this is me (roughwaters) wrote in 2145ic, @ 2018-06-09 17:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | samson, vaughn |
What the hell is wrong with you!
Who: Samson and Vaughn
Setting: Central Park
Wren. Where did he know that name? When it clicked, he looked even more upset. “You’re sending her off to the fucking witch ghost, crazy fucking bitch who’s entire fucking cult killed themselves? That’s your idea of a good goddamn idea? You think she’s fucking safe with someone like that?” Vaughn cried, then shouted to Epiphany’s retreating back. “Don’t drink anything she gives you!” not sure if she heard him or not. He hadn’t attempted a text because if he was her, he’d have already blocked his ass. “Is your next plan to hook her up with this cult so she can finish the job she started with slicing her fucking body up?”
“Bite your fucking tongue,” Samson insisted, pushing Vaughn back a step. “That’s not even close to my next step. She’s not fucking ghost she’s a person. And I trust her. More than you. What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked. “What are you doing? Beyond upsetting her.”
Vaughn took a step back to keep his balance, but he was in for a fight now. He was tensed for it, wanting it. He balled his hands into fists and growled at Samson. “No! Do you have any fucking idea what she's done? I didn't even know that bitch was still alive but her entire bullshit cult killed themselves! Who says she wasn't the one who poured the hemlock herself?” he snapped, honestly worried about that. The cult had seemed really weird but harmless up until so many people were dead. That had been an incredibly rough time for Central Park, where all of a sudden there were corpses everywhere that needed to be dealt with, family members, loved ones. “Tell you what I'm not doing, fucknut, I'm not leading her into the arms of someone who's the only survivor of a fucking slaughter!”
“She wasn’t,” Samson said, watching Vaughn tense for a fight. “Her half rapist, pedophile creeper cult leader who’s gone missing killed them and left her alone. Kept her as fucking special and all to himself like my people do to her. You. Don’t. Know. Because it’s not your life. It’s my life It’s the life that I grew up in and I got out, so maybe trust me here. Say something else bad about her and I’ll make sure it hurts.”
“What is with you? You drag her out of there and bring her here? Why didn’t you come find me? Why didn’t she?” He looked Vaughn over. “Why you?”
“And you believe that? She was the 'spiritual leader'! She had just as much control over those people as Piph has of hers,” Vaughn snapped. “I don't trust her as far as I can throw her and until Piph walks out of there safe and fucking sound I'm going nowhere.” He glared at Samson, ignoring the rest of what he said after the threat. For now. “And go ahead and take a swing, I fucking dare you.”
“I do! I know her!” Which might be obvious, but it was true. “But good. You trust her as much as I trust you, so fine.” Samson balled up his fist, but then held off, shaking his head. No, he wouldn’t do that. He wasn’t giving Vaughn the satisfaction. “Don’t drag me into this, whatever the hell you’re doing. Being the victim so she’ll fall for you. I’m not going to help you with that.”
“Yeah, well you weren't here to help haul off the fucking corpses, were you? You weren't here to wake up to the fucking stench! People are dead and she was at the fucking center of it,” he said, pointing in the direction of the retreating girls. “So go ahead and tell me all about how you 'know' her,” he said, rolling his eyes. He didn't like it that Samson didn't take a swing. That would have made everything easier. He did get confused though and that gave him slight pause. “What the fuck are you talking about, being the victim? I'm not a fucking victim, and fuck you for saying that,” he said, jabbing his finger into Samson's chest, hard. “But makes fucking sense 'why me',” he added, going back to what he'd clearly heard but ignored a second ago. “If you're hanging out with the Queen of Death over there, then obviously you never did have what it took to give a shit about Epiphany. I'm sure it's fucking fine to let her do the shit she does even if you get that it's fucked up, if you're cool with the witch.” He shook his head. “This is bullshit!” he growled, and walked a little away, still agitated and waiting for a fight.
Samson pushed back when Vaughn poked his chest and he glared at him. “Shut your mouth. Don’t you fucking call her that. Or would you like me to remind you of all the things they call Piph behind her back?” He gritted his teeth, angry at Vaughn for what he was saying. What an asshole. Who was this guy?
“You are playing the victim. You’re so much better than us because you grew up topside, because your body’s all yours. Because you don’t believe in anything enough to make a sacrifice. And you figure it’ll make us all feel bad for you. So you get angry and you make me hit you and then I’m the bad guy. Great.” He wanted to hit him, for everything, but he balled his fists and didn’t grab Vaughn by his shirt and toss him in the water. See if he knew how to swim.
“No. I live here, I have the right to feel however the fuck I want to about what that bitch did to more people than I can count,” Vaughn spat. “And I don't know what they call her behind her back, I haven't known her that long and I don't give a shit what they call her. What they call her isn't who she is.” He glared as Samson went on. “You aren't even making any fucking sense! How exactly does that work in your head, me playing the victim? Not once have I said anything about 'poor me', moron! And fuck you, I'm not saying I'm better, that's your bullshit, not mine, don't put that on me. And I'm not trying to make you the bad guy, I know I am. But I'm just asshole enough not to stand idly by and let her get picked apart piece by piece by the vultures she thinks she's protecting.”
“And what you call Wren isn’t who she is either!” Samson spat back. “And yes you are, you didn’t say poor me but you put on your whole silent treatment then snap at her! Where the hell was that going to work? You’ve seen how little it works for me!” He gritted his teeth and growled a little through them. “I know!! I know what they do to her, fuck I installed most of what they did to her!”
“Then what do you care what I say about her?” Vaughn snapped. “And yeah, asshole, since when is blowing up my entire thing with her a feasible 'ploy' to get attention? Fucking idiot!” He was already angry but when Samson said the last part that snapped something in him. He went from having pent up energy to getting very still. “...you did that to her?” he asked, voice deceptively calm now. His eyes weren't though, they were on Samson and they screamed violence waiting to happen. “Did you blind her?”
Because he was stuck with Vaughn, that was why. Because Vaughn was important to Epiphany. That didn’t matter though, not when that white hot anger took over. Samson’s jaw twitched as an answer to the first question. Yes, he did. The second though, he crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I refused. I’m no doctor and I didn’t want her to do it.”
There was a rage in there that was about to boil over. So he hadn't blinded her, but he'd done everything else? Turned her from a human person into the half electronic godhead she was now? His fist got tighter. “But the other things you did. You carved her up and took a person, a beautiful, sensitive, completely fucking sheltered person, and sliced into her. And put shit in her, and turned her into some living electronic hub that a bunch of zealot assholes who don't give a fuck about her worship. Because trust me I hear her when she talks, it's all about them. I don't have to have been there long to know. She's a fucking possession to them and you helped put her there. And then! Then you what, abandoned her there too? Fucking own it.”
Everything washed over Samson, again and again and he felt every word Vaughn said like a thousand little knives. All of it. “I know! I know! You don’t think I don’t know any of that!” He ran his hands through his hair. “I did it. I did all of it. All but her eyes and I fought her on that and she will tell you. But I’m the only one that keeps her alive.” He gritted his teeth again. “I know. I know what they think about her and I did not abandon her. I’m there, every week, I go back down there, and I help her. And I beg her, every week. I beg her to come with me. To be the girl I grew up with and she won’t. She believes it as much as they do. Because they see that she’s special and they’ve taken advantage. You don’t think I don’t know that!”
Vaughn technically heard what Samson was saying, but one part really shined brighter than everything else. I'm the only one that keeps her alive. If that meant what Vaughn thought it meant – and with his worry earlier, the diagnostic, what he said when he was doing that... Vaughn figured that meant that she had more system enhancements than she could actually properly sustain. That at this point, she was some tangled mess of wires that could cross and fuck up at any time. That she really did need him to see her once a week just to be sure she didn't shut the fuck down and die. And he was the one who'd done it. He'd kept modifying well past the point of no return.
And so that was when Vaughn swung. He kicked at Samson's knee and followed it up with a hard, full body weight behind it, followed through roundhouse to the eye.
Samson wasn’t expecting the kick, though distantly he was relieved it was landed to his good knee, because he didn’t want to think about what it would have done to the tech in his leg to take a beating like that. It buckled the leg out from under him, but the other held, not real enough to actually buckle under something as simple as pressure. He was a fighter though, half raised on getting by and while Vaughn’s second attack landed, Samson was face enough so he took it less in the face and more in his shoulder. And he shouldn’t, but he pushed back, shoving at Vaughn to get him off his feet as well.
Vaughn was someone who'd been in more fights than he could count, from early childhood on. So when his first hit was deflected, he didn't let it stop him and he just used his momentum to barrel into Samson's chest, going to knock him onto his back so he could throw punches at his face, wanting to break it open. He wasn't pulling anything. He was a mess right now, and all of that was getting poured into his rage now that it had a direction.
Samson half cried out when Vaughn knocked him over, not expecting that. Nor was he expecting a guy who was significantly shorter than Samson to be so fucking heavy. He tried to push back against the fury of punches, but more than a few landed. He could feel the skin break, knew he’d be bruised, but with Vaughn on him, the best he could do was get one arm up to guard his face. The other he balled into a fist and punched hard at Vaughn’s side, trying to jar him off or at least make him stop.
Vaughn kept going, but the hard punch to his ribs was enough to break the rhythm of it, and he pushed off of Samson, walking away as he tried to get his bearings. It was a lot harder to do than he wanted. He was breathing raggedly, and he felt like the world had tilted very hard. Like he was losing everything, and that was seeping into his consciousness, now that his pent up anger had been released even a little. Vic with his fucking porn bullshit job and the apartment, Piph with her dangerous cult and what they wanted from her – hell, what she wanted to give to them – and now this asshole, who as far as Vaughn could see enabled this entire fucking thing. And this guy was also someone that Piph found very important and apparently kept her alive, so he had zero doubt that the second she found out that Vaughn had straight up attacked him, that she'd never want to speak to him again – if she ever wanted to now in the first place, after walking away.
Thank Atia. Samson was already seeing stars and his head stung and he didn’t quite feel like getting up right away. Something dripped into his eye and when he wiped it away his fingers smelled at metallic as his mouth tasted. It took a moment, then Samson rolled up with a groan, spitting blood and wiped at the cut on his forehead. “Feel better!” he shouted, though his voice was a little hoarse from some asshole sitting on his chest.
Vaughn heard him but didn't answer right away. When he looked back, he saw that he'd kinda done a number on the guy and yeah, that pretty much cemented it, didn't it? He could now feel the pain radiating from his knuckles, his side. “Not if she's really so fucked up with implants that she really does need someone like you to keep her alive, to be sure that she doesn't just fucking die because her blood sugar's too low, or whatever.” He shook his head. “...she needed someone to take care of her, to get her out of there, and I was fucking years too late.”
“She doesn’t have diabetes you jackass,” Samson said as he tried to shake the fuzzy feeling out of his head. “I keep her enhancements running properly. Half of them are bootleg, done by parts you provided, and I make sure she doesn’t have complications.” He was quiet, his head swimming and feeling the tears he’d wanted to cry earlier swimming but that might have also been because one of his eyes was swelling up. “I wake up every day worried something’s going to break so I’m hypersensitive about it.” He ran a hand over his head. “You didn’t hear me. She wouldn’t go. She’s not left yet. I did the best I could. If I was doing it, at least I could trust the work being done.”
Vaughn shrugged. He didn't know what went into that shit. He didn't have many himself, really just the one. And what he said didn't exactly ease his mind. Because it kind of sounded like pretty much like what he feared was true. “Still sounds like at any moment, everything could fuck up and shut down and she'd be gone,” he pointed out. “And whatever. Just...whatever.” He hadn't been there and he knew that, some part of him recognized that Samson probably had tried. Still. No one had saved her, and that was going to haunt him.
“Well, yeah. I mean, no, but maybe?” Fuck his head hurt. Samson considered laying back down again. “No your point is really, really clear. Was really clear when you punched me in the face for not doing a good enough job. Asshole.” He forced himself to get up, mostly so he didn’t lay back down and die of some sort of concussion. Or loss of blood from his head wound.
Vaughn looked at Samson. “You don't even know? Jesus fucking...” he swore, trailing off. “Well, I hope she doesn't fall the fuck apart at some point because you kept putting more and more bullshit in her til now when it could all fail and kill her. Great job on that.” He walked over to a nearby tree and sat down with his back against it, eyes not leaving the boat Piph had disappeared into. “And if your witch in there hurt her, I'm drowning her like one while you watch.”
“She asked me to! She wanted it! Why do you think she got that fucking work done on her eyes!!” Samson wobbled a tiny bit and he had to bend over and catch his breath. Fuck he was dizzy. “It wasn’t my choice. I tried to talk her out of all of them, and she just kept...it brings her closer to our god,” he tried to explain. “I don’t know how because when I put mine in I almost passed out from the pain twice.” Not that he let Piph feel the pain. He did something about that. “And now it just keeps me mobile.” He looked at the boat and shook his head. “She won’t. One, because she wouldn’t, and two, because she knows how important Piph is to me.”
“Well your god fucking sucks, and is a psychopath,” Vaughn snapped. He saw Samson looking dizzy, but figured it was fine. He'd been in fights all his life, sometimes someone's bell got rung a little, he'd walk it off. “I'll believe it when I see her walk off the boat. Til then, I'm staying right the fuck here,” he said with a note of finality. He wasn't going anywhere near the boat, he wasn't trying to contact her. He was being weirdly respectful for a volatile, violent asshole who'd really hurt her feelings. He knew she was probably done with him, but that didn't mean he didn't still care. So he'd sit here til he saw this asshole was going to take her home. He thought Samson did a shit job of taking care of her, but he could tell he did actually care on some level. So yeah. He wouldn't put himself in her vicinity because he knew that wasn't the thing to do, but he'd wait it out, see her leave the park with his own eyes. Probably trail them til they got back on the train and he lost her forever.
“There’s a chance I agree with you.” Samson sighed and stood up a little. “Or you could like, come in, have tea or whatever Wren thinks is best. Stop sitting here giving yourself a hernia from worrying.” Not that Samson really wanted the guy around, but he might chill the fuck out if he actually took two seconds to get to know Wren.
Vaughn shook his head. “I'm not an idiot. She doesn't want to see me. Probably won't ever again. Especially after she gets a look at you once you pass the nearest camera,” he added. “I'm not going to make her tell me to fuck off, I got the message with the last thing she said to me. So, go on. Make sure your special friend isn't poisoning your goddess.”
Samson shook his head, but that hurt. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “She has an amazing capacity for forgiveness.” He left Vaughn there, because he wasn’t about to force the guy and he was pretty sure Wren might have something for his head. If he was going to be a stubborn child about it, then he was going to be a stubborn child. Samson’s head hurt too much to give a rat’s ass “She’s not my goddess. She’s my friend.” And Wren was...his wasn’t she? Wasn’t that what they’d decided? He was hers and she was his? He looked back once. “You are welcome, if you get tired of sitting out here.”
Vaughn said nothing, and let Samson walk off. True to his word, he stayed where he was, waiting.