recklessthings | 彡 cora hale

"Five. ... Ish." Alek cringes inwardly, since he realizes that answer can give way to confusion. "Four of them live here with me, technically, but we have an older brother that lives in Chicago, too. Just not ... here."

Because Adam. Adam and his world of issues.

Her eyebrows climb a bit at that, but it's not at Adam's lack of presence in the house. She figures that he just moved out or something.

"Big family."

She used to have a family like that once. But that was a very long time ago.

Alek smirks faintly at Cora's remark.

"You could say that. They're all strong personalities, too. So sometimes it feels even bigger."

Than it really is. A honk interjects before Alek can say anything else, and when he cranes his neck to look behind him, he finds the pizza has arrived. Delicious, cheesy pizza.

Cora is immediately distracted by the smell of food, something that claws at her. She hadn't realized how hungry she actually was until food was in chomping distance. Still, she waits for him to pay the pizza guy before following him into the house, looking at everything else to keep her from staring at the food.

Alek smirks at her reaction, dutifully paying the pizza guy and leading Cora into the kitchen. He opens up the pizza box and is equally swift at retrieving paper plates for them. They have nice plates, but that means washing dishes, and Alek is still an eighteen year old boy. "I hope you don't mind pepperoni," he says to her, nudging the plate in Cora's direction.

Because Alek is big on pepperoni and extra cheese.

She shakes her head because no, she doesn't mind pepperoni, and she's just going to take a great big bite and start shoveling the pizza into her mouth. She makes it about halfway through the the slice in question before she pulls back and swallows about half.

"Thanks."

Alek's not going to be much different, honestly. He scarfs down his slice of pizza entirely before he thinks to reply to her, and despite the fact he's a boy, he has the sense to swallow about half of it himself.

"Don't mention it. Consider it like a rites of passage."

Chicago pizza = Important.

She snorts a bit at that, before going back to her pizza. There may even be some happy noises. You can't get get better than really good pizza. She makes her way through half the pie, before she stops and actually looks around more.

"How long have you guys lived here?"

Alek considers Cora's question, chewing thoughtfully on his pizza slice. He doesn't answer until he's swallowed down that bite.

"Ever since I was a kid. I don't remember much about my life before living here, but we were all born in England. Moved around a bit until we settled here. My brothers are all a little older than me, so they'd know more about that. For me, there's... really only ever been this."

She nods a bit at that. Cora is he opposite - the Hales had lived in that preserve in Beacon Hills for generations until the fire, and then what was left of them were scattered and broken. They had a home. Now, not so much.

"It reminds me of where I grew up."

"Where was that?"

Wanderers come from all kinds of worlds, he's found. He never assumes what their home must've been like. Sometimes it's similar to his, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes, it's both.

"Beacon Hills?"

If it's a completely different world, it's possible that it doesn't even exist which is both disheartening and a relief at the same time - Beacon Hills never brought anyone anything but pain in her experience. She pauses shift so that she's sitting cross-legged in the chair before continuing.

"It's a tiny town in California. Not a lot of people have heard of it."

There's a lack of recognition in Alek's face that likely answers that for her.

Beacon Hills doesn't exist in this world, or at the very least, he's never heard of it. It wouldn't be the same one Cora knew all the same. "I've never been to California," he offers quietly. "But I know you're a long way from home."

He's very sympathetic to Wanderers. Not everyone is, but Alek happens to think those people are assholes.

"It wasn't really home."

She's never actually had a home. The memories of the Hale House, the thing that was home, are tainted by the fire, and she's been running ever since. She thought that maybe she and Derek might be able to find one as they reconnected, finding somewhere to just settle and be a family, but considering she's here, and not home, that's understandably being brought to a halt.

"At least not like it used to be."

Alek lingers in the silence briefly after Cora's response.

He can tell there's a story there, but it might not be one she wants to tell him. He won't hold it against her if she doesn't, but he also can't stop himself from being curious. Cora really is one of the few werewolves Alek has ever met outside of his brothers, and she's the closest one in age, at that. "Why not?"

She doesn't particularly want to tell him. But given the way she reacted when she heard his name, she figures she should make at least that much make sense. She takes a few more bites of her pizza, trying to put some distance between her and the question if she can, but it doesn't always work that way.

"When I was eleven, some hunters barricaded us into our house and set it on fire." She still remembers the flames, the fear, and for a moment it flashes on her in a way that it usually only does in her nightmares. "We used to be this ... prominent werewolf family. We had gone back generations. And now all that's left is me, my brother and my uncle." And her cousin. But she doesn't know Malia exists, so we won't hold it against her.

"That's bullshit," Alek says, his thoughts on these hunters all too clear.

He says it before he can think better of it, and inwardly cringes. He already has a feeling she didn't want to tell him, and he also has a feeling any sympathy he might extend her way might not be comfortably received as it is, but that doesn't mean he thinks it sucks any less. "I'm sorry, Cora."

He's very sincere about it. Alek's a lot of things, but he's not an asshole and he isn't unfeeling. He's lost family. He can't imagine losing so much of it in one go.

She shakes her head a bit. "It was a long time ago." She's had time to deal with it, in one way or another. It's almost funny how the the world keeps snatching family away from her, just when she manages to think she's found it. Except for all the ways it's not.

"And it doesn't really matter now. I still have my brother." There's a pause. "Or I had him, anyway."

Alek doesn't want to give her false hope, but he also can't help pointing out a real possibility.

"He could always fall through the rift, too," he says to her. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened. People don't always fall through the rift at the same time, but there are reunions. Which can be confusing, depending on the different points in time they arrive from, but she would still have her brother. Alek wants that for her.

She wants that too. It would be great, if they could get away from a world of Argents and hunters (and Peter) but at the end of the day, she doesn't have a say in this. All she knows is that she often has a lot of people that she's never meant to keep. Derek's probably one of them.

"I've never really been that lucky."

It doesn't sound like she's stretching the truth, either. Life gave her a crappy hand, and whatever else she's been through, it's been hard. She doesn't act like most of the teenagers he's met, and that's pretty telling in and of itself.

"I guess I've never really decided if I believe in luck or not."

Cora knows that in some ways she has been lucky. She managed to survive for so long on her own, after all, and it's hard to say that she would have been able to do that if she didn't at least have a little bit of luck. But at the same time, the world just happens to people sometimes, and when you haven't really had a whole lot of good for a long time, it's either blame it on luck, or think that maybe you're doing something wrong.

"Sometimes it can make things a little easier."

Alek is quiet at first. He can see why it would make things easier. It always helps to have a reason for something happening, even if it's just that you have crappy luck. It's better than accepting the alternative terrible things happen for no reason at all. It makes the world too senseless, and he's often tried to make sense of it with little to no success.

"It at least explains why I'm terrible at poker," he says, glancing up at her with the faintest smirk.

She smirks back, taking another bite of her pizza before nodding. "You don't listen for the bluffs?" Catching people bluffing at poker is probably something she did for easy cash every once in a while when she was on her own. It was a good way to clean up and no one could ever figure out how to catch when she was cheating.

Alek smirks right back at her. It's kind of impressive how many slices of pizza he can store in his body, since he sure is reaching for his fourth slice. "I do, but the people I play with the most are my brothers, who can listen for them, too. It's always an adventure."

There's a slight pause. "You sound like you know a thing or two about it yourself. We should play sometime."

They'd at least be on equal ground.


	✔ Cʀᴏssᴏᴠᴇʀs/AU ✔ Aᴄᴛɪᴏɴsᴘᴀᴍ ✔ Pʀᴏsᴇ	✔ Pɪᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴍᴘᴛs ✔ Oᴛʜᴇʀᴡᴏʀᴅʟʏ ✔ Sᴛᴀʀᴛᴇʀs	♥ F/M, F/F ⏰ Uᴘ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴀᴛᴇ

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