[OPEN] And I'll dream each night of some version of you

[closureisformovies]

Who: Alice Dyer (closureisformovies), Samama "Sam" Khalid (huntingtruths) & you!
What: Alice and Sam arrive back from their canon update
When: Early May
Where: Around, locations in prompts
Warnings: Reference to gun violence; typical horror protagonist things; specifics in headers. Magnus Protocol Spoilers up to Episode 40.
Notes: Open prompts for both Alice and Sam will be down in the comments! Body of the post is meta/closed to Sam.



It's just her luck, really. Goes to talk to some spooky external— thing and don't even die because it's dangerous, oh no, that'd be too logical. She was prepared for that risk. Getting accidentally shot by her overeager bodyguard she didn't ask for? That's the level of absurdity that her life is made of, these days, so of course that's what happened instead.

(Gwen Bouchard, when she fucking sees you again...)

The memories hit when Mortanne welcomes her back and with it, the fact that Sam was here, too, the first time, so if she's here again, then surely— maybe— she almost doesn't dare to ask but she does and Mortanne says yes, and, well, after that it's all she can do not to cry with relief.

She's alone on the ferry, except for ferryman. It's the most nervewracking few minutes of travel of her life and she spends it shifting from foot to foot, scratching at her arm, pulling at her hair—nervous, scared, anxious, excited, she doesn't know. She just knows that Mortanne wouldn't lie. So she pays her fare, steps off the boat, and then stands on the dock to wait.

She's not going anywhere until he turns up. She doesn't care how long it takes.

Comments

[closureisformovies]

Married.

Back up. That universe's Sam, dead of one of the most preventable, routine organ failures known to man. She remembers visiting him in the hospital, leaving that stupid magazine under his pillow just for the fun of it. One of the few times they saw each other in person since they split. She'd heard and been worried, swung by just to see that he was okay. Even now it's hard to imagine him dying of something so... mundane.

"...sounds kinda like Gerry's world," comes out easier than anything else, the words to talk about that strange tangle of emotions taking time to unknot themselves into sentences. "But worse. Like something happened."

End of the world. Yeah, sounds about right.

She tries to find words for another five, ten seconds before all what comes out is an emphatic: "FFFFFuck." She can't keep her eyes on him, they end up on the sky as she throws her head back and drags her hands down her face. "Married. What the fuck. We'd barely even..."

Even brushed up against the topic. Wasn't like she hadn't thought about it. Wasn't like she hadn't wanted it. Back then it really felt like Sam was her future. Until he wasn't.

"And— drugging herself to..." Exhale. "I-I don't even know what to do with that, Sam."

[huntingtruths]

Shaking his head Sam can understand it's a lot.

"You get why I wanted somewhere to sit down? When she recalled it she was so precise and like....like she was reliving it in the moment. But I didn't notice how wrong that felt until we were leaving. Georgie found a tape recorder, which are apparently something that thing manifests? But we realized that it might have been the Archivist and we rushed back. I was so scared...I didn't...I didn't want to be the reason any version of you ended up dead."

Everything was fuzzy after that, it's hard to really remember what happened.

Reaching out he takes her hands in his, in that moment needing to feel warm hands in his and remind himself that she is there with him. They're both safe, for the most part, and they're together.

[closureisformovies]

The lingering white-knuckle tension fades when he takes her hands and she breathes, tries to focus on the familiar, grounding touch and not the horrific implications of everything he's said. Tries not to think about how much sense it makes, how she can understand so easily how this— other her could end up in such a state. How mad she's been driving herself trying to get Sam back even believing that he'd be right back in Celia's arms the moment they found him.

Imagining a world where Sam's just... gone, no take backs, nothing she can do...

"...she was all on her own. Wasn't she." No one left. Just her. Her and her dreams of a dead man. God.

[huntingtruths]

"Yeah," Sam nodded, not even pausing as he brought her hands to his face, resting against them. It really was good to just be here with her. After all of the time they had spent avoiding one another and then being back there and being separated. It feels right just sitting in a silent moment with her.

"I couldn't wrap my head around how someone could love someone else so much that they'd do that to themselves...Georgie said it wasn't love it was grief but....but they're the same once someone's gone right? You grieve someone you love. The ore you love them the harder you grieve."

He doesn't want to ask her if she really loves him that much, he's not even sure what he would do with that. Right now he's raw and knows that he shouldn't jump to anything. It's something he has to sit with and think. But damn if it isn't hard not to just pull Alice close to him and not let go after knowing that there was some version of her that had been in so much pain.

[closureisformovies]

Her thumbs stroke an arc over his cheeks, basking in the familiar warmth and skin beneath her own. He's okay. He's okay. They're... they're okay.

"...yeah. When someone you love dies there's— nowhere for that love to go anymore but grief, I guess."

It makes sense. Too much sense. Too easy to imagine. Would that have happened to her, if they'd stayed together and something had happened to him? Maybe. Probably. She doesn't know. Maybe the whole end of the world thing make things worse for this other Alice. Maybe that's the reason she took it so badly.

"They made it through the end of the world and he died of appendicitis. That'd drive anyone mad. Right?"

(Maybe. But it's not the only reason and she knows it.)

[huntingtruths]

Eyes slipping closed for just a moment, Sam lets himself lean into the touch. He's tired. After everything that has happened he's so tired. He feels like he can breath again and it's hard not to want to just curl up right then. It might be a thought to snag a room at the Oak and Iron tonight, at least until he can get his keys back.

Or something.

But Alice is talking and he's so glad she understands. He knew she would, he was there when she lost her parents. Knows that she of all the people he knows understands grief. He can't help but chuckle a bit at the gentle joke.

"Made it through the shit we couldn't and still in the end..." We....more like he. Shaking his head as much as he can without dislodging himself. "It's so good to see you again..."

[closureisformovies]

"I knew we would. I knew I'd find you somehow."

She means it, despite the mad panic that's been driving her actions for weeks. She had to believe it, had to believe that somehow she'd pull it off, or she'd crack. And if she cracked then they'd stand no chance. She had to stay strong enough to push through.

Maybe this isn't how she planned it. Maybe at home there's still work to be done. But she was right. He's alive to be found. And until then, he's here.

Her eyes mist. "You're never allowed to go missing again, yeah? It does nothing for my work-life balance and makes me miss you so bad I look stupid in front of everyone."

[huntingtruths]

Seeing the way her eyes mist over and the attempt at humor, Sam can't help put use the grip he already had on her hands to pull her into him and wrap his arms around her.

"I can't promise not to go missing but I can promise I will try my best not to. I wish it didn't happen in the first place." His thoughts turn to Celia again and there's a bitterness there now. He hates that she had lied to him, even if she said she really had liked him in the end she still planned on tossing him in that place with no care on if he lived or not. There was no way she could have known for certain.

[closureisformovies]

Alice's arms wrap around him in turn, clinging on so very tight, and her face buries itself against his shoulder. She missed him, she missed him so fucking much.

"Good enough for me," she murmurs. If this is what it takes for him to be a little less impulsive about these things, she'll take it.

Her fists curl tight into his shirt. "I can't believe that— that sneak, she's been lying to my face for weeks—"

[huntingtruths]

Sam feels himself relax more and can't help the chuckle at the anger he feels from her. He shouldn't laugh and he knows that. It's just hard when the laughter is from relief. Relief that someone else knows that they were betrayed now. That he was betrayed.

"She probably won't help you since...since she definitely doesn't want me telling you all what she did. But that place Alice...I can't blame her for not wanting to go back."

[closureisformovies]

"Yeah, well, I haven't seen it, so I can," says the bitter part of her. Oh, she can see the logic that led the woman there, sure—she has the baby and everything. But... "Or at the very least I can fuckin' blame her for sending you there when she knew it was shit! Couldn't she've thrown Bouchard through instead?"

Now she's being silly, she knows.

[huntingtruths]

"Yes you can," It's said in the fondest 'yes dear' sort of tone even as he can't help but chuckle. Right now he can laugh because it's Alice, later he'll surly be seething about it alone in his apartment. "Wow, resorting to last names with Gwen now? That bad?"

You may be joking but he knows that tone still Alice.

[closureisformovies]

"Yeah. That bad." She huffs. "I got back to the office the day after you disappeared to her telling me Lena was gone and she was in charge! Still don't even know what she did to oust her, but we've been flying freaking blind ever since! Half the time she still tries to pretend the computers didn't eat Colin."

Beat.

"Yeah so the computers ate Colin. That's how he, y'know. I mean I know we always said the system was gonna be the death of him but, ha, I guess Freddy took that as a challenge."

If she doesn't joke about it she'll cry and that's worse.

[huntingtruths]

There's a long pause where Sam gives her that look like he wants to comfort her, like he knows that Colin's death had to hurt. He'd seen that they were close, watched their banter and recognized it. Even if Alice was similar with a lot of people it was easy to tell when she actually liked a persons company if you knew what to look for.

"Damn it Freddy...now who's going to fix all of your stupid jmj errors?" He tried to joke, before sighing. "Sounds like you're having a hell of a time...wish I could be there with you. At least that'd be one less stressful thing, looking for a way to get me back I mean."

[closureisformovies]

"Yeah, well, nothing's ever that easy." Not in her life, anyway. Everything keeps falling back on her shoulders, somehow—the only surprising part is that it involves monsters and interdimensional portals now, instead of day-to-day crap like keeping Luke from becoming a literal starving artist. "'Least now I know we're not on a wild goose chase and to ignore anything Celia says. And if that universe you've landed in really does have anything to do with Gerry's universe, maybe we he'll have like... a cheatsheet, I dunno."

It will not be that easy. But anything they can learn has to be helpful somehow, if they end up going home again after all this.

Though the idea of being separated from Sam by a whole universe again isn't an appealing through, even if they maybe, maybe figure out how to fix it sooner than later.