terribly sorry, officer (baelfiery) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-03-12 13:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, neal cassidy (baelfire), tasslehoff burrfoot |
Who: Neal & Tas (with NPC!Henry)
What: Tas drops by to see the nursery-in-progress and get inspiration for the baby furniture he's going to make (also to wow Henry with awesome stories, clearly)
When: Saturday, maybe?
Where: Swan-Cassidy House
Rating/Warnings: Very low, squeaky clean
Status: Complete
Tas had never built furniture before. Like he’d told Neal, his friend in his dreams, Flint, had probably made furniture before, but Tas had never dreamed about it and certainly didn’t know how it happened. Still, it was entirely possible that he was actually a great furniture maker and he just never knew about it, never having the occasion to make any himself. He was very excited to give it a shot, and couldn’t wait to get a look at the nursery that he’d be making it for. He knocked on the door at the same instant that he attempted to open the door to step inside. Well, the door was locked, but it didn’t matter much anyway - because Neal was there to answer, and to show his guest inside. He was kind of iffy on how a rocking chair and a potential bassinet would turn out if they were made by someone who had only (supposedly) constructed igloo furniture or whatever, but it seemed like the guy’s heart was in the right place - so a lot of love would go into those creations, yeah? He and Emma had registered for furniture too, just in case. Their baby wouldn’t have want for a place to sleep. And as long as handmade furniture didn’t fall apart when it was used? Neal didn’t care too much about aesthetics overall. “Hey, Tas, right? Come on in,” Neal waved him inside, where the dogs immediately came rushing over to have a sniff. “Mystique, Hawkeye - don’t overwhelm him too much. Do you mind dogs, by the way? I can put them in the other room if so.” “That’s me,” Tas said. He would have offered a hand to shake with Neal, but then the dogs came and Tas squatted down so they could sniff his hands before he vigorously scratched them behind the ears. “Are you kidding?” Tas asked. “I love dogs. I think I’d like a dog someday, but I travel too much and it’s really hard to get picked up when you’re travelling with dogs. I don’t think Raistlin would like it if we had dogs either. He can be kind of grumpy about that kind of thing sometimes. But I love that you have them! You must be Neal, right?” “Yep, last time I checked,” he quipped, as Hawkeye and Mystique loved all up on the fellow paying them attention - they were friendly pups, Hawkeye more of a mixed mutt breed and Mystique a white, curly-haired Labradoodle. “It’s good to meet you. Henry’s in his room, probably immersed in video games, so I’ll introduce you when we head up. You want anything to drink before I show you the nursery?” Neal was a good host - he always tried to offer guests something, and he had a lot of options. Alcoholic or nonalcoholic, though he hadn’t been buying beer as often since Emma became pregnant. She obviously couldn’t drink, so he cut back in a show of support and solidarity. Healthier all around that way. “Henry?” Tas asked, looking up from where he was making good friends with Neal’s dogs. He wasn’t aware that Neal and Emma had another child, but he brightened. “I met a Henry once! He was a photographer. We got into an epic snowball war!” It had been quite a lot of fun. “If you have any ale or beer, I would love one,” Tas said. “But if not, I’m okay with anything!” “I do, actually,” Neal nodded, heading into the kitchen to grab two beers - Newcastle, since that was his favorite. The day you caught him drinking American beer, well. He’d probably drink toilet water before that (not much of a difference, really). He handed Tas one of the bottles, after popping the cap off. “Henry’s my son, he’s twelve. Dream son too, but it’s....complicated there. Anyway, he knows all about the dream stuff so he might ask you a million questions.” Then he led the way up the stairs, knocking on the halfway-closed door of the pre-teen’s space. “Henry? Come on out and meet someone.” “I just gotta beat this one boss!” Yep. Video games. But he must have run out of lives because after an awwwww, man, two seconds later he emerged from his comic book-themed room. “Who’s this?” “Henry, this is Tas. From the network. He’s gonna make some baby furniture, so I’m showing him the nursery.” “Oh, cool!” Henry grinned widely. “Do you have superpowers too?” That was generally what he thought of most Dreamers, especially since they’d run into the actual Hawkeye while picking up pizza. “Really?” Tas asked. He almost asked if Henry had just shown up from the dreams like some people’s pets did, but then he thought better of it. Even though it would be pretty neat if people just showed up from the dreams too, he was pretty sure it didn’t usually happen. Besides, despite the fact that they were all taller, he was pretty sure that his dream parents and his dream sister were the same ones he had in this life. “Well that’s okay! I’m great at answering questions!” And asking them. He took the beer that Neal offered and happily took a swig, thanking him as he followed Neal up the stairs. “Hi Henry!” Tas said cheerfully, offering out a hand to shake. “I don’t have super powers,” Tas pouted, though the pout disappeared moments later. “But my friend Raistlin got magic powers from the dreams! He’s a mage there, and now he’s one here! And in my dreams, there’s lots of magic too. I don’t have superpowers, but I fight goblins and draconians - which are these really ugly lizard people - and one time me and my friends killed a black dragon! And then we got to watch these two red dragons fighting too, which was really exciting! Oh! And there was this drow - which is like, a dead evil elf - and her voice could kill people.” It didn’t really matter that Tas didn’t have magical superpowers - because he’d said a lot of magic words. At least to Henry. Dragons, ugly lizard people, goblins? Yeah, that was the stuff a twelve-year-old kind of ate up. Already he was hanging on every word, with rapt attention and interest. Neal chuckled a little, and put his hands on the kid’s shoulders. “That’s awesome,” he sounded impressed; Neal figured he would be. “Did you save part of the dragon when you killed it? Like teeth and stuff, or the skin?” Because, like - you could make potions from dragon parts. He was pretty sure Regina did, and had bubbling dragon brew in her crypt or something. Tas got along well with children. It was partly because of his own childlike innocence, but mostly because he always had great stories to tell of his adventures, even before he started dreaming of Krynn. “Oh, I wish I had thought of that,” Tas pouted. “No, I didn’t. The first dragon we fought was in this underground city, and when we killed it the whole city collapsed and buried it! We barely got out ourselves. Are you excited for your little brother or sister?” Henry would want to hear all those stories - he was pretty sure Tas should put them in a book, it would be amazing to read! “Yeah, pretty excited,” he nodded, and he was - especially since he’d won the bet about the baby being a boy, so now Regina had to do his chores for the next two weeks. It was hilarious. “I’m old enough to help out and look after him, because he’ll just be this...small, wrinkly thing,” Henry continued, the ultimate authority and expert on babies. Naturally. “So that’ll be kind of cool. What kinda stuff are you making for the nursery?” “A rocking chair and bassinet, mainly,” Neal responded, ruffling Henry’s hair. Then he picked up his beer from where he’d set it down, motioning down the hall with the bottle. “We’ll see what sort of arty vibes you get from the place, Tas.” “I was a little younger than you when I got my little sister,” Tas said cheerfully. “But I got to help out lots too. I’d try to get out of diaper duty though. Babies are smelly.” The last was a loud stage whisper directed toward the young boy. He cheerfully followed Neal down the hall. “I’m really excited to see it! I’m sure I’ll have lots of thoughts. Is the nursery as cool as Henry’s room looks?” Babies were definitely smelly. Henry agreed with that, grinning brightly. But he still tagged along, wanting to hear what the plan for furniture building was. “It’ll look as cool as my room eventually,” he said. “Right, dad?” Neal nodded, leading them into the space - there wasn’t much in the way of furniture yet, but the walls had been freshly painted a light tan color with white trim, and the main colors in the nursery would be that tan, green, white, orange, and yellow. “It’s a work in progress,” he shared, reaching for the sketches that Rapunzel had done (she’d also drawn Henry as a superhero which he went nuts for) and showing them to Tas. “We’re thinking that the wall’s gonna have this design, the camels marching toward a watering hole. And also the giraffes, monkeys, and elephants traveling down the road too, with palm trees and a thatched-roof hut - I guess it’s all going to be part of a mural or something? But Em’s ordered a lot of animal things, to supplement.” That was mainly why the theme had been chosen anyway - both she and Neal loved animals, so figured it’d be a component of their baby’s personal space too. Tas looked through the sketches eagerly. “These are really good!” he said as he flipped through them. Rapunzel had once drawn a sketch of him, but he didn’t recognize the art as he flipped through. “Oh, I could definitely make something with these! Maybe I can carve a really pretty animal into them!” Carving pictures of animals probably couldn’t be any more difficult than making the furniture itself. “Yeah, she’s got some skills,” Neal agreed. Rapunzel did a good job helping with art classes at the ranch, and creative expression and all everything (it was good for the kids to have that outlet), so Neal had been eager to see what she could come up with in terms of designs for the nursery walls. And he hadn’t been disappointed. “Whatever you think would go with the theme, you know? I’m just happy to give you a chance to expand your furniture repertoire. Besides the igloos.” That caught Henry’s attention. “Did you really carve furniture for igloos?” he asked, clearly thinking that was kind of the best thing ever. “Like, out of ice and stuff??” Tas glanced through the drawings Rapunzel had drawn, and was already envisioning the beautiful furniture he would make. They’d be so nice, with images of horses running through the spray of water, birds taking flight from the trees with their wings looking so soft, even carved in wood, that people wouldn’t be able to resist touching it. If Flint could see the chairs that Tas would make, then he’d positively be brimming with envy. “I did!” Tas said. “The ice is really really thick up north, so we’d cut squares out of the ground and we’d stack them up on top of one another. And I made chairs out of the ice too, and out of-” he had the sudden idea that mentioning that he’d also made chairs out of empty beer boxes to a twelve-year-old would probably get, at the very least, a look of annoyance from his father, and Tas didn’t want to make Neal to second guess having Tas make furniture for him. “Sand,” he amended quickly. “At the beach!” Neal grinned crookedly, because he caught that brief pause and amendment. Though he appreciated the small amount of censorship - Henry was pretty grown up for his age, but still. His dad didn’t want to give him any ideas, because he got enough on his own. That was just the way he was, always curious and scheming something. He’d first arrived here during the apocalypse, after all. By taking a good chunk of money from his bank account and buying his own bus ticket. The kid was downright crafty. “Sand at the beach where there were igloos?” Henry was trying to picture that, but that wasn’t making a ton of sense. Though if the OC could have a white Christmas, maybe it was like that for other places too? “That’s still really cool! I’m sure you’ll make awesome furniture for Thor’s room too.” “Henry, his name’s not Thor,” Neal rolled his eyes fondly. “Sorry, he thinks Em and I are going to name his little brother after a comic book hero.” Not going to happen, sadly to say. “Oh no,” Tas said. “The beach was in Mexico! No igloos there.” He was used to people being confused about his stories, especially since he tended to be rather careless with pointless things like locations and timeframes. “I think Thor would be a great baby name!” Tas said cheerfully. “Or maybe Hulk!” “Yeah, see, dad!” Henry nudged his father, because he had suggested Hulk too. But that really didn’t go over well with his parents, the same way Thor didn’t. “Those are good names.” Maybe if you were twelve, sure. Or got along exceptionally well with kids, as was the case for Tas’s situation. “Right, well,” Neal laughed, shaking his head. “It’ll be taken into consideration. We’re still brainstorming.” But back to the wonder of baby furniture - since this nursery was going to be turned into something safari-esque, “Anything else you need, Tas? Or are you feeling sufficiently inspired?” He asked. Tas couldn’t help but smile at father and son. He never got homesick, but he did take a moment to wonder about how his own parents were doing. Maybe he should write them a letter, or give them a phone call sometime soon. But when Neal asked his question, Tas temporarily forgot all about his parents. “Oh, I think I’m sufficiently inspired!” Tas said. “I’ll make you the best furniture you’ve ever seen in your life! You can count on it.” “Sounds good to me.” Neal was curious about what the finished product would look like, but he already knew that their furniture-maker would put his whole heart into his ‘craft’ - and that was the important thing, right? That you had heart with most everything you did, or what was the point? Henry nodded authoritatively. “Sounds good to me too,” he added, in case they were looking for his very esteemed approval. But now that they did have his approval, you just couldn’t go wrong. Baby Thor Hulk Cassidy was going to have the swankiest room around, that was for sure. Definitely still some brainstorming to do on those names, though. |