Light of May ::: an original roleplay

Who: Jason and John Cantley (NPC).
Where: The Cantley household, Harlow, England.
When: Saturday 3rd February 2001. A little after 1am.

When the door slammed it shook the whole house. Outside in the hall a picture frame rattled against the wall. Jason wasn’t asleep anyway and even if he had been that would have woken him long before the loud shout of his name up the stairs, a slurred boom of a voice that filled the whole house and probably bled through the walls to those of the neighbours. For several long seconds Jason sat there, still fully dressed with no intention of changing into anything else any time soon, waiting to hear what John Cantley would say or do next.

A fist hit the wall. Another shout, this one laden with fractured and improvised curses that made little sense but that didn’t detract from the intention behind them. John Cantley was angry, it didn’t even matter why, and he wanted everyone to know about it. He wanted his son to know about it. Wanted his son to come downstairs and face it. Feel it.

All too well Jason remembered sitting in that hospital under the glaring lights, holding his tongue while the nurses and the doctors examined him and gave him knowing looks, powerless to do anything against a man who denied any involvement in his son’s so-called accident. With stark clarity Jason remembered the agony of the fractured jaw, the dislocated shoulder, how he’d tried so hard to keep from sounding any pain when they’d wrenched the joint back into place. He’d bitten his tongue so hard he’d tasted blood but hadn’t said a word otherwise. A combination of fear and resignation had kept him quiet then, he hadn’t wanted to make things worse. ( As if they could get any worse. )

Who: Jason and Annie.
Where: The Bernhard Warehouse.
When: Mid-afternoon.

It was usually for the best for Jason to keep his distance from the others when he didn’t trust himself to keep everything under control. If nothing else he might say or do something that offended or hurt someone else’s feelings and these people were supposed to be able to trust and respect him. How could they do that if he upset them? The worst case scenario was that he would lose his temper too much to pull back from and he would do something he would end up regretting, potentially for the rest of his life, someone might pay the price for his lack of control and that was a risk Jason wasn’t willing to take.

That was one of the main reasons he’d had this one piece of equipment installed in the place not long after their arrival. As strange an investment as it might have seemed to most people, especially for a group who didn’t have much of anything at all, the bag was all but invaluable, a healthy way for Jason to release the stress and pressure that could build up to boiling point. That was a stage none of them wanted him to reach, they had all seen or at least heard what happened when he passed the point of no return. They had had to leave London because of that temper of his, because he’d almost killed a man and revealed himself as a supernatural. A wild animal.

The yell that broke out of him when he swung a fresh punch into the bag was ragged and angry, thick with aggression and frustration and all that tension that was threatening to strain his muscles to breaking point. Sweat trickled down his bare arms and the sides of his face, threatening to sting his eyes before he lifted a roughly bound hand to swipe it away. His hair was plastered to his temples and brow and his chest heaved as he stepped back from the swinging back and then paced around it. When he attacked again it was suddenly, swiftly and sharply, striking with all the power he had to throw into the blows.

Jason didn’t like feeling out of control. Someone or something had stripped that away, not just from him but from all of them, leaving them blank and dazed, their true identities washed away. Perhaps that was what was really getting to him, losing that sense of calm ignorance and easy control, having to come back to this. Anger, frustration, restlessness. Rage.

WHO. Jason & Annie
WHERE. Streets of Scarlet Oak
WHEN. Early Afternoon

( I like this place )

Who: Jason and Anastasia.
Where: The streets of Scarlet Oak.
When: Late night.

There were some tricks that were so much easier to pull off with more of the pack present but this sort of thing required some degree of discretion, just enough finesse and quiet to keep people from looking your way until it was absolutely too late. In the time he had been active in the circuit Jason knew the kinds of tricks that would keep him from turning heads -- at least those that would cause a fuss and make noise he would much rather avoid, the sort that would draw attention and bring the whole thing crashing down around his ears -- and so he always took the lead on things like this and only ever brought one person with him. Maybe two if he thought that was absolutely necessary.

Anastasia had joined the pack after he had but she had been with them a long time by now, longer than the others, and as difficult as it was for Jason to bond with anyone the girl to his side had managed to form one with him anyway. She didn’t cower when he snapped, she called him on his bullshit, and she could stand up for herself. Bernhard through and through. Devon would have been proud of her. She knew how to keep her head down and she could watch his back for him while he worked.

“Put these on,” he had said to her as he’d drawn the gloves from his back pocket, “just in case.” After donning his own gloves the tool had come out next, the long thin shaft narrow enough to slot down the inside of a car’s door and pop the lock. That was the easy part. It was what came next that would take time and care. Getting the bloody thing started without drawing too much attention was always the tricky part of stealing a car.

Halfway through sliding the tool down the narrow gap between the panel and the window Jason paused, turning his head to look at Ana, keeping his body language casual, as though he belonged there next to the car he was intending to steal. “You want to have a go?” he asked her, just a hint of a smile on his face. No time like the present to learn, right?

Who: Jason and the Bernhard Pack.
Where: The Pack’s home (a warehouse).
When: Evening, right before moonrise.

The blankets were heavy in his hand, folded together in his grasp and gripped by strong fingers that were scarred across the knuckles from God only knew how many fights over the years, fights that had predated his supernatural healing factor. He could have carried them in both hands, evened out the load, but Jason was a big believer in always having at least one hand free to defend yourself. Or others. In recent months Jason had become responsible for a lot more people than he was used to and all those tendencies had amplified, as was perhaps to be expected. Having a whole pack to watch out for had never been in the cards for him but the job had landed in his lap anyway.

Maybe Devon had expected something like this would happen. Jason had trouble believing that, he had a lot of trouble really believing that Devon would ever want him to be in charge. As a second-in-command he had been great, he’d been reliable and dependable and everything else you could possibly want in a Beta figure but as an Alpha? Had Devon really planned for that, or had he just hoped that someone else would come in and fill the void left behind by his death?

Huffing out a heavy breath Jason rounded the corner into the large thick-walled room that would serve as their containment for the nights of the full moon. For the time being, at least. Putting those thoughts and doubts out of his mind was much easier said than done but he had a perfect distraction set up in the form of several restless, anxious young wolves who needed looking after. The blankets were set to one side on an old table he’d found in one of the other rooms, long enough to serve as a kind of supply station for nights like this. Everyone was in various states of undress, many of them stripped right down to their underwear, like Jason himself, but there were some who were still mostly clothed. A few of the pack, those still mostly dressed, were tossed blankets right away, those he knew weren’t comfortable with baring everything. Those like Anastasia. His eyes met hers briefly when he threw the blanket her way, giving her the smallest of nods as if to remind her that everything would be all right. Drawing in another breath he looked around at the others.

Moonrise was close. He could feel it, as he had been able to feel it for years now, ever since Devon had given him the bite and changed him. The first of a ragtag pack cobbled together from runaways and victims of all shapes and sizes. Devon had meant to keep them all safe and ultimately he was the one who had needed protection. Protection he’d never had, not from those who should have provided it anyway. Not from Jason.

Clearing his throat he said, “I know this is going to be rough, it’s our first full moon here, but the cages have been tested and the door is tough enough to withstand me when I’m changed, so we should be fine.” It was said without arrogance, it was just a well known fact that he was a force to be reckoned with when he was transformed, so it was intended to be a reassurance. Jason was never sure whether anything he meant to be reassuring really came across that way. He supposed he’d find out soon enough.

Who: Jason and Zelie
When: Midday
Where: Abandoned warehouse commandeered by the Bernhard pack

( Really, Zelie? -_- )

Who: Jason and BJ (And Endellion)
When: Morning
Where: Some random corner store

A day later, BJ was finally 100% willing to accept that Liam had not dropped acid and really was just suffering from his own stupidity of projecting into the barrier. She was also still cleaning puke on a regular basis, and wasn't willing to take that blindfold off of him for a million dollars. She'd stayed up through the night watching after him, and sometime after the sun finally rose she went into Ryan's room, kicked him awake, and told him it was his shift while she went to the store. Then she took what was probably the equivalent of three hot showers, dressed prettily just for the sake of being able to feel clean and goddamn pretty, grabbed Endellion, and hit the road.

When the little fennec fox trailed at her feet inside the store, the clerk didn't say a word. They knew her here by now, and BJ had a pretty good handle on what places in the area were familiar friendly, and what places were HEY GET THAT THING OUT OF HERE. Those may or may not have been places that had also mysteriously had a dumpster set on fire at some point, but this was really neither here nor there.

BJ had practically filled the entire cart at the household cleaner aisle, and then she realized that Liam might dehydrate if she couldn't get him to keep something down. So off to the grocery section she went, in search of Gatorade and applesauce.

And that was when Endellion went nuts.

"New smell"! she announced, happily, and woosh. Off she went. "New smell! New smell! Not human! New smell! Woodsy! Canine!" the familiar whirled around the corner, and BJ could hear Endy's claws skidding on the linoleum. "Oh, he's cute, too!"

"Goddammit," BJ whispered, before pushing her cart as fast as she could after her familiar. At that point everyone in the store was looking at her and the fox and the boy - who, yes, was pretty cute - and who her familiar had possibly outed as... something. Great. Just freaking great. "Seriously, Endy, can we not?"