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[originallutece]

is that a motherfucking homestuck reference in the year of our lord 2018

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[calloused]

[ it's actually a little easier for derek to start this conversation on... slightly shaky territory. the rigidity in rosalind, the way she still feels stern and a little defensive. he can deal with that, far easier than he can deal with open, exposed emotion.

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.

[originallutece]

It was consenting.

[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.

[calloused]

[ the fact that rosalind wanted this is... a huge relief. derek doesn't say that's a relief, but - it's a relief. it's obvious, how heavily his body language changes. he feels like he can breathe better. he moves around to the front of his chair and takes a seat, but he's slow, like he's buying time.

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

[originallutece]

[For one moment--

--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--

[originallutece]

[She can't fall apart. She just can't. Rosalind's fingers tighten on the chair, her expression sharpening defensively once more. She takes in a breath, because no, she can't fall apart, she won't, but . . . perhaps she can give a little.]

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.