I Feel Vine

Participants:

brian_icon.gif samara_icon.gif

Scene Title I Feel Vine
Synopsis It's the end of the world as we know it… and I feel vine…
Date November 5, 2010

Staten Island

It's the beach.


"Something something lynyrd birdstein… blah blah.. right? Right!"

A black truck is situated near the water, the tide lapping in and out softly. It's early evening, a pretty beautiful night on Staten Island. But the wonderful scenery is disturbed by a particularly disturbing individual. Nestled in the bed of the truck a young man hastily plays along the tune with the weathered guitar in his lap. The song is played fairly well with the occasional, 'shit' and restart. But the lyrics seem all but forgotten to the would be musician. Except for one part.

"It's the end of the world as we know it…"

Wearing only a white tee shirt and jeans the young man seems not to care much about the crisp evening. So non-chalant about the weather he is that he has even decided to go barefoot. Yet a snug black beanie is pulled tightly down to his brow. An unlit cigarette fumbles about the man's lips, causing some of the song to be mispronounced and mumbled. He has a good voice yet his current effort level at singing puts his vocal quality at bad on a scale of one to ten.

Brian looks worn out, and seems quite tired. As a matter of fact he is! Even now the replicator is working hard elsewhere on the island and the city, while one of him seeks solace in his poorly crafted song.

"It's the end of the world as we know it… and I feel viiine.~"

His lyrical comprehension hasn't always been rock solid.

The music wakes the dead. With an inaudible gasp for breath, Samara pulls herself out of the water. Her usual pale skin pales further, not that anyone aside from her can see it in its clarity; one thing she hadn't counted on with death was the ability to feel cold. She shivers uncontrollably as she drags herself to shore; who knew someone so invisible could feel, and look (upon inspection of her reflection in the water) like a wet dog.

Ripples of water follow the invisible movement like something— or in this case, someone— disrupted it. The ripples are small, displaced by something smaller than the smallest insect, yet they are there, disturbed by Sami's wakefulness.

The life of a dead woman isn't always a fun one; not after exhausting all potential avenues of mischief, anyways. In fact, Samara had drifted into a deep sleep shortly after Rue had walked out for the day, especially as she hadn't felt like tagging along. And now she's paying the price for it.

The song, however, has her cringing, particularly at the word vine. Irritably her nose wrinkles and she kneels down at the water again, dipping her hand within it. Quite purposefully she wills herself interact with the water, focusing her energies on one particular task: splashing Brian in hopes of sending him a 'sign' from above— he's wrong, the word is wrong. The water moves, but physical connection has never been her forte…

"…. Fiiine."

A long moment precedes the correction, but the correction does come. Perhaps it was because of the water swirling around in a cryptic yet desperate form of communication. Or perhaps upon a little soul searching Brian came to the conclusion that there hasn't been many people that don't control plants that have felt vine. Fine makes much more sense. The likelihood of feeling fine over vine—

The guitar is plopped uncermoniously on the bed of the truck as Brian reaches into his jeans pocket. An unfortunately colored lighter is brought from his pocket before the flame lights his cigarette. The pink lighter is dropped in the bed of the truck as well, while Brian scoots onto the tailgate and off of the truck.

Bare feet smoosh into the wet sand gently, Brian bringing the cigarette away from his lips for a moment. The smoke flowing from his nostrils. Iff he notices ghostly waters, he gives no sign off recognition. But he approaches the water regardless, letting his feet sink into the chilly liquid.

A deep sigh is escorted with mass amounts of smoke, the young man giving a very angsty and healthily emotional sigh. Looking over his shoulder Brian finally notices that water has somehow made it onto his truck. LIKE IT WAS SPLASHED BY A GHOST. Narrowing his brow slightly, he looks to the heavens for an answer. God has no answer right now and either do any rain clouds who could have been responsible. Looking back down to the ocean,he gives a light 'hm'. Before dismissing it.

"It's the end of the world.. And I feel ffine." For some reason, more efffort is put into singing this time and he sounds much better than his previous showing.

The splash had required more concentration than she's focused for some time, causing Samara to take a real breather there, her reflection watching him. She sends another smaller splash his way in appreciation for the fixed lyric, but then something catches her eye.

Sami quite literally stares at the lit cigarette The irony of her being dead and smoke-free and him alive only causes her to gnaw on her bottom lip, the injustice of it all eating at her just a little. She'd watched him abandon the lighter to the truck bed and makes a decision; it will be her good deed for the day, another chance at penance and perhaps a way to make it out of her personal purgatory. She floats over to the pink lighter, and utilizing that same level of concentration, lifts it from the truck bed. Yet, her minute level of interaction fails her, causing the lighter to fall back into the truck bed with a CLANG sound.

She cringes again and kind of shrugs, what can she do now?

Brian is way too self absorbed right now to notice a reflection in the water. He just smiles lightly when the extra water from Sami's splash breezes across his ankles. Another drag is taken from the cigarette and is quickly followed by a choir of coughs. Exposing his lungs for what they are, virgin lungs. Brian pounds at his chest a little bit before removing the cigarette and glaring balefully at it. These are supposed to help him not be stressed, not make him more stressed and not being able to be un-stressed. And then the CLANG.

The former Brian may have shrugged it off, and gone back to ruining songs but Winters has been trained. Winters has been exposed. He knows all about lighter stealing spectres. He took a class. Slipping the cigarette back into his mouth his eyes train on the lighter as one hand goes to his back. The shirt is lifted and his palm settles on the handle of his gun.

"Someone there?" He asks, his voice lowering about three octaves than normal to make a point that he is in fact a scary brooding man.

Guns and brooding don't scare apparitions. At least not normal apparitions. Samara, however, is still terrified by them; mostly because she died at sixteen and hasn't fully accepted her death (one of the reasons she thinks she hasn't crossed over). She pads back to the water and puts her hands on her head, like somehow Brian can see her and is speaking to her. Her eyes shut tightly as she mumbles to herself words the general hearing can't discern, although, an avid lip-reader may be able to pick up a few, "…please… don't… shoot…" the rest is near nonsense jumbled with extra syllables.

Her own feet dipped in tthe water when she shuffled back, causing small ripples around her ankles and displacing some of it. While she may be invisible, she still effects the world in her own small way.

After a long moment of glowering at nothing, Brian releases the handle of his weapon. And then finally recognizes the strange games afoot. Peering at his own personal Lady in the Water, he instinctively steps back. His eyes initially go to where the owner of the refflection should be, nothing. Then he dabs his toe in the reflection. Weird. Out of the corner of his eye he catches the displaced water.

The jabbering is not recognized, Brian might be able to read the lips if they weren't so distorted by the water and he wasn't trying to figure out why his reflection all of a sudden had a dance partner. Brian looks around once again to spot the source of the girl's image.

Stranger things have happened. He's been visited by shadows, disembodied voices, dream walkers, but never ReflectionGirl. And ReflectionGirl looks scared. So.. Brian raises his palms slowly as if to calm her. And uhh..

"You ok?"

Samara gapes openly at Brian, wholly unsure of, well, everything. Her mouth forms a large 'O' as he asks the question. Her head tilts, bringing her red, wet hair lower on her back, and forcing her to recognize that it's clinging to her neck in that disgusting way that only wet hair can. Her lips press together as she slowly lowers her hands from her head, holding them out, and silently signaling she means no harm; not that she looks intimidating in any way.

Her large hazel doe-eyes stare at his reflection with that same gape in her mouth. The question lingers a moment before she manages to tighten her jaw. Her lips part again to speak, only to close. Finally, in considering the question, she merely shrugs. Is she okay? Well she's dead, how okay can she be?

Her eyes narrow slightly before she's pointing to his reflection in the water, namely to the cigarette hanging from his lips. She frowns expectantly.

Peering intently at the reflection, one hand comes up to loosely flail at where the girl should be. Flailflail. He then returns his attention to her reflection for her next message. It causes him to laugh shortly.

"First day I decide to smoke and a mute Evolved comes to tell me to stop…" Brian complies slowly, bending to put the cigarette out on the beach. He flicks the butt into his truck bed, at least he's eco-friendlyish. "Where were you when I dropped out of college? Or dated that one… girl that maybe wasn't a girl."

He gives a mock accusatory look to the girl in the water before tilting his head. Do you introduce yourself to mute water evolved people?

"Uhh.. I'm Brian." Apparently, yes.

The teasing earns a small tilt of her head and a sheepish smile. She shrugs again as her hands are shoved into the pockets of what appear to be jeans— the only jeans she ever wears. Her lips twitch into a friendlier, slightly dimpled grin as she waggles her fingers in a tiny three-fingered wave. This is her second introduction in just a few weeks; she's on a roll it would seem.

She attempts to mouth her name now, knowing full well the message is likely to be lost amongst the ripples and displaced water, "SAM-I."

Still dissatisfied with her own introduction she hmmms silently, contemplating another way to demonstrate her name. Her eyes light up and her lips quirk further upwards as she lifts a single finger, the universal sign for EUREKA.

It's time to put those dance skills and wannabe cheerleader ones to good use. She curls her arms and legs into a kind of S-shape. Moments later she's adjusting her position to bring her fingers together into a kind of pyramid to represent 'A'. Her fingertips are then lowered to her head, coming together atop it, kind of like the top of an 'M'. And then she brings her hands down to her sides and stiffens to represent the 'I'. Whether this odd body language translates or not is anybody's guess, but no one can say she didn't try.

"S" He murmurs as if reading. "Okay, A. Now give me an M, I got that M I got that M." Hey being with a inaudible spectre leaves a lot to be desired on the sound side of things. So he's making up for her inability to be hilarious. "I… Sam-eye." He tilts his head dubiously. "Your parents are dicks, Sam-eye." He grins lightly, before raising his hands. "I know sign language.. You should too. That would help a lot in your current life predicament." He peers up at where she should be standing again.

"So you're invisible.. You like to watch me make bad decisions all the time? Or is this a new hobby?" Hmm. "Raise one finger for the first and two for the second." Great job Brian, just great.

There's a shake of Sami's head at the notion of being invisible or Sam-eye for that matter. Her eyebrows knit together as she considers how to explain and then forms a little finger gun with her right hand. She holds it to her temple and pretends to fire, causing her body to go limp; she's dead, that's the point. Of course, this theatre game is far from clear.

The question does earn an answer, however. She holds up two fingers; she hasn't followed Brian before. If she's honest, she's only just started to watch people without Rue for the first time since her BFFs stint in the psych ward.

Frowning at the explanation, Brian doesn't quite piece it together. Evolved powers are real. Ghosts still aren't. Despite the worlds jumps into fantasy, leprechauns, ghosts, and Nessy still don't exist. "So.. do you only show up in water or in mirrors too? Like the anti-vampire?" As if to make this answer clear, Brian plods away from the ocean and lowers his face into one off his sideview mirrors on his truck. As if waiting for her to come answer him.

A light smile plays on his lips. "Okay answer one or two for this one again, are you watching me because I'm unbelievably gorgeous or because I'm undeniably attractive?" He waits in the mirror for his ego-stroke.

That's one thing Sami is rest-assured she isn't, a vampire, much to her relief (although sparkling in the sun would be hella cool in her world). She floats behind him, her steps like hovers along the ground, and sure enough she appears in the mirror, her arms raised in a victorious 'Ta-Da~" pose. With little to offer and no easy way to write with (i.e. few glass surfaces to scribble on), she makes do with what she can.

The question, however, has the dead lady hugging her arms to her chest rather defiantly. Ghost or not, she's retained some of her teenaged attitude. But she does smile at the notion, the smallest curling of lips accompanied with a faint dimple of bemusement. Her eyes twinkle and arms drop from her chest; she's not answering, but the smallest sparkle is more telling than her nonresponse.

A smile flashes as she appears behind him in the mirror. Causing him to whirl around to make sure she's not really there again. And she still isn't. Surprise! But he still waves his hand behind him anyway. Staring at her in the mirror he nods slowly. "Hm. You could make a good spy. Unless you had to infiltrate the glass house. And then you would suck as a spy." Brian muses. As she refuses to answer, he grins impishly. "I'm going to say you're answering number three, amaaazing singing voice. And just a general way with words.. and lyrics." Tucking his hands into his pockets, he peers up over his truck to the lighthouse looming in the distance.

Yes she's a strange manifestation that can't talk, but somehow for some reason, he does not feel threatened. "See that building? I made it. Well not made it, but I kind of made it. I rebuilt it, turned it into a orphanage for Evolved kids. I put years of my life into that place, into those kids."

"And on Monday it's going to be destroyed or something… isn't that awesome?" He glances at the mirror for a reaction. "So please forgive me guardian angel, for deciding to smoke today. I was a little stressed. Just a little."

Her chin drops to her chest, her body shivers, and her lips frown that pulls heavily on her formerly brightened eyes. Sami purses her lips, straining them underneath her surmounting empathy. With a heavy sigh, evidenced through her entire body she reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder; he can't feel it (aside from the cold radiating from her thanks to her water exposure), but it's there, her fingers curling around the top of it. Like it or not, today, Samara is playing the role of shoulder-angel, existing to give support.

Her gaze turns back to the guitar. While it might not be the most stress relieving, it seems like a better way to burn off steam than smoking, but then Samara never smoked. Or drank. Or smoked pot. Her life ended too early, leaving her with that doe-eyed innocence even now.

Blinking, she points to the back of the truck within the reflection. After which she lifts her two pointer fingers to either side of her head. She can play shoulder devil once in awhile, if he needs to, in light of everything, she won't object to one cigarette. Anymore, that is.

While not really feeling the touch, he can see it. And appreciates the gesture, or something like it. Brian grins a little as she points to the back and his cigarette. "You made me put it out in the sand. You want me to smoke a sand cigarette now? Sam-eye. You're not being a very good guardian angel right now." He lets out a slow laugh. But then realizes he is laughing with a refflection.

"So.. What's your deal really? I was giving you some mystery grace because you're cute. But you're a reflection and you're hanging out around my car. So.. Get your numbers ready. One, you're a spy from the Mongolian goverment."

Obviously he figures the Mongolians are now busting out into American espionage. "Two, you're a test subject that escaped from the laboratory. Three, you're my daughter from the future trying to warn me of my iminent death. Four, you're my daughter from the future trying to warn me of your iminent death. Five, you're hopelessly in love with me and have trained yourself to be invisible just so you could follow me. Or six, you're german." Which would explain all of it, obviously.

The options earn a small scowl and a shrug of defeat. There's little she can tell him and he didn't guess the one thing she knows to be true; Samara Beth Dunham is dead. There was even a funeral. That she attended. Yeah, it was weird.

She laces her fingers together in front of her while contemplatively she considers how to explain herself. After a moment's pause, she reaches through him (quite literally) to the mirror. Holding out her pointer finger she writes across the surface of the mirror one word in cute girlish scrawl: 'dead.' She then leans forward, signaling that he should breathe on it should he want the truth (or if he missed her scribble the message); it's one of the few ways she's learned how to communicate.

Frowning lightly as she reaches through him, he stares at the mirror. He coulda sworn he went over every possibility. Once she's done he leans forward to breathe on the mirror. Dead. Hmm. That is puzzling. Still fairly certain ghosts aren't real, he leans back slightly. "So you died?" He hardly looks impressed. "I've died before." He explains non-chalantly. And she probably won't believe him, then it's going to be him convincing the dead girl to believe him. "A lot, actually. Bet you I've died more than you." And now it's a competition.

Leaning back slightly from the mirror, Brian pulls down the collar of his shirt so that his chest is visible. FFor a moment it may look like he's going to flash her, but then something odd happens. A hand slowly slides out of his chest.A hand identical to his own. It waves and then slides back into his chest like it never existed. No marks on his chest or anything. The shirt is then released. "I can make more of myself" He explains. "So.. I get killed every now and then. I guess you can't do that." He points out dully with a sad frown.

Samara nods emphatically at the question. YES. Yes, she is dead, and wholly convinced of it. His assertion, however, wins another puzzled expression complete with knit eyebrows and a distinct frown. Her eyes narrow as he tugs on the collar of his shirt, but her eyes widen considerably at the hand that slides out of the chest. Her mouth gapes in shock… again. This is one of her more common surprised expressions.

She'd only died the once, and it stuck, so there's little she can do about it now. With a small shrug, she has little to say in response other than try to pass on her sympathies for all of those deaths (or non-deaths as the case may be?). Carefully she mouths the word, "SORRY," again taking care to overannunciate. And then the next logical question comes to her, "HOW?" It's the question she's always imagined herself asking other dead people: how did they die?

"Uhh.. Well. I don't remember all of them. I vaguely remember the first. This high powered brat who could fly grabbed me and flew up real high and then dropped me.. I was naked at the time." An important fact to remember. Peter Stupidfface Petrelli. "I've been shot a lot. Blown up. You know, fun violent stuff." He explains gently, while staring at the mirror. "How did you die?" He asks, trying to be as delicate as possible.

It's still surreal to Samara— the experience of death— it didn't even hurt, it merely felt like moving from one thing to another. Almost like a nothingness crept over her. Four fingers are held up, followed by the mouthed word, "YEARS." It was four years ago that she died. NYC. Her fingertips are brought together and then, in a pseudo-explosion demonstration, are quickly pulled apart in an upward arched splay of fingers. She blew up. She shrugs; at least in her purgatory she doesn't look like she blew up, that would be like looking at food gone through the blender with leftover chunks put together. Ew. Just ew.

"The bomb.." Brian whispers to himself softly. "I'm sorry." Is the follow up. Half turning to face her, he then remembers that DeadGirl is still invisible. Yet he decides to change the subject from death to something much nicer. Opening the door to his truck he enters, and invites her.. into his rear view mirror. And rather than talk about death, Winters initiates small talk and niceties for a while. Even though it's difficult to chit chat while playing charades eventually some information about the pair of them is shared.. eventually.


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