The Hellion (collateralshot) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-08-10 19:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, dan smith, ezio auditore da firenze |
Who: Dan and Ezio
What: Dan's Dreams are feeling generous; Ezio has a favor to ask
When: Today
Where: Dan's apartment
Rating/Warnings Fairly low
Status: Complete!
The Dreams were apparently feeling generous these days. Dan was just starting to get used to the idea of receiving these little “gifts” from his Other Life. Most of them were proving to be useful. Except for the ISZK TV. That thing was unnerving as fuck. Shortly after Garcian Smith had arrived in town, Dan had made the mistake of turning on the TV. And there on the first “channel” was Garcian’s face, taking up the entirety of the screen with what Dan could only assume was some kind of list of stats. He’d turned it off immediately and then shoved it in his closet. Nope!
So, yeah, most of the items were useful. Dan was used to waking up and finding something sitting on his little round kitchen table. It was normal now, sure. What wasn’t normal was discovering that one of the other apartments on the Double Tap’s second floor, the one directly across from Dan’s had...changed.
Dan had no idea what the hell had prompted him to go in there. It, along with the other two, had been used as storage by the previous owner (or the owner before) and Dan hadn’t ever really had the desire to go through them and empty them out. Until that morning, apparently. The door had been unlocked, which instantly had sent alarm bells blaring in Dan’s mind.
Those bells turned into claxons when he opened the door all the way and found the apartment within to have been completely cleaned out. Not only that, but the apartment itself wasn’t the mirroring image of Dan’s apartment. It was one of those rooms from his Dreams. The rooms that appeared seemingly at random in whatever location the Smiths were sent to. The Dark version of the room Harman lived in at Garcian’s Trailer House. It was dark, had no windows, a single chair off to the side and there on a stand was the damn ISZK TV Dan could have sworn he’d buried in his closet. The only thing missing was Samantha in her maid’s uniform.
So of course Dan had done the only logical thing to do when one finds that one of the rooms in the building they owned had been changed by some kind of supernatural means. He’d called Ezio to come see it for himself.
Ezio could spend all day analyzing Dan’s dreams, thinking about them and considering - but they honestly made no damn sense. It was a world on the brink of war, dark and noir and perfect for a screenplay written by Quentin Tarantino after snorting a few dozen lines of coke through a rolled up hundred-dollar bill. Trippy. That was the word he would use.
So he didn’t quite understand how a room had changed completely, but he was quite curious to see the results. The ring that shot fire had been a fun treasure (though apparently Dan gave the ring to his equally fiery wife), so whatever else the man received - it had to be that same combination of trippy and interesting as well.
Arriving at The Double Tap, he went up the stairs to where he knew Dan’s apartment was - and Ezio stepped carefully, pausing in the hallway. “Danilo? You did not get sucked into another dimension, did you?”
He hoped not. That would be tragic, and cause for Ezio cursing to the Heavens while burning down his lost friend’s bar (the best contingency plan he’d ever heard, really).
The upstairs hallway wasn’t lit particularly well. There was one bare bulb in the center that provided minimal amount of light, and there was a grime covered window at the far end. The door to Dan’s apartment was open and when Ezio called out to him, he stepped into the hall and became a silhouette in front of the window. “Nah, I’m ‘ere.”
He’d been chain smoking all morning, which was unusual even for him. Until very recently with the revelation that he was actually dead – or better put resurrected like some kind of fucked up Lazarus, Dan had taken most of his Dreams in stride. They kept throwing things at him without any sort of explanation. It wasn’t as though it was a puzzle that he needed to sit and put the pieces together to get a bigger picture and understanding. They were just “this is happening. Deal with it”. Once Dan had come to that sort of realization, he stopped feeling as though he was dropping acid every time he went to bed.
That wasn’t the case any longer. Nothing about the Dreams themselves had really changed. But, with the appearance of his gun, the water ring (currently on his finger), and now this room, Dan felt as though he was being prepared for something and it gave him a strange hollow feeling in his gut he didn’t like.
The scent of smoke, Ezio had a working nose (he had six senses, technically) so he picked up on it. That scent clung to everything - fibers and clothes, invading pores. Musky and burnt, like incinerated wood, the aroma of tobacco was distinct - it sort of made the second floor smell like a 1980s bar, and Ezio did find that more than a little uncharacteristic.
“What happened?” he asked, walking closer to see if he could get a glimpse of this mysterious room for himself. “In your dream, I mean. Anything new?”
He could understand the concern. Rearranging a room in some sort of bizarre interior design job did seem like preparation for something - but the saints forbid anything be revealed before its due time. The powers-that-be didn’t work like that, the assholes.
Dan took a long drag from his cigarette and shook his head. “We’re at ISZK Land,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving the open door and the Harman’s Room that lay just beyond. “It’s an amusement park. Kids ‘ave been dissappearin’ from there in groups. Just vanishin’ withoutta trace. These rooms,” he motioned with the lit end of his cigarette to the room in front of them, “they appear in evra location we go to. It’s…” how the hell did he explain it? “…a save point. The personality currently in charge kin go in an’ wake up the others if they aren’t already, switch out wit’ someone else, deposit harvested blood…”
Really, Dan should have been excited to have this room suddenly appear. It was the one place in any location where Smiles couldn’t get into. It was just what he said it was. A save room. If things went horribly wrong, this was where Dan, or any of the others, essentially…restarted.
Yeah, nothing weird about that.
But it wasn’t the depositing blood, or waking up the other Smiths, or the entire concept of a “save point” that appeared out of nowhere that bothered Dan. He could take all of that just like he could take everything else the dreams didn’t want to explain. It was the fact that this was a room from Garcian’s trailer house. The room Harman Smith lived in, oscillating between being catatonic when the lights were on and eloquently dolling out assignments when the lights were off. There was something about that that made Dan’s guts clench. There was something about it that was wrong.
“So it is a room where...you can restart,” Ezio surmised, and he was trying to figure out how all of this worked. It seemed like a strange out of body experience, something you’d get if you smoked peyote or did LSD. Most people’s dreams were pretty straightforward. These? Were not. “You say the personality in charge - that means that this room is like the main personality, the center, the brain of the whole...thing?”
He did not fully understand how Dan could be dreaming of himself as merely a persona and not an actual person - a part of someone’s psyche, if you will. Because he saw Dan now and he was, well, a living and talking individual. He wasn’t made up, he didn’t exist inside someone’s head - he was very real. At least to Ezio.
Venturing forth into the room cautiously, he stopped in the doorway just so he could look at what was inside. “It is so...sparse,” was his observation. “This showing up here. It will drive you crazy trying to figure out why, won’t it?”
“It gives us the chance t’ change, t’ the best Smith t’ ‘andle a situation,” Dan said. “Like if there’s a barrier that needs t’ come down, whoever’s out currently walkin’ around...say it’s me...kin go inta this room ‘ere, and...switch places wit’ KAEDE. I go in, she comes out. Dunno where the other personalities go, but we all know what needs t’ be done whenever we come out.”
Dan had a fresh cigarette and used the still smoldering butt of the first to light the second. “But, eye, mayhap it is the brains. It be the same room the ol’ man lives in at Garcian’s trailer. He be the one in charge.”
Dan ran a hand through his hair. He watched Ezio enter the room but didn’t move to follow him. The room being the brains of the operation did nothing to ease the dark feeling that was plaguing him. “Aye,” he said through a puff of smoke, “I think mayhap it already ‘as. Why donnea ye come outta there, Ezio? I be needin’ a drink an’ it’d better if’n I not be drinkin’ alone.” Even if Ezio elected to not imbibe this early in the morning, his presence would keep Dan grounded.
“The old man lives in someone else’s trailerhouse?” That was odd - what was the connection there, between them? It had to be something. Why wasn’t it, for example, the home of the old man himself if he was the one running the show? So many questions, so little answers. It all definitely seemed like a puzzle, one that couldn’t be completed yet because pieces were still missing and no matter how hard you tried, you could not shove the wrong pieces together.
Still, Ezio definitely exited the room - no need to stay in there, it was giving him the creeps same a Dan, no doubt. “A drink sounds perfect,” he said, joining Dan in the hallway. “No matter how drunk we get, we probably will not be able to figure out this mystery,” he chuckled. “But at least alcohol numbs the pain of trying to overthink it.”
Once Ezio had come out of the transformed apartment, Dan pulled the door closed behind him and locked it. He’d be just fine if he could just forget the damn thing existed. For someone with an ego as large and hardened as Dan Smith, the revelation the Dreams had given him and then punctuated with this damn room had shaken him straight to his core.
A nice stiff drink was definitely in order here. Put his thoughts right again. Christ what had this place done to him?! He was Dan Fucking Smith. The Hellion. A name whispered through criminal circles. The best at what he did. Cold as ice and one dangerous motherfucker.
Dan was not used to having his very existence taken into question. He needed something life affirming. A good fight or a good fuck. However, his options for either at this hour were extremely limited. As in non existent unless he went out looking for either, which wasn’t entirely out of the question. No...no, what he really needed was a job. A good one. One that allowed him to let loose and give absolutely no shits. None of this pussy-ass spying or thieving or covering up some cheating-ass husband’s infidelity. He needed something violent. Something that got his hands good and dirty.
Back in his own shitty apartment, Dan retrieved a bottle of whiskey from the kitchen and two mugs. He poured a generous amount of the alcohol into both and handed one to Ezio. He raised his mug “Salute,” he said before knocking the entire thing back in one go.
“Salute,” Ezio toasted right back, curling his hand around the mug’s handle and taking a drink of the whiskey. He liked the stuff because he could let it work around in his mouth and trickle down his throat - pungent, spicy, aromatic. Oaken and oh-so-powerful; he would savor this, certainly.
Or try to. Likely he’d end up consuming it like water because life events required such things as of late.
“So, besides these new questions your dreams have raised...” he started, regarding Dan curiously. Ezio couldn’t fix it, that wasn’t in his skillset, but he could be there as a friend and a solid presence. Whatever was required. “You have been well? Better than me, I hope.” At that, a wry smile.
“Well is a relative term,” Dan answered as he poured them both another round. “I still be breathin’.” Eyes raised towards his friend. “Drama still goin’ on wit’ the family?” Dan frowned a little bit. He had yet to actually meet Elijah and what he’d heard of the vampire’s family had come from Ezio, but Dan wasn’t afraid to admit that he was not a fan of the Mikaelson clan. He was Ezio’s friend and anyone who made his buddy here uncomfortable or stressed had made themselves an automatic enemy in Dan Smith.
Which was clear on Dan’s face, the dark frown and the way his brows creased his forehead. It frustrated Dan that he couldn’t really do anything about it, either, other than be a sounding board for Ezio to bounce off of when he needed to. “Yer always welcome ‘ere,” he said. “Any time ye want t’ git away from alla that shite. I got no family,” a dark grin, “so none is apt t’ show up outta the blue an’ rock the boat.”
“No family besides me, you mean,” Ezio grinned crookedly, reaching to clasp Dan’s forearm in a fond sort of hold. Well, and the wife too - but that was an odd situation, one that seemed to work for the both of them. Carolina would probably be there for Dan, if he needed her. Ezio was pretty sure of that.
And he meant it - he’d lost his biological brothers. He considered Dan to be one, even if not by blood. And it was nice to have that.
“But si, yes, always problems with them - or I should say, it is always just a lot.” A lot of Mikaelsons, a lot of drama. That seemed to be inevitable. Dan knew the whole other story, about how Ezio had gone to meet Elijah’s parents and then shit just rolled downhill from there, so no need to rehash that. He knew that more Mikaelsons were in town too, especially Klaus. The shit stirrer. “It has gotten me thinking though...”
He paused, considering how he’d say this, twisting the mug in his hands - around and around. “About what I truly want. To live my life in peace, to close old wounds, for them to finally heal. I have been thinking of finding who killed my family.”
“Aye. Brothers t’ the bone,” Dan agreed, clasping Ezio’s arm the same way. He’d been raised an only child. If his mother had had any other children, she had never shared. She would have had to have been a part of Dan’s life, first, and it had been made clear to him at an early age that she had no desire to be. Dan had long ago made his peace with that, however, there had been a few times in which he’d longed for a brother or sister. The large italian family belonging to his school friend had taken him in those nights when his father had been working the graveyard shift walking the beat. But Dan had always felt as though he was on the outside looking in; the little Irish boy from down the block. He’d envied the family and how large it was, even when his friend would complain at length about how his sisters hogged the family’s only bathroom, or how his brothers would playfully tease him. The friend never had to come home to an empty house.
Whatever it was Ezio was thinking, Dan would back his plan. That’s what brothers did. “‘Ave ye now? I think that’s a good idea, put that t’ rest once fer all.” He reached for the whiskey. “Whaddya planin’ t’ do when ye find’em?”
In those colorful memories, Ezio had hunted down the men who killed his family when he became an Assassin - he’d gotten his revenge, somewhat, but then when it came time to slay Rodrigo Borgia and right the many wrongs he’d committed, Ezio could not do it. Or actually, he chose not to - and he told the scum as much, because killing Rodrigo Borgia would not bring back his family.
Killing the ones who took their lives in this world also would not bring them back. But they could be made to pay for what they had done.
“That I do not know,” he admitted, a look of contemplation in his dark eyes. “I would need to find them first. The case is...what is it called? A cold case?” The Italian police force weren’t very effective at this - despite how much money the Auditore family had, but then again, there could have been some corruption from the inside too. “I cannot trust the local law enforcement. I would need...someone who is more willing to dig into unsavory places.”
Maybe Dan knew of someone, now that Ezio was aware what kind of circles Dan actually ran in.
Cold case. Dan despised those words. He’d had a couple of his cases turn cold on him during his previous live as a vice detective. It happened: witnesses changed their stories, turned out not to be witnesses at all, or simply vanished. Evidence could be compromised or lost. Suspects could be cleared, or there could be no suspects at all. It was maddeningly frustrating to have only half the pieces of a larger picture and not know where to even start to look for the missing pieces. He also did not blame Ezio for not trusting the Italian police. Cops were supposed to protect and serve, but that was not always the case. Corruption could rear its ugly, disgusting head anywhere.
“Getting information like that is outside my skill set,” he admitted. “What ye need is an information broker. Someone ‘o not only doesn’ mind diggin’ aroun’ in these unsavory places, but also know where t’ dig.” He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “An’ I do know a guy what I think would be able t’ do jus’ that. I’ve ‘ad ‘im do some diggin’ fer me. ‘E’s got connections I donnea. ‘Ang on a sec.”
Dan moved to his bedside table where he kept a pad of paper and a pen. He came back over to the little kitchen table, jotting down a phone number and the name “crow”. “Dunno if’n this be ‘is real name or some kinda play on’ that old norse legend about crows and ravens bein’ the eyes o’ Odin. Whichever it is, it works fer’im. ‘Asn’t let me down yet. Here,” he tore of the sheet and handed it to Ezio, “this is the number I usually kin git’im at. You’ll leave a message first lettin’ ‘im know you wanna meet. ‘E’ll contact you back wit’ the where an’ when. When ya leave yer message let’im know The Hellion sent ye. ‘E’ll take ye seriously then. An’ whatever ‘e tries to charge, tell’im I’ll cover it.”
“Grazie,” Ezio took the paper gratefully - though something was nagging at him. Crows and ravens? That sounded...oh. Right. He did recognize the name of this person after all (had just been in his apartment lamenting about his love life and drinking vermouth, even) and seeing the name made him chuckle. “I think I may already know him - though I did not know he was into...this.”
Qrow was someone who did the digging, so to speak? In unsavory places? Qrow, really? The mildly alcoholic History professor, in Ezio’s same department at the same university he taught at?
Well. Looks like they were both hiding ‘other lives.’ This would require a conversation.
“I will contact him, Danilo. You do not need to cover it, though it is kind of you to offer,” Ezio insisted. “In fact, when I do find them - I would want you to come with me.” There were not many others he would trust to do this, considering how important it was.
Dan raised a curious brow. He’d been using the man he knew only as “crow” for a while now. He’d come across him even before he’d landed in Orange County. The great thing about information these days was that it could be exchanged instantly. There was no longer a need to meet in shadowy garages decked out in trench coats and speaking in raspy hushed voices. Though that practise hadn’t entirely fallen to the wayside, with the right know-how and encryption software, just about any little slice of information could be bought and paid for with a few simple clicks.
So for as often as Dan had tapped his information broker, he’d never actually met the man (or woman) himself. Hearing Ezio say that he actually knew him was a bit of a shock. He stared at the other man, “ye know’im? ‘Ow d’ye know’im? I’ve nevra met’im once.” Then he laughed. “Christ Almighty, ye never cease t’ amaze me, ye know that?”
He was about to tell Ezio that he didn’t mind covering the costs, it was the least he could do for letting him bleed all over the man’s bathroom a month ago, when Ezio said he wanted Dan to come with him once the murderers themselves were discovered. Dan sobered instantly. He didn’t need to waste a single moment thinking about the request. “Aye, I’ll go wit’ ye, Ezio.” It did not matter to him that Ezio had not yet made up his mind about what to do about the people he found, they had time to figure that out when the time came for it. He wanted to be there for his brother, no matter what. “Ye jus’ tell me where an’ when, an’ I’m there.” No questions asked.