1843/No Regrets Policy

From United Heroes MUSH
Jump to navigation Jump to search
No Regrets Policy
Date of Scene: 05 August 2017
Location: Sam and Dean's Apartment, Hell's Kitchen, NYC
Synopsis: Sam and Fred strengthen their relationship in the aftermath of Sam's rescue.
Cast of Characters: Winifred Burkle, Sam Winchester
Tinyplot: Blood on My Name
Tinyplot2: Tayaniye


Winifred Burkle has posed:
The ride back from the dam was a bit harrowing, though Sam was passed out for most of it. There was most likely a loud argument between Fred and Dean about going back for Mercy and May /now/ even after Sam's own protests. Were it not for a solid and heavy Moose passed out on her lap, she might have climbed into the front seat and attempted to wrest the wheel from him. However, as it is, she cannot and therefore Dean's argument wins by default.

Instead, she makes do with calling Mercy until the other woman picks up to ensure that she made it out alright. Otherwise, tired or not, she'd drive right back out there to get her. Agent May said there was a Quinjet nearby - whatever a Quinjet is - and she will have to assume she took Mercy with her because the alternative is terrible to think about.

As far as Fred is concerned, Sam needs a hot shower, sleep and food in just about that order. She's not about to leave him, not even in the apt care of his brother. Instead, she stays. And after he's properly rested, she jumps him.

The fear of never seeing him again, the knowledge that they were doing horrible things to him, the fact that she was almost just eaten by a literal hydra: it all coalesces into a need to show him just how much she cares about him. Fred's never really been good at words: she either uses far too many or ones that don't make any sense. So, instead, she decides to show him. Actions can sometimes speak louder than words.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sammy actually wanted to change that order a bit. He'd wanted food first. He'd just wanted an apple and some peanut butter and some milk. Then he'd brushed his teeth for about 7 and a half minutes, just going nuts on cleaning his teeth. Then he'd wanted a hot shower and a shave, and he probably stayed in there for about an hour, until all the hot water in the Hell's Kitchen apartment he and Dean shared was gone. And /then/ he'd passed back out.

But even so, the pleasant surprise of Fred's enthusiastic 'welcome home' had brought a boyish grin to his face. And a properly rested Sam is someone who can do a proper job of making sure the lovely lady who just charged in to rescue him from more torture and pain got a fantastic 'thank you'. He's pretty attentive and considerate as a matter of course, but he takes extra care. And if his bruised body slows him down at all, it doesn't show.

One could argue that the action of just showing up to get him, of risking her mind in the dream, say it pretty loudly too. But this is good. This is very good.

Now, Sammy relaxes in his bed. The sheets are still clean; he'd changed them before he had gotten kidnapped and then had never slept on them. He keeps one muscular arm wrapped around Fred, keeps the covers tucked tight around them. The anti-possession ward tattoo'd to his upper chest is just visible He turns to kiss the side of her head, content to hang out there in silence for a few minutes.

And then? He gives an impish grin that makes his hazel eyes light up.

"Well," he says. "/I/ feel better."

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred rests her head on Sam, a bit of a smile on her face as she lays there next to him. There's a bit of a playful shove at that, though she laughs as she does it. She's careful not to push too hard or in any of the myriad of places he has bruising and injuries. "Well, I'm glad," she says. "Me too. Been awhile, but I'm glad I can show a fella a good time."

Gingerly, though, her fingers trace down his arm, touching the track marks there ever so gently. "Sorry, didn't mean to, you know, just jump you. I shoulda waited a bit till you were /actually/ actually feeling better. But, I just was sittin' here and thinkin' about regrets like before and how if I didn't do it now I'd regret it tomorrow, so here we are." The words thing, again, tends to lead her to be a bit rambly.

It seems the dream spell and Sam's confession that he loves her has been on her mind for a bit. Shifting just slightly against him, she looks up, large brown eyes focused on him as she lets her arm drape across his chest. "And I'm glad I did."

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam chuffs a laugh as he gets this apology, and kisses her temple again. "Don't," he says, his tone going gentle and soft. "Don't apologize. I like a no-regrets policy, and I am /actually/ feeling better /now/, in a way I sure wouldn't have if you hadn't of. I'm glad you did too. You can just jump me any time you like."

He stares down into those large brown eyes, a broad thumb sweeping gentle patterns across her shoulder. Concern darkens his hazel eyes, turns his face sober, and he moves on to a different area of concern. "How's your leg, Fred? I didn't like those sizzling sounds I was hearing." Or the smell of burning jeans or any of the rest of it. It was all pretty chaotic, but it sure sounded a lot like acid or poison or something else that really doesn't belong on a person's leg. "Did you get a chance to treat it while I was asleep?"

Winifred Burkle has posed:
When Sam insists she not apologize, Fred smiles and nods. "Alright, no apologies." She's true to her word, because otherwise she'd probably keep going for a bunch of other things she feels the need to ask to forgive. "And I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

The question about her leg is met with a nod. While he slept, she washed it and cut away the parts of her jeans that the acid from the hydra burned away. Her ankle has deep red marks where the venom stayed too long. However, it hopefully won't leave any lasting damage other than possibly a scar. "It's alright. Still hurts, but it should heal, I think. Got it all washed up while you were sleeping, yeah." There's a shiver at the reminder of how close she came to almost being a hydra's meal. "Thanks for keeping a hold on me. For a second there I thought I was dinner."

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam's face settles into grim lines, and he holds her a bit closer, a little tighter. "You came to get me," he reminds her, and that does for all the thanks he may be owed, as far as he's concerned. She wouldn't have gotten into that trouble in the first place if she hadn't had to rescue him. Again. His voice goes serious. Quiet. Sad. "You're one of a long line of people who apparently deserve my thanks. The one who died, the one who's also missing now. Who were they?"

He squeezes her again, but the more serious thoughts make it hard for him to just lounge in bed in a state of comfortable dishabille. He tilts her face up for a more honest, earnest kiss to let her know it's not her, but soon slides out. He crosses to his dresser, plucking up a few items, pulling on boxers and fresh, clean jeans. He doesn't bother with a shirt just yet, but he pulls one of his hidden weapons from the gunbox beneath his bedside table, and extracts a cleaning kit. Needing something useful to do, even if it's only routine maintenance. He settles back next to her on the bed to take care of the weapon, also feeling an urge to stay close to her.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
She did come to get him. "I promised I would." Fred seems intent on keeping that promise, too. As for the wolves missing and dead, she frowns. "They were Mercy's friends. I'd only ever met them as wolves right before. I think all I really knew about them was their names." Her tone is somber. She's sad that she doesn't have much else to say about the two who helped. And while she does know their names, she doesn't say them aloud just yet, knowing it will only add to the guilt and sorrow Sam feels.

Fred returns the kiss, but does not get out of bed just yet. She understands his need to get up, to do something. Instead, she stays, wrapped in the bedsheet. When Sam returns to sit down next to her, she sits up a bit and rests her head gently against him, seemingly also feeling the desire to stay close.

"I know I said I wouldn't apologize any more, but I'm sorry we didn't get to you sooner." Days, weeks sooner even. "I was so worried, knowing that I couldn't get to you, that they were just toying with us and you were..." Well, he was being tortured.

Sam Winchester has posed:
"Oh. Hey. No. You came as quickly as you possibly could," Sam says. His hands move with practiced efficiency, adding the smell of gun grease back to his person, but he stops to look at her, his face again settling into lines of concern. "Better you come prepared than come fast. You were gathering resources, tracking me down, and making sure you had what you needed to make it a success. I was worried about you all too." But she knows all about that, and he shies away from talking about it in the waking world.

Instead he says, "As it is, it's not over yet. We've got to find Nurse Temple. And much as we'd all like to get her away from the Winter Soldier right /now/, the fact is we can't. We don't know where he's holding her yet, and we have to figure out how to get her effectively, too. Maybe figure out how to deal with the lower-case h hydra, too, since I don't really love that thing swimming around in our water supply."

But he also caught those trailing words at the end. He puts down the weapon, one of his Berettas, and reaches over to take her hand. He gently squeezes her fingers. "I'm fine," he promises. "Really. And soon I'll check in at SHIELD medical just to be sure." Just to get a tox screen, he means, to learn what he was being injected with, but he sees no need to add to her list of concerns.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
There's a lot that Sam both is and is not saying as he cleans his gun. He's absolving her of not coming sooner, saying he understands what is happening and also explaining what they have to do next in order to save Claire.

Fred listens to his logic with a bit of a worried expression. She's never really been one for a poker face and she sees no need to hide her feelings from Sam. Maybe in a little bit she will break down the other things about how they're going to get Claire back, but for right now she focuses on one particular phrase.

"You're not fine, Sam," Fred says, the concern thick in her voice. "They--they..." she gestures at the tracks on his arm that he's going to get checked at SHIELD, the obvious bruises and cuts on his shirtless chest. "For weeks." His hand reaches out to take hers and she automatically squeezes his hand back.

"I wouldn't be fine right now." The thought of it makes her shiver again.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Everything in him stops for a moment. He holds her hand. He looks down. He goes very still.

His breathing becomes a little bit tight. Something twists at his face, some pained expression that's hard to read. He just keeps clinging to her fingers, just keeps breathing. He finally looks fully away from her, shaggy brown hair falling across the sharp lines of his cheekbones, hiding his expression.

"Dean went through something like it for a year. You went through something like it for 5. I think I can suck it up over twenty days."

And so, again, he insists, "Really, Fred, I'm fine."

He chuckles a little. "My Dad would never forgive me if I fell apart over something like this anyway, especially not when there's someone else in danger, someone less equipped to handle things than I am." He insists he's fine, because he feels like he /has to be fine/.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
When Sam looks away and holds on to her hand, Fred merely squeezes his hand back, her other hand moves to rest on his shoulder. She doesn't hold or tighten, it merely stays there as a warm reminder of her sitting there next to him. The expression on her face remains much as it was before, easy to read: worry. However, he's not looking at her right now.

"It's not a contest. There's no prize for worst time. Or, well, I guess what I got was that I wrote on walls for months, refused to leave my room and was terrified of everything for awhile." And five years in Pylea wasn't active torture with someone preying on very specific weak points and trying to gather information.

Again, he insists that he's fine and then even laughs. After a moment, she nods her head, then. That worry remains, impossible for her to hide. "Alright." If he needs to say that he's fine, that's what he needs to do for now. She doesn't argue past what she's already said, but she leans forward a presses a kiss against his bare shoulder, right next to where her hand is.

Sam Winchester has posed:
He isn't looking at her. He can hear the worry though. He remains so very still, his grip tightening on her hand, as if holding on to a lifeline, even as he continues to look away, the gun in his lap, his shirtless body still as stone. His head is bowed, his hair remains a curtain. He says nothing for the longest time. Whole heartbeats pass where he just clings to her.

"If they catch you, if they hurt you," he says, at last, raggedly, "I don't think I can ever forgive myself. Be careful, Fred. Extra precautions. No unnecessary risks. I want to get some security equipment today, install it here, at the Hyperion. If we hide it right it might seem like we didn't do it, and that might help. I don't want you staying there alone. I know you have to go home at some point, but I don't want you to be there alone. I don't want them to touch you."

So much said and unsaid. So much hiding behind vast interior walls. He can't tear them down. He can only peek around them, peer over them, whisper through them. He can only let her know as best he can that he wants her to reach him, wants to reach her in turn, even though there is cold, wet stone and barbed wire inside of him. He can only hold her hand hard, and try to see to her safety. He can only tense his body, as if to gather strength.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred doesn't say anything about them catching her or hurting her. She knows just how close she was to being to put in that same place Sam was. If the Winter Soldier hadn't have decided it made Sam more agreeable to fear them kidnapping her at any time rather than bring her into that imminent danger, she would have been taken. That's not something she wishes to tell Sam, but he's going to find out pieces of it when he sees the door she needed to replace after it was broken by extreme force. She also has her own security device that she installed - which she'll have to tell Sam about so he doesn't accidentally get his head chopped off when he visits her.

That conversation will most likely only add to the feeling that she might be snatched away at any moment, so she doesn't tell him just yet. Instead, she takes the hand that's on his shoulder and reaches through the curtain of hair to rest it on his cheek. "They won't get me." She tries to assure him, though they both know that it is a very real possibility that should they actually come after Sam, they will attempt to do it through her and Dean. But, she can either allow herself and Sam to sink into that fear or she can try and ease some of the fear. Her decision is to ease. "I'll be careful. I can take care of myself. If I can survive Pylea, I can stay survive Hydra. Upper or lower hs."

Of course, her surviving in Pylea mostly involved hiding in caves and being as unnoticeable as possible. Now they know where she is. "You've gotta be careful, too."

Sam Winchester has posed:
He turns his face into her hand. He finally just puts the gun carefully aside. Then he eases over to her, behind her. Wraps his arms and legs slowly around her in a full body embrace. Drops his head to her pale shoulder and holds it there, closing his eyes, letting his shaggy hair fall against her body, now. His jeans are rough against her frame, his chest warm, his arms still livid. But he holds her close and tight.

The problem is, he's aware. He's the one that gave her the lecture about how they can't really stop one another from getting hurt. It's just that when he gave the lecture, he had been thinking about how she couldn't stop /him/ from getting hurt. It took Misha to drive it home in the other direction. Not so easy to say now. Not so easy to think about now. So he holds her for a moment. Shields her with his whole body, his huge body, muscular and built to take a certain amount of punishment. Cradling her like this at least chases some of the shadows away, but she's not wrong to think they're in his head. Long shadows, old and new.

"Careful's my middle name," he says, with a chuff, like he's laughing, only he's not, not really.

But he can't do it. He can't keep going down this road. So he smiles against her skin.

Pursuing it no further. Instead: "Your bombs were sexy."

And now? He /is/ grinning.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
When Sam shifts behind her to hold her, Fred leans back against him. Her arms cover the ones he wraps about her. For the time being, she closes her eyes, too. Her grip on him is not quite as tight, especially due to the nature of the wounds on his arm. Instead, she's gentle, fingers slowly tracing the backs of his arms.

There's only so much either of them can do to keep the other safe. That's the problem and reality of the situation. There's precautions to take, but they also both know how skilled the enemy is, how used they are to finding and hurting people. She fears the fact that this might be only a reprieve, that they have an invested interest in Sam and will try to claim him again. It's certainly a possibility. They both have seen enough and know enough that this can lie between them unspoken, but still felt.

"Samuel Careful Winchester," Fred replies, tone almost amused. "It has a ring to it." She's attempting to lighten the mood, which is luckily where Sam is taking the conversation as well. There's only so long they can remain with that shadow Hydra cast over them.

There's a soft, surprised laugh at the compliments about the bombs. "I think that was mostly 'cause we used most of 'em in one fell swoop. Did make quite an explosion, though, right? I'm glad you liked them. There'll be more where those came from."

Sam Winchester has posed:
"Would have been game over for that monster if it hadn't had two extra heads shoved up its butt," Sam agrees jovially, "and really, when a monster has two extra heads shoved unexpectedly up its butt you really just can't blame yourself."

His stomach growls. He isn't in the mood to skip another meal. He is, in fact, in the mood for a real one, if a small one. He smirks against her skin. "Dean won't be up for hours." Dean is not a morning person. Sam, by contrast, more or less is. "And I think I'm holding this woman who has earned herself some breakfast tacos. Or breakfast burritos anyway, I don't know if anyone makes breakfast tacos. Whatever the variant, you have earned them. And I am starving. And if I don't get food soon..."

He starts gnaring playfully at her neck, making silly monster sounds of his own, trying to tickle her. "I might just have to eat /you/ up."

Archly, "Though you /are/ very tasty, and that actually sounds /quite/ appealing." He could put off food for a bit more Fred, come to think of it.

And either sounds /great/ for chasing shadows away.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
The darkness in the room starts to dissipate now that the subject has changed away from the possibility of pain and torture to bombs and food. "That's certainly a way to put it," she laughs at the imagery of a hydra with two extra heads shoved up it's rear.

The laugh continues as Sam's stomach audibly rumbles. Dean won't be up for awhile, but he should have some food. "Breakfast tacos!" She hasn't heard that either, but she's certainly down for trying to either find or make those. "Or burritos. Burritos are almost as good as tacos!"

Her laugh turns into something more of a giggle as he makes silly monster sounds against her neck. It turns out Fred is ticklish and she wriggles as she tries to get away from the tickling with a muffled, giggly yell. "Don't eat me! Vampire! Fredpire!"

Whether they get out of bed for food shortly or after awhile, the mood is certainly lifted.