Summary:Illyana goes to see Sam about a certain project. It's dirty. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
  |
It's been a few weeks since Illyana spoke to Sam about gardening. He might have thought she'd forgotten. He likely wasn't expecting a stepping disk to open a dozen or so feet away from him with the leather-clad blonde there. At least she didn't just open a disk at Sam's feet, spiriting him off to who knows where. She's done that in the past.
"Hey Sam, are you busy?" Illyana asks, looking about for him. She's known him long enough that it doesn't take much for her to get a stepping disk to lock on to his location. It does mean she didn't really take a lot of time to scry the area before dropping in.
Which is how she catches Sam in his boxer shorts, listening to Taylor Swift at full blast while he's making macaroni and cheese on the stove. "Shake it off, shake it off!" he sings aloud, even doing the little dance as he's stirring the noodles. Shells and cheese, velveeta. Total garbage food but it reminded him of home.
And then there's a Russian girl in leather there and he turns and startles, "Illyana, Jesus!" he says, the wooden spoon flying from his hand and clattering on the floor. "We've really gotta…you gotta text or somethin'. Lord almighty," he says, sucking his thumb where he splashed it with boiling water.
Illyana Rasputina turns her head left. Then right, looking around with a furrowed brow. She looks back to Sam and shakes her head, looking disapproving. "Nope. No Jesus. Are you seeing things, Samy?"
Eyes glittering with amusement, she walks over towards him, avoiding the cheesesplatter from the spoon and goes up on her toes a bit to peek into the pan. "Velveeta. Splurging?" Only then does she turn her attention over to Sam, looking him up and down as he stands there in his boxers. "So, I approve of the skivvies, but your taste in music?" She looks pained. "I am disappoint."
Sam Guthrie sighs, "It's a guilty pleasure," he admits, "Both the Mac and the Taylor. You couldn't grew up where I did without hearing Taylor all the time. It reminds me of home. Again, same as the macaroni," he says. He's trying not to make too big a deal of the fact that he's in his skivvies, his long body pretty well-muscled from years of training.
He pours the noodles through a collander, draining them of the water, and dumps them in a bowl to start mixing the cheese sauce in. "I got plenty for two, if you like. I mean, I was going to eat it all, I ain't gonna lie, but it's probably better for my guts if I share."
Illyana Rasputina chuckles, not surprised that Sam would just… fess up. It's kinda his thing. One of the reasons Illyana likes Sam so much is he reminds her of her big brother at times. That White Knight mentality. Even if Sam's comes with a overalls.
Clasping her hands behind her back so she's less likely to give in to the temptation to physically poke at him with all that skin exposed, she dips her head in a nod. "I'd love some." There's very little Earth food that Illyana turns her nose up at. "Just means you can have ice cream with less guilt afterwards." Her pale blue eyes glitter as she follows that up with: "Are you gonna eat like that? I mean, I won't object to the view…"
Sam Guthrie laughs, although he blushes a bit at the compliment, "Well, I was goin' to, but you make a good point. You just cool your jets for a moment and let the hot melty cheese cool. Probably better to keep us from burnin' our tongues anyway," he says.
He runs to his bedroom for a moment and returns shortly with a pair of jeans and a baggy t-shirt with a picture of Chewbacca on it. "And I do happen to have ice cream sandwiches in the freezer, now you mention it."
Illyana Rasputina feigns a pout at Sam as she takes a seat at the table. "Well, next time I'll just keep my mouth shut then." She waits for Sam to join her, hands patiently in her lap.
"I hadn't realized it was mealtime." She admits. If she had, it *might* have affected her decision to drop in. Maybe. "I was going to see if you wanted to come see that project I had mentioned." Because when he sees it, he might decide it's too much of a battle.
Sam Guthrie regards her with a curious eye for a moment, but decides to leave it in peace. He serves the both of them, spooning up large bowls and sliding one across, providing salt, pepper and red pepper flakes if she's interested. "I do not remember your project. Don't take it personally, my memory's full o' holes as that collander. But if you're workin' on somethin', of course I wanna see it," he smiles. "I mean, unless it involves, like, horrible demon torture stuff. Cause you do remember that's bad, still, right?"
Illyana Rasputina pulls the bowl in towards her, one arm wrapping around it in unconscious defense of the food now that it's hers. The blonde gives Sam a long look. "Torturing demons is kind of required with my new job." Not that Sam would know the details of Limbo. She kept it very under-wraps during her years at Xavier's. Even teleporting people through, there were just glimpses of the red-sky and blasted wastelands. Illyana didn't want Belasco to catch her.
Sam Guthrie sighs and nods, "I guess so. I just worry about ya, that's all. You been hardened enough, you don't need to keep strikin' iron on iron," he says. "But I ain't lecturin'. I'm your friend, not your leader. Just sayin', I don't need to see it. I'm a big ol' wuss."
"It's a very different situation. Demons… they don't really die the way people do. It's like, Limbo remembers them and brings them back. So they don't have a fear of mortality. All they have is a fear of pain." Illyana gives Sam a bit of a strained smile as he says he worries about her and lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. "I… appreciate that you worry." That's more sincerity that she's prone to giving. She almost always sounds like she's amused. Mocking something. Like everything is a joke that only she knows.
Illyana takes a few big bites before speaking again. "But that's not what I wanted your help with. I had talked with you a bit ago about gardening?"
Sam Guthrie brightens a bit, "Yes, I do remember that. Never really took you for the home gardening type, but I'm happy to help if that's something you're interested in," he says.
He just nods to the sincerity, not wanting to push it and make her uncomfortable. He'd said his piece, he'll let it go. Nagging wouldn't do any good. "You want a beer?" he grins.
Illyana Rasputina wrinkles her nose a bit, but she seems amused. "I'll pass on the beer, thanks. Milk or water would be great." Her tastes in alcohol tends towards vodka. Big surprise.
"And I'm really not much of a gardener. At all." Illyana admits. "We'd been talking a while back and I said something about herbology or something and Doug went and bought all these grow trays. I ended up killing the thing I was trying to make *do* the gardening." She lets out a small, exasperated sigh. "But… Supposedly, before Belasco was trapped in Limbo, it was a nice place. And I knew someone that was able to bring a small piece of that back. Now that Belasco's gone I just. Wondered."
Sam Guthrie nods, "Well, it probably ain't gonna be easy. Probably a matter of findin' the right soil and, if the right soil ain't there, finding a way to enrich it. You'll need a lot of fertilizer, if that's the case," he grins. "Lucky I know a few places you can get it in bulk."
He gets up and gets himself a beer, popping the top on the bottle and resuming his seat, "I'm sure Doug knows all the science involved, but it's all book-learnin' for him. I doubt he's spent a day in a field in his life, unless somebody crashed a satellite in it."
"He did get turned into a lion-man in South America, so you never know what SHIELD's had him doing lately." Illyana jokes, but the humor doesn't last too long when Sam talks about the soil. She shakes her head. "It's Hell. I don't think the soil's going to be able to support much on its own." She frowns and stands, gesturing him to his feet as she waves open another stepping disk like a hobbit door in the middle of his kitchen and walks through.
Sam Guthrie sighs, "I should've had more than one beer," he says, getting up and moving to follow Illyana, "You didn't finish your mac and cheese, y'know," he says. Part of him wants to put up his blast field just because…well, it's Hell, like she said. His Meemaw would lose her Southern Baptist shit if she knew he was coming here, much less trying to grow things. "Need to pick somethin' hearty to start. Somethin' that grows most anywhere."
It's something that Sam's only caught the briefest looks at before, and that was enough to keep some people up at night. The twisted hellscape and the blood-red sky above without sun or moon or stars. The air is arid, but not like that of a desert where it sucks the moisture out of you. It doesn't have the heat one would think would go hand-in-hand with the awfulness that is this place.
What it does have is a presence about it that pricks the palms and puts a shiver down the spine of the faithful. The breath of evil. Of the Elder Gods.
Illyana never flinches, walking across the dusty ground to a small remnant of green. She grew up here. For her, this is normal. This is home. The spot that Illyana stops has some twisted, ugly plants clustered around a small trickle of water. "I can probably force the soil to becomes less… well, more like normal dirt. But I don't know how long it'll stay that way without my paying attention to it."
Sam Guthrie crosses his arms over his chest. He should've brought his jacket, although he's not sure it's actually cold. It's just not warm. He doesn't like it very much. But he does like Illyana. So he'll suck it up and stick it out and figure out what to do.
"Nothing grows without attention, one way or another," he says. "It'll take watering and tending. Probably some experimentation to figure out what works and what doesn't," he says, kneeling down and running a hand over the dirt.
The dirt seems more like compressed sand and clay than anything else. It gets a bit more dirt-like where the pathetic excuse for plants huddle around the water, but nothing that could put out any kind of fruit or vegetable. Looking around, seeing how empty it is, might make one wonder just what someone's supposed to eat around here.
Illyana leans forward, pressing one palm against the ground and her eyes close. This isn't something she's done much. Well, not on purpose. The realm reacts to her subconscious wants and desires, but it's rare that she shapes the realm by choice. Under Sam's touch, the earth starts to change, shifting from the sandy to soil in an area perhaps a half-dozen foot radius around Illyana's hand.
Sam Guthrie watches her for a moment and shakes his head, "Miracles on demand," he says. He scoops up a handful of the soil, running it between his fingers. "This'll be good for a start. What are you wanting to grow? Crops? Trees? Flowers? A sunflower for your hair?" he smiles. "We'll have to go to a garden store, get some seeds. Maybe some baby plants."
Illyana Rasputina snorts at that. "Hardly a miracle. Comes with ruling the place." She says it dismissively. Like it's as minor a thing as anyone's mutant power back at Xavier's.
She doesn't look up, keeping her hand on the ground, even though she doesn't need to, though Sam might not know that. "I just want it to live again. To maybe… be something good again." Much like her hopes for herself. Because while few realize it, looking at Limbo is akin to looking at Illyana's own soul.
Sam Guthrie doesn't need her to explain. He gets it, in his own insufficient and probably a little hokey way. He doesn't fully grasp what Illyana's been through. He suspects almost no one probably does.
"I call 'em like I see 'em," he says. "That's a good thing to want, Yana. I'm going to do my best to help. I ain't got no superpowers good for it, but a little good ol' fashioned Kentucky hillbilly know-how might be able to do the trick."
Illyana Rasputina finally lifts her head, pale blue eyes that always seem so empty of warmth and soul fixed on him. People often find it unnerving to be the focus of Illyana's attention. As though those soulless eyes could see into the one she's looking at. "I think it's better that way." Her words are a soft murmur, but it's almost impossible not to hear them. Limbo itself seems to echo her. "Magic is another kind of superpower, in a lot of ways and a lot of times they're shortcuts. For some things, there needs to be sacrifice."
Sam Guthrie nods, "Farmin' can be like that, too. But my grandpa always told me farmin' was a sort of magic, too," he says. "Most of what you sacrifice is yourself: labor, time, attention. Gettin' up early and stayin' on late. But sometimes that's what it takes to feed your family. Or, in this case, to help a member of mine start somethin' important to her," he says.
Illyana Rasputina's smile is faint, but then she's never been much of a smiler. She doesn't ask if Sam's sure, not when he's spoken so definitively. "I know I can't just lean on you to do this for me, either. But I'll admit I don't really have any idea how to start so… I'll let you tell me what to do." Which she almost never does. Teachers hated her.
It's funny, in retrospect. Illyana too came from a farming family. She was just taken too early to remember what little she'd learned.
Sam Guthrie nods, "I'll do my best," he says, moving to stand and offering her his hand to help her up to her feet, "C'mon, let's go back and finish our mac and cheese. Then we can go to the Garden Depot and see about picking up a few things…"
Illyana Rasputina lets Sam pull her up to her feet, and then dusts off her hands. On his jeans. "Leather doesn't work well for that." She says with a subdued version of her usual smirk. A wave of her hand puts them back in his kitchen, and the food is still hot. A glance at the clock would show that practically no time has passed since they stepped through the portal.
She pauses as the stepping disk winks out, looking up at Sam. "You know if you ever need anything, you can count on me, right?" It's not a 'thank you'. Illyana doesn't really do those. But she can say the same thing another way.
Sam Guthrie resumes his seat and takes the beer back up again, taking a long sip, "Never doubted it for a second," he says.