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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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."

Seth turns to the laptop and carefully types into the open word document:

back in time 3 wk. here for 10 mths

He's probably one of those who had to do the least amount of adjusting, time-frame wise. And seeing as there were superpowers in his home universe, he didn't even have to adjust to that. Just the fact that it was caused by a giant spacetime Rift instead of a mysterious one-time lightning storm. And, well, he was already in the middle of moving to another country, so there was really only one person that really mattered that he was suddenly without. That, and the knowledge he can never go back, like he would've been able to had he made it to Uganda instead of Manhattan.

The Balladeer snaps his fingers at mention of the eighties. "Not then! Definitely not then. I know how to use everything on my phone." There, see, that wasn't so hard after all! Technically speaking, he hasn't really got a single time period he hails from, but the eighties is the farthest along he ever got. It's simple enough to claim the decade as his own.

He watches Seth type with interest, then leans over to read the message. "Just three weeks? That's inconvenient..." His tone is a little doubtful. It does sound handy to be so close in time, but ten months is a long time for people with actual homes and families and things to be away from them. "I've been here for..."

Realizing that he's trying to state a specific number again, he rolls his eyes. "...more than a month."

Eighties, then. Daniel makes a tiny, sympathetic noise before flicking his eyes over to read from Seth's word document. The phones had been hard enough getting used for Daniel - he can only imagine the difficulties the Balladeer might have had with even a geotag. Apparently he figured it out well enough on his, so he's been doing impressively well for someone who's only been here for - less than a month?

"Little over a month myself." He leans against the table and folds his arms across it, one hand rubbing the opposite elbow. "Fortunately, I was already pretty used to crossing universes, other worlds, and whatnot. It was just the whole hiccup where I couldn't get back that I had the most trouble with." His conversational tone drops into something a little more bitter, frustrated. For all the connections and friends he's made here - he doubts he'll ever not miss home. Even if 'home' was, for him, simply a group of people rather than any easily definable place.

So many newbies around. Seems Seth hardly meets anyone these days who's been here longer than he has. Then again, maybe because he already knows most of the ones who has, or at least the ones he's likely to meet. The vast majority are ones he's like to avoid, like faction people, or people like him, who are hard to meet because they do their best to stay out of trouble and avoid attention.

Seth makes a sad, sympathetic sound somewhere between a purr and a growl at the change in Daniel's tone. He wishes he could do something, but homesickness isn't really something he can help with.

Instead he turns his attention back to the Balladeer, typing a single word into the laptop; powers, then looks expectantly up at him. Doing a question mark is too much trouble.

Though he can't empathize at all, the Balladeer makes a sympathetic sound. That is rough. He won't even bother trying to say anything comforting, because he knows perfectly well how that will go, but it must be hard to be so far separated from home. "I don't do anything like that."

He reads over Seth's shoulder as the cat types, and hums thoughtfully. "No, I don't have any..." Now how to put this? It isn't as though there's a direct opposite to his abilities, either. "I'm completely deaf. What? I can't...tell anything...about people." He's moving his hands as he talks, but the gestures are not really making anything clear and he's obviously aware of it. "I don't listen. To things."

Seth's probably always interested in knowing people's powers, and for obvious enough reasons. Daniel can't help but be curious too, especially when the Balladeer's explanation gets a little - incomprehensible.

"Something...intuitive?" There are probably more than a few people with powers like that. Gabe, he imagines, though that might have come with the archangel package. "You can listen. To people's - thoughts?" he guesses weakly, losing his momentum. That's looking pretty unlikely, but it doesn't seem to be the easiest concept to backwards-communicate.

Well yeah, of course he is. Even when he has no intention of taking it off their hands, he's interested in knowing what powers are out there. And in some cases (like in Daniel's, and several people at the clinic) he can even help them be able to control it.

He's a bit lost as to what the Balladeer's power is though. Daniel's guess of reading thoughts is the closest Seth would've guessed too, but somehow he doesn't think it's that - if only because then Seth wouldn't bloody well need this computer, would he? Something less specific perhaps. Perhaps just being able to get a feel for people, like reading auras, or being able to guess things about them. But how would that relate to hearing? Seth tilts his head to the side in confusion.

cat got your tongue? [closed]

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