InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "NEVER!!!!!"

Laura Moon (spitandviolets) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2008-09-21 16:52:00

Entry tags:

complete, day 16, laura moon, temperance brennan

Who: Laura and Bones
What: Returning to the land of the living after a long, dark apathy
When: Late Morning
Where: The Greenhouse, and then who knows?
Rating: TBD
Status: Incomplete

There are those individuals who would argue that it is impossible for the dead to become depressed. Laura Moon would be part of that vast majority; she herself was 'dead' and felt that she spoke for her people. Depressed was not the correct word for it. Apathetic, blank - those were the correct adjectives. Laura had, for several days since arriving, fallen into a deep sense of apathy. She had been communing with the void, as she liked to call it. It was that vast feeling of emptiness that crept inside of her, and it made her want to be dead instead of undead or alive. There was no way to reach her when she got like that; she couldn't even reach herself. Though she didn't sleep, Laura had spent days upon days in bed, arms crossed over her chest, staring at the wall, tempted to remove the coin from around her neck, though she knew that she could not do herself in. Shadow would not approve.

She hated mornings most of all. It was like walking out of a dark movie theater and into the sun, completed by those few moments when you couldn't see anything at all. The light, after so long in her bedroom, was blinding. Honestly, after the silence, everything seemed like screams. Laura made her way down the yet unfamiliar hallways, noticing that, once she'd left the area where the rooms were, not all was as it had been. She'd never quite get over that, even if she was capable of understanding that gods lived among men and the dead could rise again.

As she walked, a sudden realization set in on her. She had really let herself go after that hurricane. After meeting that guy... Dean...? she'd entered her room and not come out for anything. There were a few scrapes and cuts here and there that had expanded in size, and she was noticing that her faint scent of decomposition was seeming a little bit more than faint. A wriggling feeling of gross was starting in the base of her left lung, and it would only be a few more weeks before she was coughing up unmentionables once more. Thankfully, she did not notice any mirrors as she walked. It was almost painful to think what she looked like. She hadn't even bothered to comb her hair.

Wandering outside, Laura made a face, disgusted by the weather. Why couldn't it have been darker? And where had the storm gone? Not wanting to seem like a lumbering zombie, she darted out across the walkways, wandering here and there at a brisk pace. It was then that the greenhouse caught her eye. Laura had never possessed a green thumb, but it wasn't like everything she touched died. Not in the past, anyway. And flowers and plants would be able to hide the smell a little bit. Excellent. She ducked inside and slowed her pace, not wanting to knock anything over. Losing herself in plants and flowers, she seemed to be in her own little world. At least she was motivated to get up and walk around again. That made her more un than dead.

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braver
2008-09-22 01:50 pm UTC (link)

This couldn't be happening. It had to be a costume, right? But she couldn't have been gone that long from her own world for it to be Halloween already. But as the woman zig-zagged directionless over the resort, Brennan couldn't help but frown. It wasn't that warm, but it was far too warm for costume makeup. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she stood up, closing the Journal of Forensic Anthropology and tucking it under her arm.

She followed the woman, though not too closely, leaving the patio where she'd been sitting only moments ago. Finally, the woman seemed to make up her mind and headed for the greenhouse. It wasn't that the woman made Brennan suspicious. She was just acting strangely and Brennan felt it her duty to figure out why. And also satisfy her curiosity in the process.

She waited a few minutes after the woman disappeared into the large glass building to enter behind her. She looked around when she finally stepped through the door and her eyes raked the rows of vegetation that grew with unfettered speed. There were numerous flowers as well as vegetables. She could smell strawberries, but she could also smell decomp.

For a minute, she thought it was the manure and compost used in the soil for the plants, but she knew human decomp when she smelled it. For a moment she was excited with the idea of finding a dead body. She might be able to actually do something of worth for the first time since arriving in this dreadful place. But as she ducked to scan the area, she could see no other person besides the woman walking down a row in front of her.

Frowning, she stood up again and tilted her head, studying the woman. No way. The dead didn't walk around. This was impossible. Right? She wasn't sure if the woman was aware of her presence, so she cleared her throat and nodded. "Good morning." She didn't want to explain that she'd followed her inside. That sounded slighly neurotic, and even though she was completely neurotic, she didn't want to let on.

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spitandviolets
2008-09-26 12:33 pm UTC (link)

Her guard had been down, and that was why she hadn't noticed the woman sooner. There was that strange tingling sensation that she got on the back of her neck, though, when she stopped and was studying things in the greenhouse. Before the stranger had said 'good morning,' Laura had turned around and was staring at her, icy blue eyes locked on her face. There was a small smirk on her face, and she took a few slow steps closer. "Boo," she murmured, "and good morning, if that's what you consider it."

It wasn't so annoying, seeing a person after she'd been shut up for so long. Part of her was hoping that it'd be Anakin or Dean, but this woman was new, unfamiliar, and a little interesting. Who, in their right mind, would follow her? She was dangerous, wasn't she? She was scary, wasn't she? At least that was what she'd been hoping for. Apparently that tactic was a bust.

"Nice, isn't it?" Laura motioned around at the greenhouse. It was impossible to tell if she was being serious or sarcastic as the question had been delivered in that incredible monotone. She turned and lightly ran her fingers over a nearby flower. When she touched it, she felt nothing. There was a faint feeling of something soft brushing her cold, clammy skin, but no joy, no sense of wonder. "This place wasn't here a few days ago. I think I explored on my own time pretty thoroughly. Though maybe I missed it. Who knows?"

Turning her back to the woman, she began walking down the row of flowers. This stranger could choose to follow her or not; Laura didn't rightfully or fully care. Part of her was hoping, at least, for conversation. If she didn't speak for too long her throat started to close up. She imagined that was why zombies liked to moan - keep the pipes open. Not many people, after all, bothered carrying on a conversation with a zombie. She couldn't imagine what interesting things they'd have to say, either, even if someone was so polite (or stupid). Probably nothing of interest. Maybe they'd talk about the flavor of brains, or maybe they'd just scream out 'eat eat eat' and devour the conversation partner faster than any other prey. It was in that moment that Laura was something akin to glad that she wasn't a zombie.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a pack of clove cigarettes and a silver Zippo lighter with a beautiful, ornate, silver tree with no leaves etched into it. The roots extended all the way up, and the roots went all the way down. She flicked it open, staring at the flames for a moment, then lit the cigarette. As she took a drag on the black death stick, the package was offered towards the woman. "Want one?" she inquired, as sincere as she possibly could be.

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braver
2008-10-01 11:20 am UTC (link)

Brennan looked confused at the greeting. "Boo?" That was different. Usually people didn't just... say 'boo'. Only if they were trying to scare another person. Like the time she'd said it when the Department of Homeland Security had opened her bag to find a skull staring back at them. That had been amusing. She smirked, remembering it. After mass graves, genocide and all the other horrors she'd seen, Brennan didn't scare easily. This woman didn't appear to be a threat. She didn't have a gun, and for someone who knew three types of martial arts, a defenseless woman didn't frighten her. No matter what she looked like.

"Yes, it is nice." Brennan took her own casual look around, her attention returning to Laura once she began to speak again. "No. It wasn't. It appeared with the change of the resort a few days back." It was so easy to lose track of time here. There was no purpose to life, no job to go to, nothing meaningful to do. It was driving Brennan crazy.

When Laura turned her back and began to walk away down the aisle, Brennan felt compelled to follow. She didn't know why, but she could smell the decomp even worse now, and she knew it was coming from this woman. She just couldn't figure out how she could simultaneously be walking around and decomposing at the same time. God, what a fucked up nightmare.

The woman's abrupt halt to light up her cigarette and offer one to Brennan almost her her bowled over, so confused and lost in her own thoughts was she. "Uh, no. Thank you. I don't smoke." She held up a hand, waving away the offer of the cigarette, taking a step back out of the woman's personal space and the overwhelming smell of clove cigarette and decomp.

"Why do you smell like decomposing flesh?" Brennan was not one for tact, nor did she beat around the bush. She had a nasty habit of getting right to the point, despite the fact that it might hurt someone's feelings or offend.

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spitandviolets
2008-10-03 09:38 pm UTC (link)

"Huh. And I thought I was a woman of few words and little tact." The dead woman stared at her for a few moments, not blinking. It amused her, really, to think that you only blinked because you were alive, and that once you weren't alive and things weren't as moist and pliant, well, you didn't need to blink anymore. This stranger mildly amused her; she had the presence of mind, after all, to notice that Laura actually smelled like rot. Not many people could actually tell her what she smelled like. They usually assumed she hadn't taken a shower in quite some time.

Laura finished the drag from her cigarette, exhaling the smoke from her nostrils, though it wasn't a very forceful exhale. She coughed slightly as the wriggling thing in her lungs moved around. Leaning against the flower bed, careful not to crush anything, she turned towards Brennan. Her expressionless eyes locked on her face. "Blunt, aren't you? You and I are going to get along famously. You see, I don't really have the capacity to remember what polite is most of the time, or at least put it into practice. You know, I can't wait to see what your personality would be like if you were like me. I wonder if you'd even change. That'd be a good thing, I bet. You wouldn't have much to adjust to."

"I smell like decomposing flesh," she began, none too delicately, "because I am dead. Not dead in the traditional sense that I'm six feet under and decomposing. My situation is a little bit more complicated than that. I was six feet under, you see. Actually, it's more like ten feet these days. Nobody bothers to measure, as far as I know. I wasn't really conscious when it happened. All I know is that I definitely had to claw my way out far more than ten feet. I did have to detour a bit to find the gift, though, so that could have had something to do with it. I'm not sure. I am dead in the second truest sense of the world. My life is no more. What I'm leading now? Well, it's sure not an afterlife, because I'm still in this body, I'm still decomposing, and I'm still around. It's more of an undeath, really. My heart doesn't beat, my organs don't work, my body doesn't heal, but I'm still walking around and talking to you."

The cigarette burned down to her fingers, faintly scorching the flesh. It was getting to be a bad habit, but Laura still didn't notice. Inactive nerve endings tended to do that to a person. Looking away from her, having stared for a sufficiently long time, Laura studied the floor. "My turn. Why are you following me, and why do you care?"

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braver
2008-10-06 12:24 pm UTC (link)

Despite the fact that the words spoken were true, it still stung a little to be called tactless. She was, and she knew it, but she felt like it was truth more than tact. In response, she frowned lightly and crossed her arms over her chest. A characteristic defensive posture, though she would argue that psychology was a soft science and couldn't be relied upon for any definitive fact.

"I wasn't trying to be rude." But she didn't offer an apology of any sort, either. She didn't think she had anything to apologize for. She'd simply asked a question, and yes... it might have been direct and even blunt, but she didn't see anything wrong with that, though. "And if I were like you, I would be dead. No one smells like decomp unless they're decomposing, and you don't decompose and continue to live." At least, not in her world. How she longed to go back there, to her normal life.

It hadn't really been all that normal to begin with, but at least it didn't include the paranormal. Still, she relied on her delusion that she was dreaming and this was all part of some freakish nightmare. Brennan had a pained look on her face as Laura explained that she was dead, but not really dead in the sense that most people are dead when they die. She nodded about the ten feet under thing, because that at least made sense. And she didn't believe in an afterlife, so that didn't matter either.

What was powering this body if there were no organs that worked, no healing, no brain activity. How was this possible? It wasn't. It was impossible, the way everything else in this place was. She was baffled, but again just chalked it up to dreaming. The smell of cooking flesh hit her nostrils and she backed up. Mostly because she was a vegetarian and the smell of roasting meat was not high on her list of preferable aromas.

She wasn't upset at the question, finding it direct the way she prefered all things be. "I followed you because you looked strange, and now I know why. Although, I wouldn't say that I care so much as I wanted to satisfy my curiosity." She almost wished there was something she could do for her, but Brennan was good with bones, not skin. Laura was far too fleshy for her tastes, at least when it came to dead bodies.

"I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan." She offered, by way of introduction, though she didn't really know why she was still talking to Laura other than the fact that the decomposing body was talking and walking even while chunks of skin fell off and she coughed from wrigling things in her lungs.

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