Will Lowell || Werewolf of London (mariphasa) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-03-17 22:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | howl, werewolf of london |
Who: Will and Connor
What: Wolfies meeting in (human) person
Where: Reliquary
When: Monday Morning
Warnings: None.
Will had been on edge since his phonecall with Orin, and the thought of meeting with the other Wolf, revealing themselves to each other, grated even more at his nerves. He knew that the full moon being so close had at least something to do with the tension and the way he wanted to snap at everyone, but simply knowing wasn't quite enough to stop himself from doing it. And on top of that, now he had to deal with 'researching' the attacks without letting Orin know everything.
It did not put him in the best of moods.
Already being awake and more than ready, he'd left his apartment early, walking to Reliquary to help burn off some of his nervous tension and energy, and found a table there once he arrived. It was off to the side, mostly private, and was actually the table where he'd first met with Orin. Once properly settled, he ordered himself a cup of tea, not needing the jitteriness that coffee would bring at the moment, and waited for the other Wolf to arrive.
Connor didn’t know what to do. The run of the play was almost done, and he was supposed to begin shooting for his next film in a week. He had the night of the full moon off, and he didn’t have to be at the theatre until five, so he had set aside the day to meet with the other Wolf, talk to him, get an opinion outside his own head. Because, truth be told, he was melting down.
He hadn’t lost control like that on a night not the full moon since...well, since he was eighteen. The Wolf could have easily killed Valerie if she hadn’t been lucky enough to get to high ground, and even though he would be locking himself in over the moon, what did it matter if he got attacked again?
Bottom line, he needed to talk to someone, and he’d only been able to think of one person who would understand enough to give good advice. So he arrived at Reliquary at almost precisely ten, wearing a red plaid shirt as promised and ordering a coffee from the woman at the counter. While he waited for her to draw him a cup, his gaze darted across the room. The place was a chaos of coffee, baked goods, and the multitudes of people, so it was nearly impossible to tell if the other Wolf was there yet.
Will had been watching the door since he’d sat down, and while there were two others that had come in wearing plaid, they’d both been well before the appointed meeting time. Plus, there had been nothing about them that had caught his interest, and he’d anticipated that there would be something noticeably different about the other Wolf.
He wasn’t to be disappointed. When the other Wolf walked in, he knew it, and it didn’t take the plaid shirt to clue him in. There was simply something that was familiar, whether it was the way he held himself or some other indefinable thing, Will couldn’t tell. But he knew. And somehow, he wasn’t entirely surprised to see that it was the young man that he’d encountered in Bathos’ laundry room.
With so many people in the cafe, Will wondered if the young man was going to be able to pick him out of the crowd, especially since he hadn’t given any defining feature to look for. He waited and watched, his eyes never leaving the figure across the room.
Connor did spot him. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but even if he hadn’t recognized him from the laundry room, he would have known. It all clicked, suddenly - the wolfsmell he’d picked up from him when they met, the way the Wolf had bristled at his presence. Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?
It took the girl behind the counter two times calling his name to get him to turn and take his coffee. He started, took it from her, and walked over to Will, trying not to appear over cautious, but still not entirely sure what to say. It was a little overwhelming, meeting someone like him after struggling alone for so long. He cleared his throat, standing at the table. “It’s Will, isn’t it?”
Will nodded at the young man and gestured to the empty chair across from him. “Connor?” Even though he knew he was correct. It all made sense, really, now that all the information was available. The Wolf was quiet in Will’s mind, unsure of how to handle the newcomer. Cautious, though. Even with the information that Orin had given him about the attack, this could still end up being a good thing.
Connor sat down. He hadn’t bothered to doctor his coffee, in too much of a rush to get to the table, but there was no time to regret it. He let the cup warm his hands without drinking it. “I thought I smelled something off about you,” he said, and the words came haltingly because he couldn’t believe he was saying them out loud, a little wonder to them despite how tense the situation was. “But I wasn’t sure, and it didn’t really make sense to me at the time.”
Will couldn't hold back a strange little laugh at how bizarre the conversation was. "It was the laundry. It covered everything. Otherwise I suspect we both would have known that day. Instead of just wondering what was 'off'." He looked down at his tea, trying to figure out how to proceed with the conversation. It wasn't something he was used to talking about. ...at all.
Connor had never even fully voiced what happened to him each month out loud, let alone talk about any other aspect of the condition. He turned the coffee cup between his hands, pressing it in circles. There were a thousand things, a million things he wanted to say, but there was one that had to be top priority. “I told you I needed to talk to you about something,” he said, slowly, glancing up to be sure no one was listening. “The night before last, I was out on my own and I was attacked.”
Connor had to stop, then, taking a breath. Just the mention of the attack set the Wolf, already at attention due to the presence of like kind, on edge. “I lost control. And the Wolf...spotted a girl that he liked, and he chased her.” He was staring at his coffee, and then he looked up, voice growing a step quieter. “He nearly killed her. Would have, if he’d had the opportunity, but she got away.”
It sounded so much like what had happened to Will several months ago that he couldn’t help the wince. Or the nod. “That happened to me. Got mugged, the guy pulled a knife and I couldn’t stop... He was lucky to end up just with a few bites.” He hesitated, remembering the night, and how the Wolf had barely stopped. It was vocal again, in the back of his mind, giving his opinion on hunting and wanting to be out again. Maybe with this new Wolf. They could share the hunt, bring down something big...
The urge hit him so hard, that it took most of his frayed willpower to keep the Wolf in check. He took a breath, than another, just to get through it, look up at Connor, and continue talking. “And I knew about last night. My employer called me this morning. He knows the woman. And I knew it wasn’t me, so I figured - unless there’s more of us - that it was you...”
Connor squeezed the coffee cup so hard that the top popped loose. “What?” He couldn’t panic - he couldn’t afford to panic, so he stopped, took a breath. He was starting to feel like this had been a truly terrible idea, but he had needed to talk to him, and if he hadn’t he wouldn’t know that - that someone had taken notice. He’d thought that talking to Valerie might be the end of it, but now it didn’t sound like it. “I met her,” he said, carefully. “I talked to her. She was - she was scared...” he trailed off. The Wolf liked that. He liked that she had been scared, terrified and running. It made Connor feel sick. Hardly remembering what it had felt like not to have to wrestle with two sets of emotions at once did not make it any easier. “I’m starting to wonder if it’s even safe for me to be outside,” he said, looking up at the other people in the coffee shop. “This has never happened to me before, not in...quite a long time. I can’t hurt anyone else, I can’t.” He didn’t know what he was looking for - reassurance, a solution, a cure that didn’t exist. “I just wish I knew why this was happening now,” he said, gesturing out with laced together hands. “Why here, when it hasn’t been a problem in years.” He ran a hand through his hair, sitting back. “What do you do? I’m not used to this. Usually it’s only the once a month I have to worry.”
Will frowned, wanting to help, but not quite knowing what to say. "I feel like that a lot. That I wish I knew what to do. I keep trying to find some way to stop it, but I haven't come up with anything yet. So I... I just do what I can. I take off work when it's really bad, but there's other times when it just sneaks up on me and I can't do anything." He paused, looking at Connor. "It's not an answer. And it's too dangerous. But I can't keep myself locked up all the time." He gave a sad, awkward quirk of a smile. "I doubt you can either. Whatever it is you do."
"I act," Connor said, and in that moment his chosen profession seemed frivolous and silly and unimportant in the face of something like this, but it was important. It was how he'd maintained his sanity all this time. "And I can't, no. If you start taking days off from a shoot people begin to wonder about you. I already have a reputation because I can't work a few specific days each month. Someone started a rumor that I do some weird holistic thing and I just let them have it because it's better than the alternative." He felt steady enough to put the top back on his coffee. "It's been seven years. I should be better at this by now."
Will nodded, the days off was something he understood. “I have an arrangement with my employer that I get some time off, and even though I haven’t worked there very long, I imagine he’s going to start suspecting something eventually.” He gave a small smile. “I might have to remember the holistic thing... It might work with him, if it’s weird enough.”
He felt for this young man, knowing that he’d been dealing with his Wolf for seven years. It had only been a year for him, and that was already more than enough. He sighed, shaking his head. “It doesn’t seem like something you can get used to. I’m still hoping it’ll just go away...” He knew that was an unreasonable thought, and his tone said as much.
Connor shrugged. "I keep hoping the same thing. I suppose you never know." It didn't exactly seem likely, however. "Have you ever...has anything ever happened?" He looked up at him from the lid of his coffee, where his eyes had been fixed.
Will paused to take a long drink of his tea, trying to figure out what exactly Connor was asking, and how to respond to it. He wasn't quite ready to expose his entire life to someone he'd basically just met, even if they did have something incredible in common. He kept his gaze on his cup, refilling it from the pot they'd provided him. "...Happened?"
Connor was more than aware this was dangerous ground he was treading on, but he had to ask. "Has the Wolf ever hurt anyone?" he asked, and there was a flat kind of need to know in that question - whether it was only him, whether it had happened because of some terrible defect of his own that had nothing to do with the Wolf at all. And then he caught something in Will's expression, and shook his head. "Nevermind. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that." He took the lid off his coffee, finally, and tore open a sugar packet, dumping it in mostly for something to do with his hands and fill the empty space in the conversation. "I have a tendency to jump ahead of myself," he said, glancing up to check his expression. "Particularly with...I've never had anyone to talk to about this, so if I say the wrong thing or I seem over eager I do apologize, I don't mean to."
Will sighed at Connor's quick backpedaling, and shook his head. It was a valid question, even if the answer was something he didn't especially want to think about. "Other than the mugger the other month? Yes. Just once. It was the first month I was here, before I knew about any of this."
Connor absorbed this information, and, terrible as it was, felt a distinct settling in of relief. The mugger had passed notice, because really what he'd meant was whether Will had ever hurt an innocent person - not that the mugger deserved to be bitten either, really, but they did provoke the attack. "I did as well, my first time." He put the lid back on his poor, abused coffee cup. It didn't seem right to ask Will for details - how it had happened, or why, since he knew he wouldn't want to answer the same questions. "I've lived here almost my whole life, but it didn't start until I was eighteen. How long have you been here?"
Will went quiet again, weighing how much he should share with Connor. But it was the first time he’d really had to discuss any of it with anyone. And since it was someone that knew what it was like? The urge to share more pushed at him. “I’ve only been here about a year now. It... started the first month.” He paused, and even though the question hadn’t been asked, it was easy to see the curiosity in Connor’s eyes. Will felt it too, from his side. “We’d known each other before we crossed. For a long time. We were traveling here, and it just... I don’t remember that first time. Just the morning after.”
Connor listened, intent, and even the Wolf seemed to still. “I don’t remember what happened the first time either,” he said. “I had been feeling...sick. Ill. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. I was in a play at school with my girlfriend, and I started getting jealous of her in a way that didn’t make sense. I’d never felt anything like that before, and I had no reason to doubt her.” His jaw tightened, and he took a breath. “And then I caught her in bed with someone else.” He found himself staring at his coffee again. “I don’t remember what happened. When I woke up, I packed my things, and I moved to America.” He didn’t describe what waking up had been like, what it had been like seeing what was left of her, blood in his mouth. The very memory filled him both with a sense of satisfaction and satiety and nausea, fear, and horror, all dueling.
Will nodded at that, the Wolf listening closely as well. “It wasn’t that bad for me. I mean, it was, but. She wasn’t cheating on me. Just had the misfortune of being around me, I suppose.” He sighed, remembering the way she’d looked in the hospital and the expression on her face when she saw him again. His voice dipped as he looked into the bottom of his teacup. “She survived, but... she was hurt badly. She’s with her family now. ...somewhere. We haven’t spoken since that morning after.”
"I really don't understand it," Connor said, quietly. "Everyone else has useful abilities, you know, reading minds or teleportation or making excellent tea. It's not an ability, it's a curse. It can hurt people." He bit his lip. "I suppose that's chance for you. But I still try to think that it's all too perfect in its cruelty to be totally hopeless in terms of a cure." He shrugged. "Maybe that's naive. But you would think with so many different sorts of Creations out there, there would have to be one who could fix it."
“I don’t understand either,” Will said, voice quiet to match Connor’s. “I’ve been trying to find a scientific explanation for it, but even after a year I haven’t been able to come up with anything. I’m getting some better facilities soon though, so I hope that will help. And if you’d be willing to donate some DNA samples for me to look at, maybe that would help too. I’ve been using my own, but maybe I’m just missing something there. A different view might help. ...I don’t want to pressure you into anything though, so if you’re uncomfortable with it, I understand...”
Connor thought hard on it. It might be a risk, of course, but really, when the benefits could be so important, how could he refuse? He felt he could trust Will. He had trusted him with things that could make his life hellish if anyone ever found out about them, and Connor owed him the same level of trust, particularly if it might help. "I'll do it," he said. "Whatever you need. Where is it you work?"
Will was feeling at least slightly more optimistic in the face of Connor’s agreement, and he managed a small smile. “Monarch Industries. But you don’t have to come down there. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t - my boss gets pretty nosy. I can get what I need just at the apartment. It’s easy and noninvasive. A cheek swab, maybe some hair...”
As far as Connor knew, any DNA that had been left behind at the crime scene in Britain would have been the Wolf’s, so any risk in that area seemed unlikely. He nodded after a moment. “Alright. Maybe best if we do that after the moon, though?” He wasn’t precisely sure with what stepping directly into another wolf’s territory would do to the Wolf this close to the moon, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.
Will nodded, realizing that having another Wolf, one who was still a stranger, come into his own space this close to the moon possibly wasn’t the best idea. “Agreed. We probably don’t want to take any strange chances this close...” He paused, then pulled out a small notebook, ripping out a page and writing down his phone number. “Here’s my cell phone number. You can call me once things calm down, and we can set something up. Or also if you need anything. Instead of having to hunt me down on the forums again.”
Connor took the number from him, folding it and slipping it into his pocket. “Thank you, I appreciate it.” And now that he knew that they lived in the same building it wouldn’t be too difficult to track his scent to his door in an emergency. It was fairly unique, after all.
Connor got to his feet. “Let me know when you want me to give you those samples and I’ll come down.” He paused. “And thank you for meeting me, again. It’s been...liberating,” he said, with a small laugh.
Will returned the laugh quietly as he nodded. “After the moon, then. And... we should probably both try to lay low this month. People are starting to talk.”
Connor nodded,a touch hesitantly. “Oh - yes, absolutely. I’ll be doing everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” The fact that he only had a certain level of control over what happened went unsaid. “I’ll talk to you soon,” he said, with a small smile, before turning to go. He had a lot to think on, honestly, and a full moon to prepare for, as the insistent scratching of the Wolf inside his breast constantly reminded him.