Dani Moonstar's a survivor (ms_moonstar) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-09-16 12:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, bella donna boudreaux, dani moonstar (mirage) |
"It's just a little more complicated than that..."
Who: Dani, Belle
What: Smoking, chatting, unsolicited advice.
When: VERY early morning 09/15
Where: Irvine General
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13ish, some mentions of medical stuff.
Status: Complete!
Belle sighed as she leaned against the wall, trying to stay out of the way as much as possible. Scott and Emma were being adorable in the room, and she wanted to give them privacy. It was getting harder to stay pissed at Emma the longer this went on. At work Belle only saw her as the boss’s daughter, but now she was seeing the older woman as a person and Belle really liked people.
She looked at her phone, wondering about a million things at once. She hoped she’d disposed of the body well enough to avoid detection. She hoped Wolfwood was okay with what they’d done earlier in the evening. She had a lot of hopes when it came to Wolfwood, actually. She hoped Vanille and Fang would be okay, and that Shepard would be happy with her new girlfriend.
According to Shepard, and according to Shepard's girlfriend, there technically was no girlfriend. They weren't seeing each other. They weren't a thing. They were, in fact, simply using each other for sex.
Whether either of them was okay with that was another story. Dani at least seemed like a dark stormy cloud was floating over her head as she stepped out of the hospital room further down the hallway. She noticed Belle standing there, and waved at her, then walked up.
"Hey. How are they?"
Belle peered in, then chuckled. “Sleepin’, or pretending to.” She moved a step away from the door, so her voice wouldn’t carry inside. “How’s she?”
"Driving me crazy, as per the usual. She got her laptop and now she's telling me that I can remove it from her cold, dead hands." Dani snorted. She rustled around in her pockets and pulled out a cigarette.
She knew she couldn't light it, but she could at least gum on the filter, "Hopefully they'll all be better soon and we can return to life as normal. Or close to normal."
Belle licked her lips. She would literally shank someone for a cigarette right then, but she didn’t feel right leaving when Scott was asleep and she was supposed to be ensuring Emma’s safety. She also didn’t have the heart to make him wake up so she could get her fix. After the day she’d had she thought she deserved one, but she could suck it up.
“No such thing as normal.” Belle responded with a shrug. “But I do hope they’re better soon. I’m growing as a person and it sucks.” She gave Dani a wry smile. “You headed home soon? You’ve been in there since I got here.”
If she'd had any idea she probably would have put the thing away. She couldn't go out and actually smoke the thing, either, and worse, she had no way to smoke the only painkillers she was prescribed right now. It was stressing the limits of her tolerance for life's bullshit.
"No, you're right, there really isn't. And god. I know, right? How dare this experience make me learn to be a goddamned adult. God. I'm twenty-seven years old, I guess it's about time."
Then she shook her head, "No one else is around right now, so I don't want to just leave her. The meds will eventually make her sleep and I don't want her to wake up alone."
Belle snorted. “I’m 29, and I can say that I had no intention of ever growing up until about a month ago, so you’re ahead’a me.” She looked in on the Summerses again, but they still looked asleep. Dammit. “So what’s the deal with you and that guy Emma wanted to kill?” If they were going to talk she might as well get some questions answered.
Dani bit down on her cigarette so hard that it almost broke off. Ugh, Obi-wan. Just the mention of him was enough to drive her into a momentary incandescent rage.
She closed her eyes and beat her fist behind her into the wall for a few seconds, then finally said, "Ugh, that guy. He's my ex... I'm not sure boyfriend is the word I want. Sometimes I feel like we operated more like those older married couples that scold each other and don't really have much sex."
Belle’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t say anything until Dani had answered the question. “And now I understand why she took that tone so quick. Sounds like a pissant.” Her tone was gentle. She was willing to listen if Dani wanted to talk, or drop the subject.
The exchange of messages they'd had after Emma's feverish jokes was still fresh in Dani's mind. In fact, it was probably more accurate to say that it was pecking at her mind repeatedly like some kind of attacking bird.
She still wasn't sure how to respond to his last one. She growled a bit, "At first I thought he was just this nice, kind of wise guy who was awesome at construction and loved my dog as much as I did. The Jedi dreams really messed him up, and life messed him up, and I could get behind that because I'd been dreaming about being suicidal and all of this shit. Fuck, we were really in love, but it just always seemed like we argued or had deep conversations about his problems or my problems more than we just enjoyed each other's company."
"There were about a million reasons why we needed to break up, but I left after James died so it's my fault. I get that. I just don't understand where that gives him the right to ignore my feelings entirely. And he never reads what you actually write, he just reads what he wants to see, and he reads your MIND, so he cheats and draws his own conclusions."
Belle nodded while Dani talked, and felt a little guilty about the way she used her powers around Nicholas. She couldn’t help it. It was wrong, and she knew it, but she wanted to know what he was thinking and feeling whenever they were together. “It’s not fair for him to ignore your feelings, but exes don’t normally get along, do they? I mean, love’s such a powerful emotion, how can you cope with the lack of it when you’re dealing with someone you used t’ feel so strongly about? Especially since it seems like you’re upset about how hard it is to communicate with ‘im, and that used t’ be your strong point.”
"And we really, really don't. But the worst part about it is he texts me from Scotland all 'I'm not angry at you and I want to be your friend and you need to lean on people' and when I tried to explain to him why I couldn't lean on people he ignored me completely and just kept right on lecturing me. AND I never said that we would be friends or that we'd be friends right away. We never even talked that out when he got back, he just starts talking to me on the network like the last 12 months never happened at all."
Dani started pacing the hallway a bit, waving her hands around in the air, "Then he has the nerve. The NERVE to talk about when we were together and I had to be his nursemaid, like this is a conversation that should be no problem to have, and wonders why me and Emma might have a problem with it and then joke about wanting to kill him."
"And he blames me. And I tell him Emma's feverish and drugged, but that apparently doesn't excuse the incident. Our words were so hurtful and horrible. Give me a fucking break."
“For the love of Christ would you shut up!” Emma yelled from the room. Belle snickered a little. “Not her, you. Go get your damn cigarette, I’m tired of listening to you complain about it.”
Belle frowned at the door then rolled her eyes. “Sure thing, boss.” She dug the pack out of her pocket and motioned for Dani to follow. “Sounds like he’s an asshole. I’d start ignorin’ him, or do somethin’ to make it clear that I hope he dies in a fire.” She pushed the door open, pulling her lighter out as soon as she hit the open air.
"...you'd think she was yelling at me, I was the one being loud and disruptive," Dani replied, with a confused look on her face. She shrugged a shoulder, then started to head out. There was only a quick pause in her movements to glance back in the direction of Shepard's room before she joined Belle outside.
She lit her own cigarette up, and let out a sigh, "I wanted things to be less awkward for us. I was actually hoping to BE his friend when he was done being angry at me. But he's being such a self-righteous ass about it."
Belle nodded, glad Dani was fine filling the silence while she got her fix. “Some people just function that way. Shouldn’t take it as a personal thing, sounds like he’s got more than his share of his own issues t’ deal with. Don’t need someone like that in your life.” She hoped that Tyra was dealing okay with her shit, and that they weren’t just leaning on each other out of convenience. She didn’t think it was her place to say anything about that, so she didn’t.
"I think I might actually just tell him to lose my number and go fuck himself," Dani replied, with a nod. Her tone brightened a bit at the idea of doing that, though she wasn't sure it'd be that easy. It probably wouldn't be. No, she knew it wouldn't be.
She flicked some ash and glanced over at Belle, "It's just a little more complicated than that, of course."
“Everything always is, but all that truly matters is the core details.” She shrugged, leaning against the wall. “The rest is just distractions.”
"His current girlfriend is treating me for something."
Dani's lips curled down into a frown. This woman probably knew all of Emma and Scott's deep, dark secrets, and she was definitely the type of person no one was going to mess with. Dani thought Belle had that kind of air about her, the one where only ever let out as much information as she wanted anyone to have.
"... something serious. Well. Not too serious. I have a tumor in my wrist. But I already feel like I'm putting her in an awkward situation, I've felt that for a while. But I was going to her because she had powers that would make it easier to fix me up. Only... He can read her mind, too. He's going to pick up on it eventually."
“You don’t want him t’ know about it.” Belle concluded. “Makes sense. I wouldn’t want my ex knowin’ my business, ‘specially if he made me as angry as you are at him.” She shrugged. “If you’re seein’ the lady ‘cause her powers would make it easy t’ fix you, get fixed ‘n’ be done. If there’s someone else who could do it as fast and safe, then see them. Spite and anger are good if you use ‘em, but they only fuck with you if you let ‘em make important decisions on their own.”
The other woman's words made sense, and Dani was pretty sure that Emma'd been trying to say some of the same things, only in a different way. Anger was a big thing with her, one of the things that used to enable her drinking. She'd been trying to get it under control for months.
It just didn't work so well where Obi-wan was concerned. She was still certain, however, that putting her life back together without him in the picture was the most important thing. She puffed on her cigarette for a while, thoughtfully.
Then, "Her powers have been on the fritz. The next step for me is probably determining if they're going to stay that way. That's better information to make choices over."
“That’s a smarter way t’ do it.” Belle agreed. “There’s plenty of folks with powers, she can’t be the only one who can help.” She was enjoying the night air and the conversation, so she lit another cigarette. While she did that she couldn’t help but check her phone on the off chance Vanille or Wolfwood messaged her.
There was a huge temptation to pull out something that wasn't a cigarette and smoke it. But anyone walking around them would pick up a contact high and it wasn't respectful to Belle. So instead she lit up another cigarette, too, and nodded.
She wasn't really sure that there were other people out there that could just wave a magic wand and cure her, nor was she certain that's how she wanted to handle it. But Belle was right about how she needed to handle it, "I hope I'm not keeping you from something. It's nice to get a chance to break away for a bit. And hear some stuff I probably needed to hear."
“Mrs. Summers is. . uh, ready for a break from my scrutiny.” Belle noted, chuckling a little. “Apparently my brain is louder than others.” She shrugged. “Beside, I won’t get another break until my relief comes, and I don’t mind gettin’ to know people. Especially people that Tyra bothers t’ mention by name when she’s on a sex rampage.”
"... wait... run that last by me again?" Dani laughed a bit, and brushed some hair away from her face, "Sex rampage? Well, I guess no one deserves it more than her. I'm not about to judge anyone for working out their issues with sex. If that's working for her, that's all that matters."
It hadn't really worked for Kitty, though, and she had to face her own feelings over the fact that 'rampage' meant that there'd been others.
“I just meant that since she’s single she’s probably gone back t’ old habits.” Belle had no issue with that, after all she’d only stopped sleeping around on accident. “She was a bit more demure when we worked together the first time, but I figured that was just ‘cause of the risks, not ‘cause she lacked the drive or ability.” Take away the threat of losing her job and add grief, and Belle figured Shepard had a new lady every night. Except she clearly didn’t, which was funny.
There probably were other women. Dani had never told Tyra not to sleep around. She wasn't sure it was fair of her to even ask for that, "I'm really only just getting to know her, actually. We work at the ranch together, and before that she was mainly on the peripherals. So I don't really have anything to compare her current state to, but I figure she probably has the drive and the energy, yeah."
Belle nodded, and didn’t elaborate on how or when they’d worked together previously. “But she mentioned you by name, and you’re here at God awful early in the mornin’ so she don’t wake up alone.” Which really said enough about what was going on to Belle. Shepard’s body might be doing one thing, but some internal part of her was doing another. Belle just hoped it would work out for both of them.
"I just..." Dani stammered, then sighed, and leaned back against the building. Belle was way too astute, "I've been on long hospital stays three times in the last year. I'm intimately familiar with what it's like to wake up alone in one. It's horrible. She's already got a divorce to deal with, she doesn't need to confirm she's as alone as she feels."
Belle nodded and stubbed out her cigarette. “Lemme just poke my nose in your private life real quick, then I best head inside and grab a sandwich before my break is up. You’re both still under your exes right now, so whatever you’ve got goin’ on should be slow and simple. Sometimes our hearts are hurtin’ and company soothes it, so that’s all we want in the world. I’ve used it against people, and I’ve seen good people hurt each other in that situation without meanin’ to.” She pushed off from the wall and patted her shirt down, like she could pat the smell out.
Instead of getting instantly furious with Belle over butting her nose in, Dani took the words to heart, and nodded her head a bit. Maybe the words just seemed to make more sense coming from a woman doing whatever job it was Belle did. Maybe the other woman involved in the situation made Dani care enough to listen.
More likely she was just too exhausted to do anything but stop and think, "I already told her that we need to have some kind of... talk after she gets better. I'll think through the rest of what you're saying."
“Then best of luck t’ you. If it makes you feel any better, I like you and think you’d be good for each other.” She smiled, pulling her phone out again, just in case. Nobody was going to text her at four am, but it was worth looking. “Bonsoir, Ms. Moonstar.”
"I'm sure I'll talk to you later," Dani replied. She stayed to finish her cigarette, before eventually following Belle's steps inside. The conversation had been good, and she had a lot to think about.