Set FIRE To The Rain -- [Samson]

Samson was a Thunder student through and through. Not only because he was difficult to approach and liked to keep to himself, but because he had all the vindictiveness. It was why he hadn’t forgotten about Harley and her betrayal. Other people may have been able to forget, let go, move on—and in a way, he was doing that with Jolene. But his bitterness toward Harley was not going away. He didn’t realize the huge mistake he’d made or how much the girl was suffering. If he had, he would have dumped Jolene’s ass and gotten down on his knees to beg for Harley’s forgiveness. But he was un-blissfully ignorant, and now his days were spent stitching up the open wound.

Still, he made it a point to avoid the girl, and luckily it was pretty easy. They were in different elements and different grades, so at school there wasn’t much of a chance they’d meet. And what would he do if they did cross paths? Ignore her and hope that it hurt her as much as it did him. Luckily, today he was in a rather good mood, avoiding these thoughts as much as possible. He raked his hand through his unruly hair, the other in his pocket as he walked down the hallway, flanked by other Thunder elementals. It wasn’t a very good idea to go traipsing around without others during the war.

But he headed in the opposite direction of them as he existed the building, keeping a lookout for anyone who may have wanted to cause problems. He didn’t really like to fight, but he was not one to back down, either. He was just about to head to the clocktower to work on homework when he noticed a familiar girl sitting on the lawn. He blinked before shaking his head and walking over. Samson sat across from his friend so that she’d notice his presence, and pulled out his phone so he could text out his greeting and show her. ”There’s benches in the courtyard, just so you know,” the words on the screen read, his dry humor still carrying across. He tended to be a troll with his girl friends, but it was just lighthearted teasing. He had a lot of respect for the ladies. Except Harley. All the respect he ever had for her was gone. ”Since it’s wartime, I thought I’d keep you company. Buddy system and all,” were the next words written on the screen as he showed the girl. He had to admit, it was a lot better than his old notepad. Even had a QWERTY keyboard. "How've you been?" And Samson meant overall, including dealing with the war.

Samson smirked a little when he noticed that he’d made Lark jump. He tended to be a douche bag sometimes, but it was not with ill intent. He liked his friends, and he was a decent guy when you got to know him. Of course, if you crossed him in any way, you got the vindictiveness to deal with, but otherwise he was easy to get along with. When she called him Sir Obvious, he gave a mock flourish and a half-bow, being in the seated position he was in. With nimble fingers, he typed, ”And the ground is so much more comfortable? Noted.” Of course, his banter was also light-hearted. When Samson didn’t like you, you knew. He didn’t bother with typing. He used his muteness to fuck with you. Well, he also did it to perfect strangers, but that was just the Water in him. His mother and Beatrice were a bad influence, it seemed, since he did have traits reminescent of the element.

Even though Lark said that she could handle herself and he was willing to believe that, he still worried. It didn’t show on his usually impassive features, but he worried about his friends. Wars weren’t fun, he knew that from enduring them for three years now. ”I’m not doubting you, but it’s your fault if you get your ass handed to you.” Of course, she really just needed to worry about Earth students who were generally pacifistic unless provoked. When she mentioned protecting him, he rolled his eyes. ”It’s because I’m Thunder, isn’t it?” he said, like she’d just made a racial insult. Her element had strength over his own and his enemy element—Water. So yes, she would be good protection. However, he texted, ”I think I’m badass enough to take care of myself.” He did roam with his own kind, though, since he wasn’t going to stupidly assume he can handle a group of Waters or a graduate elemental.

She seemed to hesitate, and he wondered what was up. Of course he didn’t expect to hear that her life was perfect, no one’s really was. But she wasn’t falling apart at the seams, so that was good, right? ”Parent drama is always pleasant,” he texted back good-naturedly, an attempt to cheer the Fire girl up. He didn’t have to deal with parent drama, not that he was happy they were dead. He’d simply moved on since he was so young at the time. But he did know his friends had to deal with parents, and understood why Lark was bitter. Beatrice was like a mother to him, or…well, his master as she liked to call herself. But she rarely gave him any trouble, astoundingly. She was just an embarrassment. His smirk widened a bit when she motioned to him, but Samson didn’t want to interrupt her speech to text her, “Well I’m glad.” His green eyes held sympathy when she spoke of homesickness. ”It’ll get better,” he assured her, turned the screen. ”Even the war. It won’t last forever.” But it could last long, that was for damn sure. And it wouldn’t be pretty. No one was happy about the fighting, unless they were extremely sadistic. He just stuck to his element and rode it out.

He looked at her, hesitating a moment because he thought of that fresh wound. But she was honest with him, and he had nothing to hide. He wasn’t secretive, he just didn’t talk much. The friends he made, however, got him to press those little buttons on his phone. ”Less-than-stellar,” he admitted through text. ”I broke it off with Harley, if you haven’t heard. Cheated on me.” This was a lie, but he didn’t know how his now-girlfriend had sent him the damning text that made him leave Harley. As if to assure Lark that he moved on, he showed her the next text: ”I’m going out with Jolene now. Know her?” They were in the same element, after all, and Samson just came to realize that he had a thing for Fire girls, apparently. And because of that, he should learn have learned his lesson long ago. Fire girls weren’t the nicest, and they were the ones who continuously broke his heart. Going hand-in-hand with the nice guy under the stoic persona, he gave his heart over in a relationship. He trusted too easily in that aspect, and it resulted in many a failed relationship. Moving on from that, he asked, ”So really, why are you hanging out here?”

Samson couldn’t lean back and stretch out his legs since he needed his hands to type, but he still sat in an amiable position, not really concerned about anyone else. ”A little overconfident, huh,” he said when she told him there wasn’t a chance she’d get her ass handed to her. It was beliefs like that that ended people in the medical wing. He held up his hands in a surrendering gesture before he texted out, ”Hey, I look out for my people.” His face was perfectly straight as he said this, but he was still joking. The Thunder boy tended to do that, but most who knew him understood that most of what he said could be taken lightly. However, he was rather serious about those words. He looked out for his friends and allies and made sure they didn’t get hurt. He was a pretty loyal person, to his element and the people he liked.

It seemed that he managed to make Lark feel better, even though she gave no response, and for that he was glad. He also liked to see his friends happy. Who didn’t? He would be a crap friend if he wished ill-intent on others. Lark seemed surprised, and it stung when she asked why he did that, especially since he just told her. In an attempt to at least make the situation a little more light-hearted, Samson texted a “” smiley that matched his expression quite well before actually texting out the message. ”As I said, cheated on me. With a Fire kid.” He at first thought it might be Dale until he heard he had a girlfriend—though there was a little tingling of suspicion, since the Fire grad’s romantic history wasn’t in his favor—but there was no one he could go out to fight. He didn’t know, and he realized that he hadn’t bothered to ask Jolene. His eyebrows furrowed together. Maybe I should. No, he told him himself, he should be moving on. But still…he couldn’t deny he missed Harley. He loved Harley. He felt guilty for it, having a new girlfriend, one who didn’t cheat on him, but he couldn’t help it. So he just kept those feelings to himself.

Samson merely shrugged at her rhetorical question. ”Didn’t say you did. Just thought that since you two were in the same element, you might have seen each other around the dorms.” Most people didn’t make an attempt to get to know everyone in the school, Lark wasn’t the only one. Still, it was an innocent question. There was a chance that anyone could know anyone around. He wasn’t an outgoing guy, but he still knew a few people from around the Academy. Hell, he knew Ged, who wasn’t even in his element, and he had a few friends in Fire. He just didn’t go around shaking hands with every person he crossed paths with and made conversation with him. He didn’t really like to get along with people.

He nodded in understanding. ”You could probably hang out in the library, not many people there.” It was a place he went to, especially during the wars, or he otherwise lurked in the dorms. Samson wasn’t a people person—especially because others didn’t think him to be quite approachable. He gave no real signs of being approachable, being mute and having one default expression of indifference most of the time. ”Give me a second, gotta rest the thumbs,” he wrote out before dropping the phone in his lap and—with his features still serious—began rotating his thumbs around as if doing exercises with them. It was true they hurt sometimes, because he made an extra effort in talking with friends. Usually, conversation died off when he didn’t know or like the other person he was talking to and he decided to resort to indecipherable sign language. Luckily, Lark didn’t have to deal with that side of troll!Samson.

Samson really didn’t know how he felt about Harley at this point. He knew that he should be hating her for what she did, but he couldn’t find it in him to think of her as a completely horrible person because the love was still there. He wondered if it would ever go away. ”Magically disappear? Well, that depends if the police have anything to do with it.” He was able to joke now, at least, even though he didn’t know whether or not he liked Lark calling Harley a ‘bitch’ even though…well, she could be. But he understood that Lark was being a good friend, which he appreciated more than anything. He depended on his friends in times like these, at least. She seemed insulted by his words, which only encouraged him, unfortunately. ”What would you prefer? ‘Fire being’,” he texted sarcastically. ”Or maybe ‘Fire BAMFs’. I want you to make this clear for future reference.” Of course, he didn’t mean to belittle the element he was allied with. He didn’t mind Fire at all—except for Dale, but that was a different story—and he had a lot of friends in the other element.

He leaned back and snorted a bit, characteristic of him since it was pretty much one of the only sounds he could make. His vocal chords had been detereorated by fire, and his lungs had suffered some pretty bad damage that left him in the hospital for a little while. He didn’t remember too much about it, but he did remember Beatrice in all her cape-wearing, lollipop giving glory, swooping in as his saving grace from life as a foster child. ”No love for the library?” he wrote out. He wasn’t going to go into how he liked it there, but he actually did. One of the reasons was probably because no one really talked in there, and that was terrific for a mute like him. ”It’s a good place to hang.” It was surprising that he was still using full sentences by now, but after that he wriggled his thumbs around a bit.

Having lived with it so long, he hardly even realized that he was mute in a strange way. He was able to recognize it because even if he tried to talk, nothing would come out. But he’d gotten so used to writing down his words, that it just became a part of him, his own system. Now if he got his voice back he’d think it strange to talk again. Feeling that his thumbs were rested enough, he picked up the phone a few minutes later and asked, ”So you want to go somewhere to get away from all this war?” He wasn’t really one to suggest ditching, but he always felt that wars were special occasions. Other than that, he was a very good student and never gave teachers any trouble. So what if he ditched for a day, he was otherwise a straight A little boy.

Samson’s shoulders shook with his silent laughter that would have otherwise gone unnoticed since he had his head down, unruly locks shading his eyes. It was nice to think that Lark had his back in situations like these. Sure made him feel a helluva lot better. Break-ups were always traumatic, no matter how many times you go through them. Of course, he didn’t get together with his girlfriends to slam the ex and egg her house or anything, but it still hurt. You have Jolene now. Somehow, it didn’t feel the same. To avoid his thoughts, he focused on Lark’s words. Even now he didn’t think that it was weird to have one side of the conversation spoken aloud and the other one written through text. ”I’m just going to turn a blind eye,” he wrote in the same joking way as Lark spoke aloud.

It was always nice to have a friend with the same sense of humor as you. And though Samson’s sense of humor can sometimes border on cruel—Brett had a taste of it when they had gone to Timmies—he was generally not a bad guy. And he could joke despite what some people may have thought. Samson didn’t take notice of any glares—he really didn’t care about other people—and instead texted out, ”Now you’re a Fire BAMF. Very good.” As with all his female friends, he enjoyed the light teasing. He sometimes felt like a big brother to his girl friends, and he got abused as much as big brothers would in their teasing.

Samson was of course not offended by Lark dissing one of his hangouts, so he took it all in stride. ”Holing up in the library can be oh-so fun,” he said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. He’d prefer that she didn’t have to hole up anywhere and that the war can end, but just because he wanted it didn’t mean it would happen. After the pause in conversation, Samson smirked and took her hand to help pull him up, throwing his backpack over his shoulder. He led the way and stopped before texting out, ”Do you have a car? We could walk to Maple Hollow, but it would take a while.” Beatrice had this thing about cars, and he wasn’t going to question her on it. She did her own thing and he just sat by and watched.

He rolled his eyes as if very exasperated with Lark. ”I rely on your for a car. I was planning to rob a bank,” he texted her. With his always-stoic expression and the fact that he couldn’t use tone to carry sarcasm across, he could almost be take seriously. It was maybe why not too many approached him, since he gave off an aura of just not caring. Even if he did. ”Walking’s fine.” It was always surprising when he took the time to text his answer when a lot of the time he’d just give a nod no matter what. He’d do it just to fuck with people, too. It may have been a little mean-spirited to use his muteness in the trolling of others, but no one ever said that he was nice. He was laidback and indifferent, but not necessarily…friendly. Of course, once you got a good mark in his books he eased up on the assholery. He was sure he’d given Lark a bit of a hard time in the beginning of their friendship.

His long legs kept up a steady pace, and he was rather enjoying the good weather. It seemed like the two of them being carless was turning out for the better. It wasn’t too bad out, at least. ”We can hit Timmies,” he texted out, and held it up to her, his motions rather indifferent and careless. Such a thing was natural to him, like the people who use a lot of hand gestures when they speak. He’d been holding up notepads for a while. In early recovery he wouldn’t talk at all to Beatrice, and she didn’t seem to mind. The woman had done all the talking while he mourned the loss of his parents and his life in Newfoundland. He got over it quickly enough—time healed all wounds, and he was sixteen now, quite a while since the death. He’d very much gotten over it.

It was taking some time to get to Maple Hollow, and since he he was walking with his friend he gave forth more effort than he would have anyone else. ”So how’ve you been outside of the war?” he wrote in the text. He wasn’t too private about his personal life since he had nothing to hide, so if she asked he would tell her all about Beatrice’s antics and whatever he’d been getting up to. His adoptive mother always proved to be an interesting topic of conversation. But he also respected the boundaries of others, like most human beings, save for those without filters. He had a very good filter in the fact that he was mute and couldn’t say anything.

Samson shook his head as if in great disapproval of Lark, even though his feelings about her were the opposite. He considered the girl a pretty close friend. He didn’t have too many of those. He usually kept to himself since it took a bit of effort on his part to keep up covnersation through text, so the friends that he’d managed to make meant a great deal to him. ”It’s still impounded? I need a quick getaway, am I going to have to hotwire?” It was nice to keep up this sort of joking in the light of a very tiresome war. They could still have this even when things seemed shitty. Even when Samson still felt like there was something missing thanks to Harley. You have Jolene now. But she wasn’t the girl he’d fallen in love with, and it hurt to think about that. It was strange to have the feeling that he’d never love another like he’d loved Harley. And amybe he was being dramatic, but he was sure his feelings for her were pretty strong. Shame that it wasn’t the same for her.

In any case, Samson had enough money that if he saved up good enough, he could purchase a car and probably park it further down the street so Beatrice didn’t notice. It sounded like a good plan, and he’d start car hunting soon. Maybe Lark can help out. Thinking this, he texted out, ”Thinking of going behind Bea’s back and getting a car. You in for helping me?” It may have seemed possibly random since there was really know lead-in to whatever he said. Some people started their sentences with ‘ohmigod’ in their excitement, but any form of excitement for him wasn’t so easily translated. All the same, they had been talking about a car, so it wasn’t too out of the blue.

Samson nodded simply to her next words. Sometimes, text wasn’t required, and that may have been why a lot of people gave up on him. He didn’t give out lengthy response a lot, and so others lost interest quickly enough. He tried not to think too hard into it. Instead, he noted the look of shock on Lark’s face when he asked his question. Well, that can’t be good, he mused with a prickling of concern. He didn’t make a habit of prying into his friends’ lives, and was more than willing to drop any topic when he knew that it was going to a place neither of them wanted to go. It was easy enough for him, with his lack of social skills.

Lark then admitted to having trouble on the homefront, and unfortunately, Samson couldn’t relate. Well, it was fortunate in the fact that he didn’t have to worry about drama when he went home, but unfortunate in the fact that he couldn’t relate to his friend on some level and provide her with any kind of comfort of having come from the same place. Beatrice was good to him. He didn’t have to worry about divorce, which made him wonder. She was only thirty(one) years old, even though she’d like to pretend that ‘one’ didn’t exist, and he’d never seen her with a man, out on a date or having any interest in marrying. He’d questioned her about it once, and she dismissively told him, “You’re the only man I can handle at the moment.” But he rarely gave her trouble, either, and so their lives were very peaceful. Despite the Thunder and Water differences, they loved each other and the only time he remembered difficulties during was when he first came to BC and was dealing with the loss of his parents and his voice. ”That does sound shitty,” he acknowledged through text, though it was unneccesary.

Deciding that something less obvious and more tactful would be needed, he wrote, ”You know, I’m always around if you want to hang out. Or rant at me or anything.” He was pretty good with that, since he wasn’t the type to interrupt anyone. Samson almost rolled his eyes at that thought, but he was being pretty serious right now. ”If you don’t mind Bea trying to rope you into something weird, you can drop by any time.” He did live in an occult shop—which was more full of trinkets and odd souvenirs than anything, but that place was still home to him. He didn’t become too homesick for Newfoundland because he’d left it so long ago, and he returned every summer with Beatrice. Unfortunately, he couldn’t revisit his childhood house thanks to the fire. He cleared the other words, and texted, ”It’s a drama-free environment.” Samson gave Lark an honest-to-god smile then, showing how sincere he was. The place truly was drama-free, and depending on what you liked, could prove fun.