goneawaycomms | Counselor Aiden Price

BUT--

...Why? Daniel, I appreciate your friendship, but this cannot be beneficial for you.

[Does he want Dan to stay? Of course, but he doesn't want to walk on eggshells, to act like there is something left to save when it's too late and Dan just refuses to understand it. His bragging about not listening to warnings makes no sense whatsoever, if anything it confirms that the only reason why he would be near Price is to slowly destroy himself.

Price doesn't mind destroying him. Destroying things and people is a neutral action, it's wiping the slate clean to build something else. It can be positive or negative based on the connotation that one wants to give it, but that would be a case to case basis. It's not inherently negative as some people believe. Still...Why is Dan doing this?]

No amount of kindness can fix...

[Me, he'd like to say, but he refuses to.]

Our incompatibility.

What incompatibility is that?

[In Dan's opinion, their relationship has expanded beyond that first awkward introduction over a dead civilian. They disagree in how to treat other people, and that disagreement is something that rests at each of their cores, and yet - Dan sees no reason why that should be considered some kind of fundamental antagonism.]

I reckon I'm a better authority on what's beneficial for me or not. [It's not that Dan can't judge risk; he's quite paranoid, quite good at assessing risk and reading a room. It's not that he's using Price as a means to sabotage himself. It's just that he doesn't mind if that outcome comes to pass.] I'm a grown man, Counselor. I can make my own decisions.

Well, then.

[Why, why, why doesn't Dan want to understand? He doesn't get to ignore warnings and then whine like a baby when he inevitably faces the consequences of his stupid decisions.]

What is it that you would like me to do?

[If Dan were not slightly inebriated, he'd probably have a quicker answer, or would have come prepared with an idea of what he wanted from Price. As it stands, he clearly turns it over in his head.]

If you don't want to spend friendly time together anymore, that's fine. I just want to make sure it's for you, because you don't like me, and not because you're trying to protect me from yourself. [He bites his lip.] And I want it clear that it ain't my fault you put me on a pedestal.

[He almost gets calmer while listening to what Dan says, but that last remark sets off every and any alarm again.]

Is it not the right thing to let you go? To prevent myself from making it worse?

[Price asks with a tone that makes it clear that he just doesn't want any more problems. He was so nice to South when he visited her memories, he told her that he loved her, although in his own way. He has put a lot of effort in...Well, everything! And it only backfired.]

I know I would be tempted to hurt you even if I hold back. [He stops Dan before he can say anything] And don't say that it's fine as long as I don't go through with it, because it's not about what I do. It never was.

[It's about what he is, and he's deliberately saying it against his own interest because...He doesn't know why for sure. Maybe it's just to spit the actual truth for once, maybe it's once again a way to give himself permission to do whatever he pleases should Dan ignore this warning as well. He's not sure.

Price doesn't really know what he wants, aside from the Director magically popping up and telling him what to do. He doesn't care how stupid or downright insane the orders would be, he'd follow them. He wants to go back to Project Freelancer, the time of his life where he peaked and was truly happy, not having to feel inadequate for being unable to achieve it with those around him being healthy because he had many formal reasons and excuses, all of which were fantastic.]

Edited 2021-04-24 22:16 (UTC)

Letting me go and forcing me away ain't the same. [This is a place where Dan is learning, through staying on the Rig, that his particular brand of independence is considered contentious. He's been alone long enough that he doesn't know how to snap out of being his own steward, coming and going places when he pleases, setting his own terms for how close he's willing to get with someone and how soon he's ready to abandon them. The Rig has completely upended that, and more than that, it's thrown into stark relief that not everyone agrees with Dan's ethos of my life, my decisions, my right.]

To me - and I ain't going to speak for anyone besides me here or anywhere else - it is about what you do. Even if you don't want to trust that, I stand by it. [Where Price is trying to be placating, Dan's firm. He wants to leave no room for Price to misconstrue him or for Price to make him secondguess himself. Unlike so many, Dan feels firmly certainly of who he is, what stances he holds.

If this weren't Price, Dan would reach over and offer a reassuring pat on the shoulder or some other contact. But as it stands, he just knits his fingers together and rests them on his thigh, which is bouncing a little.]

[Dan's response is not as comforting as he probably thinks it is. It's a 'I won't hurt you or abandon you if you act like a good boy', it's all those threats that adults presented Price with when he was a troubling child. Most of the time being good backfired.

It's funny because Dan himself had the nerve to say 'it's not like a vending machine where you do a good deed and a prize pops out', as if this isn't the same principle. The prize of less danger will pop out if he's a good boy, probably. It's not like Price can argue with the system, it has proven itself to be true and effective throughout his entire lifetime, but he sure is displeased of having to bear it as an adult as well. Especially since it always seems to work differently for him compared to others.

He doesn't exactly curl into a ball next to Dan but he makes himself smaller as usual. It's not as deliberate as he would like it to be, but after all he doesn't really want to lose this strange connection and he's aware that his submissive nature will always help in securing relationships. On the other hand he's so burnt out from struggling to regain control over his agents, from facing the harsh truth that he will never have them again.

It's not that he dislikes connection, on the contrary he craves it despite people's tedious attitudes, but masking under so much stress without a guarantee that it will help, with all the exhaustion hitting him suddenly after more than a decade spent being impeccable among extremely dangerous individuals and circumstances...It's a lot. It's a lot and he would scream if he could. The most he's been able to succeed in this environment was to always express himself formally even when antagonizing everyone and putting his foot in his mouth, but that's not much.]

Daniel...

[It comes to him that he could guilt trip him. Of course being vulnerable always comes with guilt tripping, it's not like he actually has feelings. Also, so many times empaths did their pathetic little shows in order to shame him for not feeling guilt, as gross as it was it really helped him exercise his cognitive empathy. Even if Dan doesn't believe his ~~concerns~~ lies he will feel forced, if only for the sake of etiquette, to act accordingly.]

I don't think you realize how terrifying that thing you just said is.

[Ah yes, that thing. It sounds childish enough. Scared, even. He's doing a great job. Dan is not the Director anyway, he might be interesting but he can't give Price what he needs.]

Edited 2021-04-26 12:02 (UTC)

So tell me. [If there is anything Dan can relate to, it's fear. Dan spent his youth on the run, each member of his family picked off horribly, knowing each January full moon that he'd either die or grieve. He knows, too, the betrayal of being promised security and a life of peace only to have that go so violently sideways for reasons he doesn't totally and will never totally understand.

His knee stops bouncing and he opens himself up to listen. It's his greatest skill, hunting monsters and ghosts, his ability to listen to those who have deemed themselves and been deemed by others as unlistenable.]

How's this? [Honesty is always more difficult than lies, so it takes Dan a second to find the words.] I can't promise I won't never hurt you. I can promise that if I ever do, it's because I got no other option, and that I would never, ever enjoy it.

[He's picked up that Price likes to make others suffer; Dan's not the same and never has been, even in the throes of grief and despair. He always turns it inwards, or lets anger and sadism dissipate into sadness and emptiness long before it comes to be.]

[Price understands that on a logical level that is a good response, he's perfectly aware. Yet he feels more tense than before, because it's like his behaviour is 'forcing' others to hit him or leave him behind. God forbid when he himself presents a similar argument, though.

He's not 'cruel cruel', you know. He just does what's best for him. Still, he survived much worse than whatever this is. Why is everything hard all of a sudden? Before this place he's always managed to elegantly take all the horrible abuse he went through and twist it in his favour. Why has he been making mistake after mistake since arriving on the Rig?

This time he does curl into a ball.]

No, you're right, I-- I'm sorry, I'm not making sense...I'm sorry.

[Is it because he's getting old? The pretty face is all that's left of what he can use. Is it crumbling, too? Is he not beautiful or skilled enough to distract others from...Well, the rest?

Not that there's much more. Sure, like everyone he has a past, but after delivering a couple of key sentences it all fades because it's nothing but the same painful patterns over and over, and he feels like his core is completely empty and the fire is simply radiating from him, burning everything he comes in contact with. It's not his fault that he's unable to learn anything else after he's been taught this, but it doesn't matter so he's treated like it's his fault anyway.]

No apologies necessary. If words were easy, writing wouldn't be a profession.

[Dan's at a loss, and he can't tell if he's shadowboxing or not. How much of this is a performance he's getting suckered into? Is Price enjoying keeping him guessing or is Price as in the dark as he says? Is this true fear that Price has of Dan, or does Price just know that fear is a shortcut to Dan's sympathy?

The few people who know about Dan's power have been told that they'd be able to tell if he used it on them. This is a lie. Dan doesn't have to make skin-to-skin contact, and the fact that his whole body gets slightly warm when he absorbs someone's emotions and squirrels it away is easily masked by clothing. He gives Price no indication that he's trying to get a read on him as he gingerly reaches out and touches Price's shoulder in a gesture that is as sincerely an attempt to comfort as it is an attempt to use his empathic superhuman ability.]

[Price flinches slightly, but eventually lets him because he needs some physical comfort. Last time someone touched him without hitting him was...Well at least a decade ago, if you don't count random handshakes during meetings and that time Felix decided he could get his filthy rat claws on him. Also Dan told him that he would've felt it and for some reason in this moment Price is gullible enough to lower his guard.

Of course he has a lot of feelings. He's mad at the entire situation, at the inability to rebuild what he had put so much dedication to create. Mad at the fact that the freelancers gave him further confirmation of the fact that as soon as people heal they abandon him - making them sicker is already fun, honestly, how is that attitude supposed to make him stop? It's like pruning the branches and leaves of a bonsai tree, really. It's in order to make something grow in a certain shape and direction that is currently required, picking one shape and direction in favour of another is not murder or torture.

They keep acting like it's personal when it wasn't. He's done worse to someone he actually was in love with - or at least the one that made him feel the closest thing to love. It ended in fights and a definitely not amicable divorce, but what is love, anyway, besides wanting to be with someone and remembering all the little details along with working to keep the relationship interesting?

In his own way, Price pretty much loves everyone, actually! But no one seems to understand and he's constantly pushing himself between isolation and desperately trying to create or restore some kind of relationship without succeeding, and again, he's burnt out from trying and knows that being alone is 'the best thing for everyone' but he doesn't want to.

If only the Director was here...He could play with him, worship him in his own special way, and make sure he'd never abandon him again...]

Edited 2021-04-29 12:40 (UTC)

[Taking in someone's emotions when they're this fraught feels, to Dan, a little bit like what he imagines all those tweenagers felt that year they were putting spoonfuls of cinnamon in their mouths for social media. His immediately impulse is to "cough it back up", as it were, but that's neither possible nor wise here, so, as Dan is the consummate liar and actor, he doesn't let it show even momentarily that he's thrown by the intensity and complexity of Price's unhappiness.

The point is that Price is unhappy. Unhappy, and confused, and tired, and frustrated, and angry, and fearful, and these emotions are all true and they're all ones Dan wishes he had some way of alleviating, so he doesn't remove his hand from Price's shoulder just because he wants to sustain the comforting contact.]

You can talk about what happened, if facts are easier than talking about how you feel about it.

Facts? [Price tilts his head] Nothing happened, I was just rude to you when I shouldn't have. That's it.

[He rests his head on Dan's shoulder, and gradually sinks in until it turns into a hug. He just really wants to give and receive some affection the traditional way after a decade of coldness and strictness, and he also wants to test Dan.

He wants to see if he is going to use his power to enhance the coziness that he feels in his arms in order to improve his mood, half wanting it because everything hurts too much and half fearing how easily Dan could violate him by accessing his very core. A core that at this point is meant to be forgotten and not acknowledged, after being labeled as a monster for a lifetime. He thinks about how easily Dan can justify taking advantage of this moment of vulnerability with wanting to help, as if the compulsion of helping isn't his personal rotten illusion.

Little does he know that Dan is already using his power...]

Edited 2021-05-02 11:41 (UTC)

[Dan could very well pass the test on accident, just because he doesn't have any of Price's happier emotions to try and offset the misery. Maybe if he did, he would try.

But one way or another, Dan's only had his ability to draw on and copy other people's emotions for later for about a year. He's been trying to comfort others his whole life, be it from his younger siblings when they were newborn and squalling to angry spirits that needed soothing to victims of monster attacks in need of someone to manage their immediate trauma. So what comes naturally to him is to let Price sink into that hug and hold him there, not restrictive or clinging, but receptive and supportive. Dan gives really good hugs, unsurprisingly.]

No, I mean, what people don't to you that makes you so untrusting. You don't have to talk if you don't want to. Just putting it out there. [Because it couldn't be more obvious that this is about a lifetime of poor treatment and being conditioned into expecting a certain amount of disappointment from anyone Price runs into.]

[Now that's a funny one, apparently it's 'people making him untrusting' when they are the untrusting ones. They're always acting like he's up to something awful, planning to manipulate or torture or kill somebody. Sometimes when you say hello you actually mean hello, even if you killed millions.

Sure, it makes sense to choose not to trust Price now, but it didn't when he was younger. All the people he hurt before Project Freelancer fell under three categories: self defense, getting even, or training in order to skillfully defend himself or getting even with someone else. That he had fun doing it is irrelevant to the conversation. All of this is, actually, because it lost meaning at this point.]

Some people become like me due to genetic predisposition. They're born like this.

[It's not his case, sure, but would Dan still keep trying if there was nothing to pity, if there was nowhere to dig and find a sad story? Price feels like after all this time there won't be much underneath all the dirt and filth. It will not be enough, because it has never been enough for anyone to listen, and what happens after an entire lifetime of not being listen to is that you don't want to talk anymore.]

That sounds like a difficult, painful life to be condemned to by some unlucky genetics.

[Price doesn't need to give Dan a tragic story about himself or anyone else to activate Dan's pity, his empathy; Dan sees sadness everywhere. In all the places most people see injustice or outrage, Dan just sees the tragedy of how almost every evil act could have been averted, somehow, if upstream someone had been kinder or luckier.]

Tell me what you mean by "like this."

Monsters.

[He hates saying it, because he can always understand other people's reasons for behaving the way they do, even when he thinks it's a bullshit reason and is annoyed by them, he has a way to respect it. He worked so hard on this skill after years of people mistreating him for reasons that were hardly ever proportionate to his need for help when he was a child.

Those people who treated him like a monster felt like monsters to him, and since for his own sake he got rid of them before they could change his mind he still thinks it, but once he became an adult he never met people he considered monsters again. He might've had absolutely zero respect for them - as everyone reasonable does with Hargrove - but everything was comparatively neutral, as it should have been.

As an adult you should be able to divide people in polite or rude, interesting or boring, useful or useless, and that's it. No such thing as good and evil. It is objectively the smartest thing to do, but there is everyone still judging based on morals as a masturbatory fantasy for which they are better than someone who knows more than them...

But at least he said that. There's no need to tip toe around it.]

[It's a loaded word, and not just because of Dan's profession. He doesn't have a good answer for any of this.]

Monsters are people too. [He doesn't figure that he's armed with enough information to give Price a persuasive argument for why he isn't actually a monster. There are too many unknowns about the things Price has done, too long a history of Price internalizing what people have told him. He has no reason to respect Dan's opinion on whether he's a monster or not, so Dan doesn't bother.

And really, it doesn't matter. Dan's of the opinion that you can't change what you've done, and it's very hard to change what you are, to the point that what you are isn't actually that important because it's so fixed. The only way to make the world better is to try and do your best at the very moment you're in. The only way to make life livable is to do your best in the very moment you're in.

Dan grew up imagining himself to have no future and dodging his memories of the past as best he could. He's caged in the present beyond what most people are.]

I've killed a hundred and thirteen people in my life, Counselor. I'd reckon about two thirds of them have been monsters, going by most folks' definition. And the other third were just human beings. I don't feel there's even been any practical purpose in trying to sort between them, and I don't feel no more nor no less remorse around a monster than not.

Mh.

[He gives a light, very unconvinced nod. He doesn't want to be difficult, not for Dan but for himself. It's so strange, by the way, that Dan is acting like he likes him even after finding out what he's really like. Everyone who has ever felt something positive towards him was only momentarily blinded from the facade. Even his spouse who was supposedly the love of his life.

He's so glad he stopped trying to date people, putting all his energy of work rewarded him beyond his expectation and gave him a family...Well, until he got caught. He wonders if the Director would act similarly to Dan in this situation, had he opened up. He just thinks about the Director a lot, it's inevitable.]

The Director felt a lot of remorse too...

[He pauses, it's clear that he's thinking of something. It takes him a moment to gather the courage to speak.]

...Do you believe that once we are done here we will go back to our respective timelines? ...Or will we have the opportunity to restart?

[He tenses up because he can already hear the accusations, the remarks about how much of a coward he is because he doesn't want to go back to jail and that he should pay so much more for what he's done anyway.]

It would be nice to choose a different place. At least the agents will heal from their wounds and be a family.

As for me, I...Well, if I got to choose I would go back to Project Freelancer to see the Director again.

[He purses his lips.]

It might not be the right thing to do, but serving him made me happy.

I don't reckon it matters what I believe. I might could die here, or might could die back home. It makes no difference to me so I ain't pondered it much.

[With Eliora gone, he has nothing to go back to, and Dan's been so terrible at envisioning the future ever since he spent his youth expecting to die soon and violently. He expects to die sooner rather than later. He finds it comforting, far more comforting than the idea of going back home and having to just continue out his days with the bitch of living biting at his ankles.

Dan draws his lips tight, not in judgment but in some kind of flinch from the pain of watching someone announce their intend to continue making the same mistakes they always have.]

I hope, if you do go back, you find something or someone else that makes you happy. But I'd understand if you did go back to him.

[Price tenses up and withdraws from Dan. There's so much surrendering in his voice, so much will to just let whatever come to him that it's confusing. He knows that it's not a trap, but it feels like one.]

Right.

[He sighs.]

Sometimes I like to think that he could get here any moment, and that maybe we could make up. Even if it's just him and me against the world, I wouldn't mind...

[A bitter scoff follows.]

Not that he ever really noticed me.

[He then proceeds to sound humourous or at least amused.]

Sometimes you have to settle!

[To think that he still speaks so highly of him after he betrayed him like that. He tries not to think about the Director ratting him out to save himself, because the Director gave him everything and if only they could have gone on forever with Project Freelancer without facing consequences Price would be the happiest man ever.

That's why he clings to the idea of the Director, but he is forced to laugh it off because the man never seemed to appreciate his efforts, never remembered his name or considered him human, never let him in, and was always quick to bully him even in front of his subordinates. Price fully rejecting everything he was before Project Freelancers means that in his head he promoted the Director to the person he loves the most spot. So knowing that, in light of the poor treatment, he really is settling is deeply mortifying.

What's even more mortifying is that even counting everything before PFL nobody ever succeeded to give him what the Director gave him, to need him the way he is and not whatever mask he put on for the occasion. Carolina has even had the nerve to insinuate that Price didn't care about the Director for enabling his self harming tendencies, to speak like he took advantage of him.

The exchange was fair, the Director let him play with his dark side and Price let him rule over him with an iron fist, obeying at every order. Even so, he was the only one that gave the Director what he asked for and the bastard didn't even appreciate it...]

You reckon you could ever find that kind of sense of...[what is it Price is describing? It seems to be more all-consuming and fixated than love. Obsession?] ...purpose with anyone else?

[Dan realizes how that sounds, and probably would have worded it differently if not for being a little stoned on whatever it was the infirmary gave him (bless them).]

I'm not offering myself up or anything, I ain't trying to steal you away, that's not what I mean. But there are countless universes out there, billions and billions of people. You might could find that sort of dynamic with someone else, without having to hold onto someone you don't got anymore.

[Is Dan, so mired in grieving those he lost, being a bit of a hypocrite or a total hypocrite? Yes.]

[Price gives Dan a very confused look. He's not sure whether Dan actually thinks there could be an alternative solution or if it's all just a poor attempt to give comfort. He'll shrug it off because clearly Dan isn't sober, but no, there isn't anyone else.]

I suppose there is just nothing out there for either of us.

[He definitely caught the hypocrisy, and he has pointed it out, but not in an accusing way. He can be gentle. He wants Dan to feel understood, if only to lure him in his trap that he doesn't know what it is yet. Certainly it can't be friendship, Price already knows it's doomed.]

I wish you to find...Something, or someone as well.

[If anything, Dan is not unloveable like him. If only the man had some sort of will to live, he could easily restart. Price thinks he can talk him into regaining said will to live, but who knows. It's not that Dan won't trust him with it, he is crazy enough to go for it just to seek death, but why heal him when everytime someone Price likes heals they leave him?]

...But I understand if you don't want any attachments.

[He deliberately says this without ever clarifying that yes, he did get it that Dan wasn't trying to offer himself as that new special someone. He can still guilt trip him with 'I understand that you wouldn't like to get that involved with me' because seriously, who would ever love him?]

[Dan could say that he's actually been banging in the Easter Bunny for a few weeks now, but he's not as intoxicated as he was last time and he's more scared about people ratting out his relationship to the Jorgmund overlords than he is about them telling on him for using emotional manipulation.]

I really don't. [Dan chuckles at the idea, but it's a bit of a pained sound. Dan goes out of his way to torch most attachments that start developing, to sabotage anything he gets that could turn into a relationship or a routine or something that he could come to depend on.] One-night stands are about all that I'm good for.

[Which is what makes it strange that he's ended up in a long-term relationship with the pagan deity of spring in the Easter Bunny, but even thinking of it that way makes Dan feel nervous and out-of-his-skin. Valuing things is just a prelude to having them taken away, painfully.]

I mean, that I'd offer you.

[He's high, alright. Price deliberately ignores the last part.]

You're a good friend, and you can be reliable and trustworthy when you want to. You are skilled and potentially very useful in missions, you can save lives, even if you don't always succeed.

[A brief pause.]

I know you are afraid of losing your loved ones, and that you believe the solution to that is to avoid creating bonds altogether...But you are good for more than just one-night stands.

[He means it. If someone took away the pretty face from Price, nothing good would be left. If someone took away the pretty face from Dan, instead, all those qualities would remain.]

Counselor Aiden Price

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ignoring warnings and then whining about it is Dan's M.O. tho, Price, don't hate~

Price wants to cuddle with Dan but also wants to hiss at him >:(

so basically Price is a cat, we knew that, but apparently so is Dan

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fuck me, it's literally one word of dialogue but this shit is heavy

P R I C E ;A;

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look I'm not saying he's gay but I'm saying he's obsessed. Which makes him at least LOOK gay.

sorry for vanishing for a month! idk where my brain went but i love Price so i kept this thread

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