Neil Donovan is (incharge) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-08-14 19:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !hotel, *log, neil donovan, sam alexander |
log: neil/sam
Who: Neil and Sam
What: Catching up.
Where: The hotel.
When: Recently but before Typhoid Becky.
Warnings/Rating: Nah.
Sam was nervous, which was stupid. She hadn't been this nervous when she'd had to walk into that club, all old and scared, to face Neil. So, why the fuck was she scared now? Ok, so she was a little younger than he maybe remembered, but only a year or two, and maybe he wouldn't even fucking notice. Yeah, no, that couldn't be it, she decided, and maybe it was more that the meeting where she'd been old as bones had been the only time she'd seen him in like five years. Lin made her nervous about re-meeting people lately, because Lin couldn't fucking stand her now, yeah? She didn't even understand why. Ok, when she was old, it was because she was old or whatever, but what was the reason now? Jealous over D? No fucking way; the man had one foot in the grave and a cock that wouldn't even rise to half mast. So, she couldn't make heads or fucking tails of any of it, even with the memory of all her school bullshit right there, front and center.
So, she owned it. She sat on the top step of the second-floor landing, dark-papered clove between her fingers and sweet smoke saying that, yeah, she hadn't fucking ditched this time. She wore a wifebeater and jeans stolen from Shane, belted around her hips and baring hipbones that were covered over with softness. Her boots were heavy and purple, and her eyes were lined black. Her hair was a wavy mess of blonde, and her fingernails held remnants of black nailpolish. She had earbuds tucked in, and opera could be heard, tinny and muffled through the cheap rubber. Her phone was on her lap, in case Neil changed his fucking mind. He could, yeah? He might. She knew he'd been dealing with his own shit too, the drinking and shit.
She was drawing on the air. Literally drawing on the air, fingers moving on the nothing canvas, colors three-dimensional and so fucking real. A pirate ship, actually, as wide as the stairs and so real it felt like it could fucking float. Like if someone touched it, their fingers would actually touch wood, which was bullshit. It was just a mirage, art on air, and it would only stay as long as she wanted it to. But it passed the time, and she hummed along with the aria and sucked on the clove and tried not to fucking worry so much.
Neil was surprisingly calm.
Maybe it was all that time spent soaking in sun and booze, where the biggest concern seemed to be shipments and looting and getting the payoff, but then again pirates had never worried about much, had they? And he was no criminal himself but he kind of liked the freedom. Still, it wasn't a 'forever' kind of life and so he'd come back, trying to figure out where he'd fit in now. Ash was in fairytale land, Maggie was in some other door, Louis was in Gotham; so much for keeping the family together. And Sam? Sam seemed to be all over the place. Hard to keep track of, older and now younger and he wondered how much of the girl he'd once known was left. But it was still her, he kept telling himself that. Age didn't change who a person was, did it? Shit like that was fundamental or whatever, too deep to change. Despite not knowing what to expect or really where they stood at this point, though, he was calm. Like if this didn't work out he'd just keep moving forward, which was unsettlingly like his old apathy; a defense mechanism, but he wanted to care. It was a bitch, but he wanted to. He didn't want to lose Sam either.
Normal clothes, jeans and a white shirt, that he'd swiped when he'd gone to get stuff for Maggie were what he wore, and he'd gotten some sun and he had more stubble than usual but otherwise he didn't look much different. He could smell the smoke first before he saw her, and his first thought was that she looked younger than before. Before before, not by much or in a glaringly obvious way that suggested she was closer to underage than before, but he noticed. And then he noticed the pirate ship, and he stared for a couple of seconds before he looked back at her face. Funny how drawing in the air didn't phase him in the slightest.
"Hey," he said in greeting, hands in his pockets and a smile. "You take up magic or something?"
She didn't hear him coming because of the aria, yeah? But she was tugging the earbuds out by the time his feet came into her range of vision, and the wires they hung along her shoulders, the tinny music trying to sound ridiculously pretentious and big in the musty corridor.
She looked him over, hands in his pockets, tanned, stubble, and she knew the version of her he'd met in that Gotham restaurant would say something stupid and intelligent and china-might-break quiet. So, yeah, maybe the desire to fall back to that was there somewhere, beneath the wifebeater and pirate ship's glitter, but the girl she'd been was the kind that still had enough balls to push through that shit. At twenty-one, she'd been bold as brass, yeah? She'd picked up, left her husband, moved across the country, sold drugs and hooked up with a chick. Before that, she'd been like the most protected girl ever. From a zillion brothers to a husband who never let her fucking breathe. By the time she'd met Neil, life had smacked her hard a few fucking times, and she remembered that. She remembered all of it. She wasn't wiped clean or anything, but she still felt like that girl at twenty-one, the one who'd had the balls to say fuck everything and mean it.
She grinned, no gapped teeth and a momentary sway of her knees in and out as she waved a hand and made the ship disappear. "Useless fucking ability, yeah? I would be better off shooting lasers out of my eyeballs or something." Her Jersey was thicker than when they'd met, just recently left behind and any tempering from the past few years nowhere in sight.
She jumped to her feet, and she toed the clove out on the landing's old wood. Hands on her hips, she looked at him. "Do I get a fucking hug, or do I have to jump you?"
The music coming through her earbuds was a reminder of a very different time, long ago, when somebody else shared his mind and the pain of heartbreak had left a scar too deep to heal properly. For a moment, Neil remembered, and then he let it go. No use dwelling in the past; she was younger, yeah, but far as he knew she still had her memory. Nothing had changed in that regard.
"Useless, maybe, but it's kind of cool," he shrugged. "You pick that up in your new door?" He noticed the thicker accent, and maybe that surprised him. It was like someone had hit the rewind button, and where the hell did that leave them? Her grin was familiar, no gapped teeth but he could visualize it if he tried. It made him smile, too, and he watched as she jumped to her feet and put her hands on her hips. Affection wasn't something he was all that good at and he definitely wasn't used to making the first move, but he believed that she'd jump him if he hung back. He fully, completely believed it, and he laughed as a result. "Yeah, you get a fucking hug. C'mere." He stepped forward and, okay, so he wasn't much good at this but he had missed her and that counted for something, right? Arms held out and in a split second he decided not to wait for her to come to him; he pulled her into the hug instead.
She remembered everything. She thought she might even remember it all clearer than before, and maybe that was because it wasn't fucking with her head, yeah? She didn't need to hide from the trauma, because there was a layer of resilience or something in the distance between her and the shit that happened when she was older.
"Yeah, the kids in the house in my new place, they can all door weird shit. Like levitate, or bring people back from the dead, or turn into animals. It's awesome and creepy, but I really just want to get somewhere with some fucking paints so I can paint it all. But I guess that means settling somewhere, yeah? Everyone's in Iris' boyfriend's penthouse, but that shit just isn't for me." Which was fucking weird, maybe, because she'd been fine staying at Neil's richass suite, but this was different. She loved being around her family, but it was still different.
She fully expected to need to jump him. He'd always been shit at affection, but she'd been hugging Alexanders for like a fucking week, not to mention Daniel before, and she just wasn't worried about him rejecting her the way she'd been once. This was more like the twirling girl in that memory of being a teenager than like the woman she'd been at the end of their time together, all fucked up and scared of her own fucking shadow. The invitation to come there was more than she expected, and she looked at him with surprise in her inky blue eyes. Yeah, ok, and she took a step when he held his arms out. And, yeah, no, she wasn't expecting him to actually pull her into the hug. But he did, and she laughed, and fuck everything, yeah? She practically bowled him into the railing as she hugged him back, and she considered never letting the fuck go.
He raised his eyebrows as she described the powers these kids supposedly had, and he wasn't sure he ever wanted to pay a visit to said door. Bringing people back from the dead? Yeah, no, that was some horror movie shit right there. Neil had enough bad memories to last him a lifetime. "Is it safe?" First question, because he wasn't all that sure it was. But he shrugged when she asked if that meant settling somewhere, because he hadn't figured that part out for himself yet either. "Maybe it just means finding someplace to stay for now," he said. "The penthouse isn't really for me either. Too many people." Plus, he knew Sam's family weren't her biggest fan. He'd like to avoid that potential explosion for the time being.
Maybe too much time has passed, because he kind of forgot that she'd had trouble with being touched and there'd been a fuckton of issues stemming from all the shit that'd happened to her; pulling her into a hug might've backfired years ago. But he wasn't thinking about that, really, and it didn't matter either way because her laughter proved it wasn't a problem. The surprise in her gaze was expected because he knew this wasn't the norm for him, and it was his turn to laugh when she nearly bowled him over with the force of her hug. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were glad to see me," he teased, and no, he didn't let go.
"Is what safe? That door? Oh, yeah, it's not like horror movie shit. It's more like, IDK, magic kids. Like that wizarding shit or something. It's hard to explain, but it's not negative. It's positive, actually. It was hella good for me, but I don't want to live there forever or anything. You don't age there, so it's like always being twenty. They have some shit going on with a war too, some magical stuff, but I think I'm just too grounded for that. I like the painting on the air, though, yeah? Mostly I just like that I can fucking paint again. Weld too, probably, yeah? Once I find somewhere to fucking stay and do it." Which was more than she'd been meaning to say, but who the fuck cared? She'd been listening to other people's problems for fucking ever. At least Neil made her want to talk about her own shit, which didn't happen with most people. "Are you still going back to Gotham? I figure it's safe for you now that Iris is sucking Batman off. Lou thinks so too." So, yeah, the penthouse wasn't her thing, but it was safe for her people, and she appreciated that.
"Shut the fuck up and just hug me, asshole," she said when he teased that it was like she was glad to see him. Expletives and all, it still sounded fucking happy, that chastisement. Yeah, so she held on too tight. Whatever; who the fuck cared. Life was too short to worry about risks, and she'd learned that the hard fucking way. She did let him go eventually, but not much. Just enough to scoot her ass up on the landing bannister, and she knew he hated that shit; her risk-taking crap. But she didn't care, yeah? She liked freaking him out; she always had. She looked up at him, curious youth and brashness. "What the fuck are you going to do now?" Whether she meant now or, like, after this hallway, wasn't specified.
Maybe he wasn't entirely convinced that the magic child door was safe, but he figured she'd realize if it was dangerous. Hopefully. She was young again, and Neil remembered her being pretty damn reckless then. But wizarding shit, that was like Harry Potter or whatever, and as long as there was no crazy genocidal asshole around he figured there might not be too much reason to worry. "I'm glad it was good for you. I mean, that it helped," he said, because sometimes they needed that. Pirates hadn't been all that bad for him either, minus the booze. "Not aging might be nice at first but I don't know, I guess it'd get boring after a while." He frowned at the mention of a war, but at least she wasn't involved; that had to count for something. "Yeah, welding and painting again is cool. The air thing especially," he added, earnest, because he knew how important that stuff was to her. He shrugged when she asked if he was going back to Gotham; it seemed to be the only option. "Yeah, I guess. I can get my own place somehow."
He laughed when she told him to shut the fuck up and hug her, and he didn't mind that she held on too tight. It was nice, and his hands lingered on her hips when she balanced herself on the landing bannister. It was an echo of the past, and he looked down at her, taking her question as something less literal. "I don't know," he sighed. "The mob thing is out. I have no idea what I'll do now."
"It helped. It made me not old and scared of my own shadow, yeah?" She pulled a face, because older her had seriously sucked balls. "But, yeah, I don't want to be this age forever. It was good to rewind the bad shit, even though it's still there in my head. I haven't forgotten anything. It just gave me some distance from it, yeah? Like a scar instead of an open wound." She leaned forward and tipped his chin with fingers that still had no idea how to be gentle, all welding-calloused and rough. "You're sober, yeah?" she asked like that was surprising, and maybe that was because the fuckers in her life were increasingly wasted or something. But she didn't think he was fucked up, and he was dressed normal too, which she noticed more now that she wasn't holding onto him like this was the fucking Titanic and he was some floating door. "Where have you been hanging?" she asked, unapologetically curious. Ok, so he wasn't hers anymore or whatever, but she still wanted to know. This version of her didn't care much about who the fuck belonged to who, yeah? She wanted to know, and so she'd make him dish.
She scooted back, and she put her feet on the railing and stood, a balancing act that only someone stupidly young and trusting would undertake. She'd always loved the risk of falling to her death, roller coasters and bungee jumping, and all that shit. Anyway, one of her hands was on his shoulder still, and she was contemplating driving him even more insane, because it was nice not to be fixing everyone's shit for once. "Fuck the mob. That wasn't your scene anyway," she said. Years had passed, yeah? Lots of them for her, but she still remembered how he'd looked in that big fucking house, trying to figure out how to kill people; that wasn't his game. "You can do anything you fucking want now, baby. So, what do you want?"
He smiled a little when she pulled a face, but he had to admit she was right. Time had rewound itself and she was back to the way she'd been when they first met, young and brash and unafraid, and she seemed to be doing better. "Yeah, like a scar," he agreed. "Makes sense. Sometimes distance can be a good thing." In her case, it definitely was. He let her tip his chin, didn't pull back or away, and his gaze was as clear as it was ever going to be. Yeah, he'd been drunk, but he definitely wasn't now. "I'm sober. Feeling okay, actually. I've been out here or in pirate land. There's a lot of booze there, and it's tempting, but hop on the right ship and you can get away from it." He shrugged. He liked the door, liked being out on the sea, but he didn't see any permanence in it. Logic sucked, but he couldn't ignore it.
It was so her to stand on the goddamn railing, and despite her hand on his shoulder he reached up to support her, hands on her waist and his head tipped back. "No, you're right. It wasn't," he admitted. He didn't think he'd have been a very good mob boss anyway; he couldn't actually kill anyone, not when it came down to it. "That's the problem. I don't know what I want. The money was nice, and so was the house, but a life of crime isn't for me." He sighed. "Maybe I'll go back into construction."
"Do you like the ship thing?" She wasn't sure if she could imagine him on a pirate ship, but she wasn't sure she could imagine him in an office either, yeah, and he'd done that for fucking ever. But, yeah, so she had a bunch of old schooling that she could still remember, and she still wasn't sure what made him tick. She wasn't sure he knew what made him tick either, and maybe that's why he was interesting, yeah? For all that he was passive as fuck, he was never predictable, and she had no clue how the fuck that even worked.
She smiled down at him when his hands rested on her shoulders. "Still worry about everything, yeah?" she asked, fond, and man those memories were old. It was almost like another fucking lifetime, but her smile was hella genuine as she stood there, balancing and looking down at him. "You're still hot," she said, like she was commenting on the weather, easy and like there wasn't any fucking shame in saying that at all. She turned, and she let go his shoulder. The railing was her balance beam and she teetered slightly, laughter as she trusted his hands with the balance. "Construction, yeah? Office shit? I miss my I-Beam days." That felt like a fucking lifetime ago too, construction sites and the loud laughter of men guffawing over welding machines. She stopped at the end of the rail, and she jumped down in front of him. "You could always swing a hammer or something. You have killer arms," she said, a squeeze to his bicep as proof. "I have a tent in the old rec room. The pool still has fucking water in it, and it's clean, even though everything around it is dusty. Wanna see?" She was already tugging on his hand.
He didn’t really have to think about it all that much. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I did. Which probably doesn’t make any damn sense, right?” A pirate ship wasn’t his thing. He had no place in that world, and yet he found himself with small ,occasional yearnings to go back. When she asked if he still worried about anything he just shrugged, keeping his hold on her firm just in case, but her blunt declaration that he was ‘still hot’ made him laugh, She said it like it was fact, no big deal, and he just shook his head. “Thanks,” he teased. “You’re not half bad yourself, considering what I remember.” But this? Balancing on a fucking railing, letting him keep her from falling, that was so her, and he remembered. “Office shit,” he agreed. “I never got the I-Beam thing. A ship is one thing, shit that high is something else.” An office job seemed mind-numbingly boring, but it was money. A paycheck. He’d take what he could get at that point. Manual labor wasn’t anything he’d really considered, but he had no money, no place to stay, and anything would be nice.
“Maybe.” He shrugged again. Indecisive. But when she mentioned a tent and a pool, in a hotel, he thought maybe it couldn’t be so bad. “Yeah, I want to see. Lead the way.”
"Who cares if it makes sense, yeah? Your life was totes defined by what your old man wanted like forever. You're allowed to try shit out now and see what you like, baby. Don't stick yourself in an office right away if you don't want it." She grinned the grin of someone who just didn't give a shit what other people thought, and she liked his firm grip, which made her smile down at his hands a second later. "I always did like your hands," she admitted, testing his grip before that jump down to land at his feet. "If you dig pirates, then dig pirates. Do you have a place there? I could visit." It wasn't like she lived anywhere right now, not permanently. She liked it. It was like not choosing, which was bullshit in its own way, but it was also a big old fuck you! to the hotel. But she wasn't worried about inviting herself wherever he was. Rejection wasn't a big fear now, and she pulled on his fingers when he said he wanted to see the tent. "You never got the I-Beam thing," she echoed as they went. "Fucking understatement. You're a pussy, Neil," she said, but it was grin-fond smiles over her shoulder and messy blonde hair.
Down the stairs to the basement, and the place was all expensive tiles that were chipped and dulled with age. But there was a hazy line of sunlights on one side, and the outside world shined in against all fucking reason, unless the basement wasn't really the basement, but whatever; she didn't care. The water steamed, warm and clean. "I've been here like two weeks or something, yeah? And no one cleans that, but it's always fucking sparkling." She pointed to the bathrooms. "Showers work, and the water's hot. Weird, huh?" But she didn't mind it. After a time loop in the 1940s, nothing surprised her. "Home," she added of the green tent in the corner, and she'd obviously dragged some shit in from doors, because a blanket and pillow were tumbling out, and a lantern was still lit inside.
Neil gave her a long, long look, having forgotten how blunt she was. Not just blunt, no, but honest, and right on the money more often than not. She had a point; he'd done what his parents wanted for a long time. But his parents weren't around, Louis was off doing his thing in Gotham and nobody else was here, so maybe it was time he figure shit out for himself. And if he liked the pirate thing, maybe he should stick with it. He could work his way up, join a crew, maybe even have his own ship someday. "I can't imagine being in an office right now," he laughed. "I like being outside too much." He grinned when she said she'd always liked his hands, a fond thing, and his hold held until she jumped back down to solid ground; even then, though, he didn't let go. Not until her fingers tugged on his and she was leading him along. "I kind of have a place. Not much, just a room above a bar-- uh, or whatever they call them," he admitted. It was a place to sleep and it was loud and rowdy, and there wasn't shit like soap and showers, but it was shelter. "I'm not a pussy," he protested in mock outrage. "I'm hanging out with pirates now, actually. I'm tough."
He'd never been down here before. It was, he reasoned, some magic hotel shit that made it possible for sunlight to shine in and running water to be accessible. "Weird," he echoed, "but not surprising." A tent wasn't much of a home, but maybe that didn't matter. It was good enough for him, and clearly it was good enough for her, too. "Nice. I like it." An in between, and he thought it wasn't a bad idea, not at all.