dǫçţǫŗ şɭęęƥ (shone) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-07-12 19:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: dan torrance |
WHO: Dan & Natasha
WHAT: Helping Nat take a nap, doing a little sleep reset
WHERE: Snooze Room
WHEN: Today
WARNINGS: Nothing, really - trauma talk?
STATUS: Complete
Natasha wasn't exactly a fan of asking for help. Even from those closest to her. So reaching out to someone who was a friend in the way that they were all kind of friends being stuck together but not necessarily someone very close to her was very much outside of her comfort zone. Still though, she had some reasons for taking that step. Most of which involved taking another step with someone else. Sleep, even before living through the fallout of half the world's population vanishing into thin air, was an elusive beast. And she knew Steve would never hold that against her, but she'd rather no keep him up every damn night of the week with her inability to sleep more than an hour or two at a time. Plus… she was just damn tired. So she showed up to her appointment, a respectable three minutes early, coffee in hand for Dan and a tea (caffeine free) for herself, a little paper bag with cream and sugar if Dan wanted. She knocked and gave a "helllo" as she walked through the open door. "Thanks again for setting this up for me," she said as she handed off the coffee and set the little paper bag down. Was that coffee? It was coffee. Roasted beans, the seeds of berries from a specific plant - also known as the one vice Dan probably wasn’t going to give up anytime soon. There was a chance he’d switch to decaf, at some point, maybe when he was old(er) and gray and didn’t need as much energy for either working overtime wrangling injured folks or wrangling a six-year-old. He’d see what happened though - it was difficult to predict much of anything in Vallo. “No trouble,” he assured Natasha, taking the coffee with a thanks of his own - he popped the lid off to add a bit of creamer to get that taupe shade going, mixing it in with the small wooden stick. Ever since the inception of the affectionately-dubbed Snooze Room, he’d had a variety of Outlanders (a couple locals too) come and go - it was a spot where he’d make sure they were safe, surrounded by the calming blue of these walls, the shade of a field of forget-me-nots, and cocooned in the perfect sixty-five degree temperature. The blankets were soft as fleecy clouds and the pillows were a mix - some liked squishy pillows, some liked sleeping on bricks for neck support; he didn’t judge either way. But overall he’d set up a cozy niche here and he was always glad to help people. Lots of insomniacs in their little (big) Outlander crew. “Get comfortable, anywhere - not everyone likes to just plop into the bed right away so if you need some time to ease into it, that’s okay.” There was a loveseat and a table with chairs as well; right now, Dan was seated in one of the chairs. “What’s the goal for today?” Natasha split the difference and picked the loveseat, but she toed off her flats and laid down on it (the perks of being short), though sitting up enough so she could still sip at her tea. Personal goals were a tricky thing to put into words sometimes. Especially for Natasha. Mostly because she still had trouble believing she was deserving of good things. The kind of future that you made personal goals for. But Vallo had thrown a bit of a wrench in all that. Her she was with a kid (in an alternate universe sort of way), friends, family, a chance to just live her damn life for the first time in well… ever. She took a drink and then shrugged a little. "Figure out how to sleep through the night maybe?" A pause. "Which I know is a big ask," she added with a bit of a conspiratorial smile directed at Dan. "I'm not sure how much you know of our world," our being the collective group of them from her home. "But a few years back half the people in the world vanished, literally with the snap of fingers," her words were even, she was used to discussing terrible things without much emotion, but it was still clear this weighed on her. A lot. "I have a lot of things that keep me awake at night, but I guess we can say that one's on the top of the list." And definitely not helped by the fact people here tended to vanish without a trace. “A big ask,” Dan agreed, returning the smile as he idly stirred the coffee, which still had a pleasant steam wafting from the cup. “But not impossible.” Reworking the circadian rhythm could be done - and getting into good sleep habits overall took some time and patience, and maybe a dash of perseverance to try out what worked for you personally (and switching tactics when it was apparent that changing course was necessary). Not to mention nightmares were also a beast that threw a large monkey wrench into that whole process. His lucid dreaming success stories - he was proud of them. Nick, for example, could control his dreams to a damn near expert level now. Really did improve the whole ‘quality of life’ thing. And everyone here deserved the chance to have a fulfilling life in Vallo, to make the best of their borrowed time. He wasn’t that familiar with Natasha’s world, however, so hearing about the disappearance of such a large part of the population was definitely disconcerting. Dan considered that, as he sipped his coffee. “They say that grief leaves behind a hole that can never be filled in - you just have to get used to it existing within you. But half the world - that leaves a really big hole. I assume it got righted eventually?” Even so, the trauma of that lingered - case in point, his latest appointment. Trauma did have a way of doing that, lingering. Even more so when one found themselves in a place where unexpected disappearances were commonplace and honestly Natasha had gained some sort of complex about the notification noise for those announcements. But mostly she tried to shove it all into some corner of her mind. With all the other trauma. "Grief is a tricky thing," she agreed with a small smirk, though not one that made light of the words, over the top of her cup as she took a drink. Sometimes it still felt like she was lost in that, the unforgiving and absolutely daunting amount of grief that had settled in as she watched her teammates, her friends, vanish into dust. "Took a few years and some time travel, but yeah, we got it righted." Though not without its own costs. But then that had been a given going in. Natasha was far too much of a realist to have ever hoped they'd get out of everything unscathed. Time travel. There were always consequences to that sort of thing, right? You couldn’t muck about with time without little things going wrong, pinging off here and there in all directions; sometimes it was no big deal, other times it probably caused an avalanche - growing and growing and flowing like a rushing river, picking up rocks and other bits of debris. Dan didn’t envy anyone who had to pick up the pieces of a world where half its population suddenly vanished, and then reappeared once more. “I can see how that would keep you up - especially since people disappear so suddenly here, without warning,” he said. “It’s not anything we can control and I personally hate that.” Everyone else did too - well, most everyone else. Maybe some had submitted to the whimsies of Vallo but he wasn’t sure if he ever would completely. “But - taking care of yourself while you’re here is important too. In order to make the most of things. I can help with the sleep aspect, at least - give you some tips that you can try to combat insomnia and actually sleep through the night. And getting a good sleep here will help too. I promise it doesn’t involve me rooting around in your head or anything.” He always liked to reassure people of that, especially if they were wary of mind readers based on their past experiences. In some ways Natasha felt like she'd cheated a little. Getting out of those consequences of everyone showing up again just as suddenly as they'd vanished. From what Sam and Bucky had gotten memories of, it hadn't seemed like the smoothest of transitions. Which didn't surprise Natasha at all to hear. She gave Dan a sly smirk at the promise. "Guess we've got quite a few that would be a dealbreaker for," she replied. She took another sip of her tea before reaching to place the cup on the table beside the loveseat. "I'd say though that it's a pretty big testament to your place in this community that people are trusting you with this," she noted with a warm smile. "Am I okay here?" she asked, she could move to the bed she figured but the loveseat was surprisingly comfortable and well, she fit. “It’s kind of nice - to feel like I found my niche, I guess,” he admitted. The fact that people placed such a big thing in his hands (sleep was a big thing - and so was being vulnerable in front of someone, basically giving them access to all your thoughts and memories and trusting they wouldn’t be invasive) helped him in various ways as well. He wanted to use the Shining in positive ways - not just in helping the dying feel seen and understood during their final moments, but helping the living too. The community had become important to him - he maintained no desire to return to a world where he’d sacrificed himself for his only family, and wouldn’t even get to see her grow up. He took one last sip of his own beverage, placing the lid back on the cup, before setting it down and scooting his chair around a bit so he was better facing the compact Natasha on the loveseat. “Yep, you’re good there - if it’s comfortable for you, then it works,” Dan nodded. People in the Snooze Room didn’t always have to use the bed. “Now all you need to do is relax as best you can - think of a happy memory. It can be anything - but pull it to the forefront of your mind.” Natasha shifted a little on the loveseat and lightly crossed her arms against her stomach as she let out a slow breath and closed her eyes. Happy memories weren't exactly her forte, but she had some. More than she probably deserved, but that was a whole path of thoughts for another day. So instead she focused on those good memories, pulling one in particular. A brief moment of calmness in the madness that had been her life for the past… well, ever really. A cheat moment really. When on the run she and Steve had found the space and time to safely go visit Clint and his family. She could remember vividly the warmth of the night, the smell of the fire they sat around, the sound of the four of them talking and laughing and the sound of Lila and Cooper running around. Normalcy. The only thing she'd ever really wanted. Natasha wove the threads and the memory began to come into focus - for Dan too, he was gentle when he opened a connection between them so he could see the haze begin to clear and a vivid picture forming; it wasn’t a battering ram, just the Shining extending and unfurling with a flex of mental muscle. That was why he always asked people to pick their own memories - it was easier for the both of them. Less looking he had to do. The crackle of the fire was a lullaby, soft light illuminating the room and the heat from the flames a warm hug. Dan focused on that, on the emotion and the calm it all invoked - he intensified it, latching onto the way the warmth felt like spring breaking through the harshness of winter, projecting that too. It was a blanket that wrapped around them both. Sleep now, he spoke without moving his lips - the thought was a light nudge in that direction, as he reached for the psychic blinds. To pull them closed - it was dark, but a comforting dark, like floating where there was just you and silence and nothing to interrupt; the last thing Natasha would see was probably a spark of another one of those flames. Or would hear the footsteps of a kid - the way they tended to, somehow, sound like elephants despite being so small. He always thought that was amusing, and experienced plenty of it with Claire running around the house too. Sleep. |