faelans_folly | [Open - Area Around Irish Coffee After Midnight]

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[Open - Area Around Irish Coffee After Midnight]

I check all the locks and alarms again, even though I did that all on my last sweep. Routine is both an enemy and an ally. As long as I don't use the routine to become lazy and remain alert, it's my ally. Not that this place is a likely target but lack of vigilance is an enemy.

I can hear the training drilled into my head, even if I don't remember where and when it came from. Like everything else I know it's just there. No memory of how or why, just there.

I hear a sound, faint, but definitely there. No human could hear it, but then I'm not human. I don't know what I am, exactly, but I'm not human.

I sweep the flashlight back and forth, although I keep it on more to blind others than help me see. I can see perfectly in the dark, just like I can hear things a human shouldn't. I take a deep breath and I can smell that whatever it is, it's a human. Or at least smells similar to a human.

"Who's there?" I call out.

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"You know," Maggie said, fingers still on his hand, "if you pull my other leg, it plays a tune. That was no panic attack, Jack. I'm not entirely sure what it was, and I'm sure there was some panic in there, but that wasn't all it was."

She tried to catch his eyes with hers. "I meant what I said during. You're safe here."

I can tell she's telling the truth from the way she smells and the sound of her heartbeat. I look at her hand on mine and back up to her. Not in the eyes, too many things have power over you if you look them in the eyes. Another piece of information I know without knowing how.

"What makes you think I need someplace safe?"

"Doesn't everyone?" Maggie countered. "I can tell you're hiding something, but there's more than that. I've seen it in the shell shocked, and in wounded animals. Skittish and a little afraid but trying to present an outwardly fierce shell."

She gave his hand just a little pressure.

"I'm fine," I say, looking at her hand again and back at her. It's a lie, but I don't know what else to do. There isn't anyone here like me, I've looked, and no one who can help me that I can tell. I'm in this by myself and there's nothing to be gained by opening up, is there?

"I just... I lost control for a moment," I say, the image of the boy catching fire all too fresh in my mind. "I didn't mean to hurt that boy. I- If that was you that saved him, thank you. I was trying not to hurt them badly..."

"That boy," Maggie snarled and a little thread of anger filled her voice, "will be finding himself in jail tomorrow as soon as I can get ahold of Levi. You did nothing but throw something that was thrown at you back at him. I believe the popular phrasing refers to living and dying by the sword. As for the rest of them, they could have all used a little more fear put in them and hopefully they've received just that."

Her point made as vehemently as she could while keeping herself calm, she put her attention back on Jack. "What happens when you lose control?"

"He didn't deserve to be lit on fire," I say. Some sense pounded into him? Definitely. But a stupid kid doesn't deserve to be lit on fire. It's extremely painful, somehow I know that from personal experience and I shudder at the memory. I also know I can survive it.

"And bad things happen when I lose control. Usually for other people."

"Then he shouldn't have lit the fuse," Maggie affirmed. "There are enough problems in the world without taking responsibility for ones you had no control over."

Then she took a bigger risk and took his other hand with hers. "Bad things can cover a lot of ground. Tell me what happens."

"People die," I say.

It's what I was created for. I don't know how or when or why but the sets of skills that I have only have one purpose. I'm supposed to be some sort of killing machine, essentially unstoppable. I don't know how true the unstoppable part is but I know I'm pretty hard to kill.

"Has that happened here?" Maggie didn't think it had, she hadn't heard of any mysterious deaths lately. At least, not of anyone that hadn't fully deserved a violent end.

"No," I say, shaking my head. I wouldn't admit to it even if there had been. I know how to clean up my messes if it comes to that. I'm not even sure if I would though. The training and instinct both tell me that I should if it happens, but another part of me says I should take whatever punishment comes. Even after several years I don't know what to call that part of me.

"I'm very careful. This is the closest I've come to losing control since I've been here. I don't know why."

"That's what matters. You try, and achieve control. You care whether or not you hurt others."

A wild, and very strange idea came over her. "Have you ever let the side you control loose? Whatever it is you fight to keep down, have you ever just...let it go?"

I aappreciate what she says, but it wouldn't make any difference to that kid if he had died if I had "tried" to control my instincts. He'd be dead all the same.

"About once a month I let go," I tell her, which is as close as I'll come to admitting to what I am, or what part of me is. "Go out into the woods and just let it out. Doesn't make it any easier to control other times though."

"But you did this alone, right? You've never done this with someone else? Another...person with you?"

Honestly, she didn't even know if the vampire would agree to this, but Maggie knew she had to at least try. First because she was worried about just what the town had brought in this time and two, because that much denial of self couldn't be good. Even a monthly eruption wasn't enough to hold that sort of tide at bay.

"I don't socialize."

It's not even that I don't socialize much, I just don't socialize at all. I don't know how to be normal around people. I know how to fake it to get what I want, but that's not the same.

"No one else knows I'm... different."

"I have someone I'd like you to meet if you're comfortable with it. If you spend time in the forest, there's a chance she already knows about you even if you haven't seen her. She lives in a cabin deep into the East side forest, a little cabin well off any known trailhead."

Maggie's mouth twisted into a smile. "Well, she did. Now she apparently sort of lives with my best friend."

"Ma'am, I'm not even real crazy about you knowing what I am. Not that I even know what I am."

Several years here and I've never blown my cover until now and now this woman wants to tell someone else. I don't like this at all. I glance at the door and think about just bolting. I can be out of here fast.

"It's Maggie, not ma'am," Maggie affirmed then squeezed the hands she held when confusion pushed past what she'd intended to say. "What do you mean you don't know what you are?"

"I don't know what I am," I tell her. I'm not sure how I can explain it better than that. Maybe I should just show her though. I know she can do magic so maybe she can tell me what I am. Or make it go away.

"I can show you though. If you want."

"Yes, I want," Maggie said and finally released his hands, but only to bring them up and cup his face in them. "I have magic enough to keep myself safe, and I think you need answers. My purpose here is to help the residents and I think this is the only way I can help you. If you're worried, and you think that worry would hinder this, I can call Bella." I smiled. "Between us, you wouldn't stand a chance."

I wouldn't be so sure about that, but I'm not going to hurt her. I'm still in control when I change, it's just a different kind of mindset, a different kind of control. As long as she doesn't act like prey or attack me she should be fine.

I stand back clear away a space in the middle of the floor, no use damaging the place. I peel off my shirt first, the silver ink of the tattoos catching the light. The symbols aren't any I'm familiar with or any language I've found here. Of course, I might not be asking the right people. Each one hurts like hell, weres being allergic to silver, but it's a pain I'm used to.

I strip off everything else too, not worried about modesty. The tattoos run all over my body, sigils and runes mishmashed all over me. I crouch down on the floor and I push.

The shift is painful, but like the tattoos it's a pain I'm used to. Bones snap, crack, and pop to rearrange and skin tears with a wet noise. I can make the shift happen fast, almost instant, if I need to but there's no rush. The wolf form comes first, it's easiest. It's big, more massive than I normally am, and I can make it bigger too. The puma comes next, jet black and sleek. A bear, a massive Kodiak is next, then I shift back to a human. I have more, but I'm tired and I think I made my point.

I'm sweating by the time I'm done and the tattoos are smoking a bit, not used to that much shifting so quick.

"If you have something to eat... that would be great."

It took her a minute to refocus after he stripped to skin in front of her. Impressive didn't begin to cover it and she felt a flash heat steal through her body to the point she had to pull a breeze around her to cool the flush on her skin. Then she forced herself to refocus.

Her eyes traveled over the markings on his body, surprised at the shimmer of metal in the ink, but she'd seen things like that before. Then the shifts started and she gasped audibly. Not because he was a shifter, but because the metal and the animal forms...it wasn't ever a good combination. Especially with the wolf form.

Her mind still reeling from it all, Maggie moved swiftly into the cold to-go case and pulled out two sandwiches, then pulled a Coke out as well, remembering his preference.

"Right here," she said and pressed the food into his hands before darting away.

She returned a moment later with a wet, clean cloth and started wiping the cool cloth over his face, and his arms, cooling the skin with a breeze she stirred into the air.

I try and eat the sandwiches slowly, but they're mostly gone by the time she returns and starts wiping me down. Her touch, even through the cloth, feels good. It's calming for the most part but every once in a while her skin brushes against mine and it sends a surge through me. I'm not very used to contact like that.

"You don't have to do that," I say, but since it's after I finished the food and she's got most of my back and arms it's a pretty empty comment.

"But thank you."

"Shhhh," Maggie said softly, calling more water from the sink to remoisten the cloth as she moves to his other arm and chest. "You went through the sandwiches fairly quickly. Are you still hungry?"

"I'm okay for now," I say, leaning back just a bit so she has better access to my chest. I don't want to admit it, but this feels really good, and not just because it's getting me cleaned up. Maybe just the fact that someone cares makes it nice.

"All right. Just let me know if that changes," Maggie nodded and finished with the cloth, draping it around his shoulders so the cool could continue to work against his heated skin.

Not wanting to move away just yet, she traced one of the runes she'd regcognized. "I counted three forms," she said softly. "Wolf, bear and a cat form. Is that the extent of your shifting or are there others as well?"

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