"Fuck, man, you're braver than I am. I never would've thought of snagging supplies from MULE camps." He'd always been taught to avoid those camps at all costs, unless you had to go in for stolen cargo. But Higgs never had formal training, did he? He just decided to make it for himself and pulled together a group of people to be porters with him.
"No?" he sounds genuinely surprised at this. "You're always reckless as hell, I'm surprised." But then again, Higgs had been the one always hurting for food.
Though, given how many supplies stolen from Bridges ended up in MULE camps, it is a bit surprising that Sam never robbed them blind even once. Even with his company he'd made it a goal to get all of the missing packages out of the encampments when he'd come across them.
"I should've made up an excuse to make you walk straight through one of their camps during a delivery."
"They would've smelled the pizza a mile away." There's something like a smile on his face. The faintest hint of one. Fucking Higgs and his pizza.
"I can't believe you made me walk from South Knot City to here, with champagne and pizza, on foot because you marked it as hand-carry only. No, wait -- " He holds up a hand, amending. "I can absolutely believe you made me do that. At least you gave me an S-rating for it."
Thinking about the delivery, about how it was marked for an anniversary, leaves an odd knot in his gut. So he won't think about it.
"Guess that's a possibility I can't ignore," Higgs grins. Despite what he's talking about, it's pretty clear he doesn't actually mean anything malicious at all. Of all the things he did, things he couldn't really bring himself to admitting that he'd actually willingly done... well. Getting Sam to deliver him pizza had been almost playfully innocent in comparison.
And he'd always paid Sam well for the deliveries, too. Not like some of the idiots he'd tried when Sam was a little too otherwise busy. "Still a better payout than the shit Bridges gives out. They tried to tempt me over to them more than once."
He had, at that. Never anything less than an S-rating, and plenty of likes as well. Higgs might well have been his most generous client.
Sam snorts at the idea of being tempted over to Bridges. "It wasn't by choice. I would have much rather stayed independent." But apparently a dying woman's wish is enough to bind him into an unwanted contract. Though Amelie had been the one to convince him, really.
"I don't know why anyone would work for them, to be honest." It still doesn't make any sense to him. "Everyone out West were a bunch of paranoid jackasses. Didn't trust me for a long time, neither. Took 'em a while to warm up to me. Got a couple of them workin' for me, eventually. Though I'm sure at least that much is well-known."
The less he thinks about Her the better. It's better this way, to refuse to acknowledge certain things. "Still not really sure why I got folks so interested in that. I never set out to, not really. But all of a sudden everyone wanted to help keep Edge Knot independent."
"People want to work, sometimes. And being a porter gives you a certain amount of freedom. You get to be outside, not stuck inside a building all day, only communicating via hologram.
And the time to yourself, when you're out on a delivery, is pretty nice too." He snorts a little, reaching out to pet the top of Lou's head, ruffling at the hair that's starting to grow in. Dark, like his. She makes a sleepy noise and stretches one of her arms, and Sam feels that familiar sensation of his heart flipping in his chest.
"Most people I met were pretty happy stayin' in their shelters. Guess I can't really blame them. There's something scary about the big, wide world." He doesn't talk about anymore. Hasn't really talked to anyone about it before, but Sam already knows all of his secrets.
"I think I spent a little too long with nothing but my own thoughts, if I'm bein' honest."
"I've met some second generation preppers who have never been outside their homes. It completely blows my mind, thinking about it. Never having seen the outside world."
He nods a little, agreeing. "It can get noisy. Just you and your thoughts. I uh. I whistle a lot. To have something else to concentrate on."
"That was me. Not sure how old I was when I left, to be honest. Know I'm 40 or so now, but that's about it. Maybe thirteen? Don't think I was much older."
It's said casually, but, well... it's not as though it's a cheery subject at all. "I think I've heard you whistle it before," Higgs admits. It's probably more than a little creepy, but it doesn't occur to him not to talk about the shit he did for Amelie until it's out there.
Can he have an age, if he was never really born? His father wondered as much, too. He remembers the birthday cake, the candles. For a birthday that never really was.
Then Higgs's comment makes him exhale what might be a laugh. "Heard me whistle before. You mean when you were following me? I'd do it to keep myself company. Or to calm Lou down, when she was fussing. Back when she was still in the pod."
Higgs doesn't look like he knows what to do with that information. It's becoming a bit of a pattern. "Huh." He leans up against the wall, looking thoughtful.
"I think She was angry I spent so much time following you. Thought my time was better spent elsewhere. I don't... really know why I did it, to tell you the truth." He's wistful as he talks. "Just kinda on autopilot, I guess."
He'd been a puppet. Maybe it was the only thing he'd really done of his own volition.
"She does that. Isolates you from everyone else. Makes you dependent on her. And if she feels like your attention is drifting, she'll fight tooth and nail to get it back."
Sam sighs and rubs his hands over his face. "She knows how to get into your head and fuck with you on such a deep level that you don't know you're being fucked with until it's too late to get out."
He probably shouldn't be saying all this, but who else can he talk to about Amelie? Not any of his friends, they're all in Die-Hardman's cabinet. All wearing that fucking quipu in remembrance, or whatever fucking reason Die-Hardman had come up with.
Which brings up a question that's been bothering him -- "That necklace. The gold one, with the strands and knots. Did she give it to you, or did you take it?"
So Sam figured out the truth, huh? Makes sense. He's a smart guy. Higgs sighs at the question, his hand moving automatically to where it sat. "The quipu? She gave it to me so that I could find you whenever I needed."
Before that, it had been all about being in the right place at the right time, and knowing the layout of the land well enough to hazard a guess. "She was definitely angry that I was more interested in it than I was the BB She gave me."
"Smart," he says, dully. "I made it for her, when I was a kid. She used it to count how many times I visited her on her Beach. Maybe she told you that. That's why the the connection was so much stronger than the doll. Why it was easier to find me with the quipu."
Sam sighs and leans back against his hands, staring up at the ceiling. Because if he doesn't he's pretty sure he might cry, and he doesn't want to do that. Not in front of Higgs.
"She told me it would help find you, not that... well. Not that you made it for Her." He's not sure it would have made a difference knowing, though. It might have just made things even worse.
He stares up at the ceiling for a long time. Huh, he's never noticed how much space he actually had remaining before. The walls are covered, but not the ceiling. "I didn't realize how much of myself I'd lost until she cut me off."
"I tried to leave. Cut myself off from her. From Bridges. And I almost found myself again. Almost figured out who I was.
But she managed to pull me back in. Not with her reuniting the country bullshit, I didn't care about that. But she said Do it for me and it was over, after that."
He'd thought he'd found himself, with Lucy. And maybe he had. But Amelie had to ruin that, too. There was no way, no way Lucy would have done that to herself. To Lou. Not without someone whispering in her ear. Amelie never could stand being in second place to anyone.
"Reuniting the country was all a farce anyway," Higgs scoffs. "All she was really doin' was helping you finish off people who survived the start of the Stranding." Doing his part of preaching about the end of the world had been much easier, in his opinion.
"Grownin' up I heard so much about how people ain't worth it, but that's not true. I used to think people having connects was important." He shakes his head slowly.
"I think we need connections." He sits up again to check on Lou, who seems to be sleeping soundly. He rubs his finger against the bottom of her little foot and huffs a laugh when she kicks out at him in her sleep.
"I don't know if this place is ever going to be a country again. I don't really care. But goddamn, life as a porter can get lonely. Seeing people only as holograms. Being seen only as a piece of equipment."
"It is pretty lonely," Higgs agrees. "I used to go days without talking to anyone else. I had a radio, to contact other porters, but that was about it." He sighs.
It's been so long since that was him. He'd met Amelie, and then nothing mattered anymore. "You're pretty chatty tonight, you know. Didn't know you talked to people much at all." It's not accusing or anything, he looks curious as he speaks.
He's never really had anyone to talk to before. There had been Fragile, but that was different. They hadn't been friends. All of their talks had been strictly business. Higgs didn't talk about himself at all with her.
"I don't talk to people much because they don't talk to me. They talk at me, sure. Talk in my direction. But never to me. It always felt like you were talking to me." He shrugs a little, not quite sure himself the reason for his chattiness, as Higgs calls it.
He shifts a bit, a little awkwardly. He'd been a puppet on a string, surely Sam has had people far better to talk to than Higgs?
"Well... you'll have to forgive me when I say I ain't really much for conversation. That was..." talking about it is impossible. So much of it doesn't even feel real. He twists his hands together for a long moment. "That grandstanding shit wasn't really me."
Sam has had... he's not sure what he's had. He guesses he would call them friends. Heartman, and Deadman. Fragile. They all came together for him in the end. But was it for him, or was it to stop the end of the world? Was he just another piece of equipment, like always. He never had been able to tell.
He finally looks at Higgs and says, "I think you're the realest person I've ever talked to."
Higgs doesn't say anything right away. The surprise on his face is evident. He's never had real conversations with people, never really had close friends, let alone people confiding in him.
"Well. I'll listen. I'll listen to anything you tell me, anything you want me to hear."
Amelie had told Higgs about Sam, and just like that his attention had changed entirely. Sam had been the one who consumed his focus, even more so than the Final Stranding. Maybe it was because Amelie had accidentally connected him and Sam in ways She didn't intend. "After all, you did learn of all my secrets."
For a second he worries that he broke Higgs somehow. Like when Higgs had grabbed him by the shoulder and Sam just -- hadn't moved. Didn't even think to move. He still doesn't know why.
"I read your journal," he corrects. "Don't know if those were all your secrets or not." And he sure as hell doesn't know why he keeps talking to Higgs like this. There's just -- something. Maybe Amelie had connected them in a way she hadn't planned on. Forged a bond between them, somehow.
"What do you know about me? About my secrets?" He's been curious to know what Amelie had told him.
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Amazing, really, what he'd managed to do.
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Though, given how many supplies stolen from Bridges ended up in MULE camps, it is a bit surprising that Sam never robbed them blind even once. Even with his company he'd made it a goal to get all of the missing packages out of the encampments when he'd come across them.
"I should've made up an excuse to make you walk straight through one of their camps during a delivery."
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"I can't believe you made me walk from South Knot City to here, with champagne and pizza, on foot because you marked it as hand-carry only. No, wait -- " He holds up a hand, amending. "I can absolutely believe you made me do that. At least you gave me an S-rating for it."
Thinking about the delivery, about how it was marked for an anniversary, leaves an odd knot in his gut. So he won't think about it.
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And he'd always paid Sam well for the deliveries, too. Not like some of the idiots he'd tried when Sam was a little too otherwise busy. "Still a better payout than the shit Bridges gives out. They tried to tempt me over to them more than once."
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Sam snorts at the idea of being tempted over to Bridges. "It wasn't by choice. I would have much rather stayed independent." But apparently a dying woman's wish is enough to bind him into an unwanted contract. Though Amelie had been the one to convince him, really.
More things not to think about.
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The less he thinks about Her the better. It's better this way, to refuse to acknowledge certain things. "Still not really sure why I got folks so interested in that. I never set out to, not really. But all of a sudden everyone wanted to help keep Edge Knot independent."
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And the time to yourself, when you're out on a delivery, is pretty nice too." He snorts a little, reaching out to pet the top of Lou's head, ruffling at the hair that's starting to grow in. Dark, like his. She makes a sleepy noise and stretches one of her arms, and Sam feels that familiar sensation of his heart flipping in his chest.
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"I think I spent a little too long with nothing but my own thoughts, if I'm bein' honest."
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He nods a little, agreeing. "It can get noisy. Just you and your thoughts. I uh. I whistle a lot. To have something else to concentrate on."
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It's said casually, but, well... it's not as though it's a cheery subject at all. "I think I've heard you whistle it before," Higgs admits. It's probably more than a little creepy, but it doesn't occur to him not to talk about the shit he did for Amelie until it's out there.
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Then Higgs's comment makes him exhale what might be a laugh. "Heard me whistle before. You mean when you were following me? I'd do it to keep myself company. Or to calm Lou down, when she was fussing. Back when she was still in the pod."
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"I think She was angry I spent so much time following you. Thought my time was better spent elsewhere. I don't... really know why I did it, to tell you the truth." He's wistful as he talks. "Just kinda on autopilot, I guess."
He'd been a puppet. Maybe it was the only thing he'd really done of his own volition.
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Sam sighs and rubs his hands over his face. "She knows how to get into your head and fuck with you on such a deep level that you don't know you're being fucked with until it's too late to get out."
He probably shouldn't be saying all this, but who else can he talk to about Amelie? Not any of his friends, they're all in Die-Hardman's cabinet. All wearing that fucking quipu in remembrance, or whatever fucking reason Die-Hardman had come up with.
Which brings up a question that's been bothering him -- "That necklace. The gold one, with the strands and knots. Did she give it to you, or did you take it?"
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Before that, it had been all about being in the right place at the right time, and knowing the layout of the land well enough to hazard a guess. "She was definitely angry that I was more interested in it than I was the BB She gave me."
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Sam sighs and leans back against his hands, staring up at the ceiling. Because if he doesn't he's pretty sure he might cry, and he doesn't want to do that. Not in front of Higgs.
"God, this is so fucked up."
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He stares up at the ceiling for a long time. Huh, he's never noticed how much space he actually had remaining before. The walls are covered, but not the ceiling. "I didn't realize how much of myself I'd lost until she cut me off."
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But she managed to pull me back in. Not with her reuniting the country bullshit, I didn't care about that. But she said Do it for me and it was over, after that."
He'd thought he'd found himself, with Lucy. And maybe he had. But Amelie had to ruin that, too. There was no way, no way Lucy would have done that to herself. To Lou. Not without someone whispering in her ear. Amelie never could stand being in second place to anyone.
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"Grownin' up I heard so much about how people ain't worth it, but that's not true. I used to think people having connects was important." He shakes his head slowly.
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"I don't know if this place is ever going to be a country again. I don't really care. But goddamn, life as a porter can get lonely. Seeing people only as holograms. Being seen only as a piece of equipment."
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It's been so long since that was him. He'd met Amelie, and then nothing mattered anymore. "You're pretty chatty tonight, you know. Didn't know you talked to people much at all." It's not accusing or anything, he looks curious as he speaks.
He's never really had anyone to talk to before. There had been Fragile, but that was different. They hadn't been friends. All of their talks had been strictly business. Higgs didn't talk about himself at all with her.
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Maybe he's been lonelier than he thought.
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He shifts a bit, a little awkwardly. He'd been a puppet on a string, surely Sam has had people far better to talk to than Higgs?
"Well... you'll have to forgive me when I say I ain't really much for conversation. That was..." talking about it is impossible. So much of it doesn't even feel real. He twists his hands together for a long moment. "That grandstanding shit wasn't really me."
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He finally looks at Higgs and says, "I think you're the realest person I've ever talked to."
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"Well. I'll listen. I'll listen to anything you tell me, anything you want me to hear."
Amelie had told Higgs about Sam, and just like that his attention had changed entirely. Sam had been the one who consumed his focus, even more so than the Final Stranding. Maybe it was because Amelie had accidentally connected him and Sam in ways She didn't intend. "After all, you did learn of all my secrets."
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"I read your journal," he corrects. "Don't know if those were all your secrets or not." And he sure as hell doesn't know why he keeps talking to Higgs like this. There's just -- something. Maybe Amelie had connected them in a way she hadn't planned on. Forged a bond between them, somehow.
"What do you know about me? About my secrets?" He's been curious to know what Amelie had told him.
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