bigapplesauce | Does it trouble your mind the way you trouble mine? [closed]

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Does it trouble your mind the way you trouble mine? [closed]

Navigating his way to Seth's building without assistance makes Daniel prouder than he has any right to be, but it's just nice to know he's able to adapt and learn his way around. It gives him a sense of accomplishment to contrast with the drifting downward trajectory it feels like his life's taken as of late.

The optimism lasts about as long as it takes for Daniel to find the apartment door. Then he briefly loses his nerve and has to take a minute (or two, or three, certainly no more than four and no, he has absolutely not been counting) to collect all his thoughts into one place and automatically begin assembling a preamble before scrapping the idea almost immediately.

He is not going to start with a formal introduction. That would be ridiculous.

And he's not nervous. Just a shade agitated, maybe. Well within reason. It's just the issue of he and Seth spending a disproportionate amount of time walking around in each others' heads, something that definitely warrants a conversation of some sort. Possibly involving alcohol, and Daniel isn't typically one to make that suggestion lightly.

He's done hesitating. Daniel takes a quick breath and knocks before he can change his mind.

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Seth has absolutely not been anxiously awaiting Daniel's arrival. Or if he has, it's just because he's not entirely sure how he's reacted to that dream with Seth locked up. Not really an easy subject to cover through texting. Seth's taken extra care to wear proper clothes and fix his hair and look respectable, as a contrast to the dream. Just to show that he's not actually helpless and broken, he's doing just fine, and there's no need to worry about him.

He jumps to his feet when there's (finally) a knock on the door. As he goes to answer, he runs his hand through his hair a final time, and rubs his palms against his jeans, and then he stands for a second or two in front of the door.

Alright.

"Hey," he says, greeting Daniel with a smile as he opens the door. "Come on in."

"Hey." He stands there and blinks a few times before registering and stepping inside. "Uh, thanks."

Seth looks...good. It's a distracting if reassuring complete reversal of the last time Daniel saw him - not chronologically, but he doesn't know how else to define it - and the physical confirmation that Seth is, in fact, quite fine and normal and not currently recovering from a months-long imprisonment is a welcome thing.

He returns the smile waveringly, unable to fully shake the wrenching mental image of Seth, trapped between colorless walls and hating it.

"How're you doing?" he asks without thinking and immediately wishes he'd phrased that in a way that didn't obliquely reference the shared nightmare.

"Uh, good, good. You?" he answers, closing the door and stuffing his hands in his pockets. Apart from the shared nightmare of course, but he's not quite ready to talk about that. Not until some alcohol has been had.

"Can I get you anything?" he adds, taking a half-step towards the kitchen.

"I'm okay, thanks." And Daniel is at a complete loss as to what he should be doing with his hands. He inadvertently mirrors Seth's posture by cramming them into his pockets before realizing how odd it looks that he's mirroring Seth's posture and immediately stops cramming them into his pockets, opting to fold his arms loosely over his chest instead.

It is entirely possible that Daniel is devoting too much thought to this.

"That's good," he says, sounding utterly inane, "that, that things are good, I mean. That's good."

Neither of them are particularly willing to discuss the shackled elephant in the room, it seems, so Daniel has apparently chosen redundant, rhetorical vagueness in lieu of his usual tact and sensitivity. How astute of him.

"You sure? I mean, I've got beer, and, uh," he says, turning to look towards the kitchen, as if that will tell him what he has, before looking back at Daniel. Various alcohol, but that makes him sound like an alcoholic. "Other stuff. Coffee. I can make Irish coffee?" he offers with a small grin.

He also kind of hopes Daniel says yes so he can get something to drink as well. Even if he seems to have a higher tolerance (despite what you would think looking at them), it feels awkward to be the only one drinking.

"Yeah, sure, okay." Relieved that Seth is willing to skirt right past Daniel's minor linguistic breakdown, he grins a little too. "But I'm giving you the disclaimer now - I only take partial responsibility for anything I say under the joint influence of caffeine and alcohol."

The humor loosens him up a bit. And the alcohol, well. That will either relax him further or do the exact opposite. Either way, at the very least he can provide an entertaining distraction for the both of them.

"Duly noted," he answers, grin widening as he heads to the kitchen. He of course has already made the coffee, and he may have looked up how to make Irish coffee earlier. He doesn't have any fancy glasses, the kinds with handles, but he has some he thinks will do the trick, which he puts under hot water to warm them up first.

"You got here okay, then? Getting more used to getting around the city?" he asks, unsure what to make conversation about.

"Yeah, actually." He trails after Seth and watches his process of beverage preparation, head cocked to one side. "Been getting out more. Think I might've found a few libraries, which is definitely something I've been missing."

That's a bit of an understatement. Daniel hasn't fully known what to do with himself without a few hefty stacks of nonfiction to occupy his mind for hours at a time. Of course, the lack of excessive reading means he's finally been able to nail down a more regular sleep schedule but with the sorts of dreams he's been having here, Daniel's not sure he considers that a good thing.

He quickly steers his train of thought away from dreams and any related subtopics.

"And, hey - made it here all on my own, no directions needed," he says, shrugging in mock pride of the achievement.

Right, of course, libraries. Studious. Seth barely even has any books here, and probably not any Daniel would be interested in. Just a slowly growing music collection. Which he has no idea if Daniel is even slightly interested in.

"That's good, you can come visit anytime without needing a guide," he says, drying off the glasses and pouring coffee. And yes that is definitely an invitation, though he doesn't want to be too obvious about it. "I mean, I'd come visit you, but... I'd rather not go up there," he says, not looking at Daniel, focusing on mixing in the sugar and the whiskey. He puts a little extra in his own.

"No, I - that's okay, that's understandable," Daniel replies hastily. "And I don't mind making the trip if you don't mind putting up with me."

Seth doesn't seem eager to discuss it. And that's fine, really. That's perfectly reasonable. He's the sort of person to address these things intensively and directly, but if Seth doesn't want to he won't force it. There's nothing about this meeting that implies either of them want to get into anything heavy. Just two friends and Irish coffee. Daniel can do that.

"Well, it's not exactly a struggle to put up with you," he answers with a smile and a quick glance, as he goes to get the whipped cream bottle out of the fridge. He shakes it a bit, then gives each glass a nice white topping. He's not fancy enough to have actual self-whipped cream, or chocolate sprinkles or anything like that.

"There you go," he says, handing Daniel his glass. "Yours is light on the Irish. Hopefully it tastes okay, I've never tried making this before," he says, just a touch nervous.

He accepts the glass and gives it an experimental sip.

"Mm. Wow." Daniel would hardly consider himself a certified expert on all things coffee-related, but his standards for coffee are usually along the lines of "does it have caffeine" and "is it at least sort of drinkable," so it's nice to have something that's actually been thoughtfully prepared and, he won't lie, tastes pretty good. He might not be overly big on alcohol, but the blend here works.

"Oh wow. That's good," he says, grinning appreciatively. "Thanks."

Seth smiles in relief, glad that at least Daniel isn't masking disgust or something, and takes a sip himself. "Oh," he reacts in mild surprise. "That is good." Well, fancy that. He can actually make a drink that doesn't just include pouring liquid from one container to another.

"You sound surprised," he teases, taking a much longer sip. Idly he wonders how light Seth's version of "light on the Irish" is and how well that will play into Daniel's pitifully low tolerance. "You never tried mixing drinks?"

To be fair, Daniel's never tried either. Unless one counts pouring yesterday's coffee in with the two-day-old sludge, which he doesn't because no one would.

"Not really," he answers, leading the way towards the couch and dropping down on it, careful not to spill. When he was younger, of course stuff like mixing soft drinks with harder stuff was a thing. But there was absolutely no skill or measurement involved in that, and since then if he'd wanted a particular drink you couldn't get straight from a bottle, he'd just go out. "And I'm going to guess you're not exactly a mixologist either," he adds with a smile. What with the almost never drinking and having a low tolerance.

"Not particularly, no." Daniel follows suit and takes the other end of the couch. "I'm pretty lightweight, unfortunately. Which, uh, you already knew that." Right, Seth got to see that low tolerance firsthand. A fantastic first impression.

"Well, you've got a good hand at it," he indicates the drink with a tilt of his head. "Who knows, you might get to hear me ranting about something in Russian."

Daniel would probably be surprised by just how good of a first impression it actually was. And kind of the motivation to get Daniel to drink again. He would not mind listening to Daniel rant in Russian, even if he'd have no idea what he was talking about.

"How many languages do you speak, exactly?" Seth asks with a curious frown. Because he remembers several having been mentioned so far. Archaeologist with a side of linguist and diplomat, right? Would imply a few.

"Uhh." Daniel actually has to think about that one for a minute. "Twenty-three, if you just want Earth languages. Non-terrestrial is when it gets a little...well, okay, I can't really speak most of those so much as just muddle through a conversation. I've been told my Russian leaves a lot to be desired." He smiles a bit at that. Not surprising, really.

"And I think it bears mentioning that it's usually the more, ah, uncouth words that I get the most exposure to," he adds, smirk widening.

Well then, holy shit. Seth makes a rather baffled face at the number, especially since there's apparently even more. Seth can't even muddle through a second language...

He does smile at the idea of Daniel swearing in Russian or whatever else other languages, but perhaps not as much as he would've if he wasn't busy thinking about his own lack of education. "Well, for me, it's... Oh, let's see if I can remember them all. There's English, and then there's... Yeah, nope, that's it," he answers with a self-deprecating smile.

"It was mostly circumstantial." Daniel shrugs, oddly self-conscious, and stares down into his glass. "I went on a lot of digs as a kid and then later when I was, um, older, and you sort of had to get past the language barriers somehow."

He takes a larger gulp of his Irish coffee than is strictly necessary. "And, uh, usually the first thing you learn is how to ask if someone speaks English."

Seth feels as if he's suddenly made things a little awkward, but Daniel's reply does bring up something Seth didn't know. "Your parents were archaeologists too?" he asks, putting his arm on the back of the couch to turn a bit more towards him.

Edited 2014-10-28 05:04 (UTC)

"Yep," he says with a muted nod, eyes downcast. "Yeah, they, uh, they were. We never really stayed in one place for very long, kinda...went all around the world. Don't remember a lot of it, honestly, except Cairo a little. Pretty sure Arabic was my second language."

He shuffles his hands awkwardly around his glass for a moment, feeling like he should be doing something with them without knowing what. Then he looks up, one side of his mouth quirking in a hasty smile to clear away the distant look on his face.

"But, uh, what about you?" Daniel asks, head to slightly one side. "Early life, childhood?"

Seth can sort of tell Daniel's not entirely comfortable with talking about his childhood or his parents - the distant look is a bit of a contrast to his usual bouncy self when talking about things. He can imagine moving from place to place to be a difficult way to grow up, never settling in the same place for all that long, but still... Getting to see so much of the world must've been amazing.

And then of course he gets the answer back. "Well, you already know some of that," he answers, his turn to have downcast eyes. He hadn't been consciously aware of it when he was actually in the dream, but once he woke up, he'd remembered what the supervisor had shown Daniel. And he's not sure what he wants to add to that. It's not how he'd wish for Daniel to find out about his background, which seems even more unimpressive now, even embarrassing, in contrast to Daniel's.

"Wait, wait. Wait wait wait wait wait." Daniel immediately sits up straighter, frowning at Seth intently. Is he catching the right hint here? He can't be. Can he? "You're telling me that, uh, that - in the dream, the, the clipboard, everything - that wasn't just - that was real?"

God.

God.

Daniel shuts his eyes and rubs one hand over his mouth. He'd imagined some of the dream had its basis in life experience but he hadn't expected any of the exploration to be quite as - extensive.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, feeling awful for even asking, he should have remembered, he hadn't known the dream had been so rooted in reality, god. "I'm sorry, I - forget I brought it up, I didn't think. You don't have to - sorry."

Oh. Daniel had assumed that had just been dream nonsense. And now Seth's gone and revealed that it was actually real, thereby probably confirming he's a drug dealer too. Great. Wonderful. At least if Seth had simply answered the question, he could've navigated around that without making Daniel think that if some of it was accurate, the rest must've been too. Perhaps he even realises the whole scenario was taken from his head. Fuck.

After his initial surprise at Daniel's surprise, Seth manages to mask his feelings decently well. He doesn't want Daniel to feel guilty for prying or anything, since that had not been what he'd been doing. And he's not entirely sure whether Daniel's distress is because of the invasion of privacy itself, or because of just realising what he'd found out was true. That he's just now realising how very different they are, that Seth qualifies as a low-life for more than one reason, while Daniel's a fucking diplomat for the human race.

"Don't worry about it," he answers, somehow managing to keep his voice remarkably calm. "Hardly your fault my subconscious decided to throw all that at you."

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