Something was off about his day at work, but he couldn't tell what it was for most of the day. For the most part, aside from some sleeping issues, Dawson was a pretty hearty and hale kind of guy, despite his rotund physique.

At first he wondered if it might be allergies, as he seemed to be getting frequent headaches while at work. But nothing came from the exploration he and a co-worker had endeavored through one afternoon on a particularly slow day: no hidden mold in the old ceiling panels, no cracks for pollen to come in aside from when the door was opened, no flowers inside or ants or any other creature that might have been the culprit. He chalked it up to just not drinking enough water and attempted to rectify his situation, but it didn't seem to go away.

Or, well, it did. But then it would come back for seemingly no reason.

On one occasion Dawson noticed that the smell of the donuts he had just baked was overwhelming, which was a first; Dawson never got nauseated off the smell of food. If anything, it usually propelled him to continue working so that he could reward himself with something from the leftovers later. What was the opposite of allergies exactly? His nose didn't seem more[/i[ open than usual or anything, and he hadn't been changing his diet. Someone joked that recovering addicts usually got an increase in their sense of smell if their particular sin needed to be snorted.

"So what is it? Ground fried chicken skin? Pixie stix?"

"Yeah yeah, shut up."

It was worse in the van. He tried not to eat in his mobile home of sorts on principle and because it made for cleaning the thing annoying, but on some days Dawson found himself unable to handle the stench: not just of food from previous lunches, but of his own body odor. It was a good thing he had joined a gym and was allowed to use the shower there, because he wasn't sure how to handle it otherwise.

(And the gym came with its own set of problems if the smell issue persisted: sweat, steal, cleaning products, deodorant, perfume for those select few who thought that was "good enough".)

But it wasn't always bad. On the times it hadn't peaked enough to cause him a migraine, Dawson found that it could sometimes be used as a party trick to busy himself at work. Yeah, Charlotte, I smell that white perch you had for lunch yesterday. I'm thinking you, Freddie, added a bit too much garlic in those noodles. God damn with the balsamic vinegar, dude, I can smell you from here. Food in particular always seemed to stand out to him, but that wasn't anything new to Dawson, who loved food and who wouldn't have been working at a bakery that at random now gave him headaches if he didn't. Sometimes he resorted to a clip over his nose and that was that.

It didn't seem so bad either way. A quirk, sure, but not a sign of things to come as far as he was concerned.