nightlogs | Everything It Seems I Like's a Little Bit Harmful for Me [Open to All]

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Everything It Seems I Like's a Little Bit Harmful for Me [Open to All]

Who: Dan Sagittarius and you!
What: Dan tools around in the workshop and tests the limits of North's homeowner safety compliance, makes some presents for people, acts helpful.
Where: The Workshop and outdoors near the kitchen.
When: Early October
Warnings/Notes: The usual warnings associated with Dan - alcoholism, drug use, swearing, potential references to dead children, sex work and/or firearms. Lots of nicotine addiction in this one.

Dan hates the cold.

He fucking hates the cold, because his circulation has gone to shit and sucking down cigarettes all his life has left him with a permanent sensitivity to chill along with an inconvenient and unpleasant nicotine addiction, and that combination, here at the North Pole, means he has to run a regular gauntlet throughout the day to go on smoke breaks outdoors. Instead of just popping outside to take a leisurely break from whatever he's doing, he suits up with gloves and coats and hats like he's putting on armor for battle and then houses each cigarette in record time, shivering and wincing the entire time.

When he isn't on smoke breaks and isn't running around with Bunny on missions, he's recuperating from whatever adventure he's been on by working with the elves in the workshop. Dan's father was a carpenter, a tailor and a woodworker who expressed his affection in showering his wife and seven children with gifts and attention. Dan inherited that, and he fills his idle hours with woodworking and sewing, making Christmas gifts for the people at the Pole who've been pulled into this adventure, mostly practical things like warm socks and step stools, but sometimes just tchotchkes like carved effigies. He's excited that North apparently had a bevy of goose down, and is starting to piece together cozy coats for people, and he's been building various hurdles and tunnels for Cammie to test her holon on.

Throughout the day he tries to think of a way to not be colossally rude while smoking indoors. It's poor form to light up under someone's roof and make everything reek of tobacco, and it feels all the more inconsiderate to do so in the Pole, where the merriment is unilaterally pretty child-friendly in a way cigarettes are not, and even more rude to do so while the homeowner is in captivity. Still, after a particularly frozen smoke break where he returned to warmth with his hands so near-paralyzed and bone-white that it took over an hour to get back to doing his woodwork, he decides that North would be understanding, and decides to undo the smoke detector in the kitchen. After all, the kitchen is ventilated, and smoking in here just during the coldest part of the night isn't too harmful.

I. These Are Just a Couple of My Cravings

Most things in the world are made for adult men slightly taller than Dan, but most things at the Pole are made for North and the yetis, and that means Dan can't just accomplish his goals by standing on tip toes. On account of the elves constantly getting into things they shouldn't and causing accidents, the kitchen is equipped with a smoke detector, which is about eleven feet off the ground. Standing on the highest shelf of a ladder, Dan can just barely scrape the corner of it with his fingertips. His only hope of reaching it is to jump, which may be unwise, but the siren song of nicotine has been known to wreck many a man on its rocks.

"Hey, do you mind holding this ladder while I try to reach this?" he asks the next person to come in.

II. A Little Bit Sweeter

By a few days in, Dan's got a straight-up workspace in the workshop, a table festooned with the tools of his crafts. Right now, it's covered in fabric and threads and scissors and rulers and a mannequin and all the deadwood of tailoring and mending as he works on a big, puffy coat to swaddle Elle in. He's at a frustration point, because at some juncture he fucked up the circumference of the sleeves, and he's realizing that his error might be so serious as to necessitate scrapping the coat entirely. He's chewing his nails in annoyance at himself when someone comes in, and he pounces on the opportunity to distract himself with some new task.

"Hey, you need anything mended? The tailor's open for business right now."

III. So Please Be Kind If I'm a Mess

The second Dan's cigarette is burned down, he rushes back into the communal relaxation room, teeth chattering and hands tucked into his armpits. Snowflakes dot his hair, and his cheeks are flush red. He strips off his gloves, and his fingers are a mix of angry red and bloodless white. He hastens over to the fireplace and groans as the transition from too-cold to too-hot makes his hands cramp, then reaches for the rice pack he set over the fire to warm up without having to hunch over the flames.

"Oh God damn it," Dan mutters, as his clumsy-with-cold hands fumble the rice pack and drop it straight into the fire. He huffs with frustration as he gets the fire poker and tries to retrieve the rice pack, but by now the pack is decidedly on fire, looking like a burning baked potato. "I owe North some rice."

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"Well, that's because it's New York City." Dan chuckles. "Sorry, I'm a country boy. I love cities for the parties, but past four a.m. they get a little too crowded for me. There's too much traffic and ain't enough cow manure and deer ticks past that point."

Everything Dan says tends to be wrapped in a warm coating of conviviality and a little self-deprecation. He likes to tease, but not to be insulting or overfamiliar. It's a fine line that he usually walks pretty well.

"The best pizza I ever had was in New York, though. They still got good pizza in Nueva York? Sausage, pepperoni, red onion and peppers?" He flexes his hands in front of the fire again. They're back to their normal pallor. "I didn't get much sunlight growing up, and we didn't even have good food to make it worthwhile."

Miguel's expression falters into something close to amusement, so it looks like Dan wove his line perfectly between tease and insult. That serious demeanor of his had cracks in its armor it seems.

"That's a little old-fashioned by 2100, but there are plenty of purists who won't want to mess with a classic."

The old city was still around. Buried beneath the upper layers, but still around. Similarly, the old things one would associate with New York City could be found, if you looked with enough determination.

"Parties remain crowded, but transport has changed quite a bit in the last century. You'd be surprised at how much green space can be fit in with proper planning."

His partying days were far behind him, but as a fresh hire for Alchemax? A star geneticist landing the cushy job of his life had plenty of reason to partake in a little hedonism here or there. That was before the splicing, of course, when the sensory overload could be physically painful, and before the life-sucking misery of the work hit him.

"We got flying cars yet?" Dan's under no illusions that he's going to live long enough to see anywhere within a few decades of 2100, but he isn't about to discount the possibility that he'll be sucked into another world and see the future. "Let me know if any of my questions are a little dim. I ain't never even touched a computer. So much of this stuff is real far out for me."

He shimmies out of his coat, letting it fall off his shoulders and hang around his elbows. He's still got layers on underneath.

"What's your favorite green space and where did they fit it? Last time I was in New York, they had a big garden that sprawled over several rooftops. It was stunning. I would have could slept out there under the stars had I been allowed, or I mean, what you can see of the stars in a big city."

He doesn't seem to mind the questions, closing his eyes to try and remember the nice things about his home city. It was difficult lately, when he'd sequestered himself so thoroughly for so long. His latest view of Nueva York had been the dark recesses of his lab, replaying scenes of what he lost over and over.

"We do have flying cars." he says, finally. "More of a hassle than the magnetic ones. They may be a bit limited on the tracks, but you get a smooth ride - up into orbit, if you need to."

Right. There was some amount of space colonization that Dan wouldn't know about. He tries not to think too hard about that, either, and Miguel lets his thoughts center on the pleasant scent of the herbal tea.

"I don't have a favorite." he decides. "The gardens and fields sit on plates that cover up the old city in every direction. There's more of it than you know what to do with."

It was a lazy answer. But it was easier than explaining why he kept to his crypt, instead.

It doesn't escape Dan's notice that Miguel retreats into a bit of a reverie. Fireplaces and gentle conversation do that to people. Dan could get lost in the arrhythmic crackle of the fire and the way it blots his vision with a pleasant darkness and distortion. Way back, long before Dan's time period, even longer before Miguel's, fire was a beacon of safety in the dark, a spark of security in a world where everything else had claws and fangs and venom and brute strength, and maybe humans have found a hearth soothing ever since then, millennia upon millennia ago.

"I ain't never been to space." It doesn't hold a ton of appeal for Dan, even if it were a possibility. There's so much on Earth to explore that he'd never run out, and that's even before bouncing between universes. "Is it worth the travel?"

He'd be interesting in meeting alien races, at least, but Miguel hasn't said anything about that.

"It has a way of putting things into perspective, if you stop to look back at Earth."

That became a bit of a stereotype by Miguel's time, but it was true. The planet you lived on, expanding endlessly in every direction, suddenly looked at from hundreds of thousands of miles away. It seemed rather small when it had a finite size. A blue marble called home.

"At least, the first few times it does, before you get sick of the orbital traffic." he adds.

Routine can eat away at any one thing to the point where all you can think about is finishing your business out in the great beyond and heading back home. Sitting by a fire though - that had yet to lose its luster, it seems.

Edited 2023-11-01 18:53 (UTC)

Dan raises his eyebrows at 'traffic'. "Do folks still use it for sightseeing or is it just the same as the I-5 or whatever other thoroughfare folks use for their daily commute?"

He finally strips down to a reasonable amount of layers for sitting in front of the fire. His cheeks are still ruddy, but the spasming from cold is long gone.

"Sorry if I peppering you with questions. I just like people. I like learning about places I ain't never been and won't never see."

"I host quite a number of Spiders from other dimensions in Nueva York. Believe me when I say that I've answered some very stupid questions." he grumbles, the red eyes flicking from the fire to Dan's flushed face: "None of these count."

A roundabout way to say 'It's Fine'. Of all the personalities he's had to tolerate insofar, Dan is far closer to the 'pleasant company' end, which was an unusual find for Miguel. He seemed more like a statue fixed to the chair, unmoved by the heat of the fire except for melting away some of the rigidity he held himself with. Even a daydream was an emotionally distant affair.

"Travel to the moon is mundane by my time. Still a bit of sightseeing if you want it."

He stops short of telling Dan he might be welcome to see it one day - with how unstable dimensions could be, Miguel didn't like testing his luck. So after an awkward beat, he changes tack.

"How are you hands? They don't look like they are going to fall off, so that's good news."

"I can come up with stupider questions, if that was a challenge," Dan says, laughing. He feels the awkwardness, feels that something's unspoken, feels the two of them testing out familiarity and boundaries with each other as the conversation goes. Miguel's aloof and Dan's gentle; neither of them are rushing to force closeness.

He holds his hands out. "They're doing better. It always hurts when the blood rushes back in, but it's the kind of hurt that passes. I'd be real fucked if I ever lost a finger or something to frostbite, though, and I know I'm susceptible. I don't reckon a cushy desk job's ever going to be in my future, what with my pedigree, so I need my hands."

"Please don't. This is the longest conversation in the past year that's lacked an annoying quip."

Miguel's had enough clever jokester personalities around him to last a lifetime. He is more than happy to let the conversation wander elsewhere. Though - to Dan's credit, he did manage to get the Society's least funny Spider close to smiling.

He reacts to the movement of Dan's hands in a way that betrays a stern sort of concern. The kind that feels obligated to lend aid even if there's not much comforting personality to work with.

"Is pedigree so important in your world?"

"Noted." Dan all but winks. He flexes his hands and waves his fingers in front of the fire, now that they're more comfortably mobile. He catches the concern, and right about then, he feels like he understands that Miguel's standoffishness shouldn't be interpreted as selfishness or meanness.

"Not pedigree per se, but I'm an uneducated hick." He doesn't sound self-deprecating or bitter or joking; he simply sounds like he's stating a boring fact. "Limits the labor market a little."

"Well, you're not alone. I don't get the sense that Jack has much experience with formal education or being a pencil pusher."

Miguel would have guessed Dan to be a humble worldly type from the mannerisms and questions. But he seemed polite and well-traveled for being a self-proclaimed hick, as Dan described it. Or maybe that was just his own bias showing.

"It seems like 'Guardian' is going to be our full-time jobs for the foreseeable future. Whatever that means for you."

For him, it was yet another massive headache that he had to fix (himself, of course, because who else will if he doesn't?) .

"Well, I'm married to a Guardian, so I done seen the inner workings for the last few years and I..."

Dan has some feelings about this sudden upgrade in terms of what he's doing in the world. He hates to say he's glad that they don't all appear to be full-powered, tentpole Guardians holding the world up, because this world could probably use more of those. He just doesn't want the burden of immortality or that much responsibility when he's so used to being someone who just comes in when he knows he can be helpful, when he's someone no one's relying on or missing.

He's getting the sense, already, that Miguel doesn't have that sense of anonymity, that no one will notice if I don't show up freedom.

"I'm still adjusting to the idea of plenty. I been scraping by for a while and having the capacity to help out more people because I ain't scraping by on fumes and gas station food is a change. A good change, a change that's got me doing more and better good for people, but a change. It's nice to not have to worry about getting paid for anything. Nice to have that covered."

But Dan doesn't expect it to last. He expects this to be like the Rig or the Wilderlands, a chapter in his life that will eventually end before he's moved onto the next task by the powers that be.

"Anyway." Dan wiggles his ring finger, which has a simple copper band on it. "Easter Bunny."

There's a dance of expressions across Miguel's face. First the expected shock, then the automatic irritation of assuming he is being fucked with, eroded away when the quieter and more thoughtful part of his brain reminds him that in the multiverse, anything was possible. So, of course. Why not the Easter Bunny?

"Por supuesto no es un chiste..." he grumbles to himself, deciding to settle on that answer being too ridiculous to be a lie. "It's only because we're quite literally staying in Santa's Workshop that I know you're telling the truth." he adds wearily. The absurdism is what seems to be making him grumpy - albeit in a harmless way. It's something he's learned to roll with after dropping through enough alternate worlds with internal logic that made no sense to him.

"I want to ask how on Earth you managed that. But maybe when we find where the yeti store the rum."

((* Of course it's not a joke. ))

Edited 2023-11-11 18:27 (UTC)

Dan swaps over to Spanish, which he's fully fluent in; his accent has a provenance of Western Mexico. He follows Miguel's face journey with mild amusement that stops far short of being condescending. He knows how ridiculous he sounds.

"It's a long story, but I already know where they got the rum." Dan figures out where to get alcohol and cigarettes within an hour anywhere he goes. He feels a sense of security in knowing where to go to get a fix. "Honestly, so much of my life has felt surreal or absurd that I'm worried I won't be able to tell when something's actually too strange to be true."

Well, that wasn't an unwelcome surprise. Speaking more than one language wasn't uncommon back home, but that doesn't seem to be the case in Dan's dimension. Clearly, his conversation partner was being deceptively humble about himself. Dan knew where the fun drinks were, and had some other secrets about him? The annoyed tension lines of Miguel's face ease up with interest.

"Ya veo. Si estas repleto de sorpresas." he replies with a lighter breeze in his voice. "¿Me vas a decir el cuento de cómo aprendistes hablar así?"

His spoken cadence has the influence of the city and a hundred years of time between them, leaving it fairly "neutral". Closer to what might be heard on television rather than any particular region.

(( * I see. You really are full of surprises. Are you going to tell me the story of how you learned to speak like that? ))

"Ghost-hunting takes me along the whole of the West Coast of North America. And I had a loved one who helped me practice conversations."

Dan doesn't particularly want to talk about Ellie, much less with a stranger, but he has plenty of stories of hunting ghosts in Acapulco and Ensenada. He listens for Miguel's accent, but he supposes that it must just be Nueva York or the century of difference because it doesn't quite track to any location in particular.

"I speak French, American sign language and Common Tongue, too. I pick up languages like fleas. I'm shooting for Mandarin next."

"Fuistes demasiado modesto al describirte, Dan. ¿Entonces una carera de traductor no te interesaba mucho?"

Miguel had leaned forward, resting his face in his hand to get a closer look at him. As if observing him like a simulation graph would reveal all his secrets.

It was a... dry attempt at a friendly tease. Really, since when did someone associate Hickness with knowing five languages? To which ever degree Dan knew them. He supposes it would be handy for talking to ghosts.

*((You were being too modest while describing yourself, Dan. So being a Translator didn't interest you much?))

He recognizes the tease for what it is, and keeps meeting it back with amiability. He's glad Miguel feels like Dan can be teased. Assuming Dan were too brittle for it would be a mistake.

"I get pulled into translating on ghost hunts pretty regularly, but I got other limitations that keep me from making translating my main means of income."

He guesses that's opaque enough that it doesn't completely tip his hand that he's illiterate, but maybe Miguel can read between the lines. Dan suspects that just about no one's illiterate in Miguel's time; the march of technology seems to always demand more and more fluency, more and more tech-savvy, and people like Dan's get left behind with their dirt roads and well-water and barter economies. Dan suspects Miguel can see it on him, the battered hands, the much-patched clothing, the imprecise haircut Dan gave himself to save a few dollars, the peek of scar under his lower lip that shines in the firelight, the missing tooth that only shows when he grins - all the visual evidence of a life held together with both hands and a prayer.

"I think my hands are warmed up enough that I could pour us each a glass of rum, if you were still interested in that."

"Si te gustan tus respuestas crípticas."

* (( You do like your mysterious answers. ))

Whether or not Miguel guesses it to be illiteracy and feels shocked by it remains his own mystery. He could already gleam that Dan had lived far more on the fringes than he had. Miguel wasn't that much younger when the hand of Alchemax and the Powers-That-Be were more strict about keeping unwanted individuals in the undercity, out of sight.

Miguel's face is briefly illuminated by the artificial orange of the world-hopping watch as he consults it - still busted on the dimension travel front - but functional enough to keep time. He stands up off the chair.

"Quizás un traguito. Debería regresar a mi trabajo."

* (( Perhaps a sip. I should be getting back to my work. ))

“You’re not the only one who can be brooding and mysterious.” Dan’s grin betrays that this is also dry teasing. “I don’t read or write well. People tend to want that in a translator.”

He gets up, feeling stiff from the cold and then the heat, and starts to collect his layers from where he shed them.

“I won’t keep you long, then. What task is calling your name right now? Anything exciting?”

Edited 2023-11-17 05:17 (UTC)

"Hm."

Smiles don't come so easily to him (aside from the prickly sarcastic kind) but he accepts the accusation gracefully. How could Miguel deny his very vampire-like demeanor?

As for the revelation... he acknowledges it without comment. It's unusual, but in the grander scheme of the multiverse, not quite so much. One of them would have to read the fine print if they were out on the field. That's what it meant in practicality.

"Sigo armando el laboratorio. Con suerte, la computadora será suficientemente poderosa para hacer las simulaciones de física necesarias."
* (( Still setting up the lab. With luck, the computer will be powerful enough to do the necessary physics simulations. ))

Miguel is slated to be spending many afternoons organizing cables into ribbons and sleeves. He offers a hand with the clothes.

"Much appreciated." Dan takes the clothes and wears some of them, drapes the others over his arm like a butler with a kerchief. "Have you met Cammie? She's a teenager her, real technological genius, is what I understand. The kind of prodigy that lets you catch up to experienced adults in the field when you're still a kid. My understanding is she does a lot with simulations. She might be worth talking to about what you can do when you get the computer ready."

He hopes he isn't hyping Cammie up too much when he truly barely understands a tenth of the tech jargon she uses, but he's fairly sure she's an exceptional talent based on all his context clues. Either way, the warmth and fondness he has for her is all over his face and even his flat, ugly, atonal voice.

He gestures with his chin in the direction they should walk, which is through two kitchen room doors to a side pantry, where North keeps his alcoholic beverages. In true fashion, most are either cooking sherries or top-shelf vodkas, but Dan uncovers some expensive white rum tucked into the back.

"Do you prefer on-the-rocks or taking it straight?" Dan pulls some glasses out. He thinks Miguel looks like an on-the-rocks guy for rum, but that's all just an assumption. "I've come to enjoy putting fresh snow in my liquor instead of ice. Feels like taking advantage of a climate otherwise hostile to me."

He laughs. "But I ain't going back out in the cold just yet, so that's a suggestion, not an offer."

"El meka en el piso central es de ella, no? Le pregunto si está interesada in trabajando juntos - los simulaciones pueden ser una tarea tedioso."

((* The mech on the central floor is hers, isn't it? I’ll ask if she’s interested in working together - the simulations may be tedious work. ))

He has some awareness of Cammie's existence, but he hasn't gotten to known her much personally. He looks pensive at the suggestion - Miguel has been surrounded by enough teenage braniacs to work around brilliant but short attention spans. He’ll have to determine the extent of that when they get there.

Following Dan to the pantry, he makes an impressed hum in his chest at seeing some of the selection sequestered away.

"Tenía la sensación de que escondieron algo de mayor calidad por ahí.” He says with some bemusement. “Puedo buscar el puñado de nieve, si tienes antojo."

(( * I had a feeling they hid something of higher quality somewhere. I can go fetch the fistful of snow if you fancy that. ))

"Yeah, that's hers. I figure she'll be excited to talk to someone who can keep up with her tech terminology. I'm sure I disappoint her a little in that regard."

But Dan doesn't sound sad or self-conscious about that. He knows Cammie likes him for other reasons, and that she's happy to have someone listen to her enthuse and encourage her even with imperfect understanding.

"When in doubt, you can always count on me to sniff out the high quality liquor." If Miguel can tell Dan's a functional alcoholic, well, he can join the club with everyone else. "I don't need snow if you don't. I'm happy to just follow your lead. I've enjoyed getting to know you."

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