penny for your thoughts

His hands trailed back from her cheeks and tangled into her hair. He couldn’t move his forehead away from hers. It was like this connection was the only thing keeping him from falling apart. His brown eyes gazed down at her, wishing that he could explain in some way or show her inside his mind. He knew this all had to be beyond difficult for her. 

But then his eyes landed on her lips and the way she was biting down on it. Letting out a breath, his hands released her hair and pressed against the door behind her. He pulled his head back from her and let out another shaky breath. “I should… not kiss you again,” he said, more to himself than to her, “I already forced the first one on you. And… Probably better that we… Talk first.”

He was having an extremely hard time focusing. After the roller coaster of emotions they’d both been on today, he knew the worst thing he could do was try and pick up their physical relationship where it had left off. He didn’t have her trust anymore; and he’d have to earn it before he could… Well, take her to bed.

"I should also probably put some clothes on," he said, a smile touching his lips, "You okay to wait here while I change in the bathroom?" The last thing he wanted to do was separate from her; especially to go to a bathroom. Mostly because he’d been in the shower when she’d packed up and left last time and, despite his deserving it, it still scarred him a little.

He was an island all to himself.

He’d done it to himself, he knew. He’d isolated himself from the world for fear of exactly what had happened to him with Penny. For fear of getting too close to someone and then have them ripped away. Though, that was his own fault to, he supposed. He could have been a better man. He could have… Something, anything. But it didn’t matter now. She was lost to him.

In an attempt to ebb his fury, he’d torn off all his clothing and gone to take a shower. It helped abate the need to break things. But in letting the anger wash away, all he could feel was the crippling pain of loss. He’d never once shed a tear over his parents death. He’d never once let himself mourn them. So why was he suddenly so moved to mourn? The parents that had made him a killer; the woman that had made him want to be normal. He was stuck in between the two and it felt like he was being torn apart. 

For the first time since he was four years old, Oliver wept. For his parents, for himself, for Penny.

He only allowed it for a few moments, before carefully piecing together his Kevlar armor that had protected him all these years. And then, he exited the shower to face the rest of his miserable life alone.

Only to hear a knock at his door.

Who in this town could have wanted to talk to him? Certainly not Penny. He didn’t know anyone else. Maybe it was the owners of the place coming to eject him already.

He wrapped a towel around his waist and shook the water out of his hair before going to the door and pulling it open, nearly knocked over in shock when he saw Penny standing there. He listened to her words. This was the first time she’d said anything about her past as well. And suddenly, things made a little more sense.

But the problem was, he didn’t know how to make it better. For either of them. He couldn’t take back what he’d done. He couldn’t change who he’d been. “Pen…” he said softly, and then without a second thought, he reached out and pulled her to him, crashing his lips down upon hers. One of his hands cupped the back of her head as he pulled her into his hotel room and closed the door. He pressed her back against the door, his forehead resting against hers as his lips broke from hers.

He wanted desperately to reach out and brush the tears from her face; or pull her into his arms and beg forgiveness. Something inside him told him it would only make it worse. After all, she wasn’t the only one that looked at his hands and saw blood. He was all too acutely aware of what he’d done. How many Penny’s had he taken from the world? How many loving and adoring boyfriends like himself had he left to grieve them? Oliver never knew self loathing until this moment.

"Pen, I…" he said, his eyes searching her face for some answer that he couldn’t come up with on his own. "I’m so sorry," he finally said, "I never… I never wanted this to happen to you." Trying to ignore how red his hands looked to him, he reached out and brushed his fingers through the ends of her hair, "The last thing I ever wanted was for my love to hurt you…"

It was suddenly very clear to him. Coming here; it was wrong. He should have kept his pain to himself and let her move on. What was that song that was popular nowadays? Only know you love her when you let her go?

And as the song began to play in his head, he felt a new resolve come over him. Glancing once more at her, he stood. He pulled his eyes from hers and turned, walking back to where he’d left his bag. He picked it up and cleared his throat. He stared at the door he was about to walk out of. “My love is always going to hurt you, though,” he said, his voice hardly above a whisper. “Even if I gave up hunting, like I’d planned, you’ll always see all the people I murdered when you look at me. You’ll always feel the pain of my betrayal. And if I love you like I claim, then… I need to let you move on and live the life you sought here. Without me.”

He pressed his lips together and looked down at the floor, turning his head to the side so she could see at least one side of his face. “If there’s a pack nearby, join it. Hunters tend to stay away from packs. Stay with the pack, Penny, and you’ll never have to look over your shoulder again, I promise.”

Oliver hesitated, struggling to find the resolve to actually walk out. “I hope that you find a way to be happy, Pen…” he said softly, feeling tears prick his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, turned his face back towards the door and pushed himself forward, “Goodbye.”

Her head was nodding as he apologized, though she couldn’t figure out why. Maybe he had finally done it; maybe she was broken — laughing and crying and nodding and blubbering about like a lovesick fool. Sick in the worst possible ways. She made a noise in the back of her throat as he stood up; walked away to grab his bag. Penny had wanted him gone. For good. Forever. Out of her life and out of her mind and off of her radar, but as soon as the door dinged after him, Penny felt a deep, miserable sob leave her.

It was different when she had packed up and left, but why did it feel this way when he walked out the door?

She was better off without him. He wasn’t a good person. They made each other weak. As the tears slowly ceased to pour and the sobs rumbled to a slow, probably sensing that Penny didn’t have anything left in her to give, Penny pulled herself up off the floor and locked the front door to Ethel and Marie’s small flower shop, beyond glad that nobody had wandered in the last half hour and caught her on the ground.

For the first time since she was very young, Penny shifted without the help of the moon. She left work in a daze and a note scribbled to Ethel that she broke a vase and would pick up another on Monday, hoping that could suffice until then. She didn’t even know how safe the woods surrounding the town were, didn’t think to sniff it out before she had her shirt over her head and her pants in a pile on a tree stump.

She ran for hours — long, long after the sun had already set and the night set in an almost comfortable cool in the trees. Penny knew she was basically running in circles, too afraid to get lost and lose her own scent in the trees full of different aromas. But finally, with one last painful howl into the midnight, Penny retreated back to her clothing and walked back into the town, knowing without even really thinking about it that she was picking up Oliver’s scent and trailing it. She was breathless and winded and her heart was beating loudly from her run, but she could still hear herself call his name softly as she stopped in front of his door, her knuckles rapping softly at the wood.

As soon as he opened the door, Penny’s thoughts were leaving her lips.

He placed his hands flat on the counter, as if to steady himself. He thought over all of her questions as he stared down at the counter. “I couldn’t tell you how many there have been, Pen. I’ve been doing this so long…” he let out a breath, “I’ve known about wolves since… Before I can even remember. I was raised to be this, to be who I am. I was taught from the moment I was born about the supernatural. At first, they just used me for identifying them; I was better than they were for some reason…”

He neglected to say parents, and instead just said them. “So there are probably hundreds more deaths on my shoulders than the ones I actually took with my own hands,” he said, his eyes still on the counter, unable to look at her. “I… I didn’t have a reason for doing what I do. Just that they told me to, that it was expected of me. It was… as normal to me as a parent wanting their kid to go to a good college, I… I don’t know how to explain it.”

He pushed back from the counter then and turned away from her. He didn’t want her to see how his hands shook. “But then your kind gave me a reason. They murdered both of my parents; and I know it sounds stupid. Or maybe you think they got what was coming to them for what they’d done, but they were my parents. I was only eighteen, I…” He shook his head, “Besides them… Hunting was all I knew.”

Oliver swallowed hard at the lump in his throat and then ran a hand down his face, turning and motioning towards her. “And then I met you, and I don’t care who thinks it’s stupid, but I believe in love at first sight, and I believe in people belonging together. And maybe it was love that blinded me at first; but I didn’t see or feel or think about the things that made you what you are.” His dark eyes bore into hers, “And once I did know, I was… Angry, depressed. How could I be so desperately in love with the very creatures I’d sworn to my parents that I would destroy? I didn’t know what to do! All I knew was that… No matter what you were, I couldn’t ever picture a world… without you in it.”

"I never even knew there were others like me," Penny whispered, more to herself than directed at him, eyes clouding over as she felt herself slide down the wall and plop to the ground. He was looking at her, and Penny felt for a moment just how disappointed in himself that she was in him, even if it wasn’t half as severe. He made the mistake of falling for her, just as she had made the mistake of falling in love with him. Her mother had tried to warn her about love, hadn’t she?

Penny remained silent, her tears falling in pathetic, fat globs onto her jeans as she processed. She should have been up on her feet, yelling and screaming and kicking. He’d ruined the lives of so many people — so many wolves, like her, who had done nothing wrong. Or maybe they had wronged. Maybe her species had it coming for a long time, but Penny had done nothing to provoke anyone or anything. Penny was insecure in her own skin enough without having Oliver there to watch her sit and cower like a dog with a broken leg. The analogy was more fitting than she cared to admit.

Oliver had killed. He loved her but he was a killer. Her Oliver. There were others out there just like him; killing and taking names of people she had never met but had felt more emotionally connected to now more than ever. Penny couldn’t hold in a soft sob, pulling her legs to her chest and her forehead between her knees as she held on to her own body so tightly, craving the contact of the warmth of her own skin. She wasn’t cut out for this. Not one bit.

"You should have just killed me," she spoke, an almost out-of-body experience as she surprised herself with her words. Penny brought her head back up and did the worst thing she could possibly do: she laughed. It was a broken and hollow shell of a laugh that sounded nothing like her own obnoxious snicker, but it was there. "How does this make anything easier or better? How am I supposed to keep going on with my life knowing all of this shit? I already hated the moonlight and despised my own skin before you came around and now I have to keep looking over my shoulder all the time because — because there are people like you out there who hate me for a lot less?” Penny’s voice cracked and it felt like she was being stabbed in the heart all over again as she gripped tightly at her tummy.

Which was why she had been about to shift. Before she caught him naked, obviously, and distractions turned her head around from there. She cocked her head at his question, rose a brow as he seemed to debate with something in his head, and finally Penny broke out a small smile.

Now Jaden felt really bad. He hadn’t meant to rub it in her face. And yet, his idiocy and incredulousness at the fact that she didn’t even know about packs had done just that. He lamely reached out and patted her back softly. “It’s not always that great.” he replied, trying to make her feel better. Normally, Jaden was a lot… well, he was just better at comforting people. But considering he had met this girl for the very first time completely naked, his usual charm was somewhat less tonight. 

But she couldn't stop listening. If there was one thing Penny had always hated about herself, it was that she had let her mother's words get to her. Penny could run as far away from her past but she would always be insecure about her furry little problem. Always.

"But you guys are practically -- practically unfuckwithable, right?" Penny asked, almost too earnest for her own good. There were literally songs written about how sucky it was being on your own. Nothing good ever came from being by yourself, and Penny had gone and gotten herself into the worst kind of trouble. "That's so cool."

girl with no name | a skye fanmix [listen]

"that’s the thing about Skye. what I told her shattered her … here I am, telling her something that could destroy her faith in humanity, and somehow she manages to repair a little piece of mine."

Ultimately, Penny found herself growing weaker; she found herself believing him. Surely that made her weak, right? She had always been insecure in her own skin — but if she was gonna go; if she really was gonna die; if all that far she had of the good in people was really going to let her down, the least she could do was find out why.

Penny wiped at her eye with the back of her hand, turning away, suddenly ashamed of herself letting him see just how much he affected her. She kept to her perch next to the wall, still unwillingly to approach so they could speak at normal distance from one another, and her eyes trailed over the rest of him. They landed on his hands. He’d killed others like her, with those hands, hadn’t he? Not even three weeks prior she was holding those hands after she dragged him out to the farmer’s market. He’d held her face with those hands. Sometimes he made dinner with those hands, and the thought of those hands caked in the blood of another made her want to vomit. She never did finish her Dexter marathon. She didn’t think she could stomach it, now.

He went about cleaning, leaving this ironic statement of his hanging in the air as he bent down and brushed all the shards into the pan. He stood with the pan in his hand and turned towards where he’d spotted a trash can earlier. He dumped it all and then returned the broom and the dust pan to where he’d found them, then returned to his place at the counter and the exact position he’d been in before all this had begun.