InsaneJournal

Zach & Radu: All Because of Adrienne
Who: Zach and Radu
When: Midday - Saturday, September 22, 2007
Where: The Butcher
What: A not-so-nice encounter. Snippet.

There was a lull in the shop for a bit, so Radu had taken the opportunity to clean. He'd already mopped the floor, and was now working on the counters. As he wiped down the metal and polished stone surfaces with a rag, he let his mind wander. He hadn't seen Adrienne since the last full moon, and he wondered if she'd want to see him. After what had happened, he wasn't so sure. The other werewolf had run off, and he still didn't understand why.

He sighed, tossing the rag into a basin filled with water and this strange herbal liquid that served to clean and disinfect. It was supposedly more effective than bleach, but not as harmful to the environment. An elven mixture. He watched as the animal blood and grease dissolved into nothing. Reaching in, he shook the cloth in the solution, until it appeared clean and white again. Then he wrung it out, taking a sniff before he hung it out to dry. No trace of blood or meat smell was left on the rag. Instead, it smelled like grass, citrus, and a few other botanical scents he couldn't identify.

He washed his hands with a concentrated form of the same mixture, and heard someone enter the store. "How may I help--" he stopped once he turned around and saw that he knew the customer. It was Zach. "You," he finished, his voice flat.

Zach came out to the butcher shop today to obtain some vension for dinner tonight. He walked into the shop with a light attitude and demeanor. When he spotted the man behind the counter, his attitude thankfully remained calm and cool. Despite the negative encounter they once had before, things between Zach and Adrienne had only strengthened themselves and Zach wasn’t going to let some random person Adrienne had only just known briefly ruin that. He walked toward the counter with purposeful steps and halted on the floor for a moment as he stared at the selection of meat. Zach chewed on the inside of lip, completely ignoring Radu for the moment. He had come here for venison, not for a fight, so he wasn’t going to start anything with Radu that didn’t need to be started.

"Do you have any vension?" Zach inquired in a calm voice, acting at first as if their previous encounter hadn't even happened. He wondered if Radu would react the same.

Radu openly stared as Zach stood near the entrance, trying to discern if the human had come to cause trouble. Suspicion was likewise plainly visible on his face, however it all but disappeared once the other spoke. So, he was here as a customer. If that was the case, then Radu was determined to treat him as he would any other. "Yes," he replied. Despite his attempt to adopt a courteous tone, he had only succeeded in sounding weary.

Radu pointed to a tray of venison, kept cool the old fashioned way, with ice. It wasn't much, perhaps enough for a small family. Fortunately, there was more in the back, if needed. Leaning forward onto the counter, he managed to at least make his voice neutral this time. "How much do you need?" Whatever someone might say, the werewolf was making an effort, even if it was half-hearted.

Zach was determined to be civil because he was in public and he had no current reason not to be, even though the sight of Radu's face was not a pleasant one in his mind. Their previous confrontation no longer had the same strain on Zach's mind, and so it was easy for the alchemist to let it go. It hadn't been a great meeting at the time, and it had brought up all sorts of insecurities for Zach. He hadn't like feeling that way when it came to Adrienne, but things became more serious between her and him since his encounter with Radu. Their relationship was solid in Zach's eyes, and a disapproving werewolf with a possible crush wasn't going to change that for them. The idea that Radu might have liked Adrienne made Zach's blood boil, though, but he pushed the thought aside. He didn't need to get into a fight at the butcher's shop because he wanted to show Radu a thing or two.

Radu acted as if he had forgotten their previous encounter as well, and it made it easier for Zach to proceed with his relaxed tone. "Two pounds is plenty," Zach replied simply. He was getting some for his mom to cook. She was going to Zach how to make a certain dinner that he had liked back home. Zach focused his thoughts on his mom and bringing the venison to her instead of the sourness that crept up at the back of his throat whenever it came to this guy, Radu. While Radu didn't make Zach feel insecure anymore, he still wasn't anywhere near Zach's good list.

While he tried not to show it, Radu had far from forgotten their previous encounter. Nor was he particularly happy about taking any sort of command, implicit or otherwise, from Zach. Still, it would be unprofessional to confront Zach while at work, and it wasn't his place to decide what customers frequented the shop. So the werewolf nodded without comment, keeping his mouth shut to prevent himself from saying something he might regret later. He removed the tray from the case and placed the meat on the nearby scale. It was a little over five pounds, more than enough. Years of experience allowed him to eyeball how much he'd need to remove. Silently, he got to work, placing it on the cutting board on the counter behind him. With a practiced air, he took a sharp blade, and sliced the slab of venison.

As he did so, he remained intently focused on his task. Anything to avoid thinking about who he was serving. The venison was fresh, with a scent that was strong to his sensitive nose. He was fond of deer himself, although he preferred to hunt it himself. He looked at the striations of muscle, slightly marbled. The meal would be a good one -- better than Zach deserved. Radu pushed aside that line of reasoning, if it could be called that. It worked, for the most part, until he turned around to weigh the venison again. His blue eyes met Zach's, and he found himself unable to prevent all the irritation and resentment he felt from showing.

Zach noticed the look on Radu's face, and he didn't take to kindly to it. He couldn't figure out what problem this guy seemed to have with him, or why it was such a big deal to the werewolf. Maybe Radu should mind his own business instead of sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. "Is it done yet?" Zach inquired, and he accidentally let some of his disdain creep into his voice. It tainted the words and made them sound superior.

Radu raised his eyebrows at the tone of Zach's voice. Who exactly did he think he was, to talk to the werewolf in such a way? He wasn't his superior, in any hierarchy, and would never be. At best, Zach was an obstacle in Adrienne's path to understanding her true nature. At worst, he was a threat to her safety. The latter thought caused his lip to curl slightly, before he remembered where he was, and where he needed to be. At work, and in control, respectively. Still, he would not accept any show of dominance from the other.

"I will be done," he shrugged as he placed the venison on the scale. His eyes met Zach's, and his voice was cold as he continued. "Do not interrupt me." It wasn't a request, but a command.

He wasn't an obstacle in Adrienne's life. If anything, Zach had been the only person to help Adrienne accept her werewolf side and come to better terms with it. As he helped her with accepting who she was now, she helped him accept who he was all his life, too. They complimented each other in ways that Radu couldn't understand, and how would he understand when he wouldn't give Zach a chance? It was an unfair judgment, and Zach had every right to be as pissed of about it as he was feeling. Matters weren't made any better when Zach took things to a more verbal level, saying out loud exactly what was going on here.

"Maybe if you stopped glaring at me and just chopped the meat, it would get done much faster," Zach said with an edge to his tone. He was staring straight at Radu, not at all happy despite the calmness in his still disdainful voice.

Radu laughed, shaking his head in amused disbelief. If Zach was hoping to prove himself he'd failed. Under other circumstances, perhaps Radu would have been more inclined to take the commentary in stride. Not now, and not with him. "You understand nothing." He leaned forward onto the counter that separated them, and decided to return honesty for honesty. "I do not like you. I do not trust you," he began, counting out his points on his right hand, as casually as if he were reciting a large order. "You come to where I work, and challenge me?" His eyes narrowed as he emphasised where they were. It wasn't his home, but he'd grown territorial over it, and what it represented to him: a connection to his past. "And I should not glare?" He lifted an eyebrow, obviously waiting for Zach's answer. It was the closest thing Zach would get to a chance from Radu. If he understood enough to appreciate it.

Zach was floored by what he was hearing to the point that he couldn't help but gawk in disbelief with an amused smile on his face. "Me, challenging you? I came here for vension," Zach said to Radu, placing his own hands on the counter and leaning forward. No, the height difference didn't faze him him at all. Lately, he felt more like another one of the big dogs and Radu wasn't going to scare him away or shove him down just because he put on a tough act and didn't like Zach. "And you started glaring at me," Zach continued pointedly. "Why don't you look in the mirror if you wanna find the bad guy? Maybe if you took a moment to stop getting so territorial and tuned into your more human side like Adrienne does, you'd realize it."

Yes, he went there. It was probably a very bad decision on Zach's behalf, but he wasn't scared of this guy just because he was a werewolf. Let him get angry at Zach. Zach wasn't going to lose his cool so easily as Radu.

The werewolf rolled his eyes, frustrated with Zach's ignorance. For someone who had chosen to be involved with another werewolf, he seemed to know little about how they thought. Did he honestly not realise that, given the circumstances, the act of expecting Radu to do as he wished was a challenge? That his tone and his behavior now, were escalations of that challenge? He found himself, once again, wondering exactly what it was that Adrienne saw in Zach. Annoyance gave way to anger at Zach's next words, bringing with it the energy of the wolf. Ironically, it was the fact that he was always in tune with the wolf which kept him from unleashing that energy. Letting it transform him, allowing him to show Zach exactly how threatening, how much of a "bad guy" he could be. That was not something Dumitrescu werewolves did, however, and he had not forgotten their ways.

Radu chose his next words carefully, as he was determined not to let his unfamiliarity with the language leave room for misunderstanding. "To be good, to understand what is good, I must think like a human?" His voice was cold, laced with the emotions he kept in check. "Is this what you tell Adrienne?"

"You embrace the wolf," Zach said slowly, enunciating each word, "without being the wolf. That's what I tell Adrienne. You can't stifle the wolf, but if you don't think about your human side at all, you lose it." There was such a thing as a wolf side and tuning into it too much and letting it run wild was not the way to be at peace with it. Neither was completely stifling it. A balance had to be found for it to all work out in the end, and Zach knew this. However, Radu acted like the wolf side was all good when it wasn't. It had some severe downsides that could run rampant if they went unchecked and uncared for by the person carrying them.

"I'm not anymore ignorant than Adrienne when it comes to knowing that the wolf side can be dangerous if you don't know how to handle it, and even you can't deny that, Radu. Acting like there isn't anything dangerous about it is the first step to becoming a monster. So, to answer your question," Zach continued, "yes. You need to think more like a human to remember the difference between right and wrong or good and bad instead of giving into instincts like the wolf wants you to."

Radu listened intently to Zach's words, successfully withholding a smirk when he talked of lost humanity. He was not human. He had never been human. There was nothing to lose. However, his eyes did narrow at Zach's use of the word which, in any language, represented human superstition to him. "A wolf that was a monster, would not be kept in a pack," he pointed out, with a raised brow. Which, in essence, summed up his entire problem with Zach's reasoning. It was the other way around for him. Understanding his instincts, at a core level, allowed him to manage them. It was humanity that baffled him, throwing a wrench into the works like nothing else could. "What about humans? They are never dangerous? They are never bad?" His accent becoming more prominent, as his words gained momentum.

"Your kind used their guns, their bombs, and their sil--" Radu stopped, cutting himself short before he revealed more than he already had. He was not ready to discuss that, and certainly not with Zach. With a quick swear in Romanian, he got back to work, unceremoniously wrapping the venison after a cursory glance told him that his estimate had been correct. He slammed it onto the counter with a curt, "It is done." The transaction, and the conversation. To stress the point, he walked away from the counter, keeping his back to the other, as he busied himself with closing procedures.

It was interesting how Radu thought, though Zach couldn't hear any of it. In Zach's eyes, Radu was very much human. He was just a human who could shapeshift into a werewolf. At the core of it, before he was a werewolf, Radu was a human. His DNA was human and so was his form. He just had a little something extra, something that made him a werewolf. "There's a difference between a real wolf and a werewolf," Zach said softly. He didn't say anything beyond that, though. There was a difference. Werewolves were born for the kill, not like the everyday wolves regular humans used to only know. One couldn't compare the idea of a werewolf with a wolf. Zach had grown so accustomed to the terminology, though, of just saying wolf instead of werewolf. It probably made a bad impression.

Werewolves, when first changed, immediately went after humans. Their base nature was dangerous, far more dangerous than regular wolves. They attacked and tried to kill humans — and not for food. Radu was a born werewolf, though, so what would he understand of changing? Did he know what it was like for someone like Adrienne forced into lycanthropy instead of being born into it? Someone born into it might have had time to control it before they grew into something dangerous. It wasn't the same for those who were attacked by another werewolf. Things were never the same for them.

Instead of saying anything further, Zach took the meat and left the shop. He imagined he had struck a nerve with the werewolf. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to deal with him again anytime soon because of it.