Who? Dan and Brenna Where? Back on the station, Bad Things When? Backdated! November 4th, Evening, just after these chats What? More talking, via Swapsies. Open? No/GDoc - continued in comments
Dan and Abra had met in the wheel room that was between them both, and spun their respective worlds. Now Abra was in Florida in Dan's body, while Dan was back on the station in Abra's. He took a moment to get used to the different body and the different Shine abilities, and then reached out to see where Brenna was. Within seconds, he'd taken off running, determined to get to Bad Things as quickly as he could.
Less than ten minutes later, he was walking into the bar. It was a bit weird, walking in and not having Hródolf running at him, screaming "Dan! Dan!" and wanting picked up and spun around. He was there, though, along with his mom, playing with his cuddly wolf and a couple of action figures Dan had picked up through a few of the doors while Astrid knitted or crocheted or did something with wool and needles, he wasn't sure what.
He waved over at them and continued on his way, oblivious to the confused look that Astrid was giving him.
"Brenna?" he called out once he was in the living quarters, and waited for her response. He knew exactly where she was, but as always, he felt it would be rude to just barge in.
***
Brenna had started reading. She wasn't quick. She didn't understand half of the things mentioned - what was a Starbucks? She had never seen a doe in the sky - but she learned some things. There were people who had adventures and people who solved crimes. There was a lot of talking involved, looking at stuff and waiting for other people to finish looking at the things. She thought solving crimes would be easier.
The Viking woman looked up as she heard the voice and put away the book. It was Abra's voice. "Dan?" she asked. This was weird. But weird was normal now.
***
He headed straight over towards her now that she'd spoken, smiling as he approached. "Hey, how're you," he said, and then waited to see how Brenna wanted to play this. He was all for pulling her into a hug, kissing her hello and then going somewhere private to talk, but this was not his body and he didn't know how comfortable Brenna would be with that. Granted, he'd been swapped with Loki and Brenna and his dad before now, but that was entirely involuntary on everyone's part, and he had no idea if this would factor into things. Or was he overthinking? Probably.
He folded his arms in front of him, unaware of how odd it must look to anyone else who was looking. Adult Abra, with Dan's mannerisms and speech patterns. But then again, he was used to odd looks, he'd gotten them all his life. "Do you want to stay here, or go somewhere else, or...?" he wondered. Then he realized what she'd been doing, and grinned. "What are you reading? Do you like it?"
***
No, she had no intention of kissing Abra. Even when Dan inhabited her. The same had gone for Jack. The same had especially gone for one of the Aesir. It was disrespectful to her. "It is a book." She held it up. The title read Agatha Cristie, Murder on the Orient Express. "I do not know if I like it yet. But they are talking about strange places." She got up though. "But we can go wherever you want." There was some confusion in her voice. The reason why he had suddenly decided to come over escaped her.
***
He nodded when he saw the cover. "I like that one. We can talk about it later, if you like?" he offered, then held his hand out towards her as she stood. "Could we go for a walk? It's been... it's been a long day, you know?"
He'd hardly slept the night before, and then he'd taken Doc out for coffee while his mom and dad went to get the results from the doctor, and then there had been that awful timeless bit when they'd all met up again and he'd known before his mom even spoke what the doctor had told her (of course he'd known, he'd lived through this before) and then he couldn't have told anyone what had happened for the next few hours as autopilot kicked in and Orderly Dan was in control. Now he was here, so maybe he could relax for a little while. There wasn't going to be a whole lot of sleep in his future, so this could only help.
His smile had fallen away as he thought about the past 24 hours, and he tried to run his hands through his hair but Abra's hair was not his and there was too much of it. "Shit," he muttered, and then glanced over at Brenna. "...can I get a hug? Please?"
***
Brenna had not noticed his pain like this before. Abra's face and Dan's emotions were a strange mix. Now that it was so clear, Abra's face became Dan's. "Ah, of course..." A moment later she had her arms slung around the other female body. Suddenly, Dan wasn't that much taller... and had breasts. "I am sorry about your mother. I am sure if we all pray enough her fate will be changed." Once, she might have been doubtful. The gods had not even been able to change their own fate. But here she was: still alive. Astrid would help. Her mother would help. If their voices would only be loud enough, young Dan would grow up differently.
***
Dan clung to Brenna, his face tucked in against her shoulder, and forced himself not to cry. His mom wasn't going to die, not now and not when Doc was nineteen. She was still alive in his dad's timeline, right? And she was very much alive through the door. So she wasn't going to die. He was just scared and upset for no reason, and everything was going to be fine.
He still clung to Brenna for a couple of minutes, though, before lifting his head from her shoulder. "Thanks," he said, his voice soft and a little rough. "Told you you were amazing," he added, before stepping back a little.
***
When Dan drew back so did Brenna. She had grown up among the boys and had lived most of her life with warriors. Feelings and comfort was not something she was used to. She smiled, a little awkwardly. "Tell me something I don't know," she answered. Cocky banter, it was a winner with the boys every time. "Where did you want to go?" Had he come over for the comfort? Or was there something more?
***
He laughed a little, then reached for her hand - hopefully, that much was okay - as he thought about where he wanted to go. "Well, I'd love to take you for a walk around my old home, maybe go down to one of the beaches or a marina and just sit there for a while, but that's not happening. I guess, just see where our feet take us?" he suggested, and attempted a smile, just for Brenna.
***
"It would be a long walk," Brenna agreed. Probably even longer than the walk to Hurness. The world was bigger than she could have ever imagined. She had seen it now.
While she spoke, she went over to her shoes and put on her sandals. The straps were being laced around her ankles. "[We can go now]" She said those words in her own language, opening those were some of the words Dan had picked up. Her language was one of the few connections she still had to her home.
***
Dan let his hand drop to his side as she put on her sandals, then nodded when she said she was ready. He knew enough to understand what she was saying, but wasn't quite at the point where he could reply. Not any more, at least. But he could change that, he thought. Not right now, but later, when the door was closed. He would ask her.
He waved at Astrid and Hródolf again as they walked out past them both, but stayed quiet. He was trying to work out how to discuss what she'd said earlier - no doubt, for Brenna, everything was just matter-of-fact and she'd said exactly what she'd meant to say. His sudden appearance back on the station just because she'd mentioned marriage would make her laugh at him, like he'd missed something very obvious and was only catching up to things now. But Dan took marriage seriously, and he always had. If Brenna had considered it, then he wanted to talk about it.
***
Brenna resisted the urge to coo over Hródolf and just bid her sister goodbye. She would miss not having her close, once their house was completed. But, by Odin, she was grateful to be finally moving back to nature. Her mother's place might look like one of their old homes but the moment you opened the door, they were stuck in a metal container.
"Can we go to the small park?" Escape to greenery was her go to hike. She just wished there would be more of it.
***
"Sure," Dan replied, "we can go wherever you want." He let her lead the way and stayed quiet, just enjoying being round her again, even if it wasn't going to be for too long. He wasn't even going to waste time getting a coffee - Abra didn't like the same sort of coffee as he did, anyway, so he didn't want to gross her out when she got back into her own body - so he was being pretty serious about the whole thing.
When they reached the park, Dan checked that they were alone, out of habit more than anything. The last couple of weeks had been spent giving his younger self a crash course in Shining, when they weren't dealing with his mom being sick or trying to get things sorted out for his mom and Doc, and that had lead to some very weird conversations, even for him. They were alone, though, so they wandered to wherever Brenna wanted to go, and on the way, Dan started talking.
"I wanted to ask you about something you said when we were texting," he began, "which... is obvious, I suppose. But you said about being married."
***
The young woman's eyes were glancing around the park for a place to settle down. Her favourite spot was right next to the big tree. But before any actions were taken on her account, Dan spoke up and her attention shifted back to him. There it was. Usually, she was so self-assured. A warrior needed confidence. When you doubt your own abilities, your life could drastically become shorter. But now she did not feel that confident. She liked the way things were. There were facts she could not ignore. Fact A: She could not bear children. Fact B: Family life consists of marriage and children. So when Dan picked up their conversation at that point, Brenna dreaded the possibilities where it could go.
"Yes..." She didn't say more. She didn't know what to say and so she left it to him. He was the one with doubts.
***
Abra's Shine was stronger than his, so Brenna's sudden uncertainty hit him like a smack to the face he didn't know he needed to brace for. Why was she uncertain?
"What's wrong?" he asked, then tried to explain himself quickly in case that would help. "I just... I love you. I've never known anyone like you before, I've never loved anyone like I love you. And you love me even with all the crap that happens to me... I don't just mean here on the station, by the way." He stepped a little closer as he spoke, and put his hand on her shoulder. Rubbing very gently on her collarbone with his thumb, he paused for a moment before he kept talking.
"I've never thought of myself getting married. Hell, I never thought of myself staying in a relationship of any sort but this, us, it's the longest I've ever been with anyone and I don't want to stop. So I wanted to know if you were serious about it, and a conversation like that shouldn't be over the phone or done in text messages, you know? At least, I don't think so."
***
Brenna had no idea what should be discussed over the phone or not. Messages in writing were often carried far and held substantial meaning in her time. Marriage proposals, war declarations and peace talks. A piece of paper could relay them all. But Dan and people from his time were mysterious. Sometimes his ways still surprised her. On the one hand he reassured her about his feelings for her, on the other... he was just weird. If she wouldn't have been so confused, his words would have lifted her. But right now, she just did not know what they meant.
"Serious about what?" she asked. For all it was a simple matter. You liked someone, you got married. It was simple. No one ever dated as long as they had without marriage. But they weren't married and that was fine with Brenna. She knew that marriage was nothing her future held.
***
"Serious about getting married," Dan replied. "Some people talk about it, but they never actually do get married, for all kinds of reasons. Some people get engaged for years before they get married. Some people just live together. Some people don't even want to do that, they're a couple but they keep their own homes. I used to work with a guy in the hospice who would start going out with a girl, and they'd be engaged within a couple of months, and then they'd break up a couple of months after that. Then the whole thing would start again a few months later."
Was he confusing her even more? Probably. Uhm. He scratched at his cheek as he thought, and surprised himself when there wasn't any stubble there. Then he remembered he was in Abra's body and felt like an idiot.
"I don't know if marriage is different for you than it is for me. I reckon it probably is, so I wanted to check." Then he added, "and I just... I wanted to see you."
***
"Your people are strange," Brenna decided. It was the truth. While divorce was not uncommon among Vikings - Brenna herself belonged to that group -, being engaged for years certainly was. There had been Sven Gunnarson who had proposed to Hilda right before he went on a long trip. The whole village had been baffled that they had not wed before his journey. The trip had taken longer than expected and it had taken a whole year of Hilda yearning for them to finally come together in marriage. Maybe Dan's people just took longer trips. Somehow they had to have discovered all those places.
"You see if you had grown up in my village and we had met at a young age, we would have been married by now. The village would have seen to it." Astrid in particular. "But I met someone else and I could not bear him children. Our marriage was not meant to be. I am not meant to be a wife." She shrugged. If he would ever leave her, she would not begrudge him, just like he had not begrudged her former husband.
***
"Strange, yeah, I guess," Dan agreed, and then listened to Brenna's explanation. He bit back his laugh when she said ‘The village would have seen to it,' and clearly meant Astrid, but then he got quite serious, very quickly. "You can't get married, because you can't have kids?" Dan asked, obviously more than a little taken aback by what she'd said. "Well, that's a load of bullshit."
He knew she couldn't have kids, and the only problem he had with that was that he knew how it bothered her. But thinking that it meant she couldn't get married? Okay, that was a big difference. "Is this why you said you wouldn't be good for marriage in the texts? People don't get married just to have kids. People get married because they love each other and they want to spend the rest of their lives with each other. If kids happen, they happen. If they don't, it doesn't mean the marriage wasn't meant to be, love," he told her, reaching up to brush some of her hair off of her face.
***
That's a load of bullshit... The words stung. Astrid and her - they were the outcasts. Her mother had gotten used to the people here. But the Viking blood in the sisters' body still ran deep. They were always in the minority. They were always wrong.
Brenna's brows knitted and her demeanour became quiet. It was an odd turn for someone whose temper guided so many of her actions. "Who says that your way of living is the right way of living?"
***
Dan frowned at her reaction. His turn to be confused. "Nobody," he admitted. "But nobody's saying it's wrong, either. Are you saying you want to not get married?" He stepped back from Brenna, more than a bit uncertain as to what had just happened.
***
Want... she had never really asked that question. This time Brenna brushed back her own hair. It was weird to discuss all of this while looking at Abra's face. "I do not know. Marriage and children belong together for us. You get married. You start a family. We have been together without being married." She was rambling now. She did not like that. It was not like her. Yet she continued. "I did not think we would. I did not think I would be alive by now. I do not know what to do with this life." There was a truth in this that was hard to acknowledge. "I do want you in it." It was as simple as that. She was unsure what she would do without him. "But there are many things I do not know. I do not know what to discuss over the phone or not. You tell me this is not something you should discuss. So, now I have learned this." She needed to stop rambling but the words just did not stop. "So what is marriage in this place? You tell me it is not about children. So what is it? Who even marries people here?" They could hardly go to Frigga and ask her to lead the ceremony. The thought, however, made her excited.
***
Dan stood there and let Brenna talk. He caught himself rubbing at his lips and whipped his hand down away from his mouth - he wasn't going to drink, he didn't need a drink, this wasn't his body and he wasn't going to drink - but he stayed quiet until she was finished.
"When," he began, and then cleared his throat and started again, "When I said it wasn't something to discuss, I, I meant... I meant it was a discussion I would much rather have if we're face-to-face instead of by text or over the phone. It's important. But you can talk about whatever you like, however you like. I wasn't trying to tell you what you can and can't do."
He didn't care if Abra had too much hair, not right now. He was running his hands through her hair and hoping that he wasn't messing it up too much. Both of his tells, out in full force. He was already upset when he arrived, and now he was nervous as well and he wasn't entirely sure why. And fuck, but he wanted a drink. "Marriage here, it's... It's when people who love each other say they want to be together for the rest of their lives at a ceremony in front of everyone, I guess. It's different than back home because the rules are different. Maryanne and AJ and Clint and, and Tony that used to be here, not the new one, they're all married to each other here, but that wouldn't have been allowed back home. And Bucky that runs the coffee shop, he was married to Steve. That's the pictures that he has up in the coffee shop. And you ask someone to perform the ceremony for you. Jake told me that Kytana was the one who married him and Sunila."
***
Brenna tried to understand Dan's words. The ceremony, the gathering... they reminded her of how things were done back home. Why four people would marry each other or a man would ever marry another man was not something she could grasp. Marriage here seemed different from romance and family. Maybe it was like the pact she swore to her brothers and sisters of the Red Lady. She could not say no to that. No, she would like such a pact with Dan. A pact of companionship.
"Okay, we can get married then," she decided.
***
What?
Jesus, his head felt like it was spinning - Abra's Shine was much stronger than his, and more sensitive than he was used to, so Brenna's rapidly-changing moods were doing a number on him. Still, he could deal with it. He could.
"O...kay," he said slowly, trying to ground himself as he spoke. "Because we love each other. Right?" He didn't dare mention children at the moment, not wanting to cause any further upset or possible anger.
***
She couldn't read Dan's face as good now. Dan's face was Abra's face and Abra - well, she was different. "Because we want to be each other's companions..." she said with a nod. That was her understanding. It was a good understanding. She wanted this.
***
Dan nodded when Brenna did, and managed a smile. She felt a lot happier than she had a few minutes ago, at least, so he could cope with that.
"Companions, yeah. So, do I need to ask your mom for permission for this? Or is there anything you need or want me to do? I only know how my people go about this sort of thing," he said, "which is where the permission thing comes into it."
***
"Yes. Ask her and Astrid. She is older than me." She was making things up now. Brenna simply thought that her sister would believe it funny. Both her mother and her sister adored Dan. She highly doubted they would speak out against a more permanent companionship between the two. Secretly, however, she hoped that they would give him a hard time. It was all in good fun. It would make him think of other things than his mother. So, she added more to his list. Thinking about positive things was a good distraction. Brenna herself had always focussed on the next fight and the next journey whenever her health had gone worse. It kept her going. "Who will do the ceremony?" Oh, she knew who she wanted but she did not dare say it.
***
Dan just nodded. He'd ask them both. And Hródolf, if it helped. "Can it wait until I'm in my own body, though?" he asked. He didn't think it would change their answers, but he would feel better doing it as himself.
Her next question, though. He personally didn't mind who did the ceremony, but it was very obvious that Brenna found this part very important. "Why don't we ask your gods? Lady Frigga, maybe?" He didn't think Loki would want to, and he didn't want to bother Thor so soon after breaking up with Bryn. And he liked Frigga - she was friends with Astrid, and any time the pair of them were visiting Bad Things at the same time, he'd always found her to be lovely to talk to.
***
Yes, she had read his mind. That was what she wanted. "I could never ask her for such a favour," she said. Maybe her mother could... but her mother was behaving weirdly. Dan had gained the favour of Frigga's granddaughter. Maybe, just maybe, he could dare to ask her. Brenna would not.
"We also need a feast," she decided quickly. There was no wedding without a feast. If these new modern weddings did not include one, she would not like it much. Sometimes she had the feeling the people here did not know how to have a good time.
***
"I'll ask, then. And yeah, of course. Everyone gets a feast at their wedding," he told her, his smile growing a little larger as things seemed to relax and he felt like he could calm down some more.
He reached for her left hand at that point, and looked down at it. The view was a bit odd at first, since he was using Abra's hands and they were far finer hands than he had ever had before, even when he'd looked like his female self. "I'll have to get you a ring or two. Or do vikings have wedding rings?" he asked.