In Suspension (Sawyer)

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Things were going pretty well. Lucy had successfully avoided running into the one person she was actively avoiding. Times were hard; even Lucy had to admit that it was difficult to go from talking to someone every day to cutting them off completely. But the eldest Serrano was nothing if not stubborn and committed to her actions. She was also smart; smart about where she went and that included visiting 403 less than she normally would. It was hard to have someone she was friends with living with someone she didn't want to ever deal with again.

And it came to a point in some moments. Like the one just passed.

Evony had walked into her dorm room common area to find Sawyer and Lucy. Lucy had perched herself on the bench in the kitchen, fiddling with a half empty - or half full, depending on your preference - water bottle. She was halfway through a laugh amidst her own story when the door had opened, and as she looked over her shoulder (actually hoping it was the giant half-breed), she felt her humoured voice drop away to nothing. Her attention turned back around, the inattentive greeting offered by the blue haired wonder slipping out of her mind like static through silence.

Just as quickly as Evony'd come in, she was gone again; across the room and into her dorm. The room resonated with such nothingness that the Australian was sure she heard the door lock behind her. Lucy briefly stared at the closed door before she shook her head and glanced back at Sawyer.

"Shit, what was I saying?"

[Sawyer Lynn]

It was pretty weird not seeing Lucy every other day outside of classes but tot he voice mimic, it hadn't registered properly that there was anything wrong. She supposed she should have noted the difference in her own roommate as well but things too easily went over the brunette firecracker's head.

But she was trying very hard to change that these days. She'd been getting complaints from her teachers and her peers. Normally she would have just asked them to piss off but what was it they said about dripping water and stone?

It still didn't change the fact that her obtuseness was causing rifts between her and so many other people. And because of that, when the moment between Lucy and Evony passed, Sawyer looked a little blank. "Wh..."

Shaking her head, she turned to face Lucy and shrugged. "Something about a tree. The hell was that?" She asked, staring at the closed door of her blue-haired carnie roommate.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

It'd been easy to handle the situation around Sawyer. It wasn't that she wasn't perceptive - Lucy wouldn't say that. It was that she often didn't seem overtly interested in the inner workings of Lucy's personal life. And that was fine for her. Good, even. She rarely ever had an interesting personal life, and she preferred to keep it to herself.

But then, look at how well that had gone for her.

Running her hand along her jaw, she snapped her attention back when Sawyer asked what she asked. Her eyebrows raised a fraction in surprise, and she was quick to offer a response; "Why? What'd she say?"

[Sawyer Lynn]

Narrowing her eyes a little, Sawyer swore she saw panic in her prank-mate's eyes before it got masked with something else. It might have been her own mind playing tricks on her. Yeah, her own mind. Why would Lucy panic?

Then again, her response didn't endear Sawyer to a different thought. Her eyes slowly went back to normal before she shrugged and looked back at the tattooed Australian.

"Nothing that you're not saying either." Sawyer frowned just slightly. "I ain't one of them stupid gossip girls or some shit but...something up?"

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy stared. She often did when things caught her attention. It was a step before scrutinising for information or a flaw of some kind. She'd stared at the door as it closed and after, her dark eyes fixated for a brief moment or two. But that was all it likely took for anyone to catch on, even if they had falsely exchanged their own form of pleasantries.

Because then she stared at Sawyer, and took it that one step further. She was wondering what had been said, not if. Surely the lying little blue-haired shit didn't actually know how to keep her mouth shut. "Sorta. Maybe, I don't know." Lucy replied, twisting at the lid of the bottle in her hands.

"What's she been like? Y'know, since we got back?"

[Sawyer Lynn]

Sawyer narrowed her eyes when the Australian finally answered, not the answer she was expecting or wanted to hear. She wasn't sure what she had expected though; Lucy was a mystery to her. They had been friends for awhile but it had always been just pranks upon drunken laughter upon innuendos.

Not to say Sawyer didn't enjoy that, she did. Their friendship was one of the few that she would like to continue. It just never got to the stage where the voice mimic would think feelings would involve. At least not relationshippy feelings.

It was weird. Not necessarily bad weird but just...

Should she continue? Would Lucy let her continue?

Her thoughts were derailed when the ink manipulator looked 'nonchalant' when she asked how Evony had been like since the school retreat.

Now that she thought about it, the distancing and quietness of the carnie had been a little odd. Then again, Sawyer wasn't too bugged out by it since they weren't so much friends as mutual acquaintances of Lucy, really.

"Well...considering I never actually cared to notice before..." Sawyer made a face to show that she didn't see the need to answer. But she did anyway. "I dunno man, we don't really talk that much to begin with. But she's been cooped up in her room mostly."

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy offered a small nod of understanding. Of course Sawyer wouldn't have noticed before - she should have assumed as much. But if nothing else, it meant Evony was learning how to keep her mouth shut and her shit to herself. And that meant Lucy broke her own cardinal rule - in a sense, she was stirring things up again. When they should have been left alone.

"Good." Lucy said, shrugging simply. As if a statement so rough could be so simple. "We don't talk anymore," She added, as if that wasn't already obvious by now. "So... Yeah. Just curious, I guess."

[Sawyer Lynn]

“Oh really? That’s not obvious at all.” Sawyer grabbed the bag of chips she had opened earlier and started munching, feeling like they were stepping into foreign territory right then.

“Wanna tell me why you’re not talking anymore?” She asked, genuinely curious to know. “I mean, you disappear into her room a lot and then suddenly it’s Cold Shoulder Town population one?”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy idly shifted in her seat, her palm curling around the lid of the bottle in her hand. Keeping still had never been her forte, and when she was uncomfortable, that only seemed to multiply.

Finally glancing back at Sawyer - and it was only for a moment, at that - Lucy shrugged her shoulders. She wondered if it mattered what she said. She wondered what would be a good way to explain it without explaining it. "She's a liar." Lucy furrowed her eyebrows, "I mean, we all lie and shit like that." And given her tone, she clearly had no issues with that; "But I don't think she ever said anything she meant." A minor inflection in her tone - the hint that it irked her more than it should have.

"She was like," Pause, "Supposed to be a friend, or whatever. Y'know?" She looked at Sawyer again, her mouth twisting to one side. And she shook her head; of course she didn't know.

[Sawyer Lynn]

Turning to Lucy when she finally responded after a moment of fidgeting, the voice mimic frowned lightly. She was about to ask what the problem was with lying, since they did it all the time, but Lucy showed that wasn't the problem. Again, Sawyer frowned because she didn't quite understand what Lucy meant with her next statement.

But it clearly bugged her, Sawyer noted, and that was worth a follow up.

Flinching at the question and the head shake, Sawyer shrugged. "Yeah, guess so." She said with her own head shake.

"So you're pissed that she lied?" Sawyer asked, still not getting what was happening between her friend and her roommate.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy glanced at Sawyer from the corner of her eye, reciprocating her frown with equal intensity. Rowan would have been easier to talk to - he didn't know her. He sure as hell didn't live with her.

She ran her hand along her heavily tattooed arm, as if the act soothed the inhabitants that claimed her skin.

When Sawyer questioned her again, Lucy took a brief moment to stare at her. She supposed it was her fault; she wasn't very honest about any of it. It had always been a secret for this very reason. Lucy had the terrible feeling that Sawyer was going to laugh at her. And while normally she didn't mind, this was different.

"We sorta had a thing." Lucy admitted, shrugging her shoulders. Jesus, she really didn't want to have to spell it out for her any more than that.

[Sawyer Lynn]

Sawyer backed away when Lucy stared at her. Were it anybody else, the voice mimic would have stared right back but it was Lucy. There was something about the brunette's stare that both intrigued and scared the crap out of Sawyer.

When the ink manipulator finally answered, the first reaction Sawyer had was curiosity. How in the hell did Lucy get involved with someone other than herself? Not to say her friend was self-absorbed or anything but for the past year, Sawyer knew Lucy to not be...to be perfectly blunt, she always thought Lucy hated everybody and barely tolerated her.

"As in..." Sawyer paused before a frown set on her face. "Wow...that was what all the lingering looks were for." She whispered softly before looking up at Lucy, the frown still intact. "What happened to uh...I mean...did you guys break-up?"

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

The break in the conversation wasn't awkward, it was uncomfortable. If only because Lucy was acutely aware she was entering new territory in this friendship, and she didn't know what was going to happen. Were they really good friends? Good enough to talk about things like this? Or were they supposed to gloss over the bigger issues that needed to be talked out?

She figured now was as good a time as any to find out.

Her mouth twisted and she offered a nod. As in...

"I guess so." Lucy replied, just as quietly. Though she couldn't really confirm that. She was always prone to staring. Reeling back in her seat, Lucy stared upwards for a small amount of time, as if stretching her neck out. "We weren't a couple, it was just a thing." Except there was no just about it. "I dunno. It was okay, then she just fucked it all up."

[Sawyer Lynn]

Sawyer unwittingly started to scratch the side of her neck as Lucy continued to talk. She wasn’t even aware that she was getting physically uncomfortable but she didn’t move from her spot or ask Lucy to stop. She was, however, quite aware that they were stepping into a pocket of their friendship she didn’t know was previously there. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, she supposed, but it was definitely something new.

With Lucy’s finishing statement, Sawyer frowned even deeper. An instinctual anger rose in the voice mimic which transferred to her left clenching the couch arm while the other dug into the seat. Sawyer hadn’t ever felt this sort of anger since her breakdown of ’03, when her parents got their divorce finalised. But that had been more disappointed anger. This time, it was just plain unadulterated anger.

She looked to Evony’s room from the corner of her eyes before turning back to Lucy. “The hell did she do?”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Sawyer's reaction was a little lost on Lucy, primarily because she didn't expect to be looking for anything. Her eyes were turned down, idly glancing at her feet as they shifted about. She hated sitting still. Especially in times like these.

She ran her fingers across the tattoos on her skin again, like chasing a non existent itch across her arm. She could feel them shifting slightly; expressions darkening, if that were possible. They needed to calm down, at least for the duration of an explanation.

"It's hard to explain, okay?" The Australian started. Truthfully, she didn't know where to begin. "I mean, we weren't a real thing. But she said all this stuff, and I guess I believed her. Enough to - I dunno - trust her, I guess." And it didn't take a genius to know that trusting someone was a rarity. It was better when there were no chances given. Though this, within itself, was a chance. "Anyway, she hooked up with an Ex, made me meet the ex and then had a go at me for not being nice to her?"

Lucy raised her hand to run it across the line of her own jaw. A habit; "I mean, she said some really fucked up things." The specifics of which weren't really important. "So I legit threw her out of the cabin. Just picked up her shit and threw it out." Pausing, her eyes caught the water bottle in her hands again. She twisted at the lid for something to do. "She said it was really important. Whatever this thing even was." Lucy added, her voice low. Her eyebrows furrowed; "If it was, she wouldn't have-"

She stopped herself. There were so many ways to finish that, none of which were fitting enough.