[ Steve can hardly believe that he's back in his room in the Sarstina Inn, and yet when he steps in the door he finds it exactly as he remembers it — even if those memories are weirdly faded and fuzzy.
It had been a whirlwind. Steve had been working to help the more reluctant realize that they'd been dragged into some kind of mass hallucination and then finally the cracks in the sky had become so numerous and so great that it all came falling down. It was a hell of a thing to watch the sky shatter, revealing the crater that they'd entered what felt like eight hundred years (or three months?) ago, the Singularity looming over them.
He doesn't know what month, or even day, it is anymore. Some of the Summoned had been nearly catatonic as they were escorted out of the crater and back through the portals, and Steve hadn't had much chance to check in with anyone during the chaos beyond doing a hasty and incomplete headcount. He had found Sam among the crowd though, making eye contact as they silently understood they would find each other as soon as they made it back to Cadens.
Now they're here, back in the privacy of their own room, and Steve finally feels like he can breathe again. He inhales sharply and realizes that he'd temporarily forgotten what it was like to have air fill his lungs.
God, when was the last time he ate something? He knows it hasn't been as long as it feels, but everything is so jumbled up.
As if on autopilot, he moves over to the couch and falls onto it. He looks up at Sam, snippets of arguments and intimate moments and random little details swirling through his head. It's dizzying. ]
That was...
[ He lifts a hand to rub his eyes and then squeeze the bridge of his nose. ]
[ when sam's eyes had opened up back on the crater, it had been... well. a relief, in many ways. a weight lifted, like waking up from a dream that had felt a little too real, and hadn't been entirely good. sam remembers, like trying to remember a dream, helping others to see the cracks in the sky. bringing others to the same place he'd been. he remembers believing, with his whole chest, that this wasn't where they were supposed to be, and as he sat up out of the dirt and saw the singularity on the horizon, he feels like he can breathe again.
but he also knows it isn't easy- not for him, and certainly not for anyone else around him. without thinking much about it, sam is on his feet and helping anyone and everyone he can do the same. it feels automatic, it feels familiar, coming into what feels like the aftereffects of a disaster and helping as many people as he can to their feet, safely through portals. he knows there are probably more things he should be doing, more people he should be finding, but after catching steve's eyes across the crowd and understanding, immediately, that they are both okay to talk later - back home - it's easy to flip into help mode.
he doesn't know how long it's been. there are whispers of months, about three, and how they've been unconscious in the crater since. getting back to cadens feels so much like coming home that sam is a bit breathless with it, feels almost like he's wandering without purpose, cause. it takes him even longer to get back up to the room, the sight of mag and the tavern floor shaking him.
but they do get back to their room, he and steve, and it simultaneously feels as alien as it is familiar. everywhere sam looks, he feels like there is a memory, a story, but he blinks and it's falling away. he lets out a long breath as steve moves over to the couch and falls into it, and sam doesn't realize he's staring, that he's watching him, until a moment later.
sam shakes his head, tries to bring himself back to now and not the 800s years of... images? mirages? can he even call them lies? ] You and me both. [ he lets out another breath, a sigh, like his body is also remembering how to breathe - and then sam is stepping forward also towards the couch, but before he turns and collapses into it, he drops to sit on the coffee table in front of it, facing steve. ]
How long do you think it'll take before everything stops feeling weird? [ a pause, and then he's rubbing at his face, the sensation of relaxing feeling a little too much like he's deflating. ]
[ It had been a surreal experience wandering into the inn only to have Mag immediately recognize him and rush over to express her concern and fuss over him. To learn that only a few weeks have passed, not months or years or centuries.
He has memories of when Mag peacefully died of old age. He knows the inn was eventually abandoned, that the building at some point disappeared — or at least, he's pretty sure he remembers that, but everything is a haze, and trying to dig through details that didn't actually happen over such a long span of time feels like wading through a thick, waist-high sludge.
It helps to have Sam here, sitting right in front of him. To be face-to-face. It jerks Steve out of that sludge, and he stares at Sam for a few seconds before he sighs and shakes his head. ]
I guess it depends on how vivid this all feels over time. If we're gonna be haunted by... whatever that was all the time, then I think it'll be a while.
[ Like seeing ghosts in all of their interactions with fellow Summoned. Even with one another.
Steve's brow twitches with a half-formed frown as he looks Sam over again. He remembers their fights, if not every specific reason or the exact words exchanged. He recalls how they had chafed against their transformations into something more than human.
It was even enough to drive them apart for a while. ]
So... what do we think it was? The Singularity trying to show us what the future might hold? Or was something else behind it? We still don't know what caused that storm, just that us going into the crater seems to have fixed it.
[ This is the easier conversation to have right now. ]
[ god... it was only a few weeks, wasn't it. sam still feels so disoriented by the whole thing, like even though they've woken up, he's still in part asleep. he filters through memories, tries to place how he felt about them now and separate that from how he feels now. he tries to find his footing in the things he knows are real- no matter how much they'd been real in that dream, in those visions.
seeing mag had been the most difficult, sam things. having lived that life, having watched that life age and pass away and then time consume all that was left, it rocks him further to his core than he thought it would.
what doesn't surprise him is how being here in this room, being here with Steve is the easiest part. their lifetimes together, their relationship up and downs, the way their philosophies and what had happened to them had driven them apart, and what it was that finally brought them back together, all of it feels contained in this single moment, and it is - very much so - one of the few things that sam doesn't find he's all that worried about.
maybe should be. maybe there is more there he's ignoring for the sake of ease, choosing other trains of thought over this one. but they'll have time to get back. ]
800 years is a lot of memories to try and hold onto. [ a beat, and then a sigh. a shrug. ] Chances are most of 'em will fade here soon enough. But the rest of it, I'm not as sure about.
[ sam wonders how the others are faring - what everyone is thinking about this all. their connections, their relationships, those are things sam is comfortable enough with gauging in person. whether or not someone wants to have a connection with someone, that he can suss out.
but the world? their powers? what becomes of them?
and what does become of them? those gods they turned into, what it means for the other gods they already know. sam's thoughts are turning, over and over, and he can't quite decide which path he wants to follow. thankfully, a feeling of being watched takes his attention. he looks up and meets Steve's eyes, catches the complicated, curious look there, and sam offers him a small, questioning smile. you good?
but that's when Steve starts talking, questions weighing heavily between them. ] Unless the whole thing was one of those other gods. Like the one at the Ikorr party- just on a larger scale. But if that's true, then you've gotta think that means that there are gods here who know how to use the Singularity to that level. Or, if it was the Singularity itself, what was it trying to say?
[ As far as Steve is concerned, there shouldn't be much reason to hold anything that supposedly happened in those eight centuries against someone in the here and now. It would really be the same as being upset with someone because they did something you didn't like in a random dream that you had.
On the other hand, he does wonder if there was a seed of truth in any of it. No doubt someone like Strange would say that if anything, it was a possible future, but only one of many, and they don't have to get hung up on it.
Which Steve agrees with, but he can't just completely ignore that it was something that was done to them either. Sam seems to be agreement on that, and it is nice to confirm in this moment that they remain on the same page, as they almost always have been. Through thick and thin.
Of course even the closest of friends would fight and disagree over a span of time that long, but he doesn't need to get caught up reading into it.
It helps when Sam gives him that small smile, a silent check-in, and Steve nods in response to the unasked question. ]
I wonder... could any one god have that level of power, to essentially put all of us through some sort of mass hallucination? I'm not sure I know enough about them to say anything for sure, even if I have these memories of being one of them.
[ He huffs out a sigh and shakes his head. This feels so above their paygrade.
He crosses his arms over his chest and glances down toward his lap, taking a few seconds to turn things over in his head. ]
... I know that some of the other Summoned have connections with the Singularity or even with one of the gods. We now know that some of them might have been like us once. It's probably the best place to start looking for answers.
It's possible. Especially if it's someone who figured out how to use the Singularity to amplify it. But if they do, why haven't we see them before now? Or if we have, what were they trying to say?
[ there's a part of him that's just trying to throw out ideas, mulling over situations, trying to see if they can circle around something more concrete. maybe there's a part of him that just doesn't want to talk about all that happened during those years - what he and Steve went through, what they all saw. the dark, cool, near-haunted feeling of what his home in the horizon turned into still feels too close. too looming.
this is something more tangible, in its own way. a plan, a strategy, a brainstorming of potentials that really, truthfully, are totally out of sam and Steve's wheelhouse, but also aren't so far.
steve nods, confirms, and sam nods back. they might not have answers, but there still is, and in a way always will be, a comfort in knowing that.
now it's sam's turn to nod, because yes, they do know that some summoned have more direct connections to the singularity than others. sam, of course, thinks of Julie. but he wonders if there are more summoned that aren't coming to mind, on top of that. ]
It's hard to imagine it's someone we've had no interaction with before, even if we didn't know it.
[ Not that many of the gods have approached them directly. Steve now knows from his own implanted memories that it was rare for the gods to show themselves to mortals in that way, though. But whoever may have done this, they must have a vested interest in the Summoned in some way. Which is why he wonders if it's a god who used to be just like them, who lived through their own ascension in reality rather than just in a dream.
But this is grounding, to talk it through with the person he trusts more than anyone, to start making a gameplan and considering action items.
Steve glances up to Sam, seeing him just as himself rather than what the dream wanted to tell him. His fingers twitch, wanting to reach out to him for a moment, but he'll wait until they've talked this out. ]
With Wanda. She has a bond with one of the gods. Not sure if it's one who might have once been a Summoned, but... it's possible. I think we should see what she can learn from them.
[ She was definitely the first person to come to mind, at least for him. ]
Dunno- it feels like gods are starting to crop up. Though if the rules are the same, they've probably been here the whole time- in that god-plane or whatever. [ sam thinks for a moment, then shakes his head - shakes off some kind of shudder, too. ] Don't like the idea someone's been watching us, though. Or- someone else.
[ sam probably doesn't have a lot of room to complain, here - the gods have been around, have probably been watching them this whole time. but it doesn't help things, doesn't make him feel any better. even if some of these gods have started contacting summoned directly, this all feels... different, somehow.
more personal.
steve glances over towards him, and sam catches it - wonders, briefly, what all steve isn't saying yet about how he feels about the whole thing. what else they both haven't touched on. but first- their plan, and the mention of wanda has sam nodding. ]
Wanda was my first thought too, yeah. And maybe Julie? I'll have to do some checks around with my people here. [ which...well. sam doesn't sigh, exactly, but there's a feeling in the air that both of their to-do lists have just grown exponentially. ]
And even if they have been watching us, it's not like we'd have any way of knowing it unless we asked and they copped to it.
[ Steve doesn't see much point in speculating on all that because they could just make themselves crazy considering all the possibilities. The sky feels like it's the limit with the gods now that they've gotten some sort of strange peek behind the curtain.
The best way to feel like they have some control over the situation is to actually think of things they can do, and they already have a starting point. Steve can check with Wanda, Sam can check with Julie and whoever else, and they'll see what they can learn.
While Sam doesn't actually sigh, Steve can see just from the look on his face that he's barely holding one back. He does reach out then to grab for his wrists and tug him forward, inviting him to move from the coffee table to sit next to him on the couch instead. ]
It can probably wait until tomorrow. [ That way they have tonight to process.
There's a beat, and then he leans back, head tilting to rest against the back of the couch as he stares up at the ceiling. ]
So, do we want to talk about any of that? Or are we going to write it off as a bizarre dream?
Which seems unlikely, given... [ a gesture, meant to mean them. but steve has a point, that there's no real reason to speculate because if that dream has shown them anything, it's that the possibilities will continue to be endless, spinning out in every direction and then even more that they hadn't known existed.
part of sam wonders if he needs to talk to stephen about all of this, if somehow that might explain this a bit better, but he knows that won't lead him anywhere. instead, he and steve make a plan. he and steve make next steps. and yeah, there's a lot to do, a lot that he needs to do, and steve can probably read it in him judging by the way he reaches out and tugs on sam's wrists.
without really thinking about it, sam smiles, immediately feels some degree of that building stress fade. it can probably wait until tomorrow steve says, and sam follows the tug, settles onto the couch next to him. steve's head falls back and sam's hand falls to steve's knee, trying to be comforting even as he chuckles. ]
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post emergence event; their room
It had been a whirlwind. Steve had been working to help the more reluctant realize that they'd been dragged into some kind of mass hallucination and then finally the cracks in the sky had become so numerous and so great that it all came falling down. It was a hell of a thing to watch the sky shatter, revealing the crater that they'd entered what felt like eight hundred years (or three months?) ago, the Singularity looming over them.
He doesn't know what month, or even day, it is anymore. Some of the Summoned had been nearly catatonic as they were escorted out of the crater and back through the portals, and Steve hadn't had much chance to check in with anyone during the chaos beyond doing a hasty and incomplete headcount. He had found Sam among the crowd though, making eye contact as they silently understood they would find each other as soon as they made it back to Cadens.
Now they're here, back in the privacy of their own room, and Steve finally feels like he can breathe again. He inhales sharply and realizes that he'd temporarily forgotten what it was like to have air fill his lungs.
God, when was the last time he ate something? He knows it hasn't been as long as it feels, but everything is so jumbled up.
As if on autopilot, he moves over to the couch and falls onto it. He looks up at Sam, snippets of arguments and intimate moments and random little details swirling through his head. It's dizzying. ]
That was...
[ He lifts a hand to rub his eyes and then squeeze the bridge of his nose. ]
Shit. I don't even know where to start.
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but he also knows it isn't easy- not for him, and certainly not for anyone else around him. without thinking much about it, sam is on his feet and helping anyone and everyone he can do the same. it feels automatic, it feels familiar, coming into what feels like the aftereffects of a disaster and helping as many people as he can to their feet, safely through portals. he knows there are probably more things he should be doing, more people he should be finding, but after catching steve's eyes across the crowd and understanding, immediately, that they are both okay to talk later - back home - it's easy to flip into help mode.
he doesn't know how long it's been. there are whispers of months, about three, and how they've been unconscious in the crater since. getting back to cadens feels so much like coming home that sam is a bit breathless with it, feels almost like he's wandering without purpose, cause. it takes him even longer to get back up to the room, the sight of mag and the tavern floor shaking him.
but they do get back to their room, he and steve, and it simultaneously feels as alien as it is familiar. everywhere sam looks, he feels like there is a memory, a story, but he blinks and it's falling away. he lets out a long breath as steve moves over to the couch and falls into it, and sam doesn't realize he's staring, that he's watching him, until a moment later.
sam shakes his head, tries to bring himself back to now and not the 800s years of... images? mirages? can he even call them lies? ] You and me both. [ he lets out another breath, a sigh, like his body is also remembering how to breathe - and then sam is stepping forward also towards the couch, but before he turns and collapses into it, he drops to sit on the coffee table in front of it, facing steve. ]
How long do you think it'll take before everything stops feeling weird? [ a pause, and then he's rubbing at his face, the sensation of relaxing feeling a little too much like he's deflating. ]
no subject
He has memories of when Mag peacefully died of old age. He knows the inn was eventually abandoned, that the building at some point disappeared — or at least, he's pretty sure he remembers that, but everything is a haze, and trying to dig through details that didn't actually happen over such a long span of time feels like wading through a thick, waist-high sludge.
It helps to have Sam here, sitting right in front of him. To be face-to-face. It jerks Steve out of that sludge, and he stares at Sam for a few seconds before he sighs and shakes his head. ]
I guess it depends on how vivid this all feels over time. If we're gonna be haunted by... whatever that was all the time, then I think it'll be a while.
[ Like seeing ghosts in all of their interactions with fellow Summoned. Even with one another.
Steve's brow twitches with a half-formed frown as he looks Sam over again. He remembers their fights, if not every specific reason or the exact words exchanged. He recalls how they had chafed against their transformations into something more than human.
It was even enough to drive them apart for a while. ]
So... what do we think it was? The Singularity trying to show us what the future might hold? Or was something else behind it? We still don't know what caused that storm, just that us going into the crater seems to have fixed it.
[ This is the easier conversation to have right now. ]
no subject
seeing mag had been the most difficult, sam things. having lived that life, having watched that life age and pass away and then time consume all that was left, it rocks him further to his core than he thought it would.
what doesn't surprise him is how being here in this room, being here with Steve is the easiest part. their lifetimes together, their relationship up and downs, the way their philosophies and what had happened to them had driven them apart, and what it was that finally brought them back together, all of it feels contained in this single moment, and it is - very much so - one of the few things that sam doesn't find he's all that worried about.
maybe should be. maybe there is more there he's ignoring for the sake of ease, choosing other trains of thought over this one. but they'll have time to get back. ]
800 years is a lot of memories to try and hold onto. [ a beat, and then a sigh. a shrug. ] Chances are most of 'em will fade here soon enough. But the rest of it, I'm not as sure about.
[ sam wonders how the others are faring - what everyone is thinking about this all. their connections, their relationships, those are things sam is comfortable enough with gauging in person. whether or not someone wants to have a connection with someone, that he can suss out.
but the world? their powers? what becomes of them?
and what does become of them? those gods they turned into, what it means for the other gods they already know. sam's thoughts are turning, over and over, and he can't quite decide which path he wants to follow. thankfully, a feeling of being watched takes his attention. he looks up and meets Steve's eyes, catches the complicated, curious look there, and sam offers him a small, questioning smile. you good?
but that's when Steve starts talking, questions weighing heavily between them. ] Unless the whole thing was one of those other gods. Like the one at the Ikorr party- just on a larger scale. But if that's true, then you've gotta think that means that there are gods here who know how to use the Singularity to that level. Or, if it was the Singularity itself, what was it trying to say?
no subject
On the other hand, he does wonder if there was a seed of truth in any of it. No doubt someone like Strange would say that if anything, it was a possible future, but only one of many, and they don't have to get hung up on it.
Which Steve agrees with, but he can't just completely ignore that it was something that was done to them either. Sam seems to be agreement on that, and it is nice to confirm in this moment that they remain on the same page, as they almost always have been. Through thick and thin.
Of course even the closest of friends would fight and disagree over a span of time that long, but he doesn't need to get caught up reading into it.
It helps when Sam gives him that small smile, a silent check-in, and Steve nods in response to the unasked question. ]
I wonder... could any one god have that level of power, to essentially put all of us through some sort of mass hallucination? I'm not sure I know enough about them to say anything for sure, even if I have these memories of being one of them.
[ He huffs out a sigh and shakes his head. This feels so above their paygrade.
He crosses his arms over his chest and glances down toward his lap, taking a few seconds to turn things over in his head. ]
... I know that some of the other Summoned have connections with the Singularity or even with one of the gods. We now know that some of them might have been like us once. It's probably the best place to start looking for answers.
no subject
[ there's a part of him that's just trying to throw out ideas, mulling over situations, trying to see if they can circle around something more concrete. maybe there's a part of him that just doesn't want to talk about all that happened during those years - what he and Steve went through, what they all saw. the dark, cool, near-haunted feeling of what his home in the horizon turned into still feels too close. too looming.
this is something more tangible, in its own way. a plan, a strategy, a brainstorming of potentials that really, truthfully, are totally out of sam and Steve's wheelhouse, but also aren't so far.
steve nods, confirms, and sam nods back. they might not have answers, but there still is, and in a way always will be, a comfort in knowing that.
now it's sam's turn to nod, because yes, they do know that some summoned have more direct connections to the singularity than others. sam, of course, thinks of Julie. but he wonders if there are more summoned that aren't coming to mind, on top of that. ]
Where do you wanna start?
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[ Not that many of the gods have approached them directly. Steve now knows from his own implanted memories that it was rare for the gods to show themselves to mortals in that way, though. But whoever may have done this, they must have a vested interest in the Summoned in some way. Which is why he wonders if it's a god who used to be just like them, who lived through their own ascension in reality rather than just in a dream.
But this is grounding, to talk it through with the person he trusts more than anyone, to start making a gameplan and considering action items.
Steve glances up to Sam, seeing him just as himself rather than what the dream wanted to tell him. His fingers twitch, wanting to reach out to him for a moment, but he'll wait until they've talked this out. ]
With Wanda. She has a bond with one of the gods. Not sure if it's one who might have once been a Summoned, but... it's possible. I think we should see what she can learn from them.
[ She was definitely the first person to come to mind, at least for him. ]
How about you?
no subject
[ sam probably doesn't have a lot of room to complain, here - the gods have been around, have probably been watching them this whole time. but it doesn't help things, doesn't make him feel any better. even if some of these gods have started contacting summoned directly, this all feels... different, somehow.
more personal.
steve glances over towards him, and sam catches it - wonders, briefly, what all steve isn't saying yet about how he feels about the whole thing. what else they both haven't touched on. but first- their plan, and the mention of wanda has sam nodding. ]
Wanda was my first thought too, yeah. And maybe Julie? I'll have to do some checks around with my people here. [ which...well. sam doesn't sigh, exactly, but there's a feeling in the air that both of their to-do lists have just grown exponentially. ]
no subject
[ Steve doesn't see much point in speculating on all that because they could just make themselves crazy considering all the possibilities. The sky feels like it's the limit with the gods now that they've gotten some sort of strange peek behind the curtain.
The best way to feel like they have some control over the situation is to actually think of things they can do, and they already have a starting point. Steve can check with Wanda, Sam can check with Julie and whoever else, and they'll see what they can learn.
While Sam doesn't actually sigh, Steve can see just from the look on his face that he's barely holding one back. He does reach out then to grab for his wrists and tug him forward, inviting him to move from the coffee table to sit next to him on the couch instead. ]
It can probably wait until tomorrow. [ That way they have tonight to process.
There's a beat, and then he leans back, head tilting to rest against the back of the couch as he stares up at the ceiling. ]
So, do we want to talk about any of that? Or are we going to write it off as a bizarre dream?
[ A way too realistic one. ]
no subject
part of sam wonders if he needs to talk to stephen about all of this, if somehow that might explain this a bit better, but he knows that won't lead him anywhere. instead, he and steve make a plan. he and steve make next steps. and yeah, there's a lot to do, a lot that he needs to do, and steve can probably read it in him judging by the way he reaches out and tugs on sam's wrists.
without really thinking about it, sam smiles, immediately feels some degree of that building stress fade. it can probably wait until tomorrow steve says, and sam follows the tug, settles onto the couch next to him. steve's head falls back and sam's hand falls to steve's knee, trying to be comforting even as he chuckles. ]
Where do you wanna start?