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It starts with a sneeze. Not the kind that could be interpreted as one of Church's other noises. Not a snort or some weirdly choked whine, not a condescending grumble, and certainly not a cruel laugh.
He's in the middle of ranting about something or another– honestly, Tucker forgot the plot four paragraphs ago and was just too bored to announce that he was lost, letting him carry on, and Caboose clearly didn't even read the synopsis on TV Tropes before entering this conversation– and then he sneezes.
“Gross, dude,” Tucker says, which is what you say when your friend has a big fat wet fucking sneeze.
“... What the fuck,” however, is not the response one gives in this scenario, enough so that it makes Tucker blink and realize why this is so abnormal.
“Wait, you–” Tucker slowly leans forward, bent over himself almost. He's not, actually, taller than Church. He's shorter. But Tucker still somehow makes it seem like he's looking down on him. “Should I say ‘bless you’, or… ‘cause last time I checked, uh, ghosts don't sneeze.”
“Ghosts can sneeze, “ Caboose reenters the conversation the moment he's caught up to what they're talking about.
“No they can't, Caboose,” Church snaps, at the same moment Tucker bites, “Shut up, Caboose, don't encourage him.”
Church turns to Tucker, and though his visor is blank and dark, he can almost mentally project the exact angered twist of Church's lips, the quirk of his eyebrows, the intense ass blinkless husky stare that used to scare the shit out him– not that he let anyone know it scared the shit out of him, he's just good like that, water off the motherfuckin’ duck– when he had a body.
The universal ‘I'm about to make this our whole next thirty five minutes out of sheer displaced, somehow indignant ennui’ Church reaction to anything that threatens his weird emotional shields.
Not that Tucker has specific names for all of Church's expressions, both physical and metaphysical.
“ Encourage me? Why the fuck would I want to be encouraged to sneeze?!”
Ah. There it is. The bait that Tucker can somehow never resist the hook of. The bait of Church twisting a sentence structure in just a weird enough way that it lights up some fucked up gene in Tucker's brain that makes him want to reproduce that response over and over and over again. Who fucking acts like this?
“Uh, that's not what I meant, idiot. I don't want Caboose encouraging you, not that you want to– wait–” Tucker laughs. It's sharp, and mean, and cutting, because that's what they're doing now.
“Tucker–” Church starts in warning.
“-- Wait wait wait wait. Do you want to sneeze? Aww, is he getting sick? Getting a wittle sniffwy?”
“Piss o–”
Tucker gets louder. He knows he's being mean now, genuinely kind of mean, but this is better than actually acknowledging the absolute batshit scenario of Church tricking himself into thinking he can get sick. It makes him think about, like, what it means for him to be a ghost, and not, like, alive, and Tucker's pretty sure his grandma took him to an allergy panel when he was a kid and the results came up positive for being allergic to ‘whatever the fuck is up with Church.’ Symptoms include being sad, which is totally related to a histamine attack or something.
“AWWW, DID SOMEONE FORGET THEIR FLU SHOT THIS YEAR?”
“Are you getting the plague, Church?” Caboose asks, and though there's genuine question, genuine earnestness in the way he's asking, there's a gold ore vein of sly humor running along his words.
Church manages to look bristly, and offended, and pissed off in how he stiffens, and so Tucker's pretty sure he just won the fight du jour. Suck it, Church. Wait, can robot bodies even suck? Oh, shit. They probably can't. Damn it, that's ruining so many spank bank fantasies. Fuck you Church, for making him think about it.
“ I'm not getting the plague, Caboose!” Church screeches.
Then, two things happen. One, private Donut for some ungodly reason pokes his head around some big fat rock and says, “Ohmygod Church, you really need to get your flu shot! It's really not that bad, you just get poked really hard without much prep, but afterwards, you have your immunities for a year!”
Two, Church sneezes again.
This is the final straw. Tucker can see it happen. The smallest tick in his shoulders that means he's lost his goddamn mind.
“Fuck this,” Church hisses, in that way that's pretty much just a sneer, “I don't need a goddamn CDC commercial lecturing me, and I'm not getting sick.” He turns on his heels, and, in a move that's almost uncharacteristic, doesn't say anything else.
Huh.
Tucker just stands there. That is not where he was hoping that would go. Usually, he starts aiming potshots at everyone around him, like an improv comedy roast, and Tucker gets to bask in it.
But Church is just walking away. And holding himself a little heavier than usual. Like he's not feeling well.
Uh-oh.
—
Church’s body hurts.
That doesn't make any fucking sense, but it's the only way you could, if you put a gun to his head, get him to explain it. At this point, he might just ask you to pull the goddamn trigger and end this nightmare, but that's besides the point.
He doesn’t have a body. Logically, he knows this.
Logic doesn't matter when he's shivering, though. Phantom aches and ghostly temperature fluctuations keep wracking their way through him, and he finds himself sitting against the wall in Blue Base trying to stabilize himself. Ass to the floor and curled over himself, knees drawn up to his chest.
He doesn't have skin that can burn to the touch in fever, but he can feel the clammy, sickly feeling anyways. He doesn't have lungs to cough, but he can feel the wet, mucus-laden immune response when he coughs, anyways.
He doesn't eat, but his stomach feels empty and nauseous.
Church holds his head in his hands and he tries to breathe. Another thing he has no need for, but maybe it's just–
Maybe it's just one of those memory impulse things from when he was alive.
He shivers again, and the metal armor clinks from the vibration. Normally, if he prods too hard– he's good at not doing this, letting himself get distracted, letting himself not hold in to one topic for long enough to freak him out, but it's bound to happen every now and again, a freak attack of profound wrongness that moves through him like a foreign creature, some slithering and crawling worm that inches along just to whisper to him with a strange voice, salaciously, there is something profoundly wrong here , or your very reality is wrong, Leonard Church – he feels empty. The armor is, after all, bereft of a body.
Right now he feels like he's made of cotton. Or wool, if the itchiness is anything to go by.
He’s not… Content, so to speak, like this, but at least it’s quiet . Quiet is easy to handle. Being alone isn’t always the best scenario, not for him, but at least it makes… Well, time moves like free flowing water when he’s alone. He can let himself drift, and fall to the wayside, and hope that when he manages to pull his head above the waves, again, whatever’s bothering him will have stopped .
At least it’s quiet, until–
“Church!”
Church jolts where he’s sitting, and everything in him lurches . Like he’s nauseous and hurting, and it still doesn’t make any sense, and–
There’s a bowl of soup being shoved in his face.
He can’t smell it, but he feels like he should be able to. Not physically, there’s not that disconnect, it’s more like… It’s more like… Like he should remember what it tastes like. There’s the lightest of finger-soft remembrances that tell him he should , he really should, but he just can’t. That, more than anything, just pushes him into an even worse mood.
Caboose is all smiles for him, though, when he looks up. Helmetless, with hair sticking up from static, and a grin as wide as the moon, steam framing his face from where it billows up from the bowl that’s being pushed frantically in front of Church’s face.
“Uh–” Church starts, and doesn’t move. “What do you want me to do with that?”
“ Uh ,” Caboose repeats in gentle mockery, “Duh, Church. Soup makes you feel better when you’re sick. We don’t have any alphabet soup, though, so it’s all regular noodles, but I guess you could pretend it’s saying ‘IL’ like the acronym for Illinois since it’s all lines and wiggles like I’s and “L’s.”
“ With what goddamn mouth am I supposed to eat that with, Caboose, ” He hisses, all in italics and everything. It’s a very particular Church skill to speak in italics.
“Tch,” Caboose scoffs, and pulls the bowl back a little. “Soup makes your feel better.” He repeats it slower, with more force, like Church is just being dull and needs this explained to him like he’s a fucking toddler.
“Yeah, I ge–” Oh, fuck. He’s sneezing. He’s sneezing, and he can feel the ghostly imprint of clogged sinuses and mucus and rise in body temperature, even though none of that is happening .
“Chur–”
“Oh mygod this sucks .” He’s moaning now. Which is, frankly, more poltergeist activity than anything, but he’s not keeping track. He’s keeping track of (1) his misery, and (2) how quickly he can find a ghost-killing shotgun that he can shove down his…
Damnit. Back to the no mouth thing.
Life sucks, the afterlife sucks, existence is misery, and God is a chode for letting anyone, ever, gain sentience. He’s going to go ahead and kill his creator first chance he gets. He can postpone ending his own misery if it means he can go ahead and end the life of whoever the fuck made him. Post-fucking-hate, and–
Caboose’s mouth is scrunched up, like he’s trying not to say something, the bowl of soup still held aloft in his hands like an offering.
It’s Church’s least favorite Caboose expression, because he’s going to say it anyways, so why wait? Why make him ask? He sighs, and it comes out like a rattle. Like there’s stuff in his lungs. “What? What on earth are you biting your tongue for?”
“It’s just that, uh, sometimes when you start talking like that, you’re thinking really mean thoughts. In your head. And if you’re sick, it, uh, will just make everything worse. So you should try to relax and take it easy, and I know you can’t take a bath– I like to take baths with bubble bath soap, or bath salts, or a bathbomb, it’s really nice and comfortable–, and you can’t eat food, and I don’t even know why you are sick, but thinking like that will just make things worse, like a bug on top of a bug, and I think you already sometimes have way more bugs than most people have, and–”
“I don’t have bugs!”
He doesn’t even have the energy to screech, or get spitting mad. It just comes out kind of sad and mopey.
Caboose watches him for a moment, chewing on his bottom lip, and then he very carefully places the bowl of soup on the floor.
“Wh–”
He doesn’t have time to finish asking his question, because suddenly Caboose is holding him, lifting him with that scary-ass burst of strength he gets, like, way too often, and spins them around to walk down the hall.
“You are going to lay down. And you are going to try to relax. I don’t think sick people should be sitting in the hallway, anyways. You might infect the hallway, and then me and Tucker will get sick, and I think if Tucker gets sick, he might make me so mad that I’ll do something I’m not allowed to do, and then I’ll be in trouble, and it’ll be a whole thing, and I can’t afford a whole thing this week, especially not when you’re sick and I want to heal you and make you feel better and–”
“Okay, okay, Jesus, if I lay down will you stop fucking talking?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Fuck. Thank you.”
Which is how Church ends up awkwardly spread out on his bed, sneezing and coughing and shivering, with Caboose darting in and out every few hours to make sure he’s not actually dead this time around.
At least it wouldn’t be his fault this time.
—
Church really wishes he could eat some goddamned soup right about now.
The shivers– something that was occasional, and annoying, and frustrating, and mind-numbing, before– have increased to a near constant thing. Caboose had laid a blanket over his shoulders at some point, and even though Church had bitched at him relentlessly (“What the fuck good is this going to do, I don’t have a body, you idiot, I’m made of armor , and, like, ghost ectoplasm!” to which Tucker had announced, “Gross, dude, don’t tell us about your ectoplasm” and succinctly left), he is now holding the ends firmly to keep it wrapped around himself like a weighted safety net.
Tucker marks his reentry with a loud clearing of his throat.
Church has a room. He doesn’t sleep, hasn’t needed to since he died, but he still has a room. It’s not furnished with much, other than a military cot, storage space, and the few knick knacks he’s managed to accumulate in Blood Gulch. It’s not a very sentimental place. Most of the things he has are things he’s been gifted; art that Caboose made and put up onto his walls bring a splash of color to the space, the small stack of video games and physical media they collectively own gets stored in Church’s room since he’s the most unlikely to spill something on them and destroy everything, There’s an old bullet shell cradled on a small collection of stones he’s found himself pocketing here and there, nestled on the nightstand. It’s from one of Tex’s guns.
He’s been staring at the ceiling and languishing in his misery, but when he hears Tucker, he lifts his head and stares at him for a long moment, something foggy and unclear making him slow to realize who it is, and he throws an arm across the bed, hand dangling off the edge.
“What are you, a Victorian child? Do you have T.B?” Tucker asks. It’s full of acid, but he’s coming further into the room, so he’s not actually upset, or annoyed, or done with Church’s shit.
“I don’t know,” Church mumbles, and when Tucker’s close enough, he grabs him by the wrist and tries to pull. He doesn’t, actually, have the strength to indicate he pulls Tucker closer, but closer he comes anyways, blinking down at Church with an unreadable expression on his face.
“Okay.” Tucker looks away from Church’s visor down to where his wrist has been captured. “You don’t have tuberculosis, and I don’t know what the fuck is up with you, but it looks and sounds like some shitty flu, so you just have to wait it out.”
“That’s torture, ” Church whines, and Tucker’s sighing before he even finishes speaking. Church can’t blame him. Even he’s aware that this is the most pathetic he’s sounded in a hot minute.
“Uh, welcome to humanity, Church,” Tucker says, and very haltingly, like he’s completely unsure of himself, shoos Church over on the bed so he can sit on the edge of it. Church doesn’t let go of his wrist. “It’s all torture, from the second you’re born until the day you die. And that’s why everyone’s obsessed with boning. Two minutes of sheer relief from the shitty stuff.”
“Two minutes?” Church slowly pulls himself up on the bed, enough so that he can sit up against the wall, and Tucker can climb across it to sit next to him, sitting cross-legged in such a way that his knee bumps into Church’s shin.
“Want me to leave? I’ll leave.”
“...No, no, forget I said anything. Stay. It’s not like I can get you sick, anyways. Probably shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Tucker blinks, and… Smoothly moves on. Sometimes Church says shit that can’t really have a good response. Even Church doesn’t know what the response to… That… Would be.
“Yeah, whatever, it’s somehow better to be in here than anywhere where Caboose is running around. He’s frantic, dude. I think he’s made four bowls of soup already. It’s like he hasn’t heard of any other method to help someone when they’re sick. Which is frankly ridiculous if he’s telling the truth about how many sisters he has.”
Church can feel himself kind of glaze over as Tucker talks. It’s not that he’s not interested; he is. It’s more that, the more Tucker talks, the more Tucker gets comfortable– because if he’s sitting anywhere longer than two seconds, he’s going to sprawl out, frenetic energy keeping him moving but increasingly more nesting–, the less alone Church feels. There’s some latent spike of anxiety, of wrongness that sits like a constant companion deep within the hind regions of Church’s very existence, and sometimes, when Tucker is around, that part of him quiets. Just a little.
Just enough to count.
Tucker takes it in stride. He knows Church’s moods by now, and for once, doesn’t poke at the bear. He just talks about anything and nothing at all, for hours , broken only when he leaves to go steal the Switch he left at Red Base when him and Grif last… ran away to do whatever it is they do.
(That’s a very innuendo-like way to say that they smoke dirt weed together and pretend it never happened to keep the sanctity of the team dynamics in check.)
And if, at one point, late in the evening, Church ends up half-conscious with his head in Tucker’s lap while Tucker absolutely crushes Mario Kart, well… No they didn’t No way to prove it.
Silver linings in the torture of being sick and all that.
—
On the third day, Church isn’t as much of a whiny bitch about things. He’s up, and moving, and sneezing and shivering becomes an occasional annoyance. There’s shit to do. Stupid team bullshit that, day by day, feels more and more pointless, but someone’s got to do it, and if Church doesn’t take the lead, then nothing around here will ever get done.
And he guesses he doesn’t want to live in permanent stagnancy, not really.
He’s finally up to standing around and bitching, shooting the shit, being normal, when–
Tucker sneezes, and in the silence that follows, when Caboose darts out a hand to Tucker’s forehead and pulls it away like he’s been burned, they realize that they’re absolutely fucked.
Church might be a bitch about being sick, but Tucker’s a cunt.