Dr. Simon O'Neill (
protagonized) wrote in
undergrounds2015-10-09 10:41 am
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Entry tags:
#notallshapeshifters
Dates: October 6 and 8.
What: Simon tries to keep his head down.
[ooc: This is a completely open post! Come torment him.]
Covent Garden - Late Evening
Starbucks closed at ten most evenings, and given Simon's class schedule he tended to work closing shifts. That suited him just fine. During peak tourist season it tended to be crowded late at night, but weeknights were almost pleasant now that they were well into October. Tonight, the shop was almost deserted, save for a table of Korean tourists off in a corner, and they'd been nursing their drinks and chatting for over an hour now. Simon was thoroughly bored. He snuck a peek at the phone he'd secreted away in his apron pocket: 21:22. Only forty more minutes until he could kick them out and start closing up shop. Only an hour and a half until he could go home and start drafting that Craigslist ad for a new flatmate.
Only eight hours until he had to wake up and be back in the lab.
He sighed and went back to watching the door, hoping no one else came in.
Redbright Institute - Mid-morning
Simon could have been doing any number of things right now--first and foremost among them being sleeping--but for some reason he found himself drawn to Redbright Institute. His feelings about the place were ambivalent at best; sure, they'd helped him through a particularly tough time in his life, but he still found the place intensely weird and a bit uncomfortable. All logic said that magic shouldn't exist outside of fantasy novels and Disney films, and yet here it was. In London.
He strolled through the library, looking for volumes on shapeshifting. He knew there was plenty of lore about people with his particular condition going back centuries, but what he wanted was something that treated the subject a little more objectively. He needed a history.
Simon paused at a likely volume. Maybe this one, finally, contained the answers he was looking for.
What: Simon tries to keep his head down.
[ooc: This is a completely open post! Come torment him.]
Covent Garden - Late Evening
Starbucks closed at ten most evenings, and given Simon's class schedule he tended to work closing shifts. That suited him just fine. During peak tourist season it tended to be crowded late at night, but weeknights were almost pleasant now that they were well into October. Tonight, the shop was almost deserted, save for a table of Korean tourists off in a corner, and they'd been nursing their drinks and chatting for over an hour now. Simon was thoroughly bored. He snuck a peek at the phone he'd secreted away in his apron pocket: 21:22. Only forty more minutes until he could kick them out and start closing up shop. Only an hour and a half until he could go home and start drafting that Craigslist ad for a new flatmate.
Only eight hours until he had to wake up and be back in the lab.
He sighed and went back to watching the door, hoping no one else came in.
Redbright Institute - Mid-morning
Simon could have been doing any number of things right now--first and foremost among them being sleeping--but for some reason he found himself drawn to Redbright Institute. His feelings about the place were ambivalent at best; sure, they'd helped him through a particularly tough time in his life, but he still found the place intensely weird and a bit uncomfortable. All logic said that magic shouldn't exist outside of fantasy novels and Disney films, and yet here it was. In London.
He strolled through the library, looking for volumes on shapeshifting. He knew there was plenty of lore about people with his particular condition going back centuries, but what he wanted was something that treated the subject a little more objectively. He needed a history.
Simon paused at a likely volume. Maybe this one, finally, contained the answers he was looking for.
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"Werewolf. Born, not turned." Which mattered a good deal in the werewolf culture. "Got told by me da when I was thirteen or so."
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Simon lost his virginity to a werewolf.
Fucking hell.
"I...right. Well, you're the first werewolf I've ever met. I don't mean to be rude, but may I ask a question?"
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Still possible. But he was cute and seemed like a pretty decent guy. So, questions? Questions she could handle.
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"I've only got mine to compare it to, you see, and I've always wondered if the mechanics are similar."
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But it was a good question. Just one with a very odd explanation where she was concerned. Still, it was a good thing to get out of the way.
"Whether you're born a werewolf or turned into one, you have to activate the curse. It's still in you, but you don't transform. It gets activated by killing someone. So, me? Never transformed. Never will, probably."
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"Huh."
Well, at least he hadn't gone to bed with a murderer. There was that.
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To her, it's a fact of life. Easy to talk about and not embarrassing in the slightest.
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Maybe a new topic was in order.
"So," he said, trying to sound smooth and failing utterly, "How long are you going to be here today? I was thinking about getting a bite of lunch on my way out. Would you...?"
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After all, she'd never turn down a free lunch. Which, at the very least, it sounded like he was offering.
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"Great! I'll be here. There's a lovely Thai place down the road, if you like Thai."
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This was stupid. He wasn't some lovesick teenager, so why was he so nervous about asking a pretty girl to lunch? It wasn't as if he were unfamiliar with the prospect. He didn't date often, but he did know how to invite girls out and even did so from time to time.
But he hadn't had a drunken one night stand with any of those girls. This one, he had.
When she finally reemerged, he gave her a bright smile.
"Ready to go?"
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So, seeing him still waiting? Made her flash a grin.
"More than," she replied. "Lead the way."
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His childhood had been an odd one.
"Here we are. Want to order a bottle of wine, too?"
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"Thanks for the invite, too."
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Well, he kept (vegan) dog food in his flat for a reason. He'd just eat a few meals in furry form to save on food costs. And it didn't taste all that terrible...to a dog.
"You're welcome. Thanks for agreeing to come. Would you like to order appetizers as well or just entrees?"
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He said he hadn't been raised in the community. Which meant at least one parent was out of the picture. No shifter would let their kid not know what they were. When she spoke, she kept her voice low. So it was just the two of them talking about it, no one else listening.
"Shifter, huh? Kinda the lottery winner there, if y' ask me."
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He gave her an odd look and shook his head. "I sure didn't think so. I was adopted; I didn't have any frame of reference for it. The change started happening when I was fourteen and I thought I was going insane. It wasn't until I found Redbright that the world started making sense again."
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Not her first choice, but it was something she could handle for a couple of meals. Not like she had to abide by that when she wasn't with him. Listening to him, she leaned forward. Her elbow was against the table, and her chin rested in that hand.
"Shifters are immune to a bite. They transform but without a loss of control in their changed form."
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He should have taken her out for pizza.
Simon frowned. "I've...never be thought about it that way," he admitted. "I was so focused on how I felt like the world is ending that I never considered what it was like for others. Werewolves...you really can't control it?"
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"They can't. Some really powerful ones maintain some of their control in wolf form, but others... They don't know anyone. If they're not chained in, they will attack anything in their paths."
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And then he was gone and their conversation could continue.
"You've seen it." It's a statement, not a question.
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She still hadn't gotten used to the noises below her. Hearing those screams of transformation and the snapping and howling of the wolves that were kept there. And there was always blood.
Whether it was animal or human... she never asked. She just always helped clean it up while her brothers and father recovered.
"Saw 'em. As wolves. An' they lunged. Didn' know who I was. Not their fault. Jus' th' way it is."
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"Jesus."
There was more to the story, of course. They barely knew each other; he didn't expect that Skip would open up completely on a first date. But there was enough there that he knew the weight of what she wasn't telling him.
"I'm sorry," seemed a stupid thing to say in light of that, but it slipped out anyway.
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She'd learned a lot that night. Seen her brothers and fathers as less than perfect, realised that they were as dangerous as anything else in the world. Of course, after seeing that... Well. Nothing had happened then.
So, she hadn't had much cause to fear anything else in the world.
"That's my sob story," she said with a laugh, shrugging her shoulders. "Everybody's got at least one, y'know?"
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