undergrounds | you'll never know what hit you

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you'll never know what hit you

[ooc: This is the Kyle werewolf bite/curse log, plus random other stuff. Feel free to add a new thread or hit me up for plotting!]

i. WON'T SUSPECT A THING [CLOSED to Abigail] - backdated to earlier in March
Kyle arrived at the Widdowson Estate with relative calm. Where once the property was moderately intimidating, his previous chat with its owner had set him at ease and he now felt welcomed to the foreboding structure. Stepping up to the main stoop, he gave the door a few hard knocks and waited for either Abigail or one of her staff to open the door for him.

He wasn't expected and it didn't occur to him until standing at the door that she might not even be home. His concern for Alex was escalating, however, and if it was true that a witch could provide his friend with some kind of moon necklace, then he had to ask the most powerful witch he felt that he could ask. And then convince her that it was worth it, regardless of the price that he would need to pay.

ii. HURT YOU FROM INSIDE [OPEN to first response]
It was late into the evening when Kyle was out and about. While he hadn't exactly adapted the moniker of hunter, he had turned into something of a vigilante, keeping his eyes and ears out and trying to protect unsuspecting humans from vampires and other creatures of the night.

For once, it wasn't a vampire he stumbled onto, but a pair of injured people with what could only be animal scratches on their chests. Last he checked, there were no escaped wolves or rabid dogs in the area, which meant he was probably coming up on an actual werewolf. In wolf form. That would eat him alive.

He didn't pull his knife out yet, waiting for now as he followed the trail of blood. When he rounded the corner and came face-to-face with the werewolf, that's when he had a real problem. The thing was on him before he even had time to draw his weapon, teeth clamping down on his left shoulder while it clawed at his side. Kyle struggled to get the thing off of him, the air knocked out of him from hitting the ground.

[ooc: Feel free to jump in to fight it, scare it away, or find Kyle after it leaves!]

iii. THE POISON IN YOUR BONES [CLOSED to Nancy]
It wasn't the brightest idea. Nancy told him it was a less than ideal neighborhood and here he was, stumbling around it injured and desperate in the middle of the night. He found her building after some backtracking, disoriented and working off of a shit memory anyway, and ran his hand across all the buzzers. Someone finally let him in, while another tenant cursed him out for the late buzz and most didn't respond at all. Once inside, he made his way to Nancy's door and begin pounding on it.

His left arm was curled defensively against his body. Kyle had wrapped his t-shirt around the wound and tucked it under his hoodie, which he zipped up to hide his otherwise scratched and exposed torso as well. When Nancy finally opened the door, he practically fell against the doorway.

"Hi." A smile, red lips on a pale face. "I'm sorry. I didn't know where else to go."

The black of the hoodie hid the color of the blood, but there were still traces on his face and his hair that the hood couldn't hide. With more light, even the black hoodie would reveal the moisture it absorbed.

iv. THE LOVER TO YOUR NIGHTMARE [CLOSED to Alex] - forward-dated to tomorrow
Nancy had taken care of the bulk of his injuries, but it was the curse that worried him more than the injuries or the pain. When he found out that it was something that couldn't be immediately healed, he'd waited until he was alone and allowed himself to break down for a minute. Then he slept it off.

Not that he slept well, or very long. More nightmares, now of himself killing someone and transforming into the monster that Alex was so afraid of. He refused to kill a living person, yet he also refused to live with the threat hanging over his head, like Skip did. He wanted to go back to being a normal human. And while there was a possibility of that, right now, he was running late for a breakfast date of sorts. They were supposed to be cooking french toast.

Kyle followed someone into the building and knocked on Alex's door. His hoodie hid what damage remained, though it was very apparent on his face that he'd slept like shit and wasn't exactly in full health. As if nothing was wrong, he offered her a smile. "Sorry I'm late."

v. A HEAVY BURDEN THAT YOU CAN'T BEAR (Clubbing) [OPEN] - end of March anytime
Kyle wasn't running away exactly. He was biding his time, accepting his powerlessness while he waited for the witches that were helping him to do more. Since he couldn't do anything other than wait, he spent the time coping in his own way: loud music and alcohol.

He was on his fourth drink, already tipsy and trying to make his way to plastered. He spent equal time between the bar, ordering and drinking his shots and beer, and the dance floor, losing himself in whatever company he could find. It took him back to the days when he was the guy guys wanted to be and girls wanted to be with. When it was easy. Whatever could help him forget the rest of the shit for now, even if the ache in his shoulder was a constant reminder.

vi. WHAT YOU MADE OF ME (Hillingdon House) [OPEN] - end of March anytime
Although not exactly a hunter, Kyle had been accepted as part of Hillingdon and had made casual acquaintance there for information and resources. Now it was time to step it up. He spent hours for days on end at the House, trying to find people with information to chat with, to find out more about everything there was to know. Including the political bullshit, trying to figure out where Hillingdon stood and who was with who.

His other objective was to buy a rifle. The soldier was missing his old best friend and the security she provided. He knew the laws, which is why he'd put it off this long, but Alex was right to keep a gun with wooden bullets. Between the vampires and the werewolves, Kyle was getting to be uncomfortably in over his head and wanted to remedy that.

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At first, it seemed like a joke or prank of some kind. Then a concern. By the end, Kyle didn't know how to feel. He was angry, worried for her, wondering if this was some betrayal or if they were good. He understood keeping secrets and, to be fair, she was telling him now. But she had lied to him, about a lot.

His expression tightened into a concerned scowl and his muscles tensed without him willing them to. He remained statue still, listening, watching her, silent. He was waiting for the rest of the story. It was clear there was so much more to be said.

Alex's stomach knotted at Kyle's tight expression, but she kept talking because she wasn't sure what else to do. She'd made up her mind to tell him the truth, and even if there were some things she still didn't want to talk about, the time between her parents' deaths and Nikita finding her again, she would tell him everything that mattered.

"Nikita. She... she used to work for them, the mercenaries, but she went rogue. She was trying to take them down."

She turned to drop the shopping bag on the counter and took a breath before turning back to him. "Division." She practically spit the word out. "They were called Division. She told me that they killed my parents, so I... I helped her fight them. I went undercover..."

She could feel tears prick the corners of her eyes, but she frowned harder, willing herself not to cry. Despite everything, she missed Nikita.

"I don't know if it's still there, if the man in charge is dead or locked up or what. I left. I found out... Nikita's the one who killed my father. So I left. I made a plan to get back into Russia and kill Semak. He's the one who ordered my parents' deaths. And then..." She'd never thought about 'and then' before, but maybe it could involve her and Kyle running off to that beach together. Her expression turned almost pleading. She hoped, even expected, that he'd understand why she'd kept all this from him.

Kyle was silent for a long stretch, trying to make sense of the information.

"Your parents were hot shot pack leaders and this guy Say-mock hired Division, which means Nikita, to kill them. Which she did. And then.. she saved you by not killing you, so you trusted her enough to let her turn you into a ninja and to go undercover for her in this assassin squad to.. what? I don't get that."

A beat.

"And then after whatever-the-hell you were doing with the A-Team and Nikita darling, you went back to Russia and killed Say-mock to turn around and move to London so you could.. play house with an ex-soldier, because I'm not already fucked enough? So when did you kill the guy that held you as a slave? Or was that some bullshit cover story? Have you ever even lived in the U.S.?"

His frown deepened, but he still didn't move. Hand on his side, standing there before her, trying to understand what the hell she was and why she lied and why she was telling him the truth now. In fact, he didn't understand.

"Why the hell are you even telling me?"

During the long silence after she'd finished talking, Alex started to move towards him, but stopped when he began to speak. When he finally fell silent again, she crossed the last distance between them and reached for his arm.

"Because I want to be with you! But not if you don't know the truth."

She took a breath, thinking through the questions he'd had. "The night my parents died, I didn't know what was happening. The Division team burned the den down, and half the pack was dead too. I saw someone kill my father, I ran down to the cellar and I must've passed out 'cause I woke up in a cabin miles away. Nikita wasn't there. I had no clue who she was til she found me years later. She..." There were a slew of excuses on the tip of her tongue, reasons why Nikita had lied, why she'd killed Alex's father, and Alex hated that her first instinct was to give him every excuse to defend Nikita. "She didn't tell me that she'd killed my father. She... she had her reasons to lie."

Her issues with Nikita weren't the point. "The guy I killed was the one who brought me to America. I got away from him in Michigan, okay? I was in Michigan til Nikita found me. I killed him last year. I haven't bullshitted you, Kyle. I told you I had secrets. I had to lie about my name and my parents because if Division or Semak found out I was here, they would kill me, and they'd go through you to do it."

Normally, she would have found his terrible pronunciation of Semak endearing, but right now she was much more concerned with making him understand.

"I haven't killed Semak yet. I was going to go weeks ago but I stayed because of you!" She tried to smile at him, still hopeful and nervous.

Kyle remained quiet, still. He didn't resist on encourage her hand on his arm. It wasn't that he was rejecting her and, truthfully, he wasn't all that angry at her for lying to him or holding back or whatever. He understood that. What he didn't understand was her convoluted story. And it unnerved him slightly that she was dumping it all on him now, now that he was a werewolf, wondering if that made a difference.

He thought through everything she was saying, giving the words far more weight than was characteristic for the ex-jock. Ex-jock, ex-student, ex-soldier. Kyle was racking up too many exes and the mere thought made her staying for him all the more annoying. What others might find endearing, he found almost insulting.

"Why the hell did you stay for me? It's not like I'm leaving, or I'd stop talking to you if you left." He huffed, his scowl deepening again, less sad and confused and more annoyed.

"And why the hell do you want to kill Se-mack anyway? I get the revenge fantasy. Been there, had that. But killing him won't actually help. And if you're so hell bent on it, why aren't you killing Nikita too?"

If the men who killed his family were sitting in front of him, there's no question Kyle would pull the trigger. But he wouldn't go searching for them. It was a waste of his life that they didn't deserve. "What's tying you there?"

"I wanted to spend more time with you. I didn't know how long I'd be gone." Alex couldn't figure out why he seemed annoyed by her staying.

"It wasn't Nikita's fault," she said slowly, frowning. Alex wasn't sure she could forgive Nikita for lying to her, but she wasn't sure she hated her either. "Semak's the one who ordered it," she continued, her voice gaining confidence. "He wanted everything my father had, so he took it. He's living the life that should have been my father's, I can't let him get away with that."

She wondered what he meant by 'been there, had that,' who he'd wanted revenge on. But she didn't ask.

Kyle couldn't figure out how to respond to the idea of her putting what sounded like her life's goal on hold for him. He had feelings for her, yeah, but they had only been together for less than a day and here she was acting like they were about to be engaged or something. It was unfamiliar, and seemed insincere in a way he couldn't begin to pinpoint.

"So you'll kill S-Man, but not Nikita? What about whoever takes over for him? Will you kill them too? What's the fucking point?" Fish didn't rot from the head, like the saying went. Cutting off the head didn't prevent the disease from spreading to the flesh. It sounded like a temporary solution to a larger problem. Unless her goal wasn't to end the pack. Would that be better or worse, he couldn't decide.

"If you want to go, fuckin' go. Don't stay for me. If I'm an obstacle, then I'll end this now.. I refuse to be a ball and chain."

"Semak. I don't care who takes over for him." She hoped Semak's replacement would be a good person, capable of leading the pack without following in her father's violent footsteps, but it wasn't her pack anymore. She had no say and she didn't really need one. "Semak's the one who ordered my father's death, he's the one who deserves to die." She opted not to address Nikita again. Nikita was confusing and upsetting, while Semak was simple and straightforward.

She squeezed his arm gently as she scanned his face for clues to why he was so upset about her staying. "You're not an obstacle. I was... having fun. With you."

Having fun had been a strange feeling, one she had, from time to time, wanted to lose herself in. She liked their cooking lessons, and doing touristy things with him, and watching movies together. It had all felt normal, and it had made her feel like she could have a future, something she'd rarely considered before. Going off on a potentially dangerous mission to Russia hadn't mattered to her when she hadn't had any friends or family, no one to miss her and nothing she'd miss. But she'd met Kyle, and suddenly it had mattered.

"I stayed because I like spending time with you. Why're you acting like that's a bad thing?"

"Because I don't want to be the reason you don't do what you want to do!" This time he withdrew from her, moving around her to the bag on the counter as a form of distraction. He began digging through it, not entirely understanding his own anger. It was easier to be less angry when he wasn't looking at her. "Then you'll get bitter. We'll be sixty-five and you'll be shaking your cane and yelling at me about how you never went to Russia to go kill the guy who ordered someone else to kill your dad and how it's all my fault and-"

He was interrupted by the doorbell, gaze immediately darting over to her door before he remembered that they had ordered food. Kyle glanced at Alex before walking over to answer it, paying the girl and tipping as an American, which delighted her. It didn't even occur to him that he shouldn't. Once she was gone, he dropped the food gently on the counter and turned to look at Alex with a sigh, the anger draining out of him.

"I still don't get why you want to kill Semuck and not Nikita, but it's your life. You don't need to stay for me. I'll still be here when you get back. And if you take too damn long, I'll come find you." It was a promise easily made, if not easily kept, but he'd find a way if it came to it. "Just promise me this has nothing to do with me being a cursed."

Alex opened her mouth to respond, to shout at him that what she'd wanted was to stay with him, that was why she'd decided to do just that, when the doorbell rang. Her mouth immediately snapped shut, her jaw clenched, and she stayed still and quiet until he'd paid for the food and set it down, not wanting any kind of attention from the delivery girl.

When he spoke again, all her her annoyance and confusion melted away. Even if the promise was a dangerous, idiotic one, it meant more to her than she knew how to tell him.

She crossed over to him and laid one hand on his good shoulder and rested the other gently on the side of his neck, careful not to touch the wound on his other shoulder. "This has nothing to do with you being cursed. But I'm staying until you're better. If you accidentally kill someone, I'm going to be here for you." She gave him the faint beginning of a smile. "Once you're not cursed anymore, I'll go."

His lips lifted into a soft smile, grateful for the reassurance that this wasn't some weird wolf thing. But then he half threw up his arms in mock frustration, turning to start unpacking the food instead. Now that they weren't fighting anymore, he didn't feel quite so compelled to be looking at her. Instead, he could bring himself slowly closer to satiating his poor, empty, hungry stomach's needs.

"I don't know why you all think I'm going to accidentally kill someone, like that's a normal thing people do. 'What did you do last week, Steve?' 'Oh, I accidentally murdered someone, Bob. But I wasn't arrested for it, because I'm a werewolf now.'" He spun to face her, taking on a slightly more serious tone. "You get that I'm not a killer, right? I don't go around picking fights and hospitalizing people or shooting them in the head."

Alex dropped her hands when he turned, and moved to the cabinet to get a couple of plates for the burgers. She had a hard time telling, sometimes, when he was fake upset and when he was really upset, and right now she couldn't quite tell.

"I get it. I really do." She set the plates down and turned towards him. "But your life isn't exactly safe, and things happen. You wouldn't be the first person to accidentally kill someone." She reached for his arm again, trying to give it a light squeeze. "I went through it alone. If something happens, you shouldn't have to."

Edited 2016-05-29 05:01 (UTC)

Kyle, himself, didn't know if he was fake upset or real upset. A bit of both, probably. It amused him how everyone seemed to think that manslaughter was almost as common as stepping on a crack or crossing paths with a black cat. It frustrated him that everyone was worried at what he might become, when he knew, without question, that he wouldn't. He glanced down at her arm squeeze, not minding the gesture.

"If I'm going to become a werewolf, it's going to be in Ohio, not London. There's no fields to run in here." More joking, to alleviate the real anxiety. "Can we eat now? I have a sudden taste for red meat."

Alex grimaced at the jokes. She really didn't find anything about the curse funny, but she was used to his sense of humor by now. And, almost in spite of herself, she still found it endearing. Possibly even a little infectious.

"Too bad burgers don't have bones in them for you to gnaw on," she said dryly, trying out one of the very first jokes he'd made after he'd found out she was a werewolf.

She took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and then turned to examine the two burgers he'd set out. "Which one's mine?"

"I wonder if they'd let me order one on the side. I guess I'll have to gnaw on the gummy bears instead." He smiled lightly. The curse was stressful as hell and it didn't help having people convinced he would kill someone and turn, as much because he was afraid of killing someone accidentally as because he was afraid of becoming the thing Alex caged up on the occasional weekend.

But he pushed it aside, stabbing the straw into his milkshake then sucking on it with one hand while examining the burgers and holding hers out to her with his other. "I think it's this one."

Alex took the burger, smiling at him.

"They're not really stale. I'm not sure gummy bears can go stale." She'd eaten plenty of terrible food during those years in Michigan, whatever she had to choke down to survive, but she'd never had stale gummies.

"Come on, you should be sitting down." She started towards the couch.

"They can. Trust me." It wasn't that they went bad, they just became hard and ridiculously chewy. He liked them that way, they provided a comfort in a shitty time and now reminded him of that same comfort in better days. Although some days he actually missed the old military, before getting sick. Simpler times et al. But he nodded and moved to the couch, grabbing his food and milkshake to take with him.

Kyle settled down beside her, grateful for the brief reprieve in which they could sit and eat lunch like a normal couple and not talk about all the insanity for a minute. Maybe five, if he was lucky. It was oddly peaceful.

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