Event: Flu Season

[applesaucemod]

Ah, October. A time of crisp weather, beautiful foliage, pumpkin spice lattes—and the flu. Make sure you get vaccinated!

Of course, vaccinations can't keep you safe from everything. Especially not a capricious, omnipresent entity that has, quite recently, been treated to the highly entertaining sight of someone struggling with illness for the first time in their life. Oh, dear. Someone's been giving the Rift ideas.

On the morning of October 2nd, those rifties who would never consider getting vaccinated against paltry human illnesses--because why would they need to?--will find themselves awake to a new level of personal hell: the flu. It will instantaneously infect any entities who are generally immune to such things, leaving them snotty, achy, miserable, and completely powerless to stop what is happening to them. What is this?! Are they dying? Oh god, the pathos.

Symptoms will persist until October 4th. Get plenty of rest, stay hydrated, and maybe investigate the wonders of chicken soup. Probably don't go see a doctor. Clinic doctors will be very confused and unhelpful about your weird anatomy, and The Doctor will probably be really gross and contagious.

Definitely don't consult WebMD. No good can come of that.

[OOC: Post here for initial reactions or start your own threads using the tag Event: Flu Season. Characters who can be affected are: the Doctor, the TARDIS, Zagreus, Aziraphale, Crowley, Desire, Ascended Daniel, Gabriel, Lucifer, and Rashad. You could probably also make a case for various other non-human/not-quite-human folks. No one's gonna tell you you can't have the flu, okay. Go nuts.]

Comments

[peacefulexplorer]

Something's wrong.

Something is - really wrong.

How does one get sick when they have no immune system or internal organs or physical body to speak of, and how does one transduce the sensation of aching temporal pressure and uncooperative sinuses and vertiginous nausea into something that can affect that which exists without form, or shape, or tangibility?

As usual, Daniel is choosing to blame the Rift.

His consciousness compresses into what can only be classified as a cosmic sneeze that puts him through the deeply unpleasant process of feeling the whole of him come apart and go scattering through the city, atoms afloat in every direction possible, some sinking beneath the earth's crust even as he tries to knot himself back into a halfway-comprehensible shape.

Now this?

This is, he feels he can say with certain amount of authority, the worst.

[ooc: Daniel will be materializing randomly throughout the city in various states of disarray so feel free to run into him.]

Glaser's Bake Shop, Early Morning

[rae_of_sun]

If you don't count one incident that was entirely thanks to her newly-obtained dark vision playing merry hell with her depth perception - and Sunshine isn't inclined to count that, because that definitely qualified as extenuating circumstances - it has been years since she dropped a tray. Because she is a goddamn professional, and there is nothing more mortifying than the unmistakable clang of a cookie sheet hitting a tile floor. Everyone hears it, because there will never be enough closed doors between the accident and the listener in any given small-scale eatery, and then there's just no looking anyone in the eye for the next hour or so.

To say that Sunshine is annoyed when her record is shattered by the unexpected appearance of some kind of disheveled specter in the middle of her workplace's bakery is an understatement. But that's almost just as well, because she's so infuriated by the noise and the incipient embarrassment and the ruined remains of what had been a gorgeous batch of Killer Zebras that she forgets to be completely fucking terrified.

"What the hell?!" she hisses indignantly at said disheveled specter.

[peacefulexplorer]

Rematerialization is a bit like getting slammed into a wall, from orbit, going from a supraliminal high-velocity skid through atoms unknown to an immediate, unanticipated, completely unwarranted halt.

Also, it hurts.

It takes him longer than it should to place himself based on the arrangement of the building and the persistent hum of nearby organisms and the lighting and the general environment, particularly since today, for reasons unknown, everything feels like he's peering through a very humid, very dense, very achy fog.

"Sorry," he says automatically, a reactionary impulse born from an unfortunate habit of uncontrolled spectral manifestation. Then, immediately, "ahhhhhh, don't I know you?"

[rae_of_sun]

The door to the front opens, and Joel pokes his head in and takes in the tableau with wide eyes, his mouth hanging open in an aborted question of the what-the-hell variety. He shuts his mouth, gives the ghost an extremely dubious look, and then opens it again.

"No," Sunshine snaps, pointing a finger at him as if he's a cat she caught with his paw on a glass of water. "I will handle this. Just--" she exchanges the point for an aggressively dismissive swatting motion, and Joel gives their uninvited guest one last gawp before retreating back into the shop, bumping his shoulder against the doorframe as he goes.

Ugh. Sunshine bends to retrieve the cookie sheet, then gives the bakery ghost a closer look. It takes her a bit longer to place him without the nerdy specs, but she gets there. "Daniel, right?" Her brow furrows. Is he seriously a ghost? Does she even want to know how he got that way, if so? Maybe it was pneumonia, going by the current state of him, though she has a hard time imagining any rifty being allowed to die of something that mundane.

"Are you, uh..." she trails off, not even knowing where to go with this, and deposits the tray in the sink. "... Dead?" she finishes, which is way too blunt, but she's pretty sure she's not breaking the news to him, if he is.

[peacefulexplorer]

Oh, great, they look to be accumulating an audience. Daniel regards the other man uncertainly, relieved when the woman deftly deflects the intrusion.

He's having trouble recalling her name, and he frowns. It doesn't help that it feels an awful lot like he's running a temperature, which should be, by all counts, impossible. He doesn't want to brush against her thoughts to get himself up to speed, but the particular aura wreathing her is unique, completely unlike anything he's glimpsed from another rifty thus far.

"Sunshine," he says, expression clearing briefly with relief when he successfully recalls her name. "Yes. Ah - well, it's a bit of a long story?"

He looks down at himself, and notes that his hands have taken on the appearance of being slick with cold sweat, despite lacking any sweat glands to speak of.

"I'm - not traditionally dead," he concludes delicately. "I'm energy right now. And, ah, I appear to be sick? It's not really all that clear."

[johnny_truant]

Johnny is having trouble not snickering to himself as he walks to the bodega near Gabe's building. He feels a little guilty, but after the week he's had a laugh is pretty much in order, and Gabe with the flu is... pretty hilarious. A little worrying, definitely, but they're pretty sure this is some kind of rift bullshit and. It'll probably wear off in a couple days. It'll be fine.

He steps into the bodega and grabs a few cans of chicken soup, some cayenne pepper, a couple kleenex boxes, and, after some serious hesitation, a bottle of NyQuil. Is Gabe going to be affected by cold medicine? Possibly not. He might also hate the taste of it. That, Johnny has to admit to himself, will also be pretty funny.

Is that everything? He wanders thoughtfully over to the bodega's sad little produce section and stands there for a long moment, debating questionable citrus fruits and a larger ginger root than he'd ever need in his life, probably.

[peacefulexplorer]

The pained " - iiiiiit," that prefaces Daniel's spontaneous appearance in the bodega itself has the impression of a desperate pronouncement flung to the winds, before being forcibly catapulted into a completely randomized environment mid-outcry.

Daniel materializes coughing, which makes no sense given that he is energy and energy shouldn't require the clearing of fluid from lungs as he doesn't have lungs.

He realizes belatedly that he appears to be standing in some asparagus.

And he's standing across from someone who just witnessed a sickly, pale specter of a man appear from seemingly nowhere. In some asparagus.

And that person is Johnny.

Daniel can't quite think of what to say. His shape coughs once, sniffs, and blinks.

"Oh," says Daniel.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny lets out a severely undignified yelp and jerks back, drawing the attention of the bodega's lone cashier, though not as strongly as her attention is drawn by Daniel.

"Madre de Dios," she whispers.

"Oh," Johnny blurts right back. "Oh."

Oh.

F u c k.

He'd forgotten - strangely enough - forgotten entirely about the portion of that zombie dream that had Daniel in it. When he woke up he remembered meeting the boy named Peeta and learning a little about his really fucked up universe before getting into another throwdown with the undead, but... Daniel. How could he have forgotten that.

"Shit," he says, stepping back. "Shit. Shit. Daniel, I..."

It's only his massive inability to come up with anything good to say that allows him to notice Daniel really doesn't look too good.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Ahh." The half-remembered fragments of his last encounter with Johnny - would that be in the chronological sense, or is time simply beyond him at this point? - come trickling back with infuriating patchwork inconsistency. He's certain this would be easier if he didn't have a pounding headache.

Apparently, one does not actually need to possess a head to have a headache, which is certainly not a conclusion he would have ever come to on his own.

"Johnny," he says, as if reaffirming the name to himself, then half-turns to the beleaguered cashier, who looks partially lost and partially like she's considering the merits of phoning 911. What they might do about an insubstantial if impossibly flu-ridden man standing in the center of some asparagus, Daniel has no idea.

Nor is he particularly eager to find out. Unfortunately, some things are proving a bit more salient at the moment.

"You're all right," he says, squinting at Johnny, and manages to make the pronouncement sound puzzled.

[omnomnom_feels]

The current state of things is utterly intolerable. Rashad is no stranger to injury and to the temporary bodily malfunctions it engenders, but sickness is something entirely new and entirely unwelcome. He is of course aware of the concept, aware of how it affects mortals, but it is something he neither expected nor wanted to experience personally.

He is not able to heal himself directly, which is of course wrong, so he will do what he might to attempt to heal himself in the fashion of mortals. This means medicine or herbs. This means an apothecary -- or rather, as he has discovered, a pharmacy. He has recently emerged from such an emporium, having spent the last of his money on as many relevant kinds of medicine as he could locate on the dizzying array of shelves before staggering to a bench in the nearest green space to collapse and apply all of the remedies at once. As he is lifting a bottle of foul-smelling liquid to his mouth with which to wash down the handful of pills, an apparition comes into being before him, making him jerk in surprise and spill Nyquil down his front. "You!" he exclaims uselessly.

[peacefulexplorer]

God but it's severely disorienting to find oneself being irregularly relocated at the slightest insubstantial cough or sneeze or twitch of a faulty particle. Daniel's been rematerializing all over the city at an increasingly unsustainable rate, and while hot and cold aren't really concepts that should pertain to him in this state, he's getting the distinct impression that if it were possible for his form to overheat, this is exactly how it would feel.

It's a dizzying relief to end up on a sidewalk rather than in the air or in an abstract shape, and Daniel thrusts his awareness outward blindly in search of something vaguely recognizable for the sake of placing himself. His shape solidifies in the same moment - startled, pale, and looking far sicker than a manifested specter should.

"Uhhhhh," says Daniel, regarding the being opposite him warily, scrambling to remember where he's seen that particular atomic arrangement before.

[omnomnom_feels]

Despite the deep discomfort and existential wrongness of his condition, Rashad at least has his wits about him. This is not the first time this particular apparition has appeared before him, though it is the first time it has done so looking quite so haggard. It is not sympathy that flares in his breast at the sight, however, but annoyance. When Daniel last departed Rashad had believed his larger malady to have been solved by the ascended human, but all that changed was the pain, not the emotions that accompanied it.

"Daniel," says Rashad sharply. "Is it not? You failed to heal me."

[peacefulexplorer]

"Ah," says Daniel uncertainly, as the recollection of his last encounter with the former angel finally rushes back to the forefront of his mind, overheated and overtired. "I'm - sorry?"

He doesn't know what to say, really. Assuming Rashad means 'healing' in the 'suppressing all interally-generated emotions sense'. Privately he's of the mind that to feel emotion is far better than to not, and Rashad's personal philosophy clearly opposes that. But then, Daniel's not exactly in the position to dictate the angel's internal makeup, morally or literally or otherwise. He's not in the position to dictate much, including where he might end up when he next sneezes.

"I think it's a Rift thing," he says a shade unhelpfully. "I'm pretty sure, anyway. Should wear off soon - I think?"

[theoldgirl]

It begins as a morning of particularly miserable rift energy levels. First, a harsh increase makes her power converters wheeze and groan with the strain, just short of reaching dangerous levels she would need to alert the Doctor for, then a sudden drop to very nearly nothing leaves her empty, shaken, frail. It is nothing she hasn't weathered before, though she could do without the exhaustion and the reminder of how precarious her survival really is in this universe.

But the TARDIS' discomfort does not stop there. Even once rift activity has stabilized into low but serviceable levels, some of her systems don't seem to be getting enough power, others too much. It leads to minor malfunctions at first; some kitchens and bathrooms running out of hot water, a few light bulbs exploding, screens blacking out, the fault locator having a fit. And still the feeling of profound exhaustion. She doesn't bother her pilot with it, not least of all because he's making something of a fuss himself.

By noon, the malfunctions have spread to critical systems. Environmental regulations, dimensional and temporal stabilizers, sensors, all are working only intermittently; even her cognitive functions seem dulled, slower. Large stretches of her dimensions are running high temperatures, a few rooms and halls are so cold there's ice on the floor, most pipes only deliver scalding steam, and gravity certainly isn't a constant any longer. She's doing her best to keep the inhabited areas stable or at least safe, but her focus keeps drifting, and she is aching to the foundations of the Cloister Room.

This is definitely, undoubtedly, awful, and inexplicable, and terrifying. With the fault locator affected she can't even properly express what is wrong (one might have thought the Doctor could have found a workaround for this problem at some point since his first incarnation) and so eventually the forlorn tone of the Cloister Bell begins to drone through her corridors, though faint, and only one gong at a time, in irregular intervals.

[The TARDIS' perception filter and door lock are also on the blink, so just about anyone might see her and wander inside. Naturally, the console room is likely to match the mood in some way. Or you could come by on purpose, and the Doctor will in fact see patients because he just cares so damn much.]

[apidae]

It's been an odd sort of morning. Bee can't quite put her finger on what's wrong, but something just feels off, something in the air, or... Well, an awful lot of strange things do happen on the regular, after all. She tries not to think too much of it. It's a beautiful fall day, perfect for a walk. She just got herself a pair of shoes and a little jacket for the weather shift, and she's rather excited to put them to use. So off she goes.

As she moves through the park, something pulls her inexorably inward, faint and gently nudging at her senses at first, and then gradually more and more powerful as she moves into the Ramble. There is something here. A presence, very old, very complex, and very powerful. She recognizes these patterns a little bit - she's met enough ancient time-travelers and legitimate angels by now that she can spot the warning signs from a distance. A good thing, too, because it allows her to stop, take a few deep breaths, and digest what she can already pick up. She has to take this in very slowly if she doesn't want to pass out like she did the times she met the Eighth Doctor, Aziraphale, Gabriel... This seems to be more of the same.

It's only after she's gone inching a little closer, step by step, that she thinks to question who would be living out here (for they are living, from what she can tell, not passing through) - and only then does she connect this with Ianto's texts from the other day. This must be the TARDIS she's sensing. She ought to be excited, so long has she wanted to meet this renowned ship, but instead she's curious and vaguely unsettled. She's never picked her up before - what's different today?

Furrowing her brow, she continues onward, her breathing growing shallower by the step. This ship is really big. It doesn't surprise her so much, but it's... it's just so much to take in. There's no way she can process all of it, and she's not certain she can look away, like she learned to do with Aziraphale.

But now that she's closer she can detect something specific, rising to the top. There is discontent, and heaps of it. It's not quite sadness but it is suffering. The feeling it leaves is - well, it's very present, only because it must be very present on the TARDIS' mind, but it's also transient, which is very odd. She knows that sense, but it's never mapped onto something so profound. It almost feels like the TARDIS is... sick?

She walks a little quicker.

She finds the TARDIS nestled away amidst the trees, and takes a moment to gawp up at her funny exterior, just an overlarge phone booth, with so much more inside - she knows that without seeing.

Entering without invitation feels extraordinarily wrong, but - the intricate, unfurling sense of her, the fullness of the TARDIS, is becoming an unshakable tether. So she steps forward, reaching out a faintly trembling hand, and opening the door.

Inside is disarray, not, Bee suspects, what she is meant to be, but there is so much. Not even just this first room, which is vast already; there is endless depth beyond that, every corner filled with its own history, new patterns in every surface and patterns hidden beneath those as well. The TARDIS is beautiful. The TARDIS is overwhelming.

Bee thinks she ought to sit down, or perhaps say something, but for a very long moment she cannot, she can only stand there and stare, her eyes wide and her mouth closed, arms limp at her sides, in paralyzing wonder.

[theoldgirl]

The TARDIS is not paying attention. Between the low throbbing ache in her architectural reconfiguration system and the erratic power imbalances beleaguering the proper running of her cognitive functions, a tiny unfamiliar life sign in the control room hardly even registers.

The control room itself isn't doing terribly well either, with unsteady feverish lighting, uncomfortably warm humid air and an unidentified organic substance filling the glass column in the center of the console, steadily dripping out of a few valves and dials on the panels. Suddenly, a deep rumbling shudder runs through her entire architecture, both a physical quake and a brief misplacement of her internal reality out of phase. It's so startling she follows it up with a hollow strike of the Cloister Bell, vaguely meant for the Doctor's benefit.

[apidae]

Bee staggers at the low rumble, the uneven juddering of the floor; something's very wrong, the feeling of sickness and disorientation intensifying to a solid point in her mind. She shakes her head, trying to dislodge this, to wake herself from the vastness of this being's patterns. The disorder of the room ought to take precedent. The TARDIS is not well. The air is hot, heavy like before a storm, everything blinking and shivering.

She is sick. This must be the manifestation of sickness.

"Hello?" she says tentatively, looking up at the viscously dripping console, not sure where to direct her gaze. "Er... TARDIS?"

[antitimelord]

The worst part is that he isn't sure why he's doing this. Sure, the main thing is that if he's gravely ill or dying, whatever imminent catastrophe that results from his demise should be the TARDIS' problem, as much as possible. Maybe to force her to find a solution, probably just out of spite, depending on how much peace he's made with the concept of nonexistence on a given day really. But that doesn't make it a good idea to haul himself to the park when he's a loose and rattling collection of fever and unguarded wooziness. It certainly isn't pleasant. If he'd been far it probably wouldn't have happened at all.

Nonetheless it is the course of action Zagreus has decided to pursue at a corpse-like shamble, and so he will see it through. He frowns at the unhelpful doors of the TARDIS--is he supposed to knock? Indicate his health crisis some way that has yet to present itself? Texting hadn't worked, after all, so he's out of easy options. As per usual. Even his lungs are offended, if the sudden fit of coughing is any indication, horrifying in its involuntariness and ferocity. He stops the fit with what feels like force of will, carefully measuring his breathing around the persistent catch in his chest. That's too much work to do anything else but sit down, or more accurately, throw himself down, rather like a cat encountering a patch of sun, only very surly about it. He leans against the side of the ship, an uncomfortable, disarrayed, and somewhat clammy presence both physical and mental, full of egregious self-pity and directionless outrage.

[theoldgirl]

No. This is absolutely intolerable. And infuriatingly impossible to ignore; whatever malfunctions are plaguing her awareness, his close proximity still manages to pierce through them, sharp and nauseating and hateful, triggering a primal, instinctive part of her that urges her to flee, flee to the end of the universe even though she can't, and won't. Never will she give him the satisfaction of her fright.

As though their text-based conversation hadn't been worse enough, she thinks disjointedly a few minutes later and begins to vibrate angrily, trying to dislodge this all too familiar disease from her shell. Whatever he is trying to achieve with this ridiculous and offensive display, she won't have it. Though this would be slightly easier if she could grasp the flow of Time around them enough to whip it on him. Also, the irritated motion is making her unlocked doors clatter.

[antitimelord]

What's intolerable is that horrible racket she's making, it isn't helping the pain in his head at all and it very likely isn't going to help any of the other myriad things wrong with him either, though he's, humour unintended, not a doctor. He gives the wood by his head a weak thwap to show that this is serious, this is a real problem and she needs to get herself under control and help solve it for once in her dreadful rickety existence, since she of all people understands the seriousness of the situation. "Stop that. I'm still dying. Be reasonable. And quiet."

[omnomnom_feels]

The first indication that something is wrong comes when Rashad wakes up. It is not the alley that is the problem, but the fact that he is waking up at all when this form, flawed as it is, holds no requirement for sleep in the fashion of mortals. He casts his mind back for evidence that the Rift caused him to sleep for the sake of a shared dream, but the last such dream he can remember occurred several days ago now.

The second indication is a gestalt of wrongness that suffuses his entire being and which is rather hard to overlook. The fluid discharge from his nose and the ache in his head might initially be dismissed as some sort of damage incurred during whatever event rendered him unconscious, but when he sits up the throbbing in his head intensifies and he finds that his nostrils are paradoxically clogged while also giving out a constant (if low level) discharge. He waves a hand to clean and groom himself, which should ordinarily help with momentary malfunctions of various orifices, but the moment passes and all he has to show for it is a fresh trail of nasal discharge down his otherwise clean upper lip.

Unacceptable. He gropes through his pockets for his communication device, digging it out with some difficulty, and checks the network for any notices regarding magical attacks. There is nothing, so he sends out a query and spends some time conversing with those who respond, attempting to track down the cause. He remains absorbed in this task for quite some time, abandoning it only when he is no longer able to ignore the odorous presence of a nearby dumpster. Sickness. It is impossible, he is not capable of being sick, but it has been suggested that this is the case. If so, he requires a healer, or perhaps healing herbs. This he will procure, and so he comes stumbling out into the street in search of a pharmacy.

[whofrownedthisface]

Like many others on this fine and flu-filled day, the Doctor wakes up, with no real memory or understanding of how he came to be asleep, silly antiquated nightgown and all. It's so rare that he makes a dedicated effort to sleep, in a bed, in sleeping clothes. Maybe age really will catch up to him. It certainly feels like it has, replete with all the trappings of an angry mob long denied their justice--his head feels full of pitchforks and his blood full of torches. Which is a really weird thing to think, so add that to the list, along with the odd roughness in his throat, what, did he spend yesterday shouting? Not implausible. Well, whatever this is is no step to a high stepper. No reason not to keep at it, whatever 'it' is--in his currently wired yet strangely exhausted state, 'it' could be anything. For right now, despite the lethargy in his limbs, 'it' will be some equations he's been batting about in his head, now to be chalked out on the walls in monochromatic glory. Then perhaps he'll feverishly rearrange some furniture, the better to stand on it, reach more walls.

...

There, that should do it. Now for some breakfast. Maybe some tea will ease the scratch in his throat. Or, you know what, he could just. Take a nap. Right in this doorway. That's fine.

[wildmage_daine]

Now that she's moved to the apartments, Daine doesn't really need to use the TARDIS as a convenient changing spot anymore - at least not while the weather holds. All she has to do is prop her window a bit, and she can come and go from her own apartment. She still tends to visit, though, even if only in the form of a fly-by; it's become something of a habit, and besides, she doesn't want the TARDIS to think her only reason for stopping by at all was because of the convenience.

It's early in her rounds, and she only intends to make a brief pass this time, saving a proper stop for later. But then she sees the TARDIS's door is ajar, and her wooden exterior looks strange. It's sort of... slick, as if the ship had been the focus of a very small, isolated rain shower. That's unusual enough to be worth a stop, and Daine lands on the leaf-strewn grass in front of the ship, takes wolf shape, and pokes her nose inside.

The interior looks awful. The light's all wrong, and the air feels heavy and thick. Ears pricked in alarm, Daine steps inside and lets out a low whine. Even the floor doesn't feel right, and she lifts a paw uneasily as the unnatural warmth registers. Something is very wrong, and there's no sign of the ship's two-legger shape, so Daine can't even ask what and expect a response she'd understand.

The Doctor might know. He might even be working on it, whatever it is. Daine lifts her nose to the air, resisting the urge to sneeze at the humidity, then sets off at a trot.

When she finds him some short time later, he's not half-buried in the ship and hard at work as she'd expected. He doesn't even appear to be awake. He's just sprawled in a doorway in what appears to be his nightclothes. Odd's bobs, him too? Daine steps closer with a grumble of mingled disapproval and worry and sniffs at his face. When that doesn't garner a response, she leans forward, delicately takes the sleeve of his shirt in her teeth, and gives his arm a light tug.

[whofrownedthisface]

The Doctor grumbles back, and with surprising spirit. Did Ianto get a dog? Well he'd better be responsible for walking it, is all. The Doctor makes a sternly disapproving sound, snuggling stubbornly up to a doorjamb. This doesn't rate actual awakeness, which feels rather less attainable at the moment anyway. The tickle in his throat has solidified into a raw pain, and his head feels like it's been stuffed with syrup-logged cotton. Talking is so much effort, he barely manages it. "Go 'way. 'M trying to concentrate."

[wildmage_daine]

Well, at least his personality is as sweet as ever it was. For a moment there, she was really worried. Daine drops his arm abruptly, letting it thud back to the floor, and reshapes her mouth. "Concentrate on what? What's wrong with you and the TARDIS?"

He'd better not be falling asleep or fainting or whatever this is. Daine paws at his shoulder, making a bit less effort this time to be gentle. "Come on. Wake up."