Tyler has been spending more time in the library than he would like to admit.

Under the pretense of researching plays for auditions, he manages to slip away. Friends and family assume that he haa been snowed under with rehearsals and shows, but in reality, Tyler hasn’t been cast in anything for two months. At auditions, directors take one good look at him and write a large ‘X’ next to his name.

Because, when it comes down to it, Tyler looks like shit.

He is tired and sore and hungry. His spine has half-formed spikes and he has trouble sitting down or even speaking. His tongue feels swollen and his head aches from the horns that are manifesting beneath the bone of his skull.

He likes to pretend to himself that his were-lachus state is something controllable. There are times when he thinks that Death and demons and curses are all figments of his imagination, produced from hallucinations derived from a diet of cigarettes and coffee.

So, he half-heartedly retreats to the library, far from the emotions that call to him and draw him like a hunting dog to a scent. He buries his nose in ancient plays and feels sorry for himself, distancing himself from anyone who approaches.

At the moment he is awkwardly perched on one of the stools that short people use to reach the top shelves. In his hands is a yellowed copy of You Can’t Take It With You.

His hands shake slightly, but he pretends not to notice, content to attempt to focus his wavering attention on the words. His lachus self is impatient and wants to leave, but he studiously ignores it, fighting even the urge to step outside for a cigarette.

Outside, there are people, who have emotions raging rampant. Outside, Tyler might have to ask himself once more what the hell is happening to his body and mind. Outside, he will have to confront reality, and he doesn’t want to do that.

He prefers to remain on the deserted fourth floor of the library. Here, he is safe from himself, and everyone else is, too.

This has happened before, hasn’t it? The scene is familiar: the library. The silent, stolid stacks.

The man without an emotional signature.

He comes around the stacks, a tall creature in pale clothes who registers on a lachus’ sensory radar as just so much white noise. He’s casting a shadow and his footsteps make sound, but they hadn’t been a moment ago—he has, perhaps, appeared in the privacy of an aisle and is just now making it look like he wandered in via mundane means.

It’s debatable whether Tyler will recognize him or not: here he is with the white eyes and angular, bony face, but he’s not dressed like a late teen goth anymore.

Well, not exactly.

He’s wearing a teeshirt with fishnet sleeves underneath; he’s wearing loosely-fitting jeans full of straps and buckles; he’s wearing combat boots. The thing is, the whole ensemble is in white: white boots, white pants, white fishnet. White everything. The only colour he’s given himself today is the bright fire-engine red of his nail polish and the same red in the plastic horns he has shoved through his ears. In all, it’s the kind of look you find in someone’s overly ambitious character design: flashy, probably expensive, and doesn’t make a lick of sense.

He smiles at Tyler and, without pretending for even a second that he’s here for some reason other than the aching actor, twists a hand chair around backwards and straddles it.

Resting his chin on his crossed arms, he watches the mortal, waiting for a hello.

Tyler has a good eye for faces. This talent is something that has helped him rise throughout the city’s theatrical circles – that is, until very recently. When he meets someone, he rarely forgets them, no matter how drunk or distracted he is. It's a skill that he has developed throughout his life, cherishing it, for he knows how useful it can be.

This talent is why, when this man pulls up a chair, the were-lachus can only gape.

He pays no attention to this man’s outrageous clothing and could care less about the nail polish and plastic horns. He finds himself pointing a shaking finger, clutching the play to his chest with his other hand.

“You!” He manages to spit out, the word accusatory, “You!”

The actor does not like surprises. The human part of him is pleased for a moment, almost flattered by the lack of sensory abuse that Azrael afflicts. But somewhere, deep within, Tyler knows better. His last meeting with this man did not bode well.

He does not look pleased, or even surprised. At the moment, he merely looks pissed off, still pointing, still scowling.

”How’s it going, Tyler?” the God of Death asks, as though the mortal actor had started off the conversation with some normal and polite greeting. He rolls his head to the left, smiling. From this position, despite his height, he’s looking up at Tyler.

It’s probably a good idea to remember that this man in white isn’t just a normal guy.

The dead static noise of his imperceptible emotions buzzes as he reaches out to snag the dog-eared library book from Tyler’s hands.

”Feeling reclusive?”

"It's going poorly, thank you very much," The actor snaps irritably, releasing the library book with reluctant fingers. He's been feeling very sorry for himself lately, and it shows. So sorry that he is able to forget that the God he's speaking with has powers beyond the limits of his own stunted imagination.

Well, in some odd way, he labors under the misconception that Thanatos won't hurt him. Foolish, perhaps, but Tyler has never been particularly clever.

He scowls, feeling trapped, and so crosses his arms tightly across his chest. He tries to hide a wince as this movement irritates his spine, doing so out of a misplaced sense of bravado.

"Yes, as a matter of fact," He continues with a sour expression.

He pauses, become somewhat wary as common sense kicks in. He hates the odd feeling he gets when around this God: the buzzing of emotions just beyond his senses makes him woozy. He tries not to fall into the possible trap of being soothed by the dead silence of these emotions, recapturing his train of thought with a bewildering amount of difficulty.

He narrows his eyes suspiciously, still accusatory. “I am. You know very well why. It's too much, out there.”

Thanatos scans the book summarily before tossing it back over his shoulder, uninterested. The thing thuds to the floor, getting more dog-eared in the process.

He’s speaking as soon as it leaves his fingers.

”Mmhmm. You’re hungry and in pain, I know.” He knows, but it doesn’t sound like he particularly cares. In fact, his mannerisms are of a young man completely bored with his companion. He rubs the skin around one of his large clear-red plugs.

”I don’t know if this has occurred to you yet,” he says conversationally, ”but if you appease your lachus’ hunger in these middle-month days, that hunger will leave you alone and it’ll be easier to cling soppily to your humanity—if you like that sort of thing.”

"What?" Tyler appears mortally offended by this suggestion, "Feed when I'm a human? Are you crazy?"

The lachus within likes this idea, very much. The hunger can become so strong that it overpowers his thoughts and blurs realities; though it is not far along enough in the month for the lachus to overpower the human, this double-sight can rear its ugly head in a very perplexing way. Tyler would rather starve than expose himself, willingly, to that.

"What if I end up feeding off of one of my friends? They'll think I'm a freak!"

He still doesn't really know what happens to the people he feeds off of. He likes to black out that part of his knowledge, pretending that he doesn't know or remember. Self-delusion and self-pity are the friends that he carries with him at all times.

”If you feed now,” says Thanatos carefully (as if explaining to a child), ”then you will be human enough to choose your prey in a way that satisfied your human side.”

He pulls out his left earplug and plays with it, absently. The hole in his ear shrinks to nothing as the plastic leaves it.

”You’ll still hunt when you’re a lachus, but you’ll be able to hold on to human thought patterns for longer. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

It’s true, too.

He really does need to be spoken to like a child. Maybe it's the fact that Tyler has studiously avoided long conversations for the past month, or maybe it's the fact that he is gaping at the god's healed ear, unable to comprehend what has just happened before his eyes.

"It would be nice," He admits almost absently, and then realizes what he's just said.

"Wait," He looks troubled, moving forward with a nervous sort of side-step, "what do you mean, in a way that satisfies my human side?"

Thanatos sighs deeply. The sound is odd—like his voice, it’s a construction; his seeming of a body doesn’t actually have the lungs and whatnot for making a genuine exhalation.

”It’s simple.” He pushes the horn-shaped plug back through his ear, and the white flesh parts for it like putty.

”You don’t want to feed on your friends? Fine. While you’re still thinking like your human self, go hunt someone you don’t care about. Feed from them. You’ll be able to control your lachus’ instincts for longer, and you’ll have satisfied your human side’s requirements: no friends. Or whatever.”

He shrugs, shifting positions so he’s leaning back against the table he’d stolen the chair from.

”I’m surprised you haven’t yet figured this out for yourself.”

"But that's what I do!" For some reason, Tyler finds himself desperate to earn this god's approval. He has no idea why, and if he were consciously aware of such a thing, he would have been gravely embarrassed. He wants to prove to Thanatos that they are on somewhat even footing.

"I only feed from strangers. Well." Except for one little mishap with that stage crew girl, but she had surprised him at an unfortunate time. "I mean, it's not that I seek out people that I dislike. I just go where I'm sure I won't see anyone I know."

His eyes are still riveted to Thanatos's ear. "Why can't I just feed from animals or something?" He demands, cranky. The lachus within already knows the answer but he is ignoring it, for now.