of imploded. I botched a program I really shouldn't have botched and wound up in Quiet and a lot of things happened while reality and I were having our little trial separation and... I decided it'd be better if I went off on my own for a bit."
River
He decided that it would be better if he went off on his own for a bit. She's listening, stays where she is and takes a moment to look up at him, to take Samir in from a different angle while he's talking to her and relaying his own story.
"That sounds awful," with sincerity, because it did. It sounded awful, having your cabal implode then he said he decided it would be better if he went off on his own for a little while. A bit. He says, doesn't give a real time frame. Says he was in quiet and she winces.
"And lonely, going off alone, anyway... are you staying or going back ever?"
Samir
"I'm not sure."
He's downplaying the awfulness of the situation. Shorthand accomplishes its intended goal and River manages to unpack the rest of the story without having to ask any further questions. Quiet is the inevitable end for Death Mages who commit themselves too well to the dispensation of justice. River knows this in a way that transcends firsthand knowledge.
"I'm not from L.A." At least once the night he came over to help the girls scry Ju-Ju House in New York City he had quipped I'M FROM CANADA in Ihsan's direction. This is information River already has. "There's nothing there that I really need to go back for. If you have family out there, you should... don't rule it out, I guess."
River
Quiet is something River dreads, expects to happen to her someday but not for a long, long time unless she is very, very careful. Certain things have left their mark and a well mind being able to process an unwell experience is its own quiet horror. She wonders what it was like for other people, knows the only thing that kept Adam from acting more on his impulses were his sense of self control and a strict adherence to the laws he upheld. Still, there were exceptions made.
It was part of the problem, when she thinks about it, the disconnect she'd so willingly embraced earlier in the month because of how liberating it was to not be tied down with something so integral to the human condition. She understood aspects of herself, who she'd been, a little better after that.
She doesn't dwell terribly long, takes a moment for introspection and pops back to wherever it was her thoughts had left off.
"Most of my family is either in Cuba or Chula Vista. Nobody wants to go to Chula Vista, so I might be able to avoid awkward social confrontations," she shrugged. Shoulders up, then down.
Samir
"You might."
Sounds like the lead-up to a punchline. One of the many services Samir offers is a dry if self-depreciating sense of humor and the occasional out-blurting of something he ought to have kept to himself. Sex peels away some of the nervousness come from being around her. He likes her. She knows this. He said as much the day they fucked on the banks of the creek.
"If people find out we're banging, you'll have loads of awkward social confrontations to look forward to."
River
"Hordes of angry ex-girlfriends?"
Samir
"Not just one horde. Multiple hordes. Like the finale level of a Left 4 Dead map."
River
She laughed, takes her hand off of his chest and, instead, tries to stifle the bark of laughter. The sound, you see, is delighted. Amused- she likes Sam. She thinks he's funny and she knows just enough about video games to be able to catch the visual.
"Oh my god, really?" She shakes her head, "I'm fucked, Sam."
Samir
Her attempt to stopper her own laugh knocks an answering one out of him. What he just said was total bullshit. No one would care if their relationship became public knowledge. The few people who might form an opinion would offer high fives to the Euthanatos. He does not have any ex-girlfriends at all let alone enough to form one horde.
At least River finds him amusing. Means his attempts at jokery don't pass in vain.
He doesn't have enough game to pull off a segue into another round beneath the sheets. Or at least he doesn't think he does. Whatever the mind convinces itself of tends to become reality and their kind are more proof of the thing than they are the exception.
"You're so fucked." As much as he wants a shower he wants to say something nice to this girl more. He demarcates the two conversations by turning towards her and kissing her soft and slow on the mouth. "I'm glad I met you."
Even if they both had to go through some shit to wind up here. Even if she isn't okay.
Bonfire
I suck at having transcripts, because I lost this one, too. Big group scene with people and a fire and things.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Chakota
Silas N'Kwane
Previously:
Chakravanti Initiates Ihsan Ghali and River Vasquez traveled from Denver to New York to investigate the death of a friend of River's. Three men wielding bush knives killed writer Jackson Elias in a hotel room and trashed the room looking for his research into the Carlyse expedition.
They have been making great use of the fact that Ihsan's old acquaintance and River's new boy-person Samir Lakhani is a reality hacker. After speaking with Elias's editor and best friend Jonah Kensington they took a trip to Ju-Ju House. The girls found a business card with the name Silas N'Kwane scrawled on the back.
Downstairs they found tied-up soon-to-be sacrificial victims and a quartet of reanimated victims whose bodies were in the same condition as was Elias's. Whoever was behind the curtain conducting the ritual has disappeared.
They have cut down the victims. River has agreed to stay with them while Ihsan makes sure the way upstairs is clear.
She way is not clear.
When Ihsan steps out into the corridor a shadow cuts down the stairwell and moves towards her. Hesitates just before coming into the luminescence of the kerosene lantern. The blade of a panga knife flickering with the flames' reflection.
Ihsan Ghali
Within the ritual room Ihsan had been patting River's back, sympathetic even though she did seem a little bored with her friend's weak stomach for gore. She was certainly in the wrong gig if she was going to be doing this every time something exploded or died.
But she was a faithful friend and stealthily picked a few more flecks of carnage from River's hair while she was preoccupied with heaving. When she was done and left to recover, Ihsan led the way over to the victims. She had a knife tucked into the deep pocket of her dark pants, and used it to cut through the leather thongs that were wrapped about their wrists. The people were not in any condition to move easily, let alone defend themselves. Whatever had been reanimating these corpses and leading the dismantling of these bodies had to be around somewhere. This was his turf, after all.
So Ihsan volunteered to go on ahead. River could stay back with the sacrificial lambs, take the time she needed to gather herself back up before skirting around those disemboweled zombies (Ihsan didn't spare the time to clean up the bodies, her priorities were elsewhere).
No sooner had the door closed behind her did a shadow move into her field of vision. A knife gleamed in the lamplight. Ihsan bared her teeth-- it might have been a smile but there was too forceful an edge to it to not look somewhat animal. She gripped the staff with her right hand and kept the gun down at her side for now.
"This is a nice set up. Well hidden." She pursed her lips appreciatively, and nodded. "I have to commend."
Silas N'Kwane
"You are... uninvited."
Out of the darkness shuffles an old man. Well into his seventies. His hair sits thick as a cloud atop his wrinkled head and he is dressed as one would expect a shopkeep to dress. A clean button-down shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of khakis belted around his waist. Reasonable shoes.
Except for that bush knife held in hand as if prepared to use it. He is not prepared to use it. He would prefer not to use it.
He lowers the weapon when he gets close enough for the flames to dance in the reflection of his glasses. To see a thin young woman standing with a staff in his corridor.
"Why are you here?"
Ihsan Ghali
She shrugged when he informed her that she was uninvited in this shop. The gesture said 'eh, what can ya do.' As he stepped closer to reveal himself an old man Ihsan tucked the gun behind her back, but she kept her grasp on the staff firm. She'd been involved with Magick long enough to know better than to let your guard down because somebody's a cute little old person.
When asked why she was here, she tossed her head back over her shoulder to indicate the door behind her.
"Because of what's behind that door. Not to mention what's in the well in the floor in there." She paused, thoughtfully sucked on a tooth, and added:
"Are you familiar with a Jackson Elias?"
[Because the storyteller recommended it: Perception 2 + Alertness 2, diff 8]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (2, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 1 )
Silas N'Kwane
[manip + subt: pft, no.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Ihsan Ghali
[Wits 3 + Subterfuge 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Ihsan Ghali
[pft, yes]
Silas N'Kwane
That isn't a flame she sees dance across his eyes when she asks after Jackson Elias.
They have seen the neighborhood and the people who frequent the neighborhood. Elias may have been able to infiltrate a group of Indian assassins but he would still stand out somewhat. Anyone who would have seen him would have known he was sneaking around.
Whether or not the man had been to the shop prior to his death that name means something to the old man.
"No," he says. The more he speaks the more Ihsan can hear the Kenyan accent creeping into his speech. "I know nothing about what is behind the door. If I were you, I would leave. Now."
Ihsan Ghali
There was a glimmer across the old man's face, and Ihsan's eyebrows raised obviously high on her forehead. She knew he was lying, and he could see that all over her face in turn.
"Well, you see, I can't just yet." She jerked the head of her tall black staff to indicate the door behind her this time around.
"I'm not quite done saving the innocent yet."
River Vasquez
It is, after a fair juncture, that River concluded that she wasn't exactly okay with the fact that she hasn't seen (or heard) Ihsan in... well... longer than she had liked. It took a minute, and she had taken the opportunity to use a McDonald's napkin and some makeup remover towelettes to get the stupid blood off of her face.
She looked at the poor, relatively helpless people who had been cut down and seemed to be drugged out of their mind (bonus points! They aren't going to be wandering off).
River doesn't like this, though, and she looks back at the people who, as far as she knew, were not going to remember what the fuck it was that she was going to say to them but she felt the need to say something anyway, "I'll be right back."
She cringed, obviously disliking the way that sounded and the implications it had in the horror movie life that mages seemed to lead. River looked up like the sky might have the answers. In the absence of sky, she just had stone. The young woman turned around and headed off to go find Ihsan.
Silas N'Kwane
As River passes through the reinforced oak door she sees Ihsan's back and a figure stood in the light of the kerosene lantern. Can hear the low echoes of their conversation.
"Innocents? There are no innocents here! You must be in the wrong place." A measured pause. "And I am telling you again, now. You leave. I will not repeat myself."
Ihsan Ghali
Behind her the door opened enough to let River pass through, but Ihsan was more focused on the old man with the knife in front of her. She raised one eyebrow higher than the other, now, looking incredulous. For now she seemed to have not even heard the man's demanding that she leave.
After all, he was only holding a knife.
"So do you tell me that the people I found in there and cut down-- they're not innocent? Do tell."
River Vasquez
She turned to the sound o people, inhaled slowly and set her shoulders back. She's had time to reset, time to be composed, and when River has had time to prepare she can be a force of nature. The young woman went to go join Ihsan and comes upon... the situation.
She blinks.
"Hey, let's... all take a moment to breathe, yes?" like she's the epitome of calm and collected and nonviolent and not at all like she nearly revisited her lunch after having shot some reanimated corpses.
Ihsan Ghali
[+6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Silas N'Kwane
[+4]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
River Vasquez
[5+1d10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Silas N'Kwane
It's then that the girls realize this man was not joking when he said that he did not intend to repeat himself. He looks harmless. He may actually be harmless. But insanity will still draw blood when it worms its way in.
[Action: Attack Ihsan with machete.]
River Vasquez
This guy might not be a terrible person. He might not be the kind of person who hacks people to death with machetes. As far as she's concerned, River doesn't want to leave more bodies int heir wake than strictly necessary and this? This might not be necessary. She puts her hands up , exhales, tries to catch the man's eyes.
"Wait-don't-"
[Mind 2: Projecting "Seriously calm the fuck down and don't be freaking violent"? Is that an emotional response?]
Ihsan Ghali
[Dexterity 3 + Brawl 1: The 'Easy now, old fella' grapple]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
River Vasquez
[Mind 2: Knock that shit off, +1 diff because we're casting quickly]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Silas N'Kwane
[LOL I'm not anticipating this succeeding but the dice are fickle]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 8) ( success x 1 )
Silas N'Kwane
Ihsan sees the old man stepping forward. The flash of the knife as he lifts it and prepares to use it against the intruder.
If he had had it his way he could have caught the two off-guard. Come up behind them and then maybe had a chance at taking out one or both of them. But he didn't get down here fast enough.
The girls are more spry both in body and in mind than their attacker. Ihsan pins his arms behind his back and River's words seem to sink in. Let's all take a moment to breathe.
Though the old man struggles against River he can't break free. The bush knife clatters to the stone floor.
Ihsan Ghali
Ihsan wasn't much stronger than the average adult woman, but she was fit and spry and Silas was neither of those things. Even at less than her fastest, Ihsan was able to easily see that the man was coming at them knife-first and step around behind him. Perhaps he would have held his own more easily about half a century ago, but tonight all Ihsan had to do was hold his arms behind him and keep a firm grip.
He'd tried to wriggle out, but River called for him to not and despite the fact that the corridor was dark and lit only with fire for a moment it felt warmer and brighter somehow, like sunlight had filtered its way down to fill the tunnel if only for that moment.
The knife clattered to the ground, and Ihsan made a soothing noise over the old man's head.
"That's it." And then, to River. "Are we getting those two prisoners, or...?"
River Vasquez
"I don't know how much time we have to get them out of here and before this whole place closes up and we lose whatever leads are here," she tells Ihsan. She still has her hands up like she's directing traffic. Collected. River has managed to present herself as a collected individual, like everyone in this situation is going to be cool, like this isn't going to go the way of a Tarantino film where they accidentally hit a bump and blow this old man's brains all over the back of their car.
Did they even get a car to come here?
She gave the man a second look, then back at Ihsan-
"Who are you?"
Silas N'Kwane
When Samir spoke to Arthur Emerson on the phone before the girls took their trip to New York he learned that Elias was intending to visit Ju-Ju House in order to look into the activities of a Mombasan exporter named Ahja Singh. That it was the only known U.S. account this individual holds.
Emerson was the guy who has a poor opinion of foreigners. None of the young people on the other end of the line were born in the United States. Samir hung up pretty quickly after that.
"My name is Silas N'Kwame," he says. He is not sedated by her effect but he sounds as if he doesn't have a concern in the world right now. "I am the proprietor of Ju-Ju House. If you do not leave, the others will come soon, and they will feed you to the Chakota."
River Vasquez
"My associate and I will be leaving with your guests as soon as possible," she assured him. The old man sounded a little like her mother at that juncture, unconcerned by frankly explaining that something was going to eat her if she didn't do exactly what her mother said. She had a repository of horrible things that ate unruly children when they were being bad.
The Chakota, however, was not one of those things that made the list.
"What's the Chakota?"
Previously:
Chakravanti Initiates Ihsan Ghali and River Vasquez traveled from Denver to New York to investigate the death of a friend of River's. Three men wielding bush knives killed writer Jackson Elias in a hotel room and trashed the room looking for his research into the Carlyse expedition.
They have been making great use of the fact that Ihsan's old acquaintance and River's new boy-person Samir Lakhani is a reality hacker. After speaking with Elias's editor and best friend Jonah Kensington they took a trip to Ju-Ju House. The girls found a business card with the name Silas N'Kwane scrawled on the back.
Downstairs they found tied-up soon-to-be sacrificial victims and a quartet of reanimated victims whose bodies were in the same condition as was Elias's. Whoever was behind the curtain conducting the ritual has disappeared.
They have cut down the victims. River has agreed to stay with them while Ihsan makes sure the way upstairs is clear.
She way is not clear.
When Ihsan steps out into the corridor a shadow cuts down the stairwell and moves towards her. Hesitates just before coming into the luminescence of the kerosene lantern. The blade of a panga knife flickering with the flames' reflection.
Ihsan Ghali
Within the ritual room Ihsan had been patting River's back, sympathetic even though she did seem a little bored with her friend's weak stomach for gore. She was certainly in the wrong gig if she was going to be doing this every time something exploded or died.
But she was a faithful friend and stealthily picked a few more flecks of carnage from River's hair while she was preoccupied with heaving. When she was done and left to recover, Ihsan led the way over to the victims. She had a knife tucked into the deep pocket of her dark pants, and used it to cut through the leather thongs that were wrapped about their wrists. The people were not in any condition to move easily, let alone defend themselves. Whatever had been reanimating these corpses and leading the dismantling of these bodies had to be around somewhere. This was his turf, after all.
So Ihsan volunteered to go on ahead. River could stay back with the sacrificial lambs, take the time she needed to gather herself back up before skirting around those disemboweled zombies (Ihsan didn't spare the time to clean up the bodies, her priorities were elsewhere).
No sooner had the door closed behind her did a shadow move into her field of vision. A knife gleamed in the lamplight. Ihsan bared her teeth-- it might have been a smile but there was too forceful an edge to it to not look somewhat animal. She gripped the staff with her right hand and kept the gun down at her side for now.
"This is a nice set up. Well hidden." She pursed her lips appreciatively, and nodded. "I have to commend."
Silas N'Kwane
"You are... uninvited."
Out of the darkness shuffles an old man. Well into his seventies. His hair sits thick as a cloud atop his wrinkled head and he is dressed as one would expect a shopkeep to dress. A clean button-down shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of khakis belted around his waist. Reasonable shoes.
Except for that bush knife held in hand as if prepared to use it. He is not prepared to use it. He would prefer not to use it.
He lowers the weapon when he gets close enough for the flames to dance in the reflection of his glasses. To see a thin young woman standing with a staff in his corridor.
"Why are you here?"
Ihsan Ghali
She shrugged when he informed her that she was uninvited in this shop. The gesture said 'eh, what can ya do.' As he stepped closer to reveal himself an old man Ihsan tucked the gun behind her back, but she kept her grasp on the staff firm. She'd been involved with Magick long enough to know better than to let your guard down because somebody's a cute little old person.
When asked why she was here, she tossed her head back over her shoulder to indicate the door behind her.
"Because of what's behind that door. Not to mention what's in the well in the floor in there." She paused, thoughtfully sucked on a tooth, and added:
"Are you familiar with a Jackson Elias?"
[Because the storyteller recommended it: Perception 2 + Alertness 2, diff 8]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (2, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 1 )
Silas N'Kwane
[manip + subt: pft, no.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Ihsan Ghali
[Wits 3 + Subterfuge 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Ihsan Ghali
[pft, yes]
Silas N'Kwane
That isn't a flame she sees dance across his eyes when she asks after Jackson Elias.
They have seen the neighborhood and the people who frequent the neighborhood. Elias may have been able to infiltrate a group of Indian assassins but he would still stand out somewhat. Anyone who would have seen him would have known he was sneaking around.
Whether or not the man had been to the shop prior to his death that name means something to the old man.
"No," he says. The more he speaks the more Ihsan can hear the Kenyan accent creeping into his speech. "I know nothing about what is behind the door. If I were you, I would leave. Now."
Ihsan Ghali
There was a glimmer across the old man's face, and Ihsan's eyebrows raised obviously high on her forehead. She knew he was lying, and he could see that all over her face in turn.
"Well, you see, I can't just yet." She jerked the head of her tall black staff to indicate the door behind her this time around.
"I'm not quite done saving the innocent yet."
River Vasquez
It is, after a fair juncture, that River concluded that she wasn't exactly okay with the fact that she hasn't seen (or heard) Ihsan in... well... longer than she had liked. It took a minute, and she had taken the opportunity to use a McDonald's napkin and some makeup remover towelettes to get the stupid blood off of her face.
She looked at the poor, relatively helpless people who had been cut down and seemed to be drugged out of their mind (bonus points! They aren't going to be wandering off).
River doesn't like this, though, and she looks back at the people who, as far as she knew, were not going to remember what the fuck it was that she was going to say to them but she felt the need to say something anyway, "I'll be right back."
She cringed, obviously disliking the way that sounded and the implications it had in the horror movie life that mages seemed to lead. River looked up like the sky might have the answers. In the absence of sky, she just had stone. The young woman turned around and headed off to go find Ihsan.
Silas N'Kwane
As River passes through the reinforced oak door she sees Ihsan's back and a figure stood in the light of the kerosene lantern. Can hear the low echoes of their conversation.
"Innocents? There are no innocents here! You must be in the wrong place." A measured pause. "And I am telling you again, now. You leave. I will not repeat myself."
Ihsan Ghali
Behind her the door opened enough to let River pass through, but Ihsan was more focused on the old man with the knife in front of her. She raised one eyebrow higher than the other, now, looking incredulous. For now she seemed to have not even heard the man's demanding that she leave.
After all, he was only holding a knife.
"So do you tell me that the people I found in there and cut down-- they're not innocent? Do tell."
River Vasquez
She turned to the sound o people, inhaled slowly and set her shoulders back. She's had time to reset, time to be composed, and when River has had time to prepare she can be a force of nature. The young woman went to go join Ihsan and comes upon... the situation.
She blinks.
"Hey, let's... all take a moment to breathe, yes?" like she's the epitome of calm and collected and nonviolent and not at all like she nearly revisited her lunch after having shot some reanimated corpses.
Ihsan Ghali
[+6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Silas N'Kwane
[+4]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
River Vasquez
[5+1d10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Silas N'Kwane
It's then that the girls realize this man was not joking when he said that he did not intend to repeat himself. He looks harmless. He may actually be harmless. But insanity will still draw blood when it worms its way in.
[Action: Attack Ihsan with machete.]
River Vasquez
This guy might not be a terrible person. He might not be the kind of person who hacks people to death with machetes. As far as she's concerned, River doesn't want to leave more bodies int heir wake than strictly necessary and this? This might not be necessary. She puts her hands up , exhales, tries to catch the man's eyes.
"Wait-don't-"
[Mind 2: Projecting "Seriously calm the fuck down and don't be freaking violent"? Is that an emotional response?]
Ihsan Ghali
[Dexterity 3 + Brawl 1: The 'Easy now, old fella' grapple]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
River Vasquez
[Mind 2: Knock that shit off, +1 diff because we're casting quickly]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Silas N'Kwane
[LOL I'm not anticipating this succeeding but the dice are fickle]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 8) ( success x 1 )
Silas N'Kwane
Ihsan sees the old man stepping forward. The flash of the knife as he lifts it and prepares to use it against the intruder.
If he had had it his way he could have caught the two off-guard. Come up behind them and then maybe had a chance at taking out one or both of them. But he didn't get down here fast enough.
The girls are more spry both in body and in mind than their attacker. Ihsan pins his arms behind his back and River's words seem to sink in. Let's all take a moment to breathe.
Though the old man struggles against River he can't break free. The bush knife clatters to the stone floor.
Ihsan Ghali
Ihsan wasn't much stronger than the average adult woman, but she was fit and spry and Silas was neither of those things. Even at less than her fastest, Ihsan was able to easily see that the man was coming at them knife-first and step around behind him. Perhaps he would have held his own more easily about half a century ago, but tonight all Ihsan had to do was hold his arms behind him and keep a firm grip.
He'd tried to wriggle out, but River called for him to not and despite the fact that the corridor was dark and lit only with fire for a moment it felt warmer and brighter somehow, like sunlight had filtered its way down to fill the tunnel if only for that moment.
The knife clattered to the ground, and Ihsan made a soothing noise over the old man's head.
"That's it." And then, to River. "Are we getting those two prisoners, or...?"
River Vasquez
"I don't know how much time we have to get them out of here and before this whole place closes up and we lose whatever leads are here," she tells Ihsan. She still has her hands up like she's directing traffic. Collected. River has managed to present herself as a collected individual, like everyone in this situation is going to be cool, like this isn't going to go the way of a Tarantino film where they accidentally hit a bump and blow this old man's brains all over the back of their car.
Did they even get a car to come here?
She gave the man a second look, then back at Ihsan-
"Who are you?"
Silas N'Kwane
When Samir spoke to Arthur Emerson on the phone before the girls took their trip to New York he learned that Elias was intending to visit Ju-Ju House in order to look into the activities of a Mombasan exporter named Ahja Singh. That it was the only known U.S. account this individual holds.
Emerson was the guy who has a poor opinion of foreigners. None of the young people on the other end of the line were born in the United States. Samir hung up pretty quickly after that.
"My name is Silas N'Kwame," he says. He is not sedated by her effect but he sounds as if he doesn't have a concern in the world right now. "I am the proprietor of Ju-Ju House. If you do not leave, the others will come soon, and they will feed you to the Chakota."
River Vasquez
"My associate and I will be leaving with your guests as soon as possible," she assured him. The old man sounded a little like her mother at that juncture, unconcerned by frankly explaining that something was going to eat her if she didn't do exactly what her mother said. She had a repository of horrible things that ate unruly children when they were being bad.
The Chakota, however, was not one of those things that made the list.
"What's the Chakota?"
Friday, November 13, 2015
Scene wherein stuff happens
River and Ihsan went to go see River's friend aaaaaand he died horribly because of crazy cult members. I'm still trying to find the transcript
Monday, November 9, 2015
Cherry Creek
River
Cherry Creek State Park was, in fact, a half an hour out outside of Denver. When you got to Aurora it was a pretty easy place to find, being one of the few places that offered year 'round camping and access to birds and wildlife and mostly modern amenities like actual bathrooms if you wanted to hike back and see the actual bathrooms. River had been avoiding food for the most part, and generally finds the bathrooms at campgrounds a little offputting anyway.
So, there was walking to be had. She wasn't dressed for hiking, and River was more the type to wander. She seemed, while not completely clothed in the raiment of an outdoorswoman, very much in her element being outside. It's cold; it's going to get colder and she knows it but the young woman actually did ante up for buying an actual coat at one point because she was committed to being in Colorado and she wasn't going to not be in the middle of a living, breathing facet of nature just because she wussed out a little because of a little cold.
Besides, if things get too bad she's got a blanket shoved in the trunk and some glow sticks. River knows nothing about cars, but knows that glow sticks are much more useful than they seem and you never know when you need a blanket. We digress.
There was hiking, or walking, or whatever to be had. The ground is a little uneven, but they do get to a place where the view of the water is nice and the trees have provided a decent amount of cover and they're far enough off the path that no one is going to likely bother them. River was down by the bank; she's rolled up her pants legs and thrown her shoes somewhere (because, again, she could not be bothered to wear shoes for any extended period of time, even if it was in the forties). She's standing on a rock in the middle of the creek, has her hands shoved in her pockets.
"Ohhhh, I can't wait until this freezes over," she says, the mirror of excitement creeping into her voice. She knows she should be excited, has memories of being excited and can parrot back said excitement. It just... slightly misses the mark.
Samir
The Doc Marten's Samir wears are great for stomping the pavement and keeping his ankles from rolling on the rare occasion he decides he has to run from someone. They hold up in nearly every weather condition one can imagine and they don't break down easy. Even if they did not belong to an initiate of Matter and an apprentice of Entropy they would not break down easy.
Samir however does not spend much time outside. He doesn't hike. He doesn't like jogging or swimming or kayaking or any of that nonsense. The only reason he is outside in this sunny yet chilly weather is that is what River wants to do and he sensed that River needed to indulge her more primeval side. Which is how they wind up down by the creek.
This creek runs southeast. He lives on its banks. It's strange to see it within the context of civilization. Normally when he sees it it's just beyond his ancient Airstream trailer. Nothing but farmland and forestry around it. If he turns and looks he can see the city behind them.
"It freezes?" he asks. Sam has yet to survive a winter out here. He was born in Vancouver. One would think he would be used to winter but then again he left when he was twelve. Thanks, Mom. "And you can't wait?"
Suffice to say he's still on the banks of Cherry Creek. Call it spotting. He's spotting her.
River
Right now, River Vasquez operates on an entire paradigm of should.
She knows that she enjoys water, knows that she enjoys being out in nature, knows that under most circumstances that she would be frolicking off into the water and coming back cold and a little regretful for a second but not quite ready to give in and say that she'd made a bad decision because she needed to be out in nature and feeling the autumn slip away into winter. She looks down and the water glitters, it's those little moments that water has when it's decided to render the gravel into gemstones.
There's a smile on her face and she wears the vestiges of delight but it isn't wild, it isn't laced with laughter at something that she can't begin to really describe to people.
"I saw a youtube video of a man skipping rocks on a frozen lake, I'm counting down the days until that-" she looks back and takes a careful hop to a nearby rock to start her trek back over to the banks "-is something I can try."
Samir
If River were a person who normally operated as one restrained this would not strike him as strange. But she seems a different person than the one he met the other night and their kind wear masks sure but this seems less like a mask and more like an alteration of her personality.
He considers the way she says what she says. The emptiness of what she says. Maybe this is how she always is and she was putting on a front the other night. He doubts it. Based on what he's read on Ginger he doubts it.
Blame it on something she said the other night. She knew Ihsan. He knew Ihsan was from Egypt originally. Cairo specifically. He and Ihsan were both in Cairo when the revolution erupted but they hadn't known each other then. The Code was all connected. This is a shot in the dark. It helps him focus. He addresses her in Arabic to help himself focus.
"Hal anta bikhayr?"
[mind 1: sense emotions. fuck modifiers.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 4) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
River
River Vasquez learned Arabic because, one day, after she'd been skiddish and wide eyed and weepy and shocked over her awakening, she decided that she wanted to speak Arabic. Enrolled in a short class during the spring and became a voracious consumer of a language that was not her own. At the point that she had decided she was going to learn something completely out of her comfort zone, she was already fluent in four other languages.
So, she'd studied. Picked up the basics and shoved herself into situations where she would have to use every bit of her knowledge as frequently as possible until her speech was fluent and the ease at which she read wasn't unimpressive. It wasn't something she'd picked up from someone else or lingered from the memory of being a different person. Learning languages was something that was her own, and River was very, very good at it.
He asks her if she's okay.
"No," she tells him, and it comes off sounding frank and could have been a slap in the face were it not for the fact that she has done an incredibly good job of making sure emotions didn't come up at all. There was nothing there. No joy, no anger, no mild amusement. It's very hard to sense something that isn't here.
"I haven't been okay since I moved here. I'll be okay, I know that. Eventually, things will work themselves out but right now I'm not okay."
Samir
Ah, fuck.
Samir and River's former mentor have in common their earnestness. He does not have the same aw shucks sort of innocence about him that Michael does but Samir does not seem capable of lying. Even when he pulls a stupid face or speaks in sarcasm it is so obvious that it could not pass for true. He does not seem to have a manipulative bone in his body.
One of the perks of his mental illness is that he does not have to spend much time around other people and their problems. Other people's problems tend to bring disorder with them. More than dirt he cannot handle disorder. It took him an inordinate amount of time to incorporate entropy into his paradigm. He may never master it.
But River is clearly covering up her hurt with control. He can sense the Mind magick active in her. She presents as a woman who feels nothing and needs more than she can ask for. Her surface thoughts are desolate. There's nothing there. That isn't normal.
He doesn't want to do this. He's dead sober and dead straight. He hasn't even taken a deep breath of creek air to give himself a rush. He barely even knows her. He likes her. They are both pretty young things. But he's worried about her.
"You got a lighter?" he asks.
It's a cheap ploy to get her to come back to land but he tries it anyway.
River
She likes it, when she has the capacity to actually process what that means. She finds his sarcasm funny enjoys the fact that Samir doesn't seem malicious, doesn't seem like he seeks to gain anything from being deceitful. One of the first things one learns when working with Entropy is the way that the truth breaks down and you have two options to avoid being found out- lie about everything, or develop a tendency to be honest when it matters.
He asks if she has a lighter and she doesn't think anything of it. After all, they came out here to smoke and be in a park and that was what she came prepared to do... except for the fact that River doesn't have any weed on her. She's got half a pack of cigarettes from someone that she said she would hold onto; who really knew what River kept in her purse, but one couldn't be surprised when her answer was-
"Oh, yeah," and she slowly started to make her way back to the edge of the creek. The young woman went to her bag to fish something out, retrieving a little pink lighter whose origins she can't actually remember.
River holds the lighter out to Sam, waits patiently for him to take it. "Here."
Samir
The lighter feels subtle and liberating at once. It's a faint feeling but one that makes Samir frown. Resonance he neither can recognize nor wants to inquire about. It'll do.
So he produces a cigarette. Hand-rolled. Offers it to her straight from the yellow plastic case he keeps in his pocket and if she takes it great and if she doesn't he lights it for his own anyway.
Either way she's here on land with him. Sitting with him maybe. He chooses to sit on the ground even though the chill saps seat from his backside. Puts him lower to the ground. Less mass for the wind to have at. A few tendrils of black have come loose from the knot at the nape of his neck and he banishes them with a quick shake of his head.
"I know it's none of my business," he says. Looking straight ahead at the creek at first but then turns to look over at River. Genuine concern tensing his brow. It isn't a frown. His eyes are the color of whiskey. The daylight lets her see it. "But..." Shit. He has to translate this into pagan. "... you know someone's cast Calm on you, right?"
He knows she knows. The spell smacks of her resonance. He still asks as if the possibility exists that she had no idea.
River
There's a certain mindfulness that comes with smoking. Or, at the very least, it's something that she takes with her. It's being aware of the way smoke feels when it comes into your lungs, being able to accept and be aware of the way that it burns and the signals it sends your brain that you need to exhale. She holds it, though, knows that she needs to hold it and takes a few seconds before she exhales. River is a dancer; she went to school with art majors and has been to more than a few parties. She's smoked before. Not as often as, say, a theatre major would but she's no stranger to partaking.
River settled down to sit with him, left her legs stretched outward before she handed the cigarette back and put the ligher back into her pocket. She looks at him and catches that he's concerned. Her brows knit together for a moment because his concern is new information to process and there is no frame of reference for dealing with Samir when he is concerned. It goes back to basic protocols- someone is concerned, so assuage their fears accordingly. She doesn't shy away from meeting his glance.
She hadn't seen what color his eyes were before- they're striking. Hers are warm, but dark. A little like hot chocolate or (much to her chagrin) coffee with cream.
He inquires as to the state of her... selfness. She tries to give him a smile that is reassuring but he knows that there is no real emotional basis for it, just there because he's concerned and that's the appropriate reaction.
"Oh, that," with a little wave, "Ihsan and Mike and I had to go deal with an issue with a Nephandus and I was concerned that I might have an averse reaction to the environment? So, I took precautions to make sure that wouldn't be a problem."
She perks up, as if she realized something, "it's really not a bad thing."
Of course it's not. It's not a bad thing, it's not a good thing, it's nothing. That's the problem.
Samir
"I haven't learned how to do that yet. I'd like to. I just..."
Disarming the person you're trying to reach is one of the oldest tricks in the book but Sam is neither a therapist nor equipped to pretend to be one. His only qualification is that he gives a shit about the well-being of people he considers friends. He doesn't know if he considers River a friend yet. She knows Grace. Grace is a friend. Grace also doesn't need him. Doesn't feel the need to shunt herself off with Code just to function.
This the Nephandus who killed her friend. The one who has been possessing or leading to the possession of that Michael guy. Ihsan was there with them. Alright. Stands to reason Michael - Mike - has a relationship with Ihsan and River. Maybe with Farrah too. Averse reaction. Precautions.
He has no idea how Chakravanti work. Amanita was almost a Euthanatos but she ran away before she could go through her initiation rite. That was probably for the best anyway.
"I... sometimes think it's better to have the averse reaction than to just... not."
He locks his eyes on her face whether she's looking at him or not.
"Why do you keep it going, if it's over?"
River
Let it be said that talking to a person who has turned off their emotional responses is going to be very willing to give responses that aren't keyed in to the concept of shame. It's just a series of facts; River felt things at one point and at this juncture doesn't have to think about how she was feeling so she can, instead, focus on how she knows she would feel within a given situation.
Why does she keep this going, though? If it's all done and over with, then why doesn't she just drop the effect and go on living her life and she can pick things up wherever. River has to think about this. She looks at Samir for a second, takes in the curves and angles of his face. She takes in the way that his eyes lock on her face and she's studying him for a second, as if she's trying to figure out what answer he's looking for and concludes that this isn't a canned response.
No, this is actually a question that requires thinking. And she does think about it. Let it be said that she's never been afraid to take her time when she's concluded that she actually has time. She looks from his face to the stream, over the way that sunlight plays on the water.
"If I stop the effect then it all comes back, but it'll be worse then and I don't know if I'm ready for that," like she's thinking about it, shakes her head and concludes it's a bad idea, "right now, I can go to work and actually make it through my shift. I can look at things without having that weighted reaction and it's just a study of facts."
There is a second.
"I don't have the resources necessary to make processing the events leading up to dealing with the nephandus and afterwards any easier. When it all comes back, there won't be anybody there to help make this easier so, right now, it's easier to just not need that sort of support and assistance."
River
(closing tag to be safe)
Samir
"I mean..."
Call a spade a spade. Samir has no self-esteem because he hasn't ever had to. He made his way through his awakening because his mentor was there. He made it through his apprenticeship because he was smart but he never had to internalize his own intelligence. His cabalmates were always there to protect him but they never felt the need to build him up.
That is neither here nor there.
Maybe he thinks of himself as expendable. Disposable. A commodity. Whatever. Maybe he actually thinks he can help her. That this isn't the worst situation in which he's ever met another person. Maybe he has been here before.
River never met his pals Richardson or Amanita. Will never meet Perez. May have met Kayf since Michael knew Kayf. Doesn't matter. She can't dial in a reference as to his qualifications for making this easier. Life isn't easy. He can attest to that.
"I'm here."
River
Grace said she'd had concerns. She could understand Grace having concerns, but took them as something that were more based out of a desire to keep her city safe than anything that had to do with River. She may have been wrong, and River may very well have read the situation wrong entirely. The people she'd talked to at the beginning of her time there were nowhere to be seen when Farrah died. No call, no checking in- and she couldn't begrudge them that. People have lives. The world moves on when people die and she knowsthis.
Samir has seen her less than a hand full of times, and now he's sitting on the bank of some creek asking her if she's okay and says that he's here and she looks at him. Quirks her mouth to the side when she realizes that his logic is, in fact sound. Samir isn't nobody, and he is there. She thought no one was going to be there once she dropped her effect and had to scramble to pick everything back up because she has to keep going and she doesn't have time to grieve yet. Hadn't had time to grieve since she got here, but it's a different sort of grief now.
He says he's here, though, and she can't argue with him.
So, there is a moment where she looks away, scoots a little closer so her bare feet are closer to his, so that her hip is against his. River doesn't say anything to him, doesn't know that she probably shouldn't be in Sam's space, that this might be indeed too much for him to handle but she's there and he's warm and he's there.
The first real indication that he gets that something shifts is when she inhales sharply, when the effect gets cast asside and dissipates despite her best efforts to talk herself into keeping things going. River let out a slow, shaking exhalation of breath and there was that slip of control. That moment that she'd cast magick and will aside for feeling what was there.
"I'm not ready yet," she tells him, insists in Arabic with an unsteady breath and all the decorum she can muster. She doesn't want to be crying. She doesn't want to feel like this, and doesn't want to seem- what? Weak, confused, damaged, wounded, what? She doesn't want to feel human but she knows exactly what becomes of us when we lose that part of ourselves to grief and circumstance. She doesn't want him to know how incredibly afraid she is to feel all of this, but it's obvious.
Samir
[wp: lol he has a derangement]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Samir
And it shocks him to feel her body against him. Doesn't repel him. It's just a shock. Makes him take a deep breath and consider logistics. Consider the fact that if he puts his hand on the other side of her body that it's going to touch the grass. Normally he would have some ritual involved in placing his palm upon the earth. Would have to flick his lighter a certain number of times or tie and untie his laces. Would have to pluck up a certain numbers of blades of grass.
Today he doesn't. He can keep his shit together long enough to extend the arm not holding the cigarette and plant its hand on the other side of River's hip. Let her feel like she's not alone but not grab onto her. Not try to possess her.
She's not ready yet.
"You don't have to be."
No idea what he's doing. He sets down the cigarette without looking to see where it's going and puts that hand at the side of her face. Looks her deep in the eye to make sure he isn't about to hurt her before he draws in and kisses her on the mouth.
River
There's something to be said about being present, how it can be its own reward and this- no matter how horribly she hurts right now- is a reward in and of itself. In some ways, this is almost a becoming in its own right. The breaking, tearing, building- it's all reforming and pressing on to the next place it needs to inhabit. She would think in terms of art an analogies, but somehow creating beauty and form has an unpleasant taste in her mouth.
She says she's not ready, insists like it's the only thing she has to hold onto but his reply is simple- you don't have to be. River looks at Samir and her mascara is threatening to run and her blush has streaks in it and her hair doesn't look quite the same level of perfect that it had when she had intended on going to work that day. There was a certain degree of disguise that went on with getting ready to work. This was no performance; if it were, River would be handling it much better than she felt she was right now.
River doesn't look away from eye contact, doesn't back down or seem as though she is ashamed and perhaps that is what has remained- she didn't have enough pretense left to be ashamed. When River looked back at Samir, she wasn't thinking about being guarded or hiding the effects of losing Farrah, losing her friendships and support systems. She wasn't thinking about how much shehated the Artist, in a way that River had not known that she had hated someone until that threat was supposedly gone. It's not over, and she knows this is the case, but for now time between incarnations gives one a reprieve to process.
When River looked at Samir, there wasn't a question that she was going to hurt- that she did hurt. There was also no question that his presence, his closeness, his being there wasn't going to hurt her; it was, in fact, a welcomed presence. One that, under different circumstances would have been welcomed differently.
She leans in and presses her lips to his, not like she is drowning and not like she is desperate for just anyone, but rather, that it was his presence that she had wanted. River had the opportunity to drown her sorrows in any number of things, but this isn't drowning. Samir Lakhani isn't a placebo- he's not something she's taking until she feels better, blissfully unaware that his presence is a sugar pill because it's not. Because River Vasquez has never been the type to consider other human beings as tools.
She places her hand at the base of his neck, pulled in and was perhaps more adventurous than she would be otherwise. When River pulled back, she placed her forehead on his, her breathing is uneven.
Samir
By the time they pull back from the kiss they are both breathing ragged and fast. Aroused. He cannot deny that he is aroused even if his mind is also saddled with everything that is crawling around them. Even if he is assaulted by thoughts of what he could do if he let him thumb come half an inch higher up on her face. If he can imagine the feel of her eyeball--
He does not imagine that. He could. Maybe later he will. But right now he is in the moment and he overcomes what normally cripples him. They kiss. They kiss and she puts her hand at the base of his neck and a frisson of want comes up through the middle of him. She pulls back. He lets her pull back. Both of them panting.
His eyes lock on hers. Warm and understanding and waiting.
The Mercurial Elite wets his lips quick as if he had feared them dry. Anticipation in it.
"I..."
He wants to kiss her again. He wants to touch her body. He will stop if she wants him to. Amber eyes locked on hers and he doesn't know what to do with a woman who had just let down her guard because of him.
Fuck it. He takes a deep-deep breath and kisses her again. Leans in this time like he hadn't leaned in before. Like he can keep her here and present and centered if he keeps kissing her.
River
Samir has beautiful eyes; that hits her while she's looking back at him with her heart beating hard in her ears and she can taste the cold on her lips when she pulls back. In that juncture her gaze is so very dark, pupils wide as one is want to be when you have a physical reaction to arousal.
She could be any number of places at that juncture, were it not for the fact that she was there. Were it not for the fact that she was aware of how warm his skin was and they're both breathing like they're desperate for oxygen to hit their lungs. He starts to say something and all she does is smile, and at that juncture it's real. At that juncture there is delight and anticipation and her cheeks are flushed and her skin is warm.
He wants to kiss her, and so he does- takes a deep breath and she's leaning into him, eyes closed and River makes a sound that is most assuredly approval. Her hands move from his neck and there's an adjustment to be made, and she's moving positions from being just beside him to being more on top of him. It isn't the most graceful of movements, which is saying something given that she spends so much time being aware of her body and how it moves
But she's torn between trying to unbutton her shirt and getting herself into his lap so that kissing him isn't so hard, that he can be closer , so that the wind doesn't eat through the two of them as the temperature drops.
Samir
This is only the third time in his life he has ever been with a woman who wants him to take off her clothes. One day he may tell her about the first two. This time his brain is devoid of thoughts of anything else other than Now.
She leans into him. Hasn't asked shit about his own mental well-being. He asked about hers and they kissed and now she's kissing him back. She doesn't ask him if he's okay. Doesn't reassure him. Somehow the organic nature of kissing River doesn't make him aware of his own mental illness.
Then she's working on getting her shirt off and getting on top of him. Sam licks his lips again and rolls onto his back. Keeps his hands on her hips so she knows where he wants her. Rocks his own because he can't help it. She has roused him. He doesn't care about the buttons on her shirt. They're out in public. It's cold. They could freeze out here but he doesn't know where else to move her.
His discarded cigarette is nearby. He picks it up and glances away quick just to study it. Looks back at River and sees the abandonment in her eyes. Fuck it. They're both here. He flicks the cigarette away and sticks with Arabic.
"Enta ajibnii," he says. I like you.
[forces 2: nobody knows we're here lol. -1 practiced rote.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
River
She's about halfway through unbuttoning her shirt before she gives up on the process because it requires entirely too much manual dexterity, though she does make a little frustrated sound that sounds not entirely dissimilar to the sound that one makes when they've been trying to figure out a Rubik's cube for too long and they're ceding defeat. There's something about being present, though, something that one can say that this moment has done and it has rendered River a little less aware of things like forethought.
His hands are on her hips and she moves, a deliberate motion. There's something to be said about dancers and taking measured steps, knowing the careful mixture of grace and control. She isn't desperate but she does know precisely what it is that she wants and what she would like to be doing about that particular desire. She looks down at him, at his lips, at his face, at his eyes. She's not one to be afraid of keeping eye contact.
He says he likes her, and she stops- falters and forgets for a second and forces her brain to work, to play translation and there is a look of fondness there, keeps the smile on her face like she's making up for lost time.
"I like you, too, Sam," with a little bit of weight; it doesn't sound like she's just saying it because he said it. There's that moment of motion again, with more insistence that he isn't the only one that has needs and is thinking about Now and has been summarily reminded of more carnal needs.
The sound she makes is frustrated when she realizes-
"I'm wearing pants," like an apology, "gimme a minute?"
Samir
Sam is a smart young man. If he wants at a thing he can figure out how to get to it.
That fondness in River's eyes is enough to make his heart start to beat faster. That smile is enough to make that barrenness he felt in her before dissipate. She smiles. He wants to think that smile is real.
She likes him too.
He can do little to tamp down the groan of pleasure and wanting that statement dredges up out of him while she's straddling him. Something like apology when she realizes she's wearing pants and asks for a minute.
"A minute?" he says. Unbuttons her pants and starts to help her shuck them down. He ought to ask about birth control but what the fuck does he know. He's young and horny and a wizard besides.
She just needs to get her pants down around her ankles. Have some cooperation from her partner. Sam helps her get her pants down and then he grabs her by the hips and flips her onto her back. Kisses his way from her jaw to her throat to her sternum down her belly into the junction between her legs.
No one nearby even knows where here let alone can hear them. Sam kisses the place between her legs as if he has been here before and intends to stay until she comes.
River
There are things that one does not discuss with their potential lovers, and one of those things happens to do with monster death cramps. River had been one of those girls who snuck out to get birth control when she was sixteen, not because she had wanted to have sex, but because she was pretty sure acne was the devil and that for one week out of the month her uterus was actively trying to kill her. As such, she has done a very good job of making certain that her bases were very thoroughly covered.
It has benefits, yes, but she has concluded still that being able to be a functional human being every month greatly outweighs the benefits of not toting around a kid whilst one is continuing to usher along the karmic cycle. We digress, but the point is simple: Samir has dodged a bullet, because in that gigantic purse of hers there happen to be a very distinct lack of condoms. (Besides, that would make them people who litter. Not cool.)
She's mostly out of her pants, underthings pushed aside and not matching her bra in the slightest. River may well be a stripper, she might be a woman who shaves her legs almost religiously, but she very rarely leaves the house with the expressed intent that she is going to be having a lady or gentleman caller.
She rides ecstasy like she's surprised, tries to catch her breath but the moment is stifling. Sounds go from surprise to delight to tensing muscles and her hands are in his hair and she can't quite breathe and those moments of long-awaited orgasm sound like a moment of distress- like she'd been surprised- to utter elation. When she is face to face with him she kisses him, full on and needing while she's in the process of re positioning, urging his hips to meet with hers, taking the moment to roll him back onto his back again and getting back to that moment of union her pants had very rudely interrupted prior.
Samir
This is a Thing for men his age. To pleasure a woman with their mouth despite their own preconceived follicle standards. He has not shaved his face in over a week. He does not care for her own standards. Once he realizes she is taking pleasure from this he decides it appropriate to hold onto her hip and keep her close to him. To grab her other hand in his free one and pin it into the earth. The noises he makes are equivocal to her own. Pleasure to be had in pleasure making. Her fingers undo the knot in his hair. He doesn't give a damn.
When she comes he rests his forehead against her lower belly and keeps his mouth against her. Rides her out. He rises with her urging and when she seeks his mouth he presses it to hers. Kisses her hard and deep and presses his hips to hers without meaning to. Hard because of course he is. She urges him and he has to reach down to undo his jeans. A low noise of wanting in his throat and then he's on his back gasping with the shock of it.
He wants her.
His hands both of them go to her hips and knead while she works at her bindings.
River
He wants her. To say that she wanted him was an understatement, and there she is with her heart beating loud and fast again. There is a difference between what one does, though, when performing visual seduction and what one does when actually in the act.
There are facts that are clear, that she is flexible, that she is athletic, that despite the cold she feels like she's drenched in sweat and all she can do is move. There is a degree of intent there, that she's watching him, taking in those nonverbal cues and yes, her body reacts, but she's trying to keep up with him. She's trying to make certain that his needs are met as he'd done so graciously with her earlier.
Her hands rest on top of his, she keeps up with him, closing her eyes for a moment when the whole of the moment felt almost like too much and she had to catch her breath. She's a dancer, you see- her understanding of how the universe moves and flows and breaks down comes down to movement and what started at a steady tempo grew in pace and intensity. The young woman let out some moan of pleasure- uninhibited and unashamed.
And so very, very aware of where she was right now. Not where she'd been, or where she could be. Now was what mattered.
Samir
And here's the thing: he could have just lain back and let her do the work.
As they settle and come to watch each others' eyes from a different angle Sam appears to recalibrate his gaze on hers. As if she is the only one he has ever looked upon and felt his body moving towards. Restraint though the magnetism between them is clear. She can read the muscles in his truck stood out from his restraint and his eyes are molten looking up at her but still: he wants her to want this.
If she said 'no' he would stop. Pull her off him and find their clothes. River knows this just from looking at him.
But she puts him on his back and helps him help her out of pants. He is breathing hard through his nostrils as she settles herself atop him. When they dock he takes in a hard breath and tries but fails to not close his eyes.
As her body settles against his he looses a moan only a human could make. Uses his elbows to sit up. Wraps one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders. Lets his hand cradle the back of her head as he starts to move his hips beneath hers.
He doesn't mean to. He moans. Clutches hard onto her waist. Buries his face in her neck and goes onto bury her name there.
River
That's part of why this is happening, why she is so incredibly keyed in and unafraid to be laid bare. She looks in his eyes, and River knows that if she said something- perhaps even if she didn't say something- if she didn't want this then he would stop. If she said 'no', this would be over and there would not be a moment of negotiation. She wouldn't need to apologize or feel like she'd done something wrong- there's something very important about that.
Which was what made the reaction important, that everything in this experience had been nothing but a very emphatic yes. And this was an emphatic yes, he didn't make her do all the work on her own, he didn't make her put on some kind of performance, and she moved with him. His hips move beneath hers and she is already struggling to catch her breath, arms around him like she's afraid he might fall off the earth, like she can't bear the thought of being anywhere but where she was.
Her hair wasn't coiffed and perfect anymore, she bites her lip as the world tries to narrow to pinpoint precision. "Sam?" with that aching want, with that sound in her voice like there was nothing but pleasure in saying his name.
It's the last coherent thing she gets out, there's a cry of pleasure, her muscles tense, movements more desperate and her body seizes taut and overwhelmed around him for a second. She closes her eyes tightly, breathing pulled sharp like she took a step wrong and lost her balance- tumbled over proverbial edges.
Samir
Call it an irony: the thing that keeps him from others is the thing that lets him get near enough to see their fissures in the first place.
They lock eyes in the instant before their bodies cease to claim a boundary and he moans and gasps for breath then. Says her name and she owns it. Moves above him as if she knows it. As if this is where she belongs and if she didn't she would tell him. That she moves in stride with him makes him moan again and louder. Fuck.
"River," he says. Not tormented though he sure as shit sounds like it. Wrought, sure. He is wrought.
Then she says his name as if it is a question. Shorthand even. He hates it when people he likes call him by his government name.
Before he can cobble together a response she's coming. Sam tightens his hold around her waist. On the back of her head. Holds her like this is the most important thing he could ever witness and he would be intent to let her rest but even resting as he was in the wake of that his body betrayed itself.
He cries her name. Still inside him. Their eyes meet and they want the same thing. He is looking her right in the eye about to call her on it maybe when his own end claims him. He falls down flash on his pact and doesn't give a fuck what the wedding is doing.
Samir
[I have literally zero idea what that last sentence means and hereby strike it from the record praise Jesus halleujah]
River
When it's all done, she's holding onto him like they'd lived through a right and proper disaster. She's holding onto him like she can't bring herself to think of a reason to let him go and her heart is beating too fast and her thighs are trembling and fuck her whole body is tense and trying to work itself back out to a state that isn't doubled over itself.
She breathes like she might start crying, but there is the very subtle hitch that gives it more the indication that she sounds like she ran a marathon she was woefully unprepared for. River exhales, long and ragged and she closes her eyes. Her body is insistent that she needs to take a second, and so she does.
Her right hand reaches up for a second, finds his hair and tries to smooth it out for a moment.
"I messed your hair up," she tells him, and it sounds like an apology in the way that her wearing pants was an apology.
Cherry Creek State Park was, in fact, a half an hour out outside of Denver. When you got to Aurora it was a pretty easy place to find, being one of the few places that offered year 'round camping and access to birds and wildlife and mostly modern amenities like actual bathrooms if you wanted to hike back and see the actual bathrooms. River had been avoiding food for the most part, and generally finds the bathrooms at campgrounds a little offputting anyway.
So, there was walking to be had. She wasn't dressed for hiking, and River was more the type to wander. She seemed, while not completely clothed in the raiment of an outdoorswoman, very much in her element being outside. It's cold; it's going to get colder and she knows it but the young woman actually did ante up for buying an actual coat at one point because she was committed to being in Colorado and she wasn't going to not be in the middle of a living, breathing facet of nature just because she wussed out a little because of a little cold.
Besides, if things get too bad she's got a blanket shoved in the trunk and some glow sticks. River knows nothing about cars, but knows that glow sticks are much more useful than they seem and you never know when you need a blanket. We digress.
There was hiking, or walking, or whatever to be had. The ground is a little uneven, but they do get to a place where the view of the water is nice and the trees have provided a decent amount of cover and they're far enough off the path that no one is going to likely bother them. River was down by the bank; she's rolled up her pants legs and thrown her shoes somewhere (because, again, she could not be bothered to wear shoes for any extended period of time, even if it was in the forties). She's standing on a rock in the middle of the creek, has her hands shoved in her pockets.
"Ohhhh, I can't wait until this freezes over," she says, the mirror of excitement creeping into her voice. She knows she should be excited, has memories of being excited and can parrot back said excitement. It just... slightly misses the mark.
Samir
The Doc Marten's Samir wears are great for stomping the pavement and keeping his ankles from rolling on the rare occasion he decides he has to run from someone. They hold up in nearly every weather condition one can imagine and they don't break down easy. Even if they did not belong to an initiate of Matter and an apprentice of Entropy they would not break down easy.
Samir however does not spend much time outside. He doesn't hike. He doesn't like jogging or swimming or kayaking or any of that nonsense. The only reason he is outside in this sunny yet chilly weather is that is what River wants to do and he sensed that River needed to indulge her more primeval side. Which is how they wind up down by the creek.
This creek runs southeast. He lives on its banks. It's strange to see it within the context of civilization. Normally when he sees it it's just beyond his ancient Airstream trailer. Nothing but farmland and forestry around it. If he turns and looks he can see the city behind them.
"It freezes?" he asks. Sam has yet to survive a winter out here. He was born in Vancouver. One would think he would be used to winter but then again he left when he was twelve. Thanks, Mom. "And you can't wait?"
Suffice to say he's still on the banks of Cherry Creek. Call it spotting. He's spotting her.
River
Right now, River Vasquez operates on an entire paradigm of should.
She knows that she enjoys water, knows that she enjoys being out in nature, knows that under most circumstances that she would be frolicking off into the water and coming back cold and a little regretful for a second but not quite ready to give in and say that she'd made a bad decision because she needed to be out in nature and feeling the autumn slip away into winter. She looks down and the water glitters, it's those little moments that water has when it's decided to render the gravel into gemstones.
There's a smile on her face and she wears the vestiges of delight but it isn't wild, it isn't laced with laughter at something that she can't begin to really describe to people.
"I saw a youtube video of a man skipping rocks on a frozen lake, I'm counting down the days until that-" she looks back and takes a careful hop to a nearby rock to start her trek back over to the banks "-is something I can try."
Samir
If River were a person who normally operated as one restrained this would not strike him as strange. But she seems a different person than the one he met the other night and their kind wear masks sure but this seems less like a mask and more like an alteration of her personality.
He considers the way she says what she says. The emptiness of what she says. Maybe this is how she always is and she was putting on a front the other night. He doubts it. Based on what he's read on Ginger he doubts it.
Blame it on something she said the other night. She knew Ihsan. He knew Ihsan was from Egypt originally. Cairo specifically. He and Ihsan were both in Cairo when the revolution erupted but they hadn't known each other then. The Code was all connected. This is a shot in the dark. It helps him focus. He addresses her in Arabic to help himself focus.
"Hal anta bikhayr?"
[mind 1: sense emotions. fuck modifiers.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 4) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
River
River Vasquez learned Arabic because, one day, after she'd been skiddish and wide eyed and weepy and shocked over her awakening, she decided that she wanted to speak Arabic. Enrolled in a short class during the spring and became a voracious consumer of a language that was not her own. At the point that she had decided she was going to learn something completely out of her comfort zone, she was already fluent in four other languages.
So, she'd studied. Picked up the basics and shoved herself into situations where she would have to use every bit of her knowledge as frequently as possible until her speech was fluent and the ease at which she read wasn't unimpressive. It wasn't something she'd picked up from someone else or lingered from the memory of being a different person. Learning languages was something that was her own, and River was very, very good at it.
He asks her if she's okay.
"No," she tells him, and it comes off sounding frank and could have been a slap in the face were it not for the fact that she has done an incredibly good job of making sure emotions didn't come up at all. There was nothing there. No joy, no anger, no mild amusement. It's very hard to sense something that isn't here.
"I haven't been okay since I moved here. I'll be okay, I know that. Eventually, things will work themselves out but right now I'm not okay."
Samir
Ah, fuck.
Samir and River's former mentor have in common their earnestness. He does not have the same aw shucks sort of innocence about him that Michael does but Samir does not seem capable of lying. Even when he pulls a stupid face or speaks in sarcasm it is so obvious that it could not pass for true. He does not seem to have a manipulative bone in his body.
One of the perks of his mental illness is that he does not have to spend much time around other people and their problems. Other people's problems tend to bring disorder with them. More than dirt he cannot handle disorder. It took him an inordinate amount of time to incorporate entropy into his paradigm. He may never master it.
But River is clearly covering up her hurt with control. He can sense the Mind magick active in her. She presents as a woman who feels nothing and needs more than she can ask for. Her surface thoughts are desolate. There's nothing there. That isn't normal.
He doesn't want to do this. He's dead sober and dead straight. He hasn't even taken a deep breath of creek air to give himself a rush. He barely even knows her. He likes her. They are both pretty young things. But he's worried about her.
"You got a lighter?" he asks.
It's a cheap ploy to get her to come back to land but he tries it anyway.
River
She likes it, when she has the capacity to actually process what that means. She finds his sarcasm funny enjoys the fact that Samir doesn't seem malicious, doesn't seem like he seeks to gain anything from being deceitful. One of the first things one learns when working with Entropy is the way that the truth breaks down and you have two options to avoid being found out- lie about everything, or develop a tendency to be honest when it matters.
He asks if she has a lighter and she doesn't think anything of it. After all, they came out here to smoke and be in a park and that was what she came prepared to do... except for the fact that River doesn't have any weed on her. She's got half a pack of cigarettes from someone that she said she would hold onto; who really knew what River kept in her purse, but one couldn't be surprised when her answer was-
"Oh, yeah," and she slowly started to make her way back to the edge of the creek. The young woman went to her bag to fish something out, retrieving a little pink lighter whose origins she can't actually remember.
River holds the lighter out to Sam, waits patiently for him to take it. "Here."
Samir
The lighter feels subtle and liberating at once. It's a faint feeling but one that makes Samir frown. Resonance he neither can recognize nor wants to inquire about. It'll do.
So he produces a cigarette. Hand-rolled. Offers it to her straight from the yellow plastic case he keeps in his pocket and if she takes it great and if she doesn't he lights it for his own anyway.
Either way she's here on land with him. Sitting with him maybe. He chooses to sit on the ground even though the chill saps seat from his backside. Puts him lower to the ground. Less mass for the wind to have at. A few tendrils of black have come loose from the knot at the nape of his neck and he banishes them with a quick shake of his head.
"I know it's none of my business," he says. Looking straight ahead at the creek at first but then turns to look over at River. Genuine concern tensing his brow. It isn't a frown. His eyes are the color of whiskey. The daylight lets her see it. "But..." Shit. He has to translate this into pagan. "... you know someone's cast Calm on you, right?"
He knows she knows. The spell smacks of her resonance. He still asks as if the possibility exists that she had no idea.
River
There's a certain mindfulness that comes with smoking. Or, at the very least, it's something that she takes with her. It's being aware of the way smoke feels when it comes into your lungs, being able to accept and be aware of the way that it burns and the signals it sends your brain that you need to exhale. She holds it, though, knows that she needs to hold it and takes a few seconds before she exhales. River is a dancer; she went to school with art majors and has been to more than a few parties. She's smoked before. Not as often as, say, a theatre major would but she's no stranger to partaking.
River settled down to sit with him, left her legs stretched outward before she handed the cigarette back and put the ligher back into her pocket. She looks at him and catches that he's concerned. Her brows knit together for a moment because his concern is new information to process and there is no frame of reference for dealing with Samir when he is concerned. It goes back to basic protocols- someone is concerned, so assuage their fears accordingly. She doesn't shy away from meeting his glance.
She hadn't seen what color his eyes were before- they're striking. Hers are warm, but dark. A little like hot chocolate or (much to her chagrin) coffee with cream.
He inquires as to the state of her... selfness. She tries to give him a smile that is reassuring but he knows that there is no real emotional basis for it, just there because he's concerned and that's the appropriate reaction.
"Oh, that," with a little wave, "Ihsan and Mike and I had to go deal with an issue with a Nephandus and I was concerned that I might have an averse reaction to the environment? So, I took precautions to make sure that wouldn't be a problem."
She perks up, as if she realized something, "it's really not a bad thing."
Of course it's not. It's not a bad thing, it's not a good thing, it's nothing. That's the problem.
Samir
"I haven't learned how to do that yet. I'd like to. I just..."
Disarming the person you're trying to reach is one of the oldest tricks in the book but Sam is neither a therapist nor equipped to pretend to be one. His only qualification is that he gives a shit about the well-being of people he considers friends. He doesn't know if he considers River a friend yet. She knows Grace. Grace is a friend. Grace also doesn't need him. Doesn't feel the need to shunt herself off with Code just to function.
This the Nephandus who killed her friend. The one who has been possessing or leading to the possession of that Michael guy. Ihsan was there with them. Alright. Stands to reason Michael - Mike - has a relationship with Ihsan and River. Maybe with Farrah too. Averse reaction. Precautions.
He has no idea how Chakravanti work. Amanita was almost a Euthanatos but she ran away before she could go through her initiation rite. That was probably for the best anyway.
"I... sometimes think it's better to have the averse reaction than to just... not."
He locks his eyes on her face whether she's looking at him or not.
"Why do you keep it going, if it's over?"
River
Let it be said that talking to a person who has turned off their emotional responses is going to be very willing to give responses that aren't keyed in to the concept of shame. It's just a series of facts; River felt things at one point and at this juncture doesn't have to think about how she was feeling so she can, instead, focus on how she knows she would feel within a given situation.
Why does she keep this going, though? If it's all done and over with, then why doesn't she just drop the effect and go on living her life and she can pick things up wherever. River has to think about this. She looks at Samir for a second, takes in the curves and angles of his face. She takes in the way that his eyes lock on her face and she's studying him for a second, as if she's trying to figure out what answer he's looking for and concludes that this isn't a canned response.
No, this is actually a question that requires thinking. And she does think about it. Let it be said that she's never been afraid to take her time when she's concluded that she actually has time. She looks from his face to the stream, over the way that sunlight plays on the water.
"If I stop the effect then it all comes back, but it'll be worse then and I don't know if I'm ready for that," like she's thinking about it, shakes her head and concludes it's a bad idea, "right now, I can go to work and actually make it through my shift. I can look at things without having that weighted reaction and it's just a study of facts."
There is a second.
"I don't have the resources necessary to make processing the events leading up to dealing with the nephandus and afterwards any easier. When it all comes back, there won't be anybody there to help make this easier so, right now, it's easier to just not need that sort of support and assistance."
River
(closing tag to be safe)
Samir
"I mean..."
Call a spade a spade. Samir has no self-esteem because he hasn't ever had to. He made his way through his awakening because his mentor was there. He made it through his apprenticeship because he was smart but he never had to internalize his own intelligence. His cabalmates were always there to protect him but they never felt the need to build him up.
That is neither here nor there.
Maybe he thinks of himself as expendable. Disposable. A commodity. Whatever. Maybe he actually thinks he can help her. That this isn't the worst situation in which he's ever met another person. Maybe he has been here before.
River never met his pals Richardson or Amanita. Will never meet Perez. May have met Kayf since Michael knew Kayf. Doesn't matter. She can't dial in a reference as to his qualifications for making this easier. Life isn't easy. He can attest to that.
"I'm here."
River
Grace said she'd had concerns. She could understand Grace having concerns, but took them as something that were more based out of a desire to keep her city safe than anything that had to do with River. She may have been wrong, and River may very well have read the situation wrong entirely. The people she'd talked to at the beginning of her time there were nowhere to be seen when Farrah died. No call, no checking in- and she couldn't begrudge them that. People have lives. The world moves on when people die and she knowsthis.
Samir has seen her less than a hand full of times, and now he's sitting on the bank of some creek asking her if she's okay and says that he's here and she looks at him. Quirks her mouth to the side when she realizes that his logic is, in fact sound. Samir isn't nobody, and he is there. She thought no one was going to be there once she dropped her effect and had to scramble to pick everything back up because she has to keep going and she doesn't have time to grieve yet. Hadn't had time to grieve since she got here, but it's a different sort of grief now.
He says he's here, though, and she can't argue with him.
So, there is a moment where she looks away, scoots a little closer so her bare feet are closer to his, so that her hip is against his. River doesn't say anything to him, doesn't know that she probably shouldn't be in Sam's space, that this might be indeed too much for him to handle but she's there and he's warm and he's there.
The first real indication that he gets that something shifts is when she inhales sharply, when the effect gets cast asside and dissipates despite her best efforts to talk herself into keeping things going. River let out a slow, shaking exhalation of breath and there was that slip of control. That moment that she'd cast magick and will aside for feeling what was there.
"I'm not ready yet," she tells him, insists in Arabic with an unsteady breath and all the decorum she can muster. She doesn't want to be crying. She doesn't want to feel like this, and doesn't want to seem- what? Weak, confused, damaged, wounded, what? She doesn't want to feel human but she knows exactly what becomes of us when we lose that part of ourselves to grief and circumstance. She doesn't want him to know how incredibly afraid she is to feel all of this, but it's obvious.
Samir
[wp: lol he has a derangement]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Samir
And it shocks him to feel her body against him. Doesn't repel him. It's just a shock. Makes him take a deep breath and consider logistics. Consider the fact that if he puts his hand on the other side of her body that it's going to touch the grass. Normally he would have some ritual involved in placing his palm upon the earth. Would have to flick his lighter a certain number of times or tie and untie his laces. Would have to pluck up a certain numbers of blades of grass.
Today he doesn't. He can keep his shit together long enough to extend the arm not holding the cigarette and plant its hand on the other side of River's hip. Let her feel like she's not alone but not grab onto her. Not try to possess her.
She's not ready yet.
"You don't have to be."
No idea what he's doing. He sets down the cigarette without looking to see where it's going and puts that hand at the side of her face. Looks her deep in the eye to make sure he isn't about to hurt her before he draws in and kisses her on the mouth.
River
There's something to be said about being present, how it can be its own reward and this- no matter how horribly she hurts right now- is a reward in and of itself. In some ways, this is almost a becoming in its own right. The breaking, tearing, building- it's all reforming and pressing on to the next place it needs to inhabit. She would think in terms of art an analogies, but somehow creating beauty and form has an unpleasant taste in her mouth.
She says she's not ready, insists like it's the only thing she has to hold onto but his reply is simple- you don't have to be. River looks at Samir and her mascara is threatening to run and her blush has streaks in it and her hair doesn't look quite the same level of perfect that it had when she had intended on going to work that day. There was a certain degree of disguise that went on with getting ready to work. This was no performance; if it were, River would be handling it much better than she felt she was right now.
River doesn't look away from eye contact, doesn't back down or seem as though she is ashamed and perhaps that is what has remained- she didn't have enough pretense left to be ashamed. When River looked back at Samir, she wasn't thinking about being guarded or hiding the effects of losing Farrah, losing her friendships and support systems. She wasn't thinking about how much shehated the Artist, in a way that River had not known that she had hated someone until that threat was supposedly gone. It's not over, and she knows this is the case, but for now time between incarnations gives one a reprieve to process.
When River looked at Samir, there wasn't a question that she was going to hurt- that she did hurt. There was also no question that his presence, his closeness, his being there wasn't going to hurt her; it was, in fact, a welcomed presence. One that, under different circumstances would have been welcomed differently.
She leans in and presses her lips to his, not like she is drowning and not like she is desperate for just anyone, but rather, that it was his presence that she had wanted. River had the opportunity to drown her sorrows in any number of things, but this isn't drowning. Samir Lakhani isn't a placebo- he's not something she's taking until she feels better, blissfully unaware that his presence is a sugar pill because it's not. Because River Vasquez has never been the type to consider other human beings as tools.
She places her hand at the base of his neck, pulled in and was perhaps more adventurous than she would be otherwise. When River pulled back, she placed her forehead on his, her breathing is uneven.
Samir
By the time they pull back from the kiss they are both breathing ragged and fast. Aroused. He cannot deny that he is aroused even if his mind is also saddled with everything that is crawling around them. Even if he is assaulted by thoughts of what he could do if he let him thumb come half an inch higher up on her face. If he can imagine the feel of her eyeball--
He does not imagine that. He could. Maybe later he will. But right now he is in the moment and he overcomes what normally cripples him. They kiss. They kiss and she puts her hand at the base of his neck and a frisson of want comes up through the middle of him. She pulls back. He lets her pull back. Both of them panting.
His eyes lock on hers. Warm and understanding and waiting.
The Mercurial Elite wets his lips quick as if he had feared them dry. Anticipation in it.
"I..."
He wants to kiss her again. He wants to touch her body. He will stop if she wants him to. Amber eyes locked on hers and he doesn't know what to do with a woman who had just let down her guard because of him.
Fuck it. He takes a deep-deep breath and kisses her again. Leans in this time like he hadn't leaned in before. Like he can keep her here and present and centered if he keeps kissing her.
River
Samir has beautiful eyes; that hits her while she's looking back at him with her heart beating hard in her ears and she can taste the cold on her lips when she pulls back. In that juncture her gaze is so very dark, pupils wide as one is want to be when you have a physical reaction to arousal.
She could be any number of places at that juncture, were it not for the fact that she was there. Were it not for the fact that she was aware of how warm his skin was and they're both breathing like they're desperate for oxygen to hit their lungs. He starts to say something and all she does is smile, and at that juncture it's real. At that juncture there is delight and anticipation and her cheeks are flushed and her skin is warm.
He wants to kiss her, and so he does- takes a deep breath and she's leaning into him, eyes closed and River makes a sound that is most assuredly approval. Her hands move from his neck and there's an adjustment to be made, and she's moving positions from being just beside him to being more on top of him. It isn't the most graceful of movements, which is saying something given that she spends so much time being aware of her body and how it moves
But she's torn between trying to unbutton her shirt and getting herself into his lap so that kissing him isn't so hard, that he can be closer , so that the wind doesn't eat through the two of them as the temperature drops.
Samir
This is only the third time in his life he has ever been with a woman who wants him to take off her clothes. One day he may tell her about the first two. This time his brain is devoid of thoughts of anything else other than Now.
She leans into him. Hasn't asked shit about his own mental well-being. He asked about hers and they kissed and now she's kissing him back. She doesn't ask him if he's okay. Doesn't reassure him. Somehow the organic nature of kissing River doesn't make him aware of his own mental illness.
Then she's working on getting her shirt off and getting on top of him. Sam licks his lips again and rolls onto his back. Keeps his hands on her hips so she knows where he wants her. Rocks his own because he can't help it. She has roused him. He doesn't care about the buttons on her shirt. They're out in public. It's cold. They could freeze out here but he doesn't know where else to move her.
His discarded cigarette is nearby. He picks it up and glances away quick just to study it. Looks back at River and sees the abandonment in her eyes. Fuck it. They're both here. He flicks the cigarette away and sticks with Arabic.
"Enta ajibnii," he says. I like you.
[forces 2: nobody knows we're here lol. -1 practiced rote.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
River
She's about halfway through unbuttoning her shirt before she gives up on the process because it requires entirely too much manual dexterity, though she does make a little frustrated sound that sounds not entirely dissimilar to the sound that one makes when they've been trying to figure out a Rubik's cube for too long and they're ceding defeat. There's something about being present, though, something that one can say that this moment has done and it has rendered River a little less aware of things like forethought.
His hands are on her hips and she moves, a deliberate motion. There's something to be said about dancers and taking measured steps, knowing the careful mixture of grace and control. She isn't desperate but she does know precisely what it is that she wants and what she would like to be doing about that particular desire. She looks down at him, at his lips, at his face, at his eyes. She's not one to be afraid of keeping eye contact.
He says he likes her, and she stops- falters and forgets for a second and forces her brain to work, to play translation and there is a look of fondness there, keeps the smile on her face like she's making up for lost time.
"I like you, too, Sam," with a little bit of weight; it doesn't sound like she's just saying it because he said it. There's that moment of motion again, with more insistence that he isn't the only one that has needs and is thinking about Now and has been summarily reminded of more carnal needs.
The sound she makes is frustrated when she realizes-
"I'm wearing pants," like an apology, "gimme a minute?"
Samir
Sam is a smart young man. If he wants at a thing he can figure out how to get to it.
That fondness in River's eyes is enough to make his heart start to beat faster. That smile is enough to make that barrenness he felt in her before dissipate. She smiles. He wants to think that smile is real.
She likes him too.
He can do little to tamp down the groan of pleasure and wanting that statement dredges up out of him while she's straddling him. Something like apology when she realizes she's wearing pants and asks for a minute.
"A minute?" he says. Unbuttons her pants and starts to help her shuck them down. He ought to ask about birth control but what the fuck does he know. He's young and horny and a wizard besides.
She just needs to get her pants down around her ankles. Have some cooperation from her partner. Sam helps her get her pants down and then he grabs her by the hips and flips her onto her back. Kisses his way from her jaw to her throat to her sternum down her belly into the junction between her legs.
No one nearby even knows where here let alone can hear them. Sam kisses the place between her legs as if he has been here before and intends to stay until she comes.
River
There are things that one does not discuss with their potential lovers, and one of those things happens to do with monster death cramps. River had been one of those girls who snuck out to get birth control when she was sixteen, not because she had wanted to have sex, but because she was pretty sure acne was the devil and that for one week out of the month her uterus was actively trying to kill her. As such, she has done a very good job of making certain that her bases were very thoroughly covered.
It has benefits, yes, but she has concluded still that being able to be a functional human being every month greatly outweighs the benefits of not toting around a kid whilst one is continuing to usher along the karmic cycle. We digress, but the point is simple: Samir has dodged a bullet, because in that gigantic purse of hers there happen to be a very distinct lack of condoms. (Besides, that would make them people who litter. Not cool.)
She's mostly out of her pants, underthings pushed aside and not matching her bra in the slightest. River may well be a stripper, she might be a woman who shaves her legs almost religiously, but she very rarely leaves the house with the expressed intent that she is going to be having a lady or gentleman caller.
She rides ecstasy like she's surprised, tries to catch her breath but the moment is stifling. Sounds go from surprise to delight to tensing muscles and her hands are in his hair and she can't quite breathe and those moments of long-awaited orgasm sound like a moment of distress- like she'd been surprised- to utter elation. When she is face to face with him she kisses him, full on and needing while she's in the process of re positioning, urging his hips to meet with hers, taking the moment to roll him back onto his back again and getting back to that moment of union her pants had very rudely interrupted prior.
Samir
This is a Thing for men his age. To pleasure a woman with their mouth despite their own preconceived follicle standards. He has not shaved his face in over a week. He does not care for her own standards. Once he realizes she is taking pleasure from this he decides it appropriate to hold onto her hip and keep her close to him. To grab her other hand in his free one and pin it into the earth. The noises he makes are equivocal to her own. Pleasure to be had in pleasure making. Her fingers undo the knot in his hair. He doesn't give a damn.
When she comes he rests his forehead against her lower belly and keeps his mouth against her. Rides her out. He rises with her urging and when she seeks his mouth he presses it to hers. Kisses her hard and deep and presses his hips to hers without meaning to. Hard because of course he is. She urges him and he has to reach down to undo his jeans. A low noise of wanting in his throat and then he's on his back gasping with the shock of it.
He wants her.
His hands both of them go to her hips and knead while she works at her bindings.
River
He wants her. To say that she wanted him was an understatement, and there she is with her heart beating loud and fast again. There is a difference between what one does, though, when performing visual seduction and what one does when actually in the act.
There are facts that are clear, that she is flexible, that she is athletic, that despite the cold she feels like she's drenched in sweat and all she can do is move. There is a degree of intent there, that she's watching him, taking in those nonverbal cues and yes, her body reacts, but she's trying to keep up with him. She's trying to make certain that his needs are met as he'd done so graciously with her earlier.
Her hands rest on top of his, she keeps up with him, closing her eyes for a moment when the whole of the moment felt almost like too much and she had to catch her breath. She's a dancer, you see- her understanding of how the universe moves and flows and breaks down comes down to movement and what started at a steady tempo grew in pace and intensity. The young woman let out some moan of pleasure- uninhibited and unashamed.
And so very, very aware of where she was right now. Not where she'd been, or where she could be. Now was what mattered.
Samir
And here's the thing: he could have just lain back and let her do the work.
As they settle and come to watch each others' eyes from a different angle Sam appears to recalibrate his gaze on hers. As if she is the only one he has ever looked upon and felt his body moving towards. Restraint though the magnetism between them is clear. She can read the muscles in his truck stood out from his restraint and his eyes are molten looking up at her but still: he wants her to want this.
If she said 'no' he would stop. Pull her off him and find their clothes. River knows this just from looking at him.
But she puts him on his back and helps him help her out of pants. He is breathing hard through his nostrils as she settles herself atop him. When they dock he takes in a hard breath and tries but fails to not close his eyes.
As her body settles against his he looses a moan only a human could make. Uses his elbows to sit up. Wraps one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders. Lets his hand cradle the back of her head as he starts to move his hips beneath hers.
He doesn't mean to. He moans. Clutches hard onto her waist. Buries his face in her neck and goes onto bury her name there.
River
That's part of why this is happening, why she is so incredibly keyed in and unafraid to be laid bare. She looks in his eyes, and River knows that if she said something- perhaps even if she didn't say something- if she didn't want this then he would stop. If she said 'no', this would be over and there would not be a moment of negotiation. She wouldn't need to apologize or feel like she'd done something wrong- there's something very important about that.
Which was what made the reaction important, that everything in this experience had been nothing but a very emphatic yes. And this was an emphatic yes, he didn't make her do all the work on her own, he didn't make her put on some kind of performance, and she moved with him. His hips move beneath hers and she is already struggling to catch her breath, arms around him like she's afraid he might fall off the earth, like she can't bear the thought of being anywhere but where she was.
Her hair wasn't coiffed and perfect anymore, she bites her lip as the world tries to narrow to pinpoint precision. "Sam?" with that aching want, with that sound in her voice like there was nothing but pleasure in saying his name.
It's the last coherent thing she gets out, there's a cry of pleasure, her muscles tense, movements more desperate and her body seizes taut and overwhelmed around him for a second. She closes her eyes tightly, breathing pulled sharp like she took a step wrong and lost her balance- tumbled over proverbial edges.
Samir
Call it an irony: the thing that keeps him from others is the thing that lets him get near enough to see their fissures in the first place.
They lock eyes in the instant before their bodies cease to claim a boundary and he moans and gasps for breath then. Says her name and she owns it. Moves above him as if she knows it. As if this is where she belongs and if she didn't she would tell him. That she moves in stride with him makes him moan again and louder. Fuck.
"River," he says. Not tormented though he sure as shit sounds like it. Wrought, sure. He is wrought.
Then she says his name as if it is a question. Shorthand even. He hates it when people he likes call him by his government name.
Before he can cobble together a response she's coming. Sam tightens his hold around her waist. On the back of her head. Holds her like this is the most important thing he could ever witness and he would be intent to let her rest but even resting as he was in the wake of that his body betrayed itself.
He cries her name. Still inside him. Their eyes meet and they want the same thing. He is looking her right in the eye about to call her on it maybe when his own end claims him. He falls down flash on his pact and doesn't give a fuck what the wedding is doing.
Samir
[I have literally zero idea what that last sentence means and hereby strike it from the record praise Jesus halleujah]
River
When it's all done, she's holding onto him like they'd lived through a right and proper disaster. She's holding onto him like she can't bring herself to think of a reason to let him go and her heart is beating too fast and her thighs are trembling and fuck her whole body is tense and trying to work itself back out to a state that isn't doubled over itself.
She breathes like she might start crying, but there is the very subtle hitch that gives it more the indication that she sounds like she ran a marathon she was woefully unprepared for. River exhales, long and ragged and she closes her eyes. Her body is insistent that she needs to take a second, and so she does.
Her right hand reaches up for a second, finds his hair and tries to smooth it out for a moment.
"I messed your hair up," she tells him, and it sounds like an apology in the way that her wearing pants was an apology.
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