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[allgotrabies]

Hey, it's Annie, you know what to do.

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[loveisall]

He sighs. "I wish I could," he tells her. "But at least I was changed when I was young. So when I'm human, I start out young. I have a whole life to lead and feel young. And get grey hair."

He pulls himself up.

[allgotrabies]

"And grow a beard," she teases, stroking his cheek. "I can't actually picture you with one. Or a moustache. I think it'd look like you were wearing a disguise."

[loveisall]

He laughs at that. "Honestly? I think that I would feel like I was wearing a disguise," he tells her, sitting back and closing his eyes as he pulls the blankets up around them again.

[allgotrabies]

"Godric?" Cuddling up to him, her voice warm and imploring like it is when she asks him to do things like dye her fur. "If I make you a fake beard would you wear it for one hour to see what, like, Archer and Quentin say?"

[loveisall]

Godric stares at the television for a moment, watching it without actually seeing it.

"Perhaps," he tells her with a long suffering sigh. Which is his version of yes. How can he really deny her?

[allgotrabies]

He's rewarded with a delighted pup, hugging him, giggling. "You spoil me. I'll make it look like a good beard, I promise."

[loveisall]

"Later," he warns her. "After all of this has calmed down. After everyone has settled into their routines again. Perhaps next we'll have a quiet flood. Something - gentle. Another egg, perhaps. That was fine the first time. Or, instead of a winter storm, perhaps we can have something more fit to summer. A beach."

He pulls her close. "I know you would enjoy that."

[allgotrabies]

"Later," she agrees, tucking his arms more snugly around her. "I can't even think about going out of the house right now. I want everyone to be ready to cheer the new, scraggly faced you."

She thinks longingly of a warm, sandy flood. "I wonder how many people would be brave enough to put on swim clothes. Full on bikinis. For everyone! Men, too. Maybe like, two percent of people would do it?"

[loveisall]

"Well, we have people from all over time and space here. Some people swim in full bathing suits. Some people swim in nothing," he points out. "Have you ever seen what they wore in the American 1920s to the beach? You would feel quite out of place."

He leans back. "Humans are so strange with their ideas of modesty."

[allgotrabies]

She grimaces. "They're so afraid of their bodies. I turned lots of surfers, you know, but also a lot of people who'd lost everything. And the thing I always saw was when they woke up wolves it was like they finally realized how amazing it is to have muscle and bone and soul. Is it like that for vampires?"

[loveisall]

"There is a reason we can newly turned vampires newborns. They wake up crazed. Hungry. Aggressive. They'll attack the first thing they find, if you don't stop them. They suddenly have new powers, new senses, new everything. You have to teach them how to live and exist in a new way," he explains. "Without a soul."

[allgotrabies]

She nods. "New wolves are 'pups', same reason. Except it's not really...what's the word? Like, it's more play than serious attacking, but they just don't know how strong they are. So the older wolves have to teach them how to be careful and be in control."

And, with a more serious kiss, "You have a good soul." Don't even try to argue, Godric.

[loveisall]

He doesn't argue. Not after that kiss and after her tone. He knows better than that.

"Control is the first thing they need to learn, yes. Vampires, I mean. Some of them never learn it. There's no play with them. Only hunting."

[allgotrabies]

"I've never seen a wolf who didn't learn to curb it. But I know there are some--but they die fast. Get shot, or the pack kills them to protect everyone else." Annie, it goes without saying, would never kill a packmate no matter how much trouble they were.

"Eric learned it, though, right? I mean, he didn't kill me when he found out I was a wolf, and that seems like pretty good control."

[loveisall]

"Eric was difficult," he admits. "He was headstrong, but our bond was strong, right from the start. He listened to me, learned from me. It helped that there was no pack. There were no people, no distractions. It was simply us."

[allgotrabies]

"What's it like when you do learn control? Do you just mellow out or do you still want to run around?" A soft laugh. "I always surfed a lot but after I had to learn not to chase cars and stuff," does she mean that literally? impossible to tell. "I surfed a lot so I wouldn't get stir crazy."

[loveisall]

There's a short laugh at the image of her chasing cars because, of course.

"No," he says softly. "There is always the urge. Even now, I want to chase. Tear. Hunt." He lowers his voice, as if there was someone else in the room. "It is something that I do behind closed doors with people I trust and who trust me in return. But control is simply understanding that everything I do is a choice. And that I am in control enough to make a choice."

[allgotrabies]

"I never thought of it that way." She tends to think in vivid, riotous emotions rather than words. Everything in her world is a sensation rather than a sentence.

"But that's how it really is, huh? Having all those thoughts and wants, and knowing when to get them. And when to not. I think I've learned more about that since knowing you than I did my whole life before."

[loveisall]

"I have, my entire life, focused on control. Whether it was a lack of it or, now, a choice to keep it." He looks up. "But losing control is - well, we cannot deny ourselves that. Vampires. Werewolves. That is a part of who we are. We must find appropriate outlets for it."

He laughs. "Have I ever told you about the first time Archer and I slept together?" he wonders. Godric doesn't tend to kiss and tell about Archer, but he has no secrets with Annie.

[allgotrabies]

"No you didn't!" And she's delighted that he trusts her enough to tell now. "What happened?"

[loveisall]

He looks up. "We had kissed, nothing more. I was trusting him to take the lead, as he had more reservations than me." For reasons he won't get into.

"But I came upon him in the Enclosure once, fighting a dragon." He knows how it sounds. "But Annie, he was glorious. Beautiful. It was - " He lets out a breath. "I had never seen anything like it. We kissed, but there was a difference to it. His walls were down. He had been in control but also - not. I went to his room and - " He shrugs, deciding that he doesn't actually need to go into details.

Except -

"He heals very quickly, which works to our advantage."

[allgotrabies]

It's so rare Godric talks this way about the inherent violence in him, as something he can enjoy living with in the right moments, and she's beaming.

"Okay but what kind of healing did he have to do?"

[loveisall]

He gives her a quick look. A coy little smile.

"More than Quentin does. With Archer, there's blood. There's always blood." He reaches over, trailing a hand along her neck. "There, to take." Along her shoulders. "There, to make it hurt."

He playfully runs his hand down her sides, tickling her lightly again. "And that's all you get to know about that, nosy pup."

[allgotrabies]

She laughs. "Look at you, getting crazy! I didn't know old men played dirty like that."

[loveisall]

He pretends to look offended. "What did you think I did, Annie? Through a sheet with a hole?"