( closed ) you can't wake up, this is not a dream

[magnitudes]

WHO: Alison, Cosima, Sarah, Kavinsky, Clara, Jessica & others, eventually Sarissa.
WHERE: Sarissa's place, possibly other locations
WHEN: forward-dated to after Thanksgiving
WHAT: Immediate(ish) aftermath of Sarissa's murder.
WARNINGS: General approach with caution alert; death, reference to gore, violence & murder. Possible reference to past abuse/domestic violence.
NOTES:
— carry on from the murder log (see warnings in log and above)
— basically do whatever works for you, friends. Sarissa will be dead for a bit shy of 40 hours, so there will be two nights of her being dead and then she'll wake up early morning
— but basically it's all timey wimey for convenience
— feel free to just do whatever and set up random starters as suits you
— tl;dr silly gifs in the post, starters and emotional pain in the comments



100% serious rper

Comments

alison, cosima, sarah. cw: dead body stuff, gore.

[magnitudes]

( The lights are all out, victims of a forced power surge. Locating the mains box will fix it up, but in the meantime the place is dark. For all that the sun sets early in winter and even Florida weather is less intense than it might normally be, the place is still not cold. The day, at least, was warm enough that Sarissa’s home is still stuffy inside from lingering heat, and a strange, unpleasantly sweet sort of smell. It’s not sicking yet, just a wrongness that hangs in the air and tastes foul on the tongue.

No hum comes from the dormant fridge or air conditioning, but the sounds of familiar company stirs Mendel start chattering from the room where his aviary is housed, starting with Cosima, Cosima and reeling through his whole repertoire.

At least in the kitchen there’s tupperware with a batch of cookies - Anzac biscuits, in a stubborn show of Australianisms - cooked only hours ago. There’s no scent of food already cooking, only that faint, persistent foul-sweetness, growing stronger past the kitchen and into the sitting room and then towards Sarissa’s room. (A quick eye might notice marks on the floor, scorches and flecks of ash.)

The smell isn’t from the body on the bed, exactly. She is not decaying, for all that her skin is waxy and smears of dark blood still settle around the hollows of her eyes. It is the gallon or so of blood and the remaining gore and tissue splattered across pillows and bedding that is decaying. Sarissa’s lain supine, hands by her sides and the top of her head from and inch or so above her eyebrows resting in place rather than attached and whole. Swearing scrappy jeans hacked off at the knees and a messy looking sleeveless shirt, slightly floury from baking, but her feet are bare. Her palms are burns, though not near so bad as when Cosima treated them recently.

Bad things have happened. )


[ ooc: I figure you can can just do whatever here but feel free to prod me if you want me to slide in with extra info on what state certain areas/rooms/etc are in and I can slide in with Helpful Information or just let you know on plurk w/e w/e ]

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah's used to letting herself into Sarissa's place by now. She gave up on knocking a while ago, just lets herself in either by strolling casually through the unlocked front door or by unlocking it with a key. This evening, she uses the key before testing to see if the door's even locked, mostly because Alison is with her and might disapprove if she doesn't.

The door swings open, and something's wrong. The lights are off, all of them, like there's been some kind of power surge. She hears Mendel stirring in his aviary, but nothing else. No footsteps or subaudible hum of appliances or even the sound of breathing. It's like she's opened a door onto a tomb, and she feels an odd shiver of worry go up her spine.

But, no, it's gotta be nothing. Sarissa's fixing the power, surely, is in another room. Sarah gives Alison and Cosima a look as she steps through the threshold and into the living room, a kind of eyebrows raised Huh, this is weird, innit? face. ]

Sarissa? [ she calls, and waits for an answer. And waits. ]

[doubleblind]

[Cosima shows up late, expecting to walk into a room full of her sisters waiting for her with varying levels of annoyance. She isn't expecting to find Sarah and Alison cautiously looking for Sarissa. Or Mendel worriedly calling her name. She goes over to Mendel's aviary, opening the door and taking him onto her hand and making soothing chirping noises at him, trying to calm him down. Then she joins Sarah in her search.]

Sarissa, if this is because I'm late, it's really not funny...

[subourbon]

[A sarcastic remark about Sarissa's poor taste in pranks is on the tip of Alison's tongue as she follows closely behind Sarah, but then that smell reaches her before she can get the words out and her mind starts reeling. She's had enough experience with that smell to know what it could mean - they all have - and something drops in the pit of her stomach. Her hand goes instinctively to the gun in her purse as she flashes a wide-eyed look at Sarah and Cosima.]

the 40 hours: chilling, investigating, whatever.

[magnitudes]

( ooc: chuck top levels for whatever happens between body discovery and Sarissa waking up here. OR if you'd rather just do one catch all comment for your character of pre/post revival or anything that all, that totally works to.

I can also whip up specific starters or get you particular info, and I'm happy to do GM style comments for anyone looking for clues or generally checking things out.

BASICALLY do whatever is fun, zero obligations, etc etc :Db )

[pillz]

[kavinsky shows up because she's late. and he has to go back to the creepy old standby, grenades strapped on under his jacket. nothing bad happens-- of course, nothing bad really has so far, and at this point his associations and powers and generally terrifying attitude are known to the people in the industry. you don't fuck with jesse pinkman's people. you don't fuck with imports, in general. and you don't fuck with sociopathic little baby bulgarian cokeheads who are in the gun-running business straight out of highschool. that sort of a person is necessarily unhinged, even without the other shit.

so why is his bodyguard fucking around on him? is what kavinsky wants to know. it's two am when he crashes in, battering the familiar door open with a fist. he's been here a dozen times before. meals, those times she persuaded him to come over before or after a job, instead of hitting the bar.] Theron, [he shouts through the apartment.] The job was three fucking hours ago—!

ota

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah's not the easiest person to talk to right now.

She's spending most of her time in the guest bedroom, where she once slept herself, but now where Sarissa's body is lying cold and still on the bed. She hasn't slept since they found the body, and her eyes are red rimmed from exhaustion and from crying, but right now, she seems to be doing slightly better. Maybe she's just in shock.

When she's not sitting in the guest room, she's pacing the living room, sometimes worrying a fingernail between her teeth or twisting a strand of hair around one finger. The constant, repetitive movement seems to soothe her the slightest bit, making the exhaustion and the sickness in her stomach bearable.

Over and over, she thinks—was it because we told them what we are? This is what she's been most afraid of, what she's worked so hard to prevent, and it's happened. She's lost another sister. ]

[hardedged]

[ jessica jones arrives several hours after sarissa's body is found, having scheduled plans with her earlier in the week. it's cold outside, compliments of the evening air; wrapped up in a dark scarf and jacket, jess knocks on the front door with a bit of impatience. ]

Sarissa? Open up. I'm freezing my ass off.

[coppelganger]

[ When Sarah opens the door, at first glance she looks just like Sarissa... only a Sarissa who's been having a very bad day. A Sarissa who's been crying and didn't brush her hair, maybe. It's only when she speaks that it becomes clear that, no, this is a different person, someone with an English accent who's staring suspiciously out at Jessica. ]

What do you want?

[ohshutup]

[Twenty hours in, Clara knocks on the door.

She isn't the mess that she should be, after working through the night and through the day - but that's not to say she isn't a mess at all. Her makeup is gone, her hair is wild, her clothing is wrinkled and stained and damp from rain. But more noteworthy is the glint in her eyes, cold and tempestuous, biting back something inhuman.

This is Clara grieving.]

Hey.

[It's soft and dull. She reaches into her bag, and pulls out two items - a bottle of Wild Turkey, and a small plush toy that could either be a house slipper, or a badly assembled koala.]

The whiskey's for you. And I suppose the koala could be as well, but then I'd have to find something equally cool for Sarissa.

[Her words are light, but they sound like pulling splinters.]

[notsheepish]

[Well, is she at least answering her phone at some point during this time? Because someone might get pretty worried if she doesn't eventually.

(Three guesses who it could be.)]

[doubleblind]

[Cosima's been with Sarah for most of the time, staying beside her and only leaving when absolutely necessary or at Sarah's request. She's just as tired, even her eyeliner applied thick like armor can't hide her exhaustion and worry. She sits right next to Sarah, a book in her lap, but she never seems to turn the page, just reads the same few paragraphs over and over again.

Sometimes, she starts to drift off, succumbing to her exhaustion. It's in one of these moments that she lists over, head dropping onto Sarah's shoulder.]

sarah: the revival.

[magnitudes]

( Light filters into the room in a way that makes the blue and grey and white colour theme seem less soothing and more cold. The early morning might just have that effect on any room, though, given the circumstances.

It's barely noticeable, at first. Or maybe it is, when something so completely inanimate slowly starts to exhibit signs of life; the warmth and colour in her skin, the slow draw of breath into her lungs. The first breath is small, not enough for the body, and certainly not when it has been so long deprived of oxygen that the heart desperately needs to pump through her body. The second breath is bigger, more dramatic, almost a gasp for breath that gives way to a raw cough as Sarissa blinks her eyes open with the shock of it.

Her first instinct is to try and knock away someone's hand from near her head - it doesn't matter if there is no hand near her head, just that the last thing that her mind supplied to her was looming shadows and a pain more intense than anything she has ever felt, the high-pitched, straining whir of a saw biting into her skin and bone. She jerks violently, pushing herself up and backwards so that her back is to the headboard, but— her body feels weak and uncoordinated, and the effort fails so it's more like she's struggling to breath and just scooted higher on the pillow.

For a moment, her gaze is unfocused, and that she's not in her own room doesn't immediately register. What does make it through to her, is that her sister is here. )

Sarah. Are you hurt? Did— ( Her head is spinning, and nothing is fitting in sequence. She presses the heel of her hand to her eye, like it might relieve the aches that feel like they're boiling in her. ) Where's Georgia?

( Her sisters, and Georgia. The people she fears for, first and before all others. The people she loves before all others. Shame the latter one isn't here, and it's just a scramble of memories. )

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah is sitting on a chair next to the bed, one knee drawn up to her chest, staring blankly out at the blue dawn light. She's been there for hours, like she has for most of the past two days, not sleeping or eating or speaking. Waiting. Occasionally she takes one of Sarissa's hands in hers and runs her thumb over the cool skin, as if Sarissa is only asleep.

When Sarissa does finally move, Sarah is almost too exhausted and sick to notice it. Almost. She leans forward, eyebrows knitting in concentration, waiting to see if the tiny inhalation repeats. When it does, and Sarissa's eyes open, Sarah closes hers in silent thanks. She moves to the bed, sitting on the edge of it and reaching to put her hands on Sarissa's shoulders, steadying her and, she hopes, comforting her. ]

Hey, [ she says, her voice soft and quiet, her tone gentle, more like she's speaking to Kira than to her brassy, sarcastic sister. ] Hey, you're alright. Everyone's okay. You're okay.

[magnitudes]

( Contact has become something she's slowly inched closer to depending on. She remembers the last person whose touch always felt like a relief, and she knows the same goes for her sisters. The ways and reasons are different, but it doesn't make it less true. So why, when Sarah lays hand on her shoulders, is that brief moment of relief twisted into nausea - into slow-building panic?

She stares at Sarah wordlessly for what can only be a few seconds, but feels like far longer, and her throat feels parched. )

No— ( Going to gently grab Sarah's wrist is a better plan in practice than in theory, Sarissa stopping her hand before her palm can meet bare skin, looking between it and Sarah with a dawning kind of horror and apologies and the conflicting desire to just want to grasp onto Sarah and not let her go. ) I can't, I can't touch anyone.

sarissa & anyone: post revival.

[magnitudes]

— kitchen.
( Mendel is sitting on her shoulder as Sarissa slices up apple into small pieces for him. From time to time, she takes a piece and holds it up to him, and he makes happy chattering sounds as he leans over to take it from her fingers with a careful nip of his beak.

Once, she sets down the knife for a moment, just a moment, to fill up water. It's where she left it, but Sarissa visibly tenses when her gaze falls to the block of knives and she realises one is missing, the colour draining from her face, as she starts checking the draws for the "missing" one.

Another time, she's just... chopping apples, still. Mendel has flown off to do something else, and there is a stack of chopped up apple pieces, but Sarissa is still going, chopping constantly. )

— chilling, with no chill.
( She's lying on the sofa. Doesn't really matter what time of day - she's just lying there, knees hooked over one of the arms and feet hanging up off the floor. She's making a careful study of herself. It starts with her hands, letting her fingertips carefully map over her wrists, knuckles, before her attention turns to tracing from her jaw to her cheekbones, and then across to her eyebrows. Her fingers hesitate at the line where the bone and flesh were cut apart.

She's too focused on that to realise there is someone approaching her until she feels their shadow on her, and she immediately tenses for a fight. )

What?


— wildcard.
whatever you like! or prod me and I'll whip up a starter for you somewhere below :]b

chill-less chilling

[ohshutup]

[The cushions sink as Clara sits down next to Sarissa's head, careful and quiet and apologetic.]

Nothing.

[She knows that Sarissa might not need gentle, but she'll still offer it. No one feels pain the same. After the raven, and Gallifrey, and the loss of everything she'd known, all Clara had wanted was to run, until her pulse fell into rhythm and the sky looked right. Whatever Sarissa needs, whether it's escape or shouting or sleep, Clara makes a silent promise to herself to help fulfill it.

They're two of a kind now, after all.]

she's being a dick, I'm so sorry

[magnitudes]

Bet you must think this is really fuckin' hilarious.

( Spite and hurt and kneejerk lashing out are what Sarissa does. She hates the words as she's saying them, and to Clara, no less. Sarissa isn't a person with many friends, with many people who have some notion of who she is and how she works, and Clara is one of the few. In this moment it doesn't matter, even as she wants to scrabble and snatch the words back out of the air once they're spoken. Instead they have moment, a power of their own, and they keep rolling in the quiet flatness of her tone that's laced with landmines. )

Sarissa finally gets her comeuppance. Serves her right, going shoving guns in people's faces. Stupid bitch getting what she deserves.

( There's a strange, dangerous sort of flatness to the way she speaks, a very emotional lack of emotion. It's ironic, though, right? That she accused Clara of hurting Cosima, but it was her partner - if he could even be called that after a scant month of dating - that killed her.

It also occurs to her that Clara has no way of knowing that, but she stays rigid, staring at the ceiling with her arms crossed. )

post revival — jessica.

[magnitudes]

( It starts with Sarissa stepping outside for air. It's colder, now, than it had been the night of her birthday party. There's no fire, no energetic atmosphere. She's standing still at the top of some stairs, and she and see her breath hanging in the hair, just barely. At least that serves as proof she's alive, when it turns out the nice person she asked on a date is a murderer.

Sarissa reaches for her device, and sends out a text: hey, slacker. I thought we were meant to get drinks?

She's sitting at the top of the stairs, and waves with a bottle of whiskey rather than her hand when she sees Jessica approaching. For all that she's slouched, Sarissa's gaze moves quick, and she's paying attention to every noise. The apparent ease is a construct, and the reality is that she's hyper aware. )

Jessica Jones.

[hardedged]

[ it doesn't take long for jessica jones to appear. she's been informed that no one truly dies in this place, but coping with the proof is another matter entirely. one hand is shoved in the pocket of her leather jacket, while the other grips the thin handle of a paper bag.

within a minute, jess closes the distance between them, allowing the silence to pervade the air. there are so many things she could say or do — a few words of comfort, perhaps even an embrace. instead, she settles for placing the bag on the ground, which contains enough cheap alcohol for both of them, and gestures to the other woman's bottle. ]

You started without me.

[magnitudes]

( The silence feels like a palpable thing, its own entity, as she looks up at Jessica. Part of her wants contact and another knows she can't risk it, that clinging onto Sarah had been weak and risky and stupid. End result is that she watches Jess with over-sharpened intensity.

Her mouth twists into something that can't quite pass for a smile. )

Could say I got a head start.

( Getting her skull sawn open means she gets to make off-colour jokes, doncha know. )

post revival — cosima.

[magnitudes]

( Eventually she has to disentangle herself from Sarah - not that she wouldn't be glad to just stay curled up with Sarah for the rest of the year, honestly, but she needs to reach out to the others, and it feels like the kinda thing that should be done one on one, maybe, rather than all of them together. They needed time to adjust, probably, to absorb the knowledge, and Sarissa honestly doesn't know if she can handle everyone all at once right now.

It was early when she first revived, and this is officially her first go at walking since she died. It's not like she really could have expectations while she was dead, but somehow in the time between waking and walking she had gotten the idea that moving might be harder, as if she were a foal or a lamb stumbling through their first knock-kneed steps. Instead she walks easily, approaching the second guest room. It's considerably smaller than the main one where Sarissa's body was moved to, but it's big enough for a bed and the essentials. Sarissa hesitates at the door for long moments, resting her forehead and her palm against it. Does she just go in? Does she freak Cosima out by waking her with no warning? Does she just... wait out here?

Sarissa doesn't really know what the right etiquette is for rising from the dead, and she settles for knocking on the door, and hugging her arms protectively across her chest. )

Tiger. It's me. I'm— awake.

[doubleblind]

[Cosima was dozing, getting a couple hours of much needed sleep, when Sarissa knocks on the door. Cosima's barely left Sarissa's place since they found her, alternating her time between keeping Mendel entertained and standing watch with Sarah, next to Sarissa's body. She's barely slept or eaten, has only checked in at work through email. Her usual life and routine seemed to stop with Sarissa's heart.

Sarissa's voice is enough to bring her out of her light sleep, and it's only seconds before there's a loud, happy trill from Mendel and Cosima is opening up the door in a rush. She stands there staring at her sister for a few seconds before practically launching herself at her, wrapping her up in a tight hug. Cosima's breath hitches as she hugs Sarissa close, as she takes in Sarissa's warmth and heartbeat and everything that makes her very, very alive.]

You're very awake. Hey.

[magnitudes]

( She doesn't expect it to make her tense up, the way Cosima rushes to her - she's used to Cosima's contact and hugs, and she's even used to her quick movements by now. Sudden motion and proximity wasn't something she appreciated from strangers, but that was born of being a brawler, and had softened off some since leaving being a mercenary and coming here. Even though she expects, welcomes it, wants to wrap Cosima up in a hug, the brief rush of motion makes her heart beat harder in her chest, breath caught for a moment and body rigid before she makes herself inhale, almost a gasp, as she wraps her arms around Cosima. It's loose at first, like she's trying to remember how to make her arms fold around another person, before the embrace tightens and she's letting her fingers curl into Cosima's hair, the other hand pressed hard against her back. )

I'm sorry.

( She has no idea what else to say, and even that comes out hitched and quiet and almost too rough to make out. )

post revival — alison.

[magnitudes]

( She hadn't deliberately not seen Alison yet, it was just that she woke up with Sarah next to her, and then after sleeping more had found where Cosima was sleeping first, and by the time that was done she felt like her skin was crawling with the memory of the clothes she was wearing.

Sarissa emerges from the bathroom, the scent of shower gel that's full of orange and cinnamon and cloves clinging to her skin and layered over with the smell of smoke. Her hair is still damp, and abandoned in its current condition makes an instant lean towards messy waves. There's also a smear of ash at her jaw, despite her skin being otherwise pristine, the remaining evidence of Sarissa's snap of impulse. The clothes she'd been killed in and lain in for however many hours are now a pile of ashes that she disposed of down the sink, and all the indications of her actions that remain are the ash on her jaw and the smell of smoke clinging to her.

The watch Gabriel gave her - antique, personally repaired - is unceremoniously dropped next to the garbage disposal and forgotten, because she just caught sight of Alison. It's still a little early, testament to the horrifying hour she woke up, and Sarissa has no idea if Sarah or Cosima have told Alison while she was in the shower. She's just... standing, stupidly, looking through the doorway and towards Alison. )

Ali?