March open post

[facethewolves]

I. The Department Store [OPEN]
Waltham Forest, Morning

A relaxed morning in bed with a cup of tea had turned into a trip to the store to buy a new set of sheets. The mattress was dry now, at least, even if it would probably smell like tea forever, but she'd somehow managed to scrub a hole right through one of the sheets so she'd need a new set of those. The new sheets came with new pillowcases, and she decided she might as well get new blankets too, because her blankets had also fallen victim to the tea disaster, and before she knew it the three hundred pounds she had left in the world became less than two hundred and fifty.

Loaded down with new linens, she headed for the cafe and bought a sandwich and a cup of coffee, ruefully counting out her change. She was so preoccupied with that, hoping that maybe the barista had miscalculated and maybe coffee and a sandwich wasn't really that expensive, that she failed to notice when she nearly walked right into someone, only barely stopping herself spilling coffee all over them.

"I'm so sorry," she said quickly, immediately readjusting her grip on the coffee.



II. The Mansion [OPEN]
Westminster, Night

Alex needed the money. Badly. And it wasn't like she was robbing an orphanage or a bunch of nuns or something. She did research. The guy whose house she was breaking into in the middle of the night was filthy rich and not very nice, and if the contents of his safe happened to go missing, well, that sucked for him. Getting into the mansion was easy, and cracking the safe wasn't much harder. There was some cash and a small bag of diamonds, which she took, and a lot of papers, which she left.

Before tonight, she'd figured out how many guards there were, and had so, so carefully avoided all of them. So it came as a huge surprise when she heard a floorboard creak and whirled around to find a guard pointing his gun at her.

A short fight later, Alex was running full speed towards the outside fence. She'd been shot in the shoulder and her hands were slick with blood from digging the bullet out, which made climbing the fence a lot more difficult. Some other guard must have heard the gunshot, because as her hand finally gripped the top of the fence, all the outside lights turned on, lighting the yard up as bright as day. She felt someone grabbing at her ankle, kicked out as hard as she could, and hauled herself over the fence onto the sidewalk. She almost landed square on somebody's head.



III. The Bus Stop [OPEN]
City of London, Early Afternoon

The bus was late. This bus was always late, and Alex knew its exact schedule because Edith rode this bus every week. She had to buy cat food, and it had to be specialty cat food from a specialty store in the City. Alex hadn't believed that at first, because an 85 year old werewolf who was obsessed with cats didn't seem like it could possibly be real. And yet, here she was, carrying around a thirty pound bag of cat food for Edith for the third week in a row.

She didn't hate it as much as she thought she would have. Cleaning dentures was gross, and doing the dishes and laundry and changing beds was tedious. But helping the elderly members of the pack generally felt kind of... good. Which was a weird feeling.

Alex was snapped out of her reverie by someone barreling past her, snatching Edith's purse as he went. Alex did the first thing that came to mind: she hurled the bag of cat food at the thief. It hit him square in the back, broke, and sent its contents showering over a near passerby. She ran over, picked Edith's purse up, and kicked the thief onto his back. He was out cold.

"Are you okay?" she demanded of the passerby.



IV. The Diner [CLOSED to Illya] (backdated to a couple weeks ago)
Camden, Evening

Three weeks to the day that Illya made his deal, Alex waited for him in a small diner near the British Museum. She'd scraped together a few thousand pounds and had it converted to rubles, so she would be able to buy weapons and transportation once she got into Russia. She'd mapped Pinksy Forest, partially from memory and partially by bothering immigrants in Little Russia, and she had some ideas of where the pack's new den might be. All she needed was a way into the country, and Illya, she hoped, would have one for her.

She was too excited to eat. If this worked out, she might be only weeks or even days away from going... not home, exactly, Russia wasn't home anymore. Back to where she started. To finally get closure for everything that had happened to her in the past six years. But she ordered some eggs and sausage for the appearance and sat, picking at them while she watched the minutes tick away on her phone, waiting for him to show.



V. The Confrontation [CLOSED to Kyle] (backdated to late February)

After Lupercalia, Alex spent days worrying that she had ruined whatever relationship she had with Kyle and wondering whether it would be easier to simply pretend she had never met him and move on. But he was a hunter, or at least somehow involved with the supernatural. And even if he'd never directly lied to her, he'd concealed the truth, and in her eyes that was just as bad. She wanted an explanation. Before long, she had worked up enough anger to storm all the way to his place with every intention of confronting him.

There were no obvious signs of life there. Maybe he was out. She raised her hand to bang on the door when she remembered that even if Kyle was a liar, his aunt and uncle might be clueless and innocent, and she didn't want to get them involved. If they came to the door, she would have to exchange pleasantries and possibly pretend to be there for some innocuous reason when all she wanted to do was shout at Kyle.

Instead of knocking, she yanked out her phone and called him. If he didn't answer, then she'd knock.


VI. Choose Your Own Adventure! [OPEN]
Anywhere, Any Time

Comments

[facethewolves]

Alex didn't bother with pleasantries. She was angry, and she had no interest in pretending otherwise - she just wanted to get to the shouting.

She moved back to the sidewalk in front of the apartment, so if he looked out the window he would be able to easily see her, and glared up at the window that she thought was his room. "I'm outside. Open the door."

[akillersmile]

Another short pause. "Okay."

Kyle hung up the phone and pocketed it as he slid off his desk chair. He didn't need to look out the window to confirm her presence. He folded his laptop screen down and made his way out of his room, down the stairs, and to the front door. With a deep breath, he steeled himself for whatever rage he knew was coming based on the tone of her voice on the phone, not really understanding what she could possibly be mad at him about.

He swung the door open, standing in the gap such that she would have to wait on the stoop or shove her way past him. Again, he said, "Hey."

[facethewolves]

Alex moved back to the stoop to wait for the door to open. As angry as she was, it was hard keeping still, but she forced herself to simply stand there until he showed. Her teeth clenched tightly and her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands. When he finally opened the door, she let out a short, sharp breath, almost relieved.

"Are your aunt and uncle home?" If they were, she'd have to keep quiet enough not to drag them into it, but if they weren't she wouldn't have to worry about that.

[akillersmile]

"No," he answered honestly, uncertain whether to be friendly or angry and thus ending up somewhere in between. Kyle maintained his position in the doorway though, one hand on the door and the other leaning into the frame. He didn't like his space being threatened. While he didn't think Alex would physically do anything to him, he didn't want to be yelled at in his own house either.

His eyes dropped to her hands for a beat before darting back up to her face. He didn't understand why she was pissed off, though it was obvious she was. With a sigh, he shifted his weight to a more relaxed posture. "We have to talk, I get that- I want that. But I want to know why you're angry first."

[facethewolves]

She glanced around somewhat awkwardly, thinking there might be other people on the street and not wanting to make a public spectacle out of this. She wouldn't force her way past him, but if he'd let her, she'd prefer to come inside rather than hash anything out where any random passerby could gawk at them. "Can I come in?"

[akillersmile]

"Yeah. After you tell me why you're hulking out right now." His tone was lighter, trying to keep things amicable even as he effectively denied her entry. Kyle knew she was uncomfortable with people knowing things about her, that much had been obvious in their brief interactions, and it almost pained him to keep her in the public forum now, knowing that. He wasn't trying to be controlling, but he had become fiercely protective of his family and the space he considered home.

[facethewolves]

Alex assumed he was forcing this to be public as a way of keeping her from being too loud or too violent; whether that was to protect himself or specifically to control her, she didn't know. She stepped closer, squaring her shoulders as she lifted her chin to keep looking him in the eye.

"I'm not having this conversation out here. Let me in." Whatever his reasons were, she didn't like being controlled.

[akillersmile]

Shit. This wasn't how he wanted to play it, but he wasn't about to back down because she was angry. He had never been able to abide by bullying. Kyle shifted into the center of the door space, straightening and completely blocking her entry. His expression hardened as he pointedly frowned at her.

"We can go wherever you want to talk. I'm not letting you in when you're like this." He replied, tone flushed with the heat of his mood. "Or you can tell me to fuck off and I'll go back inside. Your choice."

[facethewolves]

Alex could understand him wanting to protect his home. She wouldn't lie and say she had no intention of hurting him just to bargain her way inside. Not that she wanted to hurt him, but if he turned out to have malicious reasons for lying to her, she would.

Finally, after a long moment of just staring at him with her teeth clenched, she said, "Are you a hunter? Have you known what I am this whole time?"

As soon as she'd said it, her jaw clenched again as she steeled herself for the answer, trying very hard to convince herself that she didn't care one way or the other what he was going to say.

[akillersmile]

Oh. That's why she was mad. Well that was easy. Kyle's steely resolve faltered into something softer and his wordlessly stepped aside to allow her room to enter, swinging one arm into a grand gesture of invitation just in case there was any doubt.

Once she was inside, he closed the door behind her, intentionally leaving it unlocked. Then he moved deeper into the house, past her and into the living room so that she could be closer to the door, not wanting her to feel trapped at any point in time.

"Okay, first? I'm not a damn hunter. Everyone keeps calling me that and that's why they brought me in, but I don't do that. I didn't even know there were supernatural whatever here until after I moved here. Second, I had no idea you were caught up in any of it. Which is why I didn't tell you what I did know. I didn't want to put you in danger because I know half the shit is classified or secret."

Start easy. Kyle knew there was a good chance he was going to have to explain his past, killing people and technically hunting vampires, but it was important to establish who he was now before moving onto the things he'd done. He mostly hoped there would be no reason to get into why he did them.

[facethewolves]

That wasn't what she'd expected. Alex had thought he would deny it or maybe admit to it, not just stand back and let her in without a word of explanation. She faltered slightly, half-thinking it was a trick or a trap and that maybe she should stay outside after all. But after a moment, with a determined glare, she stomped past him into the hall. She noticed that he didn't lock the door, and that he was deliberately trying not to block her exit. She wasn't sure whether that made her feel better or worse.

She followed him into the living room, listening as he explained, relaxing slightly. She wasn't entirely sure she believed him, not yet, but she wanted to.

"You really had no idea about me until the festival?" That was the main thing she cared about. Whether or not he killed werewolves was the second thing she'd worry about, and everything else didn't matter that much. As long as it didn't effect her, she might be curious but his life was his business.

[akillersmile]

"I had no idea you knew about the supernatural or were a part of it," he clarified honestly. Kyle crossed his arms defensively, surprised that she had the nerve to be enraged when he was the one who almost died. He understood it, if she thought he was hunting her, but it hurt. He shrugged as he added, equally sincerely, "I don't have any idea about you."

After all, he still didn't know if she was a werewolf, if she was activated, how often she killed for sport. He cared a hell of a lot less about her lying and a lot more about what kind of person she was. All the lack of prying and pushing he'd done before left him feeling ignorant.

[facethewolves]

"And you don't kill werewolves?" He was telling her almost exactly what she wanted to hear, but that didn't mean it was a lie. Alex wanted to believe that he was innocent, that she had one friendship that was genuine. That made it easier to relax more, to run her hands through her hair and move back towards the wall, simply watching him and waiting, hoping he'd keep saying the right things.

The fact that he spoke in present tense didn't escape her, but she ignored it. If he wanted to clarify what she was, he could just ask, and that was a lot less important to her at that moment than making sure she hadn't spent the last month caring about someone who killed her kind.

[akillersmile]

"I don't kill werewolves," he echoed impatiently, wanting to move on to his own questions. Because it was Kyle and he couldn't help himself, he murmured, "Or wererabbits or any other were-animals."

He knew he needed to wait until she was satisfied, or at least calmed, before he could begin his own line of questioning. Which is why he waited for her to ask whatever she needed to ask, glancing back and then half sitting, half leaning on the back of the couch. Realizing she might not believe the simple answer followed by a joke, he added tentatively, "I killed vampires. In South Africa. That's it. I literally didn't know werewolves existed until I came to London and a shapeshifter told me about them. Then a recent friend filled in some of the details."

[facethewolves]

Alex rolled her eyes impatiently at the joke. She was deathly serious, and while she usually found his humor charming, she didn't right now.

She stood back against the wall by the door, watching him carefully. It wasn't that she needed any easy avenue of escape, more that this position felt more neutral than being further into the room. Him against the couch, her against the wall, each in their own space. She was still too tense to lean back, but she crossed her arms, settling in for what she assumed could be a long conversation.

Just like he'd hoped, he said the right things. Killing vampires was the perfect touch, just what she'd want to hear.

"A recent friend?" She knows it's not really her business, but she can't help asking. But she quickly shakes her head. That wasn't the most important thing right now. "How do I know you kill vampires? That you're not just saying what I want to hear?"

[akillersmile]

Swing and a miss. Kyle could tell his humor wouldn't help either of their moods at present. His brows pulled together as he focused on being serious, clenching his jaw with frustration and resisting the urge to tense his arms or drop and do push-ups as a way of getting the energy out. On the list of things that would make the situation worse, he was pretty sure that was somewhere near the top, along with making more jokes and trying to kiss her.

"Because you know me. You know I wouldn't lie about this." He shrugged. There was no way to prove what he was saying really. Even if there was, Kyle didn't really want to. Reassuring Alex was one thing, but being forced to provide evidence of his honor was another. "Think about it. If I was a hunter, why wouldn't I kill you? Why make friends?"

[facethewolves]

"Yeah, I know Kyle the chocolate-seller, not Kyle the vampire killer!" Alex stared at him helplessly, finally leaning back against the wall. She liked to think she knew him, and the Kyle she knew wouldn't lie about that. Everything he was saying fit and made sense, it explained everything, it was completely believable. And she wanted to believe it, but her mind immediately came up with several reasons why he would befriend her rather than kill her.

But... If he'd wanted to infiltrate the pack, he would have let her know he knew she was a werewolf before now. If he knew who she really was, he would have sold her out to her enemies weeks ago. Maybe he was right, and he would have just killed her. Maybe it was alright to believe him.

She frowned at him, feeling the need to defend how angry she had been. "I had to make sure they're the same guy."

[akillersmile]

"They are!" He replied, voice rising again with his frustration in contrast to her calm. "I told you I was a soldier. Part of my tour dealt with nests in the area. You never asked, I didn't tell. I never lied about any of it."

Kyle straightened from the couch, arms unfolding and dropping to his sides, allowing himself to ride the anger building inside of him as he thought about the situation all over again. "Let's talk about you now. Alex the bad shopper, Alex the ninja, now Alex the fucking werewolf. How many people have you killed? How many humans?"

[facethewolves]

"Great!" she snapped sarcastically. There might have been more she could have said, more anger at the fact that he was daring to be frustrated with her when she felt perfectly justified in being suspicious of him. But then he asked the worst possible question he could have asked.

Once again, her jaw clenched tight and her hands curled into fists. "You were a soldier, you never killed another human?"

[akillersmile]

"One and fuck you for asking," he retorted without missing a beat. A human trafficker, selling mostly young kids off to wealthy vampires. There was another innocent woman who he'd shot and was stabilized in the hospital until the addict needed to be fed on again. She'd bled out. Kyle sometimes blamed himself for that, even though he'd been reassured by everyone that the death was never his fault. Everything else had been vampires. South Africa barely saw combat in his regular unit and with his contracting the Fever, he barely had time to kill anyone even if he wanted to. Then it was vampires.

"I'll take responsibility for every death and injury under my command, but I wasn't killing other human beings. And if I was, it would be in defense of fucking freedom, not rounding up hunters to slaughter so you can wolf out whenever you want to!" Skip had told him a lot about werewolves, but not everything. Kyle still wasn't sure how the changing worked or what, if anything, the full moon had to do with it. "How many humans have you killed, Alex?"

[facethewolves]

"So you're the only one who gets to ask?" Maybe it had been petty and mean of her, but Kyle seemed to have decided that she owed him this. Alex had wanted the truth from him, but there was a difference between asking whether he was a hunter and demanding the darkest secret she had.

"You can't blame me for the festival, I was only there because that's--" That's what you did when you were a werewolf. Show up to the festival, congratulate the ones who were activated their curses, put on a smile and pretend not to hate it because it was for the good of the pack. "I didn't activate my curse like that."

Not an answer to his question, but she was afraid that the answer would make him hate her.

[akillersmile]

"At least answer before you turn it around." Killing wasn't easy for any reasonable person. Both of them were reasonable and any one they had had to kill would be a bad memory and potentially bring up a whole host of other issues. Kyle was already feeling that paranoia gnawing at the back of his mind, feeling the cortisol pour into his system in anticipation of a combat never to come. He had to focus to push through it all.

He ran a hand angrily through his hair, ruffled it in frustration is more like, before dropping his hand to his side again. He had answered every one of her questions and now here she was, dodging his. "That's what, Alex? Was it an order? Or peer pressure? How did you activate your curse? Are you ever going to answer?"

[facethewolves]

Alex wasn't going to lie to him, not now, not about this. She cared about him, whether she liked it or not, and she cared what he thought of her. The only options were walk out or admit what she'd done, and if she walked out she'd lose him.

She tried to frame it in as mitigating a light as possible, her tone defensive but sincere. "I was thirteen. A man put a gun to my head and he made me do it."

She couldn't bring herself to admit out loud that the person he'd made her kill was another kid, even younger than she'd been. She'd convinced herself that she'd had no choice at all, that it hadn't even been kill or be killed, the alternative simply hadn't existed. That was the only way she could live with herself, and if she told Kyle the whole truth, she didn't see how he'd be able to forgive her. "When I was older I went back for him."

Those were the only two cold-blooded murders she'd committed, and she hoped she could leave it there. She'd killed one other person, and she really didn't want to talk about that.

[akillersmile]

Thirteen. The mere idea of Alex having to deal with that kind of trauma made Kyle a different kind of angry. He was almost grateful to hear that she went back for the man and took care of it herself. Almost. He sighed deeply, falling back to lean on the edge of the couch again, dropping his gaze to the floor. It was a lot to take in and he needed a second to think.

The soldier perched his hands beside him on the edge of the couch and stared at a random knot of wood in the floorboards. The guy forced Alex to kill someone, which would activate her curse. He didn't quite understand why the guy would do it, but the effect remained unchanged.

"And that's it?" He asked after a short silence, still staring at the floor. "You don't go around hunting people now?"

[facethewolves]

The silence seemed to go on forever. Alex was convinced that she'd ruined it. This was worse than punching him in the grocery store, worse even than surprising him at the festival. He'd practically forced it out of her, and she was angry for that, but she was equally angry with herself for giving in and admitting the truth.

Just when she'd made up her mind to cut her losses and leave, he spoke again. "No." The question was genuinely baffling to her. "Why would I do that?"