Dan Torrance (dr_sleep) wrote in spinningcompass, @ 2018-10-07 00:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | dan torrance, rawdon crawley |
Who: Dan and Rawdon
Where: Gatsby party and then who knows???
What: Fight fight fight
When: October 6th
Warning/Rating: Ghosts, Drug use and Fights
Status: Incomplete GDoc, to be continued in comments
Dan had somehow managed to go almost a full week without drinking anywhere near as much as usual. Not through choice, mind you. Jack seemed to be stopping him drinking every time he even thought about it (which was pretty fucking often, to be fair). And Bryn did let him have drinks, but he didn't get anywhere near the same sort of buzz as he usually had, no matter what or how much he was drinking. Isabel had let him have a few beers, but nowhere near enough to help. He still felt like shit in the mornings, but in a different way to a hangover. With a hangover, it was "just" pain and nausea, and the odd attack of the shakes depending on how drunk he'd actually been. But it wore off with enough painkillers or drink. Now, though, it seemed to last longer. He spent most of the day feeling like shit until he found himself back at Bryn's again and even then, it took ages to start feeling better.
And then he'd checked his weird cellphone and realized that he could actually go get a drink! Gatsby was having another party through the utterly insane door to 1922, and everyone on the station was invited, and that included one Daniel Anthony Torrance. So Dan slipped away, found the door and went through. He'd spotted a couple of other people he recognized from the station and they were heading to the party as well, so he managed to catch a cab with them. There were ghosts all along the route for some reason (car crashes? Some of them looked like soldiers, though, all trudging along the road in various states of decomposition and missing parts like limbs or bits of head or whatever, all still trying to get home) so he did his best to avoid looking at them but couldn't help it when the station people spoke to him and he’d have to lift his head to reply.
By the time the cab got to the party, he was well and truly freaked out and in desperate need of a drink.
***
Rawdon was really not the kind of man to admit easily to his emotions. He didn’t like for anyone to observe any weakness in him, and now that he had been catapulted into outer space, there were very few people he could really, truly be honest with. He’d met a lot of very pleasant, very accommodating people. Isabel seemed a kind soul, if a little odd. Shepard was a dream, someone who just seemed to understand and know him without it taking a great deal of effort. And there were plenty of others besides, good for a game or a drink and a laugh.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have anyone to talk to. Shepard had listened, she’d made him feel temporarily a little better about the whole thing. At least, the tip of the iceberg that he’d actually shared with her. But it was a constant up-and-down of emotions with him. He loved his wife, and he doubted his wife. He wished George Osbourne dead, but felt wracked with guilt that his wish had apparently been answered. That boy’s blood was on his hands, as his Captain, and by consequence he felt responsible for his widow, and his fatherless son. Silly, idiotic, when so many others in his company had died in battle. Why care about one cocky, manipulative, lying little bastard? It didn’t make any sense.
And now, apparently, he was Colonel Crawley - but he’d felt far too ashamed to even boast about his new rank with Shepard. Did it count for anything when it was only because the last colonel had been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time?
He needed a lively distraction. While 1922 was apparently a very distant past to most people on the station, to Rawdon it was still wonderfully futuristic. Almost 100 years into his own future, and it was amazing to see how much the world had changed. He’d spent the day exploring on his own, getting a little bit lost and confused, and eventually done what Gatsby had suggested and jumped into a cab.
Gatsby’s house was like a fairground. Everything was bright, colourful, loud, and Rawdon was sure that he could lose himself here. He weaved through the masses of people, giving admiring glances to the scantily clad women, and eventually finding a tower of champagne glasses. He was just looking at it, trying to understand basic physics and figure out how one was meant to take a glass without sending the whole thing crashing to the ground.
***
Dan was starting to think that the party might have been a mistake. Sure, there was plenty to drink, and he'd quickly made his way through at least three glasses of whiskey and maybe a martini or two (with olives), but the fucking Shining was back and it shouldn't have been. There had been a dead body floating in the pool when he'd walked past (Obviously their host. He'd read The Great Gatsby years ago, he knew the score), and nobody seemed to see it at all. So that meant he was seeing yet another ghost. Literary ghosts now. Fucking amazing.
Some guy at the party was sick and didn't know it. Dan had watched from the other side of one of the rooms in the mansion as the deathflies crawled all over the guy's face, some crawling into his mouth while others stood on the whites of his eyes. The man didn't notice a thing, but then again, nobody ever did except for Dan. He left the room pretty quickly after that, and went looking for something else to drink or snort or... hell, he'd take anything to try and mute the awfulness he couldn't help but see. He was half-expecting to see REDRUM written on a couple of the windows. After the dead soldiers and the deathflies, it wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest.
He finally found himself in a room where there were a load of champagne glasses all built into a tower or something, all filled with champagne. And then he noticed someone familiar, someone else who didn't really fit in with the rest of the party, so he slipped round the room to stand beside Rawdon. "Hey. This place is crazy," he said by way of greeting, the irony of him describing something as crazy not lost on him in the slightest.
***
Rawdon glanced over at the man who was addressing him, and gave him a bit of a smile. “Completely,” he agreed.
Throwing caution to the wind, he decided to reach out and pick up a couple of glasses for them - which he managed successfully, thank god. He couldn’t imagine having to explain to the host that he’d trashed the entire thing, wasted all the booze, smashed all the glasses...
He handed one over to the young gentleman as if it had been absolutely effortless. In this new context, it had taken him a moment to figure out where he recognised him from - it had been the hair that had given it away. “So, you found the alcohol eventually?” he asked rhetorically. “I’m Rawdon Crawley. We spoke... very briefly on the network.”
***
Dan took the glass with a grateful smile. Anyone providing him with alcohol was A-OK in his book. "Thanks," he muttered, while the other man spoke. "Eventually, yeah. And I'm Dan Torrance. You're the guy that was confused by whatever Bryn was saying, right?" He'd been about to knock back the entire drink, but then held the glass out towards Rawdon. "Here's to mad parties and all the alcohol you can drink," he said before tapping his glass against the other man's. And then he drained it in one easy swallow.
Each drink meant that the ghosts receded, the random thoughts appearing in his head that weren't his to start with faded away and the memories he got from other people mostly stayed with those people and didn't appear in his head like weird little home movies. Each drink pulled his brain back that little bit more from the edge of his sanity. He knew Ja- ...his dad meant well, and Bryn too, but... he didn't want to be more crazy than he probably already was. And so he would drink. And drink again. Not seeing those dead soldiers ever again was more than worth the hangover he'd have tomorrow... or the next day, depending on when he stopped drinking.
"How did you manage that without destroying the whole tower?" he asked, gesturing towards the glasses with his own empty one.
***
“Hello, Dan Torrance. Nice to meet you in person,” he told him genuinely, taking a mouthful of champagne. It was strange and fizzy, maybe it had gone off. Oh well.
“Mm, yes, that’s me. I’m very wary of building up a debt in a place where I have nowhere to run, you know?” he admitted with a low chuckle. He gave him a bit of a lop-sided grin, and clinked his glass to his. “Cheers,” he nodded, and quirked an eyebrow as he swallowed the drink in one. He gave a little shrug, and then followed suit. It might’ve tasted weird, but at least it was booze.
“Erm... luck, mostly, I think?” he told him, examining the tower again. “Just... stick to the edge, find one that doesn’t have another balancing on top... “ he told him, looking around the edge to find another for him.
****
Dan laughed a little at the comment about debt. He more than understood where Rawdon was coming from, having run away from plenty of debt in the past. There were a number of landlords and landladies that would have cursed Dan's name for a few weeks after he'd stayed with them and then vanished without paying. But paying rent meant less money for drinking. "I don't think Bryn cares much about debt or anything like that, as long as she can ask for help," he pointed out, and looked round the room.
"Don't worry about getting another. I'd rather get a whiskey," he said, when Rawdon started checking the rest of the booze tower for easy glasses. He'd rather not be at the party at all, if he was honest. There were too many people, all bumping into him as they pushed past and filling his brain with random shit. He knew to concentrate on the man beside him, though. He had plenty of practice, and soon he'd be drunk enough that it'd all fade away. "Besides, I don't want the thing to come crashing down, y'know?"
He'd seen the deathflies, though, and that usually meant that drink was not going to be enough to calm things down. Not when his horrified brain kept replaying those memories over and over for him. "Have you seen Mr Gatsby anywhere?"
***
Rawdon nodded; he’d gotten to the bottom of it eventually, after some odd talk about who he could and couldn’t be mean to on the station. He preferred it when things were black and white, so he knew where he stood. Surprise debt was never good. “Yes, we came to an understanding eventually. Literal satan, though? What’s that all about?” he asked, like he just despaired at even trying to make sense of that place anymore.
Ah, whiskey. Now there was a better idea. This so-called champagne tasted odd, it was difficult to get, and he was sure it wouldn’t do the trick as quickly as spirits would. “Yeah, that’d be a bit embarrassing,” he agreed. “Umm.. no, I’ve… actually never met the man,” he admitted. Maybe that was a bit rude, but he had extended the invite to everyone after all.
“Will we see if we can find him? Or pretend that’s what we’re doing, but we’re actually looking for the harder stuff?” he chuckled softly, glancing around, and then nodding in a random direction and taking off.
*****
"Oh yeah, the Lucifer guy. I have no idea," Dan replied with a shrug. He didn't believe in God - any gods, not just the Christian one, it was all just stories - so technically, he didn't believe in Satan either. He'd just chalked it down to the guy taking a job way too seriously.
"I've never met him either, but he invited me, so..." Another shrug, and then Rawdon was suggesting a very good plan of action. Dan grinned and followed after, trusting that Rawdon had a better idea of the layout of this place than he did.
They weaved their way through crowds of people, Dan snagging the odd drink or three as they passed people carrying trays full of glasses and then leaving the empties on handy windowsills and tables. Soon, they found themselves somewhere where everyone seemed to have a glass of whiskey in their hand. Thank fuck for that, Dan thought, and was about to look round for whoever was serving up the good stuff when he spotted the man from earlier, the one with the deathflies crawling over his face. "Whiskey," he said as he stared at the man, before looking back round at Rawdon. "Or something stronger." Please, please, let the Great Gatsby himself have a dealer on the premises. Dan needed to wipe his mind clear, and sure, the drink would do it. But it took time. He didn’t like coke, wasn’t even sure when it became regularly available or if he could get some here, but it worked, and fast.
***
“Well, you’ve got one up on me. I just tagged along on the open invitation,” he admitted, although he didn’t sound the least bit bothered by his own lack of manners. He definitely wasn’t the only one there without a formal invite.
Truthfully, Rawdon has no clue about the layout of this particular house, but he did know parties, and he knew grand estates. He knew the type of man to follow to find the good stuff. The older gentlemen, find the place where some of them would be lying back on the sofas, or have their heads down on the tables. That was it.
“Yeah,” Rawdon nodded, not really sure what the devil had gotten into Dan. He looked kind of intense, and he was watching his face as he watched the other man. What the hell was going on with him? “Looks like you could really use a drink. Dan,” he commented. He found where Gatsby kept the glasses, and then just acted like he owned the damn place. Coming from money meant that he knew how to command a room easily, act like he belonged when the truth was actually far from it.
He flitted about, making a couple of witty remarks, and agreeing about stocks and shares that he’d never even heard of before. “Yeah, that’s typical Wolfsheim, though,” he said of a man he’d never met before, but apparently that was correct, and surprisingly amusing to them. His schmoozing worked out for him, and he was very quickly handed over a generous glass of high-end whiskey to his new friend.
He gave him a conspiratorial wink, and clinked their glasses together. “I think they might be dealing in more than bootlegged booze, you know?” he told him in a low whisper, vaguely nodding in the direction of what seemed to be a more underhand sort of dealing.
***
Ha, funny. Dan always needed a drink. He didn't follow after Rawdon, because he had not been born into money, and needed time to observe and get a feel for a room before he could even begin to start bullshitting his way round it. Dan stayed over to the side of the room and let Rawdon get on with things, picking up on random thoughts about stocks and shares and this very astute young man, and was soon rewarded for his patience.
He drank a mouthful of some very good whiskey while Rawdon whispered to him, and grinned. He focused on the group that had been pointed out and let the thoughts filter through. He found that he liked what he was picking up, quite a lot. "I think you're right," Dan replied, equally quietly, "but the important question is, are you interested in doing a deal with them?" He looked back round at Rawdon after that, eyebrow raised, and took another swallow of whiskey.
***
Rawdon took a large mouthful of whiskey, and found that it had been absolutely worth every bit of bullshitting to acquire it. He could practically feel the strength of it from the first taste, and he felt the warmth of it spreading right down to his fingertips.
He stayed close to Dan as he considered his question. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve preferred to have known the gentleman they were dealing with a little more intimately before he made any transactions of that kind. However, despite appearances, there was a darkness lingering just under the surface that he was very keen to prevent from spreading any further. Damned dreams, damned memories- whatever they were.
“Mmm, depends what they’ve got I suppose,” he shrugged eventually, taking another large mouthful of the alcohol. Apparently the men involved were too far gone to care about being subtle, or these parties were the kind of place were discretion wasn’t required in the slightest, because before long they were just literally snorting up some sort of powdered drug. Why they would do that, Rawdon had absolutely no idea. Maybe they were just wasted and it seemed like a laugh. “Do you know what it is?” he asked his companion softly.
***
"Looks like cocaine," Dan said as he watched someone inhaling a hell of a lot of coke. He rubbed at his lips, then finished his whiskey. Glancing round at Rawdon again, he picked up on a brief burst of 'Is that all?' from the other man, and couldn't help but smile. "Have you had it like this before?"
He looked back at the men and walked over towards them. A brief conversation later, which involved reminding the men of his companion who was very clever and knew all about market trading, and cherry-picking facts from their addled minds, and Dan was getting business cards and fucking free samples of coke like they were in a mall or some shit and the coupon ladies were handing out free tubs of chips and dips. This was admittedly pretty damn awesome.
He dipped his finger in the powder and then rubbed it along his gums, and oh yeah, that was coke alright. Everyone else had fancy silver straws, but Dan didn't bother with anything like that. He just put some on the back of his hand, lifted it to his nose and snorted it. Nothing like scouring your brain with coke, eh?
***
Rawdon really didn’t understand why everyone was going mad for simple cocaine. It was the sort of thing he’d grab out of the medicine cabinet for his little sister when she’d cried over teething as an infant. He tilted his head to one side, looking at Dan curiously as he questioned him. “No, I don’t suppose I have,” he admitted, really not grasping how strong it might be. “Try anything once, though,” he added with a shrug.
This time it was Dan’s turn to sweet-talk, and Rawdon watched for a moment, downing his whiskey like it was a glass of water. His new friend certainly seemed to be enjoying himself, so when the gentleman in question looked to him next, Rawdon didn’t even hesitate before he was accepting a free sample for himself.
He copied Dan, putting it onto his own hand and then sniffing hard.
Whatever he had expected it to feel like, he could never have come close to imagining what it would actually do to him. The reaction was near instant, and in a flash of white his mind was blinded to anything other than pure pleasure for a moment. “Christ-” he exclaimed in surprise, gasping a little as the feeling spread through his whole body. That was no teething drop.
***
Dan laughed.
He laughed for a few reasons. He laughed at Rawdon's reaction. He laughed at the simple fact that for the first time since he'd arrived in Space, he felt good. Most of all, though, he laughed because his brain was finally quiet - his thoughts might have been going a mile a second, but they were his thoughts and they were the only ones in his mind. He didn't care about deathflies, he didn't care about ghosts, he didn't care about whoever had been worrying about their wife and their best friend, he did not care. He knew that he was going to feel pretty shit tomorrow, but for perhaps an hour, maybe even two, he would have peace and quiet in his mind. So he didn't give a fuck.
He rubbed under his nose to catch any loose powder, then rubbed that finger along his gums again, and then reached out to clap his hand on Rawdon's shoulder. "Well?"
***
When Dan laughed, Rawdon started laughing too. Now, this was exactly what he had needed, any lingering anxiety caused by his dreams or flashbacks or whatever they were, was completely obliterated by the drug. It was as if every negative emotion had just been blanked out and replaced with a mixture of numbness and ecstasy. He vaguely recalled warning Isabel against taking any more narcotics, but he felt too amazing to care whether or not he was a hypocrite now.
“Oh la, that’s incredible,” he responded, apparently a little awestruck. He took the offered business card, and if he’d lived in 1922, he’d certainly be calling that number again.
Someone topped up their glasses, and Rawdon found himself perching on the arm of a chair half-listening to the conversation. He was physically present, but he felt an almost out-of-body experience, in the nicest possible way. He sipped at his drink, just letting himself exist for the moment.
***
Gatsby really did throw the best parties, Dan thought. Free everything, amazing. He patted Rawdon on the cheek with a grin, and was delighted when he got yet more whiskey. He didn't join in the conversation because he was alone in his own head for now so he couldn't really dig through people's minds to know what to talk to them about. Ah well. He busied himself with drinking his whiskey and then went over to the windows to look out - where Rawdon was happy to sit on the arm of a chair, Dan felt the need to move about. He checked each window for about thirty seconds each, and then finally wound up back at Rawdon's side.