So watching THAT EPISODE made my mind turn. And here's what I came up with...I feel semi-horrible about writing this, but not that horrid. 3 Chapters!
“So you coming?” “Yeah.” As soon as Sam said those words, he could feel everyone shift even though he couldn’t bear to look left. At the beginning of the scene, everyone was acting. Taliesin and Travis sipping their drinks to avoid any awkwardness as Liam and Marisha exchanged worried glances while he and Laura went back and forth. Matt’s face was impassive for the longest time until he realized that Sam was serious. Liam started to really cry and the Laura started to yell; and then Taliesin started to yell, a real Tal yell that made Sam’s heart break just enough that he started to have second thoughts, and Marisha started to cry. Travis was pissed, he could see it in the brace of his elbows on the table. “Grab your things,” Matt nodded. He’s watching it all back of course, the next afternoon at home in his basement while his wife and family are out of the country on another crazy shoot for his wife’s blossoming career. They’ve already been gone a few months, but the house still felt as empty as it did before. It isn’t anything unusual, but he still misses them. The emptiness of the house is nothing to the emptiness in his chest. The looks on the screen in front of him break him more than he wants it to and more than he’s ever going to admit. Laura’s shocked, furious, open-mouthed stare which Marisha mirrored in her look to Matt, but with less fury than she actually felt later. Taliesin had drained his whole glass of scotch in one gulp while Travis physically looked away from him, unable to halt the anger in his hands as he gripped the pencil. But it was Liam’s heart visibly breaking on screen, the scrunch of his face blossoming into real tears. PAUSE Sam has to stop before it goes any further. He’d made them cry. All of them. And not as their characters, but as Taliesin and Marisha and Liam and Laura and Travis. Matt knew that he was thinking about making big change for Scanlan, of course, but he could still sense Matt’s confusion and hurt when the words came out. And then they had been mad. All of five of them. Laura and Sam had fought before because they were two explosive personalities that clashed when it came to certain things. Taliesin and Sam had more angry conversations instead of the yelling and mad gesturing that was completely Laura. Sam could count on one hand the amount of times that Travis and Matt had been mad at him, but needed two hands with Marisha. He did indeed know how to push buttons. But Liam… Fast-forward through the shit storm he thinks to himself, taking a huge swig from his wine glass. He hits the point where they went through the sun tree and smiles. Of course, Laura fucking Bailey…Laura Bailey with harp music…would be the one to figure it out first. He smiles to himself as she looked suspiciously at Sam during Matt’s description. “You there!” PAUSE The non-Scanlan voice sounds weird in his ears as he pauses it to memorize their reactions. It was rare that he catches them off guard, so when he did, he revels in it. Incredulous shock from Laura; joyous shock from Marisha, directed at a smug Matt who sipped his glass; wide-eyed subdued joy from Travis and Liam; calculating pride from Tal, even though he knew it would just seem like a Percy stare to the audience at home. Liam and Taliesin recovered the quickest as Laura turned back to Travis who was now staring at him for the first time with a smirk. For a moment, everything was back to normal. Marisha beamed, her wide sunshine smile as Laura crossed into anger and threw a tissue at him and cursed at him. Tal laughed, loudly and without thinking as Liam assisted Laura’s toss. Travis morphed from unsure to laughing wildly and back to staring at him with his usual joy. They start making things difficult for him. Laura glares again and starts demanding money as Travis tries to get things back on course. But their laughing and smiling again, and they’re looking at him with those looks of adoration in their eyes. PAUSE This is what he wants to hold on to for right now. Not the chaos that broke out when Matt was whispering to Travis between the four others yelling and Laura burying her face in her arms as she cried or the off-hand comments to Laura to poke her buttons which caused a surge of anger so powerful that Travis and Liam physically backed away from her or the anger that rained down on him later. As he pushed Laura’s buttons further than he usually did just to see Liam grab on to Travis’ shoulder in his ecstatic laughter and Marisha glare over at Matt with a calculating stare. The lightness in his heart made him continue on, forgetting what came next. “This piece of shit would never replace Scanlan.” Laura’s full face turned towards their table, the camera hid the fact that she was looking straight at Sam. PAUSE Maybe switch from wine to something stronger…and maybe shut this off. The guys’ faces were paused in concern, the kind of concern that they expressed when fights broke out among them. Sam trudges up the stairs, weight sinking back into the pit of his stomach. His mind swirls with thoughts about what he should’ve done and maybe they wouldn’t be mad at him if he had just stayed with Scanlan. To Sam, the fallout felt massive. Twitter had exploded. Marisha had laid on the floor and there had been pictures that circulated quickly. Liam grabbed his binder and searched it and then him until he found the incriminating evidence that this was planned. Laura refused to talk to him. Liam wouldn’t look at him after he found the paper, just clutching it in his hands. Travis wrapped him in a side arm hug and tousled his hair roughly, calling him a clever asshole. Matt talked to him for an hour, talking down the panic that was rising in him after Laura and Liam pulled Travis out the door and to a bar. Marisha kissed his cheek when they parted ways and Taliesin squeezed his hand before following the couple to their car. And Sam was left alone in the parking lot for the first time after a traumatic episode. Usually after a rough episode, they drive to a bar and drink a round or two and talk it out. By round three, Liam would be getting giggly and Matt would be the cause of it as Taliesin would be leaning into him with a grin. Travis would have his characteristic smirk on his face as Laura and Marisha would be inching their chairs closer and closer together. If Ashley was there, which was getting rarer and rarer, she’d have an arm slung over the back of the chair of whoever was next to her and her hands would weave intricate patterns over their backs. He shakes his head, trying to clear thoughts of what would end up happening once Ashely got her hands on them and padded up the steps and into the kitchen, flipping the switch on without any thought. The light illuminates the room and five bodies flicker in his vision. Sam’s first instinct is to let go of the wine glass in shock, even though his mind instantly knew who they bodies belonged to. The glass falls towards the tile floor, but large, broad fingers lash out from behind him and snag it before it shatters. Sam spins to see Travis behind him, fingers clenched perfectly around the glass. “Easy killer,” Travis’ voice rumbles deep in his chest. “You need to learn to answer your phone,” Liam says from the breakfast nook. “Jesus,” Sam exhales, turning back to his best friend. “The fuck is wrong with you guys?” “You didn’t answer your phone,” Matt murmurs as if he was already drunk, fingering his hands that sat in front of him without looking up. “We were worried.” “So, you break into my house?” Sam exclaims, throwing his hands out to the side. “Is it really breaking in if we have a key?” Taliesin suggests from Matt’s left. “With an open invitation to stop by whenever?” Marisha tilts her head up at Sam in the way that always makes him smile. Except for now, because he’s realizing why Matt is acting drunk. It’s because of the person on his right. It’s because Ashley fucking Johnson is in his God damn kitchen. “I thought you were in New York,” Sam squeaks out as her grey-blue eyes stab into him. “Laura called,” she says, her voice light and casual compared to the look in her eyes. “And then Matt called.” “Matt called you?” “Can I tell her?” Ashley looks over at Matt who was practically purring underneath her fingers that were carding through his hair. Matt nods blankly. “He was frantic when he called. Felt awful that you were so unhappy playing Scanlan that you made him leave.” “It’s not like that!” Sam sputters, taking a step forward. Matt tenses at the tone of his voice. “Hush,” Ashley chastises him, holding onto Matt’s neck. “It took both Marisha and I to calm him down.” The implication of the sentence hangs in the air like Matt’s description of the first sight of the Sun Tree. Sam’s heart falls even further and before he can respond, Ashley is continuing. “He felt that introducing Kaylie to the story drove you away. Made you think more like yourself and less like Scanlan.” “Matt, you know that’s not what it was,” Sam protests. “I thought you were leaving,” Matt says quietly. Sam’s face twists into horror. “I’d never leave like that! Are you kidding me? I’d never leave period.” “I didn’t know what was happening.” “I texted you right away.” “It doesn’t mean he didn’t panic, Sam,” Liam glares, his hand reaching across the table to grasp Matt’s trembling one. “You can’t just spring stuff like that on him. On any of us honestly.” “We all thought you were leaving.” Laura Bailey’s voice crackles to life from behind him. Sam stiffens and keep his eyes on Matt. “Do you honestly think that I would leave what we’ve built?” “We had no idea what you were thinking-” “I wasn’t asking you Laura.” Sam felt Travis shift into a defensive stance as Liam and Ashley both glare at him. Laura huffs out a breath and the stomp of her feet alert him before he feels her hand on him. “Fine,” she snarls at him, eyes flashing. “Ask me. Ask me Sam Riegel.” There’s a long pause and Sam grinds his teeth together. “Ask me if I thought that you were leaving us?” Sam shakes his head and starts to turn back to the table. “The answer is yes.” “You’re out of your mind,” Sam says, his broken heart leaking in. “Am I?” Laura’s voice snaps with the sound of her eyes welling up. “Sitting across from you, watching Scanlan go, I thought you were leaving. I thought you didn’t want to be a part of it any more. I thought you didn’t want us anymore.” Sam stops thinking about his own broken heart and his own sadness and looks around the room. He hadn’t thought that their reactions were what they were because they thought he was leaving them. Liam isn’t looking at him, but just over his shoulder at where Laura stood. For while Liam’s wife and children are his sun, Laura is his moon and when she was hurting so was he. Ashley is still tending to Matt, keeping him floating just on the edge of tipping into subspace where he sometimes needs to be. When Matt has a panic attack about something, he has to rescind control; the fact that it took both Marisha and Ashley, both a harsh command and the calmest command, to bring him down spoke louder than any world he’d created for them. Tal and Marisha are trading looks, doing that aggravatingly adorable thing where they communicate with their eyes. Travis looks imposing as ever. He tends to do that when Laura and Sam fight. His arms flex a little more, his body expands enough to remind both of them that he can push them apart at the moment it gets too personal, the moment that Laura will physically strike out because Sam says the wrong thing again. And Laura is openly crying. He made her cry. That is the worst part about it all. While they are the ones who fight the most, aggravate each other the most, push each other the most, Sam hates making her cry. “You’re out of your fucking mind, Laura Bailey,” Sam whispers. He counters the whisper with a surge of motion, wrapping his hands around her slender face to seal the sentence with a frantic kiss.
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timeasmymeasure
Pause
Date: 2017-02-21 03:57 am (UTC)“So you coming?”
“Yeah.” As soon as Sam said those words, he could feel everyone shift even though he couldn’t bear to look left.
At the beginning of the scene, everyone was acting. Taliesin and Travis sipping their drinks to avoid any awkwardness as Liam and Marisha exchanged worried glances while he and Laura went back and forth. Matt’s face was impassive for the longest time until he realized that Sam was serious. Liam started to really cry and the Laura started to yell; and then Taliesin started to yell, a real Tal yell that made Sam’s heart break just enough that he started to have second thoughts, and Marisha started to cry. Travis was pissed, he could see it in the brace of his elbows on the table.
“Grab your things,” Matt nodded.
He’s watching it all back of course, the next afternoon at home in his basement while his wife and family are out of the country on another crazy shoot for his wife’s blossoming career. They’ve already been gone a few months, but the house still felt as empty as it did before. It isn’t anything unusual, but he still misses them.
The emptiness of the house is nothing to the emptiness in his chest. The looks on the screen in front of him break him more than he wants it to and more than he’s ever going to admit. Laura’s shocked, furious, open-mouthed stare which Marisha mirrored in her look to Matt, but with less fury than she actually felt later. Taliesin had drained his whole glass of scotch in one gulp while Travis physically looked away from him, unable to halt the anger in his hands as he gripped the pencil. But it was Liam’s heart visibly breaking on screen, the scrunch of his face blossoming into real tears.
PAUSE
Sam has to stop before it goes any further. He’d made them cry. All of them. And not as their characters, but as Taliesin and Marisha and Liam and Laura and Travis. Matt knew that he was thinking about making big change for Scanlan, of course, but he could still sense Matt’s confusion and hurt when the words came out. And then they had been mad. All of five of them. Laura and Sam had fought before because they were two explosive personalities that clashed when it came to certain things. Taliesin and Sam had more angry conversations instead of the yelling and mad gesturing that was completely Laura. Sam could count on one hand the amount of times that Travis and Matt had been mad at him, but needed two hands with Marisha. He did indeed know how to push buttons.
But Liam…
Fast-forward through the shit storm he thinks to himself, taking a huge swig from his wine glass. He hits the point where they went through the sun tree and smiles. Of course, Laura fucking Bailey…Laura Bailey with harp music…would be the one to figure it out first. He smiles to himself as she looked suspiciously at Sam during Matt’s description.
“You there!”
PAUSE
The non-Scanlan voice sounds weird in his ears as he pauses it to memorize their reactions. It was rare that he catches them off guard, so when he did, he revels in it. Incredulous shock from Laura; joyous shock from Marisha, directed at a smug Matt who sipped his glass; wide-eyed subdued joy from Travis and Liam; calculating pride from Tal, even though he knew it would just seem like a Percy stare to the audience at home. Liam and Taliesin recovered the quickest as Laura turned back to Travis who was now staring at him for the first time with a smirk.
For a moment, everything was back to normal. Marisha beamed, her wide sunshine smile as Laura crossed into anger and threw a tissue at him and cursed at him. Tal laughed, loudly and without thinking as Liam assisted Laura’s toss. Travis morphed from unsure to laughing wildly and back to staring at him with his usual joy. They start making things difficult for him. Laura glares again and starts demanding money as Travis tries to get things back on course. But their laughing and smiling again, and they’re looking at him with those looks of adoration in their eyes.
PAUSE
This is what he wants to hold on to for right now. Not the chaos that broke out when Matt was whispering to Travis between the four others yelling and Laura burying her face in her arms as she cried or the off-hand comments to Laura to poke her buttons which caused a surge of anger so powerful that Travis and Liam physically backed away from her or the anger that rained down on him later. As he pushed Laura’s buttons further than he usually did just to see Liam grab on to Travis’ shoulder in his ecstatic laughter and Marisha glare over at Matt with a calculating stare. The lightness in his heart made him continue on, forgetting what came next.
“This piece of shit would never replace Scanlan.” Laura’s full face turned towards their table, the camera hid the fact that she was looking straight at Sam.
PAUSE
Maybe switch from wine to something stronger…and maybe shut this off. The guys’ faces were paused in concern, the kind of concern that they expressed when fights broke out among them. Sam trudges up the stairs, weight sinking back into the pit of his stomach. His mind swirls with thoughts about what he should’ve done and maybe they wouldn’t be mad at him if he had just stayed with Scanlan.
To Sam, the fallout felt massive. Twitter had exploded. Marisha had laid on the floor and there had been pictures that circulated quickly. Liam grabbed his binder and searched it and then him until he found the incriminating evidence that this was planned. Laura refused to talk to him. Liam wouldn’t look at him after he found the paper, just clutching it in his hands. Travis wrapped him in a side arm hug and tousled his hair roughly, calling him a clever asshole. Matt talked to him for an hour, talking down the panic that was rising in him after Laura and Liam pulled Travis out the door and to a bar. Marisha kissed his cheek when they parted ways and Taliesin squeezed his hand before following the couple to their car. And Sam was left alone in the parking lot for the first time after a traumatic episode.
Usually after a rough episode, they drive to a bar and drink a round or two and talk it out. By round three, Liam would be getting giggly and Matt would be the cause of it as Taliesin would be leaning into him with a grin. Travis would have his characteristic smirk on his face as Laura and Marisha would be inching their chairs closer and closer together. If Ashley was there, which was getting rarer and rarer, she’d have an arm slung over the back of the chair of whoever was next to her and her hands would weave intricate patterns over their backs. He shakes his head, trying to clear thoughts of what would end up happening once Ashely got her hands on them and padded up the steps and into the kitchen, flipping the switch on without any thought.
The light illuminates the room and five bodies flicker in his vision. Sam’s first instinct is to let go of the wine glass in shock, even though his mind instantly knew who they bodies belonged to. The glass falls towards the tile floor, but large, broad fingers lash out from behind him and snag it before it shatters. Sam spins to see Travis behind him, fingers clenched perfectly around the glass.
“Easy killer,” Travis’ voice rumbles deep in his chest.
“You need to learn to answer your phone,” Liam says from the breakfast nook.
“Jesus,” Sam exhales, turning back to his best friend. “The fuck is wrong with you guys?”
“You didn’t answer your phone,” Matt murmurs as if he was already drunk, fingering his hands that sat in front of him without looking up. “We were worried.”
“So, you break into my house?” Sam exclaims, throwing his hands out to the side.
“Is it really breaking in if we have a key?” Taliesin suggests from Matt’s left.
“With an open invitation to stop by whenever?” Marisha tilts her head up at Sam in the way that always makes him smile. Except for now, because he’s realizing why Matt is acting drunk. It’s because of the person on his right. It’s because Ashley fucking Johnson is in his God damn kitchen.
“I thought you were in New York,” Sam squeaks out as her grey-blue eyes stab into him.
“Laura called,” she says, her voice light and casual compared to the look in her eyes. “And then Matt called.”
“Matt called you?”
“Can I tell her?” Ashley looks over at Matt who was practically purring underneath her fingers that were carding through his hair. Matt nods blankly. “He was frantic when he called. Felt awful that you were so unhappy playing Scanlan that you made him leave.”
“It’s not like that!” Sam sputters, taking a step forward. Matt tenses at the tone of his voice.
“Hush,” Ashley chastises him, holding onto Matt’s neck. “It took both Marisha and I to calm him down.” The implication of the sentence hangs in the air like Matt’s description of the first sight of the Sun Tree. Sam’s heart falls even further and before he can respond, Ashley is continuing. “He felt that introducing Kaylie to the story drove you away. Made you think more like yourself and less like Scanlan.”
“Matt, you know that’s not what it was,” Sam protests.
“I thought you were leaving,” Matt says quietly. Sam’s face twists into horror.
“I’d never leave like that! Are you kidding me? I’d never leave period.”
“I didn’t know what was happening.”
“I texted you right away.”
“It doesn’t mean he didn’t panic, Sam,” Liam glares, his hand reaching across the table to grasp Matt’s trembling one. “You can’t just spring stuff like that on him. On any of us honestly.”
“We all thought you were leaving.” Laura Bailey’s voice crackles to life from behind him. Sam stiffens and keep his eyes on Matt.
“Do you honestly think that I would leave what we’ve built?”
“We had no idea what you were thinking-”
“I wasn’t asking you Laura.” Sam felt Travis shift into a defensive stance as Liam and Ashley both glare at him. Laura huffs out a breath and the stomp of her feet alert him before he feels her hand on him.
“Fine,” she snarls at him, eyes flashing. “Ask me. Ask me Sam Riegel.” There’s a long pause and Sam grinds his teeth together. “Ask me if I thought that you were leaving us?” Sam shakes his head and starts to turn back to the table. “The answer is yes.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Sam says, his broken heart leaking in.
“Am I?” Laura’s voice snaps with the sound of her eyes welling up. “Sitting across from you, watching Scanlan go, I thought you were leaving. I thought you didn’t want to be a part of it any more. I thought you didn’t want us anymore.”
Sam stops thinking about his own broken heart and his own sadness and looks around the room. He hadn’t thought that their reactions were what they were because they thought he was leaving them. Liam isn’t looking at him, but just over his shoulder at where Laura stood. For while Liam’s wife and children are his sun, Laura is his moon and when she was hurting so was he. Ashley is still tending to Matt, keeping him floating just on the edge of tipping into subspace where he sometimes needs to be. When Matt has a panic attack about something, he has to rescind control; the fact that it took both Marisha and Ashley, both a harsh command and the calmest command, to bring him down spoke louder than any world he’d created for them.
Tal and Marisha are trading looks, doing that aggravatingly adorable thing where they communicate with their eyes. Travis looks imposing as ever. He tends to do that when Laura and Sam fight. His arms flex a little more, his body expands enough to remind both of them that he can push them apart at the moment it gets too personal, the moment that Laura will physically strike out because Sam says the wrong thing again. And Laura is openly crying. He made her cry. That is the worst part about it all. While they are the ones who fight the most, aggravate each other the most, push each other the most, Sam hates making her cry.
“You’re out of your fucking mind, Laura Bailey,” Sam whispers. He counters the whisper with a surge of motion, wrapping his hands around her slender face to seal the sentence with a frantic kiss.