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Josh dropped Elixir.
All sorts of people mill around in Soho at the break of evening. Dusk streaks the sky a shade of blush melting over the faded robin's egg. Crack open that horizon and what kind of birds fly out? Turns out crazy birds and fancy birds piling into the westernmost extremes of Greenwich Village where the rent's cheaper and the places less popular. Not fighting every girl with a story from the Midwest, and every guy with a guitar and big city dreams. Hip Bagel and Cafe Wha? swarm with cool folks.
Sadie, however, has apparently cut the line. It's not her fault. Not really. A bunch of people know her. Hey, look, she did this chap's roommate a favour. Next thing she has a bag of bagels and schmear in good ol' plain or actual strawberry creamcheese. She's small. A bit thin. Definitely could eat them all in a sitting. But rather she sways out, peering at a cheese sprinkled bagel with much interest, about to take a bite out of it.
"Enough to share," an echoed thought. The call has gone out. Answer, world.
And Dead Girl is some sort of peoples- she, too, is hanging out in Soho as evening breaks and the sun begins to tip below the horizon. She's clearly out of place. At least, to those who know when someone isn't wearing particularly good make up and is, in fact, a walking corpse.
Luckily, Dead Girl doesn't seem to have any stiffness issues. Indeed, she's surprisingly peppy- almost a bounce in her step as she hums to herself- a new folk song from some local act that's been racing through Soho's music circles.
She heads towards Sadie- not really aware what is drawing her in- just following her feet.
Josh is wandering by, carrying with him some bags from shopping. Lately he's had something of a budget, but still. Chance or a call he doesn't even know brings him over towards Sadie, his eyes flickering over the crowd with some curiosity on his features. He's dressed in a pair of jeans and a very bright yellow hoodie.
Hip Bagel, it must be said, is like _the_ bagel place. The line-ups are truly worth it, unless someone has celiac disease or no appreciation for the dense calorie count under a dressing of sprinkled poppyseed or smeared creamcheese or basically anything delicious. The smell rolls out through the door. Breathe and weep for having too little to eat.
Sadie is mid-munch when she unfolds the top of the bag, giving the contents a proper look. A half-dozen bagels really is excessive for her. They juggle around. Another bite and she swallows, taking absolute pleasure in everything about her in that moment. Her head tips to the side. For once her habitual umbrella isn't open, just held in her other hand. "Oh, that's good."
One little tap of her kitten-heeled shoe repeats whatever last stanza Dead Girl echoes. "Free bagels!" She holds up the bag. Because why not?
"Hey, Free bagels is a good deal." Dead Girl says, "But, I don't really eat. Still…." The walking Dead Girl says as she slides up to Sadie with a little grin.
She looks Sadie over, then, a little closer. She certainly feels a kinship with the Avatar of Death. Somehow. "There is something about you. Something.. I don't know.. comforting. I like it." she mentions, before snapping. "It must be your shoes. They are super cute."
Josh wanders over, "Free bagels? Why, thank you—" He reaches down for one, takes a bite, and finds himself staring slack-jawed at Dead Girl. His eyes are wide, but unfocused, its like he's not even seeing her even though he's looking in her direction, "What in Einstein's name?" He's just shocked, sensing the mass of organic matter … that's inert. But moving. "What…?"
Free bagels speaks to one unifying constant of the human condition: food. Doesn't matter the brand of human. They like food, and she happily holds out the bag in an era where sharing victuals hardly constituted a health risk and a public safety question. Because, in all honesty, Sadie has all the fear factor of a fluffy puppy.
"Thank you. Aren't they wonderful? I can't remember where I found them." Sadie's mouth tips up in a wider smile. She wiggles her foot right and left. "But yours are lovely too. Soft and comfortable, right? It's smarter than vinyl boots or pointy toes that crush your feet." Those unruly curls blow around her shoulders a little, and Josh's stare gets a look before she holds up her munched bagel. "Was there something wrong with these? They taste great. Try it with the spread, that's supposed to make them better. Oh! Or if you're really hungry, you can have two."
Dead Girl's Organic Matter(TM) is particularly odd. Inert. Completely inert. It isn't decaying. It isn't changing. It just *is*. It's like she's been dead 20 minutes, give or take a few minutes. Everything has halted, though- but there she is. Dead. Not-Dead. Undead?
"Oh yeah, a friend of mine made them, they're authentic. I was on the Reservation for a while, right, just sort of hanging out as I was traveling and they were a present. They're my favorite shoes. I hope they last forever- I mean, I know they won't- but still. A girl can hope!" Dead Girl says with a grin.
"Hey, you okay?" Dead Girl wonders over to Josh, "Do.. do I have something on my face?"
"How…?" Josh shakes his head slowly, his brow furrowed, "You're not alive. You're not just not alive, its like your biochemistry has been put in suspended animation but you're *moving*." He blurts this out, which might draw some looks, but he's just shocked by what he's sensing. He looks to Sadie then, blinking, "Huh? Oh. Uh, no, I'm fine, one's fine, uhh." Realizing what he all just said, he flushes slightly, "Uhhhh, don't mind me, I'm crazy, obviously."
Sadie swings up the umbrella and places the metal stem over her shoulder. One press of a button and the tines spring over, a black flower in bloom. No eyes are taken out in the process. Though she might knock someone behind her, for all the umbrella mostly shades her. An essential thing given her fair complexion, never mind the sun goes down.
"You're not crazy." Her smile widens but softens. "Something seems to have surprised you. It happens all the time in this city. Can't go around a corner without finding something amazing happening. Seeing something you've never encountered before." The black lines around her eyes exaggerate the widening gaze that impacts the surprise conveyed. "So -she's- amazing. This bagel is too. I'm pretty sure you are as well."
Her gaze checks back to the dead woman walking. "You can hope. Even if they don't last forever, enjoy them to the fullest. A reservation, that's… second time I've heard about one today. Where Native Americans live, right?"
"Oh yeah, I got stabbed to death!" Dead Girl offers with a tone that most certainly doesn't read as upset. Indeed, she's still quite bright. "So, right, I was with my boyfriend. Well, Ex-Boyfriend now, obviously, and I'd just gotten my first part in a show- like not in chorus or something, I was going to have an actual speaking part! Anyways, he was super jealous because his career had been…" Dead Girl makes a motion with her hand, and a whistle that goes from high pitched to low- a dive. "Going down."
"Boom. Anyways, we got in a fight and then.." Dead Girl makes a few stabbing motions with her fist on her own heart. "Twelve times." she offers, "I mean, I was sort of awake maybe twenty minutes later. He dumped me near mutant town. It was in all the papers! Tragedy! Aspiring Actress found dead near mutant town. Mutants suspected of murder."
Dead Girl then nods over to Sadie, "Yeah, I mean, forced to live. But, they've got like really good spirits, man. They really treated me well. I just love them." And she's right back talking as if she hadn't just described her own murder.
Josh extends a hand out to Dead Girl, still looking perplexed, "I can bring you back. I mean, normally, I can only do it if the body is fairly ..fresh, but since.. you seem perfectly preserved somehow, it shouldn't be difficult. I don't understand how you're talking and moving while _dead_, but I'm a healer— you may have heard of me if you're in Mutant Town at all, I run the clinic in the Community Center. Doc Gold. Josh. Elixir. Depending on who you you ask." He keeps his offered hand out, but looks over to Sadie, "I'm not usually surprised, by most things."
"Then a surprise is a pleasant surprise." With a merry smile turning up those dark lips, Sadie ducks back under her umbrella. It doesn't quite stand to reason for her to interrupt this interesting turn of events, when someone so want to help, right? She resorts to eating her bagel, rapt with the story told by the hippie and perhaps the efforts to comprehend the obviously comprehensible.
"It sounds like you got the better deal out of it. He end up in jail?" Her head tips to the side. "You don't have to talk about that if you don't want to. I understand. It can be upsetting to retread."
"Bring me back where?" Dead Girl asks of Josh, "Where more can I be? I'm pretty sure I'm at the maximum level of being here." she notes, as she takes Josh's hand. Friendly, at least, for a corpse. And, there is absolutely no doubt that she is, in fact, dead. No heartbeat. No blood- it probably drained out from those twelve stab wounds. If it weren't for her desire to speak, she wouldn't be breathing even.
"Oh, no. He's not in jail. I've been terrorizing him for months now. I mean, that's fair, right? He killed me, I drive him a little bonkers? I can do this thing, right, where I can walk through walls- so, he's woken up with me in his bed like half a dozen times." She puts on the most pitiful look, "I loved you, Chad. Why did you murder me, Chad?" she sounds like she's on the verge of tears.. "And then I go all ghosty and fall through the bed." she grins wide, "Why would I want him to go to jail? I'm having too much fun making him think he's losing his mind."
"Bring you back to life." Josh says with some concern in his features, "I have no idea how you are being preserved, but it might not last, which is why I'm saying… I can probably bring you back to life. I've resurrected people before." With his other hand, he takes a bite from his bagel, not bothering with spread. He frowns a little bit, "That's…" Very cruel? He doesn't say it.
The fact Sadie sees what she sees changes nothing about being polite and friendly. They'll have to rake her over the coals and put her to a torch to even earn anything less than that approving smile, or the curiously raised brows. "Oh, right. That would definitely match your description. You're in one piece and really friendly. As far as these things go, basically no one comes out that mobile and enthusiastic except…" Spoilers. Her bagel touches her lips. That lipstick is truly grandiose, it hasn't smudged or even collected a crumb.
Danger, Will Robinson, really not normal.
"Losing his mind for the crime he committed may seem fair. But I'm afraid that meting out of punishment has a bad habit of coming round in the end." She draws a little circle. "Not the way you might like."
"I mean, I'm not going to kill him." Dead Girl says, "Even though that might also be fair. I mean, is self-defense after the fact anything worth doing? It seems like a lot of work, though. Anyways, now he's guilt ridden and feels terrible all the time. I'm sure I'll get bored with it, eventually." Dead Girl says as she looks over at something.
"I'm good being Dead Girl, thank you though. I might take you up on that another time." She says to Josh. "You know, when I get the desire for some physical love or want to go on a bender. Absolutely if I want to take some acid or smoke some pot. Let me tell you, I miss those days, sometimes." Dead Girl says, her speech slowing as she stars at *something* in empty space.
Something no one else can see. Except for Sadie- a ghost. A young man. Standing. Looking towards DEad Girl and her red, glowing eyes. The Ghost speaks ~Help My Sister. Please.~
Dead Girl looks over to the pair, "So. I have something I need to do. I hope to see you around." she offers to both with a friendly smile as she then goes to follow this ghost- this young, dead man, that only very specific people would be able to see. "Lead the way." she says softly.
Josh just sort of stares at Dead Girl, letting his hand fall before he shakes his head as she heads off, turning to look at Sadie, and it is only then that he notices there is something odd about her too. It's just a little more subtle. "I'm starting to think I should have stayed home." He laughs softly and shakes his head.
Sadie certainly -can- see that, and it probably reacts to Sadie as a beacon in the night. The dead know on a level what the living do not, and more than likely respond a bit accordingly. Her lifted ultraviolet gaze wears that curlicue mark enough to send a pang of existential dread with the weight of a symphony blaring it.
"Have a good night. I'm sure we'll cross paths sooner or later." Even so. Her smile lifts and she salutes with her bagel. "Oh, it's just a standard level ghost, fairly recently dead. Nothing to be overly worried about. That one is concerned rather than really upset."