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Hello confusion, I know you well
Who: Sam Seaborn and Sarah Wenham
Where: Various
When: April 1st - 11th
What: Catch-all
Warnings: Will edit as necessary
[Open]
April 2nd
Sam starts walking on the road out of town while the sun is still high, determined to find the spot where this accident happened. As big as it was, as many people as there were involved, it has to have entailed a certain amount of large-scale destruction. Right? Right.
So there has to be some sign of it, somewhere, and he hasn't seen it anywhere else in town.
He can find it and stop wondering. He can find it and set aside the uneasiness that pricked him through the night. (Three accidents, three months, same symptoms each time, the odds of that can't be high, can't even be measurable.)
The first time he reaches the curve of the road, he doesn't notice. The sun is almost directly above him, and the trees are so tall that looking for landmarks is nigh-impossible.
But then there's the town's greeting sign, and he turns around and starts walking the other direction, this time making a point of watching the position of the sun.
When it starts to turn, well. He'll just have to head into the woods.
April 4th
It turns out that lunch meat and bread in a house with a teenage boy is not enough to keep everyone fed.
Which is why Sam is poking around the grocery store, completely unsure of what to get. Fruits and vegetables, probably. More lunch meat. Peanut butter? Jelly? Frozen pizza. He's zigzagging haphazardly through the store, retracing his steps as some other item occurs to him, stopping to stare at things he doesn't actually need for disproportionate amounts of time.
These instances are his brain catching up to him. Wanting to know what he's doing, why he's doing it, when it isn't necessary. He has to keep fighting that instinct. That this isn't necessary. He barely eats at his apartment anyway--
Except he doesn't have an apartment, he has a house. A house, and a teenage boy.
April 6th
He needs to get out of the house. Away from the signs of a teenage boy living in his space, away from the fresh waves of memory and the anxiety that comes with them.
(None of this is right/I don't know that boy/I don't have a/sister/sister/sister)
That word matches his gait as he jogs through the early-morning light. Sis-ter, sis-ter, sis-ter.
He's hung up on it, circling that one word until he's hypnotized by it, and pieces start falling into place again. Their parents disowning her after she got pregnant. Her marrying the scumbag who fathered Chase. The scumbag leaving when Chase was a baby. Chase and Theresa moving in with Sam himself while he was at Harvard.
(Sis-ter, sis-ter-- I didn't go to Harvard.)
He trips, catches himself, stumbles forward a few steps and then lands hard on his knees in someone's front yard.
"I went to Princeton," he says, outrage in his voice.
It's his Secret Service code name and everything.
April 8th
Sam feels like he's losing his mind.
If he smoked, he would be smoking. If he felt comfortable keeping alcohol in the house with Chase around, he would be drinking. Since he doesn't do one and won't do the other near his nephew (nephew?) he's stuck instead wandering around his back yard talking to himself.
At the moment it's an argument about guilt, grief, and responsibility. Responsibility to Chase vs responsibility for his own health, his own experienced grief vs his right to express it when Chase is (must be) going through the same or worse, the guilt of forgetting vs the resentment of being yoked to this kid vs guilt for feeling that way vs the ghostly thought that he doesn't belong here like this at all--
He's talking quietly, sure, but it's not impossible to overhear.
Where: Various
When: April 1st - 11th
What: Catch-all
Warnings: Will edit as necessary
[Open]
April 2nd
Sam starts walking on the road out of town while the sun is still high, determined to find the spot where this accident happened. As big as it was, as many people as there were involved, it has to have entailed a certain amount of large-scale destruction. Right? Right.
So there has to be some sign of it, somewhere, and he hasn't seen it anywhere else in town.
He can find it and stop wondering. He can find it and set aside the uneasiness that pricked him through the night. (Three accidents, three months, same symptoms each time, the odds of that can't be high, can't even be measurable.)
The first time he reaches the curve of the road, he doesn't notice. The sun is almost directly above him, and the trees are so tall that looking for landmarks is nigh-impossible.
But then there's the town's greeting sign, and he turns around and starts walking the other direction, this time making a point of watching the position of the sun.
When it starts to turn, well. He'll just have to head into the woods.
April 4th
It turns out that lunch meat and bread in a house with a teenage boy is not enough to keep everyone fed.
Which is why Sam is poking around the grocery store, completely unsure of what to get. Fruits and vegetables, probably. More lunch meat. Peanut butter? Jelly? Frozen pizza. He's zigzagging haphazardly through the store, retracing his steps as some other item occurs to him, stopping to stare at things he doesn't actually need for disproportionate amounts of time.
These instances are his brain catching up to him. Wanting to know what he's doing, why he's doing it, when it isn't necessary. He has to keep fighting that instinct. That this isn't necessary. He barely eats at his apartment anyway--
Except he doesn't have an apartment, he has a house. A house, and a teenage boy.
April 6th
He needs to get out of the house. Away from the signs of a teenage boy living in his space, away from the fresh waves of memory and the anxiety that comes with them.
(None of this is right/I don't know that boy/I don't have a/sister/sister/sister)
That word matches his gait as he jogs through the early-morning light. Sis-ter, sis-ter, sis-ter.
He's hung up on it, circling that one word until he's hypnotized by it, and pieces start falling into place again. Their parents disowning her after she got pregnant. Her marrying the scumbag who fathered Chase. The scumbag leaving when Chase was a baby. Chase and Theresa moving in with Sam himself while he was at Harvard.
(Sis-ter, sis-ter-- I didn't go to Harvard.)
He trips, catches himself, stumbles forward a few steps and then lands hard on his knees in someone's front yard.
"I went to Princeton," he says, outrage in his voice.
It's his Secret Service code name and everything.
April 8th
Sam feels like he's losing his mind.
If he smoked, he would be smoking. If he felt comfortable keeping alcohol in the house with Chase around, he would be drinking. Since he doesn't do one and won't do the other near his nephew (nephew?) he's stuck instead wandering around his back yard talking to himself.
At the moment it's an argument about guilt, grief, and responsibility. Responsibility to Chase vs responsibility for his own health, his own experienced grief vs his right to express it when Chase is (must be) going through the same or worse, the guilt of forgetting vs the resentment of being yoked to this kid vs guilt for feeling that way vs the ghostly thought that he doesn't belong here like this at all--
He's talking quietly, sure, but it's not impossible to overhear.
no subject
Loss. That's all he can feel, down into his bones. He might've had a daughter once, he thinks, or perhaps he only dreamed one up. The nurse said it was a byproduct of his accident, his imagination acting up and filling his head with fantasies.
As it does. As it always has. (You can't trust your mind, Jefferson, was the implication.)
He takes a long, steadying breath, and looks across the backyard again, at Sam.
"Save it for somebody with any ties to a future."
no subject
So for a moment he fumbles, then says, "What about yourself? You can't... want to live in a place like this. Can you?"
no subject
"Of course not. But I don't belong anywhere. At least here, I'm not the only one." He scoffs bitterly. "Welcome to the Island of Misfit Toys."