'cause i'm just holding on for tonight

[coppelganger]

WHO: Sarah + you!
WHERE: Various Porter cities
WHEN: Throughout June
WHAT: Sarah is going through a thing
WARNINGS: Violence, drug use, language

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[coppelganger]

[ 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.

[magnitudes]

( 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. )

[coppelganger]

[ 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. ]

[magnitudes]

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. )

[coppelganger]

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.

[magnitudes]

( 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.

[coppelganger]

[ 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. ]

[magnitudes]

( 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. )

[coppelganger]

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. ]

[magnitudes]

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.

[coppelganger]

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. ]

[magnitudes]

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.

[coppelganger]

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. ]

[magnitudes]

( 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.

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah doesn't say anything for a while. She picks at her fries and takes another bite of her burger and drinks some water before she finally makes eye contact with Sarissa again. ]

Well I'm sure if anyone could come up with a badass merc uniform, it'd be you.

[ It's kind of weak, but right now it's the best she's got, the only way to try and let Sarissa know that she's not judging her or trying to pry for more information. ]

[magnitudes]

( Somehow in the time its taken for Sarah to take a bite of her burger, Sarissa has inhaled an entire ones, thumbing away a smudge of ketchup at the corner of her mouth as she pulls the second one over and resumes to pickle removing and onion ring stacking ritual.

Her mouth twitches, and she takes a long draw of milkshake before looking at Sarah again. )

Just screenprint everything with INXS posters or pictures of fire and then add some ornamental barbed wire, yeah? Perfect.

[coppelganger]

My mum's in, uh. A similar line of work. Kinda.

[ She's not sure if she'd describe S as a mercenary in her normal life, but she's certainly become one for the clones. ]

[magnitudes]

( u wot m8

That is the best way to describe her expression. )

A merc took on foster kids?

( THAT IS A QUESTIONABLE PARENTING DECISION OH MY GOD )

[coppelganger]

She's not a merc, really. She's just... not entirely within the law.

[ Sarah traces her fingertip along the table, wondering how much she should say. It's not like she doesn't trust Sarissa, since at this point she clearly does. But it's really Siobhan's story to tell, especially the shit that happened before she took Sarah in. ]

She was working for the foster system, but she was also part of this organization that took in kids who were in hiding, for whatever reason.

[magnitudes]

( Her jaw clenches and unclenches a couple times as she tries to fathom what that actually means. )

So... she protected kids, basically.

( Is that the faint note of approval? Maybe?
There's a long pause. )

The law can get abused, sometimes. People work around it. Or they work in it and they just don't care to keep to it. Law and decency don't always work together.

[coppelganger]

'Course they don't. Did you think it was like that, when you decided to become a cop? That the decent people follow the law and the bad ones don't?

[ She's half sardonic, half honestly curious. She has a hard time imagining a life where she would have grown up believing that decent people always follow the law, and the law always protects decent people. But maybe, for a while, Sarissa believed that. And Beth believed it, too, until she stopped believing in anything. ]

[magnitudes]

No.

( Definitely not. ) My old man's a lawyer. I just grew up thinking some people representing the law were crooked, and some people got fat protecting bad guys.

( A shrug. ) I thought if a cop worked hard enough, maybe they'd counter it a bit. Figured they were practical sorts.

[coppelganger]

Yeah. There are a few good ones.

[ Art, of course. Beth, from all accounts, until she started losing it. She takes a gulp of her milkshake, but it seems to curdle in her stomach as soon as it hits, and she pushes the glass away. She's not sure if it's the all the booze or what she's been talking about or both, but suddenly she doesn't feel too great. ]

A lawyer, eh? Nice gig. What'd your mum do? [ Something cushy, she expects, or maybe a stay-at-home like Alison. ]

[magnitudes]

He's a dick.

( She doesn't like lawyers, as a rule. Not defense ones, anyway.

Still, the mention of her mum makes Sarissa's expression soften a little. )

Science teacher. Teaching a bunch of rough as guts rural kids about shit like climate change and explosive metals.

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah nods at the comment on Sarissa's dad, doesn't ask for details. She knows plenty about bad parents. She's had enough of them herself over the years. Sarissa's mum seems good enough, though. She can tell by the way Sarissa's expression changes, however slightly. ]

She sounds nice.