Danilo Parker (abandoned_) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2022-08-01 20:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | #july 2018, adrian, adrian x dan, dan |
Who: Adrian and Dan
When: midday, Wednesday, July 4
Where: medical tent, Main Street during the parade
Status: complete
Dan had already been tired when he’d shown up to work the July Fourth parade. He supposed he was entitled to be a little off his game, considering that the wife who’d abandoned him had resurfaced and invited herself to spend the night. And then cooked him breakfast in the morning like some kind of psychopath. Dan felt frazzled and distracted, but he did his best to get his shit together as he worked alongside the nurses and EMTs as they got set up through the earlier part of the morning. Dan hoped they wouldn’t be busy today, he had a lot on his mind. A bee sting or two, some heat exhaustion and dehydration, he could handle.
Luckily it had been a pretty quiet morning so far. Dan found that it was a bit of a mixed blessing, because it gave him plenty of time to worry that Tatum would come ‘visit’ him, even though he’d told her not to. Dan didn’t put it past her to cause a scene in front of his colleagues. He couldn’t sit still very well, getting up every couple of minutes to re-check their supplies or rearrange the boxes that lined the tent. He counted their bottled water and went to put more of it into the ice chest to cool.
Adrian had met so many people on his way to the medical tent that by the time he got there he was feeling a little overwhelmed. It had been so long since he celebrated The Fourth, he'd forgotten how loud it was with every service vehicle regularly blaring their sirens for show, people hollering and car horns honking. People were riled up trying to have fun and the whole attitude was so different from the day-to-day normal and so many people wanted to either say hi or goof around. It was a relief to get somewhere contained like the medical tent and he was feeling keenly how a piece of him was probably missing forever, the one that had enjoyed this stuff a lot; the noise and the commotion. Now he just wanted to go home.
The holiday pay - and getting paid at all, really - was too good to pass up though and so he braced himself to stay there a few hours and headed inside. After a brief chat with the nurse he was taking over he'd gotten the status update he needed and was good to go. There weren't many of them on duty there, he noted, but most of the staff was probably needed at the hospital more than here. "Hey," he said as he spotted the guy he was obviously going to be working with and it hit him again how he barely knew any of his co-workers anymore. Of course it had been a long time since he was a nurse there, but still.
Somewhere in all of his stressed fiddling, Dan had checked the schedule three times and knew who was working which shifts. He’d volunteered for a long one, so he would be there for most of the day as long as he wasn’t needed for a huge emergency somewhere else, and now he was pretty grateful for it. As long as Tatum stayed away, he had a little sanctuary here in the tent. Dan looked up and then stood as one of the new round of nurses greeted him, and he offered the guy a small smile. “Hey there,” Dan said, and stuck his hand out to shake. “You’re Moretti, right? Dan Parker.” It was impossible to escape a rumor mill within a hospital, even if you didn’t work within its walls all the time, so Dan had heard plenty about Adrian Moretti’s miraculous return to the land of the living. He was willing to bet half of what he’d heard wasn’t true, and while he was pretty curious, he wasn’t going to start asking a bunch of questions and make the guy feel weird.
Adrian was starting to feel like a minor celebrity in a bad way because everyone seemed to know who he was, even people he'd never seen before. He shook Dan's hand with a smile anyway and nodded. "Yeah, nice to meet you, Parker," he replied and then looked around with a wry smirk. "I see they've spared no expenses this year." It had always been a kind of an annual tradition to bitch about their work conditions, at least this year it seemed a little better than Adrian remembered. "Good to know things don't change." At least the inventory looked like it was well organized but that had more to do with the medical staff. They just had to hope the celebrations wouldn't get out of hand - or that Point Pleasant wouldn't throw another grand event at them. It was just too many people in one place and after working in a hospital, Adrian had grown less fond of those giant get-togethers.
Dan glanced around the tent and laughed a bit, giving Adrian a ‘what can you do’ type of look. Nothing, the answer was nothing. He was sure Adrian remembered just how much everyone complained about the budget all the time. “You know us, always the best of the best,” he said, nudging a leg of the flimsy folding table with the toe of his boot. It wobbled, but not enough to knock anything over. “I heard you weren’t back full time yet, but they still roped you into doing this thing? Hope you’re getting time and a half.” Dan was sure Adrian had to know he was the topic of a lot of murmured conversations, so why pretend that wasn’t the case? Nothing Dan had heard had been bad, just some of it was weird. That wasn’t so unusual for Point Pleasant.
"More like I roped them into it," Adrian said with a sheepish smile. "I'll take whatever shifts they'll throw at me right now." Would he rather be at Castle View, spending the day away from the crowds with Kane? Absolutely, but they had the weekend ahead of them and that was keeping him afloat this week. "So you weren't here when I was last here, how long you been on the job?" he asked as he looked around for things to do. There was plenty, but everyone seemed to be mulling about and taking their time getting ready anyway so he didn't actually feel rushed. He didn't recognize Dan but that didn't mean he was necessarily from out of town or anything, he was just younger and Adrian was woefully out of touch with everything Point Pleasant.
Dan shook his head to confirm that their working paths had not crossed, smiling a little. Maybe someday the pride of what he’d accomplished would wear off, but it definitely wasn’t today. “A year and a few months now,” he said. “It’s been amazing, I was washing dishes before this.” Part of him wanted to blurt out that he’d been inspired to change his life after his wife had fucked of and abandoned him, but now she was back and everything felt like a disaster again -- but that would definitely be an overshare directed at a guy he didn’t actually know yet. “I’m surprised you’ve got to fight for shifts, Mercy always seems short handed with nurses. And you’re a nurse, right?” he asked, glancing down at Adrian’s scrubs.
Dan might have stopped himself from rambling about but his initial excitement was still palpable and a little infectious, making Adrian smile as he remembered feeling something similar what felt like a lifetime ago now. "Yeah I'm a nurse," he replied. "But you know, a dead nurse so that's still being sorted." He didn't think for a second Dan didn't know that, everyone knew that and a rumor mill was a powerful thing at a hospital. "Which, by the way, is not a 'doctor assistant' in case nobody told you that already," he added to keep things light and educational. It was an annoying misconception a lot of people had, even including people he'd worked with, but he hoped Dan wasn't one of them. "And congratulations on escaping the dishes, I did my share of shitty jobs before I got my diploma."
He laughed a little at the defensive clarification, his expression giving away that he’d been told that same thing before. Dan had worked in and around Mercy long enough to know who did the real work, and for the most part it wasn’t the doctors. “Believe me, I’ve been set straight,” he said with a chuckle. “But thanks, man. It was a change I really needed to make.” Dan almost launched into his whole life story again. It was all close to the surface for obvious reasons, and he really didn’t have very many people to process through this with. Some guy he just met probably shouldn’t be one of them. “About the uh, being dead thing ... how hard is that to come back from? Probably a lot of paperwork?” He hadn’t started the process of having Tatum declared dead, but it had been a future possibility.
"So much paperwork," Adrian replied with a little laugh, glad that Dan didn't make this awkward. It was better to just blurt it out and give people a chance to then ask him questions rather than feel like they were drilling holes into his back while he was working. At least he'd always been pretty open about most things so it wasn't a big change for him. "Everything I have right now is temporary, like my driving license and stuff. I keep waiting for them to ask me to tap dance in the town hall to prove I'm really alive or something." It wasn't often that people came back after so long so he understood it wasn't exactly a common procedure but it still stung how it just seemed to drag on and on and it made him wish he could do it himself and get it done. "I don't recommend it," he added with a little smirk.
Dan gave him an easy grin, already liking this former dead man. At least he was being cool and relaxed about it all and not offended that Dan would dare to ask. He wondered how many people did dare to ask, or if they just speculated behind Adrian’s back instead. Not that Dan was going to pry into where he’d been or what happened to him -- he’d heard enough to know it had been traumatic and had left some of his friends actually dead. “I’ll do my best to avoid it,” Dan answered, chuckling faintly. He wet his lips and hesitated, then went on. “Makes me glad I didn’t ... well, my wife disappeared for three years. No word, nobody could find her. So I considered starting that process myself, maybe a few more years down the line. She’s back now though, as of last night, so that’s ... what it is.” A laugh bubbled up in his throat that felt and sounded a little weird, but Dan couldn’t really help it.
Adrian did a little face journey through all that, from baffled sympathy to baffled shock, his brows drawn together and then rising up his forehead like they were running for the hills. "Wait, she just... came back?" He couldn't fault his own family for declaring him dead, not after Cruz returned and Benito died, the tales of what had happened so gruesome that nobody was expected to survive it. But this was different, it sounded like his wife had just up and disappeared on her own, possibly simply done a runner. Though who knew, this world was so fucking weird. It slowly sank in that this had literally just happened and his eyebrows couldn't travel any farther so they just stayed up high. "She just came back... last night? Are... are you okay?"
Adrian’s shock was kind of validating for Dan, it was like a confirmation that there wasn’t something wrong with him because he hadn’t been able to just casually accept Tatum’s return like she had obviously wanted him to. Even though the situations seemed radically different, it made him want to ask Adrian how it had been when he’d come back, if everybody had just shrugged or what, but that was probably a stupid question. He gave another little laugh and shook his head while he lifted one shoulder. “Yeah ... no, not really,” he admitted. “I thought maybe she was dead, but I think it’s more like a cult situation? I dunno yet. But she just showed back up and came on in like everything’s the same ...” Dan paused and gave Adrian a sheepish and apologetic look. “Sorry, it’s not -- I know we just met. Sorry.”
Adrian was starting to think something about him made people want to open up. Kane, Toby, now Dan and yes, they'd just met but he didn't mind. It was interesting to see the other side of his situation from someone he didn't actually know and he kind of wanted to ask Dan a million questions too, maybe to figure out how he could better treat his own people now that he was back. He hadn't returned like this though, he'd only come back to save Mila's life but that also meant he'd stayed away on purpose so he couldn't really judge too hard. "Yeah, this is probably none of my business but, could she come back? I mean, cults are messed up. Is she still... Just wow." Where to start? Understanding some situations felt like trying to map the ocean floor; very overwhelming. "Did she at least say she was sorry or something?"
He was relieved that it didn’t seem like Adrian felt completely overshared-with. He probably wouldn’t have asked any questions if that was the case. “I don’t know, she just talked about this ‘family’ she found online, but not a lot of details yet,” Dan said, running over everything Tatum had said the night before in his mind for the millionth time. That part had hurt a lot, because he’d been her family, or so he’d thought. “She wasn’t hurt, didn’t seem like ... traumatized. Fucking chipper, even.” Dan barked another one of those strange laughs again, immediately wishing he would stop. Was he completely losing his shit? Maybe. He probably shouldn’t be working today, but it was the only place he could hide. “She apologized, but she didn’t mean it. I can tell. It was only after I tried to kick her back out. ... Shit, that probably makes me sound like a real asshole.”
Adrian shook his head and grasped Dan's arm momentarily, giving him a sincere look of determination. "You are not the asshole here," he told him firmly and while it wasn't up to him to give Dan advice on what to do next, he could at least tell him this with certainty. "She disappeared for three years. A sincere apology is the least she can do. The bare minimum. Plus, telling you exactly what the fuck happened." He didn't miss the fact that Dan said he'd 'tried' to kick her out so that probably meant she was still hanging out at his house, like nothing had happened. Adrian felt for the guy. No wonder he'd come in to work despite having a very good reason not to, this stupid tent was probably a sanctuary right now.
That reassurance meant a surprising amount to Dan, and his relief and gratitude showed in his face for a brief moment. Sometimes it was hard to keep a perspective on whether he was in the wrong or someone else was, or if there was just a misunderstanding. It was something he’d been working with his therapist on since Tatum had left him. He really needed to set up an emergency appointment. “Yeah,” he agreed, giving Adrian a small grateful smile. “Haven’t gotten either one yet, so ... we’ll see.” He knew Tatum would stay stubborn about owning her part of the house, her ‘right’ to stay under the same roof again, but Dan was already thinking about finding other arrangements for himself. “Right now I’m just ... fucking confused and angry and relieved she’s alive and hurt and I just dunno what. So. Tell me if I fuck something up today.”
"Hey, I got your back," Adrian reassured him and reached out to pat his arm. "You'll be fine. It's good to lose yourself in work when everything else feels like it's going to hell." He knew exactly what that was like, even if it wasn't applicable right now. If anything, he was happy now and things looked like they were heading in a good direction but it hadn't been that long since he was at the end of his tether, feeling like there was no way out. "You'll get through this," he added gently. "I promise." It felt true. If Adrian could be helped through his hell, then surely Dan could be too. Their situations might be wildly different but nothing horrible was here to last forever, it all came in waves, good and bad.
All of the sweet reassurance and instant support from a near-stranger almost choked Dan up and he reached up to give Adrian’s arm a squeeze in return. He obviously had a good bedside manner, Dan was sure his patients noticed all the time. “I appreciate it,” he murmured. Dan chuckled then and scrunched up one side of his face a bit. “Kinda feel like I should be saying the same to you, man ... you don’t have to go into details or anything, but are you doing okay?” At this point he almost didn’t know what to say about Tatum, he was just overwhelmed with a helpless, hands-in-the-air feeling. What could he do? He also didn’t want to totally dominate the conversation with his own bullshit.
"Yeah, things are pretty good now," Adrian told him with a smile. "They weren't a few months ago, in fact it was all pretty insane and hopeless back then but I bounced back." With a lot of help but he couldn't exactly go into details about witchcraft and curses without sounding like a lunatic - plus he barely knew this guy even if they'd somehow stumbled into very personal territories in their first chat. "So take it from me, you can bounce back," he concluded and realized that he would be curious about how this was going to go with Dan's mystery wife. "Maybe you should have declared her dead," he said with a wry smile. "Let her go through some of this hassle I'm dealing with." He was pretty sure it wasn't a walk in the park to get that paperwork through, his supposed death had at least been backed by some evidence.
It was reassuring to hear that Adrian was doing good and things were looking up. Dan’s crisis had just begun, and he knew it probably wouldn’t go uphill right away ... but he hoped it did eventually, somehow. “Yeah really,” he chuckled with some dark amusement. It was tempting to vow to make as many things as difficult for Tatum as possible, but he wasn’t sure they would actually have that many hurdles to overcome. As far as the bureaucrats were concerned, she’d just been on some extended vacation and she was back now, no big deal. All of the trouble was emotional. “And I hope you’re right about the bouncing ... gonna do my best. It’s just kinda jarring to have your whole life flipped upside down, for the second fucking time, you know? I mean of course you know. But I’m glad to hear things are getting better for you. Hope to see you more around work.”
"Yeah, same," Adrian replied and his mind was going a mile a minute just considering how complicated all of this had to be for Dan. He was married, if he owned the place he lived in then his wife likely owned half, had he kept all her things? Was she actually in a cult? At least he hadn't left a spouse behind and that made it all a lot less complicated, even if maybe it would have meant he'd have gotten more of his belongings back. "Don't let her rope you into some dodgy cult," he felt compelled to say. "If that's why she's back. You seem like a cool guy."
“Oh no, no way that’s happening,” Dan was quick to say, shaking his head. “I’ve been to so much therapy since she left, I can see through that manipulative bullshit.” His tone was light about the therapy, but he meant it. Nobody was immune to all forms of manipulation, of course, but Dan felt so much mentally stronger than he ever had in his life. If Tatum was there to recruit him, he wasn’t going to listen to anything she had to say. He glanced around, realizing that they’d been standing there for a while, and cleared his throat. “So uh, I was gonna put some hydration kits together,” he said a bit sheepishly. They were being paid to work, after all. There just wasn’t a lot to do with no patients. “Wanna give me a hand?”
Adrian looked around with a sheepish smile of his own. "Yeah," he said and tittered. "We can talk while we work." Of course they couldn't, not the whole shift. It was calm for the first couple of hours but then people started coming in for various reasons. He still had some time to shoot the shit with both Dan and some of the others and by the end of his shift he felt like he knew the guy a little better - which was probably a bit backwards since they spent most of the day just talking about movies and music and bad jokes whereas they'd started the day with some heavy personal details. Funny how that worked. "Hey," he said when things were winding down a little and he had time to jog over to Dan. "Let me give you my number, you know, in case you need help or something." For better or worse, he felt invested now.
By the time the day was through, Dan had decided he really liked Adrian. For one, he’d shown himself to be a good nurse, kind and patient and thorough. It had been really nice to work beside him, both when they had a patient and not. Falling into light banter and chatting about things they had in common was refreshing, and just the sort of normalcy he needed to feel centered on a day that had started pretty topsy turvy. Dan looked up from some of the paperwork he was filling out before they were released from their shift, and smiled at Adrian. “Sure man, yeah,” he said, his tone appreciative. Dan leaned to one side to pull his phone out so they could do the exchange. “We should have a beer sometime,” he added once they’d traded numbers.
If Adrian didn't already have plans, he would have suggested they go get some drinks after this shift. It was pretty clear Dan didn't really want to go home and Adrian kind of wished he had a place of his own with a couch he could invite him to sleep on. Let his bitch of a wife worry about Dan for a change. "I can't actually drink," he admitted and that fact still took some getting used to. "But I'd be happy to have a soda and watch your beer longingly while we hang out." He grinned and slipped his phone in his pocket again. "My brother-in-law co-owns the Porch with his brothers, might even get a discount." He smiled cheekily and tacked on a playful, "Because he loves me."
“Oh,” Dan murmured, immediately assuming that Adrian was in addiction recovery of some kind. It was just something he saw so often in his line of work, quite often the sad aftermath of a relapse. But Adrian seemed casual about it and like he still wanted to hang out, which was nice. He laughed a little at the last part, his brows lifting. He went to the Porch regularly enough, especially since Tatum disappeared, and he’d heard as much about the Lucas brothers as anybody else in town. He definitely couldn’t see one of them being related to the guy he’d just gotten to know, but families could be complex, so he didn’t say anything about it. “Hey, discounted beer tastes even better,” he said with a chuckle. “Count me in, just shoot me a text whenever, man.”
"Discounted everything is better when you're broke," Adrian tittered and he'd gotten by with a five-finger-discount for a long time before coming back home. Sometimes it was tempting to slip back into the habit but he'd made a promise to himself to only steal things when he desperately needed them and right now he was being taken care of. "And same, man.Hit me up whenever. We can hang." He felt pretty good about this, Dan felt like someone he might become friends with and they'd had a few laughs on this shift. It wasn't often he had great chemistry with a co-worker and he was enjoying it. Maybe making a friend who was going through hell right now wasn't a good move for someone trying to get back on his feet but Adrian wasn't going to let that get in the way of potential friendship. He grinned at Dan before darting off to greet a woozy looking teenager coming into the tent, hopefully the last person he'd have to deal with tonight since everything was winding down outside and the crowds were starting to scatter.