who: @walshparker
when: february 17th evening, later in the night
where: tri delt v-day party
Mari had her small handful of roses in her hand as she slipped through the party, intending to call it a night. She hadn't read any of them, remembering the...message she had gotten last year as well. She'd wait till she was in her room, thank you. In fact, Mari was on her way to do just that, trying to get out of the sorority house without drawing too much attention to herself. She had gotten closer to the exit, but wasn't quite there yet when she made eye contact Parker, offering her a small smile. "Hey," she said, nodding her chin towards the plentiful flowers the other girl had. "Get anything good?"
who: @walshparker
when: new year's eve
where: the hamptons
Nate didn't want to talk to Parker. Nate especially didn't want to talk to Parker in the Hamptons, the reminder of their past, and how quickly (and completely) it had all gone to shit. And yet, especially with the lack of subtlety Henrietta had used to approach him, he knew he couldn't ignore this, considering what could be at risk.
As much as he wanted to.
He didn't even know how to approach her. He hadn't for a while. And so, Nate relied on what he knew best, even if it was no longer true to who she was and was instead a remnant of a version of girl he no longer knew, a glass of champagne in his hand to offer to her as he slipped into the spot at her side. He didn't say anything - not yet, the words would unfortunately come later - and instead just held out the flute towards her. Surely she still loved champagne.
"You came!" Jacqui said, their voice a near squeal as they greeted Parker's arrival on the dance floor with an exuberant hug. They had invited pretty much everyone they spoke to, regularly or not, casting a wide net of friends for their birthday, genuinely just wanting everyone to come out and have a good time with them - and what better time than dancing and drinking? While some people may have been surprised by Parker's invite, or at the very least, her attending, Jacqui wasn't. But they were still delighted by it, hence the tight grasp on the redhead blonde as they tugged her further onto the dance floor.
PARTIES: @longislandcharm and @wonder-in-wings
TIMING: Late November
LOCATION: Outside the Elysium/Around town
SUMMARY: Determined to get Winter out of her gooey situation, Parker goes to the hotel with a pizza and an offer to help get her to where she needs or wants to go. The day is interrupted by a surprise visitor.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Implied parental/familial abuse (mostly talking about the scars it left behind), Under skin tw (a parasite)
Most of the reports hadn’t been kidding when they said that there truly was vile black slime everywhere. Parker’s route was carefully planned and he had to take more than one detour as he circumvented the shiny trails of ooze. He was on his way to the Elysium Hotel and Casino, a place of luxury and affluence, a place that’d been (perhaps begrudgingly) turned into a temporary shelter for the displaced. The Warden never held any remote interest in either hotels or gambling but he wasn’t going there out of his own interest.
He told Winter that he would go retrieve her. That and he owed her a pizza, which was sitting in the passenger side seat, covered by his black leather jacket that he finally had to pull out of his closet as the weather had gotten too biting to ignore. Parker wasn’t a fan of cold weather, with the low temperatures and large amounts of snow easily working their way onto his list of least favorite things about the town. It didn’t seem like snow was there quite yet, however, as he carefully made his way around the more covered areas of the road and, indeed, it seemed like the goo was dissipating as well the closer he drew to the hotel.
Eventually, as he pulled into one of the nearby parking spaces that had a rather clean path from it to the door, he found himself wondering why she couldn’t just leave. Sure, it was oppressive in a lot of other places but she didn’t seem to be as trapped as she thought. Or maybe there was just something Parker was missing; was this a metaphor? He was always poor with those, or so Walker told him. However, he started to relax in his seat when a sharp pain on his upper back made him suck air in through his nose and he immediately opted out of leaning back. No, he leaned forward instead, not sure what that was on his back but he could neither see nor reach it so there was little point in worrying too much about it.
Pulling out his phone, he texted Winter. “I’m out in front. [...] Where are you? I have a pizza.”
“Holing yourself up in the room isn’t healthy, you know that, right?” Winter threw Henry a glare as she tossed her wallet into her bag. “I’m going to start calling you dad if you don’t stop. I wasn’t holing myself up, I just didn’t want to risk being stuck in that crap. Do you see how many things are caught in it right now?” Henry rolled his eyes at her, not believing that someone like her wouldn’t take a risk to go get a pizza. “Seems like you’re hiding away in here.” She was about to say something back to him when her phone beeped at her, the medium smirking as she held it up to show him the message. “See? I’m leaving right now, smart ass.” He threw her a look while she threw her purse over her shoulder and hummed with satisfaction before turning to head out.
She didn’t bother to text Parker back as she made her way past the extra people in the halls, one woman squeaking as the ghost trailing Winter walked through her. Why did she love when he did that? It was always entertaining to watch people look around them with alarm when she knew it wasn’t anything other than a cold chill.
His car was pretty easy to spot. The only running vehicle in the area while most of the guests now staying at the Elysium had been walk-ins. Was Parker squirming a little as she walked up to the passenger side door? That didn’t seem right. She knocked on the window, wanting to alert him of her presence before trying to open the door in case he got spooked and ninja'd a dagger at her or something. She knew what he was capable of with his fists, no telling what he could do with a weapon. “Oh my god, you actually brought a pizza. Parker, you care.” She placed a hand over her heart as Henry scoffed. “Should have made you go get it yourself.”
A look was thrown over her shoulder before Winter grabbed the box and took her place in the car. “Henry says hi, by the way. Do you let people eat in your car? Do you want some?” Her good mood must have been attributed to finally getting out of that room. Henry couldn’t even bring it down while he glowered in the back seat, probably upset that he couldn’t have any pizza himself. “You know you didn’t have to come out here, right? I know you hate it here. But it has given me something to look forward to.”
Smartly, she had knocked on the window to indicate to him that she had arrived. He supposed it made sense given how… on edge their first in-person interaction was. Parker turned his head to regard her, one of his eyebrows twitching faintly as she seemed surprised that he followed through on his bringing her a pizza; he wasn’t sure what about him indicated that he held empty words, that he wasn’t one to actually do as he said he was going to do. Did people just think that he said things to placate them?
She looked over her shoulder before getting in - either she had heard something he didn’t, she was regarding the ghost known as Henry or both. When she said that the specter said hello, Parker’s own glance drifted to the backseat. Assuming the ghost had decided to sit in the back seat. It was a little surreal, to take someone’s word that there was an undead spirit lingering right in front of him though he couldn’t remotely and would never see it. “You may eat in the car. Just try to… keep the mess in the box.” He remarked mildly, blue eyes resting on her once more. He wasn’t about to tell her that the inside of his unassuming silver car had seen decidedly gorier things than flakes from a pizza crust.
“I don’t…” It would’ve been a lie to say that he didn’t actually hate it there, so the sentence faltered in his mouth. “It’s… more tolerable in the vehicle.” The Warden faced forward once more, moving rather carefully as he rolled one of his shoulders. “Also I… told you that I would. I don’t like lying. Or… saying things I don’t intend on keeping my word on.” A pause accompanied with an inhale through his arrow-straight nose. “Where would you like to go?”
It was a little amusing to watch him glance towards Henry knowing that he couldn’t see what she saw. She knew better than to think that he would be jarred by the sight of Henry and his detached arm but it was still funny to imagine the scene unfolding. In fact, she’d gotten so used to it that somebody else being frightened by the missing limb might have even surprised her a little. Henry waved at Parker, even while knowing the hunter couldn’t see him, and Winter rolled her eyes good naturedly as she turned back to the food; the wonderful food that Parker had now given her permission to eat inside of his car. She wasted no time, her mouth full by the time he had said to keep the mess contained inside the box so she nodded to acknowledge that she’d heard.
Swallowing the bite before speaking, she shook her head at his words. “Is it though? I mean, I get why you don’t like it out here. Some of the places have character but for the most part this place is not ideal. I’ve been looking for something else but I…am too hard to please.” She had rejected a high rise in Los Angeles just because she didn’t like the height of the cabinets in the kitchen but Winter had a feeling she was going to have to settle for some place around here.
She looked over, another bite of the pizza being chewed on thoughtfully while she tried to explain her doubts. How did she come right out and say that most people in her life ended up disappointing her so she’d come to expect it without it sounding mean? “I wasn’t trying to imply that you wouldn’t but most people don’t really keep their word, especially over small things like this. But I guess you’re not most people, are you?” It’s not like she would have been angry if he hadn’t brought the food, she’d suffered worse blows before, but it was refreshing to be around someone who wouldn’t say one thing to your face and turn around and do the opposite. “That’s pretty cool.”
Winter closed the pizza box after scarfing down the first piece, her mind now going to the potential stores they could hit. “There’s a boutique in Harborside I wanted to check out. I’ve never shopped at a small town store but anything with the word boutique has to have something quality in it. But I’ll also give you one last chance to back out because this is going to test your limits, I know it.” Henry snorted from the back seat, not able to resist adding his own comment. “I’ve seen her online shop, she’s not wrong.”
Well, if nothing else in this trip mattered, at least he had gotten her the right type of pizza. Either that or she was just so desperate not to eat hotel food anymore that anything would’ve sufficed. Then as she responded to his comments about Worm Row, Parker decided to get them going - the sooner they were out of that general vicinity, the sooner he felt as though maybe whatever few nerves had worked themselves up inside him would calm down. So he started driving, slow, rather leisurely, still carefully weaving around the spots on the ground on the off-chance that hitting it would spontaneously freeze his car and envelop it.
“I’ve… been informed that I’m not like most people, no.” Parker replied, keeping his eyes on the road though he made it evident that he was still listening to her as well as he possibly could’ve. “I understand that there’s a general casualty to words.” He said. “I’m very careful with my words. I said I would bring you a pizza. I said I would take you shopping. I don’t make false offers.” As he spoke, his mind planned a map for him to take that would avoid the problems with the roads and still head over to Harborside.
And yet, as Winter assured him that this shopping trip would test his limits, the Warden scoffed through his nose; the closest he’d ever come to laughing in over two decades, perhaps even more. “You know it?” He asked, his expression softening ever-so-slightly as what seemed to be the ghost of a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. “You know what my limits are?” It was playful. An attempt to… loosen up. This was a new interaction between them.
“That’s not a bad thing, everyone being the same is boring.” Some of the other residents of Wicked’s Rest floated through her mind after saying that which prompted her to add under her breath, “Well, some people could stand to add a little boring to their life.” She was starting to think she was included in that comment. Ever since Henry had become a part of her life things had spiraled and normal was a different world away. Winter had learned so much about herself and the world and yet she still had so many unanswered questions. Especially when it concerned her past and how her family factored into all of this. Had her parents known all this time that she was able to see these things or were they just as clueless?
“I will keep that in mind then.” Winter looked over at him again, regarding him silently. It wasn’t often a person came across someone who stuck to their word, even the little things, and she felt a little lucky that she’d found someone who would do that. The question was: Was she able to do the same for him? If friendship was a transaction in her mind, an exchange of good deeds and care, then she owed it to him, right? It was probably time to start being more careful with her words, and not just around Parker either, around everyone. “But I also want you to know that if you promise something as small as a pizza and you don’t follow through for whatever reason it’s not that big of a deal.”
An eyebrow quirked at his reaction, the girl glad that he was able to relax enough around her to be humorous in his own way. It also felt a little like a challenge which she loved. There was nothing more amusing than a competition for her and Winter was always confident that her win was imminent. “Maybe I don’t, but I’m sure I’m going to find them today.” Henry leaned forward between the two of them, his expression grim. “Dude, just stop now. I’ve never seen anyone so willing to push a person’s buttons before.” Winter smirked at the words, deciding not to relay the message. This was going to be a fun day.
The Warden felt the ghost of a smirk of his own tug on the corner of his ever-downturned mouth in response to the medium’s playful challenge. “We’ll see.” He said, realizing immediately after he said it that he had sounded more like his own father than he had in a while. That was a rare thing, as Parker recalled it now; they were on a trip, one specifically for the younger Wright as the four of them were in the car, passing by unfamiliar landmarks and environments. When asking where they were going, taking a break from his curious staring out of the window, his father, with a half smile on his face, raised his brow with a knowing look and said ‘we’ll see’.
While the situation wasn’t exactly the same, it did carry a reminiscent feeling with it and it was those moments, the rare memories where things seemed… almost normal, in their own way, that made Parker insist that he didn’t have a bad childhood. He was the exception to the general rule that hunters all had troubled upbringings. He was the outlier. His father was strict, but Parker only ever got in trouble because of things he did wrong, or ways that he was wrong; deficiencies, shortcomings, weaknesses. He appreciated his father’s patience with him.
Patience that he could extend to Winter as the two (though Henry was presumably there and tagging along whether he wanted to go or not) went to the first store on her mental list. And thus began what turned out to be a morning, though how eventful it was was purely going by Winter’s personal approval rating - they’d go to a store, where she’d try on different articles of clothing while he waited. He’d provide commentary or constructive criticism if she asked, and she would suggest things for him to wear in turn though Parker always politely declined; he was doing what he considered to be a suitable job hiding it but he was having trouble blatantly ignoring whatever was on or in his back, aching his muscles, feeling weighty as it would twinge uncomfortably and sharply whenever he would move a certain way.
The most annoying part was realizing that he couldn’t reach it. Despite this, he reacted to her quips with his own dry sense of “humor”, rolling with her punches and though he didn’t wonder himself, it could’ve been curious how malleable he was, all things considered. His brother had noted it before, when they had gone to do things together, how Parker was a follower and a receiver of instructions without asking questions. ‘It don’t matter what you’re thinkin’. You’ll do what I say, won’t you boy?’ After all, he wasn’t here for himself. He was here for Winter, and now they sat in the car after the fourth store.
The Warden checked his watch absently, though the dashboard clock was right there. “It’s about 2pm.” He said. “Would you like to break for lunch?” He asked. “Or do you want to keep eating your pizza.”
Winter had to give Parker props. Usually by the third store whoever she was shopping with would bow out or at least start looking like walking into traffic sounded more enjoyable than whatever hell she was putting them through but the hunter was keeping up quite nicely as they went along. In fact, she might have been the one getting annoyed with him. It was time to get Parker out of the henleys but everything she suggested fell on deaf ears. She just wanted him to broaden his fashion horizons, was that so much to ask?
Apparently, it was and Henry was living for it. Every ‘no’ that the medium got, no matter how polite, would send Henry into a fit of laughter as her face fell. She was starting to think she needed to find a way to get rid of the ghost again before she remembered her salt necklace she had gotten for Christmas. Threatening him with it sure shut him up every single time too.
She had noticed something off with her friend though. As enjoyable as the day had turned out to be she could see that something was bothering Parker even if he was trying to hide it. It sort of felt like he was trying to make sure he didn’t ruin their simple time together with whatever was going through his mind and for the longest time Winter had chosen to ignore the occasional slight squirm or the twitch of annoyance on his face. Only because she appreciated his own desire to ignore whatever was going on. She, more than most, could understand not wanting to talk about an underlying issue. Most people assumed that she didn’t care much about what others were going through, and didn't notice when something was off. The truth was, she wasn’t someone who would force someone to talk when they didn’t want to but after the fourth store she couldn’t pretend anymore.
“I’d rather talk about what’s bothering you.” Food was the last thing on her mind, shopping was even taking a backseat right now which was a rare occasion. She loved those damn fitting rooms. “Are you really not getting bothered by how many stores I’ve dragged you to or are you hiding it? I can tell something’s up and I don’t want you to pretend you’re okay with all of this if it’s torture to you.” And Winter would love it if he admitted defeat. The satisfaction it would bring was too much for her to ignore. Even Henry was sick of shopping and he got to mess around and spook the other patrons while they were out.
At Winter’s response, Parker was admittedly a little taken aback which was displayed to her via a slight tilt of his head. He knew that she was intuitive, but he supposed that his ability to suppress whatever irritation was on his mind, especially now that he had control over his emotions again, was stronger than her intuition. That being said, though she was able to discern that there was indeed something on his mind (or rather, on his back), she came to the wrong conclusion and after the initial surprise, he shook his head. “No, it doesn’t bother me. Really.” He added, giving her a rather earnest look as though to nonverbally convey that nothing she was doing, suggesting, or wanting was annoying him.
But… The expression shifted in subtle ways that he wouldn’t have been able to explain and Parker broke eye contact with her, turning his head and looking out of the front windshield. Then he shifted in his seat slightly, a twitch of his eye escaping as he did so. And yet, the sharp, precise pricks of pain were preferable to the pressure of feeling his father’s eyes on his back as he tended to when he was at risk of exposing anything about himself. They bored into him now, simultaneously making him want to shy away from their unwavering glare and also straighten his spine, which he always did so instead.
Eventually, after a longer moment of silence between them than was necessary, Parker blinked and shook his head as though pulling himself back into the present. Or out of his head, he wasn’t sure which. “Sorry.” He apologized first. “I have… It’s… I’m not sure what it is but…” Every few words were punctuated with a pause or a falter, something on the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t spit out. ‘So just… say it. Quit wasting her time.’ “I think… there’s something on my back. A… splinter or… I’m not sure.” As though she could see it, he leaned forward slightly and gestured to it. “And I can’t reach it.”
Damn. He really didn’t care that she had dragged him all over each store that they had been in. It was no big deal though, at least the day hadn’t been wasted in any way. Winter now had quite a few pieces to add to her wardrobe and a few gifts she had bought for others…including a shirt that wasn’t a Henley for the man next to her even if he wasn’t going to wear it. Still, something was up with Parker and the implied ‘but’ after his sentence lingering in the air between them like some uncomfortable secret trying to break free.
She almost rolled her eyes but decided a little grace was needed. Parker had never been one to shy away from what he was thinking but sometimes he needed a little time to get to his point. She could see his mind spinning slightly as she watched him, the little signs recognizable thanks to her years of studying the body language of others to help with her show, but she stayed quiet. The medium even looked down into one of the bags from their latest store to hopefully make whatever this was more comfortable for him, glad that for once Henry was silent as well.
Her eyebrows rose as he started to stumble over his words, Winter never having seen Parker this unsure of what he wanted to say. It almost scared her and she was surprised when the worry started to make her heart pound a little.
That worry was crushed as he revealed what it was. An itch? That’s what this was about? “Parker, why were you so tight lipped about that? It’s not a big deal. Let me look, I’ll see what it is.” Winter set the bag down on the floorboard and turned to face him. It was a back, there was nothing to be shy about but she didn’t think that maybe that’s why it was awkward for him in the first place.
Her question wasn’t answered immediately; no, it stewed in Parker’s head, with the voices of his family deciding to chime in for their own reasons or explanations. ‘You turn little things into a big deal for no reason.’
‘Who the hell knows what information you choose to share and withhold? Your brain’s always been busted.’
‘It’s just something else you’ll need to repay.’
The Warden’s brow furrowed as blue eyes darted back and forth, looking at the ground and moving as though he were reading something fervently. It wasn’t a big deal. Nothing was a big deal, they were just things that Parker twisted and corrupted and turned into monumental things for reasons he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t have told her it was embarrassing that he couldn’t take care of it himself. He couldn’t have told her that his misplaced sense of pride that had been instilled in him told him that he was supposed to do everything on his own. ‘You don’t have friends, after all.’ Inhaling through an arrow-straight nose, tension evident in something so simple, the hunter wordlessly rotated in his seat.
His arms crossing over themselves in front of his chest, Parker grasped either side of his familiar gray henley and started to hitch the shirt up, revealing a disorganized web of scars on his skin; small, razor-fine lines, deep, discolored claw marks and even a few that were curiously raised, that both overlaid and underlaid the segmented abdomen of a dragonfly tattoo that aligned with his vertebrae. The rest of the tattoo still hid under his shirt, which he was very careful not to lift excessively, already feeling far more exposed than he’d have liked to. What wasn’t hidden under the shirt, eventually, was a large, pulsing insect about the size of a tennis ball and garnet in color as it twitched absently, its head buried in the Warden’s flesh just to the side of his spine.
The shock of all of the marks on this man’s back took her aback, Winter feeling as if her brain was currently rebuffering and struggling to do as such. She couldn’t process everything at once and she was suddenly very aware as to why he might have been hesitant to do this. Was this his life? Just constantly being slashed and broken by the things he was sworn to protect everyone against? Wide eyes scanned over the raised flesh, onto the deep divets, and finally over the unexpected sight of a tattoo that disappeared under the rest of his shirt. What else was he hiding under there? Did she even want to know?
She decided that she didn’t. This was enough of a glimpse into what he’d been through in his lifetime.
Feelings of discomfort upon seeing the damage his body had taken quickly turned into feelings of disgust when she saw the cause of his irritation. “Oh, fuck no!” Her body jerked back slightly, startled by the sight of the large tick that had burrowed into his skin. Henry was torn between laughter and his own discomfort, wanting to immediately make fun of Winter’s reaction but also noting the damaged skin on the Warden’s back. She was glad he stayed quiet, already distressed by the bug in front of her.
“What the hell have you been rolling around in? There’s a freaking tick latched onto you!” Throw Winter in the middle of a spriggan attack, a goo filled hotel, but put a bug in front of her and she was going to lose it. Her composure was broken, a rare sight indeed, and didn’t care one bit. “Oh, god, I have to take that out, don’t I?” She would. Only for certain people would she even consider doing this for, but she would for Parker. She just had to freak out first and she hoped he would let her without feeling too put out by it all. A whine filled the car, the girl closing her eyes to take in a few breaths, and she started to shake her hands in an attempt to pump herself up for this. “Okay, okay, I think I can do this. I just need a minute.”
Shame wasn’t an emotion that Parker wore often, nor did he wear it well; he had been made acutely and harshly aware of it when he was very young, and as such was quickly trained not to respond or acknowledge it. As such, few things gave him the feeling and one of those few things was the perception that the scars he’d accumulated over the years were abhorrent. Ugly things that caused one to recoil in fear, disgust, anger, or whatever else. He knew this, just as he knew that the same scars that tensed him up as she retaliated in such a spirited way didn’t seem to cross his mind at all when he went swimming in the indoor pool that he frequented during the colder months.
Maybe it had something to do with how he couldn’t have cared less about what strangers thought of him, but he knew Winter better now and with the introduction of… friends (if he could call himself and Winter that), there was an unspoken set of rules that Parker had to follow. Certain facets of himself that he either couldn’t or wouldn’t display for the benefit of others. This wasn’t a stranger at the pool. Instinctively, the hunter started to lower his shirt again as though to nonverbally apologize for affronting her with the markings–
Then all the shame flew out of the window when she mentioned the singular word: tick. Instantly, Parker felt himself relaxing and if he had been less robotic with how he reacted to everything, a little closer to a normal human, he might’ve even laughed at how foolishly he was overreacting to a misunderstanding. It wasn’t the scars she was viscerally reacting to; it was an insect. Rather casually, he turned his head slowly though instead of looking at the young woman, he acted as though he could see the thing on his back and he hummed absently. “Mm. I wonder where I acquired it.” He replied in his usual flat affect.
“You don’t have to–” He started to follow-up his musing with the insistence that he wasn’t about to ask her to do such a thing; she was obviously not a fan of bugs and if this one was as impressive as it seemed to persistently cause him pain (something else unusual for Parker) but in his peripheral vision he caught her movements. Quietly, he turned his head back around instead of staring at her expectantly, though the grip on his shirt tightened subconsciously. “You don’t have to. I can have it surgically removed.” He said, now feeling more childishly embarrassed that there was an insect on him that he could neither reach nor was aware was even an insect, feeling quite inadequate at his job, skills and interests but not enough for him to react particularly strongly to it.
For a moment she was more than ready to take him up on the offer to get this thing surgically removed but the thought of diseases that spread through these things hit and she just couldn’t let him go with it in his back for longer than he had to. “No, no, what if you got lyme disease or something because it was in there for too long?” Shit, was it already too late for that? Winter didn’t know how these things worked, whether the contracted diseases through them were instant or if it needed some time, but she still wasn’t letting him go with this thing embedded in him for any longer. He was clearly annoyed by it, if not in pain. “Besides, it’s causing a lot of discomfort and there’s no need for that.”
“Brave girl you are.” The ghost was being sarcastic with her? In these conditions? She shot a glare Henry’s way but he was still smirking under the fierce gaze. What a dick.
Winter was still pressed against the other side of the car as she moved to grab her purse from the floor board. Tweezers were an essential tool on the daily for everyone. One could never know when a stray hair needed to be plucked from their eyebrows, after all. “Alright, uh…I’m throwing these out of the window when I’m done but you’re lucky I keep these on me.”
The medium paused in her movements after she came back with the tweezers, Henry laughing at the disgust filling her features while she looked at the pulsating bug on his back. She took a deep breath in to calm her nerves before she reached out with the tweezers, removing the large tick as quickly as she could. Winter probably should have been more careful with it but she didn’t care as her hand came back with the entirely too large insect, not noticing there was something missing. It was out the window as soon as she could roll the glass down, tweezers and all. “Ugh!”
Surprise crept onto his features when she turned down his offer to remove her from the undesirable job; she was obviously less than enthused. Parker didn’t blame her, either; he liked insects, even the parasites and given how he could feel this one, it must’ve been particularly… unpleasant-looking. “The likelihood of a disease affecting me is incredibly low.” Despite her reluctant willingness to help, he still wanted to make sure she was privy to his strengthened immune system, just in case. ‘Just in case what, she changes her mind and decides not to just remove the thing?’ His brother asked. ‘Like you’re gonna go to a doctor. You hate those, remember?’
The Warden shook his brother’s voice out of his thoughts and he looked back over his shoulder as he managed to hear her rummaging through her purse before mentioning that she was going to be ‘throwing these out the window’. Throwing what– oh. For a moment, Parker had half a mind to tell the young woman to just use one of the blades from his belt but it wasn’t in his mind for very long; she didn’t seem like the type to be particularly proficient with a knife. No offense to her, of course. Maybe that was something he could teach her if she wanted. For now, though, his gaze flickered to the tweezers before resting on Winter’s face for a moment longer and eventually turning his head back to face the opposite window, feeling just a little more heat from what was probably embarrassment on his cheeks.
“I’ll buy you more.” He offered, ignoring the stinging sensation from the tick in favor of breathing deeply and calmly, in a rhythmic fashion as he attempted to help settle her nerves. How successful it was, Parker wasn’t sure but it was all he could do in the moment, partially for her and partially to keep his own emotional reaction under tight control. He was in control.
But man could he feel when she was pulling that insect off of him. A sharp inhale was the only reaction she got, however, and it felt as though a physical weight had been released from Parker as she presumably threw the insect as well as her beloved tweezers from the car with her spirited verbal effort. If nothing else, her disgust for it helped get the task done quickly. Fluidly, he pulled his shirt back down, ignoring whatever blood would’ve gathered around the bite mark and he flexed and extended his shoulders, rotating back in his seat as he rolled his neck. There was still a residual thump, a small heartbeat in his skin but he knew that would be gone within the hour.
It felt so foolish, he realized. To be affected by something so completely insignificant. However, unlike the last two times they’d interacted, both of them had control over their emotions and Parker turned to regard Winter again, finding her eyes with his own and his expression… softened. Still rather robotic and any emotions worn on it subtle but there. “Thank you.” He said quietly. “I… wouldn’t have been upset if you couldn’t do it. But… I knew you could.”
“You don’t have to buy me anything. Besides, I have a few at home.” Despite how soft Winter was speaking she couldn’t get the disgust out of her tone. Why did it have to be a freaking tick? Those were the worst of the parasitic creatures and that was including the ones who used to be human. A little shiver ran through her but it wasn’t due to the cold at all.
“That makes one of us, then.” When she opened her eyes at his words, hazel meeting blue, she raised a questioning eyebrow at the look he was giving her. It wasn’t just the softened gaze but the red cheeks to go along with it and for a split second she couldn’t understand why Parker was staring like that. Was he embarrassed? Shit, she had embarrassed him, hadn’t she? Winter didn’t think Parker could get embarrassed but she seemed to have found the trick to doing so. Now whether that was because of the grossest bug known to man on his back or the scars etched into his skin was anyone’s guess but his.
Another thing hit her after that thought….Parker had said ‘thank you.’ It might have been the first time she’d heard him utter those words and she wasn’t really sure what to do with them. A feeling of discomfort filled her chest as she realized how much that had meant to him, the medium always faltering when it came to the whole feelings part of things, especially when those mostly confirmed that their budding friendship was now a full blown thing.
“Right…no, yeah, you’re not supposed to thank me, remember?” That seemed right. Reminding him of his small error was the way to go here. Winter sat back against the door of the car as Henry scoffed, the girl just imagining the ghost rolling his eyes at the two of them. “It was no problem, not even worth the thank you.” She wouldn’t look Parker in the eye as she added one last thing. “But….you know, anytime you need something you know you can come to me.” She fought a gigantic bug for the guy, that was enough to prove she would stand by his side during most anything. It wasn’t everyday the Winter Cahya would go into the throes of battle with such a thing.
This was it. Andrea smiled nervously up at her father as her small hands smoothed the lace material of her wedding gown. “I’m nervous.” She admitted, her breath picking up slightly as she met her father’s gaze. His strong and comforting hands reached out and gripped gently at her arms, giving them a squeeze. “So am I, mija, but this will work out.” Javier Morales sighed, shaking his head briefly before meeting his youngest daughter’s gaze. “I know I haven’t always been supportive of the decision you made in doing this. I’m traditional and this… it’s a little out of the normal but I’m here for you, mi nina.” There was a sadness in his eyes, the same sadness that flooded Andrea’s gaze. “Your mother and sisters may take a little time to warm up to it, but I’ll be there for you.” It was the exact words that Andie needed to hear on this day. A wedding day was many girls’ biggest day. For Andrea, she had been planning it since she could understand the concept of falling in love and committing yourself to another human being. The wedding day she was in the middle of, however, was so far from what her younger self had envisioned. Andrea Haydee Morales had pictured her wedding with the man of her dreams, ready to walk down the aisle with all her sisters as her bridesmaids, her mom helping her get ready and her father more than approving of the man she chose. She pictured beautiful white and pink lilies lining the aisle of the church she had grown up attending and her pastor at the end of the aisle, reassuring her of God’s full blessing on the union that was about to be made in His presence. But that wasn’t where she was now.
Behind the closed doors of the venue they were in, was the man she was marrying, and Andie didn’t even know his name. The twenty-five-year-old woman had no knowledge of any details of her future husband. Two of her sisters were not speaking to her and her mother was in the audience, but she would be lucky to make eye contact with her for even a second. The brunette didn’t regret being part of the show Married at First Sight, but she didn’t expect everything that had gone down since she had broken the news to her family. With a sigh, Andrea turned to give her attention to one of the crew persons that was letting her know they were ready to roll. With a final squeeze from her father’s hands, Andrea took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Okay… I’m ready.” She said and opened her eyes as her father and her got in position in front of the closed doors. On the other side of those doors stood her future husband and the fate of her future. It could go either way, but she was positive everything would work out. It had to. And as the doors open and familiar notes of the wedding march began to swirl around her, Andrea lifted her gaze and immediately found the man she was marrying, and her heart leaped in her chest. This was it. Looping her arms with her dad’s Andie took her first step down the aisle, finding the eyes of her future husband and offering him a nervous but equally excited smile of her maroon painted lips.
who: @walshparker
when: move in week
where: some party or another
Mari slipped through the crowd of people towards the bathroom, drink in hand - held out gingerly in hopes that it wouldn't spill with as crowded as it was. She should've known better than to go to a party like this on the first week. As much as she had wanted to go out and have fun, the place was packed with people, people who had returned from the summer determined to make an impact in the social scene (doubtful) or turn over a new leaf (unoriginal) or were just freshman panting at the start of their brand new college life (sure to let them down).
In other words, it was safe to say Mari was feeling like a jaded senior.
The line for the bathroom was long, a roll of her eyes the only indication that she had wanted to wait as she pushed past people waiting, sure there had to be another one in the off-campus house somewhere. She drifted past the people who had bothered to wait, finding a barricade at the bottom of a staircase, which she promptly ignored to go up. She had almost made it to the blissfully quiet upstairs, at least in comparison to the din of the party going on just below, when she saw someone else turn from one side of the hallway in front of the top of the stairs, silhouetted against the light coming from the party. "Fuck," she muttered under her breath, sure she would be sent back down. Mari kept going up the stairs with confidence, realizing it was Parker as she reached the top. A small sigh of relief slipped out of her lips, Mari greeting the redhead with a rueful smile. "Did you sneak up here to find a bathroom too?" she said in greeting, the question coming out in a quasi-amused lilt.
who: @walshparker
where: tri delt valentine’s party
when: during spin the bottle
After her horrific turn with Monty, Mari would’ve gladly tapped out for the night - left the game, if not just left the party all together. Valentine’s Day had slowly curdled into her least favorite holiday over the past two years, and she didn’t know what she had expected this year - Greer wasn’t here, but that didn’t make it any better. But she knew that if she tried to sneak away, she’d never hear the end of it. From Monty, from Ida, from anyone who was playing the game.
So Mari sucked it up, leaning forward to spin the bottle.
She acted unbothered as it spun in circles, eyes staring at it, not wanting to look up and see who it could possibly land on - not wanting to get her hopes up or accidentally manifest her worst nightmare (it landing on Monty again). It slowed, rattling towards a stop, Mari only daring to look up when it had landed on someone.
Parker.
It could’ve been far worse.
After their...meeting, at least there could be a relaxation of barriers around her, a small piece of Mari uncovered, aired out when it so rarely got to be. But if she was honest, she would’ve liked to get at least one spin with someone who was into her.
Except Monty was - or had been, once upon a time - into her. That was part of the problem.
Someone she was into that was into her, then.
Mari wanted that moment - the heat with someone, the mutual desire, the door shutting and hands immediately reaching for each other like they had hardly been able to wait. But with Parker, it was clear that was how she felt about Jesse. And with Mari, even though there had been inklings of it towards other woman (one of which was the redhead the bottle was currently pointing at), it wasn’t returned when there was one.
At least not like it had been with Greer.
She did her best to hide any sort of disappointment on her face - it wasn’t personal, there was no reason to make Parker feel some type of way about it. She probably would’ve looked the same no matter who it had landed on, unless she had looked up to see a certain blonde returned to sit across the circle from the bottle (actually - seemed like something Greer would do). Luckily, Mari was good at putting on a fake smile, one that passed for genuine amusement as she unfolded herself to stand, moving towards the closet again. “Shall we?” she asked Parker, a melodic hint of laughter in her words as she spoke.
PARTIES:@longislandcharm @wonder-in-wings
TIMING: The 10th day of Parker's emotion excursions, Mid-August
SUMMARY: Apparently alley muggings are drawn to Parker like a moth to a flame. Once again, he gets into an altercation but this time he’s found by Winter.
WARNINGS: Mentions of gore, blood, violence, unsanitary tw, brief mentions of parental abuse.
Day 10.
Worm Row was a little too close for comfort sometimes. Though it was easier to waste time there than Nightfall Grove, with its setting sun at 3pm, which was usually preferred but the Warden didn’t particularly want to go out at night nowadays unless it was in the safety of the Pines. But if he stuck around the house, that drove him even more crazy. All that being said, if Parker never went back to Worm’s Row ever again, it’d be too soon… as he went there of his own volition. He wondered how many times he’d skulk around in those dingy streets, finding something to do with his time only to be approached and accosted by some STRANGER he’d NEVER MET before who threatened him.
Then again, perhaps today was a little bit different. The good news was that the last time he was there, Parker had managed to find his spiked iron knuckles. The bad news was that as he walked today, getting nervous energy out, finding himself with a lot of free time as he figured he didn’t have the patience or collected demeanor to work on his projects (not even the giant tooth he assumed belonged to an ancient demon) and he wasn’t going to work at present, the three thugs that attempted to mug him before seemed to be part of a larger gang and Parker, with his fresh gash and ability to take three of them on at once, seemed to make him easily-recognizable to them.
Today was a little different, and this accuser was a little different. It was one guy as opposed to three and he was… certainly a larger fae than a lot of others Parker had encountered so far as he stood half a foot taller than the Warden, looming over him with a sneer and little time for the hunter to respond as the thug aimed a fist at his face which sent him staggering into yet another alley.
…It wasn’t TOO different, though. In a rush of red and white-hot anger, Parker was overcome with rage and a tinge of some mystery emotion he refused to acknowledge. The fae had half a foot on the Warden but mattered little as the hunter, who was constantly on edge and only needed one miniscule inconvenience to send him over it, quickly gained the upper hand and wrestled the fae to the ground. He didn’t know what species it was, he didn’t care strangely enough. The moment it had landed on the ground Parker slipped his fingers into his spiked iron paperweight and the onslaught began. One punch, two, three– Over and over. Over and over.
It was the ice cream. It had to be. Every time Winter had ice cream something insane happened and she was starting to really hate the stuff. She had left the hotel that night for a sweet treat, luckily finding an establishment open, and was on her way back when she heard the noise. It wasn’t the smartest decision on her part to move towards it especially in this town and especially at night but once again her curiosity outweighed the voice in her head screaming for her to turn around and go back to the hotel. And curiosity always killed the cat, right?
She moved slowly, her feet light while she made her way into the alley that the noises were coming from while she silently cursed herself in her head. This was so stupid. Why was she allowing herself to get into even more crap in this town? But before Winter could really talk herself out of it she’d stopped in her tracks when a single light source helped reveal a man completely brutalizing another further down in the alley.
The ice cream fell to the ground just like it had back at Mack’s place. She felt the cold sticky substance hit the top of her feet that were glued to their place, the girl flinching with each blow that connected with the larger man’s face. It took a moment for her to really process this whole situation but once she had Winter let out a feeble noise that sounded something along the lines of ‘stop’ only the sound didn’t quite go far enough. It would have been smart to turn and run at that point, try and grab the authorities, but the poor man on the ground might not have had that much time. So she cleared her throat and tried again, this time her voice coming out much louder than before with no doubts that it had reached the two men. “Stop! You’re going to kill him!”
What if that had been the goal? She had no idea what she was interrupting here and yet her feet moved her forward once more, and this time much faster. Stopping just short of the two men, Winter realized she had no idea what the hell she was doing. There was no way to protect herself with nothing on her to use as a weapon but she just hoped having a witness present would help both her and the man lying on the ground. “Stop it!”
He wasn’t sure how long he had been going. The spiked paperweight had been abandoned again sometime during the blurry-minded attack in favor of bare knuckles to the disfigured visage of the fae, who’d since fallen unconscious, losing his glamour and revealing himself to be a particularly large spriggan. Parker wasn’t paying attention though as every fist thrown in the body’s direction felt like the first one he was doing. He was ten days into this damned curse and this was the fourth time he’d been harassed with zero provocation. His muscles rippled with anger as the blood roiled in his veins, turning itself over under his epidermis.
It wasn’t until he heard someone shouting, managing to reach his good ear that Parker shook his head from his trance, pausing in his flurry, his fist covered in blood and the spriggan’s face, neck, chest beaten to a pulp. He held his bruised fist wound back like a coiled spring but at the same time, he straightened up from his hunched position, leaning back and breathing heavily as his scarred face that was splashed with the same blood tilted back for a moment to regard the sky. The spriggan lay still under him, weeping blood from the massive contusions that covered its tattooed skin.
Parker’s body convulsed briefly, fiercely, as he turned his head sharply and threw an accusatory glare at whoever it was that interrupted his flow. “What are you doing here.” He growled before his blue eyes could properly make out the figure that called to him, unknowingly pulling him from his unintended bloodlust. It was then that he saw a girl. Young adult, maybe mid-20s (though Parker never had strength in that department) and almost immediately once he saw that it wasn’t a threatening-looking man covered in tattoos or brandishing a weapon in his direction, he shuddered out an exhale and he lowered his fist, becoming very still as he kept his unblinking stare on her almost as though she were an ethereal figure standing in the mouth of the alley to dispense justice to him.
A startled gasp left Winter when the man straightened up, his fist still held in the air as he faced her. For a split second she thought he was going to turn on her and bloody her the same way the man on the ground was and she felt herself stumble back. It was a miracle she didn’t fall backwards with how unstable her legs felt, adrenaline mixed with utter terror from the sight that befell her turning them into complete jello, but she somehow stood her ground as his words met her. “What am I doing here? What are you doing? Did you kill him?” Her hand shot out in the general direction of the other man without her eyes leaving the fist that was currently being lowered to the man's side. But with the threat level now lowered, literally, she allowed her gaze to travel over the area again.
There was a weapon on the ground next to a body that was most decidedly not a man. His ears pointed in an unnatural way, his limbs too slender for his body, but it was the sharp teeth that really drew Winter’s attention. Suddenly the threat wasn’t the one covered in another’s blood but the thing that was lying next to him. “What is that?”
It occurred to her that the moment she had crossed the town line into Wicked’s Rest the world had turned upside down and she was damn sure it wasn’t for the better. Whatever this thing was though she still didn’t know which one was the good and which one was the bad in this situation and that fact alone only proved how fucked this place was. Even if the appearance of the one currently unconscious, possibly dead, was seemingly unholy, what the hell did Winter know? All she knew was that the regular, normal looking man was the one who had blood on his hands.
She swallowed the bile that had risen in her throat, took another step away from them both on shaky legs, and tried to prepare herself to run if it came to that. It would be a struggle, that was a fact, but Winter wasn’t going down without a fight. “I think you should explain some things quickly before I decide to go to the police.”
As much as Parker was internally hoping that his demeanor coupled with his aggressive appearance, the fae’s blood that coated his hand and was spattered on his shirt and face and his low tone when he asked what her business was would be enough of a deterring combination to perhaps convince the young adult to turn around and leave him to his fury, she instead threw his question back at him. He supposed he should’ve seen it coming; after all, to the average person or even a more mild-mannered hunter (if such a thing existed) they just stumbled in with no context of a guy beating the life out of another guy.
She didn’t let the question of what Parker was taking his unrestrained anger out on linger for long when she gave him conflicting information by demanding that he explain himself as she took a step back. She was afraid, yet she wanted answers instead of just wordlessly going to the authorities. He moved more to face her, taking a step back himself from the unconscious body that lay clinging to life at his feet. “It’s a spriggan.” He answered first, as though the answer were obvious when he had an overwhelming feeling that it wasn’t; contrary to how Wicked’s Rest was a hotspot for the supernatural, there were still a shockingly large number of people who had no idea anything strange or unusual was permeating the town, crawling through the streets like a disease, a blotch on an otherwise unremarkable map.
As he stood there, looking her down with a steely stare, more of him was being pulled back to where he was, what he’d been doing and how it might’ve looked to others. Mere moments ago, she could’ve gone to the police with no explanation and he wasn’t doubting that he’d get into a fight with them, too. The pendulum threatened to swing in the other direction. Parker wouldn’t let it. Couldn’t. “What would you like an explanation on?” He asked with effort in his voice, restrained, as though he were trying to keep himself from either snapping at her or turning and yelling into the alley until his throat was ripped apart. His bloodied fist, bruised, swollen and aching started flexing and extending in his self-soothing gesture he learned worked well enough to help regulate the fluctuations in his head.
The stranger had done nothing wrong, had just happened into the wrong place at the wrong time. She didn’t deserve Parker’s misplaced wrath, despair, sorrow, guilt or shame. He wasn’t about to have a breakdown in front of her.
A spriggan...that name seemed to trigger something in her mind, going back to an online conversation she’d had where someone mentioned the type of fae that could be walking around town. Winter had immediately started a new search window for the various different kinds and she could swear that a ‘spriggan’ was mentioned in some deep lore. Still, seeing one up close was vastly different than reading what she was sure was wrong information about them. The internet never got anything correct.
She was going to ask him to elaborate but when her gaze locked on his almost accusatory one she could feel her fear starting to melt away into anger. It wasn’t unusual for her fight response to overtake her flight, something that had already been showcased a tiny bit that night, and she was pretty certain that if this guy was going to attack her he would have already. Winter still kept her distance, sure, but she decided to return to him just what he was giving to her; venom injected in her words and a gaze that would put Medusa to shame. “I suppose you could start with why you’re beating it to death? Did it do something to you?”
Did it have to do something to him to be deserving of such a fate? Winter knew nothing about these creatures or what havoc they could cause so maybe this was all warranted and she was disrupting the intentions of the greater good. Still, it would make her feel better to know this attack was prompted for a good reason. The idea of people going around and doing such things without provocation was scarier than knowing they had a ‘why’ in mind. It made it easier for her to believe that the creatures walking amongst them needed a reason as well and therefore made it easier to walk around this place with little fear.
She didn’t run. In fact, the longer she lingered, the more Parker could recognize that her expression was shifting from fearful to… what was the word he’d use. Vindictive? Reactionary? Defensive over a perceived victim? Evidently this was her thought process as she told him to explain why he was doing what he was doing.
The answer was immediately obvious. So why did Parker hesitate as long as he did to supply it? He roughly tore his gaze from her figure and glared back down at the spriggan, his face unrecognizable in the mess of torn flesh, ruined cartilage, fractured bones. An eye swollen shut. Sharp teeth missing from his bleeding gums. The Warden took a sharp breath as his blue eyes grazed his clenching and unclenching hand, feeling a pulse of pain course through it as he made it work. The pendulum was threatening to swing in the other direction. He tried not to let it and in an erratic moment, he reached up and attempted to wipe the blood from his face, unintentionally smearing it more across his cheek, into the grooves of the scar that spanned his eye socket to his jaw.
The sensation was sending fire through his skin. It was hot, sticky, unbearable. Parker’s breath grew slightly more shallow, attempting to keep it even by gulping for air as he now reached into his back pocket for a stark white embroidered handkerchief. “He attacked me.” He said, his tone suddenly taking a new edge to it; it wasn’t aggressive, accusatory… it was almost tinged with fear. “A few days ago. It was…” He glanced around as though able to physically see the memory floating before him. “And I–” He fervently rubbed at the viscera that clung to his fist. Harder. Harder. “He started it.” This one came out as a growl, low, quiet. The pendulum was freely swinging now and he avoided her gaze, aggressively attempting to get the blood off his skin, not realizing that his knuckles were split from the spriggan’s teeth.
“What are you?” He asked, a frantic effort to maintain some control. “I mean– Who are you? What’s… your name?”
The sight of the man smearing even more blood over his already speckled face had Winter’s stomach rolling with nausea. Even with all of her bravado, and even as she tried to muster up more strength to keep up the appearance of such bravado, she had to look away from him. He looked so much like a psychopath in that moment that wasn’t sure she would be able to stand much more of a conversation with him without truly getting sick. It wasn’t in her to tuck tail though meaning looking away was the best option to try and resolve the conflict swirling through her mind.
She could hear his breathing becoming more uneven and the noise brought forward the tinge of fear still embedded deep in her bones, but still she stood rooted to her spot. It wasn’t until she heard the movement that Winter allowed herself to look at him again, afraid that he’d grown tired of their conversation and would have her meet the same fate as the creature on the ground. He was still there though, the movement having been him attempting to get the crimson off of his face with a handkerchief. The contrast of the blood soaking into the stark white of the material didn’t mix well with the new words thrown her way as Winter noted how ironic it was that he was the one who sounded afraid this time.
Watching him though…for some reason as he started rubbing vigorously at his own skin she felt something different towards him…pity, maybe. Everyday she walked down the streets now Winter had to wonder whether or not she would have to defend herself against something wanting a meal and whether she could do such a thing. Why should he be punished or accused for being able to accomplish his own defense against someone attacking him? With tentative steps forward, the girl got closer to him than she had yet to do that night. She wouldn’t touch him in an attempt to stop his violent struggle though, that was still off the table. “I don’t think that’s helping. You might need some medical attention and I think the handkerchief is only making it worse.” She paused, wondering if there was anything in her bag that might help him get some of the blood off. Her hands went up to the strap over her shoulder slowly so as not to alarm him before she pulled it down to start searching. “I might have some nail polish remover but I don’t know if that would do anything.”
Attention was suddenly switched to her, startled by the questions that he shot at her even though they should have been expected. The real question here was if she wanted to reveal the truth to him or not. It was simple, all he wanted was her name, but would this bring her more trouble later down the line? But it wasn’t like a simple google search wouldn’t give him the answer so what was the point in keeping it from him. “Winter, my name is Winter. What’s yours?”
She stepped closer and instinctively, while Parker wanted to remain where he was in a display of dominance, he himself took a small step back though he kept his eyes on her warily. It wasn’t as though he thought she was going to suddenly turn aggressive - he already had the energy to retaliate if she wanted to get into a fight with him but from the way she avoided looking at him for a moment as he tried to get the blood off his knuckles, either his appearance or behavior was something she didn’t want to keep eye contact with. He didn’t blame her; Every time he scraped some of the fluid away, more would ooze out from his skin. He heard her say that what he was doing wasn’t helping and internally, he knew it wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t helping, he knew that he was just exacerbating the bruising and the injured bones beneath the discolored flesh. A repetitive motion for him to feel something that he could control.
However, as she got closer, he didn’t protest by moving any further away and, indeed, the fervent white material that was stained red now from the motions ceased in its scrubbing slowly, coming to a stop like an engine that had run out of fuel. Parker’s gaze slowly went back to the stranger, still unblinking but lacking its cold sharpness, a dulled blade in the shadow of the alley. She moved slowly and part of him wondered why. ‘It’s because you look like a crazy person right now, bro’. His brother’s voice in his head made him grit his teeth. This wasn’t right. He wasn’t supposed to look like this, act like this. It had been ten days. Ten days.
His breath got shakier, shallower. Nail polish remover ran through his head briefly before he managed to take a deep, shuddering breath as he straightened up from his defensive stance. Stop the pendulum. “Winter.” Parker repeated her name, immediately recognizing it and he decided to cling to that, use it as a grounding technique to keep himself from falling back into the futility of trying to scrape blood off his fist. “I remember you.” His expression didn’t soften, per se, but a little more of the intensity seemed to drain from him. He still felt tightly-wound but she was making an effort. Her aggression was waning and he wanted his to, as well. So long as they were ignoring the unconscious and debatably alive body behind them. “I’m… Parker.” He wondered if she remembered him, too - the girl he spoke to about ghosts, the exchange of information.
And suddenly he was embarrassed. In a subtle gesture, he covered the bleeding fist with the crimson-spotted handkerchief and turned his body slightly as though trying to hide the injury from her. He didn’t dislike her when they spoke; rather, he wanted to learn about ghosts and tell her about the fae. And here Parker was, beating the shit out of one, looking the way he did, acting the way he was. ‘At least stand up straight.’ He did, pulling himself back slightly as he kept his eyes on her. “We talked online.” He alluded to their conversation, hoping she remembered him.
Even as she searched, Winter kept allowing her eyes to travel back to the man. She was already in a vulnerable state here, something she detested, and she didn’t need to make it easier on him if he suddenly switched into attack mode once more. After all, she noticed that something had switched again, though it seemed to be for the better this time. The frustration hadn’t disappeared entirely but she didn’t exactly feel like she was in danger anymore when recognition started to spark in his eyes as her name reached him. Did he know her? So many questions started to swirl through her mind but Winter refrained from asking anything. Overwhelming him was not the best idea.
Fingers grabbing onto the object she was looking for, the medium fully looked up at him once more as she pulled the bottle out of her purse only to cling on to it as he gave his name. That name that sparked images of frat boys at a particularly wild party almost elicited a sardonic laugh from her lips but she held back the sound when her eyes met his, realizing this was not the time for offhand comments. She recalled a thought that she’d had while speaking to him online, something about collecting the bodies of these creatures before he’d clarified that he liked the wings and appendages but this act of violence only proved to Winter that there was most likely a little more to it than that.
Still, it was probably best to show that she did absolutely remember him as well. A connection was better than being a total stranger, right? “I remember.” A nod of her head accompanied the words before she held out the bottle of nail polish remover, her nerve starting to return little by little.. “I have no clue if this will do anything other than burn but it’s yours if you want it.” If acetone didn’t remove blood then Winter didn’t know anything that would, at least not anything around them at the moment. “It’s worth a try though. You probably shouldn’t be walking around with…” She gestured to her own face to indicate that she was talking about his blood covered skin, the girl still having trouble looking at him because of it. It wasn’t the blood that got to her, not really. It was the fact that the spread looked intentional on some level even if she knew it hadn’t been. How completely American Psycho of him.
Winter glanced over at the body on the ground, her mind going back to the conversation they’d had online. What was it he had said? He had been…genetically produced? To hunt these things? In a way, it made her feel like she could trust him more when it came to his admission that he’d been attacked. He had said he was there to protect against fae and had denied collecting their entire bodies so this incident was starting to make more sense. “I suppose you do this often, then? This is what you were talking about when you said you protect against them?”
She remembered. Parker exhaled softly with what could’ve been related to a small semblance of relief. Granted, he preferred never to look like this in front of non-fae - he couldn’t have cared less if fae were afraid of him for how he looked at a glance, after all - but he was… dare he say it, thankful that he’d already formed something of a connection with her, if only through their brief online conversation. He didn’t get names often but it was nice for him, who was always poor with visual association when it came to things and people outside of his narrow scope of interest, to have a face to tether to the name ‘Winter’.
All the more reason for him to feel guilt churning in his stomach, feeling the pendulum threatening to swing in a different direction. He was not about to cry, not again, not so soon. He exhaled again, his stare flickering from her expressive face to the bottle of nail polish remover she’d offered to him. She was correct in her idea that it wouldn’t do anything but burn, but Parker quickly understood her thought process, if her gesturing to her face to reflect his didn’t completely give it away.
Leaving the bloodied handkerchief draped over his injured fist, Parker slowly extended his good hand until it reached the bottle where he very carefully took it from her, only using three blood-smeared fingers and holding it as though it were made of thin glass. He understood the strength that pulsed through him, that pulsed through every hunter especially when they were under the influence of strong emotions - which he never was until the past ten days - but while he knew he wasn’t going to shatter the plastic bottle, spraying the two of them with acetone, he wanted to make an effort to show that while the spriggan bleeding behind him was the unfortunate recipient of that emotionally-fuelled strength, he wouldn’t hurt her.
He didn’t even want to touch her, not with his hands that were coated in blood from both himself and the spriggan. He didn’t want to taint the connection that they’d formed with how he looked and acted now. But it was too late for that, wasn’t it? She found him in the alley with the spriggan, that first impression burned into her mind and he wouldn’t put it past her to think about it into the future, keep her up at night when she’d done nothing to earn or deserve it. That was Parker’s nature as a boogeyman - his existence was often enough itself to send fear into the mind, let alone what people witnessed him do. She didn’t deserve that; she was reasonable, she was courageous, she was curious. A medium who said she’d never met a malevolent ghost. Was that because malevolence was restricted to the living?
‘Get out of your head, bro.’ Parker inhaled this time once he took the bottle and the same hand that held it attempted again to wipe some of the blood from his face. He’d probably end up using his shirt. “I… Actually try not to.” He replied quietly, his eyes now drifting to the ground. “It is my purpose to exterminate fae but I’m a failure to my legacy.” His expression softened; the damned pendulum was pushing closer and closer like a weight about to be dropped. “I was–” His breath caught in his throat. “No, I don’t. I try not to.” He couldn’t finish his sentence and instead settled on reiterating his response, clearing his throat, trying to keep phlegm from building up in it. “I apologize for alarming you.”
The care that he took while taking the bottle from her hands had the knots in her stomach loosening up the tiniest bit more. Where she’d thought he was going to be a loose cannon, someone who could turn at any moment, he was making sure to show a gentle side she had yet to see from him in person. That alone released the tension in her shoulders as she slowly pulled her hand back. Sudden movements still didn’t seem to be a good idea even as he took precaution to show he wasn’t going to do anything towards her. A sigh left Winter’s lips almost the same time he was inhaling, releasing even more of that fear that had coiled within herself.
The word ‘failure’ once again brought her back to their online conversation. He’d also said then that his father had considered him as such and she had to wonder briefly what that did to a person’s psyche. Winter couldn’t relate as her own father had showered her with pride and affection from the moment she was born but she could still empathize if she imagined that all of that affection was suddenly taken away. The longer this interaction went on the more compassion she found for the bloodied man standing before her. What did that say about her exactly? That she could feel bad for someone who had just beaten someone…or something, within an inch of their life?
Still, she kept it in her mind that this was self defense. He’d needed to do this in order to protect himself and the rest of the town, right? Even now, he was denying any ill will towards the fae and apologizing to her as if he knew the repercussions this was going to have on her in the long run. Winter softly shook her head, pushing the apology away. “It’s not like you intended for me to walk into this. I think my curiosity is starting to become a bad thing.” In this town, it most certainly was. She really needed to learn to let things go if she planned to stay in Wicked’s Rest or else occasions like this would become far too frequent.
“It really did attack you, right?” She had to be sure. Trusting Parker had come easy when they were speaking through a screen but the scene in front of Winter had her understandably cautious. She just wanted that little bit of confirmation that he’d not intended for this to happen. Even with him repeating the things he’d said to her before she just needed to hear it one more time before she offered the help on the tip of her tongue. “I’m not going to go see these wings of yours and find some sort of kill shelter or something?”
Parker wanted to shake his head back, to discourage the line of thought that curiosity was a bad thing; curiosity without reasoning and caution was bad, but curiosity was just that as a concept on its own. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything in response to that, though, rather feeling like if he tried to speak again so soon it’d just come out as something sad, pathetic, small. So instead his expression softened just a little more, his brow twitching ever-so-slightly as though to reflect what he was thinking when she said that. Also, notably, she didn’t say she forgave him, or even that it was his fault. But surely it was, even if it wasn’t evident at first…?
Perhaps his apology was twofold - the first reason was that he was legitimately sorry that he’d created the visceral scenario that was so noisy in that alley that it spurred investigation, drove her to defend whoever was being assaulted, even if those roles had been initially reversed for Parker and the spriggan. All she had to go on was his word that the fae was the one who started the altercation, not being privy to what had transpired before she rushed into the way. The second reason was for her specifically; for her to have been there in the town at all, for her to have to see anything that she’d seen, for her to already believe her curiosity to be a detriment. That wasn’t right, he couldn’t agree with that - if it hadn’t been for his own inquisitive nature, he wasn’t sure where he’d be. He didn’t like stifling that curiosity, especially in a place like this where questions were sometimes the only things keeping one from losing themselves.
It really did attack you, right? Parker swallowed the forming knot in his throat and turned to look at the body over his shoulder. It attacked him because of what he did to the other members just under two weeks ago. It attacked him because of a chain of circumstances that led to this particular interaction. Blue eyes went from staring at the fae back over to Winter where he paused before he gave her a small nod. “It attacked me first.” He affirmed, while her second question stewed in his head. Probably not a good idea to introduce her to the Workshop. The thought accompanied with the question itself sent an unpleasant sensation akin to acid frothing in his esophagus and his brow twinged into a furrow for a moment. She couldn’t know about the workshop; then she’d never believe anything he said. He wasn’t sure if he would’ve, either.
‘Get your shit together, boy. Stop lookin’ like you’re going to start crying.’ The Warden licked his lower lip, tasting the bitter copper of whoever’s blood it was that speckled his face and he blinked back tears that had subconsciously welled in his blue eyes. ‘You embarrass me.’ “You won’t.” He assured, turning his head and avoiding her gaze this time, possibly in an effort to preserve the emotions he never wanted others to see, the emotions that he couldn’t control at the moment. “The wings I have are in my house. No kill shelter.” Not in his house, anyway. “I… Promise.” Another word that was rarely said, along with the ‘you’re welcome’ that he said to the eldritch being the day before.
His hesitation did nothing to quell the doubts in her mind. Neither did the way he kept his gaze from her, as if he couldn’t look her in the eye if he was lying. The body language here said everything that Winter needed to know but there was one thing that kept that flame of hope burning. When they’d first spoken he was the one to tell Winter that making promises was not the way to go in this town, or anywhere really. He was the one that insisted that she could die if she broke a promise to a fae. He was the one who warned her to not make another promise to anyone unless she was sure she wasn’t being promise bound. She wasn’t under the impression that Parker wasn’t aware whether she was fae or not but she was under the impression that he still wouldn’t say those words unless he truly meant them.
That promise alone sent all of her defenses down and she felt herself relax fully for the first time since she’d heard that noise in the alleyway. She didn’t know this man but with everything she’d seen lately she desperately wanted to have some faith in someone. Her best friend should have been that someone but the girl had tried to eat her at the slumber party, a thought that Winter was still trying to push deep down into her mind, and even if she was deluding herself into believing Mack would never hurt her it still helped to delude herself into thinking she had someone else as back up.
Which made it so easy to accept that he wasn’t just as bad as the other monsters roaming around. Worrying her top lip, Winter placed her hands on her hips before she allowed herself to ask her next question, only hesitating for a moment when she looked at the body beside him. “How can I help?”
Never did she think she would offer to help cover up the death of another, not even if that death was a spriggan. Was it even dead in the first place? Would her offer end with more consequences if it was alive in the end? Winter was suddenly queasy again but the offer was out there and she would stand strong with it no matter the doubts that swirled through her. “It’s not your fault that it came after you. You shouldn’t be punished for it.”
It seemed like his promise, the words that Parker recalled he’d been very certain to make her aware of their importance in a place like Wicked’s Rest, were the correct ones to use. Wardens had to be just as careful as the rest of the population when it came to choosing their words carefully and though Winter didn’t know what he was, he was hoping as he said the word that she understood the weight of it.
She had.
Her body language eased and he used it as a sort of reflection for himself, though he still felt his mind burning with a nauseating desire to break down and have her leave him to whatever was rending his soul asunder inside. ‘Very dramatic. You should write a book.’ Parker exhaled softly, a tinge of relief on it this time though he couldn’t have been sure why and his shoulders slumped from how stiffly they were squared before. He carefully placed the bottle of nail polish remover in one of this large pouches that rested on the utility belt around his waist, still stained black in places from the blood from the leviathan and now dusted with dark crimson from this experience - he wouldn’t use it on him but he was still sentimental enough in his core to see the bottle in the future and have this memory, this experience associated with it: the time he’d gotten attacked and a stranger came to see, didn’t scream and call the authorities without hearing his side, had offered to help just now.
The Warden turned away from her fully now, pulling the handkerchief off his hand. Accelerated healing had already started to work and the splits in his knuckles were coagulated with drying blood and he took one of the remaining clean corners of it and much more carefully started to wipe some of the smaller drops of blood from his face. He approached the spriggan’s body carefully before dropping into a crouch, reaching forward to check its vitals. “Good news, it’s still alive.” Parker wasn’t actually sure if it was good news but at least she hadn’t witnessed him committing a murder. Granted, fae death was different than a human or even a non-fae - when fae died, they didn’t look human like the rest of them tended to and people tended to react differently when it was a decidedly non-human-looking humanoid. “He won’t come after you.” A pause. “And if he’s smart, he won’t come after me again, either.”
Parker stood back up, popping his neck as he glanced down at the concrete, the mess, the body. The teeth. Then he looked down at himself with an expression that seemed to be a little more humorously exasperated, if one could see humor in his face. “If you’ll… retrieve some water for me, I’ll deal with him.” He gave her a look with his icy blue eyes, slightly red-rimmed from the emotion that forced itself from him and it wasn’t a look of criticism or judgment, but rather acknowledgement. “I understand if you’d rather leave, though; I made this mess, I appreciate it but don’t expect your assistance.”
Watching as his body relaxed as well, Winter silently thanked the man for losing the edge he’d had before. It only further solidified in her mind that he was more calm now and wouldn’t go off the rails as he had been doing when she walked into the situation. It also wasn’t lost on her that he’d pocketed her nail polish remover without attempting to give it back, something that she was completely grateful for when she noticed the blood that had wiped off onto the plastic. Why he would keep it, she had no clue, but he could have it without any protest on her end.
His words, though, shocked her enough that she stepped away from the two bodies in front of her for the umpteenth time that night. If it was alive what did that mean for her? “How do you know that?” She did just offer to help him after she’d thought the thing was dead. Why wouldn’t it come for her if it was dumb enough to come after a person who was taught to get rid of its kind? She’d just learned a lesson though, right? She could trust Parker, he was only doing what anyone would have done and he knows about this species, knows how they operate. Another fear of Winter’s to ignore, joining the countless others she’d pushed away in the past few months. She pushed it all away once again, moving towards them to take a look at the thing that Parker had defended himself against while ignoring the slight tremble of adrenaline now rushing through her.
“Okay, ignore that. It won’t come after me if you say it won’t.” She barely believed the words herself but again, she was clinging to that delusion she loved so much. Winter looked up at him as well, noticing he was finally looking her in the eye and couldn’t help but note the slight red around his own. She ignored it though, choosing not to comment even after hearing his next words. “Water it is. I’ll be back soon.”
