a thankless job but somebody's got to do it [closed]

[powerdealer]

Seth's not entirely sure how much he likes being called up as a newbie's guide to superpowers. Any recognition is still a bit too much for him, and he doesn't like meeting at a pre-determined time with someone he doesn't know. But Wilmot's End is just about the only place he feels is safe, neutral ground.

He'd actually showed up pretty early, thinking he might scout for other newbies with fresh powers they might like to get rid of, but he's felt far too anti-social to actually approach anyone. His anxiety's been kicking in, much earlier than he'd like. It's a worrying trend that he's trying very hard not to think about too much.

So he's sitting a little towards the back, nursing a drink and watching the door from his booth. Looking for anyone who looks a little lost and out of place, like they're searching for someone.

Comments

[peacefulexplorer]

Daniel laughs bitterly.

"You know I don't actually know how many times it's been?" God, there's a reason he tries not to think about it, "Nine Lives Jackson" nicknames notwithstanding. "It just sorta...got to the point where they stopped making official statements. No funerals, or, or, I mean, hell, after a while they wouldn't even pack up the apartment. It's never any one thing, it's just..."

His fingers never stop their assault on the bottle label. He's accumulated a small heap of fragmented paper in front of him, and he pokes at it a little miserably.

"Painful," he finishes finally, swallowing hard. "And...painful. And usually my fault."

[powerdealer]

Seth regrets asking pretty much immediately. He bites his lip and tries to come up with something comforting or motivational to say, or something to lighten the mood that won't seem terribly crass, but he comes up short. He wants to reach out and pat Daniel's shoulder or something, but it would be awkward across the table, and probably awkward in general, so all he can do is feel bad for asking.

"Sorry, man..." he says quietly, and means it. Must've been shit for everyone involved, not knowing if he'd come back or not, and he can't even imagine being the one to go through with all the dying.

[peacefulexplorer]

He tries for another smile, but it just comes out looking pained. He's made things uncomfortable. Again.

"Well, hey," he says lightly. "I'm here now, right? And the plus side is, well, people who threaten to freeze your insides solid just don't scare you the way they used to."

[powerdealer]

Seth frowns, his guilt replaced with worry. "Who the hell said that?" he asks, sounding angrier than he meant to. If there are people threatening Daniel like that, he'd like to know whether they have the ability and inclination to follow through with it.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Uh." He tries to remember. That had been all in all a pretty weird night and Daniel's lucky it hadn't ended in him getting killed gruesomely again. "Not sure who exactly. 'What' might be the more semantically precise phrasing. Called itself 'Nick' but, uh. Yeah, remember those Ascended instincts and memories I mentioned? Well one look at him and they went off. Like. All of them. All at once. Big time. Whatever it is, it's...it's big. And old. And, probably, dangerous." Which, of course it is.

[powerdealer]

Seth has a pretty bad feeling about this.

"Was he.." Seth assumes it's a he based on the name. He tries to think of how to describe the man Gabe had shown him. "Was he like, bit taller than you, short blond hair.. Late 40s or early 50s, strong brow...?" he asks. This would really be a lot easier if he had Gabe's power of illusion and could just show it.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Yeah, actually." Daniel looks up from his collection of shredded label, startled. "How'd you know?"

[powerdealer]

"That..." Seth answers slowly, unsure how to put this in a non-horrifying way. But there's probably no way to. "May have been Lucifer. As in Satan." Welcome to New York, Daniel.

[peacefulexplorer]

"As in...the Satan? Like, what, we're talking real, actual, Judeo-Christian, Morningstar, fire-and-brimstone Satan? He's, he's real, and he's here, and he's, he's vengeful and mighty and...Satan?"

That takes him a minute. He sits, mouth open as he processes, torn between horrified realization and, ridiculously, fascination.

"Okay, so no wonder I didn't like him."

[powerdealer]

Seth nods in affirmation. Getting a second-opinion, so to speak, from Daniel's Ascended powers and all helps confirm it too. Not that really mistrusted Gabe on this, given recent events. Seth's just glad he hasn't met him himself. Gonna give that one a wide berth.

Daniel's final comment makes Seth unexpectedly snort into his drink. No wonder indeed.

[peacefulexplorer]

"All right, so maybe I noticed there was something wrong with him right away." This unexpected bit of news has made Daniel skittish and he takes off at full tilt. "Not to mention the casual telekinesis, you know, just floating bottles his way like it wasn't a big deal. Which, as far as powers go, telekinesis is pretty up there so that just made it really obvious there was something off about him, you know, in general, but then he just happened to mention the genesis of the universe, offhand, like he was there and, well, I might have possibly spent most of the time baiting him and trying to learn what he was and oh my god he could have killed me."

He pales a little at that last part, not so much in regards to the dying as the unpleasantness the dying no doubt would have entailed.

[powerdealer]

His brief amusement doesn't last as Daniel continues to go on. Especially when he reaches the killing bit, and just the look on his face.

"You might want to just avoid him from now on," Seth suggests mildly. That is definitely Seth's strategy. He knows he wouldn't stand a chance, and he figures he's probably enough of a coward to follow through on this strategy. (Never mind the time he stopped a zombie apocalypse, or the time an alternate version of him apparently defeated the Nazis.)

[peacefulexplorer]

"Well, I." He wets his lips nervously because, yeah, no, Daniel's not really one for the avoidance policy. Especially not if other people are in the line of fire. "You know how they tell you to pick your battles?" He smirks, a small and cold grimace, laden with self-directed scorn. "Yeah, I'm really, really bad that. In fact I, uh..." He considers leaving it at that for a minute, but since they're apparently baring their souls here, he might as finish what's been started. "I think it's bullshit. I think we have that obligation, if it's in our power, to intervene. If this guy - Satan, Lucifer, whatever he is - is out to hurt people, I'm gonna do what I can to stop it. However much that's worth here, anyway."

[powerdealer]

Seth watches Daniel seriously. He really wants to talk him out of what is clearly a bad idea. But it also makes him feel a bit shit that he's so content to just... let someone else deal with it. Sure, in a situation where he's faced with an immediate threat, he will fight and try to protect his friends. But he certainly won't go looking for trouble out of just some moral outrage or something. Then again, it isn't really in his power to intervene. His best bet is probably to try to rid him of his powers, but most likely he'd be dead before he could even really begin.

"Fine, but... At least figure out what you're up against first, and team up with the other people who have the same idea," he says finally. "Don't.. get your insides frozen." Just.. please, Daniel. Just don't.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Why not?" That might be a shade of self-deprecation leaking through as Daniel finishes off the beer and sets it aside, a safe distance from label-picking. "Already got them fried in radiation. I was looking to maybe even that up a bit, you know, balance it out."

He drives his thumb into the bridge of nose in an attempt to ward away the seeds of a headache. The next beer is on its way and he can't remember how much it takes before his low tolerance starts working against him. Better slow down.

[powerdealer]

Seth makes a face of pained sympathy at that. He'd like to make a quip in return, but the possibility seems just a bit too real at the moment, given the people he murdered just the other day, and how much he freaked out Gabe and Johnny.

Thankfully the new drinks finally arrive to provide a distraction. He knocks back the rest of his drink, then makes a noise of surprise and displeasure. Then he spits out a paperclip. And then he just stares at it for a moment.

[peacefulexplorer]

For a long minute, all Daniel can do is mirror Seth's facial expression and stare at it wordlessly. Then he snorts.

"Inconvenient, what'd I tell you? Gotta say, though," he struggles for a second with his second beer because motor functions are evidently already proving troublesome, "That one's a first."

[powerdealer]

"Well. Good to know it's working, at least," he answers, brushing it aside and picking up his second drink. Despite his quite smaller stature, he's barely even buzzed. Then again, he's been putting all kinds of shit into his body for years, so. "Though so far I can't say it's the most promising of my powers," he adds.

[peacefulexplorer]

"No, I can't imagine it would be." He takes his time sipping at this beer; he has a hard enough time navigating the way back to Lucy's when he's sober. "You said powers, plural. So you just sort of...sell them to whoever comes asking?"

[powerdealer]

Seth shakes his head. "Nah, gave that up. You never know what they'll do with it and.. I don't want that on my hands," he answers. The fact he was practically used as a vending machine for this purpose probably doesn't help either. "Get a power now, I keep it myself, or give it to someone I trust, or just get rid of it altogether."

[peacefulexplorer]

"That's a good approach, I think. Safer for everyone involved." A thought occurs to him, and he lowers his bottle before he's even taken another sip. "Though not, I imagine, very easy if people know about you. Keeping a low profile must be pretty big, for their safety and yours."

It's not spoken like a question but the question mark hovers there regardless.

[powerdealer]

Seth smiles, bitter and humourless. "You think?" he asks sarcastically.

"They do know about me though, but at this point, with powers of my own and powerful friends, they probably figure I'd be more trouble than I'm worth," he answers. And he simply hasn't caused all that much trouble for them yet. Though that may change, of course.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Friends in high places?" Daniel tilts an eyebrow at that, not altogether accusingly, but he doesn't know how he feels about that. He's referenced his "friends" numerous times already, nonspecific in every capacity, nebulous and ambiguously powerful.

Seth has some form of protection by relation, and Daniel believes him.

[powerdealer]

"Celestial high enough for ya?" he asks, though he doesn't plan to elaborate. The angel's out of the bag a bit when it comes to Gabe, but it doesn't need to be spread more than necessary. Especially since he's Lucifer's brother. The reason Seth is so vague about his friends is because being more specific would mean giving up secrets that are not his to give. Even if Daniel is not with anyone at the moment, and he definitely seems noble in his intentions.

[peacefulexplorer]

He waits for a sign that Seth's joking. And then he exhales and smirks and, yeah, he's going to need a lot of beer after that one.

"Suppose I shouldn't be surprised," he admits, setting the bottle down with its contents half-gone. Right about now he's getting the tingling reminder of why he's a coffee-drinker and not so big on alcohol buzzing away in the back of his skull. Oh yeah, getting back to Lucy's is going to be fun. "I guess we've got the literal Devil wandering around so why draw the line there, right? Although," he pauses, musing aloud, "I did meet a Satan once. Though he...actually went by Sokar. And he wasn't so much the Devil as he was just making use to the title to spread fear and panic and..." And Daniel's trains of thought are getting worryingly difficult to micromanage. "We didn't get along," he finishes seriously.