hippie_ninja | IC INBOX

He looks at his takeout container (easier, just now, than to look at Drake but he makes himself do that, too). "It happens sometimes."

He threads his fingers with Drake's, and isn't sure he is allowed, but he needs it for these few seconds. "Do you ever have trouble sleeping here?"

Don't worry, Jesus. He's extremely cuddly, just doesn't usually initiate contact uninvited. Never anything intimate... but this felt alright, and when Jesus confirms it's welcome by holding on he might notice Drake's posture visibly relaxing.

"Yeah. That's not new for me but the reasons have changed a little." He doesn't want to get into that right out on the street, but they're nearly back to the sub housing. While he still can, Drake strokes his thumb over Jesus' knuckles affectionately. "You can tell me why, if you want. Let's just get inside."

"I wish I knew," he says as they step inside. He says it lightly; they don't have to go into it, especially when he has no insight into it. He only brought it up in the small hope that Drake did, and that Drake had overcome it. "I never had trouble sleeping before I came here. It's just louder here. Busier here. I'm still getting used to it."

"Falling asleep, you mean? Not staying asleep?" That, he does actually have advice about. His frustrating issue is the nightmares. And sometimes the loneliness. "Just the noise would be an easy fix, but if it's more like you can't wind down that's different."

"I can fall asleep. But I wake up four or five times a night. Sometimes I can figure out what woke me up." The traffic outside, the neighbors. "When I can't, though, I can't go back to sleep."

"...you're on high alert," Drake says, expression thoughtful as Jesus leads him to the right apartment. The down housing is just as shit as he remembers, unsurprisingly, but he's lived in worse before. "Do you feel tired even when you do make it through a night?"

"It's complicated. But I haven't felt like I've had a decent night's sleep in weeks. At least there's coffee everywhere, right?"

Except coffee doesn't really help, and he's pretty sure Drake knows that.

"Too bad being more alert doesn't make you any less tired," is his response, his wry tone immediately proving Jesus right. He was undercover vice and major crimes -- running on caffeine and adrenaline was a frequent and miserable occurrence.

He leads him inside, after he gives him a sympathetic grimace. "You have any tips?"

"Maybe. I've got more questions, starting with why you said it's complicated."

Inside, Drake sets his bag and takeout box on the table in the common area and tips his head towards where he knows the bathroom is -- all these apartments are the same. Shitty and the same.

"You mind if I get this off before we eat?" He gestures at the line on his throat, the paint now cracked besides where he picked at it earlier to make it obvious it was fake. "It's starting to itch a little."

"Yeah, go ahead. There's a clean rag in there." He's fastidious about things being clean, about having linens and towels as fresh as he can.

He'll take those few minutes Drake is cleaning up to think about his answer.

It doesn't take Drake very long to wash off the stripe of paint and make sure there are no black flecks left in the sink. He emerges from the bathroom with a freshly scrubbed neck and clean hands, coming up to where Jesus chose to sit.

He didn't explicitly ask why the other man wanted takeout instead of dine-in for a change but isn't reading into it. It's probably nothing more than that their conversation's been a little personal for native-occupied spaces. Not that he'd mind helping with quota like he'd offered, but... they're not done talking.

"This seat taken?"

"I guess I can make room for you," and yes okay maybe he is flirting a little. They aren't done talking, though.

Nothing wrong with flirting just for the sake of it, either. Drake grins and claims the seat, nodding towards their takeout boxes -- might as well eat while it's still hot.

"Where were we?" he asks as he opens his container, even though he knows exactly what the last question he asked was. He's just giving Jesus an out to either answer his last question or move on from it if it's not something he's ready to talk about.

"Why it's complicated," he says, which is a big topic. "Where I'm from, most people are dead. But when we die we reanimate into things that eat the living. The dead outnumber the living, and they don't sleep... They're drawn to noise. I can't always make myself relax here where it's so loud all the time."

So he wants to talk about it, then? As long as it's Jesus' decision Drake is happy to listen, but as the other man answers he goes still, sitting back and giving Jesus his full attention, expression serious and concerned.

"Your world had a zombie apocalypse?" What are the odds of that? Probably decent, considering the infinite number of universes places like this deal with... and it sounds like they're all romeros, or maybe even something worse if they're actually reanimated. But still.

Fucking zombies. Not a fun coincidence.

"The context helps. I'll have to think about it, 'cuz everything that comes to mind right now is just a band aid. And maybe that's enough, like you just need time to adjust to this not being home? But I don't wanna make it worse in the long run."

He doesn't recognize that word, but walkers are called lots of things in his world.

"The dead don't stay dead in your world either?"

"...not exactly. It's kind of a cultural shorthand, for us."

Drake pauses, trying to figure out how to explain the difference between zombies in the media and zombies in reality back home to someone who doesn't have the media context.

"What you're describing is called a zombie in my world, and technically speaking they're fictional. As far as I know, nothing can reanimate. Dead is dead, for us. But there is also a highly contagious disease going around that kind of mimics it in the living. If you don't manage the symptoms... similar deal." Another beat, and Drake glances away. His voice is softer when he speaks again. "I used to have it."

"There's a cure for yours?" Just the idea of it makes him weak with a hundred feelings. "How common was it? How did it spread?"

"I don't know," Drake admits, shrugging one shoulder. "There's a doctor working on one, I was helping him. He seemed pretty confident -- he'd cured rats -- but I died before he'd managed it. Dunno how things went in the long run."

The other questions he needs a moment to think about, and he knows what Jesus is going to ask next. How was he cured, then? But that's a bit of a story. So one thing at a time.

"It's transmitted through scratches and body fluids. Wasn't too common at first, so we were staying under the radar. But my ex was in Hadriel at one point and she said the situation back home had... changed. For the worse. The government had quarantined the city."

He knows how quarantines go. He knows it dooms the people locked up in the hopes that the people farther out can be saved.

"I'm sorry..."

"They're not giving up. The only upside of any of it is that Ravi's got more resources now. CDC connections that don't think he's a raving lunatic, you know? He'll pull it off."

If things don't go completely to hell before he does, that is. Drake's choosing to be optimistic, since he'll probably never know one way or another. What good does it do him to assume his world dies?

None. So he won't.

He quirks a small grin, jumping right to answering the unasked question he's pretty sure is coming. Well, sort of. For any of it to make sense there's some explaining that needs to happen.

"I never mentioned the war going on in Hadriel, did I? Or that I was a Guard leader there?"

"You mentioned a war," but not in any detail, and Jesus only feels he can ask about it now. War stories are tricky.

"How did you manage the sickness there?"

And just like that, the question gets way more complicated than just how he's not a zombie anymore. Drake's smile fades.

"Magic, basically. The thing was, being infected made me stronger in a lot of ways. So I'd stayed a zombie to better protect the city, but there were some really close calls. Earlier tonight when we were talking about going hungry when we were cut off from that one alien? Most people could stockpile while he was at full power and usually we could hunt or fish, people had gardens... worst case they'd lose some weight. But me?"

It's rare that Drake's visibly tense, but this is one of those times. He doesn't talk about this much, and since he's comfortable enough to do so there's no point in hiding how he feels about it. The memories are traumatic.

"You manage the symptoms by feeding. That's the only thing that keeps you yourself. It sucks, but you do it because a zombie from my world who doesn't eat essentially turns into a zombie from your world. A mindless, rotting monster. I came close once, the second time I definitely would've turned if there hadn't been somebody willing to put me on ice. Defrosting hurt like hell, but nobody I loved had to put me down." He hesitates, jaw working, before deciding to just get through the rest of the explanation quickly. "Anyway, when the war was really coming to a head, I decided I was gonna be selfish for once. I didn't want to die as a zombie again, or worse... win or lose the war, if we lost Hope for good somebody would have to put me down. So I finally made a deal. What you're looking at now isn't the same body I was born in."

A cure for what Drake had wouldn't have been anything like a cure for what Jesus has. He knows that. But there's a part of him that is always hoping there is a cure somewhere, that someone can figure it out, and if he could have had some vicarious hope...

"They did a good job," he says, with a little smile, but it fades.

"I'm infected. Everyone is. When I die, if my friends don't put me down, I'll try to kill them." At least that had been true before he died and came here. The fear of it, the absolute terror of it, hasn't gone away. If anything it's become worse, being forced to get close to so many people. He could become Patient Zero here.

"I'm looking into magic to cure it here. I dont' know if I believe in magic, but I'm desperate."

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