exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

[in truth, peter's aura is always there, anymore, just diluted. as a boy, it's more of an invitation that skirts up against the consciousness. you can be calm, you don't have to be afraid, you can feel safe to the wolf's stronger be calm, don't be afraid, you're safe. it's subtler, something that has to be allowed in instead of something that simply radiates out.]

Nah, I'm not one of those people who eats in their sleep.

[but the startle gets his attention, wakes his simple instincts, and peter turns to look at isaac with a little frown. he tries to get isaac to look at him, beginning to reach out to gently turn his head and then stopping before it's even a real reach, letting his hand fall back down to his knee. his aura is weak, but in his eyes, there's the wolf in all its power and calm, just behind peter's expression of concern.]

You're afraid. Why are you afraid of me?

[Isaac doesn't make a move to respond to the raised hand, forcing himself not to flinch away. He still doesn't seem to get the hint, and doesn't look toward the other wolf, instead just shrugging his shoulders weakly to the question.]

I'm not scared of you. [And he sounds like a child when he says it and hates that, but there's no bringing it back now. Isaac flexes his fingers under the blankets, gripping them tightly before letting them go.] We both know that I could kick your ass if I had to.

I know you could. And a good breeze could take me down right this second.

[his tone is gentle, tired but not in the impatient, cranky sort of way. something important is going on and the wolf doesn't like it.]

Hey, look at me?

[it's a request, not a command.]

[Isaac shouldn't be reassured by that, but he is. So much so, that at the request he turns his head upward slightly and looks over toward Peter, his lips falling into a slight frown.]

What's wrong?

I don't know. Maybe I should, but I don't.

[he tries to catch isaac's eyes by moving his own head into view.]

But I'd like to.

[The words seem to resonate a little with him, and Isaac catches Peter's eyes for a moment, before shaking his head and leaning into him, pulling toward the warmth and eventually just leaning his head on Peter's shoulder.]

...the moon was just really rough. On everyone.

[Not just Isaac, just just Peter, but everyone.]

[isaac rests his head on peter's shoulder, and he slowly shifts his arm out to put it around the other werewolf, opening up the warmth of his side and fussing the blankets up more around isaac.]

Yeah. I saw some of it. But not all, huh.

[he sets his head on isaac's head, sighs into his hair.]

[It's open and comfortable, and as apprehensive as Isaac was before, he finds that settling into this is far easier than he thought it would be.]

Things get complicated, [he finally murmurs, closing his eyes as he continues to speak.] Twisted up. You've got me and Erica who used to be in the same pack under Derek- but she ran and I joined Scott. I want to know her, but now I have this backing and she has nothing. Scott doesn't... he's not what I thought he was, and you're in the picture and challenging him.

[There's a pause, and Isaac speaks up before Peter can protest.]

You don't mean to, but you are. It's how the hierarchy works, I can't- [Isaac squeezes his eyes shut then and goes a little tense against Peter's shoulder.] -I can't be between you two. I just can't.

Scott...isn't what you thought he was.

[there's absolutely nothing in peter that likes the sound of that, but only tenses for a moment before he relaxes again, because he's too damn tired to be physically angry when there's no threat present, when nothing good comes out of being angry around isaac.]

Okay. Hey, hey.

[he kisses isaac's hair.]

Being torn up in the middle isn't what I want for you.

[not from him. for him.]

[Isaac doesn't really respond to the kiss, but he looks up at Peter's last statement, lifting his head from the other boy's shoulder for a moment to look at him.]

I'm not- I don't know. I'm not torn up. [There's a pause, and he shifts to move away, shaking his head.]

I know who my alpha is. I just thought- [He doesn't know what he thought. It's complicated, and it reeks of optimism and makes him frustrated for how naive he had been.] -I thought we'd all just blend together. But he can't- there's instincts and dominance, and our pack, you and me and Tempest and Steph and whatever, it's a betrayal. Do you get it?

[Does he? Isaac pulls the blankets off of him, his thumb sliding at his jaw where the bruise from Scott's blow had been.]

I messed up.

Okay, wait. Wait.

[peter scrubs his face, runs his hands through his hair and tugs it near the roots, trying to wake himself up.]

Are you saying that he blames you for doing what you needed to do to survive up there? For living when he left and you had no idea whether he'd ever come back? What were you supposed to do, go batshit and climb the walls and maybe hurt people until the Initiative decided to maybe cough him back up?

[it's calm, but incredulous. he actually can't believe what he's being told.]

[Isaac shakes his head quickly- and fuck, he shouldn't have said this much.]

No- that's not true. Omegas can survive fine on their own. I would have been weaker, but I still have an anchor. [He shrugs, maybe a little too casual for their conversation.] No wall climbing here.

Isaac, I was there. I was there the whole damn time. It's easy to say now that you should've done whatever, but at the time you had no way of knowing whether he'd ever be back.

[his head drops into his hands.]

The fact is that neither of us would've made it through the moon alone. Not sane. Please don't start lying to me now.

I'm not lying to you.

[He doesn't really know what he's doing- if he's breaking this off with Peter or if he's just trying to get him to see his way, or what, but Isaac is pretty sure he's not lying. He's just confused and hurt, and more than a little lost for what to do next.]

You know some wolves would rather die than betray their alpha. It's an instinct. If I don't have that, what does that make me?

[Isaac doesn't know if he can be near him anymore so he stands, the thoughts that he'd been shoving away all this time all crashing down now that he's actually talking about it.]

I left Derek for Scott. And now it looks to everyone like I left him for you. If I can't even stay loyal to one person, what's the point of having me at all? Why should anyone trust me?

I trust you.

[he scrubs his face again, taking a few deep breaths to fight off the...he doesn't even know what welling in the back of his throat.]

Derek threw you out, and you went to Scott because he was kind. When he left...we both know that I'm not what he is. I'm not Scott, for better or worse. A band-aid, maybe, at the time.

[and if he's come to care for isaac more than that, it's certainly not anything he meant to do. he looks down at his knees.]

Did he hurt you?

No.

[The response is instinctive, but not immediate- not too sudden to seem suspicious, not too tense to seem worrisome. Isaac lies without even particularly meaning to, like it's a stock answer to a stock question that he's heard dozens of times in his life.]

And I didn't use you, if that's what you mean. [Quietly, trying to change the subject, not sure how he feels about the thought that he had just lied to Peter about this- about something important.]

Isaac.

[there's a break in his voice and he doesn't want there to be, to go with the twist in his gut that he also doesn't want there to be. he didn't expect this, and he's tired and he trusts isaac and he didn't expect this. not from this corner. it's like a punch in the gut, and he recoils from it, shifting away.]

Last week--god, was it only last week--I told you something. I told you that you were the only person who wasn't family who hadn't screwed me over.

[it sounds almost like a plea: don't do this. don't make me say you're doing this.]

You didn't use me. Shit, how long as I an asshole about it before you changed my mind?

[Isaac hears the break, hears the stammer in Peter's heartbeat like he's the one who's been caught lying, and he has to swallow thickly around the lump in his throat because he knows. Of course he does, it's written all over his body language, and Isaac closes his eyes for a moment, trying to center himself around this new information, trying to figure out if there's a way he can salvage this without giving up Scott in the process.]

I'm not screwing you over. [It's soft, like he's working it out for himself.] None of this- it doesn't have anything to do with you.

[peter's quiet for a long time, curled up and shaking, just a little. he knows isaac is lying, isaac knows he knows. here they are. it's not that peter minds lying in general, or being complicit in a lie, most of the time. this isn't some harmless bullshit story, though. it's not a fabrication or embellishment that doesn't hurt anybody. when he speaks he sounds exhausted. done.

accepting.]

I've told a lot of stories. Just about everything can be one, and you can change it around however you want, by how you tell it. The thing is that you have to tell the same one all the way through. You can't start out with one story and finish with another. If you're going to tell this story, the one where you're the bad guy who is untrustworthy and disloyal and deserves whatever he gets for it now...that's the story you're telling.

[and what he thinks about it doesn't matter, he's clear on that now.]

So you tell me where I fit into the story, and I guess we go from there.

Edited 2014-01-30 04:24 (UTC)

Why does it matter do you?

[His tone gets harder, and Isaac turns to look at him. He's unreadable, but for the tension in his shoulders, his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes.]

You didn't want me around you like this in the first place. You didn't want to care, so don't. What happens between me and Scott is my business- he's my alpha, and he has every right to-

[Isaac falters, just for a moment.]

-to do what has to be done. [He shakes his head and picks up steam again.] I'm trying to find some sort of middle ground between you two, but you're both so damn insistent on making me the bad guy because I'm loyal to him and I want to be with you.

[peter recoils like he's been struck, like isaac just slapped him across the face. and then he just...deflates, sets his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands and leaves it there.]

Why does it matter to me? Because you matter to me, numbnuts. I didn't want to care. And you know what changed my mind? You. You changed my goddamned mind, got under my skin and pretending I couldn't give a shit got stupid because you're worth caring about. I'm not trying to make you choose. You're not the bad guy, there is no bad guy. This isn't a story. You were never not loyal to Scott.

[he looks up at isaac.]

God knows what you want to call me in relation to you anymore, I just want you to be safe.

Edited 2014-01-30 05:25 (UTC)

[Isaac has to close his eyes when he sees Peter's reaction and he turns away, trying to take a deep breath. He knows that he's hurt him, and it shouldn't hurt like this, but it does.]

Then don't call me a liar, [He finally murmurs, all of the anger ebbed from him at the slightest hint of defeat in Peter's posture.]

Just- believe me. We can all put this behind us if you just let it go.

All right.

[he takes a few breaths, slow and deep. he needs to calm down, he just needs to calm down. letting it go is probably too tall an order, but he can let it be. it's not as though he can protect isaac anyway, not physically and not from something he refuses to be protected from. peter has never been one to want to step into anything he can avoid stepping into, but the fact that someone who was supposed to protect isaac hurt him again and peter can do nothing but watch aches behind his ribs.]

If you believe that you're safe with him, then I believe you. I trust you.

[There's a long pause there, and Isaac visibly relaxes at Peter's admission, letting out a long sigh and slowly moving back toward the couch- the other side of it though, the longer area where he will probably be tempted to lay down in the near future.]

I'm glad. [Softly.] And I'm sorry- for getting angry. Things have been... well.

[Peter knows how they've been.]

Yeah, they have. It's...it's fine.

[the getting angry, he means, because plainly he doesn't feel very fine at all. but isaac seems to have relaxed, so that will do. when he sits, peter hesitates for a moment before he stands, passing isaac the blankets he was under. he can't keep sitting there when isaac chose the place as far from him as possible. better to be the one who moves.

i made a mistake. did you learn from it?

he doesn't know.]

I think I'm gonna go to bed.