Penny Adiyodi (4yourthoughts) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2018-12-07 23:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, *diana, *kristy, *melissa, kady orloff-diaz, penny adiyodi |
December 8
SAM DIAZ-ADIYODI ✦ KADY ORLOFF-DIAZ ✦ PENNY ADIYODI
HI I'M YOUR KID 1 OF 1000 PROBABLY? LOL MOSTLY G EXCEPT FOR ALL THE CURSING COMPLETE |
It’d been an unusual day. Waking up in Intake, a place she’d certainly seen before but never from this side or from this time, had been alarming. The wave of emotions had hit empathic Sam like a ton of bricks, her walls down just enough to get the rush of everyone reacting to the weird circumstance. She’d settled into her mind again before too long, listening curiously and carefully as the situation was explained to her and to the others. They were in the past, and they’d been brought back to be with certain loved ones for the holidays. Their loved ones had been notified that someone was there to see them, and their name, but that left a lot of explanations out. Growing up in Atlantis made the description less weird than it probably should’ve been, in truth. She’d spotted Astrid, which alleviated that concern, and then set off to find the young versions of her parents, mentally preparing herself for a few very predictable reactions. Penny was one hundred and ten percent sure someone was fucking with them. His emotions had jumped on a weird rollercoaster the second he’d seen Kady’s last name hyphenated with his own and now Intake was saying he had a daughter waiting in there. He’d met up with Kady along the way and glanced over at her now for a bolstering bit of courage. He wasn’t cowardly but shit, this made him feel more off-balance than any of the weird here ever had. Reaching out to push open the door with one hand and pull Kady along with the other, Penny tried to keep his voice joking and cavalier, but pretty much failed. “She better look like you,” he said. “I mean, I make it work, but I’d feel bad for any girl stuck with this forehead.” Kady hadn’t really spoken since getting the news, and the slack jawed expression she had on was showing no signs of disappearing any time soon. All of this was so unbelievable and weird and scary that she wasn’t aware of all these feelings so much as a whole lot of white noise. And panic. It was good she had Penny there (usually, but more so today) because otherwise she might not have gone through the door. Since he pulled her and she was a little bit on autopilot, Kady walked in after him, mumbling an unintelligible reply to his quip about their daughter’s looks. As if that was the biggest concern when they were about to face someone with her for a mother. “I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I-” she looked up at Penny and made a sound quite like a whimper. If knowing her parents by sight wasn’t enough, Sam was certainly familiar with their particular brand of emotions. She felt them before she spotted them, that familiarity letting them cut through the other noise like a knife. At the sight, her head cocked a little, and she smiled. They were so young! She couldn’t remember them so young. She could feel the outright panic like a tidal wave, and she made her way towards it anyway. She was on edge, but that wasn’t at all related to her own emotions. Still, she smiled as she stopped before them, every bit an unmistakable mix of both of her parents with her wild hair and her clothing that definitely was better suited to the warmer weather she’d come from. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Samaira. Sam. Please don’t explode.” Penny had been holding onto the ‘this is all just bullshit anyway’ shield pretty tightly, but the panic in Kady’s voice made his heart race. If it was true and knowing about it actually drove her away, what then? He was half a second from just hauling her right back through the doors again when Sam’s voice snagged him out of the fog. “Uhh…” Wow, way to sound like a brainless zombie, Penny. “No promises,” he managed to mutter as he took in all the ways she looked like Kady. Rude or not, he went straight for the mindread to see if she had anything worthwhile for mental shields. Kady stood very still as she watched their supposed daughter approach. The only movement she made was to squeeze Penny’s hand so hard it might have hurt, and then to slide slightly behind him like a frightened child hiding behind her parent. Ironic. It was funny; the way her stomach and lungs felt actually did make her feel like she was exploding, and that in turn made Kady let out a nervous laugh before she bit her lip to resume silence and half stare at half observe Samaira. She was so beautiful; maybe not a carbon copy of Penny, but definitely a distinct reminder. “I’m sorry.” She blurted out, since her first instinct was to apologize in advance (but also maybe way too late). Kady was good at many things, she was many things, but a mother didn’t seem like one of them and she could only assume she had fucked it up at some point. Or would fuck it up? Sam usually didn’t bother with mental wards unless she was overloaded, but she could feel Penny prying so she slapped a few up, smiling apologetically. “Sorry, you… really don’t want to be in there right now,” she said aloud, pointedly. “I’m an empath, and,” she gave a sweeping gesture, “we’re in emotional overload. You’d be very annoyed.” Looking to her mother, she tilted her head a little as she watched her almost-hide, still smiling. She was gentle in her approach, because she knew to be from both her training and her knowledge of her parents. “For what? You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” She shrugged. “You’re excellent parents; I’m very lucky.” Penny’s eyebrows furrowed together, both at Kady feeling like she needed to apologize and at, well, everything Sam had just said. He couldn’t zero in on the ‘excellent parents’ thing. He wanted to, but his pulse was racing and the best he could manage was to press a hand to the back of his neck and clear his throat. “Thanks, I guess. Even if I do feel like I should apologize too now. An empath. Shit.” His eyes closed for a moment, a hundred unasked questions twisting his lips into knots, then he gave Kady an uncertain glance. “I thought this was a trick.” It took Kady a second to understand what was going on but once she did, Kady looked up at Penny with a look of slight outrage even though she might have done the same thing in his place. Still, as soon as Sam said she was an empath Kady cringed and wanted to apologize all over again. Whatever she was getting off of them both couldn't be fun. Of course immediately after, Sam turned to her and made the most unbelievable statement so far. Kady actually chuckled in disbelief. There was no way in hell she could be an excellent parent. "Are you sure I'm your-" she shrugged in place of the word 'mother'. It wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility that Penny had had to take her bullshit one too many times and decided to split, and maybe this kid was his but not hers. Then again, surely a person knew their own mother if they had been raised by her, even if she looked years younger. It wasn't long until she felt stupid for asking, but still extremely confused and taken aback by all of this. When she felt Penny glance at her Kady looked back at him, nodding without saying anything. “Oh, don’t. It’s alright,” she said, smiling to the apology. “I actually am pretty good at it. The emotion surges are kind of a bitch, but I’ve got coping mechanisms, and I can use it to help people.” She shrugged. “But… you know, if I start crying randomly, don’t be alarmed. It’s a thing.” “My mother? Yeah. And you’re my father. You raised me together, too,” she said, and bounced a little on her heels with some anxious energy. She was quiet a moment, letting that silence exist even if she wanted to fill it, and then she tucked hair behind her ear. “Do you want to ask me questions? I can tell you whatever, I just don’t want to overload you with information without the prompting,” she said. “You’re so fucking polite,” Penny blurted, something closed to amused affection laced in the words. It was half-buried under the sudden anxiety-inducing realization that the two of them made a person and raised her to like, take care of herself. And apparently take care of other people? Here, in this madhouse. Probably? He frowned and coughed past the dryness in his throat. Clamping down on his emotions was harder than it should’ve been. “You grew up here?” This girl, amazing and articulate, seemingly well adjusted and bearing no ill feelings toward her, sounded too good to be true. It was really hard to believe Kady wouldn't fuck this up. There was no evidence to support she wouldn’t. Except Sam herself, unless Atlantis had decided to really amp up the cruelty. The fact that Sam added that she and Penny had raised her together, thus would spend years and years together where Kady had already spent tortuous months alone while he was barely there and then not at all… Kady covered her mouth with her hand as a steady stream of tears running down her cheeks beyond her control. So much for Sam being the one to start crying suddenly. Penny's observation brought a trembling, nervous snicker out of her. Kady had squeezed Penny's hand way too hard again and now tried to dry her tears with her sleeve. "And you're... you're okay?" “I know, isn’t it the worst?” she laughed. “You ought to see me when I’m mad. I’m told I basically steam from the ears.” She rocked onto one hip, the posture very much her mother’s, and folded her arms over her chest. “Yeah, my whole life. Everything calmed down after the war, aside from the weird shit that happens from time to time -- I spent a February as a goddamn llama a few years ago.” She rolled her eyes. The crying from Kady prompted empathetic tears in her own eyes, but she wiped them away without much more than a smile. “I like to think so,” she said, shrugging a shoulder. “I’m in school, finishing up my degree. I’m going to be a therapist. And I have a girlfriend, who you can meet too when you’re exploding a little less; I saw her earlier, so she’s here to see her parents too. I’m a Magician, too.” She smiled. “I’m very okay.” Kady crying was Penny’s number one kryptonite. But he was grateful he knew her well enough to recognize the shape of the feelings causing the tears. He casually lifted their clasped hands to his chest and held them there as he spoke. “An empathic therapist is pretty much my nightmare job,” he joked. “But…” Penny trailed off into silence for a moment, just enough time to really start thinking how a life with Kady and an apparently compassionate kid might look. Eventually, he blew out a breath and managed a smile that was more smile than grimace. “I’m, uh, glad you’re okay. And have a temper, honestly. Too chill would be fucking obnoxious,” he smirked. The combination of Sam's verbal description of her fury with her stance made Kady slack-jawed all over again. It was, for a second, like looking in a mirror. The longer Sam went on about what a happy, stable life she had, the more Kady cried silently while also smiling. They were a family, she finally accepted. She was, unbelievably, allowed to have a family - with Penny, alive and well - and they had to be happy enough to raise such an awesome kid. The question of how the hell they'd get there remained, though. Of course she agreed with every statement Penny made, although now she felt a little stupid since she couldn’t help a dreamy look on her face every time he was in view. Or Sam. "I'm sorry, I'm..." Kady cleared her throat, chuckling sheepishly. "Kind of a mess, but you probably know that. Do you wanna... Sit down somewhere? Talk, have some food or something?" At that, Sam laughed. “Yeah, you said something like that when I told you the first time, too,” she said. “And you say that now, but you haven’t seen me angry.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I think you mostly enjoyed being able to get away with expressing yourself without having to always say it out loud, growing up. I don’t read minds, so I don’t always know why people feel the way they do, but I’m pretty good at reading a room -- as you might imagine.” She was delighted by the smile, though. “It’s completely understandable, mama. You don’t need to apologize,” she said, smiling affectionately and not realizing she’d slipped in the name. “This is a lot to take in, but I think we’ll have some time together so you can wrap your minds around it a little easier. Fortunately,” she began, and offered a playful wink, “I already know how much you two love me, so I can be patient while you get to know me better.” At the suggestion, she was very relieved. “Oh, god yes. Somewhere quiet, please. Intake is kind of an emotional clusterfuck right now.” What she said about not needing to say as much made sense and his eyebrows rose in a ‘huh’ expression. He couldn’t imagine he always managed to keep bad feelings - most of which probably had nothing to do with her - from spilling over into her lap, though. He’d have to work at that. And, fuck. A million other things. It took a moment of staring at Sam after the ‘how much you two love me’ part for him to realize his emotions were probably broadcasting a weird sense of relief. “I...somewhere quiet we can do. And food. This one should eat too,” he said, pointedly looking at Kady with his chin down. He reached up to swipe some of the dampness from her cheeks and gestured at the door. “Come on. This will all feel a lot less batshit with tapas and margaritas involved. Probably.” Penny might not have seen Sam angry, but Kady now had a feeling that when he did it wouldn't be entirely new. Kady smirked, both weirded out and glad to feel a kind of affinity with Sam all to do with their apparently similar explosive tempers. She still frowned upon realizing how hard it must be to know how someone was feeling but not why. Especially as a kid. "That must've been hard..." There was an almost audible gasp when Sam called her mama. It was both terrifying and amazing, and it made Kady freeze in place for a second. Once the moment wore off Kady's expression seemed to melt into pure endearment, which also only lasted a couple of seconds. Stoicism didn't just vanish when you found out you had a kid, for God's sake. But Sam kept on being endearing, teasing all this love and closeness and things Kady couldn't feel about her own mother without that pang of hurt for literally everything else. Her feelings on Hannah had always been complicated. Thankfully Sam didn't seem to feel that way about Kady. In a completely unconscious gesture of familiarity, Kady looked from Penny to Sam with an eyeroll as he stated that she should eat too. Her head tilted as if to say "You know how he is" because some part of her was sure Sam did. Smiling, she took a step toward the door but waited for Sam to fall in step with them as she snorted. "Did you mean Mimosas? Because I don't know if going hard on the tequila with tiny food is a great opening." “It was. It is, sometimes. I’ve got good coping skills, though, and Astrid makes for an excellent grounding point when I’m not at home with you two.” After all, Sam couldn’t (and wouldn’t) pretend that she was this calm and collected all the time. In fact, this here was definitely put on, at least in part, for the benefit of her far more panicked parents. She wasn’t unsettled in meeting them, and she thankfully really didn’t feel like she needed to vy for their love, but her emotions were far more shot than she was letting on from everyone else. She was definitely ready to get out of Intake. The gasp made her brow knit together, and then she made an apologetic face. “Oh god, sorry. Was that too much too soon? I wasn’t paying attention; I don’t want to freak you out,” she said. At the head tilt, though, she laughed once more, adoring the opportunity to watch them so young and in love and picking at each other this way. She followed their lead, stepping up to Kady’s side as they made their way towards the door. “And really, I’m not sure you’re quite ready to meet Tequila Sam. Mimosas are a better choice.” “Look, you two can drink whatever you want, I’m going for the margarita,” Penny huffed out on a laugh. It was disturbingly easy to think he was probably not at all bothered being outnumbered by women in their family. Shit, their family. The heavy duty words were a bit too much for his emotionally constipated self to deal with just yet. “I want to hear more about these coping skills. And Astrid.” Penny moved ahead of them to push the door open wide and gestured to let them pass in front of him. “Just...let’s save the ‘is it too early to call you mom and dad’ talk until we get drinks and can turn down the weird by like thirty percent, okay?” Kady smiled both at the second mention of Sam's girlfriend, Astrid and at how it seemed like they were such good parents she still counted them as a grounding influence as an adult. She hadn't meant to make Sam feel bad about calling her anything, so Kady had the grace to look embarrassed as she raised a hand and waved it dismissively. "Oh, no no it's... it's okay..." She wasn't really sure she wanted to be called anything parental-adjacent just yet but it'd be pretty shitty to get mad at her own daughter for being used to it. "Still a little weird, is all." While this thought didn't really want to form in her mind, Kady had to eventually come to terms with the fact that any offspring of her and Penny's would probably at least like booze, but most likely be a boozehound. Even a well-adjusted one. Still, they could work their way up to tequila. Except apparently not Penny. Kady didn't say anything but rubbed his back as a comforting gesture, as if she could sort of guess half his motivation for wanting heavier booze was how weird all this was. "Astrid. Cool name. We can start there for sure, maybe make it to fifty percent. And we need to know what the rules are about future spoilers... Eventually. Don't worry about it right now." They'd be lucky if their overloaded minds could come up with anything to ask during this meal in the first place. |