[Video+Action, post moon-warp]

[wereperrito]

Hello all!

This is Jack, from my little nook in the convoy where I make and repair clothes.

[He smiles at the camera, showing off the fluffy little fox ears he is now sporting instead of regular ears, and the white streaks in his blue-gray hair, then turns his radio device around to show the little shop. It is, frankly, less like a shop and more like a workspace, with fabric in cabinets on the walls and a pair of tables and some chairs, with more fabric strewn across them, some in good condition and some in less-good condition.]

I just wanted all of our new people to know that if the moon warp ruined your clothes, I can probably help. I have mostly figured out trousers, I think, and I am still working on proper shirts, though I can make, um, cloaks and drapes and things.

[He sets the camera down on one of the tables, and sits down to face it.]

I did want to, er, also tell everyone something else. I know we are all... changing. Into something we might call monsters, some of us. I just wanted to say I was a monster before I came here. Not a-- not a bad person, no, not a cruel person, but a werewolf. I turn into a beast once a month on the full moon, like moon warps here.

So. So I just wanted everyone to know, I have done this before. This changing, this becoming something else for a time. I don't know if it will help anyone, but if it can-- I wanted everyone to know.

[He has "come out" piecemeal to various people, here and there, and it's gone well. But now he's doing it to everyone, to people he's never talked to. It's a little scary, but he's doing it.

And now that he's done it, he hesitates, then fumbles for the radio to turn it off without further comment.

He will be available in his shop most evenings, for people to come by to get clothing repaired or measured for, or for people to ask questions, and of course he's around the convoy or in his van during the day when they're on the move.]

Comments

[wereperrito]

"I don't necessarily, either, because I wasn't there," Jack allows. He isn't sure he can, or even should, get into the whole personal kinks thing right now. He hasn't even entirely gotten Serph to admit to the main event. He aims for that, for now. "But I know what I smelled when I found you. You definitely stopped fighting at some point long enough to have sex."

[bufudine]

There is a long, awkward pause.

Serph had suspected that Jack somehow knew, but. There's a smell?

"...Sorry."

He's not sure when their fighting became sex. They didn't really stop fighting even then. He's not sure why things even went down that path. He'd never felt that kind of hunger before.

"...Do you still trust us to help you?"

Because that's his main worry. That because of his and John's actions, their negligence, that they had broken Jack's trust. That they were no longer comrades.

[wereperrito]

Jack sighs a little. He had been a little angry, he can admit that, and a little hurt, and a little sad as well, that maybe their little trio would indeed split up as John and Serph drifted towards each other.

But moon warps are what they are, and now they all know more things about each other, and it's really hard to be mad when Serph looks so dejected about it. So he says, "I still trust you. We will just need to adjust our plans, that's all, and be more open with each other about things that may affect us. John is aware of your need to eat monsters now, so he should hopefully not try to fight you about it again. And you and John are aware of your desire for each other, so we can plan for that as well, if the moon warp brings it out again."

[bufudine]

It's a relief to hear that Jack has decided to give them a second chance. But Serph blinks at the last part of Jack's response, perplexed over the unfamiliar word. Desire? What does that mean? His brow furrows into a confused frown.

"...What is desire?"

[wereperrito]

"Dios preservame," Jack mutters under his breath. Right. He needs to remember just who he's talking to, here. This is the person who had no emotions for most of his existence and doesn't know what a dog is.

He sits up a little straighter. "Desire is... when you want someone. No, that is just another word for... okay." Different words. Feeling words. Break it down to essential pieces. "Desire is when you look at someone and you want to touch them, want them to touch you. You want to put your hands and your mouth and all of your body on them, to make them feel good, and to make you feel good. It may seem like fighting sometimes, depending on the person and the mood, but there are more than just hands and teeth involved." Please do not make him talk about dicks directly, Serph. He can, but it will be embarrassing. "It is not a bad thing."

He pauses, then in the interest of being perfectly clear, he adds, "Unless one of the people does not want any of that and the other person forces them to accept it. That is a bad thing. That was not what happened in the oasis, though, I think?" His brows go up pointedly. He does not think it was, considering neither of them are acting like they were forced into sex, but it's probably best to make sure of that.

[bufudine]

Serph watches Jack's reaction in mild bemusement. Has he asked a question with an answer that would seem immediately obvious to anyone else?

He listens to Jack's explanation in rapt attention. Desire... is that the word for hunger without devouring? There is a very long pause as Serph processes the new information. It does very aptly describe how things felt during the moon warp after John had breathed back life into him. If he had truly wanted to hurt John he... would have used his blades like he had in the beginning. But instead they had only inflicted minor -- "minor" -- injuries on each other while tangling limbs until they joined together.

For hours.

Very slowly, Serph shakes his head. He knows he was willing. And the way John spoke his name and the number of times John said Yes would very strongly suggest that John was willing, too.

"In the oasis, John transformed." Which, in hindsight shouldn't have been so surprising; John had remained strangely human-like all this time, having so few changes outside of those ones that have since faded away. "He was like a different person."

And he has a feeling that sudden change in demeanour wasn't entirely from the moon warp.

[wereperrito]

Jack waits patiently, trying very hard not to do his fill-the-silence routine, letting Serph thing. He compromises by idly petting Serph's hand again with his thumb.

"Moon warps affect us all," he suggests. "Though I have thought John was not human since we met. He has too little knowledge of human things, the way you do. It may have been that, too. I don't know what that kind of not-human is for him, though, since he has not shared it with me. It may be time to actually ask, soon."

[bufudine]

Oh... really?

He'd thought John was plenty knowledgeable, his jumpiness and terror in the face of danger and the pained way he talked about cults had Serph dismiss the idea of John being anything besides human. It certainly didn't seem particularly monstrous behaviour.

His gaze falls to where Jack's hand is touching his. "I want to know." John had mentioned being monstrous as Serph was sinking into the oasis, air slowly being choked out of him. "But I'll hear it from him."

So whatever John decides to share with Jack, that's between them. He won't ask Jack for details that John wouldn't tell Serph himself.

[wereperrito]

Knowing about horrible things is not the same as being human. Jack has known many so-called monsters in his time, many of them unable to blend in for most of their lives the way he can, and John shows a lot of the signs of being kept well apart from normal human society. Up to and including the way he reacts to food, conversation, and natural human kindness.

Plus, well, the weird finger and the way occasionally his eyes glowed.

He nods. "Probably for the best. Have you talked to him much since? Like you are talking to me, now?"

[bufudine]

Serph's gaze slides away. His silence to the question is answer enough.

"...I didn't know what to say."

John had been... the word brooding comes to mind. That same sort of distant silence and separation that he had seen from Heat after he and the rest of the Tribe had returned from blowing up that cruise ship. Serph had decided to leave John be.

Maybe he shouldn't have?

[wereperrito]

"Well, it's hard sometimes even for people who know what desire is, and have experienced it before," Jack comments, a little wryly. He pats Serph's hand lightly, and suggests, "But you could maybe start with 'did you like that' and 'do you want to do it again or not'. It might be easiest for both of you to just be up front."

[bufudine]

Serph blinks slowly.

Again?

A repeat never occurred to him, especially when it had been the result of them fighting and ultimately lead to the wolf running free. He has a furrowed brow, the sort of pinched expression he sometimes gets when he feels like he's missing something that would allow him to follow the train of thought.

Carefully, he asks, "Aren't we trying to avoid a repeat? So the wolf doesn't get loosed again?"

[wereperrito]

Jack blinks, back, and then laughs a little. "Not the moon warp part, Serph. The sex part. I would very much prefer that you not get distracted during the moon warp again, no, but if you and John want to have sex again, in whatever form that happens, I'm sure that could be arranged."

[bufudine]

Serph's perplexed frown remains pasted on his face as his confusion only deepens. He's not sure why Jack thinks he (and John??) want to have sex again. That was just the result of the moon warp and the confusing whirl of impulses from almost dying from John drowning him and his demon's renewed hunger upon being brought back from the brink by John, wasn't it?

...Wasn't it?

Maybe he should ask John. Even if he's not human, maybe he'd have some idea of why Jack thinks that. Or what Jack means by in whatever form that happens.

"There's nothing to arrange." He's sure of it. His rests his other hand on top of Jack's. "We won't be distracted again."

Now that he has some idea of the cause, then it's a simple matter of taking precautions. It's just like when he first gained his demon. He'd been taken off guard by the roaring hunger, but the next time he maintained control.