RP:Show Of Force

Part of the Through A Glass, Darkly Arc

The Office

Alvina didn't bother stopping at the house to wait for Hudson. Marge will be coming home with the kids soon and she can't trust herself to keep a straight, calm face. She'd practically begged Hudson to go meet Meri alone. He'd wanted his goons there, and to be there himself, if things went South. Alvina can't imagine a worse outcome than what had happened. She'd have been relieved if Meri had shouted. Her running away was... Alvina’s worst nightmare. She stops by the Office but Hudson is out on business or so the bouncer tells her. Unable to process the information, she heads towards his office anyway to find Joanie waiting for her. The witch recognizes Alvina's visible panic and leads her inside to wait. Joanie must have sent someone to get him but the twenty minutes before he arrives are lifetimes. Each one more painful than the last. No explanation she concocted sounded safe. He can't hurt Meri. She can't let him. She leans her head into her hands, perched on the edge of the couch, and screams. Hopefully the afternoon thrum of music drowns it out.

Though he does conduct certain shadier elements of his business in the backroom of the Office i.e. one of Cenril's fine erotic dancing establishments, Hudson does most of his day-to-day business over at LANDON REAL ESTATE LLC, you know, the front business that's based in an actual office, with mahogany furniture, wood paneling, a beautiful built-in marble reception desk, etcetera. No doubt Alvina would have headed there had Joanie not luckily been on the premises and told her to hold tight. She sends for Hudson, who was not in fact working over at LANDON REAL ESTATE LLC but rather engaged in writing an angry and 'anonymous' letter to be published in the paper regarding the sad state of the Cubbies. Really, what's power for if you can't use it to low key threaten the owner of the local baseball team when they're not signing the big stars you think they should be? Anyway, Hudson puts this important activism on his part on hold to hustle over to the club, where his wife's scream, identifiable to him, can be heard from the hallway leading into the manager's office. He doesn't knock but busts inside, banging the door so that it bounces off of the door jamb. "Alvina?" he says her name sharply. Joanie comes up behind him, having also heard the scream. It takes Hudson a second to process that his wife is fine, just stressed. "I got it. No interruptions," he tells his secretary, and shuts the door in her face. Not thinking about politeness presently. "What's going on?" he demands of Alvina as he stalks across the room. It's then that he remembers that today had been the day she had her lunch date with Meri. Or whatever it was. It had slipped his mind amid the angry open letter writing/civic engagement on important matters of baseball. Now there's no doubt in his mind what's happened though. His face twists into a mask of anger. "Meri? What happened, Alvina?" he reaches for his wife to pull her off the sofa and crush her against him.

Alvina turns toward the door in it's bounce back. It isn't the flinching, mousey Alvina of days gone by that greets him. Her eyes aren't tear stained. Her hands aren't clutching the couch, white knuckled, for stability. He slams the door in Joanie's face and she stands. How did she tell him? How could she let this happen? Her eyes say everything; it did not go well. She opens her mouth but the sound is dead. He pulls her into him and guilt boils inside her. “You can't…” She starts before catching her breath. He's holding her so tightly. Like any space between them could combust. “I'm fine.” They both know it's a lie. How could she say it without triggering him? “It didn't go well.” In her mind’s eye she can still see the color drain from Meri’s face before she runs off. “I didn't tell her anything but…” She knows. She has to know. “I've never seen her like that - she just randomly rushed out and wouldn't look at me.” She grits her teeth and untangles herself. “ I told you…!” She should have just told Meri. Meri would have been mad. She had the right to be! Hudson would have been mad+ and in his own way, he had a right to be too! “You can't hurt her-”

Alvina is talking to him, but Hudson's mind is racing ahead of the present, solving for x, where x is his family's safety. He knows without her saying so that she didn't do anything wrong, that Meri had figured it out on her own, that they were too late. His wife abruptly pushes herself free of him, and he glares at her, feeling the weight of his frustration with what had happened transfer immediately to her refusal to look it in the eyes. "I can't? And what if she talks? What do you think happens to werewolves who attack people and turn them without their consent, Alvina?" he barks at her. He could intervene against the death penalty, maybe, that would be some flex, but even so, the thought of their children visiting his wife in Cenril's jail, seeing her restrained by silver manacles, is enough to make him sick. His head pounds, so he steadies his temper and continues in a low, threatening tone, "Don't tell me what I can't do. I'm trying to solve a problem here. I'm trying to protect this family. And I'll do whatever I have to do." He continues to stare her down until he's certain that his point has been made. He knows in this moment that there's no one he wouldn't personally break into pieces if that's what it took. That's how the problem - Alvina's incident - would have been solved long ago if it hadn't been someone they liked. They'd dithered because it had been Meri, because maybe they could just cover it up and everything would just BE COOL. Well, OK, Hudson is done being cool now.

He regrets not putting his fist through the problem earlier. His first instinct had been the right one, the only one. He's pacing. No way would Meri take a meeting with him now. She's a smart criminal mind herself, she'd see invitation to her death a mile away. They'd have to catch her out, do it quietly, a sniper with a silver arrow perhaps. Walk-by knifing. Whole thing covered up like a business dispute. Fine. Good. Having settled on a plan to secure the safety of his family, he inhales shakily. "You have to go out of town for a little while until we know it's safe," he informs Alvina.

“She isn’t going to talk!” Alvina shouts but Hudson’s words eat away at her faith in Meri’s silence. “She has to know it wasn’t on purpose. She’s our friend. She was in out wedding, for Sven’s sake.” A beat. “She’s a werewolf now, she’s struggled the same way, she’ll know that I’d never…” Her -own- logic debunks her hope further. Would Alvina be forgiving if the scenario was reversed? She wants to think so, to believe in the better parts of herself. This is a thing meek, human Alvina would bet her life (maybe foolishly) on. Friendship and honesty and the ‘right’ way would always lead to success. Hudson glares at her and she feels the tension; he’s yanking on her proverbial leash. “I’m not Desparrow, I’m not biting people intentionally, against their will with malice! It was an -accident-!” Alvina can see Hudson’s patience evaporate. They didn’t hold the same beliefs about conflicts. She stops, eyes on office door. His eyes dig deep and root her in silence. She isn’t privy to the details but she knows he’s thinking about a solution. A harmful solution. A solution Alvina’s been trying to buck. His suggestion that she go away proves it. “Hudson, no…” There. Her voice is wavering now. Old habits die hard. “I can’t leave - what if she comes back? What if she cools down and asks me for help? I can’t just run off and leave her…” He isn’t asking. He’s telling. Another non-negotiable decision. Why wouldn’t Hudson listen? Why would Meri listen? Why won’t anyone -listen- to her?! Alvina’s wolf rage was still young and childish. Like an angsty teenager bound and determined to rebel to the brink of destruction. But when she felt Little Miss’ hackles raise, she can feel Hudson’s wolf aura tamping her down. She felt trapped by her mistake and she’s disgusted with herself. If it had been someone else, any stranger, she knows she could have looked the other way while Hudson resolved it. But it wasn’t a stranger! It’s MERI! “I don’t want this..” She whines, sinking back down onto the couch.

Hudson could hardly stand to hear his wife's protests about how her accident is leagues different from doing what she'd done with intention. Is it though? What happens to a bad dog that bites people because it's stressed? And what's a werewolf that bites people, but a bad dog? A far more dangerous bad dog. The most dangerous kind of bad dog there is. Always, with her, this believing the best in people, this naivete about how the world really works, the ugliness of it ... He wants to, so badly, tell her she is so wrong about this and that she's gotten too soft, too pampered, being his wife. That she's too used to his hands being the bloody ones, too used to the comfortable mantle of plausible deniability (.. oh, surely Alvina doesn't know, that sweet woman, either she doesn't know or she fears him and cannot speak out, is trapped, that poor, sweet woman, her face always frozen in a smile, etc ..). That even if he could twist enough arms to keep her out of prison, hire enough security to keep her safe from the angry Cenril mob that's tired of werewolves having their way with this town (.. he can just hear it), ... even if he could do all that, the accusation and public spectacle would destroy her. "What if she cools down and asks for help?" Hudson, shaking his head, repeats Alvina's words back to her. "How likely does that seem to you, huh?" he's not using a kind tone with her. "What like, being really, insanely charitable, 50% chance she's just somehow cool with it and doesn't tell anybody? I feel like the odds are much lower but let's go with 50% for the sake of argument. Would you bet literally everything on a coin flip, Alvina?" He forces himself to draw a shaky breath, knowing that he's browbeating her and should stop. Still angry though. He shouts an obscenity and kicks a waste basket, overturning its contents. He braces himself against the desk. "Even if Meri were cool about it, this would be leverage that she would have over you FOREVER."

“Stop it,” She growls. It’s too quiet. He can’t or won’t hear it over his rational about Meri’s intentions. He doesn’t stop. His tongue is a whip, lashing her over and over again for her ‘insanely charitable’ views. “Hudson, stop.” She doesn’t feel confident to say anything else. He’s tearing her argument apart like paper mache. Her views are dated. She’s being irrational. Of course people will screw you over if they get the chance. -Of Course-. How could she doubt it? How could she think it would just magically be okay because #friendship and #accidents? His proverbial teeth continue to sink into her after the wastebasket scatters crumbled papers and half empty grease soaked food containers. She startles on the couch but he’s turned around and doesn’t see it. Was it really as random as a coin flip? If Meri said she would keep their secret, Alvina would happily write it off and do whatever she could to make it up to her. Meri was about to have a child. She’d know how important family was. How family should be left out of whatever grudges people hold onto. Right? Hudson stops, finally, leaning against the desk and Alvina doesn’t know what to say. He looks exasperated from his efforts to convert her. His influence, however, is going strong. She feels the weight of his expectations in the silence and in the wolf bond; she is not to fight him on this. “Not everyone would use leverage like that.” She whispers rebelliously but adds no more. She doesn’t even have the guts to look at him when she does. “I didn’t want any of this to happen. I did everything I was supposed to. I did the group stuff, I took the medicine, I let her kill rabbits and whatever other filthy rodents exist in the woods. WHY? Why did she do this…” Cause this mess. “Why did I do this…” Unable or unwilling, Alvina doesn’t cry. She groans and flexes her fingers against her scalp. Was it because Alvina, or her wolf, couldn’t imagine consequences to impulsive actions? “What does my going away accomplish?” She eventually asked through clenched teeth.

Hudson shuts his eyes as his wife whispers this thing, this naive thing, this thing that shows how differently they see the world. No, not everyone would leverage his wife's mistake, but only she would roll the dice on it. He doesn't have the heart to respond to her frustration. He's had the same thought, so many times. Why did it happen, why did it happen to his wife, to Meri, why hadn't it happened to him, or better yet, to someone else? His headache is fading. He heaves a sigh, and then straightens to face her. "If things go bad, you can't be arrested so easily. And also the press won't be able to bother you. It would be less stressful, less embarrassing." He looks tired, all of a sudden, bled by his anger. He rakes a hand over his face. He sighs again, breathes a series of expletives. "We'll tell the kids that your great aunt is sick or something and you'll be back as soon as she's well again. You should go as soon as possible. Tomorrow, maybe. I'll have Joanie rent you a place, arrange it, everything."

Naive. A badge pinned on her by everyone she knew, most likely. She’s heard it spoken aloud more than once, by more than one person. Or five. Or more. Was it so horrible to not be hardened to the filth of the world? Was it really such a mark against her that she tried to invest goodness and faith when she could? It was harder, lately. She was starting to feel caged in by this mistake, by the secrecy, by the reporter who’d cornered her, by the bomb that was sent to their house, by the expectation to fall in line if news of Hudson’s ties to Valrae came to light. She was sick of being told what to do. She looks up at him, washing her eyes over his face. He looks as tired as she feels. Leaving their children, their house...it felt like the ultimate punishment. It was endless and would never be fully resolved. Now she’ll cover her face. “For how long, Hudson?” She’d expected him to have to hide out. Never her. “How long will I have to stay away?”

Hudson frowns at her. He feels sorry now for having spoken to her in the way that he had. He'd been angry, but what had happened hadn't been her fault, even if it sometimes felt that way. He's seeing her heart break because she's afraid she'll be separated from their children and him for too long. "I don't know, hopefully just a few days, babe. It's just a precaution," he says, taking care to be gentler with his words. "I'm going to try to get a handle on the situation as soon as I can." I.e. have Meri and anyone she might have told murdered. Make it look like gang violence as usual. He steps closer to Alvina and poses his hands on either side of her head, kissing her on the brow until she softens in her body language. "I'm sorry I was harsh," he tells her. He reaches for her hand. "Let's go home and pack some stuff for you?"

Alvina feels stuck in time. As long as she doesn't move or speak or even breathe she'll stay trapped in this moment. On this couch in Hudson's strip club office. Her invented superstition is threatened when he moves her face to kiss her. “Nooo…” She whispers, afraid of what comes after this. Meri doesn't understand? Hudson tries to have Meri killed? Gods, she can't even think about their children. “I'm so sorry.” It's all she can say. Sorry you have to clean this up, sorry I couldn't hold it together in front of Meri, sorry I couldn't stop this disaster. He's sorry too but... Still he is insisting that she go. Alvina Landon can't process what's happening and in a very dark and familiar way she looks at him before he helps her up. She says nothing, existing beside him in the carriage and while he packs her things. Existing. It's taking all of her energy to just keep existing.