do you t r u s t me? {x} asher

[rochelle elise blanchard]

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As she crept into the opening of the cave, Rochelle wasn't thinking about the raid that she was currently on with a handful of other fugitives ( or fugies, as they often called themselves ); instead, she was thinking that she probably shouldn't have worn a scarf, but...well, it was too late for second thoughts now. At least her scarf was darker than the faintly tanned neck it was wrapped around. Then again, if a shifter or a vampire managed to grab onto part of it, they could probably strang - - no. She would not think about all the liabilities that came with wearing a chunk of cloth around her neck. Gavin expected his Shell-Bell to be back before it got dark, and there was no way she was letting her little brother down - she may have missed the first nine years of his life, but she refused to miss anymore, especially now that their parents were dead. Gav needed her. Drawing a slow, cleansing breath, the brunette made sure her scarf was securely around her neck, then resumed walking, sticking as close to the wall as she could. Every so often, one of her knees would scrape against the rough stone of the cave wall, but given the already worn and ripped state of her jeans ( aka her "raid jeans" ), Rochelle didn't really care.

"C'mon girl, you can do this..." Yeah, like giving herself a mental a pep talk was going to help. It hadn't helped last time, or the time before that, but hey, what the heck, she might as well try it again. Rolling her eyes at her inner pessimist, she kept on going. The actual entrance to the shifters "living quarters", for lack of a better term, always felt like it was further back than it actually was. Probably because she was just a teeny bit afraid of the dark, plus she couldn't see worth crap in it. One hand out in front of her, and the other against the wall, Shell opened her eyes as wide as she could, straining to see. She hated raids in the shifter cave. At least she had been able to take a flashlight when she had been up North helping with raids on the vampires, since you could always shine the thing in their face and blind them long enough to escape. It didn't work that way with shifters; their eyes were sensitive, but she didn't think they weren't that sensitive. At least, she was pretty sure that's how it worked; shifters could go out during the day without any problems, as far as Rochelle knew. It was the vampires that had to stay inside for most of the daylight hours. "Ugh, enough with the mental rambleage already!"

Realizing seconds too late that she had voiced her frustration aloud, the brunette flattened herself against the cave wall as the sound of voices reached her ears. It wasn't Jeremy or Caleb - the two older boys had gone in before her, and there was no way she had managed to pass them without hearing anything - and it wasn't Melanie or Serena either, seeing as the voices she was hearing were definitely masculine in timbre. The two males probably hadn't heard Shell, since they were still talking to each other in a calm, easy manner, but the risk of them catching her and killing her on the spot was pretty high, unless she fabricated some story just complex enough that they would buy it. Mind spinning, she sank to the ground, drawing her knees to her chest and laying her head down. And then it hit her. Knowing she was going to have to sell this act like she'd never sold and act before, she thought of her parents and her dead twin sister Claire. Instantly, tears sprang to Rochelle's eyes. "Three, two, one...action!" A sob jerked itself from her throat, soft and yet just loud enough that the two males heard her. "Oi, wot's this?!" One exclaimed, crouching down in front of her. "Did th' wee lil' lass lose her way home?"

A shiver ran down her spine. The boy had a thick Irish accent, but there was a hostile edge to his seemingly friendly tone that bit into her skin and burrowed into her soul. She would never forget the sound of his voice as long as she lived. Shuddering, the brunette kept her head down, her skin tingling. Shell was sure that if she waited long enough... "Hey, Kip's talkin' t' you, kid. I'd suggest you answer him." Bingo. Mentally grinning from ear to ear, she lifted her tear-stained face. "K - - Kip?" She hiccupped, her bright eyes just a touch wide. "Kip?! *Oh mon dieu, je ne peux pas croire que j'ai finalement vous avez trouvé, après tout ce temps!!" Face alight, she launched herself forward, still chattering on in French as she wrapped her arms around the boy's neck. "Oh, Kip, je vous ai tant manqué très très fort! Maman dit que tu étais mort, mais je savais...je savais que vous étiez encore en vie!" Giggling happily, Rochelle pulled back. Her face fell the second she saw the look on Kip's face. "Get th' hell offa me, woman! I dunno who th' hell ya think ya are, but I Do. Not. Know. You." He ground out. "Peter, get her th' hell outta my sight before I kill her." Peter - the bigger of the two, and obviously the "muscle" of the pair - advanced towards her.

"S'il vous plaît, s'il vous - - ... D...don't h-hurt m-m-me." She choked out, finally switching to English. Kip grinned, baring his teeth at her as he did so. "Ah, so th' wee lil' lass does know our language. Cunning, this one is, eh Peter?" Peter chuckled, and Shell skittered backwards, crying for real now. She would feel stupid later, but real tears were believable ( obviously ), so for the moment, she would go with it. "I...I'm s-sorry... I thought y-you w-w-were my...my big brother. He ran away w-when I was f-five, and y-you l-look j...just l-like h...him..." She stuttered, praying Kip would buy her story. Judging by the sympathetic glimmer in his dark green eyes, and the frown pulling at the corners of his mouth, he had. Then again, if you were a fugitive on the run, you never could be too careful, especially not in enemy territory. Rochelle knew Kip was still suspicious when he reached out and grabbed her arm, jerking her to her feet as he stood. "Ya don' smell like a vampire, but ya don' smell like one of us, either. Why is that, lass?" Kip growled. She straightened. "Because I was just turned last week, idiot. Everybody knows it takes a while to adjust." She snapped, eyes flashing. If someone else didn't show up soon, she was in trouble.

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TAGGED! Asher ( to the rescue ?! ) STATUS! finished~ WORDS! 1,152 NOTES! so...i totally didn't mean for my post to be quite so long - shell took over halfway through the second paragraph, I swear. hope there's enough there for you to work with. xD LYRICS! Forgiven, by Relient K OUTFIT! click hurr babes CREDIT! moi, aka ellie or ELLIEPANTS FTW ?! of Caution 2.0. i put a lot of hard work into perfecting this layout - steal it, and you can bet i'll grab a spork and hunt you down.

PS :: the translations for the French ( cause I'm too lazy to put them in text xD ). 1)Oh my god, I cannot believe I have finally found you, after all this time!! 2)Oh, Kip, I have missed you so so much! Mother said you were dead, but I knew...I just knew you were still alive! 3)Please, plea - -

[asher michael rinehart]

Nothing like the Californian out-of-doors. Even in the midst of some serious blizzards, it was sunny down on the southern west coast. Asher didn't pity the vampires and their pathetic little breeder cronies one bit. He would stay down here, where things were nice and warm, and whoop it up. A triumphant smirk caught the corner of his mouth as Asher's foot came down in the creek, successfully soaking Paul, the guy behind him. The two of them were coming back to cave after a game of kickball down at the colony. Paul one the game, and Asher had sworn he'd get revenge. He had no idea an opportunity would come his way less than an hour later. Paul cried out as the water slapped the front of his shirt and jeans. Asher executed an aerial half-turn out of the creek, landing on the opposite bank and shooting Paul a bemused look. "Wow man," he quipped, unable to keep himself from passing a chuckle in between words. "I think you need to cut back on your soda." He gestured to Paul's pants, where water was pooling in the worst possible place. Paul got that "come 'ere, you!" look on his face and threw himself at the brunette in front of him. Asher danced out of the way, the smirk never leaving his face. "Missed me," he jeered, eyes sparkling. "Who's the big bag wolf now?"

Paul took a swipe at Asher, missing once again. Asher was too fast for him. Asher stuck his tongue out, and that pushed Paul over the edge. A deviously determined look passed over the other shifter's face and he leaped toward Asher again. Right as Asher was about to step aside, Paul too veered right and caught him in mid-air. Their momentum carried the two men / boys to the ground. Asher kept rolling until he was back on his feet, no doubt with a trail of dirt running across his shoulders. He caught Paul in a headlock and gave him a first-class noogie - the kind of noogie only years of experience could produce. Only when Paul started swearing under his breath did Asher relent, stepping back with his hands raised, as though he'd just been apprehended by the police. Or worse, Ember. A shudder passed through him at the thought. She'd be much worse than any police officer. Of that, he was certain. "Sorry bro," he apologized. Realizing his hair had fallen in his eyes again, - that's what happened when one grew their hair long and then refused to trim it -, he gave his head a flick to the left, letting his bangs sweep across his forehead the way he liked them. Paul muttered something about getting Asher back later. Asher let lose a throaty laugh. "In your dreams."

Looking up, he discovered their little skirmish had brought them straight back to the pack cave. Asher headed up the hill toward the entrance, but Paul hung back and cast a longing glance at the trees. Asher knew what hew as thinking: food. There was food in the cave, but it was wimpy human food. The kind that wouldn't hold a shifter's stomach through the night to come. Or the night after that. Or the night after that. You get the picture, right? Asher didn't feel like hunting, though. He was still a little traumatizing from his last experience hunting. He'd been out with a pal and run clear across the country. They'd run into this one fugitive man - or rather, Asher's pal had - and the man killed the other guy. That was almost a year ago. Asher hadn't been hunting since. His stomach was starting to feel it, too. Still, he shook his head. "You go," he called, not wanting to hinder Paul. "And bring back a deer for me, yeah?" Paul laughed. "Catch'a later." Paul returned the farewell and the two of them parted ways, Paul loping toward the woods, Asher climbing the rest of the way to the cave. He stopped a few feet away, catching a whiff of a foreign scent. Whatever was giving off that smell, it wasn't supposed to be there. Asher crept closer, wrinkling his nose and sniffing the air.

He placed the scent : human.

That was odd. Humans never came here. If they did, they were recaptured shortly after. Frowning in confusion, Asher headed through the entrance and into the entrance zone. He continued on his way, not stopping until he heard voices. Not in the psychotic, "this is your conscience speaking," sort of way, real voices. Asher followed the sound, his eyes naturally adjusting to the darkness. He could see everything perfectly. Up ahead, a girl and two burly-looking dudes were speaking. And not in hushed tones. Uh-oh, Asher thought. Little miss human's been discovered. Shifters had pretty strict rules about what to do with a human when you found one, and none of them said anything about being nice and offering them tea. Asher picked up the pace, knowing full well that the rule of "capturing and reporting to the proper authorities" wouldn't hold if the two shifters speaking with the girl were feeling particularly peckish. He froze mid-stride when he caught sight of the girl's face. "Rochelle?" Asher asked. He knew her - they'd grown up around the same area of the colony. It took him a second to realize he'd let that slip out loud. Better keep talking and cover that up. "Rochelle! There you are!" He caught up with their party, forcing himself between Rochelle and the two shifters. He recognized them: Kip and Peter. Not notoriously friendly.

Asher put his arm around Rochelle, both to mask her scent and propel her away from the other two. "Thank god I found you. What did I tell you about wandering off by yourself like that? And only a few days old. Honestly." Shaking his head, he cast a glance over his shoulder at Kip and Peter. "Sorry," he apologized to them. "She's a newb. Ember asked me to watch her. I'll have to remind her again how things run around here." He hoped tossing out Ember's name would keep them off his tail. Nobody questioned her unless they wanted to die a slow, painful death. Forcing away that grim thought, Asher looked straight ahead and continued to push Rochelle down the... er... corridor, for lack of a better word. Once he was confident they were out of earshot, he pushed her toward the cave wall, got in her face, and hissed, "What the hell are you doing here? You know any of these guys could kill you, right?" Taking a deep breath, he turned away from Rochelle and slammed his fist into the opposite wall. As if to prove his point, a chunk of rock fell away when he withdrew his hand. That had been way too close a call.

[rochelle elise blanchard]

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Shell set her jaw as the two shifters advanced on her, muscle taunt to keep Kip and Peter from seeing that she was shaking hard enough to break herself to pieces. Resigned to her impending fate, she sent up a last ditch prayer, her thoughts focused firmly on her family. "I'm sorry mom. I know I promised you I would protect Gavin, but your 'so-smart-she's-stupid' daughter has landed herself right in the middle of a huge mess again. You and Claire and dad can yell at me when you see me, kay?" Swallowing hard, she lifted her chin, her greyish-blue eyes hard. She would not break, no matter what they did. Rochelle had been living in freedom for the last five years, there was no way she would just meekly back down and let them take her back to the colony, not with her eighteenth birthday a mere six months away. Time seemed to slow, in that way it's supposed to for those who know they're about to die, and the brunette steeled herself. And then a familiar voice reached her ears. Her heart lurched to a stop, then scrambled to catch back up. "A...Asher?" Seconds after his name left her lips, he called out to her again, tacking on a "There you are!". Shell's brows furrowed in confusion, her expression smoothing the second Kip and Peter turned their attention back to her.

Deciding to play along, she sighed quietly once Asher had his arm around her, affecting a rather pitiful and sheepish expression - something that wasn't hard to do, considering the tear stains on her cheeks, as well as the fact that she felt like a complete and total idiot for getting herself into this hairy ( no pun intended ) situation in the first place. She gave Asher a small, wobbly half-smile. "S-sorry, Ash... I got bored staying with you, and the bird I was following was just so pretty. I figured out how to get back all on my own, but then I got scared, and...and..." Breath hitching in her throat, Rochelle lowered her head and pressed close to his side, one hand gripping the back of his shirt. If she played the air-headed damsel in distress, perhaps the other two shifters would forget about the flash of "fire" she had shown them. It was better to be laughed at and forgotten then remembered and hated, after all. Asher's mention of Ember, however, turned her blood to ice, and she shivered despite the heat she was "stealing" from her old friend. Oh god, if word of her ever actually got back to that sadistic woman...and those two lunkheads knew Shell's name now, too. Feeling sick to her stomach, she closed her eyes, leaning heavily against Asher as he guided her further into the cave.

"I'm dead. I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm so so ficking dead." She chanted over and over in her mind, the morbid train of thought she was following the only thing keeping her from throwing up or passing out ( or both ). When Asher shoved her into the cave wall, her eyes popped open just in time for her to notice that he was way too close for comfort. What little color she had drained from her face as his questions - and his rather aggressive reaction - brought home the fact that she had been split seconds away from being shifter meat. Swaying on her feet, Rochelle and gravity collectively decided that she was safer sitting down than standing up, and she sank to the ground for the second time in less than ten minutes. Her eyes stung, and she just barely managed to bury her face in her arms before the floodgates broke. Hot tears traced new trails down her cheeks as silent sobs shook her entire body. "I...I'm s - - sor - - sorry..." She hiccupped, though who her quiet apology was directed to ( Asher or her dead parents ), not even she knew. When her tears finally stopped - Shell couldn't seem to stop the shivering no matter how hard she tried - the brunette lifted her head, wiping her cheeks dry with shaking fingers. Now, where to begin? If she didn't spin a darn good story...

"I really am sorry, Asher. I...I know you'll get in trouble if anyone else finds out." She said quietly. "Yeah, way to remind him that he could be punished, or even killed, for saving your stupid backside." Taking a slow, shaky breath, she continued on. "I...I didn't want to come anywhere near this place, t-trust me..." A lie. Biting her lip, she studied her hands, weaving her fingers together and staring at them so she wouldn't have to look Asher in the eye. Rochelle hated having to lie. "My friend...she dared me to sneak in and steal something valuable - something we could use to trade for food. She and I still can't hunt very well," Another lie, "and not everybody is willing to share without expecting something in return." Truth. Bottom lip still between her teeth, she finally focused her gaze on Asher, fixing him with the same doe-eyed look he hadn't been able to resist when she had been a kid. She had always been a natural charmer, and usually, age didn't matter, not even a five year gap - apparently, Shell had this wide-eyed innocence that the opposite sex found completely enchanting, regardless of whether it was feigned or genuine. She had tested it before; the second she went "Bambie" on a guy ( even the more hardened ones ), they caved.

You mean they gave way like a fifty year old termite infested bridge after a cat walked across it. Her mental voice piped in. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes - which would totally ruin the effect of the 'forgive me now before I start crying again' look she was giving Asher - she settled for a mental grimace. If there was one thing Rochelle hated more than anything, it was her mental voice. "Egotistical, much? I'm not exceptionally amazing, just fairly good, and rather lucky." A lot of it hinged on catching someone in the right mood, after all. Today's circumstances, however, were completely different. This was about more than an extra pair of gloves or new boots for Gavin - it was quite possible that her life (still ) hung in the balance. Wrapping her arms around her abdomen in a sad attempt to warm herself up, she pulled her eyes from Asher's face, dropping them to study the tattered knees of her jeans. Shell was hoping that her friends were alright. Supposedly, there was more than one way to get out of the cave, but no one who had gone in had ever needed to take an alternate exit. Only she was dumb enough to get caught before she even made it inside. Heaving a sigh, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Gav would be expecting her back soon.

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TAGGED! Asherrr STATUS! finished~ WORDS! 1,171 NOTES! competive muse = ( hopefully ) win post LYRICS! Forgiven, by Relient K OUTFIT! click hurr babes CREDIT! moi, aka ellie or ELLIEPANTS FTW ?! of Caution 2.0. i put a lot of hard work into perfecting this layout - steal it, and you can bet i'll grab a spork and hunt you down.

[asher michael rinehart]

Oh good. She recognized him. It would have been painfully awkward (and completely cover-blowing) if Rochelle didn't remember him at all. And a part of him would be crushed. You can't be tight with someone growing up and then not feel a thing when they completely forget about you. Rochelle questioned him with his name in return, but when Asher said her name again, she picked up on what he was trying to and decided to play along. Thank god. Asher was risking his neck in doing this. If she blew the whole thing up in their faces, it'd be more than Shell who turned into puppy chow. Grim humor, but it made Asher smile. He bit the smile back just as Rochelle offered him one of her own. It was a wobbly one, one that betrayed her nerves. Based on the story that ensued, Asher got the feeling that was for a reason. She was rambling about some bird, sounding particularly bubble-headed. Asher repressed a facepalm. You had to say her name? he mentally scolded himself. If Kip and Peter take this to Ember, you are so dead! Which they will, if Rochelle keeps this up... Asher made a face and returned his attention to Kip and Peter. "See what I have to deal with?" he asked. "Just be glad you aren't assigned to newbie-watch." He finished his bluff and directed the two of them down the hall. An anxiety-explosion ensued. Asher shook his hand, his knuckle erupting in pain from the impact with the wall. He may be able to punch holes in rock, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

When he turned around again, he discovered that Rochelle had given in to gravity. She sat in a pathetic heap, her face buried in her arms. Images flooded Asher's mind - flashbacks to what hadn't been a completely unfortunate childhood. Call him crazy, but Asher had actually had fun growing up in the shifter colony. Most of the shifters were actually really nice people, despite the fact that they had a habit of feasting on human flesh... Anyway. The images swimming through his pool of thought were of him and Rochelle both, talking and laughing and having a damn good time. Things were so much easier back then. If only she'd stayed. She would have been turned for real, and she wouldn't have to fake it. A strange mix of guilt and betrayal flooded him. Guilt for the fact that he was shouting at her, and betrayal because... well... she deserted him. What, he wasn't good enough for her? She had to up and run off into the wilderness where she could've been killed? But whatever. The Rochelle who'd run away was temporarily unavailable. The girl before him was the Rochelle who was still as insecure and vulnerable as before, all but reduced to tears by fright. Mentally cursing himself out, Asher sat down in the dirt next to her and put his arm around her, drawing her to his chest and gently rubbing her shoulder. "Shh," he said soothingly. "The big bad wolves are gone."

Rochelle cut short his pathetic attempt at being comforting by launching into an apology. Asher smirked. Get in trouble? That was the understatement of the century. Try "be rent limb from limb," "be permanently exiled from the pack," or "be jumped by the entire pack all at once." "Trouble" didn't even begin to cover the punishments the, ahem, "higher authorities" could dream up. Oh, Rochelle also hadn't wanted to come to the cave. Ouch. Her friend dared her to sneak in and steal something. Double ouch. Not only had Asher been disowned, he'd also been stolen from. All in a single sentence. But it wasn't true. Asher was strong and goofy, yeah. That didn't make him some meat-headed moron. Then came the doe-eyed look she always unleashed on people when bending them to her will. Triple ouch. She thought he was weak enough to crumble under her gaze? Okay.. he might have been, if she hadn't insulted his intelligence first. Asher returned the pouty face, only exaggerating it. He stuck his bottom lip out as far as it would go without revealing teeth and widened his eyes. Holding the look for a second, he then rearranged his features into a stone-faced glower. "Really Shell?" he asked, using her nickname because he was lazy and "Rochelle" was a mouthful. "I'm not thick. I know you only make that face when you're trying to cover a lie." He released her and stood, dusting off the seat of his jeans. Then, with as much disappointment in his voice as he could muster, he finished, "I grew up with you, remember?"

Asher turned away sharply, as though he couldn't stand the sight of her. That might be how he felt. He wasn't sure. He'd never had a male role-model to coach him through teenagerhood, so it was quite possible he was still in that awkward stage of adolescence, trying to figure himself out. Likely, as a matter of fact. He bit his right forefinger, then scuffed the dirt floor with his shoe and began pacing. The memories were coming back in a rush. With each new one, Asher bit down harder. Eventually, his canines broke skin, beads of blood forming around them. He didn't mind wounds so much, what with his accelerated healing and all that jazz. Finally, he had enough thoughts gathered to spit back some monologue at Rochelle. He stopped and turned to face her, holding her gaze. "Enough with the cheap cover stories. You're one of them, aren't you?" It was a rhetorical question - Asher already had that much worked out. "You're one of the.. what do they call those things... fugies! You're one of the fugitives. You're not here 'cause of some stupid dare with one of your stupid friends. You're here to steal supplies from my family." Seriously. Like it or not (Asher leaned more toward the former), the pack was his family now. If Rochelle stole supplies from one of them, she stole from all. Including him. "You guys have it so hard out there that you think it's okay to just walk in and take from us, don't you? Well guess what -- being a shifter isn't a fucking ball. We get to eat once a year, unless we're stupid enough to go hunting. I have to put up with pain every night and every morning. I always feel like I'm starving to death because I never get enough food."

His voice began to shake as more emotion poured in. "You know one of your little fugitive buddies killed my best mate? Killed him. Stabbed him right in the gut with a knife. I have to be around death and dying every day, and you want to come in and try to steal what little compensation I get? Do you really suck that much at hunting?" He took a breath, interrupting the stream of rhetorical questions. "And you don't apologize until you get caught. You can't even like... say 'hi' or 'how are you doing?' or anything." His breath was coming in labored gasps now. Maybe a little too much emotion... He hadn't realized how much it hurt him when Rochelle left. She used to feel like part of him... family. And one look at her was all it took to return that feeling. But did she care? No, apparently not. All she could think of was, "Oh my god, I'm gonna die!" Taking a deep breath, Asher forced out the last of his rant. "You could've at least said goodbye."

[rochelle elise blanchard]

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Rochelle could practically see the relief oozing from Asher when she automatically responded to his call with his own name, unsure as she was that he was what she was actually seeing. The second his arm came into contact with her body, she released the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding, sighing as relief flooded her being. It was amazing, how you didn't know how much you missed someone until you were seeing them again. She had been twelve the last time she had seen Asher, and obviously, a lot of things had changed since then, though they still managed to recognize each other. Is it just me, or has he gotten a lot better looking since then? Shell just barely managed to avoid grimacing as the voice in her head decided to add in it's own two cents in regards to that particular subject. Oh how she wished it was dark enough for her to roll her eyes without anyone seeing. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Choking back a growl of annoyance and fighting to keep her facial expression form morphing into one of self-disgust, she scolded the voice. "Honestly, should you really be thinking about that right now? If there weren't two big, mean shifters waiting for you to slip up so they could have an excuse to rip out your throat, I'd be more than happy to let you compare seventeen year old Asher to twenty-two year old Asher, but Now. Is Not. The Time." Rochelle mentally ground out, frustrated beyond belief.

Proving ( at least to herself ) how amazing her multi-tasking skills were, she managed to do all this while offering up a half-assed explanation as to why she had "wandered off"; hopefully Kip and Peter bought it. They hadn't said a word since Asher's arrival, so the brunette wasn't quite sure what was going on in their heads. She knew almost exactly what was going on in Asher's head, though - she had known him long enough to know that in a situation like this, he was either belatedly kicking himself for revealing her identity, or his was annoyed by her attempt at being a "space cadet". Shell flicked her eyes towards Kip and Peter to see their reaction once she had finished her story and Asher had commented on it. The pair still looked as if they suspected her of something, but they didn't have that "we should take this straight to the top and see what our fearless leader has to say" look that she had often seen adult shifters exchange back in the colony when they were handling a particularly troublesome child. "Make sure ya keep a short leash on that one, yeah? Who knows what might happen to her if she wanders off again." She shuddered at the veiled, unspoken threat she sensed in Kip's parting shot. Who knew indeed? Obediently following Asher's lead, Rochelle flinched when he verbally lashed out at her, then physically lashed out at the opposite cave wall. It had been a long time since she had seen Asher this upset at her.

While he was busy being pissed and anxious about what had just transpired, she was busy trying not to pass out from sheer terror. It was funny, almost, how she was scared out of her wits after the fact, once she was safe. Crouched on the ground crying silently, she suddenly remembered being in a similar state when she was ten. Then, she had been crying because an older girl had threatened to beat her up if she didn't just shut her mouth and stop making the rest of the girls in her dorm look stupid, but the fear Shell had experienced then was the same as the fear that she was experiencing now, and Asher had come to her rescue back then, too. He had been the one bright spot in her unsatisfying time living in the shifter colony - she was always bored because her dorm mother refused to teach her how to read or write ( she eventually taught herself ), and most of the other girls were either airheaded, or tough and mean, so she didn't get along with many of them. So why had she run away if she had Asher to keep her company? Well...because she could. She had been clever enough to trick her dorm mother and escape, being the impulsive little thing that she had been at twelve, Rochelle had seized the opportunity when she saw it. The call of freedom and the unknown had just been way too tempting for her to pass up, apparently. She regretted it now, leaving Asher behind, but given the chance, she would've done it all over again.

Still crying, she felt the heat radiating from Asher's body when he sat beside her, and she willingly leaned into his embrace. His comforting words only made her cry harder, though their absurdity wasn't lost on her. Ironic, really, that a shifter was telling her that the big bad wolves ( which is what Kip and Peter essentially were ) were gone. At least he managed to distract her from her depressing thoughts. Shell hadn't bothered to think about how running away would affect the few friends she had actually had when she was twelve, but now...well, let's just say that she was going to start blaming herself for the fact that Asher was turned, even though she was well aware that she had nothing to do with it - it would be egotistical of her to think that she had anything to do with the fights that Asher had constantly and purposefully been throwing himself into. And now she was thinking about it again. Taking a deep breath, she forcefully pushed the thoughts from her mind and lifted her head, drying her eyes and face. She need to apologize before the guilt pressing on her chest crushed her. Rochelle was still as horrible at apologies as she always had been, however, and the fact that she was lying to the guy who had once been her best friend made it even worse. She felt worse with every word, but she couldn't stop - if she told Asher the real reason she was there, everyone was shifter meat, him included, and she couldn't have that.

When Asher gave her his best mock pout, however, she knew she was screwed. Even after five years of being apart, he could still call even her best bluffs. Open-mouthed, she watched in stunned silence as he went from soothing to patronizing in seconds flat, her heart sinking further and further with each passing second. "Asher, I..." She was what? Trailing off lamely, Shell bit her lip to keep the fresh tears pooling in her eyes at bay. She wasn't a crybaby, but between Asher's obvious pain and disgust, and his remind that they had known each other from a young age, she wanted to cry all over again. If there was one person she hated disappointing more that Gavin, it was Asher. Biting down hard enough to break the skin of her lip as she listened to the sound of her old friend pacing, she welcomed the gentle trickle of blood that slipped into her mouth, using the coppery taste to ground herself. She looked up when she heard him stop moving, the breath knocked from her chest as his question hit her like a ton of bricks. Rochelle had been hoping that Asher wouldn't actually say it out loud - hearing him say it made it truer, more solid. "I...yeah." Realizing that she might have just admitted to being there to steal supplies, she was quick to backtrack. "I mean no! I...I am one of them, but..." At a loss for the proper words, the brunette could only sit there as Asher lectured her, telling her exactly how things were for him.

The more he talked, the more her chest hurt, and by the time he was done, she was crying again, and just taking a breath was hard for her. She hadn't cried this hard since her father had died. A little unsteady, Shell got herself to her feet anyway and advanced on Asher. "What do you want me to say, huh? That I'm sorry that shifters and vampires think us humans aren't good for anything other than producing offspring and then either dying or becoming one of them? That I'm sorry that I ran away when I had the chance instead of waiting around and hoping that I'd find the perfect opportunity to get us both out of there? I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry that life is as hard for you as it is for me, and I'm sorry that some moron murdered your friend in the split second he had to chose between killing or being killed, and - - " Choking on a sob, Rochelle's tone suddenly went from angry and condescending to weary and laced with sadness. "And I'm sorry that...that I left." Tears streaming down her face, she wrapped her arms around Asher, burying her face in his chest. "I'm so, so sorry, but...I couldn't stay there. I didn't want to be forced to mate with some stranger and be separated from my kids as soon as they were born, and then either die or be turned once I had a boy and a girl, not when I knew my parents and my little brother were out there somewhere." She admitted, swallowing hard. And now came the hardest part.

"You know you would have tried to stop me if I had said goodbye, Ash." Shell reminded him, knowing it was the truth. Asher would have tried his damnedest to convince her to stay, and in the end, he would have only ended up hurt more when she left anyway, despite his best efforts. Feeling shaky and light-headed now that she'd gotten everything out, she wasn't ready to even think about letting go of the shifter just yet. For all she knew, this was the last chance she was ever going to have to be this close to him before he pushed her away completely, and if that was the case, she was going to take advantage of it while she could. She hadn't even touched on everything he had thrown at her, but Rochelle figured she could forget about that for the time being. Drawing a shaky breath, she was speaking again before she realized what she was saying. "I missed you, y'know. The first six months out there, I begged my mom to help me sneak back into the colony so I could break you out, but she kept telling me it was too dangerous, and I just had to wait a little longer, because she didn't want me to end up like Claire." A lump formed in her throat as she said her twin sister's name, but she only paused for a moment before continuing. "And for the record, I don't like the idea of stealing from you guys either. The others only brought me along 'cause I'm usually pretty good at talking my way out of a mess." She said with a chuckle.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

TAGGED! Asherrr STATUS! finished~ WORDS! 1,868 NOTES! uhm...I have no clue what happened. my fingers just kept typing. LYRICS! Forgiven, by Relient K OUTFIT! click hurr babes CREDIT! moi, aka ellie or ELLIEPANTS FTW ?! of Caution 2.0. i put a lot of hard work into perfecting this layout - steal it, and you can bet i'll grab a spork and hunt you down.

[asher michael rinehart]

Kip's parting words sent a shudder down Asher's spine. He had no doubt that should he not have intercepted Rochelle at the moment he did, she would have ended up dead or worse. "Or worse" being raped a murdered shifter-style, which was known to involve some dismemberment or skinning... Wow. That made for some interesting mental images. Asher's stomach clenched. He forced the graphics as far from his mind as he could get them, trying to quell the strong but sudden urge to dump his barely-existent lunch. Puking on an empty stomach never ended well. How would Asher know? Flu season, that's how. He replaced the grotesque pictures with determined thoughts of None of them will touch her. I'll kill them if they do. Hm. Channeling five-year-old protective instincts much? It had been that long since Asher'd seen her last, but here he was, already resuming his role as the overly-protective older-brother figure. He held Rochelle tighter to him, tossing a "Yeah.. I'll keep that in mind," back over his shoulder as he did so. If Kip meant he was planning on coming back later, as soon as Asher was gone, then the solution was simple: Asher would sneak Rochelle out at night, make up the excuse that she'd been killed by a fugitive, and never let her out of his sight until then. Yay for simple and obvious solutions.

One rush of anger later, Asher found himself with his arms around Rochelle again. That seemed to be the default position with those two. The flashbacks kept coming, including one where Rochelle was reduced to tears by some other girl in the colony who'd been threatening to beat her if she didn't quit acting like such a know-it-all and making everyone else look stupid. Asher couldn't beat the girl to a fine pulp - though the thought crossed his mind once or twice. He could, however, give her a stern talking-to (more like "shouting-at") that included every choice word known to man and saw the girl running away with her face in her hands. As far as he knew, no one had troubled Rochelle again after that. The age difference between them was great, - about five years -, but if anything, it made their bond stronger. On Asher's end because he felt the need to shelter and protect the younger girl from anything that might come her way, and on Rochelle's end because she came to see Asher as her own personal superman. Huh. Some superman. All Asher's cool powers were attributed to some demon inhabiting his body that reared its furry face every night. And he couldn't fly. Oh.. he didn't do spandex, either. Not that he wouldn't rock it, but come on. Can you say "gay?" If it weren't for Lois Lane, Asher might have seriously questioned the famed superhero's sexuality. Yeah, he knew about superman. There wasn't much to do during the day besides curl up on the couch and watch a bunch of old movies left over from the pre-revolution days.

An amazing thing, Asher's mind. It could run through all that random crap and still cycle through all the emotions he was feeling toward Rochelle. They went from pity to anger in the blink of an eye, but looking at the people who'd made him what he was, Asher couldn't say he was surprised by the major mood-swing. Those might even be normal for shifters, as far as he knew. But whatever. Something in the way Rochelle lied to him opened up a floodgate, and while he was letting it all out, Asher had to admit that he was scaring the hell out of himself. Sure, he and Rochelle had been tight for the majority of their childhood, but that was five years ago. It wan't like he curled up in a little ball and cried for days on end when she disappeared, either (though he distinctly remembered going for a swim after he heard the news so he could hide his tears under water). Yet somewhere deep down, an unrecognized pain had festered for all these years. It had taken root and grown, somehow passing right under his nose without Asher noticing. He hadn't thought of Rochelle in ages, but he carried her memory with him everywhere. More images were running through his mind, moments of nostalgia over the past few years. Moments when he'd felt her presence, but hadn't realized what it was he was feeling. For each memory that came back, another word slipped out of his mouth, and before he knew it, Asher was monologuing. He couldn't bring himself to look at Rochelle -- to see how she was taking all this. Until he finally shut up, everything he said hanging in the air between them.

Rochelle had tried to speak a time or two - to interrupt him with small sentence fragments. Each time, he'd ignored her and kept talking. Now that Asher had said all he needed to say, she seemed to be rearing to go. She got to her feet, and though there were fresh tears glistening on her cheeks, she advanced on him. Asher didn't balk, but he didn't step forward to meet her, either. He stood where he was, biting his tongue to keep from screaming at her. It might have been his anger twisting her words, but to Asher, Rochelle almost sounded as though she were blaming the deeds of the shifters on him, just because he was one. No, he didn't mind that much, but he'd never fully killed a human being by himself. Sure, he'd eaten a little, but never enough to kill. Never enough to mortally wound. And if she really cared that much about him, why didn't she wait until an opportunity came to get the both of them out? Or why didn't she tell him she was leaving, so he could have come along?And then the last bit, where she was talking about the fugitive? I never called the fugitive a him, Asher thought. It was true.. he'd never made that specification. He might be getting a little paranoid, but it would be too far-fetched an idea to think that Rochelle might associate with the same person who'd killed his best friend? Fugitives banded together, right? Asher had heard stories of them traveling in colonies. What if she knew him by name, the man Asher wanted to hunt down and kill? What if they were friends? Or worse, what if... No. So not going there.

A change in tone occurred. Rochelle went from angry to weary and sad. She claimed she was sorry that she left. That was it. Asher couldn't listen quietly anymore. Rochelle tried to wrap her arms around him and burrow her head into his chest, but Asher wouldn't have any of it. He backed up. "No you're not," he said quietly. "You would leave again in a heartbeat, and you know it." There. Simple interruption, hopefully effective. But Rochelle wasn't finished. She mentioned partners and losing children. A knife went through Asher's heart. He'd never seen his kids. Actually, he'd skipped out on the day of his son's birth so he wouldn't have to watch his partner die. He could never remember her name, or his daughter's. What was wrong with him? He.. he wasn't a monster too, was he? He wasn't heartless and cold like the others? Or... Talk of Asher stopping Rochelle if she'd come to say goodbye, which Asher might have made some snappy remark about if he hadn't been so caught up in his wonderings of whether he'd turned into something horrible. Then Rochelle mentioned Claire. Asher's brow furrowed. He couldn't remember a Claire. She was... wait. That was Rochelle's twin, right? What had happened to her again? She like... died.. or something....

The flow of memories stopped short. The rest of Rochelle's words passed over Asher in a jumbled rush. He didn't follow any of them. He was too busy wondering why he couldn't remember anything about Claire. She'd been a big part of Rochelle's life, obviously. Why couldn't he remember? Other memories were slipping away, too. He couldn't remember what his partner looked like, or what the name of his best mate who'd been killed by the fugitive was named... There was some kind of block. They were slipping away like sand between his fingers. "No!" Asher cried, lashing out at the wall. More chunks of rock broke free on contact. "No, no, no!" His breath was coming in a short gasps, tears pooling in his eyes. Asher suddenly felt as though the world were collapsing on top of him. He was tired and worn and sick... Squeezing his eyes shut, he let his body go limp. Asher fell against the cave wall, the rock cool against his ever-burning skin. Tears, hot as the rest of him, began trickling down his cheeks. "Why can't.... why can't I remember?" he asked, voice barely making it above a whisper. "Claire... my kids... my best friend.... who....?" Something snapped inside him. If Rochelle had taken him with her... if they'd escaped together... he might remember. Things might have been different. All that death... "Why didn't you take me with you?" His voice was soft at first, not caring much weight. The next one was a shout. "Why didn't you take me with you?" Asher opened his eyes, turning on Rochelle. "Of course, Asher can get stuck at the colony with the psychotic wolf children, but God forbid anything should happen to precious little Shell."

[rochelle elise blanchard]

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

She had done more crying in the past half hour than she had in the past five years, Shell was sure of it. Apparently, being harassed by two mean looking shifters only to be saved by a friend who had been turned since she had last seen him upset her, though she still wasn't sure exactly why she felt so incredibly guilty. Because she had run away the second she had gotten the chance and hadn't looked back? Maybe, but honestly, what else should she have done? In her twelve year old mind, the risks of going back far outweighed the reward, especially once she had made it outside the colony and discovered that her mother was there waiting for her. Rochelle loved Asher, but there was no way she was going to risk her mother in exchange for him. Besides, it was likely that her mother would have prevented her from going back to get him even if she had wanted to, and even though it had ripped out a piece of her heart and a part of her soul to leave him behind. It had been five years already and she still had nightmares about the day she had run away, not to mention the fact that she played the "what if?" game with herself every day. She didn't know about him, but Shell had cried on and off every time she remembered him for that first month out in the wild, and not even being with her parents and her baby brother could make her feel better. "Ugh. When I think about it, I sound like some kind of indecisive, bi-polar freak." She thought.

Everything Asher was saying to her was right, of course, but could he really blame her? It's a circular argument, love. If you had gone back to get Asher, you might have gotten caught, or he might have gotten caught, or you both might have gotten killed just for trying to run away, or any other number of horrible things might have happened... Rochelle scowled at herself, knowing her "voice" was right, and hating to admit it. Instead, she deflected her thoughts in another direction. "That doesn't make me feel any less guilty, though. If I had gone back, we wouldn't even be in this situation right now." Feeling as if her eyes would never be dry again, she fought the urge to dig her hands into her hair and start muttering to herself - if she did that, Asher might think she was crazy, and that was the last thing she needed, because he would probably find some way to blame her "craziness" on the fact that she was a fugitive. Instead, Shell curled herself back up into a ball and started rocking herself back and forth and humming under her breath ( because that was so much better than the alternative ), Asher's every word ringing in her ears and bouncing around in her brain. And then he accused her of being a fugitive right before falling silent. Hearing the label coming out of his mouth was like a slap to the face and a punch to the gut at the same time. She answered without stopping to think about who she was talking to.

It hit her a second later. "Oh shit." Rochelle scrambled to correct herself, but Asher had started talking again, and it seemed like he hadn't heard her. That was a relief. She didn't really have the time to dwell on such a small victory, however. Listening to Asher go on and on about how hard it was, being a shifter, she found herself crying and getting angry at the same time. Once he was finished saying his piece, she got up and started tearing into him, getting louder and angrier and more upset by the second, torn between pounding on Asher's chest with all she had until he got her point or giving up and apologizing the way she was sure he wanted her to. Shell realized her slip of the tongue concerning the fugitive that had killed Asher's friend when she caught an odd glimmer in the shifter's eyes - it was too late to take it back, though, because he was probably too suspicious of her to believe her if she said that she had only called the fugitive a he because she didn't know if the person had been a he or a she. Mentally moving on, she broke down once she had exhausted her list of questions and started apologizing. She tried to hug Asher as she finally apologized for leaving. Rochelle managed to hold on for a second, but then he pulled himself out of her arms. If Asher pushed an actual knife into her chest right now, at this very moment, she was sure that even if the knife pierced her heart, it still wouldn't hurt worse than his rejection did.

Despite his accusation - or maybe because of it - she attempted to explain exactly why she had done what she had. Asher probably wouldn't believe her, but she had to at least try, because if she didn't have any good memories of him left, and if she couldn't come sneaking around just to harass and worry him, not even having Gavin could keep her alive. Shell kept talking, practically rambling now. She couldn't have stopped even if she wanted to; her mouth was a full two steps ahead of her brain, so even she had a hard time following what she was saying. Admitting that she had missed him was easy, but it was a little tougher to admit how badly she had wanted him to be free of the colony and with her instead, and her breath caught in her throat when she said Claire's name while she was explaining exactly why she hadn't come to rescue him. Though her twin had died shortly after birth, Rochelle had been close to her sister before they had been born in that way that only twins could be close, and to this day, she still felt as if a big part of her was missing. Her brain finally managed to catch up with her mouth once she stopped talking, and the silence that suddenly fell between she and Asher was deafening. Drawing a shaky breath, she bit her lip and took a step towards the shifter. "Asher?" Brows furrowed in concern, she reached out to touch his back, only to jerk her hand away as he abruptly shouted and hit the wall beside him.

Shell knew how risky it was to get too close to Asher when he was like this, but she could really care less at this point. In fact, she would let the shifter kill her, if it made him feel better. Not the healthiest thought to have, obviously, but she was the kind of person who would do whatever it took to make sure her friend were happy, even if that meant that she ended up finding herself in harm's way. Asher lost it again, but this time, he was crying instead of yelling and hitting things. Tears springing to her eyes all over again, she did the only thing she knew to do - she gathered the taller, older young man into her arms and rubbed his back. It broke Rochelle's heart to see her best friend cry. "Ash... Ash, c'mon, please don't cry..." She was tempted to say that a crying guy was uncool, but the time for jokes was far over, and she wasn't going to ruin things anymore by being crude. Her hands stilled a moment later when Asher asked her why she hadn't taken him with her. She didn't say anything at first, since she was turning the question over in her mind and trying to think of the best way to answer it. When Asher asked her a second time, shouting at her now, she let him go and took a step back. The moment the word precious left his mouth, Shell felt some hidden reserve of anger in her roar to life. "Damnit, Asher, what else was I supposed to do?! I just barely managed to outsmart my dorm mother, how was I going to get you out too?"

Growling in frustration, the brunette angrily yanked her hands through her hair. "I was twelve, Asher. Twelve. How well do you think a twelve year old girl would have done against your dorm father, huh? I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure he would have hauled me back to my dorm, and that would have been the end of that." Rochelle paused and pushed her fingers into her hair, a single tear slithering down her cheek. "I was too afraid of getting caught and too excited by the promise of freedom that lay in front of me to even think about coming to get you, okay? Is that what you want to hear, that I left you behind because I was a terrified twelve year old girl who thought the only thing she had to lose was her life? I mean, Jesus, Asher, you got into fights with the other kids on purpose. The way I figured it, you could get out just fine on your own if you wanted out." Shell grimaced once the words were out of her mouth, but she was only being honest. Asher had been her personal superhero when she had been younger - capable of anything and everything. He had dried her tears when she was sad, soothed away the fear and paranoia if she was suffering from the aftereffects of a particularly bad nightmare, did the silliest things just to make her smile or laugh... He had done everything for her, really. That was why, in her mind, escaping would have been a piece of cake for him to accomplish if he really wanted to run away.

Realizing that she was off on another mental tangent, Rochelle shook her head slightly to clear her thoughts. She hadn't said everything she wanted to say yet. "I really am sorry that I didn't take you with me, Asher, but think about things logically for just a second. There was no way I was capable of getting us both out of there back then." Sighing quietly, she turned away from the shifter, gently massaging her temples with her fingertips. "Do you remember that couple that took their baby boy and escaped the colony when you were eight?" She asked, biting her lip and readying herself for anything. Once Shell told him this... "Well, it turns out that they were my parents. So you see, I know exactly how you feel, Ash. So, how could I have gone and done the same thing to you that my parents did to me?" Heaving another sigh, she shrugged and began to pace. "To tell you the truth, I can't really think of a reason aside from the ones I've already told you. Five years ago, I was just a kid, I did things without thinking all the time, and the day I ran away was no different." Drained of anger and things to say and arguments to make in her defense, Rochelle leaned against the cold cave wall, scrubbing at her still damp face with her sleeve. He could believe what he wanted, but she had been nothing but honest with him. If Asher wanted nothing to do with her after this, that was his choice, and she would respect it no matter what.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

TAGGED! Asherrr STATUS! finished~ WORDS! 1,928 NOTES! again, I have no clue where the huge word count came from. I can't believe I managed that. LYRICS! Forgiven, by Relient K OUTFIT! click hurr babes CREDIT! moi, aka ellie or ELLIEPANTS FTW ?! of Caution 2.0. i put a lot of hard work into perfecting this layout - steal it, and you can bet i'll grab a spork and hunt you down.

[asher michael rinehart]

Perfect. Asher was having a compete mental break-down in the presence of the girl he was trying to make feel horrible. What he meant to accomplish by those ends, he had no idea. Perhaps it was an eye for an eye type deal. Rochelle ripped his heart out, he reciprocated by doing the same. His intent wasn't to make Rochelle feel sorry for him, yet here he was, smashing walls with his bare hands and bursting into tears. Rochelle said his name like a question, the word hidden with double meanings. It might have meant "What's wrong?" or "Why are you such a wuss?" Either or could be deduced from her tone. From the corner of his eye (yay for peripheral vision), Asher saw her reach out to touch his back. He might have been comforted by this, if he hadn't gone and ruined the moment by smashing the wall. There were healthier ways of releasing his tension, he was sure. But nothing worked quite as well as breaking things. There was something soothing about crushing something, or watching it crumble to pieces at your hand. It gave Asher a misplaced sense of "king-of-the-universe"ness. Also know as power, but hyphenating words is so much more fun than writing out technical terms. God.

There were tears coming, too. They were pooling, but they never overflowed. Asher hadn't cried in a long, long time. Speaking of which... cue flashback. He was under water. All he could see was blue, stretching on for miles in every direction. The water made it seem like the pool was endless, even though it was only about six feet to the nearest given wall. Water was clogging everything: his ears, his mouth, his eyes, his nose.. the chlorine stung. His eyes were squinted against the chemical assault, but he kept them open. The sting was welcome. It kept his mind off the fact that his world was off gallivanting somewhere where she didn't have to worry about shifters or breeding or dying at some obscenely young age... And she’d left him there. Even though he was older, stronger, and purposely got himself into trouble because he didn’t want to “die” die, living in a colony wasn’t worth it if there was no one there for him. In the words of Bob Marley, the key was to find the person worth suffering for. It wasn’t fair that all he’d had to hold onto had just up and left, without leaving so much as a note letting him know where she’d gone or who she was with. So what did Asher do? He threw himself off a diving board and held his breath, letting the chlorine sting his eyes so that when he resurfaced, no one would know he’d been crying.

After that day, Asher had lived like nothing was bothering him. He had no idea his heart was broken – much less that the edges had continued to throb and bleed like there was no tomorrow. It didn’t matter how long he’d tried convincing himself he didn’t miss her, or how many times he’d forced a memory containing Rochelle out his mind. Each person left a fingerprint on the lives they touched – fingerprints that couldn’t be erased. No one understood how some little girl five years younger than him could have meant so much, but then again, no one had lived through what they had. Every time one of them was down for the count, the other showed up to make everything right again. Rochelle would often light up Asher’s day with her displays of a knowledge far beyond her years, and he… well… he played her superman, beating to a pulp any threat that came her way. Asher could almost feel her arms around him, just like old times. Then it hit him. She was holding him. Even though he’d just offered that display of raw strength that could easily cost her her head, Rochelle stepped forth to comfort him. To say that Asher was touched by her gesture would be the understatement of the century. To say that being held by Rochelle felt like coming home after long months spent away at war was more accurate. But, like every other shred of happiness in Asher’s life, it didn’t last.

Something – Asher’s shouting, perhaps? – had upset Rochelle. She stepped back, releasing the shifter and channeling some hidden anger Asher hadn’t been aware of. Just like the Rochelle he used to know, she countered his arguments with her best friend Logic. Rochelle and Logic were two peas in a pod. She won all their arguments in the olden-days, too. As soon Rochelle whipped out the book smarts, Asher ran away with his tail between his legs. Pun intended. The more Rochelle spoke, the farther all Asher’s arguments slipped. They flew right out of his head, kissed goodbye and never to be seen again. Asher didn’t bother trying to snatch them back. All the fight had left him. He didn’t feel like screaming at Rochelle anymore. Besides, she had a point. She’d been a little kid at the time – they weren’t known for thinking of everything when being asked to do something as risky as flee from a well-guarded colony full of wolves waiting to tear at your throat. And she wasn’t the toughest of the bunch. As a teenager, Asher had been fit and lean, just like he was now. That didn’t mean everyone was the same way. He had to keep reminding himself of that. He’d prefer it if everyone were changed, that way no one had to die. But no, that would lead to over-population and all kinds of planet-killing issues. Wait.. where were we?

Oh right. Asher was being won over with logic. Back to that.

All he could do was stand there with raised eyebrows as Rochelle finished, his anger ebbing. There was actually a chuckle bubbling up inside him at the frustrated look on Rochelle’s face. His naturally teasing nature was taking over again. The urge to fight – to defend himself – was gone. In its place was joy; Asher and Rochelle… finally reunited. He was so happy, he could sing. Rochelle was leaning against the cave wall and rubbing at her eyes with her sleeve. She’d done some pretty intense crying, which Asher felt bad for, but he was going to ruin the moment by bringing it up and setting her sobbing again. “You could’ve knocked on the door,” he said teasingly, wanting to lighten the air between them. It was a reunion – this was supposed to be a celebration. Not spent with both of them switching back and forth between yelling and crying. If there was one thing Asher was good at, it was lightening moods. That, and pulling shit. He could “make a nun swear and a mime laugh”, as his old friend – the one who’d been killed by the fugitive, whom Asher still couldn’t remember the name of – worded it. “All I needed was to know you were there. I could have taken care of the rest. But anyway… that’s the past, and that’s where it needs to stay.”

He smiled,- a real smile, and not the halfhearted smirk he was famous for -, and just stared at her. He wanted to take in every detail: every freckle on her face, and every one of her favorite positions. If you paid attention, you’d notice that every human being has a favorite position to stand in. Asher never bothered observing what his own was, but he could tell you those of at least five different people. It’d been ages since he last saw Rochelle, and he wanted to take in all the changes. She’d grown up a lot. The face that looked back at him was gap-toothed and plump with baby fat. She’d gone from kid cute to… er… babe cute. Asher found himself wondering if he’d ever shake the memory of her as a chubby little kid.. or if he’d ever want to. Seemingly out of the blue, he threw his arms around Rochelle, drawing her to him. He buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent and committing it to memory. “The good thing is,” he began, still talking into her curls, “we don’t have to miss each other anymore. I can come visit you in the woods, wherever it is you’re staying. And if you play your cards right, I might bring you some food.” Asher drew back, holding his dear friend by her elbows. “Now come on. I’ll show you where you’ll be hiding for the day.”

[rochelle elise blanchard]

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

They had to be a pitiful looking pair, she and Asher. Shell was a "beautiful crier" - whatever that meant - as her mother had once put it, but even though someone wouldn't be able to tell that she had been crying just by looking at her, her blue eyes still held traces of red if she managed to cry hard enough. And boy had she managed. It was as if all the tears she had held back for the past five years had come bursting forth the moment she had realized that Asher was mad at her rather than happy to see her. As usual, she took everything the shifter said personally, and before she knew it, Rochelle was engaged in the shouting match of the year ( if not the century ) with him. She really needed to work on making logical arguments before exhibiting one of her infamous hysterical outbursts; it would definitely solve things a whole lot quicker. But enough about that. She had more important things to worry about at the moment, like the fact that one of the few people she counted among her friends looked like he was ready to fall apart at a moments notice. And how exactly was Asher hitting the wall be an indication of something like that? The brunette had known him long enough - "And been through enough with him." Shell added mentally - to recognize and read the signs. When Asher started punching random things, it usually meant that his brain was spinning in six different directions at once, which was never, ever a good thing.

And on top of all that, she was exhausted. Between all the crying and the yelling and bouncing from one emotional extreme to another, she felt as if she had been pulled in seven different directions in the course of the past...ten, twenty minutes? However long it had been since Asher had rescued her from Peter and Kip's claws. Rochelle felt the same way she had felt the day she covered ten miles of ground in about an hour - that's one mile in six minutes, for all the non math whizzes out there. She had finished off the hour with legs like jello, a pounding heart, and the inability to take a full breath without feeling like her lungs were on fire while being crushed by a vice at the same time. It was a highly uncomfortable state of being, that much was for certain. Shell, dear, you're talking yourself in circles. How do you expect to win Asher over if you keep reiterating the same two facts over and over? Shell frowned slightly, raking her hands through her hair as she did so, though it was more than likely that the extremely low light in the cave masked most of her more subtle facial expressions. Then again, Asher had always been an expert when it came to reading her - her face, her voice, anything. One look, one word, and he would know in that second that something was bothering her. She had never been able to hide anything from him; that much had stayed the same despite their time apart. But what else had survived?

A lot apparently. Like the fact that Rochelle was still crazy enough to invade Asher's space even when he was spiraling off on one of his "crazy, violent man" episodes. Some people might think it strange, but there was something about being in close physical contact with another person that had always managed to calm the shifter in the past. A more self-centered girl might try and claim that it was being close to they themselves that soothed Asher, but not this particular brunette. She had never been one to be full of herself - though she had every right to be - so a thought like that had yet to go through Shell's mind. Aside from that, their individual personalities seemed to have remained intact, too. She got irritated the second Asher started mocking her, which was nothing new, but for once, she was really, truly angry. Not "I'm refusing to speak to you and completely ignoring you until you apologize for teasing me" angry, but "If you try to blame your problems on me one more time I'm going to slap you" angry. Very few people could provoke the brunette to that particular level of anger, and Asher happened to be one of them. One of the downsides of growing up with someone. Asher knew exactly how to push Rochelle's buttons, and more often than not, he was damn good at it, regardless of whether or not he did it on accident or on purpose. His skill for working her into a temper was one of the reason's he won so few of their arguments.

Case and point? This specific argument. The second he pushed her over the edge, every last one of her thoughts clicked smoothly into the place, and she was ready to go. It was utterly amazing, how she could go from comforting to furious in a blink of an eye - wrapping her arms around Asher and doing what little she could to ease his hurt, for Shell, was one of the easiest and most natural things in the world. Whether she was holding Asher or being held by him, just being in close proximity with the older young man made her feel as if she were invincible. They were like yin and yang, she and the shifter; she was the brains, and he was the brawn, and when the two of them were together, nothing short of God could stop them once they set their minds to something. Unfortunately, being opposites meant that they both meshed and clashed with each other. That was one of the reasons they had squabbled so often when they were younger. Rochelle had that same never back down from a fight mentality that Asher had, too. Physical fights were his area of expertise, obviously, but verbal fights...those were her stomping grounds, and they both knew it. That was why she could sense that it was all over as soon as she opened her mouth to deliver her retort. She had won, and she knew it, but she kept going just to prove a point. It might have been five years since she had last seen Asher, but she'd be damned if she gave up right off the bat.

Eventually, her store of counter arguments dried up, and when it finally did, Shell sagged against the wall of the cave, feeling completely and utterly spent. She couldn't have moved to save her life, but at this point, it didn't matter. She had said what she wanted to say - in a harsher fashion than she had intended, but hey, at least she had gotten her point across ( or so she hoped ) - and what happened next was completely up to the shifter in front of her. To say that she was terrified to find out exactly what her fate was going to be would be an understatement, though only a mild one. Rochelle still trusted Asher, even if she was pissed off at him. Face turned to the ground, her heart thumping painfully hard against her ribcage, she waited for him to react. He finally spoke several moments later, and she released the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. He was teasing her. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back and sucked in a long, deep breath as every last once of tension melted out of her body. "Yeah, I could have, couldn't I?" She shot back quietly, more to herself than Asher. A gentle smile slowly curled its way across her mouth, and Shell opened her eyes once the shifter was done talking, just in time to see him smile. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart lurched to an abrupt halt, then resumed beating at nearly twice its normal rate, color rising to her cheeks. The fact that Asher was staring didn't really help much.

She tore her gaze from his as heat washed across her face, confused by the unfamiliar feeling that was setting up camp in her chest. Feeling off kilter, she attempted to re-center herself. Her efforts proved futile, however, as her heart decided to make an encore performance moments later when she suddenly found herself in Asher's embrace. Rochelle willed her heart to slow itself down, but it refused to listen. Relaxing and letting her eyes drift closed, she tried a different tactic. "Breathe, girl. Just breathe." Unfortunately for her whirling mind and rattled nerves, inhaling happened to be the worst possible thing she could do in this instance. Asher's warm scent, so foreign, and yet so hauntingly familiar, filled her lungs and clogged her mouth and nose. Suddenly, she was ready to cry all over again. Safe in the circle of Asher's arms, his breath hot on her hair...until just now, Shell hadn't realized that this was the one thing she had missed the most. She had grown to regret leaving certain things behind as the years had gone by. Moments like this one were high on her list. She had cried herself to sleep countless times, wishing that she would wake up one morning and her wounded heart would be healed, because she'd wake up next to Asher, the same way she had all those times nightmares had plagued her sleep and she had snuck into his dorm and curled up beside him so she could fall back asleep without worrying about what might get her this time.

Focus, my dear. You'll miss what Asher's saying if you don't. Rochelle drew a slow, deep breath, then tuned in. A grin quirked her lips when Asher mentioned visiting her. She so wanted to make a joke, but held her tongue for the time being. Another thing she had learned from Asher - when it came to jokes, it was all about the comedic timing. Her lips curled upward in a soft smile - the tender kind that she reserved for those who were nearest and dearest to her heart - and she tipped her head back to get a better look at Asher's face once he finally put some distance between them. "Where I'll be hiding for the day?" Rochelle shook her head slightly, chuckling. "Wherever you plan on stashing me, I hope it's warmer than this place. If I don't take this darn scarf off soon, I think... Actually, you don't want to know what I think. I don't want you going all over-protective big brother on me with all your compadres around, they might think something was up." Another grin pulled at the corners of her mouth as an image of Asher leading her to some unknown hiding place secret agent style ( slipping from shadow to shadow, obviously ) popped into her head. She had to bite back a laugh at the thought. Rochelle knew Asher well enough to know that he would actually do something like that if it meant keeping her safe. "Oh, and about this visiting business. How do you plan on staying in touch with me? Because if you want to use smoke signals, I'm out."

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

TAGGED! Asherrr STATUS! finished~ WORDS! 1,885 NOTES! another rambler. I really hate that I didn't manage to beat my last word count. LYRICS! Forgiven, by Relient K OUTFIT! click hurr babes CREDIT! moi, aka ellie or ELLIEPANTS FTW ?! of Caution 2.0. i put a lot of hard work into perfecting this layout - steal it, and you can bet i'll grab a spork and hunt you down.

[asher michael rinehart]

Ha! Asher doubted he was supposed to be able to hear Rochelle's mumbled response to his point of her possibly knocking on the door, but he had. And it proved that he'd won this round. Out-logic-ed the logic hound. He stole a quick smirk, just so he'd seem less out of character when he smiled a real smile. He didn't have to say anything - his expression said everything: "Asher wins this round." He went on to let her know that all was forgiven.

While he spoke, Rochelle closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. Was it just him, or could she feel the tension ebbing too? The change was tangible. Then she opened her eyes, and the two regarded each other. Asher was staring, and he was probably creeping her out, but he couldn't help it. If you ran into your best friend after seven years of separation, you wouldn't be able to look away, would you? Whatever. Asher wasn't strong enough. Physically? Sure. He could rip a door off his hinges with little to no effort. Emotionally.. well. Old Disney movies made him bawl his eyes out. When it came to emotional matters, Asher was a bit of a wimp.

But not an oblivious wimp.

Yeah, he noticed the trace of red in Rochelle's cheeks when she tore her gaze from his. Asher wasn't ready to let her go yet, so he did the first thing that came to mind: trapped her in one of his infamous bear hugs. He held her close, speaking into her curls and fighting the urge to cry. There was always a danger of that, as again, this was a touching, Disney-esque moment. (I do mean old Disney, by the way. You know, the good stuff.) Once he got his feelings under control, Asher drew back to hold Rochelle at arm's length.

When he announced that she'd be hiding for a day, Rochelle called him on it, putting extra emphasis on the "day" part. Asher nodded. "Sorry. I can't smuggle you out until nightfall. That's when the cave clears out. Until then... I can't run the risk of anyone seeing you." Flashback to moments before, when Kip and Peter hovered too close for comfort. The thought of them, especially knowing what their intentions would have been should they have found that Rochelle wasn't who she claimed to be, elicited a feral growl from Asher. He forced the thought from his mind, realized he was squeezing Rochelle's arms, and loosened his grip.

Rochelle aided him in the discarding of his flashback by mention that he wouldn't want to know what she thought might happen if she didn't get her scarf off soon. Asher raised an eyebrow. She was lucky there was a Mexican shifter in the colony, otherwise he wouldn't have understood the Spanish, be it one word or not. "Hate to break it to 'ya, Shell," he began, always the bearer of bad news, "but this is a cave. It only gets colder from here. I might be able to snag some extra layers of clothing for you, though." Or we could cuddle for warmth, he finished in his head. That was part of his joking nature, but he was afraid Rochelle might take it that way that way, instead of just that way. ... Comprendé?

Smoke signals, she said? Well now. That was a laughable thought. Shifters didn't do well around fire. Their body temperatures were elevated just enough that excess heat from a fire would be enough to kill them, which was why the whole cave was wired on electricity. It didn't produce too much heat, unless you were using UV lamps (which the shifters weren't, to Asher's knowledge). "I am a wolf," he replied. "At night, I have a pretty beastly sense of smell. I could track your scent and leave you a letter or something. I have a lot of post-it notes sitting around my dorm, as a matter of fact." He gave her elbow. "Now come on."

ooc : there. you got a post.