If you really, really wannakah/Have a happy, happy, happy, happy Hanukkah [OPEN]

[thegreatexperiment]

WHO: Samantha Moon
WHERE: Various parts of the Inn
WHEN: December 2-10
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: Standard language warnings for Sam; nudity and sexy in thread with Danny

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Sam had many talents, but tracking the lunar calendar wasn't necessarily one on her resume. Nevertheless, it was December and she decided that meant Hanukkah was on the way. Her second one in the fucking clown rodeo. Something like her fifth or sixth since dying. Which was just depressing as all hell. As if she needed something else depressing to weigh on her mind.

Last year, she'd cobbled together a menorah out of bolts and spare wires and broken bottle necks. It looked steampunk as hell, but when she managed to pull together enough candles to light the thing up, she had to admit, it was kind of cheery. It was about as out-of-place as they all were, trapped in this Skinner Box of doom, so in that sense, it was perfectly at home. So she lit it every night in the common area of the Inn, on the window ledge.

Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai
E-lo-he-nu Me-lech ha-olam
Something, something
Something
Soooomething
Something, something
Le-had-lik ner
Shel Cha-nu-kah.

Okay, so she didn't remember all the words. It was the thought that counted, right? Sure. Why not.

When she wasn't lighting the candles, she sometimes slipped into the kitchen. The year before, Erik had taught her a recipe for latkes. She remembered most of the basics and tried her hand at it a few times. Not that she could fucking eat any of them, but after the first couple of failed batches, they started to smell pretty amazing. And she left them out on a plate for anyone who came by.

And feeling particularly in the holiday spirit, she set herself up at her favorite table in the corner, with her box of colored pencils. She'd saved scraps of paper where she could, stealing napkins, starched fabric, and what remained of the book Jude had put together for her. On one of the napkins, she wrote "Free Portraits." Back home, she'd done some unofficial work as a police sketch artist. They didn't have photographs of the people they'd left behind. But she could do pretty good approximations. She'd hung up one of her sketches of Avery as an example.

Comments

[thegreatexperiment]

She'd gone upstairs to fetch her pencils, leaving the candles glittering like fireflies against the inky black panes of the window. And she was taking the stairs back down from her room two at a time, at a bit of a trot, until she spotted him.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Nope.

It wasn't that Sam liked Bucky less than she had before. He was still one of the precious few people she didn't fucking hate in this shit show. It was more that she hated herself. You know. More than usual. There was nothing quite like spewing the disgusting and tragic circumstances of your less-than-wholesome origins to someone to make you feel... Yeah. Just, really gross. Which was probably why she'd sort of gone out of her way to avoid him. Because there was no better way to deal with your problems than to not deal with them.

The plan wasn't her most...mature. But it had been working for her. And she figured it would work more. But when she turned to go right back up the stairs again, her heel caught on the lip of one of the steps and she went down like a ton of bricks, face-first, into the staircase. Her pencils went flying like pick-up sticks. And although she was pretty sure it was physiologically impossible, she saw an explosion of stars on the inside of her eyes.

"Ow..."

[freightcars]

Although avoiding might be a strong word for what Bucky was doing, he certainly wasn't actively seeking Sam out. Deliberately actively not seeking her out, which he maintains is not the same thing. It had less to do with the secrets shared after too many drinks (or one drink on her part), and a whole hell of a lot more to do with his inability to reconcile the awkward note it finished out on.

The best judgement had not been executed that night, to say the least. He feels what he figures is an appropriate sense of guilt and responsibility for the downward spiral, and often his way of coping with this is to compartmentalize them and focus on just about anything else. He runs from his problems. Eventually enough time had passed that it sort of took a back seat in his mind, the distance became the new status quo, and that was that.

He sure as hell isn't deliberately an asshole though, and when she has a minor personal earthquake on the stairs he's there in a flash, shooting a hand out to wrap around her arm and gently ease her to sitting.

"Jesus, you catch the plates on that truck?"

[thegreatexperiment]

It figured he'd be a gentleman, in the next minute. That was just the kind of sense her life generally made.

At least he didn't seem completely disgusted by her. Sam wasn't sure how she'd feel, if their positions were reversed. Of course, she did know something about the shit he'd done and had done to him. But it didn't compare, in her mind.

Well. Bucky was the bigger man.

She groaned, touching her nose. "Were you the one who invented that joke?" she asked. When in doubt, always make a joke. That was the way to survive any situation, no matter how uncomfortable.

[freightcars]

He huffs out a soft breath at the question; if you're well enough to sass you're probably gonna be alright. People with concussions usually don't have the best witty replies.

"Pretty sure they invented that one a couple weeks after the first license plate — and no, didn't invent that either." If you're curious about automobile licensing, plates cropped up about thirty years before Barnes ever drove. Drivers licenses were a little before that as well. New York's a hell of a state.

He can't vouch for the state of their drivers these days.

He drops her arm in favor of collecting her scattered pencils with flesh fingers, gripping them precariously in metal one after the next.

[thegreatexperiment]

"Oh, no. You don't have to..."

But that was kind of Bucky's way, wasn't it?

Shaking her head, Sam leaned over to help pick up the mess, letting a curtain of blue curls fall in front of her face. The wig was a hell of her own making, most of the time. But it occasionally provided a useful service.

Or something.

"I've never been hit by a car before," she muttered. "I hear it's not a lot of fun. Worse than getting shot, but not as bad as being lit on fire."

Wow, her smalltalk sucked.

[freightcars]

It was, indeed, kind of Bucky's way. Doesn't take long for them all to be gathered, and he offers them out wrapped in metal fingers as he stares at her with a sort of amused quirk to his lips and his eyebrows. Let it never be said Samantha Moon doesn't have the real conversations.

"Depends on the car and where it hits you," He muses, low and lazy speech, as though from experience. "And where the bullet hits you. But you're right, getting lit on fire's a hell of a lot worse."

A beat, a tilt to the head, and then an afterthought, "Don't let 'em sell you on drowning either. Ain't as fun as they make it out to be."

[thegreatexperiment]

She took the pencils from him, satisfied by the familiar clacking of wood on wood that they made. Comfort food for the soul. "Vampires can't drown," she said, falling easier into the patter of conversation. "But having your lungs fill up with water is really annoying. Mostly because you have to clear it out after."

Which kind of felt like an appropriate metaphor for their conversation.

Sam had done a great job of avoiding the things she'd said. But she had to cough them up eventually.

Or something less strained than that.

"What brings you slumming back to your old haunt?" she asked, walking down the rest of the stairs, over to her table, flickering in the light of her jenky menorah.

[freightcars]

Vampires can't drown, hell, there's an interesting little factoid he'll be filing away. Makes sense, he guesses, not exactly a stake to the heart or garlic or whatever. He pulls a face, and coasts along with the subject change easily.

Nods his head toward her steampunk makeshift menorah and with a sort of wry twist to his lips says, "Heard the call of my people."

Which isn't even remotely true. He'd been wandering in looking for brains from the kitchen to take back to the house, but he'll go with the joke rather than the grim truth of things. "Guessing you made that?"

Not exactly rolling in representation here aside from her, he can't imagine who else would have.

[thegreatexperiment]

His choice of words--which were likely bullshit--were a little bit of a gut punch. The call of 'his people.' Sam had so many weird places, it was hard to keep count. Converting to Judaism had been one of her attempts to...fill in a void. Patch over the hole in her heart. She liked the idea of a religion that encouraged education, that encouraged questions and analysis. But more than that, it was the idea of being able to belong to a group.

She was just shit at finding ways to belong.

And nowhere was that more evident than in the clown rodeo, most of the time. It bit into her like teeth. More so, since she'd managed to push away most of the people she cared about.

Like good old Fucky Darns.

"Sculpture is not my medium," she said, instead of anything even remotely connected to the train of thought.

[freightcars]

He can feel it, that lingering tension, that thread of discomfort between them both. He's many questionable things, but it's never been doubted that he's preceptive. He knows, but as for broaching it? Reassuring her, finding the right words to say?

Sculpture is not my medium; he studies it and teasingly declares, "Nope. Couldn't tell if it was a menorah or a horse."

That's not true. It looks great, actually, but sincerely complimenting her had been weighed against trying to pry into her a little with something less surface level. Ultimately he's better at giving people shit than he is being sincere.

[thegreatexperiment]

"Fuck you," she replied cheerfully.

At least that had that in common. Giving people shit? Definitely the superior way of dealing with most situations.

"There are latkes in the kitchen," she added. "I'm sure they're just about palatable as my vodka, but I can't take credit for the recipe. Picked it up from that Erik guy. Remember him? Always looked like he was sucking on a lemon, no matter what he said?"

Sam couldn't say that she missed him, exactly. But she was sorry he'd joined the ranks of the disappeared, as it were.