entranceway | 2 ☽ text

_{[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. ]

_{[His head is a snake pit, but there's a difference between being distracted by your own damage and being stupid, the latter of which he's not. There are topics you can guess at, topics you might know a little about, but they both sound exactly the same right now, talking about something they both have personal experience in, enough to be convinced of what they know.

This doesn't seem like just academic research to him, but then there's been something off this whole conversation, and even before this, too. He can see it more easily now that he doesn't have starry-eyed naivety convincing him to believe everything a person tells him without questioning them like he had with Zachariah. If not for the way she'd asked him earlier, he might have asked her if she was involved with hunters.

Adam's not positive what her deal is yet, which keeps him on the fence.]}

They lied. But it's all right.

_{[It's not actually, but for Cora to imply she doesn't have a mother, either, and apologize... It's not her problem, and it is all right for her not to say anything or try to offer some kind of boiler plate platitude like you're supposed to.]}

How do you know all this stuff?

It's not. If they promised you your mom, they should've held their end of the bargain. Angels aren't supposed to lie. They're not supposed to be monsters.

[ just like uncles aren't supposed to kill their nieces, but, hey, that's how the world's chosen to spin. everything sounds a little messed up on both of their ends — angels who commit sins and family members who betray family. alphas are meant to protect their pack, but seeing deucalion and kali and ennis speak of killing their betas like it meant nothing to them, and then to hear that angels don't give a crap about anyone but their own agenda, whatever that may be, when it's meant to be about doing the man upstairs work of keeping peace on earth and blah blah blah, it really pisses cora off. ]

[ even though cora's slightly reassured that, maybe, adam won't lose his shit and go tattle on her to one of his hunter pals, cora still doesn't want to say oh, by the way, i'm a werewolf. it's not something one says in text, anyway. and considering everything they've spoken about, even though angels are real and he's shrugging off something that makes her want to punch something, she still isn't positive he'll react well. ]

I don't come from a home where everything is roses and sunshine. Angels might not exist, but other things do.

[ it's an answer? hopefully one he'll believe. when your home town throws you a darach, you kind of learn how to kill it when it starts sacrificing your friends. maybe adam understands that. ]

_{[She's only saying what he's thinking, what he's thought each and every day for as long as he can remember. Should've, should've, should've. But what should be, isn't.]}

It was never about me. They were never going to help me because them and their boss don't care about us.

_{[And with Cora here with family, all the more reason for her to play it safe and steer clear of them, as far as Adam's concerned. Between the angels and the Winchesters, there's already been enough collateral damage.

Adam sees now it's not roses and sunshine anywhere except for the people who are lucky enough not to find out what the world's really like. He understands that, but still not Cora's stake in it.]}

But you're not a hunter.

_{[Not a question, not really.]}

Boss as in God?

[ it leaves a really sour aftertaste in cora's mouth that the supposed good guys aren't even good. aren't angels meant to be selfless? isn't that the whole christianity spiel? she still doesn't understand why adam, but she figures it's a conversation for another time. she can barely wrap her head around angels existing, angels being here, and angels having screwed this guy over just because he didn't fit into whatever plans they were devising. ]

[ cora thinks of leaving it at that, but she feels compelled to answer — or not so much as answer, as whatever she says will only bring forth more questions. questions she doesn't particularly want to answer, not with a guy who knows hunters or has a very heavy reason to dislike things that go bump in the night. ]

No.

Boss as in Michael. He was running things before hunters took him out.

_{[He supposes that's true enough. Sam and Dean call themselves hunters, and they'd wanted from the beginning to stop Michael and Lucifer from picking vessels and fighting. The parts he's leaving out just happen to involve Michael being physically ousted from his throne and dragged into Hell by one of said hunters, and Adam along with him.

He could say Michael had been fired from his job, but he doesn't have it in him for hellfire puns.

Adam does, however, always have room for more questions until someone stops texting first. That's the beauty of not really being friends, and not really knowing each other. No one's obligated to share more than they want to, or keep on answering messages.]}

Are you worried about the ones here because of them?

You're going to have to draw me a diagram of the angel job hierarchy. Can't say my religion lessons paid off. But why can't the hunters take out the angels who are here? They're dangerous. They should be put down.

[ if angels are here, and there are hunters who have dealt with them, why the hell haven't the angels been put down? is there any concern for what they're capable of? even though cora's still digesting all the information, she finds herself wondering why no one is doing anything about it. are they just going to end up finding the bodies? is this beacon hills and boyd all over again? ]

[ cora's uncertain as to whether adam thinks she's one of the monsters he despises, or if she's simply like him, a human girl caught up in a mess greater than her own. she's going with the latter, hoping that luck is finally on her side and he won't be smart enough to put her werewolf interest together with her fear of hunters. people have been mistaken for werewolves before; it's not new to think that they've been put down without any investigation done by hunters. ]

Yes. Hunters are hunters. They kill before they think.

[ except for allison argent. she's the exception. but she's from the same blood that had murdered cora's, and she's not quite sure how she feels, thinking hunters aren't bad people when they have caused her so much pain. she lost so many limbs that day of the fire that she's still surprised she's capable of walking. ]

They'll just come back here, remember? And it's not really them, you're hurting the people they're possessing.

_{[Adam understands that much, even if he has only an indistinct picture of what side of the fence Cora's on.

Not even he knows what he thinks right about now. With the Cage in his recent past, he's tempted now more than ever not to bother thinking too hard about anything that doesn't concern his survival. One foot in front of the other, that's it, that's all he should be focused on. Getting involved in situations where he doesn't understand and doesn't belong seems like asking for another Zachariah to take advantage of him these days.

He's tempted, too, to wonder if these other monsters deserve protection if monster hunters have a reason for going after them.]}

Seems like there's a lot of that going around.

_{[Hunters, supernatural creatures, Tom... So maybe some hunters aren't any better, but no one's guilt-free.]}

Edited 2014-04-11 03:11 (UTC)

[ she's about to say kill them the number of times it takes for them to stay dead before she even reads the rest of his statement. nothing is ever simple, not in wonderland or outside of it. ]

Can't you just exorcise the angel? Or would that kill the person they're using?

[ she imagines that the exorcist rules must apply to angels. angels and demons both possessing defenceless, innocent humans. how else is one meant to evacuate earth and go back up to heaven? but she wonders if they need a priest or man of god to toss those angels back to their rightful homes or if the people they're driving are merely stuck along for the ride until someone decides that killing them to rid the earth of an angel is the way to go. ]

[ but cora's kind of relieved that adam hasn't pressed on hunters and her experiences with them. while she still thinks a house fire caused by arsonists lead by a hunter can go either way — she's human or she's something else — she's glad she doesn't have to type out the details to that particular story. ]

Wonderland seems to have that effect on things. Sometimes makes me wonder if it's the true bad guy in all of this rather than the Queen of Hearts.

I don't know about the exorcisms. No one's mentioned anything.

But Wonderland's not changing who people are around here, it's just bringing out their real colors.

_{[Monsters, and even hunters, could be killers with or without Wonderland's influence--Wonderland's not special that way. The hunters she's got a bone to pick with could still be assholes, and her werewolves could still be as bad as ghouls in their own way and Cora's just covering their asses.

Either way, Adam's not willing to put all of the blame on Wonderland or the Queen of Hearts for making people bad. He likes Cora enough that he won't ask about what she won't talk about, but he's not going to forget that there's more to the story and let his guard down anytime soon.]}

You really think that?

[ maybe it's the fact that the people she tends to surround herself with — the very few, anyway — are people who she considers good. derek doesn't have it in him to use and abuse his family like peter does, nor does scott seem to have the ability to even kill a fly. out of all the kids in the pack, cora wouldn't be surprised if isaac had turned out twisted with how his shoulders matched hers with the weight of carrying the entire world on their shoulders. but maybe cora's natural ability to be anti-social has saved her from experiencing wonderland's talent in revealing people for who they are and not what they want to be perceived as. she's too overwhelmed with the fact that she doesn't have to fight the world as much as she did back in beacon hills. ]

[ or maybe adam just has bad luck. ]

_{[He does, actually, but then it's the truth. Actions speak louder than words.]}

People have to make hard decisions around here. Save yourself, or save someone else.

You could have ignored me plenty of times and you didn't. Not everyone's bad news, it's just easier to tell when the chips are down.

_{[People's true colors don't have to be the kind of black and blood-red colors he'd experienced at his father's real identity, the angels' deception, and his brothers' betrayal. When he's needed it, some people have helped him at cost to themselves, like Cora. Like Daryl. Like Emma. Like Jo. All people who could've walked away like Sam and Dean had walked away.

And when you no longer have anything to call your own, it's easier to see kindness for what it is, even if the flip side is fearing the same kind of cruelty and sadism that ripped it all away from you in the first place.]}

You don't think people are capable of saving themselves and another person?

[ it's probably not as black and white as she's reading it to be. cora's always thought she approached things like they were technicolour — peter's a bad guy, but she had trusted him enough to team up with him in their search to see if derek had been the werewolf who had crawled his way out of the suicidal warehouse. it's not the same, though, not with what adam's saying. cora thinks back to the tunnels, of how she could've left lena to shake in her self-deprecation of losing whatever it was that gave her an edge in order to save herself, but she'd lifted the girl with all the human strength she wasn't used to and pushed her to move forward. and derek had died right in front of her, doing what he did best — placing himself before her. if it came down between her and someone else, cora's not so positive on what path she would choose — if she had a choice (and the chance) to pick. ]

You were going to walk into trouble. I couldn't just leave you to be zombie lunch.

_{[He's heard something like that before, from Dean. He'd believed it, and he'd hoped, and he'd prayed, even after Michael had taken the fall, even after Sam had disappeared. Saved, he now knows.

Good intentions have limits.]}

Not everyone thinks like that.

Then maybe they're people not worth knowing.

[ because it's simple like that, clearly. peter can manipulate his way to the top of the ladder and cora still looks at him like he's her uncle, even though she knows he'd throw her under the bus the moment he got the chance. so much easier said than done. ]

Just try to stay away from zombies, though. Not sure I'll be around to turn them off from wanting to bite you the next time they fall through the rabbit hole.

_{[Or human, he thinks as he reads the first part of her reply. Monsters don't seem to be very interested in pacifism, but he also accepts that this is a generalization as much as putting all of your trust into people, even the heroic people, the people you're supposed to rely on most like your blood. Monsters, humans... neither of them are completely trustworthy. They've covered that point and agree on it.

That doesn't leave a lot of options.

Adam supposes that in the end, the point is you can't trust anyone these days. That's exactly why Cora doesn't want to expose everything about herself through text message, isn't it?]}

I wonder if that's not most people.

_{[Be lied to as much as Adam has, and you get tired of it. But there she goes, fighting against his cynicism with the decency he's stopped expecting in all instances to protect himself from more Sams and Deans.]}

I'm trying to. Once bitten, twice shy. Don't go walking into trouble yourself. Avoid big brother's lectures and not get them, right?

_{[Not putting a smiley face is probably saves the monster snack humor in there from becoming too demented.]}

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

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