Oh look, Weasel knew something. Yet despite the captive’s mocking rebuttal fired at him, he didn’t flare to anger as his father might have done. He just shot her a glance, honestly piqued with curiosity. Had…she seen an actual weasel? The sounds they made? What they looked like? Lots of animals had gone into extinction in the years since<i>the event</i>. And why couldn’t he pick another name? Why this, who are you, what am I? So many questions. If she could just…shut…up…for one moment!<br/><br/>As he put his hand to her fragile, swanlike neck, as his fingers and thumb clamped around her windpipe, both curiosity and rage were intermingled in the exploratory clutch of his action. He had questions to! Like what would happen if he just…squeezed.<br/><br/>True to form, and proving her own statements false…Weasel began to squeal.<br/><br/>Hearing his name from the girl felt so surreal. No one really said his name like that, in urgency and desperation.<i>No girl his age ever really said his name…ever.</i>He wanted that. He wanted more of that. He wanted all this girl’s attentions, despite never having been properly taught how to get a girl’s attentions. All he knew what all he grew up with. And that was survival. That was fighting, and combat, and violence, and it being the solution, and cause, of all of life’s problems. Violence would keep her attentions right? Violence would make her suffer.<br/><br/>She began to suffer. She began to die. And suddenly…she felt lifeless, silent, and Peter jerked his eyebrows in surprise and released his hand from her neck. Was she…actually dead? He hadn’t even choked for that long. He saw his father before shove people’s faces into basins of water for prolonged periods of time. There was a limit before the brain would suffer and his father always pulled them out. Apparently it was effective for making people talk. Just ask Tinker. She would know plenty of ways of making people talk, and spill their secrets. He hadn’t been choking Weasel for half that time before they began to…expire.<br/><br/>Hands drawn back, he leaned down and peered into the girl’s face. She was still. Very still. He peered into her face, before putting his hand to the side of her head, his finger and thumb widening one of her eyes. She was…so full of shit. He broke into a smile and shook his head, seeing her ruse at last.<i>Weasels played dead, remember, dork?</i><b>”You’re giving me a fright. That’s not very kind.”</b>Peter just remarked, standing back and crossing his arms. This little experiment of his father’s was most strange indeed. This girl was literally…his, to do whatever he wanted. And she tried to play dead, as if to make it stop.<br/><br/>Oh no, it wasn’t going to stop. He wanted her attentions. And he wanted her to say his name like that, in urgency, in desperation,<i>in need.</i><br/><br/>He straightened up and smacked her, a glancing half-blow across her forehead, to make her snap out of it.<b>”Pay attention. There’ll be none of that. I learned long ago not to break things to see what they’re made of. At least with people there are other ways.”</b>Peter said, letting his eyes roam across her body splayed out on the bed, before he moved to sit beside her knee and calf, resting his hand down on the mattress, so very close to her thigh.<i>A very supple thigh.</i>He could touch it. It was his to touch. Why shouldn’t he touch it?<i>You know who had nice legs too? Tinker…</i><br/><br/>But Tinker wasn’t his toy. Weasel was.<b>”So, if you don’t want to be called Weasel, what should we call you? You got a name, don’t you?”</b>He asked her directly, the first real attempt at real conversation with his Weasel.