Cammie & Sam: They Had to Meet Sometime

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

Sam finds out that Cammie has claimed his couch in the name of whatever nation she feels like being at the time.

Like the bullshit creatures of darkness, once you invited her in somewhere Cammie considered the invitation open for anytime she could’ve possibly wanted. This meant she often showed up at Kurt’s suite even just to hang out. It was good to have the option when she felt like she was an inch or so away from strangling Crazy Jane.

Right now she was on the shared couch in the room watching that History Channel show on warriors. Tonight was Vikings. And it seemed like they had been pretty nasty. Her initial thought boiled down to simply, I could take ‘em.

Of course, she could take ANYTHING and ANYONE out. It was just a matter of getting that one shot in.

She laid back on the couch. Kurt had to show up sometime.

Not necessarily before Sam, however. He stepped in the door to see the young, green haired woman laid out on the couch. He hadn't met her yet but she was watching the History Channel. That was a good thing to be watching when the history teacher walked in.

"Not often I walk in to find someone on the couch." Sam said good-naturedly.

“You’re not Kurt,” Cammie said, not moving from the couch, “And this couch is mine. I claimed it. Not giving it back.”

"I'm Sam Guthrie. I also live here... and without a couch, I reckon." He found his way to a chair, leaving the couch to the woman who had claimed it.

“Meh, you’ll get used to it. Living without a couch that is. She was going to leave you anyway, the couch,” Cammie said, fighting back a snack urge. “’Was starting to wonder if Kurt had a suite mate.”

"He does. We've been sharing a suite for quite some time now. I didn't know you and he knew each other. We don't get to talk as much as we ought to, though." Sam sat in a chair, since he no longer had a couch. He didn't seem to mind her sudden appearance, however. He had such a large family that his boundaries were pretty different from most people's.

“He’s cool,” Cammie said, “I guess you could say we were friends, if I believed in that junk.” She considered this, “Either way, he invited me in once, so now I live here.”

"Don't believe in friends? I haven't heard about anyone not believing in that before." Sam tilted his head curiously, inviting her to explain more. The idea that someone wouldn't believe in something he saw as so common was intriguing.

“I don’t believe in much of anything,” she said with a shrug. “It’s a side effect of being alive.” And toxic, but that was a different story.

"Don't believe as in don't think it exists?" Sam didn't exactly understand. He knew about faith and the idea that not everyone needed evidence for everything (he didn't either) but friendship seemed so common and accepted. A lot of other things seemed that way and Cammie was implying she didn't believe in more of them as well.

“Sure,” she said, “If that’s how you want to look at it.” She was fond of people and that was about as far as anything went.

"How do you look at it?" He felt like he was talking to one of the younger Guthries again. They were a pretty diverse group and Sam often saw himself as the more traditional. He found himself spending a lot of time working on understanding the more complex of his siblings.

“What are you, another head shrinker?” Cammie returned. A swing and a miss, he might have been Kurt’s roommate but it didn’t give him a right to psychoanalyze. “In which case, I’ll have to see your license to head shrink people on this couch.”

"I'm a historian. I don't feel I have the right to decide someone needs fixing; I just like to know what people think about all sorts of things." Sam felt that he was fairly non-judgmental. His faith played a big role in that. He didn't have any right to judge a person, that wasn't his place.

“Heh, whatever then,” Cammie said, “It’s all a long story. I’d say ask Kurt but I know he won’t tell you without asking me first.” Which was why she liked him and could talk to him. That and he wasn’t a shrink. He was just a guy.

"I'm sure he wouldn't. We have quite a bit in common, Kurt and I. A strong sense of right and wrong is one of those things." Not that Sam felt he had the pulse on what exactly was right or wrong any more but he liked to think he had a pretty decent idea of it.

“Yeah, that’s really the best thing one can have,” Cammie said, the underlying tone of sarcasm on her voice may not have been the easiest to miss.

Sam laughed and shrugged a bit at her sarcasm. "Not everyone might agree but I think it is. I can't imagine what else might be more important." His conversation with Cammie seemed to be turning the way it often did with people that felt they were more worldly or tougher than Sam. He knew a lot of people looked down on him but he felt he was perfectly strong.

“Self preservation? But hey. I suppose it’s one of those don’t knock it to you tried it things,” she said watching them test out throwing axes, “The again, the Vikings don’t seem like they had self preservation and they did okay until they were wiped out or whatever.”

"If you admire the Norse then you should do a paper on them. I bet you'd find out a lot of why they didn't seem to worry about self preservation." Sam grinned. He knew that his students could be upset every conversation with him seemed to turn into a paper (it even turned out that way with the students that weren't actually his sometimes) but he felt it got them more involved and interested. He could assign things they were already curious about.

Cammie laughed, “I stopped writing papers years ago,” she said. “School work is not my dark master.”

"I still write them sometimes myself. It's important to always keep learning, I think." Sam smiled to Cammie's laugh, glad they seemed to at least be able to talk without much more confrontation at the moment.

“Whatever floats your boat,” Cammie said shaking her head, “I gave them up the same time I gave up High School.”

"Hopefully it will be time to pick them back up for you some day." Sam wasn't going to push the topic any more. He'd said what he thought about the topic.

“Yeah, we’ll see. Until then I’ll just believe everything TV tells me to. After all, when has it ever been wrong?” she asked in a sing song voice.