- (tinieblas) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-08-07 00:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | !ocean's eleven, *log, neil donovan, sam alexander |
Sam & Neil: Ocean's Eleven
Who: Sam and Neil
What: A Dive-In movie about a dude with a chainsaw (1/2)
Where: The Bellagio, Ocean's Eleven
When: Fuzzy timeline nowish
Warnings/Rating: Sam's language
Sam's text was simple, yeah? (Bellagio. 8 pm. Pool. Bring swim trunks.)
She was pretty sure Neil didn't even fucking own swim trunks, but whatever. Something normal, yeah? That was what they'd said. Something normal, something less uptight. And, ok, so maybe he wouldn't be able to scream at the top of his lungs, but it was definitely laid back, definitely not the stuffy fucking distant place he always tried to live in. One night, yeah? Just one fucking night, and she'd considered super adult outings, like dinner or a museum, but he got enough sedate in his everyday. And she considered loud and wild, like bars or roller coasters or something, but the booze was a big fucking no. Just because she was having trouble staying on her own wagon, it didn't mean she wanted to yank him off his. Yeah, no, so the "Dive-In Movie" at the Bellagio was perfect, yeah? No booze, because drinks in a pool at night increased insurance liability like fucking crazy. Yeah, no, it was just soda and popcorn and some picnic baskets for 25 bucks. Safe, yeah? And adults only, so no kids around, and most of the people would be too busy making-out to pay attention to shit that was going on around them. Yeah, ok, good choice.
She got there a few minutes early, and she nabbed one of the few extension chairs left. The movie would show on the big fucking screen that normally pimped out O, and the place was already fucking crowded. Chairs filled, water and the waterfall that slipped under the building's lip crowded with inner tubes and floating chairs, loud voices and no one really giving a shit who was doing what.
Sam was clean. Deliberately, yeah? She didn't even fucking smell like cloves. No booze, nothing in her veins, and she sat, crossed legs, on that chair in perfectly respectable blue. In the fading light, the mauve beneath her eyes was barely visible, and the tracks on her arms faded to nothing. She still had some soft on her, that year of not-using still clinging to her bones on good days.
It was a good day, yeah? And she wasn't going to think about anything but this.
The shorts she'd worn were draped over the back of the chair, along with a towel, and her hair was loose and defying her attempts to keep it tucked behind her ears. She was sucking on a soda straw as music videos played on the big screen in anticipation of the darkening sky and movie that would start soon. It was something scary, yeah? She'd barely looked at the flick's name, but it was something old and bloody - Halloween, or Poltergeist, or one of the Nightmare on Elm Street flicks. She'd ask Neil when he showed, since there were signs on the way in.
Neil did own swim trunks, thank you very much, even though he admittedly didn't use them often. Years ago, he'd done some swimming to keep in shape, but that had tapered off into other things and despite the abundance of pools in Vegas he was often too busy to indulge. He wondered, when he got the text, why Sam had chosen a hotel pool to meet at, but he went with it. At least it wasn't a bar. He had more self control than he did in the past—he couldn't do the kind of business he did otherwise—with how things'd been going lately, well, he didn't need any more temptation.
There was a lot of stress. Meredith, MK, even Louis, so much to juggle, and he was actually looking forward to a night where he could let it all go. Temporarily. Even a few hours of normalcy was better than none at all.
His swim trunks were blue, paired with a plain white t-shirt and sandals, and he found out about the dive-in movie once he arrived at the Bellagio and saw the signs. He'd never attended this kind of thing before, but he didn't mind. It was crowded, public, safe and normal and somehow apart from anything else that might be happening. He couldn't say he didn't like that. No booze, either, from what he could tell, and he wove through people and chairs until he spotted Sam, in blue, seated on one of her own. He smiled in recognition, and headed her way after a little more weaving. "Hey." He stopped in front of the chair, and he looked, deciding after a long moment that she looked good. Better. Not perfect, but not on anything either. And, alright, so the bikini was a little distracting.
Maybe it was the art thing, yeah? But Sam wasn't good at looking away from things.
She saw him almost as soon as he walked into the crowded outdoor pool space. It wasn't that he was taller or something, and the place was crowded as fuck, but she still zoned in on him nearly immediately. The shorts didn't look off-the rack, which made her laugh around her straw, and she was pretty fucking sure the last time she'd seen him in a t-shirt was that horrible day at the fucking park. But it was his feet she was looking at by the time he approached the lawnchair, her inky gaze down after having spent his entire walking checking out the rest of him. "Did you own the sandals, baby?" She wiggled her own toes in emphasis, though she was barefoot all the fucking time, yeah? It wasn't any big thing to her. But Neil was hella repressed or something, and repressed came with close-toed shoes.
She looked up, grinned at him unapologetically as he looked at her, and then she patted the spot in front of her crossed legs on the lawnchair. She did back up a little, yeah? Gave him some room or whatever, her hips against the chair's inclined back. There wasn't much personal space or whatever, but it was a pool, and pools weren't really big on personal space. Maybe it was the fact that most people wore less here than they did during the rest of their outdoor lives or something. But she wasn't drunk and awkwardly propositioning him in a motel room or something, so she figured it was all good or whatever, and she wasn't really good at the personal space thing.
"Last movie you saw?" she asked, slurping at her straw. There wasn't much left in the cup, and she shook it until the ice rattled and let her get the last bit of soda from the bottom. "Last time you wore those swim trunks?" A gappy smile around the straw's bright cherry red. "And did you catch the name of the movie on your way in?" She finally popped the straw from her mouth. "Hey."
Neil wasn't the sort of man to blush or fidget under another's gaze, and he laughed when she asked about his sandals. "Do you think I went out and bought them just for this?" Tease, good-natured, and he shook his head. "I already owned them." Whether or not he'd worn them recently, that was a different story. Maybe he wouldn't have called himself repressed, but his idea of causal didn't match up with most others. Barefoot, ha, he couldn't even remember the last time he hadn't worn shoes at all.
This was certainly casual. Lots of people in bathing suits, lounging, and the conversation was relaxed. It was fun, right? He sat when she patted the spot in front of her, turning to face her instead of matching her cross-legged position. The lack of personal space just seemed natural, not awkward at all, and he smiled without thinking as she slurped at her straw. "Oh... I don't know. Some war movie on TV." He waved a dismissive hand. "At least a year," when he'd last worn the swim trunks, "Halloween," the name of the movie. The questions didn't bother him, and he gestured to her now-empty soda with his chin. "You want another one?" Pause. This time, he looked at her a little longer, and his gaze softened into something serious. "And how've you been?" He wasn't on the journals a whole lot these days, but he wasn't blind either.
"If you didn't buy the sandals today, then, I think someone else bought them for you, yeah? A secretary? Meredith? I can't see you going out and buying sandals on your own, baby." She'd lived with this man for years, yeah? And, ok, so shit hadn't been great, but he also hadn't gone on sandal shopping sprees, yeah? Her smile was smug and youth in the rapidly fading sky, and the lights around the pool brightened and the sky dimmed, lights wound up in palm trees and recessed in water. It was pretty, yeah? And she glanced around as he took a set on the lawnchair.
She wasn't sure he would consider this fun, but she wasn't sure she knew what Neil considered fun. Back in their Vegas, she'd just tried to drag him along with her idea of it, but now she realized that might not be his thing. So, yeah, this wasn't strenuous, and no one was naked, and she was hoping he wouldn't be miserable or whatever, even if it wasn't his precise kind of thing. She pulled a face when he said he'd seen some war movie last, because that sounded fucking miserable to her, and she wasn't surprised about the swim trunks. The name of the movie just registered as being the one about the guy with the mask, yeah? She didn't really care, as long as it was scary; she liked being scared, as long as the fucking threat wasn't real.
She shook her head about the soda, and she pressed her chin to his shoulder and gave him a shit-eating grin. "Nah. I'm just going to make you get in the water when the movie starts, yeah?" But the question that followed was somber, yeah? She got that, even if he wasn't explicit about it. "It's been rough, but I'm trying. Good days. Bad days. Yeah?" No point in fucking lying; he talked to Lou too much for lies to be worth much of anything. "Today's a good day."
Sometimes he forgot just how well Sam knew him. Time worked differently in the hotel and years spent outside, in the real world, made superheroes and magic and fictional worlds seem more like a dream than reality. But familiarity came back easily, and now it was starting to feel a little like he'd never left at all. "You're right," he admitted. "I didn't buy them for myself." Neil paused, unsure of how to talk about Meredith with... well, anyone, but especially her. "I think Mere did." Mere, who he wasn't even speaking to currently. Mere, who'd apparently told people he threw her out with nothing to fend for herself. His expression clouded over for a moment before he shook his head and smiled. "I'm certainly capable of buying sandals on my own, though," he added, trying for humour.
Maybe dive-in movies weren't exactly his idea of fun, but these days he wasn't sure what his idea of fun was. He went to work, he went back to a big, empty penthouse... there wasn't much in between. Going to bars on his own was too much temptation, and he felt a little too old for the club scene. No worries, no stress—that was fun. And a scary movie would be entertaining, wouldn't it? Horror was fine as long as it was on a screen.
He turned his head a little to look down at her when she rested her chin on his shoulder. "Might as well put these swim trunks to use, I guess." Smile. But it ebbed a second later, and he knew what rough days were like. Good and bad, and you had to take the former and soldier through the latter. "Yeah. I know how that is." He nudged her shoulder. "Trying matters. And the good days do too."
Time was still time, yeah? And however bad shit had been, they'd spent a lot of time together. And they'd always been good at talking. Ok, maybe not about their relationship or whatever, but about other things. So, yeah, Sam knew he hadn't bought the sandals. Worn them, sure. Been capable of buying them, sure. But actually going out to look for fucking flip flops? Yeah, no. His admission didn't make her tense up or anything; she didn't mind talking about Meredith. She didn't like the other woman, but she didn't mind letting Neil talk about her or whatever. Of course, it meant she was perfectly willing to bitch about the other woman, because Sam only kept her opinions to herself when she was scared, when she shut down. And Neil, he didn't fucking scare her ever. He was like no pressure, yeah? "She's still trying to get your attention on the journals, yeah? She messaged to tell me she wanted to know how I was, which turned into her bitching about how quick you came to help when shit was bad." She left it there, open, in case he wanted to comment. An invitation or whatever, yeah?
When he turned his head and smiled, she smiled back easy, gapped teeth and her tongue pink against the space between white. She didn't say anything right away, yeah? She just grinned, like she wasn't rushed or anything, and her fingers tugged at the back of his shirt, her soda set aside. There was none of the desperation of the motel room here, and there was no flashing neon blue. The lights on the trees around them flickered to life, and the sky darkened the remainder of the way, and he nudged and dragged her from the quiet reverie. "The real question, yeah? Is if you're a shirt on or shirt off kinda guy." Around them people were curling up together or padding toward the water, and the screen darkened in anticipation of the coming flick. "I fucked up before, but it was quieter then. Life, yeah? It was quieter. It's easier to get back to clean when I can focus."
Talking about Cris wasn't exactly thrilling, but they were in this strange place where they could talk about each other's current relationships and, for the most part, it was okay. Neil listened. Sam listened. He wanted her to be happy, that much was true. Still, though, he was wary about saying too much, about unintentionally piling on more misplaced guilt or the like. "I've seen," he said, and it was a little short, a little crisp. "The last I spoke to her, she said it was too awkward. But it's nice to know everyone thinks I threw her out with nothing and nowhere to go." He rubbed his forehead and sighed. "What was I supposed to do? Ignore your post? I don't know what she wants." His expression became, momentarily, one of guilt. "I know I should have gone after her in Silent Hill. But... she can't expect me to do nothing." He'd thought time and space would help. Maybe it still would, but he wasn't as sure as he'd once been. What if they were better off apart? Mere seemed to be doing fine with independence; maybe he really wasn't meant for relationships. He always seemed to hurt others when he was involved in one.
It was hard to look away (not that he wanted to) when she smiled at him, like just for a moment she was happy, and things were fine; he wasn't hurting her, wasn't making things worse. "I think I might look stupid if I kept my shirt on," he remarked dryly. He looked at her when she admitted to fucking up, when she said it was easier when it was quiet. "Is it hard to focus now?" Neil was worried, but he tried not to be overbearing about it. "You know, if you ever need anything... if you need to talk, you know, so you don't use..." He shrugged. "Sometimes having someone to vent to helps."
She didn't think he minded talking about Cris, yeah? Ok, so they hated each other or whatever, but she didn't perceive any jealousy from Neil. But she stopped thinking about that when Neil's voice turned crisp as fucking winter in relation to Meredith. She turned her head slightly, her cheek on his shoulder now so that she could watch his face as he rubbed his forehead. "Hey." An interruption, yeah? When that guilt overtook Neil's features. "No. Stop. We all know you kicking her out is bullshit. She keeps posting her misery because she wants you to beg her to come back or something, yeah? That's what she wants, but it's still bullshit. And Silent Hill, baby, she didn't hit you up. She hit someone else up first, and Flash has military experience, yeah? And he still got hurt or whatever." She shook her head, chin back against the white of his shoulder. "I told her you don't chase. I told her she had to fucking ask you to come. You never chase me, yeah? Not if I don't ask. If I ask for help, you give it. It's like she doesn't get you, but she doesn't listen, either, and change what she's doing." She sighed and sat back a little, not much. "If you want to see how things are, invite her to dinner or something. Something lowkey." She rubbed a hand over his back, smoothing white.
But then he was saying he would look stupid if he kept his shirt on, and she laughed. Too loud, that laugh, too easy and carefree, but no one cared here. And, yeah, no, nothing was bad. Things were ok, and the screen was lighting up bright in orange and black. She tugged on his shirt. "Come on," she said, unfolding herself from the chair and standing at his knee, waiting for him to lose the shirt and sandals. But he'd asked a question, yeah? And she was standing there, so she might as well answer. "It's ok right now. I'm not nervous or anything, which means I feel ok. I mean, it's a pain in the ass, yeah? Liam's using hard, and so is his friend Trystan, and I should probably stay away from that shit. And Lou is having a hard fucking time with everything, and he stresses me the fuck out. And Daniel, I'm really worried he's going to fucking OD." Sad for a second, but she smiled after, youth and teeth and pink lips wide. "I know. You're good at being there when I reach out. I know you wouldn't leave me hanging."
On a rational level, he knew the people who mattered most knew the truth. Sam, Louis, Ash, Ella. But it still irked him, that Mere would even imply that he'd left her alone and destitute. Neil knew he wasn't a perfect boyfriend but he wasn't cruel either. "Why doesn't she just tell me what she wants?" He shook his head. "I know she didn't tell me first. I know I probably would've died if I'd gone." But that didn't change his guilt, didn't eradicate it, and his expression said as much. "Me not chasing, it feels like a bad thing," he admitted. "Like it means I don't care." He just... wasn't the kind of man to go begging and pleading for Mere to come back, feeding into whatever she was trying to do over the journals, but maybe he should be. "Dinner," he echoed, a little doubtful. "Maybe." It would be a good way to see where they stood, at least. How he felt, now that some time had passed.
He grinned when she laughed, Mere and frostiness forgotten. For the next couple of hours there was nothing to worry about, no stress, just a hell of a lot of people in a pool and an old horror movie on the screen. He tugged his shirt over his head when she told him to come on, sandals discarded much the same a moment later. Hearing that Liam was using made his brow furrow, and Neil stood as she spoke, looking down at her. "Trystan. Is that the guy with the poems Louis mentioned?" He frowned. "If they're using, Sam, you should stay away from them." People like that were nothing but bad influences and temptation. She couldn't help them, not when she was fighting her own addiction. "Louis needs a vacation," he remarked, but there was some truth in the suggestion. "He's going to give himself a heart attack one of these days. I don't know how to help him worry a little less." As for Daniel, well, he wasn't the man's biggest fan. As a fellow alcoholic, though, he understood the struggle, and he certainly didn't want him dead. He didn't hate him that much. "Is it that bad? What about Lin?" He hadn't heard from him in a while.
But it was nice to hear that he wasn't a complete failure all the time. His smile softened. "Good. I'm glad you know."
"IDK why she doesn't just say what she wants. I think making herself the victim makes her feel better or something, yeah? Like it's some way to deal with shit. I run away a lot, yeah? It gives me some sense of control, and I think martyring does something like that for her, and you're supposed to, IDK, come along and apologize or make her feel better. She's never going to tell you what she wants, baby. She wants you to be the one who begs her." That much was obvious. "You not chasing isn't bad, Neil. She needs to work on her fucking communication. If you were an asshole, you wouldn't go when she asked. But you don't do that. You go, yeah? If someone just asks you to. She needs to figure out how to make that change if she wants shit to work." She listened to the doubt in his echo about dinner, and she didn't blame him, yeah? "It might help you figure out shit, yeah? Just have a meal and talk about, IDK, whatever you two normally talk about when shit isn't a mess."
She was trying, yeah? To help. But she was glad when he grinned, leaving the topic of the redhead behind. She watched as he tugged the shirt off, and she deliberately whistled loud enough to be embarrassing, because that was close as she could come to getting him to scream his head off, yeah? Though she knew everyone would be screaming once the rest of the lights went out and the movie turned scary. But for now, she just laughed after she whistled, and she listened as he talked about Trystan and Liam. "I took Liam money he needed for rent, yeah? And I went to buy from Trystan after, and I wasn't going to use, but that fucker pushed and pushed. He gave me shit that was too strong, and he shoved the rig into my overalls, and it was more shit than I could resist. He has a thing for Cris or whatever. I know I need to keep away." It was more than she'd said about Trystan at all, even when Lou lost his shit over the sitch. "Lou's going back to work, and I'm hoping that'll help, yeah? Being around people he doesn't feel like he needs to fix all the time." But Daniel, Daniel just made her sad. "He showed up at my place, D, with a beard and long hair, starved, so fucking thin and yellow, and he could barely walk. I had to wash him, Neil. Yeah, it's that bad. IDK where Lin is. He was joking on the fucking journals last I saw."
The lights began to drop, and she grabbed his wrist and tugged him toward the water. It was warm, yeah? And other people were splashing in, loud and hooting for the film as it beginning. She laughed, loud and easy, and she yanked, splashed him, and then swam out until it was deep enough that she could barely reach. She loved the fucking water, and she loved it nearly as much as she loved the Vegas heat. She found a space along the pool's ledge, and she leaned her arms back against it.
Neil listened. Even if he didn't like what he was hearing, what Sam said made sense. Maybe, like running for her, playing the victim was some sort of... coping mechanism. But he wasn't one for those kinds of games, apologizing over and over when she posted her unhappiness on the journals for everyone to see. He'd rather talk. Have a mature conversation. "I can't keep begging her," he said, after his silence. "Nothing gets fixed that way. Nothing changes. I'd rather talk to her, instead of whatever this is." Maybe this break would help her realize that he wasn't going to be the man she wanted him to be, that all this posting wasn't going to bring him crawling back as though nothing'd happened. "I'll think about it. Dinner isn't a bad idea. Talking, after all this, might help." It couldn't possibly make things worse, considering they were already apart.
He shot her a look when she whistled, loud enough to draw some looks, and he gave her a playful nudge with his shoulder. "Thanks." But the more he heard about Liam and Trystan, the latter especially, the more he understood why Louis was so worried. "He sounds like bad news," he said with a frown. "You don't need people like that in your life, Sam. They'll just drag you down. If Liam wants to get better, he should keep his distance too." Louis going back to work, though, that could be a good thing. Maybe spending time around different people would help. "I didn't know," he admitted. "But I'm glad he's getting back to work. After everything he's been through, it could be good for him." Daniel was a different story. If he was that far gone, there weren't very many options left. "What about rehab?" It was a cautious suggestion.
The subject wasn't pushed, not just then, and he let Sam tug him toward the water. He laughed when she splashed him, and a few heartbeats later he slid into the water and swam out after her. The water was nice, the air was warm, and he ducked under for a second before surfacing next to her. "I never even knew they did things like this," he remarked, smiling.
Sam knew games weren't Neil's thing, yeah? Possibly, they were even less his thing than they were six years ago or whatever. "We didn't talk, yeah? When we were together. I mean, we talked, but only when shit was bad, never before. And I never said what I wanted or what I felt, because I was scared, and we both know you didn't say shit either. IDK. Maybe she's not good at talking either. I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. Because there's something in her that you see, which means there has to be something good there, yeah?" She nudged his shoulder. "So, talk. Really straight, without you sighing or making it easier by saying what you think will keep things smooth. Tell her what you think's wrong, yeah? It's the only way to maybe save it. The easy way, it isn't going to fix this with her, baby."
She laughed when he shot her that look, and she deliberately left the topic of all the fucked-up people they knew for a second, until they were in the water. Like distance would help or something, yeah? And maybe the water helped, warm and giving the sense of easy, like life was this pool and none of the bad shit outside was real or something. "You never go outside, baby," she said of him not knowing people did shit like this. She splashed at him again, but then she settled easy against his side, kicking her legs idly as the colors changed on the screen. "Yeah, I know I have to leave Liam and Trystan alone, it's just hard or whatever. He moved back to Marvel, Lou. He's living in Cris' neighborhood, so maybe he'll meet someone nice there, yeah?" But Daniel, that was a head-shake topic if ever there was one. "D doesn't want to clean up. You can't force it. You know that. And it's not just booze anymore. It's opium, heroin, whatever."
On the screen, a couple made out on a couch, and something lurked outside, and her attention was drawn to the spike of music as the lights around them went completely fucking dark. And, ok, so she grabbed onto Neil's arm as a knife was grabbed from a kitchen drawer on the screen. She completely shut the fuck up as some unseen thing walked toward the unsuspecting lovers, up the stairs and her grip tightening on Neil's bicep. And it was fucking pitch black, yeah, everyone around them quiet and breaths held until the girl, naked at her dressing table, screamed. Sam shrieked, and it wasn't gory or anything, yeah? Not compared to modern movies, but in the dark and so fucking loud? Yeah, it was terrifying. Sam shrieked, hid her face against Neil's shoulder, and then she peeked and laughed.
"Yeah," Neil admitted. Talking hadn't been their thing, and it led to a lot of misunderstandings as a result. He wanted things without saying them, and she wanted things without saying them, and communication-wise things hadn't been great. He'd tried not to make the same mistake with Mere, but it seemed like it had despite his best efforts. "I wasn't good at talking. I thought... I mean, I know I'm still not good at it, but I thought I'd gotten better." Maybe not. Maybe they'd both skirted around the real issues too often and now it had come to this. "There is good in her. I feel like a broken record saying it, but it's true. I just don't know if that's enough." Oh, he knew the easy way wouldn't fix things with them; that was why he'd wanted to take a break in the first place. "Alright. I'll give straight talk a try and... see what happens." He glanced down at her. "You really don't mind talking about this?"
He splashed her when she said he didn't go outside. "You make me sound like a hermit," he told her, mock accusingly. "I go outside." Neil settled back against the pool's ledge easily, not finding it difficult to tread water, and he nodded when she said it was hard. Of course it was; still, the last thing she needed was two addicts who had no intention of quitting in her life. "I knew he was back in Marvel." At least he wasn't completely out of the loop when it came to his brother. "I hope he does meet someone nice. He deserves it." As for Daniel, it all sounded rather hopeless. "What else is there to do, then?" Watching him waste away and die didn't seem like much of a choice.
Horror movies didn't scare him. They were more entertainment than actual fear, and he smiled when the lights went dark, smiled when Sam grabbed his arm in reaction to what was happening on screen. And when people screamed, he laughed; it wasn't mocking, no, but sort of carefree, the way people laughed when they were having fun. "Don't worry," he teased, when she hid her face against his shoulder. "I won't let the big bad killer get you."
"The problem, baby, is Meredith isn't a pusher, and you aren't a pusher. Neither of you push, and neither of you chase. It doesn't mean it can't work, yeah? But it means you both have to get that neither of you fit those roles naturally. IDK how you ever made it into bed to begin with," she admitted, her smile honest. It wasn't like she enjoyed this conversation, but they'd always been good at sharing shit that wasn't about their relationship, yeah? This was no different. "What matters is whether you love her. If you do, then shit can get fixed. If you don't love her, then even the smallest effort feels like a pain in the ass." He asked if she didn't mind talking about this, and her shrug was honest or whatever. "Baby, I think I could get you upstairs for a fuck if I tried. Because, me? I'm a pusher, yeah? But I don't think you want to be with me longterm or anything. If I can help you work shit out so you're happy? Then, yeah, talking about this is ok."