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]

Daniel grimaces, his shape's mouth twisting into a bitter, mirthless parody of a smirk.

"I might come back wrong," he says, brief and matter-of-fact. "I might up somewhere else, anywhere else. I might not be able to remember who I am. Transducing energy to matter permanently is, it's - it's not done among the Ascended, not typically."

His atoms feel dry and frayed, like the wind shearing through an open sore.

"It's a risk," says Daniel, looking at the city and the rise of the buildings, the shape of the tiny fragment of world to which he's been tethered. "The human brain isn't really built to contain what I can comprehend now. The strain of it could, ah." He winces, speaking smaller and swifter, as if it could make the possible consequence less horrifying by sheer virtue of skirting the topic. "Break my mind? Potentially."

[johnny_truant]

"Um." Johnny stops short, looking up at him. "But you've done it before, right? And it was okay?"

He's in no position to be giving advice here, or acting like a hopeful child trying to justify why this is a risk someone else should take. Maybe Daniel's better off staying as he is. Maybe this would only make things worse.

"I mean is there," he barrels on, grasping at straws, "is there any way someone could... help you? Gabe, maybe?" When he's not dying of plague.

[peacefulexplorer]

"I did it in a universe where I could." He can't quite look at him, his expression too marred with guilt and self-reproach and uncertainty. "And it - didn't go so well the first time. It took a while for me to remember anything, let alone who I was."

But all the same, the temptation to try is almost overwhelming. As useful as it is, as much as he can see and know and understand like this - there's very little he can do from this angle. Ascended like he is now, the only impact he can make is on the Rift itself, and it simply won't shift to accommodate him.

"I don't know," Daniel says carefully. "It might help. It might make things worse. The only person here who might have the slightest idea how to, well - he doesn't exactly have the same kind of hands-on experience that I do."

[johnny_truant]

"What, Rush?" Johnny gives Daniel a dubious look. "Yeah, plus I kinda doubt he'd, you know, be helpful, on account of being a heinous asshole."

He hesitates, shifting his weight. He's close to home now, and he doesn't exactly want to invite Daniel in on Gabriel, especially when they're both impossibly sick. And with how he'd rather keep his... episode... to himself.

"Well," he says after a moment. "It'd be good to have you back? But... it's better to have you around in some capacity than... not."

Not very helpful, he suspects. But he knows ultimately the choice here is Daniel's.

He looks at Daniel's sickly face and then down to his bag. "Wish I could offer you some broth," he says wryly.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Nick's not so bad, really," Daniel says absently. "He's got a lot on his mind."

Though, truthfully, he'd been interpreting Nick's perception of himself through an isolated outlook into his mind while Daniel had been relatively unsure of his own identity and current form and shape and had simply latched onto the first mind that pinged as remotely familiar, and he's realizing too late that this might be an odd thing to share with someone.

"Thanks," he says ruefully. "I really do wish I could - "

He trails off, adopting an expression of world-weary, frantic resignation.

"Oh shi - "

In the next sputtering sneeze, he's gone again.