seattle ; monday afternoon

[necroslacker]

It'd been another night racked with nightmares. They were getting worse and worse and Sam had no idea what had seemingly opened the floodgates. He didn't know what was causing everything to spiral out of control. He'd found himself downstairs in the basement way too much and for way too long. Ramon and Frank had even started questioning him and he'd just snapped angrily and stalked away.

That had just concerned them more. And they'd threatened to tell Brid which was great. He didn't want to deal with her when it came to this. He didn't want to deal with anyone. He just wanted to internalize it and make it go away.

He'd locked himself in his room for right now. The bed was unmade and messy and his clothes were strewn about, a testament to just how unfocused he was. But, he was still up and he was still mobile. Well, he was looking out one of the windows at the gray afternoon.

But, that counted.

[NFB but open for interactions]

Comments

[necroslacker]

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Sam told her, sighing again. "You just have to want to face the issues head on. If you don't, then you're gonna keep dealing with them and possibly keep pushing people away just because."

[whenshewasnice]

"Trust me, I never do it 'just because'."

Of course, she barely wanted to admit to pushing people away in the first place.

"But I'm not great at making friends. You know that."

[necroslacker]

"You can make friends, Natalie, but you're less likely to keep them if you play games with their heads," Sam told her, rubbing his brow. "Some people can deal with it, some people can't."

[whenshewasnice]

"I don't know if I want friends who can't deal with it," she mused, but quietly. "Because I'm never going to be easy to deal with. I can try to ease up on spinning them around, but I'll never be easy. I don't want to be."

[necroslacker]

"And I'm not asking you to change," Sam said, sounding tired. "But, you've admitted that you've got issues. And that you want to fix them. I'm just giving you some outside advice from someone who's not on the island."

[whenshewasnice]

"I know," Natalie told him, and sighed, rubbing her temple. "I know. And it's appreciated."

Because he was still the only one she'd even admit all that to in so many words. She might have alluded to it to Clint or Jono, sure. But that was different.

"You sound tired."

[necroslacker]

"Told you I needed sleep," Sam reminded her.

[whenshewasnice]

"So you did," she agreed mildly. "So there's really nothing out of the ordinary going on?"

Well, he did always sleep poorly.

[necroslacker]

"No."

He wasn't going to start dumping his issues on her especially after what she'd just admitted.

[whenshewasnice]

"Really?"

Just checking.

[necroslacker]

"Is anything really out of the ordinary for my life?"

It was avoidance but he didn't really care.

[whenshewasnice]

"That was some shoddy avoidance right there," Natalie pointed out, albeit gently. "Don't play the semantics game with me, Sam."

[necroslacker]

"You wanna play another game, Natalie?"

Still avoiding.

[whenshewasnice]

"Well, you're one of the few people who are any good at them." But. "But, you're just making it obvious there's something you're not telling me. And you have every right to not tell me things. But I'll still ask."

[necroslacker]

"No need to ask," Sam told her, still putting up that shield in front of him. "I'm just tired."

[whenshewasnice]

"I'm no longer buying that."

It felt fair to make that crystal clear.

[necroslacker]

Yeah, he was kind of picking up on that.

"Well, it's all you're getting," Sam said. His shields were high right now. They only tended to go down when it came to her during certain times.

[whenshewasnice]

"At least that's a little more honest," she remarked. "Frustrating, but honest."

[necroslacker]

"Sorry. I'm not letting you back in."

Not like that, at least. It sounded harsh but he was mostly just being protective.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie didn't feel too pleased with his protectiveness. But that was to be exepcted, right? For one thing, that wasn't what it registered as to her.

"... Well, that's a nice bit of whiplash."

[necroslacker]

"What?" Sam was confused, yeah. "What do you mean?"

[whenshewasnice]

"You seemed pretty comfortable advising me on issues few other people have even realized I have." There was a trust thing here she now thought she may have read a little too much into. Would've been par for the course. "But then you turn around and you're 'not letting me back in'? Why get even that close if I can't do the same?"

[necroslacker]

"Because -- "

Well, there were a lot of reasons. So many of them.

" -- this isn't the same thing. This is dangerous."

That hadn't been what he'd expected to say.

[whenshewasnice]

It wasn't exactly what Natalie had expected to hear, either. There was a tiny part of her that preferred this.

"So is being a social recluse," she snarked anyway, but her heart wasn't in it. "What is it, Sam?"

[necroslacker]

"No, Natalie."

He wasn't going to bring her into his thoughts that he might be losing it. Not gonna happen.