openmisc | Daniel/Emery

"It's where I said I wanted to go." He still thinks the system is stupid. You should just disappear when you graduate and get dropped wherever. Figuring it out is stupid.

He finds a bit of wall to lean on and tracks Daniel with his eyes. "Or do you mean the graduation stuff? There were a few experiments in there. Something worked eventually, obviously."

"The graduation stuff," he confirms because, yes, he knows how to get off the ship. He did the same thing to get here, to Jon's.

"What experiments?"

"I told you, the thing I got tossed in Zero for? I figured out then I could pull from my philosopher's stone, and it didn't come back even if I died. I think it was maybe whatever brings you back if you die there. So I figured out how to empty it." He does not think to skip the part where he died. At least, for Daniel's sake, he doesn't describe the process. "And that helped, but it was still me in a lot of ways, plus low on power. So this warden--I don't think he was there when you were--gave me this stuff from where he's from. I guess dreaming is a place there, and stuff grows in it. So I traded the rest of me for... dream tree." This is Envy's understanding of how he graduated. Cool homunculus hacks.

Daniel is - only mostly lost. He finishes the tea as he explains and tries not to wince as he talks about dying.

But he does walk over with the cups and sits at the table, placing one at the edge of the table for Envy.

"Dream tree," he repeats. "Well. I'm simply glad that it worked."

Emery pulls it toward him. Whether he remembers to drink it is anyone's guess right now, but accepting what's offered comes without any thought. "I'm out, so." He shrugs. "I'm a lot weaker, but otherwise it's a lot better."

Daniel still doesn't understand that, and he's itching to ask questions, but he manages to exercise some sort of restraint. At least temporarily.

"It doesn't matter. I told you that I don't need you to protect me here. I'm just - glad you're here. My sister moved out, so you can have that room. And - and if the cats aren't scared of you, then that's better." He hesitates. "Is that because of the tree?"

Emery's not averse to questions. He's just bad at explaining things. "No, that was before the tree. It started happening after I emptied the stone." He fidgets with the cup a bit, paying attention to the heat. It's strangely soothing. (Yes, hot drink nice is a new experience for him.) "I told you what it was like." Daniel's the only person he really told in any detail. Fortunately he didn't have the kind of warden who would ask. "All the voices inside the stone? I think maybe animals could sense that somehow."

"I recall," he murmurs, though it's like trying to remember a dream. Talking to him on the barge again was a fascinating little treat, but he could hardly believe it at the time. It made him a little dizzy to think about.

He hadn't wanted to actually drink the tea, but he finds himself bringing the cup up. "Do you - feel any different than you did?"

He thinks about the answer for a moment, which is itself odd. "Lighter, smaller, but that was just getting rid of most of me. It's so much quieter." Relief creeps into his voice. It actually shakes a little, and not with an overwrought performance. "Without thousands of you screaming in my head all the time, hating humans seems a lot less important, I can say that. Oh, I sleep now."

Daniel seems actually rather delighted by that bit of revelation. "Do you? Do you dream?" he wonders. "That - that's wonderful." He does not wait for an answer or any sort of response. "My sister's moved out, so you can have that room, if you'd like. You can decorate it any way you'd like. The cats were only there because it was easier, but they can stay in my room."

The thought of having a room is weird, but he does have to admit that having changed himself into something that sleeps, he does a lot better with a bed than a corner. He doesn't even know how decorating... works? He can acknowledge that human spaces often are, but that someone stands around deciding what colors to make the walls is actually pretty strange, in his opinion.

He's not sure what to make of the enthusiasm, but at least he has an answer. "They probably won't care about me. The animals back on the stupid boat climbed on me sometimes. I guess I don't smell like they expect."

He smiles a dopey smile in his direction. It's a very endearing image. "Perhaps not. But they are soft." Daniel stands, passing by him, placing a hand on his shoulder as he settles on the couch. "Tell me more about this tree." The cat shapeshifting he understands. The emptying of the stone is a little more complicated, but he can understand it in an abstract way. But he's lost at the tree.

He accepted a lot of easy touch from Daniel for a while there. But that was when he was at his lowest and most miserable. It probably never would have begun if he hadn't collapsed crying on the man that one stupid night.

It's a different experience now. Not bad. But. He's not any better at being petted in this shape than as a cat.

"This warden was... closer to me than anything else on the boat, anyway. A piece of something bigger, not a whole, I don't know, embodied person, even. He was actually a mask, not a philosopher's stone." Itself a vast simplification but whatever. "But it was something from his world. When people dream there they actually go someplace else instead of just hallucinating for a few hours. And you can get things from that place." In Emery's defense, explaining anything to do with John Doe has its challenges.

"A mask - " he pauses. "The floating ghost - man?" He brings his legs up to the couch, watching him intently.

"I remember him. I shouted at him in the library..." he says, more to himself. Then, his attention back on him, he nods. "And that's where you got the tree?"

"Sure." So they did overlap. The time when Emery simply wasn't on the barge is easy to forget, except that Daniel had time to give up and go without him. Not something he resents! No one staying aboard makes sense to him. But a little uncomfortable to sit with. "He got the tree thing. It did look like a tree and do tree... Things." Someone is not that knowledgeable about trees. "But it could sort of reason. And it operated the same way as alchemy. I made an exchange."

Daniel sets down the cup, regarding him very carefully.

What does he think tree things are? That's a question better saved for later.

Daniel smiles, pulling his feet up onto the couch. "And that helped. Made everything quiet. Made you - quiet." In a way that Daniel can't actually express.

"I'm glad you're here."

"You said to come. So you're surprised, what, because you didn't think I'd get out of there?" Emery shifts but doesn't seem to quite know where to go. He finally just... Hops himself up onto the back of the couch. Gargoyle perching suits him better. "Neither did I."

Daniel leans to the side to give him room and then sets his cup on the side table. "I'm not surprised because I didn't think you'd do it. I'm surprised because I didn't think you'd actually come."

He's pretty sure that's a lie, but when has he begrudged one of those? He looks down with weary exasperation. "Where else did you think I was gonna go?"

Daniel flinches at that. "I don't know. I didn't - know you cared that much to want to stay."

He looks up to him, turning a little so he's not craving his neck. "But I'm glad. Do you want to watch this show with me?"

Sometimes when they talk, they argue, and Daniel doesn't want this to be an argument. They can continue the conversation later.

He wasn't trying to argue. But it does sort of... happen. He hasn't exactly learned to have a normal conversation. He doesn't want to watch the show, particularly. He'll probably be bored. But he does want to... Huh. Do whatever it is Daniel wants so he can sit here. He thinks about clarifying, but he meant what he said. This is the only place he wanted to go. Why Daniel's being weird about that, he doesn't know.

"Sure, put it on," he says after a pause, disquieted but trying.

That seems to settle Daniel, and he flips on what he had been watching prior. It's all about the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, a place Daniel has never been, with a design he's never fathomed. He loses a bit of the tension in his shoulders, pointing out things to Envy that Daniel is sure he doesn't care about, but Daniel does. And not only does he care, but he wants to share it. Eventually, he pushes himself up to sit on the back of the couch beside him so he can point out his favorite parts and everything he's learned.

Does Envy care about a structure some human built in some location? He actually starts to, and then remembers that the alchemical ordering of the universe is not his job, and he actually doesn't give a shit if it is a place of power in a location of significance or if it's just a silly looking pile of metal. Freeing.

Not caring is actually sort of fun, on that level. Not giving a shit sparks joy.

But not as much as when Daniel clambers up beside him. He may not have consciously pieced together all his strange little human selves, but people didn't generally rise to meet them. Except this one.

Half an hour into the documentary, Emery's closed the distance between them entirely, arm to arm, mostly ignoring what's on the TV with everything he has.

Daniel can tell that he isn't paying attention, but that isn't the point. He pulls his feet up beside him, balancing with his back against the wall (perching isn't his normal state), and turns to Envy with a grin.

"Are you terribly bored?" he asks.

"You're boring," Envy says without missing a beat. It's the same tone he used to say he didn't have anywhere else to be. It's true. Envy doesn't know how to combine true with other things like nice or tactful. "I knew that. I still came."

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