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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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."

The possibility that it could be gone after you've died once... it's tempting. But he's more concerned about anyone who has already contracted it, because he's just doomed them to all of this suffering that just gets worse and worse until it finally destroys you. And what if it isn't gone when you come back? What if it just starts all over?

He shouldn't have been brought here.

"So what should I do?" He asks nobody in particular. Maybe it's directed towards Tim, or some... higher force or whatever that exists in this place.

"Stay alive." It's not perfect advice. It hardly constitutes as advice at all. Though where Tim is concerned, it counts well enough. He has a difficult enough time reminding himself of it on a good day. Stay alive. Stay alive.

Stay alive. That would be enough.

"Maybe let people know that you're sick. Someone here might be able to cure whatever it is. Might not seem possible but - it could be."

Cloud leans his head against the tree a bit, sighing quietly. Not quite the answer he wanted to hear, but not an unwelcome one, either. Stay alive. Easy enough for him to say. But what about anyone else? He's pretty sure it's impossible for him to die at this point, after everything.

"Toriel-- the... goat monster woman. Person. Said she had already contacted someone awhile back. Name's Ford, I guess. She never told me until earlier." Maybe it was for his own good, but he still didn't want to have to find out like... that. "I don't want any more scientists gettin' their hands all over me."

But he can at least warn people. So this doesn't happen again. So they don't get sick, too. Might be easier for him to avoid others this way too, if they know he's contagious.

"There's-- there's no cure, where I'm from. I doubt one's gonna be found here, either."

Toriel. Ford. Names he only knows in passing, from cursory looks at the network. Can't say he doesn't understand Cloud's hesitancy. He's pretty damn near sick of anyone in a white coat putting their hands over him as well, and since when has anything about him been curable?

"Maybe not a cure," he says. "But maybe it's treatable."

Living with this shit, living with the stuff he has to live with - it doesn't go away. It never goes away. It just sits there, heavy on his chest or in his head or on his back, and he just has to learn how to mitigate it.

He does need to get himself cleaned up sooner rather than later. But even leaning against the tree is taking all of his energy and he sinks back down, still leaning against it, but sitting. Just... sit for awhile, try to regain his bearings. Then he'll go.

"Materia, sometimes. Too much of it causes it to advance worse, though. I've tried." And he's kind of hoping he can pull another chest of it out of the closets at some point. But would it even work here? There's no Lifestream, no magic to communicate with. He might as well just ask for shiny rocks.

"Wrappin' it, washin' it. It's about all you can do. Faceplanting in the middle of a public garden isn't advised, either."

"No, but people say that about everything." Tim's hardly the best guy to be dispensing humor, even the dark kind, but it's about all he's good for. Advice is a no-go on most days, and even now, the most he can offer is something that may be vaguely helpful.

"Take it easy for the next few days, maybe." He doesn't look at Cloud directly, instead digging around in his pockets for his lighter and a pack of cigarettes. "Unless you're big on sleep-walking."

Take it easy. Easier said than done. He could just be reading a book and an attack comes on and suddenly he's waking up on the floor again. Just by doing nothing. But he supposes it's better than going out while already straining himself, so...

Life goes on.

"Sometimes. Not often." A little dark humor, himself. But the context would be too much to explain. "Not thrilled with the idea of wakin' up with my ass soaked in the fountain again."

At least this position is a little better than before. At least he's properly resting, now.

"...never really saw the appeal in smokin'. Got a friend like you - always has a cigarette in his mouth."

"And then you'd fuck up the water supply," says Tim, because dark humor is, once again, the only kind he knows. The kind that goes hand-in-hand with a deadpan delivery and a flat word, which is all a guy like him has at his disposal.

He taps the end of his cigarette on the edge of its pack contemplatively for a moment.

"It's a bad habit," he says at last, with a shrug. "Kills you faster."

Bonus.

"I get it already. I'm dangerous." Always has been. Always gets in the way or fucks something or other up. Looks like that much hasn't changed here, at least. "Guess I'll invest in a leash or somethin' when I sleep."

Spotting the lighter for a moment, Cloud curls his own fingers in thought for a moment. Then he starts pulling his stained gloves off, tossing them between himself and Tim in the grass.

"'Least it's useful for one thing. Burn 'em." He won't screw up the doors trying to get inside to clean up this way. Not much, but it's something.

Can't really tell if that one's a joke or not, but Tim's gonna assume it is. Probably for the best if they just take it lightly. And hey, Cloud can join Tim on the "I'm dangerous" club.

Too bad Tim's not eager to admit to that bit. He eyes the gloves as they lie in the grass, eyebrows lifted skeptically.

"And set the lawn on fire?"

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