Daniel Pena (sonador) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-11-08 00:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | colin craven, don quixote |
Who: Colt and Daniel
What: The artist is carrying a familiar flier, so the rich man investigates.
Where: Outside of Bathos.
When: Midday.
Warnings: Harmless really.
Normally Daniel would get no longer than an hour for his lunch break, but because of a minor mishap between two employees trying to have sex in the server room and crashing two of the servers, everyone who wasn't vital was sent home for the rest of the day. Which meant the tomato soup and grilled cheese he got for lunch every day was going to have to be eaten in ugly styrofoam containers instead of what he was used to. Since the arrival of the strange syringes weeks ago and his subsequent pilfering of one of them, he didn't quite know what to do. Every day was spent staring at the unknown promise of fortune or failure, covering it in temporary illusions of grass, swords and whatever else he felt could cushion the stark harsh truth: it was a drug and he didn't quite know what it would do. What if it killed him? What if it made everything better? What if it did nothing? No matter what, he needed something more than what his current abilities gave him. Daniel needed his fantasies to feel more rooted in normality. This was also why he had taken a flier for the Academy. It also promised control over his abilities, which he supposed might be a good thing. However, Daniel didn't know if that also meant they could make him better, if they could make his illusions real. Were they someone to trust as well or was it nothing more than snake oil determined to crush his dreams? Either way, he was in pure dilemma. So for now he settled on the front steps of Bathos with his sandwich and notepad, flier sticking out of his jacket pocket as he worked on enhancing a current location in the online RPG he works at to make it look different and appealing to new users without alienating the die hard fans too much. Colt didn't make a habit of going out. Well, no. He hadn't made a habit of going out. He was doing it more now, and Bathos was a regular drive by. He generally didn't stop. He just made sure nothing looked out of place around Erin's first floor apartment, sending the driver to take a walk through the first floor hall and outside garden, and then he went somewhere no one knew him to work on his newly acquired monstrosity of a wheelchair. Today, however, as he waited, he saw the young man sitting on the front steps of the building. The driver wasn't back yet, and Colt pushed open the door of the sedan. "Boy," he called out, "what you got in that pocket?" He knew, of course. He recognized the fliers Erin had drawn up in that damn impossibly bright color. Woman's damn colors. Right as he was in the middle of sketching his idea of a Mad Hatter style swamp, Daniel nearly fell over at the sudden burst of male noise coming from a car nearby. He looked up for a moment and then back down at his sketch where an errant green line now ran through the middle of his art. He sighed. Maybe he could pretend it was bright lightning instead. At his question Daniel stared dumbfounded, then his brain clicked back into place and so he began rifling through his pockets, pulling out his keys, a tiny nub of a blue colored pencil, lint and the flier...ah. He probably didn't care or see the others so flier it was. "Um, it's paper, brightly colored and with interesting font. Why?" Colt motioned him over with an impatient hand. "You going to that school?" he asked, nodding toward the flier again. His gaze dropped to the art, and he took it in with observant eyes, but he didn't mention it, not yet anyway. Picking up his book and bag, Daniel made his way over to the car, still keeping somewhat of a safe distance because he wasn't quite sure who the man in the car was, though he didn't look completely harmful. His question though was enough for the artist to look at him in surprise. How did he know that was what it was? Oh. A teacher. "I'm not sure, why?" Colt chuckled at the surprise in the man's face, and he stood up and lumbered out of the car and leaned against the side, his hand reaching out for the notepad. "Let me see what you're working on," he urged, even as he started to answer the question the young man had asked. "I run that school," he said, motioning to the flier again. Not really sure what to make of the man who apparently wasn't just a teacher, Daniel carefully handed over his notepad. "Just hold it by the edges or else it'll smudge," he warned. "Oh. I just took the flier. I'm not sure," he babbled. Colt quirked a brow at the command, but he did as the young man asked. It was good, the sketch, and he looked at it with careful appreciation before handing it back. "Come to the school. Someone with skills like that, I'm sure we can find something for you to do, assuming you're interested?" he asked. He wasn't sure what he would pay an artist to do, but there was something about the way he'd been sitting there on the steps that made him want to offer. "At the very least, come on down and take a look. Can't hurt, can it?" Taking back his notepad and closing the cover on it, Daniel frowned. The man was very nice, but it took him a minute to realize what the man thought he was capable of. Not much, apparently. "Um, that's not what I can do," he said, still unsure about going to the Academy in general while thinking of the syringe he was hiding back home. "What can you do, then?" Colt asked, quirking a brow when the young man frowned. "What's your name, boy?" At this, he said nothing, merely holding out his hands as though he was begging for money. As he concentrated, a tiny version of the forest the man had just seen appeared to grow out of the palms of his hands, vibrant and alive before he blew into his hands and turned the conjured forest into illusioned dust, pouring out of his hands before disappearing altogether. "I'm Daniel. Who are you?" Colt stared at the image made tangible illusion, and he stared as it disappeared into dust. Then he looked up at the boy's face. "I'm Colt, and you can't just go showing people what you can do like that. It isn't safe." He knew this would happen when he started messing around with the idea of a school, the caring, but hell if he could back out now. "I want you in my office tomorrow morning at 9. Can you do that for me, Daniel?" He blinked at Colt. That was definitely not the reaction he was looking for, especially from someone who claimed to want to help him with his skills. "Um, sure I guess, I just have to let my boss know. Why?" "What do you do for that boss of yours?" Colt ask, his expression turning decidedly amused in the way of rich people who thought there was no barriers to their goals. He looked up at the apartment building then, remembering why he was there, and then back at the earnestly confused artist in front of him. "I like stealing talent." Now Daniel was really confused. "I work for a gaming company. In design...wait." He tilted his head as if he was trying his hardest to read the expression on Colt's face. "You're going to hire me? For what?" "Might need a designer. Might need someone can do what you just did. Might just want to help." It might be any of those things. It might be a good mood and the fact that he felt like he was finally getting to the point where he was doing something with his damn miserable existence again. "You let me think on that. You just show up. We got a deal?" Daniel chewed the corner of his lip as he looked away for a moment. This could be a good thing, him finally not having to hide who he really was. Of course, they might not be as helpful as what he had hiding upstairs. Thinking about how few people understood him anyways at his current job, he looked back. "Okay, deal." He held out his hand to shake on it. Colt shook the young man's hand, just as the driver was coming back out to report on Erin, and he nodded. "We've got a deal," he told him, and he lumbered his way back into the car, too tired to worry about testing out the wheelchair today. "Take me home," he ordered the driver, and they were gone. |