Closed RP Give and Take

[Slate]

As Todd explained his process, Ethan quietly crossed his legs at the knees, watching him as he worked. He moved with the kind of brisk efficiency that told Ethan all he needed to know. Todd knew what he was doing, he knew how to do it, and he didn’t fuck around. It was such a different vibe to how the hunt had turned back at Kenton’s house. There was a moment, a pause as Todd aligned his knife with the column of Kenton’s throat, before he drew the blade down and across. The blood spray didn’t reach him, and was significantly less violent than Ethan had anticipated it being, so he relaxed back into the almost broken chair.

When Todd sat down next to him, he was quiet, watching the body that was only Kenton for another brief minute. Soon, it wouldn’t be Kenton anymore. Ethan had no problems with that. He was used to people becoming bodies. A morbid and horrible part of him wanted to see Todd eat. It wanted to see his teeth crack through bones and meat like it was nothing. That morning, he wouldn’t have felt bad about it. He would have taken a gleeful delight in being allowed to see it. But after that evening, after that hunt and that monster under Todd’s skin showing itself, Ethan couldn’t find it in him to be excited about it.

Instead, the man felt a kind of severe respect as he watched. There was something about this that was clearly done with respect for the person that Todd was going to eat. He sighed as he looked down at where Todd had sat on the floor besides him. After a few moments of silence, save for the sound of blood dripping heavily onto the floor, Ethan finally asked his first question.

“Why the head first, Todd?” Indeed, why the head first. The head, the part that was the most human, was the part Todd ate first. The part with the features that distinguished people from each other. The part of his mother he had found in the freezer as a child. Though, it made sense, in a way. If he did it because it was the part most human.​

​

 

[Wendigo]

He felt the weight of Ethan’s attention in the silence. He couldn’t be bothered to try to identify the emotion attached to it – maybe it was respect, maybe it was that manic energy, but he was unfocused, unsteady. His head pounded in time with the hunger in his bones and the blood dripping to the floor as he watched, waiting for it to stop.

The question was – well, if there was a normal question for this situation, this had to be it. He sighed softly.

“Makes it less human.” He shifted a little, getting more comfortable on the concrete floor. “Without the hunt, I’ve had to figure out – other ways, to get around the human aversion to eating another person. Head-first is one of those ways. Taking the limbs off also helps. Once the torso’s open it looks like something else that’s been butchered.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, leaving red streaks from his forehead down his scalp. He started to untangle some of the knots that had formed during the night.

“Or maybe I’ve just gotten numb to it, and it’s just a placebo at this point. Who knows anymore.”

 

[Slate]

Ethan nodded his head. As expected. He had so many questions, questions that were both scientific and horrible, questions that were surface-level and deep, but he found that none of them came to his lips. Something about the night had changed the way he wanted to go about this. The morbid curiosity was still present, and he still wanted to watch Todd actually eat the body that lay on the table.

All that aside, Ethan couldn’t bring himself to ask the questions. Instead, he simply sat and watched. He watched As Todd butchered the body, as he ate it. He made an occasional comment, and made the occasional small talk, but he didn’t ask the questions. He couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. Not now that he knew what he knew about what Todd was afraid of being.

And he didn’t bring up Sam. He wanted more than anything to ask questions about her, about them, about what she was actually like. But again, he chose not to. He respected Todd’s wishes in not wanting to discuss her further. Not while he was eating.

No, Ethan kept the conversation as light and as soft as he could. He asked about the foster system, and growing up in it. He asked about what he remembered of his mother. He asked about what his life on the road was like. He asked about Arlo. He asked about anything that wasn’t Sam and that wasn’t about what he was eating.

He could do that kindness, at least.​