Closed RP Folklore

This RP is currently closed.
“Or that you'll love the monst-"

Connor’s declaration gave Sam pause, but even more so, the line he had said before it. She appreciated his words, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to either of them. That meant a lot to her, and she smiled brightly at him in response. But her smile quickly faded as she focused on the other statement he had made. Or rather, the entirety of what he had said.

Todd was afraid she was going to have to kill him. But Todd was more afraid that she would let him eat her, it seemed. She thought about those intrusive thoughts, about letting him eat her. About giving him pieces of her. And she realized that if he tried to kill her, she would absolutely let him have her. She would let Todd eat her.

That probably wasn’t good. She should probably want to fight for her life, to kill him if he tried. But she just didn’t. She couldn’t imagine fighting Todd, of lifting her hammer against him, of using her heat against him. Just because he had proven he could withstand her heat didn’t mean that she wanted to subject him to that again. No, she would much rather die than hurt Todd, in any universe.

The most concerning part of the statement was by far the last line, though. That she would love the monster? What monster? Did Todd consider himself a separate being from the part of him that ate people? She knew they were the same person, she knew that from that dinner where he had fought himself, where he had tried so hard to not bite her. Todd was just Todd. So what did that mean? She frowned and looked up at Connor.

“I appreciate that more than I can express, Connor. I know you wouldn’t let anything happen to either of us. But, I just– what does that mean? Love his monster? I mean, Todd is just Todd. I love every part of him.”​
 
"I..." Connor let out a long and heavy sigh, running his hand through his beard. He managed to look back at Sam, considering his words carefully. Really, he felt like it wasn't his place to explain any of this, who was he really, to say anything on this matter?

"You should really talk to Todd about this... I uh, I don't know his feelings, not as well as he does, but... Todd thinks theres two natures within him, man and monster, and he's afraid of you loving the latter..." Connor shook his head. "I've tried to tell him, there's only one him, only one spirit... creatures like us, we cannot separate the monster from the man... and that scares us both."
 

Sam was quiet for a moment as she considered what that meant. Todd thought he was two halves, a man and a monster. He was concerned she would fall in love with the monster– the part that ate people, that was a predator, that wanted in some part to eat her. It was the part of him, she assumed, that was all violence. There was a strangeness to this idea for her. She had always thought these parts of him– the violence, the predator, and more recently, the cannibal– were just parts of the whole. The fact that he didn’t think of it that way– she really was going to have to talk to him.

She gave him a smile and looked back down at the entry for Leanan-Sidhe, almost immediately discounting it. She thought for another moment before she gave Connor a sad second smile. “I want to give him the space to tell me first. If he doesn’t, I’m going to tell him. I’m going to sit him down and tell him I know. Okay? So you don’t need to worry about this. I’m going to handle it, to talk to him.”

She closed her third book and then looked at the pile she had set aside for research on monsters and souls. Todd wasn’t a monster. Todd was a human. Todd had a soul. She knew he did, even if he wasn’t sure if he did, which was a part of the conclusion she was coming to. She would show him he did, she would give him love until he could find it in himself. Once he could fully admit to what he felt, then he would understand. You couldn’t love without a soul. Love was what made humans human. It was what proved they had souls.

And Todd loved her. Even Connor could tell. She knew, Connor knew, but it was up to Todd to realize it. It was up to him to come to that conclusion. He couldn’t just be told. He needed to figure it out himself.​
 
Connor closed Twilight and resisted the urge to toss the thing away, it was trash as far as he was concerned. He picked up The Book of Were-Wolves by Sabine Baring-Gould, mimicking what he had done with the last book and placing it as far away from himself as possible while still being within reach to turn the page, and leaning away from it as much as he could.

"I believe you, but I think both of you could do with being a bit more straightforward." Connor said, he paused thoughtfully, leaning forward to flip through the pages of the book before leaning back. "I don't think Todd is a werewolf either"
 

Sam sighed in response to Connor’s statement. She knew he was right, of course. They needed to talk to each other. They needed to have a serious talk. A straightforward talk. Sam didn’t like secrecy. She didn’t like lies. And right now, Todd wasn’t giving her the honesty she needed from their relationship. She was going to make it work. She was going to figure it out.

She set aside her last vampire book and shook her head, her curly ponytail bouncing. The curls had started to look like actual curls again, tightening back up into moderate spirals. She had started taking better care of her hair, and it was showing. After all, Todd’s curls were almost perfect, and she refused to be the one who was a train wreck. Only one of them could be a trainwreck at a time, and right then, Todd got to wear that hat.

“I think you’re right. I don’t think he’s a werewolf. I’m actually leaning toward some kind of ghoul now, I think. Some of the vampire lore talked about them, and it seems like the major joining factor is uh. Consumption of dead people.” She said the words softly and low, as though worried someone might overhear them, despite their private room.

“I think that might be a better angle to start looking at. I just don’t know where to start. Seems like there’s a lot in African and European lore, and some Native American ones too. I’m going to ask the librarian if they have any specialized books on the subject. I didn’t see anything that I can remember from the shelves.”

Sam looked down at her list, taking in the few written notes there.

Aswang
Ghouls/Ghuls
Rakshasa?
Jikininki?
Need more information. Japanese, Arabian, and Hindu. Check Native American and other European sources- seem to crop up.
 
Connor let the subject of their relationship go, for now anyway. Really he was glad Sam had stopped asking him advice for the moment, it only made him feel more out of place, more like an intruder, an outsider. Though he knows that really wasn't the case, and that it certainly wasn't Sam's intention to make him uncomfortable. Still, he felt out of his depth.

He focused on the task at hand, werewolves were a bust, vampires were closer but didn't seem quite right. Ghouls too, they were traditionally not as fast or as put together as Todd, many stories claiming they couldn't even talk. More to the point, they were undead, as cold as Todd came across as he was undoubtably alike. No, there was an animalistic quality to hi, something alive and hungry, very hungry in fact. Ravenously so, Connor didn't know how he knew, but he realized the depths of hunger Todd truly had, maybe he'd always seen it but was far too preoccupied with him as a threat to see it. Connor ran his fingers through his beard, pinching tufts of his in between his fingers and twisting them around as he thought.

He knew a fair bit of old European stories, none fit, but something else did. Sam mentioning Native American sources clicked something in his memory, a long time ago, sat around a fire, Chaoa with entrancing detail would tell stories. Tales of spirits, of hunters, of men and monsters alike.

"Wendigo," Connor mumbled to himself, then spoke more clearly as he turned to Sam. "I had a... friend, a long time ago, Lakota, he'd tell me stories... do we have books that talk about Wendigos?"
 

“Wendigos? I don’t know what that is, but I’ll go check with the librarian.” Sam stood, stacking up as many of the books as she could before the stack began to teeter. She could bring the books back to the front for restocking while she went up. She left the room, making sure to close the door behind her. She didn’t want Connor to be disturbed while they were working.

She carried the towering stack back to the front desk and caught sight of the time. God, they had been at this for hours already. They still had plenty of time before the library closed, but she was going to have to treat Connor to dinner after this. He was helping her more than she could begin to express. Having more eyes was definitely helping her.

She approached the front counter to see a middle-aged man, leaning over what looked like some kind of old, written log. He was typing whatever it was into the computer, but looked up as she approached… and kept looking up. Sam realized then that she had easily fifteen books in her teetering stack. She smiled, realizing that the weight of this was enough to get her looks. The man, for his part, didn’t say a word about it, just accepted the stack in pieces. He thanked her for returning the books, but she was quick to catch his attention again.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you–”

“M’dear, my job is to be here to be disturbed. How can I help you?”

Sam smiled gratefully, flashing her her best disarming smile. The smile, combined with her small stature and soft features, never failed to get the response she wanted, and just like magic, the man seemed to get flustered. It helped to keep people from remembering the conversation in deep detail. They almost always forgot it in favor of the smile. “Could you point me in the direction of books on wendigos, or Native American lore in general that might include information on them? And also any you might have on cannibalism.”

“O-of course, dear. That’s going to be in section CAD, both of them, about halfway down the aisle, under twelve-thirty, and on. Native American Lore is in section DEB, left side, fifty-two through sixty-nine. Please let me know if you need help finding it.” There was a softness to his voice then, and Sam felt a twinge of guilt at the deception, but it was necessary. The fewer tracks there were to trace about Sam looking up wendigos, the better.

“Thank you so much. I think I can find it from here.” Another award-winning smile and she was off, feeling the eyes of the man watching her back as she almost ran her way to the section.

Upon arriving, she found several books on the wendigo, as well as several surprising ones on cannibalism mythology. She picked them up, including one titled Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters by Kevin J. Wetmore Jr. According to the index, there was an entire chapter on just wendgios, and a long one at that. She snatched up another ten or twelve books and made her way back to the room.

“Okay, Connor. I found some on wendigos, some on Native American myths, and some on cannibalistic monsters. One of these looks really promising.”

She set the books down, dishing out several to Connor, including a copy of the The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood. It was fiction, but maybe it would help to shed some light on wendigos anyway.​
 
Connor took the book and repeated his routine of placing it far away from himself so he could read it. He flipped through it rather fast, frowning as he did so. It was useless, some horror story about men losing their minds in the woods. Connor has seen his fair share of people seemingly go insane in the woods, they always seemed stupid to him. In any case, none of this had to do with Todd, so he tossed it aside.

"From what I remember... Chaoa would tell me, Wendigos were normal men, until they wandered into the woods hunting for gathering and got lost, hunger would take them, and they'd feed on their fellow man to survive, and that's what turned them into Wendigos... but they'd still look like men, they'd hide among people without anyone knowing, spending years without anyone knowing what they were."
 

Sam saw Connor quickly toss away the book with a frown and passed him a copy of Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo in Myth and History by Shawn Smallman, smiling. She herself was flipping through a chapter in Eaters of the Dead, a chapter entirely devoted to the wendigo. She was reading it carefully instead of speed reading as she had been for the vampire and werewolf books. Already, she was taking notes, notes of things that made sense, of things that fit.

The more she read, the more the pieces clicked into place, and what Connor said only added to it. Sure, Todd didn’t transform into a monster in the winter, not like this book stated they did in the mythology, but so much more made sense. A cannibal with a heart made of ice– that easily could have been about the cold chill that always seemed to cling to Todd, like he could never be warm enough, even when he wore layers and layers.

“Once one eats human flesh, one is now a wendigo and will not stop eating human flesh.”

This, this meant that at some point, Todd had, however the case, ingested human flesh at some point initially for it to kick in. Everything in the chapter said that the consumption of humans was what started it all, that to become a wendigo, you had to eat flesh, at least once, once of your own volition. You weren’t ever just born a wendigo. But Todd had been– he had said his father was a human, but his mother could also have been like this. But that information hunt could happen later.

According to the chapter, although a wendigo had to consume human flesh, they could and would eat just about anything. Sam thought about how Todd seemed to have a never-ending appetite. She herself could pack away enough food for a family of four, but he never seemed to have eaten enough, not even after they had cleared the entire table of food. If Todd was an avatar of hunger, cursed by starvation between his meals, then it made sense that he never had enough.

But then she read something and paused. She looked up from the book, then back down, and a sad smile came over her face.

“Most historic reports of wendigos are of them attacking their own families, spouses and children first.”

Did Todd know what he was? Had he done this same research at some point in his life and discovered these same things? She had no way of knowing, but she could imagine a young Todd sifting through books and trying to find something, anything that explained his condition. Had he seen these exact words? Was this why he thought she would have to kill him, because he assumed he would break and attack her? That he wouldn’t have the self-control not to eat her? She shook her head.

She knew him better than that. Todd might be afraid of what he was, but Sam was not. She could never be afraid of him. She knew him too well, knew he would never hurt her. Not like that. No matter how much he worried he would kill her, she had felt the gentleness of his touch and knew those hands would never hurt her. She had felt the softness of his kiss and knew those teeth would never tear into her.

And even if they did, she would never raise her hand to him.

All that any of this did was just confirm to her that Todd was likely a wendigo, and as it seemed almost specifically a Native American thing, he was likely Native American in heritage. That explained the tone of his skin, the warmth that kissed him, at least up until the days right before he needed to eat. Like how he had looked for the last few days, so much paler than normal, that warmth all but gone under the ashen look of tiredness.

She looked up from the book, not knowing if seconds or minutes or longer had passed since Connor spoke. “I think you are really onto something. According to this book, there are a lot of things that relate to Todd. A heart of ice, which I’m taking to mean icy skin. There’s lore about them being stronger and faster than regular humans, that they’re more agile too. And there’s something in here about voice mimicry, and Todd can shapeshift. God, I wonder if he can look like people he’s eaten.”​
 
Connor pondered this, he realized then what that realization would mean for Sam or Todd, it was possible knowing the specifics wouldn't help at all if they spelled disaster. Still, these traits fit, Connor recalled the first time he had met Todd, while they were hunting. Face and eyes that weren't his.

"That would make sense if he could, he would have to get the looks from somewhere... I've only ever seen him change his eyes and face... never animal features though, I wonder if he could, like a Skinwalker, they're similar to Wendigos to the point some folk confuse the two..."
 
“I wonder. I’ll have to ask that, I’m sure he won’t mind telling me. There’s no reason he would hide that from me. He technically told me everything he could do when we had dinner last, he just. You know, didn’t mention he ate people.” She said it with a little, calm laugh. She pushed back a stray curl back, her hands steady.

She kept reading, now reading stories of wendigo sightings and attacks from history. She wondered how many of them had actually been real wendigos. How many of them had been the kind of being her cannibal? She refused to refer to him as a monster. He wasn’t a monster in her eyes, no matter how much he was in his own. And she knew him well enough– oh, she knew him so well– that she knew he thought of himself as a monster.

“I should be scared, right? I should be scared of him. Or maybe angry. Maybe I should hate him. Why don’t I? He’s been lying about what he is, and I have no fear or anger. And it doesn’t take a lot to get me angry. So why am I not angry about this? Is there… something wrong with me, Connor?”

She looked up and across the table, her eyes wide and sad. There had to be something wrong with her. That was the only thing that made sense. Sam had to be broken in some way to know what Todd was, to still want him, to still love him. By all accounts, to all the rest of the world, Todd was a monster. In a moment of amusement, the thought crossed her mind, Am I a monsterfucker? Is that what I’m into?

At least, Sam thought she had thought it in her head. Until she felt her lips move, and heard her own voice echo the words out loud. She immediately blushed and closed her eyes, internally cringing. Well. That was that, she guessed.​
 
Connor slowly looked up from the book he had just cracked open and turned to Sam, he couldn't help one of his eyebrows perking up in an arch at her. He went over his choices in the last week, wondering how on earth this was where he ended up. He thought for a moment, about what she had said, it wasn't an unreasonable worry that maybe her questionable attraction to Todd was all the result of a... strange preference for monsters. Still, Connor couldn't help but think he'd rather talk about anything else.

"Well... uh, maybe you're not angry at him because, well, you love him, you already loved him before you knew this part about him so... you just love this part too, because it's a part of him, right?" Connor reasoned. "As for whether you're a... uhhh, well... I supposed you'd still want to be with Todd if he wasn't what he was, and... well, I don't think you're attracted to me at all, because no one i-" Connor caught himself as Lapis' eyes looking up at him flashed in his mind. "What I mean to say is, if this was just some sort of... if there was something wrong with you, then it would come out in together places not just with Todd, and it doesn't so I think that's okay?"

Connor realized he was rambling on, his face blushed red, his instincts were dead-quiet about all of this; none of it was something he was equipped to deal with.
 

Sam winced and smiled as Connor tried to address her accidental question. She smiled, her smile a little lopsided as she chuckled. “I’ll be honest– that was supposed to be an inside thought. I have no idea why I said it out loud. But you’re right. I loved Todd before I knew what he was, and I’d love him even if I didn’t know what he was. Even if he wasn’t a… wendigo. Speaking of, I think we hit the jackpot with this. I think he’s a wendigo.”

She couldn’t help the way her voice rose slightly in excitement. This was a breakthrough she hadn’t been expecting. She had been cautiously hopeful about finding answers, but this, this was an entire answer. This was more than she could have hoped for. With this, she felt confident enough to approach him, to start the conversation they would desperately need to have. While Sam wasn’t going to tell Connor this, she knew for a fact that Todd wouldn’t tell her of his own volition. Especially not if he thought she’d kill him, or let him kill her. Not if he thought it would break them, and only one of them would make it out alive.

No, he wouldn’t tell her. So she was going to have to tell him. But first, there was more to look into. Todd had given her enough facts to look him up online, to see if she could find out some answers to other questions she had. Why had he been in the foster system? When had this all started? Why was his father the monster, if he was the one who was human?

All questions she could find the answers to online.

She looked down at her notes she had jotted down after the dinner they’d had, and she thought about them. “Redding, cannibal, early 2000s.” There was likely going to be very little online about this, but it was worth a shot. She knew the chances were long, but if there had been any incidents at all, she could find them. She looked up at Connor and smiled. “Thank you so much for your help, Connor. I could never have guessed a wendigo. I have a bit more research I need to do, but it’s on the computer. Do you, uh, want to stick around, or do you want to head out now? It wouldn’t bother me if you chose to leave, I know technology isn’t really your thing.”​
 
Connor felt good he was able to be useful. It wasn't something he often felt, but the gratitude in Sam's voice produced a warm and comforting sensation to spread in his body, and almost certainly showed in his face. It was like a calming yet excitable energy was pumped right into his body to the point of near jitteriness. While he had no idea how to work a computer, he didn't want to leave. Connor really enjoyed being around Sam, regardless of why or what they were doing.

"I can stick around, I'll keep researching... or just reading, who knows maybe I'll get an idea for what I am too... but I'll be here if you need me."
 

Sam smiled wide and returned Connor’s sentiment with a nod. She enjoyed being around Connor. She wasn’t one for friends. Sam had been a solitary creature ever since she was young. She had no trouble making friends or getting people’s attention. When you could smile like a movie star and look as cute and friendly as she did, even with the black lips and the cat-lined eyes, people tended to want to be around you. But she’d had only two real friends her entire childhood, and then it had been Alice.

She didn’t make real friends easily. It was hard for her to let people in, to accept friendship when she knew she was dangerous for most people to be around. Hell, she had just proven how dangerous she was with Todd. She had burned him up, and just because he had healed from it, it didn’t make her any less dangerous. Sam knew what she was, and she didn’t want to hurt people. Not only that, but she built walls inside her head.

Connor was one of the few people in a very long time who had taken those walls and walked right past them like they weren’t even there. Todd had been the first since Alice, and that had opened the door for Connor to step through. Nat and Addy were like little siblings to her, kid siblings whom she felt the need to look out for. But not Connor. Connor was more like an older sibling, or maybe just someone she could be on equal footing with.

It was nice. She hadn’t felt this way since Joshua left her apartment in Columbus six years ago. Six years ago, when her own actions had cost her her family. That brought a soft but sad smile to her face, and she looked up at Connor. His hair was almost the same color as Joshua’s. Thankfully he didn’t have their gold eyes, and his face was obscured by that beard, but god their hair color was exactly the same.

“Thank you, Connor. For being here. I really do mean it. I don’t make friends easy and you…” She had stupid tears in her eyes, that she wiped away with the sleeve of her cowl-necked sweater, pulling it out from beneath her leather jacket’s sleeve. She cleared her throat before continuing, “And you are wonderful. Thank you for caring about us. I’m going to, uh, go get set up on the computer. Feel free to go grab stuff and join me, or just wander! I’ll come and find you when I’m done, no matter where you are.”​
 
The second the tears sparkled into view, Connor was commanded by an instinct more powerful than any call of hunt was. He stepped forward and scooped Sam into his arms, practically lifting her into a hug so she was lifted a few inches off the ground. He squeezed her softly, his whole body shaking with energy and emotion. His voice failed him for a while, unable to express everything that was flooding out of his heart at the moment.

"I will... always be around," was all he could manage, before he put her back down. Looking away in embarrassment.
 
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Sam threw her arms around Connor as he scooped her up. She hugged him back tightly, just enough for him to feel it, but not enough to hurt the gentle giant. When he set her down, she caught his hand and squeezed it before he wandered off. She wiped her eyes one more time on her sleeve before making for the computers.

The computer setup was on a long winding table that cut through the middle of the aisles. Given how late it had gotten, there were barely any occupied seats. She managed to find a seat away from everyone else, and away from any prying eyes that might be curious as to what she was doing.

A cannibal in Redding, California. Honestly, that shouldn’t be hard to find. Surely there hadn’t been many cannibals in Redding over the years. She typed in her keywords and was surprised when Google tried to autofill her search with “the Redding Butcher”. She kept typing, but even as she finished entering her phrase and hit search, the very first result was an article about the Redding Butcher.

Sam swallowed as she realized that this was likely what she was looking for. There was a feeling in her chest weighing her down. She didn’t want to snoop. She really didn’t. But if it helped her to understand her mate, hers, then she would do it. She would do whatever needed to be done.

She clicked on the first link and started down the horrible rabbit hole that was Lyle Hart. Every new article made Sam shiver and pause. There were long moments when she couldn’t click on the next link. On the second link were photos of Lyle Hart and Madeline Hart, and she had breathed in sharply at their faces. A half Native American woman with hair the color of Todd’s, and a young white man with his curls and his eyes. Oh. Oh, those were definitely Todd’s parents.

That made Todd Oscar Fowler actually Lyle Nicolas Hart.

No. No, Todd was Todd. There was no one else he could be other than Todd. He wasn’t Lyle Nicolas Hart anymore. He was Todd Oscar Fowler. He was her Todd. And that was what he would always be, this old name be damned.

The more she read, the sicker she felt. Twenty-six murders, and all of them fed to Madeline. Twenty-six. God, that was so many lives. But then, Todd had eaten far more people. She felt a twinge of sadness for him. A genetic curse that left him with this horrible fate. Madeline, who hadn’t ever known what she was. Madeline, whom Lyle had killed and fed to Todd when he was so young. Like Madeline, Todd was left with this need, and none of it would ever have happened if it wasn’t for this monster.

Then, then she found the interview. The horrible, horrible interview. She’d pulled out her headphones and plugged them in, listening to it. And slowly, slowly her already frowning face became horrified, and by the end, she wanted to cry.

Was this what Todd was worried about? Her, becoming like his father? Her, wanting to feed people to him, and her, falling in love with the part that ate people? Her, thinking that he was at his most beautiful when he was at his most monstrous? Her, becoming this.

God, no. She could never. The idea of this made her so sick. She couldn’t imagine ever feeding Todd people. If she had to, if he was dying and couldn’t hunt, she’d be able to stomach it, but that was an extreme, an unlikely situation. She couldn’t– she wouldn’t–

Sam felt her face getting wet. She reached up and wiped her tears on her sweater. God, this was heartbreaking. How could Todd ever expect something like this from her? Didn’t he know her? Didn’t he know her better than this? Didn’t he know she would never do something like this? That hurt. That hurt a lot. She didn’t know how to show him that she would never do that. She didn’t know how to explain without telling him that she wasn’t like that. God, it hurt her so much.

What was she supposed to do now? Knowing this was what Todd feared she’d turn into. No wonder he was afraid of them, no wonder he had been so adamant at the beginning that he wasn’t looking for a relationship. She remembered the words he had used when she had pushed for him to be with her.

“It doesn’t sound like you’re giving me a choice, Sam.”

He didn’t like to touch her. He gave her what she took, but he never gave of his own volition. He didn’t want to give of his own volition. She was taking what she wanted and Todd had never wanted this to begin with. God, what if he didn’t really want her at all? What if he had never wanted her, but he was just so scared of her strength, of her heat, that he was giving her whatever she wanted to keep himself safe?

No. No, she couldn’t think like that. If Todd didn’t want her, then he wouldn’t be doing this. He wouldn’t be risking it. He wouldn’t be fighting his monsters to be with her, he wouldn’t be worried about her becoming his father. And if he only wanted to eat her, he would have done so already. She had made herself so vulnerable to him so many times. There had been so many times they just sat on her couch together, there had been so many kisses that had left space open for him to go for her neck if he wanted to. Hell, he could have gone for it at dinner. He had started to. In that moment she thought would turn to intimacy, would turn to him saying he loved her too, he had fought back his desire to go for her throat.

Todd loved her. Even if this had started when he didn’t want it, even if she had dragged him into a relationship he wasn’t ready for or hadn’t wanted, he loved her now. She couldn’t dwell on that. She couldn’t let herself drown in it. There were more important things to deal with now.

How could she convince him, when she told him she knew, that she wasn’t like his father? How could she convince him that she loved him whole, as he was, but that that didn’t mean she loved the monster the way his father had loved his mother’s? Would he even listen, or would he run from her? God, please, don’t let him run from her. She didn’t know what she would do if he did that.

She would figure this out. She had time. She had time to think of it, to solve it. She could do it. She could love him and show him he was worth loving, her wendigo. She could give him everything and have him not be scared of her. She could convince him to give her everything and that she wasn’t scared of him. His monster didn’t scare her. He could never scare her.

God, she just wanted to go home and hold him and cry. She wanted to weave her fingers through those tight curls so like his father’s but so colored by his mother’s hair, and she wanted to tell him they would never be them. They would never be that broken. They would never be so wrong. Not when they were a they, not while he was hers, not while she was his. They were different. They were meant for one another in a way that nothing could break.

Sam was stronger than Lyle. Her mind hadn’t broken when she had found out. She’d had some bad thoughts, thoughts about offering everything she could to him, but they were just that. Thoughts. And thoughts weren’t actions, and she wasn’t in love with the part of him that was a monster. She wanted to give him that because she didn’t know how else to help him.

But she could help him now. Now that she knew, she could be there for her wendigo. He wouldn’t have to be alone, not ever again. He wouldn’t ever have to be afraid of her becoming a monster. Because that’s what Lyle was. He was a monster. And Sam was better than him. Sam was stronger than him, and she wouldn’t break under the knowledge of what Todd was. Not the way his father had.

Sam would never feed anyone to Todd.

She wiped her face clean of tears again and grabbed her headphones. She quickly cleared the browser history and stood, tucking her headphones back into her backpack. She hurried back into the rows of books until she found Connor. He was sitting in the children’s section amidst a sea of books. She sat down next to him and leaned until her head rested on his arm.

“I have found out… things. Connor, bad things.”​
 
Connor carefully placed down The Burning by Kathryn Lasky, he reached he free arm over to rest on top of Sam's hair. He saw she'd been crying again, and figured whatever it was it had to do with Todd. He drew a deep breath.

"Tell me."
 

“I don’t even…” She took a deep breath and tried to ground herself so she didn’t start to fully cry in the library. She put her hands on the floor and felt the carpeted floor. She let the fibers run loosely between her fingers. One breath. She felt Connor’s hand, warm by anyone normal’s standards, touching her head, brushing softly over her hair. Two breaths. She felt her own hair, smooth and sleek where it lay against her skin, on the back of her neck where her suit and sweater didn’t quite cover it. Three breaths.

“Todd’s father. He was a monster. Not like Todd is, that was his mother. But Todd’s father, he. He fed people to Todd’s mother. Twenty-five of them. And then he, Connor, then he fed Todd’s mother to Todd. He’s been through something so horrible, and he was so young. All the newspapers and articles say he was nine when it happened.”

She pressed her forehead to Connor’s bicep and cried softly, tears streaming silently down her face as she took more deep breaths to try and stem it. She could tell she was getting Connor’s clothes wet with her tears, but she was sure he’d understand.

“I can’t believe he’s been dealing with this his whole life. It's no wonder he’s worried I’ll end up in love with just the cannibal. His father did that. It broke him when he found out what she was.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve again and gasped in a little breath before she shook her head aggressively, her voice coming back to life with a fierceness that she had almost lost. “I won’t be that. I would never do that to him. Not ever. I’m not his father. I’m stronger than that.”​
 
Connor let her cry, gently stroking her hair and holding her close as she spilled all she had learned. As she told him about it, distant memories surfaced within Connor. Long repressed and painful they cam screaming to the forefront, people running, hikers, a mother clutching a child, a father telling them to run as the beast pounced. Unsuspecting campers who's tents were ripped open. Their flesh tasted sweet, sickly so. Like rich delicacies that he had no right to eat. No one fed him these, the beast chose them, out of anger. Why should they not be feasted on? Why could they not be claimed? Who would stop him? Who would contain him?

Connor shook himself out of it and focused back on reality, he felt selfish thinking of himself and shoved the memories back.

"I know you won't, Todd... he know the potential is in him I think, to become like his mother, or his father, or something horrible all his own... he needs to learn to live with it somehow, and I think you need to be there to help him."
 
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