Sorry, here's a whole chapter of cole ahaha (the last chapter had a bit of him too). I feel like I've really started to dislike him and how he interacts with his environment so I just wanted to kind of try and expand on him more and figure him out because i really want to like him like I did way back when. Sometimes I look back at how I played him and I cringe so bad at his reactions because I really tried to mold him and he became so childish and I feel like I can't do him justice ahhhhhh I feel like he's one of the few characters that I have no control over :') So here are some blurbs of me trying to bring him back to life even though he deserves to die sometimes :') :') :') They're all over the place, sorry, and aren't in any specific order.
Each morning, the few vials of potions that Cole took to keep himself on his feet left a burning taste in the back of his mouth. He wasn't entirely sure why he took them or if he did him any good, but nosebleeds were annoying and the dizziness was even less desirable, so he found that they were a necessary ingredient for concentration in his day.
Settling into a routine hadn't been entirely easy, but he was catching on to the way mundanes worked, acted, and lived. They looked at things differently; they looked at things possibly in the way he had when he was seventeen years old and pondering how to get rid of Mason, How to kill him, maybe, though he was sure that he could have done it. It baffled him for a moment why he hadn't and pushed away the thought quickly before it could plague him- thoughts about the past never did anyone good and his expression remained unchanged.
A textbook in his hand and a laptop bag at his side, he blended with the crowd on the streets in the midst of students and teachers and assorted pedestrians. His eyes flickered suspiciously at the foreign faces and he stuck his free, ungloved hand in his pocket, frowning when a sharp object stuck to the side of his hand. A tack. Of course, how could he have forgotten that he put it in there after a night of pinning up papers and trying to find connections between events and phenomenons. Obsessing over the news was little more than something to pass the time, he convinced himself, and it kept him up late at night.
He pulled out the tack from his pocket and let it fall haphazardly onto the street. A bead of blood welled from the scratch and he meandered his way into a local coffee shop to order a drink and grab a napkin from a dispenser to wipe it away. The line was fairly short, with a few students he had seen from the University, so he kept his gaze away from them.
Usually, he ordered a plain coffee. It was simple, cheap, and he didn't like half of the other drinks at the cafes where they filled them with mundane-tasting nonsense. Getting his cup from the counter, he adjusted his things, careful to make sure he didn't drop his textbook, and seated himself at a window table near the back to work on his projects.
His laptop brightened as it powered up, the beginning of an essay opening to an otherwise blank word document. Is sadism situational? he posed in his notes, his fingers pausing at the keyboard. Tabs opened, the words stanford and milgram and authourity and prison flashing on his screen as articles rebooted themselves. Had he been merely that at the Institute? A radical guard in the Stanford prison experiment that chose to hurt anyone in proximity rather than just inmates? Or had he been a teacher in Milgram's experiment, convinced that he was not the one to blame for his actions?
Looking to his hand instead, he frowned. It was funny, really, how it hadn't healed yet and the red mark was still fresh against his skin. The thoughts jumbled up in his head and he closed out of the tabs to mindlessly write an introductory thesis for his essay, letting his coffee go ignored.
"Are you okay?"
The question came from a brown haired girl that sat near him in one of his classes pertaining to business, her tone hushed and worried. For a moment, he debated between hissing at her that he was fine and smiling charmingly to assure her that he was okay.
He waited a second too long to reply and a sudden headache started in the back of his skull, aching. Before, he hadn't noticed the drip of blood and the burning feeling that seemed to accompany each bout of nosebleeds.
"Fine," he replied curtly, standing up and wiping the blood away. A smear of bright blood stood out on the side of his hand and he gathered his things to slip away. The professor didn't seem to notice him quickly whisk out of the class and neither did the rest of the students, save for the one that asked him the question.
Becoming a werewolf, he thought he would have been in his best health. Funny enough, it simply seemed to only prolong the tedious life he had nearly grown accustomed to.
He fumbled for another vial, taking it quickly to avoid the dizziness that he was sure was yet to come. Sometimes, he wasn't sure why he worked so hard to keep himself upright. It would have been the best mystery, he often thought, for him to disappear quietly and never come back and leave the Clave forever wondering in the back of their minds what had happened to him. And if anyone ever looked, they would be met with frustration just like all that had looked for him before them.
He didn't deny the fact that he could not name any reasons of why he continued to live, but perhaps the main justification for him to not die was forever and invariably spite.
The Towns were a strange place to find solace in, yet Cole often found himself back in them. A dagger fit comfortably in his sleeve and he opted for an outfit a little less proper than his usual button-up and loose tie. Instead, he pulled on the hood of a jacket to cover his face. Even so, he didn't feel quite safe enough to take his glove off. He had grown used to seeing a face that wasn't quite so familiar in the mirror, although he found that he ducked mirrors more often than not.
He remembered a time when the dark ends of the Towns had nearly driven him mad with paranoia. The fix, he realized, was not to overdose on vials of potions and medicines to numb his mind but to join them. He had no map, but he was never lost.
The first time he entered the Towns as a werewolf was when he was found and he could brush away his past, his teenage desires, and focus. Now, walking through the people, he filed through them comfortably and they seemed to hardly notice him. Trouble scarcely came to him, save for a random fight with another werewolf or vampire on a full moon, but he still kept his daggers sharp.
Brothels were popular in the Towns and he walked slowly, his eyes catching on the different species and women that lingered around the fronts to attract interested customers.
A tall, lithe faerie girl surveyed possible customers, wearing only a bustier and a lacy skirt as she flirted around the crowd. Another girl, a werewolf, stayed close. She had on a short black dress that accentuated her curves and heels that lengthened her legs and Cole didn't give her another glance. Perhaps in his youth did women ever interest him when he realized they were things to win, but they had since lost their luster and he found no delight in staring at their bared skin and the way their hair fell on their shoulders and their glittering eyes as they glanced seductively over the crowd.
That life, the life where he had once been tempted, was a faraway truth he had once lived and even then had he been hard to interest with such materialistic values. Desire was a distraction and he had no time for anything that would get him off course.
Once, he thought he had become distracted with something that had mirrored desire. Friendship, Steff called it, but he had never particularly thought about kissing his friends. Then again, he didn't ever spend time thinking about kissing anyone nor did he ever have any friends. He thought about what seventeen year-old teenagers thought about with a certain amount of confusion as to why he would have such odd thoughts but, when he turned twenty, he denied his ability to ever ponder such ideas. Pushing them to the back of his mind, he forgot about them and they disappeared.
He held no want to stare at the brothel women and he walked past them as if he did not even notice they were there. In fact, the promise of darkness in the Towns was much more tempting and he followed it deeper down the winding alleys.
The scent of dewy streets were far from a home, but they were comfortable. And, past the brothels and the shops and the people, it gave him a bit of peace to know that he was, for once, completely invisible.