InsaneJournal

Who: Dan and Liv
What: Liv has a jealous brain
When: Recently
Where: The Double Tap
Rating/Warnings Pretty low
Status: Complete!



The past few weeks Liv had been happier than she had ever been. Dan had been willing to risk becoming a zombie just to be with her. Luckily the zombiesm hadn’t transferred over and Dan was still himself. Honestly, it was a relief for Liv. As much as she wanted to be with Dan she didn’t want to be responsible for making him a zombie. At least it was a relief. Now things were different.

Liv couldn’t help herself from getting jealous. Even knowing her and Dan could now be together freely she wondered if he would find someone else. Someone who wasn’t a zombie. He wouldn’t have to put up with an annoying diet, or personality changes anymore. Which was precisely why Liv found herself in the back of Dan’s bar. Her platinum blonde hair was tucked under a hat, hell she had even put makeup on her usually pale face to give her more color. If that wasn’t enough Liv brought in a newspaper pretending to read it while she was really watching Dan… Because that wasn’t obvious at all.

There was a woman up at the bar who Dan kept giving his attention too. She was pretty too. Not pale like Liv. And of course Liv remembered the first time she flirted with Dan. Yes she had already known him before that night at the bar, but the first time she came to the Double Tap they had really connected. What if he was doing it with this girl now?

Liv remained in her position, watching Dan and the woman. It wasn’t until her fourth refill that the zombie got up making her way over to her boyfriend and his new little friend. “What the hell, Dan?!” she demanded clearly upset and offended, ever though Dan himself had done nothing wrong.

Dan had been aware of Liv in her disguise at the back of his bar. It was his bar after all. His place of business. He always knew what was going on inside of it. It was helped keep him in business and the riff-raff that came looking for trouble rather than drinks out. He’d left Liv alone, assuming she was on some new brain that insisted she wear a hat and “read” a newspaper. Perhaps a detective noir brain? For the time being, Dan was willing to let her be and not draw attention to the newest personality quirk. The bar was exceptionally busy that evening and Dan had a lot of thirsty customers that needed his attention.

Including the attractive young woman who had ordered shots for her and her two friends. Dan had just opened up her tab when Liv suddenly appeared out of nowhere clearly extremely upset. The poor girl who had ordered the shots was so startled she nearly spilled one of them. Wide eyes stared at Liv then back at Dan.

Dan didn’t blame her, Liv had nearly scared the bejeezus out of him too. He stared at her, clearly confused before turning his attention back to his customer. “S’alright,” he nodded at her and gestured to the table were her two friends were watching now with interest. The girl nodded, and after casting a weary look at the scary blond woman made her way back to her table.

Dan grimaced and looked back at Liv. “What’s wrong?” He asked, brows furrowed tightly together. “What happened?”

What the hell? Why was Dan so worried about that other girl? Taking care of her first. Liv was supposed to be his girlfriend. Shouldn’t he comfort her before anyone else? In Liv’s twisted mind it was just further proof that she wasn’t what Dan wanted anymore. He wanted a pretty human.

“What’s wrong?” Liv shot back. How could he even be asking her that? “What’s wrong?!” There was a part of Liv, in the back of her mind that knew she was being crazy. Insane even. Dan loved her. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was over it. That he was going to move on to someone with less complications. And the little exchange she had just witnessed seemed like he already was. “How could you?”

Dan was utterly confused and that confusion was clear on his face. “What did I do?” He asked. He quickly ran through a mental list of everything he’d done that evening and he couldn’t think of anything that would have set Liv off. She had never yelled at him before. Even when he’d told her about his other job, she hadn’t yelled. She had been thrilled, no, but she hadn’t yelled at him. Now Dan was even more confused. “I donnea understand. Tell me what’s gotten you so upset.”

Rationally Liv knew the fact that Dan had no idea what he did wrong, meant that he really hadn’t done anything wrong. This was just her diet taking over, as usual. But Liv couldn’t seem to calm herself down. Hell, it was all she could do to keep herself going into full on zombie mode. Especially when she looked back at the woman Dan had just been talking to and was reminded of just how beautiful she was.

“You were flirting with her!” Liv snapped not caring that the woman and her friends were still watching her and Dan. In fact she barely even noticed. “How could you?!” Liv repeated again only seeming to get more upset by the second. “I thought you loved me.”

Ok, so Liv was definitely not on a film noir brain. She was on...jealousy brain? Whas that a thing? Well, people got jealous, so it was plausible that eventually a jealousy trait would dominate over everything else. Dan was honestly surprised something like this hadn’t happened before.

He stared at her a moment utterly speechless. Then he had to keep from laughing. That would have only made things worse. Besides, it wasn’t fair to laugh. This wasn’t Liv’s fault. “I do love you,” he reached to take her hand, the only way he could think of to prove to her that he was telling the truth. “I wasn’t flirtin’. That woman is a customer, just like everyone else in here.”

And speaking of everyone else in the bar, a few people were starting to stare. The woman and her friends looked incredibly uncomfortable as they watched the little drama taking place. Dan glanced around. It was probably best to get Liv out of the bar and away from nosy on-lookers. “Let’s get outta here for a while,” he offered. He motioned to the part-timer he’d asked to help him man the place that night. It would be best to let him take over for a while so Dan could calm Liv down in privacy.

Dan’s words did manage to calm her down some. But she still wasn’t totally convinced. That irrational part of her was still convinced Dan was going to leave her for someone else. And that could just be a customer. So the fact that he was pointing that out didn’t help matters too much. Still Liv allowed him to lead her out of the bar.

“What?” Liv asked once they were away from his ‘customers.’ “Didn’t want that girl to know you already have a girlfriend?”

Dan refused to allow himself to get ruffled by Liv’s accusations. He knew how much he loved her and he knew she did as well. She was under the influence of a very jealous brain and that wasn’t her fault. “Nah, darlin,” Dan said with a soft smile. “Ye made that pretty clear in the bar. But, bein’ in there seemed to really upset you, so I figured we’d come outside an’ take a walk so you kin tell me what’s bothering you an’ we kin work it out.” Hopefully, they could work it out, though Dan wasn’t sure if this was the type of thing that could be worked out, or if they just had to wait for the brain’s influence to lessen it’s hold. He hoped it was the former, because three more weeks of this was going to be very hard on the both of them.

He offered her his hand. “C’mone, darlin’, let’s take a walk.”

Liv held onto Dan’s hand as they started their walk. She knew this wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t really done anything wrong. She was just being irrational. But no matter how good Dan was handling the situation, no matter how sweet he was to her she still couldn’t seem to fully calm down.

“Why?” Liv asked as they walked. “Why are you doing this?” she wasn’t yelling anymore. She wasn’t even referring to what he had done in the bar. She didn’t understand why he was being so understanding when she was being so crazy.

Dan was confused again. He glanced at her, that confusion, once again, playing across his face. “Why am I doin’ what?” He asked. “Why am I takin’ care of me customers or why am I walkin’ with you right now?” Well both questions were easy enough to answer. “I’m takin’ care o’ me customers because that’s me job. Upset customers means bad business and bad business means I’m out on me arse. As fer why I’m out walkin’ with you,” he gave her hand a gentle squeeze as they walked. “I know this isn’t yer fault. Am I happy that ye scared the crap outta me customer? No I am not. I’m actually rather annoyed. But I know you, Liv. This isn’t the real you. So I’m not annoyed at you so much as I’m annoyed at whatever brain ye ate that made ye this way. So, I figure, I could be annoyed in the bar an ‘ave you yell at everyone, or we take a walk and suss this out a bit. That make sense?”

Liv was still pissed that he had been worried about his pretty little customer before her, but she pushed that aside for now. There were more important issues to discuss. Something that Dan didn’t seem to understand. “No,” she replied as they walked. “This is me. Yes, it’s brought on but what I ate. But each brain, it becomes apart of me. So if you’re annoyed with this brain. Of me on this brain,” upset or not she remembered to keep her voice low at each mention of what she ate. “You’re annoyed with me.”

Dan was quite a moment as he considered this. Liv raised a good point, but then again, he’d seen her on several different brains since the time they had first met. He had no idea if what she said was true, if each brain she consumed did become a part of her. All he knew for certain was that she wasn’t still the hopeless romantic, or teenaged, or religious or stoned person she had been when she’d been on each of those brains either. Sure, they may have still been there, but not to the obvious extend they had been originally. “Alright,” he ceded, “than I am annoyed with you. But, that doesn’t stop me from lovin’ you.” He adjusted his hand in hers so that their fingers intertwined. “So, we’ll figure this out. We’ve been through worse.”

It wasn’t in the way Dan was thinking. Each brain was only part of her for as long as she ate it. Then it was on to the next personality. But right now this was her. What she ate, it became who she was. Dan was handling it pretty well. Better than Major ever did in the dreams at least. But he still wasn’t happy with her. And that hurt. More than Liv was willing to admit.

“Yeah,” she finally agreed. “We’ve been through worse.” Like Dan dying. Nothing was worse than that. They could get through this brain. Liv tried to convince herself of that, but the image of Dan just talking to that woman kept flashing through her mind. “I don’t want to annoy you,” she added after a moment. “But I don’t know if I can handle seeing you talk to other women.” Especially if what happened earlier was any indication. “I don’t… I can’t stop myself.”

Dan talking with other women was unavoidable. He was a bar owner, talking with the patrons was part of his job. And a part he really enjoyed. He thought maybe he could avoid his female patrons, but that didn’t seem like a particularly good idea. People might have started to get the wrong idea about him and The Double Tap. Dan could survive a few nights with the bar closed, but losing his business because he was suddenly snubbing half of his customers? Not good at all. But maybe there was another way. His part-timer had been asking for more hours recently. Originally Dan had hired him to watch the place a couple of nights a week while he had worked his other job. Now that he was retired (again), Dan really didn’t have a reason to keep the poor kid, but it’d felt like a real dick move to fire him. Especially since The Double Tap was doing so well. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to give the part-timer what he was asking for. Dan wasn’t thrilled with it, he really loved bar tending, but if it kept Liv from going insane, it was worth it. Besides, it’d only be for a few weeks. Hopefully.

“I cannea not talk to me customers, Liv,” Dan told her honestly. “A possible solution is t’ have Phil take a few more nights a week till this brain lets loose. He’s workin two nights a week now, I can bump that up to three or four. I still need t’ be there Friday an’ Saturday nights, they’re our busiest o’ the week an’ poor Phil’s nowhere near ready fer that. What d’ye think?”

Liv softened, her heart swelled. The fact that Dan would offer to do that, just because he didn’t want to upset her on this brain, it was further proof of just how much he loved her. She knew she was stupid to doubt it. Dan had been willing to risk being a zombie just to be with her. If that wasn’t true love, she didn’t know what was. She could fight this brain. For Dan. He deserved at least that much.

“No,” Liv finally said after considering his offer. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll just stay away.” Even saying that she knew it would be almost impossible. Every part of her wanted to keep a close eye on Dan. But she would fight it. “I’m not going to let you change your life more me anymore than you already have.”

Dan tilted his head slightly. He hadn’t expected that kind of reaction. In fact, given how obsessive this brain seemed to be, he expected her to fight him on being at the bar on its busiest nights of the week. But she didn’t. She wasn’t. She really did trust him after all.

Dan smiled at her before leaning in to kiss her gently, but not chastly. “Alright, darlin,” he said softly. “I trust ye.” He gave her hand another squeeze.