sixthiteration | Test Drive 23

It has to take place in the 6I universe.
It cannot be the character's arrival into the game.
Please only test new characters who do not have a version in the game. Our cast list is here.

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Prompts

FULL VIEW - The Observers really do their best to make each villager's wrist device as user-friendly for them as possible, but with all new tech, sometimes there's a learning curve... And sometimes, you just screw up. Like now, when you've accidentally triggered the video option and called someone completely random on the network without realizing it. Yep, you're just going about whatever, totally oblivious. Here's to hoping that your clothes are fully on, and that the person on the other end is nice enough to speak up sooner rather than later.
SHADOW OF A DOUBT - Being the intrepid (or just bored) villager you are, you've gone exploring and found yourself a very interesting (if moderately spooky) cave. What lurks in the dark? Might it be some shadow dust to turn you intangible? Or perhaps a cave wolf with all of its little goblin-monkey friends? Maybe, just maybe, it's both.
ILL AT EASE - 'Tis the season for the common cold, and you've got it. Unfortunately, the village doesn't have a corner drug store, so you're achy, miserable, maybe a little feverish. The good news is a little time in bed should do the trick. That is, if you're not the sort who has to be bullied to take care of yourself anytime you get sick. Either way, maybe you'll be lucky enough to find someone to tuck you in and bring you some chicken soup.
WILDCARD - Choose your own adventure. Maybe play powers roulette.
NETWORK - All characters are fitted with a smart watch-like device on their left wrist, which they can use to send text and video messages to other villagers. Text and/or video are allowed, any length. Display names may be changed by characters on the fly, but anyone can tap to see someone's real full name.

Please list your CHARACTER NAME, CANON & PROMPT NAMES in your SUBJECT LINE.

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Full View

The device is mostly ignored, having no desire to electronically communicate with anyone. Or having communicated with much of anyone since he found himself stripped of every weapon he had, the clothes he totally didn't wear in the shower (they're leather, dammit), and finding himself drowning in what appears to be the dead of winter - since when is it winter? - and running around in scrubs.

He has a few guesses of just what is going on, and he's not happy about it. Until they find the answers though, he's not willing to let his guard down.

When the device comes on though without his knowledge, it's to a sort of Blair Witch kind of a moment. Blurring of trees, the sky above, flashes of a man's face as whatever the hand is holding slashes and hacks through something that may well be tree branches given the bits of bark and greenery flashing occasionally across the camera.

Who knows where he got the knives, and if someone is missing one this might be where to find them, but if he's dealing with all of this, he's doing it on his terms. Startling him without fair distance may not be the best of ideas.

Ill At Ease

He's sick. No, it's not even that he's sick. It's that he's hacking, snuffling, sneezing, stuffy kinds of miserable sick. What kind of insult to injury is this? He knows it's because he woke up in that damn water, even if that isn't scientific. It's what it is!

Curled up in a chair in the Inn, alternately leaning in as close to the fire as he can and practically leaning off the other side of the chair to get away from the deathly fiery heat as his fever rises and falls, Diego is pissed as fuck that this is how he's going to die. Not on his feet with knife in hand and blood pouring from various holes in his body. From a goddamn cold because there's no fucking orange juice, and no fucking Tylenol and dammit, this is the dumbest way to die. Ever.

Curling his coat tighter around him, he groans as he rolls his eyes. "Just shoot me," he mutters, closing his eyes.

Edited 2019-02-24 04:03 (UTC)

"Jesus, you look like shit."

Five, only just recently past his own bout with the illness and not looking particularly fabulous for it himself, pauses in his progress across the room to lift an arm and cough jaggedly into his elbow. His hands are clamped around two steaming mugs, the contents of which shiver perilously in the moment before he recomposes himself.

One he holds Diego's way, only to course-correct and offer the other instead. Inside is some sort of soup made with vegetables and something that looks like chicken but probably isn't. Beggars can't exactly be choosers around here.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he mutters, eyes fluttering open to stare, no actually glare, at Five. "And I'd be pissed if I looked good when I'm going to die in whatever fucked up reality this is," he adds. "Well, I mean, I look good but not healthy," he corrects himself, as if that's important.

Or even accurate with the rheumy look to his eyes, and how red his nose is.

"Would it kill them to give us aspirin?" Not that he's entirely against them dying. Whoever they are. Loosening his hold on the jacket, and then pushing it away as he suddenly feels flushed and overheated. A brow arches at the hesitation.

"Forget which one you poisoned?" Half smiling even as he takes the mug.

"If I wanted you dead, there are about 20,000 more efficient ways to go about it," says Five, long fingers grasping at the back of a nearby chair to drag it over with the gruff scrape of wood on wood. He couldn't have said why he does it, apart from habit; he certainly isn't expecting any great or worthy insight to come from a confab with Diego.

"This," he explains, lifting his own cup in a self-satisfied, if careful, upward arc of demonstration as he sits, "is coffee. I may have had to murder someone to get it. It is not for you. That," he taps an index finger in the direction of Diego's considerably more dubious but clearly appropriate cup, "is for you."

For the longest time Diego stares at his brother, clutching the mug like a lifeline and enjoying the way the warmth seeps into his hands though, for a time, he doesn't say a word. "I'm not sure if I'm impressed that you probably actually could make that list, or saddened you would take all that time when there's about a half dozen effective and easy ways to kill a person so why do you need more?"

Much as he might not admit it though, or make snide comments to the contrary as he just did, Diego is kind of happy for the company. No, that's not true. He's not happy about it at all, but he kind of wants it. Better to have a focus than just thinking about his pain. Sure, that's why.

"At least make sure you clean up your mess," he murmurs, bringing to mug up and inhaling. His nose wrinkles but he takes a sip nonetheless as he looks at Five through the steam over the rim of the cup. "You know when old men speak to younger men like that, they end up tormented until they take their last breath, right?"

Ben makes a humming noise, like he's considering Diego's request, even though there is no way that he'd ever, ever do it.

He hadn't seen Diego until now, despite hearing that someone that sounded a lot like him is here. The temptation to be a complete ass and screw with his head is really working overdrive and with Diego looking so shitty, he feels like he won't even have to try. Maybe Diego will just think that being haunted by Ben is a family bonding activity, now.

And yet, he cares about his brother. He cares about all of them, which means that he sets the bowl of soup down in front of him and gives him the glare that usually Klaus gets. "Stop being such a whiner," he complains. "Do you know how many times I would have loved being sick? That's the really fucked up part. At some point, you miss green snot and coughing until your chest aches."

"Stop being such a drama queen and eat your soup."

Edited 2019-02-24 13:41 (UTC)

"It wasn't whining," he growls, well rumbles softly, even as he raises his gaze to the speaker. "It was a comm..." The words fade off, staring at the apparition standing in front of him in silence for a long time. "Well fuck, now I'm hallucinating. Fever's worse than I thought," he says, tugging the coat tighter around him. "Considerate hallucination though."

Eyeing the bowl of soup a minute before looking back up at Ben. At the apparition of Ben. Shit but it hurts getting his ass chewed by Ben, of all people. Sighing, he moves to sit up, sucking it up because dammit, if his mind is going to send something this cruel to push him then he really does need to suck it the fuck up.

"The soup anymore real than you are?" Really wondering just how sick he is now, what this all could be. The place was weird, but this? This goes beyond some of the things he's seen already. Even purple alpacas and someone with a peacock with a birds face. That's not Ben.

Ben sets the bowl down and perches on the table. He may be corporeal now, but old habits die hard and he suspects that even though it's not Klaus, a brother's a brother, especially in their fucked up family. With Diego so sick, he feels like it's the perfect time to deal with him and have the 'hey, surprise, I'm alive here somehow' talk.

Not that he wants to. This would be way easier if Klaus were here as the intermediary. "Eat it and find out," he insists. "I'm not Mom, I'm not spoon-feeding it to you."

"I'm as real as I've ever been. Just because you never saw me, doesn't mean I wasn't there," he points out.

Watching this image of his brother settle in, challenging him, and Diego's eyes narrow. Pushing the coat off his shoulders, letting it bunch up behind him on the chair so that his arms are free, preparing. Moving to sit on the edge of the chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at him intently.

"Shut up."

There's heat to those words, but none of the anger. Not that it isn't there but it's hard to express feeling as weak as he is.

He can't argue that ghosts aren't real because Klaus... but that doesn't make this any easier.

"So you're saying you're a ghost?"

Even as he asks it though he reaches out, jabbing at his shoulder. Hard. Testing to see if his finger would go through him. Not that he's sure what he'd do if he wasn't tangible. Diego just needs to know.

"I've been a ghost for a long time, maybe you're the one having a break with reality." He's messing with Diego now, though, because he knows that he's become a real live boy. He's not so sure who his blue fairy was in this case, though weirdly, it had been Klaus back home bringing him over the veil, but here, he can touch things and eat and he's still coming to grips with how incredible it is to be alive again.

He doesn't know how long it'll last for, but it's nice, talking to a brother who can actually talk back and isn't Klaus.

"Eat your soup," he says again, firmer than before. "If you end up dying over a fever just when I came back to life, I'm gonna be pissed."

"Have you seen the animals they're storing in the police station? I'm definitely having a break with reality," he says, shaking his head even as Diego reaches for the bowl of soup. Not because Ben keeps ordering him too, which pings about a four on the paranoia scale (and only that low because how poisoned can spectral soup be) and takes a bite anyway.

"Oh you're going to be pissed," he says, rolling his eyes, and yet he takes another bite. "Tell me how the hell this happened," he demands rather than asking, gesturing at his brother with the bowl of the spoon. "Let me guess. Don't have a clue?"

Damn but this wouldn't be easy on the best of days, and this one sucked anyways. Even if there is nothing that sucks about the possibility of Ben being alive.

Ben hasn't, but then, Ben's been busy being alive and stuffing food into his face, running around and touching things (including himself, okay, it's not like he could do that with Klaus around, it's not weird, it's just normal), and now keeping an eye out for Diego.

"Does anything about us ever make sense?" he feels compelled to point out. "I could summon other-dimensions through my stomach," he reminds him, patting said area, where the only thing he's summoned lately is a real good bout of hunger. "How is it you got sick so soon? Don't you have some vigilante defense mechanism against germs? Stab them with tiny little knives or something?"

Of course Diego had checked out what is marked on maps as a police station, and had been more than slightly bothered to find it full of animals. Then he'd had a look at some of these animals and he had no idea what to think. He got out of there quick though.

Though visiting the mashed up animal zoo is a million times better than any kind of a possibility of his not a ghost anymore brother jacking off. He'd dog sit one of those weird headed dogs over that.

Diego's mouth opens, wanting to argue that but, shit, he can't. Though he brings up a good point. "And my body fears me and does what I say, thank you." Except now. What the fuck is with now?

"You can't do that here though, can you?" Not accusatory, but asking because he's already stolen a few knives and there's definitely an issue here.

"Are you disappointed I can't feed you soup, water, and read a book all at the same time?" Ben's not. The tentacles had never been Ben's best friend, seeing as he could control them and get them to do what he wanted, but at the same time, most of what they wanted was to rip people apart.

So, it's good they're not here.

"It's Dad's worst nightmare. We're all normal," he says. "And why would you adopt a kid unless it could be useful?"

Diego's brow furrows, upper lip curling a bit. "No. For one, you'd probably purposefully spill the soup on me if I even ask. Which I wouldn't," he adds, shaking his head. "No, it's not wanting you to be able to. It's..."

His fingers flex, even though nothing feels any different, but it feels different to him. Maybe just in knowing.

"I don't know. We kept Klaus around for years," he says, but there's a wry smirk as he says it. He cants his head, eyes watery and his nose red rimmed as he considers Ben for a long time. "I wanna know what kind of people can bring the dead back to life. I mean, if you're not a hallucination brought on by a fever."

He would. He'd even enjoy it, but then, trolling Klaus has been one of his few forms of entertainment outside of reading and movies that he's had over the last decade and change.

"Maybe get better and then you can find out if I'm still your dead brother or if maybe I got brought back to life." He's used to hanging around and commenting, but no one's ever been able to hear him outside of Klaus before, so this is a whole brand new barrel of fish to work with. "Who's to say what Five did, it didn't bring me back?"

"Brought back to life or not, you're still my dead brother," he points out, giving Ben a look more befitting a twelve year old than a man of his age. Though that is a consideration, he realizes. All those times Five vanishes, all the moments when he went through time for the Commission. Maybe.

"Doesn't make you not the dead brother," he repeats, smirking a bit as he eats more of his soup.

Believe it or not, Klaus has absolutely woken up in a place he didn't recognize, wearing scrubs, soaking wet, and without the ability to remember where he was yesterday. Sure, it wasn't in a fountain, and even if it had been, the fountains he has experience with are not quite as deep as the one he'd just crawled out of. Gagging. Freezing.

He's still shivering as he stumbles his way into the Inn and walks stiff-legged over to the fireplace, with eyes only for the flames, skinny hands extended in front of him to face the orange light.

That's when he hears it. The familiar dulcet tones of his (technically younger) brother Diego. And, if his ears are not deceiving him, Diego sounds stuffed up, his voice has that distinct edge of misery that Klaus has only heard a few times in their lives together.

Diego is sick.

Grinning crookedly, eyes still on the fireplace, he lifts one arm and fingerguns at the origin of that miserable voice.

"Bang bang."

Swiveling on one bare heel, Klaus turns toward Diego before collapsing into a cross-legged seat on the floor, looking up at him.

"Hey bro."

Edited 2019-03-05 06:08 (UTC)

For the most part, Diego is ignoring everyone else in the room. Ignoring everyone hanging about like this is some kind of VFW hangout for the kidnapped and bored, without the alcohol, the music, or the pool tables. Before this damn cold hit, he'd have been happy for the tables. Makes for quick and easy weapons, all of which are ranged and he still has a skill for those without the super power he's sorely missing.

Instead it's just a bunch of people pretending like they're cool with being dropped off who the fuck knows where. Or worse, they're actually enjoying it all. Maybe they've got nothing better to do with their lives but Diego has a world to save, and siblings that may well be scattered to the four corners of the world.

Or who are suddenly there standing in front of him. Well, now sitting.

Diego watches his brother move closer, sinking to the ground, and he just kind of stares at him for the longest time, uncertain what to think of this. Or fearing that if he speaks he's only going to start hacking again, and he's really fighting hard not to cough. He is master of his own body and he can control this, dammit.

"So... looks like Five didn't just fuck me over," he says with a snort... that sends him into another coughing fit. Burying his face against the inside of his coat, determined not to be Patient Zero in this tiny village. Blinking watery eyes at Klaus as he lifts his head, nearly smiling. Well what might have passed for a smile if you weren't used to actually smiling.

"You're wet." Astute observatory skills with this one. "You just..." He gestures with one hand. "With the fountain?" A thought that's both promising and frightening because if Five ends up here, and he is as powerless as Diego is, they're stuck here and Earth's population is gone without a chance to change it.

"Yeah...yeah. I mean, about five or ten...hours ago? Days? I don't know. I coulda sworn I was sober like yesterday but..."

Lifting a hand, he scrubs it over his face and then back through his mop of curls, exhaling a big huffing groan.

"Man, I don't think anyone I see here is dead, but I don't feel high."

And he doesn't remember Diego having a cold or there being fountains or an inn or forests, but he'd been avoiding people just in case they were dead (even if they didn't look dead). Or, even worse, in case he was the one who was dead and they were more weird manifestations of god or whatever.

"What a head trip."

Another scrub of his hand over his face and through his hair.

"Not sure if Five fucked us over or if he just fucked up but this is sure not where I expected to end up."

Shaking his head, he leans back, hands on the floor, shoulders hunched, looking up at his brother.

"You had any soup?"

Edited 2019-03-07 03:44 (UTC)

"You were sober before here," he says, giving him a tight nod about that. "But I'm not sure if it was yesterday. I don't like coming to in medical scrubs. How long have we been out, you know? We know the anomaly de-aged Five, but change clothes and drop you off somewhere with new supplies? The commission though? I can see this being something they're behind."

And if they are, then this might only get worse. Not a reassuring thought.

"Fine. Fucked up, not screwed us," he says, at least accepting that, though the words are almost lost in another coughing fit. "Either way, maybe the others will start filtering in as well, though I hope they don't."

And he knows why. They'll be stuck because the moment Five enters this place, he'll lose his power just as Diego has, and as... He stares at his brother for a long time. Not sure if he should tell him or not. At length he sighs, and then sniffles.

"I have. It's not bad, but I'm not questioning what the meat is," he admits. "I don't think anyone is dead here either."

"Ehhh, coming to in scrubs isn't so bad once you get used to it."

A snicker, before he's settled down and studiously paying attention to Diego as he talks about how long they've been out, how the anomalies seem to work, the Commission, the whole time travel situation (and that's still too raw to put too much thought into - Klaus ignores it like he's sure Diego is ignoring his own shit). None of which he really understands or wants to understand right now. For various obvious reasons.

But he tries. For Diego. Because he's sick, and being paid attention to will probably make him feel better.

"I just mean, Five's never really fucked us over before, unless you count the twenty bucks he owes me..."

Klaus waves a hand, brushing off that topic, before continuing on, "Time travel is weird. I was gone for like. Ten whole months, and came back real close to the same time so here's hoping this is the, you know, side quest not the main game or whatever, and we show back up at the same moment except Vanya's fixed and..." His expression goes sour, and he sighs, rubbing at the side of his neck, "And money grows on trees and pigs fly and everything is right in the world."

Klaus flops on his back on the floor, arms behind his head, looking over at the fire while he scoots a bit closer to it for warmth.

"Pipe dream. Fine. You had soup. What about tea and honey?"

"Unarmed, with no idea what they've done to me, or how long I was out? Yeah, not going to ever get used to that," he says with a shake of his head. And he doesn't want to either.

"Money's no use to you here, so guess it won't matter." And he knows Five hasn't, but damn he wants someone to blame and right now there's no one. "And I know he didn't. I just..." He sighs, closing his eyes and making himself stop, to focus. It doesn't matter if he wants someone to blame. He doesn't have that, and that isn't likely to change any time soon.

"The side quest," he repeats, eyes fluttering open and giving his brother a look, especially as he goes on about Vanya. "She's messed up. Just like the rest of us. She just has the ability to destroy the world, and the rest of us are playing with kids toys in comparison," he points out. "Good old Dad screwed her up as much as us, but he knew what it was that she could and still assumed she'd just keep taking the damn pills."

Rolling his eyes at that. Couldn't keep Klaus off drugs and couldn't keep Vanya on them. Fucking great.

"We barely have a stove apparently in this place. Don't hold your breath for tea and honey," he says. Yet Diego rises, shrugging off his coat and moving to drape... well, mostly drop, his coat over his brother's still wet form. "You should change."

Klaus just shrugs that one off, because clearly that's a difference of opinion between them that's never going to be resolved. Irreconcilable differences. No big deal.

"Whatever, man."

Diego has a point about money not being any use, and for a moment Klaus feels that cloying sensation of complete desperation, of need so intense it chokes him, because that means no drugs, and no drugs means...

But there's probably no drugs here, and he wanted to get clean anyway. Even if it's kind of hard to remember why right now, as overshadowed as that thought is by the sudden need that started blowing him away as soon as he actually thought about drugs, a need that's kind of like drowning. He tries to ignore it. They're talking about Vanya.

"Yeah, yeah. Believe me man, I know. She's..."

Lifting a hand, he pushes his hand back through his hair again, staring at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling heavy, too fast, eyes sinking shut, shivering without realizing it.

"I can't believe we let Luther keep her in that cell, man. We fucked up. We fucked up bad."

It catches him off guard when suddenly he's not just cold and wet anymore - the jacket drops over him heavily, the air rushes out from under it, air that smells distinctly like Diego (sweat and leather and smoke) which is kind of comforting in a fucked up way. He pulls the jacket around himself and sighs, looking up at his brother again.

"Yeah. Yeah I should."

But he doesn't move.

Edited 2019-03-09 20:20 (UTC)

Before Klaus arrived in this place it was easy to pretend, to focus on the here and now and what needs to be done and ignore everything else. Ignore what they had done, and all the things they hadn't done. Easy to ignore how one by one they had escaped that house that had held so many torments for them - Luthor and his desperate Gold Retriever ways notwithstanding - and yet they had abandoned one another in the process. In a way they had played into Reginald's hand.

They had ignored Vanya for being nothing. They had allowed abuse and punishment and pain to be part of their lives, as if they deserved it for being born to mothers that never conceived them, and purchased by a man that hadn't wanted them but only needed them. They had turned their backs on one another as if it was normal, as if it were deserved, and their lives had paid the price for feeling they had only the choice to go on alone, and let the others flounder as they may.

Sitting down on the brick hearth, grunting as he does. All of his body hurts, in ways that is nothing like taking the beating he likely deserves and leaning back against the fire warmed bricks. Sooner than later he'll be hot again, aching for the fever to break and his pain to stop. Until then though, he can only nod.

"We should have taken him down, if we had to. We shouldn't have let him into that auditorium either," he says. All his life Diego has disliked his brother. Number 1. The leader. The boy, and then the man, that took Diego's place. Yet instead of fighting him then, he had abandoned the house and his family. And then when it came to Vanya, he had argued, but he hadn't fought. He hadn't defended his sister as he should have. He had never done it for any of them.

His entire life spent trying to protect others for his own ego, and never once seeing who needed his help the most. Himself included.

"We get another chance though. Once Five finds us here, and we're back together, we'll fix it," he says, because hindsight is twenty twenty, and now they know what needs to be done. Maybe. At least how not to do things.

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Test Drive 23

Diego Hargreeves | The Umbrella Academy

Ill at Ease

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Ill at Ease

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ill at ease.

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