[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
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.)]