Rosalind Lutece (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
originallutece) wrote2018-10-22 10:21 pm
originallutece) wrote2018-10-22 10:21 pm
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is that a motherfucking homestuck reference in the year of our lord 2018
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but his apartment feels too small, sometimes, and his obligations are piling up. he's let stiles rot away in the down alone for too long. he's lost track of people like tate, who he was supposed to keep an eye on, having promised to keep him out of trouble. he made a promise to rosalind, back before the escape, over the network. a promise to give her a run through on what she could do. a promise to fight, in exchange for information, should he lose.
truthfully, derek respects rosalind's willingness to find strength in a city where strength is so hard to come by. stiles has only ever had positive things to say about her, and alongside discussing old plays and the constant reassurance that rosalind has no reason to hurt vampires like derek might have initially suspected, that's - helped, but. it's the fight that's really going to bring a head to their relationship and give derek solid ground to stand on. when he invited rosalind out to the Arena out in the down, he didn't care so much about getting out of his own head or fulfilling his promise to her, he just... wanted to get closer to her. wanted to figure her out, once and for all.
when rosalind arrives, derek's just heading out of the lockers, dressed in a tank and sweatpants, black and loose-fitting. he's drinking from a waterbottle, yet still manages to look appropriately miserable to see her, even though he was the one who texted her and asked if she would be free between work hours to get this going. typically, fights held here are rule-heavy and monitored by referees, but derek figures they can just make this between them. spar out near the training equipment, where nobody will be interested in interfering, or maybe find a private room completely shut off from prying eyes, in case things get hairy. literally speaking. bark bark aroo.
he pops the top of his waterbottle down with his thumb and lets it dangle at his side, held precariously with the tips of his fingers. he's a little sweaty, and the muscled slab of his chest poking out from his tanktop is already a bit red, indicating that he's been working out pretty hard on the wait for rosalind to show up, but. he doesn't look the least bit tired. just... ready. ]
You've still got time to back out, if you want.
[ hellos are for cowards. ]
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[Maybe he'll smell it first. That's what werewolves do, don't they? Scent everything. Rosalind has a newfound appreciation for that nowadays, when her nose informs her of things nearly as much as her gaze does. Derek, for example, is overwhelmingly intense, all steel and musk, so unlike any other person she's encountered-- werewolf, she catalogs the scent and stores it in the back of her mind.
She's dressed much the same as he: a tank top and sports bra, leggings that cling out of necessity, not salaciousness. Her hair is tied back, and yes, that's all very interesting, but maybe way, way more of interest to him: the red eyes that stare steadily upwards. Oh, and those little fangs, too, those are pretty cute.]
Are you going to fuss over this?
[The whole species change, she means.]
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but then she steps a little closer and he sees the eyes, he sees the teeth, he feels the atmosphere get heavier. the smaller hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, as they tend to do around men and women who, instinctively, he knows could pose as much of a threat to him as he could to them, and his eyebrows pinch together in the middle like he's confused. he focuses his eyes on rosalind, slowly wets his lips, and pieces everything together.
and...
he doesn't care. ]
No.
[ okay, no, he cares a lot, but he's still going to shrug one shoulder, run his thumb under his nose like he's clearing out a particularly strong perfume and take another drink of his waterbottle as casually as possible. he has questions. a lot of questions. but he knows they're not any of his business, and he knows that rosalind is sharp enough to only answer questions that she wants to answer, and he thinks that grilling her about this won't go anywhere, given that they're barely even acquaintances, let alone friends. so.
a pause. and then derek just. raises his hands a little, waving them a bit. ]
I mean, I'm surprised, but.
[ ... he's fussing over this. ]
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[She says it carelessly. Shrugs one shoulder and moves to step past him, intent on leading them to a private room so they can fight properly. Perhaps that's the way to get past this: to just pretend it's nothing more shocking than a haircut. Besides: he's a werewolf. Of all people, he ought to understand.
(Then again, then again, Jonathan hadn't, had he, and she wonders how long his threats will haunt her).]
Come along, Derek! I should think I'm more than enough to take you on by now.
[Ah, perfect-- it's a training room, blissfully empty. There's mats on the floor, equipment shoved to the side, mirrors hanging around the place . . . this will do nicely, she thinks, and goes to toe her shoes off.]
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seven people in his life have been bitten because of him, either directly or due to circumstance, and there are still more to come, once he goes back home and lives through the days he'll have to live through. every single bite has been... life-changing, in one way or another. the ripple that comes from a turn, successful or not, can just... ruin people as easily as it can save them.
and vampires might not treat bites the same way that werewolves do, but it's so intensely ingrained in his head that a bite is this huge, immense weapon that should only be wielded by the strongest of Alphas that he doesn't really know how to treat this like a fucking haircut. he focuses on joining her, kicking off his sneakers and black socks, leaving them paired together with a surprising amount of neatness, but he doesn't exactly dive into fighting or playing nice. it's obvious, even before he opens his mouth again, that this is still a lot for him to wrap his head around. he's always tense and broad and kind of imposing, so the fact that he looks like that now isn't exactly gamechanging, but he looks - something else, too. soft. worried, maybe.
he doesn't know how to ask what he wants to ask without it sounding cheap. "are you okay" makes it sound like the transformation was painful, or negative, when derek feels that a bite from a wolf is a gift, not a curse, and he shouldn't assume that a bite from a vampire is any different. "how are you doing" sounds so... cheap. like rosalind is sick and derek has to talk around saying why. which is stupid, and not at all how he feels. so.
in the end, he just. scratches the back of his neck, stands on one of the mats facing her, and adds a carefully measured mechanical neutrality to his voice. ]
Vampire.
[ just. there. says the word. throws it out there, staring at rosalind with visible concern in his eyes that he's really shittily trying to hide. nailed it. conversation: begun. ice: broken. fuck, he's so great at words. ]
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[It's stiff. She's stiff, and there's a subtle tension to her body, a guarded quality she hadn't felt before. Vampire, yes, that's what she is, and yet he says it like a question. Like she ought to answer in some fashion, and she doesn't know what he wants, not really.
Her red eyes dart about his face, and no, he isn't so good at hiding what he's feeling. Not really. But it takes her a while, because she doesn't understand what she sees there. Not coldness, nor curiosity. Not disgust. Not the patronizing, infuriating smugness she'd seen from others. It's . . .
Concern. Why should he be concerned? It's almost frightening.]
. . . people have taken it as well as you'd expect. Which is to say . . . not particularly well, overall.
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Yeah. People are...
[ people are - people. derek trails off with a small shake off his head, lips thinned, jaw tight. it must be difficult, for rosalind to face the reception she must be facing. or maybe it's not; rosalind seems strong enough to bear the disgust and fear that rolls off of humans like waves around the creatures they see as less, the things they see as monsters.
but the same could be said of derek. rosalind wouldn't be the first supernatural being to present confidence and security to the world when inside she has none. bit by bit, derek feels like more and more of an asshole for dismissing her as just another human when he couldn't understand her existence as something out of time. more and more of an asshole for thinking she ever meant to do harm to the people whose ranks she would eventually join. ]
Can we...
[ derek looks back, and the concern in his eyes is only growing. again, he struggles to ask what he wants to ask, and when he finds the right words, he sounds like he's asking for a favor. like he knows rosalind might not need this, but he does. ]
Can we talk? About-- all of this. Before we fight.
[ he gestures, a little, then folds his arms across his chest, hiding away behind them where he's most comfortable. ]
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Truthfully, it sounds a little like he's asking for himself. Which really makes no sense, because it's not as if she means anything to him. That's not a judgement, just a fact: they're all but strangers, people who have had a handful of conversations, only half of which were amiable. Why should he care that she's been threatened? It's no skin off his nose.]
Yes.
[She hesitates, then goes to the wall, pulling out two chairs. Unnecessary, maybe, but better than just standing around. And it's easier, crossing one leg over the other, her posture as perfect as ever, to be on the defense.]
What do you wish to know?
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she grabs some chairs, sets them apart, and derek doesn't sit, not at first. he paces to his chair and sets his hands on the back of it, and he's not trying to tower over rosalind like he needs the height advantage to feel secure - he's actually kind of hunched over, and his hands are fidgetting pretty nervously like he doesn't know what to do with them. it again takes him a second to sort through the anxious, over-analytical fog he always has in his head to phrase what it is he wants to say. ]
I don't need to know the circumstances behind your bite. I hope it was something you wanted. You don't have to tell me if it was.
[ but he will probably kill whichever vampire forced this on rosalind against her will, if it wasn't a choice she initiated. he doesn't say that, but he's very tense, very strained, when he proposes the possibility that maybe rosalind is a victim here. ]
But for werewolves - this is a big deal. It's not bad - and I hope becoming a vampire hasn't been bad for you, either - but it's still big, and I just... want to make sure you're processing everything okay.
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[That, first and foremost. No matter what, Alucard gave her every out (and it's not him she's upset with, but it bears saying). He approached this cautiously, asking her again and again, but she was certain. She still is certain, despite the backlash. She doesn't regret the hunger or the blood or the loss of humanity. It's nothing like that.
As for the rest . . . she wants badly to look away, which is why she doesn't. She watches him, hard body and careful expression, so, so worried and yet so determined to clumsily hide it. Is that why he cares? Because it's a monumental thing? It is. Or is it because he knows the backlash already?
Would he have seen this coming? More than Adrian or Alucard, men who were either born like this or had no companions to care for . . . and god knows vampirism is more . . . oh, what's the word? Sexy? Fluid? The difference between mussed up and dishabille; it's the same thing, ostensibly, but one is far more seductive than the other, that's the difference between werewolves and vampires. So maybe he does know. Maybe she ought to have gone to him in the first place.]
. . . how many times have you been threatened, Derek?
Not because of what you've done, but because of what you are. What people assume you'll do.
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she asked a really fucking heavy question. where does he even start. kate? chris? peter, who would have killed him for stepping out of line during that one brief couple of nights they were on the same side before his death, just for being a beta who didn't follow his orders? derek shakes his head, looking away. where. to fucking. start. ]
I'm a wolf by birth. I was being threatened before I knew what being threatened was. Most of the hunters I knew back home tried to follow a code - no excess brutality, no killing children. That didn't stop them from telling me what was coming once I was old enough to run.
[ and from the bland, empty tone of his voice, that "code" neither meant much nor was followed as strictly as some of the Argents thought it should have been. there were children, in the fire. he still remembers being stopped in the woods at fifteen by a wolf from another pack, who smelled Hale on him, knew he was powerful and asked for help. he remembers the smell of his blood in the air when he was shot through the throat with a crossbow bolt.
he's been swinging back and forth between trying to wear this on his sleeve and trying to hide it. he's an alpha - the only alpha - but he's been made to feel helpless time and time again since his arrival, and it's hard to find the same strength in that that he had when he first arrived. duplicity is fucked up. the people here are fucked up.
rosalind is new to this. derek can't imagine how hard it would be for her to experience being hunted, and being helpless, when she's still so... young. he looks at her, and his eyes are still soft, still full of worry. do vampires share the same pack bond that werewolves do? does she have anyone to help her through everything she'll be going through? rosalind is smart as a whip, but there are some things that you can't just... think through. ]
I don't...
[ he hesitates - and then he commits. ]
I don't want you to know what being hunted feels like. I don't want you to feel alone. I'm here - if you need anyone.
1/2
--one split second, one fraction of a second--
--Rosalind looks vulnerable.
It barely lasts. It's there and gone. But it was there, her eyes wide and startled, her expression softened, because he offers something that seems like it belongs in a dream. Help, help and acceptance and without a price (but there must be a price), inherent understanding without all the nuances, all the little snags that had come from the others. How can it come from him? Him? The man who'd been so stubborn as to refuse her his last name, who looks constantly on the verge of snapping, who postures and huffs and always, always acts like he's so much tougher than anything, how can--
But he means it.]
I--
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The first man I told-- the first person, the first vampire-- told me that I was . . .
[A beat. She smiles thinly.]
It reminded me of being a child. The first time I presented my theories to a committee. I was fourteen, and they were too stupid to think that I could offer them anything. They patronized me, they told me I was very amusing and-- I think the word was cute. And then, when I refused to act like a little girl, they weren't so amused anymore. They scolded me.
It was precisely the same here.
I know what I chose, Derek. I know very well what I chose. Alucard made sure of it. He lectured me on the drawbacks as well as the benefits; he told me the hardships I'd feel. He wanted to be as informed a choice as I could make, and it was. I took weeks to make sure it was what I wanted.
And yet he acted as though I'd gone running to Alucard. As though I'd been that little girl that committee had percieved me to be, too terrified to think straight. Too hysterical.
[She smiles so tightly, and it's awful for how embittered it is.]
He's a typical man of our era. He thinks that because he was born a man, he knows best. Better than I would, certainly. I'm too feminine, too hysterical, too blinded by emotion, too stupid to understand what I chose.
[Her gaze rises, meeting Derek's, and there's such rage there. Contained, always, so carefully kept down, but oh, it's built for thirty-odd years, and it will never be extinguished.]
I had not tasted human blood beyond my own at that point. Even now, the one person I've taken it from has chosen that, willingly. And yet Jonathan Reid told me that he would kill me the moment he thought I stepped out of line. As though I had gone on a rampage, a trail of bloody corpses in my wake. As though I had not invented an entire food source to keep myself and others sated.