[ Denial's a hell of a drug. One that wears off like heroin when you finally start accepting that everything (everyone) is starting to collapse in on itself like a house of cards. Sure, it's still pretty easy to stay chin-up and chest-out around the rest of the team (whenever he can find them), but in the long run, he's never dealt with being left to his own hopeless devices very well. ]
[ And so he gravitates. Besides, drinking shitty coffee outside of the apartment has become about as habitual as a smoke break, considering the visceral reaction it got from the Italians. ]
[ The only other familiar face at the cafe (really the only face at all, and more like familiar jacket given how far the hood's up) looks incredibly disengaged from the rest of the world. But when doesn't he? Especially now that he's... been away for a while. It isn't just the hood's shadow that's making him look like real hell. And while it's been pretty easy to draw conclusions now that he'd stopped humming with his fingers jammed in his ears, that doesn't make the sight any less disheartening. In fact his heart feels about ready to drop out and drag him to a standstill about a table away from Jason like a dead weight, clutching his own coffee uselessly to his chest for a second before he huffs a sigh. ]
[ It's still company. Company that, whatever it thinks, shouldn't be left alone now more than ever. ]
This seat taken?
[ You know, the third one not very much occupied by your feet. That one's important. ]
[Unlike the kinds of people who've at least been mitigating symptoms with copious amounts of physical contact with their significant others, it's been days on end since he's felt anything less than awful. He's in a better position to grit his teeth and bear it, maybe. But that doesn't mean he's actually got any better chances of fighting off the ticking of the clock.
The dramatic irony would be hilarious if it wasn't so infuriating. If he were a less obsessively productive sort, maybe he would have set himself up inside a bar instead. But sometimes shitty coffee is all you really need to keep you going. The fuel of a thousand long stakeouts and unraveling investigations. It's not the traditional scene for it—camped outside a cafe in the cold like a cramming college student instead of in front of a computer or a sprawling evidence board in a safehouse. Or a batcave. But the coffee machine inside still works, and the cold is distractionary enough from the hard edge of hunger while he tries to fit the pieces they have together into something that tracks while he still has the focus for it.
(Sewer rats, hospital records. Zymandis, again.)
Still, he should have heard Sigma coming. He pulls to attention as a shadow crosses into his vision, looking up narrowly to watch Sigma ask after the chair, tensed into a brittle sharp kind of posture that can only be described as wary. At length, he leans back and gestures with the lit tip of his cigarette, pushing chair number three out with a heel.]
9 out of 10 doctors agree it could be hazardous to your health. [As if secondhand smoke is the only factor, here. Buyer beware, and all that.] But it's your funeral.
[Dry as ever, like it ought to be funny. Hi. How's it been, bud.]
[ Look, Ramir would undoubtedly give you a hug too if you asked nicely, buddy. The way Jason coils up like a threatened snake for a second stifles any iterations of how're you feeling that might have been queuing. Not that they should have been in the first place, he probably feels about as good as he looks, and that doesn't seem like something that bears mentioning. ]
At least that implies I'll get one eventually. [ One of these times. Without hesitation, he pulls the chair out the rest of the way and drops into it, breath warmed by coffee clouding in front of him for a second like the other's cigarette smoke as he settles in. ] Besides, everyone knows that tenth doctor knows how to party.
[ Taking another gulp, he falls silent. Not really many other places to take this other than how he's doing. How they're doing. How his undoubted scooby-dooing has been going. And as much as he wants to solve this shit as much as the next guy, he came out for coffee. For now, he's gonna try to keep it that way. ]
... There's warmer places to sit, y'know. Pretty sure none of the zero people inside would mind a little smoke. [ It was your choice to sit out here next to him, desert boy. ] Or is being all cold on the streets your comfort zone or something? Are the rooftops here not high enough for you?
[ So, for topic of conversation, he finally settles on poking the bear. (His funeral indeed.) But it isn't derisive; the grin in his tone is half a step away from laughing at itself. It's a distraction. Something comfortably, consciously oblivious, different from this oppressive everything they've got going on right now. ]
[Yeah, but that would mean asking nicely. That probably leans a little too close to some discomfort-zones he hasn't had the ability to approach gracefully on a good day. Of which he hasn't had in...a while. Jason returns his cigarette to his lips while Sigma settles in, talking around it while he reaches over to turn the volume down on the chattering (useless, mostly, has been for days) police radio.]
Well, sometimes you just need to go back to your roots.
[Maybe some people spent several formative years of their lives being cold on the streets, what are you gonna do about it desert boy? The forced levity in Sigma's string of questions is audible, only a little shy of sounding desperate. And usually, Jason's willing enough to engage in some back-and-forth banter. But his fuse is unpredictable, lately. As if to underscore this, he plays along, but skips to answering a little more spitefully than Sigma really deserves. Rather than avoiding the everything—]
Maybe I ought to start looking up real estate down in the sewers instead, I hear that's going fast for people in my position.
[Or at least, someone seems to think it ought to be.]
[ Or, you know, you could start the hug. At this point the benefits go both ways. ]
[ Anyway, sorry about the nice childhood, boy wonder. He's made up for it, don't worry. That's why the questions are a little desperate. That veil of forced levity has gotten him through so much of the same, but if the tear in that hadn't started over a year back now, it had gotten a good yank before the mission even started with those visions of home some son of a bitch had left lying around Oska. It's like someone had been digging around his timeline for good trailer footage; they just swapped her out for Adam Bristol before this reboot hit theaters. What a neverending fucking story. ]
[ But ugly or not, laughing it off doesn't do jack in the long run, and he deserves the shutdown he gets no matter how much it stings. And it stings a lot judging by the way his shoulders slump and his eyes fall back to his coffee. Jeez, you'd think he has more to be upset about than the actual sick people. ]
That's why you gotta keep looking up, man. High demand's gonna jack the rent til it's an underground San Fran apartment hunting simulator down there... And y'know, all that fresh roof air does a body good...
[ He trails off. Almost hoarsely, like the aggressive casualness is rubbing his throat raw. He can't do it. It doesn't even sound like the world's shittiest joke anymore, it just sounds like shit. Swallowing the last of it with an almost physical wince, he drops the act. And with a little more difficulty, drops the sympathy. Finally just groping around for honesty instead of comfort for himself. ]
[Look!!! Maybe he will. Some people need to warm up to the fact that they're actually inevitably going insane before they can admit they need help. It's still early. Earlyish.
Look at it this way, Sig, now you're definitively ALASTAIR's reigning champ in timelines decimated by self destructive viruses. Congrats on the specialization.
It's a little mean, the satisfaction he gets out of rattling a reaction out. Showing his teeth while he's backed into a corner is as much a reflex as a choice. A double duty of defensiveness and validation. He should probably feel bad for cutting the legs out from under Sigma's attempts at normality. As much as he gives him shit and jerks him around, he's not a bad guy. And Jason's just one big bitchy remind of what his girlfriend's going through.
He cracks a crooked smile around his cigarette.]
Why? Are you gonna offer to cuddle if I tell you?
[Hah. He exhales smoke and stops to tap ash into his coffee cup. Don't mix them up, Sig. Rather than force him to dignify that instigation with a response, he skips to the question. Offers up a partial kind of answer that Sigma can, perhaps, relate to. More honestly than cuttingly—]
[ It's early, but until they get a fix, it's inevitable. Except try getting Sigma "people are dying, better make puns" Klim to say that. Even at this point, he wouldn't blame Jason for still trying to turn a blind eye. Ramir had done the same. He probably would until he woke up chewing on her arm if he caught it. Maybe he is already. ]
[ Thanks. If only it made him a specialist. ]
[ It's mean, but it's fair to be a dick to the guy verbally slapping up hang in there! posters on the walls of the terminal cancer patient's room. The sneer earns a scrunched up nose, and for once it isn't the prospect of snuggling up to Jason Todd that gets it. He just keeps his coffee held close (don't worry) and his eyes down. The actual answer, though, triggers a snort easier than any fake sort of amusement he'd been attempting. ]
Tell me about it.
[ But it falters quick as it comes. Just look at how wrapped up in his own problems he is, it takes a good couple seconds to work out that it's physically impossible for them to be on the same page here. The second he does though, his brow furrows, and he finally picks his gaze back up to focus on the other. ]
[Sigma would go for the metaphorical inspirational cat posters, wouldn't he.]
Didn't anyone ever tell you that it isn't funny anymore if you have to explain it?
[It isn't funny at all, really. He's not so far gone that his impulse control's off book entirely. He's not close with Sigma through any sense of compatible personality traits or easy camaraderie. But they've spent a lot of time together by default. He's important to someone who's important to him. If Ramir's loyalty lies with this guy—the part of him that is prone to petty jealousy is more than aware of it, deep down—there's some measure of vouching to be had.
Besides, it's not like it's a big dark secret. It's just no one's business, mostly. His expression twists bitterly, and he chucks his cigarette butt out onto the pavement when it runs down to the filter and reaches almost immediately for another one. To hell with it.]
Lets say there's a certain dramatic irony to going all walking dead.
[Since, y'know, he's technically been doing that for years. He isn't afraid to die. He's been there and done that before. He can handle being aching, and hungry, and even angry. His emotional stability and his hold on his temper have been a house of cards since the Lazarus Pit anyway. But he hasn't been without a direction, a sense of self, since Talia picked his brain-damaged ass up off the street and tossed him into the pit and put him back together. You don't appreciate the value of that sort of thing until you've lost it and gotten it burned back into you in the worst of ways.
And all that, for what. He'd dealt with the existential shock of coming back from the dead by deciding he was dragged back to do the things that Batman won't. That the best way to make sense of this continued existence was to use it to fix the blind spots in a broken system. That's been harder to manage that focus since getting caught up in the disorganized conscription that is ALASTAIR, which has been a struggle in its own right. The idea of ending in mindlessness and pointlessness anyway before he can even get back to do any of it is unacceptable.]
It isn't funny in the first place if I miss the whole joke...
[ And missing a joke is always tragic. Even the not-so-funny kinds... The scowl remains, eyes drifting after the flicked cigarette butt so at least he can follow something. He's known Jason long enough to get that he isn't the kind of guy that passes people he spends time with off as friends very easily, but he's been a friend of Sigma's for a while now. If not for the increasingly stupid ways the keep bumping shoulders, then through Ramir. A friend of hers is a friend of his, and worth more than a little care. ]
[ Given the state of them both now, he's worth quite a bit of care whether he wants it or not. Anyway, the explanation raises questions like it raises eyebrows, until he gives it a proper dose of thought. ] Why, you done this song and dance before?
[ You know. Lived through a virus-driven society-dismantling apocalypse before or something #relatable. But of course his mind jumps to the stupidest conclusion first, so they can work back from there. ]
Look I know Twilight got the edgy broody boyband dead guy thing trending, but if you're trying to tell me you've been a zombie all this time...
Watching Sigma struggle to make sense of the breadcrumbs is almost as gratifying as the first draw of his second cigarette. Almost. He drops his hands down and exhales smoke through the white of his teeth, mouth set in a crooked slant. Well.]
That's the question, isn't it?
[He can't really remember a lot of what happened when he came back. Nightmare flashes of digging his way out of the ground, wandering around half dead. Months of muddy recall and acting on instinct. He still doesn't know why it happened, or how. And if anyone was going to figure it out, surely Ra's al Ghul had the resources and the motivation. But does it matter? With as much inappropriate audacity as he can muster—]
I never got a diagnosis. I'm pretty sure I never got to the flesh eating bits, either, but I guess there's no time like the present to make up for lost time.
[Right? It would be funnier, probably, if saying so didn't actually inspire a rattling pang of hunger, a compulsive craving for something raw and unfamiliar, a phantom taste of iron at the back of his breath. (He's disturbed to find it turns his stomach and makes his mouth water in equal measure, and he breathes in smoke and bites down on the filter between his teeth.)]
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no subject
[ And so he gravitates. Besides, drinking shitty coffee outside of the apartment has become about as habitual as a smoke break, considering the visceral reaction it got from the Italians. ]
[ The only other familiar face at the cafe (really the only face at all, and more like familiar jacket given how far the hood's up) looks incredibly disengaged from the rest of the world. But when doesn't he? Especially now that he's... been away for a while. It isn't just the hood's shadow that's making him look like real hell. And while it's been pretty easy to draw conclusions now that he'd stopped humming with his fingers jammed in his ears, that doesn't make the sight any less disheartening. In fact his heart feels about ready to drop out and drag him to a standstill about a table away from Jason like a dead weight, clutching his own coffee uselessly to his chest for a second before he huffs a sigh. ]
[ It's still company. Company that, whatever it thinks, shouldn't be left alone now more than ever. ]
This seat taken?
[ You know, the third one not very much occupied by your feet. That one's important. ]
no subject
The dramatic irony would be hilarious if it wasn't so infuriating. If he were a less obsessively productive sort, maybe he would have set himself up inside a bar instead. But sometimes shitty coffee is all you really need to keep you going. The fuel of a thousand long stakeouts and unraveling investigations. It's not the traditional scene for it—camped outside a cafe in the cold like a cramming college student instead of in front of a computer or a sprawling evidence board in a safehouse. Or a batcave. But the coffee machine inside still works, and the cold is distractionary enough from the hard edge of hunger while he tries to fit the pieces they have together into something that tracks while he still has the focus for it.
(Sewer rats, hospital records. Zymandis, again.)
Still, he should have heard Sigma coming. He pulls to attention as a shadow crosses into his vision, looking up narrowly to watch Sigma ask after the chair, tensed into a brittle sharp kind of posture that can only be described as wary. At length, he leans back and gestures with the lit tip of his cigarette, pushing chair number three out with a heel.]
9 out of 10 doctors agree it could be hazardous to your health. [As if secondhand smoke is the only factor, here. Buyer beware, and all that.] But it's your funeral.
[Dry as ever, like it ought to be funny. Hi. How's it been, bud.]
no subject
At least that implies I'll get one eventually. [ One of these times. Without hesitation, he pulls the chair out the rest of the way and drops into it, breath warmed by coffee clouding in front of him for a second like the other's cigarette smoke as he settles in. ] Besides, everyone knows that tenth doctor knows how to party.
[ Taking another gulp, he falls silent. Not really many other places to take this other than how he's doing. How they're doing. How his undoubted scooby-dooing has been going. And as much as he wants to solve this shit as much as the next guy, he came out for coffee. For now, he's gonna try to keep it that way. ]
... There's warmer places to sit, y'know. Pretty sure none of the zero people inside would mind a little smoke. [ It was your choice to sit out here next to him, desert boy. ] Or is being all cold on the streets your comfort zone or something? Are the rooftops here not high enough for you?
[ So, for topic of conversation, he finally settles on poking the bear. (His funeral indeed.) But it isn't derisive; the grin in his tone is half a step away from laughing at itself. It's a distraction. Something comfortably, consciously oblivious, different from this oppressive everything they've got going on right now. ]
no subject
Well, sometimes you just need to go back to your roots.
[Maybe some people spent several formative years of their lives being cold on the streets, what are you gonna do about it desert boy? The forced levity in Sigma's string of questions is audible, only a little shy of sounding desperate. And usually, Jason's willing enough to engage in some back-and-forth banter. But his fuse is unpredictable, lately. As if to underscore this, he plays along, but skips to answering a little more spitefully than Sigma really deserves. Rather than avoiding the everything—]
Maybe I ought to start looking up real estate down in the sewers instead, I hear that's going fast for people in my position.
[Or at least, someone seems to think it ought to be.]
no subject
[ Anyway, sorry about the nice childhood, boy wonder. He's made up for it, don't worry. That's why the questions are a little desperate. That veil of forced levity has gotten him through so much of the same, but if the tear in that hadn't started over a year back now, it had gotten a good yank before the mission even started with those visions of home some son of a bitch had left lying around Oska. It's like someone had been digging around his timeline for good trailer footage; they just swapped her out for Adam Bristol before this reboot hit theaters. What a neverending fucking story. ]
[ But ugly or not, laughing it off doesn't do jack in the long run, and he deserves the shutdown he gets no matter how much it stings. And it stings a lot judging by the way his shoulders slump and his eyes fall back to his coffee. Jeez, you'd think he has more to be upset about than the actual sick people. ]
That's why you gotta keep looking up, man. High demand's gonna jack the rent til it's an underground San Fran apartment hunting simulator down there... And y'know, all that fresh roof air does a body good...
[ He trails off. Almost hoarsely, like the aggressive casualness is rubbing his throat raw. He can't do it. It doesn't even sound like the world's shittiest joke anymore, it just sounds like shit. Swallowing the last of it with an almost physical wince, he drops the act. And with a little more difficulty, drops the sympathy. Finally just groping around for honesty instead of comfort for himself. ]
How bad is it?
no subject
Look at it this way, Sig, now you're definitively ALASTAIR's reigning champ in timelines decimated by self destructive viruses. Congrats on the specialization.
It's a little mean, the satisfaction he gets out of rattling a reaction out. Showing his teeth while he's backed into a corner is as much a reflex as a choice. A double duty of defensiveness and validation. He should probably feel bad for cutting the legs out from under Sigma's attempts at normality. As much as he gives him shit and jerks him around, he's not a bad guy. And Jason's just one big bitchy remind of what his girlfriend's going through.
He cracks a crooked smile around his cigarette.]
Why? Are you gonna offer to cuddle if I tell you?
[Hah. He exhales smoke and stops to tap ash into his coffee cup. Don't mix them up, Sig. Rather than force him to dignify that instigation with a response, he skips to the question. Offers up a partial kind of answer that Sigma can, perhaps, relate to. More honestly than cuttingly—]
So far the worst part is the bad joke.
[Dead guy going full zombie, finally. Hilarious.]
no subject
[ Thanks. If only it made him a specialist. ]
[ It's mean, but it's fair to be a dick to the guy verbally slapping up hang in there! posters on the walls of the terminal cancer patient's room. The sneer earns a scrunched up nose, and for once it isn't the prospect of snuggling up to Jason Todd that gets it. He just keeps his coffee held close (don't worry) and his eyes down. The actual answer, though, triggers a snort easier than any fake sort of amusement he'd been attempting. ]
Tell me about it.
[ But it falters quick as it comes. Just look at how wrapped up in his own problems he is, it takes a good couple seconds to work out that it's physically impossible for them to be on the same page here. The second he does though, his brow furrows, and he finally picks his gaze back up to focus on the other. ]
Wait, what's the joke here..?
no subject
Didn't anyone ever tell you that it isn't funny anymore if you have to explain it?
[It isn't funny at all, really. He's not so far gone that his impulse control's off book entirely. He's not close with Sigma through any sense of compatible personality traits or easy camaraderie. But they've spent a lot of time together by default. He's important to someone who's important to him. If Ramir's loyalty lies with this guy—the part of him that is prone to petty jealousy is more than aware of it, deep down—there's some measure of vouching to be had.
Besides, it's not like it's a big dark secret. It's just no one's business, mostly. His expression twists bitterly, and he chucks his cigarette butt out onto the pavement when it runs down to the filter and reaches almost immediately for another one. To hell with it.]
Lets say there's a certain dramatic irony to going all walking dead.
[Since, y'know, he's technically been doing that for years. He isn't afraid to die. He's been there and done that before. He can handle being aching, and hungry, and even angry. His emotional stability and his hold on his temper have been a house of cards since the Lazarus Pit anyway. But he hasn't been without a direction, a sense of self, since Talia picked his brain-damaged ass up off the street and tossed him into the pit and put him back together. You don't appreciate the value of that sort of thing until you've lost it and gotten it burned back into you in the worst of ways.
And all that, for what. He'd dealt with the existential shock of coming back from the dead by deciding he was dragged back to do the things that Batman won't. That the best way to make sense of this continued existence was to use it to fix the blind spots in a broken system. That's been harder to manage that focus since getting caught up in the disorganized conscription that is ALASTAIR, which has been a struggle in its own right. The idea of ending in mindlessness and pointlessness anyway before he can even get back to do any of it is unacceptable.]
no subject
It isn't funny in the first place if I miss the whole joke...
[ And missing a joke is always tragic. Even the not-so-funny kinds... The scowl remains, eyes drifting after the flicked cigarette butt so at least he can follow something. He's known Jason long enough to get that he isn't the kind of guy that passes people he spends time with off as friends very easily, but he's been a friend of Sigma's for a while now. If not for the increasingly stupid ways the keep bumping shoulders, then through Ramir. A friend of hers is a friend of his, and worth more than a little care. ]
[ Given the state of them both now, he's worth quite a bit of care whether he wants it or not. Anyway, the explanation raises questions like it raises eyebrows, until he gives it a proper dose of thought. ] Why, you done this song and dance before?
[ You know. Lived through a virus-driven society-dismantling apocalypse before or something #relatable. But of course his mind jumps to the stupidest conclusion first, so they can work back from there. ]
Look I know Twilight got the edgy broody boyband dead guy thing trending, but if you're trying to tell me you've been a zombie all this time...
no subject
Watching Sigma struggle to make sense of the breadcrumbs is almost as gratifying as the first draw of his second cigarette. Almost. He drops his hands down and exhales smoke through the white of his teeth, mouth set in a crooked slant. Well.]
That's the question, isn't it?
[He can't really remember a lot of what happened when he came back. Nightmare flashes of digging his way out of the ground, wandering around half dead. Months of muddy recall and acting on instinct. He still doesn't know why it happened, or how. And if anyone was going to figure it out, surely Ra's al Ghul had the resources and the motivation. But does it matter? With as much inappropriate audacity as he can muster—]
I never got a diagnosis. I'm pretty sure I never got to the flesh eating bits, either, but I guess there's no time like the present to make up for lost time.
[Right? It would be funnier, probably, if saying so didn't actually inspire a rattling pang of hunger, a compulsive craving for something raw and unfamiliar, a phantom taste of iron at the back of his breath. (He's disturbed to find it turns his stomach and makes his mouth water in equal measure, and he breathes in smoke and bites down on the filter between his teeth.)]