maskormenacelogs | closed || everyone's a prophet

Entry tags:

closed || everyone's a prophet

WHO: Darlene and Sarissa
WHERE: Maurtia Falls
WHEN: mid morning coffee run. what do you mean it's already mid afternoon.
WHAT: reunions after you haven't talked in awhile are really weird
WARNINGS: language at worst probably!!!!

Standing at the low island in the coffee shop, Darlene pops the lid off her cup and sticks the edge of it between her teeth so her hands will be free. Condensation that has already built up on the lid's underside starts warming her chin immediately; Darlene ignores it as she tears the top off of three packets of sugar and dumps them in.

The countertop of the island is frosted with powdered creamer and loose sugar. Rings from past coffee cups cover the surface like bizarre runes. Darlene stares at them as she gives the coffee a stir with her index finger. It's hot. She ignores it. She's not trying very hard.

For the most part, she looks like shit. There's extra weight to the backpack she's carrying. Her sunglasses, pushed down over her eyes, hide the dark circles but not the pale tint to her skin. She's been indoors a lot, sleeping less. Listlessness is harder to see in the force that Darlene uses to jam the lid back on her coffee cup, and in her first aggressive sip.

Then she turns around, abruptly, and knocks right into whoever was standing too effing close to her. Coffee slops out of the narrow mouth of the lid, gets all over Darlene's hand and probably down the front of the person she bumped into, but Darlene gives an angry, "Jesus Christ," and dumps her coffee cup back onto the bar behind her.

She turns an angry look on the mouthbreather that was hovering too behind her (or was just unlucky enough to be passing by at the wrong time). And then realizes: oh shit.

"You have got to be kidding me."

Sarissa. Looking... like shit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In all her resplendent glory: Sarissa. That doesn't do anything much to counter that yes, indeed, she looks like shit. She tilts back a little bit, sets down her coffee, nudges up her unnecessary indoors sunglasses so they rest on the mess of curly hair, and looks down at her shirt. The shirt was, for once, not a ridiculous slogan - although that arguably depends on your feelings on the Chicago Cubs, the blue material now stained a deeply unflattering shade that beads over the logo.

"Do you reckon it's hot enough to sue?"

Her voice is a lazy drawl, compared to her usual extra Sarissa factor. Where she might have been more dramatic even just for fun in the past, now she just exhales slowly. It's a toss up whether calmer (calmer or flatter? six of one, etc ) is more noticeable than the fact that her left arm ends a few inches past her elbow, falling away to a jarring lack of wrist and hand.

"Pass the sugar?"

The arm--or the lack thereof--is a pretty arresting visual. One of those things you have to look at, at least the once. Darlene, frequenter of the subways, has seen some pretty arresting visuals, enough that she's not going to stare slack-jawed.

But also: what the hell.

Luckily, the shirt is there to also consider, absorb some of the attention from the fact that Sarissa is now missing a hand. At the request, Darlene sidesteps, unblocking the path to the island, and gestures with her cup.

"Knock yourself out. If there's any left."

“Eh?” A confused look at Darlene, and then to the legendary sugar dunes, and she sighs a sigh that isn’t so much defeated as ah, I should have known.

“I guess I’ll live,” she says wryly, picking up a couple sachets that have gotten hit with some kind of caffeine beverage, and flicking them to the side to to digging for actual sugar. She has to pull out a wad of empty packets, but she’s eventually victorious.

The lack of comment is a relief, as much as the lack of comment from Darlene specifically makes her suspect that a sharper, more terrible comment might be lurking around the corner, waiting to demand her wallet. “How’ve you been, Splinter?”

"Still think the nickname thing is cute, huh."

Darlene sighs, as she takes a sip of coffee and steps back so she's within leaning proximity of the wall. One knee locked, the other soft, heel pressed against the floor, keeping her upright.

"Thank God something's the same I guess. How I've been," and she gestures again with her cup, all encompassing, "is pretty shitty. You?"

She takes another sip.

"I'm here to be reliably annoying whenever you need it," though she says it around holding a couple packs of sugar in her teeth, and then ripping them open with her hand, so she can pour the sugar in and is left with little shreds of paper help between her teeth. All of them end up on the bin, as she grabs a little wooden stick to stir.

"You know, you'd think if they have flying cars they've sorted something more environmentally friendly than this," she mutters, before tossing that in the bin, too. "Well, I've been worse. Been better. No ones asking me to do the dishes, so I guess that's an advantage."

What a time for glibness.

The sugar thing is equal parts impressive and depressing. Darlene, observing it, takes in the brief summary a little slowly.

"Charming," she offers, as a bland comment. "Is that how you're powering through? Bleak humor?"

It's been done, is the subtext there. But she doesn't actually say it, so maybe she's trying something like being nice. Yeah, right. After her next sip, Darlene gestures toward Sarissa's sleeve with her cup.

"What the hell happened?"

"Well, I've already done the emotional and mental breakdown as a response to trauma as a character arc, and the calm, responsible, contained one, so I guess now we're on to humour."

She shrugs, and sips her coffee. "It's a long story. Features an angry mob guy I'd been fucking shit up for figuring out I was a cop. Ends with a scene from one of them horror franchises."

"Uh-huh."

It's brutal enough that Darlene thinks for a moment about the Dark Army, which. She hasn't thought about Dark Army in months. But they don't take the amputation route, and anyways, she and Sarissa are not from the same word--and, the for real anyways is: what does it matter. More importantly, Sarissa's story sounds fake. If it were anywhere else but here, where people have way wackier origin stories, and if it were anyone else but Sarissa, who is kind of a drama magnet with this shit, Darlene might actually mark it down as fake. Instead she click-drags it and drops it into the file marked SHIT I DO NOT CARE THAT MUCH ABOUT.

She takes another sip of coffee.

"So you got ported out, or was the SAW routine here on fakey-fake American soil and I missed it."

"Ported out. Decided Boston is officially my least favourite American city."

Uncomfortably, she twists the cup in her hand so she can rub her knuckles against her throat, and clear it. "What about you? You just been fakey-fakin' about? Haven't seen you in a while."

A tilt of her head to the side. "We must be past our one year elevatorversary. And we didn't even exchange gifts."

A flicker of a smirk crosses Darlene's face. She's not amused, exactly, but ready to shittalk another city? Hell yes.

"Boston sucks ass," she agrees, amicably. "Let's stick with that as a topic and save the trip down memory lane, okay? Because there is no universe in which I am going to be sending you presents."

Behind her sunglasses, Darlene shoots the missing hand another glance. Her current working conspiracy theory of we-never-go-home, being-ported-out-means-jack-shit, will not play well with someone who thinks they went home and were horribly maimed by the friggin' mob. Which: come on. If that's not fiction, what is. Darlene would say it anyways, except right now she is really fucking tired.

"I'm actually about to go start my daily bender. Because, why not."

"Who needs presents when we have," and with an appropriately significant pause, "the present."

She might have lost a hand, but she sure hasn't lost any of her obnoxiousness. What a relief.

"Anyway, bender sounds amazing. Technically if you wanted an actual list of why not I think your internal organs might have some input to offer, but beyond that, you're laughing."

Behind her sunglasses, Darlene narrows her eyes. Then she shoves away from the wall and hitches her track jacket back up over her shoulders.

"Okay," she announces, "you are officially uninvited to the bender for whatever the hell lame shit that was. God."

The last word is thick with disgust, and Darlene turns around to head for the door, clearly under the impression that Sarissa will follow her anyways. Because of course she will.

"I wasn't officially invited," she replies, bright and unconcerned. This is a bit easier than some of her other interactions, with people who fret and worry. So, yeah, she follows, taking another sip of coffee.

"Do you always get coffee before benders, or have you just had a real long day?"

"I like to maintain an unhealthy balance of uppers and downers," Darlene answers glibly, as she shoulders her way out the door. The bell rings cheerfully behind her, which makes her eyes narrow behind her sunglasses, in something approaching a wince. Bright noise is the worst. "On good days, it is almost enough to even me out and keep me from freaking about all the bullshit in my life."

In everyone's life, really. Darlene is feeling more brittle and jaded than ever. In casual conversation, she sounds pretty much the same. She cuts a look over at Sarissa, calculating.

"It has actually been a long freaking few years. If we're opening up and being honest with each other."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

closed || everyone's a prophet

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject