nightlogs | I Had Nothing to Say on Christmas Day When You Threw All Your Clothes in the Snow [Closed]

Entry tags:

I Had Nothing to Say on Christmas Day When You Threw All Your Clothes in the Snow [Closed]

Who: Dan and Miguel
What: Miguel finds out something concerning about Dan.
Where: The workshop.
When: After Christmas.
Warnings/Notes: Dan's crazy politics in the forefront; probable references to dead kids and substance abuse.

Miguel did, in fact, get a sky-blue and white puzzle box for Christmas, wrapped with corresponding paper and left outside his door on the morning of the holiday itself. The locking mechanism is different than the one he observed Dan making. Dan has, as the march of time has inevitably drawn him closer to the time of year he struggles with the most, been doing everything he can to stay busy, and that means each box has been individualized and has been a grounds for experimentation. Such intensive work brought Dan right up to Christmas Eve making and wrapping gifts, which was perfect; in stressing about getting boxes in hands, he didn't have much time for gloominess or panic or working himself up in hypotheticals about how everything's going to go wrong somehow.

But now the holiday's over, and aside from New Year's Eve, there isn't anything to distract him. He's taken back to chewing on his hands, and after he accidentally bites hard enough on one of his fingers to leave a blue moon-shaped bruise under his nail, he decides to do something about it.

He's noticed, of course, that there are some people here at the Pole who don't fit into standard-sized clothing, and that that limits their options for warm clothing. The myth powers may buffer people a little bit, but Dan's seen enough people have their powers dampened or switched up on them to think it's wise to entirely eschew a wardrobe of layers. And he's been intending to talk to Miguel ever since he somewhat rudely ignored the hell out of that last attempt Miguel made to rally the new myths into organizing.

After having asked around and gotten a sense of when Miguel might be available - when Dan won't be interrupting some important Work, which he knows is important to Miguel - Dan knocks on Miguel's bedroom door with a messenger's bag over his shoulder.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dan raises an eyebrow, but he doesn't think I don't trust you enough for that would be a productive thing to say. He just proclaimed that there was no one he'd trust enough for this sort of thing, and that unspokenly included plenty of people he was much closer to than Miguel. Even this relatively understanding response from Miguel doesn't change that Dan got spooked by the commands to get organized, and, like a deer that's been startled, is one second from bolting.

"I love patterns and colors. I just ain't particularly creative. I mostly stick to what I got taught to make when I was a kid." He gets a clipboard and places the pages with Miguel against it, then holds it and a pen out to Miguel. "If you got changes you want made, you can show me."

The compliment gets an honest smile out of him, the first real one since they began this conversation. "Thank you. You pick likeness up fast when you're hawking vacation portraits to tourists. It's all in the ratios of eyes, nose and mouth."

"Well, pattern would look good, if finding something geometric isn't a hassle." It is more politely asked, coaxed out, mostly because he's fallen far out of the habit of specifying his personal needs like that.

Up close, one could notice that his suit is covered from head to toe in pattern - the light little pulses of circuitry were all asymmetrical and intentionally planned. It was easier to see in the glowing red, but it was there in a nearly invisible manner in the dark shades as well. Little details like that did matter enough for him to map out, which reflected the style of his home city in a way.

So he takes the pen and looks over the drawing, and shows the few choice areas to add pattern - the shoulders and sides of the coat sleeves, and the sides of the pants.

"... Mostly here, and here, as a stripe along the side..." he looks back to Dan to gauge his reaction. Sewing really isn't his realm of expertise, so if Dan looks daunted, he is willing to back down.

"Is this too much?"

Dan looks over Miguel’s outfits and the smooth lines that give his form the illusion of being aerodynamic. They remind him of Bunny’s markings, which Bunny got tattooed onto his human form after a while because they felt like him. Dan respects that.

“Not at all. This is inspiration.” Rather than daunted, Dan looks excited. “I was hoping to have a project or two to tide me through January. It’s always a bumpy time of year for me.”

Having leveled about grief together, Miguel can probably guess why.

“Granted, once I make this I’ll still need to have you come in for alterations.”

He understands why. It's partly why he had ramped up his own efforts rather than ease up during the holidays. Can't think about the empty chair if you're at a desk the whole time.

"Let me know when you need them. I'll make time." he says.

And that might have been the end of their conversation here, had the other, more difficult topic not been interwoven in between.

"I.. uh.." he starts awkwardly, running fingers through his hair, gaze avoidant. "I'm sorry for coming on a bit strong. I know I can be pushy with these things. It's because I worry about the worst case scenario. About what can go wrong."

And then Miguel just keeps packing on more and more pressure on himself because he thinks he can withstand it, therefore he is obligated to. He doesn't think his point of view is incorrect on the logic end, but he does feel bad that he hurt someone he liked.

Some part of him still hopes they can mend the gap, and maybe when the wound heals over he can see if Dan feels safe enough to try something a little out of bounds for him.

"I hope you know that you can just talk to me." he looks at Dan. "The gifts are nice, but not necessary for that."

Dan tools around with his materials and his sketches and his fabric patterns, picking up that Miguel isn't keen to make a ton of eye contact when they're both engaging in a little humility. Putting away supplies is a reasonable way to elegantly dodge making it weird.

"I appreciate the apology, but it ain't you." Dan hopes that Miguel understands that. It's nothing about Miguel or about his fangs or about his attitude. It's that Dan's been burned over and over by those who say they have everyone's best interests in mind, and somehow that always seems to exclude him. He doesn't doubt that most people gung-ho about organizing and systematizing mean well and truly believe that they're looking out for everyone; he just knows that he's never in anyone's mind when they go about arranging the world in their liking, and that the cost of his inability to fit in is often violent and unfair. "I know it's because you're trying to do right by everyone."

Miguel could have approached the subject on the network in the most gentle, thoughtful, humble manner, and Dan would still feel that panic choking him. He would still hear that voice in his head of no one understands, still feel that cold terror, still play that last time he saw his father as they were cuffed and shoved into separate squad cars over and over in his mind.

Sometimes it feels like it's still happening. Usually it feels like it's still happening, like time is somehow collapsed and Dan's here, now, but also still back there, watching the back of an officer's head through the partition cage of the car, knowing in that moment that nothing would ever feel safe again for the rest of his life.

Miguel has, so far, understood where he's coming from much better than Dan anticipated. That still doesn't mean Miguel will understand this. Dan feels like almost no one does.

So he doesn't want to try and explain further when Miguel's given his the grace he needs. "Well, if I didn't give you gifts, who knows how long you'd be running around in that laundry sack of a sweater."

It may not be him, but it doesn't seem like it's principles either, after this conversation. It feels a lot closer to a deeply-ironed, gut-instinct fear of the past repeating itself. He'd noticed the tremble in Dan, earlier, and he wasn't sure what to do about that. Dan seems to be putting an arbitrary line between cooperation, and cooperation with a bare skeleton of structure. The line was life-or-death for him, when for Miguel, the only difference was that the latter was more efficient.

He supposes he should be glad that they were able to find this impasse to sit at for the time being. Dan was right in the sense that they weren't kneecapped if he decided to not to participate for now, but he'd have to work harder to get Bunny on board. At least enough to share what he knew about the world, here. They can leave Dan out of it.

"At one point I'm going to return the favor, so you should tell me what kind of things you like." he decides to keep the tone light.

Dan can feel his heart rate finally starting to slow down. He wonders if Miguel can hear it. Miguel seems to appreciate that Dan's found this all very high-stakes, although Dan can't totally shake the idea that Miguel's appended a silent for now to the idea of letting Dan out of it. Dan anticipates that if opting into sharing information becomes mandatory, he'll have to use Bunny as a buffer, maybe relocate to the Warren entirely.

"Sugar, alcohol, clubbing. Find something detrimental to my health and I'll usually take to it. About the only thing I love that ain't bad for me is my horse." Well, and Bunny, but even that attachment often drives Dan into spirals of anxiety over the idea of that bond somehow being severed.

He pins the loose, altered sketch of Miguel in a coat to the corkboard he uses as a to-do bulletin. Post-holiday, the corkboard is relatively bare, with only a doodled sketch of North's reindeer and a novelty four-photo strip of Dan with a man most wouldn't know is Bunny's human form.

"Her name's Concrete Blonde. That's where all my myth power seemed to go, for what it's worth. She can run on water, come to me on command no matter where she is, she don't never seem to tire and she's hard to spook. I've had her since the last dimension-hopping we all done and she's hold steady through plenty of battles." Dan lights up when talking about Concrete Blonde. His enthusiasm for the horse almost makes his hair stand on end with excitement. "When I didn't have my gun I did some archery on horseback, but now that I got a firearm I reckon I'd be pretty lethal in a fight. Not that I want to be."

He taps his fingers against his lower lip. "And music. Do you play?"

Much like the fangs, Miguel prefers to conceal what he could gleam with his eyes and ears. He is certain that mentioning Dan's heartbeat or the temperature change of his slowing blood would just seem like another threat. Yes, he was aware that Dan wasn't so nervous anymore. He is just glad that Dan hadn't been so frightened by this that he didn't want to share anything at all.

"My younger brother was the artist." he says. "Though he was more into landscapes than portraits. He was the one who could play music."

Dan's willingness to be vulnerable with him keeps that little side passage open, that willingness to drip in a detail or two of a past life he never talks about. Miguel doesn't want to stay too long in this sadder place, though.

"I haven't had... too much experience with horses." he admits, awkward in this unknown territory. "They have a decent amount of fur, right? I assume they would enjoy something like grooming. I can do some research."

He is not getting any drugs or alcohol. He can put aside his discomfort of horses for a friend. Concrete Blonde couldn't be worse than Web-Slinger's spider horse.

"Everyone's an artist. Some folks just spend more time honing it." Dan raises his eyebrows and gestures with his chin to the table Miguel was whittling figures at a few weeks ago. He can tell that if Miguel wanted to talk about his younger brother, he would volunteer it instead of retreating back away from the conversation - which Dan feels the same way about. He could talk about his siblings, but that's a sad place to linger. "I mostly play piano. I can figure my way around a guitar, but the ivories have me in their sway. Someday you might should hear me."

He suspects Miguel would enjoy some live music. It's something that's easy to appreciate without directly engaging with it, and that would allow Miguel to give himself distance if he wants it, and Dan thinks that's important.

"Well, if you ever want to learn anything about them, Concrete Blonde's a great horse to get to know. She ain't easy to startle like other horses, and I been riding them since I was about three years old." Dan wants to introduce them and the enthusiasm shows. He thinks it would be nice. "She enjoys being brushed and having her shoes done. She thinks it's an equine spa day."

He raises his eyebrows again. "She could carry you, if you wanted to learn to ride."

Oh, Miguel so isn't ready for sitting on the horse. Not when his legs can propel him around just as well. But Dan looks so enthusiastic to share this side of him, his caution to the idea withers a little. He also isn't oblivious to the contradiction of Dan hating the idea of a group project, yet being immediately willing to put forward all these details about himself.

Maybe there was an unconventional way to do this? A way to leave everyone happy? He's not so sure. Miguel was navigating this as it came along. But they were conversing with each other and neither one was closing off. It was a good start.

"Why don't we start with the grooming, and then play it by ear?" To bring a music metaphor in. He looks... slightly uncomfortable, like someone agreeing to go ice-skating for the first time in their life. He's a city boy, Dan! And a cyberpunk city, to boot. He's not used to the Large Animals.

If he and Concrete Blonde can stand in the same room for more than fifteen minutes, he'll consider it an achievement on his part.

“Absolutely. I got her stabled with the reindeer. Most horses would have that but, you know, she’s the platonic ideal of a horse.”

Dan, also, sees a way that they might be able to both get what they want here. He doesn’t want to hoard information; he’s just terrified of being compelled to, of the systems necessary to force that compulsion. He can feel comfortable giving it out when he doesn’t feel that oppressive weight on his shoulder.

“Do you have time this evening?”

The platonic Horse Date was on, it seems.

"I can move some things around."

If Miguel's habits were any indicator of how he was feeling, it will be good for him to get dragged from his numbers and computer screens. Just because he had the physical endurance to stay hunched there all day doesn't mean it helped his mental state any.

"Should I bring anything? A sweater? Snacks?"

He's wondering if the cybernetic flicker of his suit will set off a Big Animal with Animal Intelligence.

Edited 2023-12-29 05:33 (UTC)

"Just your fine self. I'll take care'it." Dan's so evidently jazzed at the idea of introducing Miguel and Concrete Blonde and then getting to work on Miguel's outfit. Dan often feels like happiness is something that needs to be pounced on, some elusive thing he can barely hold onto; all these things to do feels like a handhold to grip this wonderful, slippery thing called joy. "Maybe put a sweater over the sparkly stuff. God only knows how her horse eyes pick up light."

Maybe Miguel would know how to look that up, how horses process visual information. That sort of trivia seems like the kind of thing one could find in a computer.

A few hours later, Dan waits for Miguel in the stables, where Concrete Blonde has her own private stall amongst the reindeer. The stables have the unmistakable smell of livestock, which Dan finds deeply nostalgic but which he knows many find unpleasant, and he hopes Miguel can tolerate it - but either way, he has the barn door cracked, so he's bundled up in a few layers. He has his tools for Concrete Blonde nearby, the farrying tools and a brush and a Ziploc bag full of apple slices and alfalfa. Her reins and saddle are hung with care over the edge of the stall.

Concrete Blonde is a large dun mare with a Christmas-print blanket over her back. Unlike the reindeer, who seem a bit shy, she doesn't seem perturbed by Miguel at all. She flicks her ears and raises her head to sniff in his direction with muted curiosity, then regains interest in the apples Dan's offering her.

"Welcome to my happy place," Dan greets Miguel with. He looks more at ease than Miguel's likely to have seen him; if Miguel loses himself in working on high-level scientific analysis, Dan loses himself in good old-fashioned farmwork. "So, you ain't never been around horses, or around big animals in general?"

Miguel is standing... very cautiously at the door of the stable. Trying to avoid staring too much into the horse's eyes. He didn't get along particularly well with the reindeer and mostly avoids this place. The strong scent doesn't help. His nose was not as sensitive as his vision, but it was on the attuned side. It stank, and it was a different kind of stink to anything in Nueva York, even in the dredges of the oldest parts of Downtown.

The outfit change was casual enough - he foregoes the nanotech insulation of his suit for a thick coat and a scarf. The wool scarf, at least, wasn't hampered by sizing and was tied in a slightly fancy tucked style. His brief span of Horse Research convinced him to stick to fabric rather than anything with blinky lights.

"...There was a Spider that had one. He didn't bring the Horse into my lab."

He thinks Dan would like Web-Slinger, what with his guns, horse, and his Wild West cowboy attitude.

"I brought tea. For the cold."

In his hands was a very tall thermos filled with tea. Dan didn't tell him to bring anything, but it felt odd to come empty handed. So. Tea.

He's going to just stand there, unless Dan invites him into the Happy Place.

"Thank you. That's very kind of you." Dan takes the thermos of tea and cuddles it to his chest. Even though he's wearing gloves, his hands are a bit clumsy from the cold anyway. It's a price he pays for using the stables and being around his horse. "Alright, before you get up close, you ought to know that even though she's a very calm horse, you don't never want to make loud noises or move too quickly around them. And don't stand behind her, because the last thing you want to do is get kicked by a horse. I did as a kid and it broke my collarbone."

He gestures that Miguel can come in, showing where to stand in front of Concrete Blonde so she can see him throughout. He takes a sip from the thermos and makes a satisfied sound, then pulls another apple from the bag. The horse follows along with her nose, trying to clip her teeth at the slice, but Dan is old-hat at keeping his fingers clear of her.

"So, I figured you can feed her and help me groom her a little, get her used to you. We don't never know if someday we may need to fight side by side, and odds are I'll be on horseback, so it'll help if you both know how to be around each other." Maybe this is the sort of information Miguel was hoping to get, that Dan is hoping to give, that they've just had a mismatch between soliciting and providing.

Dan makes an entirely salient point that coaxes him to come in and try his chances. Yes, this was very relevant. Better that he get over this discomfort here than out on the field.

So, with a deep breath that left a visible vapor trail through his mouth and nostrils, he enters the stable. He does his best to tamp down the instinct to fix his eyes on the Horse to try and read her mood. The swivel of ears and swoosh of the tail didn't really give him much to work with, anyway. As he gets closer, he notices that Horses were a little warmer than humans. Like a cat or dog.

"Hating loud noises is something we share in common, then."

A furtive glance at her head. The dark, equine eyes belied... nothing. The humor could only be appreciated by him and Dan. His shoulders stiffen as he notices the too-human teeth at the end of her long snout attempting to take nibbles of apple. It was silly. Dan was in far more danger from the Horse than he was, and yet...

"How quickly is too quickly?"

Overthinking it a bit, maybe. He manages to make it next to Dan without anything catastrophic happening. It did satisfy him to see his small gesture bring Dan some comfort and warmth. It should give him some more time to continue this activity he clearly enjoyed.

"And.. should I wear gloves?" The question hits him as the bristly pads of his fingertips and palms touch each other. Between that and the concealed talons, he wonders if the Horse would perceive this as Wrong enough to be alarmed about.

"I jump out of my skin at loud noises, so that makes three of us." But, in the interest of sharing information, Dan taps his fingertips to his left ear. "But I can't hear that good on this side. Too much firearm action in my life. I gotten better at not startling when folks approach from this side but it took time."

Dan's interactions with the horse have the same sort of fluid confidence as how he pours a drink. Every gesture is intentional but unconscious in that same way. "No faster than how fast I'm moving. Here, if you hold your hand like this, she won't accidentally clip your fingers."

He demonstrates with some apple, slice on the flat of his palm. He gets a glance at Miguel's hands. He's been trying to be covert, assessing the differences in Miguel's body, and he got a decent view of them while taking measurements. "I'm only wearing these because of my circulation issue. Your hands are fine."

Her body language is liable to be inscrutable to Miguel, but Dan can tell from the way she's more interested in the snacks than the company, from the direction of her ears, from the pace of her wide sides moving with her breath, the free movement of her tail, that she isn't particularly bothered by Miguel. And he can tell by Miguel's discomfort that he might do well to translate all that. He's pieced together that either Miguel isn't completely comfortable with his own physiology or that he at least anticipates that others will be.

"Normally someone your size might make her a bit wary, but just keep following my lead and she'll stay calm. I don't know if she's got a sense of character or if she can notice things about folks I can't, but she's got good instincts about people." Dan pets her and makes little noises to her, then nods to Miguel. "Palm up. I'll give you some apple for her."

He follows along, noting the details that Dan was sharing.

“The suit filters out noise that might be overwhelming. But outside of it, the migraines can get bad - especially in the daylight.”

He floats some more information. Throwing out lines to see if they can make a strategy for each other.

The chitchat distracts him from his initial discomfort with the Horse. If he were by himself, he probably would have walked out at this point. No need to push his luck with a Large Animal that had some kind of sixth sense for people’s character.

He offers his bare palm, gingerly. Aside from the different texture of the gripping surfaces, there was a faint shimmer of color when the light caught them at the right angle. His talons were completely hidden, with the only hint being light lines that might be easily missed or mistaken for old scars.

He looks fixed watching Concrete Blonde’s muzzle, noticing the whiskers and other odd details, and watching for signs of her trying to get more than just apple.

"Migraines? That's nasty. Do you prefer it nocturnal? I do. My ideal schedule is four in the afternoon to six in the morning, but unfortunately don't the rest of the world run on my circadian rhythm." Dan sees what Miguel is going for, and he's open to that, a little tit-for-tat of dropping details, knowing all the while he can shut down, claim the horse is getting agitated, and end the conversation. "Probably we'll end up running across each other a lot if we keep the same schedule."

Concrete Blonde sniffs and huffs at Miguel's hand and wrist, but without any intent to bite, just to investigate. Aside from mouthing his palm as she takes the apple, she doesn't touch him.

"Your hands are beautiful," Dan says. "Mine are all jacked up, but even before I wrecked them, they didn't glimmer like that."

He hopes Miguel can tell the appreciation is genuine. There isn't a trace of condescension. He really does note the differences from human hands with an eye for finding beauty in what's unique or unusual. It's the same skill that allows him to so quickly see the virtues in monsters and menaces, an openness to switch his perspective about what's good and lovely.

“There isn’t much of a rhythm when it’s always dark-”

His train of thought is interrupted by the brush of Concrete Blonde sniffing his palm. It looks like he was the more nervous one of the interaction! But he will brave this Horse Eating an Apple and acclimate to the new sensation.

And then the earnest compliment throws him completely off guard, in a way that makes him forget that the horse was even there. His eyebrows slacken. It was one of the kindest things that had ever been lobbed at him, by someone he was still getting to know properly.

Then, a little sadness tempers it. Miguel sees his hands and can only think of the bloodied palms from the first night they changed, through the filter of his distorted vision. Of swiping and desperately grasping and finding torn meat dangling from his fingers. Of the way his flesh splits open when the hooks of black chitin are released, stretching skin into unnatural ridged patterns where tendon and muscle tensed against the bone.

He supposes Dan could have that gotten his nicer impression from a first, mistaken glance.

“It’s just a trick of the light.” he says, feeling a little extra warmth in his face. He might have rattled off something about iridescence in tarantula tarsal pads were it not for the creature currently investigating his hand.

“Her nose is… soft.”

Being as smooth as low-grit sandpaper, over here. He remembers from his Horse Research that Horses liked to be pet on the snout, so he dares himself to give Concrete Blonde a small rub in the center.

"Mm." Dan peels off one of his gloves and flexes his hand in the light. His knuckles and fingernails are usually some sort of chewed-up and scabbed - a bad habit of his - but even aside from that, there's scar tissue in all sorts of patterns over his, bite marks both animal and his own, gunpowder burns, singed fingertips, lacerations on the back for blood sacrifices, various cuts and scrapes from woodworking and tailoring and fixing cars. There's enough scar tissue that plenty of it's pearly. "Well, if it's just a trick of the light, reckon mine do glimmer a bit too. But not as much."

He tucks his hand back into his glove before the cold gets to him and drinks some more tea. May as well normalize that lovely is lovely, however it was come by, however strange it may be.

"Here, like this." Dan demonstrates where to pet her, how hard. Concrete Blonde nickers, and it sounds almost like a deep, breathy purr. She pushes her nose into Dan's hand, then into Miguel's, like she's trying to decide who's going to give her the best stroke. Dan's familiar to her, but like her master - and unlike most horses - she has a taste for novelty, and she doesn't find the texture of Miguel's hand disagreeable.

He briefly feels comfortable enough to look away from Concrete Blonde's muzzle to get a glimpse. The scars on Dan's knuckles were noticed the first time they met, but talking about it makes him pay more attention to all the ways it was marked by the years. It was like a novella written on his body, where more layers of the story were revealed the more glances he got.

Trying to avoid staring, Miguel occupies himself with trying to glean anything from the Horse's face while the topic falls away. He always felt a little strange talking about his own body, and didn't feel the urge to ask Dan about his.

"That's a good noise, I'm assuming...?"

He has pet a cat before, where pushing back and purring were usually indications of affection. He adjusts to more closely imitate Dan's demonstration, adding a light scritchy-scratchy motion that agreed with the sensitive side of his fingertips. Soft and furry. He learns in the moment that Horses have very long eyelashes and eye-whiskers. In a sort of clinical way, he wonders if those were used to detect bugs.

"Very. Horses only got a few vocalizations they make, and this is the best one." Dan passes Miguel another slice of apple to give her. "It means she feels at ease. Optimistic, if you might could characterize a horse having that sort of attitude."

Dan likes to think he's optimistic. The older he gets, the more he thinks it's less optimism and more opportunism, an ability to exploit fissures in the dark to let light in. He's always braced for the worst, always prepared to lose and fold into the defensive, always so tired of getting through each day, but he also feels like the world is just abundant with treasures and joys. He believes in potential for change and innate goodness and the worthiness of all things, and that must be optimism of a sort.

Horses, too, live in fear. They're prey animals built for panic and suited to see everything as a threat, but they're still cooperative, social and capable of surprising gentleness. Maybe, even without the nostalgia, that's why Dan likes them so much.

"I've heard they do therapy with horses. If a horse is calm, it's easier to believe ain't nothing dangerous around, since they pick up on danger faster than most humans do." He knows Miguel doesn't find her relaxing the same way Dan does, but that's why he tries to explain it. "If she ain't scared, odds are good I don't got to be either."

"I haven't made a terrible first impression, then."

The second apple offering is presented with more confidence, now that he knows she didn't mind him. He wonders what might be going on in her head as she nibbles at his palm. Did she see him as a different species, or as a funny variation of a human? She didn't see him as a danger, at least.

Their earlier conversaton hangs in the air as Dan explains his interest and the comfort he feels from spending time in here. Miguel gets the impression that Dan relates to the flighty nature of the horse, and how it might be easier to relax when a second pair of eyes was in charge of being the lookout. There is a reason swarm behavior is successful in the animal world. One can find safety in numbers.

He also considers the gamut of self-destructive habits that Dan had hinted at up until this point. He was an adult, so Miguel isn't going to lecture him on his decisions. He still thinks he prefers seeing Dan here with his Horse and his Tea rather than getting lost under a bottle. And for that reason, maybe he will learn to acclimate to being here in the stables.

"Did you name her? Or did she come with it?"

Edited 2023-12-31 20:35 (UTC)

"Nah, you've got her quite at ease."

Concrete Blonde finishes off the apple and immediately begins pressing her snout into Miguel's hand again, either urging him to give her more snacks or give her more pets. Dan gets her comb out of his kit. He'll take the tangles from her mane and then brush the dust off her hide.

With two other living things - the horse and Miguel - with better senses than him, Dan does find himself able to relax in a way he can't on his own. He feels that way with Bunny, too, knowing Bunny can sense danger more quickly. It doesn't dispel the clouds of depression and sense of doom, but it does soothe the base part of the limbic system, the part of Dan's hypervigilance that's more about avoiding saber-toothed tigers than about impromptu funerals.

"Concrete Blonde. It was Ellie's favorite band." Dan doesn't even attempt to hum any of their signature songs, but the riff to Tomorrow, Wendy rings in his head like church bells. He unknots a mat that's started to develop in her mane. "Sometimes I can't tell none if I don't want to think of her at all or if I want to never think of anything else."

He's sure Miguel can relate.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw for some body horror / blood mention

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject