entrancelogs | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh. Uh. He didn't think about that. Nobody's really tried to burn the 'stigma before.

Cloud lets it go only for about a minute or two before he stomps the toe of his boot down on the gloves, before the fire can spread too far onto the grass and before it does create a toxic gas cloud. It might not, but better safe than sorry.

"'least we're outside, if they are." In as much as 'outside' you can get in Wonderland. He's still not entirely convinced they're anywhere but a closed confinement here. "Won't affect me, anyway."

Yeah, that's. Reassuring.

His nostrils are too full of smoke for him to tell if there's anything gummy in the breeze, anything that might be reminiscent of the sour smell of sickness, or whatever the hell the runoff from Cloud's illness is. Either way, he doesn't feel any better or worse than he did a minute ago, and no breeze wafts anything sickening his way.

"Yeah, should be fine." It's...probably fine, right? Wonderland has ways of mitigating this stuff. Wouldn't want its entire population to turn into a shambling, diseased mess, right? Probably not, no.

"Wonderland'll probably...filter it out if it gets necessary. Or something like that."

He always wondered what happened to the Planet whenever someone got this gunk in the soil or the water supply or spread it around anywhere other than other people. Did it just spread into the earth and dissipate, or did it make the Lifestream worse? If infected people died, was that making it spread more? Such a weird, horrible virus. Not even most of the books he'd picked up had any good information about it at all.

And here he is, wondering why there's no cure.

"Yeah, because getting an entire world sick is better." Why did it even bring him here to begin with? "Wouldn't be the first time."

Why is he here?

"It'd be a pretty dumb move to leave the population open to something like that." Tim shrugs one shoulder, though really, it's not like this is much of an assurance at all. "Wonderland might not be the best place out there, but I'm pretty sure it needs us, or something."

Wouldn't make much sense to irreversibly doom its entire pool of memories, would it?

It needs them. Yeah, okay. Between the events and the memory confusion and all the other stuff it's done long before he'd even gotten here, it only worries him more and more just how much this place actually needs them.

"Makes you wonder just why it gives us a death counter in the first place. Y'got all this power, changin' reality itself and warpin' peoples' minds. Maybe it's just to keep us in line or somethin'."

"Maybe it wants us tipping over that edge. Own us a little more." He has no idea what happens after five deaths, but from the way everyone talks about it, it doesn't sound like anything good. He doubts Wonderland makes a fifth resurrection free of charge.

"I dunno. I don't really know what happens after five." But does anyone?

"...already had my share of that, thanks." And an experience he's not getting into detail about anytime soon. Half because he doesn't remember a lot of it, but also because it's still too fresh to talk about and a lot of people got hurt or died because of him. Because he'd lost himself.

No thanks.

"Doubt anyone's been willin' to test somethin' like that, either."

"Yeah. Probably not. Just keep your fingers crossed, I guess." He's had his share of death and dying - watching it happen all around him, because of him. Not terribly eager to set about figuring how it feels to die and have it stick for once, if only for a little while.

Tim watches the last of the smoke waft away, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"You feeling good enough to walk back to your place?"

Tim changes the subject and he's actually kind of grateful. Too much talk about death and dying and suffering. He'd come out here at all just to get a break from everything.

Guess he just doesn't get one.

So he shuffles back into a more comfortable seating position for a moment, feeling more confident about supporting himself with his hands against the tree and everything else, now that he can't infect it. He'll need new gloves, though. That's a shame.

"Yeah. Should probably go an' get cleaned up, I guess. I didn't mean for all--" He gestures to the rest of the mess, already starting to dissipate. "--this to happen. I'm gonna be more careful."

"It happens." Tim shrugs, inclining his head faintly at the mess of it as easily as if it were nothing more than the leavings of a misbehaving dog, or a shredded mass of paper towels. Easy enough to dismiss, throwing the proverbial drape over it, shrouding it from view.

"Just be careful, I guess. And see if anyone can help treat it."

"Magic seems to have some effect. It dulls the pain, at least." No better than medicine or cleaning it up, and he can't have other people exerting themselves over him. It doesn't work that way.

It shouldn't.

He's able to stand up a bit better this time, though, not wobbling at much and the extra grip on the tree helps. It's a bit slow - every muscle in his body is stiff and sore. He could do with laying down for a few hours. Or even just the rest of the day.

"I'm not that easy to kill."

"Lucky for us all," says Tim wryly, which maybe isn't the best in the way of good humor but - whatever, right? They've been quipping darkly back and forth for the entire duration of this conversation.

At least Cloud looks somewhat more stable than before. So that's something, he supposes.

"Don't pass out on your way back, okay?"

It's then that Cloud realizes his room is on the... seventh... floor. Damn. He could probably make it all the way. Better to just pass out on the stairs or whatever instead of someone having to carry him up there. But he does feel better than before.

It'll be fine.

"I know how to pace myself. It's not far." Lying, but whatever. He can handle himself. "Uh. Thanks. For lookin' out for me. Or, other people, for that matter. I'll be more careful."

Tim simply waves, shrugging one shoulder noncommittally. It's no problem at all, nothing special. He did the very bare fucking minimum; no one's deserving of thanks for that.

"Yeah," says Tim, inadequately, and half-turns to depart. "Well, uh. Good luck, I guess."

Weird guy. But it's kind of like looking in a mirror, too.

"Yeah. You take care, too."

I'm only joking

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