independent, together

David squinted, a little confused by Daniel’s question.  The answer was no, he hadn’t been to the Wenlock Arms, but he was fairly sure that wasn’t in Spurlos…oh.  It clicked in his head.  How had he known Daniel for these months, and not realized he didn’t know about the town?  Didn’t he talk to a lot of residents here?  Was there an inside joke everyone was playing on the guy, and David was left out of it?  Shoot, he could have blown everyone’s ruse.  “I…”  And then that was another matter.  Leaving Spurlos.  Now, David had left quite a few times over the years, but they were always at his sister’s or his parents’ insistence, and the visits never got any easier.  His stomach twisted in anxiety, and he ran his mind through the usual excuses.  But he realized, he might not ever get another opportunity to hang out with Daniel, which was something he wanted to do.  If he said no now, who’s to say Daniel wouldn’t make excuses not to in return?  Or never ask him again?  “Sure, that sounds fun,” he replied finally.  “I don’t think I’ve ever been there,” he was positive he hadn’t, “What’s the food like?” David forged a smile.

Growing up around various species his whole life, David wasn’t very surprised by the people he met in Traceless, or any abilities they told him they had.  However, it was hard to visualize some powers when he had zero experience.  Being able to talk to any animal was a good example.  Keeping any jealous thoughts at bay, he considered her offer.  David was rather lonely in his house, and his landlord had specified he could have a pet…pending a fee every month…but they didn’t have to know that.  “You know what? Sure.”  It wasn’t like David ever did anything useful on his day off.  “Where do your friends live?  Here in the forest?”

“Oh, yeah, huh, like how TVs have RGB lights in them.  See, I know.  Hey, wait,” David paused in his syrup-pumping, “’Spirit of the drink?’ I came up with the drink.  Whether or not I put the green in there, green’s gonna happen, you know?”  He opened the wheatgrass canister and put what he considered maybe 1/16th of a teaspoon in there.  “So, you’re more of a ‘let other people make all my drinks’ kind of person,” David commented.  “What do you do when you don’t want to go out?”

Daniel had seemed completely engrossed in his book the whole afternoon, David wouldn't have considered interrupting him until he'd gotten up to leave.  "Well," David decided for the sake of not sounding like a complete slob, that he would omit a few details of his planned evening.  "Not really.  I think I'm going to go home and grab some leftovers.  I haven't eaten since before my shift.  And then after that... Not sure.  Do you have a usual pub you go to?"  David himself did, if Thirst n' Howl fried foods counted for being a bar regular.

"It could have gone down after you got here, sure," David considered this.  The doors were very reliable; that council thing—and their boss—made sure of that.  He caught the sliding drink from Mike, waiting for it to cool.  He could have burned his tongue trying it right away, but he actually wanted to taste it.  Maybe he was secretly onto something: the next cold brew, or PSL.  More likely though, it probably just tasted like a normal drink.  "Me too, man," David was touched.  "Sure," he agreed finally.  "I can check with you," he set his drink on a table.  He didn't usually make it a habit to go through the doors, but if they were down, he didn't want Mike to get electrocuted. By himself, anyway.

The last thing David wanted to do was give Sofia a drink she didn't like.  Or worse, Sofia not liking it but pretending she did.  He smiled again at her response, nodding as he wrote her order on her cup.  "That's so sad," he answered genuinely.  He didn't know what he'd do if caffeine didn't work on him.  Probably never be awake, he supposed.  "At least you can taste it, though, right?" David asked.  "I mean like, food doesn't taste like dirt to you?"  That was a Twilight thing, so probably not.

David had a long, hard shift.  When he finally got off for the evening, he figured he was in for a night of falling asleep on his recliner while watching Scrubs and eating some leftover pasta.  When he saw Daniel sitting over at a table, he erased those big dreams out of his mind for the moment as we walked over to him.  He'd known Daniel for maybe, three months now?  David thought he was pretty cool with his swoopy hair and his friendly personality, but they didn't have a lot of opportunities to see each other outside of his work.  Daniel didn't live in Traceless, and David didn't usually leave Traceless.  "Hey!” He waved. “What are you up to?"  He asked his friend.

David saw a lot of people coming in through the doors, and so for the most part it was distinguish between the swarms of faces he didn't recognize, and so he just didn't.  This guy who'd been hanging out in the café all morning, he knew he'd never seen in his life before today.  Lots of people hung out in the café and were never seen again, though.  That was normal, that was the nature of the doors.  But when the man came up to the counter out of money, David had some empathy for the guy.  He was usually running on empty when it came to money himself.  "We don't usually," he said honestly.  "Maybe I could, if I knew you'd be coming back..." he left the end as a clue.

David frowned at her words.  "It is pretty freaky, huh?  Yeah, I'm sure that's a thing. Now that you mention it," he went through the motions putting together her drink as he listened to her inner turmoil on whether wheatgrass or matcha would be good.  "Bougie grass stuff it is," David repeated.  "But if you'd like, I can maybe take the green part out.  We've got the yellow and the blue, maybe it'll make green in there anyways."  The whole mixture turns brown, anyways, he thought to himself.  "Oh... so then are you an expert on making mojitos?"  Yona was at least 18, he figured.  And if she wasn't, his lips were sealed.  "Can you make mojitos without alcohol?  Or is it gross like that?"

"Yeah, we should test, just to be safe.  Well, but wait," David frowned, pausing his step towards the door.  "Didn't you just go through the Las Vegas one today? To come to work?  That means they're probably working.  I guess I'll just have to drink my half-latte-half-mac and prepare for us being the only people.  I don't know if I can handle that responsibility," he admitted to Mike, watching him at work making his drink.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” David grimaced.  Even though the other person didn’t show up, that wasn’t on Mike to stay longer.  Then again, he wondered if Mike had more energy as...his sister... this situation was way too weird.  David trusted Mike, and he knew Mike wouldn’t do anything his sister didn’t want.  There also wasn’t any way Allie would have forced him to be silent.  These were circumstances none of them knew how to fix or how to control.  So, like David was doing by showing up to work, the best thing to do was to try and ignore their situation and make some coffee.  “Okay,” David nodded his (Ayla’s?) head.  “I guess that works.  Hopefully we won’t be in these bodies for too long, anyway.”  He walked behind the counter.  “I really don’t want to think about the vampire-drinking-blood thing.”

“Ahhh, now see, this is exactly what I didn’t want. “ Her very annoyed expression making him sweat. “There’s too many choices! And what if it’s the wrong choice? What if you already have something in mind that you want me to pick? At this point, please just let Ulani curse me so I don’t have the pressure any more.” David was absolutely overreacting to this. But she was also mentioning going to countries, and going to other countries made him nervous. He need to get ahold of himself. “Okay, okay. Pizza. Final answer.” Pizza was safe, he knew what that tasted like.

Ah, dang, he was being a goof with this whole drink thing, wasn’t he? Scout was going to yell at him later for mixing grape and matcha. He pondered his fate as he inputted the orders into the computer. “Hey,” he said in all seriousness after reading out her total. “Let me know if you hate it though, and I can refund you.” David wondered, with all the coffee he drank every day, if 5 shots of espresso would do much to him. He figured, yeah, definitely. “Does caffeine work on you at all?” He wondered.

"That's crazy," David shook his head.  Maybe it wasn't as crazy as he pictured in his head, but he'd never heard of being able to make a door.  Doors were stagnant things, like walls and floors.  But if he had to think about it further, it was probably his own inability to do construction work, passed down from a father that may have learned it at some point, but wasn't around enough to teach, that was the problem.  He smiled at the explanation of Dominic's camp.  "What a cool setup.  That's gotta help a lot with keeping your younger members happy.  And not scared."

David nodded in understanding.  There was a lot of ingredients in his special concoction—maybe too many.  It was probably for the best to shelve the idea...for next year.  “All right, fair enough.” He laughed at her teasing tone, putting her order in the computer.  "I could do that, or since I'm poor, I can comp the tomatoes for ya.  They're pretty good today, pretty fresh; I had a tomato sandwich today so you can trust me."

“Hey, living on the edge, I see.  I can appreciate that from the sidelines.  My hands get kind of  shaky, though, when I’m nervous?  So I don’t trust myself to not completely spill every drink.  Did you know third degree burns don’t heal by themselves?  You have to get a skin graft or something like that.”  David said all this as he was searching the cabinets for wheatgrass.  “Hey, we do have it-” he glanced at the lid “-and the expiration date’s good.  Do you want this instead of matcha?  Mint is kind of a winter thing, but I’m happy to substitute it for you then.  Pride should be a year-round thing.  What’s a mojito?”

“Well, maybe not the whole world,” David smiled slightly.  “Just mine.  Not sure if that helps with the explanation or not.” He shook his head.  “Is it because you physically don’t last very long? Or is it just because you prefer the water to here? I’ve never gone scuba diving, but I’m sure it’s pretty cool down there.  I live here in town,” he explained.  “I’ve never gone too far from town, in fact.”