[it's the flinch that makes him finally curl up, knees under his chin. it's an odd look on him, because he's usually quite sprawly, or at least stretched out.]
Nah. I don't know who he is and I don't give a fuck. If he did, he'd have stuck around, right?
[he folds his arms across his knees, sets his chin on them.]
Christina. The vargulf, her name was Christina. She was fourteen. Her grandparents' property backs up to the lot we live on. She wanted to be a writer, so she came nosing around when we moved in. Good material, I guess.
She'd come hang around the trailer. Always talking, a hundred questions and ninety of them were why? I'd tell her...whatever I felt like right then. Half bullshit and half truth. It was funny, y'know? She never knew whether I was just fucking with her, but that was half the fun. And one day she asked me, just straight up asked if I was a werewolf, because of my fingers.
[he holds up his hand where isaac can see it, wiggles his index and middle fingers, which are the same length.]
Indicator of lycanthropy, y'see. No idea where the hell she found that out. She'd already decided I was, so I went with it.
[he's quiet a moment.]
There's another way to become a werewolf, besides getting bitten. You can drink from the paw-print of a werewolf. That way they don't even have to know.
I didn't know. If I'd known, maybe...who the hell knows. Maybe nothing different at all.
She was so smart, though. And such a girl, all caught up in what other people think and trying to be normal. She wanted to be some normal popular girl so bad, when she was like a hundred times more interesting than that. Although I guess that's most people.
[he bites his lip for a moment, and sighs.]
I don't know what went wrong, when she changed. But she told me--when we'd figured it out, when I was going to kill her--she told me she'd never heard her true name. Something just rose up out of her, I guess, made her do what she did. Kill all those girls. Blame it on me.
[he's not just saying that, he does know. to blame himself would be to take the power of choice away from christina. she's the one who bent and sipped muddy water from the place his paw had been, he won't take that from her.]
A vargulf just wants to destroy. Everything. Especially itself. That's what I mean. She had all these things inside her that were fucking great, but the thing that she was the most is the thing that took her. I looked into her eyes, at the end, and there wasn't anything human there anymore. No Christina anymore. Just pain and hate.
Don't think that surviving is nothing, or that holding onto yourself is nothing.
[Isaac has to think about that for a moment, try to see the story through Peter's eyes and then reflect it onto himself. To be honest, there had never been a part where self destruction was an option- it was just live, live another day, another week, try to see the light at the end and survive.
He didn't know for what. Isaac is pretty sure that he still doesn't. But Peter says it's worth it.]
...it's different. [He finally says, a little hoarsely. His fingers twist in the sheets, and he shakes his head.] She had a choice.
To become a werewolf? Yeah, she did. The rest, I don't know. I still don't understand.
[peter has never doubted himself in that way. the vargulf never left tracks, where peter's are clear and deep, because only one of them ever truly believed in themself.]
And you aren't a vargulf, you don't even have them. But you fight to live, not to die. That's the difference.
[Isaac finds himself shaking his head at that, trying to figure out how to form the words.]
No- Derek gave me a choice. Your girl, Christina, she... [he doesn't know how to put this delicately. Isaac doesn't look down on her, of course, he doesn't even know her and he understands Peter's empathy and attachment to her memory. But that doesn't mean he agrees with their situations, with his survival being praised merely because she didn't.]
-survival was an option for her. I don't mean that in a bad way, but saying anything about me because I did doesn't mean anything because I had to. When- [he swallows hard, his jaw tense,] -when you're trapped, the only thing you can bear to think of is getting out. There is no giving up. There's just- taking, enduring, and you don't even know why because you know there's not light at the end, but you can't- you can't stop being.
You say she was creative, smart, but she was trapped by society. [Isaac shrugs.] That was her choice. The bars there weren't real.
I can't pretend I know what your life was like. I only know what mine was. She came over in the first place because oooh, the neighbors are gypsies, how exciting. Getting mobbed on the playground for being a fucking gyppo. I got pretty good at getting beat up, anyway.
She didn't have any of that. She'd never worried about where she was eating or sleeping a goddamn day in her life. A little weird, sure, but nobody ever punched her about it. And still, all that hate and pain.
When you don't know what a real cage is like, those little bars on your window feel like a prison. I think she was trying to survive, she just...went the wrong way, somehow.
Some people can stop being, that's what I mean. Some people do curl up and die, or tear themselves to pieces and die. Some things don't survive in a jar, and some things claw and scrape until they get the top off.
[Isaac isn't quite sure how comfortable he is with this conversation, so he shifts a little to swing his feet off of the bed, sitting on the edge with his fingers tight against the sheers.]
I don't know her. I don't know anything about what she did or what she went through. [There's a little pause.] But I'm pretty sure that comparing the two of us isn't going to work out for you.
[His eyes fall to the floor for a moment, and it's cold against Isaac's toes, but he curls hem against it anyway before moving to stand.]
[peter's smile starts out sad, a little tentative. isaac's right, they're more or less even there. then he seems to come to a conclusion, lets his knees drop to cross his legs instead, reaches out and nudges isaac's shoulder. they are spending too much damn time being sad.]
Wow, Isaac, passing up an opportunity to get some dirt on me? Noble.
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freezerburned) wrote2012-08-21 10:00 pm
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It's just a fact. Supernatural beings don't seem to have a great life expectancy where I'm from.
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I guess I have to be good at something.
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[it's the flinch that makes him finally curl up, knees under his chin. it's an odd look on him, because he's usually quite sprawly, or at least stretched out.]
I just...sorry.
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Why? You're right.
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Close to home, I guess.
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-your dad?
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[he folds his arms across his knees, sets his chin on them.]
Christina. The vargulf, her name was Christina. She was fourteen. Her grandparents' property backs up to the lot we live on. She wanted to be a writer, so she came nosing around when we moved in. Good material, I guess.
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You've told me about her before.
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She'd come hang around the trailer. Always talking, a hundred questions and ninety of them were why? I'd tell her...whatever I felt like right then. Half bullshit and half truth. It was funny, y'know? She never knew whether I was just fucking with her, but that was half the fun. And one day she asked me, just straight up asked if I was a werewolf, because of my fingers.
[he holds up his hand where isaac can see it, wiggles his index and middle fingers, which are the same length.]
Indicator of lycanthropy, y'see. No idea where the hell she found that out. She'd already decided I was, so I went with it.
[he's quiet a moment.]
There's another way to become a werewolf, besides getting bitten. You can drink from the paw-print of a werewolf. That way they don't even have to know.
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[Isaac understands it slowly, his voice coming out like a quiet revelation.]
You didn't even know.
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She was so smart, though. And such a girl, all caught up in what other people think and trying to be normal. She wanted to be some normal popular girl so bad, when she was like a hundred times more interesting than that. Although I guess that's most people.
[he bites his lip for a moment, and sighs.]
I don't know what went wrong, when she changed. But she told me--when we'd figured it out, when I was going to kill her--she told me she'd never heard her true name. Something just rose up out of her, I guess, made her do what she did. Kill all those girls. Blame it on me.
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But you know it wasn't your fault.
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[he's not just saying that, he does know. to blame himself would be to take the power of choice away from christina. she's the one who bent and sipped muddy water from the place his paw had been, he won't take that from her.]
A vargulf just wants to destroy. Everything. Especially itself. That's what I mean. She had all these things inside her that were fucking great, but the thing that she was the most is the thing that took her. I looked into her eyes, at the end, and there wasn't anything human there anymore. No Christina anymore. Just pain and hate.
Don't think that surviving is nothing, or that holding onto yourself is nothing.
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He didn't know for what. Isaac is pretty sure that he still doesn't. But Peter says it's worth it.]
...it's different. [He finally says, a little hoarsely. His fingers twist in the sheets, and he shakes his head.] She had a choice.
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[peter has never doubted himself in that way. the vargulf never left tracks, where peter's are clear and deep, because only one of them ever truly believed in themself.]
And you aren't a vargulf, you don't even have them. But you fight to live, not to die. That's the difference.
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No- Derek gave me a choice. Your girl, Christina, she... [he doesn't know how to put this delicately. Isaac doesn't look down on her, of course, he doesn't even know her and he understands Peter's empathy and attachment to her memory. But that doesn't mean he agrees with their situations, with his survival being praised merely because she didn't.]
-survival was an option for her. I don't mean that in a bad way, but saying anything about me because I did doesn't mean anything because I had to. When- [he swallows hard, his jaw tense,] -when you're trapped, the only thing you can bear to think of is getting out. There is no giving up. There's just- taking, enduring, and you don't even know why because you know there's not light at the end, but you can't- you can't stop being.
You say she was creative, smart, but she was trapped by society. [Isaac shrugs.] That was her choice. The bars there weren't real.
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[he's quiet for a moment, thinking.]
I can't pretend I know what your life was like. I only know what mine was. She came over in the first place because oooh, the neighbors are gypsies, how exciting. Getting mobbed on the playground for being a fucking gyppo. I got pretty good at getting beat up, anyway.
She didn't have any of that. She'd never worried about where she was eating or sleeping a goddamn day in her life. A little weird, sure, but nobody ever punched her about it. And still, all that hate and pain.
When you don't know what a real cage is like, those little bars on your window feel like a prison. I think she was trying to survive, she just...went the wrong way, somehow.
Some people can stop being, that's what I mean. Some people do curl up and die, or tear themselves to pieces and die. Some things don't survive in a jar, and some things claw and scrape until they get the top off.
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I don't know her. I don't know anything about what she did or what she went through. [There's a little pause.] But I'm pretty sure that comparing the two of us isn't going to work out for you.
[His eyes fall to the floor for a moment, and it's cold against Isaac's toes, but he curls hem against it anyway before moving to stand.]
I'm getting a glass of waver. Do you want one?
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[he sighs, curls up tighter.]
Yeah, please.
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Here.
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[he takes a sip of it, finds he was actually thirsty, and takes another.]
Sorry. Pretty sure you've got a free pass on asking me weird and awkward questions now. Revenge and all.
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[Isaac just smiles a little sadly.]
I'm pretty sure we're equal now.
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Wow, Isaac, passing up an opportunity to get some dirt on me? Noble.
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What can I say? I'm a noble sort of guy.
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