nightlogs | Will these two finally manage to have THAT conversation?

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Will these two finally manage to have THAT conversation?

Who: Aiden Price, Dan Sagittarius
What: Price brings Concrete Blonde to Dan and they have a heartfelt discussion about imprisonment
Where: Outdoors
When: After Branch
Warnings/Notes: Prison related topics, Typical Dan related warnings, typical Price related warnings, overall toxic behaviours

Price was going for a walk on his own, figuring that alone meant staying out of trouble - which is not a smart deduction in an unknown place, but nobody tell him, he's just starting to think that maybe the brain damage didn't make him completely useless -, and he happens to run into a pleasant surprise: Concrete Blonde.

He likes to spend time with her, feeding her, and cuddling her. He was about to give her a bath but he remembers reading on the subject while in the Wilderlands library and concludes that it's not the case to do so, especially in these cold temperatures. See? He does go out of his way to ~~serve~~ help, it happens very often! Absolutely appalling that nobody will listen to reason when he calmly - accommodatingly, even! - explains that nothing is his fault ever.

That's why he decided to start refraining from conversations as much as he can. It does pain him because, for all those accusations of being 'antisocial', he really likes people in his own way. Dan, however? He is not like most people. There's something deeply wrong about whatever their friendship is, and Price can't put his finger on it. He feels safest when he avoids him, and yet he needs him. There are so many thoughts and feelings that he has on the matter, but he doesn't feel like being gaslighted about them so, he tells himself, he'll just bring the horse back and then leave Dan alone to his devices.

"I found your horse."

Technically it's their horse, but better not to claim her to make this less difficult. He won't say anything more than what is strictly needed.

"I figured you would want her back."

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"You have worked hard to get to your new normal." he knows that it would probably be incorrect to call it balance "Reopening a wound could needlessly compromise it."

Price doesn't understand guilt either, it's an extremely useless emotion to him, but anyone who ever claimed to have morals (everyone) has tried to force it on him, so it confuses him why Dan would move past it. It seems odd to think that he can, but Dan is very much not normal as well.

As for himself, Price can be hard on himself and beat himself up, and he has been doing it a lot ever since he got locked up, but certainly it isn't out of guilt. When he feels he's doing something wrong, by 'wrong' he always means incorrectly. Which is why he can't get over Project Freelancer exploding in his face so bad when he did everything perfectly.

"I am proud of you for that...Although that doesn't mean much."

Dan being healthier is one more reason he's better off without him. Healthy people don't need him, toxic ones do, and that's what made his fake dynamics and relationships thrive. The passive listening and the scheming and shapeshifting that came with that.

"I ain't about to go on a bender just because the group might could show authoritarian tendencies." Well, Dan hopes he isn't, but after the leadership debate at Wilderlands his drinking did tick upwards for several weeks to the point where Bunny became concerned. Dan realizes he may have a higher estimation of his ability to self-regulate than he actually does. "Besides, we're on the Guardians turf, and they usually got ideals that align more with mine."

Not totally. Dan knows he's at the extreme end of the spectrum, and even with people closer to his position, it's lonely. It makes him miss his family, the people who positioned him there and then, it feels like, left him in a world alone.

He gives Concrete Blonde a treat as she nickers. "I mean, I appreciate the support, but I don't reckon I done much. I just got better support around me. It's easier to stay above water when I got a roof over my head and health insurance and a bed to sleep in."

By contrast, Dan feels like he's got more bandwidth for Price now that they aren't running for their lives in the Wilderlands or under metaphorical chains with the Jorg, or now that he isn't living in a car selling drugs, turning tricks and bouncing between minimum wage jobs to survive.

"I ain't changed, my circumstances have."

Price nods.

"Circumstances shape people...For better or worse."

He thinks about Aziraphale's offer to take him in, let him stay at his book shop. It would be nice, but who knows. There are so many things that worry him that don't quite make sense. If Price truly makes an effort to use his skills for good, he can deal with other people's emotions, but not with his own. He's been taught that those are a different matter.

"Perhaps this time around it will be different from the Rig and the Wilderlands." he knows he's saying it to convince himself but there is a possibility of it being true "I get enjoy nature once again and I have my lasers back."

Price aims a white laser through his hand. The scan is painless.

"Unfortunately I cannot use this on my own head, I am going to have to request external help for that, but all in all I think it is good to have this tool back. Do you hurt anywhere? I can do a quick check if you want to."

He understands if Dan doesn't trust him to do him a check up, but he figures it's valuable to offer.

Dan isn't thrilled Price has his lasers back, but he tries to temper his concern with the possibility that the lasers will give Price a sense of control and that that will satisfy some of Price's more antisocial tendencies.

Since he's on the other side of Concrete Blonde from Price, he puts a foot up on the stables stepstool and squints over her back to give Price a perplexed look. "Sure, if you want to do a check on me I could probably might use it, but- what do you mean, can't use it on your own head?"

"Well, I would need a mirror to do that. And I would not be able to look as freely, and especially not from all angles, but aside from that I can scan everything organic."

Price hesitates a bit before moving a few steps and aligning with Dan to scan him.

"The laser is painless. It might tickle, at most."

He then takes his time to scan Dan. It doesn't really show on his face, but what he sees doesn't exactly add up, makes him wonder how is the man not falling apart.

"...We might want to speak to the Elves and ask what do they have available."

Is the most civilized way he can put this. He suspects Dan isn't exactly big on undergoing medical treatment.

Edited 2023-10-30 07:23 (UTC)

"No, I mean, I get the logistics, but you having headaches or something?" Dan's concerned, much more concerned about the hint that something's going on with Price than he is about Price's prognosis for him.

He holds still as he's scanned. As the light moves through each part of him, he finds himself thinking of his head, his neck, his back, his stomach, on down, that hurts too. He isn't surprised to always feel a little under the weather. He's been abusing drugs since he was a young man, alcohol and cigarettes even longer, and sleeping curled up in a car or on the ground for years has slowly eroded the integrity of his spine and hips, and they say stress is hard on the body. Dan thinks so. Dan thinks he hasn't been able to breathe deep enough to fill his lungs or relax enough to unclench the muscles in his jaw for decades. His liver and stomach lining are inflamed; his kidneys have an infection; his lungs are charred and pockmarked. He's had a hangover for so long he doesn't remember if it's possible to feel any other way.

"I ain't dying, am I?" He laughs. He doesn't feel like he's dying, but he somehow feels like if he were sick, it wouldn't actually be him dying. It'd be someone else wearing his face and he'd just be watching as an impartial witness. It would be inconvenient to be sick, cruel to die a slow and miserable death instead of something quick and painless, but Dan doesn't think it'll happen to him.

"Well..."

How to put this? Because there is a lot going on. You know it's bad when the doctor doesn't know where to start giving you the news.

"The good news is that with some work, all the issues have room to improve."

...Except for the lungs that surely can't recover if Dan doesn't stop smoking, but let's do one thing at a time.

"And also you do not have cancer." how cute of him to look at the bright side "However, the bad news is that most of your internal organs and your spine seem to be slowly deteriorating."

Heh.

"We should speak to the Elves about what kind of treatment is available, if that is alright for you. Perhaps you should discuss this with Bunny as well."

He eludes the question about himself. It's not that he's hiding it from Dan - how could he? Dan literally was there when Rowena gave him brain damage, but he figures that raising concern would be unnecessary at this point.

"Alright, great," Dan says, sounding encouraged but really just aware that he won't be putting any effort into improving his health. Dan truly does feel like just getting through the day takes almost all his reserves; conducting himself with the kindness, gentleness and patience his principles demand take up most of the remains, and his ability to put forth the hard work of improving himself for his own sake feels like the lowest priority he could have.

"That's good. I'd rather not could have cancer. Let me guess: quit drinking, quit smoking, quit cocaine, quit having fun?" He laughs again, then sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Ain't slowly deteriorating just the steady march of time?"

He notices that Price dodged the personal question. He considers it, thinking back on Price's behavior through Wilderlands, through the last few weeks, and he thinks about how he'll ask about it when the moment presents itself again.

"You guessed right, but I would not inflict that on you." Price smiles in a constricted way, like he's holding back a chuckle "I will not tell you to stop having fun."

Price is an enabler first and health professional second. Which is how he earned his license not being quite conceeded through legal means and a couple restraining orders. Allegedly.

"While it would be wiser to prevent physical decline, it's good that you don't panic about it. I know I do, sometimes."

"Not to be morbid, but I doubt I'll live long enough for a slow decline to be a problem." Which isn't really true; it's not that Dan thinks he'll die, but that he simply can't envision a future existing. It's like there's a little voice in the back of his head, one that pipes up, deafeningly, whenever he considers how long he might live, that goes: you're supposed to be dead already. Maybe you already are. "My lifestyle runs a little hard."

Even now, married and stable, his day job is running into squabbles with monsters and spirits and fighting evil, and his hobbies include recreational poison.

"Anything I can fix with over-the-counter shit?" He runs his thumb over his chewed knuckles. "You been panicking lately?"

Ah, not thinking about the future. Price has the same problem, for different reasons. He knows for a fact that his life is over, or at least was supposed to be over in prison. It's not that restarting is not feasible in terms of logistics, but be it because he's getting old, Price isn't sure he can sustain lying about being a good person to make friends and get some love. He knows better than to try something like that, at this point.

"I am sure the inflammation can be contained with some medicine."

He hesitates before answering.

"A little bit, perhaps. I did regain some strength, and am familiar enough with the rehabilitation exercises to practise on my own...But it was frightening in the first period."

"Ibuprofen and tylenol?"

Dan doesn't know anything about treating inflammation, and he's not even sure if Price is talking about his organs or his joints or any other part of his body. His experience with medicine is field medicine, trauma, open wounds, so on, and stopping the bleeding, stitching people up and disinfecting the injuries. He doesn't know anything about chronic ailments or longterm care.

"Anyway, don't tell Bunny none that there's anything wrong with me. He wants me to live to a ripe old age of a hundred and ten."

It's one of their great sources of disagreement, Bunny's desire to keep Dan as long as possible, Dan's inability to work towards that goal. Almost as punctuation, Dan takes a drink from his flask and sets the horse brush down.

"What happened? When was this?" Dan suspects now that he knows what happened, and he feels embarrassed and alarmed that he didn't pick up on it until it was laid out for him like this. All along, he's been assuming Price's erratic behavior was innate, the same way as when Price threatened to jump off the Rig or accused Dan of pressuring him into intimacy just to throw Dan off-guard.

"That's alright, I am probably not the best person to discuss the matter with him either way."

Is Price's behaviour innately erratic? Now, that's a juicy question, isn't it? He knows how to be cautious, how to hold back, he even does it well, but something inside of him just itches to be reckless. He needs to break things and see what happens. There are healthier ways to satisfy his neverending curiosity, and he doesn't mind them, but they don't really scratch that itch...But something did happen.

"You were there. When that woman cast that spell on me, I...I'm not sure how, but it had severe repercussions. I have been having symptoms of brain damage since then."

"I didn't realize."

Most people bounced back from magic done to them in the Wilderlands in a way that Dan hadn't seen in the world he comes from - but he suddenly feels a swell of kinship with Price and the idea that they were both, at some point, cursed, and both had their brains changed permanently in the aftermath. Dan's post-traumatic symptoms, Price's brain damage.

"I'm sorry. Has it gotten any better since then?"

"It appears so. The journey to recovery is at the very least two years long, five to ten in more severe cases. I believe I got lucky, my language was not affected at all."

Which is probably the most important thing of all. It's his eloquence and ability to negotiate and manipulate that allow him to translate whatever he is to everyone's idea of human being.

"Then again," he gestures emptily, somewhat bashfully "the way I am has always come with some brain damage."

He says it to rationalize, to sneak through the back door. If the Director valued him, well almost valued him before, then there is a possibility that he still will even if the type of brain damage is different...Right?

"And I suppose that's...Okay."

It's not.

"...All factors and circumstances considered."

"I mean, trauma in childhood does warp the brain." Dan knows. Dan worried about it with his siblings for the first year or two, too, but then, after a few of them had been slaughtered, the idea of having to worry about something as remote as brain damage became laughable. "And I know you didn't have it easy."

He pulls a baggie with some slices of apple in it from his pocket. He holds it out to Price, offering to let him give the snacks to the horse.

"Ah."

Price doesn't know how to respond. Even though he inevitably is the product of his childhood, he refuses to think about it. He's already felt plenty of powerlessness during his adult life, inflicting thoughts of childhood on himself reads as unnecessary self harm.

"Everyone has trauma in childhood. Being a child is an inherently powerless position."

Many like the idea of consoling sad children and giving them sweets, but as soon as those little humans start showing more severe signs of being troubled it becomes another story, one that's not worth bothering to solve their problems, because what do kids know about real problems and how to behave?

Price takes the apple slices very carefully, trying not to touch Dan's hand. He doesn't make it obvious, besides he's not sure whether there is anything to be gained from Dan hypotethically using the power he had on the Rig on him. He feeds the horse to distract himself.

"I didn't." And while Dan knows that's a lie, knows that being raised in isolation and using firearms and explosives at an age when he could barely string words together was dangerous and outright abusive, he believes it. Believing it is what matters. Deep in his soul, he feels like his childhood was perfect.

Price doesn't need to believe it. Most people with a shred of information about Dan's childhood don't. Dan doesn't want to get into a fight about it, because it's so personal and so closely-held and so tender. It would be an easy place to twist the knife.

He's glad Price takes the apples. He makes a gesture with his hand to demonstrate how to feed the horse. "Fingertips curled under, like this, so she don't accidentally nibble a finger or two."

Yeah, no, Price is not going to argue about Dan's statement. If he wants to lie to himself then so be it. Until he finds a better truth, he can choose not to look at this one. Price knows he doesn't like the idea of Project Freelancer being proof that all his talent went to waste.

Seeing the hand gesture, he replicates it easily and complies. He's the type to learn very fast by observing, which once again would make one wonder what the hell did he ever observe to learn certain behaviours. That would be a rhetorical question, of course.

"...I am absolutely not planning on telling him, but...What would happen if your husband found out in what physical state you are?"

Price kind of wants to know what would be the right to do, or rather, he's trying to figure it out as an exercise.

Edited 2023-10-31 21:45 (UTC)

"That my body's falling apart? Ain't nothing he can do about it. He's immortal and I ain't. It's an inevitability."

Dan shrugs. He doesn't want to think about it and doesn't want to have those conversations with Bunny. He can see plenty of ways this scenario plays out and it all ends in a fight where Bunny takes it personally that Dan doesn't have the motivation to take care of himself, that no amount of love will light that candle for Dan.

"Besides, reckon feeling like shit all the time is a rite of passage to being almost forty."

"Well...Physical ailments are bound to worsen one's mood and performance. You would be able to provide assistance more efficiently. I am saying this because I know that it is important for you."

He gives Concrete Blonde a gentle pat.

"...I do understand why you don't want to have that conversation with him. With all the unpredictable dangers that have come in the way of our group, I suppose you could die from something else before even feeling sick."

If one side of the coin is Price using people's problems against them in a malevolent way by twisting the knife in the wound and triggering them, the other is just the enabling that he thinks is love. By far the more dangerous of the two, but this is affection to him. Besides, he can relate. If the Director were here, he would not want to tell him he has brain damage, although for very different reasons.

"...But all that damage comes from years and years of unstable lifestyles. If he really cares about you, he will understand."

Alright, technically this is just a somewhat triangulating comment because Price dislikes Bunny, but although expressed in an inconvenient way it's a kind sentiment that he's trying to extend.

"Be that as it may, you don't really want to see what kind of performance I turn in without my creature comforts." Dan can't imagine cutting back, much less getting clean and sober. He thinks he'd just die. He thinks he'd just kill himself. He'd last a few days tolerating the waves of despair and hopelessness and then he'd implode on himself and die. Can't provide anyone assistance when he's dead.

He thinks of how he just told Price that the last time he was in solitary, he bit himself down to the bone. It wasn't being in solitary that did that to him, he thinks. It was being wrenched away from his ability to self-medicate, and that left him with no way to distract himself from all those things that hide in the periphery of his mind except to feel pain.

"He does care about me." There's a flatness to Dan's tone, like he's stating a fact, a law like gravity, something that isn't up for debate. "We have conversations like this. They're- they're private. Just between us."

He doesn't want to shut Price down, but he doesn't want Price prying into his marriage.

"I understand."

Price could only state that someone cares about him with the same certainty if that someone was being hugely manipulated and misled. So he understands everything but that part.

"Well...I can make some ice, too, if you or anyone needs it."

He ponders for a bit on whether to say or not, and then concludes it that he can turn it into a test:

"However I did not regain the hot laser. It could do plenty of useful damage, although I do not think we need to break into a safe or anything of that sort."

Dan won't tell him if he regained his Rig powers either way, but seeing how much he trusts this could probably be useful.

Dan holds the flask up and wiggles it back and forth in his hand. "I can always use ice. Want to share a vodka on the rocks?"

He gives Concrete Blonde a pet and steps away from the stable stall. "I won't let nobody know about the lasers if you don't want me to. I didn't get none of my powers back, but I can summon Concrete Blonde whenever and she's got an upgrade in terms of speed and durability."

Dan feels a bit uncomfortable with the idea that Concrete Blonde is more his horse than Price's, when Price helped him get the horse in the first place, but Price is the one that grew up on a space ship and Dan's the one who grew up on a farm. The powers that be seem to think him more fit.

"I was more thinking of using ice to reduce swelling in case of injury."

The way Dan mentions not having regained his powers seems casual enough, sincere enough, because he didn't look like he thought about it much, but who knows, Dan is a good liar.

"Durability as in stamina or can she also withstand violent attacks?"

Price likes animals but he doesn't mind verifying. He doesn't mind doing most awful things. Certainly he's not offended by this world registering Concrete Blonde as mostly Dan's horse, it is true, Dan is the one who can take care of her more properly. Price may have not technically spent his childhood on a space ship but he still had little room to interact with nature before he sailed to space.

His guardians would make sure he wouldn't get any pet therapy or another type of chance to interact with animals because he would have hurt them. What those people failed to understand is that sometimes you need to practise. The normalization of sim troopers hasn't exactly helped Price see those gratuitous sacrifices as something bad.

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