[closed] Johnny needs at least two apples a day...

[alwaysalright]

The Doctor is out and about today. He has spent quite a bit of time helping the TARDIS recuperate, and just generally trying to dote on to make up for the time he spends away from her to visit Charley. In between all that doting on loved ones, there hasn't been an awful lot of time to whizz about on his own, but today he is.

Well, okay, he's in a bookstore, not a particularly exciting location, but it is a multistory one. And as it is, he is currently rushing into a closing elevator.

Comments

[eighth]

Great, Barnes and Noble, that puts this anywhere between probably the 1950s at the earliest, judging by this elevator, and... well, really, anywhen after that point, and probably anywhere too. Not actually super helpful.

"Right. I'm decently sure I'm not in your head, and that yes, this is indeed real," he confirms. "Not that I'm in any position to give guarantees. So, if this is real, why did that man just disappear? Where did he go. And I'm genuinely asking you here, because I have no idea, and you barely seemed to notice."

[johnny_truant]

"I don't know," says Johnny, upset now, confused and alarmed by this bizarre interrogation. He sinks to the floor, tugging his knees to his chest and ducking his head down between them. Like he's hiding under a desk in some old nuclear bomb "safety" video. Every bit as useless now as then. "Why are you doing this?"

[eighth]

The Doctor stares at Johnny for a few moments. Obviously he hadn't been very subtle about his worry and anger, even though the Doctor still doesn't know why, but this just went a bit beyond what seems reasonable. Is Johnny having a panic attack? It looks like he is, and since the Doctor is apparently the one inducing it, he's not sure if comforting is gonna have the right effect.

"...I'm sorry. I'm not sure what it is I'm doing, but I'm sorry if I've frightened you," he says, in what he hopes is a reassuring way. And in case it's the whole 'locked in elevator' thing that's the real problem, he turns to the panel, which hey, was already off. Mysteriously disappearing guy must've gotten started on it. Alright then, he can finish, and get them out of here, and hopefully someone else will be more forthcoming. If all else fails, B&N has customer service, right?

[johnny_truant]

This is new. Apologies. Zagreus may be duplicitous beyond anything Johnny's ever known, but somehow it doesn't seem like him to apologize, even if it was part of a game. Johnny lifts his head halfway, peering up at the man, who's now turned his attention to the panel.

"Who are you?" he asks. Plain lying is obviously more Zagreus' strong suit, but he's curious nonetheless.

[eighth]

"I'm the Doctor," he answers, pulling his sonic screwdriver (which is a lot more steampunk than the other Doctor's) out of his pocket to fiddle with the stuff behind the panel that the powers that be are keeping very vague. Messing with wires and all that, trying to find a way to get the elevator moving again, as it's still unclear why it's not.

[johnny_truant]

Doctor. Johnny sits up straighter. Charley kept talking about a Doctor in her dream and Johnny never asked who or what...

But she also knew Zagreus.

Johnny stares dully at the implement the "Doctor" is apparently using to inspect the elevator. "Yeah?" he says, tiredly willing himself to play along. As long as Zagreus doesn't touch him, he'll be okay, right? "Doctor of what?"

[eighth]

"A bit of everything," he answers, as usual. He'd've hoped Johnny was too scared to follow this line of conversation, but people will apparently go above and beyond to ask these questions. Just the Doctor? The Doctor isn't a name. You can't call yourself the Doctor. And you can't be a Doctor of everything, you gotta at least pick a subject, maybe two, certainly not a hundred and twenty-two subjects.

[johnny_truant]

"Okay." (Maybe the Doctor will appreciate Johnny's unflagging ability to accept the poorest of explanations even in such circumstances.) Johnny leans his head back, staring up at the top of the elevator, from whence this bullshit dropped onto him.

He can't waver. If there is a plan here, it's going to be something along the lines of lull him into complacency and then pounce. Johnny rakes his fingers through his hair a few times, remembering the sensation a little too vividly from one too many encounters.

"Look, I get the whole cat and mouse thing," he says, losing patience, abandoning caution as he always does. "But wouldn't it be more of a timesaver for everyone if you just dropped the act and got to the torture part? I'm not gonna get any more unready."

He shuts his mouth, wishes he'd shut it sooner, and looks away angrily, the threat of tears already burning his eyes. Why does he always do this to himself?

[eighth]

Well, that gets his attention. The Doctor looks away from the panel, frowning worriedly at Johnny, spending a few moments trying to piece together a reasoning for why he would expect torture to happen. No answer presents itself. It seems to have to do with the whole recognising the Doctor thing. A future version of him, maybe? That still doesn't explain why torture is on the table.

"I don't even know who you are. And I don't know who you think I am, but torture, of anyone, is absolutely out of the question as long as I'm here," he answers, seriously but calmly.

[johnny_truant]

A laugh bursts out of Johnny, ugly and humorless and slightly hysterical. "Fuck you," he says. "Fuck you, fuck you. I don't care what you call it, torture, fucking lessons, whatever. I don't want it." He rubs the burgeoning moisture angrily from his eyes and looks helplessly up at the Doctor, who's doing such a fine fucking job looking concerned and bewildered. "Drop the act, will you? It's not a good look for you. Just get it over with. Just be Zagreus."

This is what giving up looks like.

[eighth]

The concerned and bewildered look continues all the way till the final word. Then it morphs into.. something that could, in a pinch, possibly be described as concerned and bewildered, but is probably closer to shocked, angry, possibly a little scared.

"Zagreus?!" he asks, his voice suddenly not so soft. "Is he here? How.. how is he here, I trapped him in the Divergent universe years ago! And he wasn't even me then!" He's not waiting for an answer. In fact now he's pacing, and seeming to talk much more to himself. "And I think I would've remembered being him and being here, or meeting you, unless this is some.. future version of him and me. But that doesn't make sense either, because Zagreus can't be here, he's made of anti-time, and this is definitely a universe with time."

[johnny_truant]

Johnny says absolutely nothing. He stares, tight-lipped, at the Doctor, listening to the sudden outburst without an ounce of comprehension. If this is playacting, it's obscenely elaborate. If it's not, then... he doesn't know. He can't afford to let the possibility seep into his mind. He can't afford the luxury of hope.

A lot of this smacks of things Charley told him, but he can't quite remember it all clearly, and what's more, it's entirely possible that Zagreus has been in his mind since then, found that out, is now using it to some sick advantage. So he's silent.

[eighth]

The silence is not really helping, but at least it gives the Doctor some time to work through this revelation, some muttered, some just inside his head.

After a few moments more, he seems to remember Johnny's existence. "You. What's your name?"

[johnny_truant]

"Johnny," he answers automatically. He's no longer sure what's going on, but at least the Doctor's acting more like he ought to, intense and almost angry. This is more familiar ground. He's locked in, literally, so he may as well play by the rules now. "Johnny Truant."

[eighth]

The Doctor nods and files that away. "How do you know Zagreus? How can I reach him?" he further asks. And he realises that if Johnny still believes the Doctor is Zagreus - with all the understandable mistrust and caution that would entail - it might be difficult to get a decent, honest or easily comprehensible answer, depending on the situation. But it's worth a try.

[johnny_truant]

"God." Johnny rolls his head back, looking up at the ceiling again. "I don't fuckin know, man. Look inside your heart or whatever. Actually, wait, no. I got it." He looks back at the Doctor. This has gone so fucking far there's no sense in holding back anymore.

"What you gotta do is go somewhere and mind your own business and look vulnerable for a while, and he'll just show up, just like that. And he'll trap you in your head and threaten to break you apart and leave you there, and you get away but he's still there, and there's fucking nothing anyone can do to keep him out. How's that?"

[eighth]

The Doctor frowns worried at Johnny. Not actually helpful, but very informative in other ways.

After a moment, he slowly approaches Johnny, squatting in front of him to get on eye-level. "Is he in you now?" His voice suddenly sounds sympathetic now. The Doctor would think he'd feel it. He should be able to sense the anti-time. It may be a different universe, time feels different here, but he knows how Zagreus feels. But even if he's not really here, there might be traces of him inside Johnny's head.

[johnny_truant]

"He's always in me," whispers Johnny, refusing to make eye contact, squirming back against the wall. He feels crowded and trapped, and he hates the gentility in the Doctor's voice, it's so wrong and confusing, he wants to believe it, that this is a whole different person who isn't going to hurt him, but he can't afford to believe that. He can't afford to trust his perceptions and he learned that long before he ever met Zagreus.

[eighth]

"Johnny, listen to me," he answers, still speaking softly. "I know Zagreus. He has been in me too. Long time ago, now. I left Zagreus behind in a different universe, and I'm not sure how he's gotten here and why you would recognise me as him, when I clearly am in possession of my own body. But I plan to find out, and I will do everything in my power to stop him from hurting you or anyone else. I promise." Look into his eyes, Johnny. Are these not the soft, trustworthy blue eyes of someone there is no need to be scared of?

[johnny_truant]

Johnny does look. Slow and hesitant, trying to hide his fear. New possibilities spin wildly, unstoppably, from his overzealous imagination. If this is true, or something close to the truth, what's to say that Zagreus isn't only sometimes in control of the Doctor's body -- that he's not in there right now, waiting to claw back out and seize him by the throat.

His eyes are gentle, but they're the same, same as the Zagreus who sometimes visits him in his dreams. Zagreus has been gentle. Whispered kind, cloying things in his ear, touched him almost soothingly before it became violent.

The close press of their enclosure and the Doctor's proximity are too much. He snaps suddenly, crying out and swinging his arm toward the Doctor's face.

[eighth]

And he thought it was going so well. That he could actually reassure Johnny. Guess not. Too much like a caged animal lashing out in fear, even if the Doctor poses no threat.

He jerks back in time to escape the brunt of the hit to his face, but on the other hand he ends up falling backwards onto his ass, his own arm flying up reflexively to grab Johnny by the wrist.

[johnny_truant]

It's obviously a reflexive gesture, not an assault, but it doesn't matter any more. Johnny jumps back, pressing back to the wall, both palms flattened against it - and it opens right the fuck up, so suddenly that he tips backwards into it, his arms windmilling briefly, comically, before he plummets.

"FUCK," he screams into the darkness, afraid for a ridiculous moment that he's fallen into the elevator shaft, but no, you idiot, he did this. He escaped.

He tumbles out through the ceiling of his own apartment, landing neatly on his bed, the passageway sealing up behind him.

[eighth]

The Doctor stares at the elevator wall for several long seconds.

One moment there's a Johnny right there, the next he seems to be... swallowed by the wall? Did he see that right? There is definitely more than one strange thing going on here, people keep disappearing before he can get his answers. Or in the case of the first guy, even say hello.

After a few moments more, he gets to his feet, brushing himself off and taking mental stock of the situation. Well, first things first, gotta get out of here. He returns to the panel on the wall, but just then, the elevator starts moving. Apparently, whatever stopped it in the first place is no longer an issue. The Doctor is not playing to devote time to that particular issue. He's going to go out and figure out where the hell he is and what's going on.