sixthiterationlogs | Don't dream too far... [CLOSED to DANNY]

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Don't dream too far... [CLOSED to DANNY]

WHO: Samantha Moon
WHERE: Danny's room at the dojo
WHEN: Big backdate to mid-October
OPEN TO: Danny Rand
WARNINGS: Talk of vampirism, Sam's inability to avoid f-bombs, and possible blood and/or nudity

Sam didn't sleep any more. She didn't allow herself the luxury. The cost was too high, especially when she was never sure if she'd have enough blood to wake up again. The last thing she wanted to do was lose control in a population like this. And while Liv's contributions were crucial, Sam knew better than to count on them. Anyone could disappear at any time. That was just the rule of living in a Skinner Box. But even if she didn't sleep, she allowed herself to doze. Normally, she wasn't very good at that. She couldn't relax. But there was something very, very different about lying on the floor of Danny's room, feeling the heat rise off of the surface of Danny's skin, right beside her.

She didn't exactly dream. But some part of her just...let go. A thousand different thoughts passed through her mind and she didn't let a single one linger. No fixating. No agonizing. She meandered through memories of her early days in Lake Forest. Her Bat Mitzvah. Laughing with Uncle Tom and Aunt Tina. Trips to the Art Institute. All pleasant, colorful memories. Blending and shifting like water colors.

It was better than a dream. It was all the good things.

Sunlight fell on her face, when she finally started to rouse herself. It was hard, at first, to remember that the sunlight was real and not another pleasant memory. She let out a soft groan of delight, stretching her legs like a cat. And then she rolled over, landing face-to-face with Danny.

A rush of pleasure from the night before flooded her body.

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Her eyes dropped a little bit. The casual way he touched her. The way that he toyed with her hair. It was surreal. Movie stuff, not real life. Not in her experience. She wondered how he'd learned it. Or if certain behaviors were just natural. Hard to tell. She'd never done a great job of understanding human psychology. Even when she'd been one.

But she liked it.

She liked it all.

"Human blood is what we're built to drink," she said quietly. "The more powerful a Kindred gets, the more potent blood she needs. I'm lucky, I guess, that I'm weak enough to stomach the animal stuff. I had friends back home who couldn't touch it without puking it."

A pause. Sam was reluctant to confess it, but in the golden light, she wondered if it would really be so bad. "I drank human blood back home. But LA was a bigger place, and the people there were a lot more anonymous. I...I didn't kill anyone. You gotta understand that. You don't have to kill someone to drink. The human body can stand to lose three pints of blood without any damage."

Danny wasn't thinking too deeply about his actions. He was comfortable and he enjoyed touching her. He wanted to keep touching her too. He focused on the smooth texture of her skin as his fingers continued their lazy circular motion. It was the kind of simple sensation that couldn't be replaced by anything else in the world and now that Danny had it, he wasn't eager to stop touching her.

"That's a good way to look at it." He agreed though he couldn't stop the subtle tilt to his brow as she explained.

There was a brief pause where Danny let his thoughts rearrange together.

"What's it like?" His voice was soft, as if he was asking her to divulge a huge secret. Sam always came off as private to him and he wouldn't push topics that she wasn't ready to talk about but he couldn't help his curiosity. He wanted to know everything about her.

She should have seen that coming. And the same old sense of embarrassment managed to work its way up and down her spine. But. Suddenly. It stopped. Because who was she kidding? After what they'd done, what was left to be embarrassed about? Just some deeply-ingrained, American sense of Puritanism.

Why fucking bother?

"Well," she said. "For me...it's like...coming up after being underwater." Yeah. That sounded about right. "Like breathing. I mean, I breathe. I do. But it's mostly out of habit now. Habit and the desire to pass for human, I guess. But I don't feel it the same way I did. It's not a need. But when I drink, I feel the oxygen filling me up. Everything is easier. Lighter."

Something that would be easier to express in lines and shapes than words, she decided. She might try her hand at a sketch, to convey it.

But there was more. "For the person I drink from, it's different. I mean, it's..." Puritan or not, she hesitated. "Well. Like..." She ran her knee up, along the inside of his thigh. "A little like last night."

Danny didn't think he heard her correctly. "You mean sex?" He looked down at Sam but he could only see the top of her head. "Like the lead up or the...."

Did he even want to know the answer to this question?

I threw up for a loop but his curiosity wasn't easily sated. He wanted to know everything about her and this was part of that.

"Not the lead up," she said.

It was just about the most delicate way to put it, really. She hadn't been quite as subtle when she explained it to Fucky Darns. But that had been an entirely different situation. One she hoped to never find herself in again.

Although, knowing her luck...

"I guess it's what most dudes would call 'the good part.'" She settled her knee where it was. "Which can make vampire bites incredible addictive. If you know what's going on. Which...most people don't."

"Oh."

He pulled her a little tighter against his chest and wondered what it'd be like if she bit him. Danny didn't dwell on it because he probably wouldn't have been able to let her go. He was strong but desires were entirely different. "I liked the way we did it." He kissed her forehead before relaxing against the floor.

"Thanks for telling me."

It meant a lot to him.

"You're so weird, Danny."

She couldn't stop herself from saying it, even as she settled comfortably against his chest, wondering if she ever wanted to get up again. It was pretty nice here.

Really nice.

But still, she frowned thoughtfully. "Not a complaint. Just a scientific observation. I don't know if there's another human being in the multiverse as chill about vampires as you. Where the fuck does that come from?"

She really wanted to know.

Danny laughed, as he pulled Sam protectively against his chest.

"I fought a dragon. I don't think anything else will surprise me." He was fairly sure that everything existed somewhere, it was just a matter of finding it.

"Besides, the monks taught me to clear my thoughts and remain clam." It didn't work all the time but he knew how to process data in a way that wasn't distracting or harmful in battle. "If I was always surprised I'd probably be dead by now."

Which wasn't a cheery thought.

Okay, the dragon thing definitely earned him some points on the weirdness scale. But still. Sam couldn't figure him out fully, and that bothered her. And left her wondering when the other shoe would drop.

Metaphorically speaking, since Danny didn't seem very into shoes, as far as she could tell.

"Well," she said, "it sounds like your entry into the world of the supernatural was a lot more graceful than most people's. I kind of envy that." She ran her fingers absently up and down the curve of his muscles, along his arm. "Just...don't believe everything you hear about vampires. Because a lot of it isn't true and I...wouldn't want you thinking the worst of me."

Shoes were very confining and Danny disliked wearing them. It made sense in New York where you could step on a piece of grass but in a place like this or the mountains, they weren't really needed.

"I'm not sure about that." His voice was pained and soft. "I was in a plane crash. I was the only survivor of it. I was found by monks in the Himalayan mountains and brought to a monastery in K'un-Lung. It was one of the cities of heaven."

His hold around her shoulders tightened. "I don't know a lot so you'll just have to teach me about them." He pressed another kiss to the crest of her head and tried not to think about his parents and the crash. Even now, it was a sensitive subject.

She closed her eyes. There was pleasure to be derived from the way that Danny touched her. But there was an uncomfortable reminder in it too.

If he wanted to learn...

Well. Maybe that would disgust him. Maybe that's when the other metaphorical shoe would drop. But it was better to know that up front, wasn't it? Before...before something. She didn't know what. Attachment. Feelings. A kind of intimacy that had nothing to do with being naked.

Something.

"Vampires are dead," she said. "That part of the hype is true. I died four, five years ago." She pulled back, running her index finger along her forehead. "Head knocked into the corner of a table. Split open like a melon." Which was super gross. But whatever.

That was an unpleasant mental imagine but it didn't disgust Danny.

"I had guessed as much." His fingers twisted through her hair as he shifted and pulled her so that her chin would rise and she'd be able to meet his gaze without dislodging from his side. Danny didn't want to let go of her just yet.

"I can't feel your heartbeat. I didn't know if it was in my head or not but I think I figured it out." And it hadn't stopped him.

One hurdle down. Only about a million more to go.

No point in stopping just yet.

"I remember lying on the floor of the room," she continued, speaking slowly, choosing her words carefully. "And this woman was standing over me. She said that she had a way to save me. I can still remember the exact, damn words she used: 'I can save your life. But it will come at a cost. You won't be human any more. You'll be like me, like the rest of us. You'll have to give up the things you love. There will be grave consequences. Do you understand?'"

Sam shook her head. "I mean...Consequences? Who the fuck gave a crap about consequences? I saw two options in front of me. Life and death. And I was a fucking teenager. Of course I wanted to live. I wasn't going to be some kind of cautionary tale about the recklessness of youth and the fragility of life. I wasn't going to have some memorial set up for me in the quad, where people could tsk and shake their heads and bemoan the fact that I was too young to die. I was too young to die. So I wouldn't. I refused."

She made her choice.

He listened attentively, his arm protectively wrapped around her shoulders as she spoke.

Ever since he'd arrived in this strange village, he hadn't felt connected to it or the people here. The Dojo was an attempt at that but because of Sam he felt like he had something more. Trust… maybe? Danny didn't know what it was but he welcomed the feeling, even if it's a sad story. It's Sam and he wants to know even the unpleasant parts of her.

Danny felt a knot of tension tighten in his chest. "People have the tendency to do that, good or bad." He remembered the monks, the questions that he had for his masters, the lies. Danny didn't know if he'd ever truly get an answer but it felt like a betrayal. They had told him parts of it but they hadn't explained what it meant.

"No one wants to die." His arm tightened briefly and once again he kissed the top of her head. "That's how it was for me. I was ten and I didn't want to freeze to death in the snow. I hadn't understood anything back then." It felt like it was a reasonable reaction. Even now he remembered what it felt like. His limbs were slowly freezing. He found his dad in the snow, broken and unbreathing, he had never found his mom. All he could do was walk forward and eventually the monks found him.

"Do you regret it? Choosing to live, even as you are, means that you can change the world. I don't think that's a bad thing."

"Regret is more complicated than yes or no," Sam said, staring into his chest as she said it. She couldn't go deeper into what she was. It was too exhausting telling the most basic truths. Thinking about the Great Experiment closed up her throat.

For a moment, anyway.

Then she shook a few curls behind her shoulder and looked up again. "I don't regret being alive. Just some of the things that came with it. But being...what I am...is a package deal. You don't get to pick and choose."

She reached out, running her fingers through his hair. Absently at first. Then slower, with more purpose, as she realized what she was doing.

What was she doing?

"What about you?" she asked. "Do you have room for regret for the choices you made?"

Danny closed his eyes when he felt her fingers reach through the thick dirty blonde curls. It felt good and a pleased little grumble vibrate through his chest. It was a little hard to focus on the conversation after that but he tried his best.

"No." It was very simple for Danny. "There is no time for regret."

There were things he had wished he knew, events he wished never happened but they were all out of his control. He didn't regret them because even if he had been there now, he couldn't have stopped that plan from crashing or save his mom and dad. He had to focus on what he could do now and the good he'd be doing once he rid the world of the Hand once and for all.

"That doesn't mean it's okay. I'm not happy with it but the monks used to tell me-" His voice cut as he inhaled a deep breath. "That in order to achieve peace, we have to let go of the past." It wasn't an easy process and it was something that Danny continued to struggle with but the lessons of the masters were never forgotten.

"You can't change what happened but you can move forward and protect the people you can about now. Become stronger and shape the world into the place that is better."

It was a very Zen sort of way to think about circumstances. And she was sure that letting go of the past was very different for the monks than it had been when Karen yanked the wig off of her head and scowled down her narrow nose at Sam, basically cutting her off from love and happiness. She couldn't help but wonder if Danny would feel so optimistic if he'd been made a Kindred instead of the Iron Fist.

An academic sort of thing to think about. But Sam was nothing if not a thinker.

A dweller.

An obsesser.

"Okay," she said, her fingers all tangled up in his hair, at this point. "So how should we shape this world?"

Danny idly played with her hair as the thoughts twisted and turned in Sam's head. He noticed that she thought a lot but he liked watching the subtle changes to her expression as different ideas drifted in and out of her head. He wondered if Sam realized how cute she looked.

A low hum rumbled through Danny's chest at the question.

"Don't know but it's why I've opened up the Dojo and offered to train people. Fighting is what I know." It's all he knows. "And it's what I do best. It's how I can contribute here."

Making life a little bit easier sounds like a good place to start.

"Well, you know I'm here to learn," she said. And it wasn't just because of how she felt about Danny at the moment. The fact of the matter was that was entirely secondary. An unexpected plot twist in the continual mind fuck in her life.

The fact of the matter was that Sam was a fighter.

She didn't exactly know it, but at the same time...

She fought for the truth. Fought for her life. Fought to retain her humanity. And fought against the very progenitors of both her own existence and the end of the world. And now she wanted to fight against the Overlords too. More than anything. Because of what they'd taken from her. Because she was so tired of being nothing but the Great Experiment, in one form or another.

"I want to fight."

Understatement of the century.

His arms tightened around her waist before pulling her up into a warm kiss. His breath mingled with hers and after a few moments he pulled back, staying within kissing range as he spoke. "I know you do." It was one of the sexiest things about her.

"We should probably get up." He smiled and the look in his light green eyes suggested that he really didn't want to leave but the day was moving on without them.

He also didn't have food here which meant walking to the inn to get breakfast.

"When you're ready."

She kissed him back, eagerly and happily. Would this moment dissolve like a soap bubble on a needle, as soon as she left the room? Maybe. But that was no reason not to enjoy it, while it lasted.

Sam didn't exactly get a lot of moments like this.

When he broke the kiss--stupid humans with their stupid need to breathe!--she closed her eyes, allowing one last wave of...what had she decided it was? Desire? Desire. One last wave of desire wash over her. But even as it did, he said what she knew he had to say.

And she nodded.

"Yeah. I can slip out before your room mates are up," she said, figuring he didn't need them gossiping about him. Probably teasing him. She would have, if their positions were reversed, anyway. And possibly wonder about his sanity.

She pulled away, sitting up and gathering her hair into her hands, at the base of her skull, so she could tie it in a knot and tuck it under her kerchief. "For the record, Danny," she said as she worked. "Not to put pressure on or anything. But this was one of the best mornings I've had in a really, really long time."

His roommates would absolutely tease him but Danny wasn't too worried about that. A night with Sam was worth a little bit of teasing.

He propped himself up on his elbows to watch her and then rose himself. He grabbed his robes and quickly slipped them on, waiting for Sam to finish with her hair.

When she was finished, he leaned forward and pressed another quick kiss against her forehead. "Then we should do it again." Danny smiled and gestured to the door. "Come on. We can walk to the inn together. I doubt either of them are up yet and I don't have food here." And Danny ate... a lot.

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Don't dream too far... [CLOSED to DANNY]

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Wrap up soon?

Yis!

Re: Yis!