And my mind is out here on another wave [OPEN]

[soyed]

CHARACTERS: David "sauced" Wong and you.
LOCATION: The Oxygen Gardens
WARNINGS: Language and violence? Ghost dicks.
SUMMARY: Dave has taken the sauce in a means of finding a way home. He is, of course, not going to get to go home, but maybe something else will happen.
NOTES: The soy sauce is unpredictable and the side-effects vary depending on the user. To narrow it down as basic as possible, think of it as being a drug that can make you read minds. So be warned that Dave may or may not reveal he knows things that only your character would know. If you want that, if not, let me know right away and I'll steer clear of the ESP.

The trees surround Dave like a tropical rainforest and loom above him like giants looking down and getting ready to decide what form of execution would be a proper punishment. He smells the lush greenery and can taste the fresh oxygen as he inhales deep. It's like taking a new breath each time. Flora from all over the world surround him in here, yet, none of them seem to actually grown on Earth. Raised and nurtured by a group of scientists and people now vanished and probably waiting in limbo, the trees appear to overtake the gardens as if claiming a piece of land they never owned, just want.

Some of these plants are hundreds of years old. Dave knows how long ago they were planted, how long it took for the first tree to start growing, how old they are are, and when they will die. He's not psychic, he's not in-tune with nature, these are just some of the effects of being on the sauce.

Oh, yeah, about that.

As much as Dave had been avoiding the soy sauce- even with it always being there in his locker to remind him that it was ready in case of an emergency, or when he needed it- he was beginning to feel like one of those people trapped and developing cabin fever. He swallowed two pills this morning. A couple hours later, he's walking in the gardens and not sure when he made the jump over to the Amazon, Costa Rica, and back onboard The Tranquility. Or maybe he's in all three places at once.

Comments

[organfarm]

He's got a bit of a stomachache. More than a bit of a stomachache, to be honest. A unique sort of stomachache that comes from having two stomachs, a few extra feet of intestine, and probably another kidney or two stuffed into his gut. So Jion doesn't exactly look too well as he wanders around the Gardens, looking a little fidgety and nervous. How's a guy supposed to dispose of a bunch of stray organs when he's trapped in a freakin' spaceship?

He's out in the Gardens since he figured a walk might clear his mind, make him feel a little less nauseous and bloated from all the extra baggage he's carrying, and -- it sorta does help. At least, it helps his mind wander. Jion idly thinks of the dirty streets of New York back home, and cheap Chinese take-out, and how the studio's faring back home without his gofer-work, and how Melody's doing without him, and --

then he trips over a tree root

and goes stumbling forward one, two paces, right through a small bush. "Waugh!" There's the rustle of grass and underbrush as he hits the ground like a particularly ungraceful ton of bricks, ending up sprawling roughly a foot away from where David's about to walk by.

[soyed]

Something tells Dave to stop staring up at the trees and pay attention to where he's going. Something tells Dave to stop walking because someone is headed right in his path. No, it doesn't tell him, it shows him.

Fast forward several seconds to that exact moment when Jion comes stumbling out of the greenery and lands in front of Dave. But this time (or maybe in an alternate reality from the past) Dave's still walking and goes tumbling down when someone clumsier than him crashes at his feet. The both of them are on the ground.

Then rewind.

Now Dave's back again. Standing at a spot where he once passed and suddenly becomes aware of someone nearby. And insert Jion's graceful act here.

Dave isn't surprised. He should be, he was back then, but now that he knows what was going to happen, there's no more a look of calm on his face as he stares down at the man lying on the floor. Despite his quiet exterior, inside Dave mutters two very expressive words to himself.

[organfarm]

"... ugh."

A low grunt, and Jion sighs as he hauls himself back onto his feet -- looking down with a quiet noise of dismay when he realizes he's now got dirt and leaves smeared all down the front of his shirt. "Man, I didn't wanna have to do laundry for a while --"

And then he pauses. Looks up. Realizes that there's a guy just kinda standing there, looking really really spaced out. Staring at him?

"-- uh. Hey." Jion steadies himself on his feet, clumsily trying to slap the front of his clothes clean with both hands. It takes a pretty significant amount of effort not to cringe at the feel of a few extra pounds of internal organs squelching and compressing far too tight in his gut whenever he moves, and Jion tries to distract himself from that feeling by giving David a little cant of the head.

"Let's pretend that didn't happen, yeah? Pretty embarrassin' tripping around like that, but you know, sometimes you're not thinking right and you just don't watch where you're going!" Insert a super-lame laugh that tries so hard to sound cool and fails miserably.

[soyed]

Dave's not just staring at Jion, he's reading him. Like a history book with several missing paragraphs that leave out the most important details of a story. There are things from his book like World War II, Europe, and Scientists. Things that Dave never really payed attention to in school but probably should have. He can't tell if these keywords belong to Jion's timeline specifically, he just knows they play an important part in this man's life somehow.

And then there's the organs. Bundles of them. Fresh with blood and ready to be purchased at a local bazaar for the masses. Dave doesn't understand this either; he doesn't understand a lot of shit these days. "Yeah, sure. I won't even remember it ten minutes from now."

But he will. It's kind of hard to forget something when you saw it happening a different way just seconds earlier. Those kinds of things- though minor compared to some of the other(worldly) stuff- is hard to shake from your head no matter how much alcohol you drink in hopes of forgetting.

[organfarm]

He can understand a bit of staring. After all, Jion's quite aware of the fact that the scar splashed across his face is pretty distinctive, and he's not the most normal looking guy out there. But man, this guy's staring real hard. And he kind of doesn't make sense? There's a really weird calm about this guy that seems entirely unnatural.

Slowly lowering his hands from the front of his shirt, Jion kind of stares back at David for a few moments before attempting a response. "Uh. Right. Of course." A brief pause.

Maybe this guy's drunk, or high? Jion steps forward, invading David's personal space a bit as he looks over him curiously. "Um. Are you okay, man?" A brief little sniff -- not the most subtle move, but he's so used to the battlefield where personal space isn't really a high priority. He can't smell any booze clinging to David's clothes or hanging in the air around him, but he can't get a good enough look at David's eyes to guess if he's on drugs, either. "I mean, not to like -- be naggy and butt into things, but you seem kinda. Uh. Y'know."

[soyed]

That calm is thanks to the black shit currently swimming within Dave's system. It's a warm, vibrating calm too. One that begins in your chest and quickly spreads to the arms and legs. Then, soon enough, your whole body is pulsating with an alien energy that does what it wants with you. It'll probably stay in there too even after the side effects wear off. The lasting effects are proof enough that you're fucked from the first time you take it.

Dave's been sweating. The temples of his forehead are covered in little beads of perspiration. He's not hot, in fact, he's pretty comfortable in terms of temperature. It's just on the inside where he's burning.

The scar, while hard to not notice at first, is actually overlooked by Dave. When he looks at Jion's face, Dave is able to pick up on certain things about it, like certain events prior. There's another scar too. It's hidden beneath Jion's clothing, but it's no more a scar than a wound. Dave isn't gifted with special abilities of the psychic kind, he's just noticing things that are already there.

While Dave would normally react and contemplate this man's sanity on the fact that he was just sniffed, instead Dave doesn't move. He still thinks Jion's crazy though. But he seems what? Out of his mind? In an altered state of perception? On the sauce? The answer to all of these is yes.

He blinks. Maybe for the first time in minutes and then states. "It's the meds. The ones that help me concentrate."

[organfarm]

This guy's sweating. And he looks kinda -- out of it? It's really weird how he's completely still, not even leaning back when Jion leans closer to peer at him, and Jion's brows furrow slightly. Maybe this guy's -- sick? Feverish, maybe? He's so used to keeping an eye out for anyone infected or ill that he automatically catalogues this information away at the back of his mind.

"Oh. So like, uh -- Adderall? Or other amphetamines? I didn't know we had those at the medbay. Huh. Guess I mighta just missed'em."

An off-hand sort of comment murmured under his breath. Though honestly, Jion's not too focused on the question of whether the medbay stocks those sorts of medicines (which it probably should) or not -- he's more curious about whether this guy's feeling alright or not. Since crazy spaceship or not, he still feels an obligation to help out anyone who might not be feeling too good.

"Maybe you shouldn't be walkin' around while you're on meds, though? I mean -- not that I know what you're taking, but just general advice?" An awkward sort of laugh as he rubs a hand at the back of his neck, trying to look casual and confident -- and not really making it.

"I might not look like it, but I'm a medic! So I do know a bit about what I'm talking about, and we always ask our patients to sit still for a while after they've taken any strong meds. And y'know, not operate heavy machinery and stuff. There's a reason for that warning."

[soyed]

That's because there are no amphetamines in medbay. At least Dave doesn't think so; he never checked. But if the sauce told him to say that, then there has to be something for helping with these sort of problems. "It's nothing," he states, shifting his weight from one foot to the next when he realizes he'd been standing on the other one for too long, "I'm just adjusting to the effects."

Even if Dave were to go back to his room for the night, the sauce probably wouldn't let him. And here's the funny thing about that too. Other than the fact that the little container was waiting for him on the stand next to his bed, Dave's evening actually began in his room. He has no memory of how he winded up in the oxygen gardens, and, well, here he was walking around and cruising the terrain like a lost adventurer in the search of a dinosaur. Or tree creatures with dozens of branches with raptor-shaped claws on every end. Trust him, they were in the bushes.

"There's nothing here I know how to operate anyway." Mr. concerned Medic. "I'm okay. I'm not gonna suddenly have the impulse to know how everything works in here."

Not now at least. Someday that may be another story.