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

[theoldgirl]

So he's still on about dying, unsurprisingly. Though, his appearance does lend that a bit more credibility than his usual insufferable whining and she glowers down at him, caught between the onset of anxiety at the possibility of an anti-time release, and her absolute refusal to actually scan him to determine the physical state he's in.

Then he sneezes wetly in the direction of her bare feet and she has to take a step back in disgust. It isn't as though he's the only one who is suffering unexplained ailments, so he really could do everyone the favor of not bothering anyone with it. And that is actually a vaguely reassuring thought; it's likely to be whatever has been affecting her, the Doctor and Gabriel, which at least hasn't been proven to be deadly yet. Not as definite as she would normally require of a comfort, but good enough for her worn out, distracted mind.

"Fine," she hisses with less force than customary, "I have just the place to contain your mess." The doors are still open and she adds a half-hearted gesture to the inside. Not that she would technically be in any state to restrain or fight him if he refused to just walk to the Zero Room. But then neither is he, obviously.

[antitimelord]

'Just' walking to the Zero Room is a rather optimistic thought, no matter which of them should happen to think it, unless she were to 'just' kindly move it very close to the door. She doesn't sound like she's going to be doing much reconfiguring, any more than he's going to be climbing any mountains, and that's more empathising than he asked for, clearly yet another thing being overproduced as a result of sickness. He makes an indescribably horrible sound that fails to clear out his sinuses or the imagined empathy pockets. "Look. It's not like I want to be dying. It's a last resort. You're...an earlier resort." He makes a vague palm-up gesture, conceding...something, weakly. Possibly his grasp on the chronology of resorts. "One star, by the way."

[theoldgirl]

Instead of a reasonable response, like finally just packing himself off to the Zero Room for good, all she gets is a bewilderingly revolting noise from some part of his biology or other, certainly nothing she cares to analyze in any way. She makes a face as though she'd stepped in his unruly puddle of anti-time.

"I am not your anything," she says sourly, feeling as though she should be more incensed by this particular impudence than she currently has the energy to be. This incongruity between thought and emotion is grating, unsettling, and also her legs suddenly seem much weaker than they have any right to be. Her doors close like an involuntary concession and she leans heavily against the clammy wood, sinking into wretched feeble anger; why all of these unexplained malfunctions, why aren't they being fixed, why Zagreus. From the depths of her despair and one of her kitchens currently in brave use by the child, a barely relevant thought surfaces and she murmurs, "The Doctor finds tea to ease many ailments of his biology." At least she managed to put a decent amount of disdain in that pronouncement, lest he think she's meaning to be helpful.

[antitimelord]

That is absolutely the least helpful help imaginable, so no worries there. He sighs in despair, considers more horrible sinus-clearing snorts but what's the point, what's the point, it hadn't helped for more than a second and even being aggravating is barely worth the investment when he feels so terrible. It would be a waste. "I haven't got tea. You can't just get tea," but that's a complaint for probably never, and what was she thinking, "And I'm so tired." Of the Rift mostly, and this severely hobbled existence, but also very literally, no, really, there must be something wrong with the way his body is producing energy, this is an actual problem and it's very distressing. "Do you think, if we killed the Rift, this would stop." That sounds like so much work.

[theoldgirl]

As always he's talking nonsense; of course you can just get tea, her kitchens are full of it. Water of the correct temperature may be a different matter just now, but if he went looking - and that's when she remembers that she's not going to offer him tea, never, not if this universe was depending on it, and the fact that she nearly did elicits a deeply vexed wail from the console, though with a dank quality kind of like a foghorn. It coincides with his ridiculously selfish pronouncement of exhaustion, so that was clearly the reason for it.

Not that his idiotic suggestion is any better, and she musters the energy to scoff audibly. "The rift isn't alive." That may be a theory the Doctor is considering, but he's always considering several unlikely theories at once just so he can say he was right in the end. If the rift was alive, she'd know. "And if I destroyed it, I could never go home." Not we, because Zagreus would have absolutely nothing worthwhile to contribute to any such endeavor. Also, if the rift ever ceased its power output, she would perish in a matter of minutes, which is the last thing Zagreus needs to be aware of. Maybe it would feel something like this, all energy draining from her, rapidly escalating malfunctions, losing cohesive thought... She closes her eyes and shudders, box and all.

[antitimelord]

Well now she's just in denial. The Rift is clearly some kind of alive, and who is she to make those sorts of judgments anyway, all things considered. Besides, she's being fairly disingenuous; there's probably a way to destroy the Rift and leave in the process, obviously it would be a bad idea to destroy the Rift without ensuring that, he's not stupid. And what now, does she think she's going to take a nap? Pass out? Definitely not, not while he's still here and miserable. Too miserable to do anything but scuff dirt and leaves in her direction with his foot, but that's probably enough. "Focus. You'll be even less use to anyone if you lose consciousness. Can you even do that?" That would be a lot of consciousness to lose. Hard to misplace, really. "Doesn't this concern you? That this can just...happen?" More vague gesturing around the unspoken fact of her dislike for having outside entities just do things. It seems to happen a lot. Didn't he used to be able to communicate more clearly than this?

[theoldgirl]

What's enough is his ridiculous insolence, of which the dead leaves are only a very small part. Nonetheless aggravating, though, and she opens her eyes narrowly to glare down at him, shaking the dirt off her foot back in his direction. She isn't anywhere close to shutting down so completely as to lose consciousness, but it would almost be preferable to all of this.

His question, for all its laughable stupidity, is so suddenly frustrating and infuriating that for a moment she can't even reply. Doesn't concern her? That she's trapped, blinded, useless, and at the complete mercy of the whims of a barely understood and terrifyingly unpredictable cosmic phenomenon? Without a doubt she is the most concerned of all the creatures stranded in this wretched stifling cage of a city, and he knows, he must know, how dare he.

So she isn't going to bother finding words for any of this, instead sighing bitterly. "What do you expect me to do?", she spits out, riled by her galling helplessness. If there was an obvious solution, doesn't he think she would have tried it by now? She does what the Doctor asks her to do; what else is there?