entranceway | 2 ☽ text

Have you pissed one off?

[ she's pretty sure she knows the answer, but maybe he's a research buff or knows someone who has. but he's typing like he knows exactly what he's talking about — as if he's experienced it himself. cora can only assume as much, since she'd only go into detail about werewolves because she is one. all her witchy knowledge would come from sabrina — and she doubts that that is accurate at all. ]

_{[Like he'd said, long story. His relationship with angels defines just about his whole life's story, in fact.]}

One wore me once. I learned a little the hard way.

_{[The text is simple, and doesn't say half of what needs to be said. But it says enough.]}

[ so, he hasn't pissed one off, technically. unless possession means just that. ]

[ it takes her a moment to connect "wore" back to the whole possession thing. it's still difficult to reconcile what adam's saying with her idea of what an angel is. he makes it sound like this angel simply put him on, as if he was a suit, and discarded him when it was done. she stares at the text, though. out of all the strange things she's learnt over the years, this has to be the hardest to wrap her head around. ]

But it's gone now? How do you even get rid of it?

Yeah, he's gone, but not far. He's here as another person. Michael. He's not the only one here, either.

_{[And he wants to tell her all the reasons why she should stay as far away from the archangel as she possibly can--like get out of Wonderland, even, and stay wherever it is she's been for all this time--but that once again verges on "scaring the crap out of someone" territory.

She might be curious, she might even think he's extra whacko and just wants to see what he'll text back next, but no one really wants to know the truth. The whole truth means not sleeping at night because you'll never feel safe again.]}

If one ever drops by and tells you should be a vessel if you just say "yes" and let the Jesus freak in, just don't. I don't think you can get rid of them.

_{[A contradiction from what he'd said about Michael being gone, but Adam's method of purging an angel out of his system had ended in a 100% of death.]}

[ at least he's not in adam. that's a positive? she'll view it as a positive, even though another poor sucker seems to have been claimed as a vehicle in his stead. it doesn't really click with her that they're talking about archangel michael, the dude who happens to be god's right hand man. ]

I doubt I'll be getting a visit any time soon.

[ she's a furry, remember? and not many things want to possess a wolf, let alone one that isn't exactly powerful. but she'll keep an eye out on derek. alphas are the bigger targets than betas, after all. ]

So, they just bounce from host to host. From you to whoever Michael is in now. Can't you send them back to Heaven?

Hope not.

_{[Having no idea Cora is anything but human, angels could start roosting on her shoulders like a farmer's scarecrow for all he knows. It's not exactly like angels need an excuse to hurt someone; just because the other ones here don't act as hardline as Michael and Zachariah doesn't mean they're not capable of it, or that they won't if they need to, if Wonderland pushes them to it.

But as long as people like Cora stay out of their way, that's... as close to safe as a person can get, right? The Winchester bloodline is supposed to be the catnip, the thing that had had the angels' feathers bunched up. Regular people hadn't seemed worth their time.

That family tie seems to be why Michael's currently in his dad, of all people in the godforsaken world, but he can't say that.]}

There are supposed to be rules, but basically that. I never knew how. I didn't know what they were until it was too late. Some hunters here know more than I do.

_{[If she's curious enough, Sam and Dean's family business might get another customer.]}

[ oops, he said the h word. ]

[ cora may have been making progress when it comes to separating what the argents have done to her family from allison, but it's still a little difficult to think of hunters as anything other than the enemy. she's grown up to never associate with them, to steer far away, and keep herself safe. allison's different — and mostly because it's allison. ]

[ she shouldn't be surprised that members of the hunter squard are here, but it is a surprise to tie adam to them. ]

Are you a hunter?

_{[That "h" word hadn't entered his vocabulary until Wonderland, and it's still a little awkward for him to use it, but if that's what they call themselves, that's what they'll be.

When it comes to associating himself with them, that's touching on the literal Mt. Everest of family issues and something he'd like to avoid if at all possible. (It rarely ever is.)]}

Hardly. I just know some.

Turns out they know some tricks.

_{[He's not a fan of the man who'd taught him, but he does appreciate knowing how to ward against angels now.]}

[ well, that's a relief … derek's usually the hale who ends up sleeping with the hunter or the darach/druid/evil thing of the week. cora really likes her track record being squeaky clean. ]

If I ever find myself on the verge of possession, I'll call you for a name.

[ maybe she should change her strategy and get to know a few of the other hunters in wonderland. ]

[ yeah, no. she might just prefer going through adam — the middle man might be safer than going to the actual thing. ]

[ she doubts the argents, with all their knowledge of everything werewolf and supernatural, know how to battle angels. they're mythical, like vampires, and while everything that isn't popular in mainstream media comes to beacon hills every other weekend, she has a feeling the edward cullens and literally angelic monicas aren't on the invite list. but it still doesn't hurt to ask if she's on their list of tricks-to-use-against-supernatural-creatures. ]

Do they just hunt angels?

Or do yourself a favor and just book it.

_{[Preferably to the nearest angel warded room.

In opposition to what Cora's thinking, angels, demons, and even things that take on the appearance of other people and eat dead bodies grounds Adam's view of the supernatural. Things that possess and things that eat human flesh, really. He's sure people like Sam and Dean do hunt other things, but imagining what else is out there, how many other kinds of monsters there could be, is on the intimidating side.]}

I'm guessing not. Sounds like a jack of all trades deal. Do you know any other monsters?

_{[If she can believe, even remotely, that angels are real, maybe she has experience of her own with other things.]}

Sounds like it. Think hunting just angels would be boring.

[ if cora says werewolves, is she admitting that they exist? they're not monsters to her — they never have been, not when the alpha pack had turned on their own kind and not when peter had been laura's murderer. while she had been angry for such a long time at people saying they were monsters, she knew they weren't. but she wanted to watch what she said. she'd assumed adam was a hunter, or someone who was involved in angel tracking, when all he was was simply a victim of one. ]

I like things involving werewolves.

[ it's not a lie. her entire knowledge bank is werewolves. half the time, it trumps what she knows about being a regular, ol' human. ]

_{[She says "boring," he says "death-defying." Semantics.

But having her say she likes things to do with werewolves is possibly one of the strangest things he's ever read in a text to date. Movie werewolves are one thing, but they're in a place where everybody, absolutely everybody, knows supernatural creatures are a real and possibly fatal thing, not to mention there have been warnings about werewolves running around the joint before.

Who still says they like the real thing?]}

You like them?

[ maybe it's being a werewolf that provides her bias, but cora, even before she properly understood that she was, in fact, a werewolf, had always found herself fascinated by the stories involving them. all of her favourite bedtime stories involved a wolf — not usually with someone wearing red. ]

[ considering adam had asked her for a monster she knew of, perhaps he thought werewolves were monsters, too. too bad tone couldn't be deciphered through text. and she thinks it's unfortunate if he does consider them monsters. people were monsters, but no one ever really labelled them by that. ]

There a problem with liking werewolves?

Like real ones?

_{[Yeah, he'd say that's a problem depending on what the real ones are like. It's not like saying a person likes unicorns or the talking toy dinosaur from Toy Story (though for all he damn well knows, those things exist somewhere, too). The real thing is probably a dangerous thing.

And it's funny, because although he's not a huge fan of anybody anymore after finding out what his own brothers are capable of, he'd still probably call himself a fan of people since he knows all seven billion aren't bad. He's never had cause to think the same of the things that come to mind when he thinks of "monsters."

Ghouls, and Zachariah, and Michael, and Lucifer... all creatures that had watched people suffer without a care in the world, who caused that suffering. If supernatural things can hurt a defenseless person in that way and not care, then they don't deserve fanfare. That's the qualifying distinction, right there. It seems to him that all monsters are capable of that to some extent.

But then, so are people.]}

Have you met any?

[ a question for a question. cora feels if she says yes, he'll pry into who or whether she knows any, but if she says no, she's lying — and as much as she wants to hide the fact that she is, in fact, a werewolf, one of those things he probably hates or has some sort of negative opinion about, she doesn't particularly want to lie. he may not be a hunter, but he knows some, and something tells her his dislike of angels also means he fears them, too. (just like she with the hunters.) ]

[ cora's not up for a repeat of kate argent, even if adam seems incredibly harmless. better to be an impenetrable wall and aggravate him than be someone who simply hands out secrets on furry platters. ]

_{[And naturally he has to wonder what kind of question that's supposed to be.

Has he met a real, live one before? If he had, he wouldn't be asking questions about it. And maybe wouldn't even be alive to tell the tale, who even knows.]}

Are you being serious? It's not like I hang out with other species at book club.

You're saying you do?

I've spoken to a few here.

[ IT'S TRUE. she spoke to remus lupin, by biting his head off for outing himself to all of wonderland. and she's spoken to isaac and derek ... okay, so now she's really reaching here. she's beginning to realise that even if she tries to avoid directly answering what she thinks he's getting at, he'll still persist and be a smartass about it. ]

You should try hanging out with the other species at book club one day. Might learn a thing or two about "monsters".

_{[Of course he's going to persist. Maybe not all monsters are bad, but the fact that hunters exist specifically to thin the herd implies that the majority are, and that's excluding every lesson he's had scratched into his bones from teeth and possessive angels.

It's true, you can't read tone through text, but the quotations she slings back at him go a long way to give her stance away, leaving him at a loss for what to think.]}

That's it? You talk to a few of them and you're cool with it, just like that?

_{[That can't be all. You can't just inherently accept the goodness of werewolves like you can (like you're supposed to) with angels, not without a reason.

These things aren't even supposed to be real.]}

I try to get along with people, not the ones who want me dead. The ones I've gotten up close and personal with weren't interested in getting to know me as more than a snack. I just got the bad apples?

_{[Is that what she's trying to say? Her text reminds him of Lena just a bit, and that annoys him. Why is he the one being encouraged to open his mind to the power of positive thinking and singing Kumbaya with the other things out there when it's his family who's dead? Maybe if the goddamn monsters acted more like Toothless and didn't eat people.]}

[ funny thing, him wanting to speak to monsters who have no intentions of eating people. he's texting one right now. ]

[ the anger in his text is palpable. and cora has to wonder if something other than angel's has clearly screwed this poor guy over. but he's letting his anger put words in her mouth — she says "monsters" in an effort to not pile every single non-human entity into the bunch of something that is dangerous and evil. but she can't quite define monster as a non-human being. the monsters in cora's book are the people behind the ordinary faces. kate argent? peter hale? the alpha pack? they are both monsters, not because one shifts into a wolf on the full moon, but because of their choices. ]

What do you mean, get to know you as a snack? You're not referring to a cannibal angel, are you?

[ maybe this will give her some insight — and throw the focus from her and werewolves to what's really biting his ass. she doesn't want to reveal her paw, but she doesn't want adam to misunderstand what she's trying to say without so much as admitting i'm considered a monster and you don't look delicious to me in the slightest. cora is cautious about his ties to hunters, whether they are friends or mere acquaintances. she's determined not to be burned twice. ]

Edited 2014-04-07 06:52 (UTC)

_{[Where the hell have all the normal, sane ones been hiding? Wonderland? He should have picked up and moved a long time ago.

In trying to draft a reply, Adam's frustrated that his luck is apparently so bad that he has to be the one paranoid about things eating people, about monsters being literally monsters. There is nothing proud or enjoyable about labelling yourself as prey... or remembering that your only family had had to listen to you in pain before you'd both died. The Hell memories scratching at the inside of his head have a way of bringing the horrible moments into sharp focus, especially when Wonderland seems determined to change the rules on him at every turn.

It takes a while, but he puts together a message. He's not just anyone trying to shit on her fun by making snap judgements, he's a person with luck just that bad.]}

Wouldn't surprise me, but no.

If we're sharing, my first brush with the supernatural was with regular brand cannibal monsters. Between them and pricks with wings, I haven't found much to like before here.

[ cora may be well-versed in druids and werewolves and all the crazy, ugly kids who come in between, but ghouls is definitely not on her list of top 100 potential supernatural creatures. as werewolves don't eat people, she has to dive into her mainstream hollywood supernatural creature knowledge bank for this. ]

A vampire tried to make a meal out of you?

[ as flippant as the text makes her sound, she's actually kind of horrified that adam could've been a literal meal for some hannibal lector of the supernatural variety. she's never encountered anyone who ate people before, let alone someone who has been eaten. people who were meant to be dead, definitely, she's almost a professional at dealing with that now, but with people who have literally died ... she's still working on her skills for that. but something tells her cannibal monsters and angels are not a good combination. ]

Not that. Something else. I don't really know what they're called, but they can change to look like someone after they've killed them.

_{[But honestly? Even if vampires just go in for the blood and not the skin and bone, he doesn't want to think those things are real, too. They're too close in nature to the ghouls, who'd reveled in everything they'd done like food critics at a five star restaurant.

As nightmarish as his run-ins with things that go bump in the night have been, it might be better for her if kept up the suspense. Maybe he'd gotten away, maybe he'd survived, maybe his life hadn't come to a screeching halt. Everything he has to say is so grim, there's hope in leaving some of the details blank, like the part where monsters had helped kill him twice before he'd ever set foot in Wonderland where a person gets five more chances to die at someone or something's hands.]}

Do the werewolves look like normal people?

_{[He's not a hunter, and maybe the werewolves here aren't crazed killers, but knowing what to watch out for could still save a life. His own, to be exact.]}

[ it takes her so long to reply back. ]

But you got away? Sounds like a really bad dinner.

[ it's not obvious, but cora has rewritten this one question over and over. how do you even ask if someone is dead? she's not sure if he had escaped whatever monsters wanted to cook up a plate of pasta and a side of adam, but, considering how hopeless he is at times … don't angels only get involved in the stories when they mean to resurrect someone? cora's got to wonder if he even survived this dinner date before the dessert was served. ]

Yes.

[ peter, laura, mom. mom had been normal, quite possibly the most human wolf cora has ever known, and while she could turn into an actual, living wolf, she never once lost that human heart of hers. but peter and the alpha pack are completely different stories. don't all murderers look human? act human, smell human, behave like a human? while all her other werewolf replies had been devoid of any details, cora, for once, doesn't hesitate in forming her response. ]

Depends on the type of person they are, but I knew a woman who walked around barefoot. Her toenails were claws. Most of them keep themselves groomed like normal people. Some of them don't forget that they're human.

[ cora likes to think that applies to her, but considering her social skills are as grumpy and abrasive as ever, well, maybe she needs a few lessons before she can properly say she's more human than an angry wolf. ]

_{[If she didn't ask, he wouldn't have to think about answering one way or the other. The only way he gets to rewrite history is if he doesn't have to own up to it--forgetting isn't an option, and neither is pretending the catalyst for all this craziness hadn't happened.

Adam takes a while to answer, too, for similar reasons. Forming the words isn't so much a matter of trusting someone with sensitive information--it'd happened and it just goes to show that not all non-human things are nice and cuddly--but knowing that it's a burden no one deserves to have to imagine, even in regards to someone Cora barely knows. There's also the thought that he's going to be told in not so many words to get over it again like with Lena, that he's still the narrow-minded, awful person who won't give God's creatures big and small a chance because his fears still happen to keep him up at night.

Texting puts a certain distance between himself and Cora, but nevertheless he doesn't want to argue a position in a fight that shouldn't even happen. He doesn't think he's wrong to feel vulnerable in his human skin after what he has to say.]}

No, we didn't. It was me and my mom. They got us both, but angels can bring people back like this place can. They said if I helped them by giving Michael a body, I'd see her again.

_{[Once he stops and reads that part of the message over again, he sees how ridiculous it looks, like something Dean Koontz would write in the shitty first draft of a novel. Welcome to his life. Thinking of her and the angel's lies still lands like a kick to the gut, but there's one tiny glimmer of hope and that's for every year of suffering he's endured, she's had an equal number of happy ones in Haven, hopefully never knowing what's happened to him. There are other pills that go down more bitter.

At least she's safe from any more monsters, aside from angels. Adam can't say the same for himself.

Skimming Cora's description of a werewolf woman who keeps claws instead of proper nails doesn't exactly make Adam want to start hanging out with that kind of crowd--he knows it takes all kinds, but seriously. Humanity, the kind of humanity that comes to mind when he thinks of his family now lost, isn't something he'd think a person would ever want to forget, for anything.]}

Why would you forget if it's once a month? Isn't that how it works?

_{[But when no supernatural creature or person around him is really what he expects, he can only ask.]}

[ there are no happy endings, it seems. cora had hoped that adam would text her back and prove her gut wrong, that whatever cannibal monsters he had sat down for dinner with hadn't made him their dessert. but now she understands why adam's not exactly keen on becoming a member of the book club. she now wouldn't be surprised if he never would. but she doesn't think about what it could mean if he and her continue to be thrown together and he finds out that she's an honorary member of said club. ]

I'm sorry.

[ she really is, too. she said once that losing pack isn't like losing family, it's like losing a limb, and she can only imagine that the loss of his mother was like cutting off one of his arms or legs. it's kind of difficult to bounce back from such a loss. but she tries to put together the angel information he's given her, as well as the new stuff now. so, michael's an angel that needed adam to host his spirit, the angels promised him his mother's resurrection and a possible reunion (however the hell death works, cora's not even certain), but, most likely, played him like a fiddle. ]

I'd do anything to get my mom back. Let an angel do whatever it is angels do ... You're still waiting for them to make good on their end of the bargain?

[ she's hoping he is. cora doesn't know what she'd do if talia or laura were dangled right in front of her. if the puppet master said jump, she'd ask how high. and if she did what they wanted and she didn't end up with her mom or sister back, she's pretty sure her golden eyes would turn bright blue. ]

[ she thinks about not answering his question on werewolves, but where he's given something of himself, it's only fair that she does, too — and without simply skimming the surface, either. ]

You can shift at will. Newly bitten wolves are prisoners to the moon until they build a tolerance for it. You can skip a cycle sometimes. As long as you're not cut off from the moon's effects, you can build a tolerance to the desire to shift when it's full. I don't think it's easy to forget you're a wolf. But it's not like you lose control because you are one. If you're feral, it's because you chose to be.

[ ... she reads. she did not experience being laced in a room with moonstone for three months, she just reads a lot of books. ]

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pretend these teen wolf werewolf facts are correct in case the show proves me wrong