2019-09-29 - Cough and Converse

A phone call comes through Lilith's cellphone, and should she take a peek at the ID, it is Isabella's number. Whenever the young woman picks up, she'd hear the archaeologist's voice - faint, drifting in a way that's slightly delirious.

"Hey, Lilith. Just checking on you - Byron said you were hopefully getting some bed rest. How bad is it?"

Instead of saying 'hello' right away, Lilith takes a moment to turn her head to muffle a racking cough into one of her near pillows when she answers the phone while laid up in bed. Then she says it. The woman sounds hoarse and weak and a little whiny but still glad to hear the voice and suffer in company. You can only sleep, lay out, and die slowly so much before it gets boring and miserable during the waking hours. And the nightmares that are creeping up, they aren't helping, among other things.

"It's pretty miserable 'round here. And ugh, sorry, cough right in your phone face." She pauses, "Hey, you sound like shit too. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy through all the burning fever and head pounding, does that make me a dick to want to suffer in like company? Healthy people piss me off right now."

There's another fit of coughing, and she'd be able to hear Isabella on the other line - just as miserable, just as weak and feeble and sick, but laughing in spite of it. And it sounds like it hurts to do it, but she can't help herself. She barely has any voice left, but she tries. "I look and sound and feel like death. I've been avoiding looking at the mirror the last few days, I don't think my pride would be able to take it. And nah, if you're a dick, so am I. That's probably half the reason why I've been holed up in my boat, to keep myself from raging at people walking around right now, enjoying a coughless existence." She pauses, and sighs. "If there's any of those left, anyway. I made the mistake of turning on the news channel today, apparently this thing is everywhere. It's worrisome for other reasons I want to tell you, but that can wait for a little bit."

There's the sound of creaking bedsprings, and a quiet groan. "Oh, god. It hurts to move. But I'm glad I'm not the only one in bed and that you're getting some rest. I hope you feel better soon. Bedridden and physically forced to be good? It feels wrong, on top of everything."

"There is so much we... need to do and be clear headed for and I just... I know I am having trouble staying down and resting, other than, you know, not having a lot of choice. But if I'm this miserable and restless, I'm worried Byron isn't resting like he should be. We just laid in each other's germs before it got too too bad the night before last, but... tch, people like you and him never stop unless smashed down and flat." Lilith says into the phone, giving up on holding the actual piece of tech itself with a swap to speakerphone and a lay of the phone on her chest, facing her mouth with the mic end for listening and talking.

Then the woman, hazy as she sounds, she backpedals a little, "Worrisome howso? I hear sick on the news and worrisome in the same sentence, it's totally key for zombies." Then she pauses, "And how's Alexander? What was the thing August tried?"

"When I talked to him last, he was impatient and he was walking around his apartment building. I don't know for what, but you know him. There could be a nuclear holocaust on the horizon, inevitable, irradiated winter, and he would still be on the phone, making sure his board is set up the way he wants it to." It sounds exasperated, and grumbly, but affectionate, too - the unmistakable notes of an old friend who wouldn't have it any other way. Isabella sighs - it sounds like she's on speaker, also, the phone somewhere stable, but easily within reach.

The chastisement is taken in good stride; she'd hear her chuckling through the receiver, hoarse and threadbare from all the coughing. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I definitely feel smashed. Very physically smashed. Practically flat against the bed, because oh god, it hurts to even breathe."

After a brief pause, there's another sound - like a hand drawing over a very tired face. "Alexander flew off the handle in a bad way and I'm relatively sure the Captain intervened before he could get arrested. He's in August's watchful care - that man could calm down a hurricane with that face of his and...Byron had concerns, that Gohl may be possessing him, so August took a look and he found a splinter of Gohl in him. Not his mind, it's not possession, but a haunting. And he suspects that some or all of us are also being haunted. I talked to our exorcist, Minerva, and she reminded me that the Exorcist in the Veil told us that this would happen - which means we need to get Gohl in the ground as soon as we can. We're close - Hyacinth's almost done with the casket and I picked out the burial site."

She groans. "As for this illness - oh, Christ, Lil. We really shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, but what we've got's not normal, either. Alexander said August tried to heal him, too, using the gifts you have. It didn't work - and I've never known a healer as strong as August as not being able to heal regular illnesses. What makes it complicated is that August told me today that he got pulled into a Dream, while he's ridiculously sick - he's as sick as we are - and none of his abilities worked while he was in it, which is about the last place in the world you want to be without them." After a moment, concern filters through her raspy tone. "You haven't been having them yet, have you?"

"Ugh, that man. And... it does make me feel better to hear your suffering, maybe we can wheeze together on the phone and it'll make a full breath between the two of us." Lilith says to Isabella on the other end of the phone, briefly picking it up to nudge closer so she doesn't have to talk so loud or waste as much breath, speaking of. Her words come in a lazy drag of murmur that seems less taxing and better suited to the drifting places her mind goes while trying to concentrate through the pounding of her head and the flush of fever haze.

"... jeez, yeah, Byron told me he tried to light Joey on fire with his whole gym. Like how did that even..." Then there's a pause, and the woman makes a low noise in her throat that carries and wordlessly implies something about the rest of what is said is making her uneasy, "Maybe it's good I wasn't one of the Three or Gohl blooded. Me sick like this, haunted a by murder ghost too? Oh, so much would be dead dead dead." She pauses, "I'm a cranky girl. But that's not abnormal some of the time, honestly. Alexander is in good hands, though, August just kind of... feels steady. I don't know."

Then there's a long pause with the pieces about the illness abnormalities and observations and when Lilith does finally speak, she sounds like she's dread groaning to herself, "... oh god. No abilities in... a Dream that can kill us?" A pause, "Fuck." Another pause, "Fuck, I keep falling into them lately, which doesn't bode well for..." Another pause, then a hissed version of the word this time, "Fuck. No. I haven't had those kind yet. His abilities work when not in such a way, though? When in this reality, or whatever? This totally figures it'd be hitting us right now. What the hell are we supposed to do about a mystery superpower plague?"

Given the growl that comes out of Lilith with frustration afterwards (it makes her cough too, which pisses her off more), she might have actually taken zombies better than magical superplague given their particular predicaments. But nothing seems to be breaking in the background.

"Sounds like a plan. We can make a..." Isabella groans, the sound of her rolling over filtering through her speakerphone, followed by the unmistakable burying into a pillow of something - most probably her face. "...thorough accounting of the pieces of us that are still working somewhat normally and then maybe together we can make a whole, functioning person." Because why stop with a breath? "...admittedly said parts and pieces are really hard to find right now. I mean, I think my eyes are still working..."

The idea of Lilith unleashing an unholy rampage on Gray Harbor with her power has the young woman pausing for a moment, before continuing, and slowly. "Yeah - that isn't good either. I honestly don't know if it's just some or all of us, so I've been trying to check in with the others every few days. Get the information wheels rolling." She coughs. "And making sure people are still breathing. We're all accounted for, right now. Let's hope it stays that way for a while. But yeah - August is a good guy, he and I have been talking regularly after Alexander's been relegated to his custody, essentially. He sounds tired, but he doesn't mind. Said he likes having someone around to commiserate with."

The cursing is warranted, and all the woman on the other end of Lilith's line does for a few moments is to listen to her mirror her own apprehensions at the day's latest discoveries. "The way August described it to me, it felt like...oh god. Give me a second." She moves away from the phone, to drink some water, cooling her parched throat before she continues. "According to him it felt like...once he was pulled in, they were just gone. He couldn't sense them at all. And when he crossed back over to this side, he felt them come back, but weak - like the batteries were drained."

There's a thump, as if she's slumped into the pillows. "If I could stand, I'd be asking for a certain appointment to try and dig for answers, but I can barely roll myself to the side of the bed as it is to reach for things. The good news is that it's not permanent, I don't think - ten or eleven days from exposure to recovery. And then...god, hopefully it'll repair itself. None of which protects us if we get sucked into those kinds of Dreams in the interim. I'd suggest having some kind of back-up plan, keeping a weapon on you, maybe. But I don't know how safe that is, either, because some or all of us might be haunted. It's a gamble against the House either way."

"Eyes just let horrible light in to make the head feel worse, screw eyeballs." Lilith vents a little more after a weak chuckle at Isabella's whole-person between the two of them as a contingency plan for play. Then she's listening and trying pretty thickly to focus on the details before making another tiny groan in her throat, but this time, she seems to take it with more grace because logic has kicked in, a little bit. Or at least the best kind she can hope for in a case like this, brain on fire with feverish burn and sick haze.

"So. I'm going to keep my handgun around me at all times now, even in bed, because... honestly, someone is more likely to survive getting shot by me in a tantrum than they are... surviving me as a weapon, so I'm... weighing the odds. I haven't been around others enough to really test how murder-ish I am, in truth, but I'm not... so much worried about that as I am about... being pulled into a Killer Dream with no way to... I mean, the last ones needed those things, all three of them, otherwise..."

Lilith pauses, then, and though her phone voice is weak, the unease in it despite the grace in taking bad-news at the moment, relatively... it's dripping with discomfort at the idea of powers unaccessible or weakened, "I can't imagine... how August must have felt not being able to... when pulled to... he wasn't hurt, was he, on top of being sick?"

Screw eyeballs.

Isabella laughs again, and it hurts again, but she's unable to stop. "Oh, god. If this is the way I'm meant to die, I'm for it," she groans - because there are worse ways to go than this. There's some fumbling from her end of the line, the rattle of glass hitting wood before an audible swallow. "I think they're pulling my leg on this drink fluids thing. I've been drinking fluids all day and all it's doing is making me want to go to the bathroom when I can barely stand, let alone walk. It's not making me feel better at all."

She listens to Lilith's cost-benefit analysis over the phone, and while she makes a quiet and uncertain noise, in the end, she really doesn't disagree. "Being caught unprepared on the other side is definitely worse," she murmurs. "There are no rules there. If nothing else, I'm glad August managed to tell me all of this so I can start passing on the word. Hopefully he's doing the same - I already talked to Captain de la Vega...and I'm sure you'll tell Byron, too. Everyone else'll know in no time. I'll..." She scrubs at her face again. "See what I can do to spin the wheels tomorrow."

The query about August softens her tone - palpably and audibly. "He seemed okay when I talked to him," she tells her gently. "I asked him how he was and he said he was fine - he said in his Dream, his girlfriend and Hyacinth were cartoons and he was the only real person. So it sounded like a Cool World sort of deal. If it was largely benign, he got off lucky. I don't think that pattern is going to hold for the rest of us, though."

"I gave up on the whole fluids thing when I kept having to toss my stomach contents over and over. Mostly I just keep getting a bottle to sip because it's cold and I'm so burning hot." Lilith tells Isabella on the other end of the phone, commiserating with a tinge of whine to her murmuring voice carrying on the line from speaker, "But I'm glad you're laughing about fucking eye sockets." A pause, "Okay, I'll stop, that's going to get weird if it comes up in a bad dream, my head is going strange places which..."

"But yeah... I'll warn Byron. Was going to call him before sleeping more since we haven't spoken yet today. Maybe he's actually getting some rest." The woman sighs and the noise is a bit of relief to August's experience being benign and general resignation about the idea, perhaps, that her own dreams really aren't ever benign. After putting a palm flat to her forehead and sitting on the phone in silence a moment after trailing off, she recalls, "Oh. Speaking of the Captain, Byron mentioned he had an episode too? The hell did he do? And have you spoken to Erin, is she okay or still mega-upset? I could call, but been so sick, I just... would rather not cranky on someone to tell them like it is for their own good."

"Yeah. Alexander was worried out of his mind for him, kept asking me to check in on him," Isabella murmurs regarding the Captain. "But in the end, it was Byron who got an answer - from his girlfriend, Miss Sutton. She said he was handcuffed because he was 'slightly more volatile than usual', which probably means something happened. He's alive, and he said he was fine. I know Erin and Joey Kelly were going to break into his place if they didn't hear from him for a while, and I told her to be careful, because the man's always armed. But the Captain said he was able to meet up with them, also. So at the very least, we know that they're both alive, and they're both in contact with people close to them. I think..." She groans again when she shifts. "...that's the best thing we can hope for at the moment, until these Dreams start hitting us while we're neutered."

She exhales a breath. "Erin wasn't upset the last time she and I talked, I think it was largely taken up by worry over the Captain. But if they're able to connect yesterday, she probably feels a lot better, now. I know Alexander was relieved when he found out he was alive. But she doesn't know about....this condition, what it actually does. I literally just found out about all of this last night and today, and I know that she's gradually succumbing to what we have."

"Oh. Hope it wasn't me when she hugged me a few days ago. But the way it's supposedly spreading like wildfire, it could have been any of us. And she's been around August too." Lilith says to Isabella on the other end of the phone with a bit of a 'whoops' noise in her tone of voice. But it comes and goes in favor of the murmuring tone of laze and sick haze she's been using, and finally, it's her turn to laugh with a bit of delay, as if the other woman's word of choice took a little bit to sink in and come back around. And naturally, she chokes and wheezes on it while huffing out that partial laugh, then turning her head to cough after with an ending 'gahhhh' noise of frustration at the end of the racking lung spell.

"Neutered. We're going to feel like dogs with no balls shooting blanks if we go getting sucked somewhere and try to summon up 'oomph' to manage."

After Lilith's breath calms down, though, from the coughing and small bout of morbid humor over fitting word choice, she ends it with a sigh. Then she asks something out of the blue, as if she's trying to find some other note to start winding the conversation to before ending, "You've been so many places, I bet, with your job. Where's somewhere you've always wanted to go that... you've never been to?"

"There's no stopping it now, it's out there," Isabella murmurs. "And it's not as if we can look into it while we're in this state. But one thing at a time, yeah? We survive these Dreams,, find our legs again, put Gohl in the ground, and then figure out this....plague if our abilities don't get sorted out after these ten or eleven days this is supposed to last."

Her smile is almost audible at her laugh, and she groans again, her head rolling back somewhere. There's a rustling of fabric. "Is it too much to hope for that we all get cartoon Dreams like August did? I wouldn't mind those."

The last question is a surprise - Lilith would not be able to see her face to appreciate it, but it's clear enough in the silence that follows. But she answers, because of course she does. "...where I've always wanted to go but never been to. I've been to the major centers of Spain - Madrid, Barcelona, Costa del Sol...but I've always wanted to go to Grenada. There's a palace there called the Alhambra, basically the last of the Islamic castles built in Andalusia free of Byzantine influences. The people who constructed it transformed Arabic epics into geometric patterns, and they're all over the frescoes. Every design on every wall, the way they cut and shaped the windows....they basically transformed poetry into math, and put it all over this beautiful place." After a moment, she laughs softly. "If we ever decide to just escape this place for a couple of weeks, we should go."

She pauses, and then turns to the phone. "What about you? What was something you always wanted to do? Something you could picture yourself doing for the rest of your life, and be perfectly content?"

"Plague feels like the most fitting word, I can't remember feeling so bodily sick in my entire life, ugh. I don't think I want cartoon dreams, though, it might feel like a bad shroom or acid trip and I... mmm, no. Creepy. But maybe better than deadly. Maybe." Lilith comments through the phone to Isabella and the vaguely wistful wishing spoken aloud when it comes to dreams of the less deadly, cartoon variety. Then she's listening to the answer the other woman gives to her impromptu questioning, and she really has to think for a few moments before giving her own answer.

"Sounds pretty amazing. I like math. And science. I wanted to go to MIT and be a chemical or mechanical engineer, once, you know, but... things didn't turn out that way. And I never decided which seemed more likely to grind my gears in the good way. Ships and currents and sailing, though, mm." The woman clicks her tongue once after voicing that tidbit as to the profession she never got the chance to really go for and grab because life had other plans and she didn't come from the same background as a lot of the others with support systems or examples for those kinds of aspirations to go into full effect. But mostly it was the terrible power that de-railed her so young, so young, and she sounds like she doesn't have a clue how anything like that could still be possible.

"I don't know what I would be content with doing. But..." There's a trace smile in Lilith's words that carries over the phone, "I loved Tomb Raider a long time ago, I still want to go to Venice because of a particular level I remember playing through. Probably explains why I go stubborn and tough and get ran over by elephant seals trying to channel my inner Lara Croft badass gene. But... I also really want to go to Rio during Carnivale. I want to... let go at length and be surrounded by... I don't know. All of it. I might have my white girl-tinted glasses on mentally when I think of it being exhilerating and free and amazing, but... til I'm proven wrong, I want that."

"I'll take creepy over deadly, at this point, especially if most of us are going to be unarmed. Not all of us have the hardened frontline experience the Captain does." Isabella's relatively confident in the man's ability to survive anything, except, perhaps, himself.

The rest of it is spent attentively to the parade of Lilith's dreams - the things that have gone before, the ones she hasn't touched. Sailing and navigation, though, earns a sound of approval - the Reedes have followed a proud maritime tradition throughout their history in Gray Harbor, and most of them have made their fortunes by sea. The green-eyed archaeologist is no exception, when she dives through layers of ocean to get to its secrets. "I wondered about math and science, though the other things are new." The last said quietly, as always unable to turn away the opportunity to learn something new.

"Venice is the kind of city that's best appreciated looking up," she says. "Whether you're walking through the narrow streets or sailing through the canals. There's an entire island devoted to glasswork - Murano glass is famous, and the style originated in Venice. I hope you'll be able to go one day, but in the interim, I'm pretty sure Byron's in the process of bringing Venice to you, and Gray Harbor." Though now that Lilith has mentioned it, she can't help but wonder whether the career investor knew about her desire to see it and structured an entire festival around it.

"I think the best way to experience a new place and culture is to get lost in it, the way you describe. Maybe not too much in Brazil because the areas around the favelas are notoriously dangerous, especially for foreigners, but I'm all for drowning yourself in the revelry of Carnivale and drinking it in with your entire being." Says a woman who lives her life doing exactly that - all in, or not at all. "I mean, why go at all if you can't go all out, right?" Her voice softens at the last. "I hope you get that, too, Lil."

A breath taken, there's another groan and shift. "Alright, gorgeous. I should probably let you go so you can get some rest. Check in on me whenever you can, alright? Don't make me worry too much about you." The last is unmistakable in its teasing lilt, but sincerity underscores the syllables uttered.

"Oh, I guess... he is. Maybe that's actually why it's on my mind, though, I associate Carnival more with... either way, we already decided I get a pretty, pretty princess dress and mask to play in during the occasion. But yeah, I hope so, too. I could have went either place, once, but the male company that offered the trip anywhere was... mm." Lilith sits for a few beats on the phone after that, then she's interrupted out of whatever brooding there for a moment by a cough off to the side. After clearing her throat, she speaks toward the speaker again to make a noise at Isabella in agreement, "But yes, rest up, I'll do the same, we'll check in and make sure there's no murder or plague death, everything is fine and terrible, perfectly normal, right?"

Lilith doesn't give Isabella time to answer, because she's in on the tail end of her assessing with a dry, "Right." Because Gray Harbor and it's trend for things to be screwy all around, why not up the ante! Then she's more serious, "Thanks for calling. I'm going to call Byron and let him know about some of the pertinent things before sleeping. Be strong, lady. This undeniably sucks. I'll talk to you later."