entrancelogs | I'm only joking

Entry tags:

I'm only joking

Who: Cloud and YOU
Where: Outside the mansion, in the gardens.
When: 11/15
Rating: PG-13 for language and allusions to body horror, body rot, nasty things
Summary: Cloud had a teeny tiny episode in the garden and has been in a coma for four days.
The Story: Time is a funny thing. A concept that loses meaning in the face of grander events, when the whole wide world comes crashing down and you have a small timeframe to save it. Or maybe it's an estimate of how much longer you'll even be on the world at all. Five years feels like ten minutes. Another year feels like five.

He doesn't know how long it is before he can see again, face buried within the weird, unnatural flowers that fix themselves, that move away from him as he shuffles. Flowers were alive, but not that much. A weird world. Weird rules. Some of them coated with a horrible-smelling black stench--

Ah.

His head's pounding. It must've happened again. The smell's coming from him. Smeared on his face and his arm is drenched in it, though most of it has long-since dried up. The arm's still shaking, though, his other hand laid over it in a vain attempt to put pressure on the pain.

What a fucking mess.

It doesn't sound like anyone's around, though. And the light's stabbing through his vision, making the headache worse. So he closes his eyes again, laying it back down, trying to control his breathing. He'll... get up in a few minutes, wash himself off before anyone sees. Too much effort at the moment.

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"Wasn't gonna, but thanks." The droll responses snap up automatically, before his brain can really catch up to what it is he's looking at - the way the guy's eyes blaze green and then not again.

He's having trouble figuring what the guy's deal is, exactly, but hey - he's kinda got some time to adjust to things being a little different across different world.

"Seriously, man. You, uh...need some help there? Maybe some water?"

"Told you. It's fine."

Except not really. His legs shift a little as if he's trying to move to stand, but he doesn't get further than a slight shuffle in the bed of flowers. Moving causes more pain, more discomfort, and the vertigo's keeping him rooted to the garden.

Heh.

Nothing about this is funny.

He sighs a little and closes his eyes again, not taking his hand off the mass on his left arm. He needs to move, clean up, get away from people. But none of that is going to be happening, is it?

"Don't need to see this."

"Yeah, well I'm seeing it anyway." He can understand helplessness. He can understand not wanting help, not believing you deserve help, being afraid of being helped - yeah. He gets that. And this guy right here, he's in the thick of it and he's all on his own while he deals with it.

He's been there. Maybe not in this exact scenario, but he can look at the guy without a scrap of pity - the lowest insult - and help him even out.

"Look, man. This is happening, whether you like it or not." He's learned to accept shit like this as it comes. He learned to accept it a long, long time ago. "You're not fine. Anyone can see it."

This was bound to come up eventually, wasn't it. The vaguest thought of 'if i'd had a cure by now, this wouldn't happen' passes through his head, but it would also mean finding a cure for 500 or more innocent people, children, families, friends... maybe even the whole damned Planet.

It doesn't work like that. There's no running away, here. Not far, anyway.

This just sucks.

"I just..." Just what? Need a minute? He's been saying that for the past ten minutes. Twenty, thirty. His whole life. "...don't know how you could even help."

He doesn't even look at Tim. Hadn't even meant to say that much, but here we are.

"It's fatal. No cure. You touch it, you die, too."

Boy. That sounds familiar. Both the solid refusal of help when it's offered because hey, it's hopeless anyway, and the idea that there's just no way out.

Never cured. Yeah, no. Never. You don't escape what it is you live with. You just learn to have it there in your brain for the rest of your life, however long or short that might be. Personally, he's hoping for short.

"So what happens once it hits?" He's got a lifetime of experience in keeping his voice level, and he thinks he manages pretty well now. Might just be because it's easier since it's not him.

Of course it's easier.

He doesn't want to talk about this. It's exactly the kind of thing he wanted to avoid for however long he would be here. He just had to go outside, didn't he. Had to go and make himself vulnerable again.

"Your... body destroys itself. Tries to fight it off and overcompensates. Hits harder and faster in kids." At some point, his tone had lost any inflection. "Your body rots from the inside out. And you die."

There's also the mental and physical seizures, not knowing exactly how long you have until you die, the horrible physical mutations and stumbling in the street and vomiting every which way. On and on and on it goes.

"A seizure," says Tim. A bit more intense than your typical epileptic seizure, he's pretty sure, because unless this guy is exaggerating or using figures of speech - and really, there's no reason to believe he isn't, with the way he looks like he's more or less leaking oil all over the grass - yeah, it looks like it's taking its toll.

"Look," he says slowly, pulling the words out evenly. "Is there someone I can call or something? 'Cause you're not fine, okay? But you can't just...stay here. Someone else is gonna find you. Someone who might actually touch this stuff and get sick."

And he knows exactly why he's not dead yet. It's the same for everything else that had ever happened to him. The failure, the reject. Everyone else would go quicker than he would.

That's not a very good blessing.

"...seizure's part of it, yeah." He almost wants to laugh. Almost wants to wish the only thing he had to deal with was the seizures. "I'm..."

Fine? Nah. There's no 'fine' when you're going to die. There's nothing you can say to make it better. Nobody would believe you. Just a waste of breath and energy.

"...alone, here. Haven't met anyone from where I am. I'm gonna get up, okay? I'll bounce back from this."

Always does, no matter what. He's had worse spills, honestly. So he shuffles a bit in the garden, trying to get his legs under him and his arms sturdy enough to push himself upwards. And he does manage to get to his feet!

For a moment. Then he's just stumbling backwards with just a tree to grab hold of.

"Maybe you will," he says, but before he can follow that up with something a little more grimly realistic, the guy is up and standing, wobbling like a newborn deer. There's something nauseatingly Jay-like in all of it: his inability to admit his own obvious sickness, the way he keeps trying to press on through it regardless, gamely refusing help, refusing he's got a problem at all.

The asshole's gonna get himself killed.

That said, it's a damn good thing he's already warned Tim not to touch him, because even if Tim's hands raise steadyingly, palms out, he doesn't make a move to close the distance between them, unsteady as he is on his feet.

"Easy," says Tim, bracingly. "Look. I dunno how things are where you're from, but you're not...completely alone here. Okay?"

Yeah. And have all of them find out about this garbage. It's the whole reason he went and hid out in the first place.

Cloud just. Takes a moment to catch his breath, try and sort out his vision before he can look up at Tim again and... ha. He can feel himself looking like a haggard mess. None of this was supposed to happen. People aren't supposed to dot over him. That's how they get killed.

He leans against the tree. The lightheadedness still creeps up from the back of his skull, but he bites it down.

"No, I... I know. But you shouldn't get involved with me. You'll get hurt."

The refusal is met with a blank, even stare. Boy. The number of times he's run that line through his head. Not that it isn't true. Pretty sure this guy is already fucked by sheer virtue of laying eyes on Tim at all. Hadn't taken Alex very long, had it? Or Brian. Or Jay. Or any of them.

Didn't take very long at all.

"How 'bout we cool it on the cliché tortured hero lines, huh?" says Tim, dryly. "That never stops anybody. I'm here right now, and I might be an asshole but I'm not just gonna ditch you when you can't even stand."

"I'm standin'."

Barely. Probably not a good retort, either. This guy's not gonna go down without a fight, and neither is he. "So... look, what'd you expect to do? Toriel tried the healing magic already. Not gonna work. There's... really not much that can be done."

He doesn't even know him. People made friends with Zack easily, not him. And certainly not like this.

"...except for, uh. Gettin' this all off me, I guess. But I can do that, too."

"Barely."

He's not gonna ask who Toriel is, because he's got no idea. And healing magic is just...all right, he's gonna let that one wash on over him too. Magic is a thing here, he knows it is, and while he's not sure what healing magic even looks like, it's at least got the courtesy to describe its function in his name.

"Yeah? You gonna trip your way to the shower?" He gestures at the stuff that's still smeared across the grass like black grease stains. "Is this stuff toxic too?"

Cloud just.

Stares at Tim for a very long time.

"You know how long I've been stickin' this out," Awhile. Probably the better part of a year now, which is also surprising in its own right. He actually lived to see another fucking year while some people, normal people don't last the first month. "And how long I've been handlin' this on my own? I don't need anyone to hold my hand."

Literally.

"Past couple times it happened here, it was gone from the flowers within an hour. Somethin' about this place and a sense of self-preservation, I guess." He sighs again, straightening himself. "So it's only toxic to people, yeah."

And the unnerving similarities just keep cropping up, don't they? Guy's already had to deal with this a few times here. He elects to shove the thought to the posterior of his skull. Let future-him deal with it.

"Yeah, you're really dealing with it great," says Tim, folding his arms across his chest with a meaningful lift of his eyebrows. "Collapsing in the middle of the garden where literally anyone could trip over you and get all infected? Yeah, you're a regular poster boy for dealing with it."

Too much? Too scathing?

Too bad.

"So I'll just stay inside from now on," He quips back, finally feeling well enough to move off the tree a bit and stand up straight. "You're right. Shouldn't have put everyone in danger like that."

Didn't think about it that way. Didn't really think at all. Cloud sighs a bit to himself, trying not to let himself get too upset. He's a mess, and should probably focus more on going inside and getting himself washed off properly. Before anyone else comes and stumbles upon all this.

"Sorry."

"That's not what I meant." Easy to shoulder that guilt your own damn self, isn't it? He should've known better, really. Tim sighs, scrubbing a hand briefly over his face as he contemplates how best to proceed next.

"Look. Let's - start over here. I'm Tim."

This is all still really awkward, even if he hadn't blacked out in the middle of the garden. He's a haggard mess, made a mess that people could step in and get violently ill from. He needs to be more careful. This isn't his Planet anymore. It's not a disease everyone just knows about.

Especially when this place is so small.

"Cloud. Sorry... 'bout all this. But I'm alright. I'm not dead yet. But I should probably stick around a bit longer and make sure all this disappears again before someone steps in it."

Cloud. Huh. Guess he knows him. He's definitely talked to a guy named Cloud before, if only via text. Makes sense he wouldn't have known or recognized him. Never seen his face.

"I think I know you." Tim glances at the mess spattered across the grass and blows out a sigh between his teeth. "You can head in. Get yourself cleaned up. I'll look over the place. Make sure no one touches it or whatever."

To be perfectly honest, he's looking forward to getting washed up and just laying down for the next few hours, because he can already feel the stabbing headache prickling through his skull whenever one of these episodes happens. And the headache makes his fuse shorter. Tends to snap at people when they haven't done anything wrong.

Like now.

He screwed up. Should've been more careful. He just doesn't want anyone else to get sick because of him.

"It's... not an easy thing to explain. Maybe I can get some books from the closet, too. But it's important you don't touch it." He's able to pull his hand away from the tree now, too. Stand up without wobbling too much.

"I got you the first time, man. It's fine." Don't think about it. Don't say its name. He's acquainted with stuff that's forbidden, in a lot of ways. Stuff you shouldn't think about, stuff you shouldn't go near. This is no different.

"Doesn't matter what it is, yeah?" He lifts his eyebrows in Cloud's direction, almost dryly, 'cause figures - figures he'd know someone who has another thing he can't talk about, or just plain doesn't want to. It's fine, though. It's really...fine. "I can just say it's tar or some bullshit."

Geostigma is... complicated. That's why there had been so many books on its study and research in such a short period of time. It was an epidemic that nobody knew how to control, but it was mostly concentrated on Midgar and Edge.

Heh. The two cities furthest away from any other civilization. Almost sounds like something out of one of Yuffie's zombie movies.

Except this is real, and not so easily dealt with. It's not just him.

"Probably kinder to look at it that way." Tar. Yeah. Not clotted, rotting blood and skin all gouged together in a mass. Though maybe describing it like that would make people even less compelled to come in contact with it. "Even if I did find a cure here, there's no way I could pass on that information back home, huh?"

He'd forget everything about Wonderland once he went back. The stigma would probably reappear, too.

"Yeah, no. Sorry."

The apology slips its way out before he gets a lot of time to process why. It's not his fault, and it's not like he can blame himself or anyone for being sick. Some people are just born wrong, huh?

"But at least you might be able to keep it from spreading here," Tim adds, which is - not very reassuring, he realizes belatedly. He's not much for optimism. Or anything beyond his standard-grade nihilistic cynicism.

At least a cure might be possible for something physical, huh?

That must be nice.

He was actually doing okay with the whole 'not spreading it' thing until now... and an earlier incident, that he doesn't like bringing up. He did a good job of preventing it back home, too, by... not going back home. Secluding himself far away in a place where nobody would think to look.

A place where no-one's ever been.

All alone.

...

Why did that phrase sound so familiar in his mind?

"It won't... nobody'll get sick here. I-I promise." His voice is quiet, trembling a bit. He can't promise that. He can't... confirm that he won't hurt anyone else, because he will. He always does. "...if you're. Killed by an illness. Does that illness carry over to when you wake up again?"

"I dunno," says Tim. He can't be of much help where the subject of death is concerned, despite witnessing it more times than he ever thought he'd have to. But with Wonderland, there's no guessing how it works here - if it'll resurrect people in the same state when they'd arrived, or if it'll heal them of every little injury. It raises the question of whether or not you end up in the same body as before, even.

And it's officially too late for an existential crisis, so Tim sets that thought aside and elects not to touch it again.

"I'm really not much of an expert on Wonderland," he admits with a shrug. "But I guess if I've learned one thing since ending up here, it's that a lot of weird shit is possible that you wouldn't have thought was otherwise."

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