Re: Pat & Lou: boxes
Lou wasn't human. She hadn't been human in over a decade and that decade had settled, and wrapped around her bones like sinew and muscle. She'd put that on too. She didn't like or dislike what she was, it was the same as asking her if she'd wanted a dick and balls or blue eyes, it was a biological thing as true as the rest of her. She was wolf, as much as she was woman and no less than. She was wearing blue jeans, the kind that came stiff as cardboard and had to be worked, through the knees and thighs until they were soft as butter, and they were fraying at the right knee, under an unbuttoned flannel shirt over tank, ink curling into the line of her neck. She wasn't human, but she looked about as American as a mixed mutt could in that kitchen and she smelled the boy on the threshold before she heard the knock. Probably wise. Queen was pretty loud.
There was a lot to a smell. Hadn't been in town all that long and had worked out there were textures and layers to the scents in this place and they weren't just human and wolf. This one was sharp and green and Lou flung the door with its layers of peeling paint wide on the hall and smiled at the kid who smelled like wet woods. He didn't look like her memory, but her memory was of blue eyes and a fist crammed into his mouth and a lot of blond, feathery-looking hair that hadn't melted anything that was meant to melt, looking at a kid. He looked nothing like Adrian had, but Adrian probably wasn't tit-height and skinny and dark anymore either.
She put a hand on his shoulder, up near the line of his collarbone and tugged him over the threshold. "Come in. Beer, pizza? There's a lot of boxes." There were a lot of boxes.