Dan Sagittarius (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hallelujahjunction) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nightlogs2023-10-12 05:19 pm
hallelujahjunction) wrote in nightlogs2023-10-12 05:19 pm
Everything It Seems I Like's a Little Bit Harmful for Me [Open to All]
Who: Dan Sagittarius and you!
What: Dan tools around in the workshop and tests the limits of North's homeowner safety compliance, makes some presents for people, acts helpful.
Where: The Workshop and outdoors near the kitchen.
When: Early October
Warnings/Notes: The usual warnings associated with Dan - alcoholism, drug use, swearing, potential references to dead children, sex work and/or firearms. Lots of nicotine addiction in this one.
Dan hates the cold.
He fucking hates the cold, because his circulation has gone to shit and sucking down cigarettes all his life has left him with a permanent sensitivity to chill along with an inconvenient and unpleasant nicotine addiction, and that combination, here at the North Pole, means he has to run a regular gauntlet throughout the day to go on smoke breaks outdoors. Instead of just popping outside to take a leisurely break from whatever he's doing, he suits up with gloves and coats and hats like he's putting on armor for battle and then houses each cigarette in record time, shivering and wincing the entire time.
When he isn't on smoke breaks and isn't running around with Bunny on missions, he's recuperating from whatever adventure he's been on by working with the elves in the workshop. Dan's father was a carpenter, a tailor and a woodworker who expressed his affection in showering his wife and seven children with gifts and attention. Dan inherited that, and he fills his idle hours with woodworking and sewing, making Christmas gifts for the people at the Pole who've been pulled into this adventure, mostly practical things like warm socks and step stools, but sometimes just tchotchkes like carved effigies. He's excited that North apparently had a bevy of goose down, and is starting to piece together cozy coats for people, and he's been building various hurdles and tunnels for Cammie to test her holon on.
Throughout the day he tries to think of a way to not be colossally rude while smoking indoors. It's poor form to light up under someone's roof and make everything reek of tobacco, and it feels all the more inconsiderate to do so in the Pole, where the merriment is unilaterally pretty child-friendly in a way cigarettes are not, and even more rude to do so while the homeowner is in captivity. Still, after a particularly frozen smoke break where he returned to warmth with his hands so near-paralyzed and bone-white that it took over an hour to get back to doing his woodwork, he decides that North would be understanding, and decides to undo the smoke detector in the kitchen. After all, the kitchen is ventilated, and smoking in here just during the coldest part of the night isn't too harmful.
I. These Are Just a Couple of My Cravings
Most things in the world are made for adult men slightly taller than Dan, but most things at the Pole are made for North and the yetis, and that means Dan can't just accomplish his goals by standing on tip toes. On account of the elves constantly getting into things they shouldn't and causing accidents, the kitchen is equipped with a smoke detector, which is about eleven feet off the ground. Standing on the highest shelf of a ladder, Dan can just barely scrape the corner of it with his fingertips. His only hope of reaching it is to jump, which may be unwise, but the siren song of nicotine has been known to wreck many a man on its rocks.
"Hey, do you mind holding this ladder while I try to reach this?" he asks the next person to come in.
II. A Little Bit Sweeter
By a few days in, Dan's got a straight-up workspace in the workshop, a table festooned with the tools of his crafts. Right now, it's covered in fabric and threads and scissors and rulers and a mannequin and all the deadwood of tailoring and mending as he works on a big, puffy coat to swaddle Elle in. He's at a frustration point, because at some juncture he fucked up the circumference of the sleeves, and he's realizing that his error might be so serious as to necessitate scrapping the coat entirely. He's chewing his nails in annoyance at himself when someone comes in, and he pounces on the opportunity to distract himself with some new task.
"Hey, you need anything mended? The tailor's open for business right now."
III. So Please Be Kind If I'm a Mess
The second Dan's cigarette is burned down, he rushes back into the communal relaxation room, teeth chattering and hands tucked into his armpits. Snowflakes dot his hair, and his cheeks are flush red. He strips off his gloves, and his fingers are a mix of angry red and bloodless white. He hastens over to the fireplace and groans as the transition from too-cold to too-hot makes his hands cramp, then reaches for the rice pack he set over the fire to warm up without having to hunch over the flames.
"Oh God damn it," Dan mutters, as his clumsy-with-cold hands fumble the rice pack and drop it straight into the fire. He huffs with frustration as he gets the fire poker and tries to retrieve the rice pack, but by now the pack is decidedly on fire, looking like a burning baked potato. "I owe North some rice."
What: Dan tools around in the workshop and tests the limits of North's homeowner safety compliance, makes some presents for people, acts helpful.
Where: The Workshop and outdoors near the kitchen.
When: Early October
Warnings/Notes: The usual warnings associated with Dan - alcoholism, drug use, swearing, potential references to dead children, sex work and/or firearms. Lots of nicotine addiction in this one.
Dan hates the cold.
He fucking hates the cold, because his circulation has gone to shit and sucking down cigarettes all his life has left him with a permanent sensitivity to chill along with an inconvenient and unpleasant nicotine addiction, and that combination, here at the North Pole, means he has to run a regular gauntlet throughout the day to go on smoke breaks outdoors. Instead of just popping outside to take a leisurely break from whatever he's doing, he suits up with gloves and coats and hats like he's putting on armor for battle and then houses each cigarette in record time, shivering and wincing the entire time.
When he isn't on smoke breaks and isn't running around with Bunny on missions, he's recuperating from whatever adventure he's been on by working with the elves in the workshop. Dan's father was a carpenter, a tailor and a woodworker who expressed his affection in showering his wife and seven children with gifts and attention. Dan inherited that, and he fills his idle hours with woodworking and sewing, making Christmas gifts for the people at the Pole who've been pulled into this adventure, mostly practical things like warm socks and step stools, but sometimes just tchotchkes like carved effigies. He's excited that North apparently had a bevy of goose down, and is starting to piece together cozy coats for people, and he's been building various hurdles and tunnels for Cammie to test her holon on.
Throughout the day he tries to think of a way to not be colossally rude while smoking indoors. It's poor form to light up under someone's roof and make everything reek of tobacco, and it feels all the more inconsiderate to do so in the Pole, where the merriment is unilaterally pretty child-friendly in a way cigarettes are not, and even more rude to do so while the homeowner is in captivity. Still, after a particularly frozen smoke break where he returned to warmth with his hands so near-paralyzed and bone-white that it took over an hour to get back to doing his woodwork, he decides that North would be understanding, and decides to undo the smoke detector in the kitchen. After all, the kitchen is ventilated, and smoking in here just during the coldest part of the night isn't too harmful.
I. These Are Just a Couple of My Cravings
Most things in the world are made for adult men slightly taller than Dan, but most things at the Pole are made for North and the yetis, and that means Dan can't just accomplish his goals by standing on tip toes. On account of the elves constantly getting into things they shouldn't and causing accidents, the kitchen is equipped with a smoke detector, which is about eleven feet off the ground. Standing on the highest shelf of a ladder, Dan can just barely scrape the corner of it with his fingertips. His only hope of reaching it is to jump, which may be unwise, but the siren song of nicotine has been known to wreck many a man on its rocks.
"Hey, do you mind holding this ladder while I try to reach this?" he asks the next person to come in.
II. A Little Bit Sweeter
By a few days in, Dan's got a straight-up workspace in the workshop, a table festooned with the tools of his crafts. Right now, it's covered in fabric and threads and scissors and rulers and a mannequin and all the deadwood of tailoring and mending as he works on a big, puffy coat to swaddle Elle in. He's at a frustration point, because at some juncture he fucked up the circumference of the sleeves, and he's realizing that his error might be so serious as to necessitate scrapping the coat entirely. He's chewing his nails in annoyance at himself when someone comes in, and he pounces on the opportunity to distract himself with some new task.
"Hey, you need anything mended? The tailor's open for business right now."
III. So Please Be Kind If I'm a Mess
The second Dan's cigarette is burned down, he rushes back into the communal relaxation room, teeth chattering and hands tucked into his armpits. Snowflakes dot his hair, and his cheeks are flush red. He strips off his gloves, and his fingers are a mix of angry red and bloodless white. He hastens over to the fireplace and groans as the transition from too-cold to too-hot makes his hands cramp, then reaches for the rice pack he set over the fire to warm up without having to hunch over the flames.
"Oh God damn it," Dan mutters, as his clumsy-with-cold hands fumble the rice pack and drop it straight into the fire. He huffs with frustration as he gets the fire poker and tries to retrieve the rice pack, but by now the pack is decidedly on fire, looking like a burning baked potato. "I owe North some rice."
no subject
"No, I don't reckon you did." Dan tries to avoid letting the concern show too much on his face, because he doesn't want to baby Stacia, but it's hard to conceal. He cares for her, and it truly feels like ever new drip of information he gets about Stacia and Elle's world just hurts his heart.
no subject
"Okay," she begins. Note to self, come up with a better opening for telling stories. "From what I understand, our reality was broken and reassembled in the year before I shifted for the first time. I don't know all the details because I was busy grappling with being a werewolf at all and being a huge brat about literally everything having to do with any of it."
From some people, that might sound self-depreciating. Stacia just sounds affectionate and even a little proud of her younger self. Sometimes you've just got to decide that you have enough on your plate for the moment and not add more bullshit to the pile.
"But apparently it didn't get reassembled right, and some incomprehensible horror was squirming in through the cracks as a result. The archangel Michael decided it was the fault of the supernatural creatures and started doing murder about it. And this was pretty much the first time anyone had heard of angels actually being a thing that you could interact with? Obviously we had the concept, but everyone seemed surprised when they worked out that it was an angel behind everything."
Meanwhile, Stacia's mindset had been more things are already so weird that this might as well happen. She waves her hands to indicate that she's done with the context and about to begin the actual story.
"One night I have a weird dream where a guy introduces himself to me as the archangel Raphael and gives me all the backstory on why this angelic smiting is happening. And then he drops that he wants my help fixing it! I'm literally fifteen years old and all of my power and influence is that a handful of people with a moderate amount of political power think I'm cute. So I ask 'why me?' and he tells me that it's because I don't know enough yet to make assumptions and that I don't let people push me around, and also basically why not me?"
See again, how Stacia has learned to roll with absolutely staggering amounts of weird bullshit. She shrugs her shoulders and continues:
"He tasks me with finding the archangel Gabriel, who's gone into hiding but is really good at talking Michael out of things, and then the three of us and whoever volunteers to host Gabriel on that plane of existence are going to go convince Michael to deal with the actual problem. And it takes about six months of more weird shit, but that's eventually how it goes: the thing gets pushed back out of the universe and the cracks get sealed, the angels vanish as if they were never there, and reality goes back to what apparently passes for normal."
She's just going to skip over how she had a huge target on her head for those six months, and how involved she was in pushing the incomprehensible horror out of reality. She's not looking to upset Dan with the...well, everything. Raphael shielded her mind from the worst of the incomprehensible thing; she still has nightmares about it but they're just one option among the many nightmares her brain sees fit to inflict on her.
no subject
The impulse to just reach over and pull her into a hug also dies before it reaches his arms, because he doesn't want to make any assumptions as to how she's hoping he'll react. She must already know the way this breaks his heart; that's why she didn't mention it all sooner.
"I got a question for you. You don't have to answer it now or even think about it after this conversation if you don't want to." He takes a long drag. "If it's possible for you to stay here instead of ever going back...would you might want to?"
Because she'd always have a home here; Dan and Bunny would make sure of it. But Dan knows there are plenty of reasons that the shifter kids keep getting dragged back to their damned world and he always wants them to know that they should only go back if either they want to or they actually need to.
no subject
She takes a deep breath and lets it out.
"I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it," she says. "Ace and Elle being ostensibly from my future doesn't necessarily mean I have to go back. They could easily be from slightly different timelines. Look at our Bunny and this reality's Jack. I don't know what the differences might be, but Bunny doesn't seem to have run into any trouble covering for his counterpart."
She drums her fingernails against the countertop.
"But I've also got people I care about back where I came from. And, yeah, reality's fuc-- completely screwed, but we do keep managing to kick the apocalypse-can down the road a bit. I'd feel bad giving up the fight as lost." She makes a face. "And I don't want to be frozen forever at this age. I'd like the opportunity to finish becoming an adult, you know? Even--"
Wow, yeah, no, she knows enough about Dan to know that talking about her dying young -- as a Garou back home or here in the fight against Kuk -- is a bad idea. Honestly answering his question is one thing, but that's too much honesty. She redirects.
"--Even if the idea of aging past the point where my whole I'm adorable, love me thing is a little weird." She tosses her head. "I'm confident that the more adult me will figure something out."
no subject
Everything she's saying makes sense, and Dan knows better than most that staying at a young age forever is a curse and not a blessing; his daughter was stuck at eleven forever, which might be one of the few ages harder than seventeen for an eternal status quo. He knows that everything Stacia's saying is grounded in something real and considered.
But it still stings. The idea of sending a girl he cares about back to her world to deal with all the horrors there will never sit well with him. He wants to tell her it's okay to give up, that she doesn't owe her world endless salvation.
"Alright. I respect that. I don't like it, but I respect it." If Stacia didn't know him so well, he wouldn't admit that. "You know, I'm excited to see the adult you'll become. I hope someday I get to."
no subject
She sighs again.
"I just don't want my dad and brother to never know what happened to me, you know? My mom and sister know about the werewolf weirdness, even if they'd never know that I fell out of the world, but my dad and brother? I don't want to just leave them with an empty hole where I was."
no subject
He goes over to her and opens his arms to see if she's open to an embrace. "When the time comes for you to go home, you know I'll support you any way I can. Just like I want to could do for you now."
no subject
"Yeah, I know," she says. "I appreciate that about you, have I mentioned? You're really good at it."
no subject
"Good, I'm glad. I like being good at the things I do." He grins, but there's a sadness to it based on the conversation they've had.
no subject
"Then I think we've had at least moderate success all around," she says wryly. "Now finish your smoke, I don't want to wander off and forget to turn the smoke detector back on. And then I'll look around and see if I can't find a place where you can smoke in the warm without having to do acrobatics on a ladder."
Not that he's asked her to. She's just going to help him, regardless of whether or not he asked for it.