InsaneJournal

They still don't know each other's names.
WHO: Fenrir Greyback & Juliette Higgs
WHAT: Supper time
WHERE: The woods
WHEN: Shortly after Fenrir returns from Morocco.
RATING: Uh... PG-13 for blood and guts.


It was Monday morning, and Juliette just had to get away. There wasn’t anything going very wrong for her, but she was occasionally overcome by urges to simply take off and go somewhere. Except, she’d made some sort of silent promise to herself that she would attempt to make a more stable life for herself, which meant she couldn’t leave the country every four to six months, or whenever things felt so horribly uncomfortable for her. In that sense, she had to grow up.

Still, that didn’t mean she had to stay home all the time. Still much the fan of being out in nature, Juliette had gotten herself all set for a nice morning hike in a forest that was relatively close. In the same country, at the very least.

She’d already been hiking about an hour so and was drifting well into the forest by now, marking her trail every so often as she did. The clearing she came upon was surprising, though, and Juliette stepped into it with some hesitation.

Fenrir had returned to Morocco with some mild apprehension. He’d noticed scribblings that seemed to point to him as having attacked someone that he wasn’t aware of. Generally, Fenrir kept very good track of those that had come into contact with his teeth, and he’d always continued to follow up on the puppies he’d created. Most of them, of course, had joined his tribe. Others, like Remus Lupin, were ignorant. But he kept tabs on them none-the-less.

He’d enjoyed Morocco. It had been lovely, and reminded him of something long past that he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around. He’d returned to Europe with some reluctance, and a thirst for blood so unquenchable, that he’d immediately set out to hunting.

He glanced up and paused only for a split second when someone stepped into the clearing. He’d heard the footsteps, and normally would have moved on, except for the fact that he’d only just ripped open the throat of the possum he’d claimed as his lunch. He hadn’t even bothered to take the animal back to the tribe, and when her eyes fell on him, the mammal’s esophogas hung from his teeth like spaghetti, wet with blood that covered his mouth and hands alike. The shaft of an arrow stuck out of the back of the animal’s head, but Fenrir hadn’t bothered to remove it. No, he wanted the little beast while it was still hot, and he wasn’t about to waste the steaming entrails on conversation.

His eyes were sharp as he watched her, crouched over his prey, chewing with little regard for any discomfort he might cause her. He’d slowed his chewing enough to gage her reaction, and licked blood and a bit of flesh from his lips as he waited before his next bite.

Juliette hardly expected what she saw, and maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have been so disturbing if he wasn’t a man. Now, despite how she often sounded, Jules wasn’t a prude. But this was... well, it was surprising, and she wasn’t entirely certain how to react. It even took her several moments to catch up with who she was seeing in favor of focusing on what she was seeing.

Him again. It’d been a few years, but she remembered him nonetheless. And they’d seen each other briefly at the fundraiser, but didn’t exchange words. She’d smiled at him, and he’d... well, he didn’t really smile, but he looked at her. She knew. Or she thought she did anyway.

These circumstances, though, were by far their oddest run-in yet. Was she interrupting? ...Maybe she should leave. Yes.. Best decision, by far. He didn’t particularly look in a chatty mood, anyway. Not that he ever did.

“Um... I’m just - I’ll go this way.” And with that, she turned from him.

His hair was a bit wild, tangled and left down as opposed to their previous encounters when it had been neatly tied at the base of his skull. His bare skin also showed off a number of jagged scars that she wouldn’t have been able to see with his shirt in the way before.

He would have let her go, but as she turned, just slightly with the way that the late sunlight had caught her hair, he noted something familiar about her voice and the way she moved. He knew this woman.

Wordlessly, Fenrir stood and started towards her, possum gripped and dangling in one hand, blood oozing along it’s fur.

She had only barely turned when Fenrir stood and started closer to her, and Juliette wasn’t extremely certain whether she should bolt or wait for him. He’d never given her a reason to be wary of him, but that hardly meant he didn’t deserve to be treated with caution. Especially when he had the guts of an animal hanging from his mouth just a moment ago, and blood on his hands. Briefly, Jules shut her eyes at the thought of the ripped up throat hanging from his lips just moments before. It by far wasn’t the strangest thing she’d seen, but it was still a little, erm, raw.

Still, she decided to wait, and stopped only a few steps out from her original spot, watching as he got closer. “...Hello again.”

He reached out towards her face, with the back of his hand, and touched her cheek - somehow gently - with the back of his wrist. Thankfully, for her at least (he didn’t really notice), there was no blood on the back of his wrist.

He’d never really learned her name. They hadn’t had formalities in Argentina, but he knew that it was her, and felt it interesting that he’d only just been to Morocco - the place he’d learned about from her.

Juliette couldn’t help but tense of just a bit at the... gesture? She had not had a few drinks like the last time they’d interacted. No delightful tipsiness that made her a bit more friendly. She was naturally friendly, but... oh, she really hoped he hadn’t just wiped blood on her face. She didn’t feel anything, though, and his hands hadn’t had time to dry yet in his short walk over. If he’d gotten blood on her, she’d likely have felt it wet her cheek.

…Should she touch his cheek now? Most of it was bloody, but Juliette hardly knew what was proper protocol with him, so she took a guess and reached up to hesitantly run a few fingers over his cheek (careful to avoid the blood, of course) in return.

For a long moment he simply stared at her. He hadn’t been expecting her to touch him in return, and wasn’t sure how to take it. He wasn’t used to women in a casual setting. He wondered if he should offer her some supper.

The silence broke with a blink, and he lifted the carcass with his hand. “Food,” he suggested. It wasn’t a question, but wasn’t a statement, either.

“Oh,” Juliette started, glancing ever-so-briefly to the now unidentifiable animal he was offering. She had to give a tiny smile. The offer was disturbing, surreal, and endearing all at once, and that was quite a lot of feelings to have about one small matter. Nonetheless, she shook her head, rejecting his offer with the most manners she could in the situation. “No, thank you...” Normally, she might have tacked on something a bit more superficial like ‘while that looks delicious’ or ‘maybe later’, Jules felt it was absolutely unnecessary to do so in this particular situation.

This time he narrowed his eyes at her. Fenrir wasn’t one to share, and this was a particularly fat possum. Offering it had been a rather grand gesture for him.

Without backing off, he stuffed his right hand back into the possum and yanked back. Blood spattered into the air and towards her, and when his hand emerged again, it was full of shredded flesh, which he put in his mouth and chewed. The sound of it was squishy and somewhat sickening. Had he been an animal, it might have seemed natural. But this was a man before her, a man that had once swept her off of her feet and carried her to her own bed, laying no wrong finger on her. Now he stood before her, ripping at an animal with his hands and teeth.

“Why do you walk here?” he asked, perhaps the longest sentence he’d ever spoken to her out loud. His voice was deep and gruff, from low in his belly, and commanded her to answer in a way that required respect.

Somewhat sickening was an understatement. She could stomach quite a bit. She’d even hunted before, but this was just so raw and... casual and...Juliette swallowed hard and averted her eyes to somewhere that was not his hand digging into what remained of the possum - and certainly not watching him take another bite. But that sound, it still lingered. Juliette hadn’t felt like she was going to vomit in quite a long time before this. So long, come to think of it, that she couldn’t recall the last time, but none of that mattered because...

Jules managed to hold herself together, focusing on the fact that he was speaking rather than eating. She did, however, turn to the side just a little, hopefully to cut some of the horror out of view.

“I just thought a hike would be nice.” Focus on the answer. A nice hike. A nice -- oh ew, why did she look again?

There was an odor, too. Steaming blood and guts and just death, and he was holding it in his hand like it was a bell pepper, and eating it just as casually.

“Hike,” he grunted, a vague question that wasn’t really directed at her. It was as if he doubted her motivations. This time, Fenrir lifted the possum to his lips, sinking his teeth into the raw inner flesh. There was a sucking noise as he pulled the fresh blood into his mouth, drinking and swallowing before ripping off the tender parts of the muscle.

Okay. She couldn’t. Not without throwing up. Juliette had to go. “I --” Merlin, she was going to be sick. “I should get home. I’m not feeling well.”

Juliette barely even waited or tried to wait for a reply. She really just intended to both save herself the embarrassment of vomiting in front of him, and spare him the insult. After all, he was just... eating. Just the thought of that again gave her goosebumps and made her feel a bit ill. But she would hold herself together, so long as they were allowed some space and she didn’t have to smell, hear, or see the now completely gutted possum.

“Enjoy your -- I will... Goodbye.” All of it was rushed as she turned away from him, trying her best to have manners, but really.