( hard to say whether he's been drinking too much or not drinking enough, that is making it feel like holding onto the ugly truth because he's slightly more likable that way isn't good enough. not if he really means it when he says he wants to be better than he was back home.
or maybe he just wants someone to hate him as much as he hates himself. who knows. considering his self destructive nature, it could be that too. same result in the end. )
but i already said it, technically. i helped my family kill someone.
because great granddad thought it was a good call to sell the family tree to the devil for business acumen
and before you tell me that sounds like bullshit, i know that now. why do you think i am so fucked up all the time
( slowly coming to the realization you helped kill an innocent man for a curse that isn't real and to protect a family that fucking sucks is definitely a problem worth drinking over. )
[ Okay so it was cult shit. She was waffling between that and a mafia deal and honestly the truth sounds like a freakish (and dumb) mix of both, offense intended. ]
doesn't matter, considering i stuck by the shitty decision for decades.
i'd love to tell you i had a lot of character growth and learned my lesson, but i didn't exactly stick the landing, my wife shot me in the throat, and now i'm here.
so where about on the apprehension scale are you now, because i find myself too sober for this conversation and drinking alone is never as distracting as i want it to be
[ Her confirmation will be the fact that she's there when he arrives. Jess heads to Mendacity and sets herself up at the end of the bar, her usual spot. She orders a triple whiskey and hunches over it, nursing it morosely while she waits. If this were New York, she could find out about Daniel Le Domas on her own terms, in her own time. But if this were New York, she'd be busy with her actual job and wouldn't have to stimulate her curiosity with a weird one-percenter's marital situation unless he or his spouse put up the cash for it.
Just a little more saving and scrounging and she can open an office here. Even that thought makes her drink, depressing in its own way. ]
( Daniel is late, but, that's nothing new. punctuality is not really his strong suit. and frankly he didn't think she'd show, so, what's the rush to drink by himself in a slightly different location? none. he's disheveled, a bit more than usual, and somehow the fact his beard is only half grown in makes the situation worse. )
I really didn't think you'd show, ( Daniel notes openly, in form of greeting. he's been pregaming since before the whole Le Bail reveal and frankly hadn't seen any good reason to slow down. safe to say his filter is a bit compromised, though can he really say anything worse than he's already admitted? probably not. )
I'm trying to make shittier friends. [ People she won't care about when they get screwed over, either by her or by the random whims of Duplicity. It's not the reason she showed up but it is the reason she stuck around. Jess straightens so little she might as well not have, taking in the state of him over her shoulder. Her expression is static, unfazed. He looks better than the last time she saw him.
She turns her attention back to the drink in her hand. ]
( Daniel laughs. maybe he shouldn't, but he's always toed the line of self deprecating humor. disarming and supposedly charming on one hand and just kinda sad on the other. )
Fuck. Me too. ( it seems as if he runs into a surprising amount of people that are decent, that struggle under the city limits and fight for important things and care about things outside of how miserable they are. Daniel appreciates and respects that sort of person but has no idea how to relate to them, not really. he's not used to spending time with decent people. he's not cut out for it, maybe. it makes him feel the gaps in his moral integrity, even if he's mildly attempting being more decent now. )
I don't know if you qualify. ( Jess hasn't told him much about herself, besides hating surveillance and having a drinking problem. well, she didn't so much tell him that last part as he much as he inferred it. he's less subtle about watching her, though he doesn't for long before he leans across the bar to hail somebody for a drink of his own. )
[ She hopes she's right about him. That he'll expect the worst from her, a favour she can return unbidden. Right now, she has to take him at his word, and all the words that came before. Incredibly tall-sounding tales that overburdened her prior to arrival, so she can't yet fully buy into the damage he's currently presenting, but it's been added to the cart. Most of it's not going to sink in tonight, which is fine. It's not like it will be any relief once it does.
This is not about lightening her load. It's about shifting weight. If she doesn't take on any more, maybe she can keep from breaking under what she has. ]
Well nobody's shot me in the throat but that's just down to crap aim.
( Daniel is the sort of liar that scares people, the one that has been lying so long and so often that you hardly notice the difference between that and the truth. that said, what would be the point in lying about what a terrible person he was? especially with such strange specifics, self hatred mixed with satanism and sacrificial lambs that were definitely human. he might regret exactly how fast and loose he'd been with his nefarious past come morning (mid afternoon might be more accurate), though as it stands now it's a little easier to breathe around someone that knows the worst and is making the objectively bad decision to be around him anyway.
he grimaces slightly at throat wound mention, feeling the lack of a drink in his hand and staring at hers quint distinctly as he drums impatient fingers on the bar for lack of something to fill them with. )
So not for lack of trying. ( he wonders what she got up to, in a life that wasn't here, that involved gunfire. it explains why she doesn't like guns, if they've been pointed in her direction. Daniel considers asking but isn't sure he has the mental bandwidth to really know right now, so he doesn't. ) I don't think great aim was involved in mine, either, or maybe that's just wishful thinking.
( Charity had looked surprised, in that split second he can remember seeing her face before everything gets hazy and blood-tinged. it makes it slightly less depressing to imagine his wife shot him on accident. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
JESS.
i really don't.
( hard to say whether he's been drinking too much or not drinking enough, that is making it feel like holding onto the ugly truth because he's slightly more likable that way isn't good enough. not if he really means it when he says he wants to be better than he was back home.
or maybe he just wants someone to hate him as much as he hates himself. who knows. considering his self destructive nature, it could be that too. same result in the end. )
but i already said it, technically. i helped my family kill someone.
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Why?
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i don't know what i think now. but it's too fucking late for a do over.
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he died or my family did. i picked him.
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and before you tell me that sounds like bullshit, i know that now. why do you think i am so fucked up all the time
( slowly coming to the realization you helped kill an innocent man for a curse that isn't real and to protect a family that fucking sucks is definitely a problem worth drinking over. )
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How old were you?
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i'd love to tell you i had a lot of character growth and learned my lesson, but i didn't exactly stick the landing, my wife shot me in the throat, and now i'm here.
so where about on the apprehension scale are you now, because i find myself too sober for this conversation and drinking alone is never as distracting as i want it to be
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( camp is a bit of a miserable blur, but Daniel remembers at least that much. )
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Get drunk down here, booze is cheaper and I've got a spare bed you can pass out in if I don't change my mind
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( perhaps there's some questionable judgement at play here, but who is Daniel to call someone out for questionable judgement? )
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Or whatever it's called now.
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( if she bails, she bails. pregaming through this conversation has not proven enough, so getting entirely tanked is the only solution. )
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Just a little more saving and scrounging and she can open an office here. Even that thought makes her drink, depressing in its own way. ]
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I really didn't think you'd show, ( Daniel notes openly, in form of greeting. he's been pregaming since before the whole Le Bail reveal and frankly hadn't seen any good reason to slow down. safe to say his filter is a bit compromised, though can he really say anything worse than he's already admitted? probably not. )
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She turns her attention back to the drink in her hand. ]
I'd say you qualify.
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Fuck. Me too. ( it seems as if he runs into a surprising amount of people that are decent, that struggle under the city limits and fight for important things and care about things outside of how miserable they are. Daniel appreciates and respects that sort of person but has no idea how to relate to them, not really. he's not used to spending time with decent people. he's not cut out for it, maybe. it makes him feel the gaps in his moral integrity, even if he's mildly attempting being more decent now. )
I don't know if you qualify. ( Jess hasn't told him much about herself, besides hating surveillance and having a drinking problem. well, she didn't so much tell him that last part as he much as he inferred it. he's less subtle about watching her, though he doesn't for long before he leans across the bar to hail somebody for a drink of his own. )
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This is not about lightening her load. It's about shifting weight. If she doesn't take on any more, maybe she can keep from breaking under what she has. ]
Well nobody's shot me in the throat but that's just down to crap aim.
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he grimaces slightly at throat wound mention, feeling the lack of a drink in his hand and staring at hers quint distinctly as he drums impatient fingers on the bar for lack of something to fill them with. )
So not for lack of trying. ( he wonders what she got up to, in a life that wasn't here, that involved gunfire. it explains why she doesn't like guns, if they've been pointed in her direction. Daniel considers asking but isn't sure he has the mental bandwidth to really know right now, so he doesn't. ) I don't think great aim was involved in mine, either, or maybe that's just wishful thinking.
( Charity had looked surprised, in that split second he can remember seeing her face before everything gets hazy and blood-tinged. it makes it slightly less depressing to imagine his wife shot him on accident. )