[log] THE ODD COUPLE [closed]

[staytunednext]

Characters: House and Cecil
Location P9 - 108
Date: Night of 132
Summary: House and Cecil end up in the same location for the evening
Warnings: None

[The night is comforting. This night is not the night sky above Night Vale, there are no secret military helicopters noisily cutting through the air while the people below pretended not to see or hear anything. There was no blinking red light atop the radio tower, a beacon calling Cecil to work or reminding him with comfort that the radio shows went on inevitably even after his segment, that he was not alone in the world. There were no sirens or searchlights, and no government mandated gatherings of cloud.

But what there was, was Void.

Brilliant black void with a few twinkling stars. Maybe it was not the same void as the one above his sleepy desert town, or the one above the desert otherworld where Carlos was trapped, but it reassured him to pretend that it might be. To believe that it was. To passionately be certain it was so.

This night, like all the other nights, he sets his pack down and takes a seat with his cell phone on his lap. He thumbs on the display, inputs the relevant fingernail scratching noises and moans to unlock it, and tries in vain to get a signal. This night, not like all the other nights, he will not remain alone to do so.

He will be caught red handed, literally, when the door opens again. His fingers and the floor around him stained with the blood that is oozing from his cell phone in regular spurts as if pumped by an invisible heart.]

Comments

[rubikscomplex]

[The scent of blood is what hits House first when he steps into the dark room as it's nearing lockdown. His penlight comes out immediately, and he shines it in the direction that noises are coming from and sees blood. Not terribly unexpected, but it's apparently oozing from some guy - Palmer - god damn it. All he has are bandaids and hand sanitizer. He left the first aid kit with Ecks because he didn't expect to run into any complete morons.

Of course, he would. House slams the door closed and marches over to the other man, crouching down.]

Where are you actually bleeding from? Show me. How long have you been bleeding?

[staytunednext]

I've been bleeding my whole life. I am full of blood, oozing and seeping through the arteries and veins of my body like a river that has no end.

[He smiles and wipes one of his blood coated hands on the floor to clean it, before offering it out to House in a shake as if that question had been a perfectly normal way to say hello.]

But if you mean this blood, this is from my phone. I just can't seem to get a signal, isn't that annoying?

[rubikscomplex]

Yeah, okay, Lovecraft.

[House sighs in irritation, putting his pen light away and pulling out his tablet, instead. He's not going to ask. He's assuming it's like the piano. Great.]

Get yourself cleaned up. The entire place smells like blood now. Thanks for that.

[staytunednext]

[Rude. He raises an eyebrow at the sarcasm.]

What else did you expect it to smell like? At&T have always used blood to alert their users to a lack of signal.

[rubikscomplex]

No. They haven't. How would they even put blood in your phone without screwing with the circuitry? Is there a limit? Doesn't that completely ruin the phone?

[It's crazy to argue with a crazy person. Cuddy had told him that once, but god, this guy...

House pulls off his pack and goes to set it in the corner away from Cecil. He digs through it for his stethoscope to start listening to the walls.

Cecil is the only crazy person in this house.]

[staytunednext]

I don't know, I'm not a phone engineer. I have never taken the requisite courses in wiring, communications technology, and advanced blood stone circles to be able to tell you how a phone works. It just does. Or it usually does. It has not worked since arriving here.

[He watches House press his stethoscope to the wall with interest.]

What are you listening for? Or are you just listening? Does the skittering of spiders and slow hollow silence of cavity wall insulation soothe you?

[rubikscomplex]

I'm listening for something that isn't your voice.

[Said bluntly.]

So let's play the quiet game while you get the blood off the floor, Easy Listening.

[staytunednext]

[Cecil raises both hands in a mock gesture of surrender, revealing that he's missing the middle finger from his right hand and the index finger from his left. Both are bandaged somewhat poorly and the stump of the index finger looks infected.

He falls silent.

For about four seconds.]

Have you heard what it was you are listening for with your strange listening device?

[rubikscomplex]

[House sighs in irritation, turning his head to glare at Cecil. He spots the missing fingers, remembers watching the guy lose them once the network had opened up again.]

Yes. And it's a stethoscope. Have you ever been to a doctor's office? If you say doctors are illegal or some crap and you go to a shaman, I'm going to throw something at you.

[Fair warning, Cecil.]

[staytunednext]

Of course I have been to a doctors office.

[He scoffs, rolling his eyes.]

I was immunised for most of the lethal diseases when I was a child. I remember my mother taking me to the doctor's office, I remember her terrified face as I was enveloped by the sticky cocoon of healing, but I do not remember a stethoscope.

[rubikscomplex]

... Jesus Christ. That better not be a euphemism for what I think it is.

['Sticky' cocoon of 'healing.']

[staytunednext]

I don't know what you're thinking of. I don't have any telepathy powers or divination other than what my horoscope tells me, but we all have that. I'm just very normal. So if you want me to see inside your head to whatever nebulous thoughts of euphemisms and doctors you're thinking of, then you'll have to tell me. With words, preferably.

[rubikscomplex]

[He's seriously considering whether or not stuffing this guy's mouth with a sock would be worth it. On the one hand... silence. On the other, cold feet.]

You've never been to a real doctor's office. Let's just put it that way.

[staytunednext]

What is it that constitutes a real doctors office in the perception based reality that you inhabit?

[This is all kinds of nonsense, everyone knows doctors are made of healing goo. Or they're bowling alley owners.]

[rubikscomplex]

[You know what? Screw it. This guy is going to be insane, House is just going to out freaking insane him.]

Dinosaurs in parking lot, three delicate strands of blonde hair on each chair in the waiting room, and doctors wearing stethoscopes.

[staytunednext]

[Cecil nods as if this is perfectly normal.]

Wow! Isn't is amazing how different medicine is just across state lines? Are the dinosaurs mandatory, or are they a pest control problem?

[rubikscomplex]

More like they just are. You guys don't ride dinosaurs to get around in Night Vale? They're basically cars. I mean, cars that will eat other cars... and people. But cars.

[staytunednext]

No, we don't have dinosaurs. Some of us have cars, a few of us have bikes, most of us have feet.

[He sighs, super envious.]

Dinosaurs sound much greener, you must really have reduced your carbon footprint. Where exactly are you from?

[rubikscomplex]

Mine's actually blue - old Billie Jean I call her. But I'm from Jersey. We're all about cleaning up the environment there. They started adding arsenic to the water for population control recently. You can solve a lot of problems if you just get rid of the overpopulation issues.

[staytunednext]

Our new mayor, and long time friend of yours truly, Dana Cardinal, is very interested in keeping the town green. She's always saying how much green is her favourite colour and it would just be neat if more things were green. Any shade, really, as long as it falls in the green spectrum. But the city council are pretty stuck in their ways.

[He waves a hand as if to say 'you know how it is'.]

Jersey sounds dynamic and progressive and dangerous.

[rubikscomplex]

[It's at least one of those things.]

Dude. You guys have a mayor? We just have an alien overlord. How'd Cardinal get elected? Standard death match, or...?

[staytunednext]

[A death match sounds worrying. Sounds like something a Smiling God might ask of its followers. Sounds like something a man with no eyes and a cheery voice might report from a studio covered in clumps of hair and sticky patches of blood.

Cecil swallows hard, for a moment looking scared, before he pastes a smile on.]

There was a mayoral election. It was very exciting, because it's the first time we've had a proper election race in our town, we even had candidate debates and campaigning. Both Hiram McDaniels and The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home were excellent prospects for mayor, and they've both been discontent since the result was announced.

But they've been told time and time again, we're a democracy.

The pulses from Hidden Gorge revealed that Dana would be the next mayor, and you can't argue with democracy even with fire breathing.

[rubikscomplex]

[House takes note of that swallow, that fear. So which part of the comment? Alien overlord or standard death match. Cecil hadn't been fazed by dinosaurs, so he's guessing the death matches are more likely to be the problem than the alien overlords. There's an easy test.]

Huh. Sounds rigged to me. I think the only real way you can get at a candidate's qualifications is seeing if they're willing to beat down the competition to a bloody pulp. That's how we do it in Jersey. Now that is democracy and civil duty in action. A guy or gal or other comes out of the ring after putting all the other competition down? You know that person'll fight for your city.

[His tone grows progressively more ominous as he speaks, then shifts back to something light as House throws an exaggerated smile at Cecil.]

But hey! The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lines In Your Home wouldn't be the cousin of the Formless Old Man Who Secretly Watches From the Windows In the Shops, would she?

[staytunednext]

I don't know!

[He will ignore the talk of mayoral candidate death matches now. He will ignore it with such dedication and fervour that he can almost convince himself that nothing was said at all. Which is a much more comfortable state of being.]

She's never mentioned any family to me personally, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Does he stand at your shoulder as you shop so that you can feel the breath ghosting on the back of your neck, yet when you look around there's nothing there?

[rubikscomplex]

[Gotcha. That's interesting. Phobia, or...?]

Something like that. He can get you all the best deals, though. Bargain-hunter, that guy.