Home Sweet Home

[pinkroses]

Sable made no attempt to catch the lamp and he didn’t flinch apart from his eyes flickering shut for a moment. He didn’t help her to pick up the lamp, by stayed by the doorway, not wanting to intrude. A part of him wished he hadn’t even come here, but he couldn’t go there alone.

“Accept it. Cope,” Sable replied quietly, giving a tiny shrug.

“Do you dream about it?” he asked softly, lowering his eyes to the ground and shuffling his toes against the floor.

[Saccharin]

When she\'d thought they\'d talk about these things, she\'d assumed it would be over coffee. After the sun came up. But the nightmares hadn\'t waited until a reasonable time to begin their assault on the lad. Carrie took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose.

"Not as much as I used to," she said. She\'d wake up sweating, trembling, and unsure whether she was human or werewolf. Unable to sleep at night and edgy during the day, she sought relief by medicating herself heavily. She\'d had too much going on in her life at the time to sit down and actually cope with what\'d happened to her; it was much easier to mask it with whatever she could convince doctors to hand over prescriptions for. "I handled being told I would become a werewolf just fine," she said, smoothing out a bit of comforter closest to her hand. "It helped to talk with other werewolves. They suggested things I wish I\'d tried from the start: meditating, running, yoga. Anything to work out excess energy and stress. Things that calm you."

Dominik had made the biggest difference; he became her link to normalcy (as much as the shifter had been able to offer her). As she looked at Sable, her eyes softened. That\'s what she\'d be for him if he\'d let her.

[pinkroses]

De-stressing. Well, that was something Sable was good at trying. He went out running whenever he could, but even escaping for a while usually didn’t help and he couldn’t imagine it helping now. But maybe that had been just one dream, just because of what they had been discussing. That didn’t mean there would be more. Maybe he would be able to go back to bed now and never need to think about this again.

Or maybe this was going to be his life now. Nightmares and monsters.

“What was Mr Lowe talking about? When he said… he was worse?” he asked, chewing on his lower lip and glancing up from the comforter to Carrie.

[Saccharin]

Carrie regarded him for a long moment after he asked his question, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Dominik had asked her to keep what she knew about the city\'s denizens to herself, at least for a little, but she\'d been asked directly and she wasn\'t going to lie to Sable. He was one of the supernatural now, she didn\'t see what harm it would cause to let him know about one species.

"He\'s a shifter," she said, finally. "Where we have no real control of when we shift, he can change into a bear whenever he wants. He\'s in control of that form too, so yeah. I suppose he\'s worse in that sense."

[pinkroses]

With the long wait and the way she was looking at him, Sable thought he had possibly asked something which he should have kept quiet about. Maybe she’d refuse to answer, or telling him to go back to bed and stop bothering her with stupid questions. He was truly expecting that to be the response, so when she came out with another completely ridiculous statement, Sable was completely bemused.

He stared at her blankly for a moment, trying to process what she was saying. Dom was a shifter? That was… complete bull. People turning into monsters. Bears. Next she’d be telling him vampires and demons and all sorts of creatures existed. Sable had had enough.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but this… I’m not a kid. I won’t just believe any story you tell me. You haven’t said anything which makes any sense. You haven’t shown me any proof.” Any other time he might have just mocked them for telling him all this, but because he’d been injured and how his life was shaping up right now, it was tempting to just let them tell him what to do, but he couldn’t let this happen. Fuck, they might be the start of some sort of cult.

“I have to go,” he said, turning and heading quickly for the door, managing to stub his toe on the edge of her bed as he turned. Sable bit his lip and sucked in a sharp breath, clenching his eyes shut for a second but then he forced himself to keep moving.

The young man had no idea where he would go, or even what time of night it was, but he knew he couldn’t stay here. He would be an idiot to believe all of this.

[Saccharin]

After watching and listening to the response he gave her statement, she had to acknowledge that Dominik had been right - it was too soon to share everything she knew. She\'d thought he\'d be a little more understanding since he\'d asked if she had nightmares too, but it was like he was retreating from what he couldn\'t grasp. When she couldn\'t provide him with any proof of her claims, it only made it easier for him to pull back from his new reality.

God, she was fucking this up. Over and over again. What had Dominik been thinking, handing the boy over to her?

After throwing off her covers, she grabbed her cell phone from her nightstand and followed after Sable. She didn\'t want to call the shifter yet, but if her guest genuinely made a run for it, she would have to.

"Sable. Please. I\'m sorry, I shouldn\'t have told you that yet." She reached out for his uninjured arm, hoping to grasp it and halt his progress toward the stairs. "What happened in your dream?" she asked, nearly in the same breath.

She wanted to steer him back to something he\'d already agreed he needed to deal with. After all, why would he have needed advice on how to cope if he didn\'t admit he had a problem?

[pinkroses]

“Get off me,” Sable snapped rounding on her and wrenching his arm out of her grasp, a flash of anger in his eyes, but that was quickly replaced with horror and he stumbled back a step, leaning back against the wall of the hallway. Her question cemented the sudden thought he’d had, about his dream.

“I dreamt I was about to rip your throat out. With my teeth. I was a… a thing, and everyone hated me. And I was going to kill you,” he said, his dark eyes wide as he stared at her before he let them slip shut and her slowly slid down the wall pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

He wanted to go home. But he didn’t have a home. He never had. So where was he supposed to go?

“I don’t know what to do,” he said softly, burying his face against his arms.

[Saccharin]

She recoiled from him, holding her hands up to show she had no plans of touching him again. "Sorry," she said, looking abashed. Grabbing him, though unwise in hindsight, had been the only way she could think of to get his attention - it\'d worked, but she\'d feared for a second that he might hit her for her efforts.

As he answered her question, she relaxed (odd, really, since he\'d just described wanting to murder her in his dream). "I see," she said. With the careful motions of someone moving toward a skittish animal, she eased herself into a cross-legged position next to him.

"I don\'t know what to do either," she admitted ruefully. "I keep saying the wrong things, upsetting you. I\'m just trying to help and I\'m only making things worse." She glanced sidelong at him. For someone that had never really interacted with children, it was a cruel thing indeed to have been handed a distressed teenager. She was at a total loss and it framed her next question. "Can you think of anything I can do that would help you?" she asked. "Actually help you, I mean. Not make things more difficult."

[pinkroses]

Sable didn’t move as she settled down beside him, but he was very aware of where she was. At her question he waited a few seconds, trying desperately to think of something that could make this all better. If she stopped saying he was a monster. That one of the people who wanted him to be a prisoner was a different monster. Not tell him he could be killed for losing his temper. If she could go back in time and stop him from being attacked. Stop that man, or whatever it was, from being killed because of him.

After a moment he gave his head the tiniest shake, still staring downwards.

“My life was supposed to start now. I haven’t been able to do anything in my life. And now I never will. If you’re telling the truth. And if you’re not… well, I don’t know what the Hell is going on.”

[Saccharin]

"That\'s not true," she said. "You just need to be a little more careful about your emotions and head to the Oligarchy every full moon. You can still do all the things you planned." She smiled wryly. "Unless you meant to become a professional fighter."

All the werewolves she knew of that had encountered problems with the Oligarchy were the ones predisposed to anger problems. By what she\'d encountered in Sable so far, she thought he was pretty calm. Quiet even. Excluding recent events, of course. As long as he avoided situations that got him all riled up, he\'d be fine.

"Are you going to school right now?" she asked, leaning forward and angling her face so she could watch his profile.

[pinkroses]

Sable shut his eyes and shook his head slightly at her question.

“No, no school. I graduated a couple of months ago and I can’t exactly go to college. So… no plans.  No nothing,” he mumbled, still looking down at his knees. There was no way he could afford college, and his grades had been ok, but not good enough for a scholarship.

“I was a waiter from then, at this place near the last house I was at, foster home, thing… but when I had to move out, I couldn’t find anywhere close to there and the cost of travel would have been more than the pay and I haven’t… I haven’t been able to find anything since then,” he said, running a hand through his dark hair. He hadn’t meant to blurt all that out, but once he’d started it seemed hard to stop.  

“I don’t know what to do. With any of this.”

[Saccharin]

The problems Sable had might\'ve seemed insurmountable to him, but Carrie felt they could be dealt with easily if the new werewolf was willing to do something about them.

"There\'s no reason you can\'t go to college if it\'s what you want to do. You can get grants and take out student loans since you don\'t have a steady income. If you\'d rather work, I can help you find a job." Carrie leaned back and placed her hands in her lap. As she picked at the edge of a fingernail, she elaborated. "I own a coffee shop in the neighborhood you could bike or walk to. You\'ve had some experience working with food and people, it should be easy enough to train you."

[pinkroses]

“I don’t know how,” he murmured as she explained his options. He had tried to find out, but everyone had just laughed, mocked, never thought he would amount to anything. He gave a tiny grunt at her offer of helping him find a job. He didn’t want a job in a coffee shop, but he had tried. He had tried everywhere. No one wanted a kid who didn’t even have smart clothes to wear to an interview. He had his pride - but he knew he would have to swallow that in order to survive.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. “I applied to so many places but no one would give me a job. I had an interview or two… I probably applied at your place. But… thanks,” he said, his voice getting quieter as he fiddled with the ankle of his pyjamas.

“So… you own a business? That’s pretty good,” he murmured, finally turning his gaze towards the woman sitting beside him.

[Saccharin]

"As soon as you\'re feeling up to it, I can take you by the shop and introduce you to the team." She let her hands fall back into her lap and she tilted her head back until it made contact with the wall. Against her will, her eyes closed. She struggled to open them again, but only managed to lift her eyelids enough that she could peer through tiny slits at Sable.

"Hmm, yeah. I stay busy, that\'s for sure. I have a few others in another city, but I\'ve a... district manager of sorts who keeps tabs on them, sends me reports. Else I\'d be flying back and forth constantly."

She yawned and belatedly covered her mouth with her hand. "Sorry," she said laughingly. "Anyway. When I came out here to start up another coffee shop, I hadn\'t planned on staying permanently, but the place has grown on me. It\'s certainly a lot sunnier than where I came from."

[pinkroses]

Sable opened his mouth, half tempted to suggest she go to bed, but there was a selfish part of him that wanted her to stay awake with him. He didn’t want to go back to sleep yet and going back to that room alone to sit in the dark sounded just as bad. And the selfish part was willing right now.

“Where are you from?” he asked, ignoring the yawns and closing eyes and he would do so until she actually said she wanted to go back to bed. And right now he was hoping she would be too polite to do that.

“I’d love to leave here. Leave and never come back. But it’s not like I have anywhere to go. And right now I guess you’d call your… leader and tell on me if I went anywhere,” he added with a shrug, his nose wrinkling up as the rolling of his shoulder sent a shot of pain though his body.