A reprieve

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.