Everything It Seems I Like's a Little Bit Harmful for Me [Open to All]

[hallelujahjunction]

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."

Comments

i

[hobospider]

Peter's on his way in to grab a snack. He's got about an hour to himself while May's down for a map.

"Need to replace the battery? Toss it here. I can climb up there and handle it."

A Little Bit Sweeter

[branchifer]

[Branch was curious about the scissors and fabric. He would've wondered if he was scrapbooking if not for the mannequin.]

[(Do humans scrapbook as much as his people?)]

[Branch almost reflexively says no, because he's still used to handling a lot of things himself. Back home he spins his own wool, weaves, sews. Even now that he's back contact with the village. He still values being largely self-sufficient.]

[But he's not really in a position to say no here. He's needed new clothes, warmer than the ones he came in and at best he'd had ill fitting ones, or had to cut little dolls sweaters into cardigans with unhemmed plackets.]

[And he hasn't forgotten that day Dan and Stacia talked him down. It feels safe to ask favors of him.]

Do you think you could hem some things? Maybe do some buttons and button holes? I know how to sew and knit and weave and all that, but I don't have tools my size to work with.

III its raining spiders in here

[ninjavampire]

The peaceful quiet of the Relaxation Room made it one of Miguel's favorite haunts. But even here, he wore his usual combo of nanosuit and sweater that somewhat accomodated his proportions.

So he enters, carrying a cup of his own comfort habit (the espresso in the building is surprisingly decent) and watches the unfolding scene stone-faced. There it is. A bag of rice mid-immolation. Another day, another incident of minor Pole Chaos.

Setting the mug on an end table, he lassoes the bag with a tether of laser web and tugs it out onto the stone hearth, careful to avoid getting cinders on wood.

"Let's not owe him a workshop, too."

I. These Are Just a Couple of My Cravings

[greyerrant]

"Always willing to help. I guess something is broken, and the elves don't seem to have any tech-adepts."

Loken takes hold of the ladder without further comment, nearly able to just touch the smoke detector without any need for a ladder by himself.

II. A little bit sweeter

[poor_unlucky_girl]

"Oh, hello!"

Jennifer greets Dan with that usual happy go lucky air she has to her. That mostly fake cluelessness (the part that is real is VERY real, though) makes her very endearing, but she came prepared, she has something in her hands.

"The Elves mentioned that you were here sewing and it just reminded me..." she unfolds a sweater "I made you this! You hate the cold, don't you? And I figured I could make something for you."

She tries to align it with the visual she has of Dan, to see if it would fit him well.

"I should have got your size right, but let me know. Oh, and do you mind dog hairs? I made sure to check for Brown's and keep it clean, but you never know."

Jennifer gives Dan a warm smile. As distracted as she might be she is very observant. She sees, she understands, and she knows way more than she lets on. She does however believes in keeping a respectful distance, knows how not to be nosy, and so she won't insist on making Dan voice his frustration, but she did already give a look at the coat he was making.

These Are Just a Couple of My Cravings

[credit_not_blame]

"Not while I can be eight feet tall whenever I want I won't," Stacia says, her hands on her hips. "Get down from there before you fall, and I'll take care of it."

Don't make her have to speed-shift to Crinos to catch you when you fall, Dan. Neither of you wants her to lecture you on personal safety. She moves from the doorway to brace the ladder while he climbs down.

"What do you need done to the smoke alarm?"

IIII. A Lesson In Tightropes

[millenyal_pink]

Elle's seen Dan struggling with his smoking, whether it's with the cold of the outdoors or dismantling the fire alarm. She hasn't said anything to him about it, but she has been thinking.

This thinking has culminated in a shoe-box sized present covered in eye-searing wrapping paper with a card on top, left in front of Dan's door.

Elle doesn't want to be confrontational, or put pressure on him, so she figures the explanation in the note is a good way to let him process and make decisions in his own time. She feels rather pleased with herself.

III /wanders in late

[zerg_rush]

"What smells in here—" Kerrigan, head poking around the door frame, cuts herself off as she sees Dan displaying what she thinks is an unusual amount of stress for someone just poking up the fire. "Uh. You need a hand with anything?"