sixthiterationlogs | I'm waving through a window, oh, can anybody see, is anybody waving back at me? [OPEN]

WHO: Samantha Moon
WHERE: Various Locations (see below and put one in your subject!)
WHEN: First week of October
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Will update as needed, but just assume Sam's potty mouth

Kitchen at the Inn
It scared Sam a little bit that she was starting to develop a routine. But she was. And whether that meant she was settling down or giving in, she couldn't really say. And she wasn't sure she wanted to analyze it too much. At any rate, for the time being, she was just sort of going with it. Which meant that the first thing she did in the morning was swing by the kitchen. She always waited until after people had done their breakfast thing, so she wouldn't be in the way. Or, more accurately, so her Rube Goldberg-esque distillery wouldn't be in the way.

She usually made about three batches of potato vodka every day, at this point. As long as there were potatoes. She was always careful to cut out the eyes and save them for the botany freaks. Sometimes, she would experiment, trying to mix in different flavorings.

They usually all tasted vile.

But that was fine, since the vodka was strong enough to burn off a normal person's taste buds, anyway.

There was something calming about sitting on the counter, watching the way the diamond-like bubbles traveled through the tubes. Like one of those glittery stress-relievers on the corner of a professor's desk. Sam played little mind games, counting and following and observing. Anything she could do to avoid thinking.

Didn't help much. She still saw Avery's name, like a fucking neon sign on the inside of her eyelids, every time she blinked.

Spear Fishing
Sam decided it was pretty safe to assume that she'd never go down in history as a singularly spectacular fisher. But there was a gross, morbid satisfaction to spearing fish. Likely, it was a combination of factors, the most obvious being that what she really wanted to spear was the faces of their generous Overlords. At least fishing was more productive than hitting a tree with a lead pipe. Her hands still stung from all of the cuts and bruises she'd inflicted on herself. Not to mention the ones Danny had given her.

She wadded up to her calves in the water. The Overlords had given her a pair of black, short pants with laces up either side that, unfortunately, delighted her little Goth-loving heart. And they were perfect for getting wet. Sometimes she wore them with her scrub tops or some of the shirts she'd collected over the past year and a half, but today, she was just in a sports bra.

One thing she would absolutely never take for granted again was the way the sunlight felt on her skin.

Schoolhouse Library
Of the many gifts she'd received from the Overlords, the one Sam trusted the least was the large set of colored pencils. She'd watched one-too-many horror movies growing up. She kept expecting some bizarre plot twist. Every time she'd draw with red, someone would lose blood. If she drew monsters, they'd come to life. Somehow, drawing a picture of something might whoosh it into the circus. The usual tropes from her life before she was, in fact, the monster at the end of the horror movie.

But there was nothing.

Which wasn't to say she started to trust or anything like that. But she did start to draw.

And out of a desperate need to be useful to someone, she'd taken it upon herself to start decorating the library with headers for each category of books. Science. Sports. Mathematics. All of it. With perfect, neat handwriting, she labeled the sections, then drew little pictures around and through the letters. Spinning planets with rings of fire. The pennant over Wrigley Field (if only...). An elegant Pi, like a rusty shed with a roof curved by the rain.

The project was good for long nights, when Sam couldn't sleep. But sometimes, she'd be in the middle of drawing something that would remind her of...

She blinked and saw it again. Avery's name.

And somehow, on stolen bits of paper and old napkins, his face started to appear, thin and bony and redheaded. Just like she remembered him. Just like he'd been when he...

...no. There was no point in thinking about what he'd done to her any more.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The ultimate end was always control. Or at least feeling in control. Sam couldn't say that in so many words. But the idea of just being able to find an answer felt like the first sense of forward motion she'd experienced in months.

But he had a bro of his own. And Sam knew how it was. Given the choice between hanging with her or hanging with someone from home, they always picked someone from home.

She didn't see herself doing research any time soon.

Fuck, she missed Grace. And would have missed Avery too. If she weren't still so furious.

So she shrugged. "I'm here if you need me."

Bruce pauses, tilting his head at her. It's hard to get a read on a stranger, although he's a very perceptive person. "I said all of us, not the two of us." He and Tony did have a tendency to work together as if they were one entity. Seeing them together in their natural habitat was more like a scientific dance than two colleagues doing their own parts of a project. He can't deny that working with them could make someone feel left out, but it doesn't mean no one else is welcome.

He smiles at her. "It's your idea, Sam. I'm here if you need me."

It was honestly the kind of thing Sam needed to hear more often. She knew that the people here largely weren't dicks and weren't trying to exclude her on purpose. But it still happened. Just like in any high school, minus the...well, no. Not minus the raging hormones.

But definitely minus the zits.

"Our idea," she said diplomatically. Nothing would please her more than working with someone. Especially someone as cool as Bruce.

"Our idea," he agrees warmly. It seems his hunch was the right one, and he's glad. Sam is a nice young woman and clearly a bright one too. Bruce knows a little bit about women in STEM being overlooked, and he would never do the same. Seeing Betty's struggle was hard, and he can only hope things have gotten better since then. It's been a long time since he was involved with anything other than running and fighting.

"We can divvy up tasks. One of us finds equipment that might work or can be rigged with supplies, the other goes looking for willing test subjects. Do you have a preference?"

Sam sucked in air between her teeth. "You should probably be in charge of finding the test subjects." Over-inflated though her ego could sometimes be, Sam knew her own personality well enough to know she couldn't handle any of the HR portion of the program. "I can reach out to Tony to work on the equipment," she said. "Unless you think he'd respond better to you asking."

She was more of an engineer than a mechanic.

And more of a biologist than an engineer.

"I can do that." Bruce hesitates at the next part and then nods. "You should. He'll do anything I suggest, so it'd be good for you to at least give your point of view and bounce some ideas off him." Tony will roll with what his platonic life partner wants no matter what, just as Bruce always drops everything to help him on his projects. That's who they are. It seems a good idea for Sam and Tony to talk if they're going to work together in the future. "He and I have times where we share a brain, so outside voices are helpful."

Bruce picks up a book and waves it at her. "I'll start on my end, you start on your end, and we might get something started soon. On top of all the other projects. This place is not going to be boring for us any time soon."

[ooc: leading to a wrap soon if that's okay with you!]

She nodded. The idea of interacting with people gave her the wiggings, but she could swallow it to at least approach Tony. For better or for worse, he seemed to be into fixing everything that was broken about the hell hole.

Not everything could be fixed, of course. But at least they could diagnose the problems.

"Cool," she said. Which was probably the first, last, and only time anyone had said as much about jenky scientific research.

She smiled anyway. "This'll be...cool."

[ooc: We can wrap now if you like!]

[ooc: yay thank you!!!]

I'm waving through a window, oh, can anybody see, is anybody waving back at me? [OPEN]

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