well, that was incredibly stupid (open)
Wash was accustomed to having vivid dreams, but they were usually weird, wild and wacky adventures that sometimes involved goslings or dinosaurs. Vivid nightmares, too, though he didn’t like to dwell on those - nightmares too close to life, nightmares of very real potential dangers and deaths. This, though... this was different.
He had been dozing off behind the wheel. Not while piloting, of course - just waiting. It happened, sometimes; he’d slip into dreamland and be jolted awake by Mal’s or Zoe’s voice over the comm system. And now he was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. There was no way this city around him, these unknown streets, were real. Unless he’d been kidnapped by some random group of miscreants, dragged off of Serenity, and dropped off here. Stranger things could happen.
It was clearly a city. That much he could be sure of. It was dusk in some nameless city, and Wash stood somewhere on a sidewalk in the middle of it, gazing at the things around him with a puzzled expression and slightly narrowed eyebrows. It was old here. Weirdly old. There were actual cars driving by on the street - not land-speeders, but cars, mythical things of legend that he’d only ever heard of or seen in pictures. Everything around him was in English; not a bit of Chinese in sight. Everything was antiquated, ridiculously so; it didn’t make any sense.
He tried the pinching thing. Pinch your arm, wake yourself up. Classic and simple. But not working. Head quirked to one side, he touched the side of the nearest building. It felt real. It felt like it was really there. After a moment’s hesitation and fully aware that, if the whole kidnapping thing had actually happened, he was being incredibly stupid, Wash clenched his hand into a fist and slammed it against the wall.
“Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze!*” he swore loudly, causing a few heads to turn in his direction. He was a bit too busy being confused, disoriented, and, after punching a wall, in a decent amount of pain. This was real. This was very painful and very real. Wash flexed his fingers experimentally, hoping to God he hadn’t broken anything. Wherever he was, however he’d gotten here, the last thing he needed was a trip to the local hospital. All he could hope was that the rest of the crew was around here... somewhere... somehow.