milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Sam inna bar. He's got his dinner, but is currently ignoring it in favour of another very complicated game of cats-cradle with magic.

He certainly isn't preoccupied, and certainly isn't worried about a certain friend of his, or more accurately what said friend's reactions will be to an unfortunate incident the other day.

Someone really ought to tell him his food's getting cold.

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Guppy hesitates, then sits down.

"Sam, I need to ask you something important, and I need to know the truth."

He doesn't look angry, more just worried.

"I need to know what happened the other night."

A short pause whilst Sam works out how to put this best. He's not meeting Guppy's eyes, is still absorbed in his cat's-cradle, but it is the truth.

"Um. You weren't responding, so I decided, probably less-than-wisely, to pull you out of it. And the best method of doing so seemed to be to shut off your memories of what you were seeing."

He meets Guppy's eyes for the first time. "I didn't wipe any memories, Guppy. And I didn't go looking for them."

"So it was a panic attack." he says, almost to himself.

Looking back up at Sam. "What did you see?"

"Looked like it, yeah."

Pause. "Lots of stuff. Just flashing images of memories, that mostly didn't last long. None of them good, though."

He looks at the floor.

"I wish you'd talked me through this first." he says quietly after a moment.

"There is a lot in my mind that I am ashamed of."

"You weren't responding, damn it!" Sam immediately looks contrite, as well he might. "Sorry. Look, it wasn't exactly planned. But..."

'You scared me' is left unsaid, but it might as well be verbalised.

"I'm sorry, if it makes any difference."

"Well how long did you give me? Thirty seconds?" he snaps. Then immediately subsides.

"Sorry, I know you meant well, and I certainly wouldn't say that it's a bad thing the nightmares are gone. But I've had panic attacks before and I would have come out of it in a few minutes, just so you know for the future. The alcohol wasn't helping. I could hear you... I'm sorry if you were frightened."

He just shrugs. "I don't think what I did was permanent, I have to admit. Since, as you pointed out, I didn't exactly have permission to be there, I went for speed over thoroughness. Whether or not that's a good thing."

The magic in his hands twists itself over. "For what it's worth, looks like you had me beat for sheer concentration."

"What do you mean?"

"My bad memories? Are spread out over a few thousand years. Yours are mostly one-after-the other, in what? A couple of years? I wasn't looking hard, obviously, but they were clearly not exactly far apart."

"Well I'm only twenty six." Guppy points out. "But yes, most of them are since last November."

He rubs his forehead.

"Did I actually ever tell you what happened?"

Sam shakes his head. "Some of it, not all."

"What did I tell you?"

He shrugs again. "The stuff with your boss. Some of the stuff about your dad, and getting chucked out of the family for not helping him."

"Ah."

He pauses for a moment.

"Did you see a blonde man with a gang in my mind?"

He thinks about this. "Yeah, once or twice, I think."

Guppy takes a deep breath.

"After my father disowned me things began to go from bad to worse. That man's name is Lee, and his gang chose to beat me up for defending a patient. It was also a race attack. I'd refused him treatment after a torrent of racial abuse the week before."

Looking at the floor. "I was hurt pretty badly but managed somehow to drag myself here. I don't remember anything between passing out in the car park and waking up in the infirmary, but it looked like I'd got to a phone box. Hank patched me up once I got back here, or I'd probably have bled to death."

Another deep breath. "The police were hopeless. They said they couldn't do anything without witnesses. Whilst persuing my case, the gang were let free. They tormented me repeatedly, and eventually beat up my father to try and make me drop the charges. He survived, but one of the scans revealed he had a brain tumour. He... he pleaded with me to help him die, which I refused to do, even if I weakened at times. Eventually he committed suicide. Our last words were bitter and angry, just as they had always been."

He pauses a moment, fiddling with his hair.

"He used a plastic bag that I had passed to him to kill himself. He couldn't have done it without me."

Sam lets out a long, slow whistle. "Whew. Quite a... well, it's not even a year, is it?"

A weak smile.

"Worked out why I'm so screwed up yet? This all happened over a three month period. I had a breakdown in January after my father's death."

"Yeah, it had crossed my mind." Sam gives him a small smile in return. "And I thought I had father issues."

"Doesn't make yours any less valid if I'm not strong enough to stand up to mine."

"For all the good telling him to bugger off ever did me."

He shakes his head. "Don't knock yourself, Guppy. I've had a few thousand years to get used to it; you haven't."

"Does it ever stop hurting?"

He shrugs. "Different situation. You loved your father, for a start."

"You must have felt something. My father and I had fought ever since I was five but there was still something there in the end."