wouldst thou like the taste of granola? a survivorpool after-party?

[curdle]

[ Well, that was ominous. It's hard to quantify just how she feels, so she doesn't. Thomasin is functional, compared to some, and she's teeming with the same manic energy that inspired the Monday meeting. They all know how this pattern goes by now; someone will initiate some form of gathering. This week, she decides, it will be her.

She lets people know, mostly by word of mouth, that there'll be food in the dining hall and she'll take any help they're willing to give, and then she starts cooking and simply does not stop. Hawke eventually joins her in this endeavor, and in a few hours, there's chicken noodle soup, roasted vegetables, and whatever else Lynny (or anyone else whose characters would have helped out, what am I, the feds?) says is there! There's also a peach cobbler still in the oven and bread proofing on the counter for God only knows when, and any leftovers still remaining from the picnic have been set out as well.

She doesn't give any specific start time, but Thomasin will eventually slip notes under the doors of any stragglers, and she'll be here all night. The game has been broken, the seventh bullet fired—but the eight of them are still alive. They might as well eat. ]

Comments

[thanoptical]

[Satsuki… takes her time. For a while she’s in Hawke’s room. She doesn’t want to return to A-4 for the moment it felt—wrong. Cursed. She did grab the essentials first. Like her personal first aid kit and snagging one of the pain killers in Hatsune’s room. The sharpie label reads ‘Tylenol’ and she takes a couple before treating her wound.

It’s a slow process and she leaves the bathroom open to the two boys of the Hall. Varric watches with his giant puppy dog eyes and she speaks slowly to him during the process. About Hatsune. About Kana. Kohaku. There’s so many things and he just listens as Chu-Chu naps in the center of his back. Maybe she’s still there when Hawke returns to her room. By then she’s changed her clothes to something less… corpse like.

Then she’s in the dining hall. Satsuki’s not moving much but her face is grim. Determined. She’s eating some of the cobbler silently before she speaks.] The witch… didn’t seem like a single person, did they?

[She stays with the others as long as she can. If she leaves she’s always with someone. She feels like maybe the Witch or the Headmistress isn’t happy with her. That they, like death, wouldn’t be so easy to evade.]

[facultwist]

[ At some point in the dining hall, Satsuki will feel a pair of arms embracing her from behind. A hand against her back draws a heart between her shoulder blades.

There's no one there, of course. And she can't hear anything. But for a few moments, Satsuki can also feel a cold but comforting breath against her lower shoulders, as if someone's talking to her. ]

[thanoptical]

[Satsuki pauses. She stills for a few moments before smiling softly. She can guess which ghostie this is.]

I love you, too. Take care of Hatsune, okay ?

[kickdownthatwall]

[...oh. you know what. that's.]

...I had idea I talked to Kohaku about. That maybe there was some weird game we didn't remember... and the interim headmistress was student who won and the rest of us died... and then she had to become interim headmistress because she won.

Maybe it happened more times. Maybe witch is all interim headmistresses.

[thanoptical]

That’s a good idea… something about this doesn’t feel right. Like… I still don’t believe that those girls who died in that fire wasn’t us. There are those dreams after all.

[kickdownthatwall]

It could have been the girlfriend duo who we have been having memories of, perhaps. ...No, wait, I do not think that is how things played out for them, is it? Ah, this is all so hard to keep track of...

A-3 cw: nausea mention

[shellhawked]

[It takes Hawke a little while to come back to her room. In part because it takes a bit for her to feel clean regardless of the blood being gone. In other part because it takes even longer for her to think about having a full conversation with Satsuki without feeling nauseous.

Varric's tail starts wagging when she opens the door, signaling to Satsuki that she should prepare for A Talk. Hawke doesn't say a word when she opens the door dripping wet from her shower, closes it behind her then picks up a small bag from her desk. She sinks down onto the edge of her bed, not ignoring Satsuki exactly, but she needs some semblance of normalcy right now- even if it's just going through the motions of doing her make-up.]

[thanoptical]

[Satsuki is dressed again and—oh god. She can sense a cold coming. She very thoughtfully grabs a towel and places it on the bed.]

Do you want me to go or…

[facultwist]

[ ...Sooo at some point, when there's like, a good amount of people at the gathering, you may notice some of the roasted vegetables kind of twitch and move? You can notice this as it's happening, or after the fact. But then end up spelling something out: ]

Boo :)

[thanoptical]

Boo?!

[Satsuki isn’t jumping up but the look on her face is… like she nearly died again.]

[shellhawked]

[Hawke only notices the movement out of the corner of her eye while she has a forkful of ghost peach cobbler in her mouth. She squints at the message and, after a moment, smiles a little.]

Boo to you too.

[rednails]

[Smiling wearily;]

Scary.

[hootheart]

[Tiera heads to the kitchen first to get as many iron-rich foods as she can, focusing mainly on frying up some strips of beef, with a side of beans in tomato paste. She scoops most of those onto a plate, adding a little label that says "For Satsuki" on it, although there are also some beef strips and beans available for anyone else who wants to take some.

She's there at the dining hall too, eating slowly and looking thoughtful.]

[thanoptical]

[She takes some! She nods with approval.]

Thanks, this should help!

[hootheart]

[Tiera gives a quiet chirp in response.] Hope taste good, too. [She was more focused on getting it cooked up as fast as possible, for the sake of blood replenishment, and less focused on properly flavoring things.]

[shellhawked]

[The moment they're safely back to the Hall, Hawke grabs a handful of random clothes from her room before vanishing into the nearest dead room that doesn't end in a -4. A shower is the only thing that's going to make her feel remotely like a human person again, even if it means going in with all her bloody clothes on for most of it. She scrubs as hard as she can to get the blood off, watches the red-tinged water go down and still feels the drying stickiness against her skin.

She's down in the kitchen as soon she's able with fresh clothes, make-up in place, and functional enough to help Thomasin. Her hands get to work on cat head biscuits, chopping vegetables and smashing crackers with a rolling pin for Ritz Torte- maybe a little too aggressively smashing crackers. Those are looking like dust. She's not exactly chatty but she'll talk if talked to.

At some point, between her time in the kitchen and when she finally sits down, a detour is made to the library to collect something. By the time things are in full swing the TV in the lounge is several episodes into "Scrubs" season one.

Hawke settles down in the dining hall eventually and plants herself as close to Satsuki as she can get. She's hurt and angry and that's not going away anytime soon...but Satsuki's here and she's breathing and she's not a too warm "corpse" in Hawke's arms. She'll take whatever small mercies she can get.]

scrubs season one

[facultwist]

[ At some point while you're watching Scrubs, Hawke, or somewhere in there, you'll see the impression of a person sitting on the nearest couch that faces the TV. ]

[shellhawked]

[The healing power of medical comedy is here to combat the medical emotional terrorism- hm?

She blinks down at the couch cushion, the gears in her head slowly grinding together to form a coherent thought...and she half-smiles.]

Did you know they only had JD interact with the Janitor for this season so if they didn't get renewed they could say he was a figment of JD's imagination?

[And Vigo actually broke his toe kicking the helmet-]

lounge

[rednails]

[Mariko sits beside Hawke with little fanfare. Honestly, she feels closer to her now than she ever has-- she wonders if Hawke feels that, too. It's rare for someone to share the same anger she does. Her frustrations are always too much but, right now, they feel like just enough.

She doesn't say anything for a little while, just watching with her legs pulled up.]

... Is this funny?

[shellhawked]

[Hawke glances Mariko's way when she feels the shift on the couch from where she's curled herself into a tight ball. Her damp hair hangs over her eyes like a sheep dog in need grooming but hey, she found the energy to do her make-up. Good-bye freckles, hello nose stripe.

Her focus might not have been on Mariko near the end of the trial but hearing her voice ring out with the same passionate rage had been...validating, even if Hawke's anger had been so severely out of line seconds before. They've both spent weeks so angry and frustrated and it had admittedly felt good to be perfectly, emotionally in-sync with someone again.]

...It's been okay but it took a step up when they introduced Dr. Cox'x ex-wife.

[curdle]

[ Thomasin, as has been said, is pretty much in the kitchen and dining hall all night with brief detours! You can find her cooking—scrubbing the absolute hell out of the blender, pausing at the knife block for a second too long when she looks at the empty space, losing herself in the repetitious process of chopping up various root vegetables and squash, deftly trimming a bunch of chicken breasts to bake, brushing olive oil on them, and giving you the opportunity to salvage the chicken situation when she asks: ]

Sorry—would you help me season them? I forgot to bring them over, and now my hands are all...

[ She was absolutely only going to use the tiniest sprinkle of salt and pepper on them, and while some might say that's fine, because they're going in a soup with aromatics, she's doing the whole package, so...

After that, you can find her eating. She wasn't doing much of that at the trial, despite bringing snacks, and even now there's a certain mechanical quality to how she's bringing the spoon to her lips, but she's making herself do it anyway. This time, she'll be the one to check in on people who look super washed with a quiet: ]

Have you eaten?

[ And late at night, when she's cleaning up, she'll ask another question. ]

Do you think we'll have a Saturday tomorrow?

[ At some point during all of this, she seeks out Mariko. She has a question for her, too, but the phrasing depends on what state her friend is in! ]

it's her

[rednails]

[Mariko is well, all things considered. Tired, yes. Annoyed, definitely. But she's already screamed her heart out at Satsuki once and tonight she's going to pretend like she's well and truly dead, which brings her a sense of peace.

Thomasin will find her curled up in the lounge, reading over her most recent addition to her collection of baffling letters.]

[curdle]

[ okay so this wasn't the question but she sees the letter (doesn't read it, just sees it) and she has to ask: ]

... Hatsune's?

[ There's a.) no way Satsuki wrote a letter and b.) no way that letter would still be intact. She sits by her, and still doesn't look at the letter—only Mariko's face and the ringlets of black hair framing it. ]

cooking

[shellhawked]

Mm-? [There's a several second delay between Thomasin's request and Hawke's realizing she's being spoken to, where she stands very still with her hands covered in flour from biscuit kneading before she blinks.] Sure, Thomasin, I've got you. Flour hands beat meat hands.

[She still wipes her hands on her pants and grabs the salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika.]

Need anything else while I'm at it?

[curdle]

[ PAPRIKA... MUCH TO CONSIDER ]

I... think not? Maybe thyme. [ She sets the chicken on a baking sheet, withdrawing her hands so that Hawke has a straight shot, and once that's done she'll turn them all over. ] Thank you, Hawke. For this and all else.