Fluff, Relationships, and Traditions
This entry is part 52 of 52 in the series 365 Challenge
So characters have habits, ways they interact with certain people and situations, things they do and like to do, stories and histories together. I've known a lot of my characters' for a long time but getting them all into fic is interesting, particularly for the ones I don't know that for.
I've ( Read more... )
Gently, she settled on the bed beside him, tracing one finger faintly over his cheek. He didn't move. He rarely did anymore when it was her, just as her own reflexes were beginning to take into account that she trusted him.
"What did you ask her?" she whispered to herself in Alaric. She knew he was going to find out what was possible, but when he left, he hadn't really decided how much he was willing to actually test.
Whisper had long suspected Red Wolf's past was best learned about from the outside in, due to Justus' long silence on the matter, but she wasn't entirely sure how different he had been. Wolf was an alpha, harsh when necessary, and an extremely competent operative who did what needed to be done. The impression she received from the information they were only now beginning to dig into was that as a young man, he'd been a fundamental Christian, good guy next door, and an enthusiastic bluegrass fiddler. Perhaps the difference was as wide as the gulf between her own childhood and what she had become, but it was hardly one worth losing love over.
She flicked a wave of tight pressure over his shoulder.
He tensed instantly, then sat up slowly as he realized it was her that had woken him. "Whisper?" He was keeping the grumpiness out of his voice and it made her smile.
"You're always a grouch at night," she commented softly, thoroughly amused.
He groused but leaned against the backboard and tucked her under his arm. "What'd you need?" he asked somewhat more amiably.
She hummed thoughtfully as she got comfortable, then, "What did you ask her?"
He blinked, then caught on to her topic. "I asked her to prove it," he said slowly.
"Which she did..."
"Which she did." Wolf looked at her carefully, scrutinizing this odd frame of mind. "She got something from before. I'm not sure how much."
"Did you want to see it?" Whisper asked. He hadn't decided and maybe he still hadn't and this was all moot. She craned her neck to meet his gaze better. He could have asked her for his records for years. He had always known she was a tracer. It was only in the last few months that they had walked down that path.
Wolf shrugged. "Some of it," he said softly, tucked his chin against her hair. "I'd like to feel like a brother."
She thought about that, hummed softly under her breath, then traced over his jaw with one hand. "Ask her for that then."
He breathed out a sigh.
She waited a moment, listening until the silence held acceptance, then slipped under the covers and drew him down with her toward sleep.
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I like seeing Whisper's reaction to it, the way she chose to support him and all she already knows, her loyalty to him, all of that.
They are an awesome couple because of these quiet moments where they strengthen each other.
I have another part where he does see Recall again, and it would take a bit of tweaking to fit with this, if that's okay.
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A/N: So... Not quite sure about Wolf's dialogue here, and I hope the tweaks make it fit okay even if his comments are a bit... off.
“Have you ever lost the one thing you were ever a part of, the one thing that is so much a part of you that you are... nothing without it?” Recall didn’t look up from her hands. She should know the answer to that question, but she didn’t want to hunt it down in his memories. “I don’t expect forgiveness. I shouldn’t have asked. I just... needed a purpose again, and I thought I’d found it. I thought only of myself, not what it would mean for anyone else.”
“Your offer wasn’t a crime.”
“Doesn’t make the disappointment any less devastating. Haven’t you suffered enough already? Why should I torment you with a promise I can’t fulfill?”
“You didn’t promise anything more than pain, remember?”
“You can stop me. I’d like it if you did, though I don’t deserve favors.”
“No one said it worked that way.”
“Idizo. It should.” She closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around her body. “I am supposed to be stronger than this. I didn’t realize how broken I was. I don’t even know why I keep talking like this. I am supposed to give you back what I got.”
“You made it sound like you didn’t get back anything.”
“Habit. That’s the lie I give Sukut all the time. I got a few pieces. It’s not much. It’s what you already knew, but... it’s yours, so you may as well have it,” she said, holding out her hand. She’d give him a few disconnected memories of learning to play, nothing that could hurt too much or disagreed too sharply with the man he was now, and hope he didn’t realize she’d been lying. She knew now that she’d processed more that the wife wouldn’t lie. She knew that Recall knew more, and it was somewhat of a surprise that she wasn’t with him-though she knew that Whisper trusted her husband’s strength and his judgment. She would let him see what he wanted, what he felt he needed.
“How much did you see?”
“It’s always too much. The memories aren’t mine, after all.” She saw his look, knew that she couldn’t leave it at what she’d already said. “I like your kids. They’re sweethearts-mostly. I admire your wife. She’s a better woman than I am. I envy you your family-and I don’t just mean the ones that live with you. And you played beautifully.”
There. Sharp intake. He was waiting for that. He might not have expected her to get something past the processing-though she supposed that he probably knew she’d gotten something, she’d never been good at hiding it-and she shouldn’t have it according to their science, but she wasn’t like them. She hadn’t been made and controlled. She was an anomaly born from trauma, imprisoned by her body, her mind lost years ago.
“You know all that?”
“I can get lifetimes in seconds, and I was looking for something specific for you, something before the processing. I got a little. It’s yours.”
“Anything about my birth family? About... About me as a brother?”
She’d been prepared to give him only memories about his music, but she could give him a few of those memories, too. “I told you-what little I got is yours.”
He watched her, and she didn’t know that he believed her, but he would have been right not to if he didn’t. She almost wanted to feel a just punishment for all she’d done, though she did not think he would hurt her. She reached for his hand, wanting this done, and she passed as much to him as she dared, unwilling to do more damage than she already had. “There. Now if you will excuse me-bizh.”
She flailed, trying to find something to grab that wasn’t him before she went down. She hadn’t accounted for how much it would take to pass memories to a man like him, and she wasn’t done processing, so going down afterward was only to be expected. Still, she cursed herself for being such an idiot even as she kind of hoped she’d pushed it too far and wouldn’t get back up this time.
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Recall tried to sit up but that drew immediate discomfort and Wolf's instant attention.
"You all right?" he asked evenly. He studied her with an almost expressionless gaze.
He hadn't meant to hurt her, even though he knew perfectly well she had mentioned it would hurt-and her far more than him.
He saw her walls go up behind her eyes and knew that she had fended off someone else before who had some amount of protective instinct. It made him feel a pang of something... strange. Wolf remembered nothing before the team, but they had always had each other, protected each other, and relied on each other. Interdependence was their greatest strength.
But he treated it like it was something else instead: the wounds they all carried, the horrors that had happened to them, the losses they had felt. He shrugged before she could answer, like it didn't matter, because sometimes that was the greatest mercy of all. Silence in the face of the unthinkable.
Alpha Wolf stood, taking on the leader he had been rather than the uncomplicated strike team operative. He nodded at her in respect. "Thank you."
Then, he offered the only other mercy he could, the end of where his own needs could cause her harm. He walked away.
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Though I am a bit sad to admit it and find myself not liking the idea of closing it down, this really does feel like a place where it could end.
Not sure I can let that be it, though, because I have to find something to resolve her part of it because a Recall who thinks Fracture is dead is in a very, very bad place, and I'm not capable of leaving her there.
Hmm...
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A side effect of her ability, one she doesn't discuss much but comes clear with Wolf and with Fracture, is that she gets enough of people to know them. She sees them like friends or even family, cares about them and people that they do, and she'd do anything for Wolf or someone he cares about, no matter the cost to her, even though she's a stranger to them. That's the messed up relationship she had with Fracture.
Walking away from her is probably the only way to save her, not that she wants to be saved. She was desperate for someone else, something else to belong to, and she would have taken it too far.
I do have a thought about it, I have a scene or two, and it is a convoluted thought (Recall wouldn't go directly to Wolf, though I considered her calling Whisper to apologize, but there is a point where he could become involved again if he chooses.) It is a bit crazy an idea, so I don't know how you'll like it, but I'll share it once I have it a bit more fleshed out.
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“You deal with crimes against your kind or involving your kind, right? Specials? That would be why they call this special unit, yes?”
The woman-the leader-looked over at Recall with suspicion, and Recall didn’t blame her for that. She wouldn’t trust a teal and black haired freak that appeared out of nowhere, looking like a mess. She’d managed to tear her jacket on something when she ran, and she’d been in no state for running in the first place. She still had a bit more processing to do, had to recover from giving Wolf his memories-she didn’t blame him for walking away, she knew why he had and she knew he was right to turn away from her path of self-destruction-but she hadn’t been given that opportunity.
“Our kind?”
The words were a bit clipped, and Recall almost winced when she heard them, knowing she’d said them first, causing the tension to start. “Where I’m from, we’re anomalies, but that isn’t the case here. People know you exist now, they know about the war and-idizo. I’m not-I knew I could and should come to you, but how much of what I should say I’ll get out before I lose consciousness is debatable.”
“You here to report that some ‘special’ did this to you?”
“No.” Recall reached for the nearest support she could find and almost laughed. In a way, a special had done this to her, though she’d done it to herself, truly, but she had Wolf’s memories, and giving some of them back to him had weakened her, but this wasn’t about him. He’d been better to her than he should have been considering what she’d done-raising his hopes, yanking that away, and lying to him about how much she got back.
She just knew that he couldn’t be the man he was, and she wouldn’t hurt him by giving him more than she had. That was the trouble with getting people’s memories-she knew them too well, and in some cases, she found herself caring for them when they saw her as a stranger.
“What happened?”
“I overextended myself, and someone brought me to the medical center, and I was kind of too weak to object to being left there. I don’t think it would have been a problem if a different doctor was on duty, but this one...”
“This one what?”
That harsh question came from one of the others, but the leader held up her hand and moved toward Recall, sympathy betrayed for a moment in her eyes, some kind of understanding. Recall would have hunted in Wolf’s memories for a mention of what this woman could do if she felt stronger-she thought he knew because she had to have gotten the idea to come here from him-or she’d gotten it from someone she bumped after her shirt tore, which was very not good because that meant more processing, and processing more than one person’s memories at the same time was unpleasant at best-and that made three, not just two. Two was bad enough.
“The doctor scared you. Why?”
Recall knew she didn’t have the strength to explain, not now. “When I collapse in a minute, don’t touch my skin. Please.”
“If you could just tell us what-”
“Would. Can’t. Ninamen,” she said and lost consciousness.
“Well?” Marc asked as he stood, backing away from the woman he’d just finished moving. She’d said not to touch her skin, and he’d been careful not to, but no one was going to leave her on the floor no matter what she said.
Jarrod leaned close to her. “She’s not registered. At least, not that I can tell.”
“Cate?”
“She’s got some kind of... shielding. I’d have to push, and even then, I’m not sure I’d get anything.”
Ilsa nodded, studying the stranger for another woman before looking over at her team. “Don’t touch her.”
Jarrod rose. “She didn’t say why we shouldn’t, and we don’t know anything about her.”
“I read fear and pain. That much was genuine,” Ilsa said. “Don’t touch her.”
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“I said I would. I just... can’t stay conscious when I have to process stuff. Side effect of being what I am,” Recall said, not lifting her head. That would hurt too much. Her body already ached, and she missed Fracture-he would have carried her to bed or made her kapi by now.
“You’re hurting.”
“Am I that obvious? Idizo. That’s a shame,” she muttered, groaning as she shifted her arm out from under her body. “Yes, I’m in pain. It happens. No, there’s nothing you can give me for it even if you were willing to do so, which I doubt.”
“You’re unregistered.”
“I’m not from around here.”
“Where are you from?”
She watched the young man for a moment, almost amused. Maybe he was what Talk could be if he was more gifted and less opinionated. “Don’t worry, giwizen. If I was from one of your enemies, you can bet you wouldn’t have this job now. I used to know a man that would have brought down your empire by himself for what happened to those children.”
That got a reaction, though not from him. “What do you know about that?”
“More than I should. Got bumped in my homeland by a less than charming tourist-you might want to know where he is since I suspect he’s guilty of war crimes if not others since I believe he was involved in the Special Projects division-and found out about this place. I came here and learned a lot more.”
“Why?”
She wasn’t interested in repeating the argument she’d had with Talk before she left. He’d wanted her to go back to what she’d been before, but that wasn’t possible. “I got enough from him to know that the process took memories from the ones they put through it. Some more than others. I thought if they wanted those memories back, I might be able to help, and I needed a purpose at the time. It seemed as good as any.”
“You can’t bring the memories back.”
Recall knew the second woman was an operative, though she didn’t know what the woman had done before. She didn’t want to know. “I’m not someone who was created by a process. I broke during a trauma and became this.”
“What is ‘this?’”
She looked at the former operative. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“No.”
Despite the pain, Recall forced herself to move, needing to get away from her. “Bizh. You’re a telepath, aren’t you? I hate telepaths. I know you can’t get anything from me, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when you try.”
The leader glanced at the other woman before addressing Recall. “You came to us for a reason.”
“I did.” She closed her eyes, trying to cope with the pain. She had to stay awake a little bit longer. “That doctor... he’s looking for unregistered specials. I’m not sure why yet-I need more time to sort through his memories, but if I hadn’t gotten enough to know he was dangerous and ran, he’d have me now.”
“You have that man’s memories? How?”
She looked at the man who’d spoken, lifting her hand and wiggling her fingers. “He touched me. That’s all it takes.”
“I ran background checks on all the doctors in the city while you were out,” the youngest one said. “Nothing that suspicious came up. A few minor infractions, that's it.”
“I’m sure it wouldn’t come up in any of your checks. He could shape-shift.” She saw the doubt in everyone’s expressions and leaned back, shaking her head. “I can’t prove what I know. Ordinarily, I would. I’d just touch you and pass what I saw, but I have two-no, three-he would have thought of someone in Riving, not you-people that I need to sort out the memories of-and I can’t take another. I’m already damaging my broken mind with three. Touching one of you would mean taking more, and I can’t do it now.”
“You have to admit it’s a bit much to take on faith.”
Recall focused on the former operative. “I don’t know if you know him personally, but call Wolf. He’s-our arrangement is complete, and I am not asking for anything from him, don’t have anything else to give him, but he knows. He knows I can do what I say I can. He’ll confirm it.”
“You couldn’t have gotten anything back from before he was processed.”
She could fight about that because she had, but she didn’t have the strength. “He’s all the proof I can offer right now, and you’re going to have to excuse me because I can’t stay conscious any longer.”
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I'm glad you liked it. I knew the second part was off, and I ended up having to cut pieces to make it fit in the comment, which probably didn't help, but I did like the idea of her bringing a case to the unit.
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