gooseberryhigh | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Solomon Webb and Sam Sweeney
What: Solo and Sam have a chat
Where: Solomon's cabin, Ebonhide
When: June 9th, after This
Warnings/Rating: Pg-13, for like ... language? Discussion of the seance, etc.

Sam had asked Solomon if he wanted her to come over. It wasn't in Solomon's genetic make up to be comforted. He wasn't really entirely used to it. He wasn't exactly shut off to it, because he understood that psychologically, it's necessary, and it's healthy, and he can give that comfort freely. But there hasn't been a lot of opportunities to accept that kind of comfort.

He wasn't expecting that from Sam here, but she had asked him if he wanted her to come over, and he realized that he did. He wanted to see her, and talk to her, and talk to a friend that wasn't connected to anything that had happened. He wanted to find somebody to ground him a bit.

When Solomon opened the door for Sam, he probably looked a bit off. His face was drawn a little bit. In direct contrast to his usual easy beaming smile, he probably looked visibly deflated. His eyes were not blatantly, but they were noticeably, red rimmed just a bit, almost as if he'd been crying, or something. He tried very hard to smile at Sam, as he opened the door for her, and gave her the space to come in. He probably failed, but he tried very hard.

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Samantha didn't know where all this love for Solomon came from, but it was there. Ever since their weirdly matched Prom date, how they connected there and all the things they had discussed since then, she felt... attached. It wasn't bad, but it was new for her. Samantha didn't typically do attachment. She wasn't exactly hit-it-and-quit-it, she knew she got obsessed with people quickly and fell out of it equally as fast. This, though, felt a little different.

So when Ari approached Sam to tell her the cover story and then Calvin told their lie to the whole school, Sam thought it was pertinent to check in with Solo - since he had told her the truth and she knew the actual story. Clearly Solo was upset. Sam got Reece to walk her there and hang out with his Ebonhide friends while she and Solo talked about what happened.

The second Solo opened the door, Sam was alarmed. His face was drawn, he wasn't smiling, and though it wasn't immediately noticeable she could see the redness to his eyes, the slight sheen over them that indicated someone had been crying. Somewhere deep in her she felt... Honestly she wasn't sure. Sam didn't have words for the things she felt, she had never felt them before. It was like her heart broke while an intense anger and need to protect him rose up from the cracks. It made her hesitate, stop in her tracks.

"Come here." Sam opened her arms, but didn't wait for him to come to her. She took a step forward and wrapped him up in her arms, kissing his cheek as he did so. "It's gonna be okay, Solo." She hugged him for a long time before speaking. "Which one's your bed? Let's sit, and you tell me everything that happened tonight okay?"

Edited 2017-06-11 02:21 (UTC)

Solomon went into Sam's arms immediately, like a child who just needed to see his mother, except his mother wasn't here. His family wasn't here. He was in a school of 160 people, and he felt completely alone. He hugged Sam, burying his face in her shoulder. He hugged her for a while, and he might have given good, genuine hugs before, but this time there was something desperate about the hug. Like he just really needed it. It felt like the only thing he needed right now.

They hugged for a long time, and when they separated, Solomon felt ready for it. He took Sam's hand and led her to his bed, which was on the far side of the room from the door. When he climbed into his bed, a wave of complete exhaustion threatened to drag him down, but his eyes were clear when he watched Sam climb in after him. "It probably feels worse than it actually is," he says logically, because Solomon is at his base a logical person, even when it's his own emotions.

Edited 2017-06-11 03:01 (UTC)

After Solo climbed in, she got in beside him, wrapping her arms around him again. It was sort of awful, seeing him like this. Solo wasn't a ray of happy sunshine constantly like Jeffy or Pippa or anything - he was usually more contemplating or quiet, but he certainly wasn't sad. Or desperate, which is how that hug felt. She played big spoon, letting him rest his head on her arm while she rested hers on his - cheek to cheek.

"You're probably right." She agreed with his assessment of the situation, for sure, but that didn't really have a bearing on the situation for her. "But feeling bad is okay, even if you can see tomorrow it might be better, or when you think more clearly it's not as bad as it seems. As you would say, you're entitled to your emotions, right? Well, Solo, so are you." She lifted her cheek to kiss his again, holding him tightly.

"And if you want, I'll take 'em all down for you."

Sam was a nice presence. He could feel it. It was a warmth that covered his whole body in a way he couldn't really describe. It made him feel exhausted. But it also made it feel less like he was drowning. "Micah, Calvin, and the others are desperate. They were scared. But I have never felt like, before in my entire life, that I was talking to a wall, telling a wall very clearly what I believed and what I want. They let those words wash over them, as if they didn't matter, and then made decisions in the... how do you say... hot moment. Before thinking the decisions through, before formulating a consensus. It felt like the words were... a kind of inconvenience for them. The entire conversation was inconvenient for them, so they rushed to do the quickest solution, even if that solution negated half of the conversation. I do not like feeling like an inconvenience. I do not like feeling..." He wasn't entirely sure how he felt. He couldn't describe his emotions adequately. He was not ashamed them, but he couldn't find the words for them. "Invisible. Silenced. I do not like feeling unheard. It makes me feel insignificant."

Solomon like this, playing little spoon to Sam, who was practically wrapped him, hugging him, was one of the very rare times that Solomon was less formal than usual. His words remained formal, disconnected from the loose way of speaking teenagers generally had, but they came out softer, his emotions overriding his usual formality.

"I feel insignificant."

"It's hard to hear other people out when you're scared. They were all scared by what happened, but also... worried about what would happen to themselves and everyone else if they got caught in a lie. I mean, you could get kicked off of Quidditch for what you did, you know. Or lose your scholarship." Sam didn't realize how much she cared about that now. If he lost his scholarship, it meant he wouldn't come back. She wanted him to come back.

Still, she understood why he felt the way he did. "It doesn't make them not listening to you right, though. It doesn't mean whatever happens after is okay." She was so angry with them for making Solomon feel insignificant. Feeling insignificant was one of the worst feelings in the world. "I know they made decisions for you, that's messed up. I'm really sorry about that, Solo. They shouldn't have done that. I know it was probably for a good reason, but it never feels good to have someone take your choices away."

Sam squeezed her arms around him a little tighter, still resting her face close to his. A sigh escaped her, trying to keep herself calm. Her being angry too wasn't going to help the situation at all. "We have two weeks left. Let's just spend that time together, forget everyone else. You and I can deal with whatever comes up together, relax, figure it out with level heads and then go have fun this summer. Come back different, stronger people. They don't matter in the long run. Having friends is... really important, but you don't need to bend over backwards or compromise yourself for other people to have friends."

Solomon knew that, of course he knew that. He did have things to lose. He did care about what his friends had to lose. Jeffy could get kicked off the team, Micah could get kicked off the team, scholarships could be lost. He had been concerned about that too. But Sam seemed so level headed. Like she could understand everybody's concerns, from both sides. It was such an admirable ability. She didn't have an actual solution for him, because there was no solution here. It was just ... hurt feelings. You couldn't ice those bruised feelings if you didn't do the hurting.

He touched his hand to her arm. Her calm was almost contagious, like a kind of strength she was wrapping him in. "All we can do now is better," he murmured, like a mantra. All one can do is better than they did yesterday, that is all anyone can do in life. He needed to remember that. He needed to let his own hurt feelings mend themselves and learn from them. Instead of clinging to them, he had to learn how to let them go, before they got him burned. Or before they got other people burned.

He'd harbored ill emotions toward Casper, and it had been painful. He did not want to do this again. She gave him a game plan to move forward with. Relax and let it go, basically. But when Sam proposed the game plan, it didn't sound dismissive. It sounded like she understood that he probably needed to give this issue space. He nodded, tilting his face down slightly, to rub his cheek against Sam's arm. "You're right," he murmured. "There was a lot of charged emotions. But I want to spend time with you, I want to have a fun summer with you. You are... unbelievably cathartic."

Even though Sam was here comforting Solo, his words still offered her a lesson. All we can do is better. She knew, from his answers when he was on the truth serum, from Ari insulting her intelligence, from Ulysses telling Solo she 'had a lot going on,' that Sam needed to hear that too. She needed to be better. If she wanted this to... go anywhere, to work, Solo needed her to be better. If she wanted to come back, to secure her place at Gooseberry, she needed to do better. It was like something clicked, slid into place and resonated with her. "Yeah, that's all we can do. All we should do."

Of course, Sam loved hearing she was right - but more then that, she was glad something she said had been able to help Solo. She wasn't involved in the situation - she cared for Ari, Jade, and had no issue with Calvin even, but she also cared for Solo. It was kind of a crap situation to be in. Still, given that she had no real stake in it, it was easy to see the hurt feelings on both sides, to calm him down by knowing that what they did was shitty but not intentionally mean, not to hurt them.

A grin spread across Sam's face as Solo rubbed his cheek on her arm, telling her she was cathartic. "Unbelievably, huh? Honey, I am catharsis." She teased, nudging him slightly and laughing. "If there's anything I know how to do really well, it's rest, relaxation, and having fun. I got you." There was a small part of her that was excited to hear that he wanted to spend time with her, that he wanted to spend the summer with her. "But yeah, exactly. I think it's best everyone take a step back, think about why and how it got that way and, you know... talk about it when everyone's head is clear, if that's what you want to do."

Sam dragged a smile out of Solomon. He didn't fight it. It wasn't in his nature to fight the urge to smile. But her laugh was nice. It was like music. He wanted to hear it more. "I wish to speak more of it. I believe it got this way because we stopped talking to each other. Everyone just doesn't talk enough. We hide our emotions, to save our faces. We cannot honestly admit that we are terrified. That the terror we felt that night has followed us out of the forest and lives inside of us now. Possibly because these are empty words, but they do not feel empty to me. There is a comfort in solidarity, to know that the terror that eats away inside of you is shared by someone else. We have isolated ourselves from those that understand how we feel."

His fingers stroked over Sam's arm, feather light, as if he was reminding himself that she was here, her arms anchoring him down. "You alleviate my isolation," he murmured. "Eres como una casa de la luz, eres un faro de luz, darme la dirección," he said softly. The formality of his tone always dropped away when he spoke in Spanish, his tongue familiar with the language, practically hugging each syllable.

"I know, and that sucks. Feeling like you have no one to talk to is awful." Samantha wasn't one to share secrets. She kept a lot of things to herself. It isolated her in a lot of ways, but she also did not trust a lot of people to hear her. To listen to her thoughts and feelings and not judge her for them. Maybe it was the type of people she grew up around. Maybe if she had spent more time with Reece growing up she might have turned out different, but she was always more drawn to the bad crowd, the troublemakers - and those kids were often that way because they didn't share their emotions. This was something Sam could completely relate to. "But I'm here for you, you can always talk to me."

The way his fingers traced her skin felt nice. Closing her eyes, she listened as Solomon spoke. She was glad she could be something to him, for him. People didn't rely on Sam for much, didn't think she was... smart enough or capable enough. He did, and that meant more to her than just about anything else. Though she knew a different dialect of Spanish - the type they spoke in Spain - his words weren't lost on her. "Aw, Solo. Esa es la cosa más dulce que alguien me ha dicho."

Edited 2017-06-11 06:26 (UTC)

Solomon was actually halfway through saying, "You can always talk to me too," when he realized that her last sentence had been in Spanish. His mind just filed away the words so quickly, it took him a moment to realize that the words were not in English. Sam's pronunciation was formal, as if she'd been taught the language later in life, extremely similar to how Solomon spoke English.

Solomon didn't actually finish his sentence. He said, "you can always," before he realized what she'd said. He was turned away from her, so she probably didn't see the surprise on his face, but she could probably feel it regardless. And then... then it was like a flood gate had been released.

"No has dejado de sorprenderme, Samantha. Lamento que no hablamos mucho el año pasado, ojalá te hubiera conocido todo este tiempo. Eres una fuente interminable de potencial, Sam. Siempre puedes hablar conmigo también. Puedes hablarme de cualquier cosa. Cuando quieras." Solomon spoke quickly, as if he had words building up inside of him, and that single sentence of Spanish from Sam was a release valve. The words came so quickly, when he reached for them, they were already on their way out of his mouth.

When he broke off his first sentence, realizing she had spoken Spanish, Sam had to laugh. The look on his face was kind of priceless, and when the laugh ended she still had a sort of smug smirk on her face. She honestly liked surprising him - because it wasn't... the same type of surprise some people got when she answered something right in class. It wasn't condescending. He was happy about it.

As he spoke, Sam had to focus - she wasn't that fluent in Spanish. Not fluent enough for how quickly the words flew out of his mouth. When she figured it out though, she stopped and sat up, looking at him.

"Do you really think that?" She asked, her voice more quiet than it had been a few moments ago. Sam had spent a lot of time screwing around, messing up. At first it was accidental, she started to fail because she wasn't paying attention, she was busy having fun. Then, it was easy to blow it off, ignore it, because people stopped getting angry at you, stopped being disappointed if they expected nothing from you.

Now, though, it sometimes hurt Sam. It was her fault, she had built that wall and that reputation for herself. She was to blame for it all, but when she wanted to change? When she had decided she wanted to be here, and was actually trying - fighting against that reputation had become exhausting. The condescending surprise or the snide remarks about her intelligence were wearing. Solo didn't feel that way, though. He thought she had potential, and what he said was genuine.

"That... actually really means a lot to me, Solo."

Solomon rolled over onto his back so he could stare up at Sam, and meet her eyes. He smiled, and it was much easier this time. It looked like his normal easy, genuine smile now. "I knew nothing of you, when we were paired. We shared classes together, but it was like a blank slate. Getting to know you is like watching the blank slate fill up. I cannot predict it. It is like learning a subject I have never encountered before. Every day is a new lesson." He brought her hand to his mouth, and kissed the back of her hand. For most dudes that tried that move, it would probably look purposefully suave, borderline sleazy, maybe. But it did not look that way for Solomon. He did it on whim, and he did it smiling sheepishly, because he wanted to. "I look forward to learning more."

She was relieved to see that smile back on his face. When she walked in, he had looked so down, so defeated. It was heart-breaking to see someone look that way, someone she surprisingly and actually cared about. Seeing him brighten up like that, and not just because he felt better but because she had made him feel better? It lit her up like a Christmas tree. She was all smiles.

"You're really poetic, you know that? It's... nice. There's a part of me that's almost glad we didn't speak last year, because I wasn't you know, the same as I am now. I'm a little different now, more receptive to the kinds of things you can teach me. I feel like I'm learning with you too. It makes me feel really..." She paused, trying to think of what she wanted to say. "Orgulloso, ¿sabes? De mí mismo. Al igual que no soy sólo una gran decepción."

Edited 2017-06-11 10:01 (UTC)

Solomon's smile was softer this time. He propped himself up on his elbows. "No," he said. "No, no eres una decepción. You are better than you were yesterday, and you'll be better tomorrow than you are today. We are growing. We are in motion. We are living. You are not a disappointment, no one is a disappointment. Situations can be disappointing, but no person is disappointing. Not when we are alive, moving, things. Not when the ability to change, we hold within our hands. No eres una decepción. Las posibilidades de las estrellas están dentro de sus manos. Stardust está en sus yemas de los dedos. Nunca has sido decepcionante."

Solo's words resonated with her. Even if she might have read those words somewhere and thought they were cheesy or ridiculous, when he said them it felt real. It felt nice. When he spoke, it hit her in all sorts of vulnerable places. She felt tears prick behind her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away. "You're like, something out of a romance novel. You know that, right?" She replies, blushing slightly though she was teasing, just a little. "Come here." She finally says, putting a hand underneath his chin and pulling his face forward, pressing a kiss to his lips.

Solomon's smile lit up his face, as he lifted himself more to cover the space between them to kiss her. He's still smiling as they kiss. Kissing Sam on a semi- regular basis made him feel giddy. This was always a new experience for him. He was still learning through it. He was still a little clumsy, but he was getting more comfortable with it. He was starting to think maybe he knew what he was doing here.

"I've never been in a romance, I have no practice," Solomon admits readily. "But I try."

Sam enjoyed kissing Solo just as much as he liked kissing her. She might have been more experienced, but the fact remained that kissing Solo wasn't quite like kissing anyone else. Even if he was new at it, less 'experienced' than she was with kisses, they just kind of fit together. When the kiss broke off for Solo to speak, she was still smiling. Her expression basically mirrored his.

"I've kissed people before, but I'll be honest - I haven't really been in a romance either." Samantha was a people person, but her feelings ran so hot then so cold she really hadn't had the best experience with relationships. "We can figure it out together, though."

Sam's smile was a reflection of his own smile, which brightened his own smile. It was like his smile was contagious for her, and hers was contagious for him. He wanted to keep it, bottle it up, this feeling he felt. It felt like he could breathe again. He hadn't realized how constricted his breathing had gotten over the last couple of weeks, that the relief of drawing a full breath was heady.

"I watched the notebook once," Solomon said. "I strongly suggest we try something else, because it is not... not a happy story, not a good romance, good things just do not happen. And the titanic, I suggest we try something different from that too."

"That's why you gotta watch like, a romantic comedy. They usually end in a happier note than dramatic romance or base romance." Samantha actually loved romantic comedies. She enjoyed all those awful tropes about comedy and romance that so many people ended up despising.

"We'll watch some over summer, since there are... very few sequels to romantic comedies."

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