bigapplesauce | cat got your tongue? [closed]

Current Location: Hell's Kitchen
Current Music: August 27th, 2013

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cat got your tongue? [closed]

Today has been...interesting.

That's certainly a word for it.

Fortunately, Daniel has experience with "interesting." He does not, however, have a whole lot of experience with handling felines, particularly of the roommates-turned-felines-who-may-or-may-not-be-incapable-of-digesting-normal-food variety, so figuring out what Seth could eat in his somewhat furrier form has been an exercise in exasperation and barely bit-back amusement. It certainly was a trial attempting to cook while inexplicably hovering two feet above the ground, though cautious experimentation proved that Daniel could pull himself down to regular ground-level, in a manner of speaking, if he clung to a table leg or even the edge of the couch. But as soon as he let go, he would simply float back up again, perfectly suspended two feet over the apartment floor with next to no explanation as to how.

Hopefully this won't last long.

Daniel's phone has been buzzing intermittently all day, which has been both rewarding and frustrating. He's been able to tell a few things - for one, it's not just them. For another, everyone's being affected very differently, from being forced to spill out a slew of secrets to being practically forced to tell lies. Whatever Rift thing this is, the initial amusement at dealing with Seth's feline shape had faded very quickly.

Speaking of which.

Daniel glances up from his phone after punching out the last message to favor the curled-up ball of brown fur with a look of concern. He seems pretty much asleep from his position next to him - well, sort of next to him. Daniel is, for all intents and purposes, sitting cross-legged, though he's still levitating a good foot or so above the bed.

"Someone's coming," he says cautiously, unable to keep the note of apology from his voice. "He's, ah - bringing cat food." Wince. "Sorry."

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And the surreality just keeps coming and coming, doesn't it? Ah, well. Daniel's used to handling the surreal. A little too used to it, some might say, but he wouldn't be the one to say it. He extracts the cans and receipt with some difficulty (the bag wafts forlornly to the ground, well out of his immediate reach to pick up, and he gazes after it mournfully for a minute) and soon digs out the appropriate amount of bills for the Balladeer. Probably best to cover that now before today gets any more chaotic.

"Oh, yeah," he agrees with a grouchy quirk of an eyebrow. "We're doing great here, obviously. At least floating's not so bad. Er, compared to - others." He levels equal looks of sympathy upon both Seth and the Balladeer, well aware that he's the only one out of the three of them who's remotely able to accurately communicate.

"I mean, Iman's phone started texting people without her knowledge and Peter's a goose, so." He shrugs. "Could be worse?"

His optimism might not be entirely appreciated here.

If a cat could snicker, that's what Seth would be doing right now. Most people he has sympathy for, but Peter absolutely deserves to be a goose for a little while. At least cats can be somewhat dignified - hell, Daniel could probably ramble for hours about how they used to be worshipped. He's big on Ancient Egypt and all that.

And it turns out interpreting the Balladeer is a lot easier than expected. He can imagine imparting specific information must be tricky, but as long as you know to flip the meaning, the general idea of what he's saying is easy to grasp.

As he doesn't have anything he can really add to the conversation, at least not in the form of words, he jumps off the couch and heads over to Daniel to inspect what sort of food the Balladeer brought. On the way there he picks up the bag in his mouth, since Daniel is a bit too far up to easily pick it up himself, and jumps onto the kitchen counter.

Or he tries to, but instead he steps on the plastic bag still held in his mouth, so when he goes to leap it stops his creation of momentum halfway, and he crashes headfirst into the counter. Well. Forget the part about dignified.

The Balladeer takes the bills and slips them into his pocket without bothering to count them. "Yeah, my friend Greta's still at her house." He considers that statement for a second, decides the meaning isn't quite clear, and adds, "We know where she is? Iman..."

He trails off, just giving Daniel a rueful look and a shrug. If he's been talking with her, then the subject of Greta's likely come up already. The poor woman seemed frantic looking for her. The Balladeer's pretty worried too, to be honest; he knows the city is still a bit large for Greta to bear, and it's not really like her to walk out without her phone or anything. But he's already checked the park, and he isn't exactly sure where else she may have gone...

Seth's little slip-up startles him out of those thoughts, at least. "Oh, god! Are you alright?" He leans down to peer at the fallen cat. This is already starting to remind him of the last time he was around Daniel.

It takes Daniel a minute to interpret that. He has only a vague idea of who Greta is, but last he heard was Iman going to her place. That begs the question of what, exactly, is going on there. Is Greta - is she okay? The Balladeer didn't sound urgent, but who knows? He fingers his phone nervously for a minute, considering whether he should text her and ask if she needs any help - though, really, it's not like he could do much. Seth might, possibly, if he ever gets used to functioning as a quadruped.

"Careful," he says belatedly, somewhat resigned, forehead crinkling into yet another concerned frown. This isn't anywhere near the first time this has happened and Daniel knows that cats are generally hardy creatures, but he can't help but worry that Seth might do some actual permanent damage to himself.

The thing mostly likely to get permanent damage today is his pride, really. The Balladeer is getting a great first impression. Really, Seth isn't usually this hopeless and infantile, he's a responsible adult, he can drive a car and do his taxes. Except for how he does neither of those things here.

He gives a disgruntled sound in reply to them both, giving his head a shake and reaching up with a paw to rub at it for a second. He appreciates the Balladeer's concern though - not so much because he needs it, but because it obviously shows that he's nothing like the asshole his words have been making him sound like. Seth's just going to.. bring this bag to the Balladeer - he should at least be able to pick it up without incident.

And he knows it would just be simpler to indicate he wanted to be picked up himself and lifted somewhere, but that's just not going to happen. He refuses to be carried. At least when he makes a second, bag-less attempt at jumping up onto the counter, he succeeds without crashing or knocking anything over.

To be fair, Seth, the Balladeer has never driven a car OR paid taxes in his life. You're probably much more of a normal responsible adult than he is.

Right now, anyway, he's the only person here with both gravity and hands, so he grabs the bag and straightens, putting it on the counter. "Shame." Wow, it's like this thing is going out of its way to make him sound like an awful person. "You said it'd probably only last a few days, right? You'll probably never get back to normal. I got the food that looked the worst, hope it's disgusting."

Daniel can't fully suppress the baffled smile at the disparity between the Balladeer's words and the tone he's using to deliver them, perfectly polite and friendly and probably more suited to the man's actual personality.

"Thank you," he adds again, and has to kneel on his patch of air to retrieve a can opener and then one of Seth's bowls to set on the counter. The cat food looks fine, perfectly digestible for human or cat alike, so hopefully it'll tide Seth over for however long he's going to be...like this.

"Stuff like this has happened before," he offers as he opens the can and deposits its contents into the bowl, then slides it over to Seth with the nudge of a toe and a hopefully raised eyebrow. "Some kind of rain that made people invisible or, or unable to be perceived. Lasted, uh - three days. I think. Two or three days. Not really convenient, but hopefully this one won't last long either."

He's also helped bury quite a few bodies, almost caused an apocalypse, and spent most of the past decade working illegally as a dealer. So, you know. Adult? Sure. Responsible? Eeehhhh... Normal? Yeah, no. Maybe not the wildest by Rift standards, but "normal" is a stretch.

Seth sniffs cautiously at the bowl of food. It smells a lot less gross than he imagined. And, well, he has completely different tastebuds, right? This is the stuff cats usually eat. And he is really hungry. Ugh.

Before he can convince himself to taste, Daniel mentions the rain-induced imperceptibility, and Seth has to make his feelings on that topic known. He does so by raising his head and letting out a sound somewhere between a growl and a moan, best interpreted as him swearing about that fucking rain. That first day ranks pretty high on his list of Worst Days Ever since his escape from the rebel base. And he's had quite a few bad ones.

The Balladeer winces, leaning against the counter and glancing between the two of them. "That sounds better than this," he says incredulously. He knows that the forced lying thing - while basically counter to his entire reason for existence - is really fairly tame. It's just wildly inconvenient; he can still get around. Other people are turning into geese!

Look, it's not like his life is normal. Back home, though, he literally always knows what to expect. "Do these things happen often?"

The glance Daniel fires Seth's way lingers somewhere between pained and sympathetic.

"It was - yeah." He doesn't really want to elaborate on it, particularly given the unintentional rift he'd created between himself and Seth - even if it was temporary, he knows that was hardly one of Seth's better days.

"Every once in a while," he continues drolly, pleased that the Balladeer's questions apparently go on unaffected by forced deception. "Guess the Rift gets bored sometimes, likes to throw us all for a loop. Um, pretty sure I heard about - what was it, bunnies? Bunnies everywhere?" He looks at Seth quizzically as if expecting an answer, then tosses the Balladeer a tired half-shrug. "Never get a dull moment here, to say in the least."

Not one of his better days is a gross understatement. Sure, he's had a lot of bad days involving panic attacks, but it's exceedingly rare for them to lead to any of his friends immediately abandoning him, refusing to answer his texts, and then flat out ignoring him even as he begs for them to at least turn around and look at him.

Or at least that's how it had seemed to Seth at the time. And then even as he found out that Daniel simply hadn't been able to see or hear him, and had in fact been doing his best to get Seth back, it still hadn't been a great day. Though on the bright side, he'd met Dana - another person he wonders if they've been affected by this day's events - and he'd rescued Monty the snake, who's currently chilling in her glass cage at the other side of the apartment. Which he can thank the rain for, really. Which is not to say he's about to be grateful to the Rift, because he is definitely not.

Seth gives a nod to the question about the bunnies, which is about as much as he could elaborate even if he could speak. He'd missed that one. Although he eventually realised that was the origin of Peter insisting on calling Johnny 'Rabbit Man'.

He wants to point out that it's not just the Rift that livens things up with stuff like that. A lot of the time it's the Rifties themselves causing trouble. Seth leans back and stands on two legs for a moment, swatting lightly at the air with his claws and giving a tiny roar. He's being Godzilla, okay? Daniel gets it, right? This is probably why he'd be rubbish at charades.

The Balladeer watches Seth's antics with a quirked eyebrow and a slight smile. For once it might be good that he can't just say what's on his mind, because that is adorable.

If it's meant to be something in particular, he has not got the proper frame of reference to get it. Daniel's going to have to interpret that one. "My life is usually...totally normal," he acknowledges, managing to actually keep a straight face while saying it. "This is just more of the same. The same as before?"

His brow furrows as he runs that back in his head to see if it's intelligible. Close enough. Things with him are complicated enough that he'll never be able to communicate them like this, so he just waves a hand in a deliberately vague gesture. "I wasn't enjoying the dullness."

Seth gets a long, questioning look before it finally registers what he's pantomiming, and Daniel snaps his fingers triumphantly.

"Godzilla! Right. Wasn't around for that myself but, uh, apparently it was quite a, um. Quite an event." He's gotten better and better at interpreting Seth's wordless explanations, and it helps that there simply aren't a lot of things that little rear-legged stance could be referring to.

The Balladeer's hidden meanings are a little harder. Daniel's thoroughly grateful that linguistic interpretation is his forte. Still, he squints in an effort to work out the minutiae of that one.

"Um...your life now is incredibly not normal, very different from before, and you...preferred that?" he guesses delicately.

Thank you! Oof. He was getting ready to run over to the computer and write down what he meant. He'll probably have to do that later anyway, just so he can join a bit more into the conversation. But for right now, he really should try out this food, shouldn't he? He sniffs it again, then finally (very cautiously) starts eating. It's not as bad as he feared. It's actually pretty decent.

He's also pretty glad Daniel is there to try to interpret the Balladeer, as the particulars of his communication today might work fine for the simple stuff, but once it gets more complicated, it gets... well, more complicated. It doesn't help that Seth knows next to nothing about the Balladeer, like time frame or what his home universe was like or if he has any powers or anything. His clothes are basic, and he looks human, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything, especially if you meet someone after they've settled in.

The Balladeer waggles his hand in a "so-so" gesture. "Nothing like that?" It's pretty close, anyway, except that he rather enjoys the normalcy. No shootings, no time loops...it's actually very novel in its own way. But this is obviously too complex a subject to try to chat about backwards. "It's important," he concludes, waving a hand dismissively. If the subject ever comes up again later, he'll explain properly.

Anyway, the most important thing here is obviously Godzilla. "Really?" It's probably fruitless to do so, but he directs the question at Seth. "Here? I'd heard all about that."

Of course he hasn't heard a thing, and that does seem like something the locals might have mentioned. Trust him, he's intimately familiar with the reverberations tragedy leaves in a culture. Tragedy involving giant dinosaurs is doubtless much more dramatic.

Pleased that Seth seems to be eating and in no danger of being irreversibly disgusted, Daniel grins wryly. They're getting better at this communicating thing.

"Yeah, uh. That was before I came through. Illusory, though, so no real damage. Er. I think." It's not like Seth can clarify, but that's what Daniel remembers. Best to keep the subject matter away from the illusion's creator, though - he's not sure how much Gabe would appreciate that.

Seth takes a break in eating to nod affirmatively at Daniel. Well, there's been several car crashes, a good few people getting hurt running for their lives, and possibly a few people being seriously traumatised. But no deaths and not that much property damage. A lot less than you'd imagine would result from Godzilla.

Feeling like he should make a point of his involvement in the affair, he sits back and points to himself, then raises his front legs, making a movement like he's holding a bow and pulling back an arrow then letting it go. A bit more imprecise when he doesn't have fingers, but hopefully close enough.

"You...shot the illusory Godzilla?" The Balladeer is very grateful that he's still capable of asking intelligible questions. "With a gun - no? I - hm." He shakes his head sharply, brow furrowed. Oh, come on, how is he lying about something he doesn't even really know about? For all he knows he's completely misinterpreted the gesture.

Either way he can just imagine ROMAC was thrilled about that. They'd been very clear about how badly they wanted him to lie low and not advertise his origins. Or his nature, from what they understood of the story he'd given them. It was easy enough for him, but he guesses others wouldn't take to it quite so well...resulting, perhaps, in Godzilla illusions?

Seth's in no condition to be explaining where it came from, if he even knows. "People must have taken that well," he speculates instead. "No panic in the streets at all."

The grin widens at Seth's little stab at charades. "Yeah. Think it was a bow? Bow and arrows." The details of the story aren't the easiest to recall considering that at the time Daniel was a little awed by being in the presence of the literal Archangel Gabriel, who is now kind of his temporary landlord and it's a little odd.

The Balladeer's current condition works well as far as sarcasm is concerned, prompting a small noise of amusement.

"Aha, yeah, it was quite the spectacle, or so I've heard. From, ah, multiple sources." The grin edges into the territory of a smirk as he raises an eyebrow at Seth. "Though I suppose I wouldn't know, really."

Angelic bow, don't forget that part. Considering taking on Godzilla with a regular one would've been pretty dumb. He killed it too, but considering both the Godzilla and the bow were illusions, he's not exactly sure how much credit he should take for that, beyond, well, not shitting himself.

...Wait, why is Daniel smirking at that? Is it because Gabe's version of events included the description of Seth with 'chest oiled and glistening as he shot arrow after arrow'? Because Seth's still embarrassed about that, and he'd thank Daniel not to spread that false retelling any further. Especially seeing as the Balladeer hasn't even met Seth in his regular body yet.

And as Seth has shared about as much of the story as he can with body language - actually you know what, this is silly. He needs the laptop. He jumps off the counter and pads over to the desk, giving a meow for attention, before pointing between the laptop and the kitchen. Someone do the carrying for him, here?

The Balladeer glances between Daniel and Seth, but doesn't ask. Obviously there's a little more to that story than shooting Godzilla with an arrow.

At the meow, he follows Seth to grab the laptop and bring it back to the kitchen. "Computers are so big here," he remarks idly, setting it down and opening it to look at the screen before moving aside for Seth. He's seen laptops before, briefly, but he doesn't have one of his own or any real interest in getting one. The phone serves all his needs. "Everything's so much less advanced." And in only thirty years or so!

Thankfully the Balladeer seems to be getting increasingly better at interpreting the meaning behind Seth's pointed meows. His offhand observations shine quite a bit of insight on what his own world was like before the Rift dragged him here, which is more than enough to ignite Daniel's sense of curiosity.

"Really," he says, head going to one side. "Ahh. Your, your world, your universe - you came forward a few years?" It's hard to tell, with technology. Even the leap from 2005 to 2013 had taken some getting used to - Google maps, for one, had been a bewildering if incredibly useful development - and that had simply been eight years in a universe that was quite structurally similar to his own. The sense of displacement from even earlier must be far, far more difficult, and Daniel can't even imagine.

Seth gives a meow of gratitude at the Balladeer, before jumping back onto counter, without knocking anything over or crashing into anything. He doesn't have anything to add just yet, so for now he just returns to his eating while he listens.

It seems to be more common for people to come from the past than the future, actually. Or, uh, some very different reality which might vaguely correspond to the past when it comes to technology. And with a name like Balladeer, Seth wouldn't be surprised if he came from someplace very different. Though he does at least seem to have had computers.

"I went back...eighty years?" The Balladeer frowns. Oh, this is a little specific. "Five. Forty. Two hundred?"

He huffs in irritation and runs a hand through his hair. "Personal computers were pretty common. About this big?" The size he indicates is larger than the laptop, basically the size of a blocky old PC from the eighties. He never really messed with those either, but he knows they existed and what they looked like. Passing through the eighties does that for him. "And the cell phones were smaller, no antennas."

Daniel gives the Balladeer a long look, uncomprehending. Looks like it's a little more difficult to fish out something specific - time frames don't exactly have distinct 'opposites'.

"Mm." He rubs a hand under his jaw meditatively. "So - nineties? Eighties?" He hovers a hand at eye-level in a wiggly, equivocal gesture. "Either way, that's a bit of an adjustment. Had to figure out the whole 'geotag' business myself, and I'm only about eight years off."

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