June 27th, 1891 — Kieran's Flat, London

This was positively delightful. Juliana had never been to someone's house before (er, except it wasn't a house at all — it was really barely even a flat by her standards, but she wasn't trying to be judgey about that sort of thing), except for her family members and close friends. When she did go to someone else's house, it was to pay calls, which wasn't at all the same. Paying calls was so stiff and formal they might as well have been at a ball or a luncheon the entire time. It didn't have the sense of comfort, of being able to just talk, that she'd felt since she arrived here. They'd discussed all sorts of things, starting with her thoughts on Carmellia and moving into literature more broadly and from there diverging into dozens of topics she had never thought to talk about with anyone else — mostly because she had never assumed anyone would be interested in her opinions on the subject. She'd finished one cup of tea and had moved on to a second, and had tucked one of her legs up under her skirt, because it wasn't as though anyone was around to chastise her for it. The sofa in this room may have been a little shabby, but it was also quite comfortable, and she was having fun.

"So," she said as she added a copious amount of sugar to her tea (perhaps she ought to have brought her own — she did tend to go through a lot of sugar with her tea and she was aware it wasn't cheap to keep it around). "I have a deadline coming up, which is a little unusual for me. Oh, sorry — is it alright to talk about work here?" she asked, glancing around the room. She hadn't seen any other people during the time she'd been here, but there were telltale signs that he didn't live alone, and she didn't know how much his flatmate (or flatmates) might have known about his life.

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Kieran Abernathy Cassius Lestrange

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Kieran was enjoying hosting Juliana, who was interesting conversation on a variety of non-lycanthropy subjects. (He had mentally given up on Miss Binns around when they'd finished talking about Carmilla; honestly, it was a shock that he'd held on for that long, given that Kieran was on a first-name basis with nearly everyone he spoke to.)

He had expected that they'd get around to lycanthropy essentially, and re-settled in his seat on the couch, hands wrapped easily around his mug of tea. "We can talk about that here," Kieran said with a grin. If Eileen was around, she'd made herself scarce — which probably meant she wasn't around. (Never mind that she knew already.) "What's the deadline for?"

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Juliana beamed when he agreed. She hadn't been able to talk about her research with anyone like this before, and was excited to finally have the opportunity. She'd been discussing many facets of it with him for months already, of course, but there was something different about letter writing compared to face-to-face conversation. Reactions, for one; you could tell how someone really felt about something when you said it to their face, instead of waiting for a carefully crafted written response. Not that she expected him to disapprove, or anything; their ideas about this sort of thing were similar enough that she was mostly just excited to be able to talk about it at all, rather than seeking a critical opinion.

"Well, it's not the hair samples. I still haven't figured out how to situate that. I've decided I should publish it, but I haven't worked out the best framing for it all yet, so I'm holding onto it for now," she explained. "But the journal I wrote my first paper for reached out and actually asked if I had anything else to submit," she continued, with a wide smile. Being published at all was still enough of a rush for her that this had come entirely out of left field, but it delighted her all the same. "There's an appetite for my work, they said, in the scholarly community. So I sent them an abstract for this other paper I've been thinking about, and they agreed to publish it in the fall edition," she announced, sitting back onto the sofa with her properly-sugared cup of tea in hand. "Which means now I have to write it. It's just — well this must sound silly to you, as a reporter, but I haven't ever had a deadline before. I sent the last article in completely written and unsolicited. And the book, too. So I've had editing deadlines, but that's different."

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

It wasn't the hair, which was probably for the best — Kieran wasn't actively afraid of the Werewolf Capture Unit (although he was, of course, afraid of them), but he did have a feeling that they would find some nefarious usage for werewolf hair. Or — maybe they wouldn't. He didn't necessarily want to risk it, regardless.

"It doesn't sound silly at all," Kieran said, although truthfully he couldn't relate. He could see why it would be daunting, though, so — he wasn't going to call her silly. "I always break things down into — what I want to say, and where, and who I need to talk to to get to where I need to go. Which I suppose you already do for your research — just with a deadline attached, this time."

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"Yes," Juliana agreed with a nod. "Except you can just walk up to people to interview them. The people I need to talk to are a little more elusive," she pointed out. Not that this was really a barrier in general, since she had such a large body of research to draw from already. The letters she'd been writing and collecting over the past ten years could provide enough fodder for a dozen papers, depending on which bits she pulled out to use as quotations and how she wanted to frame them, but in the instances where she did think she needed something new, it wasn't as simple as putting a finger on it and then sniffing around until she found someone who might give it to her. Or maybe it was — truthfully, she hadn't tried it yet. She'd spent so long writing her first paper, and then the book had really centered on three women who had already told her their whole stories before she'd started writing it.

"I have most of it already," she continued, taking a sip of her tea. "Otherwise I wouldn't have written the abstract at all. I'd already been thinking about this paper for a long time. But now that I'm starting to put it all together I just feel it's missing something," she explained. "The narrative component is missing something, I mean. The research is strong enough, I think."

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Kieran grinned, as if to indicate just how elusive he was. (Her research subjects were more difficult than his, but that wasn't the point.) And of course she had the research elements — that didn't surprise him at all, she was always asking questions in letters, and Kieran suspected that he was probably better friends with her than some of her other subjects, so perhaps she got bogged down in fluff less often than the others.

Narrative was a journalist's strong suit; he grinned over his mug after taking a sip. "And what kind of narrative are you after?" he asked; oh, you couldn't exactly cherry-pick, but you could go in with an idea. He was sure that research was at least a little similar there.

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"It's the humanizing component," she explained with a frown. "The first draft came out too clinical. I think what it needs is one central story to keep coming back to throughout the paper. One account with a lot of good quotes, you know," she continued in an offhand tone. Of course, there was no way to know whether or not this would really fix anything until she had it, which made this sort of a self-perpetuating problem. She didn't know exactly what she needed to tie the article together, so she couldn't go out purposefully looking for it, but if she didn't go purposefully looking for it, she was unlikely to find it. She had the sense that she was just missing one piece, and that once she had it the whole thing would fall neatly into place, but since it was the central piece it was hard to articulate exactly what the end product needed to look like.

"Right now the sources from my existing research that I'm drawing from are all rather scattered," she said. "Which I suppose you might expect, given the topic. It's not the sort of thing people are typically loquacious about, without a good deal of prompting, and I do try to be respectful when I'm asking questions, so sometimes the responses I get are just — well, I understand, but you can't write a research paper about the things someone didn't say, reading between the lines of their letters," she concluded with a shake of her head.

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   Kieran Abernathy

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Kieran frowned as he listened to her. "So you need someone to just talk at you for a while, with a little direction," he said when she finished, "Well — one of us, that is." He could help her, he was even — at least from the outset — willing to help her, but he wasn't sure exactly what research she was going to include. Maybe it would be all about women again, and then he'd be irrelevant.

Kieran quirked an eyebrow at her, as if to say well?, and took a sip of his tea.

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   Juliana Ainsworth

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set by MJ!

"Yes!" Juliana said, exuberant that he seemed to agree that this was what the article needed (she had taken his summary of what she'd just said as an agreement, anyway). "Yes, that's it exactly. I need an interview. But I don't know how to get one," she admitted. She had a few research subjects that she'd been corresponding with for a long time, and whom she was comfortable with, but her comfort really had no bearing on the situation. If they were comfortable meeting with her was another matter, even with the steps she took to ensure confidentiality in interview settings. Even if she assumed anyone who came to mind would be willing to talk with her, though, none of the correspondents who came to mind were suitable for the project.

It was then that she realized she hadn't actually told him the topic, since she'd jumped right to describing her difficulties with the article so far. But the subject was really a central part of what made it difficult in the first place.

"It's about guilt," she explained. "About how people handle the guilt after— you know," she continued with a slight gesture of her hand in lieu of the phrase. She hadn't found a way to phrase this yet that she liked, which was another (but entirely separate) problem, but she thought he would know exactly what she meant, because it was never very far from someone's mind when they lived with a condition like his. "After something's happened."

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   Kieran Abernathy

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

When she said guilt, Kieran shifted in his seat again and took a large sip of tea, because he didn't want to say anything too quickly. When he did speak, it was to say, "But you'll keep them anonymous and everything still, right?" This was not what he had meant to say — what he had meant to say was that's very interesting, good luck. Because she said guilt and now all he could think of was Topaz Urquart, her face the one time he'd seen her, and the dissolving letters he periodically got from her.

He couldn't give away that that was him, of course. But he could talk about guilt.

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Juliana frowned. It wasn't that the question was a difficult one to answer; it was that he already knew the answer, so she didn't understand why he'd asked it. He'd read her work. He'd written about her work. He knew her system of pseudonyms, obscured facts and altered details to protect the identities of her subjects. He wasn't asking because he didn't know. He was asking because he wanted to be sure. But why?

"Of course," she said, balancing the tea cup in the center of her lap. She considered him a moment, thinking. "You're not still in contact with...?" ...the one who turned you, she was thinking. It was the first solution that came to mind, even though he'd already told her he wasn't. If he was trying to protect someone he might have lied, but that didn't quite fit either.

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   Kieran Abernathy

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Kieran's mouth twisted again. "No," he said, "I never saw him again." He considered her for a moment, carefully, eyeing the way she sat and the way she held her mug.

He liked Juliana Binns; he'd liked both (all three) versions of her when they were writing letters, and he'd liked her once they met in person, too. Kieran wasn't in the habit of loaning books to people he wasn't fond of; he didn't invite them to his flat to chat about them, and he didn't write them letters about his general feelings on the full moon. He'd written to her about guilt before, in the abstract — around when the Christmas moon had him feeling a particular level of malaise, or when he was feeling particularly worried about Jude getting caught, or or or. He had never admitted to having turned someone. It was the sort of mistake that, while almost inevitable for most werewolves, was also — earth-shattering. It couldn't be forgiven.

He was not sure if Juliana would forgive him, if he admitted to it.

She needed someone to talk to about guilt.

He frowned at her, still thinking.

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He'd never seen him again. She knew that. He'd already told her, and if he'd been lying at the time he was at least being consistent about the lie now. It hadn't been a very good hypothesis, anyway, because that had been so long ago — according to his letters he had been living with lycanthropy for nearly seven years — that even if he had kept in contact with him it was unlikely that they were still in contact by this point. She'd written to a handful of people who had kept in touch with their aggressors or victims, but mostly when this occurred it only last a few months, until the more senior member was confident that they had imparted enough knowledge and advice for the newer one to survive. Even this was rare, however; most cases were just like the one he had described to her before, with one full moon interaction after which the other werewolf was never seen nor heard from again. She had hypothesized that it was possible for those afflicted with lycanthropy to attack and turn another person and not even be aware of it the next day, depending on the circumstances, but this was (obviously) impossible to test in any sort of empirical way.

So it wasn't anything to do with the person who'd bitten him. The longer he looked at her with that frown on his face, though, the more sure Juliana became that he did know someone who could help her. If he'd mentioned knowing any others afflicted with lycanthropy before, it had slipped her mind — and it was hardly the sort of thing that might slip her mind. In fact, she thought he'd implied sort of the opposite in one of his letters — no sense of community, or something similar, though she couldn't be sure she was remembering correctly without her notes in front of her. But then, she didn't think she'd ever explicitly asked, and why would he have told her? For all her sympathies she was still an outsider; perhaps there were some questions that were a step too far, even if she did take all possible precautions.

She considered him for a moment.

"I think," she began carefully. "That this is an important piece to write. Because when something happens, in a big, public way, that's where the momentum for positive change dies. And I'm hopeful that this article will help that. I'm hopefully that rounding out the story of what happens in the aftermath will change the way people look at those incidents."

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

It was like she had lodged herself in where his secrets lived, and Kieran didn't think she was even aware of it. He swallowed again, although there was no tea in his mouth, and he just kept his hands cradling the mug. He remembered wavering on his feet in Jude's flat in the gray morning light, blood on his ankle. The burn scar under his clothes itched. Jude's hand stilling when he realized what Kieran had done. Momentum for positive change; stopped.

"It's never on purpose," Kieran said carefully, "When people mess up." Supposedly, of course, supposedly there were werewolves who let themselves hurt people on purpose, or who wanted to be turned; Kieran didn't believe that they really existed. Of course he'd never met one, and that was probably for the best — the thought of it was enough to cause a spark of irritation.

That didn't really answer her question — if it was a question, maybe problem was the better word — did it? He glanced down at his mug and then back at her. "You think that if people know, they'll be more open? To changing the way we're handled?"

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   Juliana Ainsworth

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Juliana drew in a breath and thought carefully about how she wanted to respond to this. She did believe that real change was possible, but it was important not to over-promise in a case like this. It would have been dishonest to try and offer results she couldn't deliver in exchange for such a personal and intimate story. She had plenty of experience with conversations like this, because this was the chief conceit of her research relationship with her subjects: they gave her their stories, their secrets, and she gave them a little hope. Yes, she also gave them money, and maybe for some of them that was why they talked to her, but not for most of them. Certainly not for the ones who stuck around and kept talking to her beyond the initial exchange of information. They stayed with her and kept reliving these traumatic experiences because they trusted her and they supported her work. She told them, explicitly or not, someday the world will be better, and whatever they said about it, they believed her.

She'd had this conversation before. She'd even had this conversation before with him. This instance felt different, but she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because they were doing it in person instead of on paper, where things had to be genuine because there was no opportunity to fetch a clean sheet of parchment. Maybe it was because this particular subject was more sensitive — talking about things that one had done, not what had happened to them.

"I think that no event exists out of context," she said carefully. "But when the only thing they see is a headline, it's hard to see the context. So people don't understand. Even what you just said, that it's never on purpose. People can't understand when all they see is — you know. Blood. Death. A victim. So I think an article like this... could give them a way to understand."

She couldn't promise that they would understand, or that they would even try. But at least her article could give them a way to try, for those who were willing. It was all she could do at the moment, but it wasn't insignificant — or at least, she didn't think so.

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   Kieran Abernathy

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Not for the first time, Kieran was struck by it, Jude would like her. Both of them believed that people could change if they were persuaded the right way, or if they had the right information, and — Kieran wasn't sure what he believed. When people asked he claimed it was nothing, but even he didn't think that was true anymore.

He took in a breath, and took another sip of his tea. He knew what he was going to say before he said it, and — there was a part of him that regretted it already. This was going to change things between them, wasn't it? He knew it was going to. He was going to give her exactly what she said other people were afraid of — and he was going to have to hope that it didn't change too much about what she thought of him.

"I can talk to you about guilt," Kieran said, finally, and eyed her carefully.

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set by MJ!