John (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
breakeggs_savelives) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sojournerdeep2016-09-22 11:17 pm
breakeggs_savelives) wrote in sojournerdeep2016-09-22 11:17 pm
[Location: Arrival Plaza] [Network] [Open] Birds flying high, you know how I feel
It's dark. Pitch black. A quiet, insistent hum churns away in the background, like waves, or insects in a dead body. The sound rolls like the sea, but inside his head, like chanting in yoga class.
Zen...
He's never had much luck achieving zen, except in the field. On the battlefield he's surrounded by an invisible aura of the three big c's - Cool, Calm, Collected. Nothing can touch him there. He gets the job done, and he gets it done good. Nothing stands in his way that he can't work around or monster truck through.
The humming seems to pulsate, throb, like a heartbeat in his head. It's dark. Pitch black. Quiet, except for the ringing in his ears and that borderline white noise that encroaches on his senses. He can feel it vibrate against his back, through the floor, move up through the soles of his feet and from his pelvis up his spine, from elbows through arms, through the back of his skull, coming to rest inside his right temple. It aches. It itches.
It's dark. Pitch black.
And then it isn't anymore.
John opens his eyes, squinting against the too bright light, and he could swear his right eye is about to pop out of its socket; he squeezes his eyes shut again, dragging sluggish hands over his face.
Did he drink himself into oblivion last night? He doesn't remember going to a bar, or buying a bottle of JD, but it wouldn't be the first time he's had blackouts. He tries not to drink on the job, and still he does whenever he gets a chance. He tells himself it's to fit in, to blend in, to portray an image suited to the cover. He drinks on the job, and he tries not to drink in his spare time... It's been a long while since he emptied a bottle on his own, though. In fact, he knows exactly when he did, last time. Finch being abducted, kidnapped by a lunatic, leaving him to play Contingency Plan and play things by ear. He drank a lot, then.
He drank even more after Finch got back. That is the last time. He hasn't so much as glanced at a liquor store since.
That's why it's strange to wake up vaguely nauseous, allergic to bright lights, with you head beating like a drum between your ears. On the floor, no less.
The humming isn't just white noise, he realizes, but a voice - a nice, pleasant, female voice, talking of-- space. A space ship. And...protocol.
He rolls over, pushing to his knees while his fingertips run, run, run over the strange symmetrical bump on his temple. Strange. Just like the room: strange. Padded walls, strange. No windows, strange. The ceiling glaring like the sun itself, strange. No door...very strange.
And in the middle of the room, not two feet away, a tablet, with an earwig sitting on it like a Christmas present.
[Please state your name.]
---
A man walks down the street, like the song says, eyes gliding over his surroundings and the people present in a cold, intently calculating way. In his hands is a smart tablet, the way he imagines smart tablets could be if Finch had designed them ten or twenty years into the future. His thumbs tap and his fingers swipe through the menus. It's all a bit too much to take in at the moment, you see, and at least the tablet is tangible, solid, real. He can handle real.
Zen...
He's never had much luck achieving zen, except in the field. On the battlefield he's surrounded by an invisible aura of the three big c's - Cool, Calm, Collected. Nothing can touch him there. He gets the job done, and he gets it done good. Nothing stands in his way that he can't work around or monster truck through.
The humming seems to pulsate, throb, like a heartbeat in his head. It's dark. Pitch black. Quiet, except for the ringing in his ears and that borderline white noise that encroaches on his senses. He can feel it vibrate against his back, through the floor, move up through the soles of his feet and from his pelvis up his spine, from elbows through arms, through the back of his skull, coming to rest inside his right temple. It aches. It itches.
It's dark. Pitch black.
And then it isn't anymore.
John opens his eyes, squinting against the too bright light, and he could swear his right eye is about to pop out of its socket; he squeezes his eyes shut again, dragging sluggish hands over his face.
Did he drink himself into oblivion last night? He doesn't remember going to a bar, or buying a bottle of JD, but it wouldn't be the first time he's had blackouts. He tries not to drink on the job, and still he does whenever he gets a chance. He tells himself it's to fit in, to blend in, to portray an image suited to the cover. He drinks on the job, and he tries not to drink in his spare time... It's been a long while since he emptied a bottle on his own, though. In fact, he knows exactly when he did, last time. Finch being abducted, kidnapped by a lunatic, leaving him to play Contingency Plan and play things by ear. He drank a lot, then.
He drank even more after Finch got back. That is the last time. He hasn't so much as glanced at a liquor store since.
That's why it's strange to wake up vaguely nauseous, allergic to bright lights, with you head beating like a drum between your ears. On the floor, no less.
The humming isn't just white noise, he realizes, but a voice - a nice, pleasant, female voice, talking of-- space. A space ship. And...protocol.
He rolls over, pushing to his knees while his fingertips run, run, run over the strange symmetrical bump on his temple. Strange. Just like the room: strange. Padded walls, strange. No windows, strange. The ceiling glaring like the sun itself, strange. No door...very strange.
And in the middle of the room, not two feet away, a tablet, with an earwig sitting on it like a Christmas present.
[Please state your name.]
---
A man walks down the street, like the song says, eyes gliding over his surroundings and the people present in a cold, intently calculating way. In his hands is a smart tablet, the way he imagines smart tablets could be if Finch had designed them ten or twenty years into the future. His thumbs tap and his fingers swipe through the menus. It's all a bit too much to take in at the moment, you see, and at least the tablet is tangible, solid, real. He can handle real.