( closed ) so collect your courage and collect your horse

[wendigoner]

Who: Hannah Washington and Mike Munroe feat. Wolfie
What: They meet again by accident and it goes about as well as anyone could expect.
Where: Out and about in town, scavenging.
When: 9/13, before the Dead Men Walking event.
Warnings: Language, talk of the events of Until Dawn, which means spoilers and themes of horror and violence.

[ Hannah has not had a good time. Her arrival to Hadriel had been... chaotic and confusing, to say the least, but she'd found her place in this bizarre world among her friends and her brother. She'd made new friends, even, and had started trying to forget about the prank and what came after, even though its details were still massively unclear.

Things took a turn for the worse, to say the least, when Josh vanished. When Chris and Emily decided that she should hear the whole truth of that night, of her and Beth running into the woods and never returning again.

... Well. Beth had apparently returned again, but her twin had lived. Had survived by the cruelest of means. Had become... something else entirely.

If she doesn't force all that knowledge deep, deep down, it threatens to drown her.

It helped to have Beth actually arrive, though that did light a flame beneath Hannah's guilt about what had happened to her sister, about what she herself had done. Even so, the presence is a huge comfort, and she returns to the house again, albeit with the air of a person constantly on the edge of a nervous breakdown. To keep herself occupied, she spends a lot of time out and about, gathering whatever supplies are left to find, poking through the city with less concern than before about what might happen to her there.

What does it matter? The worst thing that'll happen to me isn't here.

The appearance of a wolf, though, does startle her. Hannah gasps, drawing back, as the animal pads toward her, sniffing. Despite her resolve, she trembles a little, eyeing its mouth, its sharp eyes. ]

H... Hey, it's okay. Easy. [ She swallows as it approaches, feeling as if she has little choice but to offer it a hand to sniff. It may just bite off her fingers, she realizes, but she knows she can't outrun the thing. Is there anything here I can give it to eat? ]

Comments

[snowballers]

It's all right! He's trained!

[ Enough people are afraid of Wolfie that Mike calls it out the moment he hears footsteps. The shops are pretty good on supplies, though there's nothing for wolves in particular. Wolfie can't really hunt here; Mike's not sure these wolves even do. ]

[ The voice doesn't register at first. Distance plays havoc with memory; he remembers Hannah's face better than he does her voice. He exits the shop in his usual swagger, and freezes the second he sees her. ]

... You're here.

[ There's already Beth, who's impossible, what's one more thing? Mike swallows. ]

— Hi. Uh, this is Wolfie.

[ nailed it, Mikey ]

[wendigoner]

[ Somehow, this is worse than hearing about her future from Chris and Emily. Then, she'd passed it off as another, cruel prank, and after that, when she'd... started to accept it, she'd forced it so deep down that she could sometimes forget that they'd even said it. After all, she's alive and human now, and so is Beth. It's a little too easy to believe that what they told her will never come to pass.

Michael Munroe, however, is here. Standing in the doorway, an unwanted phantom in the nightmare that is her life.

Hannah freezes, the wolf completely forgotten. Never mind that of course Mike, of all people, would have a fucking trained wolf. She stares at him wide-eyed through her glasses, a veritable statue, caught between fight and flight. ]

"Hi?" [ She repeats quietly, her voice bearing just the faintest tremor. ] Are you - Are you kidding me?

[snowballers]

[ He rubs the back of his neck with his hand, grimacing. Breathing suddenly seems incredibly impossible. ]

Hi.

[ Mike's shoulders drop. I'm sorry feels dumb to think and is probably worse than that out loud; he's never been that kind of guy to go around asking for forgiveness. Not in a way that mattered, because there's nothing like being on that mountain again, losing the twins and then Jess, seeing Josh... it broke open too suddenly, too fast. ]

[ They all saw a therapist. But he's still opening and closing his mouth like a guppy. Real smooth. ]

When did you get here?

[wendigoner]

[ Foolishly, she'd expected an apology right out of the gate. She'd been ready to bat it down, to react indignantly that no simple I'm sorry could undo what he'd helped to start. Where she had been passive with Emily and the others, all the outrage at what became of her life, what was born out of the prank, funnels into the way she looks at Mike now, into the way she stands, frozen.

'Don't fucking move a muscle.' ]

I can't - [ She begins abruptly, but she can believe it, because he is still that guy. ] Are you making small talk right now?

[ Despite herself, she realizes that she's still in that top, in the shirt he'd loved so much that night, or so he'd written. Hannah twitches slightly, mind working overtime, torn between... so many different things that she wants to do and say. ]

You think you can just show up here and talk to me like nothing happened? [ She finally demands, eyes blazing. ]

[snowballers]

[ If looks could kill — ]

You want me to say I'm sorry?

[ It's angry. He didn't expect it to be, but it's too quick to take back. Wolfie circles around him, into the shop, the sound of him brushing the shelves serves as the only grounding force. Yeah, there's small talk, because there isn't anything else. Everything happened. He can only count to eight now, for fuck's sake. ]

What's that going to do, Hannah?

[wendigoner]

[ In this moment, Hannah will not be meek. ]

You piece of shit! [ She yells, stepping definitively forward. ] I thought we were friends, I thought - [ And she's embarrassed to even say this now, considering, but she has to, has to make a point - ] I thought you were this great guy, but I couldn't have been more wrong. I talked to Emily, and I get why she wanted to... do all that, but why did you do it, Mike? How long after that did you dump her for Jess?

[ Hannah gets closer, close enough for him to confirm, perhaps, that she's alive. Warm, breathing, definitively not dead... or something worse. ]

And how far were you going to take it, huh? If they hadn't given the game away, how far would you have gone to lead me on?

[ She'd almost had her shirt off, for Christ's sake. On camera, in front of them all. ]

You can't even give me a stupid "I'm sorry." You're - You're disgusting.

[snowballers]

[ He flinches, moving back. Adrenaline's been high since Jess got snatched and here it's not much lower even though he logically knows there's no wendigos around. Hannah's anger pours off her, and it's such a fucking relief it's about something so mundane. ]

You're right.

[ He brushes her hand off. ]

It was shitty. I don't even know why we did it. That's not even [ important. he blows out a long, frustrated breath ] there doesn't even seem like any good reason now. Is sorry really going to mend anything, Hannah? We fucked up. You ran out in the storm and you and Beth never came back.

[ God, the wendigo probably found them. He wipes his nose on his sleeve. ]

That was a year ago. Nobody's over it.

[wendigoner]

[ She knows it was a year ago, knows that... she and Beth never return from the woods. Still, Mike admitting that she's right, that they'd been wrong, has her pause. Hesitate. Stare hard, not quite believing, and not yet backing down. ]

It'd be a start. [ She mutters, stung. ] Dumbass.

[ Emily had offered perhaps the most heartfelt apology thus far, which... is bizarre, thinking back. ]

I hope you wouldn't be 'over it' after just one year. [ No, she doesn't want them to suffer, but Hannah also doesn't know that Emily and Chris are the only ones who know the extent of what happened to her... and to Beth. She doesn't know that Mike hadn't found out the awful depths of the truth. ] How do you think I felt when I heard about it? About everything?

[snowballers]

About as shitty as we do, I guess.

[ Or perhaps worse. It's not like she or Beth would ever really take joy in what kind of ordeal the rest of them are facing on the mountain. Their world changed in an instant. ]

[ He fidgets. It's a start. ]

Look, I'm sorry. We shouldn't have done what we did. I'd give [ an arm, ha ha ] anything to take it back.

[wendigoner]

[ Her mouth is a thin, unhappy line. He's uncomfortable (good), but so is she, unsure of where and how to stop being angry. ]

Sure. [ Hannah believes him, honestly, but she can't - won't - let him off the hook so easily. ] If half of what I heard is true, then... I mean, you went through enough.

[ "You were punished enough." They all were, for being young, for being stupid. ]

[snowballers]

[ His shoulders sag again, this time in relief. ]

Yeah, all right.

[ Whatever this is, it's not worse than what's behind or still left to do when they're sent home. ]

You wanna come in and get some food?

[ And talk to the wolf. Girls love dogs, right? ]

[wendigoner]

... No, I'm alright. [ Honestly? She may not be as mad at him, but she's not ready to be friends, or anything close. Not today, at least. ] I think I'm just gonna hang out here for... a while.

[ Think all this crap over. Alone. ]

You've, um... seen the others, I guess?