InsaneJournal

Who: Sara and Liv
What: Liv needs to eat
Where: Liv and Dan's place
When: During the tethered plot
Warnings/Ratings: Lowish? Some brain eating
Status: Complete


The past few days had been pretty miserable for Liv. She hadn’t been able to go more than a few feet from Sara. It wasn’t that she disliked Sara’s company. She actually really liked Dan’s new bartender. But Sara didn’t know what Liv was. Liv couldn’t exactly eat brains in front of her. Especially with Sara being so new. Liv doubted she knew of any of the crazy that was Orange County. How could she possibly believe Liv was a zombie?

She had hoped the whole stuck together thing would only last a day. She could go a day without eating. But it had been almost four days now and Liv was starving. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out. If she waited too long…. Well that wouldn’t be good news. For anyone.

Just one more day. Liv kept telling herself. If she was still tethered to Sara in the morning than she would tell her everything and finally eat. However her body had another idea, Liv’s eyes began to grow red- a sign that she was getting close to being in full-on zombie mode.

Sara… really had no idea what was going on. She was no stranger to waking up with strange women in her bed, but normally that happened after a night of heavy drinking, not ones where she had gone to bed stone cold sober. She was aware that people on the Network she’d signed up for had all sorts of ideas involving Dreams, capital D, and some vague ‘Orange County weirdness,’ but Sara wasn’t sure if she bought into any of that. She’d had a couple of vivid dreams since arriving here, but they’d all involved things she’d actually done, like getting arrested and having her dad bail her out, or going to a party to see Oliver.

But now, now she found that she couldn’t go very far from her boss’s girlfriend. She’d tried a couple of times, that first day, and it had always involved her being whipped back into Liv, which would probably have been funny if it hadn’t hurt so much. As far as people go get stuck too, Liv wasn’t so bad. The first day had been a little awkward with Liv trying to set Sara up with all sorts of people, but as the days went by that became less and less. Probably the worst of it all, other than the lack of privacy, was that sleeping in her boss’s apartment was kind of strange.

She was, right now, lying on the couch, a beer in front of her, wondering what they should do for the rest of the day. She turned to Liv, mouth open to ask the question, and then froze and snapped her mouth shut.

“Are… are you okay?” she asked after a moment. Liv looked… well, kind of terrifying, if Sara was being honest.

Liv took a breath, eyes returning to normal. At least she hadn’t fully lost it. But she knew there was no way she could wait till morning. “Yeah,” Liv said after a moment. “Just hungry,” she added with a frown. “I have sort of a special diet.” It was the best way she knew how to bring up the subject without outright saying ‘I’m a zombie and I eat brains.’

“I’ve noticed,” Sara said, bemused. It was hard not to notice that Liv slathered everything she ate or drank with hot sauce, some of it even too spicy for Sara, who thought she had developed a fair amount of tolerance to that kind of thing on her travels. “Is it not sitting right with you?” Though the only way that would explain the red eyes was if Liv had somehow managed to pour it into her eyes.

It took Liv a minute to realize why Sara was asking that. If she wasn’t so hungry she might have realized it right away. “No,” Liv began another deep breath. “It’s not that.” Ugh how was she supposed to say this. “It’s something else I have to eat.” Or else she would become a mindless monster but she left that part out. For one meeting a zombie was scary enough as it was. No need to add what could possibly happen on top of it.

Sara frowned thoughtfully to herself, wondering why exactly Liv was being so cagey about what exactly it was she had to eat. Or why she’d waited so long to say anything if it was something she needed. “Well, out with it,” she said, in order to prompt Liv. “Assuming it’s not baby hearts or something, we can go get some now.” Assuming there wasn’t any in the apartment, but she figured if there was Liv wouldn’t be so eager to get some.

It wasn’t exactly baby hearts. But given the comment there was no way Liv could say it was brains either. “Nothing,” Liv said taking a deep breath, denying her body what it so desperately needed. Just a little bit longer. She just had to hold on a little longer. This connection would be broken and she could eat. “I’ll be fine.”

Sara frowned a little, looking over Liv. Liv was naturally pale anyway, so maybe it was Sara’s imagination, but she seemed even more pale than normal now. “That’s obviously a like,” Sara said bluntly. She stood up. “Come on, we’re getting you something to eat before your eyes go all… you know, again.”

Liv stood up. Clearly Sara wasn’t going to let this drop. And Liv, well she really needed to eat and soon. Or things could really get bad. “Can you just, turn your back while I eat?” That would work. Maybe. Hopefully. If Sara agreed.

Sara looked at Liv for a moment, trying to figure out if she was being serious or not. It didn’t take a detective to realize that she was. “That’s kind of weird, but okay,” Sara agreed. “I promise I won’t look.”

Liv had no choice but to take Sara’s word for it. She had to eat. Liv walked over to the freezer and motioned for Sara to turn around. Once she did Liv grabbed a brain, she remained at the freezer her head practically inside. Liv took a big bite, eyes glowing red as she did. Man did she need to eat. Another bite, and another. She couldn’t stop herself.

Sara’s favourite genre of movie when she was growing up had been, far and away, horror movies. There was nothing she loved more than sitting down with her friends or her sister and watching the occasional horror flick and scaring themselves silly, or, as they got older, laughing at the bad special effects.

The sounds coming from behind her were more familiar than Sara would have liked to admit, and even even though she had promised she wouldn’t look, she couldn’t help but attempting at least a peek over her shoulder. It looked like whatever Liv was eating came right out of the freezer, but she didn’t think anyone could eat something that should, by all rights, be frozen solid like that.

She peered just a little bit over, and then froze. Because, if Sara didn’t know any better, she would say that Liv had turned into one of the walking undead and was chowing down on something that looked suspiciously like a brain. Sara swallowed, and quickly looked back at the wall in front of her, hoping Liv hadn’t seen.

Liv was too preoccupied with eating to realize Sara had broken her promise and glanced over. Finally she stopped eating and buried the brains in the back of the freezer. Deep breath and her face returned to normal. “Thanks,” she told Sara shutting the freezer and placing a smile on her face. “Now let’s go find you a date.” Yeah matchmaker personality was back in full swing now.

And, just like that, Liv was Liv again, and at all like the ravenous zombie Sara had just seen. For a moment, she wondered if she had just imagined the whole thing, but no, she didn’t think she had.

Still, Liv had yet to try to eat Sara, and that had to count for something. From everything Sara had seen, Liv just seemed like an over-enthusiastic matchmaker. She’d been nice and friendly so far. Sara wouldn’t forget what she saw, but she would take a little longer before she made any judgements one way or another.

She took a deep breath, and then plastered a smile on her face before she turned around. “I’m not sure if I can really do dates like this,” she said. Sara was a one-date kind of girl most of the time. “But let’s see what you can drag up.”