goneawaycomms | Counselor Aiden Price

I know I don't. I want to apologize because you deserve to hear that it was wrong of me to treat you like that. [Dan has a tendency to chew on his fingers when he's anxious about something, particularly when, like this morning, he doesn't have cigarettes at his disposal to satisfy his oral fixation. That's what he does now, absentmindedly biting his knuckle as he looks out at the horizon.]

I ain't used to being stuck somewhere and seeing the same faces over and over again. I reckon it made it easier for me to not think about the fact that I was treating people unkind when I just up and disappeared on them.

You have one-night stands with people on the Rig all the time. Do you apologize to others too?

[He's almost looking forward to the lies about how this is different.]

Edited 2021-08-25 07:10 (UTC)

Sometimes. [And that's the truth, although Dan doesn't apologize often. He apologizes when people confront him. This is a special case, borne from Dan's suspicion that Price still has no one else to give him a lick of kindness on this Rig. The other hires have been alienated, and corporate just sees another warm body to turn a profit.]

Besides, no day like today to be a better person.

I'm sorry, I don't understand what the problem is.

[He barely resist the urge to roll his eyes. Is Dan even apologizing for avoiding him or for 'giving him false hopes'?]

[Dan wants to go "well, if you accept my apology, that's great, water under the bridge", but he's aware by now that Price is infinitely more complicated than the simple, almost childish responses he so often gives people.

He expects it'll bite him in the ass later if he doesn't do right now. Maybe it'll bite him in the ass anyway.]

The problem's just that ghosting a person like that is rude at best. Sometimes it makes people reckon it's their fault instead of mine. So I wanted to apologize for avoiding you, because no matter what way you feel about it, I'm aware enough to know it was rude.

[Price has never counted as a person. Whether Dan is acting like he does because he wants to protect his friends or because he actually believes that Price deserves respect because somehow he still hasn't grasped how it all works (stupid Dan) it doesn't really matter.]

People are rude to me all the time. [he shrugs] I'm used to it.

I don't care if you're used to it. [There's a certain amount of frustration that leaks into Dan's tone, because he isn't sure why his own efforts to treat Price like a person - or at least demonstrate that it matters to him to treat Price like a person - never seem to be taken in sincerity.]

[Price clenches his fists.]

I'm sorry, did you think I was going to fall in love with you? That you are so special that you could change something I am biologically incapable of doing? While I am not as trashy as you are about it, I have had my fair share of hook ups as well. I know how it works.

Besides, I did not really want to have sex with you, I just thought I could focus on how good you looked since you were pressuring me anyway. You wanted to vent about Stacia, and I wanted to listen, that was the evening I had signed up for, but you cannot say no to the one person that doesn't threaten you and hit you and tell you that you deserve to die, can you?

[Oh, he absolutely did want it, but that's not the real meaning of his rant. At this point the fact that Dan treated him as something worth having sex with offends him, the pretty face and the manipulation skills have all crumbled. There's nothing left, he's just a useless old man who spent his entire life being mistreated, without the beauty or the brain to compensate for it, to make it bearable. Why wouldn't he be constantly enraged, even more than he already was?]

You're just here because you had the audacity to think that you... [he grimaces] Broke my heart, and you are afraid that you or friends will suffer the consequences.

Edited 2021-08-26 07:06 (UTC)

[Dan bites down on his knuckle as Price lashes out at him, which, if this were his first time trying to navigate the stormy seas of Price's moods with him, might catch him off guard. As it is, the only thing that surprises Dan is some of the content of Price's vitriol, not the presence of vitriol itself. He tries to think back on the night they slept together, which has holes in it because - well, most of Dan's nights have holes in them.

He can't remember Price seeming pressured, just generally nervous, dropping vodka on the floor, and Dan remembers using his power at some point and not getting any sense of resistance, but maybe it's possible, between Dan's drinking and Price's reticence to stand up for himself except by being vindictive, that Dan hurt him.

He lets go of his knuckle before he responds, wipes his hand on his coveralls.]

That's not why I'm here. I ain't scared of you, and I know you ain't in love with me. [Dan almost stoops to think that Price is incapable, but no - he remembers the all-consuming, possessive, hopeless devotion with which Price talked about the Director, a kind of love that seemed radioactive and awful but was love nonetheless.

Gently, sincerely:] Did I really make you feel pressured?

Edited 2021-08-26 07:31 (UTC)

Then why are you here? Why do you care?

[He feels deeply unsettled at the question. People just don't care if they hurt him or not, not when they know the real him.]

A little bit. I thought you were going to be disappointed or mad at me if I rejected you.

I'm here because I don't like hurting folks.

[Dan feels his heart sink, feels suddenly almost dizzy with the idea that, through his lack of sensitivity or his drunkenness or some other factor, he didn't pick up on the fact that Price was feeling that way. He would have stopped if he'd had any idea, but rosy hypotheticals are a cold comfort when someone's been hurt.]

I'm so sorry. [He can't wrap his head around Price worried that he'd get angry at a rejection, when Dan's never shown anything harsher than exasperation to Price, never raised his voice, never said something cruel just to vent it, but it doesn't matter.] I didn't know. I'm sorry.

[Price doesn't know what to say. He averts Dan's glance.]

Is that all?

Do you want it to be? [Dan takes a deep breath.] Because I'd get if you didn't want to see me again. I'd respect it.

Of course I want to see you again. It's just that there is no way it can possibly go well.

[He told Dan many times that he should give up on him for his own good, anyway.]

[Dan, whose ability to calmly track what's happening in a conversation and what motivations someone has is often unparalleled, feels his head spinning with all the mixed messages he's getting.]

What is it that you think is going to happen that's so bad?

Edited 2021-08-26 18:04 (UTC)

[He thinks about it for a moment since vaguely gesturing to himself isn't enough of an explanation for Dan.]

I will make you hurt yourself somehow. You won't mind, but your friends will and problems are going to rise between you and them. Who knows what can develop from that...

[Dan makes a sound that would be a laugh if he were thinking about anything actually funny.] I don't need your help to hurt myself, Counselor.

[What does Price think Dan's doing with all the alcohol, the drugs, the hookups, the running straight into danger? Does Price think Dan's prepping his body for a good long life of leisure and health?

Because what Price has offered isn't an explanation.]

Oh, I'm well aware of it, Daniel. However I am also aware that it's the very reason why you slept with me in the first place. We both knew you were going to regret it. You can act like you're just sorry for avoiding me afterwards, but it is obvious that you only did it because you wanted to make a mistake.

[And what's depressing is that being your mistake is the max I can aspire to, he'd like to add, but he still has a bit of pride left.]

Edited 2021-08-26 20:12 (UTC)

[And there it is - Price nailing on the head Dan's worst tendency, his habit of roping other people into his self-abuse, of using them as tools to distract him from himself instead of treating them like people the way he preaches, the way he wishes he were able to always treat everyone.

He shrugs with an apologetic half-smile]

Well, you're also attractive and I was horny.

[That deflection fills him with dread.]

I'm not your mistake.

[It takes all of his barely existing assertion to say it. Price is not assertive, he's violent, that's different. If he was truly able to defend himself, he wouldn't have turned out like this.]

And I'm not someone you can look at to make you feel better about yourself.

[He's already not so sure about this one, he knows he's just that disgusting. The awareness of course triggers him and every feeling converts into anger.]

You ruin everything you touch, that is the truth.

[Just like him. What a sad thing to have in common.]

That's why the people you love keep dying.

[Now Price is just lashing out, and that makes it much easier for Dan to just let the words pass through him. Price is, to Dan, throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, and right now nothing is.

You're why the people you love keep dying. Dan had to immunize himself against that particular train of thought or the survivor's guilt would have eaten him alive a decade ago. He blames himself for Eliora's death. He doesn't blame himself for being a teenager caught in a tragedy orchestrated and executed by someone else.

And it's not that Dan's been comparing himself to Price to feel superior; that's just not the way Dan's mind works. He isn't competitive. He doesn't see himself as positioned in opposition to anyone else; he doesn't see himself existing at all, really.]

No, I don't. [He says that quietly but firmly.] And you don't have to ruin things either.

[Price scoffs.]

Right. Keep lying to yourself, Daniel. See where that takes you.

Are you done?

[Dan isn't being snarky; he's curious if Price is burning himself out on vitriol.]

If I'm bothering you, then leave. You're the one that insisted on taking me here.

[He's so tired of everything, he doesn't have the energy to figure out whatever Dan means. It's not like it isn't absolute nonsense, anyway. Dan didn't even deny that he sees Price as a readily available mistake to make. That's the part that hurts, and he either didn't understand it or deliberately ignored it.]

I came here to apologize - and I meant it - but now you're just trying to hurt me with whatever words you can, and I just wanted to know if you had gotten it out of your system.

[Because Dan isn't bothered, not by the attacks. He's bothered by how he made Price feel, getting sucked into Dan's self-destruction, being "the mistake", but bothered in the kind of way where he wants to stay planted here and work through it until Price doesn't feel used anymore. He doesn't know if that's an option, but it definitely isn't if he walks away.]

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