thoughtformed | (no subject)

I could be wrong but... now-you eventually got around to telling future-coffee-buying you what my order was so I guess nothing too bad ends up happening.

[Jason feels some of the fog lifting away, but it isn't anything near a caffeine buzz. Still, now he can focus some, and he pins Dave with a look as he sips a little more.]

Caffeine's a CNS stimulant and an antagonist to lorazepam. I need way more than 24 shots of espresso to counteract 16 fucking milligrams of ativan, but right now I'll just settle for 'not about to pass out'.

[And then... it wasn't as if he'd gotten all that fussed, but the slight irritation he'd managed to work up over the doctors tranq'ing him fades quickly, immediately, and takes with it what seems like all of his energy. With a weak sigh he drops his head onto the table with a quiet thunk and tries to hold on to wakefulness.]

Well, I mean, now-me will eventually just become future-me so I don't have to tell myself anything, but yeah, essentially that's how it works.

[Blah blah he's just talking to himself. After a second, Dave leans forward and tilts his head just to make sure Jason hasn't, like, actually died of caffeine poisoning or crazy ativan reactions or anything.]

Do you need me to go get my bro's car and take you somewhere? I mean, I only have a learner's permit, but I can almost guarantee I won't kill us both in a horrifying fiery wreck.

[Jason mumbles something but doesn't lift his head up so who knows what the hell he said. It sounded like, 'n'ere oo go'.]

Oooooor we could chill out here for a while until you can handle basic sentence structure again.

[He sits back and stretches out his legs.]

The cops've finally stopped picking me up for truancy, but they might get the wrong idea if they see me breaking into Bro's car on campus. In the meantime I can keep talking either to keep you conscious or lull you into the sweetest sleep you've ever known. Yea or nay, Pete?

[Jason summons all of his remaining willpower to drag the hand holding the coffee closer, only lifting his face when it's close enough for the edge of the cup to reach his mouth.

He finishes the drink and, barely, manages to catch his head with his hand so that's he's propping himself up that way instead of nearly passed out with his face smushed into the table. His eyelids are still droopy, though, and he's blinking a lot.]

Hey, I really appreciate all the help so far... you don't need to stick around. Sure you got better shit to do than...

[It takes him a second to replay the preceding moments of the conversation.]

Uh, than lull me into 'the sweetest sleep'.

[He smirks a little and offers a casual shrug.]

Dude, I'm a time traveler. I'm already doing all that better shit.

[It's why the police leave him alone when they see him during school hours. He's always already in class when they bring him back.]

Besides, I can't just ditch you in your doped up state. Miss Danvers would probably sentence me to an extra hour of P.E. every day for a year if I abandoned a civilian in need. So if you wake up enough to want the skinny on the island, I can serve up what deets as I can.

[Jason needs to hear this so he tries to rally himself, starting by roughly ripping the top off the second cup and taking a painful-looking swallow.]

If you're boyscout enough to want your 'help a violent stranger on psycho-drugs' merit badge then I'm gonna do my best to stay awake to oblige you.

[He tries to look attentive. He thinks it probably doesn't work.]

Please, I'm the most fuckin' boyscout. Bitches don't know about my Brownie points.

[It doesn't matter if Jason's attentive or not, really. Dave has a captive audience. The world is his oyster.]

This place is called New Moore. It's on an island, we don't know where. Everything seems basically Earthlike except weird shit happens on the regular. And by regular, I mean, like, every couple weeks we turn into pirates, or get invaded by bunny rabbits, or find ourselves married to our roommates. You know, just your average human interest story. Or whatever. There's a lot of people here, and some of them are, uh. Different.

Pirates, of course.

[Jason takes another sip, steels himself.]

Different how?

I'm guessing you're from some kind of Earth, right. No offense if I'm wrong, but you seem like a twenty-first century Earth kind of guy.

You pegged me.

Did your Earth have aliens? Or superheroes? Or ever get annihilated by meteors because of a computer game?

[Jason blinks.]

Not sure about that last one but, aliens and superheroes? Sure. Lot's of those.

Oh, all right, then you'll be right at home. We've got a particularly prominent alien population of little grey dudes with orange horns called trolls, and a bunch of people from superhero worlds. We also have, like, five different Sherlock Holmeses? I might be making that up, I lose track.

Superhero... worlds? Like, all superheroes all the time?

And I honestly can't tell if you're bullshitting me about the little gray people or not.

Uhh, well probably not, but that's what Miss Danvers makes it seem like sometimes. She's our P.E. teacher at the high school. Also, hold on, I've got a picture. I took this a couple months ago when I threw Karkat into the ocean.

[Have a camera phone photo of a very disgruntled troll.]

[Jason tilts his head to get a better look, then just sort of...stares.]

Uh. Wow.

[He leans back a little.]

So they're not dangerous?

Not really. Not any more dangerous than us other high school transplants. I mean, half of us are gods, but the most nefarious thing you'll probably see any of us do is torrent an R-rated movie with no subtitles.

See, you say that and you act like it's no biggie? But, dude, you can time travel. So are you saying they're fluffy bunny levels of dangerous or that they're not dangerous when compared with gods and time travelers?

Well, when you put it that way.

[Dave props his chin in his hand and looks up, thinking about everyone dangerous he knows on the island.]

I guess if you tried to put away everyone with serious power here, the only people out of jail would be Principal Dinkerton and Sheska down at the station. But no one I know is bad.

[Jason looks at him incredulously.]

Everyone here is a meta?

Most everyone I know is. I guess it might be different at the grown-up level. On the other hand, a couple of the grown-ups I've run into have been personifications of countries, so your mileage may vary.

[Jason's already come to terms with the fact that he'll have to revisit all this later when he's more awake but.]

...Countries.

[It's not quite a question.]

Our English teacher is literally England.

[Jason pulls off his hood and rubs his hand through his hair, screwing up his face in thought.]

And, according to our kidnappers, he's actually from a... work of fiction?