Little Sam getting mugged and shuffling back to the gutter slum rental that dad had them holed up in this time. He lost two days lunch money and the 20 Dean gave him for helping mow lawns at the last fucking nowhere they lived. He's got scraped hands and a bruised cheek. People fucking suck. He just wants to sleep, maybe get a little sympathy from Dean, that's always nice. At least Dean wouldn't be mad about the money, he's nice like that. He drags his tired, defeated body up the stairs and in through the door, chips of paint raining down every time he opened it. He lets his bag fall to the floor and hauls himself into the rickety recliner. Dean left a note on the fridge, probably down the street fucking miss leggy and fatherless. Great. Scratch sympathy hugs and ice cream. Maybe he'll get some when Dean stumbles home with that stupid sweet smirk. Maybe he'll even get a kiss this time, depends on how drunk Dean is and how bad he feels for leaving Sam out to dry. One can only hope.
Remember when I was like, “I don’t know, maybe I’ll write a part two...” well I did! And now I’m working on part three...
Posting here and over on ao3!
Darlin/Sam and Darlin & David. Pack feels and even a King Vincent moment.
Tags: Alexis and Quinn teamed up to take what’s theirs (all those tags), non-con invoking, non-con turning, angst, hurt/comfort, memory alteration...
No Luck Left - Part 2
Darlin woke up and wished they hadn’t.
They were so cold.
Sam was right there. They could see him, could probably touch him if they could just lift their arm. But he wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at Alexis—watching her with cold focus that Darlin imagined Alexis thought was adoration or love. They had no idea what he looked like when he loved. Darlin closed their eyes. Too tired. David or Vincent would catch up to Alexis eventually now. They would save Sam.
“There you are,” Quinn whispered against their temple and Darlin jolted, realizing suddenly that they were sitting in his lap, his arm wrapped around them and his thighs bracketing their hips. Sam and Alexis turned their heads to look too now. Alexis grinned big but it was empty. And Sam… Oh, Sam.
They remembered the hallway of their apartment building and Sam dragging them to the floor. And then teeth. All three vampires had descended on them, pinned them and bled them until they’d lost consciousness.
Quinn snaked a hand up their side, under their shredded shirt. Their jacket was gone. His mouth brushed their already torn neck. “It’s almost sundown, but I wanted to do this right before we go.”
Go? Go where? Who was going? Were they taking Sam with them after they killed them and ran?
Alexis leaned in and whispered something to Sam. He curled his lip briefly but slid away from her and toward Darlin. No. Nonono. That wasn’t him. Not really. Not right now.
“You did this,” Quinn whispered against their skin. “If you’d just stayed with me, Misfit…”
They tried to kick, to move, to shift. Quinn lifted one of their arms and held it out toward Sam. They must have planned this because Sam didn’t say anything. He didn’t look confused or worried. He took Darlin’s arm in his hand, skin to skin, but everything so different from before. From usual. Quinn still had his arms around them and they hated the sound they were making, this confused awful sound because it was all wrong—like their mind was cracking as it tried to make sense of having contact with both of them at the same time. They were nothing alike. They couldn’t be more different. But then they both had teeth in Darlin’s skin, sapping what little they had left to hang on to.
Oh god, they were going to die. Their heart was beating so fast it felt like their chest might break.
Their vision blurred, their hearing sliding in and out. They were going to die. And Sam, when the pack or the Solaires saved him, he’d remember this, wouldn’t he? They hoped not.
Let him forget.
Let him forget everything.
Quinn laughed when he took his teeth from them, his arms all around them, cradling them to his chest, kissing their face and making promises they couldn’t hear clearly.
They didn’t want his arms or his promises.
They only wanted Sam.
They died wanting Sam even though he was right there next to them.
-
It took Vincent five months to find Alexis and Sam, or rather, to catch up to them. He seemed to find himself again and again in the aftermath of Alexis—in the damage she had reaped in a city. It seemed that Alexis and Quinn had parted ways months ago and that suspicion was underlined when he spent three nights stalking her. He watched where she went and who she was spending her time with. He watched her with Sam and damn if they didn’t look like a real couple from the outside. Vincent would never have been able to stand on the sidelines, allowing his friend—his brother—to be used like that right in front of him for those three days if it weren’t for Darlin. No one had found them yet. No one had caught up to Quinn but worst—no one had even been able to confirm if Darlin was undead or just dead.
Sam might know, for better or worse, but Vincent had waited out those three days in the sheer hope that Alexis would lead him to Quinn or Darlin. But she didn’t. She only led him to blood dens and flashy clubs and then back to her penthouse.
And then one night, almost close to dawn, Alexis sent Sam home first. She was playing with other people tonight and had gotten annoyed with Sam. It had to grate her nerves, the way he obeyed on the surface but it never went any deeper, no matter how long she maintained the lies of their love for each other.
He followed her through the lightening night, to another vampire’s home. He snuck in with Lovely on his heels just before dawn trapped them all inside together. And then he and his Lovely killed everyone but Alexis.
He had questions but she had no answers. She threatened, begged, and cursed. She screamed for Sam even though he was out of earshot. There was a reason Vincent had waited until she was alone—so that she couldn’t force Sam to protect her.
Lovely yawned big and then zapped Alexis again. It was almost noon. They’d been at it for seven hours.
“I told you! I told you!” Alexis wailed. And she had. She had told them what she knew. Quinn had approached her with the idea of working together to each get what they wanted. He’d turned the wolf and they’d all left Dahlia together. She said they’d spent a few weeks together, the four of them, before losing interest in each other and going their own ways. Last she had known, he was heading west with Darlin.
Vincent stood over Alexis. She should have been a sister to him, a part of his family, but she wasn’t. Not even close. Sam was his family and Alexis had violated him and made him party to the death of his mate. What would that do to Sam? If he was there when it happened, if he saw it, he would remember. Just as he would remember anything and everything else she made him do those last five months.
Alexis stared back at him, eyes growing larger. She had realized why he was still asking—why they were still playing this game even though she had no more information. “You’re really going to kill me?” she whispered, truly shocked. And hurt?
Vincent tipped his head to the side, never taking his eyes off her. “Not until sundown,” he promised and then Lovely gave her another jolt right to the spine. He wouldn’t risk his brother waking up with all those memories and all that pain only to be alone with the sun for the next half-day. No. He’d let him sleep soundly before waking him up to hell.
-
Sam woke and it was like sitting up out of a fevered sleep. He looked around the room, confused for long seconds before her death registered in his bones and his blood. The veils Alexis had placed in his mind, the lies and the stories, were gone. They didn’t melt away slowly. They were just gone. His breath came faster and faster as the last five months rolled back on him. They were all his own memories, nothing was forgotten, but… But they meant more now. He understood what had happened now. He knew why he’d done what he’d done—how Alexis had invoked him and forced him to feel and think and do differently than he would have. That would have been a violation that had him screaming right now if it weren’t for all the memories of what he'd done to Darlin. Darlin.
He practically fell out of the large bed he’d shared with Alexis, clawing at his own chest and trying to breathe around the agony growing inside him. No. No! They were dead. His Darlin was dead. And he’d… Oh god.
He threw up on the floor, red sliding everywhere. He remembered them in Quinn’s arms. They’d shared the last drink. Sam had participated in their death and then just watched Quinn turn them like it was nothing to him.
And then…
He heaved again, struggling to breathe.
A door in the apartment splintered and flew open in the other room and for one delirious moment he was terrified that it would be Alexis again. That she would tell him to get back into her bed and he would do it—that she’d tell him what to say to her and he’d say it—that she’d move her hands over him and tell him to moan.
But Alexis was dead.
Vincent was beside him, on his knees in the blood, and wrapping arms around him.
“I know,” he kept saying, rocking him.
It was then that Sam realized he was crying, not just tears but whole-body wracking sobs. He hadn’t cried like that since they first let him be alone after she turned him. He’d been mourning his life then. What was he mourning now? Darlin’s life? Or his soul? Were they the same?
“Have they found Darlin?” Sam finally asked the only question that mattered. David would be looking for them, no matter what. He would find them and kill Quinn and they would be okay. As okay as they could be, anyway.
But Vincent didn’t answer.
Sam closed his eyes. If Darlin wasn’t found, then… Then they were still out there somewhere, with Quinn.
“So, he turned them?” Vincent asked carefully.
Sam dragged breaths, shaking, trying to get himself under control. “Yes.” They didn’t even know if Darlin was dead or not? That had to have been agony for their pack—not even knowing if they were looking for a vamp or proof of death. Guilt gnawed at his chest until he was sure it would kill him—but guilt had never been that merciful. “Quinn… The four of us traveled together for a while but Quinn and Alexis could never get along. Even when we went into a new city, we split up. I think Alexis was afraid Quinn would kill me and Alexis was definitely thinking about killing Darlin. The only thing keeping her from doing it was that she wasn’t sure she could kill Quinn too.”
“Even with you?”
He opened his eyes, staring through tears at the floor. “I don’t think she was sure I would help her, not enough to bet her life on it.”
Vincent still had his arms around him, brushing hair back from his face like he was a child. “Even though she could invoke you?”
He exhaled hard, remembering why. It was such a small thing but he remembered how upset she’d been. “They invoked us all the time, to say and do things. To think a certain way and feel a certain way. For long stretches they’d have us convinced we hated each other. But…” He tried to make sense of it. He’d felt like he hated Darlin. Annoyed at everything they said and did, and Darlin had been starting fight with him all the time. But sometimes, without realizing it, they’d find themselves holding hands. He’d blamed them and they’d blamed him in the moment but now…Now he thought it was just their bodies knowing the truth. “Sometimes we held hands. Sometimes we were soft despite all the bullshit.” He waved at his forehead as if the clouds that had been there were a real and physical thing to be swept away.
Vincent looked surprised but nodded slowly, accepting this information. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you soon,” he said, voice rough.
Sam laughed darkly. “You found me, Vin. It means everything. You killed her?”
Something dark rippled across Vincent’s features, there and then gone. He nodded once. “I tried to get information about Darlin and Quinn but she didn’t have much.”
Sam nodded grimly. After they parted ways, she hadn’t cared where the other two went as long as they didn’t cross her path again. Vincent pulled at his arms, easily dragging him to his feet. “Let’s get you cleaned up and out of here.” He walked him into the big bathroom, leaving doors open and flicking lights on. Sam didn’t argue, not even when Vincent stripped him down and put him in the shower. What pride or modesty did he have left to claim? How many times had Alexis showered with him now? He pushed the thoughts away and scrubbed himself down. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter right now, because whatever he’d gone through, Darlin had gone through worse. Darlin had died. Lost their wolf and been turned against their will.
They’d never even talked about it before. He thought they’d have so much time and it would come up naturally later on—when Darlin had more time to think about whether or not they’d want to be a vampire. And he’d been preparing himself for them to decide not to be. They were a wolf, after all. And who, if not him, could better understand wanting to live and die in their own time? That had been his plan once. He would have happily spent one, precious lifetime with Darlin and suspected he would have been looking after their pack forever after that.
But that wasn’t how things had happened.
Lovely appeared at the door of the bathroom but didn’t step over the threshold, just holding out a bag to Vincent. He took it and when Sam got out of the shower and dried off, he was relieved beyond belief to see his own clothes in that bag. He hadn’t thought about it yet, but he would have rather walked out of the building naked than put on anything here. Alexis had picked out everything—had her scent in everything.
He had to get out of this place before sunup. He couldn’t spend another night there or he’d throw himself off the fucking balcony and, as appealing at the idea of death seemed right then, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t just check out and leave Darlin to whatever fate he’d helped seal for them.
He pulled on his jeans and t-shirt, his socks and his shoes.
“Your jacket’s in the car,” Lovely whispered from the door, not looking.
Sam’s heart softened just a tiny bit then, warming by the weight of what they had done—how far they had gone—and how much they had thought about him. “Thank you,” he said and meant it. The words would never be enough. He sighed, body heavy with a guilt he wasn’t sure would ever let up—wasn’t sure he deserved to shake. “Get me the hell out of here?”
Vincent cracked a smile and curled an arm around his back, steering him out of the bathroom and through the apartment. They followed Lovely into the hall and down through the upscale building.
-
The pack had taken turns on the search. Either David or Asher was always in Dahlia while the other was out hunting for Darlin.
And then the damnedest thing happened.
David woke up to his phone ringing. For a split second he wasn’t sure if he was on the road or home, but then Angel squirmed against his side and his bedroom came into focus around him. Home. He was home. He grabbed his phone and frowned. It was one in the morning. He answered because it was Arden. “What—”
“They’re here.”
“What?” he asked but he was sitting up. He knew.
Arden’s side of the call was loud, too many voices and music and the clanking of glasses. “I’m at that dive bar on 5th. Darlin is sitting ten people away from me right now. They’re…They’re a vamp,” their voice broke a little when they confirmed it. He couldn’t tell if it was relief or grief. He was already pulling on his pants and heading for the door, grabbing a shirt. “I don’t know what to… They haven’t even looked at me. I don’t think they recognize me… Is that possible? Should I talk to them—”
“No,” he snapped. “Are you alone?”
“I’m with Miguel and a couple of friends. Empowered friends…” they added, not sure if it mattered but obviously preparing for it to.
“Okay. Stay where you are, stay together. If they leave, try to follow, but don’t split up. If Darlin is there, then Quinn might be there too.” He hung up and told Angel where he was going before stepping into his boots and heading out, keys in hand.
He had to fight the urge to call Asher and tell him to come home. He needed to make sure this really was Darlin before getting anyone else’s hopes up. He tried to temper his own. Had they really just come home on their own? Or was Quinn fucking with them?
The drive felt ten times longer than normal. He parked in a no parking zone because what the fuck did he care if his truck got towed tonight? He walked in and took a moment. He spotted Arden and Miguel on the far side of the room and then, right there at the bar, was Darlin. They were wearing their usual boots and ripped jeans and leather jacket. They sat at the bar, working on a second beer and looking at their phone like they were anywhere else. Completely unaware of him. If they’d been a wolf, his wolf, they would have felt him walk in.
He pushed that thought aside. They would always be his family. He glanced around the busy bar but didn’t spot Quinn anywhere. There were only a handful of vampires, none of them seeming to be skulking about or paying any attention.
He did the only thing he could. He walked over to them and leaned his side into the bar, looking down at them. They were different in a thousand minute ways, but still Darlin. It was right there in the annoyed lift of their eyebrow when they took notice of him and turned just enough to look up. They took another long drink of their beer, just staring at him like they might any other night. “Are you going to tell me this is your seat?” they asked, flicking their gaze pointedly over him from head to toe, and then turning sideways on their stool to stare right at him. They smirked, flashing those sharp new fangs. “I wouldn’t mind starting a bar fight, big guy.”
David stared back, soaking everything in. They were acting so…normal. What had he expected? Tears? No. But he hadn’t expected to find them right there either. Why would they come back to Dahlia but not come find him? Were they just waiting from him to find them? “Wouldn’t be your first,” he said absently, still trying to wrap his head and heart around this. They were right there in front of him. Safe. Alive. Well, undead, but he’d take what he could get.
Darlin’s eyes narrowed and mouth twisted curiously at him. It wasn’t a normal reaction for them. It wasn’t one he’d ever seen. “Is that your way of saying I look like trouble?” They smirked a little, like they weren’t sure if they should take it as a compliment or an insult. And then they cocked their head to the side and flicked their gaze over him, gauging him, appraising him, flirting with him? What the fuck?
“When did you get back into town?” he asked, buying time. Something was wrong, more wrong than them being undead, more wrong than having been without them for nearly six months.
Darlin smiled but looked confused. “Get back?” They shook their head, taking another drink of their beer, finishing it off this time. “I think you’re mixing me up with someone else, big guy.” They scoffed when they put the bottle down, standing up this time.
David’s heart lurched in his chest. No. God, no. They started to walk away and he caught their arm. “Darlin?”
The vampire laughed, gaze shifting between his hand on their arm and back up to his face. “Nicknames already? I don’t really think that one suits me… Darlin’s don’t usually start bar fights, right?”
Their Darlin did. He forced himself to let go. He had been thinking about killing Quinn for months, ever since he stared at the hallway outside their apartment door, full of claw marks and blood splatter. “Sorry, you look like someone I know,” he said.
They grinned at that, turning to face him again, hands in their jacket pockets just like usual. “Really? Scars and all?” they sounded skeptical.
David nodded. “Scars and all.”
“Well, shit. If you find them, send them my way? Could be fun to have a doppelganger.”
David leaned back against the bar and then did the most unnatural thing in his life. He held out his hand to Darlin, a person he’d known almost his whole life, and introduced himself. They took his hand and he saw when they recognized his name—not immediately, but after a few seconds.
“As in Shaw Pack? That David Shaw?” They shook, their palm so cool against his warm. “So I guess if I was in your seat you really could have tossed me out for it.” Their hand returned to their jacket pocket, but they didn’t move to leave yet.
David shrugged. “I could have tried,” he said and they lit up. Fuck. They were so like themselves but not quiet. It was uncanny. It was horrifying. But at least he had eyes on them—at least he knew they were okay. Now, he just had to figure out how to keep them around. If he told them everything, they might not believe him. Quinn might have invoked a reaction to that truth, something that makes them resist believing it. “So, it’s your first time in Dahlia? Know someone in town?”
Darlin grinned, those teeth looked good on them. “Nope. Had this blow out breakup and ended up on the road. Just kind of landed here, you know? A stop on my way nowhere.”
David nodded like he didn’t care. He nodded like a liar. A breakup with Quinn? Somehow that made sense. Even invoked, Darlin wasn’t going to be pliable, and Quinn didn’t exactly have the longest attention span. But they’d come home. Darlin hadn’t known where they were going, but they’d come home. They’d driven to Dahlia and sat down in a bar smack in the middle of Shaw territory.
“Can I buy you a drink then? An apology for mistaking you for someone else.”
Darlin swayed, considering it before shrugging and sitting down again. “Never had a wolf buy me a drink before…”
Yes, you have. He gestured to the bartender for two more beers. “I didn’t get your name.”
“Misfit.”
David was grateful they weren’t looking at him—didn’t see the wince and snarl. Quinn had called them that—a reminder that they never belonged with their pack, with anyone, but him. Getting a closer look at them, Darlin looked…healthier. Which was almost hilarious considering they were undead. But they didn’t have the usual bags under their eyes or bruises or scrapes from scrapping with others. They had always lived rough. He supposed it didn’t mean that had changed, just that they healed faster now. The bartender brought them another round. David honestly couldn’t remember the last time he sat a bar with Darlin and had a drink, but they ended up sitting there for two hours.
Darlin had questions about Dahlia that anyone who’d never been before might and even got bolder later on to ask about being a wolf and having a pack.
“I can’t decided if that sounds great or terrible,” they confessed, laughing. “Having that many people in your family…”
“You don’t have many in your clan?” he asked, hoping it sounded easy.
Darlin snorted. “Just Quinn. He’s such a dick.”
“Your ex?”
“And maker.” They rolled their eyes. “Talk about complicated. I used to think he was just a narcissist but now I’m thinking he’s a masochist too.”
David watched them, definitely interested now but trying not to show too much. Darlin was always more perceptive than they let on and they had amazing instincts.
“I mean, what the fuck was he thinking turning me? Half the time he’s pissed I don’t do what he wants or adore him as much as he thinks he’s owed. The fucker keeps invoking me to make me do things,” their teeth ground a little on that before smirking, lifting the bottle they were working on. “But then I always make him pay for it later. Sometimes I’d attack him for no reason. At least, I don’t know what the reason is, but like, I know there is one, you know? Does that make sense? I guess I just sound like a psycho.”
David shook his head. “No, that makes sense. The invoking thing seems fucked up. You probably had good reasons even if you couldn’t remember them.”
Darlin glanced at him curiously then, maybe thinking his response was too correct? Too close to what they were thinking? “Isn’t it the same with wolves though? You’re alpha. You tell them to jump and they jump.”
David tensed, not liking the comparison at all. “True, but I guess the difference is that if I tell them to jump, they’re compelled by instinct to do it—to trust me—but if they decide not to, I can’t make them. If I give them reasons not to trust me, if I’m a bad alpha,” God it hurt even to say it. “Then they could vote to remove me from the position and give it to someone else.”
Darlin mulled that over, finishing their beer. “Huh. Definitely more democratic than vampires.”
He shrugged. “You should stick around for a while,” he chanced. The bar was close to closing. He had to find a way to stretch this out. “I’ve got some openings if you’re looking for work and could really use a vampire in the mix.” He’d never hired outside of the pack before and it wouldn’t be now even if they agreed—they just wouldn’t know that.
Darlin looked dubious, which he’d expected. Darlin never bit when offered a good thing too easily.
“Hours are shit, of course, and you might have to break up some brawls rather than start them.”
Darlin smiled then. “Punching people is punching people either way…” They got up just as the bartender was announcing closing.
David did the same, tossing bills onto the counter.
Darlin saw them, seemed to have done quick math and realized he’d paid for everything. They were instantly tense, calculating. David knew them so well that he could tell they were even considering his height to theirs and who had the advantage here in a fight. It would be him. It was his territory, his community, and he was an alpha, while Darlin was a new vamp alone. He had been planning to offer them a ride back to wherever they were staying but he decided against it right then. Darlin would assume he was after something else—maybe even that he thought he’d paid for it and was owed. Too many people had been wearing Darlin down long before Quinn showed up. It was instinct now, just like the instinct that brought them home to him.
He stretched and started for the door. “Tomorrow night? We can meet here and walk over to the den. You can meet my mate. You’ll like them. They also like the idea of starting bar fights.” It wasn’t a coincidence he mentioned Angel. He needed Darlin to believe he wasn’t after anything more than their company and maybe their muscle for hire.
Darlin nodded, hands in pockets, following him out of the building and onto the sidewalk. The sky was getting lighter by fractions and Darlin squinted at it like it was full sunlight blaring down on them. Some things had changed.
“You got someplace to crash for the day?” he asked, walking toward his truck, voice louder to cover the growing distance between them. Leaving them was the hardest thing he’d done in a long time. Everything in him wanted to scoop them up and bring them home with him—wanted to hold on to them no matter how they kicked and screamed and just know that they were safe because he could see them. But Darlin would kick and scream. Darlin would think they were being abducted and held prisoner, and then he would be holding them prisoner. He was prepared to do that too—if they tried to leave town. But God he didn’t want to cross that line. He didn’t want to be another villain in their life.
“Yeah,” Darlin called back, waving as they started in the opposite direction. “See you tomorrow.” And then they were gone, moving so fast that they were a blur of color.
David fought the sinking feeling in his gut that made him want to shift and hunt. He saw the glimmer of Arden down the street, darting from shadow to shadow in wolf form. Miguel would be close. He had texted them at the bar and told them to track Darlin but not to get caught. He just wanted to know where they were staying.
He got into his truck, closed the door and took deep breaths. They were alive. They were away from Quinn. There was so much to be grateful for.
His phone chimed almost ten minutes later when Arden told him where Darlin had gone.
He sighed and picked up the phone, sending a text to Vincent. He knew Vincent had recovered Sam last month and they’d still been out looking for Quinn. Sam hadn’t been back to Dahlia. David suspected he wouldn’t have come back without Darlin, not even when the search ended and Vincent and his mate came back to their throne. ‘Darlin is in Dahlia. No Quinn. No memories of us.’ He sent the text and then called Asher.
The sun was rising. At least he knew Darlin couldn’t go anywhere until sundown. Asher answered despite the hour. His voice was clipped, serious, lacking the usual cheer that had been so signature for him before. David would fix that too, as soon as all of this was done, as soon as they could be home again. “Darlin is in town,” he said. “I have eyes on them. They’re okay.” They weren’t, not really, but they were physically and unfortunately that was more than he'd been able to hope for before. He heard Asher exhale hard. He believed him, which was why he hadn’t called before he knew for sure. “I need you to find Quinn,” he said, like they hadn’t been searching all this time. Only, they’d been searching for a Quinn with Darlin. He told him the city where the two had parted ways. “He invoked them… They don’t remember us or who they are. They think he’s their ex-boyfriend.”
“What? If they don’t know who they are, then why did they go to Dahlia?”
“Instinct? They came home.” And David meant to keep them there.
“Okay.”
“Asher…” He didn’t know how to ask this because he wouldn’t command it. If they brought Quinn back to the Department alive, he might never let go of the invocations he’d made. The Department might lock him away forever for killing and turning Darlin like he did, but then again, they might not. They weren’t exactly good at justice or keeping hold of their own inmates.
David exhaled hard, so relieved that Asher understood what they had to do. “If you don’t want to do it, you can bring him back here—”
“I’ll handle it. You just keep eyes on our baby vamp.”
Our baby vamp. David almost smiled. Almost. He would when it was done. They would do whatever they had to to get Darlin through this. He knew they would assume they weren’t pack anymore—would mourn the wolf they had been and the family they’d had like it was lost—like it wasn’t so deeply a part of who they were that it could n ever be lost.
The moon, it was a place back when The Watcher was still alive that Sam could go to and vent his problems to. It wasn’t like shouting into the void like it was now when he returned, settling on a boulder near the bust he’d made in tribute to his old friend. Even with the image of The Watcher there, it had started to become like he was talking to nobody at all. At first, he’d still felt like maybe part of the Watcher, his being...whatever...had remained there on the moon. But now that just seemed like some hopeless, desperate thought.
“...I get it, you’re not here anymore. I should move on. I mean, It’s stupid...my dad is back, I should be able to tell HIM all this stuff! But I can’t...” Truth be told he wasn’t even sure he should be wearing the Nova helmet at the moment. His dad’s helmet, not his own, “...He was a waaay better Nova than me...I know, but what am I supposed to do when I can’t be Nova anymore? ...I guess when the Hulk did me in for a bit, it was fine...I mean I managed to catch up and....look at me, now I’m talking to a rock!”
Sam gripped the sides of his helmet for a moment before he slid off the boulder he’d been seated on, plucking up a rock to toss...it didn’t have half the same satisfaction as chucking a stone on Earth would have. Why did he expect it to be the same here? Did he forget he was in space? It was some stupid slip of the mind,small,but it irritated him more so.
