maskormenacelogs | 'cause i'm just holding on for tonight

Well, we're here now. Body count disclosed.

( What's done is done, right? She nods her head towards a burger place further along the street. )

You need food?

( Meaning: Sarissa wants food. Nothing takes the edge of horrifying news quite so well as a greasy burger, fries and a vanilla shake, and she suspects Sarah could benefit from something that isn't booze swirling around her gut. )

[ Sarah follows Sarissa's nod and sighs heavily, more out of exhaustion than anything. Yeah, she should ingest something that isn't alcohol. Otherwise she'll be wrecked tomorrow. Probably will be, anyway, but what the hell. ]

I could eat something.

Okay. Great.

( she is beelining into the diner, holding the door open for Sarah, and before they even get a chance to sit Sarissa's saying to a serve, ) Two cheeseburgers, mozzarella sticks, two sides of onion rings and a vanilla shake.

( And a look to Sarah, then. ) What are you getting?

Uh.

[ Yeah, okay, she's too drunk and upset to pretend to read over a menu right now. ]

Same.

( wow okay Sarah
Sarissa looks to the server, who is perhaps understandably surprised, to add ) Glass of water and some aspirin too, if you've got 'em.

( Her smile is lopsided and she is claiming a booth for them before they can be shown to it. Tactical move; quick access to the bathroom and an escape route, clear view of the door and the window without being easily visible in turn. )

Come on. You're gonna love it, yeah? Sugar, grease, awesome seats that don't squeak every time you move— I come here a lot.

Yeah? If you like it, it can't be too shite, then.

[ What a compliment.

Sarah slouches into the booth opposite Sarissa and leans her elbows on the table so she can run both hands through her messy hair. ]

Thanks for this.

Don't give me too much credit. I was engaged to someone who tried to shoot me.

( A sigh, dramatic. ) No worries. Honestly, any excuse for onion rings. Maybe we can go pick another fight tomorrow, what do you think?

( But, okay, she pauses. ) I'm gonna spare you the, you know, long winded deep and meaningful wank. You want to talk about stuff or would you rather talk about anything else? Goldfish, or something.

[ Sarah looks down at the table. She doesn't want to talk about stuff. She has to talk about stuff. ]

I need to tell you something, but— [ She cuts herself off, swallows. But you'll hate me. ]

( Sarissa shrugs, only committing one shoulder to it. )

Tear off the bandaid? We can figure it out after.

( "We can figure it out after," reason number one she is a literal disaster )

Yeah, uh... See, the others know about this, so I think you should hear it from me. [ She doesn't expect Cosima or Alison or Felix to gossip about it, necessarily. But these things come up. It's hard to talk about the clone situation without mentioning into how she got involved. ]

Beth was our cop. [ Our cop, like she had anything to do with Sarah. ] I didn't know any of 'em then, but she and Alison and Cosima were in contact. You know. She had resources and she could get information. [ She's jittery, her fingers twitching on the surface of the table. ] And I was just this... parasite. I left my kid behind and ran off with my boyfriend for months, 'til I got tired of him hitting me, and then I stole a bunch of coke from him and came back to town. Toronto, I mean.

( A nod— she gets it. She gets saying shit isn't easy, too, so she keeps her mouth shut until Sarah's done, until she has an idea that there isn't more to wrestle out right this second.

Problem is that her mind's focused on one part of it. She heard the rest; resources, parasite, coke, but it's not the focus. Sarissa has become incredibly tense, drawn tight, as if each part of her were an element of a weapon being pulled taut.

Sarissa keeps her hands flat on the table, and to her credit sounds pretty calm. ) Your boyfriend hit you?

[ Sarah seems a bit surprised that Sarissa's focusing on that in particular. God knows nobody else ever did. She and Felix—all their friends—talked about it like it was just another fact of life, which she guesses it was. Toronto is cold, Felix lives above a steam bath, Vic is abusive. She nods, though. ]

That's how this started for me. I was trying to get away from him.

( A nod, slow. Thinking, honestly. There's a rawness in her gaze that lasts a couple seconds before she shakes her head. )

That takes balls, Sarah. Getting out of something like that isn't easy. I mean, stealing coke and that— it takes balls, too, but even just the leaving part.

( It's not smart, but desperate time, yeah? More quietly, ) I'm sorry he hit you.

( She isn't very articulate, and she doesn't think she's doing this right, at all. She isn't sure if there's a right way to do it. )

Edited 2016-06-11 19:32 (UTC)

[ Oh, no. No. Sarissa wouldn't be saying that if she knew what Sarah was really like. All the shit she's done, continues to do. She averts her eyes, can't look at the seriousness in Sarissa's gaze without having to shrink down into herself. ]

Wait 'til you hear the rest of it before you start thinking I'm someone worth saying that to. [ Her voice is low, almost like she doesn't want Sarissa to hear what's coming next. ]

No one deserves to get hit. Nobody. You're worth saying it to 'cause you're a human being.

( It is possible Sarissa is missing the point, here. Their shakes arrive, and she doesn't glance at the server, just keeps her focus on Sarah. )

Sarissa—

[ Sarah stares at her milkshake, picks it up like she's about to take a sip, puts it back. ]

I got to the train station and I saw Beth. She killed herself. Jumped in front of a train right in front of me. And instead of doing the right thing, the normal thing, I stole her bag. 'Cause I was thinking, oh, she looks like me. I can take her money.

( She holds her breath, sloowwwllyyyy exhales it, and seems to hold her breath on the out because what the fuck do you even say to that? She has no frame of reference. Zero. No frame for her. She is frameless.

First thing, she leans across the table, gently nudging Sarah's wrist with her hand. )

That's pretty messed up. ( Quiet, a little rough. Concerned, really. Sarah's like her sister, or something, and Sarissa's in a nebulous place where she can't decide if family is fucked up or the most important thing there is. Bit of both, really. ) I'm not gonna say it isn't, 'cause that'd be bullshit. That's fucked, honestly. Doesn't— I mean. It matters that you aren't okay with it now.

[ It is so, so much worse than Sarissa even knows, but Sarah can't bring herself to say the rest of it, even drunk as she is. She looks down at where Sarissa's touching her wrist and doesn't pull away, though it's her first instinct to. ]

I have these dreams about her. She talks to me, and she—she can't stand me, or what I've done. [ Because why not out yourself as a crazy person as well as a shitty person? Sure. Might as well. ]

( There's a long pause, and somewhere in there a crazy amount of food is laid out before them, forcing Sarissa to break contact and lean back, though her gaze is careful - analytical, concerned, trying to break this all down.

Somehow it feels hard to have a serious conversation with three burgers in front of her, like the ridiculousness of her eating habits is just reminding her she is not at all qualified to help. She sips her milkshake, picks up a couple of fries, and dips them in. )

Subconscious is a fucked up thing. Sounds kinda like you're torturing yourself, honestly.

( A moment, and: ) Everyone has a few fucked up skeleton's in their closet, Sarah. I mean-- you were pretty shit to a dead person. You've got Cos and Alison though, yeah? I find it hard to believe they'd let a person stick around if they thought they were that shitty.

( That was a less convincing statement than she'd hoped. )

S'not like they had much choice. I was pretending to be a cop. They needed me.

[ Sarah doesn't want to argue this, though. She already regrets saying most of it in the first place, and she's not sure why she did. Because Sarissa is the most like her, maybe. Because part of her feels like her clones need to know what kind of person she is, lest they start thinking she's some kind of leader.

She picks up a burger and takes a huge bite, mostly to keep herself from blurting out any more personal bullshit. ]

I was a cop.

( She says it very quietly, surprised, like it's a thing she's not spoken about in a long time. It's not quite true, she mentions it sometimes very flippantly, delivers it like a lie, the way she talks about all the things that matter half the time.

When she says it now, she's just... quiet. Serious. Surprised, kind of, in a muted way.

Sarissa, picks up another fry and dunks it in her milkshake, but doesn't bite into it right away. )

Needing you then doesn't mean they didn't forgive you along the way.

You were a cop?

[ No offense, Sarissa, it's just that you're... you. Sarah is looking at her, not disbelieving but definitely surprised, and then she drops her gaze and takes another bite of her burger. ]

So what happened? You quit, or they fire you? [ It's not a very nice thing to say, but she says it anyway, mostly because it's a good way to change the subject from her own failings to somebody else's. Even if that somebody is one of her clones. ]

Rescue and Bomb Disposal Unit.

( Flat, quiet. Un-Sarissa. ) I was shot. When I got outta hospital Georgia took me to the States for some-- some elite rich person rehabilitation.

( A pause like she has more to say on that topic before she moves on, leaving it. ) Then she strung me up, and I went underground. Figuratively, for the most part.

( Her smile is a double sided warning sign. The most obvious cautions bystanders of a hazard, broken glass and scrap metal and landslides. The other side reads handle with care, but most people miss such things when there are landslides to consider.

She drops the fry on her plate, lifts the lid off the burger, and carefully stacks on onion rings, before disaste twists her mouth and she's playing culinary jenga to remove a pickle without disturbing th freshly balanced rings.

Sarissa talks, and its interrupted by the sad splatter of pickle slices on her plate, )

Merc work means I can do what the law keeps you from getting into with red tape. Means I can help better.

Oi, wait. What the fuck? [ Sarah rubs at her face, feeling suddenly exhausted. ] You were in the bloody bomb disposal unit and now you're a mercenary. That's what you're telling me.

[ She's... not angry, really, that Sarissa hasn't told her until now—how can she be?—but she can't help feeling both overwhelmed and annoyed at this new information. It's a combination of "this information could help me" and "how dare you have your own shit going on that isn't connected to my shit?" and, god, way to be a selfish asshole, Sarah. ]

( A sharp look up, and she presses the top half of the bread bun back onto the burger monstrosity.)

I was a volunteer fire fighter when I was eighteen and got into doller derby when I moved to Melbourne. You want a list of my credentials, or something?

( She mistakes the words for judgment. She defaults to things being judgment, and somehow makes taking a bite out of a burger seem like an act of defiance. )

I'm a mercenary, yeah. Money's better, but a few ladies seem to have a thing for uniforms, and we don't have a lot of reason to crack those out. Devastating.

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject