strangetrip | [EP] The eye of the storm

Anybody coming to find out what all the noise in the lobby had been about would find a girl sitting on the floor with a cat in her lap, bloodied hands stroking over its black fur.

When Yasmeen had gone away, when Sansa had gone away, Snow had managed to get herself out and away from the inn where she could let her noise out without fearing any person, or more importantly, the horses. And both those times, Kash had found her and helped her scrape herself back together. She had come so much to rely on him being there, that at first she hadn't believed it. She'd gone searching, like a child trying to grasp the meaning of dead. She'd wandered all over the grounds, gone to his room, gone to the stables, gone to the clinic, walked miles of paths. It was only then that she'd given up and asked Darryl.

Then she lost her shit.

She howled, threw anything small and breakable that she could lay her hands on, and punched the walls until her knuckles were raw and bleeding.

What was she going to do without him? Kash had always been there for her when she didn't think she could talk to anybody else. He had saved Juno. Who would help her now when any of the animals were injured or sick? Who would hear what she was saying, even when she couldn't say it? He was her friend. Perhaps the best friend she'd ever had.

This was what happened when you trusted people. They just left. They just fucking left.

And she probably would have screamed herself hoarse if it weren't for the feeling of a furry little body slinking around one of her ankles. Of course she wouldn't have been the only one left behind (which was a cruel and unfair thing to think, she was not the only person who loved Kash. She just didn't care right now). She crumpled to her knees and Socks climbed into her lap. After a long moment she began to pet him, no longer the little kitten she'd held out to Kash last Christmas. There was no peace in the silence, but she could not continue to rage with Socks holding her down. The moment he left that place, it would all rise up again. So for now, she sat there in the mess she'd made, staring at nothing, her blood running into his fur.

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"Do you need something alive to hit?"

She'd heard the commotion, come to see--and while Snow's rage was a little frightening, it wasn't disturbing. It was, in a lot of horrible ways, familiar.

It was the thing she ran from for so long, cutting out pieces of herself so she wouldn't fall into that pit. It was the fire and the fury that became love and pleasure and healing when she let it in and cherished it the way Jason had taught her to. Until he'd gone, she'd stopped running, stopped fearing...she grieved and moved and thought like a normal person.

Allison couldn't do that anymore. So she went back to cutting.

Standing near the desk, out of the way of projectiles, Allison waited until the sleek little cat (dark like Todd, put him away, forget him and cut him out) stopped the torrent, then finally spoke up before she walked towards Snow, crouching a couple of feet away out of both caution and deference.

When she'd lost Jason, she'd feared and craved help. When she lost him, she died inside for a while...when Jason was gone, Allison had put on the mask and torn through a lot of bodies.

"Sometimes, your own blood isn't enough." she continued, a mixture of grim knowledge and sorrow in her otherwise stoic expression. "If you need something alive to hit, we can go outside. Only thing I'll ask is you let me check your hands--as long as they aren't broken, we're good to go. I can take it, promise."

Snow didn't realize Allison was there at first. It was like trying to sense the world through water. Everything was slow, blurry, muffled, indistinct. And not particularly wanting to come up for air, Snow didn't fight to make sense of the words. The meaning sank in slowly and not all in order.

She lifted her head slowly and stared, eyes wide and blank and uncomprehending. Broken? Her hands? A body was just a body, it didn't matter if they were or not (but she knew they weren't, they didn't hurt nearly enough for a broken bone).

The blank look Allison got in response was worrisome--but she'd still seen worse, or at least similar. She'd seen varying degrees of animal emotion in her life, felt them in some degree...if Allison hadn't learned to compartmentalize so early on, she could have been Snow, which was a troubling thought.

With a breath, Allison rose, but didn't straighten, shuffling forward and sinking to a crouch again closer--about a foot, still on Snow's level. It was a compromise between behaving normally and taking the same caution she'd give any wounded creature in the wild.

"Can I see your hand? Please?"

At first, Snow didn't move at all. Now that she had been pinned down here by the cat, she didn't know if she could. It was all or nothing, and she feared if she set herself into motion again, everything she'd tried to nail down in herself would come shaking loose.

She took a deep breath before she even attempted to lift her hand. At first, she could only get her fingers to twitch while still feeling something like stable. Then she managed to lift her wrist. After what seemed like half of forever, she offered out her hand.

Shifting to take the wounded hand Snow offered, Allison slid her hand up to grip Snow's forearm--firm and sure, not to restrain but to give her a grounding touch while her free hand caught Snow's fingers, gently manipulating them this way and that while she watched for signs of pain from Snow.

"Does your hand hurt?" she asked. "Can you wiggle your fingers for me?"

It hurt, but not in a deeper damage kind of way. Just a punched too long, too hard way. She wasn't sure how to convey that other than a shrug. Still, because it was easier than speaking, she waggled her fingers freely on both hands.

Snow kept her eyes down, half an apology. She knew she was not easy when she was like this. She also knew that trying to force herself to speak would only leave her mute longer and even more flustered and silent.

"It's been a year for me."

Allison gave Snow's fingers a gentle touch of silent thanks, focusing on her examination as she spoke...because she felt like she should. The silence was heavy, and living with werewolves--being one for a short time--she's learned that silence can have meaning. This was heavy, fraught--perhaps lightening, just a little. When she looked up and saw those downcast eyes, hers dropped immediately before the words left her mouth, half without her permission.

"I'm...I've never been normal." she explained. "I've always liked more than the things teenage girls should like--when I put an outfit together, I accessorize my weapons. I like knives more than jewelry, bullets and arrow bolts more than shoes. I spend my Saturday nights out on the town not to drink or dance, but to mutilate men who make trouble in my city."

Releasing Snow's hand, Allison shifted to sit cross legged across from her, nodding in silent reassurance when she chanced to look up--her hand wasn't broken, she was okay.

"I met a boy who saw all the blood on my hands, and thought it was beautiful. Thought I was beautiful...he fell in love with my bloodlust, and weirdly? It didn't come as often, or as hard. We shed blood together, sometimes--he killed, I didn't. Sometimes I even stopped him."

She finally looked up, her eyes overbright with unshed tears.

"It's been a year since I lost him--and the night I found out he was gone, a lot of blood spilled--a lot. Very little of it, though, was mine."

Snow nodded, understanding completely. Didn't she love her gun more than she did most people? Didn't she take pride in how Rose Red glittered, even though the black opal had at first changed the weight and balance, even though the glitter of it had brought her more grief than good when she went out into the world? Didn't she know that it took particular people and a lot of patience to see something worth loving in the disaster her parents had left behind?

"I... he..." She stopped, confused. Did she use past or present tense here? It was the "Kash has Zahra. It's not like that. But..." The words trickled to a stop again, not knowing how to put words to the feelings.

"Someone you love is someone you love--even if they're just a friend." Allison replied, planting her hands and shifting herself forward just a little. "And it's okay--that kind of pain is hard to articulate."

Her thoughts drifted back to the night she realized Jason was gone, and how cold the world had gone--how cold the world had to go just so she didn't implode.

"Sometimes this," she went on, gesturing to Snow's bloody knuckles, "is the only way. But it's better if you can do it to someone else--so you don't hurt yourself. That's what I meant before...if you wanna hit something that can bleed instead of you? I'm here."

Snow considered that offer carefully, or at least as carefully as she could. Her mind felt slow and thick. And after a long moment of struggle she managed to whisper, "I'm afraid to move."

[EP] The eye of the storm

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