Angry land owner lady person

River
So, they were hanging out. And she had been invited over.

He's seen where she lives, or at least he's seen the hotel room. She now lives in an apartment again, lived in an apartment before that but she hadn't been back since Farrah died. The place she was living now was largely void of furniture; she had an air mattress and a book shelf she'd gotten from someone's yard sale and she might have been saving up for an actual bed, but it wasn't really high on her  to do list. At least she'd stopped sleeping in the bathtub.

But no, she had been invited over, given instructions on how to get there and, as one could expect from visiting a man who is incredibly easy to misplace, she needed assistance in actually getting where she needed to go. River knows nothing of spacial relations, hasn't known anything about how distance and Correspondence works for the last several lifetimes. She doesn't remember remembering anything about it, and lived in an age where her own lack of directional knowledge could be made up for with superior technology and the knowledge of how to use a folded map.

It's actually a pretty nice night, all things considered. She's got boots on and leggings, along with a dress that might have been a shirt. River is a person who believes leggings can also be pants sometimes, she also works in a profession where shirts are occasionally dresses. Who knows what she thinks constitutes as clothing. The coat is lighter than her I'm preparing for the snowpocalypse coat, and is a bright coral color.

It makes her easier to spot when she inevitably has to get retrieved from some guy's pasture.

Samir
[corr/mind 1: WHERE YOU AT. -1 practiced rote.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Samir
Between the fact that they both have cellphones and he has an attuned lay of the land it does not take long for Sam to both realize that River has gotten off course in searching for him and to tramp out into the wilderness and find her himself.

One would think given what had transpired out here a few weeks ago that he would be afraid of the woods. The woods don't frighten him any more than the park or the urban jungle frighten him. Bad things can happen just as easy in isolation as they can happen going out into the world and waving one's arms around. Sam has gone into Quiet sitting at home working on his Code on his own before. Didn't go into Quiet any quicker than he did the night that he was mingling his Code in with his friends' and the wires got crossed and too much hungover Paradox came crashing down on him.

He can either be afraid of everything or he can keep a deck of things to fear. Draw lots when he needs to. Sam has enough to worry about picking his battles. Today is not a battle. He pulls on his boots and his ski cap and he keeps texting River while he gets a bead on where she is.

So she's drifted a little further south than she was meant to go. Doesn't matter. She can feel that stitching resonance of his as he comes out of the north and sees her silhouette cut against the snow-hardened field that lay fallow this past year.

"Hey!" he calls out. Neither cold nor humid enough for his breath to plume. He throws up an arm like to flag her in and when she draws near enough he pushes his cap back and gives her a smile. This is the first time she's seen him since he clawed his way out of Quiet. "You made it."

River
He calls out and she trots over, doesn't think anything of it, seems more happy to just bridge the distance and have human contact than to stand out in the middle of nothing and wonder which cow she may have passed. There weren't a lot of cows out here, honestly. This wasn't prime ranching territory, that was more the middle of the country; the Rockies don't make for particularly nice grazing territory.

He pushes his cap back and smiles, and she beams in return- but then again she is always beaming in some sense. Bright and warm and insistent. The sun doesn't go away, not for good at least. It's not capricious. This is the first time she's seen him since he came out of Quiet, and she looks elated.

"It's beautiful out here- you can see everything," except, you know, the trailer, which she can't be too far off from, but far enough that she needed to actually have help getting there. She slips in and gives him a quick hug, but then is more than happy to get on to walking.

Looks sideward at him and just grins. Adjusts her purse over her shoulder and shoves her hands into her pockets.

Samir
It's cold. They have seen each other divested of clothing. She has seen him when he was mad enough that he could barely see her and she has lain with him despite the moral grayness of that decision. It is cold and that is not enough for most people to forego physical affection.

But the man who River has come to see today is a Virtual Adept with limited experience with human relationships period let alone intimate and passionate ones. He is happy to bring her into a sidelong embrace and to hold her there as he guides her away from the field. Kissing though. Quick yet warm kissing is still outside of his purview. Bringing a girl back to his trailer is enough of a departure for him.

She knows now that his madness takes the shape of mood swings and an obsession with cleanliness. Compulsive counting and checking. That he will become so wrapped up in what it is he's doing that he foregoes food and sleep. That he will hallucinate and become delusional on top of that.

Today he is himself. She has him to herself. No sharing with madness today. His arm stays around her shoulders though her hands go into her pockets. Learning to be comfortable with closeness.

"Yeah," he says to the matter of seeing everything. Steering her north and east to get back to where his trailer is hiding in plain sight. "The sunrise is kind of insane. If you're still here in the morning you might be able to catch it, it's way pinker and orangier than back in the city."

River
Kissing was quick, but warm, and she laughs like she's delighted to see him, like she didn't want to do anything except be in his presence. She missed Samir. She missed being around him when she doesn't have to try her damnedest to keep him focused on her or get him to eat or do whatever she could think of to do to get him to sleep.

She would have taken the whole week off if she could but employment can be kind of precarious; when River actually makes it to the Diamond Cabaret she makes decent money. Given the number of hours she doesn't work, it's surprising that she keeps herself afloat with little trouble. It's not too surprising, she doesn't need much. Doesn't have credit cards, goes month to month on a cell phone- she could drop off the face of the earth one day and there wouldn't be much of a trail to follow. She liked it that way.

His arm stay on her shoulders and she keeps looking back at him with that expression of delight on her features. And delight is the correct word.

"I'm usually up by sunrise one way or the other- I either stay up or get back up in time to see it," she tells him. "I'm a very sunrise-y kind of person."

Samir
"You seem pretty sunrise-y."

Not just in the sense that her resonance speaks of springtime and the renewal come with it. Maybe he is speaking more of her personality than of her resonance.

The occasion he came to the hotel suite she was sharing with the other Chakravant he had kept her up most of the night attempting to alleviate the stress of seeing another of her friends disemboweled in as short a period of time comes to mind. Ihsan had summoned him but it was River who was awake early and entertaining the idea of room service before they set themselves down to begin investigating the Cult of the Bloody Tongue.

Sam on the other hand does not prescribe to a schedule. He goes to bed when he goes to bed and he gets up when the caffeine level in his bloodstream dips too low. Some days he stays up for forty-eight hours straight and proceeds to sleep for twelve. He does what he wants.

This is neither here nor there.

"The trailer faces... whatever way you want to face, I guess. I found a treehouse upstream, it's got a pretty sick view."

River
"Is it still on wheels or have you... I don't know... done that thing that people do when they've decided they're anchoring their mobile home?"

This is the difference. It's a trailer, not a mobile home. Trailers operate differently in that they're a little like the intermediate step between a camper and a mobile home, but it all often gets lumped into the same category as trailer. There is a world of difference there, and one that River is not entirely aware of.

He says he has a tree house, though. Well, not that he has a treehouse, that the land has a treehouse and he has, in fact, come upon said treehouse and the view was pretty awesome.

She does not disguise that this idea intrigues her. She's curious about the anchoring question, and is trying her best not to explode with the idea of going and seeing the tree house right. this. second.

It's really hard, though.

Samir
It's a valid question. Not one he intends to upend by going off on a tangent about all of the adventures he has already had in that damned treehouse. That was where he learned he had a line when it comes to touching another man. Multiple lines. He will not let another man blow him and he will not tie another man's tie.

River was not far from the trailer when she realized she didn't recognize any of the landmarks Sam had given her via text message. They tramp past the orange No Trespassing sign. This is where most people begin to ignore signs of human life. Sam does not go about his daily life hoping for people to outright ignore or forget about him but out here it comes in handy. He is trespassing.

This is not the middle of nowhere in the strictest sense of the word. A few kliks to the north is a roadhouse. Farms stretch on on either side of him. Cherry Creek winds dry yet promising through the forestry and the canyon. There are few signs of civilization anyway.

"I mean, I kept the wheels, because you never know. If I stay out here much longer I might build a deck. You know. Make it look like an actual place someone lives. I think you need building permits for decks, though."

Joke. Samir doesn't believe in permits.

River
He does manage to get into town through the clever use of the mass transit system, he can't truly be in the middle of nowhere, but it is far enough away from somewhere that the space is nice. River grew up in places like this. She'd lived in motels and in campers and in guest bedrooms of friends and friends of friends and people who she'd never met nor would she meet again. She's seen a good chunk of the United States and been the mouthpiece of two very intelligent adults who had to contend with a language barrier.

She likes being away from a city, doesn't quite know what to do with herself sometimes, though, because she's very much an urban creature. Knows the ins and outs of those particular places, and being out here? She didn't have to worry about turf or what was going on down the street. She's thinking about that when he says that he kept the wheels on. Because you never know.

"I wonder if the Camry could pull it," she muses, knows it probably can't but she thinks about it anyway, with the right modification and the judicious application of magickal talents her camry could be a fucking tank.

"If you built a deck and then moved, it could be like a modern Stonehenge," except, you know, not as cool, "if you plan on doing it, let me know? I can... uh... be moral support? Wander around outside naked? Be generally distracting, I know nothing about construction outside of legos."

Samir
I wonder if the Camry could pull it.

The thought makes him huff out a laugh. Makes him think about how comfortable it is to have his arm around his shoulders. How he isn't really thinking about it until he makes the conscious choice to think about it and then he decides that since it's comfortable it doesn't warrant thinking about.

Or maybe he's making a conscious effort to just be in the moment and not think. It doesn't take much effort. He's getting better at this.

"Maybe if I took out all the furniture it could."

As for if he built a deck:

"I don't know shit about carpentry. Reddit makes it sound like if we drink enough beer and take a shit-ton of pictures we'll be okay."

And then there it is. His gleaming metal castle on wheels with its outdoor shower and its view of the mountains and the canyon and the creek. The fortress of solitude to which he has invited her.

River
The sound that River makes is not unlike a distressed parrot.

This is the person that Samir has decided that he likes and is comfortable having his arm about her shoulders. The woman in the coral coat who makes awkward happy noises and laughs at his jokes. He's comfortable around her, and she is more than comfortable around him. When River looks at Samir, she looks like she's happy to see him. She sounds like she's interested in what he has to say. She also has a horrible luck with keeping her friends alive, makes questionable decisions, and has devoted her life to ensuring the karmic balance of the universe.

She takes a few steps away from him and goes from the creek (which is too cold to walk into, but she considers it, she's got boots on), to the mountains, to the outdoor shower and-

"Your shower is outside?"

Somehow, she makes this sound like it is a selling point, like this is pretty much the greatest thing and she bounds back with this sort of half excited gallop. River takes his hand and looks around. Then at the sky. Then back at him. There's a grin on her face that can only be described by eeeeeeeee.

Samir
Not only is the shower outside but it's encased in what is proving to be Samir's fledgling steps into the world of carpentry. It's a fluke. He's managed to if not master at least half-ass the art of securing studs in concrete poured into the earth. Made a stall out of corrugated sheet metal and a curtain he Frankensteined out of a few different curtains.

The option for a shower exists inside. There's a closet for that. But Sam decided he wanted to try something scary that also had the added benefit of possibly helping him get over his obsessive-compulsiveness so he had a moment of Fuck It and moved the whole thing outside.

That River is enjoying this as much as she is makes him laugh that self-conscious laugh again and squeeze her hand in receipt.

"You are like, the only person I can think of who would get a kick out of that."

River
"You can go- well, it's wading, not really swimming- but! You can go get in the water, then you can shower, then you can go inside without having to track creek water everywhere," or you could, you know, not get in the creek to begin with, River, do you have any idea what is probably in that creek? No. No she does not, and she probably wouldn't care even if she did know because she's the kind of girl who swims in lakes and goes camping because she actually enjoys camping. Has it on her enormous to do list to scale a mountain in the Himalayas.

she'll probably practice on a couple in the Rockies. Because, you know, she needs to learn how to actually climb a mountain.

River looks back at the shower. Maybe she has naturist tendencies. Whatever the case, it does cross her mind that she could probably walk outside naked out here and nobody would care. She turns her attention back to Samir.

"Do I get to see inside, or do you want to go take me to the treehouse?"

Samir
On a warmer day Sam might have suggested she walk around naked just to test out the surrounding area's cloaking capabilities. It isn't that the cold is stopping him. He went down on her in near-freezing weather many miles northwest of here while they were in a park in the city.

They were stoned though. She was riding the coattails of her self-imposed emotional numbness. He had just convinced her to drop it. Vulnerability is an aphrodisiac to some people.

Maybe a warm day will reveal the Mercurial Elite to have similar naturist tendencies. Today though he's hinging on what she says and not on what he picks up from her. Does she get to see the inside.

"You should see the inside," he says. Lets his hand trace the length of her spine beneath her coral coat. There's a hip nearby. He holds her closer to him once he realizes she isn't going to pull away to go in up to her ankles in the creek. "If it sucks we can go to the treehouse."

River
"Let's go inside," she confirms, he's holding her closer and she steps into his space and is content to be there for the time being. It's starting to get a little cold, and she might want to take her coat off at some point.

She's curious to see the inside, she's seen what the outside of his place looks like, but the inside could be a completely different story. There are things she suspects. She knows it'll be clean, because River wouldn't expect anything less than neat and orderly bordering on too neat and orderly. He's inviting her in, though. The fact that he's invited her into his space is certainly different than the two of them spending time together in a park or the various times she's enjoyed his company in a physical sense at the hotel.

No, there is something quite different when you are actually going somewhere that another person lives. She wouldn't have dreamed of bringing someone home where she and Farrah were living, rarely had overnight guests in San Diego or Chula Vista (the latter largely because she was living with her parents and they were still very much of the belief that her girlfriend at the time was just her girl friend and not a girlfriend. We digress)

Samir
One day he's going to be able to say of the space he inhabits that it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. He is a reality hacker and has a proficiency for the Sphere of Correspondence. River saw some of the work he was doing on Mind Code when she was over the last time. The beginnings of it handwritten on a legal pad that felt as though he had conjured it out of the ether.

By the time Grace came by the next day he would have filled nearly half of that pad and taken a break only so she could feed him lemon tofu and rice and made sure he didn't pose a danger to himself. Sam's Quiets are dangerous. Quiet is dangerous enough to an otherwise healthy person but Sam is mentally ill. Working to constrain it sure but mentally ill all the same.

She wants to see the inside. No one else has seen the inside. Barely enough room on the inside just for him and a sense of intimacy comes along with stepping foot inside another person's trailer.

The inside:

Green-and-white tile floors. Yellow paint. To the right as she walks in sits a big leather sofa next to a chair and table congested with computer monitors and other devices. Overhead storage compartments reveal books and more electronic equipment. Mostly books. The refrigerator is straight ahead. A four-range stovetop with a teakettle and nothing else atop it to the left. The sink is set into a vintage hexagon-tile countertop with a matching backsplash. Across from the sink a little closet containing a toilet and shower for when the weather gets to where going outside just to take a piss would be suicide.

The curtains have cowgirls on them. They aren't curtains Sam would have chosen and since Sam doesn't know dick about interior decorating he's just left them there.

To the far left as they walk in sits the bed. It's a queen-size mattress atop an antique iron frame. Electrical outlets within reach and two windows flanking the thing. The bed looks comfortable and as if he spends little time in it.

"Tada," Sam says behind her. It's not stifling hot inside but the warmth is noticeable. Same as his resonance is noticeable. Once they're both inside Sam takes hold of the door and hauls it shut behind them.

River
Sam mentioned once that he had been in Quiet before, and that it was part of the reason why he'd left Los Angeles. The episode she had seen shouldn't have surprised her but it did all the same. She didn't know he had a mental illness, didn't know that his compulsions and the desire for things being a certain way hadn't been born out of the episode itself. He seems fine around her (he busts his ass to seem fine around her.)  It had scared her all the same though, is something she'd rather not see again but almost anticipates it as something that may happen. Sam came out okay this time; River knows that this is not always the case. Sometimes, you don't make it back.

Once they're inside she is in his space, not so much because she felt the need to invade it but rather because it's a smaller space to begin with. She's lived in places like this, doesn't seem to think anything about it, doesn't seem to think that it is cramped or anything of the sort. She is taking off her coat once she notices that it is, in fact, warm out here. Her dress is blue, zips up the back. The tights are patterned.

"I lived in a camper for a long time," she told him, holding onto her coat for now if only because she didn't want to just discard her things all over the place. When you live in a small space you can't really throw things anywhere you want. "We would go where my parents found work, so we would just park and live somewhere for a few months then... pick up and-" she gestured outward away from her body with a little whoosh noise, like the vehicle was taking off somewhere "-we'd lived by peach groves and camp sites. We even lived at Yosemite for two weeks until the park rangers figured out that we weren't on vacation."

Samir
Sam does not think he has game.

There are no mirrors in the place. He has lived in places that have had mirrors before. Besides the mirrors into which he has glimpsed before he has eyes and those eyes have always worked. Sam knows he is a good-looking young man. He has also been in his skin the entire time he has been alive. He has seen the Youtube video he made with his friends back in Cairo when he was an adolescent boy who thought being funny would offset his nerdishness.

Being good-looking and funny and smart doesn't make up for the fact that he has never had a girl in his space before. Not like this. Amanita let herself into the apartment he was staying in back in Los Angeles and it was a last-ditch effort to convince him not to go. She was an Initiate of Mind by the time he got it into his to leave and she had been with him all through his Quiet. Stayed with him through Kayf's return and his calling in the priest to banish the Paradox and Perez's death which had nothing to do with Sam's Quiet but stained the affair all the same.

He had been in love with Amanita. Having her in his space was not the same as having River in his space. Different times and different moods and he only thinks of Amanita for the four seconds between their entering the trailer and River's saying something.

She lived in a camper for a long time. Her parents were migrant workers. He remembers her mentioning this. He lets her hold her coat for now. He peels his off and drapes it on the arm of the leather sofa like to act as a cue for her to do the same.

"What was Yosemite like?"

River
The things that River doesn't know about Sam could be written into volumes. It does not mean, however, that she would not like to know these things. She likes him, she's said that she likes him. She's shown up and hasn't been able to get the smile off her face since she got here. River does know about his departure from Los Angeles, hasn't learned about the details; she may ask at some point, maybe when there's time. Maybe when there's a moment to breathe and the occasion comes up.

Knows better than to poke at things, doesn't know if it's a scar or a bruise or if it's an open wound. It's not something you figure out by probing too hard and seeing what makes someone pull away.

So, instead, he asks her what Yosemite was like. (Well, there wasn't a real instead, he asks. She replies, isn't thinking about the same timeframe he is) River has to think about this for a moment, but not for too long. She lingers only to place her thoughts into sentences, takes her time to figure out how she's going to say what she does. When she's in a hurry to speak, River misses things. Leaves gaping plot holes and fails to hit her mark. The coat goes over the arm of the sofa and she steps in far enough that she can get a better look. Turns back to look at Samir.

"It's full of colors," she tells him, voice filtered through the lens of childhood nostalgia made real by a woman whose experiences spanned lifetimes, "it has these waterfalls that- the really good ones, you can't really hike to. And there are these pools, like the one at the base of Wapama falls that... it's turquoise. And then?"

She laughs, "there are just these meadows and there were deer. I remember wandering out right when the sun came up because I wanted to see them and my parents were furious because, well, you don't just go wander off in the middle of a national park.

"But everything there was like a box of crayons. The green was green The blue was blue The flowers were all little yellow-and-red things. I wish we could've stayed longer."

Samir
His eyes are not brown in the strictest sense of the word. In certain lights they are the color of whiskey. Right now with the afternoon light streaming in and the yellow of the paint and the happy mood he's in they are warm but they are closer to amber than they are to earth. River has seen his eyes when they have been the color of earth. When he has been more interested in scrubbing baking soda off the inside of a never-cleaned oven than stopping and talking to her.

When she came awake later that night and saw his hands wrapped around hers she could see the damage done before a moment of clarity made him reconsider what he was doing. He had scrubbed his skin down to where his cuticles were collateral damage. Blood tinged around his nail beds. River knows what color his eyes are when he hasn't had enough sleep.

Yosemite is full of colors.

And Sam is listening to her. He's gazing at her sure because her face is interesting and beautiful to him and the way she pauses in her sentences and puts the emphasis in certain places catches his attention and he feels a magnetic pull towards her but he is a strong young man and though he wants he does not act. He does not know how to stand once they are relieved of their burdens. Tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

His jeans are black. His Doc Martens are burgundy. He wears an untucked black t-shirt. No logo on it. It came out of a pack of three. His arms are thin and bare. No tattoos and no jewelry. His hair bound tight at the nape of his neck like it had not been during his Quiet.

A small smile at mention of her parents' furiousness. God he wants to touch her right now. He doesn't though. He's listening to her.

"Would you want to go back?"

River
She thinks his eyes are beautiful. Hasn't said it out loud, hasn't told him that she is captivated with the color and the details of his face. She's seen his eyes when they are darker, when he is darker and the color scheme goes to match. It had been a feat to try and get him to pay attention to her. There are things she regrets, things she doubts. Calls she's made that she questions whether or not it was right right thing to do.

She'd seen his hands when she woke up, looked at it and buried her face back to where it had been. With her face placed at the juncture of where his shoulders might meet if he stretched the wrong way. Stayed there and wondered what she would do when he woke up. She counted it as a miracle that he'd slept as hard as he did, that he finally let exhaustion overtake him.

Yosemite is full of colors.

He asks her if she wants to go back. He's watching her face and he is listening to her and he wants to touch her and she must know that. She isn't an emotionally unaware creature, or rather she takes another step back through the place, meanders towards the bed because it looks comfortable even though it doesn't look like it sees a lot of use.

"I would go back if there weren't people there," she replied, "you can't really have a place like that to yourself. I met some really nice people, to be sure, but there's something about tourism that makes a place feel different. Like... the sheer volume of cars and foot traffic and the repercussions that come with that... just kinda seems like you'd be hurting something you love."

Samir
And he can think of all the places he remembers that he would not want to revisit. When they first moved to Madrid he was twelve. 191 people died in a bombing at Atocha Station seven months after he and his mother moved to Spain. His tutor had been planning to take him on the train that day but he had had an attack of nerves the night before and had had no sleep because he had been rearranging all of the books in his room until he found the right order. Twelve years old and he had protested so heavy about leaving for an errand that required the train that the tutor said "A la mierda" and just left later than they would have otherwise.

Compulsive behaviors become compulsive behaviors for a reason. On the one occasion twelve-year-old Samir insisted on checking the lock twelve times before they left the house it kept them off a train that later turned into the site of a terrorist attack. Never mind that he had insisted on checking the light switch or the faucet eleven times in the past. He did that shit quietly. On this particular instance though.

He can remember Madrid even though they left it when he was 14. He had friends in Madrid. They went on adventures in spite of his derangement.

Then there's Cairo. The city where he lied to his mother so that he could leave her house.

He's listening to River in spite of the ghosts of dead conversations echoing around him. Carry-over from Quiet or just his own guilt eating at him. He hears her. You can't have a place like Yosemite to yourself.

So he takes another step towards her. Towards the bed. The inevitable end that awaits them and yet he does not treat it as inevitable. He wants it. He wants her. But he wants to talk to her too.

"Sure," he says. "I guess going during off hours wouldn't make that go away, eh?"

They could go at three in the morning when no one else was there. They'd still know the feel of human interference though.

River
"It would make it better. People are always going to be somewhere, and I can wish that other people would be more... aware of how they interact with the world around them? Wishing doesn't fix it." They both know how to fix that, but she doesn't come out and say it, "it could be a different sort of beautiful with people there."

She sighs, more thoughtful than wistful.

"It would be a beautiful, lonely planet if you had it all to yourself."

River is a person who takes her clothing off for a living. It's a portion of what she does, but it is the most notable aspect of that particular career choice. People don't think about the amount of time she spends talking to people, the amount of time she spends working a room and building relationships. They don't think about the listening or the athletic portions of pole dancing or the boundaries she very strictly enforces while she's giving a more private showing.

No, what people think of when they think of River's job it's that she has found new and artistic ways to get out of her clothes. She's very good at what she does. While she's talking she's dealing with the zipper of her dress. She reaches back, carefully starts it while it's at the top of her neck, then reaches back to ease it down the rest of the way.

The dress goes slack in the sort of way things do when you are still wearing them yet you could very easily not be wearing it.

Samir
Despite his attempts to maintain some semblance of suaveness Sam has a visceral reaction to seeing River start to unzip her dress. He's listening to her sure but he also draws a deep breath because the unzipping speaks of the coming physicality. It is no longer news to her that Sam is attracted to her.

And he has no idea what she does for a living. Knows that she's a dancer based on things she's said when they've been smoking weed but Sam is not a dancer. That time she dropped him on his ass attempting to dip him won't soon fade from his memory.

"When I was younger I used to think it would be easier, if there were nobody else around." He steps into her space to help her get the sleeves off her shoulders. It isn't as if she needs the help. Sam just wants to be close to her. "This is pretty close."

But it's not easier.

River
There are very few reasons that a woman would be unzipping her dress in someone's trailer. She isn't shucking her way out of the damned thing because she's trying to urgently get to spilled red wine.

He steps into her space, helps her ease her way out of the shoulders of the dress and she relaxes just enough that the fabric drops on the floor. Her bra is black- she doesn't have a lot of variety. River has a black bra, a tan bra, and a bra that doesn't match anything in her closet and she lost the matching bits to go with it. She keeps that one because it gives her completely epic cleavage and every woman needs the option of having epic cleavage should she so desire.

Everything else she owns is covered in sequins or has rhinestones on it or is some degree of ridiculous and doesn't actually need to be worn under actual clothing. Some things she has sewn sequins onto because, believe it or not, you can't just buy some of the things she wears to work. There is a lot of customization involved. She does a lot of sewing, is handy with a needle and thread, but that actually just came from dancing in general. She's worn some ridiculous things.

She doesn't really have a use for the number of leotards she has. Nobody needs that many leotards, and yet.

He tells her that, when he was younger he thought nobody else being around would be easier. She's looking him in the eyes when he's talking, doesn't wander away from his face and she's tuned in to whatever it is that he's saying. River is listening. She likes to listen to him, when he's willing to talk.

"Do you think the same thing now? That it would be easier?"

Samir
It doesn't take much to get River out of her dress. It's the rest of it. The articles that go into keeping a woman packaged up underneath her clothes. That's the bit he often struggles with. The clasp that keeps the brassiere closed and the snaps that keep the garter attached to the tights.

Far easier to get Sam out of his clothes but he's often just as happy to slip off her pants and lie between her legs. The number of times he has taken her to bed but not taken off his own pants is not quite high enough for him to have developed a reputation for it. It's hard to have deep conversations that way.

They're looking each other in the eye when she asks that question. The No is plain in his gaze. Not only does he not think that it would be easier but he knows better. In an apocalypse scenario the only person Sam would have for companionship would be himself. And Sam knows himself. He's fucking crazy.

Instead of giving her a proper answer Sam anchors his hand against the place where her jaw and neck meet. Fingers at the base of her spine. That had been the touch that made his brain erupt into violence when she came to Grace's to check on him. That doesn't happen today.

He kisses her soft and even in the softness manages to cement his answer.

River
The clothing that she does wear can be a little difficult to get off, even for someone who spends most of her day finding inventive and provocative ways to take remove said clothing. She's perfected the art of unclasping a bra with one hand as such that she can do it while hanging upside down but your mind goes somewhere else when you're not invested in the person around you.

Were she the type to gossip, Samir would have a horde of eager women lined up to wine and dine and bed the Mercurial Elite. Not just one horde, either. But she is not the type to gossip, doesn't discuss what she does behind closed doors. Wouldn't deny if asked but, at the same time, would probably flatly inform someone that she does not discuss her romantic life in the context of any number of situations. For all the time they've spent together, they haven't had a number of deep conversations.

They get distracted. Oh, darn.

He puts his hand against the place where her jaw and her neck meet, and she leans into it. Remembers the last time he'd done that he'd pulled his hand away from her so fast that one would think she'd burned him. That she was cursed and temptation had given way to one's better instincts and there would be retribution rained down. Not from her, but still. She sighs, knows the answer from the entirety of the experience.

She'd unclasped her bra at the very least, chose to hook her middle and index fingers through a belt loop and pull him closer to her, so their bodies were flush with one another.

River pulls back for a moment, her lips still close to his, eyes closed and she asks, "do you like it out here?"

Samir
They have divulged some heavy truths to each other in the scant time they've been in each others' acquaintance but of the two of them Sam is the one who prefers to listen. Not that River does all of the talking. In the beginning she had had a mind effect going that blunted her own affect. Kept her from feeling anything at all let alone anything negative but he had picked up on it and he had called her out on it and that had been the tone-setter for the relationship in its nascency.

That may have given her the impression that Sam doesn't have a lot of time for bullshit in his life. That he's busy or he prefers honest conversation if he's going to leave his cave to spend time with someone. She has seen him Work. The man is capable of concentrating in spite of distractions. That concentration has an almost insular quality to it. Like he shuts out everything else in the room so that he can work on penetrating the layers between himself and the information he seeks.

People do not give up their secrets as easily as computers do. And he wouldn't want them to anyway. It's only because he gives a shit about River and wants to know her and be known by her that he's made any effort at all insofar as getting through her barriers goes.

Pressed up against him as she is River can feel his wanting her. In the muscle at the base of his belly. The racing of his heart. His breath is hot when it flows over her skin. He leans into her. Her back meets the bed a second later.

"I had a nightmare the other day," he says. Punctuates the sentence with a kiss. "I was wearing overalls." Another kiss. "And I voted." Kiss. "Libertarian."

River
He's a good listener, it's part of the appeal really. It's rare to find people who are not spending their time waiting for you to stop talking so that they can say what it was that they needed to say. In those sorts of situations, she is often drowned out, doesn't say anything or puts things away for a later date so that she can process later. Her personality isn't forceful; there are few subjects that she is not willing to engage in negotiating.

When River is adamant about something, or deigns that the world will Hear Her Now, it is usually an issue so integral to her being that people who know her understand how important the matter must be. Despite this fact, it's nice sometimes to feel as though someone isn't going to run over you in conversation.

And there she is all thigh highs and boots pressing into him and he presses back, she bounces a little when she hits the bed. He kisses her lips and explains his horrible nightmare- words punctuated with amorous attention.

And he voted Libertarian.

It makes her laugh, collapse back on the bed while her hands go to cover her mouth. Her cheeks are flushed, her breathing is a little labored.

"Is this going to end in a role playing session where you're an angry land owner and I'm a lemon-stealing whore?"

Samir
Oblique reference to a video only those who spend their lives on the Internet would understand and Sam groans against the side of her neck. They're still clothed below the waist. He's still wearing his shirt. He wants to feel her skin against his. This is as good a place to sit up and start undressing himself as any.

Somewhere in the haze of his last Quiet he understood that River wanted to use sex to keep him from spinning out into space. She was his gravity that night but he had not been conscious of it. As far as he had known he had been giving into the fucked-up thoughts he could not fight off.

Today he is himself. His mind is quiet. His thoughts are quiet. The world is quiet. There is a difference between quiet as an adjective and Quiet as a state of being. The thought of being trapped in Quiet scares him.

Sam holds himself up in a half-assed push-up position in the hopes River will grab his t-shirt and pull it over his head. If she doesn't he's going to have to sit up and do it himself.

"You know..." Shirt gone now he lowers himself again. Starts kissing her neck. Running his fingers through her hair. "... if anything, I'm the lemon-stealing whore. I don't own shit."

River
He groans, and her reaction is to titter as though she has accomplished some grand feat at getting him to groan in the first place. How she had come across this video, one will never know. River can barely figure out how her phone works most days. She texts, dials, and takes pictures. Occasionally Skypes because someone had explained to her how the app worked.

She'd been so desperate the only time she's seen him in Quiet. Has made questionable decisions but would stand by them because she thought she was doing what was best. Had hoped to be some source of stability and had succeeded on some level. River could call it a success in that regard, hopes that she may never be needed in such a capacity again. Doesn't understand that this will happen again.

He doesn't need a rock tonight, doesn't need something to grab onto because he is himself. Samir has his own gravity, his own pull and in that sense he can be captivating. Why shouldn't he be? He's a rare creature.

So, there he is, holding himself up in a half-assed pushup and she takes the hint, pulls his shirt off and discards it... uh... somewhere. To the left. Left seemed like a good direction and he lowers himself again, kisses her neck and he gets a sound of approval, her own hand finding the base of his neck and liberating his hairtie from its prior duties.

"What? Why aren't you buying into consumerist culture?" not like she actually cared. She pushes herself into him, takes one leg and pulls him closer to her body. River is no stronger than he is, but she can be insistent when she needs to be.

Samir
That insistence is met with compliance. He leans heavy into her. Moves his hips like he's trying to scratch an itch without making it obvious that he's scratching an itch and kisses her again. Slips her underwear down off her hips and rolls to the side so he can help her wriggle free. Might as well get her tights and boots off while they're at it.

No urgency in their disrobing but Sam is starting to lose his capacity for intelligent discourse. Only so much blood in his body and his brain is having a bitch of a time keeping enough for its cerebral functions.

"Pretty sure they'll take away my anarchist card if I ever do anything legally." Boots hit the floor one after the other. Excellent. He looks down to watch his hand as it runs up her leg over her knee along the inside of her thigh. He traces the space between them before making new heat with his fingers. "You wanna be the angry land owner?"

River
It isn't the most graceful of motions but her underwear inevitably goes to live on the floor with his shirt and the rest of her clothing. Boots disappear (though she makes a quick check to make sure that she didn't mess up his comforter; it seems fine) tights go with them.

He's pretty sure that they'll take away his anarchist card if he ever does anything legally, she's breathing a little heavier, heart beating loud in her ears and there is anticipation. Her legs are smooth, they always are. She's a very tidy person; there is a lot of upkeep that comes with being River Vasquez. There is a small sound, like she had something to say but it got caught in her throat.

She exhales, almost like laughter but certainly like anticipation; it is not unlike the tension and delight that comes from anticipating a jump scare for a horror fanatic. River is tinged with that sort of pleasure that comes when you know what is happening but still crave the sensation like it's still new. She moves her hips with his motions.

"I'm very upset about the hike in property taxes- you trespassing is just icing on the cake," she grins. Playful and amused- yes, she can be an angry property owner, even though she has no idea what land owners complain about.

Samir
He's intent upon what he's doing. Reading the reactions to how he touches her. He touches her not like a disoriented man trying to find a light switch in the dark but like a lover. An inexperienced lover sure but he's a quick study and he's paying attention to her breathing and the way she moves in response to how he touches her.

It's hard not to smile like he thinks he's so fucking funny when he times the sliding of his fingers inside her to coincide with his retort. Watching her face.

"Trespassing? Madam, I'll have you know I have the... ability to conjure up the proper permits, if someone comes asking for them."

River
River is of the belief that, if you enjoy something then let the person know. Praise is given where praise is due, and while he may not be experienced one can not deny that Samir gives the impression of a man who learns quickly and isn't deterred from a pursuit in which he has decided he wants to excel.

She inhales sharply once his fingers slide in, and her muscles tense. He's watching her face and that pleased and playful grin stays on her lips. River tries, though, to put on her best face that says that she is not amused with his antics.

"I'm not asking for your permit, sir, I'm demanding it," she tells him, as forceful as she can get without breaking character and laughing at herself. "And I'll have you know if they're forged, I'll press charges."

River puts on her best indignant woman face, something that is only interrupted by a flutter of breath and a stifled moan, "I. Know. People."

Samir
"Oh, word?"

Sam has even less experience dealing with bureaucrats and the people who subscribe to it than he does with pleasing a woman in bed. He hasn't ever had to talk his way out of a speeding ticket. If anything he learned from being Kayf's student that with the right Spheres or strict adherence to a nontraditional schedule that you can get the cops or anyone else to do pretty much whatever you want them to do.

That wasn't anything he'd ever had any interest in pursuing. That kind of power has always terrified him.

Playing along at being the lemon-stealing whore to River's angry land owner is amusing. It's turning into a game to see if he can get her to come while she's still in character.

"Well, ah, see... problem is, ma'am, they're in my pants? And I'm kind of busy right now, so..."

River
River's parents didn't much care for governmental officials- a very real fear in her life had been that her family would get sent back to Cuba and she wouldn't have anywhere to go because she was, technically, a US citizen. A busted tail light or a speeding ticket could turn into a very unpleasant situation. Gaining citizenship for them had been an ordeal, but one she got to witness.

Nobody does bureaucracy better than US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Luckily, she could parlay childhood fears into some very official sounding jargon if the need ever arose.

He's paying close attention and the game has shifted- he might be able to make her come while in character, but she is holding fast. Is committed to the idea that no, she is still an angry land owner and this man is very clearly trespassing and stealing her lemons.

"What could you-" oh! "-possibly be doing that is so important?"

She her hands move, and she's making good work of toying with the top button of his jeans, "if you're so busy I can get them myself."

Samir
Staying in character is difficult for him not only because he can't lie worth a damn but because his jeans are getting awful tight. Watching her refuse to break character just because he's touching her the way he knows she likes to be touched is making it difficult for him to focus on anything else.

He can imagine that her childhood was difficult. Her parents came here in hopes of giving her and her siblings a better life. Her family is back in Chula Vista and she's decided not to go back because of what happened with her mentor. That's something he can understand. They've talked about that. But he's kept details of his own family life to himself thus far. All she can really say with any certainty is that he had a mother and his mother moved them a few times because she was a college professor. A renowned college professor. A renowned female college professor in a field dominated by men.

Part of him wants to angle his hips so it's difficult for River to undo his pants. The greater part of him wants to have sex with her. It's a real conundrum.

"I'd hate to have to make you--" Again with the timing. Using his dumb fingers and his knowledge of her body and the way it responds to pressure against her. "--press charges."

River
She doesn't know where all he's been- she knows he was Canadian, lived in LA at one point, and somehow Egypt factored in somewhere. She was not clear on the specifics. Might be more-than-interested in hearing about his globe-hopping adventures. He's been places she would love to go, seen things she would love to see.  River was not one to consider her little corner of the planet to be the only one worth exploring.

It's really hard to stay in character, though. She's not an actress by trade and the premise is ridiculous but damned if it wasn't fun to pretend; who's to say one's sex life shouldn't involve whimsy? Even if their whimsy did involve angry land owners. He applies pressure at the right time and she cries out, most assuredly not in pain but as though the building of pleasure was somehow a surprise to her.

One of the things about pleasure is that it makes your fine motor skills get a little rusty. The thing with desperation means that one half fumbles through their gestures. The end result meant that it was an actual effort for her to get his pants unzipped. He could tell it was an effort, she's moved with his motions and she slows for a second, looks like she might cry out again-

"Going to court is incon-" at this point she loses the word for a second, stalls because she can't quite focus but she powers through "-inconvenient. My time is money and I don't have time for-"

Oh god, what does she not have time for? Her breathing is a little more labored. He can practically see her thinking of baseball and cold showers and Margaret Thatcher.

Samir
As incapable as he is of committing to a moment of comedy he is not self-conscious as they lie like this not taking the act of intercourse itself seriously. With as much else as they have going on in their lives and as close as he came not only to dying but to losing himself to permanent insanity a couple weeks ago Sam is not in the mood to take something as ridiculous and necessary to their species's survival as sex seriously.

It's hard not to let himself get distracted by how his feelings for her are beginning to multiply. Canted up on an elbow watching her persist with the charade despite what he's doing to her Sam is looking her right in the eye and she can see the threat of a smile looming.

He's supposed to be a trespasser. She's the angry land owner. Trespassers don't laugh unless they want to go to jail. She's not having much luck with the tab on his jeans but he isn't going to help her with it.

"I'm not stopping you," he says. His fingers are at odds with his words. "If you're having trouble I can get that permit for you, ma'am."

River
She hasn't had this much trouble with a pair of jeans since the time she got drunk and forgot she had fake nails. It had been a bachelorette party the day before her brother's wedding and his soon-to-be wife had invited River along for the ride. Hair. Nails. Booze. More booze. Then drunken eyebrow waxing which actually turned out a lot better than it sounds. Whatever the case, River's sister-in-law had been there by her side to help the poor darling with her problems.

River was not thinking about her sister-in-law at this particular juncture. He looks her in the eyes and he has the threat of a smile on her face and she's on the edge of breaking character or laughing and there is something almost humorously indignant about her expression when she realizes, or perhaps makes it clear that she does realize, that Sam's sense of comedic timing is pretty good.

Which is to say, in this situation it's horrible. So horrible.

"Oh no, it's fine," she says, voice wrought with that waspy oh my god do not be undignified aire, because she is in character and she somehow suspects devolving into a series of indistinct positive affirmations would not get her that permit in her hands.

She manages to get the tab on his jeans to finally yield and she actually exclaims- "Ha!" Triumph!

"That certainly seems like some very extensive paperwork."

Samir
He would very much like it if she would get his fucking pants unbuttoned enough that he can extricate himself from them but if Sam didn't derive some sort of intrinsic pleasure from the act of pleasuring her himself he wouldn't be making it his mission to get so good at it. Less than half the times they've been with each other has he actually been inside her. One of those times he was deep in Quiet and the two of them existed in a gray area for a few minutes.

Though he has not come out and confessed as much to her River has witnessed his quirks and seen them amplified by his Quiet. Quiet does not make a man become obsessive-compulsive. This man started out that way. He is getting better at conquering his intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behavior but the fact remains that he continues to suffer from them.

All this means is that he didn't lock himself in the bathroom and masturbate four times before leaving the trailer today. He wasn't planning on leaving the trailer today and he didn't have enough time between receiving River's text and her arrival. Maybe he would have had time if he hadn't been in the middle of something.

Now he is very much in the middle of something. Historically he has been content to just focus on her. If River wants this to be a reciprocal sort of relationship she has to undo his jeans herself.

Which she does. It's enough to almost make him laugh.

That certainly seems like some very extensive paperwork.

"I mean..." Torn between wanting her and wanting to get her off. He shifts his hips but doesn't otherwise help her with her task. "Between the visas and everything..."

River
And she did want it to be a reciprocal relationship- not that she didn't enjoy the amount of attention he paid to her. Far from it, she could count the number of times that someone had paid half the attention to her physical desires as Sam does and the number is pretty damn low.  One could almost feel guilty about the fact that she had yet to really reciprocate, and she would have felt perhaps a bit more guilty were it not for the fact that Samir did seem to enjoy himself.

He didn't get her off for brownie points. He got her off because he liked getting her off.
Conversely, River didn't want to get Sam off tonight because she thought she owed it to him. Despite the ridiculousness of the situation, it was hard to deny that River was pretty dang into Samir.

He shifts his hips and his watch hand is still between her thighs and her breathing is heavy and her mind is reeling and every bit of her is screaming notyetnotyetnotyet because as much as she wants to have that moment of toppling ecstasy, she would rather share it with him.

This is using most of the reserve power that her brain has. He shifts his hips and she readjusts herself, coaxes his jeans down as best she can. Her fingertips do their own bit of exploration.

"Did you have an attorney prepare this?" as though the thought of consulting legal help to prepare your appropriate documentation was enough to bring someone to near orgasmic bliss. Oh no, nothing to do with what his hand was doing at all.


Samir
"No."

He uses one heel and then the other to kick off his boots. One Doc Marten and then the other clunks on the floor and he takes her cues to start shifting their bodies. He has never asked her if she is on birth control. The first time they were both stoned and caught up in a moment of vulnerability and the last time he didn't even know what planet he was on.

Now ought to be the time for him to ask but third-wave feminism has ensured that they have options in the event that they come to their senses and realize they didn't do a damned thing to avoid a pregnancy. His senses are just fine where they are right now.

"The Internet helped."

He uses his knees to nudge hers apart and eclipses her body with his. Between the two of them they are able to get his hand out of the way and when he leans heavy into her the effort to stay in character collapses. Sam gasps and slides an arm under her shoulders and lets that gasp go as a sigh in her ear.

"Is everything in order here, ma'am?"

River
She doesn't seem terribly concerned about this being a potential health hazard or career-inhibiting move. Either she is caught up in the moment or she is completely confident in her ability to not accidentally end up getting pregnant.

He says the internet helped, leans into her and there is that moment where she inhales sharp, sits up a bit and holds onto him for support. His arm is under her shoulders, and he asks if everything is in order. Calls her ma'am.

"God damn it, I love it when a man is thorough," she breathes. It's an actual true statement, a smile stays on her face and she closes her eyes for just a moment, rocks her hips so as to affirm the physical connection there. She turns her head and kisses the place right below his ear. She can't see his face but she doesn't need to. Seems completely content to be a breath apart.

River
[Stamina!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 7) ( success x 1 )

Samir
[stamina!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Samir
And there passes the last of their charade.

With that breath in her ear and her lips pressed to the crook of his jaw the two of them abandon their roleplaying. Over her Sam is thin and not terribly athletic but capable of moving like this so long as she remains conscious.

Their bodies respond to each other. They are not used to moving like this together but the two young adults know each other and they know the tone of their breaths and moans and when River's orgasm comes to claim her Samir is not far behind her. He does not cry out as he had the day they fucked on the banks of Cherry Creek in Washington Park but he does gasp and breathe heavy and loud and lean back to gaze into her eyes.

He's falling for her. In that moment she can see it in the way he looks at her. Sam is falling for her and just as he can't do a damned thing about falling into Quiet neither can he do a damned thing about falling for River.

So they have a moment's respite to lie on their back and smoke cigarettes in each others' arms. Then Sam sets the ashtray on the floor beneath the bed and hauls her on top of him.

They are young and the world is going to burn whether they do anything about it or not so they may as well go for one more round.