dǫçţǫŗ şɭęęƥ (shone) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-10-08 18:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: dan torrance, ₴ inactive: sabrina spellman |
WHO: Dan & Sabrina
WHAT: A talk about Acceptance™
WHERE: Near the mortuary, out in a forest clearing
WHEN: Late Thursday
WARNINGS: Feels
STATUS: Complete
In Sabrina’s opinion October was shaping up to be about as annoying as September had been. Between the disappearances and Dan’s lovely Vallo gift Sabrina was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some big disaster to come around the corner. The tension felt like it had been steadily rising all week and she wasn’t sure how to help or fix any of it. And while she tried to tell herself that she didn’t need to work to fix everything, it was hard to stick to that mindset. It screwed with her sleep schedule, not quite putting her back to where she had been during the summer before attending therapy, but there were still several nights a week where sleep didn’t last long. Instead of laying out and ignoring the issue, she’d taken to exploring the woods again, finding the materials needed for different spells or just soaking up the moonlight when she could. Salem trotted along after her, pouncing onto a leaf every so often, before hurrying up to catch up with her, prize in his mouth as he bounded from shadow to shadow. At least someone was still having fun. She slowed down upon nearing the clearing where she used to lay out, arching a brow when she spotted someone in the area. It took her a moment to get a clear view, forehead furrowing as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. “Dan?” she called out, not expecting to find anyone but especially not him in the area. The view of the moon out here in the clearing was pleasant, Dan thought - it was kind of a diffuser, lessening the way the night sky resembled an inkwell, though didn’t seem to dull the stars; it was easy to appreciate how they glittered and sparkled. His assumption was that some time soaking up nature and the scent of needle-covered paths and damp moss would help him decide what to do about his current predicament - but nothing was really coming to him. It was just dread. A brand of heavy dread, that felt like a dead tree taking up residence in the center of his chest. The Overlook had been destroyed and he went down with it, but apparently back home it wasn’t enough - something at play had brought it back, and it continued to be the bane of his existence. The air was a little chilly, crisp for autumn, and Dan had on jeans and a sweater, a jacket thrown over that. He’d slipped out without waking Allison and planned to sit here idly running his hand over a patch of grass and thinking when he heard Sabrina’s voice - sensed her presence before she called out, a crackle of her personal radio station. “Hey,” he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes at all. “Couldn’t sleep either?” He’d been so pleased with her improvement, but then there were setbacks and it would take some time to get past these bumps in the road. But that was life for you. She noted that not-quite-right smile, wrinkling her nose as she glanced over at Salem, watching him nod in confirmation that he picked up on it too. It was weird seeing him out there, not quite registering correctly in her brain. The last person who’d joined her in this particular clearing had been Archie and--no, she wasn’t letting her brain go down that path of horrific possibilities again. Instead she headed over to where Dan was and sat down cross-legged on the grass beside him. “I slept a little, but this type of moonlight is good for picking up these mushrooms and I want to use them in a spell next week.” She nodded toward her bag as she kicked off her shoes, letting her feet sink into the dirt. “It came back again, didn’t it?” The Overlook. Some things just didn’t seem to handle being blown up all that well in Vallo. “Keeps turning up like a bad penny,” Dan confirmed, squinting up at the sky. The stars burned with what looked like an electric light, but they still didn’t really provide any answers. He didn’t know what would - a part of him was just really tired, fatigued weighing down weary bones, and he was too fucking old to keep fighting with the Overlook. He and Dwight had definitely attempted to incinerate the place, bombs aplenty, but all it did was - well, their attempts basically did nothing, even when they enlisted help from others. Barely made a dent, in fact. Dan was hesitant to rig the boiler to blow again, given how well that had gone when he and Abra were there to lure Rose to its trap, but - maybe. Even if something told him a repeat wasn’t the answer. “It also keeps fucking with people and I don’t know what to do besides take the blame for it.” Salem climbed his way onto her lap, kneading his paws into her dress as he got himself comfortable. She reached down, slowly stroking his head, wincing at Dan’s words. “It’s not your fault that Vallo decided to bring it here,” she told him as she glanced over at him. “Just like it's not my fault that Pandemonium showed up here either.” He couldn’t tell her one thing about the craziness this place doled out on her own life and then hold himself to different standards. She wasn’t going to allow it. They had no say in what Vallo brought--whether people or things. Just like they had no say in who left and who stayed. It was the fatal flaw in this place, the one thing that made easing into living there not quite achievable all the time. One could almost give into that false sense of security but the disappearances were a good smack of reality every so often. “But it is a piece of you, just like that stupid place is a piece of me,” she added, frowning at her own words. Dan reached over, giving Salem a scritch under his chin and behind his ears. Dan liked this little guy (goblin) a lot - he could hear the cat’s thoughts, they communicated that way. “What do you think, Salem?” he asked, though deep down he knew it was true - he wasn’t a double standard kind of person anyway, and it really wasn’t his fault the Overlook appeared in Vallo. But no matter the terrible structure or the creature that appeared in droves, all from someone’s homeworld, no one asked for that shit to happen. It just did. Sabrina’s next words surprised him a little, but not in a bad way. He’d been thinking similar thoughts about Pandemonium, noticing she’d hidden out there after Archie and Ambrose (the cousin prior to this one) disappeared. He hadn’t expected it to be a mirroring situation to the Overlook, but...maybe it was. “I wish it wasn’t,” he uttered quietly. The Overlook Hotel was essentially a psychic vampire all on its own, absorbing the ghosts of those who died within its walls, and turning them into agents of its own hunger - the hotel had always wanted Dan, to feed off his steam. It was feeding off steam now, even, given what it was doing to others. The building had been destroyed, back home, and yet the ghosts hadn’t. They still came after Abra, but she was equipped to deal with them - and she’d deal with them in a better way that Dan did, when he’d tried to drown everything. “Do you mean you’ve accepted Pandemonium?” he wanted to know, curious. “I don’t think anyone wishes the bad parts were part of us,” Sabrina murmured, plucking at the grass. But there was no escaping their darker parts. They were as much a part of them as the rest of it. Just like there was no escaping the past or future in her case. “I still don’t like it much. I hate that its part of me, but I think I’ve accepted it as much as I can right now.” The place had become somewhere she could escape to when everything became too much to deal with, offering a comfort that the mortuary hadn’t been able to provide when all it did was remind her of those she’d lost. Sabrina didn’t always know how to feel about it, fluctuating from despising it to seeking it out, but she knew it was part of who she was. Just as she couldn’t deny she was the Devil’s daughter. “It doesn’t define all of me though. Just a piece. And I get to decide what to do with that piece.” Maybe she didn’t always make the best decisions, but she thought she was doing a little better with them. Less dashing right into danger without a thought and more trying to live an actual life without the weight of the world on her shoulders. Before, Dan told Sabrina that he thought she was handling the most recent disappearances well, as well as anyone could handle those sorts of things - and he meant that. He’d noticed that she was holding back on running into precarious situations (she wasn’t someone he’d had to patch up at the clinic when dinosaurs were stomping around), and focusing more on her schoolwork and her own magic rather than thinking she had to fix everyone else’s issues using her magic. It was a good thing - she’d come a long way, and he was proud of her. So the least he could do was maybe follow his own advice, and follow her own example - maybe put less of the blame for the Overlook on himself, and recognize that obliterating it in the physical sense wasn’t necessarily going to make it go away. “Yeah - you get to decide,” he agreed. “I guess...I do too. In AA we talk a lot about tools of recovery, and so forth - acceptance is one of those tools. I can accept it as a part of me, without letting it lead me down that road my father went, hurting the people I love.” “I still say its crap though that we even have to do that though,” Sabrina pointed out, nose wrinkling in annoyance as she threw the grass she’d been tugging up. Salem pounced for it, trying to catch the different blades before falling back onto the ground. “I want the nice gifts that everyone else gets. Like pokemon--except not actually pokemon because what does anyone even do with a pokemon?” Why couldn’t Vallo give her that pony she’d wanted once or twice as a child? Knowing her luck it would turn out to be some kind of soul eating pony though. It was probably best to not wish for it. “But maybe if you do the acceptance thing we’ll at least be able to ward the place so no one else gets drawn into it and nothing can come out of it?” she suggested, turning to look at him. Because blowing it up didn’t seem to be working all that well so far. Maybe a different approach was the key. Dan huffed a little laugh, rough and gravelly. “Some nice things would be preferable,” he said. Though he too was unsure what he would do with a Pokémon creature - apparently Hilda had one but there were already enough cats at the mortuary so he just kind of let her handle the whatever-it-was as her own pet. He was fine without. “Although I have Allison, and you, and the others - that’s pretty nice too.” Many people postulated that being brought to Vallo was about some kind of lesson - learning something about yourself, or accomplishing a task. Maybe one that had to do with self-reflection. Dan didn’t know if that was true or not, but he could see the theory behind it - it took Pandemonium and other Hell gifts showing up for Sabrina for her to realize that if she kept pushing away and avoiding that part of herself, trouble soon followed. Balance was the goal - not focusing on just one part. For Dan, he wasn’t only that scared little boy who had nearly been swallowed by the Overlook. He wasn’t merely the drunk with the explosive temper who had followed in his father’s footsteps. And he wasn’t only Doctor Sleep, who eased the anxiety and fear felt by those on their way out - he was everything. The good and the bad. “Warding it is probably a good idea,” he nodded, reaching over and giving Salem another chin scritch. “I’ll - try one more time? To get rid of it entirely. Maybe not by burning it down, but something. If that doesn’t work, then it’ll be the strongest ward there is, especially around the waypoint in the lobby.” He didn’t want anyone else coming across that place or accidentally wandering inside. Nothing positive awaited. “I mean it’s probably connected to Hell so fire is not going to be the way to completely destroy it,” Sabrina reasoned. Setting her clothes and crown on fire hadn’t done much good, both things ending up back in her room, perfectly unblemished. Was the Overlook the same? Though it had been destroyed in Dan’s world by a boiler explosion so maybe it would eventually work if he truly accepted that last piece of himself. “I can get the coven to help with warding though if your last hurrah doesn’t end up destroying it.” Between everyone in her group she had a feeling they could come up with something to keep others from stumbling upon the monstrosity. She was smart enough to realize it would need more than she could offer, just as Pandemonium had needed more than her own spells to hold back the evil that had crept out of it upon its arrival. “Maybe after this our house will be left alone for a bit on the disappearances and crappy gifts.” It was a nice thought, though Sabrina was sure that was wishful thinking. It was only the second week of October. There was bound to be even more crazy in the weeks ahead. Oh, he absolutely believed that the Overlook was connected to Hell in some way. No matter what, it was some kind of depository of souls, a place where tortured minds drifted off to die - and if that didn’t scream ‘Hell,’ then Dan didn’t know what did. It was playing a devilish endgame, and it always had been doing that. There was nothing he wanted more than for it to leave this world - he could acknowledge that it would always be with him, but he didn’t need it to be physically with him. “Alright,” he decided, squaring his shoulders a bit, reaching up to rub at a knot of tension there. “No fire to destroy it. The last hurrah will be another way, and I’ll let you know if it doesn’t work.” He was pretty sure he knew who could do it too - no need to put out a call on the network for some heavy hitters. His sister-in-law was a heavy hitter all on her own, and Vanya was a little like him in that she wanted to use her powers to do good things - especially after what had happened back home for her. So he would get on that, fingers crossed, and hope for the best - even if dredging up a little sliver of hope was difficult. “Being left alone would be nice too - maybe we’re just getting all the bad stuff out of the way before the wedding,” he postulated. “Don’t you go anywhere though?” He put his arm around Sabrina and anchored in to drop a kiss on the top of her head. It wasn’t something she could promise, he realized that, but he didn’t think he could deal with that particular blow to the feelings right now. “I’m not planning on it,” she promised, but knew full well that they didn’t seem to have any control over whether they stayed or left. But his theory seemed sound enough to her. Maybe that was what was happening, all of the bad happening for them before the wedding so it would be a nice, peaceful, joyous occasion. If they were lucky Klaus would even show up before it, reuniting Allison’s side of the family. Sabrina glanced over at him after scooping Salem up into her arms. “Are you ready to go back to the mortuary because you being in the woods is really not a good look for you?” She thought he looked completely out of place in the little clearing that had become her second bedroom for most of the summer months. It didn’t seem to suit him at all and she knew he was going to need some sleep to deal with everything tomorrow. “The roof is much better for contemplating things,” she continued as she rose, setting Salem on her shoulders. “Plus you can easily bring a plate of Aunt Hilda’s cookies up there with you while you plot your last hurrah against that stupid hotel.” Well, Dan was no forest nymph but he liked the outdoors. He liked camping, setting up under the stars and not having to deal with phones or alarms or Netflix. His and Allison’s wedding reception, which was basically just going to be a big party for everyone, was also set to be outside in the courtyard of Skyhold - where all the previous merchants had once had their stalls, as he’d learned. “I’ll find a better spot next time,” he promised, standing up and dusting any excess grass or dirt off of him. After all, he didn’t really want to impose or stake claim on a place Sabrina viewed as her own. “Maybe not the roof, but.” Anyplace with cookies was okay. Those sounded good. Some actual rest wouldn’t be remiss either (for the both of them). He’d do some plotting, get some sleep, and everything would be better tomorrow. It had to be. Because it really couldn’t get much worse, now could it? (Yes, it could, but he wasn’t going to think about that). |