Bruce Banner | The Hulk (greenskin) wrote in expresslogs, @ 2012-03-03 08:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dice, !plot, bruce banner, rory williams |
Who: Bruce Banner(and the Hulk) and Rory Williams
What: Matchup and first meetings; also, hallucinations
Where: The observation car
When: The morning of March 3rd
Warnings/Ratings: warnings for some gruesome scenery in Bruce’s hallucination/rating to start at pg-13
Status: Complete!
Bruce just wanted some peace and quiet. He had enjoyed a week of pleasant conversation, but even now, somehow, he felt like he could hear voices. He just wanted to not hear them. He needed a little quiet, and a little personal time to reset his brain, and to restore his calm. It seemed like most people had a need to talk all the time. For him? He just wanted to enjoy the quiet. Later, maybe, he would go looking for one of the people he knew. Maybe Lily or Maryanne would enjoy talking over some food. He had a lot to learn about this train and about its people if he was to be a doctor and a scientist to those within it.
So he sat in the observation car, legs pulled to him in a semi-yoga position, and breathing slowly. He counted his heartbeats as he let his whole spirit go, and as he let himself feel the calm and the quiet. Outside, as in the halls, it might be noisy, busy, and full of life. But for him, here and now, it was quiet, peaceful, and free of distraction.
He managed to go almost twenty minutes before someone walked in. Without looking, he kept his breathing going, letting the calm fill him even more. Finally, he glanced toward the person who had entered, feeling warm and absolutely without worry. The vision that hit him stole all of that away, though, and he found himself gasping. The man who had entered was staggering along, his flesh falling away, and glowing a sickly green. The flesh didn’t simply come off, but sloughed off in a way that any doctor or scientist specializing in radiation would know instantly. A sickly sweet smell accompanied the sight and Bruce felt horror grip him. It was radiation poisoning and worse… poisoning caused by gamma radiation, the kind that was involved in his transformation to the Hulk.
The man staggering in had scraps of red hair left on his head, and a sickly smile on his face, and Bruce recognized him, from his hazy Hulk-memory, as the kid who had greeted and been nice to Hulk their first day. He was followed by another form, and another. The faces of Lily, and of Maryanne, and of still more people, some he knew and some he felt he did not, came on. The flesh of all of them was parting like ripe grapefruit, splitting and tearing around muscles and bone, and juices black and yellow spilled out as they moved. He gagged, as much with horror as with disgust.
He scrambled up, pulse racing, heart pounding, and inside his head he felt the Hulk laughing. This was his fault! He had killed these people! He retreated until his back hit the wall, and they kept coming. He screamed as he saw those faces, and heard the laughing, screamed like he had not in a very long time. . .
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Rory was wandering the halls of the train, his eyes turning every once in a while to glance out the windows. Cows. They weren’t kidding. Nothing but cows. They’d talked about this place when he’d first arrived here - or at least the magic users had. It had been something of a big inside joke.
In all honesty, he was sort of glad to be moving again. New York was nice and everything - close enough to their time that he didn’t feel completely out of place, but weird in other ways. The creatures he’d heard about and everything. He’d gotten a sword out of the deal, which was nice, even if between he and Amy he was convinced one of them was going to lose an arm. But he supposed they’d get the hang of it eventually.
There was a reason he wasn’t actively carrying his around with him though.
He heard screaming coming from the car ahead, and he raced forward towards it, because that was instinct that got drilled into him during his schooling - run towards the sound of danger, instead of away from it, because there was usually someone in need of assistance. This instinct probably hadn’t been helped much from his travels with the Doctor.
Pushing open the door to the car, he blinked around the room. It wasn’t what he was expecting at all. From the sounds of the screams, he’d expected significantly more blood, more more weaponry - or maybe those bloody shadow things again. Not... a single man on the floor against the back wall, screaming at what - to Rory - looked like absolutely nothing.
“Hey,” he called out gently, though he didn’t really expect to be heard over the screams. He held out his arms in front of him in a non-threatening gesture as he approached carefully, crouching down slowly so that he’d be kneeling by the time he reached Bruce, planning on soothingly putting his hands on the man’s shoulder, checking him over for any injuries. “Calm down, it’s all right. It’s okay, it’s all right. I’m a nurse, you’re going to be fine. It’s all right.” He was hoping for a break in the screaming, so that he could ask the man what his injuries were - since Rory couldn’t see any obvious ones that would cause this level of reaction - and also half fumbling for his communication device so that he could call for backup. But that was really secondary at the moment - Bruce being his first priority.
He didn’t smell or hear the gas, and had no way of knowing that in a few moment his own hallucination would be kicking in.
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Bruce didn’t hear the other man at first. The visions coming closer were taking all of his attention, the forms seeming to mutate. He saw Betty in the crowd, and a woman he thought was named Jaime, and they both started shifting, their skin splitting as they howled, crying out in pain and fear. He whimpered as he saw them, his mind reeling from this as it had not from the rest. for they were not dying. Worse, far worse... they were changing, in a much more painful, much more prolonged fashion.
They were becoming Hulks. Within him, he heard Hulk finally react, and cry out in rage, the fear and anger stirring the tingling deep within him. His eyes went green and his mind seemed to blank, but at the last moment, at the last second... the change wouldn’t come. He couldn’t change! He heard, and felt, Hulk smashing around in his mind, and cried out Hulk did something, hurt something, deep inside him. The not!Betty and Not!Jaime were standing above him now, with all of the other forms, laughing, and pointing. Bruce could feel his intellect leaving him, feel his very mind being stolen somehow, as the Hulk raged and screamed inside him.
Some part of his mind realized someone was close and he reached out for the person, but he felt like he could not even see, not feel what was around him. He could not... think!
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The man in front of him started making strange noises, guttural sounds and Rory saw his eyes change colour. He stumbled backwards, away from the man in fear and confusion - the last time he’d seen someone’s eyes glow green, it had been that weird, creepy, feelers-for-mouth Nephew at that planet-that-wasn’t-a-planet-and-ate-TARD
”Hello, Rory.”
Rory felt his blood turn to ice as the sound filled his ears, and he had to fight the urge to go fetal and cover his head, right then and there, because oh god. Oh god oh god oh god not again, he couldn’t go through that again, he couldn’t deal with the endless corridors, with dying and not dying and being away from Amy, and having her voice and he laugh taunt him as he tried to run through the halls.
“You’re dead,” he shouted it at Bruce - not really caring that the noise wouldn’t be coming from Bruce, it would be coming from the train, because The House was the train, and why hadn’t they seen that, why hadn’t the Doctor seen that? It was so obvious, it made so much sense. Besides, the green-eyed Nephew guy had been his servant, right? It made sense! About as much sense as any of this made. “She - we - you DIED. I don’t really know how, but the Doctor said that you... you were...”
”But the Doctor lies all the time,” and suddenly Amy was there, standing next to him, but it wasn’t the Amy that was on the train, and it wasn’t even the Amy that had been on the train before, it was the Amy who had died, who he, Rory, had killed when he decided to keep his Amy, the younger Amy, because he’d been selfish.
Rory could feel tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. “You,” he growled towards where Bruce had been a moment ago, and the Doctor now sat, with glowing green eyes. Rory felt anger flare up in him, crawling forward and grabbing the Doctor by the shoulders. “This is your fault!” he screamed, struggling to shake him through a body weakened by pain and anguish. “You let her die!!!”
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Bruce felt hands grab him and he looked up, and gasped. General Ross was holding him, shaking him, yelling at him. No, screaming at him, and crying. Bruce felt his mind shudder, knowing the only thing that could break this man. “This is your fault!! You let her die!!!”
Fear struck through him, and Bruce pushed against the man, trying to shove past him, before stopping, seeing over his shoulder. Betty was no longer a Hulk . . . now she was . . . dead. Her body was split open, still falling apart, turning from her beauty to an ugly thing devoid of life. Bruce’s mind shrieked with horror, and he pushed the general again, pushing himself back against that cold wall, and feeling himself shudder.
And he screamed. “My fault... all my fault! I never should have let her into my life... It should have been me who died!” He screamed it into the general’s face, wanting nothing more than peace, nothing more than an end to all of this.
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The Doctor threw Rory off of him, which Rory was more or less expecting, and he felt himself sprawl onto the floor, looking up at the arrogant sod as he all but waltzed around until he was facing Rory again, but there was something different about his expression, something strange that reminded Rory of that day on the beach at Lake Silencio.
And then suddenly he was back there, sitting on the picnic blanket, with River and Amy across from him, laughing, and they all turned their heads as the Impossible Astronaut came up out of the water.
”My fault... all my fault... It should have been me who died...” and Rory could feel the breeze from the ocean on his face, the spray of the waves as he watched the Doctor walk out to greet the astronaut as he came out of the water...
And then suddenly, Rory was the astronaut, standing there looking at the Doctor from behind glass, as he raised his weapon up towards the Doctor, who just stood there, spread his arms and accepted the blasts as Rory fired them.
And he felt it. He felt the rage burning in his heart, in his mind, the pain and the hate and the frustration that he felt with this man - this wonderful, fabulous, terrifying man - who had stolen Amy’s heart and shattered it into a million pieces when she was eight, leaving her friends and family to pick up the pieces. Mels - River, whatever - and him, her Aunt. Her... parents, he guessed. The Doctor. The great Doctor who’d come back into her life, 12 then 14 years later, and she’d dropped everything to run off with him.
Well look at him now.
“It’s too late,” he snarled out to the Doctor, lying on the ground dead at his feet. “You could have stopped it, you could have saved her, but it’s too late. It’s too late...” and now he was back to the day they’d told him that Amy was dead, on the train, and even though it was the Amy who didn’t remember him yet it was still Amy, she was still dead. He closed his eyes against the pain, sobs wrenching their way out of him.
“I hate you!” he spat viciously, and he turned and the Doctor was somehow not dead anymore, but standing in front of him, and Rory wound up and started lashing out with his fists. “I hate you so much!”
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Bruce fell back as he was attacked, and the general laughed and began to beat at him, smashing at him with fists and with hands that seemed stronger than ever. “Who’s the strongest now, Banner? Who’s the toughest? Who’s going to get smashed?”
With a snarl the general slammed a fist into his jaw and Bruce cried out, feeling something chip or crunch, in his head. And then, suddenly, he felt himself shiver, and pain lashed across him, and he knew it was happening. He was changing. Hulk felt the call, and came eagerly now, wanting to strike at those hurting Banner, at those making fun of Hulk. With a roar and a scream, Banner was gone, and Hulk was there, lashing out at the wall, and the window there, and feeling it bend.
And Hulk drew in a breath of fresh air, and before Hulk’s eyes, there was only one man, a thin man, with red hair. Why was Hulk finding all the redhairs? The man smashed at Hulk and Hulk saw his sorrow, saw his pain. Hulk felt something Hulk had never expected; compassion. Hulk caught the man’s hands, and gently held them.
“Stop hitting Hulk. Hulk not like it. Hulk no want to hurt sad man.” Hulk heaved a breath, and drew in air, not knowing what waited...
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For a brief moment, Rory was back in that weird hotel that didn’t want him because he didn’t believe in anything, pounding on the chest of the Minotaur. There was a few seconds where that made the most sense, where his brain registered that he had to be dreaming or something because there was no way some of these things had happened in the order he wanted to remember they happened. Then the image of the Minotaur started to fade... and he found himself looking at something that absolutely didn’t make sense. A large... green... man? Speaking to him. About being sad.
Rory stopped striking him immediately, pulling back very slightly and drawing a shuddering breath as he realized that the green man - Hulk? Was that his name? Seemed like it - was talking about him. He became aware of himself, aware of the sobs pushing through his body. The train was swimming it and out of focus around him, around Hulk - it was the TARDIS, it was the hotel, it was his room back at Leadworth - but Hulk was staying stable. Whatever this dream was, it was fading.
He choked back a gasp that was something in between relief and anguish, pressing the back of his wrist into the bridge of his nose to at least stop his nose from running and block out the worst of his tears - this wasn’t the most manly display of emotion he’d ever been through, and he wanted to manage some shred of dignity, even if he was dealing with a giant green alien man - leaving one hand pressed against Hulk shoulder for support he didn’t even realize he needed right now.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out, and he didn’t even really know what he was apologising for because he didn’t really know what was going on right now. He’d apparently experienced some kind of psychotic break, lashing out at an alien because he thought he was the Doctor? Or something? Rory couldn’t even begin to piece this puzzle together, but he’d done something wrong, and needed to apologize for it. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
If he just kept repeating the phrase, this whole situation would be explained, or start making sense. He was sure of it.
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Hulk felt something tingling in Hulk’s blood, in Hulk’s mind, and Hulk inhaled in, drawing in a long, long breath, pulling all of it in. And belched. Hulk nodded. Visions gone for now. Good. “Not sad man’s fault. Sad man sad. Hulk sad too. Hulk no like weird visions. Hulk like pretty visions.”
Hulk felt Hulk’s head grow giddy, and shook it. Something was spinning through the room, and suddenly Hulk saw, with a heightening of emotion, Betty. She was there, striding into the room as naked as the day she was born, and both Hulk and Bruce’s mind’s leaped with emotion. Hulk spoke softly to sad man.
“Hulk see Betty. Hulk happier now. Sad man look. Sad man see good things now?” Hulk, despite Hulk’s seeming simplicity, often grasped things faster than others. Hulk stepped away from Sad man for a moment, peering at Betty, eyes wide. Hulk felt Hulk’s heart beat faster, and Hulk groaned with the love of this woman that both personalities in Hulk’s head felt.
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Rory watched, with the strangest confusion, as the green alien man walked across the TARDIS console room that he could have sworn was the hotel a moment ago. Or a train. Or The House. Or... or something.
“Doctor, what’s going on?” Rory asked, as the Doctor seemed to sort of materialize next to him, working on some things on the console, or something. There was a time when Rory had been close to being able to follow him as he did repairs. That time was not right now.
”What? Oh nothing Rory just... messing with a few of the sensory filters, should clear itself up in a moment.” The Doctor attached a few more wires and Rory drew back abruptly from the shattering of sparks, slamming into... something solid, and hearing something crash. A wall? He turned and found that there was a surprise wall in the TARDIS where he hadn’t expected a wall to be, and there’d been a... lamp, on it, or something. There was broken glass all over the floor. Rory was leaning down to inspect it, when he felt a presence over him. ”You aren’t feeling any sort of negative effects from it, are you Pond-Two? Headaches? Nausea?”
“Bit yeah,” Rory said, rubbing at his head. The room was absolutely spinning and he kept feeling a strange sort of breeze. He looked over his shoulder to where the TARDIS doors were open, and he had half a mind to go close them, but then the green alien was speaking, and Rory turned his head back towards him.
”Ah yes! Betty! Of course!” the Doctor said, turning a wide eyed pacifying look to Rory. ”Do something about this ‘Betty’ problem, would you Rory?”
Rory stared at the Doctor incredulously for a moment. “Why is it always me who has to take care of these ‘problems’?” he asked.
The Doctor gave him a look that indicated that he thought the answer was obvious, and turned to get back to fixing the TARDIS or whatever it was he thought that he was doing, and Rory took a moment to take in the absurdity of the situation, and the complete lack of Amy to make the whole thing better.
It was suddenly too much, and he closed his eyes to better deal with it. He was aware of a burning in his chest, like there was something trying to force calm down on him. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, focusing on the ground beneath his feet which felt like carpet and not like the grating on the TARDIS floor. He slammed his feet down on it, he heard grating but he felt carpet and he tried to focus on that but it was difficult. He couldn’t hold on to the feel of carpet for very long, though, and opened his eyes.
He caught the Doctor staring at him, sighed, and moved over to the large green alien.
“Hm? Oh. Yeah. Definitely. I see her. She’s quite lovely,” he said in response to the earlier question. It was likely clear from Rory’s tone that he didn’t see her at all, mostly because Rory was kind of useless when it came to lying. A glance over his shoulder at the Doctor, who made it quite clear that Rory needed to try harder, in spite of his protests, and then he was back trying to be a nurse and having no clue what to say.
“Is she, um, a friend of yours, then?” he tried. God, he was useless at this.
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Hulk blew out air, a kind of nasal sigh, and shook Hulk’s head. Then Hulk lightly tapped Rory,s chest, which meant Rory should feel like he was hit by a sack of sand, rather than a sac of steel. “Redhair sadman should not lie. Hulk see Betty, but know she is not here. Hulk can tell. Rory see good things that are not there?” Hulk had a way of getting down to the center of things, and Hulk wanted nothing more than to end this. Seeing Betty was too painful, for Hulk and for Banner.
Hulk reached down, and stroked the carpet,then eyed the room around Hulk, which showed Hulk tile floors. Hulk sighed. Why did reality pick on Hulk now? Hulk did not want to fight reality. That way lay wanda, and crossovers.
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Rory did feel like he was hit by a sack of sand, and he stumbled backwards against one of the TARDIS railing, turning to stare at the Doctor in a ‘seriously?!’ sort of way - how was he supposed to take on a giant green alien man? But the Doctor gave him a double thumbs up that was meant to be encouraging and Rory knew better than to try and argue with him while he was trying to fix the TARDIS anyway.
“I see you, I see the TARDIS,” Rory said when asked. He gestured over his shoulder. “I see the Doctor, but that’s hardly knew.”
”Hello! Yes!” the Doctor called out, and Rory could picture the grin. It caused him to make his own expression of tired annoyance at Hulk - Rory often felt like the father at the end of his rope, dealing with the wayward children of Amy and the Doctor. This was an excellent example of just such a situation.
“It’s... Rory, by the way,” he added, as sort of an afterthought, crossing his arms defensively. He wasn’t ‘Red-Haired Sad Man’. Why was he being called ‘Sad Man’? That was just weird.
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“Ro-ry?” Hulk nodded “Doctor is not here. TARDIS is not here. Good things, but not here. Betty is not here.” Hulk sighed that peculiar sigh again and did something very odd for Hulk. Hulk thought. Then Hulk took action. With a sudden jab, Hulk lashed out a single large finger at the top of Rory’s waist, where a nerve cluster would cause the man to feel sudden, severe, and immediately over, pain.
“See reality.” Pain, Hulk knew, caused the mind to resist almost all known chemicals, at least for a very short time.
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Rory nodded confirmation when Hulk pronounced his name, and then raised a curious eyebrow, chuckling a little when Hulk mentioned that the TARDIS and the Doctor weren’t real. Rory looked around him, and while his eyes briefly did cross over the still-open doors - he had a flash of memory of a window, a Minotaur, The House - he shook his head, completely ready to deny all accusations of the TARDIS not being real. It was perfectly normal for new people on the TARDIS not to underst-
- Suddenly Rory was doubled over in excruciating pain, enough to cause him to double over, clutching his side. The room fluttered out of focus for a split second, and Rory saw the train, the carpet, the broken window before the TARDIS console swam back into his vision. He was dimly aware of the Doctor fluttering around him, asking if he was okay, but Rory couldn’t quite hear the words. He was staring up at Hulk in utter confusion, trying to clarify the whole... complicated situation.
The room fuzzed around him like static on an old television screen, and he looked around, struggling to piece it together, and then looked back up at Hulk.
“All right,” he said, crossing his arms again, and rubbing at the spot on his waist where Hulk had poked - it wasn’t as though it hurt anymore, but sense memory was a powerful thing, and Rory still felt the phantom pain - “Let’s say I believe you. What now? What’s causing it?”
He could still see the TARDIS. He could still feel the TARDIS, all around him. But there was no sense in getting all the facts straight before he made a decision, right?
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Hulk sniffed, and looked around, then back at Rory. “Hulk smell nothing. Air smells like something. Hulk think Rory and Hulk are gassed. Not-nice gas, but bad gas.” Hulk growled low, eyes glowing a green that was almost like a fire. “Hulk tired of people hurting Hulk and Hulk’s friends. Hulk want only to be left alone with friend.” Hulk nodded, eyes still glowing as Hulk glared at the invisible intruder Hulk could sense, but not see.
Inside Hulk’s mind, Bruce was sityting, clutching his head. ‘It’s probably in our systems by now, and we’ll have to let it run it’s course.’
Hulk peered at Puny Banner inside his mind, and nodded.
Hulk spoke outside his mind to the Rory.
“Hulk think there is way to clear room, but Hulk not know it. And Banner says that it is in our systems, and has to wear off.”
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Rory became aware of the Doctor scanning him with his sonic screwdriver, and agreeing with Hulk’s assessment that the drug was in his system, and he was going to have to wait for it to wear off. If he wasn’t currently trying to process all the available information, he suspected he would find that quite hilarious.
“All right,” he said finally, and his eyes drifted over to the open doors again - or the window, he wasn’t quite clear on which it was - and he moved towards it curiously.
“We should air out the gas,” he said finally, peering out the open TARDIS doors at the wide expanse of space for a moment. “Assuming there is gas. It’ll clear out our system’s faster, won’t it?” He rubbed at the back of his head. Thinking was difficult when he was drugged.
He tried to remember back to his notes, about what they said in terms of exposure and the lasting effects when it came to hallucinogenic gas, but he was having difficultly processing anything at the moment, so. Nothing was coming to mind. But continued exposure couldn’t be good, right?
“We should go,” he said with a frown, looking out the doors. “But it’s just... endless space, out there. We can’t breathe.”
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Rory was asking questions? Hulk sighed. “Hulk think so.” Hulk nodded, peering after Rory. Hulk saw the way Rory was peering and poked at the doors, and found, instead, a solid thing. “Hulk feel something there. Not endless space.” Hulk pressed, and there was a give, and for a moment, Hulk felt air, and there was a flicker of the hall, before his vision of Gamma Base and Betty continued. Hulk ignored Betty, unwilling to get drawn in again.
“Hulk think this is hallway.” Hulk reached out, picked up Rory, and carried him out of the room, into the hallway, then set him down. Hulk turned around and reached blindly for doors Hulk could not see, found them, and shut them.
“There, now we are in hall... despite not looking like a hall.” Hulk sighed. This was not going well.
“Hulk not want to get angry, but this is cheesing Hulk off.”
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Aaaaand suddenly he was airborne. Rory would have been thoroughly distressed if he wasn’t already way too confused to really process what was going on. Besides, Hulk set him down before he could get really worked up over it. So as it was, all he did was splutter a bit as he found his feet on solid ground again, moving away and backing into the wall...
… of the train. Rory blinked around him as the train - the freaking time-traveling space train - came into sharper focus around him. Walls, lights, bad designing, train corridor.
He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed.
“I think it’s wearing off?” he said, looking around him. Either that, or this was just another part of it. Rory peered back the way they’d come - he could still dimly make out the Doctor if he squinted, which was probably not a good thing. “Or this is just another part of it.”
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Hulk squinted, seeing wavering train walls around Hulk. “Yes. Hulk think so too.” Hulk sighed in relief as Betty faded. Hulk could still see tile, and hear Thunderbolt Ross yelling a ways away, dimly, but the train seemed to gain more solidity every moment.
“Hulk not like hallucinations, even good ones. Hulk like reality just fine.”
Hulk looked at Rory. “Rory and Hulk should go eat.” Hulk nodded. Hulk’s stomach grumbled, sounding, really, like a small train.
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“Agree with you there, mate,” Rory said, and then... tried really hard to accept this as reality. This, where he was walking around with a large, green, probably alien man, who spoke in a strange sort of third person, having just gone through some kind of... joint hallucination with him. And now he was talking about going to get something to eat. Like it was no big deal.
Rory closed his eyes and willed his head not to explode.
“Sure,” he said, pushing a chuckle past his lips, which grew into a more real one after a moment, as he smiled over at the Hulk. “Sure. Let’s... go get something to eat. Why not?”
He patted his pockets for a communicator that he didn’t have - of course - and made a mental note to alert the rest of the train to avoid the (he checked around him for familiar surroundings) observation car until someone that was not him could check it over for tampering or more gas when he got back to his room and found his communicator thingie. Hopefully it was just going to be contained to that car, whatever it was.
At some point, he was just going to have to accept that this was his life now.
“Maybe on the way you can tell me what the ‘big’ and ‘green’ is all about,” he added as a joke as he started to move in the direction of the dining car.
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“Hulk will do that.” Hulk clapped Rory gently on the shoulders and walked with him. MMmmm, lunch!
*** Fin ***