"A Three Hour Tour" [locked to Rich and Grif]

[iamresponding]

Who| Grif and Rich
What| "A Three Hour Tour" plot. After investigating a garbled Legion distress call, Grif and Rich crash several months in the past on an alien planet and have to survive together and wait several months until rescue
Where| Azhol IV.
When| Post- Blargh, pre-"Lights Out"
Warnings/Notes| Shippy self-indulgent nonsense

Rich is feeling better. He'll never feel the way he used to, before getting his memories of the Cancerverse back, but the medicine and therapy are helping - and even allowing him to unpack things he tried not to touch before, like the War, and the fall of the Corps, and being controlled by the Phalanx.

He can never be his old self again but he can still be something healthy, if he works hard enough at it and actually accepts help. In fact, all of it's helped enough that Kid Q even let him go on a minor mission with Grif, some diplomatic talks and security consultations with a new UP member world.

And it'd gone well. He feels almost human again. He feels like he actually has a future.

So even now, after receiving a Legion distress call, responding to it, getting caught in some weird time storm, and crashing on a planet, he feels okay. Even after they figured out it was their own past distress call they were responding to. Even after figuring out they're stuck several months in the past, according to some of their instruments that use certain physical forces to calculate the correct time. Even though something in the atmosphere is making their flight rings fail and making their long-distance comm functions go offline.

They're both mostly uninjured, they have their omnicoms - which are saying there's fresh water and edible plants nearby - they have some rations and supplies like water filters, emergency blankets, backup transuits.

And they have each other. Grif definitely isn't the worst person to wind up stuck with.

"Our flight path took us right past this planet. We just have to hold out until the rest of the universe catches up a few months and they actually notice we've gone missing. The search pattern spread will bring them here."

It could be way worse.

Comments

[whyarewehere]

Grif just groans. Again. It's the most put-upon of human noises, and that's been his answer to most of this.

"Great. I thought I was past the being stranded in stupid places part of my life, you know?"

He's understating it. All the stupid places in the past were built for human habitation. (Mostly.) But at the moment, it just feels more inconvenient than threatening.

It had been such a nice mission, too.

[iamresponding]

"Place seems pretty appropriately named, don't you think?" Rich says, with a mischievous expression.

The planet is at least in their database, with some helpful information.

But that name. That name.

"Guess we're gonna be stuck on Planet Azhol for a while."

[whyarewehere]

"They need to fire the guy who wasted that one out here and named Apokolips "Apokolips"," says Grif.

He surveys their sorry situation.

"So. I guess we need to get comfortable."

[iamresponding]

"It's only a couple months, right? We're two perfectly capable...non-outdoorsy people that have very little experience surviving in the wilderness."

Hm.

"Upside: no need to rub two sticks together. I can light anything we want on fire."

[whyarewehere]

"There you go, making me and my super speed friction look bad."

He sighs.

"We should get on that. Stuff has to live out here. Time to show it who has thumbs and fire."

He hates nature so much.

Several days later

[iamresponding]

"They're going to go away eventually," Rich says, trying to keep optimistic as he and Grif sit in the bower of a tree, waiting for a pack of creepy little toothy mammal-things to just go. Away.

There are a lot of them and attacking them does this funny little thing of making them split into even more mammal-things instead of killing them, and they seem to absorb Rich's Nova Force energy and get stronger from it.

"They'll probably get hungry and go somewhere else. It's only been two hours."

[whyarewehere]

"'Only'."

Grif has stretched out on a branch, like the worst imitation of a jungle cat. He's watching the creatures as they pace below, sometimes one gets brave enough to try and make the jump.

Luckily, they split the last one that was big enough to possibly succeed.

"Hey Rich," says Grif, a thought crossing his mind. A remembered conversation on a couch, about sled dogs and zombies in Alaska.

"I found you some dogs."

His grin can only be described as shit-eating.

[iamresponding]

"I'll pay you two donuts, a cronut, and some donut holes to stop sassing me until we're at least out of this tree," he jokes back.

[whyarewehere]

Grif raises himself up on the branch to look at Rich more squarely.

"Are you sure you want to owe me baked goods? Do you know what you're doing?"

[iamresponding]

"We've gotta give this whole donut currency system a test run somewhere."

Later...

[iamresponding]

They're learning. Getting better at this. After getting chased away from the wreckage, and then treed for a while, they recovered their stuff. They've been traveling, trying to find a good place to settle. Fortunately they have a locator beacon that they can just bring with them so they don't need to stay where they crashed to get found.

Some of the water sources here are polluted with different naturally occurring chemicals and organisms the water filters have trouble with, wearing them out faster. Other's aren't. They've been following their omnicoms, which are leading them to a different area of the water table where almost all the water is fresh.

They've been following the food too, getting a sense of the animals they can hunt, and pack movements, figuring out the growth patterns of certain types of trees with edible fruit.

They're moving down into a river valley now that has a lot of promise.

At night, they sleep high up in the trees to avoid the little energy-eating dog-things. Rotterdins, their guide on the planet calls them. They figured out that they can be killed, but it's a total pain in the ass and it's better to just stay high up at night and avoid them entirely, especially since the trees are so huge you can travel in the treetops - on branches as big as whole walkaways 0 and climb from tree to tree easily.

The trees have lots of little bowers in them, too, soft moss-covered hollows big enough for both of them to lay in. They usually leave their gear hanging from branches outside them. Inside, lichen glows in gentle phosphorescent pinks and blues and greens and yellows. The light isn't too bright for them to sleep and it's comforting during the pitch black nights, which are only sometimes lit by the planet's two moons.

The only problem is the temperature fluctuations.

Their second fight with the rotterdins ruined their transuits, and their uniforms got torn in the crash and it's only been getting worse over time. They're not insulting much now. And the temperature has too much variation up here in the mountains and hills. During the day it ranges from temperate to a little uncomfortably hot, but at night it dips down to fifty or forty degress.

Using the survival tools that came with their kits, and the survival guides to figure out how to do it, they managed to skin and tan the rotterdins to use their fur, but they only got one decent blanket - or more like a wrap - out of it. The only way for them to both fit under it is for them to get pretty close and well...

That's apparently going to be like a whole thing.

In the light of the lichens, Rich looks over at where Grif is curled up, barely under the furs, just out of reach.

"Sure looks awful cold over there."

[whyarewehere]

Grif doesn't like laying awake at night. It wasn't so bad at first. They were busy, almost frantically busy establishing themselves. There had been too much to do for Grif to think much. After days like those, sleep didn't care how cold or lumpy the night was or how many unknown spooky things were making noises in it.

Now, they have a routine. They know how far they can go in a day, they know how much time to put into food and water, they know when it starts to get dark. It's not quite a comfortable existence, but it's a lot closer than those first hectic days. Routine means not always crashing at the edge of exhaustion, and that means laying awake and listening to the trees and the wind and the wildlife.

And Rich, always somewhere nearby breathing in the dark.

It's weird being alone with him out here. It's not that Grif minds exactly, Rich is good company. Spending a lot of time with him like this is just...

Okay. It's a little awkward, after Rich's recovery from the cancerverse. After helping Rich out of the medbay shower. After having Rich fall asleep against him and realizing that the emotions going on here are way more inconvenient than he'd realized was possible.

Grif would be okay with having less time to think about them.

At least when Rich talks to him, it distracts him from that mess.

"I mean, I'm not dead yet," he answers.

[iamresponding]

"Let's just toss this idea around as a thought exercise: maybe. Maybe you could possibly be not be cold at all. If you stopped acting like I was contagious."

He turns on his side to face him.

"I promise I don't have the Plague."

[whyarewehere]

Grif rolls over to face him, arched eyebrow just visible in the dim bioluminescence. Is this what it sounds like? Shit, one of his problems is worse now.

"...Go on?"

But on the other hand, he could maybe be less cold?

In theory?

He'll see how this goes.

[iamresponding]

"C'mon. I can practically hear you shivering." He lifts the furs up to let Grif in more and does a little 'come here' nod. "Plus, I'm a human heater. I can keep it feeling like a heated blanket under here with my powers."

All nice and cozy.

"We're both grown ass adults, not middle schoolers who are scared of cooties. I think our pride can survive survival cuddling at night."

Later... [cw: pstd, decapitation]

[iamresponding]

They've been so careful. Scanning everything they eat and drink, scanning the places they sleep in the treetops, reading about the wildlife in their survival guides in the mellow light of the lichen at night. Rich keeps scanning their surroundings almost compulsively, checking every strange-looking tree or scanning every time there's a rustle in the underbrush.

Yes, it's paranoid. Shock. Surprise. Hyper-vigilance and paranoia are a bitch most of the time, sure, but they're at least actually useful here, in a place where everything might actually be out to get them.

Rich knows that by now his meds are slowly wearing off. The injections are only good for a month or so. But he's also staying functional. Maybe not mentally comfortable, but functional, mostly through sheer force of will.

It helps that this is nowhere near as stressful as it could be. More and more it feels like some weird life-changing camping trip with is best friend. He never did have a stage where he backpacked through the country or something, right? It feels more like that than a survival situation sometimes.

Because parts of it are relaxing, he lets his guard down just once, doesn't scan near the riverbank when he goes to gets some water to wash his face. And that's all it takes.

He hears the hissing. The jolt of adrenaline hits him like a truck, making his limbs twitch to life and get ready to act, but it's not enough. The nasty creature - like a giant Venus fly trap with razor teeth - already had its mouth open as it raised out of the water up to eye level as he washed his face.

He sees something he's faced once before, and the cool water at his ankles and warm sand under his feet fall out from under him, and fleshy ground and dark skies roll in, and he's back. Like he never left. Facing the same death. All over again.

He does the same thing as before. He's already leaning away, raising his hands to blast it with Nova force but it won't be fast enough. The jaws twitch, torquing themselves up to snap at a speed that he knows will come so fast he won't really get to see it. He knows he'll only see his body falling away - impossibly, improbably - in a different direction from his eyes, and have half a second to wonder how they could go separate ways before his vision goes dark.

Rich doesn't have time to call out or say a word but the sob comes convulsively.

[whyarewehere]

WHAM!

Something hits Rich, but it's not teeth. Grif's faster. He hauls Rich away from the water, back into the trees, stagger-running at an inhuman pace through the undergrowth until he finally collapses into the leaf litter, panting. It's been painfully slow by Grif's standards, but it's enough to get away from anything Azhol IV ever produced.

"Shit!" Grif hisses in between gasped breaths. His grip on Rich hasn't slackened, he's still reeling with the understanding of what might have just happened. The thought makes him almost nauseous. That was too fast, too close, too lucky.

"I fucking hate nature!"

Yelling makes him feel a little better, but not nearly as much as he'd like.

[iamresponding]

Grif takes him away but Rich isn't really with him. Yes, he's there physically, but mentally he's not on Azhol IV. His hands have clasped onto Grif's arm like its the only thing tethering him to reality, because...it is. It's the only thing that feels like it's from outside the world he's found himself back in.

His breathing comes out ragged, hard, panicked. His expression isn't blank, it's expressing what he felt then: a sort of distant, disconnected horror and fear. His eyes are glassy as he stares at nothing and his lips move just slightly, as if he's saying something, but no words come out.

No words could come out then, either, because you needed a throat for that. If asked, he wouldn't even remember what it was he was trying to say as he died back then. It wasn't really words, it was an errant last thought, probably pleading to a God that didn't exist, or calling for his mother, or the endless litany of "Why? Why? Why?" that was the background radiation of his entire existence in the Cancerverse.

He's stuck like that for a little while, shaking, clinging, lips repeating never-said words. It plays a few times in a row, the video. He watches his body fall away once, twice, three times -- a loop.

[whyarewehere]

"...Rich?"

He doesn't seem like he's here. Grif manages to get his legs under him, but doesn't rise.

"C'mon dude, where are you?"

[iamresponding]

Rich is zoned out for a while, maybe a minute, and then the death grip loosens just a little and his muscle stop tensing and he gasps, surprised to find himself sitting on the ground somewhere in the woods.

"Where... where are we?" He looks around frantically for the flytrap thing but sees they're not at the river anymore. "Did...did you bring me here?"

He's at least with it again, just disoriented, making it clear that he completely blanked out on what just happened.

Later...

[iamresponding]

It takes a lot of work to build their treehouse. Fortunately, Rich has worked construction before and odd jobs as a carpenter and a handyman, so even though he's not a natural at wilderness survival, figuring out how to construct a treehouse is definitely something that's not too hard for them to do.

Their hard-light hologram survival tools are capable of creative buzzsaws and building a saw horse was pretty easy, so they even managed to split some logs and cut some into plywood. It still takes a while, though, as they slowly build the treehouse up around their sleeping place. First, they have a floor, then some basic support posts and a ceiling, then some walls.

And then it's finished. They line the floor with dried leaves and dried moss and a few layers of that vine netting. By the time they're finished building, they also have some new fur blankets tanned and ready for using for sleep, so that they have furs to lay on and to use as blankets.

It comes out really nice. Instead of some dire survival shelter, it looks like a rustic bungalow or something.

"It came out pretty well, but I'm not sure it has the right feng shui," Rich jokes as they finish setting up the inside.

[whyarewehere]

Grif makes a frame with his fingers and squints through it. He has a place to go indoors again and is not going to complain.

"Ehhhhh," he says. "I'm more more of an 'interior' guy than an 'interior decorating' guy."

He throws one last fur down.

"Martha Stewart can kiss my ass."

[iamresponding]

Rich rubs his chin with his hand as he looks around.

"We should've went with a picture window. Or a cathedral ceiling maybe." He nods his head back and forth. "Then again going without one was possibly the right call, it'll save on our heating and cooling bills."

[whyarewehere]

Grif deems the task complete, and that means it's time to chill. He lies down on the furs and just lets out a long breath, enjoying that there is a place he can lie down. His eyes dart up at the treehouse ceiling thoughtfully, as if it has the capacity to be something grand instead of just the functional best they can do.

"No cathedral ceiling. I can't paint, so I'd have to be the model."

Then he shifts, pulling his body into a dramatic caricature of relaxation like he's part of a composition lying there on the floor. It's an easy joke. Nobody wants that, he's Grif. Can you imagine?

[iamresponding]

Blue Blazes.

Rich's stomach did a little flip seeing Grif sprawled out like that and he had to resist the urge to just throw himself down there with him.

He is 99% - 80% - 60% - 85% - God, he doesn't even know what percent - sure that wouldn't be welcome. So instead of focusing on how comfy it looks and how hot that might be, he focuses on the comedy instead.

"Grif! So brazen! I'd draw you like one of my French girls but pencils and paper haven't been invented on this planet yet. And also I can't draw."