The second apple makes her curious, though confusion reigns supreme. "Stanley, what are you talking about?" She knows she's not hurting anyone, and is it that he's seen her morph? Where does that tie in to -- wait.
Kid freaking out on network. The one that went after him was male.
He glances around a little nervously, then schools his expression into something more casual again. "No. No way."
Yes, his eyes contradict. He fixes Collette with a steady gaze. He knows, fluffy. It's fine, he's not gonna narc. But you want to help keep things safer for everyone around here, right? Backlash could be a bitch if people found out.
She smiles, starting to relax. "I knew you were a good guy," she says. "For all you were avoiding me, you had to be, to take in someone you barely knew and make sure they weren't left on the street."
It's not a direct statement, not yet. "I'm not a werewolf, though. I'm human -- with a complicated history with allien technology. I'm happy to tell you about it, if you want. Did you want any of the cheese? We have a round or three in the cupboards!"
There's a flinch, at that. He sighs. "Yeah, sorry about that. It wasn't supposed to...anyway, sorry. But yeah. I think we should talk about it. And cheese sounds great. It's been a while."
"Steph overreacts," she says dryly. "I love her, but she's not the best at looking at the whole picture." Jumping to conclusions, acting fast, those are things she is good at. Most the time it had to help, with her life. Here it didn't help as much among the Transports.
"Mmkay! The cheese is this way... you'll want a knife from that drawer, by your hip." She moved further down to an inset fridge, opening thee door and reaching inside for the smaller three-quarters present wheel. "I was in a war before this one, you know," she says conversationally. "Here you go!"
"Maybe." Or maybe it was just stupid. But he hasn't known a better solution at the time. He still didn't. If the same situation came up its probably happen all over, because how do you alert people's friends without alerting their enemies as well?
But he shrugs that off quickly, and gets the knife as directed. They're not here to talk about him, anyway. He accepts the cheese from her, and casually continues the conversation. "An alien war?"
"Yeah. One race, called Yeerks, were using people as... well, they mind control people by wrapping around the brain and keeping them prisoner in their own head. They know everything you think, see all your memories, and think people are a pretty good species to use as a ride. We can see colors and taste things -- Yeerks can't. They're like fat, overgrown slugs."
She doesn't sound too pleased as she gives him the short explanation. "The Yeerks have enslaved a few species before, and Earth was next on their list. Another alien species, called the Andalites, didn't really want that to happen -- for power struggle reasons."
She shrugs. It'd be nice to say there was altruism there, but she knows there wasn't.
He gags a little at the part about brain slugs. Gross, Collette. But it doesn't bother him enough to stop him from polishing off the apple and advancing on the cheese. Food tastes so absurdly good at the moment, that it's difficult to remember that this conversation thing is important, too. He swallows, glances around for some water or bread or whatever, grabs another apple instead and finally addresses the topic at hand after a few bites of that.
"So the Andel...ites, they turned you into a wolf?"
She shakes her head. "No. Did you want water? There's a faucet in that sink, and glasses are right next to it." She's started storing some dishes in the cupboards at her level, though she doesn't direct him toward those.
"They gave a handful of kids an ability called morphing -- it's based on their technology. It lets you turn into any animal you acquire. Like a wolf," she clarifies, though she herself has no wolf morph.
"Holy shit," Stan gasps out, halfway through chugging his second glass of water already. He stops long enough to stare at Collette for a second. That's intense. And seriously dangerous. And completely cool. A little poking around and he finds some painful dry soda bread and some wilted, slightly off carrots. But he doesn't really mind, he just bites into one of those too. It's a little gross, but it still makes his eyes roll up in his head. Mmm, food. God has he missed food.
"That's fucking Sci-Fi. Is it just mammals or-" A few carrots down, he swallows and reaches for the soda bread. "Snakes too?"
The bread is too much too fast, and he has to stop for a minute and hold completely still to avoid a surprise evacuation, but it's worth it to feel something solid in his stomach again. He doesn't even mind, just puts a protective hand over his stomach and hops up onto the table as if it's a bench. He doesn't quite get a smile going when Collette lets him in on the joke, but something crosses his eyes anyway. Understanding, maybe. They're still a bit too dull to be sure.
"I hear the cretaceous was absolutely wild," she says mildly enough. Her smile is quick after the fact, and she shakes her head. "But that's just the basic idea, that's what I did. I'm not happy with the mind control stuff that's been happening lately. It's -- super gross."
Super gross is an understatement.
"Where were you if you weren't planning on coming up here, Stan? And you really don't have to tuck away extra food, there's enough for everyone for the moment."
"What mind control stuff?" That's news to him. And not good news, either. How is it possible for things to just keep getting worse? But he shakes this fresh dismay away, and tries to focus his attentions enough to answer the questions, which seem rapid fire after so much time spent in the company of quiet, furtive people.
"I was...trying to help. But it didn't work. And the food," he pockets some bread and cheese too, at the reminder, "isn't for me."
"If it's not for you, then who is it for?" It's simple undisguised curiosity, nothing dreadful or weighted or suspicious.
Though for his other question, her face slides more toward neutrality. "Drugs. The United Earth citizens are all addicted to a drug they believe helps keep them healthy. Which I guess it does -- people don't live through withdrawal so well."
"What? A mind control drug? That's..." Give him a second to process that information, Collette. It's completely insane, and as far as he knew, impossible. He doesn't even need to make the effort to dodge that question about the food, because he's already forgotten that she asked. He's too busy trying to scrape together his understanding of the world -though maybe he'd better stop thinking in global terms now that they've gone extraterrestrial...
No, that isn't helping. Stand by for reboot. He's going to need to take a minute, here.
"Well, I guess it makes them more open to suggestion. The addiction's bad," she says, more soft as she watches Stan fail to process. "The withdrawal's pretty killer. Basically don't shoot this stuff up unless you've got freaky healing powers, you know? There's juice in the big container over there."
"Right." Juice. Juice is a suggestion he understands. He stands, still dazed, and pours a glass. Which he tries to hand to Collette, but...loses his grip on? Misjudges the distance? He's not sure what happens, because it happens without intent. Like a time jump, or a mini blackout. Whatever happens between picking up the full glass and the puddle of juice on the floor is lost on him.
He stares unhelpfully, baffled at how it could've gotten there. Sorry, Collette. This friendly interrogation/heads up isn't going as smoothly as he'd planned.
"Towels are in that drawer," she says, indicating one by the nearest refridgerator like wall installation. He looks so confused, and she figures it must be an overload. Besides, spilled juice is just spilled juice. Limited resources or not, it isn't the sort of thing she can be mad about.
So she smiles, making a dismissive gesture with her hand. "We should probably keep the floor from getting sticky. I wonder if all these glasses are so hard to break? What can survive in space-cold, anyway?"
"What?" No, he's not really following all of that. But he heard towels, so he wanders in that direction -through the juice puddle, whoops- and finds one. Unfortunately he's still a little dazed, so this thing he also tries to hand to Collette. There ya go, it's that towel you wanted.
She looks from the towel in hand to the puddle on the floor. "Uh... you might want to wash your shoe," is the first coherent spoken thought she manages. "Or else you'll track juice everywhere... I'm not sure if we have a mop here!"
She looks from him to the juice puddle, then makes herself go closer. Leaning out, she does manage to get the towel out over most the spill.
This suggestion...sort of...registers. Instead of washing his shoes, Stanley slips them off, though. And then he sits down beside the juice puddle and stares at it for a moment. Sorry, Collette. It's been one of those weeks. He thought he was handling it, but now that there's juice on the floor things are somehow unbearably overwhelming. Would it be weird to take a nap in the kitchen?
Before he goes for it anyway, there's a soft padding of small feet. A little girl emerges from her hiding spot inside a cupboard and climbs right into his lap, with a degree of familiarity that suggests she has no reason to think she doesn't belong there. She pets his long, silky hair a few times, and then casually pickpockets the cheese he'd tucked away for later. She's either the tiniest, boldest, most reassuring thief around or she knows him, and well.
Collette personally opts for knowing him well, and to no small degree because he doesn't react to her presence, and she knew which pocket held the cheese. "That's who he was saving extra for," she says softly, giving a slow shake of her head. Collette flashes a smile at the little girl, giving her a small wave with her fingers before directing her attention to the puddle. Stan and girl she lets sort themselves out as they like -- she's not much for staring overtly at things which aren't really that astoundingly odd.
"I didn't know Stan had a friend with him. I would have said hello! My name's Collette," she continues, everything conversational as she does her best to clean up the juice spill.
At least her energy's back on the rise. If it weren't, Collette would hate the creeping, fearful insecurity of her life right now even more, in the ephemeral sense that she ever hated anything. (Internal railing that it's unfair, pouting at the wall, breathing out and then tackling the world. No one here was paid to listen to her whine. Sadly.)
"Stan, can I grab you anything to drink? You or your friend."
"What? He blinks, slowly coming to his sense again, wrapping an arm around the little girl gently and getting to his feet. "Oh. This is Peace. Sorry, she's not good with strangers, ya know? And she's not on the official guest list."
That statement is coupled with a serious glance, that errs a bit on the side of pleading. He didn't tell people you were a bloodthirsty pack animal, you owe him keeping this little girl's secret. Okay? Peace, for her part, doesn't pay a lot of mind to Collette. Just a cursory, curious glance. But she's not afraid of teenagers the way she is around adults, and Stanley isn't tense, so she doesn't perceive Collette as a threat to them both. She just enjoys her cheese and plays with his hair some more. Her own hair is dark and kinky, but it's been carefully pulled away from her face and secured with a strip cut off of a hospital gown.
"She doesn't talk much. She's uh...last time....uh. Her ear got fucked up, you know? Things sound kind of weird to her I guess."
She'd be lying if she claimed that she'd not had similar thoughts, of saving someone, anyone, had she been given the choice. Collette hadn't. Nor had any part of her friends left behind been the sort to really pull someone through like that -- Collette's not sure Caesar went back to Paramjit, though she suspected he had.
It's another young girl, whose only crime had ever been to live in a free, difficult country. Only this one's alive.
Collette's gaze lingers with that thought. When she looks to Stan, she just smiles. "Official lists are boring anyway," she comments. "And my guess is if she's stuck with you long-term, you'll want to look into finding anyone familiar with speech therapy. Just the one ear?" She wonders if her equilibrium might be off, too, but she hadn't seemed to find moving around too awkward. Were the two related? She's not sure.
What she doesn't say are her other thoughts: how, why, what if she disappears and it's because we've changed the past and she's never been born? Those aren't thoughts she wants to feed Stan, no matter how often she's had them. No matter living through times where people she knew had been written right out of history.
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Kid freaking out on network. The one that went after him was male.
"You think I'm a werewolf."
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Yes, his eyes contradict. He fixes Collette with a steady gaze. He knows, fluffy. It's fine, he's not gonna narc. But you want to help keep things safer for everyone around here, right? Backlash could be a bitch if people found out.
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It's not a direct statement, not yet. "I'm not a werewolf, though. I'm human -- with a complicated history with allien technology. I'm happy to tell you about it, if you want. Did you want any of the cheese? We have a round or three in the cupboards!"
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"Mmkay! The cheese is this way... you'll want a knife from that drawer, by your hip." She moved further down to an inset fridge, opening thee door and reaching inside for the smaller three-quarters present wheel. "I was in a war before this one, you know," she says conversationally. "Here you go!"
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But he shrugs that off quickly, and gets the knife as directed. They're not here to talk about him, anyway. He accepts the cheese from her, and casually continues the conversation. "An alien war?"
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She doesn't sound too pleased as she gives him the short explanation. "The Yeerks have enslaved a few species before, and Earth was next on their list. Another alien species, called the Andalites, didn't really want that to happen -- for power struggle reasons."
She shrugs. It'd be nice to say there was altruism there, but she knows there wasn't.
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"So the Andel...ites, they turned you into a wolf?"
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"They gave a handful of kids an ability called morphing -- it's based on their technology. It lets you turn into any animal you acquire. Like a wolf," she clarifies, though she herself has no wolf morph.
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"That's fucking Sci-Fi. Is it just mammals or-" A few carrots down, he swallows and reaches for the soda bread. "Snakes too?"
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"My battle morph's a crocodile," she says with a grin.
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"Thought I saw one there, you know? Maybe I did."
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Super gross is an understatement.
"Where were you if you weren't planning on coming up here, Stan? And you really don't have to tuck away extra food, there's enough for everyone for the moment."
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"I was...trying to help. But it didn't work. And the food," he pockets some bread and cheese too, at the reminder, "isn't for me."
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Though for his other question, her face slides more toward neutrality. "Drugs. The United Earth citizens are all addicted to a drug they believe helps keep them healthy. Which I guess it does -- people don't live through withdrawal so well."
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No, that isn't helping. Stand by for reboot. He's going to need to take a minute, here.
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She gestures down the counter.
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He stares unhelpfully, baffled at how it could've gotten there. Sorry, Collette. This friendly interrogation/heads up isn't going as smoothly as he'd planned.
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So she smiles, making a dismissive gesture with her hand. "We should probably keep the floor from getting sticky. I wonder if all these glasses are so hard to break? What can survive in space-cold, anyway?"
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She looks from him to the juice puddle, then makes herself go closer. Leaning out, she does manage to get the towel out over most the spill.
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Before he goes for it anyway, there's a soft padding of small feet. A little girl emerges from her hiding spot inside a cupboard and climbs right into his lap, with a degree of familiarity that suggests she has no reason to think she doesn't belong there. She pets his long, silky hair a few times, and then casually pickpockets the cheese he'd tucked away for later. She's either the tiniest, boldest, most reassuring thief around or she knows him, and well.
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"I didn't know Stan had a friend with him. I would have said hello! My name's Collette," she continues, everything conversational as she does her best to clean up the juice spill.
At least her energy's back on the rise. If it weren't, Collette would hate the creeping, fearful insecurity of her life right now even more, in the ephemeral sense that she ever hated anything. (Internal railing that it's unfair, pouting at the wall, breathing out and then tackling the world. No one here was paid to listen to her whine. Sadly.)
"Stan, can I grab you anything to drink? You or your friend."
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That statement is coupled with a serious glance, that errs a bit on the side of pleading. He didn't tell people you were a bloodthirsty pack animal, you owe him keeping this little girl's secret. Okay? Peace, for her part, doesn't pay a lot of mind to Collette. Just a cursory, curious glance. But she's not afraid of teenagers the way she is around adults, and Stanley isn't tense, so she doesn't perceive Collette as a threat to them both. She just enjoys her cheese and plays with his hair some more. Her own hair is dark and kinky, but it's been carefully pulled away from her face and secured with a strip cut off of a hospital gown.
"She doesn't talk much. She's uh...last time....uh. Her ear got fucked up, you know? Things sound kind of weird to her I guess."
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It's another young girl, whose only crime had ever been to live in a free, difficult country. Only this one's alive.
Collette's gaze lingers with that thought. When she looks to Stan, she just smiles. "Official lists are boring anyway," she comments. "And my guess is if she's stuck with you long-term, you'll want to look into finding anyone familiar with speech therapy. Just the one ear?" She wonders if her equilibrium might be off, too, but she hadn't seemed to find moving around too awkward. Were the two related? She's not sure.
What she doesn't say are her other thoughts: how, why, what if she disappears and it's because we've changed the past and she's never been born? Those aren't thoughts she wants to feed Stan, no matter how often she's had them. No matter living through times where people she knew had been written right out of history.
Thinking like that would drive anyone crazy.
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