Re: Bonfire-adjacent: Aubrey/Lou
Her wolf didn't give a damn about caution. The wolf had teeth and it had claws. Had fur, which was inconvenient in a pinch but Lou wasn't thinking about caution as she exhaled thready smoke that joined the bonfire and the smell of liquor that burnished the smell of leaf rot, dry grass and woodsmoke, copper. The wolf could do more damage in the space of three heartbeats than anything in the woods could do to Lou. She was, three nights out of the month, one of the monsters these kids were flirting with by staying out late. No. Lou didn't think about caution.
The wolf who stood there with Scotch in his plastic cup instead of cheap beer gone to froth, she knew wasn't a smoker. Lou didn't need to sniff. "Learn to tune it out," she said, with a pause. "It becomes part of your own." Hers. Soap, the cheap kind sold in bars, faint trace of mint and lemon verbena from her hair, cured with the spice and smoke of the cigarettes. She tolerated. Lived enough with people who stank of their own sweat, acid with fear and you tolerated a lot.
Lou didn't rise to much anymore. Learned to tolerate that too. "You miss it?" She inhaled and the end of the cigarette sparked hot. "Can't say I plan on giving up anything I'd miss." Because the wolf was in her bones. Had been half her life, they got along. Her face was blank. Wasn't schooled that way, just fell into those lines. She'd learned early, easiest to give no provocation. Gone through a period of provoking the hell out of anyone, and now she was back to choosing the fights she picked.