consequence | from messages ] [ inbox for ataraxion

[She wants to just ignore it. It had only been a matter of time before he ended up like the rest of them. The text comes randomly and she reads it but goes for a run first. She wants to clear her head, because if she replies straight away, she might say something wrong. In the middle of her run she stops and sends him a reply.]

it's fine. Don't worry about it.

[the reply comes as a surprise, if he's honest. the fact she'd taken so long to respond had left him thinking the worst. had him believing that he'd ruined things between them entirely. so when he sees it's a message from hayley that has his device beeping, he breathes a sigh of relief.

but it's a short-lived one]

i mean it hayley

[means it, because he knows he's the one who messed up. all she'd done was show some concern, and he'd gone and thrown it back in her face. she didn't deserve it.]

if you want me to leave you alone i will
but will you at least let me explain

I would hope you meant it. it'd be a really shitty thing to message me an empty apology.

[She sends it and then starts to run again, but realizes that was slightly snappish of her - the whole reason she had waited to reply was to avoid this and yet here she is. She stops running once more and leans against a nearby tree.]

you don't have to leave me alone, isaac, but you don't owe me anything, either.

it's your family. i know how difficult it is to find answers and sometimes people get hurt in the process.

[The phrasing admits a bit too much, but she's not going to pretend like she wasn't upset by his reaction. It simply reminds her that she shouldn't reach out so far, because getting her hand slapped away stings a lot more than she remembers.]

you're wrong

[it's all he types at first, needing to take a moment then to try and work out what to say. trying to work out how much he should admit to. derek says she's a threat, and that's what he should believe. but his opinions of her started changing the moment she openly admitted to her past mistakes all those months ago. she didn't have to tell him. didn't have to pursue...whatever this is between them]

i owe you more than you think
if it wasn't for you

[another pause. another break in the message. this shouldn't be so difficult.]

i'm meant to hate him for everything he did to me
but he's still my dad so as long as he's out there i can't just ignore him
that's why i kept heading out
it's why i still want to, every second of every day
being with you feels like being with my pack though
you give me something to focus on and i don't want to lose that

i don't want to lose you

[Rather than start her run again, she begins to pace. The current aspect of her life once more making her feel slightly boxed in. She doesn't like waiting for responses. There's too much time to think, to word responses, to carefully calculate the right thing to say. She knows how easy it is to craft a statement and make someone believe it.

Hayley wonders if she should've just stayed away like everyone seemed to want her to do. All the warnings and insinuations of harm that would come to her... she should've listened. Maybe then she wouldn't be trying to hard not to care.

The messages come and she doesn't read them. She waits and each part comes and when she listens for anything final she stops pacing.

Reading what Isaac sent her, she tries not to let out an amused huff of air. No one has ever really thought that they'd lose her. Sure, they've tried to get rid of her - Katherine sending an assassin to handle the loose ends. Tyler and his threats. Klaus... and his overbearing presence in trying to keep his asset close. None of them were concerned for her - they were concerned for themselves and she could relate to that.

Why should she care about anyone else if they don't care about her? Yet, she does care - actually a lot - about Isaac and she let him know, because she didn't want to just hide that away. Then he left and she thought it was just easier this way, except it isn't easy at all.]

I trust you, Isaac and I care about you. What you do with that is your choice. I'm not going anywhere, but you know that I'm not part of that pack. I don't have a place with them.

you have a place with me though

[it takes him a few moments to register just what he's sent. right now isn't the time to start overcomplicating things. it's a comment that could be taken in too many ways for him not to elaborate though. for him to not make sure they're both on the same level about it.]

that sounds weird
i know

[and that's it for a long while. long enough for him to escape his room and put some distance between himself and the other wolves. he knows he's meant to be telling one of them first before he leaves. that if they wake up and find him gone they'll worry. but this- he needs space.

when he finally comes back, the feed is switched to audio. while he knows it leaves no place to hide; no time to think things through before they're shared, it's easier, in a lot of ways. typing his thoughts out overcomplicates everything.]

Ignore my pack being here. Ignore- Ignore everything we know about each other's lives back home.

I met you here, Hayley. And we've been thought a lot together. I don't care what the others think, okay?

[well, it's only partly a lie. he cares. of course he does. but if he went solely by their opinions, he and hayley would have never talked in the first place.]

I don't know...what we are. You and me. [they've never had to title what their relationship is. it's too complicated for that.] But whatever this is-

[yeah, complicated. and difficult to talk about. which is why he just lets out a humorless huff of laughter]

In case you haven't realized, I kind of suck at this. Any time you wanna step in and shut me up, that'd be great.

[She leans against a nearby tree as she lets him go through his responses and she considers a reply, but then he switches to audio and she keeps her end on mute. When he seems to reach the end, at least the end of where he's going for the moment, she replies.]

I don't know, you seem to be filling in the silences with more words pretty easily. [The uneasy part is that she doesn't usually do things like this. Back home, she moves around so often that there's no real time for her to even think about finding someone that she could have this sort of connection with. There's only the thought of finding her parents. She's been removed from that quest for almost a year now and she's not sure what to do with her time. Mystic Falls is the first place she'd ever stayed in one place for very long and she didn't exactly make many friends there.

No one here can help her find her parents. She's not even sure what Shane offered her was going to be enough, but she took that risk and she's been paying for it.

Doesn't she deserve to have someone care about her? All of her life has been people giving her up and leaving her behind... why can't she just have something that's as simple as someone actually struggling to define what they have?]

Where are you at, right now?

I didn't head out.

[it's a quick reply, something born from the fact he's been asked that question more than once already. with reason, of course, given his constant trips out. there's another pause before he responds. one spent taking a look around and actually paying attention to where he's ended up.]

The rec room on my floor.

[or rather, that's where he's going to double back to, given just how close he's gotten to the very place he's banned from.]

I can be there in ten minutes. Don't go anywhere.

[She doesn't wait for a response, because why would she? He's stumbling for words, she's tired of a discussion that's actually important through a comm device, and she doesn't think that this is going to get fixed by her running even more.

She leaves the gardens and heads to the lifts, making her way to his floor. She could go and change, but she's never really been the type to care if people think she's being messy. She does check her pits, making sure she doesn't smell horrible, though. When the doors open, she moves onto the floor and glances around, making her way toward where he said he was. Once she spots him, she slows up a bit and gives him a wave and a smile.]

I'm glad you haven't gone out there alone. [She doesn't say 'at all' because she gets it, she knows if her family was out there somewhere she'd do anything for that chance.]

I told you I didn't.

[as close as it may have been. but he isn't about to share that. not when he has no idea whether that information would travel back to derek or not. it'd been hard enough to get this time alone in the first place. hard enough to gain the freedom to go back to his own room. so as much as he may trust hayley not to go and tell, he isn't taking that risk.

the smile on his face is a genuine one, grateful for the fact that she's actually turned up. that she's giving him the time to try and fix this. to fix them. he isn't prepared to believe that this is anywhere near over with. but it's at least a step in the right direction.]

So if I tried to kiss you right now, would you let me?

[priorities, let him show you them]

[There's a difference between trusting someone's word and then seeing their face and understanding the truth. He could've said anything, but Hayley isn't the best at trusting someone at their word. She needs to see it. She needs to make sure they aren't lying to her. Seeing his features when he reassures her that he didn't go anywhere alone, it means more than him just telling her. Especially after he told her she shouldn't care.]

I just went for a run. [She tugs at her shirt, shaking her head.] You might get close and decide against wanting to kiss me.

Maybe. Or maybe I just won't care because I've missed you.

[there's more truth to the statement than he'd care to admit. over the past months, hayley has become a fixed point in his life. someone he can rely on, even if others don't view her the same way. she's helped him in more ways than he'll ever be able to pay her back for. so the idea of losing it all, of her thing he really doesn't care about her, scares him. he needs hayley to stay a part of his life, even if it means having to beg her to stay there]

Besides, after everything we've done, I'm pretty sure a little sweat isn't going to make a difference.

[considering they'd spent that time holed up together. time involving a lot of 'strenuous activities, of their own. he closes the space between them a little. enough that she's within arms reach now. but he doesn't bridge that gap. doesn't make contact, despite just how much he wants to do something as simple as just hold her. it's hayley's move now. he's not going to push it.]

You missed me? [There's no hiding the small smirk that hits her features. No one ever misses her. Actually, she's pretty sure no one really ever comes back for her the way that Isaac has. Something goes wrong they just find a way to move on without her. It's definitely a new situation and not one that she's really sure how to handle.

Still, she stays where she is. Hayley watches him move toward her and she takes note in the fact that her pulse does get a bit of an increase as he does so. It's a small thing that she'd only noticed recently, but given her recent run it's even more clear to her now. When he's close enough to her, she reaches out and slips her hand to his.]

You keep saying you're not good at the words, but you seem to have a pretty good idea of the right things to say. [Taking a breath, she moves to close that gap between them and looks up at him.]

People might see. [It's his floor. His friends come by. They might not understand.]

[with hayley so close, it takes a moment for him to remember that she's meant to be the one setting the pace. that he was the one who almost messed everything up in the first place. he wants to be the one taking though. wants to close the short space between them. and with his gaze slipping to her mouth, it's all too clear just what's really at the forefront of his mind just then.]

And that's a problem because...?

[before, he may have agreed. back when he'd felt the need to hide just how close the two of them had been getting. back when he knew how the rest of his pack would react. but that was before. that was a time when he hadn't been entirely sure of what to think of hayley himself. when he'd still been caught between not caring about her, not trusting her, and whatever this is now.

whatever it's becoming.]

This is between you and me. Not them.

[She hums softly, the non-verbal response seeming the most fitting one in the moment. Besides, the more he talks the less she wants to talk about any of it. She's never been much for the whole over thinking things part of these situations. Hayley has always been more fond of taking something when she wanted it and right now, standing in front of Isaac she knows what she wants.]

Then we'll keep it between you and me. Just maybe a bit closer than this. [Hayley closes what space remains and leans up to kiss him. It's a return to him, to what they have without actually admitting to what it is that they have.]

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