What's There To Complain About (Isaac Foster)

[Julian McAllister]

There was a moment of pause before Julian dared to look up at Isaac again, his slouched pose putting him more or less at eye level with the werewolf sitting across from him. He spent the moment idly toying with the front of his shirt, which suddenly and inexplicably had a small hole in it. He was a few seconds in to pondering where the hell it could've come from and had already furrowed his brows before he remembered being mid-conversation and looked up absently.

"Wouldn't that be exciting." Julian laughed light-heartedly at the comment about signing the paper in blood. Jim's sick sense of humor would probably approve of something so twisted, and the concept that their boss was going to like this Isaac fellow caused the smile to linger longer than he intended. Casually, he twisted in his seat, produced a pen from his bag and dropped it on top of the paper stack lightly, easily able to reach across the table with his long arms. "It'd be like signing your soul away to the devil. Not terribly inaccurate either, I suppose."

Sitting back in his chair, the taller werewolf slouched into a comfortable sitting position again, his fingers absently drifting back to the hole in the hem of his plaid shirt as he gave the conversation a moment to back track slightly, quietly hoping Isaac wouldn't be too confused by the disorganization. Julian was far from an organized individual, in his mind in particular.

"But yeah, I suppose I do occasionally wonder what it'd be like to live in Europe. I never spent much time there myself- my parents were the natives, not me. But it was such a nice place to visit." He looked away thoughtfully, sounding a little mystified by whatever he was imagining of the country he'd only visited once or twice. "We went on a vacation a few times in my childhood- once to Salisbury, once to... East or West Sussex, I can't remember. Have you ever been to England, Isaac? It's quite lovely, I highly recommend the trip."

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[isaacf]

Leaning slightly back as Julian reached across the table to drop the pen down in front of him, Isaac gingerly picked it up and began signing his name across the marked lines, the signature looking more like a spiky collection of sharp loops and dashes than an actual name. The pen spluttered out halfway through one of the pages and he had to go over his name with another signing; the result was essentially illegible, but you could definitely make out the shape of an F in there if you squinted. This job didn't seem exactly the sort that would be too much of a stickler for neat handwriting, anyway. They probably didn't even require it. What did you do if you couldn't read? Surely janitorial services were the type of jobs illiterates tried out for, at least in Isaac's experience. That or clean-up or drug running. He'd known a man once, an older gentlemen missing three fingers and a substantial number of teeth, who he'd met in a train-car as it rattled along the midwest lines. He'd refused to learn to read, had called it a waste of thinkin' space, to use his words. He'd also died before the train reached its final destination, so Isaac wasn't sure really how much space it had saved.

Julian was talking, he realized. This seemed to be a trend with him, rambling while the other person wasn't paying attention, and it made Isaac grind his back teeth a bit as he scrawled his name on the final page. He wasn't good with chatty people; or at least, not good with people who insisted on having him reciprocate their high energy levels. He didn't do small talk. Or much big talk, really. Small talk was for people you didn't give a shit about knowing, and big talk was for people you wanted to connect with. He didn't care enough to try and make friends and there were few people who wanted to be in his company anyways, once they found out who he was. As the man in front of him ambled on cheerfully about going on vacation to Sussex (what a weird-ass place to visit, why wouldn't you go somewhere interesting, what he wouldn't give to be able to leave the country and actually make a fresh start even if that was some impossible dream now) Isaac folded the paper stack back and shoved them a few inches across the table, rolling the pen over as an afterthought.

"Have you ever been to England, Isaac?"

He exhaled sharply, folding his arms back over his chest again. "Born in London, yeah. My family moved here when I was a baby though, haven't had the chance to go visit."God he's going to ask me questions about them now isn't he, chatty bastard. "My father had a law firm in Detroit so we lived there mostly. Not really my area of business -" he gestured to the papers "- as you can see."

[Julian McAllister]

"Oh, law." Someone of Julian's level of intelligence had to be faking the interested raise of his eyebrows, that high tone of voice, as though he'd lost control of his ability to pitch his words properly at the obscene amount of interest in the topic. Honestly, he didn't know a damn thing about lawyers, what they did or how they did it, other than the fact that they spent a lot of time talking in circles and shuffling papers. But he feigned interest rather well, tilting his head to one side and crossing his arms over his chest almost expectantly. "I've heard that is a lot more profitable than janitorial work. You'll have to tell me what kept you from taking up the family business..."

There was a brief pause on Julian's end, the gears between his ears seeming almost tangible as they slowly creaked to life and jerked forward a half an inch. His blue eyes wandered down to the table in thought, shifting back and forth slightly awkwardly until finally the internal lightbulb was lit and they snapped upward suddenly.

"... some... other time, probably." He managed to stutter slightly, trying to casually wave off the topic and failing miserably at the gesture. Hesitation was an awkward behavior, on his tongue especially, and the black haired lycan found himself almost scrambling to make sense of the situation. He really wanted to know, out of pure curiosity of course, why someone would choose to mop floors over making millions of dollars a year in their dad's law firm. For some, it was an intelligence thing, but for some it was... slightly deeper than that. Probably too deep for a job interview, even he had apparently realized. Almost as though to snap himself out of his self-induced haze, Julian sat forward suddenly, taking the pen and paper from the table and jamming them in his bag before moving to stand. "Well, I think it's time someone learned where the main office building was. If you don't mind a little late night wandering. Not that it's very late..."

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[isaacf]

He wondered, briefly, if the man in front of him could be trusted.

The number of people who he had actually voluntarily told his life story to was staggeringly small for how long he'd been around and how very many people he'd come into contact with over that time period. When he was younger and still human, he'd been the unsightly scum hanging out in alleys and warehouses, the kind of person you walk by very quickly while trying your hardest to not make eye contact. He'd been, though it took him a long time to realize it, desperately lonely and in need of help, and everyone who passed him by was either too scared or dignified to offer to help, and he was too stubborn to accept it. And then he'd been turned and now that he was no longer societal filth (most of the time, anyway) he had plenty of people who'd been interested in him, and all but a few Isaac had had zero interest in explaining himself to. It's funny, how life works like that. Funny in a morbid sense, funny in a tear-your-hair-out-and-scream-into-the-night kind of way.

Most of the people who had bothered to learn about him had been lycans, trying to encourage him to join their pack or dig up dirt surrounding his past. It wasn't worth it, though, they seemed to find out; Isaac was a nobody. High-school dropout with no money to his name (his father had even changed the will to leave him with nothing, he learned years later, not even a memento from his mother or any hint that he had once belonged to that family), bummed around and left enough trails over the midwest to look like a blot of scribbling on a map. Nothing special, that was the phrasing they always used. You think you had it rough, kid? I've been dealing with worse shit for CENTURIES.

It had grown on him, in a way. He didn't bother with the personal details now, didn't let others know there was anything to be bothered by, because he knew they'd either look at him with concern or confusion or, worst of all, pity. Isaac hated that, hated that other people could look at him with contempt and say how hard it must have been and fuck you, you don't know anything about me or what I think or what I've done, leave me alone. It had turned him into who he was, this person that left a sour taste in your mouth and was forever the wolf who could not stand his pack.

People don't change, he'd decided long ago. They mask who they are and hope no one notices. This was his mask. And sometimes if you pretend long enough, you can even fool yourself, too.

"It's not important," he said, in a tone that offered no leeway. When Julian moved to stand up and offered to show him the building, Isaac had to restrain himself from jumping out of his seat, standing up as casually as he could manage and readjusting the bottom hem of his shirt, looking around and Jesus Christ this guy is tall what the hell do they feed kids these days.

"Right. Lead the way."

[Julian McAllister]

There was a moment of silence on Julian's end of the conversation, which might've seemed strange to someone who knew him well. Quiet was not a word in his vocabulary, and all of its synonyms rarely even came within ten feet of his name, let alone appearing in the same sentence or being used to describe him. But nearly blundering blindly into the other man's potentially dark and twisted past had hit him like a staff to the ribs and, in its wake, his mind floundered somewhat awkwardly, unsure. So many times, in so many different instances, friends and strangers alike had turned heel and ran, all tortured, all terrified, all broken and shattered by a companion with limitless enthusiasm, asking questions they don't want to answer or seeking information they wish not to share. To be fair, their actions were totally warranted on their side of things, even Julian seemed aware of that. There were questions even he did not want to answer. Who was he to force others to do what he would not? It was such a shameful, hypocritical part of his personality.

Still distracted by his thoughts, the taller of the two lycans fumbled around in one of his pants pockets idly, as though searching through a universe worth of change and lint wads to find what he was looking for, when in truth his long slender hands could barely fit in the provided space. Eventually, his fingers found what they were looking for and a balled up fist opened to reveal a number of crinkled up dollar bills, which he left on the table lazily to pay for his drink. Then he turned, hefted his bag from where it rested on the back of his chair, perched it upon one red-patterned shoulder, before gesturing toward the iron gate entrance way, more to indicate where they were headed rather than spurring the ever patient Isaac into motion.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk in only a few of his long strides, Julian paused to take a slow inhale of warm, summer air. The world around him buzzed with traffic, alive to the pulse of people's quiet murmurs and drunk cheers as the late night blinked its eyes and woke in time to the setting sun. It was a lovely night, and briefly, his brow furrowed as the thought of perhaps walking back to headquarters entertained itself. However, he slowly let the thought drift away on the evening breeze. As much time as he wished to waste on this outing, the walk was probably a few too many miles long to be sensible. Plus there was a river between them. So, with a resolute bit of a grin, he turned and began his march the block and a half toward the subway station.

"Shouldn't be more than a ten minute train ride." He spoke, more to fill the avoid he'd left between himself and Isaac than anything else. "Assuming no one causes a fuss and all of the trains are running on time and what not. You can never be quite sure in this city."

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[isaacf]

He didn't ask.

Isaac could have gone weak at the knees and sent a prayer to the sky if he'd had the time to; as it was, the relief that slowly washed over him was a refreshingly cool tone that let his shoulders drop down just a small amount, hardly a change enough for a passersby to notice but for Isaac it felt as if a fifty-pound sack of weight had been lifted off. This was... good. Nice, even. From their brief dinner chat (he hadn't eaten, he realized now, whoops) he'd expected Julian to fall into that category of people that he couldn't stand, the ones that talked and talked and never stopped unless you reciprocated back - and even then, they'd still sometimes go on for hours. Isaac did not like this type of person. Not at all. He didn't care if you talked a lot - it was annoying, but they make headphones for a reason, and the majority of the time if you ignored someone long enough they'd eventually realize you didn't want to socialize and leave you alone. Story of his life nowadays, really. But some people, oh they talked and talked and then expected you to just open right up like a folded paper, telling all about what you liked, where you're from, your family, your feelings, everything. Dislike was too weak a word; Isaac loathed those people.

It got him in trouble. A lot. Especially in the more recent decades, everyone seemed to be expected to be wearing their feelings on their metaphorical sleeves, always talking about what they did and how they labeled themselves and blah, blah, blah. He'd not gotten more than one job due to his unwillingness to talk, and lost the favor of countless people - unsurprisingly, he could never hold down a relationship. But for this, for privacy, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make, every time.

But Julian just nodded and stepped back and changed the subject and left and Isaac could have raised a temple in his name, right then and there. People who understood boundaries - understood that sometimes you can mean things you don't say, that you don't need to say things you don't mean - those were the kind of people he liked. Hell, right now he was even willing to overlook the fact that Julian was annoyingly tall and had a spring in his step that looked like it belonged on an animated cartoon character.

He walked forward with an air of confidence, shoulders back and his stride quickening just a touch to keep pace with the taller lycan he was now following, stepping into stride alongside him. He didn't like walking side-by-side with people, people always assumed things (just because I am well-groomed does not mean I am gay fuck off) but walking behind people, especially when he didn't know where he was going, never sat well in his stomach.

"Shouldn't be more than a ten minute train ride."

Isaac felt himself falter slightly before resuming pace. He hated trains. Hated subways, specifically, always full of talking people and foul smells and too hot too loud too much. He cleared his throat slightly, pleased that he kept his tone casual as they approached a crosswalk. "Is there... can we not get there on foot?"

[Julian McAllister]

Julian peered over in his companion's direction, not so much looking for eye contact so much as he simply waited until the solid figure of a man with a familiar scent fell into place somewhere beside him. Sure enough, Isaac was purposeful in his stride, clearly interested in carrying himself somewhere with sure steps and leveled shoulders, hazel gaze set dead ahead of them. An excellent start for a walk. Though he rarely noticed until the situation arose, Julian was not a big fan of leading, of being the commander in the front of the pack, with subordinates following in toe, waiting for the first order of attack to be strummed into the air. It was a cold, harsh sort of relationship- a leader to his subordinates, and recently he'd realized how much he despised the cold. So when Isaac chose to walk beside him, rather than behind, it quirked a smile from the younger werewolf. Side-by-side, they were equals- partners or brothers perhaps, neither blindly following the other, the responsibility of travel falling somewhat evenly between them. So much more comfortable than when people followed from behind...

As they approached a street crossing, Julian slowed and eventually stopped at the edge of the black top, casually searching the traffic lights hung only a short distance beyond his reach. When the right ones were green and the rest shone their demanding red, he and the rest of the pedestrian crowd in the vicinity stepped down into the painted lines of the crosswalk, hands casually dangling from the belt loops of his jeans.

"We could" He started thoughtfully, his tone cheerful as always, but his eyes drifted, focusing on the fuzzy shape of a distance bridge stretching away from them, toward another part of the city. From where they stood at the crest of a small hill, the shape seemed ominous, dangerous, like a circling shark, just barely visible in the murky depths. "But there would be a lot of walking... I mean a lot. I think it's something like 5 miles from here, and we'd have to go down and around to cross the river."

Raising one hand, Julian gestured in a something of the three sides of a trapehzoid in the air in front of him, before motioning to the diagonal option a train would provide.

"I mean, we could do it if you wanted. I've walked greater distance before." He ventured suddenly, with a shrug of his shoulders. "But it would still take like... an hour and a half. Compared to ten minutes on a train."

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[isaacf]

Isaac's jaw clenched as he swallowed, but he rolled his shoulders and shook his head, his expression turning into one of an easy smile and confidence. "No, no, it's fine. It's fine." They crossed the street, his shoes hitting heavily as he straightened his back slightly. "It's fine."

Half an hour. He'd known Julian half an hour and already he'd let slip two of his biggest personal - secrets wasn't the right word - aspects. Two aspects of himself that he loathed when people knew and the other lycan had nearly uncovered both of them within half an hour of their first meeting. Good job, Foster. A-plus marks, really. Why not tell him you're an addict and pissing yourself with fright too, I bet he'd just think the world of you then.

It wasn't his fault. That had been what his mother had told him. The thing was, though, that it kind of was. He'd done a little reading of it, when he realized it was abnormal and most people did not start to hyperventilate when they played hide-and-go-seek in your friend's celler. Most phobias, they'd told him, almost always started from a base traumatic experience - a fear of heights triggered by almost falling, a fear of crowds triggered by getting lost or trampled. Your mind internalized and over-reacted and built up a barrier, like your skin bulging with scar tissue over a wound. But Isaac had never been accidentally locked in a cupboard or stuck in an elevator car. He just felt. He had the scars with no wounds behind them, and that more than anything was extremely disconcerting.

No. He could do this. It was New York City, for pity's sake. You can't live in a city and be scared of all modes of transportation. Besides, he was with another lycan. It's not like anyone could ambush them, not with two of them. Ugh no don't think like that of course shit could go wrong, God, look at his arms anyway I bet he can't even lift his damn mop. Isaac was many things, but he was not stupid. He could adapt. He'd been adapting for sixty years, he could take a ten-minute train ride. Hell, he'd have to get used to it, unless he planned on spending five hours a day walking to and from work. Hm, ten hours exposed to people on the streets or ten minutes in a train car... the prospect of not having to deal with the moronic masses was immensely appealing.

He worked his mouth, trying to concentrate on something besides the fact that he'd be jammed into a sardine-tin of a subway soon. "Is the museum big, then?"

[Julian McAllister]

The taller lycan couldn't stop his eyebrows from falling together in the center of his forehead. He was not smart, he did not spend his free time reading books or watching the news. Instead, information passed over him like the waves of an ocean, skimming over the rocks of his mind, never catching, never relenting in its onslaught but also leaving no memory in its wake. It was tiring, being constantly bombarded with information, especially when the day ended and you had no more than you'd started with. But even he could see the other werewolf's behavior falter, could hear the way he repeated his words, as though trying to convince himself that what he was saying was true. Humans very rarely repeated themselves without proper cause, and what cause Isaac had was now curiously buzzing around the mind of his companion, who stared curiously without shame.

Well, rather, without noticing. That is until hazel eyes returned to his direction, and Julian suddenly realized how awkward he was being and quickly directed his attention elsewhere, casually, lifting one hand to play with the hole in his overshirt again.

"Big?" He repeated thoughtfully, biting the inside of his lip almost to excuse the momentary pause. "No, not really. I mean, it's not small by any means. It was probably a really nice spacious house once, designed to hold like... furniture and things. But as far as museums go, it's pretty dinky. All hardwood floors and dinosaur bones and such, a little bit of dry wall here and there. But it's in a nice area."

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