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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Nervous is not something he's accustomed to. Scared, sure, he's spent most of his centuries as a pretty big fish, but there were toothier ones in the pond. And uncertainty. But he doesn't really know what this is going to be... like? His warden's dry confidence that Daniel meant for him to stay here is firmly pushed to the back of his mind. He was told to visit. He's visiting.

The cat is more or less convincing. Small and black, a bit skinny. He didn't try to learn more than one cat. This one is the equivalent of the dog shape he used to wear whenever he had a reason to want four legs. (Why couldn't Daniel like dogs? Nice, uncomplicated dogs. It is possibly Emery's acquaintance with human society is still not quite what it should be that he figures he could lope around as an enormous, black hound as easily as a trim little cat, but that's beside the point. Cats are hard!)

He can talk just fine, but instead he just falls into step with Daniel's heels. Doing his weird cat trot.

Daniel notices the cat right away. To be fair, Daniel notices most cats right away. They're easy to see, and he's drawn to them in an almost unhealthy way. If he wasn't also a facetious, particular sort of man who liked to keep a clean home, he would adopt every stray he could. But his sister warned him against becoming some sort of strange cat-person.

Still, this one is persistent. He kneels down, running his hand along the creature's back. "Hello there, little one. Are you lost?"

Emery should have a bit of practice in being petted, too, because the barge is full of people like Daniel in this respect. Unfortunately it was weird coming from all of them and was always his cue to change back. He doesn't mind this at all, but he doesn't really know what to do about it. His back doesn't do that arching cat thing because he doesn't realize it's supposed to.

But. Not that important, because Daniel's down here and close now. "Nope," he says. The voice is distinct. It gets a little squeakier whenever he puts it in a body with small lungs and short vocal cords, but still, no mistaking that singsong sneer.

Danie is, in fact, still Daniel, and a talking cat is not supposed to be something that happens in his world. Not here.

He lets out a very undignified yelp at the flash of fear and falls backwards onto the sidewalk.

Then -

"Envy?" He whispers the name with a sort of trepidation that he doesn't quite understand. Is this a hallucination? Can he trust this?

"Do you know some other shapeshifter?" He's a little indignant, honestly. He practiced cat for weeks just so he could sneak in without disrupting anything about Daniel's life or giving him anything to explain to some other human. And now who's making a scene? "Now someone's going to look. Pretend you tripped on me or something." Envy may not understand how to be petted, but he can make perfectly good use of his long, snaky body, and he sidles right up to Daniel's ankle to look guilty.

Right, they're out in public, and someone talking to a cat while sitting on their ass in the middle of the sidewalk is very suspicious.

After a half second battle with himself over his lost ice cream, he unceremoniously picks up the cat and holds him close to his chest. "Sorry," he mutters. "But I don't want to risk anyone getting you." His heart is pounding in his chest, there's a roaring in his ears, and he's - so fucking happy.

"I can't believe it's you. You're here!"

His plan was to just trot along wherever Daniel was headed. He assumes cats can pretty much get in wherever. But this is fine, too. (Though he is... not very easy to pick up. Not nearly as heavy as he used to be, but a lot heavier than a spindly little cat ought to be.) "What's going to get me?" he grouses, but he doesn't resist at all. "You're fine here and you're a wimp."

He tries not to look like he's struggling. Fortunately, they're near his flat. He hadn't managed to get very far before he was assaulted by a cat.

"I'm not a wimp," he complains, placing him back on the step while he unlocks the door. He fumbles with it a few times, still keeping his eyes on Envy.

"And what if a dog came by? Or - or one of those animal snatchers?"

He's not even sure if that's something to be worried about, but he's always been very good about worrying.

Daniel what is an animal snatcher? Envy's cat face isn't really built to register confusion or affectionate contempt, but he does his best, sitting primly and washing his paw, one of his best cat activities. "I can take a dog," he says confidently. "And animals don't hate me anymore. Yours should be fine."

"Don't - take - any dogs," he huffs. Envy is getting a very skeptical look in return, but he opens the door and scoops up both cats anyway. "I'll put them in their room," he argues before they have a chance to react to the new cat. He places them in what was once his sister's room and closes the door.

"Well, come inside, I suppose. Are you - is this how you are now?" Not that Daniel is displeased with the form, of course, but it's nice to know what to expect.

Huh, cats get a room? He really is short on the nuances here. Though he's only been able to get anywhere near an animal for a few months. What is he supposed to know?

He follows Daniel and, once past the threshold and any easy view from passers by, he drops the cat form. No red glow anymore. It's a srt of shimmer. He wears the slightly modified version of himself he's adopted recently. The outright uncanny planes of his face aren't normal, but they're something you could achieve with makeup or dismiss as weird lighting. His hair is softer. He's a bit closer to Daniel's height. Not such a spooky parody of a fragile kid. Still dressed like a weirdo, though. It's just them.

The smile is perhaps a bit less confident than it was.

Daniel's grin widens. "Oh! You changed!" he exclaims, and not meaning just from cat to - semblance of human - form.

And now that it's Envy proper, now that Envy's standing right in front of him, Daniel feels himself get a little dizzy with the realization of it.

"You're - here. I can't believe it," he mumbles. "I've been waiting for this day for a really long time."

Emery doesn't do things like blush or fluster. He knows the actions only from the outside and wouldn't match them to the moment. But he does fidget, wondering if he should have gone with the old face, after all. He still can do it, he just... doesn't like it as much. "If I could have been out of there faster, I would have been." He's changed more in the six months or so since they talked than any time in all his long years, and he didn't even know what he was aiming for.

Daniel desperately wants to embrace him, but he doesn't. He can wait. But he does need to do something with his hands, so he starts back on tea that he doesn't intend on actually drinking.

"Tell me - tell me what happened," he finally asks. "How did you get here?" He understands the graduated part, but there are a million missing pieces.

"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."

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