Who: Sam and Isaac What: First time meetings Where: Scrapyard When: ...today? Warnings/Rating: Some talk of old trauma
Maybe it was a strange choice for Sam’s first foray out of the house, but she wanted to get back to being herself, and so much of that was her art. It had been long enough that the stitches itched, rather than hurt, and she’d ordered a new MIG that morning and had it delivered to Neil’s, with the intention of getting back to work in the morning. And, yeah, so maybe she’d been playing the “avoid Neil” game, which included letting Christine spend way too much time not knowing what the fuck to do with stitches. But Sam was feeling hateful, and it was easier to hang out in Paris than to actually run into Neil in the fucking hallway or something. And it wasn’t like she could hide, not when things were spooking her left and right. It was getting better, and it would pass, but she needed to actually get herself out of the fucking house first. That was today’s goal. Scrapmetal, and managing an hour with someone in possession of a dick who wasn’t Neil. Good start.
It was still light, barely, but the scrapyard was lit brighter than a fucking tree lot at Christmas, and Sam waited out front with two, cheap gas station coffees. She had considered Isaac’s suggestion of a scarf, but she wasn’t going to go around hiding behind fabric for the rest of her life. Anyway, the marks on her neck were deep, not long and, discounting the fading teeth marks there, they were better than the others. She wore sweats and a t-shirt that was Neil’s and too big, even tied at the small of her back, and her long, blonde hair was in messy pigtails. She had a cigarette between her lips, and she had workboots on her feet, and she glared at anyone who came too fucking close.
It was a great start.
Zee had finished up his last appointment of the night as he was talking to Sam, and cleaned up after that, making sure everything was in place and ready for the next day. That taken care of, he headed out and managed to find his way to the scrapyard, pace slow, lanky limbs carrying him where he needed to go. There was no rush; he was fairly close to the scrapyard, so he took his time.
By the time he sauntered up to the yard, it was inching up to the meeting time. His pants were baggy, hanging on hips that barely had an angle to hook on, a knit hat pulled over hair that attempted to escape, and a close-fitted tank top the only acknowledgement of the Las Vegas heat. Everything about him seemed stretched and lanky, as if someone had grabbed him at either end and pulled like taffy. Nearly every bit of visible skin was covered in ink, arms, chest, up his neck to end around his throat and under his ears. He looked comfortable in that colorful skin, as if he had every right to be wandering into a scrapyard. He looked around, a lazy gaze that was at the same time sharp enough to search for Sam.
Now, Sam had already figured out that Meg had a male for a Las Vegas counterpart, and she knew he wasn’t some rich fuck, not the way he wrote on the journals. But she still wasn’t expecting someone in covered tattoos who could look like one of her brothers if he just happened to be pale and blond. Despite running wild, she’d never given into ink and piercings as her brothers had, but the man approaching her still reminded her of home in a strange way.
“Over here,” she called out, motioning with one of the cheap coffees, a backpack full of tools to pull metal at her feet. “I’ll trade you some coffee for some sweat.” She sounded like Jersey, all vowels that went too round in the Vegas heat. And sure, she felt a little fucking strange meeting up with a guy who had seen blood trailing down her thighs, but whatever. Maybe it felt good not to pretend for a few minutes.
She took a step forward, kicking the bag in front of her, and she defiantly refused to back up as he approached. Fuck that. She wasn’t going to hide and cower for the rest of her fucking life. This, she reminded herself, was an exercise in getting back into the world again.
He turned at the sound of her voice, slow in a way that indicated that he had all the time he needed, and a smile spread across his face at approximately the same speed. Long legs carried him over toward her, stopping close enough that he could reach out and take one of the coffees from her. “Now, I don’t remember agreeing to any sort of sweat in this meeting.” His voice was just as lazy as his smile, and he spoke the same way he wrote. If he had an accent, it was one that constantly changed, east coast on one word, southern on the next, and an entire country in between. The coffee was welcome, even though it was cheap and already beginning to cool even in the hot Vegas air. As he took a drink, his eyes wandered over her. It was a gaze that caught more than it missed, and on many people would have seemed a lecherous up-and-down. From him, it was simply an assessment of her appearance. And the result of that assessment?
“Lookin’ better than the last time I saw you.” He’d taken in the way she held herself, the kick at the bag on the ground, the way she refused to back away from him even though he was essentially a stranger that had seen her at her worst, and had come away with a warm respect for her. A respect that wouldn’t allow him to pretend like things were just fine for her. That same respect also gave her some space though, and he took care not to move any closer than he was when he’d taken the cup from her.
“Better. Five more days until the stitches come out, and I’ll be fucking thrilled when they do,” Sam replied, because it was easier to fix on the physical shit, on the glue that held her together, and not on whatever was going on underneath. “Heading back to work tomorrow. Considering finding the guy from the kitchen and blowtorching his dick off. You know. The regular. How you settling in?” she asked, finishing off her own coffee (which she’d been working at) with a long swallow, and then tossing the cup into the trashcan near the entrance. She hoisted the bag onto her unhurt shoulder, more careful with it than she normally would have been, and she crooked her head toward the scrapyard. “I already paid, so sweating is definitely on the agenda,” she explained, motioning to a dirty old truck that was parked off to the side. “Borrowed, and if I don’t get it back tonight, my ass is so on the line,” she said easily and, ok, so maybe she could do this shit. “You can watch if it’s too much for you, baby.” She grinned, testing the waters. Alright, maybe this would be fine. As long as she didn’t fucking spook and swing a wrench at him, it would be fine.
She considered warning him about that as she moved forward, that he might end up with a wrench embedded in his skull, but she held off and just looked back to make sure he was following. “You make friends with any of the boys between playing savior and now?” she asked curiously, knowing Liam had been hunting people down after the week from hell.
He drank his coffee as he listened to her, watching her actions with a careful eye to see how freely she was able to move, which would hopefully give him a better indication of how she was feeling. Careful but without wincing, so he nodded to himself and gave her another slow-spreading smile. “Guess I can’t get out of it then, can I?” He rolled his eyes at the suggestion that he just watch while she did the work, and tossed his own coffee cup before he could reach the sludge in the bottom. The long line of his body straightened out of its relaxed slouch, and he stepped closer to follow her. That single step betrayed his more than considerable height, especially over her. “Just tell me exactly what you want me to be doing here.”
Hands shoved in pockets threatened to dislodge pants from slim hips, but somehow they stayed up. “Talked to them in my book. May’ve kept my name to myself for now.” The smile he gave her at that was a little sharper, less relaxed. He paused, then gave her a low laugh that was heavy on the bass end. “Didn’t see any reason to make things easy for anyone. Especially since you’d said things were complicated. Not gonna throw myself in without a little more info there.”
The step closer made her tense a little, but she forced the tightness from her shoulders a second later and tossed him the heavy bag from her shoulder to cover it up, the tenseness. “Earn that coffee,” she teased, already having pulled out a handheld electric screwdriver before tossing the bag at him. Admittedly, holding the thing made her feel better. It was heavy and solid, and she could probably bore a hole in someone’s eyeball if she really needed to, assuming she could lift it high enough, which was questionable just then. “It’s a flat rate, pull anything you can. But I’m looking for rusted over pieces, flat, so I don’t have to work them too much. I’m looking for the oxidation,” she explained. “They don’t need to be huge, but I work better with bigger pieces.”
She motioned toward an old shell of a car, and she pointed to the hood, where the original color couldn’t even be seen, and there were some generous, long inches without holes eaten in the metal. “Like that,” she said, moving toward it. “As for our complications. You met Liam and Neil. Well, Meg did. Raoul and Erik have spent months trying to fucking kill each other. It’s been a fucking blast. Liam and I hate each other, kind of, unless Liam is telling me I’m beautiful and trying to marry me. And Neil’s a good friend; the roommate.” The look she shot him dared him to contradict that last bit. “Aiden is exasperated and wants to fucking kill us all. He has Nadir.”
“That coffee couldn’t’ve cost you very much, girlie. Won’t take me long to pay it back.” It was accompanied by another smile though, and an easy catch of the bag she tossed at him. He slung it over one shoulder and sent his gaze around at the metal that surrounded them. “Right.” He went quiet as he started to hunt, dragging things over as he found them, things that were larger than she could carry, at least at the moment. Part of the car, half a barrel, something that he couldn’t identify but that had a latticework of oxidation that moved from one peak of a nearly moon-like shape down across the fatter center. He listened to her talk in between his search, though he did look up at her mention of Neil. His expressive mouth angled into a smirk even though he didn’t say anything. By the time she’d finished and he’d hauled over another piece of metal, he brushed his hands together to loosen some of the dirt and rust and looked over at her. “So you’re telling me we should just pack a bag and say fuck everyone? Hit the road?” He joked, but behind the chuckle was a seriousness.
She had tried to pry a car door off herself, which wouldn’t have been a challenge normally, but the pull at the stitches and the pain in her arm kept her from even getting one screw loose. Instead, she went and crouched in front of the metal pieces he dragged over, and she concentrated on the latticework, fingers tracing over the rusted over crescent moon shape along the surface. It wasn’t what she had been planning on working on, but it was inspiration by itself, and she looked up as he brushed his hands together. “I saw that fucking smirk,” she said, pointing at him with the electric screwdriver. “Seriously. We’re fucked up, and we can’t tell what’s Christine and Erik and what’s us, and I’m not the fucking romantic type.” Which seemed like a succinct answer. “Want to tell me your story?” she asked, standing and examining the barrel and trying to determine if she could use some of the curves to pour the exoskeleton over if she sanded it.
While Sam inspected the pile of metal he’d collected, he went to grab the door she’d been focused on before, hauling it over to drop next to her. Even though it made an awful metal-on-metal sound, he still listened to her in between the screeches. He felt that, even from the little he’d seen, maybe she had at least a tiny bit of romance in her, but his life was worth more than telling her that. He watched her studying the metal, wondering what she saw in it, if it was anything like what he found in ink and skin, but the moment of quiet drew on too long, so he finally shook his head. “Nah,” was the simple reply to her question. “Not really.” The moment the words were past his lips, he felt like he owed her at least a bit more than that, though he blamed the thought on the quiet dancer in his mind. “It’s the usual sort of thing. Boy leaves home, travels, ends up in Vegas.” All of which was true, but sparse to the point of being dishonest. He crouched down near her, attention again on the tracery of rust on metal.
She was expecting that crouch, but his approach from behind and the screeching sound of metal made her start like a scared fucking doe, and she swung an arm back before she even thought of it, just as he was finishing that sparse story that she hadn’t managed to actually concentrate on. He’d dragged the door over on her bad side, all Frankenstein's monster and shit she didn’t want to think of, and she realized what she was doing once the fucking swing was already going wide.
The swing surprised him, but he saw the motion coming, and it wasn’t enough to leave him stunned. It was a matter of reflex born in hundreds of old fights to bring his hand up, easily catch her arm in a grip that was tight enough to keep her immobile but attempting to be careful enough to not hurt her. He was instantly aware of what he’d done; she wasn’t the first person he’d met that’d had their share of difficulties and trauma and then lashed out because of them. “Nah, girlie...” His voice was low, careful now instead of lazy, though the sprawl and drawl of the words was still there. “I’m not the one you wanna be hitting at, Sam.” Her name was strange off his lips and the words carried more than one meaning - he wasn’t the one she needed to lash out at, and she wouldn’t want to fight him anyway, not with his history. A history that was plain enough in old faded scars that hid behind the tattoos on his knuckles, faded but still visible as he held her arm. He didn’t let go, not at first, keeping her still and from falling over with the momentum of the attempted hit.
She yanked on her arm at first, a thoughtless reaction to being restrained in any way, but his grip kept her still, and there wasn’t much she could do as far as retreat. She had realized what she was doing enough to keep her from swinging with the other arm, but her heart was still beating a frantic rhythm in her chest, and she cursed loudly as her breath went shallow, shallow fast. Hyperventilating, and she bent over at the waist, without pulling her arm free. “I’m fine. Before you fucking ask, I’m fine,” she said, which was a lie, but whatever. “I just need to catch my breath. Let go. I’m not going to swing again,” she said, and she sounded young, which she was, but the cursing normally did a pretty good job of covering that. She tugged at her arm once more. “You tell anyone about that, and I’ll castrate you,” she promised, but it was an obviously empty threat, and she straightened a moment later and turned in a circle, hands tugging at her hair in frustration. “I have to get this shit under control,” she groaned. “I can’t keep sending Christine across the door to deal with shit when Neil is going to be home, and I can’t not leave the house, so what the fuck do I do?” she asked, as if Isaac would have all the answers.
He waited until she stopped tugging, able to feel the race of her pulse under his fingers. He tried to keep her gaze, but she was moving too much, so he finally shook his head. “Stop lying to me and I’ll let you go,” he replied, serious now in a way he hadn’t been before. He didn’t wait though, and carefully eased his fingers open to release her, wary of another swing even though she’d promised against it. He stayed in his crouch, balanced easily on the balls of his feet, and watched her frantic movements. He had no real answers for her, so he let her rave and tug at her hair until she turned her questions on him. At that point, he stood again, but back to his slouch that, while still left him much taller than her, was somehow less intimidating than when he stood up straight. “I got nothin’ for you, girlie. Never had someone take me to town like you did. You gotta make your own way, and maybe that’s letting your girl drive for a bit. Maybe it’s telling that man you live with that you need his help. Maybe it’s scarves and ties, or maybe it’s a big fuck you and going out in lowcut things so you can bitch at anyone that stares. Maybe it’s trying to do the things you always do so that you can feel normal, or maybe it’s making a new normal. If it was me, I’d probably skip town, but that’s my answer to everything and doesn’t always seem to do much good in the end.”
He was right, and she knew he was right. No one was going to fix this shit for her but her. She just didn’t know how yet, and half of his suggestions sucked. Christine was a problem, because of the stupid situation selfish fucking Raoul had left her in. Neil was a problem, because she couldn’t stand him looking at her like something that was fucking broken. She refused to hide behind scarves, and lowcut things weren’t an option until the stitches were out. It left her right back where she fucking started, and she groaned and kicked the barrel he’d pulled out, watching it roll along the dust and dirt. “Just- Just shove the other pieces in the bed of the truck,” she said, dragging a hand through her hair, not remembering the messy pigtails until her fingers encountered elastic. “I’ll work through it,” she finally added, a long fucking pause between one sentence and the other. She could do that. Turn an aria up full crank and weld, and even Neil wouldn’t interrupt her then, not if she didn’t lock her door. She took a deep breath, and she looked at him. “Sorry to drag you into this fucking mess,” she said honestly. “Normally, I’m a handful, but not like this.”
The wariness that had crept into his own eyes eased, and the false easy-going smile turned true. Small and askew, but true. He did the heavy lifting, as she asked, each scrap hitting the bed of the truck with hollow sounds that filled the rest of the scrapyard. It was too loud and too discordant, but it cut through awkwardness in silence like nothing else could. When all the pieces had come to rest, he turned, leaned his back against the dirty truck, elbows hitched high to rest on the edge of the bed, uncaring of his own skin or clothing, and looked at her. A hint of warmth was back in his expression, something that could be mistaken for annoying amusement by the wrong person. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m here if you need help, once you figure out what that is. Everyone’s got their handful days, and if yours get to be too much for me, you’ll know it.” Either by the smell of alcohol on him or by his sudden absence from the city, though he wasn’t about to tell her that quite yet.
She let him do the heavy lifting without interrupting him, and she had the keys in her hand by the time he was talking again. “I’ll figure it out,” she said stubbornly. “I need to. I don’t know how to be one of those chicks,” she said disdainfully. “Like Christine? I want to strangle her half of the time.” And maybe there was something there that was too defensive, too covering up for things she actually wanted for herself, but whatever. She was tired, and she blamed it on that. “Listen, things through the door are pretty chill right now. Raoul ditched Christine. Christine moved to some hookertown in Paris. Nadir is steering clear of everything since shit went down with Raoul. And I don’t know where the Phantom is staying. I’ll find out, but I don’t think it’s anywhere bad. Neil doesn’t seem out of sorts about it, so, yeah. Oh, and Raoul kind of burnt the Opera House down.” She shrugged. “Welcome to the family, I guess, baby.”
If Zee maybe thought that Sam could be a little bit easier on herself, was perhaps protesting too much, he didn’t say so, simply listened to her talk and took in the information about their door. He’d only agreed to go through the once, and Meg had been thrown back into Vegas only moments after crossing the door, getting caught in the craziness of the previous week. She hadn’t given him her version of a request to go back again, and he got the impression that she was happy enough to wait for a while, not wanting to repeat the experience. “The little bit was only over for long enough to see the dorms. She doesn’t seem that interested in going back quite yet.” He gave a loose shrug, not knowing what else to say.
“I’ll get people to check on her once she goes through again. No dorms right now, baby,” she said with a sigh, because she knew Christine missed that fucking Opera House like crazy, and if the dorms were there, well, she wouldn’t be in the shit mess she was in. She fiddled with the keys, and she gave him a look that was honest thanks. “Thanks for helping with this,” she said pointing to the metal that she would make the valet haul to Neil’s suite. “And thanks for dragging me out of the hotel. If you hadn’t-” She let the sentence end, not wanting to think what would have happened if she’d just laid there in her own fucking blood. Whatever, that hadn’t happened, and she wasn’t going to fixate on it. She motioned to the truck. “I better go,” she said, and normally she would have offered him a ride. But being locked in the small cab of a truck with someone felt like a bad idea just then, and she looked a little sheepish about not offering. She’d make it up to him, she decided. Beer or something, down the line.
He simply returned her thanks with a nod, like carrying injured women out of hotels was something he did every day. He made no mention of being terrified she was going to die on his hands, no mention of the way Meg had sobbed in his head, the bits of thought too laden with French for him to understand anything except her desperation. Those weren’t things that Sam needed to know. He caught her expression though, and gave her a low, warm laugh. “Don’t worry about it, girlie. My ride’s not far from here. I’ll be fine. You go play with your metal and talk to your man and call me when you need me.” When, not if.
“Roommate,” she clarified, and she gave him a look that might have been menacing on any other day. But she was tired, and this had been a hard exercise, coming out here and meeting a stranger. She shook her head, realizing that it sucked, as far as threatening glares went, and she just nodded at him once, agreement, thanks, whatever, all of it. Then, after opening the truck door, she climbed in and headed toward Aria. A pit stop at a bar, she decided, would make this shit all better.