Re: Garage: Elijah/Aubrey
Even without the wolf’s senses working overtime for him, there wasn’t a whole lot that went unnoticed in Aubrey’s presence. Before the army, before the ambush, sure. He had plenty of years spent leaning into the role of poor little rich boy whose greatest desire was Daddy’s approval and the willful myopia that did not extend past the point of observing his immediate desires and many indulgences. But despite all outward appearances that he might have worked to maintain, he was no longer that version of himself and hadn’t been for years.
So he watched the quickness of the man’s subtle retreat, and the nervous-rabbit way that his gaze darted between what he seemed to consider immediate threat and escape route. Imagined he could hear the quickened thrum of a heartbeat under his sternum where it was covered by an unfortunate navy sweater. And his nostrils flared in response to the way that the gloved hand was snatched back like it’d been burned by the mere proximity of Aubrey’s on the counter, cradled close against the man’s torso. He looked like a deer with an injured leg. And even without the wolf immediately present in his head, this version of Aubrey was still very much a predator.
The smile tightened and turned a little more feral, as his weight shifted so that he went from leaning on the counter, slowly drawn up to his full height that was just north of 6’2” and shifting almost imperceptibly into leaning over, the soles of his boots planted a broad shoulders’ width apart. Stupid or small? Wolf or not, he was neither.
“Brilliant deduction, excellent job” he said, words an artful blend of bored-flat and sharp acid. “No, it’s not a Humvee. Way more comfortable without four other men each carrying sixty pounds of gear and an M16, though. Better gas mileage. So, since you seem to be embarrassingly uninformed about your competition across town, allow me to enlighten you - they only service German manufactures. They don’t carry the tires I need, because they aren’t used on any German cars. So they sent me here.”
It was most of the truth. The kid working at the other shop had said he could special order the tires in for him and do the swap, but he didn’t seem particularly inclined towards the idea even though it had been his own. And the fact that wolf had the urge to rip the kid’s throat out for some indeterminable reason (invasion, that was the feeling that had filled up Aubrey’s head with white-hot anger) sealed the deal.
“So here I am. And I’ll ask again, a little more slowly this time. Do you have the tires I need, or not?”