Continued from here. And will probably, at some point, contain adult content. It is Sam and Livia, after all.

"Can't say I'd be thrilled with the prospect, meaning no offense to your lovely self."

Spade had gone over his notes a dozen ways, hundreds of times, and he still could't make anything out of them. All his routes of investigations, murder and otherwise, had long gone cold, and any attempts to discover the Mansion's nature had proved futile. He didn't want a hobby, or a diversion. He wanted a way to do his job. Unfortunately, he ( Read more... )

Sam was poking around the Mansion, kind of idly. He was half looking for Gabrielle, for a painting lesson. He was half looking for someone with a problem he can fix, or someone new to talk to ( Read more... )

He's on the front porch, idly reading The Three Musketeers and smoking. He's been edgy without a mystery to solve, but he's continued to tell himself he just needs to adapt. He wasn't going home any time soon, after all. Most days, he didn't regret it. For now, he would try some simple escapism and see if that got him anywhere.

Sam's not been in the library as much as he used to be lately. Since he's given up, more or less, about finding answers to what makes the Mansion tick, his time has been devoted elsewhere. Today, though, he's looking for a new mystery, having finished Murder on the Orient Express, and so finds himself there once again.

After a week in California with Mickle, Spade returned to the Mansion, tanner and more inclined to stay sober than when he left it. His bitterness was under the surface, now, rather than raw, and the change in him would take a sharper eye to pick up than before. He still hadn't decided if he was going to try and leave for good or not, but he had ( Read more... )

Sam Spade was drunk and getting drunker. He was sitting at the rickety table in Sweney's room. In front of him was a glass and substantially emptier bottle of whiskey than he started with.

He was not drinking for fun, and he was clearly not drinking to be social. But he was finding it curiously difficult to pass out, which was his tacit goal.

The curse had worn off so gradually, he barely noticed as it did. One day, when he saw, really saw, a nice pair of legs walk by, it hit him that he was back to normal. On one level, at least ( Read more... )

Spade didn't know what he was looking for, exactly. Probably another violent crime, he thought with bitter humor. But he was finally forced to confess he'd been wandering around aimlessly, air of purpose aside ( Read more... )

Spade had to face the fact, as the first rush of adrenaline wore off, that he needed to rest. He'd been working almost non-stop since the murders, other than a catnap or two in the odd corner of the Mansion, and whether or not Mye had been a hallucination, his reaction told him something. He needed to question Jones further and he needed to write ( Read more... )