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Sam Hanna (sam_hanna) wrote in omega_reality,
@ 2010-11-25 17:08:00

Entry tags:

*complete, 2010 11, character: g callen, character: sam hanna

RP: Sam and G
Who: Sam and G
Where: the gym
When: 25 November, 2010
Summary: It's not a good Thanksgiving

Today was Thanksgiving. A different reality and yet there was a Macy's and a parade, and hours of football games, not that Sam had anything against football. He liked football; he liked the Giants. He was a New Yorker, they had two teams, not just one, and as long as you rooted against the Pats and the Cowboys, you could get along with the Jets fans. It was that simple. Normally, he would have been all for watching a good game, but today was Thanksgiving, a day to spend with family.

Sam had stopped spending time with his family long ago. Tamira had her own life now and his children were adults now, spending Thanksgiving with whoever they wanted. He had gotten used to the fact that he wasn't part of their lives a long time ago. Things were different here. He had a family here with a husband and children, little children who would have loved to have a father.

He punched faster and harder as he reminded himself why he couldn't show up at their door steps. He didn't know them. He wasn't in love with his husband. He had feelings for his partner. Plenty of reasons not to be there; plenty of reasons to punch harder.

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sam_hanna
2010-11-25 10:43 pm UTC (link)

"That's because you were incapable of having a partner, insisted on doing things solo, and having a partner meant pushing until something went wrong so you could prove that having a partner was a stupid idea," Sam answered. The words were syncopated, let out in between punches, never really slowing down. "I could hit the bag or hit you, and Macy frowned on assaulting a fellow agent."

Sam stopped and took a glove off, before reaching for his bottle of water. The water felt good, but G's eyes on him were unnerving, not because someone was looking at him, but because G was, and he had a way of knowing what was going on in his head without asking.

"I've got a few things on my mind," he said, knowing that it would be easier to give G something than denying that he was upset. "Not being allowed to do any real work doesn't help."

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g_callen
2010-11-25 11:34 pm UTC (link)

G shrugged, not sorry at all for his behaviour. He hadn't been too keen on the idea of getting left high and dry again. "Partner you can't trust is worse than being on your own. Most people," he said pointedly, "couldn't cut it. Makes you feel better, Macy wanted to hit me about as much as you did."

He watched Sam in silence. They rarely pushed each other seriously, only when it really matter, either to a mission or to one of them. For the moment, he just watched, waiting to see if Sam would come to him, as it were. Nodding when his partner began to speak, he moved forward to stand near his partner.

"That much I'd noticed," he said, hands resting casually on his hips. "So, what would help?" There were so many people speaking just then -- the lead agent, the partner, the friend. If there was a way to help Sam now, he'd find it. They needed Sam at top form for whenever they finally were allowed to do real work. They'd need him, then. G would need him, then.

And helping Sam would help him, help G forget his own issues.

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sam_hanna
2010-11-26 12:41 am UTC (link)

"The bar to gain your trust is pretty high, G," Sam pointed out, "and she wanted to hit you more than I did. I only had a problem when you went and did something by yourself. She wanted to hit you all the times, or hit on you. Maybe if she weren't operation manager."

Sam snorted. "You're really observant; you should have been an agent." He looked at G. "What? Are you holding out on me? You have a case that I don't know about." He knew that wasn't what G was saying, but it really wasn't something he wanted to discuss, especially in a gym with all sorts of listening devises, or at least the possibility of bugs.

He took off his other glove and threw them both inside his bag. "C'mon, I need a shower." He didn't wait, but instead he went out, shivering as the cold air hit him. "I did not miss the weather. 45 degrees today, 71 three days ago, it's insane."

He turned his head to look at G. "Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do. You want to talk about your file as much as I want to talk about mine."

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g_callen
2010-11-26 01:12 am UTC (link)

G had nothing to say to that. Trust wasn't a renewable resource in his experience and his supply had been running low for years. He snorted at the idea of Macy hitting on him. It would have been like Jethro Gibbs hitting on him. He almost smirked. "Never would have happened."

"Me, an agent? You think?" G rolled his eyes. It was either that or smack Sam for evading the issue. It wasn't hard to recognise it for what it was. G was a master at it himself, after all. "Can't be holding out on you. I don't go solo these days."

Arching an eyebrow, he followed after his partner, chuckling a bit when he groused about the temperatures. But, his partner's next words actually managed to catch G off guard enough to stop the automatic quip only just forming. Staring out ahead of them, he turned it over in his head. When he turned to look at Sam, he shrugged. "There isn't anything in my file making me a punching bag's worst enemy."

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sam_hanna
2010-11-26 01:37 am UTC (link)

"Never say never. Stranger things have happened, and when someone wants to kill you so much, she's just as likely to kiss you than punch." He waited a moment. "Then again, this is you, so they are more likely to shoot you."

Sam cracked a smile. "What can I say? I'm intuitive." He snorted. "Most married couples spend less time together." Despite his words, it was the one thing about this dimension that he didn't mind. In fact, he enjoyed spending time with G.

"No, G. You're used to having things in your file that make you want to punch something, or things not being there." He wasn't trying to be mean, but he didn't buy for a second that G was okay with things. "Let's just get inside, before you get sick and you turn into a big baby."

He used his card to open the door to the building. Habit had him scanning the hall before stepping to the side to let G in. "They are cleaning up the houses. I was thinking of getting one before more people come in. They are pretty big, made for officers and their families, so I'm not sure how willing they are to give it to a single person. Interested in sharing? We can set up our own security." He might not be as paranoid as G, but coming into a building made him twitch; he wasn't sure if it was paranoia or the memories of his childhood, or possibly both. Of course, sharing a house with G could present a very different set of problems, but Sam wasn't thinking about those.

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g_callen
2010-11-26 04:56 am UTC (link)

G raised an eyebrow, then chuckled and shook his head. Macy would have shot him first.

"A regular Edward Cayce." His snort echoed his partner's. "And some married couples can't get away from each other fast enough." In some ways, he thought, partners were better than spouses. There was a level of trust and knowing the other that went far beyond the average married couple. At least if the partnership was solid, it did. Finding a solid partnership, though, was sometimes as difficult or worse than finding a solid spouse.

Once again, there was nothing he could say to that. There was hardly twenty minutes worth of reading in his file at home, as it was. The twenty seconds worth of information here...fair enough. He was used to not knowing. Glancing down at the sweats he'd donned before coming in search of Sam, he smirked. "I'm not the one that's cold," he teased.

G didn't even notice the instinctive scan as they entered the building; he was too busy taking his own look and it would have been more out of place for Sam not to be guard, either of them. Clear, he turned his head to watch Sam curiously. A house. G wasn't sure he trusted houses, roots. Too often you had to pull them up anyway. Hetty had tried. But, look where they'd wound up. Still, the Director wouldn't let him switch rooms. A house with Sam would be better than a room here. More secure. He nodded. "Sure."

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sam_hanna
2010-11-26 05:12 am UTC (link)

"I wouldn't know." He never married Tamara and his dad had left long before his mama knew that she was pregnant. Sam was used to broken families and it was one more thing that he'd had to integrate with his religious belief.

"I'm not that cold either. Remember my training? That doesn't mean that I want to stay in the middle of the base with this weather." And where all sorts of machines, cameras and lip reading could tell people what they were saying.

The argument about the house went a lot smoother than he thought. He was sure that he'd have to hint that he'd ask Deeks instead before convincing G. The simple acceptance left him momentarily speechless, but then nodded. "Okay, I'll talk to Hetty."

Sam skipped the elevator and went for the stairs. When he got to the room, he opened the door. There were more checks, and then left the duffle bag on the floor and went for the bathroom, motioning for G to follow. He turned on the water in the tub and the sink and then sat on the floor, resting against the tub. "We need to speak to that Garcia woman and make sure there are no bugs in that house." He wasn't so sure about this apartments.

"I'm married and I have three children," he said, out of no where. "Or the me here does. Two girls, 15 and 11, and a boy, 8. All three adopted, one from Sudan and two from Liberia. They were taken here to have a stable life and now their father is gone."

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g_callen
2010-11-26 05:58 am UTC (link)

"I do." He'd seen it all, from the couples who tried to those who couldn't care less; he'd seen it all his life right on up to the mistakes he'd made himself with Tracey. Yes, G knew.

"Mhm. Sure. Big, tough guy." G smirked, but he didn't protest. Sam needed to feel safe to talk and the way he kept putting G off, it was clear out in the open wasn't where he would.

Nodding at Sam's proposal to speak with Hetty, he followed his partner in silence. They moved through the building like they were on a real case, naturally. Still watching Sam with a neutral expression as the other man sat on the bathroom floor, he took up a position at the door. "Garcia, hm?" Sam could get whoever he wanted to look at the place. G would likely just check himself a dozen times after.

The news about Sam's Omega self wasn't too surprising, though G did fall silent at it's revelation. He'd seen Sam with Moe, with Dom. It was easy to see a version of Sam adopting kids like that. "Their father didn't intend to leave them," he said quietly. "He couldn't have known."

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sam_hanna
2010-11-26 06:06 am UTC (link)

"And when were you married?" he asked, snorting. "You wouldn't find someone willing to put up with you... or the lack of bed." He looked up at G, frowning. "We are getting beds at the new house. You'll even have sheets." He didn't think that G would use the bed and sheets, but Sam could try.

"Yeah, she's a tech specialist. She can do her thing and we do ours. I wish we had Eric here." He'd trust him a lot more than Garcia, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"I know that, but that doesn't make it any easier to stomach. I left my children, sure it was because things weren't working and then the Navy, but I still left, and now-" He shook his head. "This man gave up his job as a SEAL. I know what it meant to me, but he gave it up for his family, stayed in the Navy for them." He rested his head back, closing his eyes. "Now, his husband is left alone with three children, not knowing whether he's ever coming back."

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g_callen
2010-11-26 07:00 am UTC (link)

G shrugged. He seemed to be doing that a lot these days. "Been a lot of things. Married was just one of them. You don't have to be married to see marriages both good and bad, though. Never underestimate how much kids see." Cracking a half-smile because it was so typically Sam to try and get G to behave like a normal person, G shook his head. "Beds and sheets. What will they think up next?

"If Eric were here, we'd almost have a full set." Why was that, he wondered. Why did they seem to have a disproportionate amount of people from their team compared to the rest of those who'd come through?

"It's not your fault. It's not his fault." There wasn't much room for two of them on the floor by the tub. But, G sat down anyway. "Feeling guilty won't help you or them. Kids see things, good and bad. They know when they're loved and when they're not. They'll know. And, in the meantime, we prepare and do what we have to until these scientists find a way to send us back and bring him home." Giving him a sideways glance, G smirked. "Besides, we find a way home, he'll have them all waiting for him, husband and kids. You'll just be stuck with me, still."

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sam_hanna
2010-11-26 03:41 pm UTC (link)

"Pretending to be married isn't the same thing. I know you live your cover, but a marriage is made of trust and feelings, and it's just not the same." It was kind of sad that G could even compare the two. It was even sadder that he probably decided what a marriage should be based on his faster families. "All right, so some people can't wait to get away their spouses, but not everyone."

Sam cracked a smile. "Careful, you move in with me and you might even buy a paperback." He nodded. "Eric and Kensi, it makes you wonder if that experiment was done near Los Angeles. It would explain why we are here. What about different cities? LA and DC. It'd make sense considering where the people are coming from. Of course, this would be easier if we had the details of the experiments." He looked at G. "Think we can talk to Garcia, start our own little investigation while we have no cases." Hetty would either love or kill them, but it was a risk he was willing to take. It was better than sitting here, doing nothing.

He slid to the side to give G some room, or maybe to put some distance for the first time in their partnership. "Maybe I'm not feeling guilty," he said in a softer tone. "Maybe I'm jealous that he got to have all of that, and maybe I'm feeling guilty for being jealous of a man who just lost his family." He bent his knees and rested his arms there. He probably should have left it there, but stewing for weeks with nothing to do and no one to talk to led to stupid decision obviously, because he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Does it bother you? The gay thing?"

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g_callen
2010-11-26 08:10 pm UTC (link)

G snorted and looked away. "Trust me, that I know."

Turning back to look at Sam, he smirked and said, "Already got one. The user manual for the laptops they have here are paperback." But, he fell silent, turning the ensuing ideas over in his head. This whole was like something out of a science fiction movie. He half expected cyborgs from the future to descend upon human kind. But, it was as good a theory as any. If the experiment, or possibly even experiments, had taken place in the cities where they were all coming from, that might explain who was being taken. And, it wouldn't be unlike Hetty to not tell them things. She'd started as an agent, like them.

Well, maybe not quite like them.

"Hetty will kill us. I just want to make sure you know this." Of course, he was smirking that little patented half-smile that said he was in. Provided this Garcia was even half as good as Eric.

"That's human enough, jealousy." G propped his forearms up on his bent knees, unconsciously mirroring Sam's position, and watched the wall in front of them. "But, it's nothing to feel guilty for, not unless you let it drive you crazy, drive you to do something crazy." Sam's question had him turning back to focus his attention on his partner. Of everything Sam had revealed, it wasn't until he put such a bald wording to it that G even made the connection with word 'husband'. 'Family' had seemed the more important concept. Gaze unwavering, he asked, "Does it change who you are? Are you going to be a different Sam than the one I know just because you've trusted me with one of your secrets?"

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sam_hanna
2010-11-26 08:26 pm UTC (link)

"That's not yours; it belongs to the US government," he said with a tiny smile. "You're just borrowing it until there's an upgrade and they give you a new manual." He still couldn't believe that he had talked G into moving into a house with him. He was so stupid! This was going to drive the two of them nuts.

"Unless she doesn't know either and can't officially tell us to investigate. If that's the case, she might increase our petty cash budget," he said, grinning. "We'll be able to spend a full hundred dollars before she asks for a receipt."

Sam turned his head to look at G. "I'm not the jealous type. Even when I was growing up in the projects, I always had more than the others, not much, but a mother and grandmother that cared, food, clothes. It was even easier in the Navy, elite force, then NCIS. I never let myself wonder what it would be like to have a family, a real one. I still have plenty, and it's not right that I feel this way."

He shook his head. "That simply for you." he wasn't surprised. G was full of secrets, and sharing one was another sign of trust, while keeping even one was a sign of distrust. It was that half full/half empty glass again, and more proof of how opposite they were. "It's been driving me crazy. You don't keep secrets from the team; you tell them everything. It's how SEALs operate, but I've kept the secret. You would have been the first person I would tell, but then we got here and Vance and Hetty knew, and it didn't feel right that you didn't know." There were more secrets of course, once that he wouldn't share so easily, but at least one was out in the open. "It doesn't change who I am; it changes what you know."

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g_callen
2010-11-26 09:25 pm UTC (link)

"And then I'll have a new paperback," he deadpanned. Things were transient. He owned them while he possessed them and when he didn't, they weren't. Over the last six months, he'd begun investigating the idea of keepsakes. He had a box, a photo. But, that was gone now, too.

"Hundred dollars?" G laughed. "You underestimate the books that woman keeps."

Biting back a sigh, G shook his head. "It's not wrong, either. Everyone wants something they can't have, something others have and they want. It's not about how much a man has, but how much he doesn't. The wanting isn't right or wrong. It's the actions you take as a result of that wanting that are."

The smirk was back as he nodded. "That simple. And this isn't the SEALs. We all have secrets, everyone of us on the team has things we keep from the others." There were degrees of secrets -- the ones you kept to protect yourself and the ones you kept to get power over someone. The first, G could understand and accept. The second was more problematic. Something like this? It didn't change who Sam was, just who he wanted to have sex with, and that wasn't any of G's business anyway. For the first time in weeks, he smiled a real smile at Sam's declaration he would have told G first. "I appreciate that. What I know is we're partners, this doesn't change that. It doesn't bother me."

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sam_hanna
2010-11-26 09:33 pm UTC (link)

Sam shook his head, but made a point to go to that store nearby that the people from here seemed to like and buy G something. It really didn't even matter what it was, as long as it was something that G owned.

"I don't know about Hetty's books, but I know about houses. We're going to need plates, pots and pans, utensils, food, paper towel, towels. Are you ready for that commitment?" he asked in a teasing tone. "We might have to get shower curtains and toothbrushes."

He stretched his legs in front of him, crossing his ankles. "And how jealous are you? That file wasn't very thick."

Sam snorted. "I know we aren't in the Navy, but I still don't like keeping secrets from my team. I'm not asking others to tell me their secrets, but this is who I am." He smiled back. "So you're saying that I should have told you long ago and I would have spared me hours of punching that bag? I still can't believe officers can get married here... well gay officers."

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g_callen
2010-11-26 09:50 pm UTC (link)

"You know you can put half that in a dufflebag and not need the rest?" G teased, knowing he himself was almost as transient as his vision of things. If he took up more space in this house of theirs than a single room, he'd be shocked.

The question made him stop, huff quietly, and shake his head. Then he skipped right over it for the moment. "The punching bags of the base would have been grateful. Really, I'm just thinking about their best interests."

Grasping his left wrist loosely with his right hand, he shrugged. "A lot of things about this place are hard to believe." He stared ahead in silence for a long time. "At home, I'm jealous all the time of everyone. But, there's nothing and no one here for me to be jealous of. Nothing at all."

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sam_hanna
2010-11-26 09:57 pm UTC (link)

"No, you can put half that in a dufflebag. Normal people like to have their matching towels in the holders, and matching shower curtains, and even fancy soap dispensers," he said, laughing. "We need that TV that you can't put in the bag, and speakers for the iPhone or whatever they call it here, laptops, couches, coffee tables, microwave." He grinned. "Do you know what tomorrow is? Black Friday and we are going shopping." Maybe that would improve his mood a little, not the shopping, because he wasn't a girl, but the idea of having his own place again.

Sam took in the information for a moment, and then sighed. "We'll figure it out, G. The lack of information is information, too. If there's no G. Callen, then we know that it's not your real name, and that whoever you are came to our reality, which means someone in our world knows your real name. We can do a lot with that."

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g_callen
2010-11-26 10:29 pm UTC (link)

G looked a little pale at the thought of buying all those things, so much that would tie a person to a single place. He just reminded himself he had orders to stay put, not move, and living with Sam was far preferable than staying here, even if it was a house that encouraged the potential for putting down roots. "You're furnishing a house you haven't even gotten possession of yet," he pointed out.

"Do we?" he asked. "Look at the subtle changes in this world, Sam. There isn't even a face in any database that faintly resembles mine. No record of G Callen. For all we know, the person that I am was born as someone entirely different in this world, not a 'real' name, but one distinctly different all together. It's entirely possible the series of events over decades that culminated in my conception didn't happen here, an ancestor whose name I don't know in our world might have died in one of the battles that differs from this history. Maybe a grandfather at Hickham or Pearl who survived in our world, but died here when Hawaii fell. Maybe I'd know what changed if I was anyone else, had known family in our world Hetty could have used the names of to search. But, there's nothing." He was practically a myth at home. Here he wasn't even a ghost.

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sam_hanna
2010-11-26 10:40 pm UTC (link)

Sam felt slightly bad when he saw G's face, but it would do him goo to have a home, a place to call his own, and not just four walls and a roof. "It'll show Hetty that I'm - we're serious and she'll get us in there sooner." Once he mentioned that G was moving in, Sam was sure that Hetty would make it happen in a day.

"Maybe the man here never entered foster care, and he lived a normal and boring life. I know this is strange for us, but most people don't have their faces in databases. They go around living perfectly normal lives without being recorded or having their fingerprints taken." He patted G's leg. "You never know, G. You can't assume that you don't exist because we haven't found something. Even Hetty isn't infallible and she has very little to go on except for a name that might not be real." He smiled a little. "And if you are right, it's just proof of how amazing you are. There's no one like you. Now, can we stop before you ask me to pain my nails or do my hair? There's turkey in the mass hall, care to join me?"

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g_callen
2010-11-26 11:17 pm UTC (link)

G's thoughts dovetailed right in line with Sam's. Hetty had gone out and bought him a house, only telling him when she needed him to sign the papers, just so he could get some sleep somewhere other than the couch at the office or the couch at Sam's. He didn't doubt as soon as Sam told her they wanted a house, Hetty would be handing him a key.

"You haven't listened to Eric's lecture on how much information about an individual is recorded and stored every day, have you?" G chuckled, though. He couldn't believe in a chance for his own existence when there was nothing, not even a driver's license or passport. It was just too unlikely. Snorting quietly, he stared at Sam. "Amazing? Right." He drew the word out. "Turkey and football for you, Agent Hanna. Let's go.

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