undergrounds | March open post

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March open post

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

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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.

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?"

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?"

"Why would I hunt werewolves?" He shot back, snapping his gaze up to meet hers. Both were valid questions, both equally baffling to their recipients. The idea of hunting anything, outside of maybe food, was upsetting to Kyle, even though that's technically what he had done in South Africa. He preferred to think of it as being a soldier and following orders though, engaging enemy combatants. Not hunting. There was an unpleasant insinuation of control there.

After a beat, he dropped his gaze again, returning to his thoughts. "How often do you transform?"

Alex stared him down, waiting until he dropped his gaze to let hers wander away. She didn't want to fight him, but until she knew exactly where they stood, she couldn't risk appearing weak.

"Once a month, on the full moon. I thought everybody knew that." That was an easy enough question. She would happily recite as much basic werewolf lore as he wanted rather than answer another question about her past.

His eyes snapped up to glare at her at the remark of 'everybody knew' and then he dropped them again. Did she miss the part where he hadn't even known they existed until about a month ago? He didn't know anything. That was the point. He'd be a really shitty hunter if he didn't even know that much about his prey. Vampires, on the other hand, he knew almost everything about.

Kyle let a long silence stretch between them, crossing his arms again as he continued to stare at the floor. He understood why she didn't tell him. He understood why she had killed who she had, though the deep need for revenge and killing in cold blood spoke to an aspect of her character that he hadn't known before. She was still Alex. But he'd made the mistake of not prying before and he didn't want to make it again.

"Two more questions and I'm done." As his gaze rose to meet hers. "How did you learn to fight?" One finger. "And why were you at the Festival?" Two fingers. A simple count before he crossed his arms again.

Alex crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall. Part of her resented him for prying the story of her first kill out of her, even if she'd only given him an abridged version.

His confusion about how werewolves worked lent credence to his story. If he was a hunter, he'd know they could only change on the full moon, not at will. Though she really had thought that werewolves changing on the full moon was common knowledge.

But the fact that she believed he was innocent didn't entitle him to more of her past. "No," she said, shaking her head as she pressed her lips into a thin line. "You don't get to ask that. You wanna know why I was at the Festival? Fine. I was there because that's what you do when you're in a pack, you go to the Festival. But my past is my business." Nikita was private, not something she was willing to talk about yet, especially not on demand.

Kyle watched her, angry and so ready to tear out his throat. Or was he imagining that, now that he knew what she was? He wondered if her penchant for anger was related to being a werewolf, or if that was part of her personality. Then he wondered if it made a difference. It was still Alex and he still wanted her as a friend. None of her secrets were any worse than his and, anyway, she seemed to be trying to work past them now.

After a beat, he nodded first in acknowledgment, and then again as if confirming to himself. "Okay."

That was all it took. Once Kyle made up his mind about something, he was pretty damn good at sticking to it. Especially if it involved returning to humor and lighter topics and avoiding the dark. He was still having to fight to remain here, remain himself, and not be swallowed up by the anxiety and fear that his past traumas now tried to force on him. Distraction would help that.

"Does that mean we should be cooking steaks next time?" He asked with the same even tone, though his eyes met hers expectantly and his lips twitched at a smile.

That stunned her. Alex had expected him to fight her, demand the truth, or maybe just kick her out. For a long moment, she stared at him, reeling internally, wondering whether this was some kind of trick or just Kyle being Kyle.

Finally, with a slight shake of her head, brows still drawn down in confusion and annoyance, she said, "We can."

It was bizarre to think that everything could go back to being like it was that easily. She wanted that, but things didn't usually come easy, so she couldn't help but be wary of some hypothetical other shoe dropping.

At least they were on the same page. Kyle was still reeling and knew that things could never go back to the way they were, but that they didn't have to. Maybe they could forge ahead and make things alright between them. She had tried to save him at the Festival and he wouldn't forget that. But he needed time. He knew the best way to move past it was to try to keep things as normal as possible, not to withdraw and think. He didn't want to think.

"You can chew on the bone," he tried, still watching her. Why have a serious talk about serious things when you can joke about them instead.

"That's not funny," she snapped. Alex preferred to think of the wolf as an entirely separate entity from her. Just because she liked steak, and yeah, maybe she liked it rare, and dogs followed her around and she had a really good sense of smell, that didn't mean she was exactly the same as the wolf. "I'm only an animal one night a month."

Despite the fact that she was a little offended by the joke, she still liked that he had found something funny about the whole situation.

He couldn't help the string of new jokes that came to mind and made little effort to hide the small smile from his lips. But he knew better than to continue, holding up his hands in a brief gesture of surrender before dropping them to the couch's edge again. Apparently he wasn't allowed to joke about the situation, but he couldn't handle taking it seriously right now. That didn't leave much in the way of options, which is why the smile quickly faded.

"Okay. So what now?"

Alex looked away when he smiled. If she kept looking at him, she'd smile too, and she was still too annoyed to want to smile at him.

They couldn't get back to the old normal, now that they knew more of the truth about each other. But maybe they could find a new normal that wasn't too different from the old one. After a long pause, she carefully suggested, "Lunch?"

Kyle grimaced slightly with the suggestion, realizing he wasn't quite as over it as he was trying to convince himself he was. But he stood quickly, nodding, trying to hide his momentary hesitation. The soldier forced a smile, awkward yet mostly genuine, as he moved closer to Alex to head toward the door.

"Your treat." More teasing, trying to find a rhythm again. He already missed how easy it used to be with her.

The time it took Kyle to respond felt like hours. Alex almost told him to forget about it, turned around and left, because of course it couldn't be okay between them and it had been stupid of her to think it would be that easy. But then he smiled at her, and she breathed out sharply, suddenly very tense with no apparent reason to be.

"Sure." She was on the verge of being broke, but she could still afford lunch. And she felt like she owed him money from their trip to the zoo - he shouldn't have to pay for everything.

She followed him out the door. Part of her still wondered whether this was a mistake, if it would just end up being painfully awkward and not worth the effort. That was what she'd thought when she first met him, though, and it had, up until now, definitely been worth the effort. So she'd give it a shot.

Kyle grabbed a hoodie on the way out the door and locked up the apartment behind him. He slid on the plain grey jacket as they stepped down to the sidewalk, then looked around, feeling oddly lost while knowing exactly where he was. It irked him a little that she agreed to his joke rather than fighting him. He would pay if he had any say in it. "What are you hungry for?"

Not making dog jokes might have been the hardest part of this new revelation. Only a fraction above knowing she had murdered someone. Kyle tried to forget about that, tried to focus on the Alex he knew. This didn't really change things that much. Although it occurred to him suddenly that there was still one thing niggling in the back of his mind.

"Why haven't I seen your place?" It wasn't a huge deal and he asked it more offhand than anything else. But something about them always meeting at his house or out and about, never at her own apartment, that bothered him.

Alex stuck her hands in her pockets and glanced up and down the street, feeling oddly exposed. She'd just told him something that she'd never told anyone before, and it had left her a bit raw.

She shrugged at his question. "There's a Chinese place a few blocks that way, but I know it tastes funny to you." It was surprisingly easy to fall back into teasing him about his views on food.

The second question caught her off-guard. Of course he'd never seen her place, but now that he knew the truth about her, there wasn't any particular reason he couldn't. "There's a... cage," she admitted ruefully, glancing away from him.

He knew the place. He also knew what was around it. "Thai it is."

Kyle stuffed his hands into his pockets in mirror of her own, tamping down all his doubts. He smiled because it felt easier and better to do so than to continue frowning, looking around at the scenery around them as they were walking toward the restaurant. At her reply, he glanced over, then looked away again.

"A cage." He silently begged her to elaborate before he had to ask if it was a kennel, if she slept in there for comfort. If she was paranoid and needed to keep the world out. Or, worse, if it was because she was afraid of what she would do.

Alex smiled tentatively back at him. It was more wishful than anything. She really wanted everything to be easy between them again, but knew they weren't quite there yet.

"For the wolf," she said quickly. She didn't want him thinking she slept in a cage every night. "I can't control it. It has to stay locked up."

Pause. Rewind. Kyle stopped suddenly and reached out to set a hand on her arm to stop her as well, withdrawing it as quickly as he'd touched her. He forgot sometimes about her weird touching rules. This was a hell of a lot more important though. He opened his mouth, noticed someone walking not far, and closed it again, waiting until the woman had walked by and gained some distance to finally speak in a harsh whisper. "What do you mean you can't control it?"

Alex stopped. She didn't mind the touch on her arm because it didn't feel like an attack. Until the woman had passed, she frowned at Kyle, trying to figure out what was wrong before he could ask. Once again, something she thought was common knowledge turned out to be new to him, which made her wonder just how uninformed - or misinformed - he was.

"It's not me," she responded in the same harsh whisper. "It's like something else takes over. I can't control the wolf any more than you can control her." She subtly moved her head in the direction of the woman who had just gone past.

"And what does it want?" He asked nervously, wondering why she had to lock it up at the full moon. Kyle really hoped the answer wasn't to eat people. It's most of the reason he felt comfortable killing vampires, because they were the natural predators of humans. After what Skip told him about the activation process and then the Festival, he was becoming increasingly worried that werewolves were a lot more like vampires than he'd believed.

What connects them? Fear. The fear of being eaten, the fear of going hungry. And Alex afraid of sharing her secrets and afraid of Kyle the Werewolf Hunter. And Kyle afraid of the predator that will kill him and that someone he knows and cares about will become one of those.

Alex could sense Kyle's nervousness, and she hated it. They couldn't be friends if he was afraid of her, and she hated that he might be afraid of her because he was - probably wisely - afraid of the wolf. She wasn't the same as it, and she had to make him understand that.

"It's a predator, what do you think it wants? But it's not me," she repeated. "I wouldn't hurt you." She reached for his arm, to see how he'd react, and how much damage control she'd have to do.

To eat people.

Kyle didn't show any sign of withdrawal or hesitation when she touched him. In fact, he seemed to barely notice, such physical contact being second nature to him. He wasn't afraid of her. All he was afraid of was ensuring that the wolf inside of her didn't kill anyone else. Both for their safety and for her sanity. If he could help her with that, then he could work on stopping the rest of the pack from doing the same. Try to help them get what they needed without killing.

"I know," he replied distractedly, entirely sincere. That was one of the few things that was never in doubt for him. After a pause, his gaze came back into focus. "Is there any way to control it?"

Edited (tenses) 2016-03-06 21:52 (UTC)

That he didn't pull away was a relief. As long as he didn't hate her for what the wolf was, hopefully they would be okay.

"That's what the cage is for." She dropped her hand from his arm, seeing no reason to keep it there once she'd made sure he wasn't scared of her. "There's, uh, there's wolfsbane. I take it before I change and it kinda knocks it out." That reminded her, she would have to renew her supply soon. She was starting to run low, and it was always worse waking up after a night of the wolf banging around in the cage than a night of it being unconscious. "Moonlight jewelry stops the change, but you have to know a witch to get it."

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