Who: Samantha and Jesse James Where: Starts at Samantha's room, then.. halls When: Sunday, mid-afternoon Warning: Language every so often, not much at all though
Jesse had spent a little time looking around his old west themed room. It was, he supposed, neat in a way, but when he'd first arrived and all his overwhelming response was 'very fucking funny'. Because he'd never had the comparison drawn before! No really it was witty and original! Whaaatever. Either way, he'd unpacked and everything, and the first day he'd just sort of wandered around, getting to know the place. He'd figured out pretty damn quicklike that that was going to be a task. There were maps around, sure, but he stared at them like they were in Greek.
His sister's room he managed to find, and it didn't take him too long. And, he'd let her do whatever settling she was going to the first day, now was the time to get on with that whole getting her back out of her shell thing. That was the point of them being here, it was why he'd made the incredibly difficult decision to leave his daughter behind for a while. Samantha needed this, and so...yeah. He was helping. Or something. That didn't mean he liked leaving his little girl home. However Ronnie had told him 'over my twisted, rotting corpse are you taking our girl on some cruise'. Didn't mean he hadn't given it a shot...
He leaned against the wall next to Samantha's door, and knocked on it. "GT!" he called. "Train's leavin, let's go! Things to do, places to see and all that!"
Wandering around the ship held little appeal for Samantha, so instead of leaving the comfort of her room she decided to stay in. It was really a great room, perfect for her. Everything about it made her feel at peace, and she had to admit that it was almost as if whoever had dealt with the room placement knew her pretty well. Or at least well enough to know how much she loved flowers, and how much better she would sleep at night just because of the amount of bright colors and visions of nature surrounding her. But she'd spent enough time acquainting herself with the room, and had decided that reading might be a wise decision.
She had gotten pretty far into her book, and was just getting at a good part, one that really made her tense in anticipation for the well being of the character when she heard her brother's familiar voice calling through the door. Rolling her eyes just a little, Samantha set her book down but made no effort to get up. True, she was a quiet girl but she could be loud when she wanted, and right now she definitely didn't want to get up. Instead, she took a deep breath and called out loudly, "What if I don't want to get on the train? The door's open, Jess." Then, as if there had been no interruption, she picked her book back up, opened it and continued where she'd left off.
Well, it had been worth a shot. He didn't really want to force her to do anything, but well. It was for the girl's own damn good, and...she'd just have to be shown that. Or something. Shit. He'd really been hoping she would at least play along for a while before she got difficult on him. Oh well. He opened up the door and headed into her room, looking around at all the bright damn colors everywhere. Holy hell, it was like a flower shop threw up on the place.
Walking through, he finally found her, and leaned in the door frame, arms crossed over his chest. "You know I'll just pick you up and carry you out over my shoulder if I have to, right, G?" he asked, giving her a stern Look. "So...make this easier on everyone! You put your little book away, come out with me, we walk around, look at other kinda garishly decorated rooms, maybe say hello should we run into people...it'll be great, I promise." he added. "Plus I'll even take you shopping or something, if you want, I don't really care, but you're not staying in this room all day, one way or another."
Truthfully, if Samantha was going to be honest with both herself and her brother, she really just wanted to read. But, she knew that if she didn't at least pretend to be a little excited about getting out of her room, her brother wouldn't let her hear the end of it. So, she put her book down again and gave Jesse a look that said she clearly wasn't pleased. So much for pretending to be a little excited. He would live. "Ok, fine, we'll go out and see who else is on this gigantic thing." She hoped he could hear how unexcited she was.
"Is your room garish then, too?" She asked as she stood up. She wouldn't have described her room as garish, but she knew to most people it probably was. "Pink and everything?" Samantha hoped so, because she wanted Jesse to be unhappy about something on this trip. Kind of like how she was unhappy about being here, but then again, she knew he only wanted her to go so she would be happy about something. With a sigh, she looked at him, "Alright, well I hope it's not pink, or garish." That's how she was, always resorting to being nice and actually caring about people not being disappointed with things.
"It doesn't look like Springtime exploded in it, if that's what you mean." Jesse said, getting her whole unexcited vibe loud and clear. Internally, he sighed, but he kept it to himself. This wasn't going to be easy, he understood that. He just occasionally wished it could magically fix itself. Or that they could at least talk about everything. That hadn't gone so well the first time though, and he didn't think it would for round two. Therefore he avoided it like the plague. "No, someone thought they were funny and gave me this...old west type room or something." he admitted, heading towards the door. It was a bit too pink in there for his tastes. He only put up with excessive amounts of pink for his daughter. Which reminded him... "Jessie said to say hi, by the way." he told Samantha, hoping that would perk her up a little. "Says she's got drawings for you already." His kid had a thing with giving out drawings to everyone. His fridge was covered in them.
"What's wrong with springtime?" Samantha asked with the tiniest of frowns, but then her face lit up and she laughed. "Oh, isn't that just perfect for Jesse James himself." It really was funny, probably the highlight of her day, which was saying something about the level of excitement it held. The grin on her face only got larger when he mentioned his daughter. Samantha loved Jessie, and she even had a shoebox full of drawings the girl had done for her. They were some of her most treasured possessions. It didn't matter how bad a day Samantha was having, if she looked at them it didn't make it so bad. "Next time you talk to her, you should come get me so I can say hi myself." Hearing her niece's voice would probably make Samantha feel better about the cruise.
Now, if only she would laugh about things that weren't blatantly making fun of him, that'd be awesome. Of course, he didn't mind that she was deriving pleasure out of his annoyance. They were siblings, it was kind of par for the course. He used to pick on her all the time. ...not so much in the past four years, though. In fact, it could be said that he stopped entirely. "Well, see, if you were out of your room sometimes, and maybe, say, with me and such, you could just talk to her right then." he pointed out, trying to pull the barb off of the statement in a gentler tone than the words implied. "She misses you. And she's still pissed at me that I didn't take her with...think I should tell her her mom told me the slightly more articulate version of 'over my dead body'?" he asked rhetorically. He and Ronnie didn't badmouth each other to their daughter. That was just an unspoken agreement. They weren't going to be those stupid ass parents who played head games with one another through their offspring.
"Ok, ok, I'll get out more just for the sake of being able to talk to her." Samantha made sure to give him a slightly dirty look when she said it, just because she was tired of him nagging at her to live a little. So what if she wanted to stay cooped up inside with a book for the rest of her life? People in books couldn't hurt you. That was the way she liked it. But, that really wasn't something that she wanted to be thinking about now, so instead she focused on what Jesse was saying. What happened was she only half listened and ended up giving a non-committal shrug to his words, because she wasn't quite sure if he'd asked her an actual question or not. Immediately she felt bad, and bit her lip, looking down at her feet.
Jesse was paying pretty strict attention to his sister as they walked up the corridor, and saw her sort of fade out there, then recognize it and come back in. And apparently, she felt bad about it, by her body language. So he decided to skip over what they'd been talking about, and just cut to something new, in hopes that it would help. "So...you're out, I got what I wanted, your choice from here. Where do you want to go? This place is stupidly huge. We could probably get lost for days if there weren't maps everywhere." Never mind his inability to make sense of them. He'd figure it out! Eventually...
Still biting her lip, or rather chewing on it a bit, Samantha looked up at Jesse and then sighed. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "Do I really have to choose?" she whined. "I haven't even looked at any of the maps for this place, I don't know where anything is or even what's on here." Falling silent she tried to think back on things she'd heard being described by staff members, or things she'd overheard on the rare occasion that she'd been out of her room. Absolutely nothing came to mind, except maybe the book she'd left behind and that perked her up a bit. "Do they happen to have a library?" She doubted Jesse would be thrilled with that suggestion, few were thrilled by her commitment to reading but it was worth a try.
He did look a little pained, but tried to cover it. He just didn't do that good a job. He dug the ship's brochure out of his back pocket and handed it over to her. "I think it said something about a library on there somewhere." he said. Slow baby steps. That's what she needs, so just give her what she wants and maybe little by little she'll start caring about the living more than her goddamn books. he told himself. It was just the most recent in a long, seemingly endless stream of personal peptalks he had to give himself whenever he was around her. He loved her dearly but she frustrated the shit out of him sometimes. Good thing the worry over her in general and his overwhelming need to watch out for her and her well being tempered that.
Giving Jesse a smile, Samantha took the brochure and opened it, perusing the pages until she found what she was looking for. Holding it out so that Jesse could see she jabbed her finger at the page. "Right here, they have a library, and on the same floor they have a greenhouse. Pretty cool, huh?" Excited as she was, she knew this was going to make Jesse groan internally. Bottom line was that she wanted to see this greenhouse even more than she wanted to see the library, almost enough to actually brave wandering the ship by herself to see it. Almost. There was too high a risk for her to go about it alone, so she would just take the opportunity before her, and her brother's apparent need to indulge her and go with it. "It's only a couple floors away. Think you can figure it out or do you want me to make sure you don't get us lost?"
Jesse did internally groan! But he smiled at her anyhow. At least there was something on the list besides the library. That was good, right? And she seemed to be genuinely excited about seeing it, so he'd deal. Sure, it wasn't the most exciting of places to go, but at least she wanted to go look at something that technically lived. It was a step up from books. Books, plant life...maybe next there could be a critter of some description--then eventually maybe even real live people. "Hey, I won't get us lost!" he protested good naturedly. "It's simple! There's..." he paused, looking up and down the long corridor. "Um. An elevator? Somewhere?" There had to be one somewhere. "There are probably stairs over...that way." he said, picking a completely random direction to point, which was up the way they were headed. Odds were there had to be stairs, right?
Chuckling, Samantha looked down the hallway. She debated looking over the brochure maps to see where exactly stairs or an elevator actually was but decided against it. This would be Jesse's little adventure, and if he did happen to get them lost, which she was nearly certain he would, then she could probably find the way. "Well, lead the way then," Samantha said, sweeping her hand in the direction he'd pointed. Maybe he'd get lucky and there would be stairs, or an elevator. "Just try to keep me away from any kind of windows that will actually show me how high we are, or just how much water is outside this thing." The sight would probably make her throw up, and that was something Samantha was absolutely positive Jesse would not want to deal with.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." he told her, heading in the direction he'd pointed, hoping to hell there were stairs. Or an elevator. Whichever, really. Anything that would lead them to this other floor they needed to be on. Wait, which floor was it? "Which way are we going again?" he asked. "Up or down?" He should probably ask for the brochure back. He had't been paying that much attention. When he'd been looking around before, it had been blind, pointless wandering, and therefore hadn't required he know where he was going, all it required was for him to not be pissy that it took him forever to get back to his room. A strong sense of direction on this crazy ship Jesse did not have. Now if he could concentrate on a floor at a time? He'd be golden, and have the layout worked out fine. Buuut he didn't have that, and he wasn't casing the joint. Nevermind when he'd been out yesterday he'd seen at least three shops he could rip off in his sleep. He wasn't thinking about that.
The brochure remained folded in Samantha's hand when she answered, "We're going down. D deck." It was kind of a thing she did, remembering things like that. It probably came from the fact that she could remember dates and numbers, and that she studied everything for the hell of it. Then, just like she usually did, she worried that somehow she got the deck wrong, and the direction, so she had a slight moment of panic. Completely uncalled for panic and quickly opened the brochure, found the correct page and squinted at the map until she was positive that she had been right. "Yes, D deck, and down." Glancing up at Jesse she silently hoped he hadn't noticed her small freak out. For the most part it had been entirely on the inside, but chances were that some portion of it had shown on her face.
It had, but really, Jesse was used to her doing that. Her little twitches of internal flailing that happened. It was something he hoped getting her back out there and into real life and everything would cure. It gave him an internal pang, though. "Okay, down it is." he said, not even sure what deck they were on now. Really that was something he should have paid better attention to, but he hadn't. There! He saw a little sign that showed stairs. Did that mean that the elevators were nearby? It felt weird to him to take an elevator on a ship. Like it was wrong for some reason, but he figured that was just him, and the fact that he wasn't used to being on a ship at all. "Ha!" he said, pointing out the sign as he nudged her with his elbow. "Told you I knew where I was going."
"Dumb luck," Samantha countered. If she set out in a random direction she would probably happen upon stairs too, but she gave him an encouraging smile anyway, like she was impressed with his navigational skills. It wasn't too far to the door leading to the stairs, and Samantha beat Jesse to it, pushing it open for the both of them and waiting until he went by ahead of her. "Have you gone out exploring yet?" she asked, which immediately after the words came out of her mouth she knew it was a stupid question. Of course he had. Jesse wasn't her. He didn't hide in a room all day because being around actual people made him nervous. He, unlike her, could actually cope with life on a daily basis.
Just because it was dumb luck didn't mean he had to own up to it. So he didn't. "I'm just skilled." he told her, heading down the steps, taking them two at a time before he hopped down the last three to the first landing. He looked up at her before speaking again. "And yeah, 'course I did. Wandered around, looked at shit...there's a lot more here than there should be. I mean, I guess it's good because people get bored on a boat but it seemed really strange. Like a intensely compact tourist town in one package." They'd gone on the cruise because Samantha couldn't run away that way, not because Jesse was enamored with the idea of being cooped up on a ship.
Looking down at him, Samantha gave Jesse a reproachful glare at his language. Slowly she walked down the steps. Sad to say, even such a thing as the height difference between where she was and where he was made her a little uncomfortable. It was a little on the pathetic side, she knew this, but it didn't matter how much she tried to conquer her fear of heights, it never changed. "I wonder why they didn't book more passengers," she mused out loud. It seemed a little strange, like maybe there was something wrong with the entire thing and this was as small a test group as they were allowed to work out the problems. That was silly though, at least that's what Samantha told herself. It was probably more along the lines of them not having enough money to fund more than they'd actually booked. It was probably expensive.
"Well where'd you go?" Now that she was out, she should probably take a look at some other things besides the library and greenhouse. They were exciting, but she was feeling a little hungry. "Any places that had good sounding food?"
"I went up on deck for a while. Wandered around on some of the other floors. There are shops and shi--stuff." he said, editing his language there at the last second to avoid another glare. "And I don't know why there aren't more people either." he said. Really, the lack of a ton of people kind of set him ill at ease. It made the place feel empty, a little like a ghost town or something, which was ridiculous. But he was hoping that fewer people meant it would be easier on Samantha. No huge crowds, things like that. He was looking on the bright side.
"Thank you," she said in reference to his quick alteration of words. It wasn't really that she was a prude concerning language, ok maybe she was, but she just really hated curse words. They made her uncomfortable, and it was just another thing to tack onto the list of reasons why she was probably the least fun person on the cruise. She'd be surprised if there was someone considered more boring or dull than her, but then again, she didn't really care. "Did you meet any of the other guests?" Earlier today she'd been on the computer in her room and read some kind of blog post from one of the other passengers talking about the place being deserted. It was creepy, and Samantha hoped they saw at least one other person while they were out.
"No one but staff." Jesse admitted. Which he did find weird, and he wasn't terribly happy about it, but he hid that from her. She didn't need to know this whole set up kinda made him uncomfortable. He was there for her. That made all the difference. "But I'm sure we'll find people around eventually. Maybe at dinner when I buy it for you." he said, flashing a grin at her as he eyed the sign for the next deck coming up, and he tried to remember what deck they were meant to be heading to. Shit, she'd told him and everything.
"With dessert, too?" Samantha gave him an identical grin, focusing not on the lack of people but instead on the prospect of food. Food was always good, and maybe she'd even find a good book in the library so that after she was finally allowed to go back to her room she could curl up and read until she fell asleep. Eyeing the upcoming sign, she glanced at Jesse, not really for any purpose, but more because she'd made a habit of avoiding looking at people. It just seemed easier to not look at anyone, then she wouldn't have to worry about eye contact. Somehow it felt wrong with her family though, like with them she shouldn't worry about that sort of thing. The problem was, she did.
"Anything you want, sis." Jesse said, giving her a genuine smile. In certain circles, he'd be considered a bit of a pushover. In this case, definitely. But that was just the way the guy was, and that wasn't changing. He was still wracking his brain to remember what deck they were heading towards, and still couldn't remember, so he just kept going down, and figured if she saw they weren't meant to keep going, she'd say something. That was his running theory, anyhow. That, along with the idea that when he got to the right deck, he'd magically remember.
"Of course anything I want, you can't refuse me," Samantha grinned again. It was getting easier to smile, and she attributed that completely to Jesse. Maybe she should spend more time out of her room, spend more time with him. Things had changed since she was younger, and he wasn't as merciless with his teasing than he once was. It was nice, even though sometimes she could sense that he wanted to talk to her about it. She appreciated that he didn't bring it up again though. Maybe someday she'd be ready to actually talk about it, until then it would be nice just to spend some time with him. It wouldn't kill her to actually pretend to be social. "So, still know where we're going?" She asked, more for something to say than anything. It didn't seem that hard actually, so maybe he wouldn't get them completely turned around.
"Of course! We're going...down." Jesse said. Nope, he still hadn't managed to dig out of his memory the letter of the deck they needed to be on. And he vaguely wondered if she'd just let them continue to run around until he gave up and begged for directions. "Nope, I can't refuse you." he agreed, grinning at her. "That's because I'm the best brother in the world." he said confidently, like everyone should know that.
Jesse's tone made Samantha want to laugh, but she felt it probably wouldn't be the best idea. That would make it seem like she was making fun of him, which she wasn't. Stifling the urge, she nodded. "You are the best brother in the world." A true statement coming from her, mainly because she didn't have any other brothers to compare him with and most of her friends had terrible brothers who were never nice to their siblings. In comparison, Jesse was a saint. Maybe not the best with directions, but a good brother none the less. "Yes, down," she mimicked. Down was a vague response, but it was ok. How lost could they get? It was a ship with a limited amount of space, granted a lot of limited amount of space, but at least there was the certainty of still being on board.
The stairwell was a little echoey, which threw him off a bit. It kind of reminded him of some jobs he'd done, which he didn't want to be thinking about right now. "Well so long as we're agreed about my status as 'awesome'." he commented as they got down to another landing. Stupid weird kind of cramped winding steps. Next time they were finding an elevator. "What do you want to eat, anyways?" he asked. "Anything in mind?"
"How about pasta?" Pasta sounded good. Any kind of pasta. Samantha wasn't picky with food, and pasta seemed like something that was generic enough to be readily available. "You can't go wrong with that stuff, right?" The small question made her realize that, yeah, she knew her brother, but she was kind of iffy about what kind of foods were his favorite. Weren't you supposed to know that stuff about your siblings? Yeah, her twin, she could tell you right away everything that she loved, but not Jesse. Another thing for Samantha to put on her list to do better: pay attention to Jesse's favorite things.
"Nope, can't go wrong there." he agreed. It was pretty safe. Nothing too crazy like super spicy cajun stuff, or...he had no idea. But pasta sounded good and less likely to disagree with his stomach. He actually was a little concerned about getting sea sick. While he hadn't yet, he knew he'd felt the motion of the boat when he'd been trying to sleep, and it had creeped him out a little bit. It hadn't made falling asleep that easy. But then again, he had trouble sleeping sometimes, so that might have just been a convenient factor to blame, not the actual cause.
Samantha nodded along, looking at the numbers of each room that they passed. It suddenly occurred to her that it was a rather long ship, and what if they were going the complete opposite direction? Yes, down, but what if they had to walk the whole length of the ship. So she stopped, glanced down at the brochure still in her hand and said, "What if we aren't going the right way? I don't want to be walking around this thing all night. I'm starting to get really hungry, like maybe I could eat you if we don't get somewhere with food fast." It was mostly a joke, well, ok, completely a joke. She would ever eat her brother, but her stomach growled at exactly the right moment to prove her point.
"GT, you realize that this is a boat, and you have to walk from one end to the other regardless, right? We have to go down to get you where you wanna go, so we're going down. And even if we aren't going down in the right spot, we'd still have to walk back and forth on some floor to get there." Jesse said patiently. "It'll be fine. But if you're hungry now, let's hold up, find us someplace to eat and we'll head there now." he suggested. Annnd maybe she'd pick out somewhere close by that had better directions. Or at least ones he could remember properly.
The look Samantha gave him was irritated. "Yes, I realize that. But if we figured out which stairs to take first then we would save ourselves the trouble of too much additional walking." She sighed, again. Giving Jesse the smallest of glares, she opened the brochure again and looked over the maps. "Ok, how about Thalia's Diner? It's just the floor below us, and..." Samantha paused glancing up at the numbers by one of the closest doors, then back down at the map. One of her fingers traced a couple lines and then she let out a triumphant noise. "And, if we keep going a little ways we'll find some stairs that should take us almost there."
Jesse arched a brow. "But--" he started, then just broke off, not going to point out holes in the logic. Getting into a snit with her hadn't been his plan, so he wasn't going to do it. He held his hands up as he conceded everything. "Just lead the way, Samantha." he told her. See? Anything she wanted. And at least this time if they got lost it wouldn't be his fault. That was a plus.
"We should have done this from the beginning," She said leading the way. Not bothering to check if he was following, because where would he go anyway? Samantha was confident that she wouldn't get them lost, because from the map it looked pretty straight forward. But she was tired of talking about directions and how they apparently didn't know what they were. Instead she turned the topic onto other things. "When you were up on the deck did you see how far up we are from the water? I never really looked before. Do you think I'll get sick if I go up?" It wasn't a very fun prospect, considering her fear of heights, and yeah she'd been up for a tiny bit before but she made sure not to actually look over the edge. But she wanted to sit outside a little bit, too.
Jesse followed, spirits slightly dampened, but he was hiding it well. "Er....honestly, probably." he told her. Which he didn't want to tell her, because he didn't want her to stay below deck the entire time they were there, but he didn't want to lie then get called on it later. That really wouldn't help his cause at all. "But there's huge areas that aren't anywhere near the rails and everything. So...maybe we could find something like that tomorrow?" he suggested. Little bits at a time--tomorrow, not today. He wasn't going to push her too hard on anything all at once.
"Like what? Did you see anything I might like?" Anything safely away from the edge where she couldn't see just how much ocean was out there seemed fine with Samantha. It might even be a little nicer than sitting inside. Maybe. She appreciated his honesty though. Half of her had expected a, 'Oh no, it's fine. You wouldn't even notice!' from him. She never would have believed it, but the fact that he'd actually said she might get sick, well that meant he probably wouldn't drag her up there unless there were a way to keep that from happening. She hoped, at least.
"Um...there's a pool?" Jesse suggested. "I haven't had time to look at everything...but there's like two smaller decks above the main big open one. I think. Should be on the map, does anything look interesting for you?" he asked, figuring that was the best way to figure that out. "Either way there's a whole lot of space where you don't have to be anywhere near the edge." he promised. He didn't especially want to traumatize her with that. He knew her anxieties about heights, and upchucking over the edge wasn't a great way to encourage the girl to get out more. So! He was just going to have to accommodate things. That was alright he was generally good at that.
Opening the brochure again, Samantha looked at it, not bothering to stop walking. She glanced behind her only once and said, "if I'm going to run into something, please stop me." Then she was back to looking. Nothing popped out at her as being overly interested, but she was going to check and double check it until she found something. "There's a spa, which would probably be inside though and I'm not sure that's something you'd like." Mostly, she was talking out loud to herself as she looked. It seemed like she'd have to just spend some time sitting around near the pool.
"Yeah, but if you like it, you should go." Jesse said. Spas? Not really his thing. Didn't mean she couldn't go. "Maybe you can get ET to go with you." he added. "Or...I dunno, if you really didn't want to go alone, I could just...go sit with you for or something..." he suggested, really really hoping she didn't want him to do that, but he was willing. Willing, if spectacularly uninterested in it, but he was there for her, so...if that meant doing shit he really didn't want to in the interest of her well being? Then that's what he was doing.
A half-hearted shrug was Samantha's response. "She might want to go, I could ask her." The spa was just an idea, and Samantha wasn't even sure if she wanted to go, but it might be fun to force Jesse to go with her. It would be fun to watch him pretend to enjoy it, or even just outright complain. Maybe there'd be something he could enjoy there. "You could come get a massage with me." She gave him a smile, a sweet smile before adding, "Or you could get a manicure with me."
"Massage! That I could handle! Let's stick with that." Jesse said immediately. No one was coming near his hands to do his nails for fucks sake. Ohhh hell no. Never happened before, and he wasn't starting now. "You can get a manicure and I can...just...be around." he said. "And try to convince people not to boot me out because they'll probably think I'm just in there trying to find women to hit on." he added, very much thinking that was a possibility. Though he also figured Samantha might get the biggest kick out of that.
With a sly smile Samantha said, "Yeah, yeah, just wait and see. I'll get you to end the day with nice beautiful hands. Maybe some cute girl will be working that can help convince you for me." It was an idea. Guys were all the same, and she doubted Jesse would be any different. Dangle a pretty lady in front of them and have her smile cutely and they were down for the count. Usually. "But a massage sounds nice, then we can swim or something?"
"Yeah, that sounds good." Jesse said, a little surprised she was going with it so easily. Then he broke out into a genuine, happy grin at her. "Sounds great." he added. If she was actually good with kind of making plans, too, then that meant less pushing from him, and maybe this was a good start. Maybe she'd do a little more from day to day and eventually she'd be okay. Not necessarily 'better', because one thing that Jesse was aware of was there was no 'fixing' things. She was always going to have issues, but there was such a thing as becoming more well. That's what he was after.
"Yep, sounds great." Samantha echoed, deciding that it would probably be best to keep quiet about the fact that when tomorrow came around he'd probably have to convince her to come out of her colorful, nature filled cave with promises of more food, some good books and probably her very own little plant. When the time came for all that, she'd let it be known. For now, she was feeling good, looking forward to eating with Jesse. It felt a little strange for her to be excited about being in a public place, but hey, it made her brother happy, and it didn't make her want to hide her head in whatever sand she could find.
They got to another deck landing, and he eyed the letter. "Is this where we needed to be?" he asked, looking at her. Yep, he was okay with her being responsible for their getting hopelessly lost. At least he didn't have anything else to do. Nothing going on, really. Just worrying about her, and thinking about how much he was already twitching over not being able to bring Jessie with him. That was heavy in the back of his mind, but he was pretty good at not wearing his emotions on his sleeve. When one primarily dealt with assholes with guns and too much attitude, you learned fast to hide things fairly well.
Peering at the letter Samantha gave a satisfied nod of her head. "Yes, now all we have to do is go that way," she pointed, "and we should run into it. I'm sure they'll have signs to lead the way, don't you think so?" If they didn't have signs then it wasn't much of a ship. So far everything had seemed labeled well enough, but Samantha couldn't help worrying. What if by some chance the person in charge of making signs forgot this floor? There was a debate going on inside her head about the absurdity of the thought and she had to shake her head. "We were still going to the greenhouse after we eat, right? You're not going to change your mind about going with me?" There it was, the irrational fear that she'd wind up being stuck outside her room by herself.
He opened up the door for and leaned on it, falling into step with her once she was through. "I hope they have signs." Jesse said. "Otherwise that'd be a little weird. And confusing. And possibly would make us very lost and hungry. We could wander for years and eventually have to resort to cannibalism." he told her, teasing, but he said it deadpan. "Keep your eye out for plump staff members." He had to blink when she asked him about going to the greenhouse after they ate, and he actually stopped, reaching out to stop her with him so he could look her in the eyes. "Samantha, look." he said. "I'm here to spent time with you and ET, alright? I'm not here for any other reason. Just to be around for you and shi---everything. I've got nothing but time to hang with you, so no. I'm not going to change my mind. I'm not going to ditch you, okay?"
It made her laugh when he teased her, but it was short lived as the conversation continued. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. Of course he didn't have any other reason for being here. The only reason any of them were on this stupid cruise is because they were worried about her. Samantha avoided looking at him for a few seconds, chewing on her lip as she thought about what she could say. Maybe she shouldn't say anything. What she wound up saying was, "Ok." Her voice was weak and timid, and it embarrassed her even more than she already was. In fact, she felt her eyes tearing up a bit and that was the worst of all. Sniffling a little she looked up at Jesse, mortified in the complete mood change that was her fault. "Thanks."
Oh shit! No! He didn't do well with tears! As a matter of fact, Jesse happened to be terrible with crying girls. When his daughter figured that out he was going to be fucked. He tended to flail, and lose any sort of composure he had before. "God, don't cry! It's fine! Nothing to worry about, okay? Everything's good, I just wanted to let you know that I'm here for you and everything so whatever you wanted to do is fine and we'll do that and everything and I'm not going to abandon you or anything, and yeah please--it's fine, alright? Don't cry."
There was absolutely no reason for her not to believe him. This was Jesse after all. He had her best interests at heart. So, she tried to toughen up a little right then and there, wiping at a tear that had fallen onto her cheek. She tried giving him a smile to reassure him that she was fine, but it fell flat and was obviously too forced. "Ok, I didn't mean to cry. It's stupid," Samantha said in that same meek voice. The pattern on the floor had gotten pretty interesting, or so it would seem from the way her eyes were glued to it.
See, right now, he wanted to just take her off someplace that wasn't a hallway, where he could sit her down and ask her to talk to him about things. Maybe not The Incident, or anything, but just this here and now. Why she even had to ask him that. He wanted to get into her issues, he wanted to address them and hopefully work on dispelling them. That was what he really wanted to accomplish here, but he didn't know if he was allowed. If she'd talk to him at all, or freeze up and storm off or something. So he fidgeted, and looked up and down the hall before looking back at her. "....do you...I mean, we could..." he started, tripping over his words on that. It was such a hard line to try and ride with her. He never quite knew where the lines even were, because he didn't understand them in the slightest. Like he had a very very deep seeded fear that she wasn't okay with him anymore and hadn't been since everything happened with her, and the reason was because he was male. He couldn't fix that. And if that was the case, then he just didn't know what to do. So he didn't spend a lot of time thinking about that fear, because it depressed the living shit out of him.
Looking up at him, Samantha frowned as he stumbled over his words. She didn't mean to frown, it just happened because she was trying to figure out what he was trying to say. That, and he was fidgeting. It upset her that she'd managed to make what had been a fun 'adventure' into something awkward. She didn't even know why she did. Maybe a little bit of it had to do with what had happened to her, but those insecure feelings had been there before. They'd just been enhanced. Then, before she even thought about what she was saying, the words just fell out of her. "Do you not want to go anymore?"
Jesse winced. "God--no, Samantha." he said, dragging his fingers through his hair for a second as he sighed. "No. Okay? I wanted to know if you wanted to go talk or something, I just...don't get why you'd even ask me something like that. Why would I not go after I said I would? I mean--sis, you know me, right? I know I haven't always been the most..." he paused, trying to find the appropriate word. "Consistent brother in the world, but you've got to know that I'm not going to just randomly abandon you. Hell, I came and got you to spend time with, remember?"
Carefully she thought about his words. Yes, she was being irrational and she just didn't know how to explain it to him. So she stood there awkwardly for several more seconds before basically whispering, "I'm sorry." Then a tiny bit louder voice she continued. "I shouldn't have asked that, you're right. It was silly." Truthfully, she was just feeling worse. Jesse was right, why would she even think that he wouldn't want to go? He'd come and taken the time to get her out of her room, let her pick whatever she wanted to do and was going along with it, and here she was doubting it? Rubbing a hand against her cheek, then tugging on a strand of hair she shrugged. "I didn't mean to make things worse?" There was a slightly unsure tone to her voice, as if she didn't know if she'd chosen the right words at all.
"You haven't made anything worse..." he told her, which really wasn't the case. Because they'd been fine and then she'd randomly pulled...he had no idea what. He was absolutely baffled. But she didn't need to hear that she'd done that, as far as he was concerned. He'd deal with it. He'd known this wasn't going to be a cake walk when he signed on for it. He gave her a light smile. "It's fine, okay? Just...I don't know. I guess I'd like to talk to you about why you'd think that anyways. But maybe not when we're standing in a hallway where just anyone could happen by." He was fine with emotional talks with people. He wasn't one of those guys who would rather sweep it under the rug than deal with it, but that didn't mean he wanted to have said talks where anyone and their brother bob could listen into shit that was none of their business. "But you were hungry, so let's get food first. We can talk whenever you're good for it." Which sort of set things in her court. He could give her the out of not having to do it right this second, but put it out there that it wasn't necessarily a dropped subject. Hopefully she'd latch onto that.
It sounded like a wonderful plan to Samantha. "Ok, yeah maybe we can talk about it a little after we eat." Probably wouldn't happen. She'd chicken out at the last minute, but she could hold onto the hope that she'd do it for the time being. It wasn't so much that she didn't want to talk to Jesse about what was going in her head, but more that she wasn't entirely sure what was going on up there. Also, she was afraid that any general talks about her weird behavior might then lead back to that conversation and she would rather jump off the ship than do that. Besides, food always made her feel better. "Let's go then," she said, but there was little enthusiasm, even though she'd tried to muster a little of it.
He smiled again, and nodded, gesturing up the hall. "Let's go then." he echoed her, thinking this was going to be a long cruise. But it would be worth it. Things would get better, they'd just take work. He was good for putting it in, he had patience. And he had even more patience for her because he did love his little sister. He'd do anything for her, and this fell under that heading. So now they could go eat, and maybe, hopefully, they could make progress, one baby step at a time.