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Dignity [sabra]
Topic Started: Jul 6 2013, 04:34 AM (92 Views)
James
Newborn
Four days later, he still hasn’t gotten Izzy. At this point, he can’t tell whether it’s because he’s been too drunk or too tired.

The rumble of his old pickup truck still rings in his ears long after he’s parked. It had been about an hour ago that the shifter had been driving down a long road, headlights on high-beam and the radio louder than his own thoughts. Maybe he would have gone straight home (home? Where?) or maybe he wouldn’t have, but there had been something too appealing about the tire-track trail that peeked at him from the edge of the woods along his drive. He follows it, maybe even a little too mindlessly to be safe, but where it leads him is a place that is worth stopping to look at. Big tires roll over grass and to the top of a small hill. The engine dies when James pulls the key from the ignition and the sounds of the woods takes over.

It’s one in the morning, and although James can hardly see a damn thing, there is something beautiful about the way that the tall pine trees form a thick black wall around him. The blue of the moonlit sky peeks between the silhouetted branches of the pines, and somewhere that James can’t see, the crescent moon hides close to the mountain that stands tall beneath her. In the back of his pickup truck, James makes himself comfortable with a pillow against his back and a bottle of whiskey somewhere in his bear paw of a hand. If he tries hard enough to ignore the sounds of his own heartbeat, the sound of nature takes over. Wind gently brushes over the grass and somewhere in the trees, he can hear crickets chirping. Falling leaves sweep over those that have already fallen and tree branches quake.

It’s all very soothing, and not even the mosquitoes dare to disturb him tonight.

The sound of the whiskey splashing inside the bottle seems louder than it should be when he lifts it to drink straight, grimacing at the burn that flares in his throat. He has to enjoy his last bottle the best that he can before he goes to get Izzy. Before tomorrow. Before he has to start being a dad and being a man again, before he has to matter—because it has become evident that he doesn’t—before he’s forced to say hello to sobriety a little quicker than he wants to. “Goddamnit, Sabra.” Her name spoken out loud creates an even more painful ache in his head than he does when he thinks it.

I don’t want ya here.
Go home to your little girl and forget about us like I’ve been tryin’ to forget about you.


Trying to forget about him. Trying to forget about him. He had tried his damn hardest to forget about them at some point, too. To forget about everything, it would have made things easier than waking up to an empty house and being reminded every day what living alone was like. He hadn’t liked it, neither had Izzy, but she’s not here now. She will be, but not now. Not tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow. He could procrastinate a little bit longer.

The whiskey makes his belly feel uncomfortably warm in the cold of the night, but James is okay with it. And if it’s just about the only thing that he’ll have to keep him company tonight—well, he’s okay with that too. He had come to be okay with a lot of things. What Sabra had done and what she had said, the way that she had looked at him when she told him that he couldn’t stay, the way that alcohol was starting to taste a hell of a lot better than loneliness. Sometimes you have nothing to do in life but be okay with things. James had gotten a lot of practice in with that. He had learned to be okay with being a single father after he had been left alone the first time around. He had learned to be okay with the fact that his check engine would likely never go out. He had learned to be okay with the sound of a slamming door in an empty house.

Among the sounds of the crickets and the wild, the liquor splashes in the bottle.
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Sabra
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Newborn
Everyone was a sadist to one degree or another. People enjoyed seeing others in pain, whether it was trivial or at their own hands. It was about power, like most things were, elevating yourself above someone else, knowing that for a moment you were stronger, more able, and that your ass wasn't on the ground trying to nurse a broken nose. Sabra understood the sentiment, and she knows that going after James, especially four days after the fact was entirely masochistic.

She tracks him with a sharp nose and determination. It doesn't take all that long to find him once she sets out to do so. James was not a man gifted in the art of subtlety or deception, and there aren't many places to hide in Blackwater that she doesn't know of. It goes against her better senses to seek him out like this, it is exactly the opposite of what she should be doing, but Sabra can't leave things as they are. Not while he's here, any imaginary distance she had constructed between them lost when they past each other going into town. Maybe it's just the wolf and the need to lick her wounds clean, and maybe it's the need she always had. To resolve, to somehow settle all that had happened and didn't happen. She had heard that opportunity opened doors and the enforcer thinks a second chance only had to knock because she was an oblivious fool.

The wood frogs call back and forth to one another, serenaded by a chorus of crickets and the sparse call of nocturnal birds. Somewhere in the distance a whippoorwill cries. She pats the heavy jar in her coat pocket, kept from tumbling out by her palm pressed over it. It's a night for hunting, not reminiscing or digging up the past, but if she has to, she'll do it over good liquor and under the stars. The long grass brushes her thighs and she follows the path left by James's truck, puddles formed in the tire tracks by the evening's rains.

Overhead the moon sings her own song, a sweet calling that makes her more awake, more aware, in tune with her surroundings and the potential of this visit. It's been a long time since Sabra can remember herself being nervous but she is now. The swish of liquor reaches her ears and she looks up to see James silhouetted against the night sky. He is a dark shadow made of both angles and soft lines. She quickens her pace unconsciously.

Sabra hands him the moonshine jar before she says anything, moonlight passing through the glass, illuminating the clear liquid and the alcohol pregnant slices of peach within. "Mind if I keep ya company?" There's a moment of quiet, where he could turn her away if he wished, but he nods and dispels some of the tension. James offers her a hand and she climbs into the truck bed, sitting cross legged next to the tiger shifter, letting go too soon or too late, she isn't quite sure.

They sit in silence, the whiskey bottle taken for herself until Sabra manages to courage to speak up again. "What do ya think?" What are you thinking? For once, she can't tell. James is usually an open book, but they are both somewhere else, lost in memories and thoughts. She is lost altogether, trying to find a place to start. "He's little still, at least, he seems so, but I think he'll be tall like you one day." She draws her knees against her chest, goosebumps broken out on her forearms in the slight chill. Tears prick obscenely at her eyes and she rubs at them angrily with her shirt sleeve, frustration settling into place.

There's more that should be said, more that needs to be said, but she's scared of screwing the whole thing up worse than she already has. History made it clear that actions spoke louder than words, a good damn bit of luck for someone that had trouble talking about anything that didn't have to do with the inner workings of an engine or a pack of wolves.

But it didn't help. For once, Sabra has no idea what to do or say.
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James
Newborn
James is content to enjoy what semi-silence he can—he might even spend the night. The large quantity of alcohol consumed had started to create a weariness about him that left him sleepy-eyed and yawning in the bed of his pickup truck. He considers a lot of things—Sleeping here, now the way he is. Shifting and going for a walk in the dark. Driving somewhere. None of them are smart, so he stays put. Maybe it’s a good thing that he does. Because somewhere behind him is a familiar smell and the sound of feet on the grass, and James does not have to turn around to know immediately that Sabra has come for a visit. For a few seconds, the man is quite sure that she’s about to come after him for round two. He takes another swig from his bottle of whiskey.

But to his own surprise, she’s not. Instead, she asks to keep him company. Company. There’s a loud thud when the bottom of the bottle hits the bed of the truck—for a second or two, or more, he considers telling her no. But he finds himself offering his hand in spite of himself, helping sabra to sit in the bed of his truck just beside him. For a few moments, they sit wordlessly together. Maybe it’s awkward for Sabra—maybe it’s not. But it’s comfortable for James. The jar of moonshine is switched back and forth between his hands in thought. Sabra’s moonshine… Well it’s been a painfully long time since he’s had any of that.

Somewhere in the brush where James cannot see, there is a chorus of crickets that encourage him to say something, to do more than what he’s doing now. But it seems that Sabra is ready to take those reigns first, breaking the silence and pulling his attention away from the top of the pines. “’Bout what?” He thinks a lot about a lot of things. He thinks that maybe he should go to get Izzy as soon as he’s able to—and he thinks that maybe the hardened werewolf next to him will have a much gentler response than she’d like to think. He thinks that not enough people pay attention to the moon when it’s in the sky at night, and he thinks that maybe Sabra has cornered herself into a loneliness that she might be too scared to crawl out of. But she says something different entirely—she brings up Caden, and something in his chest tightens. Caden, that’s right… His son. He has a son.

His head tilts to the side and green eyes flit to the side to capture her image: unhappy and confused and frustrated rolled into one tough-as-nails lady in a little body, sitting in the cold with her knees pulled close. There are a lot of things that he could say right now and a lot more things that he could do, but he chooses to shrug out of his own heavy jacket and wrap it around Sabra’s shoulders. It’s large enough to be a blanket around her and it will fit like one too if she allows it. His arm slips back around her waist like it belongs there, pulls her closer to him and rests his head against hers. “Take it easy there, darlin’.” There is just something that is too uncomfortably unnatural about seeing Sabra with anything other than that hard look on her face, anything other than the familiar soft tone that she would use with him when the house was quiet. Her voice is soft now, too, but it’s also different. It’s sad and James doesn’t like it at all.

It’s the times like this, where James feels that his smooth words may run out and his luck may go dry, that he prefers to take the beaten path and look to things that are familiar enough to be secure, things that he knows have worked before and very well may work again. “Everything’ll work out fine in the end, sweetheart. I promise.” After all, it’s all up to you. While James knows that he cannot leave per say, he knows that he has no right to step a foot beyond where Sabra will allow it into her life. It’s not his place. It’s never been his place. It never will be his place.

Maybe that is one of the things that he has always admired about the woman—There is her strength of character and there is her determination to carry out her responsibilities. There is her loyalty and there are her values. But beyond that, there is an absolute refusal to be ruled.

“Gotta tell ya, Sabs. Caden is a lucky boy to have you for a mama.” For a short period of time, Izzy had been just as lucky. “You’re a hell of a woman, Sabra. Hell of a tough lady.” He’s told her this many times before, and he means it now just as much as he did before. If he can’t tell her anything else tonight, then he will tell her this much, and he will tell her shamelessly. “I sure as hell couldn’t do all of the shit that you do.” Leading a pack of wolves, threatening lives and taking others—a large culmination of things that James himself simply would not be able to do. A long time ago, he had been trying to take her away from all of this before it could destroy her, because he knows that it could. Werewolf or not, all of this could be overwhelming. Sabra had told him so during the nights that they would lay quietly together, sometimes discussing her life here and sometimes not.

It must be an entirely different ball game with your own child involved. The drive to protect must be heightened, the fuel necessary to put yourself through the extra pains is there. And though James has only been in Blackwater for an astounding four days, he can feel it welling within his own chest. A new reason to stay that goes beyond any woman or any love lost. A child—a child. He has a child.
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Sabra
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Newborn
She takes a long drag from the bottle, hoping to slow the lightning quick pace of her thoughts and dull the world around her into something more manageable. There are too many possibilities, she's tugged in three different directions and finding the compromise between them first requires her to want a compromise. So many decisions in her life had been made for her. A future whittled down until there was nothing but splinters left.

James is warm next to her, tangible and she'd be lying if more possibilities than just talking flicker through her mind. It's been a while. They'd gotten pretty good at chasing out the cold together and it'd never been quite as sweet as it was with him. If she closes her eyes, it seems like a dream. There are some days that she wakes and feels more exhausted for having slept. Tonight, she is damnably awake. Her senses are keen, the wolf is high in her blood and the liquor doesn't seem to dull anything. It sharpens the happenings until she's forces to accept them as reality. As choice.

He settles a jacket over her shoulders, heavy with the smell of gasoline, the dust of the road, and the scents of a hundred different places that all coalesce into simply him. There is the tang of sweat, of something musky and so primal it makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. He is a predator, the same as her, but she had been human once. James never had been burdened by such thing. Change was intrinsic to his nature. He slipped from one form to another in a matter of minutes, skin became fur, some six feet and two hundred pounds of man blossomed into a sleek hunter that was over ten feet long and could turn even the most determined of wolves into yelping dogs.

Sabra becomes small, cheek pressed against his chest, her ear over his heart, listening to the steady beat. It blends into the chorus of calls and peeps and there's enough whiskey in her blood that she only tenses when he slips an arm around her waist. She relaxes gradually, and pretends that he's leaning against her and it's not the other way around.

"I am takin' it easy." The enforcer murmurs, cradling the bottle in her hands. It kept them occupied, away from more appealing places. She doesn't believe him, and there's a chill that comes with that thought. It's the first time it's ever crossed her mind, even though James speaks with the conviction of a man who knows his words to be truth. Who believes them to be so.

At this point, maybe it's just hope.

He's good at soothing. Volatile werewolves and feverish toddlers alike. Sabra doesn't want to be comforted, and it's too easy to fall back into old routines like this, but he smells like a home she left behind and he won't hurt her for being weak. Did the wolf know from the very beginning? Had she sized him up in all his drunken splendor and surmised that yes, while he was very big and he was awfully strong, that he was also trustworthy. Her hair falls over her shoulders, loosened from it's tail and she tries to understand how someone could be so forgiving. Not with silence, not by forgetting, but by accepting what had happened. He could do everything that she does, Sabra has no doubts about that, but the transverse is less likely.

She couldn't let a stray in and she couldn't let them back into her arms either.

The whiskey bottle clinks against the truck's bed, and she flattens a palm over his knee, squeezing gently, eyes closed. "You're a hell of a man, James." If this was the movies, she might kiss him, reach up and brush her hand over his cheek, look into his eyes and chase away the past with new memories, but it doesn't work like that.

Kissing, making love under the stars with liquor heavy on their breaths--that'd only be procrastination. A denial of the inevitable.

She isn't quite drunk enough for that yet.

"No one knows about you." A better woman might say I'm sorry or I love you, but Sabra has had enough of cliches in her life. The loss of a promising future. The determined, smart young woman trying to better herself through hard work and education. Rising to the occasion. Becoming a survivor and then, despite the odds, falling in love. Lingering in barren blankets with a heavy belly. It seems like an odd place to start, but she'd always been better at endings than beginnings. As a child, she skipped to the end of every book she read, looked at the last sentence, savored it. Sabra doesn't have the time to read so many books these days, but it's a habit she never rid herself of. "They thought I was dead." A hell of a middle.

She picks the bottle back up again and raises it to her lips, pausing for consideration and a lingering glance, trying to refresh her memory and see what features Caden had inherited from his father and which he had taken from her. "Won the fight, but nearly lost myself, both of us." How many stories would be different without Lynn to swoop in and save the day with her trusty needle and thread? She looks downs, picking up the hem of her shirt and lifting it to reveal and ugly diagonal scar across her rib cage, dipping over her abdomen. "Not sure they would have let me leave. Lynn, that's the pack's doctor, you should've seen the look on her face when she found out there was a baby bump under all that blood." The poor woman, sewing up so many broken bodies, having to close the eyes of so many others and then that little shock. The lecture that followed made Sabra want to tuck tail and head in the other direction.

As quickly as she's begun, the wolf finds herself lapsing, unable to finish the vague tale that ends the same as it had before four nights ago. Always about leaving.

Talking about staying is a hell of a lot harder.
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