Goo Goo G’joob [Complete.]

[axinfinity]

Characters: Rion Steiner, Zack Fair, any Masonic Lodge dwellers. Contact if you want to hop in.
Content: Creation of the Delmetor was a success, and it came with some... interesting side effects. While letting them wear off, Rion’s housed himself for a couple weeks, and is stumbled upon.
Location: The Grand Masonic Lodge.
Time of day: Evening.

Comments

[axinfinity]

If Zack took a good look at him, Rion hadn’t noticed. He was too far off in his own little world to pay any heed to that anyway. Drifting off over a frying pan with some olive boil bubbling underneath him and making strange little crackling noises. Pip-pop-pip!

“You don’t flip over a tortilla.” Rion gave a quiet little chuckle as the thought amused him far too much and he didn’t know why. “You roll it up.”

And then you gobble it all up.

Such a delightful little tortilla child.

He didn’t know why he was suddenly like this. The fact that it had probably been the drug’s doing hadn’t really run through his tired mind. Until then, the boy was content with taking in the simple pleasures in life. For all he knew, this guy was just another Voice, and his footsteps were the drums.

How funny. All the while inside his head it played the same old song over and over and over... Rion didn’t know where it came from, or where he had heard it. Maybe from one of those cafes somewhere, or elsewhere on the streets... But what did it really matter to him then? The world was a pretty little oyster.

[hisdreamsmyfate]

The fact that the kid could hear him and respond coherently was encouraging. He had worried he would be too far gone to even notice his presence.

Several things needed to be done. Get the boy into bed. Hydration and nutrition. Trying to talk him into leaving lala land.

Simple.

"So what would happen if I unrolled it? Would it make a mess?" He placed on hand on the rug, to keep him still. "I'm hungry now. I think I'm gonna open it, okay?"

[axinfinity]

The conscious part of Rion’s brain understood the risk of trusting others, particularly those that stumbled upon him in scenarios such as these. But that part of him was too far gone to care. It was disconcerting, dangerous even, with how compliant Rion could be after a few pills.

Side effects were still working. These were much different from the ones created at the Michelangelo Memorial Hospital... the drugs so strong that it felt like his brains were ready to explode.

No. These ones took Rion from trip to trip. One moment floating, one with the universe, the next baking in an oven... medium rare, almost finished. Then he was eating cheesecake.

Eating...

...cheesecake...?

Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come...

Except that he wasn’t. He was gnawing on some of the carpet instead. And Rion didn’t even like cheesecake.

“Nng.” The mere mention of hunger reminded Rion that he hadn’t had much to eat himself. In fact, when was the last he had eaten? That morning? Before staggering outside to the lab? Followed by the other shit that happened after that. “I could eat... something. I could eat...” How did that saying go? “...horse.”

Neigh.

“Neigh-neigh. I have the rumblies... that only horses can satisfy.”

A laugh.

[hisdreamsmyfate]

Zack moved to try and unroll the younger boy out of the carpet, a difficult task when he actually began chewing on it. One thing the SOLDIER intent on avoiding was broken teeth. So he nodded along to the kid's words, and decided to just keep playing along.

He paused at the mention of horses. ...shit. What was a horse?

The dark-haired man struggled to reply, to keep the boy talking while rolling the rug around. "Do you want a horse? I can buy you one. You need to eat your tortilla first, though. Come on."

[axinfinity]

“Dunno, just heard someone say that once... never seen one before but they go neigh-neigh.”

Of course Rion had never seen one. There weren’t really any animals in Michelangelo City that he was aware of. Even then, he wouldn’t be able to see a horse here, either. He didn’t have eyes anymore to really see them with.

The carpet began unrolling but in Rion’s mind the universe that floated about him was just shifting into a pretty little supernova miracle and dust spatters scattered everywhere into little twinkles of starlight and cheesecake.

There it was again.

That damn word.

Rion’s teeth let go of the carpet as the aftertaste of cheesecake filled his mouth. Not-so-yum anymore. His head spin and he went spin-spin but that was the alternating nebula and he could hear its song again (“...‘Semolina Pilchard elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna’...”) just going on and on until he found out that he was the one singing it the entire time in that off-key tone.

Before he realized it, the boy had been rolling out of the carpet that was undoing itself, or someone undoing it. Or maybe the carpet undid itself. Either way, he tumbled out of it with a thud, that nearly sounded almost painful if he hadn’t been too busy chuckling.

Laughing that same twisted and intoxicated laugh and then suddenly: “...ow.”

[hisdreamsmyfate]

"Neigh-neigh, no wark-wark?" The SOLDIER questioned, wondering if his constant replies would be enough to snap the boy out of whatever trip he'd gotten himself into. He looked a bit familiar, now that he had begun to fall out of the carpet. Had they met before?

Probably.

Once the kid had fallen out completely, the SOLDIER bent over to loop his arms under the other's arms and legs. "We're going into space. Hold on tight." He whispered quietly, standing up. "Wheee~"

[axinfinity]

Rion had to kind of think about that for a moment. No. No, he never really heard of anything making sounds like wark-wark. That’s just crazy talk.

Uh.

Too limp and slow in the mind to react to being picked up, Rion made a brief, muffled sound. Was he...? Was he being picked up?

As in, up in the air?

And going to outer space?

“No we’re not. We’re... Holy shit!” Head spun, dizzying all over again and for a brief moment he thought he was going to be sick by the swift sensation of blood rushing to his head. Wow. “Leaving at the rate of planetary orbit!”

Wow.

[hisdreamsmyfate]

Zack couldn't help it. He laughed. It was mostly certainly not something to laugh at, but the situation, in a way, was kind of funny. Hell, not everything had to be grave and serious, right? And the kid seemed to be having fun...

"Are you a rocket ship?" He asked, eyeing the bed for a few moments. The SOLDIER wasn't entirely sure of how bad the boy had been affected by whatever had been done to him, and wasn't sure of the pace he had to take. "Do you want to go fast? Zoom to another planet?"

Adjusting his grip, the dark-haired man stepped back a bit, easing towards the bed as he spoke. Either way, the boy needed to rest and relax, and not roll himself up into anymore carpets. It wouldn't help his condition.

[axinfinity]

Funny was relative, although if anyone asked Rion what the meaning of it was he’d have no idea. He laughed and grinned because it was a reflux, a reaction. He blamed it on the drugs, this high, the fun dizzying feeling that swam about his brains and made him float.

Only he wasn’t floating. Not really. He was being carried around. A rational part of his brain knew that. But Rion wasn’t rational right now, and frankly, he didn’t care to be. For once he was actually not quite as uptight or annoyed, and his body didn’t scream in agony. For once it was gone. All of it.

Except for the fun dizzy spells. The vertigo.

Rion was so off his rocker he didn’t even know if he wanted to get back down.

“Goo goo g’joob ga goo goo g’joob!”

He wiped aside the sweaty strands of straw-colored hair that clung to his forehead, greasy and unwashed but what did the boy care? He didn’t. The same song played on and on in his brain and he almost forgot completely that, just several hours ago, that same brain had just about come this close to spilling out of his ears, nose, mouth, and empty sockets. The dried up blood still clung to his skin, caked on.

[hisdreamsmyfate]

Zack frowned at the incoherency, stepping back more to stand next to the bed and eye the boy in his arms carefully. Blood, no eyes, and a sanity that was worse than anyone shot down with any amount of mako. But he would do what he could to help.

"That's it." He replied sternly. "The tortilla isn't done yet. It's going back on the fryer."

Crouching down on one knee, the SOLDIER laid the boy onto the cushiony mattress, eyeing his behavior closely.

Needs a bath... water, cloths...

[axinfinity]

Rion felt his stomach make a fierce, grumbling noise as he laid there over the mattress. He couldn’t remember the last it had done that... The boy used to be able to prevail for long periods of time without food, and now he was starved. Wanted to eat that horse, whatever it was, and see if they could find one in this Manhattan.

Obviously, he couldn’t see the guy, but felt his presence very close. Close enough to be at his face, watching him. If Rion’s mind hadn’t already been preoccupied, he probably would have noticed, and maybe even felt a little uncomfortable.

The man at Babylon Hotel circling and ogling him with a very strange and suspicious gleam in his eye.
You’re okay I guess.

In his state, however, Rion was too relaxed to be uncomfortable.

“But it’s been cooking it for awhile. It could get burnt and then what? If I don’t make it done soon Lilia’s gonna get mad and start eating the telephone and that’s not good for her at all.” Somehow he wondered if Lilia could hear him elsewhere. If she did, he hoped she wasn’t getting stepped on by any of those duck feet. Giant ducks running rampant and went quack quack while they do it.

[hisdreamsmyfate]

Hearing the younger boy's stomach growl, the SOLDIER stood up by the bed. The way he had been knawing at the carpet before, it must have been a long time since he last ate. Maybe the kitchen would have something small for him...

Grinning, the older man ruffled the younger boy's hair. "I'll go make sure she's not eating the telephone and check on the tortilla. Don't leave your shuttle, cadet."

That said, he wandered off to the downstairs kitchen, moving at a swift pace out the door.

Food, then bath.

[axinfinity]

Pieces of fabric still stuck in his mouth... Rion spat some bits of the carpet stuck to his tongue. He hadn’t realized he was hungry so much. His body did. His brain focused on other things.

He felt something brush up against his hair and for a moment his mind processed that perhaps it was a bird flying against him as he was a jet speeding through the clouds and sky and feeling the pretty things below all so many of them-

Footsteps receded out of the room. Gone. Leaving the boy alone.

“Oh shit!” Alone for the time being, Rion shot upright in the bed. A sudden realization just hit him. “Pickles! Thousands of pickles! They’re coming out from the district! Get the canons, the voles are coming! Man the harpoons-they’re at the gates!”

His outburst came out abruptly, echoing out from the room, down the halls, and could be mistaken for anything, really. Anything. Certainly not a boy who was swimming in a perfectly happy abyss. Oh no, never.

[hisdreamsmyfate]

He had a feeling this would have happened.

Making his way to the kitchen, the SOLDIER did his best to hurry and gather up what he needed; a few small tubs of yogurt, juice, bottled water, and even a few paper towels for good measure. Holding nearly everything under one arm, he dashed back up the stairs and into the room where the younger boy was screaming, carelessly dropping everything onto the floor as he crouched down and laying one hand against the other's arm in reassurance.

"I took care of them! They're dead, they're gone! No more pickles!" He tried, over and over and hoping the boy would hear him at least.

Sighing, the dark-haired man realized he had forgotten spoons for the yogurt and opened one of the tubs, holding it up to the younger boy and intending for him to just... well, drink it, in a way. "The tortilla needs more filling. Here. I found some meat."

[axinfinity]

If it wasn’t for the fact that the drugs had taken such an... abnormal effect on Rion’s system, he probably wouldn’t have relaxed in the way he had so easily upon the man’s return. As it were, fortunately, he eased, his back pressed to the front of the bed and he felt the pillow against his back. If not for that, he probably would have fallen right over. He could hardly even hold his own head upright.

His sense of smell was keen, though easily manipulated. If someone were to tell him that the sky tasted like lemons and that the color blue did, in fact, have a flavor, Rion probably would’ve been swifter to believe in it. He probably wouldn’t have believed that this guy had magically taken care of the army of a thousand, malicious pickles and voles.

Must’ve been a blue moon or something. The tattoos on the back of his eyelids and blue moons and wilted flowers dead in their vases and

meat

The instinct that incited the hunger override crazed paranoia. Never mind mother saying never to take candy from strangers because it wasn’t like she was his real mother anyway. He reached out and grabbed the tub offered to him, making sure his fingers wrapped around it so that it wouldn’t slip from his grasp.

Rion took a tentative taste, licking the thick substance from around the brim. He... tasted something like this before. Yogurt? He didn’t even know they had any here... maybe it was Garnet...?

“No more pickles.” He seemed so far away now that he started eating again. The boy wasn’t as emaciated as he had been when he first got to Manhattan, and thanks to Garnet and Harry he had been taken care of. But with the blood and the sweat he looked like he’d been through hell.

It was a very blissful Hell, though.

[hisdreamsmyfate]

Zack allowed himself to relax when the boy did, cautiously letting go of the tub incase the other dropped it and spilled the yogurt all over his clothes. He had performed a change of clothes on a helpless individual in the past, but he hadn't necessarily enjoyed it.

He was SOLDIER, not a mother.

Taking the wad of paper towels, the dark-haired man squirted a bit of water onto them and began wiping at the caked-on blood over the boy's face and ears. He needed to get clean any possible way.