Entry tags:

Down the Tubes - Discovery

WHO: Stephanie Brown
WHERE: The lake, the bunker
WHEN: 8/26
OPEN TO: Bull (part 1), OTA (part 2)
WARNINGS: TBA, please note in subject lines

AT THE LAKE/UNDERGROUND

LOCKED TO BULL

The number of people gravitating towards the lake has been worrying to Steph. She wants to keep an eye on things, but she's worried that getting too close will trigger something. She watches people pass by instead, keeping herself hidden and not following them. Finally several people leave all at once, and all but one come back. After that things quiet down, and she feels safe taking a slightly closer look.

Out of the trees and the lake comes into view, as does the new addition. The pod is intriguing enough that she wanders out into the open for a closer look.

ON THE NETWORK/LAKESIDE

OTA/MINGLE

The little escapade underground has left Steph with an odd sense of anxiety and a newfound appreciation for the open air. She can't quite put her finger on what unsettled her, but she knows that as long as the pod is out here in the open she and Bull aren't going to be the only ones to step inside and see what happens. If it's going to be a whole Thing then they may as well compile notes. That means letting people know, and that means posting to the village twitter. She sits on a rock at the edge of the lake and composes her message.

no telling (@StephanieBrown) found something cool... the pod at the lake is an elevator. lights work, but idk about the structural integrity or security measures. be careful.

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Sam did not appreciated being snapped at, and she folded her arms to demonstrate her displeasure. But, she supposed, it was a sign of her character growth that she didn't immediately snap back at him. Either that or Danny was just magic.

Or both. Both was always possible these days.

"It's possible where I'm from," she said in a low voice. "I've been studying it the last four years." Not to mention she wouldn't really exist without it. But she wasn't ready to tell Danny that. Especially not when he was being cranky and irritable. "And it wouldn't surprise me much if they'd messed with all of our DNA before dropping us here. I know for a fact they fucked with mine."

Danny's anger melted as quickly as it had come. He knew that Sam was something, as far as species or however someone wanted to classify it as, but was it possible to know that someone had messed with her DNA. He wasn't sure how that sort of thing would manifest itself. Could it take away his abilities as the Ironfist?

She was a scientist and very smart but the only way he'd have an answer to his question was if he asked.

"How did they fuck with your DNA?"

There, question asked.

The question didn't bother Sam all that much. There was definitely something to be said for living out in the open. It would give Avery a fucking stroke but...

Well. Avery didn't count here.

"When I first got here," she said, looking at him along the line of her shoulder, "I was human. Like, fully human. Eat, drink, and sweat." And poop and have periods and all the other lovely, wonderful, fascinating things she'd somehow managed to...forget.

She missed them all.

Clearing her throat, she shook her head a little. "Then, about a year later, just...poof. Suddenly I'm a vampire again. No warning. No...dying. It just happened."

Danny stared at Sam with a hint of uncertainty clouding his features. That sounded... awful.

"I'm sorry." He probably shouldn't have snapped at her either but Danny was a stubborn person and he didn't really like apologizing. He did it but he didn't like it.

"That's-" He didn't want to think about it.

Danny sparred one last look at the pod before refocusing on Sam. "You were fishing." And she had caught something.

It wasn't often that people apologized to Sam. Less often for things that were honestly beyond anyone's control. Things that happened to her. Done to her. Since she was so rarely an active agent in her own life. Especially here.

She didn't quite know how to receive it. Other than to nod a little awkwardly.

And thank the fuck for the excuse to look down at the silver fish dangling from the tether, which she'd honestly forgotten about in light of the whole pod thing.

"Not exactly as impressive a catch as that," she said, nodding her head out to the pod. "But I'm just a n00b."

Sam looked up at him, raising an eyebrow slightly. Did he think she'd back away from a challenge? Not her style. And if he thought so, he was in for a world of surprises.

Danny was awkward with apologies and was happy to skim pass it.

Noob? That was a new phrase and one that he'd have to ask Rose or Vergil about later. Not that he didn't think that Sam wouldn't answer him but he'd already bombarded her with enough questions.

They were focused on her now.

His arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows rose. "Did you fail first?" He really wanted to ask her how that made her feel but that sounded silly when he first said it in his head. Hopefully she'd be able to read his desire for details in his expression as he focused on her.

The question nearly made her giggle. And Sam wasn't a giggler. It was only that he might as well have been reading the script of every single Kung-Fu movie she'd ever seen. Toss in The Karate Kid and some Ninja Turtles, too. And, of course, she was still Yoda. She couldn't forget that.

"Yes, Monkey," she said, when she felt she could get the laughter under control a little. "I failed first."

It was, of course, what he wanted to hear.

Also true.

"Quite a lot, if you wanna know the truth. Lots of facefuls of water." She'd ended up doing a lot of private fishing, so she could take her wig off.

Danny resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the nickname. He didn't mind it, not really, but it gave the impression that Sam wasn't taking his lesson seriously. He doubted that was the case but it was still incredibly frustrating.

"What did you do when you failed?"

He didn't actually know how to fish, which was going to become the second part of this exercise, but he assumed that she faced a few different challenges with this task.

"Got stubborn," she replied. Which was, perhaps, not the most artful way of phrasing it, but it was definitely the most Sam way. Grit, perseverance, determination. All shades of the same thing. Sam had many social-emotional competencies that were lacking. Like. Severely.

But this was one area where she excelled.

She leaned her spear against a spindly tree trunk, tossing the line holding the fish over a low branch.

"And drank and vomited a lot of pond water," she added.

Danny nodded his head. Stubborn was good. It was all he had when he had randomly decided to become the Ironfist. He hadn't even really understood the position or known what it was going to involve, he'd seen it and he had wanted it.

Her last remark confused him.

"You don't fish with your teeth."

She gave him a crooked look. "I fell in."

It was stunning how he could have such wonderful insight one moment, then be laughably literal the next. Again, she couldn't help but shake the sense that there was something Avery-ish about him.

But that was just too complicated.

"It was quite disgusting. I won't be reenacting that part for you, any time soon."

"Face first?"

Danny's mouth cracked into a smile at the mental imagine that it painted in his mind. He had no idea how she managed to fall into the water but it was likely an amusing story that she wouldn't want to share with him.

"That's okay. I don't have to see it." Even if he was burning with curiosity.

"I'm glad you're taking it seriously."

Sam saw that smirk. And she walked over to give him a gentle shove. "Don't you dare laugh," she said. Honestly, it didn't bother her all that much. It was one of the first normal things she'd really witnessed in Danny. Authentic. Other than punching the wall, of course. She couldn't blame him for that either. "Don't you even smirk, Mister Daniel I-Don't-Know-Your-Middle-Name Rand. It wasn't funny."

Except that it was kind of funny.

In retrospect, anyway. As most things were.

"Barfing is no joke," she said. "Especially in a vampire. I mean, it's just nasty. Unsanitary." Kind of like when she cried. Although, again, kinda of funnier. In hindsight.

His smile grew and the light green hue of his eyes danced with amusement but he didn't laugh. Danny was enjoying teasing her, it wasn't really something that he got to do very often. "Thomas. My middle name is Thomas." He was so used to people knowing his full name that he didn't really mind telling anyone.

That and Thomas was a pretty standard middle name for a guy.

"I think that's the case for everyone." He nodded to her fish. "Those won't go bad out here, will they?" It'd be a shame if her catch went to waste.

Daniel Thomas Rand. It had the ring of a wealthy, white heir to it. She filed that away for future teasing and breathed a slight, metaphorical, sigh of relief that he didn't ask for hers. That was always a bit of an awkward conversation. And, anyway, he was scoldy enough without trying to middle name her. She was bound to fuck up again.

Likely very soon when she said...

"They should be fine. And anyway, the pod is a little more important than fish right now." She glared out at it, breaching the water with some sort of self-importance. She would have given their Overlords the same look, but they seemed wise enough to keep to the shadows.

For now.

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Down the Tubes - Discovery

AT THE LAKE/UNDERGROUND

ON THE NETWORK/LAKESIDE

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