bigapplesauce | may we stay lost on our way home [closed]

Current Location: Corner of 75th and 9th
Current Music: August 15th, 2013

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may we stay lost on our way home [closed]

For the life (or death) of him, Daniel can't decide what it is he did to deserve a friend like Seth, who has apparently been devoting time to finding Daniel a new place of residence. What's more, unlike Daniel, it seems like he's actually succeeded in locating something feasible. With some of the creative dodging of the building management he's had to do, it's very likely that Lucy's old place won't be tenable for much longer. It'll be frustrating no longer having friends like Bee or Spike or Melanie in easy reach, but the potential consequences of the Rebels forcibly evicting him or, even worse, deciding he could be an asset of some kind, aren't ones he can afford to ignore.

He's putting a lot of faith in someone else's judgment over a potential new living space, but he trusts Seth. He trusts him, and he likes him, and it'd be nice to have a place Seth could visit once in a while instead of Daniel always crashing at his, if only for reciprocation's sake. He already likes the location, far enough removed from the Rebels or ROMAC's respective bases of operations while still within a reasonable radius in relation to the Rift center. The latter wasn't a necessity, but Daniel more or less feels like he needs to have some means for access to it, if only for the sake of any other rifties who might come through. And it's only a few blocks away from the bookstore he may have landed a job at, no less.

Daniel re-checks the address texted to him by Seth, then crams his phone back into his pocket and waits.

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"Yeah, I can see why that is." Which is why Daniel would much rather stay under both factions' radars, even if it means having to scrape out his own living space without government or organization support. That troubling line of thought is thankfully diverted when they cross into the residential area. The unexpected quiet of this street already appeals to Daniel, and the look of the building they stop in front of appeals to him even more.

"This is it, then?" He raises his eyebrows, smile pulling at one corner of his mouth. "That soon? Wow. You really - wow. Thank you." He's said it already, both verbally and in text, but it bears repeating.

Seth grins happily at Daniel's obvious approval and gratitude. It's really nice, to be able to give something back after all Daniel's done for him, and he just really enjoys seeing Daniel happy. It definitely makes the effort worth it.

"C'mon," he says, going down the steps to the front door and fishing out the keys he picked up just earlier today. "I think you'll like it."

He point out the laundry room on the ground floor, before leading the way up some old and creaky (but well-kept and clean) stairs, up two floors. "Mind you, I haven't actually seen it in person yet either, so I apologise in advance if it's shit," he says with a smile back at Daniel, as they head upstairs.

"Please, it's gotta be better than squatting where I am now."

He does like it. It's a bit on the smaller side, but it's got a good layout and enough space without being too cramped. One bedroom, one bath, and a balcony as a bonus. Daniel grins and shoots Seth an intensely grateful look.

"It's great. I can, really, this is - thank you." He moves over to peer out of the window by the balcony. "It's perfect."

Quiet, small, close to the Rift center, and near enough to his possible new job. He has to thank Seth and whatever connections he has to have heard of this place.

"So, do I, um, contact someone to see when I'm able to move in, or - ?"

Edited 2015-02-02 01:33 (UTC)

Seth is pleasantly surprised at the apartment as well. It's actually pretty decently sized for a Manhattan apartment - certainly a lot bigger than the tiny studio apartments the rebels provide. And the tall ceiling makes it feel a lot more roomy than it really is. Kitchen and bathroom are definitely pretty compact, but it's decent.

Then you add the wood floors, the one exposed brick wall with a fireplace, and the (admittedly small) balcony, and Seth actually can't believe his luck. It's facing the back garden rather than the street as well, so it'll probably be nice and quiet.

"Well, you can start moving in furniture next week, but the problem is it doesn't currently have water or electricity, and the landlord doesn't want anyone staying here while they're working on that," he answers, still smiling at Daniel's excitement. "But I've given him your number, so I'll just let him know you like it, and you can sign the lease and all that stuff."

Unless he wants to start pilfering from the Rebels, furniture might be a problem. Aside from the obvious moral pitfalls that come from actually going and stealing from them, Daniel doesn't want to give them any reasons to target him, even petty ones.

"All right." He nods decisively. On that note, the sooner he can get away from the Rebels, the better he'll feel. He'll miss being able to quickly visit any of the building residents - except for perhaps Peter - but he doesn't want to endanger Seth or in general get on any semi-powerful organization's bad side. "I'm circling a job in the area and so far it's been pretty promising, but, uh, what kind of rent am I looking at?" He can't help but sound a little worried when he says it. His old job might have paid well - saving the universe twice a year, it turns out, will get one a pretty decent salary - but he's shifted from intergalactic rescue to being homeless in another universe's Manhattan, and that's a position that pays significantly less.

"Ah, well," Seth answers, turning serious for a moment. Well, putting on a more serious face, at least. "Building next door? About three thousand a month. Other side? About five thousand. This particular apartment?" he continues, smile pulling at his mouth. "Seven hundred plus utilities. A thousand total at most, probably much less." He grins.

Daniel's eyebrows climb the length of his forehead in record time and he exhales sharply in disbelief before realizing Seth is completely serious.

"Wait, really? You - you really have those kinds of connections?" He casts another awed look around the empty space, then back at Seth. "Honestly, I - I probably owe you like a dozen dinners at this point, but - thank you. And you know, anytime you ever want to crash here, once I'm settled, it's, you know." He mirrors Seth's grin, hands pushed into his pockets. "Really, thanks."

"It's rent-controlled," he answers with a cheerful shrug. Which means renting it out second-hand is not completely aboveboard, which is why it's so cheap. So really, it's not so much about his connections being particularly good as it is having been lucky with them and the timing. Very lucky. Lord knows the Rift is probably going to rain something terrible down on them to make up for this, but oh well.

"Aaand I've already set aside money to cover the deposit and the first month's rent, since I assume you won't be able to cover it quite yet," he adds. Seth has never been particularly stingy when it comes to friends. Perhaps it comes from growing up poor.

"You -" His head snaps back to face Seth, eyebrows scrunching back down in amazement.

"What would I do without you?" His expression can't decide on surprise, gratitude, or wonder so it settles on a mixture of all three. Daniel shakes his head, mouth half-open in wordless appreciation. He's not ordinarily overly tactile, but he sort of feels like hugging Seth rather fiercely in thanks. Or maybe, say, kissing him or something, but that thought came right out of left field and is completely unwarranted, where did that even come from, how is that in any way relevant. It isn't. So Daniel is going to stop thinking about it. He absolutely is.

Instead Daniel swings one hand up to clap Seth lightly on the shoulder. There. That's acceptably, easily, utterly platonically an expression of his gratefulness, though maybe not entirely enough for what Seth's done to help him.

"Thank you." All right, sure, broken record, but he means it. "Really, I - this is - thank you. And I swear, anytime you wanna drop by, I'll make you dinner. I will make you," he pauses, lifting his shoulders in a helplessly overcome shrug, "so much dinner."

And that expression right there makes it worth it. It sort of makes Seth's insides do little flips, actually, in an not altogether unpleasant way. Which he would ordinarily feel kind of pathetic about, but right now everything is just wonderful and he doesn't even care.

"I expect I'll be rolling out of here," he answers with a small laugh, ducking his head a little. "But, well.. Consider it payback for all you've done for me." He's bordering on sentimentality now, but whatever. It's true.

He drops the hand from Seth's shoulder after a fractional increase in pressure.

"I think I'll consider it - an entirely too generous gesture of friendship. Which I'll probably never stop thanking you for." As if in compensation, his hands feel obligated to flee back to the relative safety of his pockets, but the sentiment remains. "Anyway, it's high time I had a place that you could visit." And come the end of the month, Daniel will have his own place, completely free of corporate or organization control. It won't be as easy as if he had actually gone and registered for one of the factions, but this is better. Politically unattached.

"Fair enough," he answers, alright with that. Their friendship is important to him, so marking it with gestures is definitely worthwhile. "And, yeah, I agree. Then I won't have to keep my place tidy all the time," he jokes. Not that there's really that much difference in how messy his apartment is depending on whether he's expecting a visit from Daniel or not. Well, maybe a little.

"Oh, please. The only reason my current place hasn't been wildly untidy is simply because I don't have enough books to accomplish that. Well, yet." He plans on rectifying this, between the painstaking translating work he's been doing for Spike and the bookstore he's narrowed in on as a very probable job prospect.

He nudges Seth companionably as he heads to the door.

"C'mon. We can get whatever paperwork squared away that needs to be, but right now I," Daniel announces with mock ceremonial flair, "am treating you to the finest coffee three dollars can buy. Which, unfortunately, isn't all that fine, but just you wait. Give me a month at the place I have down as a potential job and I will be able to put forward a whopping four dollars for coffee instead."

"Such extravagance you have planned," Seth answers with a grin, following along and locking the apartment behind them. He's really glad Daniel likes the apartment, and that Seth will finally have somewhere he can come visit. "So where's this job?"

It takes Daniel a minute to orient himself, and pulling out his phone to determine the location of the nearest coffee shop just seems superfluous when it turns out to only be a couple blocks away.

"Uh, few blocks from here, actually," he says, pocketing the phone again. "Really optimal location, honestly. Rare book shop. Think I made a pretty good impression, and they wanna talk to me again this weekend." Even if he can't exactly present evidence of his PhDs - universes and Rifts in space-time get in the way of little things like that - he likes to think they'd been fairly impressed with his clear knowledge base of the bits of their collections he could see. It's not saving the world on a regular basis, but it's a job, and it's working in an environment he's familiar with. Daniel's missed handling books.

Seth stuffs his hands in his pockets and nods approvingly. Book shop sounds great for Daniel, really. And if it's a rare book shop rather than some big chain, it's probably gonna be a bit more interesting rather than just a basic retail clerk job. Not that retail clerk is the worst thing you could be, it's just kind of boring. Outright torturous if you have bad coworkers.

"I'm sure you'll dazzle them with your intellect," Seth responds with a smile. He uses a joking tone, but he kind of means it seriously.

"Mm, well, that's the ideal." He shoots a vaguely amused look at Seth. "In all seriousness, though - you really couldn't have picked a better location, even if it was, well, entirely unintentional."

The universe, tossing him a halfway sympathetic bone? Daniel feels that frankly there are better ways to spend good karma than apartments and jobs, but if this is what the Rift is dealing his way then he'll take what he can get.

"Well, you mentioned before that you wanted to be close to the Rift," he answers with a shrug. Back when Seth had mentioned he used to live down in the Financial District, wasn't it? So not entirely unintentional. Plus it's a very good neighborhood, and close to the Rift without actually being that close to either faction. He didn't know about the job, though, so that's just lucky. And, well, finding this place was pure luck anyway. Which, they really need all the luck they can get in this ridiculous city.

Daniel holds the door open for the place when they get to it, standing back to let Seth go in front of him. It's not the nice, self-brewed stuff he prefers but it's not Air Force day-old grounds either, so Daniel will settle well enough for the heavily branded run-of-the-mill caffeine that places like this will get him.

"I did." He shrugs and orders something simple and black, which is about all he needs and also all about he thinks he can afford. "I feel like that'd, you know, be a good place to be. So yeah, pretty great location on all counts, I think."

Seth orders himself an iced coffee, since he could really go for something cold, because as usual for August in New York, it is obnoxiously warm, which is really inconvenient when you insist on permanently wearing long-sleeves. ~~Thankfully Daniel doesn't, so Seth gets the benefit of seeing those nice arms.~~

"Well, assuming you want to get in the fray rather than just avoid it like I do," he answers with a shrug. Of course they both know he has very legitimate reasons for wanting to steer clear of the Rift and its associated factions. But even though it's reasonably close to the rebel base, the location of the apartment isn't really in an area heavy with rebels, so as long as Seth doesn't take the subway, it's all fine.

It's a reasonably occupied space but it's thankfully not overcrowded, so Daniel can easily claim a small table and drum his fingers unconsciously on the edge in anticipation of the soon-to-arrive caffeine.

"Mm." He half-shrugs. "I just think any rifties coming through should, you know, get some awareness before signing up for either faction. Just to know what they're getting into." He's still grateful Lucy didn't make any attempts to press him into either party, and that every rifty he met had been refreshingly honest about the ambiguity of both groups from the get-go so he could avoid involvement.

When the barista calls their respective orders, Daniel hastens to retrieve both, briefly enjoying the disparity of heat versus cold in separate hands before sliding Seth's iced across the table to him. He lifts his paper cup in a vague toast. "I really - can't thank you enough for all of this."

Seth nods in agreement. It's definitely a good thing for Daniel to be doing, and if he's capable of it then all the better. Although it's one of the many things that makes Seth feel selfish by comparison, but that's hardly new. The fact he literally just went out of his way to find Daniel an apartment doesn't seem to factor into it. (And if he thought about it, he would just chalk it up to the selfish desire to have Daniel like him.)

"Thanks," he says as he gets his coffee, and immediately takes a nice cooling drink, his face scrunching momentarily at the brief brain-freeze. Not as bad as if he'd gotten a frappuccino, but still.

"Don't worry about it, mate," he answers, once his brain has cleared up. Nice and platonic. He doesn't want Daniel to think it's a gesture of something other then friendship, ~~except for the part of him that does want that~~.

After popping off the lid in a smooth, practiced motion and giving the cup's contents their cursory sniff, Daniel starts gulping down his coffee of moderate quality. It's certainly better than the instant he's been forced to live off of on such a tight budget, and he's had to pare his caffeine intake down considerably to make even that work. His brain has so far not appreciated the reductive budgetary measure and has expressed its displeasure through a stream of eternally fierce, incredibly persistent headaches.

Luckily, today's departure from that minimalized intake has eased the pain in his temples considerably.

"C'mon, you know me." Daniel smiles, warm and wry and implacable in equal parts. "Worry's part of the package. As is - endless gratitude, many promised dinners, and free reign of the coffeemaker I'm definitely getting with my first hypothetical paycheck."

"You don't have a coffeemaker?" Seth asks in mild surprise. He would've thought Daniel valued that more than having a bed really, but probably the bed came with the apartment and a coffeemaker didn't. And selling the bed would've been impractical. Still, Daniel's been managing on pretty much no income (something Seth is hardly unfamiliar with), so honestly Seth feels a little guilty even getting a coffee off him, even if it is a gratitude coffee. And it's also why their dinners where Seth pays and Daniel cooks have been pretty beneficial for both of them.

"Maybe I should buy you one as an early housewarming gift," he says, which definitely seems like a good idea. And several bags of grounds. At least that way Daniel could spend his money on things like food rather than his caffeine addiction. ~~Wasting money on an addiction isn't exactly unfamiliar either.~~

"Er - been surviving off instant." He ducks his head ruefully. "Which doesn't technically require a coffeemaker so much as just, you know, an esophagus of steel." It's still several miles better than the poor excuse for the stuff that was always kept specially for briefings. Instant, at least, will taste marginally like coffee, and not sulfuric acid.

"It's been a month of adaptation," he finishes with a noncommittal tilt of his head. "An important phase to partake in when establishing a new life, but now I think I'm ready to move on." More than ready. The building is fine, but Daniel doesn't want to tie himself to the ideology behind its sponsors.

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this thread was lacking in trash so i brought some in to go with the pine hardwood floors

have some more, in the spirit of reciprocation

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