{The battle's done and we kind of won, where do we go from here?

[insincerecharm]

Who: Rebecca Atherton & Shaun Mason; OPEN prompt
Where: The Beach; Around Wonderland
When: Month of April
Rating: PG-13 (suicidal ideation; language; general depression warnings; booze-as-a-coping-skill; will update if needed)
Summary: Becks arrives and things go really south, really quick; general attempts at settling in; Musical/lost soul event
The Story: Comment headers a-hoy!\


Closed threads
4/2

Shaun Mason
Shaun finds Becks prepared to do something she would immensely regret and stops her. [cw: suicidal ideation]

Georgia Mason; Maggie Garcia
Basic settling in steps with her two other friends from home. [cw: gallows humor, flippant talk of death/death threats, possible mentions of depression]

Open threads
4/3-8

Arrival week
What it says on the tin. Trying to adjust to this whole Wonderland thing. And being alive again things. [cw: probable depression mentions]

4/7-10

Musical Event
In which the blogger team does an ensemble musical number. [cw: depression mentions]

A Lost Soul
Becks loses herself to the melonchaly settling over the mansion. [cw: depression mentions]

Comments

[insincerecharm]

"Oh..." She's not sure if that's a relief or something else. But at least it makes sense, lines up right with everything around her last memories. "Okay. Seemed-- you know, important to know." Not that she could explain why. Maybe it's just a need for information that burns under all of their skin, no matter how screwed up the rest of everything else is going on in their lives may be.

[choosetruth]

"I understand. I'd want to know too." She slips her sunglasses back on before any emotions about the situation can escape. She knows she's not exactly the same person as the original. Pretending otherwise would be dishonest, and she refuses to be that. But there's still a part of her that would like it if she could be treated as if nothing had changed, as if she were the woman who died, not the science experiment who came next.

"It's nice that you already know I exist, at least."

For many reasons.

[insincerecharm]

"Less death threats this way, I guess," she says with a slight shrug. Gallows humor is appropriate, here, right? Because it's the only thing that she seemed to be able to make come out of her mouth in that second.

[choosetruth]

"You gave me death threats?" She sounds a lot happier about that than she probably should. It's just nice to see that her team is still thinking critically and not automatically accepting her for who she says she is. She is who she says she is, but if the CDC had had their way, she wouldn't have been.

[insincerecharm]

"Several. And explicitly." She gives a bit of a facial shrug. "You don't think I would take my dead boss being alive again on face value, do you?" There's a perk of a brow at her. "I'm smarter than that." And if there's a bit of a cocky edge to her words, well, she's earned it.

[choosetruth]

"That's why I hired you." She's glad that eventually she did convince them since it would have meant death if she didn't. She just hopes it wouldn't have been Shaun who'd have to pull the trigger.

.....though this is all academic. She is who she says she is, and she knows now that her friends will believe her eventually. Still hard not to stress about it when half the time she's not even sure if she believes it herself.

"Glad you came around, though. I didn't like dying much the first time. Not looking for an encore."

[insincerecharm]

There's a ghost of a smile at that; even if she isn't the same her that hired Becks, it's still true all the same. There are still some things that are just too weird about the situation of a Georgia-that's-not, as a whole. But Becks mostly doesn't want to think about all of it. Accepting that she is who she thinks and feels and sounds like she is, is a lot easier. Especially now that there's no real reason to think she's going to flip script on them suddenly and try to murder them all.

Her next words give Becks the sort of pause that they might not have three months ago. Or even three days ago. But now...

Her gaze drops to the floor, lips pursed, half a frown creasing across her forehead as she considers that statement for a longer than necessary moment. Eventually, her eyes make a slow slide up toward the other woman again. "Do you actually remember it?" A beat. "Dying, I mean..."

[choosetruth]

"Sort of." She rubs the back of her neck, feeling where the barrel of the gun pressed against her, cool and soothing somehow in the moment. It wasn't her neck. But she remembers it as if it were.

"I remember Shaun holding the gun to my head. I remember typing out my final article. I remember feeling my mind going and begging him to shoot. I remember the click of the trigger...."

She drops her hand.

"And then I remember waking up in a CDC holding cell."

[insincerecharm]

"It's fucked up, innit?" She scoffs a little and shakes her head. "It's not the kinda thing you're supposed to remember." Because it's supposed to be the end. And Becks isn't sure how to feel about it.

[choosetruth]

"No. But I'm not supposed to exist either." She shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest. "Supposed to left the building a long time ago."

[insincerecharm]

"Who would've guessed this would be a thing to bond over?" She scoffs, shaking her head a little. What the hell even are their lives?

[choosetruth]

"Well." She shrugs, too casually for how she actually feels. "Not like we're going to spend much time bonding over that other thing we have in common."

[insincerecharm]

Oh.

That.

Which is exactly what the specific drop in Becks' face says, loud and clear, at those words. Truth is, it wasn't all that long ago, actually, even though so much had happened that it kind of felt like a whole other lifetime.

Ha.

It was now, she supposes, what with her second lease on life and all.

But as for real words? Becks isn't sure what they should be. An apology? 'Sorry I fucked your brother when you were dead' didn't have a great ring to it.

[choosetruth]

"Like I said." Neither of them especially wants to talk about it. But Georgia wants to be clear she knows. To completely ignore it would be dishonest. "Don't worry. I know you didn't have all the facts. You did nothing wrong."

Shaun shouldn't have slept with her, but Becks was acting on what information she had. It wasn't her fault she was missing an important piece of information.

[insincerecharm]

"Yeah," she nods a little. "Well, now I do." And she can be one thousand percent certain nothing like that will ever happen again.

Becks never really had time to think about it much. She had her reaction in the morning after, and Shaun gave his 'Sorry, I'm an idiot' apology. But really processing it? There was never time. She hopes that being here and having more time, doesn't mean it will make everything worse and weird now. Probably not. They're adaptable types. But who knows.

[choosetruth]

"Now most people do." Unless they are very much not paying attention. "It's not really a secret anymore."

They've been through too much shit to worry about little things like getting caught in a taboo relationship. But she doubts Becks especially wants to hear about that.

"You must have questions. About Wonderland, that is." Not that she wouldn't answer questions about her relationship about Shaun. She just doubts Becks wants to know any more than she already does.

[insincerecharm]

There's an obvious flash of surprise in her glance back up at Georgia's admission that it isn't actually a secret here. Blink and it's gone, but her eyebrows both arch and drop in something of a facial shrug. That's their business, not hers, and as long as it's not flaunted in her face--which she can't imagine being an issue--she'll deal with it.

There's an obvious wash of relief at the topic-switch, which she happily leaps for. "God, so many. I don't even know where to start." She takes a moment to think about it before deciding on, "You've made KA statements to the public at large, right? How cautious do we have to be?"

I know which seanan mcguire character I'm logged in as I swear

[choosetruth]

As with everything, as far as Georgia's concerned it's better to be upfront about it. It's not comfortable for any of them to be talking about her and Shaun's relationship. But it's better than leaving Becks to wonder or trying to dance around it.

And now that they've talked about it, they can go back to never bringing it up again.

"Cautious. But not as cautious as you'd think." She waves a hand towards the window. "Wonderland's...." she wrinkles her nose. "Magic. And it somehow prevents literally everyone from contracting the disease just by being around us. Which means everyone's uninfected. The good news is there hasn't been a single outbreak in the year and a half we've been here. That being said, we'd rather not find out what the limits of Wonderland's magic is."

She's mostly forgone blood tests except when there's reason to believe one of them might be amplifying. But she still showers in bleach. She also still hates touching people, but that's more personal than actual caution.

Liiiiessss

[insincerecharm]

She frowns a little at the explanation. It's so...strange to think they could be any ounce of less cautious at all. Their whole lives were built on a level of public paranoia that became normal that no one even batted an eye at it. Their own generation never knew anything different.

"Weird..." she mumbles with a slight shake of her head. "We have any way to do bloodtests?" They still needed those, right?

[choosetruth]

Georgia nods and pulls one out of her desk drawer. She doesn't especially think Becks is infected, but she still tosses it from long habit. Slowed reflexes are a sign of infection, after all.

"We can get them from the closets, but we bother with those even less. I was already skeptical of constant bloodtests before we learned just how fucked up the CDC is."

[insincerecharm]

She catches the test easily in one hand and inspects it a little. It looks pretty damn close to the ones back home, but she can see a difference or two. Nothing that would make her think much of it, if she didn't already know she was in an alternate universe, though.

"This is all so...much." It's the best description, really. "Does it ever get better?" A beat. "Easier?" She shrugs. "Whatever." No word feels right in her mouth for what she's asking, but she has a feeling Georgia will get the idea, regardless.

[choosetruth]

Georgia frowns, considering the question in all of its poorly-worded glory. She more or less does know what Becks means, and it isn't exactly what she said. Or at least, it's not exactly what Georgia is going to answer.

"You... adjust. I wouldn't call it easy. I wouldn't even exactly say I'm used to it. Magic still seems like a copout explanation. But you find ways to cope."

At least, Georgia did.

[insincerecharm]

She nods a little, it sounds like the best she could hope for as far as that goes and at least she never has to doubt the truth behind a Georgia Mason answer. Unbridled and never sugarcoated is just the way she runs.

"Shaun mentioned you're running a 'zine." She gives her friend an amused look. Because of course she couldn't stay away from printed word.

[choosetruth]

Georgia grimaces slightly. "It's printed. But it's better than nothing. This bullshit place doesn't have a real internet."

She misses it. God, does she ever miss it. But the zine is a decent enough replacement.

"You're obviously welcome to contribute."

[insincerecharm]

She laughs lightly at the reaction. "So old school."

"Maybe, eventually." She shrugs a little. Georgia can probably understand the need for the adjustment period first, even if it isn't the way she personally operates, right?