#anyway anon sorry this wasn't a fic im Dumb and cant Do The Word on any day but today more than usual

[swan-archive]

Ok so I get why Washington would be,,, wary, of shapeshifters. But does he believe they are all chaotic-evil as a rule of thumb, before his wolfson and eldritchson, or??? And after he discovers, does he still call them "son" (much to alex's dismay)???

i don’t think he considers them all chaotic evil so much as…just sorta chaotic, you know? self-interested. his few interactions with them prior to the events of the au (his knowing interactions, anyway) were within a wartime and specifically espionage context, so he would tend to associate them with secrecy and a certain degree of dishonor. one can’t deny they’re useful creatures, but it’s hard to put your trust in a thing that could turn its face and coat as easy as blinking.

(not to mention, he probably thinks there’s something a little…ungodly about them, maybe. the handful of glimpses he’s gotten of what they look like under the skin don’t seem wholesome. those eyes. those teeth. now, he’s no puritan, there’s more things in heaven and earth, blah blah blah, he’s not calling for burnings at the stake, this is an age of reason.)

(still.)

(still, his men had caught one on its way out of camp, running stolen plans to the French. shot it out of the air as it turned from man to bird—lucky bullet caught it straight through the heart, sent it crashing to earth. and its corpse, half one thing, half another, tangled in blue jacket, blood matting the half-fledged feathers bursting from its skin, wide eyes going clouded, one hazel, one the flat yellow of a glass marble—)

(Wash had ordered it burned in greatest secrecy. nothing should look like that. nothing.)

that said, i do think Laf and Alex do kind of fall under his heading of exceptions to the rule, Laf purely because of the way he is (it’s hard to suspect a happy puppy of willful malevolence, especially when it gets into the habit of greeting you with slobbery kisses) and Alex—he’s not sure why, when it comes to Alex. 

Alex is useful, surely, one might even say indispensable, but Wash has cultivated working relationships with many bright young men, most of whom don’t have to exert conscious effort to keep their faces looking on-model. Alex is proud and prickly and unsubtle in a number of important ways and deeply ambitious, eager to climb. Wash knows he should be more suspicious of Alex because of all of these things. Alex has been close to him for years. Alex is smart—no, don’t do him that injustice, he’s brilliant—and can be vicious to people who have wronged him. with his brains, and his powers, and the information at his disposal, he could surely destroy Wash for his own benefit if he wanted. that’s plenty of reason to keep him close, and Wash does, raises him up to Treasury Secretary, trusts him even more with his true thoughts on the political situations of the day, even comes over to meet Alex’s growing brood of monstrous children.

…this isn’t right, he says to himself, this isn’t being careful, as he gently declines Eliza’s offer to hold Alex Jr. (those teeth look. uh. well, a baby shouldn’t have teeth like that, or scales, or quite so many eyes, and that’s what he thinks). this is getting invested, and there’s no sense in trying to have a personal relationship with a creature that’s all impulse and self-interest. he glances over at Alex, who has turned himself into a snaky cattish thing and is running around the parlor for his oldest boy and girl to chase. 

Alex detours over to where Wash is standing with Eliza and, quite bizarrely, twines himself in a purring figure eight several times around Wash’s ankles before darting off again.

(he definitely still calls both Laf and Alex “son.” Laf reacts to this with exactly as much delight as you would imagine—Wash nearly laughs out loud at the sight of him trying to wag a tail he hasn’t got at the moment. Alex, on the other hand, tries to swallow an outraged response, and in the process turns several interesting colors, sprouts and retracts a large number of spines, buds several unhappily warbling mouths that he has to chase down and silence, and ruins both his suit and the chair he’s sitting in. it’s not his best look.)