nightlogs | Comfort In; Dump Out

Entry tags:

Comfort In; Dump Out

Who: Stacia and Dan
What: Giving and receiving emotional support while grappling with trauma.
Where: Dan's room at the Pole
When: Not too long after Halloween, specifically after Dan and Stacia's encounters with Elle.
Warnings/Notes: Discussion of trauma and dismemberment

Stacia's nerves are jangling like a box of silverware being thrown down a flight of stairs. She keeps grinding her teeth and flexing her fingers and she wants to bite something over and over again until it stops moving. She's broken into a sprint several times, in her shoes, in her bare feet, and with paws; but none of those have helped her shake this feeling. Though to be fair, she hadn't expected it to help. She'd tried to run from the trauma when it happened and she hadn't been able to do it then either. Because she hadn't had -- no, shut up, shut up, shut up! Brain! Shut up!

Yeah, this isn't something she's going to be able to shake on her own. She's not a creature who finds comfort in being solitary. This situation calls for cuddles.

It doesn't take her long to reach Dan's room after she's reached that conclusion. She hopes he's awake, and not engaged in any canoodling. She'd feel bad for waking him up, or cock-blocking him.

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Dan was just telling himself he had to get out of this rut. He was sitting in bed, playing solitaire and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle like a lowlife, trying to rack his brain for some way to get himself back in order. He's ridden Concrete Blonde until his body couldn't take it anymore. He'd go on a mission, but Bunny's current work has taken him up Everest, and that's no place for Dan to follow him. He's carved and sewn in the workshop so much that his fingers are wrapped in bandages from errant cuts or needle-stabs.

Whenever he sees someone he's close to get hurt, it's like everything he's been trying to ignore surges back up to the surface and gets mixed in. Elle's hurt, and now when he closes his eyes he sees her dead, or he sees her with her limbs missing entirely like Stacia, or he sees Stacia dead, or he sees his sisters, or he sees his daughter, all blended together in an anachronistic agitation, and he keeps having to remember that he's here and now. Images just flash across his mind unbidden. He hears sounds and nearly jumps out of his skin. He knows he'll calm down eventually, but in the moment, it's hard to remember that time passes at all.

It feels like he's always getting triggered by something these days, and then he has to spend a week getting his feet back under him, and then they get swept out again. It never feels like he gets to just breathe. Even doing so much better than he was a few years ago, he feels like he's always in a state of anxiety and having to talk himself down, having to proactively calm himself, having to deal instead of just live.

He can't tell Elle this, obviously. He doesn't want to tell Bunny, either, especially going into the rough part of the year where he's already feeling guilty for demanding Bunny's emotional support. And there's no one else he feels he can share this with without putting demands on them, except perhaps Price, and that comes with its own set of problems.

But he's happy to see Stacia. He almost always is, now that he's forced his way through feeling so worried about closeness with her. So he opens the door wide for her to enter, stepping a bit to hide the open alcohol bottle, although he's sure she can smell it in the room. "Hey, you. You okay?"

He can tell immediately she isn't.

"Hi Dan." Stacia smiles a little, because Dan is awake and alert and giving her his undivided attention; which means she is making progress toward her goal of feeling less awful.

"Short version is that I was nosy and it bit me in the ass this time." She takes a deep breath and lets it out, less a sigh than a way of centering herself. Words, not growls. "So my brain is going a million miles an hour and my skin feels too small, and I could use a hug and some company until I feel like myself again. If you're free?"

She's confident that he'd make himself free for this, even if he were busy. But it's respectful to acknowledge that she's asking for his time, and respect is one of many things that make relationships work.

"Oh, I know that feeling." He gestures for her to come in, then opens his arms for her. His room with Bunny has a window, but it's night outside, like it is most of the time at the Pole in winter. Dan seems to have not done any decorating, as if this, like the car he used to live in, still feels like a temporary situation. His clothing has stayed in a duffel bag the entire time he's been here. "You don't even need to ask me for a hug."

He already suspects he knows what's rattled her; after all, Stacia and Elle know each other fairly well, sharing the same world.

"You can stay as long as you like. I might could use the company too. I got cards. I got candy. You could teach me how to use my phone to watch a Tic-Tac or whatever the kids do."

She all but launches herself into his arms as soon as they open for her, ducking down a little so that she can mash her face against his shoulder. Dan's not that much taller than she is, but he's tall enough that it's not too awkward to be worth it. She winds her arms around his rib cage and does her very best impression of a barnacle or a limpet or one of those other creatures has to be separated from their object of attachment with some kind of tool. Stacia now resides in Dan's personal space, and he's not getting loose until either she feels better or one of them has to pee.

...Which means she should steer him away from TikTok or else they're never going to get his addiction-prone ass out of the content mines.

"Company, cards, and candy sounds great," she says, slightly muffled against his shoulder.

Dan's hugs have always been warm and tight, but he never makes it feel like he's trying to trap the person with him. He lets Stacia cling to him as long as she likes, and when she's loosened her grip he guides them to sit on the edge of the bed together, disturbing the stacks of his solitaire game when the blanket tugs slightly.

"Alright, well, do the werewolves in your world have their own version of Rat Screw? I can teach you what the ones in mine have." Once they're playing cards, he'll ask if she wants to talk about it.

It takes a couple minutes before she loosens her grip, but she does eventually relax. It's hard to hang on to all of your tension and stress when you don't want it anyway and you're getting a really good hug.

"If there's a werewolf-specific Rat Screw in my world, no one has told me about it and I shall be cross with them," she says grandly, settling onto the edge of the bed. Though she pets the rat shifters have a version of it. "Show me, show me."

Dan hops up onto the bed and folds his legs like a teenage girl about to do her homework. He scoops up his cards in one elegant gesture - the fact that he's had several stints of employment as a dealer in Reno and Vegas is obvious in how the cards seem like an extension of his fingertips - and deals into two piles, one for each of them.

"Alright, the goal is the same as the usual, getting all the cards for yourself. We each lay down one card at a time, alternating, and if you see certain patterns you slap and claim the cards in the pile. You can claim on any chain of seven and four, since the moon cycles every twenty-eight days - so seven and seven, seven and four, four and four, four and seven - and if you slap without one of those pairs you give your opponent seven out of your hand. If you ain't got at least seven in your hand you lose by default."

Dan grins, laying out the first card on the bed, a jack of hearts, Dan's personal favorite card. "The secret goal is to break each other's fingers."

He waggles his ring finger on his left hand, which sits just a little off-angle under his wedding ring. "That's how this finger got fucked up."

"The secret goal is always breaking somebody's fingers," Stacia says with a laugh. Is it really a werewolf game if it doesn't involve at least the potential for bodily harm? "Doesn't seem to have hurt your shuffling any."

Maybe she should get him to teach her to shuffle cards later. It's looks cool, and it's probably good for sleight-of-hand tricks -- you know, for the times when magic bullshit just doesn't cut it.

She pulls her pile closer and flips the top card on top of Dan's jack: three of diamonds.

"I've never actually played a lot of card games," she says. "Mostly because of the willing-to-break-fingers thing. Even before I found out I was a werewolf, I was competitive."

"Card dealing's always been a great skill for me to have. And knowing how to cheat at cards is even better." He flips another card into the pile, looking for fours and sevens.

"I ain't never been competitive. Used to throw the game all the time when I would play with my siblings so the younger ones got to win a few." He doesn't usually talk about his family, not because he doesn't trust other people with knowing about his background, but because talking about it is hard - he feels like he's burdening Stacia. He feels like because he can't move past them that he's plunking their memory down right in front of Stacia like a hurdle, like an obstacle to slow her down too. He regrets it as soon as he says it. "Probably I'd benefit from a little bit of your competitive spirit, but we'll see how this goes."

They're on the bed, so it'll be harder to break each others' hands.

"Yeah, learning to cheat at cards was on my to-do list, but I got distracted by being abducted into other realities," Stacia says, with a wry smile to acknowledge how completely bizarre her life is that she can even say that.

"I think Nicky and Mila threw a lot of games for me when I was little, too," she says, picking up that nugget of information about Dan and squirreling it away for later reference. Not that it's particularly surprising, given what she knows about him, but she also knows that he doesn't usually talk about his family at all. So it counts as a treasure and she's keeping it. "They were a lot older than me, so any games that I would have been able to play would have been really easy for them. And even as competitive as I am, it's not really fun to win things unless there's a chance you could lose, you know?"

She flips a ten of clubs over into the pile.

He doesn't comment on the other realities. After all, this is the third other dimension he's been unceremoniously tugged to. He doesn't want to think about it too much, because it feels like tenuous luck, not certainty, that he keeps ending up with the same people he cares for. He's worried every day about waking up in a new place without them, without these bonds he's made, with only the people-shaped holes in his heart left.

"You got to have the appearance of stakes, if nothing else. But when I play with younger folks my stakes are whether they're enjoying themselves, not whether I'm winning."

Dan flips another card onto the pile as he talks, a four of clubs. He already knows where his seven of diamonds is, having sneaked a look at the edge of the card while he was shuffling, and he floats it up to the top of his deck with an subtle and lightning-fast cut of the deck, and so when his turn comes around again he's able to slap and take the pile almost as soon as he plays it.

"Did you catch how I did that?"

" 'Is everyone having fun' is also the stakes when I'm teaching people how to do their eyeliner," Stacia says dryly, before she yips and tries to slap down on the seven. Dan beats her to it though, and she grins at his question.

"No, I did not," she says. "I was caught up in the conversation. Show me again."

"I could use some pointers. I only use eyeliner once in a blue moon." He laughs. He does doll up for work sometimes, when he's performing either as a stripper or a bar pianist or just when he wants to hit a gay bar and have a little extra sparkle.

"Alright, I did three things here. First, I cheated my cards when I shuffled so I could scan for the next card I wanted." He shows her how he shuffled, then slows it down so she can see how he peeked. "Then I floated it to the top."

He cuts the deck and holds it out to her.

"Pick a card, any card."

"I'd be happy to give you tips, but mostly it's one of those skills you have to practice on the reg," Stacia says. "Otherwise you poke yourself in the eyeball and that's never a flattering look."

She watches avidly as he shows her the shuffling trick, then selects a card, trying to cheat a peek at it the same way he just showed her.

"Well, then all the more reason for you to teach me. The last time someone did me any makeup tricks they were putting me in drag."

He watches her attempt to recreate his trick.

"Almost. I caught you doing that." He winks. "It's rough when you're talking to folks, because most folks want to keep eye contact. You got to choose the right moment in the conversation where they naturally break eye contact to take a peek by following when their gaze starts to drift. You're going to be lethal at this once you get the hang of it."

"Ha! I bet you rocked the drag look." It's hard to imagine a look Dan couldn't rock if he put his mind to it. "But it's not like you've got to twist my arm to get me to show you how to do makeup. I'd be happy to show you what I know."

She preens under his praise, though she doesn't let it distract her from the actual advice. Praise is nice, advice is useful (and, when adequately applied, results in More Praise).

"Okay, yeah, I follow that," she says. "I'll have to remember not to get competitive-brained and stare a hole through their eyeballs while I'm waiting for them to look away."

Her smile softens a bit. "Thanks Dan, this has really helped. I feel a lot better."

"Nah, I was busted as hell. But all the queens were jealous that I fit women's shoes." Dan's small frame lended itself well to the female illusion. "My name was Elle Eterette, because I thought it'd be funny to make fun of myself."

If he does it first, it stings less when others do it. Time-honored technique for the inadequate.

He smiles back, accepting her gratitude without words before going: "well, what's stopping you? Go get some eyeliner."

"That's fair," Stacia agrees. "I can't imagine how much of a pain it is to find cute shoes in non-standard sizes." She can still technically shop in the kids' section for shoes if she wants whimsical flats.

She flashes him a grin and hops off of the bed. "Be right back!" she calls over her shoulder as she dashes off to collect her box-of-makeup-for-other-people.

"My drag mother was a size twelve in men's. She basically had to cobble shoes together herself, but thankfully that was one of the many skills I got, so I helped out a little."

Dan waits for her patiently, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, sitting on the bed with his chin turned up expectantly so Stacia can work some magic.

Stacia returns, dropping the box on the bed next to Dan, just barely slowing down enough that she doesn't send its contents scattering.

"So, there's several different ways to do eyeliner," she begins. "I'm going to start you off on the one I think is the hardest to mess up, which is eye shadow as liner." She reaches into the box and pulls out an eye shadow palette and the Brush Containment Case, which is zippered and bright pink with a black damask pattern. "You can do this with the sponge-tip applicator that comes with a lot of eye makeup palettes, but I prefer brushes because I don't trust sponges near my eyes long-term. Sponges are harder to clean, and I've never heard of an eye-infection that makes you look cute or cool."

She gestures with the brush case for emphasis. If Dan boogers up his eyes using the skills she taught him, she will be sad at him. Don't even try her, Sagittarius. She then drops the case and flicks open the palette, revealing an array of jewel tone colors.

"Now the basic starting points for this sort of thing are black or brown, but we're doing this for art and fun reasons. Pick a color, any color!"

"Noted. I ain't got enough money to deal with an eye infection. I'll be prudent."

He grins enough to show that missing tooth. He isn't broke anymore. Bunny finds him veins of gold and rare orchids to fence, and now Dan has some deeply underutilized health insurance. He doesn't want to start seeing healthcare providers regularly, and having grown up without ever setting foot in a clinic, hospital or doctor's office, he really has no idea what sort of benefits they could offer him, so he doesn't go. He doesn't even really consider it.

"These two." He points to a hot pink and a cherry red, figuring that they'll contrast with his blue eyes and that Stacia will find a way to work those warm colors without making it look like he's got a rash.

"An exciting choice!" Stacia says, rewarding him with a warm smile. She takes a moment to stop and really look at the anatomy of Dan's face and eyes. He doesn't have a lot of visual real estate on his upper lids when his eyes are open, but that's not a problem for this technique. Noted for later, when or if they get into eye-shadow-as-shadow and liquid liners.

"We're going to start with your upper lid, so go ahead and pick one of those two colors." She'd recommend the red, but this isn't about the colors right now, it's about the technique. "For this, you're going to need either a flat angled brush--" she pulls one out of her kit, "--or just a regular flat detail brush. Most people recommend the angle, I personally use the flat detail brush; it's really just a matter of taste."

She holds the two brushes out for him to pick one.

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Comfort In; Dump Out

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