sirenspull_logs | Sometimes, a girl needs a friend...

Who:

family_remains
When: Night, March 27th
Where: A hotel in Sector 5
Summary: Jubes and Sam have a meet up.
Warnings: Discussion of torture, issues and a girl crying... a lot.

Abby Howlett. If Logan heard her using that name, he'd smack her in the head.

Of course, if she had Logan, she wouldn't be sitting in a hotel, waiting for Sam to show up. Instead, she would have curled up in his lap and become thirteen again a long time ago.

But she couldn't. Because there were frost giants on the front lawn, and god knew what Deadpool was up to. She knew Kenzo was trying to understand but he just... he just didn't have the background.

The little she knew of Sam's life, though? That might be close enough and God, she just wanted someone...

She was pacing around the room, agitated and she knew that she'd start sparking if she wasn't careful. When someone knocked on the door, Jubilee jumped and popped off. Taking several seconds to calm herself down, she slipped open the door a crack.

"Sam." She let it out on a rush. "C'mon in." Jubilee went back to pacing and picked up a beer, wringing it in her hands. "I... thanks. I know you were kinda layin' low. I appreciate it."

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"Don't worry about it," He answered, coming in and latching the door behind them. "you've done the same for me."

Sam wasn't sure why she decided to call on him but he was kind of glad she did. He'd been missing his friends lately, feeling isolated and skittish when it came to approaching anyone remotely involved in his crash and burn last month.

He hadn't seen any other option but to go off radar, either. He needed time to air out and think. This was a second chance he couldn't afford to screw up and it was time to do some serious soul searching.

So he'd locked his NV in a box and gotten a job as a farm hand in sector 7. Occasionally lurking on the network to make sure his friends and family were still alive and well.

But Jubilee was in a bad way. And she was still his friend for some weird reason, so he didn't hesitate to come to her side.

"What's going on?"

A rather hysterical laugh bubbled up for just a moment. "That's the sixty four million dollar question that I don't have the answer to." She hadn't opened the bottle of beer but she was wringing its neck. Literally.

"And the person who has the answer doesn't have enough mental capacity to actually answer it, and is currently under the care of two archangels, another angel threatened to kill him, I'm sure there's a demon out for his head, almost every single friend I've made in the port is barely speaking to me - and those that are are treating me like I'm some sort of pariah, and I've got a prophet yelling at me because I'm not sticking my finger in a couple of archangel faces and telling them what douchenozzles they are for keeping the answer-holder away... Oh, and? Everyone moved out of the damned house."

That was mostly said in one breath with just a note of hysteria with a side of exhaustion. Sam had missed quite a bit.

Woah...

He had to take a moment to process all of that. He fixed her a concerned look before taking a step closer and beckoning for her to come there so he could envelop her in a good, solid hug.

"Listen, you'll be okay. None of this is your fault." He murmured into the top of her head like a mantra.

Jubilee began to tremble. Honest to god shaking. This was why she'd called Sam.

She was still clenching the bottle. Tears were blinding her, but she just kept going. "Michael Xavier is Magneto and I've known since the second he got here, and I've been trying to keep him happy because if I don't, he goes nuclear and the island goes with him. And even those that knew they think I'm protecting him." She looked up at him. "I'm not, Sam. If he tortured and killed Crowley there had better be a damned good reason behind it, or I'll turn him into the Voids myself. But if he doesn't have a safe space to retreat to, he'll create one and I can't run that risk."

A weak sniffle. "Because I like living." That last came out choked and weak. Tears were starting to fall and Jubilee hadn't even noticed them.

Sam could feel his heart break for Jubilee. He stayed quiet, holding her against his chest, lightly stroking her hair. This was about how she was feeling, not his opinion of the situation, and he was going to keep it like that.

That that he had much of an opinion. He hadn't really sat down to form one. But he knew his friend had somehow been wedged between a rock and a damn hard place.

"It was never your job to keep him happy, Jubilee." Sam said, keeping his voice soft and careful.

"And nothing he's done is your fault. You can't hold on to that guilt. Believe me, it'll kill you." That sense of duty, the blind need to do her job and protect everyone, even if it meant sacrificing herself. He was far too familiar with the concept. And he knew what it could do to someone.

"It was my job." Jubilee whispered, still not even noticing the tears. "Nightcrawler left, Gambit left, Franklin was a baby, She-Hulk didn't trust him, and there was no one else, Sam. No one else who knew what he was capable of, who knew some of his history, who knows how to stop him."

Because one never knew what sort of mindset they were going to get from Magneto. He could be the benevolent teacher that the New Mutants were fond of, or he could be the self-righteous bigoted bastard who had ripped the adamantium off of Wolverine's bones.

"No one, not even those who claimed to be friends, seem to understand what I'm doing or why. They all immediately start saying I'm protecting him, or I have to go marching up to Lucifer and Michael and get Mags out of there. That's what hurts." She whispered, just leaning against him. "What hurts is having them all turn on me and not a single person ask me why." The last word came out choked around a sob.

He felt for her, really. He knew what it was like to be in an impossible situation. He knew what it was like to be blind sided by someone you trust, or to have made a decision only because you had felt you had no other option and come to find you were suddenly alone. And so he stayed quiet, letting her pour it all out.

She didn't need him to say anything, because what could he say? She just needed someone to be there, to hear her side, to understand how impossibly trapped she felt. And he did, only breaking silence to offer a small "shh shh" now and then.

This whole thing with Magneto was screwed to Hell without a doubt. Sam could barely believe it when Cas told him, but it was definitely true. There was just something not quite right with the idea of Michael on the fritz cooped up with two less than sane angels. No telling what they could get him to believe.

Then, finally,

"Do you know how all this started?"

She was still trembling because she hadn't even started in on the worst of it: The fact that she was terrified. Of the angels, of the demon, of everything going wrong, and she couldn't fix any of it.

"With Lucifer or with Crowley?" Jubilee whispered. "I think the Lucifer thing started when Jinx was pregnant. Probably trying to save her from Lucifer and extermination." She sniffled. "With Crowley? It started when he called Mags human. Mags warned him that one he wasn't human and two, that he gave away way too much information on the network. How it advanced from there? I dunno."

She just leaned against Sam because, right now, he was solid and real and holding her up. "It's probably a good thing you didn't come to the House. Castiel told Mags he'd kill him if Mags went near any of Castiel's friends."

"Yeah, probably." He answered quietly, holding Jubilee's weeping form against his chest as he mulled over what she'd said. It was, in a single word, a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Then, finally..

"Castiel said the you changed the wards on the house." To let Lucifer in, went the unspoken end of that sentence.

An small probe into the gravity of the situation as Sam considered just how familiar Jubilee seemed with Magneto. Working with him to stall a war was one thing, but she was using nicknames. So that meant there was more. Right?

Jubilee sputtered out a bitter laugh. "Are you going to tell me how bad an idea it is to have Mags around Lucifer?" She sounded a little bit bitter. "Because if so? Save it. I know it's bad, but no one's giving me any way to get him away. So, unless you have that? I really do not need someone else telling me the obvious."

She sighed and closed her eyes. "I think Michael did it. The Archangel one. No, I don't like it, but I don't know a damned thing about those things and those that do -" She tossed a pointed look at him. "Aren't exactly telling me anything useful." Or even speaking to her, really.

Sometimes, a girl needs a friend...

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