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Post by Zephyr on Nov 11, 2012 23:21:23 GMT -5
The wolf blinks smouldering eyes sleepily when it hears Matthias coming. The man no longer frightens it. There is just a thin stream of wariness running down its spine, and even that is a simple thing to press down when the allure of sleep is in sight. It does tense when the man touches it, and its pelt jumps a little, but the wolf is able to ignore the nagging desire to flee from the man’s touch, because he does not threaten it anymore, and it is able to slip into sleep to the feeling of fingers in its fur. Something it has never felt before, but likes regardless.
Morning finds the wolf on its side, pressed up against the man in its sleep. It sleeps through the first signs of the shift, content with having a warm body beside it and more room to stretch out than the closet it is used to. It wakes though when a particularly brutal flash of pain goes through it and it scrambles to its feet, a whine that morphs into a scream in its throat coming out. The wolf scrambles in its nest of expensive suits, leaning into the wall for lack of anywhere else to go as its organs start to shift and bones shrink and grow.
The sounds that are escaping its maw now, as Matthias wakes, are bloodcurdling screams of agony as the wolf writhes in the pile of clothes, scratching equally at cloth and floor. The pain is so great that the wolf cannot even think to move. It lays out on its side, its body shifting unnaturally as parts of it change. It lets out heart wrenching whines as the pain overcomes it, and it twists to try and lick at Matthias’ hand. It remembers the human, and it would be very pleased if he could stop this pain. Then another pang of agony overcomes it and its head falls to the ground.
Silas is shivering on the closet floor when all is said and done. His eyes are shut, clothes having been rucked up around his naked body in the wolf’s frantic kicking to end the pain. There’s a hand on his body, and gentle murmuring in a voice that he recognizes. He’s still in pain, and he can’t think to open his eyes, but he doubles over in the wolf’s bed until it passes and Silas can finally open his eyes, slowly, because there is light streaming in them and causing him pain.
“Matthias?” His voice is soft and hoarse and the doctor rises to lean back against the wall, hair plastered to his head with sweat as he tried to escape the endless pain. He doesn’t recognize where he is at first. It isn’t like he’s ever actually seen his closet from this angle before, but Matthias is there, and Silas feels soothed even before he realizes he’s in his own closet. The destruction under him isn’t immediately noticed, and he twists his head around, green brown eyes slightly glazed with pain.
“Are you okay?” His voice is uncertain as he reaches out to touch the kid’s temple slowly. “What happened?” Because this is definitely not what he’d expected to wake up to...Matthias alive and well and right next to him.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Nov 11, 2012 23:49:57 GMT -5
“Shh, c’mon, baby, breathe, that’s it, just like that, sweetheart—” It is, he thinks, worse from this end; the wolf does not try to censor the sounds of pain, and Matthias knows his touch cannot do anything to pull the agony out of the shifting bones and snapping muscles. Shaky fingers slide through shortening fur, lips pressing against the animal’s temple as he closes his eyes against the ragged, pained sounds and the rapid breathing, whispers, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, it’s okay, just breathe for me, sweetheart,” like it means anything until it’s bare skin under his fingers, not fur, and he lets go, drops back onto the floor to appraise Silas in the filtered half-light, meets human eyes again.
The aftereffects of the pain still linger, but it is Silas again, truly, and not the wolf, and Matthias blinks at him, half-dazed for a moment before the man reaches out and fingers brush against his temple, and he sounds so painfully uncertain. Matthias swallows against the dryness in his throat, half from the hours of sleeping beside the wolf and half from the shock of the transformation, and crooks a lopsided grin at him, leans into the very human touch and uncurls to push himself up to his knees, threads his fingers through Silas’s sweat-damp hair and plants a kiss on his forehead.
“Mornin’, sleeping beauty,” he says, voice a little rough—he doesn’t think he’s talked so much in one night since the very memorable and unique occasion he got high in college. Still, as he sits back on his heels and tilts his head at Silas, the words turn soft in their sincerity, “I’m fine, promise. C’mon, let’s get you in the shower and I can get you some coffee, okay? It was fine.” Fine seems such an understatement of the most stressful night he remembers since his earliest hunts with his father, for a night spent in an apartment with a terrified werewolf, but it is fine, now, with the vague memory of waking up with the wolf pressed against his side, relaxed in sleep, and with Silas here, awake, safe, in front of him.
Still, Mattie gets that Silas probably wants a little more to go on, so he lets the smile quirk up a little warmer as he stands, pulling Silas up with him and sliding an arm around him to support his weight—he cannot imagine walking will be an easy or comfortable endeavor after literally having all the bones in his body rearranged and remade. “There was some poetry,” he says, musing, picking out the parts worth retelling—the details will come later, if he has anything to say about it, when Silas has showered and gotten clothes on and a cup of coffee in his hand. “Then there was some bonding over ear scratches, an adventure in exploring the apartment, and then sleep. No tranquilizers required.” His mouth quirks up into mischief, “You’re pretty cuddly for a wolf.”
It does not bear mentioning that Matthias did not even touch the tranquilizer since he brought it in—had no intention of it, in truth, except as a last resort. Silas will probably be upset with him at his lack of regard to his own safety, but it doesn’t matter.
He really doubts the wolf would have even tolerated him had he been holding a gun.
“I’ll fill you in, promise,” Matthias encourages, tries to discreetly get Silas out of the closet and shut the door behind them with his foot. “But you totally reek of dog right now. Shower. I’ll have coffee for you when you’re done, and then we can have story time, or whatever you want.”
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Post by Zephyr on Nov 13, 2012 16:29:37 GMT -5
He is a little interested in why Matthias sounds like he’s been talking all night, but he doesn’t really have a chance to broach the subject as Matthias grabs him and pulls him to his feet. He has a very brief moment of panic where he isn’t sure his legs will hold him and he reaches out blindly for Matthias, only to feel the kid supporting him. The kid’s words don’t really make him look over until he mentions poetry. Silas’ eyes are wide and his gaze is disapproving. He downright blushes when he mentions being about to touch the wolf without getting his hand bitten off.
“I’m not a wolf.” He says decisively, following the other man out of the closet, not paying attention to it even as Matthias closes the door. He’ll probably be pissed about the state of all his clothing and his bed later, but right now he’s just focused on getting clean and coffee. Yes. Coffee would be exceptional at the moment. Still, his denial that he has anything to do with the wolf is a bone deep thing, and he doesn’t seem to want Matthias to have any delusions otherwise. “And it isn’t cuddly. I don’t know what you did…but it could have killed you.”
He wants to ask about the gun, but the allure of a shower is much stronger now, and he untangles himself from Matthias to lean against the bathroom door frame. He looks like he’s about to say something to Matthias when he looks over the kid’s shoulder to his bed. There are very distinctive black hairs on the light comforter of his bed. His eyes widen and he half stumbles towards it, grabbing the door before he falls. “What the fuck! The thing was on my bed? What the hell!” He looks like he’s about to explode or something. His eye is twitching and his fist is tightened into a ball at his side. “Why the fuck would you let it on my bed. Jesus Christ. I can’t deal with this now.”
And he gets his ass in the bathroom because he’s disgusting and naked and wants to pretend that he didn’t see thousands of little dog hairs all over his bed.
~
It takes him a while to take a shower, simply because he spends most of the time leaning against the shower wall trying to deny that the events of the previous night didn’t happen. It helps that halfway through he feels more human and considerably less canine when he steps out and twirls a towel around his waist, steps out of the bathroom, blatantly ignores the bed to find a pair of boxers and slip them on before abandoning the towel and walking into the kitchen.
He doesn’t spare a glance at the living room, thankfully, and doesn’t see his poor broken TV. Instead, he falls into the stool at the island and takes the cup of coffee that Matthias hands him gratefully. He doesn’t speak for a long time, preferring to get some coffee in him before he faces what happened last night. When he’s drained the cup, he slides it back out for Matthias to fill before he finally deigns to speak.
“What happened?” His voice is soft, and his eyes seek out Matthias…who he really hadn’t expected to see again. The thought makes his throat dry and his fingers twitch.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Nov 13, 2012 17:24:07 GMT -5
He spends the long minutes Silas is in the shower cleaning up after the wolf, once the coffee is started; the closet first, picking up each of the suits and sliding them back onto their hangers, folding slacks over into their appropriate positions and threading the ties with neat fingers back where they belong. The fur and stray wrinkles are the worst of the damage, and Matthias picks off as much fur as he can before he gives up and goes to inspect the rest of the apartment, leaving the bed as is—Silas has already seen it and there’s no point fussing over it anymore. He sets the television upright again, inspects the floor for claw marks, and pointedly ignores the fur on the couch.
The water is still faintly audible when he sits at the island again, considers the tranquilizer gun left on the counter where Silas dropped it last night, and leaves it as is in favor of folding his arms onto the island and piecing together the beginnings of a coherent summary that will appease Silas’s curiosity. There are details he would rather not share, and it’s a downright shitty thought, Matthias knows, but his ramblings do not always follow the guidelines of what is appropriate and what is not.
He never has been very good at censoring.
Blue eyes flicker up to Silas at the man’s entrance, and Matthias quietly pours a cup of coffee and slides it across the island to him, leans forward onto his elbows and eyes him speculatively. If not for the minute giveaways of tension badly masked in the lines of his body, it could be any other morning since Mattie started sleeping here: The rich smell of coffee and the sight of Silas in his boxers, hair damp and rumpled from his shower, are not novel, except that right now, they are. There is a new appreciation for the man after he has seen the wolf, in the sharply familiar grumbling and snapping and in the sight of skin rather than fur.
“Hmm,” he murmurs, cocks a lopsided grin at Silas at the silent demand for more coffee and the only slightly more audible one for information. Matthias leans over obligingly to pour him another cup, steals a sip before he hands the mug back to Silas, and settles against the counter again, careful. “You—the wolf,” he corrects himself, arching a curious eyebrow at Silas (the gruff assertion that he is not the wolf is not one that Matthias has forgotten, but he cannot help himself making the comparisons and the overlaps), “It was just really scared. Took off as soon as it got its legs under it. I—uh, calmed it down. Like I said, poetry. Wolf has good taste.”
A shrug, Matthias rubbing the pad of his thumb against the edge of the island absently. “It growled a bit,” he offers, since he isn’t trying to make the wolf out to be a cuddly ball of fluff or anything. He knows it isn’t. “But, I don’t know, it didn’t threaten to rip off my arm at the shoulder or anything, and eventually it stopped freaking out and took a tour of your apartment—the bed,” he adds with amusement in the upturn of his lips, “And then it made its own bed and I sat down next to it and fell asleep, and I guess it went to sleep after that, too. It wasn’t bad.” In retrospect, it honestly isn’t: Mattie has met wolves infinitely more aggressive and more interested in ripping out his throat than in the sound of his voice, and it’s over.
“You don’t remember anything?” He will admit to curiosity; he has spent nearly a decade learning how to kill the werewolves and he knows the change is painful, but the war of a double consciousness is much newer and more fascinating an idea than the knowledge he already has. “How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses, that doesn’t ring any bells?”
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Post by Zephyr on Nov 13, 2012 23:08:08 GMT -5
He only glares at Matthias a little bit when the shit takes a drink of his coffee, but he’s pretty exhausted, mentally and physically, despite the fact that he’d had a full night’s sleep…as a wolf. The pain of the transformation pretty much took what little energy he had left out of him. He can’t even find it in him to care that Matthias obviously had a hard time separating Silas from the wolf. That distinction would come with time. Silas intended to make sure that the kid wasn’t under any illusion that Silas considered himself the wolf or the wolf him.
There’s just no way he can’t separate the two beings. One is a monster, the other a doctor.
The rest of Matthias’ story seems like something surreal. The beast didn’t try to rip out Matthias’ throat? Or maybe Matthias is just lying to make Silas think that the animal isn’t dangerous when it is. But why would he lie? It’s always a little hard to think right after he changes back. The wolf is still at the forefront of his mind and there are scattered remnants of the wolf’s mind. The simple way in which it regards the world. It might not be the worst part of the change, but it’s pretty damn far up there.
Instead, Silas focuses on the tranquilizer gun. It had been such a lifeline right before the change…not as much as Matthias, but it’s something. He reserves the right to think of something else when all his thoughts about the monster he is are shattered.
Silas waits a while after Matthias is done speaking to snort, shifting his gaze over to let it land on Matthias. “It let you sleep beside it?” His tone is flat, unbelieving, and he takes another swig of his coffee, perhaps hoping to burn those thoughts away. “Goddammit.” He growls at last, his migraine threatening to make his head explode. He drops his forehead to his arm. “So my monster isn’t really a monster, but a goddamn pussy.” He starts to laugh, because it figures. It really figures that he would have the one werewolf in the entire world that’s just afraid of everything.
His laughing really is inappropriate, but he can’t stop. Not until he hears Matthias speak and he snorts, shaking his head. “Bits and pieces really.” Not like he’s ever cared to try and remember before, but that is beside the point. “It’s all a blur. Things don’t make sense now that are from the wolf’s point of view.”
And the glare he tosses Matthias at the goddamn poetry is particularly vicious. “No, that definitely does not ring any bells. You little shit.” He’s quick to add.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Nov 14, 2012 15:15:43 GMT -5
Is it really so difficult to believe that he is still alive?
Matthias had not anticipated things to go the way they had, but he is certainly not complaining; that he is not only still breathing but capable of making Silas coffee, none the worse for the wear, is an unexpected bonus. He had been just hoping for limbs being intact, honestly. This is more than a few steps up, but Silas is still looking at him all askew and the weight of the other man’s gaze when it shifts to him from the tranquilizer gun makes Mattie’s eyes flicker, lips thinning in faint, instinctive defensiveness under the man’s regard, half-expecting Silas to challenge him, somehow.
The laughter startles him—and it shows in the brief tension of his mouth and the line of his shoulders, eyebrows furrowing a moment before Matthias’s expression clears again and he quirks a faint smile at Silas. “Little bit,” he admits, lets the contagion of the werewolf’s laughter catch in a soft chuckle at the back of his throat. It is funny, in its own right, a painfully sad inversion of the monsters he is so accustomed to hunting, and Mattie is almost grateful for the way it makes justifying his affection for the other man so much easier: There is nothing about Silas or the wolf that is a monster, and for that, every hunter with the kind of moral compass Mattie operates by would stay his hand.
He’s still grinning in amusement at Silas when the other man’s laughter fades, and the disappointing answer and glare both do little to erase the lingering upturn of his lips. The smile softens, though, and Matthias leans back from the counter, taps his fingers loosely along the edge, and says, apropos of exactly nothing at all, “You called me Mattie.”
It is neither complaint nor pleasure, but simply an observation: Curiosity, perhaps. Nate is not the first person to ever call him that—Matthias is a name prone to shortening, he’s found, and he’s had nicknames ranging from the most practical to utterly ludicrous and sort of insulting—but Silas has never called him that, even after Nate decided Matthias was too much a mouthful. He elaborates, “Right before you changed, I mean, if you don’t remember, just. That’s a first. Is that how you think of me? I don’t mind it, y’know, I’m all about the casual,” he arches a solemn eyebrow, “If I were big on formality I’d ask you to call me ‘God’ all the time, but, hey, ‘Mattie,’ ‘God,’ basically synonymous.”
He is asking for eye-rolls and the name-calling and the grumbling, Matthias knows, flashing a faux-coy smile at Silas across the counter as he leans over and steals his cup of coffee, but he almost wants it, anyway. The status quo of a werewolf and a hunter should be a thing of power plays and unbalanced fragility, but somehow it’s not, and the jagged edges—uncertainty or regret or something more like both—still lacing the undertones of what is said are unwelcome.
“Hey, speaking of nicknames—” Flash of a winning smile, “Puppy.”
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Post by Zephyr on Nov 25, 2012 17:30:44 GMT -5
His head is firmly plastered to the counter, new cup of coffee thoroughly consumed at his side. His headache doesn’t seem to be abating any…this is like, the worst hangover ever, and he hadn’t even been drinking.
Come to think of it though, alcohol wouldn’t be completely unwelcome at the moment. He’s thinking about it when Matthias speaks. And he’s only really half listening, his head still pounding away, but when the man speaks, Silas lifts his head, fixing Matthias with a look. “What?” The doctor growls out, eyes narrowed and unbelieving for a second. He seems confrontational for a moment, not understand what weight a fucking nickname had. Then he blinks at Matthias, shrugging his shoulders. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t exactly in my right mind, I probably won’t call you that again if it makes you…”
He looks confused for a second as the other man goes on and blinks for a second. “Not really.” He starts, searching for the right words. “It has nothing to with how I see anyone.” And Silas shrugs, leaning back a little to rub the bridge of his nose because looking at Matthias again. “I don’t usually do nicknames. Not sure why. My sister was the only one who ever got a nickname from me. I don’t know what it means.” He admits carefully, and his head hurts a little too much to analyze it.
Then Matthias ruins the moment, and Silas’ face does something incredible as his eyebrows do crazy things and end up glaring viciously at the kid for a second. “You’re a goddamn brat.” He growls, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “The day I call you God is the day my wolf starts spouting out poetry.” Which, Silas is fairly certain is not going to happen anytime soon.
At length, Silas stands, flashing Matthias a thoroughly irritated glare at the nickname. “You’re a fucking shit” He reiterates sternly, walking past Matthias to rifle through the upper cabinet. It doesn’t actually take much rifling for Silas to pull out his half full bottle of bourbons and a couple of tumblers and put them on the island in front of Matthias, because he could really use the alcohol right about now, and Matthias seems to like drinking too.
It’s a win win, really.
Silas pauses awkwardly at the counter. Emotions aren’t something that Silas thinks about often, or chooses to acknowledge half the time. But here he’s hovering on the edge of uneasy, gaze shifting from the glasses to Matthias. Finally, he sighs heavily, letting the weariness that he’s been feeling show in his eyes. He’s just so tired and hungry right after a shift. Sighing, he moves his hand to run fingers through Matthias’ hair for a second, letting them linger there before he leans over and presses a kiss to the man’s temple. “Thanks.” He murmurs against Matthias’ skin. He isn’t sure what he’s thanking him for, but he just feels the need to say it. And as he slides his forehead to Matthias’, he just rests it there for a second before it all comes clear and he whispers, his voice soft. “For believing in me.”
Silas squeezes his shoulder and steps away and just like that, Silas’ gravitas is dispelled and he returns to his stool to pour them some alcohol.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Nov 25, 2012 18:29:11 GMT -5
Um.
Not that Mattie is fantastically picky about exactly how Silas sees him—that the other man sees him at all is good enough, if alarmingly sappy even in his mind—but it’s the first time since Jeremy being an ass that he has ever been compared to a sister. He tilts his head at Silas, mouth pursed in quizzical bemusement, a question on the tip of his tongue, but the moment passes and the fragments of Silas’s past vanish into a laugh, the grin stretching wide at the absolutely fantastic contortions Silas’s expressions go through before settling somewhere between utter disbelief and grouchy indignation. Matthias tips his head back, snorts, “Hey, don’t underestimate me, old man—gimme a few full moons and some steaks or something and we’ll have it quoting Shakespeare in no time.”
Silas standing and making a beeline for the cabinet of bourbon has Mattie making a soft sound in his throat, torn between amusement and disapproval. It’s too early in the morning to drink, but the old remnants of stress are settling into muscles and bone again and he suspects this drinking after full moons may be as good as tradition for Silas. At least he can make sure Silas doesn’t get too drunk, even if with Silas’s tolerance that’ll be a job and a half in and of itself. One hand reaches for the bottle, stills without ever making contact with it when Silas abruptly loses whatever wind he’d had and Matthias automatically reaches for him with the intent to steady or support him.
The fingers in his hair and the kiss that follows, the way Silas leans against him, have Mattie settling his palms helplessly along the sharp angle of Silas’s hips, swallowing the you’re welcome because it isn’t like that, he doesn’t choose who he trusts with his life. But that Silas has effectively rendered him mute doesn’t seem to matter; Silas steps away the next moment and Matthias drops his hands, crooks a smile that still caught by shy fascination at Silas as the man busies himself pouring out the glasses of bourbon. It isn’t until he’s lifted one of the glasses that he speaks, tipping it towards Silas in a toast and offering quietly, “To you.”
Then, the lopsided grin easing back into familiar teasing, “And to me—I did tame a werewolf, so.” He swallows a sip of bourbon, sets the glass back down on the counter, looks back up at Silas. “I didn’t know you had a sister,” he says; it’s a stupid, unnecessary comment since Silas hasn’t told him anything about his family, and Mattie can hardly blame him since he hasn’t exactly initiated deep meaningful family conversations either, but now that’s come up, well, “But I mean, since I’ve gotta share the nickname status—is she awesome?”
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Post by Zephyr on Nov 25, 2012 19:16:15 GMT -5
Matthias’ words cue another stunned expression from Silas’ face. He stares stupidly at the kid, long fingers wrapped around the glass in front of him. He couldn’t quite comprehend why Matthias would toast to him at all. Silas is nothing. Just a grumpy doctor who drinks too much and sprouts fur once a month, but apparently, to Matthias, he is something. It isn’t something he needs, the approval of someone else, and he thought that all he ever wanted was Nate’s…but Matthias has proved him wrong more than once during the time Silas has known him.
He’s stopped being surprised by it, really.
Instead of acknowledging the toast, Silas schools his expression into one of cool indifference and grunts lightly, bringing the glass to his lips and downing the alcohol in one, deft swallow. The bourbon burns pleasantly in his throat and he feels it hit his stomach all at once. The doctor finally allows himself to relax when the bourbon is firmly in his stomach. It’s a little sad that he only completely finds himself relaxing in one of two places, in Nate’s arms, and anywhere with a stomach full of alcohol. It isn’t surprising the man’s an alcoholic.
He fixes Matthias with an appropriate glare at the addition, rolling his eyes. He’s about to say something snarky when the kid continues on and all at once, Silas’ demeanor changes. He grows quiet, gaze going strangely contemplative. He licks the last traces of bourbon off of his lips, dropping the glass to the countertop with a ringing thud…and Silas is silent for a bit. His gaze drops to the glass, and after a moment, he grabs the bottle and pours himself another glass, making sure that he pours more than usual, because he isn’t nearly drunk enough for this conversations.
Silas takes a big gulp of the whiskey before he starts to speak, his eyes still firmly on the glass that he’d dropped to the counter again. “I had a sister.” He starts. Silas has never been one to live in the past. His past had been so shitty, that dwelling on it only causes misery, so not thinking about it has been Silas’ way of coping with everything that’s happened to him.
“Her name was Lilian. She died when she was four.” His story is stuttered, the words blunt and matter of fact when they come, interspersed with long pauses as he gets his thoughts together. This is a story he hasn’t told to anyone and when his next words come, they’re so matter of fact, and Silas’ gaze makes it clear, when he glanced up to catch Matthias’ gaze that it isn’t a big deal. “My father killed her.”
He lets his composure slip for a moment, gaze drifting down to the glass again, and Silas lets a small, wistful smile turn up the corner of his mouth, his words very soft. “She was incredible.”
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Post by Matthias Walker on Nov 25, 2012 20:53:11 GMT -5
For all that the toast is a small gesture, it’s worth the momentary stunned look on Silas’s face, the furrow his brow and the stillness of long fingers against the glass. Matthias’s lips quirk up into a half-smile of triumph, hidden behind the edge of the tumbler, eyes soft with amused affection, but he lets the moment pass into the façade of familiar casualness and the taste and burn of bourbon on his tongue. An assessing gaze watches the man across from him drain his glass of bourbon, but Mattie refuses to be rushed, does not want to be drunk right now any more than he ever does in bars with unfamiliar faces; the alcohol is only to take the edge of remembered tension off, not erase everything.
There’s plenty he’d like to forget but alcohol’s never been one of his choice sins.
So the glass he sets back on the counter at the weight of Silas’s eyes is still half-full, blue eyes meeting the other man’s with curious recognition of the gravitas. Family is not something Matthias is well-versed on except in ideals, and with a deceased father and broken family ties, he knows he is far from the poster child of good family values, but the silence that trembles fragile between them is strange and heavy with implications Mattie isn’t sure if he wants vocalized. But the question still hangs there, too, and Mattie isn’t a hunter for his excessive caution, so he just looks back at Silas, waiting, letting the man judge him worthy or not or whatever he’s doing—
When the werewolf speaks it’s with a mechanical casualness utterly at odds with the way he refuses to look up from the glass of bourbon, and Mattie can’t help the furrow of his brow. Keeps his silence, anyway, as Silas slowly stumbles through the story in short clipped lines in a painfully matter-of-fact tone, even as the man looks up to meet his eyes at last, and Matthias stares at him, uncomprehending a moment. Calm, despite the knot in the pit of something that’s neither pity nor sympathy but something closer to an acute awareness of his own helplessness as he watches the soft curve of Silas’s smile and the weight of simple words.
Here’s the thing: Mattie isn’t good at comfort.
He’s actually (self-proclaimed or self-acknowledged or whatever) absolutely shitty at it, and normally hunting doesn’t make comforting people necessary: He handles witnesses after they’ve recovered or he just gets victims out of the way and leaves them somewhere safe, does not need to worry about the emotional or mental trauma because that’s not his job. There has never been a hunt in which Matthias has been paid to play psychologist in the wake of a monster’s havoc, and he has never been one for feelings but he just…
“Go on,” he says quietly, his gaze still fixed on Silas as he pads over to lean against him, draws his glass of bourbon across the table towards him again and impulsively drags his thumb from the corner of Silas’s mouth outward to the line of his jaw, crooks a quiet smile at him, “D’you know, I bet you’d have dimples if you smiled. Did—you said you had a nickname for her, right? Lily? Did she?”
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Post by Zephyr on Nov 30, 2012 20:55:52 GMT -5
The doctor isn’t sure what he’s expecting from Matthias. Certainly not sympathy. If you train yourself to believe over years and years that nothing is wrong with you, you stop thinking that anyone else will think something is wrong with you. It’s an imperfect analogy at best, but it works somehow. He lets his gaze drift up to meet Matthias’ for a second, glad that there is not pity there. That isn’t something he’s ever wanted from anyone…not Jessica when he’d been in high school, and not Nathan or Matthias now.
He’s relieved then, when it isn’t pity or sympathy that meets his, but interest. Though, that in and of itself is new. Why would anyone be interested in his past? It wasn’t an extraordinary past. He’d been convinced, as a child, that everyone’s parents beat them incessantly. He’d realized, later on, that that wasn’t the case, but it didn’t ever make it any less normal for Silas…and the scars that riddle his body; the ones that weren’t caused by the werewolf bitch who’d turned him – those are the proof that he thought his past normal.
Silas is silent when Matthias gets up to stand by him. He utters a low grunt when the kid leans against him. Tongue swipes over his lips, and he stares at the bottle of bourbon with careful eyes. He thinks about pouring more, and realizes, belatedly, that his past has traumatized him more than he’d ever admit to anyone, especially himself. He forgoes the alcohol though, clicking the glass absently against the counter, pausing long enough for Matthias to trace his finger along Silas’ face.
The words get him thinking. His eyes flutter as he tries to remember the girl, all bright blue eyes and shockingly blonde hair, nearly white in its purity. He remembers the dress she wore to church. She had a few, but the one she wore the most was white and frilly…because she liked it the best. She was always had been the first one ready, floating around the house like she had wings, like she was a bird. His sister had always reminded of a bird poised for flight. A dove.
Silas’ eyes slide shut as he tries to remember her, eyes twinkling behind white-blonde hair, pretty little face wide in a smile when he found that stupid crystal unicorn she had loved so much. She’d lost it for a full week, and had been desperate to find it. Silas had found it behind the television, cleaned the damned thing off and handed it to her. Lilian’s smile had been massive as she hugged him tight, and he’d only leaned over to kiss her on the forehead.
“Yeah.” He says at last, breaking his own silence after a second of thought. “She did have dimples. My mom always made fun of her for it, but she didn’t give a fuck. She was always a good kid, laid back and affectionate. I loved her.” It’s surprising that he is able to keep his voice steady through that. He hasn’t thought of Lili, hasn’t thought of her properly in so many years that he hadn’t been prepared for the surge of emotion that it would bring in him.
He thinks again about drowning the emotion in bourbon. It worked so well before. Instead, he licks his lips, eyes steadfastly on the bottle of bourbon. “I should have killed him for that, you know. I would have, if I hadn’t been a stupid kid.” His voice is steady, painfully matter of fact in that he wouldn’t have had an issue killing his father when he’d been ten years old.
Now he can’t imagine it.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Nov 30, 2012 21:45:55 GMT -5
It comes as a very nice surprise when Silas doesn’t punch him on the spot for his presumption.
He may be living with the man but Matthias is under no delusions as to the timespan of their dubious friendship, and this kind of conversation has always been something Mattie’s figured is best left alone or to friends with a longer history than he and Silas have. But Silas just lets him coax him back into his own past and with the flutter of his eyes Matthias is free to watch him, fascinated and a little awed, at the play of shadows over the man’s face, the tension in the clean line of his jaw. This can still go sour; he gets that he’s pushing in every sense of the word, fitting himself into the empty spaces of Silas’s life where he’s probably not welcome, with his wolf and now his sister twenty-some years dead.
“I can tell,” whispered like it’s as much a secret as the things Silas is telling him, as Mattie reaches out and shifts the bottle of bourbon so he can pull himself up to sit on the counter, facing Silas. There’s a moment where blue eyes settle thoughtfully on the doctor’s, and then he drops his eyelashes, quirks a tired smile at him, “Surviving isn’t stupid, old man.”
Except when it is, but if Mattie allows himself the exceptions then he isn’t exactly sure how to classify his own existence anymore—he’s had enough close calls, enough selfish moments where the desperation to outlive the monsters he hunts clawed up so fast and bright in his throat that sacrifice, especially the kind Silas is talking about, did not even occur to him until after the adrenaline wore off and the pain kicked in. So no, thanks, he really prefers to keep those moments tucked away, out of sight out of mind. Anything to make the day to day hunting easier.
“My dad,” he offers, to fill the silence as much as to offer something back, maybe not quite as fragile as what Silas has but something nonetheless, “When I was a kid he was never around much—hunting’s a family business,” the twist of his smile is humorless as he reaches out to absently thread his fingers through Silas’s hair, still damp from his shower. “And I had a brother—an older brother, Jeremy. He’s a lawyer now, married, two kids, maybe more now. So, you know, basically textbook fucking perfect. They even had a dog but Audrey, that’s his wife, she’s allergic, so that didn’t last. Anyway, back when we were kids, he was kind of like the—the perfect one, good grades, respectful, nice friends, popular, and shit.”
He remembers the jealousy (and hell, maybe some of it’s still there on the odd occasions he thinks about Jeremy), but he remembers the hero-worship too, Jeremy teaching him the constellations and picking them out of the sky. “So my dad fucking loved him, you know? Meanwhile I was like this weird younger kid, fucked around with rowdy kids and got sent to the principal’s office for disruptive behavior all the fucking time, so I sort of—I don’t know. I don’t think he cared that much about me other than being an extension of Mom and Jeremy, up until I started hunting with him.”
The smile crooks softer, Matthias leaning back onto the counter, ruffling Silas’s hair up into a stubby Mohawk. “So he wasn’t bad, I guess, but once I got to Columbia, it was just like—well, I kind of wish he hadn’t started giving a shit. Conditional affection blows.” The corners of his mouth tug a little wider, “And not in the good way, either.”
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