nysalogs | [mostly closed, some open, a Sick Boy]

Entry tags:

[mostly closed, some open, a Sick Boy]

Who: Junpei and friends
What: He's sick and it's stupid
When: Pretty much the day of the explosion, some others
Where: Explosion site and beyond
Warning(s): One prompt will have an attempted murder....

sick and mopey

[After his wild morning doing tons of things he shouldn't have, Junpei is... exhausted. Things not to do when you have fast-acting flu: everything he did today? He's pale and tired and looks like hell, generally speaking, but ultimately it's just a Bad Case of Flu. So he's moping now, but he's managed to find a mouth mask to at least keep his own gross germs to himself.

Really, he's just sitting on a bench as isolated as possible from the crowd, mercifully thinned after everything else this morning, and alternating between watching people pass by and checking his phone.

So the day is going great. Every so often he wordlessly points to give directions to the clinic or shake his head to refuse to move, you know, normal flu things. Just let him sit here in misery.

Or listen while he speaks, muffled:] Don't come any closer, but have you heard anything about what the hell is going on?

wildcard

[Do you... somehow...... want another wild sick boy prompt?? Do you want to visit him at home when he's finally bullied into going back??? Let me know, jojoveller etc.]

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[ Today was supposed to be a fun, relaxing day. Ariadne was going to hang out with a new friend, and eat a lot of weird junk food. If she was going to get sick, it would be nausea from too many sweets, at worst.

But no, the universe seems to have other plans for her and Junpei.

There's a moment of panic as the bomb reverberates through the market, and then she's coughing and her eyes are watering. ]

Uh... I think... I'm not bleeding or anything. [ More coughing. ] What about you?

[Good—she's not hurt. Junpei doesn't feel anything immediately wrong with himself, either, so... they're lucky in at least one way. Still, he picks his way through the weird purple fog with one arm up to shield his face and the other reaching for her shoulder.

They should probably stick together, if anything. There's no way this is just a smoke bomb prank, he thinks, but he can't totally freak out in the first minutes.]

I'm—good enough. Let's get out of this mess before we choke on purple fog machine crap.

What the hell is that?

[ She glances around, worry and slight fear in her eyes, hoping no one else is injured. It seems like most everyone is just a little scared and there's some property damage - but no blood anywhere, no broken bodies or anything like that. ]

Was it an accident of some kind?

[ Even as they try to get away from the purple stuff, her mind is already trying to piece things together, work out what might be going on. ]

[She can wonder, Junpei will quite literally grab her shoulders and steer them the hell out of here. He'll be the action guy to her brains, it's fine.]

Probably not. It looked like—no, I'm pretty sure it was a bomb going off. A... purple fog machine bomb.

[He falters at how stupid that sounds at the end, but still - he doesn't think that could have been a random accident. In a crowd this huge? It feels more like—] —Is someone targeting the market...?

[ That works - Ariadne isn't much of an action person anyway. They'll make a good team! ]

The market, or... us? [ By "us" she of course means the refugees. The newcomers. The non-natives. ]

No—probably not. They'd have gone after our crappy houses if they wanted to get more of us in the same place.

[Right...? There's no way of knowing how many refugees are in the market at any given time, but most of them probably go home at night.]

So, maybe not so much us.

[ She stops, bending over to cough for a moment. It's like the stuff coated her lungs or something. Gross. ]

Terrorism that... doesn't kill anyone?

[Ah- he stops with her, although he isn't coughing so much. He didn't get out of the way in time to avoid breathing in the gas, but maybe she got more than he did... Either way-]

No... I wouldn't rule out trying to kill us that easily. Could be poison, could be good old bio-terrorism—hell, maybe we'll all turn purple tomorrow. There are plenty of different explanations.

If someone - [ A little more coughing. ] - if some asshole makes me turn purple, they're going to pay.

[ How? Who knows. And of course, she could be dead by tomorrow, but she's pointedly avoiding that sort of thinking right now. ]

Ha... yeah. [Look, coping is coping, even when they're coping with something they don't even know everything about yet. He won't judge.]

Are you good to keep going? We should get out of here until... until the mess clears up, at least.

Or before the cops show up.

[ She knows how this goes. The cops will show up, and everyone will be detained until they give a statement or something. ]

Come on. Suddenly I just want to go home.

[He hesitates for a split second, if only because sticking around for someone to take inventory of the sick and probably shuffle them off to the clinic or whatever might be... helpful? A little? To Ariadne, since he's definitely not sticking around for someone to shove him into a paper gown and make him sit on a doctor's table for the next day or so.

But, eh. Forget it. She doesn't want to stay, he won't be a hypocrite and suddenly insist on following imaginary rules.]

Right. I'll- walk you back, I guess. Do you need a hand...?

I'm fine.

[ As fine as she can be, given what just happened. Shaken, definitely, and she sighs. ]

I was just starting to like this place, too. Well, okay, maybe like is too strong of a word.

Hah, I know what you mean. It figures something like this would happen, but- [oop, it's his turn to stop and cough a few times now, please hold.]

...but—it happened faster than I thought. Maybe if the people in charge would tell us something about what's really going on in the world...

Yeah, you think?

[ She frowns as they pause for Junpei's coughing fit, considering. ]

I mean, this is supposed to be our home now, right? We should know everything we can.

Yeah... I guess I haven't bothered trying to find the brochures, but...

[But still. He's good, though, motioning for her to keep going. Totally fine.]

You think anyone actually from here has a better idea of what's going on?

Well, they might at least some idea of who would do something like this, or why. Even if it's wrong, it'd be more than I know.

I guess... [Wrong answers will just frustrate him, he knows. They're supposed to be going back to the residential district, but...] Want to play detective?

Uh, yeah. As long as I'm still upright, might as well poke around, right?

[ You read her mind. ]

That's the spirit. [He says this flatly, like he already regrets trying to do this while coughing every few minutes, but sure.

Here's the thing: while Junpei has actual, real detective work experience, he's about as amicable as sandpaper about it and even worse when he's starting to feel sick and has been on edge since breathing in a ton of purple crap. He's not going to get anything done like this and people are going to start turning him away with more... aggression sooner rather than later.]

[ Fortunately, Ariadne is both gregarious and tenacious, this won't be as much of a problem for her, despite her lack of official detective experience. ]

...Where should we start?

Let's split up. We can try good cop, bad cop later, if nobody wants to talk.

[No points for guessing which cop Junpei is.]

Just what I've always wanted.

[ A little sarcasm, but she smiles and waves Junpei off anyway. ]

Meet up back here in, like, an hour or so?

Yeah, sure. Good luck.

[In one hour, he'll be sicker and no less informed. Because he's not a good cop in so many ways. He'll probably be waiting for her back in that spot a little earlier than an hour later, actually, because he got angry and gave up on investigating.

So hopefully she has a better time of things.]

[ Judging by the look on her face, no, Ariadne has not had a better time of things. She sighs. ]

No one will tell me anything. And if they do, none of it makes any sense - they're talking about people and things I don't know, and they won't explain them.

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coolerjunpei - 2017-10-24 01:33 (UTC) - Expand

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buildindreemz - 2017-10-24 15:51 (UTC) - Expand

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