Who: Dan and Jack Where: Their apartment What: Dan is younger. And drunk. When: October 1st, Morning Rating: G for gross (hangovers are not fun) Status: GDoc/Comments/Complete!
Dan woke up, and knew it was a mistake instantly. The lights weren't on, so it wasn't his usual eye-stabbing kind of hangover. Not yet. He was just aware that everything seemed... wrong, somehow. Groaning, he tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but the movement set his headache off and then there were ice-picks attacking his brain. It annoyed his stomach as well, which was full of beer, whiskey and all kinds of crap that he'd eaten in between drinks. Once he realized that, he realized a couple of other things as well. Firstly, he'd gone to bed with someone, but they weren't there anymore, and secondly, he was going to be sick.
He somehow got out of bed, and then headed towards where he assumed the door would be. Easier said than done when it was dark, you were hungover, trying not to be sick, and also still pretty fucking drunk. Naturally, he walked into a wall with a thud and a bitten-off string of swearing. Still, he could follow the wall round to the door now.
A door slid open as he approached, and the lights turned on in both rooms. There was the familiar eye-stabbing he was used to. "Fucking hell," he ground out, as the throbbing in his head ramped up and the need to vomit became even more urgent. But luckily, the new room was a bathroom. Dan ignored the brightness and darted inside quickly just as his stomach gave up the fight, and he spent the next few minutes on his knees being sick into the toilet (thank fuck).
After that, he slumped back against the wall and hissed at how cold it was until he realized that it felt pretty good against his aching head. He spent the next little while trying to work out where he was and what was going on. His name? Daniel Anthony Torrance. Age? 25. Location? ...pass. Date? ...also pass. 1998, but beyond that... pass. What had he been doing last night? Fuck knows. But he'd already discovered a new bruise on his cheek, and his knuckles were skinned, and he had a massive bruise coming in on his left arm and left side. Drinking and fighting. Of course.
He pushed himself back to his feet once he was mostly certain he was done puking, and spotted a mirror above the sink. Shoving his hair back from his face, he leaned in closer to look at the bruise on his cheek, and discovered a cut across the bridge of his nose as well. Fantastic. "No more drinking, Dan," he told himself, before fighting with the weird sink for a few minutes before finally getting cold water to rinse his mouth out and carefully wash his face. Then he stumbled out into the bedroom again to look for his clothes. Get dressed, get another drink, work things out when he didn't feel like dying would be the far better option. Yeah. Plan.
He pulled his jeans and his boxers on once he found them, but couldn’t find anything to put on his feet. Hopefully, his Reeboks were out in the living room. He grabbed a tee-shirt from the top of the folded-up pile on a chair - he was cold, and he didn’t think the person he’d come home with last night would mind him borrowing the shirt until he found his own - and pulled it on carefully as he ran his hand along the wall again to see if that would open the other door in this room. Somehow it did, so he went out into the living room to look for his shoes or some painkillers or more beer (or hopefully something stronger).
***
Jack had been up for hours, having been bit by about three muses at about three in the morning. His story boards lay over more than one flat surface. He didn’t so much look up really when Dan’s door opened. “Sorry kiddo, I didn’t realize what time it was, give me one second and I’ll clean this up. There’s plenty of coffee in the kitchen. And a few different pastries in case you’re hungry too.”
He was finishing up writing down on a index card. When he was done he grinned with a little ah hah. Before he tacked it into a place he’d already made on the corkboards. “I tell you, this place has been amazing. I wake up in the middle of the night with something in my head, and it’s so strong that it demands to be written down. If I’d known traveling into Star Trek was the key to writing gold I would have done it years ago.” He joked. He had at least three stories started. And only one of them was erotica.
He looked up finally and his eyes instantly widened. “Dan? What the hell happened?”
***
Dan scrubbed carefully at his eyes as he watched a man scribbling stuff down before pinning it onto a corkboard. The name of the girl he'd gone back with last night appeared in his head as he stood there; Charlie, with long dark curls and legs that went on forever. Shit, was this her dad? And he hadn't remembered her apartment looking like this, he realized. He glanced back into the bedroom while the man was talking about Star Trek and then looked back round just as the man looked up at him.
He could almost feel the blood drain from his face as everything spun around him, and he grabbed hold of the wall. All the times he'd seen ghosts, all the thousands of visits and visions and stupid shitty double dreams and, and everything, so why did his dad choose now to appear?
"This's... I'm dreaming. You're a dream, you're not here," he said, and shut his eyes. Close your eyes, count to ten, and when you open them, the ghosts are gone. Except he only got to four before he opened his eyes again and the man who looked like his dad (but older) was still there.
***
He watched as the blood drained out of his son’s face, and he stepped forward closing the gap in long heavy strides, in case he fainted, or threw up. But he didn’t put his hands on him. He was just within reach, just in case.
“Doc, you’re scaring me. This isn’t a dream, I’m here. But give me a hint, are things going swirly, or green, because I gotta know which way to go, here, pal.” Jack figured either way was back into his room, but having to stop or make a mad dash was a big difference. And he wasn’t the spry young man he used to be.
***
"Don't call me that, don't, just... please," Dan muttered as he stepped back, but he wasn't quite clear of the doorway; when his shoulder hit the doorframe he sort-of spun round into the bedroom without meaning to and the sudden movement made his stomach lurch once more. He tried to get to the bathroom, but his ability to walk in anything even resembling a straight line was currently very broken and he veered way off course as he tried to get away from his dad’s ghost.
Bumping into the wall, he followed it round again to the door into the bathroom and thankfully made it to the toilet before his stomach tried to empty itself yet again. He didn't get up. His arms were folded across the back of the toilet seat and he just let his aching head rest on them, wishing he was dead for possibly the millionth time.
***
“Alright, I won’t call you that.” He couldn’t help the sad note in his voice. What the hell had happened? One minute he had his semi happy adult son, the next the same son was maybe twenty years younger. But how was that possible? It couldn’t be, or logically it couldn’t be. But this place didn’t run on a whole lot of logic.
Jack followed him into the bathroom, wetting a cloth as Danny lost his stomach contents. Or what had been there. He crossed over and rested the cold wet rag against his neck, after moving some of his hair. “So….” He trailed off not knowing what else to say. “Do they have any 7up in this place?” Wasn’t that what Wendy had used whenever they had an upset stomach?
***
He froze at the touch on his neck (not that he was moving all that much to begin with), and braced himself for yet another Overlook Ghost trying to choke him. But... nothing happened other than something wet and cold being set there. His drunk brain helpfully suggested all kinds of things that it could be (squishy bits left over from beating someone to death with a roque mallet, or a bit of a brain, or someone's innards, or...) so Dan just kinda rolled off the toilet, and slumped on the floor, his back against the wall. No intestines or brain meat landed beside him, just a damp cloth. Huh. Nothing continued to happen other than a request for 7up. What the fuck.
"You," and he pointed vaguely in the direction of the ghost of his dad, "are dead. Or a dream. And I... m'not nearly drunk enough for this yet."
***
“Actually I’m not dead. Or a dream. I’m ... Well just try to put me in one of your lockboxes. If you aren’t drunk enough.” He felt partially responsible for that bit. The rest he lay at the Overlook’s door. He wondered if this would count against his sobriety. But decided not to question it just now. This vague unexplained weirdness that made his son so much younger.
He took a breath and knelt down, Jack was sure he’d regret doing that before to long. He didn’t like that Danny wasn’t looking at him. But he awaited the verdict. Was he dead, or not.
***
Lockboxes. Yeah, okay... wait. How did he know? Still, Dan pulled one together in his mind as he ignored the spikes of pain from his hangover, put it in roughly the right place and shoved. Nothing happened. He pushed himself up so that he was at least sitting upright, then tried again and again, but still nothing. Either he was too drunk, or that wasn't a ghost in front of him.
He eventually peered out through his hair at the man kneeling in front of him, and then reached over with a shaking hand and poked at his leg a couple of times before putting his hand flat against it. The older man didn't look dead. He wasn't decomposing or leaving bits of himself behind, and he didn't smell bad. He didn't look like he'd been blown up (all Dan's other ghostly visitors looked how they'd looked when they died, after all) and he wasn't cold or slimy to touch or moldy or anything like that. This guy was warm to touch and solid and wasn't trying to kill him.
What the fuck was going on?
"What the fuck," he muttered to himself as he brought his hand back and shoved his hair away from his face to look at the man who looked like his memories of his dad (only older), and then said "You’re not a ghost, and I hurt too much to be asleep. Fuck, I need a drink."
***
Jack sat back on his haunches, waiting. Watching and waiting. He almost knew Danny’s face by memory, making those boxes. It was something he knew he would never forget. And this one had done it all on his own. And discovered a way to lock away the ghosts and shadows. He’d only wished he’d learned such a thing thirty years ago, so his boy didn’t have to go through all of this. But he didn’t have much of the Shine. Just enough to pass it on.
A little smile tasted his lips when Danny finally reached over and poked his leg, then laid his hand on it. But that smile didn’t last. It turned sad the minute he stated he needed a drink. How often had he had those very same feelings. He still did even thirty years later.
“I know that feeling. How about some eggs and toast instead? Or does just talking about it make you want to....” He looked back over at the toilet. Knowing that the minute Danny found out that he was in space that he’d want the drink even more. Hadn’t he?
***
His stomach roiled at the mention of food, and the feeling showed on his face. "No... no food." Painkillers would be good, something like vicodin or fioricet or percocet or, fuck, he'd take anything right now. He'd check through this bathroom later in case whoever owned it had some stashed away. "Did, uhm," he said, and wiped at his mouth with a still-shaking hand,"You. Uh. Did you say coffee earlier?"
He didn't move, though. For one thing, he was in a really awkward position and it was going to be hard to clamber out of it, and for another, he was too busy watching the man in front of him. Now that he'd actually looked at him, he couldn't stop. Was it really his dad? Really? "Tell me your name. Full name."
***
“I did say coffee earlier.” He could tell by the shade of green he went that food was out of the question. With a soft groan, yes he did regret getting down there on his knees. He stood bent over with his legs straight for just a second.
“John Daniel Torrance, other wise known as Jack. And your full name is Daniel Anthony Torrance.” He figured he’d cover all the bases. Or, most of them. He didn’t cover Wendy because that seemed like it would be too fresh, he knew Dan wasn’t so lucky to have her fight and win her battle with cancer.
***
Dan just stared up at Jack. "How..." he managed to ask, pulling his legs up to hug them close instead of sprawling all over the floor like he'd been sleeping there or something. None of this made sense and his head ached and he still felt like shit. "You. You're... you died, twenty years ago. How're you here in..."
He trailed off after that and looked around, eyes wide and more than a bit wild. "This isn't Charlie's place," he said, suddenly certain of this fact. "Where's Charlie? Where'd she go? Where'm I?" He struggled to push himself up off the floor as he spoke, and held onto the sink once he was mostly upright. "Where am I, and how're you here?"
***
Jack shucked in a breath. Ready to explain without explaining too much, but Danny suddenly changed and stood fully, carefully putting his hands out. “I don’t know any Charlie, so I don’t know where she went. But we’re in your apartment. Kinda far away from anywhere you were living. And you aren’t going to believe me when I tell you, so you’re just going to have to see it.”
The windows. It would be enough to maybe get him off of how he was here. Weeks and he still had trouble processing it. How did he explain something he didn’t exactly understand? He’d just been happy to spend time with Dan. Happy to learn about the man he’d become. Become all on his own.
***
"Bullshit," he spat out, "I don't have an apartment." Might not even have a room much longer, given how he'd drank the last of his money last night and rent was due in two days time. Maybe it was time to move on from Atlanta anyway. Except Jack was still talking so he made himself listen. "We're not in... in Atlanta?"
And what did he have to see? Ooooh shit. Was he dead? Was that it? He buried both hands in his hair and looked around after he'd slumped back against the wall. Was this where people went when they passed on? Not this weird bathroom specifically, but little apartments like this? Really? "I can't be dead... wouldn't be hungover this bad..." he said to himself as he kept looking round, then looked at Jack. "I still need a drink. So I can't be dead... right?"
There was no way he’d have gotten quite that lucky.
***
“We’re not in Atlanta.” Jack confirmed he held his hand out to his son, just in case. Just in case that drunken stumbling turned into him taking a header into the floor. “Though I hear they do have a great airport.” He joked.
But then there was the question if he was dead. Hadn’t he asked that same thing everything something really weird happened? Still, the question made a part of him ache. “There’s no alcohol in the apartment, so all I have is water, some weirdly good colored drinks, and coffee. There’s Coke too.” Because he’d given up smoking when Wendy had gotten sick. There was always a vice for a vice. And Bryn was an absolute angel. “And you’re not dead. But you’ve got to see Do-” He cut himself off. Going for the nickname before he realized it. “Dan.” And corrected himself.
***
They weren't in Atlanta. Why weren't they there any more? And what did the airport have to do with anything? "This isn't a plane..." he said hesitantly, not quite sure what the hell was going on.
But then Jack (he couldn't make himself think of the man as his dad just yet) mentioned coffee again. "Coffee's good. Uhm... Are there any painkillers? I got a hangover that'd stop a fucking elephant in its tracks. No going to see anything until I get coffee."
***
Jack chuckled softly. “No, it isn’t a plane. Or not one I could afford and stay afloat.” He didn’t think there was any plane that had separate quarters even for the richest man. He was fine with business class.
“Yeah, I’m almost sixty. Got old joints that scream sometimes.” He had made sure he had some aspirin. “Need a hand? Or an elbow? I’d offer a piggyback ride but my back would hate me afterward.” He could raise the shade in the living room. But after coffee.
***
Jack laughed, and Dan was instantly hit with an old memory from long ago, of him and his mom and dad having dinner, his dad laughing at something his mom had said to him and little him smiling because he could feel how they were loving each other, and he had to blink hard. He'd missed whatever Jack had said, but that didn't matter.
Dan managed a nod - any more would make his head fall off or implode or something - and then reached out very cautiously towards Jack. His fingers brushed against Jack's arm, then jerked back as if they'd been burned. The second attempt was better, and he caught hold of Jack's upper arm with a very shaky hand.