openmisc | Daniel/Emery

Daniel/Emery

It's a very typical weekend for Daniel. He takes a call from his sister, who very recently struck out on her own and moved in with friends, while he makes tea. He keeps Sasha and Zhenzhen from the counters as he tries to tidy up as best he can. He puts on a documentary for a while before deciding to walk down to the shop for ice cream.

He hasn't even changed much. Sure, his hair is in a bun and the vest is decidedly 2015-chic, but he carries himself the same, very unhurried. Confident now. The barge isn't completely forgotten, but if anyone can compartmentalize and push down unwanted feelings, it's Daniel.

He smiles to an elderly neighbor as he opens his door and walks out to the street.

Really, nothing too out of the ordinary.

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Daniel watches his feet as they walk together. "Well, this is my route to work. But I like to take the long way so I can look at the river. It's - " He laughs. "It's a filthy river, but it looks pretty from far away."

He points down a street. "That's where I like to get my coffee with my friends, but the building smells like smoke. I don't like to smoke."

Emery, by contrast, turns their full attention on Daniel, the staring possibly over the line into creepy and uncanny. Easy to do with eyes like his. They're the least passably human part of the new face. His answer is a little stilted, but they're doing a pretty good job with the flow of conversation. "Trixie gave me one once. Drugs don't really do anything to me-- Well, I guess they didn't, I haven't tried lately. I kind of like the smell, though." Because Emery likes and dislikes most sensory input solely through association, and Trixie is a good one.

As he speaks, he sidles a little closer and, after a bit of awkward hesitation, hooks her arm with Daniel's.

As they pull him closer, looping an arm through his, he raises his head a touch. "I tried a few drugs, but I don't like the hallucinations and strange feelings." He's had enough of those in his life. He doesn't need any more.

"Then you'll like my friends," he smiles. "I tried smoking on the Barge, but - it seemed pointless. But I do like going out for drinks."

The shop is just ahead and Daniel untangles his arm from Emery's to open the door.

Her feelings about these friends are reserved, to say the least. Being known to people just because is too strange, and it's hard enough getting along with one strange human. Daniel'll be upset if Emery can't play nice.

Envy was never jealous of Daniel's other friends on the barge, because, well, they were all stuck in there like bugs in a jar. It never seemed like anything could really change.

Emery isn't quite so confident.

"Well, those don't work on me, either. Guess I'll stick with ice cream."

"You said you didn't know!" he tell them, taking their hand in his and linking their fingers. It seems a little less formal, and it gives him greater range of movement. He orders the cinnamon basil because he's feeling adventurous, and then gets a small sample of rocky road for Emery.

"Try it," he says, handing them the small spoon.

Sweets aren't their favorite, but the textures and temperature are interesting. Marshmallow and nuts vying for his tongue keep him engaged in the bite. "Humans are weird," is her only comment, but he smiles when they say it. Their eyes are busy, taking in the scenery. Cute ice cream parlor was not among the sights of home.

"Don't say that so loudly," he hisses to them with a laugh. He gets his own. "Do you want more or to try something different?"

He'll stay here all day letting them try anything that catches their interest.

"Or what? It's normal here. People will think I'm weird, not a secret magic tree-doll," Emery counters. He hasn't seen a single sign of alchemy. Come to think, they're not sure if they ever asked Daniel how it works or if it works at all here. But even back home, homunculi were a secret known to a few.

But ice cream is more immediately relevant. She thinks a moment and says, "A bright colored one."

"Brightly colored..."

He points to one and when it arrives, he hands it to Emery in a cup. "Birthday cake," he declares, with the brightly colored sugar sprinkles on top.

"Come on, sit down and tell me how you like it."

He's already digging a spoon into his own.

"Pretty," Emery says as she sits, a conscious reward for Daniel matching this weird enthusiasm. The taste isn't as interesting as the other one, but they have just as good a time with a new bit of sensory input. He's hundreds of years old, but everything feels so new away from the barge, away from being Envy.

Daniel offers them a bit of his own, smiling at his choice. "There's a place I went where you can add in any number of toppings. Strange ones, but no one will look at you oddly for adding nuts with brownie bites and jellies and sweets," he laughs.

"It's beside this lovely old building. Well - it isn't actually as old as I am."

Emery frowns in confusion for a moment, then realizes what that must mean. "You mean as old as when you were from, not here," they clarify, because that's actually pretty hard to get one's head around. Especially on someone else's behalf. This just isn't Emery's world at all, so its relative chronologies don't really matter personally.

"Oh! Yes, that's what I meant," he laughs. "It was built only a little after I was born, I believe. But there are structures here much, much older. And they aren't concerned with them at all! Some of them are pubs! From centuries ago."

"I think that's normal. All the big fancy government buildings at home were old, anyway. The nice looking ones, not the labs and warehouses." Where Envy actually spent time. The nice stuff for humans wasn't really his domain.

"Is it? It's odd to see, though I suppose it was beginning to be that way in my time." He has his memories back, but they're fuzzy now with the addition of so much new information.

"My old time, I mean."

"If they're not blowing it up or burning it down, why build new stuff?" Emery continues to be a little under-prepared for this world, more because it's unscarred and quiet than because the cars are fancier and there are phones now.

"Because - well, if the architecture doesn't hold up, then it falls down or gets unstable. It may not fit with the aesthetic of the neighborhood. There are a thousand different reasons to change it, Emery. Take it down and build it up again."

He reaches over and taps them on the nose with the end of his spoon.

That earns him a familiar nose-wrinkle. "Fixing stuff, sure, but do you really care that much what..." She remembers the show about the metal arch that doesn't seem to do anything. "Okay, you care that much, but I assumed you were weird."

He smiles, and it's a little smug. "I am not! I am - " Well, he doesn't really know. "I like what I like."

He takes his spoon back to dig into the bottom of his ice cream.

"It's why you're not boring. I mean, minute to minute, you're boring. But you're different." Is it probably that Emery would find lots of humans different if they took the time to know any? Sure. But she likes this one.

Daniel's grin is still smug. Perhaps more so than it was before, if that's even possible.

"That's because you like me," he says in a rather sing-song voice.

"You're not different because I like you. I like you because you're different." And to avoid being too feelings-forward, Emery flings a sprinkle at his head.

He laughs, reaching up to rub at his head, then shakes his hair out to make sure it didn't fall there. "You bastard," he teases. "You're supposed to eat those."

Emery sticks out a tongue that is now a bit birthday-cake-blue. "I'm bad at doing what I'm supposed to."

Daniel can't help the fit of giggles. "Your tongue is blue!" he insists and takes out his phone to turn on the camera and show them.

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