sixthiterationlogs | Reason says I should have died three years ago...

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Reason says I should have died three years ago... | OTA

WHO: Sam Moon
WHERE: The Inn's kitchen
WHEN: January 8 (Sam's birthday)
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Language, rumination on violence and death

When you didn't get older, birthdays kind of felt like a joke. At least, that had always been Sam's feeling on the matter. She wasn't really sure where she stood right now, considering the situation. But all she really wanted was to spend the entirety of her birthday in a blanket fort, watching all three of the original Space Wars movies on her iPad. Unfortunately, as so often seemed to be the case, the fates were conspiring against her. Actually, she had pretty much come to the conclusion that it was somehow her own fucking fault she'd been abducted and tossed into this Skinner Box, but Sam had a habit of passing off blame when she could. So it was obviously the fucking fates.

And Karen, of course. She loved blaming Karen for things. And visions of the night they met--her "other birthday," as Karen euphemistically called it--kept going through her head.

She rolled onto her back. The slight motion made her feel unreasonably sick. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make sense of the whirling colors above her, but she couldn't focus. It was like the whole world had been smudged with Vaseline. And something wet was starting to seep into her hair and the cotton of her tee shirt. Sam tried to lift a hand to touch her forehead, but she couldn't.

More sounds rang out above her, like a symphony of violence. But a face suddenly filled her vision, coming into sharp focus. It was the woman who she'd briefly made eye contact with, the one with the short hair. "Samantha?" Her voice echoed. "Samantha, can you hear me?"

"What's going on?" Sam mumbled, not entirely sure she'd actually spoken out loud.

"An excuse to air past grudges," the woman said. She brisky swept Sam's wig off of her head, freezing momentarily at the sight of her red hair beneath. Whatever surprised her, she shook it off quickly, probing at the damage to her forehead. Sam let out a yelp of pain as blackness flashed across her eyes. "Your cranium has been shattered," the woman said. "You're going to bleed into your brain."

To banish the thoughts--really, all of her thoughts, Sam wandered into the kitchen. In the last few weeks she'd become increasingly obsessed with trying to figure out how to build a still. They had potatoes after all. Potato vodka couldn't be that hard. Applied chemistry wasn't her area of expertise, but she figured the challenge would only help keep her mind off of...things.

So her birthday would be spent in the kitchen. Quietly humming It's My Party by Leslie Gore under her breath, she experimented with whatever glasses, tubes, and burners she could rig up. In between each attempt, she would pause to write up a full debrief in the little notebook Jude had given her. Occasionally, birthday cakes and balloons would sneak into the margins of her notes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It had been so long since anyone had touched Sam, beyond a simple handshake, that she was a little bit startled. And this time, it had nothing to do with the fact that it was Major, aka, Hottie McHotterson. It was just a startlingly human feeling.

Vampires weren't huggers.

Sam tried to blink and swallow back the surprise.

But she wasn't much of an actor.

"Um, what, exactly, would you normally suggest, out of curiosity?"

"Oh .. I, uh. Sorry," Major says, withdrawing his hands at her surprise. He gives her a sheepishly apologetic sort of look as he tucks them into his jean pockets and instead rocks a little on his feet. "Ah, well. It depends on the person, but it'd involve alcohol, drunken karaoke probably, ridiculous birthday treats, and going out to dinner somewhere. Either somewhere ridiculous or somewhere really nice. It'd be birthday person's choice."

Sam lowered her eyes a little, trying super hard not to blush. But, of course, humans didn't really have control over how their blood flowed.

Stupid human bodies.

"Well," she said coyly, "if I could pick where to have my birthday dinner, it would be at a Dave and Buster's. Run the board of appetizers. And one of those drinks they have with a plastic, glow-in-the-dark squid crawling out over the side. And then all of the games. All of them."

"D&B, a solid choice!" Major exclaims with a bright smile. He remembers when they first started to pop up throughout the city. It seemed like a dream come true for a video game enthusiast. A place with arcade games everywhere? Where food and alcohol was also served? Hells to the yeah! "I honestly don't remember that drink, but man, do I wanna see it." Ugh. It's convos and moments like these that Major hates the village the most. What he wouldn't give to be able to hit up a D&B, just for a few hours ..

"Well, okay. We obvs can't go there, but how about - we find some stuff to eat. As close as we can get to the apps. I stashed away some alcohol from the last feast, so we can crack open some of it. And then ... Hmm. As for games, that's a little harder, but we can come up with something. I mean, what did people do before there were video games? Aside from die at like, 30?"

It was really very sweet. Sam couldn't help but smile a little bit. There was absolutely no way she was going to get the kind of birthday she'd described. But the fact that Major was talking about trying to make it happen meant more to her, to be honest.

Birthdays had always been rough for Samantha Halper. Even before vampires happened.

"I'm actually trying to cook up some booze here," she said, gesturing to her still. "Potato vodka, although so far I've either gotten potato water, or something that you could probably use to clean your silverware."

"Ooooh, potato vodka," Major replies excitedly in his best Russian accent. It's decent, more like a caricature of the real thing, but it gets his point across. "So long as it doesn't get us all sick, it should be good to go. I saw on Drunk History that when Sir Walter Raleigh went to "The New World" for Elizabeth II, he brought back potatoes because they were a new, crazy thing, and the royal cooks just like .. served it raw. Including the leafy stems, which are totally toxic. Everyone puked in the middle of the dining hall. Including the Queen, which is kiiiinda hilarious, if you think about it."

He gives the still a closer look from a few different angles.

"I'm pretty sure you can clean your silverware with moonshine, so even if you end up with something like that, and it gets people drunk, it will be widely celebrated."

There was a thought. People celebrating Sam. Hell, she’d be thrilled if anyone even noticed she existed. How was it that she had come to have so much middle child syndrome when she was an only child? Well, youngest child actually, she supposed. But only child in all the ways that counted.

“Well, I’m aiming for minimal puke. But that’s good to know,” she said.

She made a broad, sweeping gesture to the bowl at the end of the counter. There was about a pint of murky clear liquid inside. “You’re welcome to sample the product. Although maybe I should have you sign a waiver first.”

"Yeah .. that's why you have to cook them really well, otherwise people can get sick. See? I know some stuff aside from sports and football and fitness gains," Major says to no one in particular. It's not as though Sam had just claimed he has limited knowledge.

He makes a face of consideration as he draws closer to the liquid. Probably a far cry from the Absolut he's used to, but hell - he'll give it a shot. Why not? Even if he dies, he's just .. get sent back home. It's not like he's got much to complain about in that case, except for leaving Ravi behind.

"My waiver is being willing to try it in the first place, I'm pretty sure. But I'll sign something if you really, really want me to."

"It isn't every day you see a voluntary guinea pig," Sam said, folding her arms across her chest and leaning her back against the edge of the counter top. "Go ahead. Let me know how it goes down." She supposed she ought to feel a pang of guilt, considering her family's history of experimentation. But fuck that. It was her birthday.

Anyway, she was reasonably sure it wouldn't actually hurt Major.

Well. Pretty sure, anyway.

...sort of sure?

"I'm pretty sure you'd get a lot of them, if other folks knew you were attempting some kinda home brew here." Major picks up the pint and swirls the liquid around it a few times, bringing it up to the light to inspect. It looks good enough, as far as he's concerned. He lifts it to his nose to give it a whiff, and damn, is it strong. He coughs a few times, taken by surprise by the potency of the stuff, and then lets out a laugh.

"Okay, it's a little stronger than I was expecting. But .. bottoms up!" He takes a swig of the stuff, trying to hold it in his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing it. He starts coughing some more, covering his mouth with his other hand as he does so. Once that's subsided, he waits, looking around like he's expecting something to happen. "Hey, still alive with no new arms or body parts. That stuff is strong as hell, but it tastes enough like vodka to me to call it that!"

She liked to believe that Mendel started out this way.

It probably wasn't true, but hey, it was nice to dream.

Sam grimaced a little, making a few notes in her book. "Okay, I think this one leans closer to the 'silverware polish' end of the scale, but if you're actually calling it vodka, I think that's a definite improvement. More water next time. That might be enough to mellow it out."

Still, she'd call it a win.

Major leans over to take a peak at her notes. He doesn't understand most of them, but he nods as though he's now a part of this crazy experiment. In a way, he supposes, he is - but he is less 'fellow researcher' and more 'test subject.' That's fine. He'd been in that role enough back in his old life with Ravi with the whole zombie thing. This was significantly less lethal and complicated.

"Did you ever do anything like this before? Or are you totally winging it and figuring it out as you go along? I doubt this thing came with any instructions?" he asks, giving the liquid another sniff.

"My area of expertise is biology, not chemistry," she admitted. A member of the Ordo might sneer a little, but Major was way too chill for that. And also not a member of the Ordo. "Genetics, actually. But I took some chemistry classes for fun in high school. Let's call it all...fifty-six percent guess work."

It was a statistic she'd completely made up.

But again, Major was both chill and not Ordo.

"It would go a lot faster if I had the internet..."

"Ah, gotcha," Major says with an understanding nod. "Still seems kinda crazy to me that you and Ravi didn't hit it off. You've got so much in common, with the whole science thing and all." He makes a vague gesture towards her, palm facing out. "He was also oddly avoidant when I asked what he did to make you not like him, by the way. Which makes me think he was just being a general asshat and won't admit it."

Mention of the internet gets a groan.

"To think of all of those dumb videos I used to take for granted. My favorites were the dogs afraid to walk by cats. They always made me laugh for some reason."

Truth be told, Sam had sort of forgotten Ravi even existed. That was the way it went with a lot of people she met in the village. Mostly just because she was so hermit-ish in general. And it was only getting worse, the more she started to realize she was alone. That was a never-ending cycle. A whole ouroborus. Which honestly made her head hurt.

She hated the social sciences.

But leave it to Major to say something so pure and simple.

Sam smiled slightly. "That's because cats are badass and dogs are dumbshits," she replied. "Scientific fact."

"Hey hey hey now!" Major says with a slight pout, both on his face and in his tone. "As the proud co-father of a soon-to-be-full-fledged dog, I resent that statement. Minor is plenty smart, thank you. I raised him to be a smart, independent dog who don't need no man. I mean, aside from me and Ravi, who are his human parents. So, I guess a smart, independent dog who only needs two men. I did have a cat growing up, though. We uncreatively called it "Kitty," but he was awesome. I loved that thing."

Oh, so very much to parse out in that sentence.

Sam blinked a few times, staring at Major. The fact that he had a cat named 'Kitty' and now a dog named 'Minor' were...well, given the fact that he was Major, she could see it. But the fact that he was 'co-parenting' a dog with Ravi?

Well, the could lead her to only one conclusion.

"Are you and Ravi...like...a thing?" Because Major was way too hot for Ravi. Ravi was a five, at best. Maybe a six if he got rid of that stupid beard. But Major? A hot nine.

".... What?" Major asks, blinking. He ... doesn't really get it. Not at first. But then, the proverbial lightbulb goes off, his eyes widen, and he tosses back his head to let out a belly laugh. He keeps going for a little bit before dabbing at the tears that've formed at his eyes, shaking his head. "No, no. Oh man, no. Too bad, right?

I mean, if I were into dudes, Ravi would be The One, I think, but sadly, no. We are just BFFs." A pause. "I mean, I say just, but it's not just, you know? He's .. saved me so many times over. I trust him with my life."

So much for that theory. Sam was still puzzled, but she supposed a big part of that lay in the fact that she'd never had a BFF.

She barely even had Fs.

There was Avery, she supposed. But that was a whole different ball of crazy. Anyway, Avery wasn't here. And she'd probably never see him again. And there were days when she didn't really know how she felt about that.

Sam shrugged. "Saved your life how?" When in doubt about your own feelings, always talk about someone else's.

"Oh, uh." It's been a little while since Major first met Sam, and honestly, their first conversation's gotten a little .. fuzzy, at this point. He reaches up to rub at his chin and face, looking at her through a slight squint. "I told you about the whole, um, like .... zombie ... thing, right? Back in Seattle? Before I came here?"

She nodded. Zombies were a little hard to forget.

And that was coming from a vampire. Or...well. Recovering vampire. Or something.

"What did he do? Please tell me it involved flamethrowers. I really, really need it to involve flamethrowers." For the hilarious imagery. And because flamethrowers were just kind of awesome.

Major seriously considers the suggestion of flamethrowers, wracking his memory to see if such a thing had happened. After a few moments, he shakes his head sadly.

"No, I don't think .. there were any .. flamethrowers involved. Not as far as I can remember. Which is a surprising disappointment." He considers her with a tilt of his head. "How much did I tell you?"

"Well," Sam drawled, "I'd say 'the basics,' except that I don't know if that's true or not. Zombies are real. A lot of them live in Seattle. Ravi was doing the science-y stuff. And you were doing the brain-eating stuff."

Too soon?

Didn't matter.

"Was he, like, your zombie-survival mentor or something? Teaching you how to not kill people?"

"Huh. I told you a lot considering I just met you," Major says with a light laugh. He doesn't seem to be bothered. He isn't. "Ah, well. It started - at least for me - with my ex-fiancee. She was the one who got turned first, a couple months before our wedding. Obviously ... all of that got cancelled, and .. it .. uh, took a while before she finally told me what was really going on. But Ravi had been the first one to figure it out after she'd been turned." He glances down at the floor, where he moves a stray pebble around with the toe of his shoe. "I got caught up in some real shady stuff, and Ravi .. really stood by me, through all of it. Even though he really, really didn't have to. At all." A pause. "I mean, Liv did, too ... zombie solidarity and everything, but Ravi didn't have to. But he did. And he did everything he could, along with Liv, to get me .. uh. Well, out of prison. Before I basically went Romero and ate everyone's brains in the joint."

Went Romero? She liked that.

But they'd discuss it later.

"A zombie in prison. That does sound like a potentially awkward situation." Same could be said for a vampire, she supposed. "Kudos to Ravi. Eating everyone is...wrong? I'm guessing."

Reason says I should have died three years ago... | OTA

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