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Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2017 6:35 pm
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 1:21 pm
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 1:30 pm
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Oliver looked down disdainfully at the hand held out to him, and then up to Preacher, and then down to the hand again. "My name's Oliver..." He mumbled petulantly like a sulking child. He reached out towards the hand with an obvious hesitation, but finally he settled it in hers.
Of course, nothing could have prepared him for the pack touch again, let alone because he wasn't expecting it, but here they were. Warmth and family and friend slapped him upside the head immediately, and it made his eyes huge and his face wibble a little. With Eve he had been so surprised that it had little immediate bearing on him, and wit Jamie he had an immensely difficult time letting go (the feeling the second time around was easier to parse, and much more welcomed in a split second moment).
This was, well, not so different. It broke him. His mouth was half opened with a startled question as he started at Preacher with some weird cross between "adoring small child meets santa" and "a really sad puppy that wants your pizza crust".
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 6:19 pm
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Ollie's eyes were still wide as Preacher panicked, staring down at her, mesmerized by the weird mental phenomena of this weird moonwalker s**t. He always wound up in the same train of thought; it was weird—intrusive of course—but he'd never been able to put family into words like the touch felt in his hand. It was warm and wholesome and made him feel okay—
Next thing he knew he was blinking rapidly from the ground, vision blurred and spinning in circles. Preacher's form was standing there in three different places at once, her voice hitting his ears like it was traveling through water. He vaguely registered something warm running down his lip, fingers twitching as his body tried to tell him get up.
Did she hit him? That thought seemed so weird and foreign; she wouldn't have hit him, right? Why would she have hit him? Did he do something wrong?
He pushed his torso up, still sitting, watching the tiny drops of red land on the pavement. "Y-You hit me..." He looked up at her with his sight still muddled, except now all the wonder in his eyes was replaced with fear and confusion. "W-What the ********— why—"
He brought his hand to his face and his now bloody nose, too startled and shock to do much else.
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 6:40 pm
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He gawked. "Should I start including that in my introductions? Hello there, I'm Oliver! I transform into animals!" His voice got high pitched and indignant, except the way it wavered showed how terrified he was regardless, how utterly flabbergasted he was. "I-I didn't know you were one! ******** it I only started going through this s**t a few weeks ago, I don't even know what I am." He hissed, "I never asked for this! A-And you just—!"
He was cradling his nose now, unsure if it was broken, but knowing it hurt like a son of a b***h.
"H-How is this my fault." He was almost crumpling in on himself, "I-I didn't know." Hell, he wasn't even bothering to lift himself off of the floor.
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 7:23 pm
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Now he just looked taken aback. "A-Awful...?" He blinked quickly like he was also on the verge of tears. "It..."
Sure, Oliver hated the notion of family, but he loved it too. Family was his dickhead dad at all hours of the night, ranting and raving and throwing s**t at the walls. Family was also his brother, someone who understood him on such a profound level that he wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. As far as the pack touch went, it brought forward an entirely new sensation of belonging, and that was something Oliver never really had. He grew up an outcast with Shiloh, didn't stick to any one group of friends too much. He was a loner. This gave him something to feel good about.
He exhaled shakily, "I-I... I like it..." He said this quietly, like he was admitting to some sort of crime and Preacher was going to be the one to cut out his tongue. "I still have my own thoughts, it doesn't—it doesn't change me—" He was having a hard time putting his thoughts into words, "It makes me feel like I belong somewhere..."
He was scooting away from Preacher even though she had been a considerable distance away. Any other time he would have struck back, but right now he just felt hurt and thrashed and disposed of.
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 7:53 pm
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His hurt expression was awful and it tugged at her heartstrings. Viciously, she shook the feeling off, certain that it was the residual holdings of the awful pack touch. "It's b-bullshit magic forcing you to feel like we're family. I don't ********' know you from Adam! You don't know me, either." She rubbed a hand across her face than stared at that hand, fingers trembling slightly. "You could be ******** but this, t-this thing makes me think things I wouldn't normally. It d-doesn't bother you that you didn't earn this f-feelin? Nobody did! I don't want this goddamn feeling; I don't need it!" Preacher watched him scoot away from her and that was fine, too, she thought bitterly. That kind of look... she was used to being looked at like that, like she was the worst thing in existence. Like Preacher wasn't even worth the energy expended penalizing her for everything she ******** up.
She remembered late night footsteps pausing outside her door and how she tensed up, trying to remember what she'd done wrong. Family was unexpected knocks into the wall and a group of boys who decided she didn't fit. Family was her newest set of 'parents' telling she wasn't worth it. She was never worth it. So she didn't need it. And she especially didn't need a kind of forced comradery from some kind of built-in magical survival instinct. Preacher didn't need it, couldn't have it. "Ya can like it all ya want, ya can pretend it's belonging. But I never, never ********' needed this. If I could cut off my goddamn hand and never feel this again, I would." Her whole body tensed, wanting to fight - but Preacher couldn't fight a feeling. She couldn't knock down something inside of herself and give it a bloody nose. Instead, she slammed her fist into the pavement, hard, feeling the jammed fingers, the pain radiating up her arm.
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 8:06 pm
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"It's not like it's something you need." Had she been wronged by someone who was like him—a moonwalker? It might be sort of terrible he decided, to have to experience something so trusting with someone you might absolutely despise, but he... he didn't have a problem with it. He liked the camaraderie. He didn't want to convince this girl otherwise—feelings were feelings were feelings, and these weren't his—but watching the way she struggled, how hurt she seemed, everything—
"S-Stop that!" For a second he didn't see Preacher, he saw Shiloh, so ******** frustrated with life and everything that his fist was slamming into the wall. A hole in the surface, his knuckles ******** and bleeding, tears; "Stop! Stop oh my god." For all the backing up he had been doing, he was nudging forward again, the blood running over his lip and staining his front teeth read. He reached out and then slapped his hand away for fear of being hit again.
"I'm... I'm sorry." He said without knowing what else to say, because it felt like he had brought this on. He didn't want her to hurt like this, even if she was some stranger. "It's weird—sometimes it's ******** intrusive as hell—I didn't like it at first either, it..." He wheezed a little as he ignored the familiar feeling of blood down the back of his throat, "Please don't hurt yourself..." His hands wavered awkwardly, but he didn't touch her.
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