Learn to Howl {Alex Vreeke | Jumanji}

5; gunmetal grey & doubt

"Oh, I've missed you." Surprisingly, Tetra doesn't wake with a start, at the sound of a voice close by. There's the sensation of a hand running through her hair, but it's not by her head, and as she shifts to her human form, disorientated in her post-tranquilized state, the hand that had been petting her fur comes to rest at her hip, stilling at the sudden change.

"Alex?" Her voice comes out as a half-yawn, content and affectionate all at once, before she rubs the sleep away from her eyes and struggles to a sitting position, unable to use her right arm for the pain that shoots through it when she tries to put weight on it. It's wrapped in a makeshift bandage, but she can feel the sting of a bullet still firmly nestled against her bone.

"Who?" When she can finally see clearly, it's Van Pelt standing over her. There's a tight, constricting feeling in her chest, she can't breathe, she feels like she's falling and his eyes are glowing as green as the jaguar stone. With slow, measured steps he stands directly in front of her, imposing, menacing. She inches back, but he can feel her fear. With a single, gloved hand he reaches out, holds her chin gently to look her in the eyes. Something in his expression changes, the flare of emerald sparking brighter in his eyes, it somehow eases something in Tetra's chest. "Look at that," Van Pelt marvels quietly, "you do have survival instincts." Expression turning dark, he moved to ghost his fingers along her jaw. "You're just like them, just like the dogs you think you control." Despite the harshness of his the words themselves, his voice is gentle, softly coercive.

"You're not real." Is all Tetra can bring herself to say, but they both know that in this moment she doesn't believe it. Everything about him is exactly how she remembers him, imposing, intense, every word he says carefully calculated. There's something she finds inherently compelling about him, animal magnetism, she finds herself thinking, but can't bring herself to laugh at the irony.

"Tetra," the way he says her voice, it sounds different to her ears, she's used to hearing Alex say it, used to hearing it amid a laugh, or a yawn, or full of concern, the way Van Pelt says it, it reminds her of bitter, dark chocolate, rich and just a little bit sharp. She loved dark chocolate. "You know where the pilot is, don't you?"

"I haven't seen him... in a long time." It hurts to admit, and she suddenly finds the strength to look away from where Van Pelt is gazing intently into her eyes. When he tries to turn her back, to enthrall her like he expects his powers to, she kicks him hard in the stomach, growling at him, her mouth and nose stretching out beyond human capabilities to be shaped into a wolf-like snout before she gets to her feet. However, the tranquilizer's effects had not fully worn off from her body, and as soon as she's up, she's down again, crashing to the ground.

"I don't want to hurt you, Tetra." Van Pelt yanked her to a standing position, his hand holding tight enough to bruise on her upper arm. "But I will, if I have to."

"Was it that sense of self preservation that pushed me off a cliff?" Tetra spat in return, which actually made him stop, frowning down at her.

"You were taking the power I had spent my whole life searching for." He says it so harshly, eyes glowing so brightly it's a little mesmerising to look at, if Tetra's attention hadn't been pulled to his mouth, where she could see the pincers of a rather large bug edging across his tongue.

"You could have just asked," she had to push down her revulsion as she struggled to get out of his grip, disgusted that she had to spell it out to him like this, "I loved you, Russel." Admitting it hurts like a punch to the gut, feels like cheating, makes her miss Alex more than anything else, more than her own home.

"Past tense-"

"Of course it's past tense you bug-infested maniac, you pushed me off a fucking cliff!" Finally, feeling almost completely returned to her legs, she struggles harder. "I should have come back and killed you more often." This time she actually does spit in his face, and maybe it's the revelation that he's died before, or the somewhat unexpected outburst from her, but suddenly he's not holding on to her, and a few rats scurry their way from his the cuff of his pants.