Wolves mate for life?
Aug. 4th, 2009 07:31 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annwfyn.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
writing_shadows"How did you know Lennie was The One?" Isabelle asks me, while she downs her third shot of vodka and I wonder how pissed my boss would be if he knew I was spending my time at work hanging over alcohol to under-age drinkers.
OK...OK...I should back track, right?
It's 1997, it's 4 am, and I'm working the night shift at the Big Blue Box self storage depot. I was on my own (as I often am) until Isabelle turned up. Isabelle is sixteen years old, and is like my kid sister. Her Dad and my Dad were packed together and when her mother took off when she was six, yours truly got drafted for babysitting duties until she turned eleven, when she was officially old enough to start playing mother for her younger brothers.
Yeah, I know. There is no normal modern society in which pre-pubescent girls are expected to take on full maternal duties. Neither Is nor I live in a normal modern society. At least, not as far as our respective fathers are concerned. But enough with the back story. We move on.
"How did you know Lennie was The One?" Isabelle asks me and it actually takes me a minute to work out what she means. The One? The One...what? Then I remember I'm talking to Isabelle who turned up here with panda eyes and mascara stripes down her cheeks to tell me she was never going to love again.
Isabelle is my prime piece of evidence for this kind of thing being genetic. She had practically the same upbringing as me and my brothers. You'd never catch any of us coming out with this shit.
"I don't know," I say, because I don't. "I suppose..." and then I stop again.
Isabelle is looking at me hopefully, like I've got the answers, because I'm married. God knows why. She was around at the time I got married. She must remember the broken up wall that Dad threw Lennie through, not to mention that horrible mark across his neck where Raph tried to go for him with a silver chain.
"I don't know if I did," I say. "I mean, I worked out pretty quickly that I wanted him, but I kinda assumed he'd just move on afterwards. I mean, he kinda drifted a lot before."
Isabelle has the same look she got when I told her that Father Christmas didn't exist, the first Christmas after her Mum left, because I couldn't work out a way to get the money together for presents. I wonder if I ever got that look in my eye. Did I get my heart broken when I was younger? Not in the same way, I don't think. Somewhere I picked up the idea that most guys were out to chop your heart into little pieces before I even got my first kiss (from Mike Ross, at 4 pm, behind the middle school bike shed, if you must know).
I look back at Isabelle.
"But he is, isn't he?" she says, still hopeful.
Isabelle is looking for The One. Actually, from the expression on her face, Isabelle thinks she has found The One, only he's keen on higher numbers. No idea who he might be, but I know the odds are that it won't end well.
That's the other thing. Is and I aren't exactly geared for True Love. We've got the wrong kind of heritage for that. Straight off, we get a nice binary choice. Wolf, or no wolf. No wolf is probably better. Gives you a chance of a normal life, a bloke who takes you out in the evenings, has time for a cuddle on the sofa. You know the drill. The downside is that if you're like me and Is, you can never be entirely honest with that bloke. You'll always be lying - lying about why your brother quit the police, lying about how your Mum died, or why your Mum took off, lying about why your Dad is not going to be visiting around Christmas. Plus, you'll always know that the man who gives you cuddles and brings you flowers is slightly...less. Less than he could be. Less than a Wolf would be.
Wolf on the other hand...
...well. Wolf means passion. It means a first kiss that makes your blood burn and your brain come dribbling out of your ears. It means a weird shiver down your spine and it means feeling like you fit, in a way you can't ever describe properly. I don't know why, but I'm told that there's something in those of our blood that reacts to werewolves with wanting, where others feel fear. Blood calls to blood, perhaps. But there's a downside. The downside is that he's never going to all be yours. He's got other priorities - duty, pack. He's not going to be reliable. Sometimes he'll just not be there. And one day he may go crazy and kill you.
"You really like this guy, don't you?" I say, and see the tears welling up in her eyes again.
"I do," she says. "But it doesn't matter, I guess. He doesn't like me."
She's beginning to cry again. I wonder whether she'd object if I had a few word with this guy. Probably. My track record suggests I wouldn't so much have words as 'choke slam against a wall and menace with a knife'. If he's of the Not Wolf variety of bloke that is. If he's a Wolf then I've got no chance.
So I hug her instead.
I have cried over guys before, I guess, if I'm honest. I know how it feels. When I was thirteen years old I went out with a kid called Jimmy Ferrard. He was fifteen years old. We snogged a lot, and then one afternoon I let him stick his hand up my skirt behind the cricket pavillion, because I liked him so much and was convinced that I needed to let him do what he wanted so he'd stick around. The prick told everyone. And said that was the only reason to hang around with me. Rusty kicked the crap out of him and then slammed me against a wall and said he wouldn't tell Dad, but I was never to let him hear that kind of shit about me again.
When I was seventeen I met Lennie. We got involved and I broke up with him after two and a half months because I figured he was going to walk at some point anyway and I wanted him to know that I'd ended it. I picked a fight over something stupid, and then went home and hid underneath my duvet and cried my eyes out. I wound up walking around til 2 am, trying to find where he was crashing that night.
Is that The One?
I guess Isabelle would say that it is. She's sixteen. That's the age when you know. At twenty two, it all seems a bit less clear.
Isabelle is talking again. She's talking more about this guy, whoever he is, and I wonder whether he knows just what kind of effect he's had on her. God knows. Once I'd have been sure he didn't give a damn. These days, I know guys can get messed in the head, just like girls can. I'm told even werewolves can fall in love occasionally.
I wonder if I could ever ask any of the Wolf boys I know that question.
"How did you know she was The One?"
Jesus, these thoughts are just getting way too deep for the small hours of a Wednesday morning.
So I take another shot of vodka and text Lennie to tell him that even if he is a dumb yank, he's alright really. Because what the hell else do you tell your husband when you're drunk and he's at home babysitting your five year old child? Then I hug Isabelle again and tell her I don't believe in True Love, or The One.
She isn't convinced, but she's sixteen. Maybe she'll learn. Who the hell meets their One True Love before they've even turned eighteen anyway?
I text Lennie again, just before we leave.
OK...OK...I should back track, right?
It's 1997, it's 4 am, and I'm working the night shift at the Big Blue Box self storage depot. I was on my own (as I often am) until Isabelle turned up. Isabelle is sixteen years old, and is like my kid sister. Her Dad and my Dad were packed together and when her mother took off when she was six, yours truly got drafted for babysitting duties until she turned eleven, when she was officially old enough to start playing mother for her younger brothers.
Yeah, I know. There is no normal modern society in which pre-pubescent girls are expected to take on full maternal duties. Neither Is nor I live in a normal modern society. At least, not as far as our respective fathers are concerned. But enough with the back story. We move on.
"How did you know Lennie was The One?" Isabelle asks me and it actually takes me a minute to work out what she means. The One? The One...what? Then I remember I'm talking to Isabelle who turned up here with panda eyes and mascara stripes down her cheeks to tell me she was never going to love again.
Isabelle is my prime piece of evidence for this kind of thing being genetic. She had practically the same upbringing as me and my brothers. You'd never catch any of us coming out with this shit.
"I don't know," I say, because I don't. "I suppose..." and then I stop again.
Isabelle is looking at me hopefully, like I've got the answers, because I'm married. God knows why. She was around at the time I got married. She must remember the broken up wall that Dad threw Lennie through, not to mention that horrible mark across his neck where Raph tried to go for him with a silver chain.
"I don't know if I did," I say. "I mean, I worked out pretty quickly that I wanted him, but I kinda assumed he'd just move on afterwards. I mean, he kinda drifted a lot before."
Isabelle has the same look she got when I told her that Father Christmas didn't exist, the first Christmas after her Mum left, because I couldn't work out a way to get the money together for presents. I wonder if I ever got that look in my eye. Did I get my heart broken when I was younger? Not in the same way, I don't think. Somewhere I picked up the idea that most guys were out to chop your heart into little pieces before I even got my first kiss (from Mike Ross, at 4 pm, behind the middle school bike shed, if you must know).
I look back at Isabelle.
"But he is, isn't he?" she says, still hopeful.
Isabelle is looking for The One. Actually, from the expression on her face, Isabelle thinks she has found The One, only he's keen on higher numbers. No idea who he might be, but I know the odds are that it won't end well.
That's the other thing. Is and I aren't exactly geared for True Love. We've got the wrong kind of heritage for that. Straight off, we get a nice binary choice. Wolf, or no wolf. No wolf is probably better. Gives you a chance of a normal life, a bloke who takes you out in the evenings, has time for a cuddle on the sofa. You know the drill. The downside is that if you're like me and Is, you can never be entirely honest with that bloke. You'll always be lying - lying about why your brother quit the police, lying about how your Mum died, or why your Mum took off, lying about why your Dad is not going to be visiting around Christmas. Plus, you'll always know that the man who gives you cuddles and brings you flowers is slightly...less. Less than he could be. Less than a Wolf would be.
Wolf on the other hand...
...well. Wolf means passion. It means a first kiss that makes your blood burn and your brain come dribbling out of your ears. It means a weird shiver down your spine and it means feeling like you fit, in a way you can't ever describe properly. I don't know why, but I'm told that there's something in those of our blood that reacts to werewolves with wanting, where others feel fear. Blood calls to blood, perhaps. But there's a downside. The downside is that he's never going to all be yours. He's got other priorities - duty, pack. He's not going to be reliable. Sometimes he'll just not be there. And one day he may go crazy and kill you.
"You really like this guy, don't you?" I say, and see the tears welling up in her eyes again.
"I do," she says. "But it doesn't matter, I guess. He doesn't like me."
She's beginning to cry again. I wonder whether she'd object if I had a few word with this guy. Probably. My track record suggests I wouldn't so much have words as 'choke slam against a wall and menace with a knife'. If he's of the Not Wolf variety of bloke that is. If he's a Wolf then I've got no chance.
So I hug her instead.
I have cried over guys before, I guess, if I'm honest. I know how it feels. When I was thirteen years old I went out with a kid called Jimmy Ferrard. He was fifteen years old. We snogged a lot, and then one afternoon I let him stick his hand up my skirt behind the cricket pavillion, because I liked him so much and was convinced that I needed to let him do what he wanted so he'd stick around. The prick told everyone. And said that was the only reason to hang around with me. Rusty kicked the crap out of him and then slammed me against a wall and said he wouldn't tell Dad, but I was never to let him hear that kind of shit about me again.
When I was seventeen I met Lennie. We got involved and I broke up with him after two and a half months because I figured he was going to walk at some point anyway and I wanted him to know that I'd ended it. I picked a fight over something stupid, and then went home and hid underneath my duvet and cried my eyes out. I wound up walking around til 2 am, trying to find where he was crashing that night.
Is that The One?
I guess Isabelle would say that it is. She's sixteen. That's the age when you know. At twenty two, it all seems a bit less clear.
Isabelle is talking again. She's talking more about this guy, whoever he is, and I wonder whether he knows just what kind of effect he's had on her. God knows. Once I'd have been sure he didn't give a damn. These days, I know guys can get messed in the head, just like girls can. I'm told even werewolves can fall in love occasionally.
I wonder if I could ever ask any of the Wolf boys I know that question.
"How did you know she was The One?"
Jesus, these thoughts are just getting way too deep for the small hours of a Wednesday morning.
So I take another shot of vodka and text Lennie to tell him that even if he is a dumb yank, he's alright really. Because what the hell else do you tell your husband when you're drunk and he's at home babysitting your five year old child? Then I hug Isabelle again and tell her I don't believe in True Love, or The One.
She isn't convinced, but she's sixteen. Maybe she'll learn. Who the hell meets their One True Love before they've even turned eighteen anyway?
I text Lennie again, just before we leave.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-04 09:09 pm (UTC)Predicted answers
Date: 2009-08-04 09:16 pm (UTC)Lennie: "are you out of your goddamn mind? What the hell kind of question is that? Next you'll be talking about picket fences again!"
Raph: ~whoosh of air as he leaves the area at speeds known only to roadrunners~
Who else should I ask?
Re: Predicted answers
Date: 2009-08-04 09:17 pm (UTC)Re: Predicted answers
Date: 2009-08-04 09:25 pm (UTC)Re: Predicted answers
Date: 2009-08-04 10:43 pm (UTC)Re: Predicted answers
Date: 2009-08-04 10:44 pm (UTC)Re: Predicted answers
Date: 2009-08-04 10:47 pm (UTC)Re: Predicted answers
Date: 2009-08-04 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-04 09:13 pm (UTC)I kinda miss the soap-opera roleplay, but I've just not reeally got characters who are set up for it at the minute...
no subject
Date: 2009-08-04 09:15 pm (UTC)Oh, that's a *beautiful* turn of phrase!
no subject
Date: 2009-08-05 10:46 am (UTC)