24} so i stayed in the darkness with you...

[theresalwayshope]

[When the feed clicks on, Allison is visibly upset. She's also not in her cabin, as evidenced by her surroundings. Her eyes and nose are red: she's been crying, and recently, but she's deadly calm as she speaks.

She has to be, or else she's going to hurt someone. The feed isn't totally steady, because her hand is shaking, and in a rare occurrence, Duchess is nowhere to be seen.]

Isaac's in a coma.

[And this is the part of her new condition she wasn't prepared for, this wild fury and soul-deep grief all mixed up and so intense her free hand is just out of sight, balled into a fist, claws digging into her own palm so the pain will keep her from shifting. She's been like this since she found him over an hour ago, since she picked him up off the floor of his room and put him into bed...

Since the tears and pleading for him to wake up turned to animal snarls she couldn't control, and she glimpsed her transformed face in the mirror for the first time.

She's human now as her eyes well up again, but there's something clearly animal in the way she bares her teeth as she speaks.]

Anyone that comes near his cabin without my permission is getting their throat torn out.

[She can feel the beast rising, she doesn't dare risk more...abruptly, the feed goes dead to all but those on her private filters.]

[Extended Pack Filter]

That goes for you guys, too...just knock first, okay? I'm in Isaac's cabin, and I just...

[She trails off, her eyes flashing gold. Her jaw tenses, and fangs are visible just past her lips, her features shifting as she fights the rising change.]

I need some time to...calm down.

Comments

[americasdirtiest]

[Mickey looks sort of muddled again, or mired might be a better word for it, the way he was on Thanksgiving. Caught, stuck between way too many feelings, and chief among them both the desire to accept the help she's offering and the fear of vulnerability that won't really let him. He shrugs stiffly and puts his hands on his hips, glancing around, away from the camera.]

Whatever. I got a live-in warden anyway, and half your friends still hate my ass.

Just-- when he wakes up...

[theresalwayshope]

You'll be the first to know. I promise.

[And Allison keeps her promises. She will keep her promise to Mickey. While they don't know each other well, she feels a certain sense of responsibility for him, a kinship for the horror they've both endured.

It's not the bond of pack...but it feels like it could be.]

But...Mickey, why do you think my friends hate you?

[americasdirtiest]

[He lets out a quiet grunt at the promise, half-acknowledgement and half-wordless gratitude, rubbing a hand over his mouth. At the question, though, he glances back at her, raising a brow.]

No one looped you in on that one?

[But then, he'd never been sure if Isaac had known before the file, either...]

Stilinski. It was his inmate I...

[theresalwayshope]

[Allison frowns, still uncomprending...but then her eyes light with hesitant understanding as she makes a tenuous connection.]

You mean the fire?

[americasdirtiest]

What fire?

[--Oh, right. That fire. He shakes his head.]

After that. On the Mirror Barge. I graduated with a piece of rebar upside his head.

[He says it bluntly, like he's indifferent. Like if he acts like it doesn't matter, it won't.]

So neither of them are thinking real nice things about me these days.

[theresalwayshope]

[Allison's only reaction is to widen her eyes, creeping slowly towards something like control by falling into this familiar place where shadows swirl and there's another person who sees her dark places and...comprehends them.

She looks away, looks towards Isaac, and that knot of upset and grief threatens again.]

Did Isaac ever tell you that I tried to kill him? Before we got together, obviously, but...yeah, I tried to kill him.

[americasdirtiest]

Yeah. He, uh. [Mickey clears his throat, brows raising.] He mentioned that.

[It's a little awkward, because it's a pretty fucking awkward confession to handle, but it's not judgmental. He has no place to judge at all and he knows it -- not when he and Ian have had their own share of brawls.]