castle_perrault | [open: tw for blood, mind fuckery, suicidal ideation] I guess it's over now

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to the moon

[open: tw for blood, mind fuckery, suicidal ideation] I guess it's over now

Before:

He just needed something fun. That's what he's been telling himself. After nights of various unpleasant dreams being hijacked by his friends, and then being forcibly shoved into everyone else's weird nightmares like a far less fun version of the Matrix, Watts needs a break. He's not helping Sans with his science. He's not trying to wander the castle and have conversations with people that more than likely are annoyed by him. He just... needs some stupid harmless fun.

And when there's no gaming consoles or wifi in the castle, you have to get a little creative.

Apparently, Neil's codes aren't completely useless in the castle. Sure, he can't reset memories, disable speech or taste, turn off his visibility, or even lure out mementos, but he still has some skill with manipulating data.

He's found a nice little private space in the lounge, and passersby may find him focusing very hard on a patch of air in front of him. Literally a patch, it seems to jut out from the rest of the air, shimmering and shuddering in front of Neil's hand. Eventually, it grows and morphs, changing colours... and in another instant, there's a tabby cat letting out a loud meow as it's suddenly dropped from the air back down to the ground.

"Haha, yes!" Neil gets down to his knees, scratching behind one of the cat's ears. The cat surveys him and lets out another mew.

"Hm... not exactly up to my usual standards, but I'll have to make do. Now, what else can I try..."

After:

Neil's still in the lounge... it's just that now there are more of them.

There seem to be a literal crowd of scientists slouching around the lounge, leaned back on couches, staring out windows, walking in place. They're all mumbling to each other, some of them more clear than others. One of them smiles at a double of himself as you walk past.

"Well, I suppose I had a good run."

The other stares back at him. "Not good enough, it seems."

There's one that has cornered another Neil against the wall, constantly slamming his fist into the doppleganger's gut. "It's how people blew off steam before FPS were invented," he reassures you with a grin.

Still more snippets can be heard if you push through the crowd. "We always succeed, because we're awesome." "The geezers just keep getting crazier..." "I'd be screwed either way."

In the center of the group is Neil. The real one, not buzzing in and out of existence in bursts of static, but... he still doesn't look good. He's curled up on himself, nails digging into the floor, feebly coughing and hacking as blood dribbles down his jaw and onto the collar of his shirt. A few copies of the same woman stand around him, looking down at him with the same mixture of annoyance and apathy.

"Tell me what you see." One says, holding out a pill bottle. She takes off the cap and holds it upside down. Nothing falls out.

"Shut... just shut up." Neil mutters hoarsely, and another one laughs, answering in his own voice.

"'Shut up' isn't my name, you know."

He tries to pull himself away from them, crawling along the floor.

"Why are you working so hard for this? 'All this trouble, just for some girl.' That's what I thought you'd say."

One of them finally turns to look at you, and moves so she can block Neil from view. "Get out. This ain't a movie and you're no hero. You're just being a moron."

There's more coughing from behind her, but Neil doesn't seem to be trying to move anymore. There's no point, is there? He's fucked up enough here already. And he didn't want to be here anyways...

"Why would you waste time like that?"

Yes, why would he? Being here isn't doing himself any good. He's not going to fix his machine, he's not going to make any advances... all he's doing is running out his clock.

Might as well let the batteries die a little early.

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"Ah, right, shi... shoot. I'm not very good with children, that's all. Don't really see them in my line of work."

That's all he really has to say on the matter.

"But, uh, hey, if I can bring back this little jerk, I should be able to make you something. Want me to try it?"

Sans takes the cup and sets it carefully on the bedside table. A quick glance inside is enough to verify that any metallic taste is, indeed, from Neil's blood. He makes a face - yuck.

"there are a few people in the castle who can heal. unfortunately, i'm not one of 'em." A fact that he regrets more and more by the day. "maybe they can at least take the edge off the pain. how were you keeping it quiet before?" comparing what he knows now to what he'd seen and hadn't thought about before, it seems obvious that Neil isn't just recently sick.

They acknowledge it with a nod, as well as the why they'd heard during the party, and shift their thoughts to his offer.

A part of them wants to try something big immediately, but just in case--

Their mind jumps from the cat in front of them to a cat monster in the Underground that sold pricey food, then to monsters in general that sold food, then to things that they miss very much after so much of the castle's food, and settle on "Could you try making popato--potato chips?"

"...don't suppose the 'ran into a wall' excuse isn't going to work, huh?" Not that it worked for Eva. Neil looks down at his hands, swallows down that uncomfortable wave of nausea, and just takes a few deep breaths for a moment.

It's hard to breathe now. It was so much easier when he had those stupid pills...

He roots in one of his labcoat pockets and pulls out a smooth, plastic container. Its transparency makes it easy to tell, there's nothing inside, but there is a label on the bottle:

"Watts, Neil. Take 1 capsule as needed. Tramadol." And so on. He passes it over to Sans, silent as he reads over the label.

"...I ran out earlier this week. Looks like my usual symptoms are being complicated by my withdrawal symptoms. Isn't that just peachy?"

He pauses again, unsure if he really wants to keep this conversation going, but he knows a fellow scientific mind can't just let something stay unanswered. He's caught now.

"Anyways, this isn't something you can heal, so.'

He's relieved he's not being asked to drag back a person. He has no idea how well that would work. If he knew it was foolproof, he would have tried to bring Eva here, but...

"Potato chips? Not a problem. One salty snack coming right up!" Neil grins, even sticks out his tongue a little, and in a few seconds, a small purple bag is dropping right into Frisk's lap, which prompts a fistpump from Neil.

"Oh yeah! I'm bad! ...well, I mean, I did kind of forget to ask what flavour, but that's still pretty cool, right?"

"not in the slightest."

He reaches out to take the bottle, holds it up to the light to squint at the label. Medicine of this sort isn't terribly common in the Underground - it can't be, they don't have the resources to make it and can't rely on enough of a supply falling down through the waterfalls to even replicate most forms of drugs. Magic makes up a lot of the difference, but not everything. But the purpose of what used to be in this little bottle isn't hard to guess.

"damn."

But Sans isn't about to let this go unanswered, and he's already trying to make out anything that might look like an ingredient list when Neil speaks again. Sans frowns stubbornly, but doesn't reply right away.

"gotta be a way we can replicate the effects."

"That is not all the spirit said. It said that you have difficulty breathing and you suffer from something called 'hímaptesis.'" She pronounces the strange word as best she can. "What is that?"

"A fancy term for throwing up blood. So basically, she was just stating the obvious. It's not a big deal."

It's a huge deal. A huge deal he really doesn't want to get into, and unfortunately, he thinks he can get away without telling the truth to Tauriel.

He could always give a proper answer if Sans really wanted it, but it's not hard to understand from the label on the bottle. Even without human medicine, the idea of painkillers must be common knowledge, right?

The ingredient list is in small print on the back. Tramadol hydrochloride, starch, microcrystalline cellulose, magnesium stearate, iron oxide, titanium dioxide, indigo carmine... It would look complicated to anyone else, but to someone scientifically trained, it's just the actual medicine plus various dyes to form the capsule. Watts isn't sure if Sans will be able to tell, though.

"I don't know. Might be hard to replicate the crippling addiction, you know?"

...That's a joke, he swears.

Sans knows enough of the ingredient list to know that the important bits are not easily replicateable here in the castle. If he could make something like tramadol hydrochloride, he could also make something like the stasis fluid that S-4 and Sans-Serif both by rights need to grow properly. Then again, with three people in need of serious medical intervention, maybe that should be his cue to step up his efforts again.

...Sans isn't sure he likes the thought of that. Getting too deep into science almost killed him last time, and it might still kill him now. But it's something to keep in mind. If he could just get his hands on the base component, the hydrochloride part shouldn't be as complicated and the actual reaction should be pretty standard and he can at least recognize which components are supposed to be the dye...

"mind if i hold on to this?"

He glances over at Neil, and...that doesn't sound like a joke. Not at all. In fact, it gets the rarest possible response it is possible to get from Sans where even the base attempt at a joke is concerned.

"not funny, pal."

It's not. Watts would have tried, but he's not a pharmacist, and he doubts his data manipulation will be able to be that delicately balanced. Plus, he doubts they'd actually have an effect... data is just data. There's no way it's real, no matter what Frisk thought.

But he can see the gears turning in Sans' skull, and that means at least someone might have a shot. He's not sure he wants Sans to try either, but... hey, if Watts can reprise his role as lab partner, it shouldn't be that bad.

He waves a hand, and is about to respond that Sans can keep it if he wants, when the skeleton actually gets... upset for a second. Immediately, Watts backtracks, not wanting a repeat of the party.

"It was supposed to be a joke! God, I'm sorry, I won't say it again-"

He cuts himself off with another fit of coughing. He shouldn't have gotten so excitable when he still hasn't had anything for his pain, is still in as bad a condition as before. Maybe even worse; the coughing is turning into retching, as sweat beads on Neil's forehead.

Sans immediately feels guilty when Neil dissolves into another coughing fit. This is hard for him, but clearly infinitely more miserable for Neil. Trying to correct the human's sense of humor can come later. For now, he just moves a little nearer, reaches out to brace a bony hand against Neil's back to maybe make the coughing fit a little easier. When his face starts to shine with sweat, Sans even reaches out with a corner of his jacket to try and dab it away. As he does so, he thinks over his options.

His first thought, of course, is Tauriel - but her magic seems most effective on monsters. He needs someone who knows the plants out in the garden better than he does, and...aha. Sans smiles in relief even as he mentally kicks himself. What an idiot he can be, sometimes.

First, he tries to help Neil drink a little more water, and then he lays out his plan. "think i know who can help for now. you gonna be okay on your own for a little bit?" The gardens are a very big place, after all, and even Sans might have to search a bit to find her.

She gives him a look once more. "And now, it seems, you believe me to be the fool. You are not the first person I have seen to spew blood, Neil. Never has it been a trifling matter."

It's... really weird, having someone nearby when he's like this. Neil's used to being alone on his bad days, riding out symptoms on his own. He hardly even goes to emergency nowadays: that would mean calling someone to take him to the hospital. Pointless.

Having someone watch and wait for his fits to subside, to even bother to touch him or wipe the sweat away, to even try to help considering the long years he's spent perfecting his facade of apathetic asshole, it's more kindness than he deserves. More kindness than he really wants. It's alien and uncomfortable and panic-inducing, and part of him would bolt out of the room if he could, but he knows Sans would catch up to him damn quick. So he just struggles through it, forces himself to breathe and then take the offered water (Sans has to hold the cup, and Neil tries not to feel like a pathetic child).

"Yeah. Everything's alright. Seriously, I just need some rest now." If he can get any... insomnia is one of the withdrawal symptoms, and he's been a night owl at the best of times.

Sans actually thinks that he believes that - or at least, he hopes that Neil is telling the truth. But he equally doubts that the human will be capable of getting much rest like this, no matter how much good it might do. And Sans can dab at his face from now until sundown, but he can't do anything to help with that.

He can, however, find someone who can do more.

"yeah, well. let's see if we can get you that rest." He reaches out to pat Neil on the shoulder, and then he disappears. And if Neil thinks that Sans' rather fumbling attempts at care are awkward, then his day is about to get even worse.

Because Sans reappears in the gardens, and immediately sets off in search of Grune.

Grune is, as usual, weeding. Everything is so healthy here--it makes her so happy! But that means the weeds are healthy, too.

As she works, not far from the centre of the gardens, she hums a happy little tune to herself.

"...I don't think you're a fool. Maybe just hoped. Listen, I know it looks bad, but... there's nothing that can be done. Believe me, I've tried. I'm not an idiot either."

He starts to sound slightly choked up, and he quickly silences himself, turning his head away.

The moment the sound of tears creeps into his voice, her annoyance vanishes. He is afraid--of course he is afraid. To be but twenty-nine years old and dying.... The injustice of it sorrows and angers her both.

Once more, she sets a soft hand upon his brow to smooth back his hair. "Do not give up hope, mellonenin. It may be the cure to your sickness is here, far from your world. If it is to be found in this place, I promise you this: I will find it. I will search for it even beyond hope."

Her voice is low, but the passion in it is no less for that. She will not let him die.

He's quickly trying to backtrack, swallow back his tears, put on his usual act. He's spent so long with this he should have made peace with it. If he was really so scared, wouldn't he be reaching out to people? He wouldn't be hiding away under the guise of being antisocial. None of what he does makes sense anymore.

But... none of what Tauriel does makes sense either. She should abandon him. She shouldn't care this much. If anyone would let him die, it would be her. Why would she bother to search so much just for him?

"...You're wasting your time," he mutters. "There's more important things to do here than try to find a cure for an ass like me."

"My time is my own to use as I see fit," she tells him in return. "If I choose to seek a way to help a suffering friend, that is my own business."

In spite of her words, her hand remains stroking his hair, until she picks up the wash cloth to begin cleaning his face anew.

"Yeah, I guess I can't stop you..."

He trails off as she starts wiping his face, his face going red with embarrassment. This is exactly why he didn't want to tell anyone. He didn't want to be pitied, coddled like some sort of child. He squirms away from the hand in his hair, at least.

"Seriously, I don't feel that bad. You don't need to do all that."

"Are you now to tell me what I need to do?" she says back. "You will be happier if I clean the blood from you before it dries."

She takes her hand from his hair and rinses the cloth, then begins to wash the blood from his neck.

"I'm not going to tell you want to do. I just... stop touching me like that."

He scowls, but lifts his head so that his neck is easier to reach. His breathing is still ragged, but at least all the blood is dry now.

"Very well." She gives him a curious look, but says only, "I am sorry to have caused you discomfort."

Dried blood is harder to clean than wet, but she is not going to cause him further harm by scrubbing his neck. Instead, she keeps her touch gentle and makes many passes over his skin.

"...It's fine. It's not uncomfortable exactly. I guess it's... a human thing."

It's weird. No one's ever touched his hair like that before. Not even his real mother. It's too foreign and strange to accept. Scrubbing his neck is only slightly less weird, but he remains still.

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