RP:Total Eclipse of the Heart

From HollowWiki

Summary; Hudson returns home after his transformation into a Werewolf to face a worried Alvina. Hudson declines to explain where he's been and calls an end to their relationship, leaving Alvina to unravel the puzzle of his whereabouts the evening before and his sudden change in disposition.


Alvina's House

These are some facts about Hudson's life, as he knows it. Yesterday he went to the bank and on his way home he bought a latte and was attacked by a gigantic wolf. He was supposed to head back home to Alvina, whereupon the idea was they'd go meet Emily and some man of hers for drinks and have a double date. That was what he was supposed to have done. Instead, and this is where he winces, he... well after the fight -- so he must have been knocked out for some time -- woke up with the irresistible impulse to indulge in his more base desires, which evidently at the time had consisted of howling at the moon and savagely tearing the throat out of a cow that had... where on Hollow had he even been last night? He doesn't know. He certainly had never come home. He'd woken up on the beach, his clothes encrusted with sand and ripped in places. Coat nowhere to be seen, not that the cool bothered him - which was odd. Feeling the prickle that something very bad had happened, he'd mentally run through the evening prior, inspected himself. He doesn't seem to be on the verge of death by mauling. Though there's blood on his pants. It doesn't appear to be his. He doesn't feel like he'd been drinking. (He wants to believe it was just that. Or drugs.) His senses are sharper than ever, he realizes, glancing skyward in the direction of where the moon had hung the night prior. The weight of a strange, feral longing hits him like a sledge. At first, he experiences disbelief. He goes home to his mum's and ignores her concerned remarks. Showers. Looks at himself naked in the mirror. Surely not. And yet, there's a raised sliver of skin around his shoulder, moon shaped, that wasn't there before. It fits where the creature's teeth would have sank into his shoulder, he realizes, and suddenly is assaulted by images of himself running free as a wolf with other wolves, and there's a broader, base awareness of a desire to do that again that causes him to sink to his knees. He tries to get dressed and eat breakfast but his mum asks him a barrage of questions and suddenly he's short tempered with her, and she shrinks from him. "I don't know what your problem is, but I'll stay out of your way," she tells him, and leaves him be. He tries to visit Cleo but she rears up, tosses her head, nostrils flaring. She wants nothing to do with him all of a sudden. It's then that he begins to believe that it happened. He goes and looks at himself in the mirror again, touches the scar. He impulsively touches a silver necklace of his mother's, like a child reaching for a hot stove: he burns the shit out of himself. Clutching his hand, he curses for what feels like days, and it heals. On its own. He can't stop sweating now, seeing as the reality is confronting him. He feels a violent urge and destroys a piece a furniture for literally no apparent reason. Then, appalled with himself, he lets himself out. He spends the rest of the day running the gamut of negative emotions: anger, embarrassment, sadness. He is acutely aware of the time of day, the full moon's looming presence like a distant hammering. He develops a plan of action and heads home, to Alvina, who probably has been like, What the shit, Hudson, all this time, perhaps also worried. He knocks on the door rather than letting himself in.


Alvina had been ready for hours when she realized something was wrong. Her makeup had wilted, and her dress showed creases that weren’t there before. In the beginning, she’d gone to meet Emily at the bar, thinking that Hudson had just been running late and would head that way once he realized the time. She’d stayed with Emily and her date for most of the night, before panic set in and she rushed home, hoping to find a passed out Hudson in the living room? No. Bed room? No. Man cave? No. She even checked the basement, reaching for threads at this point. Still nothing. So here she sat, curled up in her cocktail dress from the night before with splotchy spots of makeup and her brand new sapphire necklace on it’s gleaming silver chain. The gem had pressed itself into her skin and left an angry red mark when she stumbled off the couch, half asleep, to answer the door. Panic was written all over her features. Those few steps between the door and the couch felt like an eternity. If it was Hudson, surely he would have just waltzed right in with a lame excuse but now someone was knocking? This is how it all starts. Prepare yourself for the news that Hudson has been found dead somewhere. Alvina held her breath and opened the door, her eyes scanning Hudson’s face for a solid minute before realizing it was him. She blinked, in disbelief, before throwing her arms around him and trying to clutch him as close as possible to her. Tears sprang to her eyes and no coherent words were uttered.


Hudson stiffens as Alvina throws her arms around him, the sensation of her person suddenly overwhelming. His heart sags -- he feels like her concern for him is a fraud because as soon as she finds out that he's a werewolf, she'll of course be repulsed, like Josleen was when she found out Ansel was one. He touches her back, feeling the heat of her through her clothes. She smells like alcohol and salt and her body has a slight tremor to it, which he knows means she's crying. "Oh, Alvina," he says, very sadly, holding her close. "I..." Whatever he was about to say withers and dies. He shakes his head, as if trying to clear it. "Something... I did... Um, something very bad happened," he struggles to get the words out the gate and maybe chooses unwisely in the process. A shudder of memories from the night prior tears through him, and he closes his eyes to it. Waits for it to recede. "Maybe I shouldn't," he exhales, releasing her, feeling suddenly aware of how fragile she seems.


Alvina slacks in his arms, sighing heavily with relief until he tries to explain. Her heart rate jumps and her body stiffens against his. No, no no. Please don’t say…As she draws back, her silver chain brushes against his arm as she reaches down to press his hand to her face. “No, “ she tells him immediately, feeling weak from worry. “You don’t have to tell me.” Her emerald eyes gleam, she’s pleading with him not to tell her he got drunk at a bar and accidentally slept with someone and that’s why he’s been missing for the past 24 hours. He smells clean, and the clothes he’s wearing now are different than the one’s he left in yesterday. “Please don’t tell me…” Tears are still building to a crescendo, cutting pale lines down her red cheeks. The skin on her face is already puffy from crying. “Whatever happens, it doesn’t matter.” She reassures him. “I’ve been so worried…I love you so much…” Her words shook, carried on unsteady breaths.


Hudson flinches, exclaiming a breathless "ouch" when her chain brushes against him. "I uh, it caught on my," he stammers, covering up for the shame that is his secret werewolf status. Alvina is crying and it's now plain as day that she seems to have assumed that he'd spent the night 'abroad' in some other woman's bed. He is speechless, his heart shattering as he watches her lose it in front of him. He can't find the words to tell her that he's Just a werewolf, because it seems worse to him that he should be permanently a werewolf than have one time strayed. He looks at their feet, a tidal wave of guilt nearly knocking him over, as he struggles with what to say. He's too embarrassed to tell her the truth, because this Alvina -- who loves him, and who apparently forgives him for cheating -- isn't the Alvina who's just learned her boyfriend's a monster. With a clarity so sharp it sears him, he decides she can't ever know the ugly truth, and that it's safer this way. "Alvina, we can't," he says, before he can convince himself not to. "We can't be together anymore. OK? We can't. I'm... no."


Alvina waits, breathlessly for Hudson to continue with a reason or some sort of explanation but there isn’t one. His words shoot off his tongue like jagged darts that pierce her heart. Thoughtlessly, her metallic limb clutches at her dress, gathering the fabric into her fingers as if to stave off the physical pain his words are inflicting. She didn’t feel the necklace catch or touch him, and assumed he’s recoiling from HER. From her. Away from her. “What…?” she says at length, when it becomes painfully clear that he does not have more to say on the issue. She just blinks at him, looking back and forth between him and the rest of the house. This couldn’t be real. Was she still asleep? Frantically, she tries to reason with him. “Things have been so perfect, I don’t…” Her composure breaks and she heaves with the a heavy sob, her lips curling into a depressingly forced smile and laugh meant to cover up evidence of her heartbreak. “I don’t understand.” Her voice is oddly calmer, and her head shakes. “I knew what I was getting into with you, I prepared myself for a slip or something. It really is okay. Huds…It’s okay.” She reassured him like she might have reassured herself. It’s okay, Alvina. It’s going to be okay. He’s just embarrassed. He doesn’t want to hurt you, to see you cry. He’ll relent if you push it enough. If you prove you really don’t care that he slept with someone or robbed a bank or murdered a school of innocent children. Really, he will. “We can still be together.” She fixed her eyes on him, nodding and waiting for him to agree but her legs were jelly, shaking and unsteady. Her whole body shivered, freezing from the chill of his words. He didn’t look indifferent. He looked determined. He looked upset. This wasn’t the face of a man that didn’t care.


Hudson feels himself getting drawn deeper into the lie - well, his failure to correct her, more like. He feels like he might be sick as she forgives him. He's behaved much better than she thinks, he thinks bitterly. He feels embarrassed, both because of the fiction she's constructed and because the reality seems so much worse. His throat sticks. He shakes his head, brings the heel of his hand to his eyes each in turn. "It's not," he tells her, exhaling slowly. He meets her eyes. "I'm no good, Alvina, you wouldn't say those things if you knew." He offers her a wobbly frown, feeling a bit overrun by emotion himself now. He thinks about the prospect of sleeping alone and not having her there when he wakes up, and he feels like the ground's dropped out beneath him. He can feel himself losing his self control, like a slow slide on ice. "You wouldn't, OK?" He hears himself say, his voice jagged. He clears his throat, looks elsewhere, anywhere but her. "I'll pick my things up later in the week."


“I will!” Alvina’s shaking, angry and very visibly afraid. “You don’t know! Why won’t you tell me what’s happened?” And then, a violent tremor hits her in the chest so hard she can barely breath. A bitterness is growing. How could he make the decision without her? Weren’t they partners? Hadn’t they made it through so much already? What was so terrible that he couldn’t even bring himself to say it outloud? “Tell me.” She said, trying to harden her face with no such luck. She doesn’t look impervious or uneffected. The bard just looks like a tattered tower, one stone’s throw away from falling. “Why don’t you let me know so I can decide how I feel about? I’m not a child!” She grabs onto him, afraid that he’ll just walk away without trying. “Why aren’t you even trying?” Her cool breaks, and she tugs hard on his clothes. The way she might have tugged on his shirt collar if she was intoxicated, and trying to undress him in the dark. A flurry of warm, tender moments flew through her mind like photographs; the way she rolled over onto his pillow in the morning to smell him after he gets out of bed to take a shower, the surge of heat in her skin when he kisses her, the soft patter of rain on the window panes when they’ve cuddled up on a stormy afternoon, the sizzle of candle wicks as they blew out the lights for bed each night.


Hudson finds himself suddenly under assault by his girlfriend and his cool likewise breaks, except it's so much worse. His emotions flare like a fire that's been fed gasoline, and just like that he watches his temper suddenly get away from him, like a horse that's jumped a gate. "Because I said so, Alvina!" he shouts at her. "What are you doing, stop it!" He stiffens under her pulling of his clothes, grabs one of her arms - the non metal one - holds her back from him, his grip a bit too hard. He doesn't know himself anymore. "Alvina," he hisses her name at her, his gaze colliding with hers, "it's done, go home. We're done. Get back together with Linken and have perfect children, because it's not going to happen with you and me. OK?" He releases her roughly, staring her down at arm's length as he struggles to reign in his volatile emotions, which suddenly seem to be keen on transforming into aggression if he'll let them.


Alvina goes silent. Her pupils widen and quiver. Hudson can likely see his entire face reflected in their bottomless terror. She’d never seen him angry to this point before, even when they were screaming at each other through the bathroom door and saying things they didn’t mean. Whatever he was saying, he meant it. His fingernails bit into her skin and she shrunk visibly in the heat of his anger, the weight of his words enough to finally make her knees buckle. And down she goes, her weight dead and pulling her arm free from his grasp. His hand print remains; the skin around her arm pink and swelling ever so slightly. “I am home…” she whispers, turning her eyes to the floor to watch her teardrops darken the wooden floor like rain. Logic had no place here anymore. “What did I do….” She asked the ground, as it blurred in her vision. The bitterness began to grow. “We’re both home!” She screamed, clutching her chest and curling her legs beneath her quivering frame. “I want to be with you!” Another howl as she felt her insides crumbling. “What did I do!” Her voice started to crack, and her face jerked back up to look at him. Look him straight in the eyes and read his mind. Tell me, her eyes begged. If you’re going to up and leave without a reason, at least give me closure. Give me a reason to hate you. A real reason to let you go. “Flippin’ tell me Hudson! Be a man and open your Gods Damned mouth and tell me why you’re ripping my heart out. Do I mean so little to you? Do you hate me that much? I gave you everything...you could at least give me an answer.”


Hudson struggles over his anger, panting as Alvina screams at him. He'd handled her too roughly, he realizes, in a moment of clarity. He feels sick over it, and yet it had been satisfying in a terrifying way. Her words are like claws raking at him, provoking his new feral side. She doesn't understand. This is a decision he's made and it's not negotiable. He's not just a guy anymore and after what he's been through he doesn't owe her any explanation if he doesn't feel like giving her one. He shakes his head at her, lets a silence creep in while he visibly collects himself. When the anger recedes he knows there'll be something raw and sad and lonely underneath, and he selfishly clings to his temper to stare her down. "I need to be alone, I'm sorry," he tells her, turning away from her to leave the yard. With each step away from her, he feels his anger strip away and sadness quicken inside of him. Ah what had he done? His girl! And he'd pushed her, oh... He's horrible. He's jogging back to Cenril before he knows it, a jagged hole where his heart had been.


Alvina tries to chase after him, but her legs are weak and useless. Like a newborn fawn, she falls, crashing back down the wooden floor in a new flurry of tears. “Hudson!” She screams, over and over again until her voice is raw. Everything in her burns and cries out. She sobs heavily in the doorway, birds clatter in the distant and are stirred from their nests at her shrieking. “Hudson…” she whimpers, still trying to figure out what had just happened. It all felt like a bad dream. He hadn’t been wearing his bracelet...she thought, as a hollowness built in her chest. Aria approached her fallen owner, and sensing her distress, licked her puffy cheek. Alvina didn’t have the energy to do anything but scoop Aria up, close the front door most of the way, and go back to the couch in her cocktail dress from the night before. “It’s just a dream…” She sobbed, settling under the blanket, knowing she was lying to herself. Aria perched on Alvina’s chest and purred loudly, as if trying to mend the bard’s broken heart. This was the end. It was over. Hudson wasn’t coming back. Alvina closed her eyes, and wept herself into a restless and tortured sleep in which Hudson left her over, and over, and over. Ripping her heart to pieces and leaving through the ashes.