Last One Standing

closed starter for @sammorzz

Aspen’s eyes were level with the beaker on the lab table as she added a few more drops to it. Footsteps alerted her to someone else in her lab. As she set the pipette down, she said, “I wouldn’t touch anything if I were you.” She stood up and turned around, pushing her safety googles up to her forehead.

he came in through the window (he didn’t need to do this, it was extra). sam noticed the desk chair with wheels and immediately walked toward it, holding his hands up. not touching anything. he sat in the chair, taking himself for a couple of spins and the a wheel across to the other side of the lab. “whatcha workin’ on?” 

     ❝  EXCUSE ME ?  yes ,  hi ,  ❞  a smile grows on the redhead’s rosy lips upon capturing the other person’s attention ,  or at least part of it .  these situations were always a little uncomfortable regardless of whom she spoke too ,  though there couldn’t be any harm in being polite …  right ?  ❝  i’m sorry ,  but i just got myself  a latte  and the barista gave me two instead .  i guess it’s some of those buy one get two sales .  you want it ?  ❞  angel inquires with a light shrug ,  gaze shifting between the lattes in her hand before extending one to the other person ,  ❝  i really couldn’t handle more than just one even if i tried .  ❞

he looked up from his crossword, sam had seen the girl enter the coffee store earlier, as he had seen everyone else enter and exit the crowded shop. he hadn’t expected anyone to come up to him, he had explicitly sat in his ‘don’t bother me’ body language. sam met her eyes. she really could be trying to poison him. “would you take a coffee from a stranger?” 

“googled,” she didn’t mean to sound quite so derisive. sia had opportunities that a lot of other private investigators didn’t - access to technology that was beyond them. she wouldn’t have liked to brag, of course, that wasn’t very her, but… “i don’t care about your real name.” oh, she should have. she REALLY should have, and there were certain people in her life who would have called her stupid for allowing this conversation - who would have advised her not to help him, in whatever endeavor that it was he needed help with. but sia was’t them. she hadn’t been, for a while. “for the purposes of this transaction, you’re samuel - not lyle crock. i think you might understand that in my line of work, asking questions or going off of presumptions isn’t really smiled on. you want to change, you change.”

it didn’t matter. to others, maybe it would. to HER… “your mother.” she repeated. there was a degree of doubt to her tone, but not enough to raise suspicions. they were still feeling one another out. she’d find out more along the way. “i can do that. do you know much of anything? any little will help to bring together the big picture.” 

 a lot of people would say they didn’t care, but then actually really, best to ignore them altogether. i don’t care was a standard response from people that would care (sam did not know this first hand, but had watched a lot of movies in his day). “it’s just sam.” sam, the first name he could come up with after getting caught at fourteen. basic, unsuspecting. not one he would come to regret. m’gann went with it. “for clarification- none of the legal documents will say samuel.” 

“my biological mother, yes.” the distinction shouldn’t matter to him- not the way he had been raised, anyway. he’d been conditioned out of emotional attachment, but some of that was just his nature, he figured. m’gann was one of the two points of weakness like that, where strings were involved so tightly that severing at this point would- be unfortunate. 

“hm.” divulging information about himself would become tricky. it wasn’t in his nature, but he had come fully prepared to give her- something. “I was born in 1994, i’ve got a twin who would rather not be involved in any of this, but that’s relevant information.” also aspen didn’t know. he wanted to keep it that way. “the biological mother has the metahuman gene. was probably outwardly displaying some sort of abilities before ‘94.” 

“if that’s how the kids call someone cool, nowadays-” she wasn’t hip enough to know for sure, anymore, “then yeah. i think i AM. there aren’t many people who can do what i do, after all.” 

“i’ve been a lot of places ms. grey, i’ve not seen anyone else that can do what you do.” well, sure, on much smaller scales. or with the involvement of that pit. or not being from earth at all. or a clone. we don’t get involved with superpower shit, his dad had told him on a handful of occasions. and then he turned out to be one of them- of course, on a much smaller scale. “so mutants and meta-humans- is there much of a difference there?” 

The blonde’s eyes narrowed to form a menacing glare and her first instinct was to throw one of the crumpled balls of paper at him, aiming at his forehead. “You’re not funny. Ya know that? Has anyone ever told ya that before? Because… if not, let me be the first to do so! I always like to be first, makes me feel special.” Kimmy brought her attention back to their surroundings and it only angered her further knowing her work was far from done. “Ugh! This fuckin’ place is gonna give me hives. I mean… imagine havin’ something precious to you, right? Then imagine someone fuckin’ it up by like… spittin’ on it or somethin’ or dirtyin’ it up with their grimy little hands! That’s how people treat our great planet! Are you okay with this?!” she questioned loudly, taking a few steps towards the other and aggressively pointing her index finger at his chin.

“it’s pretty fucked up not to care about the environment. i, an asthmatic, know this better than most.” sam couldn’t imagine anything being that precious to him (also, he was not asthmatic, this was just more bullshit). anything he attached himself to like that never worked out in his favor, thus he avoided relationships, or commitments, like that in general. putting effort into something and it never panning out- was disappointing. “passion. love it.” he should move on, he knows that he should move on. he has no business badgering kimmy over something that he knows will continue to needlessly wind her up. it would end poorly for him, and he knew this going into it. “you ever put that energy into other things? gone out for glee club?” 

she was in a weird position. on the one hand - sia had to trust her clientele. she needed to, if she wanted to build a NETWORK, and most of all, if she wanted to be trusted in return. she couldn’t afford to question their inner motives, wondering why it was that they had sought out her, wondering what had pushed them to finally seek the kind of help they had to pay for. on the other… she had been BATGIRL, once. she had been taught by the very best to have suspicion in everyone and everything ; never take anything for granted, because doing so could be your downfall. she was meant to be observant. take in all the details, every movement and chosen word. ask questions. seek answers. she’d thought that these lessons would do well by her, when it came to her new job ; but on the contrary, ingrained instincts simply sat in the pit of her stomach, strangely, as she settled in the second hand chair across from him. 

“you’d be surprised on just how many times i have,” or not. she was still sussing samuel out ( she wondered whether he was being mistrustful, making a change - most people who came to private investigators did ). who knew what he knew about her, exactly, or how his mind worked in situations such as these. “if i weren’t good at it, i’d be seeking out a career change sooner rather than later.”

he stared- a habit he thought he’d long grown out of. staring freaks people out. sam thought on his next words. something about finding someone, let her do her job and figure his problems out for him. the end. he used to be so patient, yet he felt something churning in his stomach. what happened to that sam? the sam that could wait outside a building for days on end waiting for someone? perhaps all of that was building to- what? an outburst with a private investigator that he didn’t know? what was this? jesus, here we go. there goes the impulse control. “okay- you’ve googled me though, right? i’ve used my pseudonym on all those forms- sam morse- or m’orzz. spelling varies. you gotta know my real name though. if you did a background check.” why would she have let him in if she done a background check? “lyle crock?” yikes. 

“anyway. i’m looking for my biological mother. not for sentimental reasons. but that is why i’m keeping my distance from it and hiring you- so.”

sammorzz‌:

“fine, i stand corrected: the purge is about not working for those that make their living legally,” she arched a pointed brow at her ex, though no one else can really hear in the bar tonight. she thought a moment, taking a long drink before answering, “i’d fuck up a police station,” she said simply with a satisfied smile on her face. though at heart she was good, anyone that had the encounters with law that ava did would feel similarly.

a large, over dramatic eye roll at her playing the legality card. usually this was when he would say, overly coy, something about getting his chemistry degree, well within the bounds of legality. but these days- he cover was becoming increasingly worthless. he let her have it. “noble cause. fuck it up, steal the records, burn the records.” sam paused. “you ever been to gotham? you could get away with it there- depending on which obnoxious winged-themed vigilante is on duty that night.”

“The nerve of that shithead guy! To use our beautiful mother nature as if she’s some big ole fuckin’ trash bag is an unforgivable crime! And I think that means a lot comin’ from me!” Ah, a Kimmy Quinn tangent. Filled with curse words and lots of random angry sounds.The blonde had just finished an argument with a trash-hurling stranger which ended with her foot meeting his behind and his face meeting the ground. Clearly, she still wasn’t too happy about the encounter and needed a few more moments to blow off steam. Some students walked past giving her a glance and a giggle while others knew it was best to not even acknowledge her. The attention, or lack thereof, didn’t stop her from continuing to ramble on. “The nerve of you people!” she shouted as her gaze landed on cans and crumpled pieces of paper laid out across the quad. “There is a trashcan right there! You can’t move your lazy asses a few more steps?! The Earth is dying!” she picked up the litter with a huff and a shake of her head. “Idiots, all of you.”

sam was sitting in the vicinity of the...high running emotions going on around him. teenagers and their angst. yikes. he was never great at ignoring his surroundings, and rarely tried to do so anyway. he looked around- she was drawing attention to the both of them. and he- disliked the association. “hey- can you put my belongings-,” sam was indicating toward THE TRASH, “-back where they belong? thanks.”  

“Religious people are boring and ridiculous. It’s a dreadful and paradoxical combination. If you want a nice cover life, find a more bearable type of person. Otherwise, you will be calling in less than five minutes to ask me to use my lovely money to bail you out.” She hummed. “Not that many people are these apps are the type to settle down for a nice cover lifestyle. They tend to be looking for a nice cover fling.”

he allowed a sly smile to pull across his face. “I disagree.” he said curtly, leaning slightly toward her. “can you imagine having that much faith in something?” he couldn’t. not even his own actions- they were a mixed bag. trusting himself? can you imagine? “they have faith in god, maybe they’d have faith in me too.” again, can you imagine how badly that would go? but Sam had kept the act up with his mother, an actual mind reader, for half a decade. “maybe i’ll prove you wrong. maybe they’ll have a sibling i can set you up with. a joint cover life. quaint.” 

“Do you not think my confidence is well earned?”

“I’d be burning one of my last bridges if I said anything but.” he paused. “where’d you learn it?”

“ EXCUSE me ? what did you just say ?! “ dark eyebrows furrow together. either she was getting way behind on the young ‘ slang ‘ or the other had just insulted her.

“you can say what you want, i’m the shit. it’s a compliment, beyonce sings it.” all that time waiting out a target at karma was finally, FINALLY helpful. Thank you, karma club. “you’re carol ferris. of course you’re the shit.” 

“right.” she was… fairly sure, here, that the glass in their apartment probably wasn’t so old that it would need changing. the confirmation to her guess did little to ease her mind, or quench her curiosity. ultimately, though… tova was trusting. it was fairly naive of her, but it had gotten her this far - she had no reason not to be. it would have been better for her if she did, but - better for him she didn’t. “you wouldn’t be making me do anything. REALLY. i’m living with you, i should, i don’t know… make contributions. ‘sides, if they really need doing, you’re doing a, like… public service for us both.” 

“you make contributions.” he offered, not wanting to seem overly generous, but also- why was he doing this again? could he not rent somewhere by himself without drawing attention? a roommate normalized him, he had to remind himself of this. and tova was nice. trusting. not just going with it when someone offers free apartment upgrades is a character trait. one that she had, apparently. “you bought the bread the other day. how else would i have made lunch? Anyway- the windows thing isn’t a big deal. the next hazard that i find- i will let you know.” 

“I’m far from it actually.”

“everyone in this..family of ours-,” the word was funny and hardly applied. it did individually, perhaps- he and aspen. he and artemis. he and jade. he and..lian now. a word that should be used liberally for people that were genetically connected, perhaps. “thinks very poorly of themselves, while at the same time, thinking that they are the shit. it’s hereditary.”

“….the whole fuckin’ point is to not work,” ava couldnt help but chuckle, “no one needs you to do their dirty work if it’s the damn purge,” but she pauses “but i know exaclty the type that would want it. still– boring.”

“i disagree, the purge is one of the absolute best times for me to get paid to do the dirty work of others. you know how much shit i could check off my list?” he’d hold himself to a half dozen, due to the various complications due to amateurs that would arise during a night of no rules. “what would you be doing during the purge that’s that much interesting?” 

“But seriously, what would you do if the Purge was real?”

“Oh, I dunno. Probably have a lazy evening.” he was actually putting thought into this. “Working during the purge would be a cliche, and too predictable. you?”