schools in session (open)

[cho2]

Tore was trying to decipher how he was going to react to that. He wasn't entirely sure. He had to buy himself time in his mind. Tore took a bite of his burger and thought about it. It was kind of nice to know that he wasn't going to be eaten by one wolf. Especially since he was sure that pretty much ever other were he was going to meet probably wasn't going to have those same inhibitions.

"Look, I know that there are good things in life. I've seen some of them. I just know that it's better for me to avoid them. It's safer for everyone. I won't subject any child I could have to be born like me...hunted his entire life. Yeah, sure there are those who have control and won't kill swans like me. Most won't. So...I just do what I can. Besides, being a bartender isn't all that bad. Better than going to school again."

[thorn]

“Sure. You’re gonna get rich being a bartender, at least until they find out you’re not even old enough to walk into a bar legally. And then what? Flip burgers at Micky D’s?” Thorn was getting frustrated now. The kid was as stubborn in his way as Thorn was.

“You want to be safe from shifters? Get an education, make enough money to afford bodyguards to protect you, if you need it. Find a place in the human community that makes you more useful alive than dead. You don’t want to be treated like a kid, then don’t act like one. Get your head out of your ass and get some sort of plan for your life.”

[cho2]

"Why do you keep assuming I want some kind of life?" Tore demanded furrowing his brow. "People call me child. They call me fool. They say that I don't know what I'm doing. My father didn't teach me to fight just so I could be protected. Besides...it's kind of hard to go to school without a past."

And technically, he didn't have a past. He had left it behind when he had left his family. He had had to make up things for his boss so he could get paid. Even doing what he was doing she probably thought he was an illegal immigrant and that would explain why he got paid cash under the counter. He didn't care he kept telling himself. As long as he didn't care. Nothing mattered.

[thorn]

Thorn grunted in disgust. “If you didn’t want a life, if you didn’t want to live, you wouldn’t have been so blasted scared when you saw me. People who don’t care if they live or die don’t feel fear. Trust me on that one.”

And maybe that was part of Thorn’s problem. He hadn’t felt fear an a good long time. Call it the Rom fatalism, but that wasn’t it. He truly didn’t care.

[cho2]

Tore's eyes flashed again. He was furious with this nameless man. He was furious with himself. It was a toss-up between which he wanted to strangle more (and yes he didn't consider strangling himself.)

"What do you want to hear? You want to hear that I'm terrified for my life every night that I wake up. That I'm scared shitless that my boss'll find out I'm seventeen and not twenty-one. That sometimes I lie awake in the early hours of the morning praying my family will come in find me or that another were will come and off me so that it'll all just end. You're right. I'm scared. You're right, I'm young. You're right, I don't know nearly as much as people who've had to deal with this their whole life. I was the spoiled little rich boy they would have hated, but I won't do it anymore. I can't. I can't live that life and I'm apparently unsuited for any other life."

Tore threw his gaze at the ground and managed not to crush the rest of his burger in a fist. "I may want to live," Tore finally whispered, "but I don't want to live like this."

[thorn]

Thorn’s voice softened then. “So, that’s good. Most people don’t know what they want, but it’s progress just knowing what you don’t want. If that makes any sense.” He set down what was left of the burger and picked up his coffee, swirling it around in the cheap container.

“So, if you could have… be, anything you wanted, what would it be? And don’t start giving me an argument.” There was a method in Thorn’s seeming madness. He had been many people in his life; still was, really. He could be whoever he had to be, do whatever he hand to do, to get by. In that, he was luckier than this kid. But maybe he could help Tore gain something of what he wanted out of life.

He watched the boy out of the corner of his eye as he sipped the coffee. The kid was still acting like prey, but maybe prey that wanted a future.

[cho2]

"I would live a life where I know that I would be safe. That anyone I loved or any child I had wouldn't have to worry about werews hunting them for what they were born as. That's all I've ever wanted. All I'll ever want. It won't be something that I ever get." Tore had known that for years. His father had made sure that he would know it from childhood. A sad fact. His mother had tried to give him hope, but it hadn't worked.

"Why do you care? It's not like anyone can help me. No one can make me not be a swan. No one can not allow swans to not be prey either. It's something that happens. You have to try to cope with it. I have..."

[thorn]

He looked over at Tore then, eyes speculative. “And what would you be wiling to give up to get that? Certain freedoms? What, too, would you be willing to do to get what you want?” He grinned then, a more feral smile, but he kept his eyes hard on Tore’s. “Think about that carefully, because it’s your answer that will decide my decision. Because I can help you, Tore. It’s just a matter of how much. You might have to move away from here, you might have to agree to a totally different life, but it can happen.”

There were several possible solutions that had occurred to him. He might not have been a monster long, but Thorn learned fast. The ideas he was mulling wouldn’t be solutions for him, but then, he wasn‘t a prey animal and never had been. Not even as a seventeen year old boy. Hell, he had killed his first man when he was fourteen.

[cho2]

"I love how you continue to ignore my perfectly legitimate question of why do you care?" Tore said shaking his head annoyed. "For myself...I don't know. Since I left home...I've just depended on myself. It has never been about freedom. I barely leave my apartment. I go to work. I get groceries. I pay my rent and check my mail. What freedoms are those. I'm always watching my back wondering when another were will come along to off me because I smell just right. I've settled here for a little while because I can get lost here. It's not a home...It's just where I am right now. It's a place where I can be safe for a little while...until I need to move on again."

And there it was, plain and simple. Tore was just existing now. He had no choice in his mind. He couldn't go home. He couldn't bring himself to do such a thing. Call it pride or whatever else you wanted to, but it was just what it was. He wouldn't go home and he would never be free. A heavy thing for a seventeen year old boy...if he thought like a seventeen year old boy.

[thorn]

And still Thorn ignored the question, because he honestly had no answer. He didn’t know why he cared, or even if he really did, or so he told himself. But he did care. He had chosen his life, for the large part; at least the life he had led when he was Tore’s age. This boy hadn’t had that choice. Thorn had survived as what he had been born to be, and this boy wasn’t going to survive, not if he kept on as he was. The kid was right. He’s exist in a vacuum, hiding and running until some shifter with less control than Thorn had took him down and ate him.

“And you didn’t answer me, either. What would you give up? What would you be willing to do, to live without fear of being killed and eaten? To be able to have a life where you wouldn’t need to run, where you could walk free and safe? Within limits, of course…”

And Thorn threw the words at Tore as a challenge, his eyes now not leaving the boy’s face, eyes that showed the predator within.