Event Six.

[awashmods]

If you see this hairy creature Your first choice should always be to run Otherwise you had better hope You have silver bullets in a gun.

he full moon hangs brightly over the Town, hovering so low that it almost feels as though you could reach out and touch it. It should be comforting. But as the howl of wolves fills the air, it's anything but. There are werewolves on the prowl, and their target is very clear -- the Town won't be able to last without your help. Welcome to Awash's sixth event log, everyone! Further information on this event can be found here at the OOC post. You are welcome to start your own posts or logs for this event as well. If there are any questions, please ask them here. Thank you!

Comments

[photoshooter]

Oh, I know.

[He's been there with a fire and a can of beans. Finally, he lets go of his tail so he can let his hands sit in his lap, as close to relaxed as he can probably get in this state.]

You don't have to now, though. I mean, not here. Now might not be, like, the best time ever to drop in, not when I'm.

[Prompto gestures wordlessly at himself, an unhappy but small motion that's easy to shake off and move on from.]

But I like you and Noct likes you. So Iggy won't mind cooking for you whenever, really, as long as we let him know how much he has to make. Don't be a stranger.

[whichcraft]

Oh, is that how it works. Get you and Noct to like you, and then Iggy will do whatever?

[Her hand shifts, moving away from his ear to brush at his hair — less like petting a dog and more like the sort of thing a mother might do for a sick child, comforting and light.]

...Hey. By the way?

[Pet pet pet.]

Thanks for proving you really are the cutest member of the wet dog boyband.

[photoshooter]

[He lifts his eyes again when she heys him, then laughs, tail dusting the ground like an excited broomhead.]

Oh, no, can you imagine how bad I'd smell if I got wet now?

[Without thinking about it, he sinks down onto his side, exposing his throat and the front of his shirt up to her as his tail keeps right on sweeping.]

There's not enough shampoo on the planet.

[whichcraft]

You're the one with the super-sleuth nose, buddy-boy, not me.

[Is that...

...

Is he giving in to instinct and showing his belly to her...? Is that what's happening right now. Is he seriously just a big dumb puppy dog with big dumb ears and a waggy tail and big soft eyes looking up at her and oh, motherfucker.]

I think the guy whose house I live in, he makes soap. I'd steal some for you.

[photoshooter]

[Whoa, hang on. His head snaps up.]

You're living with a guy?

[WEEEE WOOO WEEEE WOO KILL BILL SIRENS.]

[whichcraft]

...Sort of? My room is in his house. Where I found my laptop?

[Surely that's a sufficient enough explanation. Everybody just sort of knew where they were supposed to be going, didn't they? She sure did.]

I kind of avoid him, though. I figure it's mostly his house and I just kind of go in when he's not around.

[photoshooter]

[Well, that sets him frowning for a totally different reason. Prompto rolls onto his front, ears up and alert.]

Is he keeping you out of your own house? Not cool.

[His tail is not wagging now.]

[whichcraft]

...No, I just.

[Jeez, he really is doing the dog-mannerisms thing. Look at his ears. He's not even wagging his tail anymore. This is some wild shit.]

I figured I'd stake him out a little. Figure him out. You know?

[photoshooter]

...I guess.

[But he doesn't have to be happy about it! Huffing softly, he glances aside, considering the implications and possibly better solutions, then looks at her again, still concerned.]

Where do you go when he is there, then?

[whichcraft]

[She shrugs a little, glancing away.]

I go find an abandoned house or something. Hit a rooftop, sometimes. Go hang out in the garden. Or the library. There's a lot to do around the town, if you really think about it.

[There's really not. This town is the size of a thimble.]

[photoshooter]

You should come hang out with us! Even if Iggy's not cooking, we've always got stuff to do! Kind of. I mean, you can play with the chocobos! Or... just hang out!

[This is offensive, it offends every fiber of his Guys Just Wanna Have Fun soul.]

[whichcraft]

Come on. You'll get sick of me, if all I ever do is hang around you.

[Foolish Summer. She has no idea of the Perpetual Friend Tolerance Capacity that gay roadtripping instills in you.]

Won't you?

[photoshooter]

Noct's not sick of me and all I've done for the last five years is hang around him.

[He inches towards her a little on his tummy, tail starting to sweep back and forth again.]

Come on, I promise I won't! Flor, pleeeeease?

[whichcraft]

[...So basically what this has come down to is, a cute guy is begging her to essentially latch onto him and seek to spend her every waking moment attached to his side, if she wants to. Begging her to do this. Actively soliciting this.

...

Is this the real life, or.]

You are unreal.

[It's not a complaint. Not the way she says it.]

Okay. On one condition. If I say yes, you gotta answer a question for me. Fair?

[photoshooter]

[His doggish headtilt is even more canine tonight.]

Uh, okay, sure. What is it?

[Should he be intrigued? Should he be worried? His tail is still but not lowered.]

[whichcraft]

Were you worried about me?

[By now, the doggish mannerisms have her pretty much convinced she's not in physical danger, and thus not in need of a hasty escape. So she tucks her cloak underneath herself in a practiced movement, spreading it so that she's sitting on fabric instead of on the ground, and sinks down next to him.]

When I mentioned the guy. You seemed worried.

[photoshooter]

[He goes totally still, mouth partly open, remembering the feel of those words on his own tongue. Were you? Of course I was.

Of course he was. Is it okay, to feel like that about this--about her? Like he's an of course? Prompto breathes out and nods.]

Yeah.

[He folds his arms and puts his chin down on them, frowning at the ground.]

It's your house. You should feel safe there, not like... Like it isn't your place. So if that guy makes you feel that way...

[Don't growl, you don't even know the guy. Chill. Down, boy.]

Well, he shouldn't. That's all. And if he does, you have a place with us now, too.

[whichcraft]

[Absently, she reaches for him again when he settles down, bringing her fingers back to his ears and scratching affectionately, this time with more confidence than she'd had the first time she'd reached for him.]

I don't remember what it's like to feel safe somewhere, Quicksilver.

[That's mostly true. But it's also a little bit a lie, because she remembers flickers of safety that have caught her in the recent past. Fingers twisted through hers. The brush of a shoulder. An arm all but lost in red foof and the flash of a Polaroid shutter.]

He seems okay. I just...you know. I have to be sure. Have to do all this or I'll never get the neuroses to calm down.

[photoshooter]

[Prompto looks up at her without lifting his chin, blue eyes through the screen of his hair, then nods and sinks further into his arms, letting out the tension in his shoulders with a sigh.]

Yeah. I know. Guess I can't really say anything, anyway. I don't live at the house I'm s'posed to.

[Because he's more supposed to be with his friends, where he's safe. The only place he's ever felt safe, at their side; he's never been in the position to offer it to someone else. To Flora, sharp and practical and defined by fear as much as he is, if not more.

He wants to protect her. He's felt it before, about Noct, about Ignis, but never so strongly. Never so... personally.

Maybe one of them could tell him what it means, someday. They must have felt this way themselves at some point; he can see it when he looks at them. Heroes, them and Gladio, all three.]

But that's because there's girls there, so it'd be weird.

[whichcraft]

...You know, I'm not sure if you noticed this, but just as a heads-up I figure I should tell you: there's a girl right in front of you.

[It's probably supposed to be weird that she's sitting around in the middle of the night, on the ground, petting a fellow human being who just so happens to have ears and a tail and canine mannerisms. There are a lot of things about her life that should be weird, if she were to think about them hard enough. That's usually why she doesn't.

The thing is, it's nostalgic, too. Moments like this make her acutely aware of the weight of the ring on her finger, the one she still wears even though it's long since dead. They used to sit around like this too, didn't they? They made plans. They schemed. They laughed, sometimes — not unkindly, but with a certain undeniable superiority — about how they were two of a kind, the clever ones, and the others weren't. How that made them the same. How it made them natural partners.

The sound of her name. The distant clatter of armor and footsteps on the open field. The wind in her still whole-face as she'd turned and —

Her fingers dig in, just a little, burying themselves more securely in the shaggy hair at the back of his neck.]

I wish I weren't like this.

[It's a confession she shouldn't make. She trusts him to keep it safe, anyway.]

[photoshooter]

[That's obviously different, he wants to tell her. Of course she's a girl, he's noticed, but the other two are strangers and, besides, it's not like he's moving in with her, either--

Except he just said she could, kinda? That she could come over whenever. That she has a place.

He's still getting his head around the implications, trying to unknot exactly what it is that makes her different, makes her one of them, when her hand tightens in his hair and makes him really pay attention.]

...Like what?

[He asks gently, and a second later realizes how much it sounds like for what? His question to Noct, when the answer should have been so obvious.

It isn't, to him.]

[whichcraft]

...Afraid.

[She closes her eyes, ducking her head so that her hair falls around her face like a curtain.]

It's like I'm more afraid of good things than I am of bad ones. At least the bad ones are honest about what they are. The good things, you've got to worry yourself sick trying to figure out what the catch is.

[photoshooter]

[There's no promise of safety he can make. Not like this. He stays quiet, aware of her hand on the back of his neck, of the urge to whine and show her his throat, to put his head in her lap.]

Is that why you're not scared of me right now, even though I--I got turned?

[Because right now, as a monster more dangerous than he ever could have been, he's that much more familiar to her?

She's the one who won't let him hurt her. He found that comforting before, that the power is hers, that she'll take the threat he poses seriously and protect herself. He'd been relieved.

What is it he's feeling now? It's an unfamiliar fire, this urge to turn and chase off anything that comes near her now, almost as strong as the need to stay put, to keep his fur in reach of her hand.]

[whichcraft]

I'm not scared of you right now because I can tell you're afraid of yourself.

[Absently, she starts petting him again, and sooner or later she's going to really think about the fact that the way she's petting him isn't actually targeting his canine appendages, but his human attributes, and that's going to be something to think about, isn't it.]

But. I mean...yes, you're dangerous. Obviously you're dangerous, like this. But I know what the danger is, and I can figure out how to mitigate it if I have to. Bad things are the same way, they're usually pretty obvious about the ways that they can hurt you.

[She pauses, voice dropping low.]

I'm a little scared of you when you're not like this. Not when I'm around you, but after. When I start to realize that you got me to let my guard down, and I didn't even notice it.

[...]

When I'm around you I don't obsess over how to keep myself safe. Because I just...know, already, that I am. And that's...scary, to the part of me that thinks that if I'm not impenetrable, I'm going to get hurt.

[photoshooter]

[After a pause, he ends up huffing out a little chuckle, almost too soft to be more than a breath.]

I really don't think I can do anything about being so unscary it's scary. Like, if the tattoos and skulls don't do it...

[He trails off. Who ever mistook this kid for a Lucian? It's like he didn't even try for that Deadly Goth Warrior aesthetic.]

It's weird, but you're one of a really, really small number of things that don't scare me. Not at all. I mean, I know you could flash-fry me like a new recipe, but... I dunno. I guess it's like, because I understands the reasons why you might, it's not... not so terrible.

[For twenty years, the most frightening thing has always been what he didn't know. Possibilities, rather than reality. Unknown places, strangers' faces, the impenetrable dark. Codes yet unbroken.

He smiles crookedly up at her.]

Crazy, right? [He puts his head down, closing his eyes.] I guess I just feel like I've known you for a long time, even if it's really only been a few weeks. I've... never made a friend that fast.