AFTER-ICE-CREAM-PARTY

[pecker]

[Boy everyone is so bloodthirsty tonight. And now a kid is dead and another is gonna execute. Do y'all need some baskin robbins, because it seems like you do!!! So before everyone can leave, Niwatori raises her voice louder than it's gone before now to draw a little attention, and then deflates immediately when she actually gets it.]

Excuse me, please! U-um... this case was really hard, and I think we could all use some time to cool our heads before we finally go back. So... ice cream? Who's with me?

[she'll lead the pack there and anyone else can go home or to visit Clarisse on the set of Orange is the new Black.

Niwa's not that good of a host though, she just gets her own ice cream and lets everyone serve themselves. Who is she to limit your freedom. (Someone who doesn't want to be partly responsible for a Millium Monstrosity, that's who.)]

Comments

[snideper]

[She's quiet for a long couple of moments once Natalie has finished; at some point her eyes had gone unfocused and distant again, and it takes that time for her to ground herself back to here and now. Even besides her inability to just say thank you, to express sincerity if she could ever find it in her, when she thinks of some lost, cruel child high up alone in the snow with so sweet a sister undergoing such a journey, loved by everyone along the way, coming back for her presumed-dead playmate over some silly childhood promise—their names are Kai and Gerda, but Clarisse cannot imagine them at all.

What Clarisse ends up saying, strained and uncertain, like she has never asked another person about any mundane detail about themselves before, is,] Do you...have...any siblings?

[robitussin]

[Almost immediately, and more forcefully than it needs to come out:]

No.

[Which might be strange, considering... Well. Dislikes: her brother. Regardless, after a few moments, less firmly:]

...Only child. Sorry.

[snideper]

[If the prickly response bothers Clarisse, it doesn't show; she just responds with a little hum of acknowledgement. She hadn't been any different, after all, furiously scribbling Reese's name off her list of likes the afternoon she arrived.]

It just...seemed like a weird choice for someone without any siblings. That story. I guess.

[robitussin]

[A pause, and then a shrug.]

I don't know. It just came to mind. Not a fan...?

[snideper]

No, it isn't that, I didn't...hate it, or anything.

[Her expression...scrunches a little, almost in discomfort more than disgust, and she shifts in a way that makes her braid fall back and unwind itself a little more, and she pushes it unconsciously back over her shoulder.]

...It was fine.

[nailed it]

[robitussin]

[After a moment:]

Well, good.

[And then there's another pause, uncertain of what to do next.]

Anything you want to talk about...?

[snideper]

Um.

[She looks away into her cell, looks away out of it, starts to fold her arms tight in front of her again, lets them fall loosely crossed into her lap—has to move one hand up to adjust her braid in front of her shoulder again as it comes dangerously close to unraveling, but her hand lingers there for a moment, and her fingers move lightly over the pin at the end.]

...Hey, would you... [Her eyes move to the pin, then the floor.] ...use...something like this?

[robitussin]

[She pauses for a long moment, confused and surprised. Both accepting it and not accepting seem horrible to her.]

Do you... want me to? Use it, I mean.

[snideper]

I mean— [She huffs, not half as indignant as she wants to sound.] I just—I don't like waste. That's all. It works just fine but it'll probably just get burned or buried or whatever.

[robitussin]

[There's another long moment before she shifts, moving a hand through the bars.]

Okay. I won't let it go to waste.

[snideper]

[Clarisse pulls the arrow-shaped stick from the circle and sets them both in one hand to leave the other free to untangle the plaits in her hair some, thoughtlessly yanking out the strands that get caught in her arm guard. And she...hesitates, a moment longer, with the hair pin in her palm. Here she holds the closest thing to proof that Reese loved her—but if she doesn't understand that, even now, she couldn't hope to understand Natalie if she had any more time than she does at all. In the end, this, too, comes down to usefulness.

Clarisse presses the accessory into Natalie's palm, harder than she means to.]

[robitussin]

[As she watches her hesitate, she almost takes her hand away, shakes her head, does something... But before she can convince herself that the right move, it's already in her hand.

Before she brings it back through the bars, though:]

Are you sure?

[snideper]

Yeah.

[Her answer comes quickly enough, at least, even if Clarisse needs another short moment before she draws her hand back.]

I mean, what am I gonna do with it?

[robitussin]

[She doesn't have a response to that, and while she nearly just slips it into her pocket... Part of her feels like Clarisse won't want it to move out of sight, and besides - I don't like waste.

Slowly, she slides the arrow out before moving it into her hair, using it to fasten a ponytail at the nape of her neck.]

I'll, um, keep it safe.