Open RP Post

[greatdeliverer]

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[greatdeliverer]

"You ordered pizza often enough." Lou fusses a little and Sam shifts to hold her against his chest, rubbing her back to soothe her.

Should he tell him the truth? Should he trust Higgs that far? He was only doing what Amelia wanted, after all. He sighs, because right now? What choice does he have. He won't tell him the whole story, not yet, but he at least deserves to know why Sam was breaking into his house.

"Needed a place to stay. Thought this place would be empty."

[finalrequest]

He shrugs at that again, still quite... subdued. He's always been shit at lying, and has always defaulted to the truth when he can. "It's about the only thing a guy can get on the surface, and you're the only competent porter runnin' around." No sense in denying it when they're sitting in the damn place with plenty of evidence that Sam was far from the only porter who arrived here.

"You had good reason to think it empty. Though I would've guessed you'd have alerted Bridges about my place bein' so close to a Knot City."

[greatdeliverer]

"After everything that happened, didn't think you were a problem anymore." He realizes that he still doesn't; Amelie had been pulling Higgs's strings the whole time, and Higgs just seems... defeated.

He remembers being in the tar with him. That moment where Higgs had just -- clung to him. At first Sam had thought Higgs would try to pull him under but he'd just held him.

"Are you a problem?"

[finalrequest]

It's pretty clear Higgs doesn't know what to do with the question.

"I don't think so. Not like I have reason to do much of anything anymore." Free of Amelie's influence, it's clear he just doesn't know what to do with himself.

[greatdeliverer]

Lost. That's what it is. Higgs seems oddly lost. Unsure. Maybe that's why Sam is willing to chance it, at least for a night.

"Look, it's getting dark, and I don't want to chance running into MULEs or wandering into BT territory when I have Lou with me. Let me stay the night here, and in the morning it'll be like I wasn't even here."

[finalrequest]

"Lou?"

He stares blankly for a long moment before noticing the baby in his arms. Huh. "...Yeah. Sure. I don't have blankets or nothin' like that, though. Sorry about that."

[greatdeliverer]

"You've got your -- cape. Whatever that thing is. Let me borrow it so I can make a little bed for her. I'll sleep on the floor next to her." He'd ask for the cot for her, but it's too small for Sam to curl up next to her, and he doesn't want her to roll off. Can't roll off the floor.

[finalrequest]

"It's pretty dirty," he says, freezing up a bit like he's going to refuse, and then he just sorts of... pulls it off of himself. The armor still masks it well enough, but without the cape on it's a little more clear how thing Higgs actually is.

[greatdeliverer]

"It'll do." He settles Lou into the sling he's fashioned to hold her against his chest so he can have at least one hand free. He grabs the cape and shakes it out as best he can, trying to get all the sand off of it, but that's proving to be futile.

Either way, it's better than concrete, so he sits himself on the floor next to the cot and bundles the cape into some sort of bed-like shape. Then he undoes the sling and settles Lou in his lap for a moment, bunching the fabric of the sling on top of the cape. "It'll be fine for tonight." He settles Lou on top of it, then grabs his canteen, a bag of powdered formula, and a small baby bottle, setting about making her her dinner.

"Thank you. For letting us stay here." Not that Sam really left him much room for negotiation.

[finalrequest]

Higgs doesn't say anything at the thanks, looking like he's never had someone thank him before, but lacks the wherewithal to actually voice it. He just sort of... pulls himself closer in on himself, looking more than a little awkward without the coat.

"Kinda chilly for someone so small, isn't it?"

It doesn't sound like an accusation of any kind, just a curiosity.

[greatdeliverer]

"The formula or your shelter?" It should be heated up, the formula. But he hadn't been able to do that for the past few days, moving from Capital Knot City to here, so poor Lou's had to have cold formula for her last dozen or so meals.

As for the shelter -- well, it's made of concrete, and Higgs apparently isn't here as often as his e-mails and delivery orders had implied. Maybe he doesn't have or need a heating system.

He shakes up the bottle to mix the formula together, then takes Lou up in his arms again, trying to coax her into eating.

[finalrequest]

"The shelter," Higgs says.

He doesn't really make a move to get closer to the computers, though. "I didn't exactly expect to come back here." Or to have guests, for that matter. In other words, it's not cold because he doesn't come here often, but because he didn't see a reason to leave the heat on in an abandoned shelter.

[greatdeliverer]

Something clicks and Sam's chest clenches. For all his bravado, Higgs was expecting to die on that Beach. One final boss fight, one he wasn't planning to win. Amelie had beaten them both already.

Lou finally decides she wants her bottle, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief, deciding to concentrate on that instead of how small Higgs looks without his mask and cloak.

"Well we're here now."

[finalrequest]

"You are," He agrees. He stands a little unsteadily on his feet. "Guess that's something. I did allow you to peruse my secrets. Ain't like there's much about me you don't already know."

Higgs is many things, but he's never once lied to Sam.

[greatdeliverer]

"I thumbed through your journal," he admits, sounding a little sheepish about it. "You seemed to be keeping a pretty close eye on me, thought I'd return the favour." He gestures with his elbow at the wall covered in pictures of him.

"There's a lot about you I don't know. And there's a lot about me you don't know. But from what I do know, we have a lot more in common than you might think."

[finalrequest]

"Can't fault you for that." That had been his intention, after all. He's not even sure why. He'd just wanted someone to know.

He's not sure what to say in response to the rest of Sam's statement, though, so he ends up not saying anything, instead sitting at the computers long enough to turn the heat back on before he returns to the cot.

He might not be saying much compared to how he was as Sam's enemy, but he's at the very least attentive, looking curiously at Lou, though not asking any questions.

[greatdeliverer]

Sam can't help but notice Higgs watching Lou. But it's not in a way that makes him nervous, not in any sort of predatory way. Just... quietly curious, but with that same intensity Sam has noticed in him.

"Her name's Louise," Sam explains, settling her against his shoulder again to rub her back. "Lou. She was my BB, but now she's just... mine."

[finalrequest]

"Louise, huh," he says, frowning thoughtfully. "Pretty name." Sam's an incredible guy. Most of Bridges all think of BBs as disposable, as not being human at all. He's never understood it himself. A baby's a baby, as far as he's concerned.

He's not even sure why he's talking, the next time he speaks. "My Mama named me. Only thing she really did before she shuffled off to the other side."

[greatdeliverer]

And Higgs's stepdad was a piece of shit, Sam knows that now. "It suits you. Higgs. Bridget named me, as far as I know. When she adopted me. My dad just called me BB."

Louise is cooing, making those happy little sounds that make Sam's heart do flips, and he strokes her little cheek with his fingertip.

[finalrequest]

He doesn't know what to say about Bridget. Not really.

He does look at Sam at him bringing up his father, though, because as far as he's aware, Sam was raised by a single parent, as same as him. That's... a bit too close to kicking a hornet's nest for his tastes, though, so he settles for something that sounds a little more... hopefully appropriate.

"BB's kind of an interesting nickname, given the experiments. Was it short for somethin'?"

[greatdeliverer]

"I think it was at the beginning of all that. I don't think he knew. It might have just been short for baby."

He turns his head to nuzzle his nose against the soft tufts of duckfluff hair Lou is starting to grow. "I don't remember a lot about my dad. Bits and pieces. I was a sick kid, when I was little, and he'd spend all his time with me. But then he died and Bridget took me in. Much good as that ever did."

[finalrequest]

His head tips. "You saying you were a BB experiment?" That goes beyond being a 'sick kid' as far as he's concerned. Higgs doesn't know much about them, though, beyond the stories about how they come about.

It's enough to freak him out. "BBs are supposed to be seven month old fetuses. How do you remember any of that? DOOMs?"

It looks like he thinks it's as much anyway. Higgs has his fair share of memories he probably shouldn't actually have.

[greatdeliverer]

"I think I might have been." It makes him hold Lou that much closer, thinking of how long she spent in that pod after Lucy -- god, it makes him so angry.

"DOOMs, maybe. I'd get flashes of things, when I connected to Lou, when she was a BB. Visions, I guess. Of my dad. Talking to me." His favourite is the one where Cliff is reading him a book about Earth, and the moon. Promising he'd make it to the moon, some day.

[finalrequest]

It's clear he really doesn't know what to do with that.

"The BB I had... it wasn't... it was somethin' She gave me. I know Bridges spread some shit about how I was usin' that technology, but even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know where to begin."

[greatdeliverer]

"She probably started that rumour, after giving you the doll. She was really good at manipulating the truth to fit her own story," Sam spits bitterly, and Lou fusses at the sudden anger in his voice.

"Shh, shh. I'm sorry," he murmurs to her, rubbing her back.