Akeem

[wispofathing]

Bo-Kate Wisby’s back, and she’s done cut off your father’s extra fingers.

Curnen had passed through the rest of Berklee’s phone call in a daze, but that one sentence had stuck fast, and it circled round and round in her head. Bo-Kate Wisby. Bo-Kate Fucking Wisby. The bitch shouldn’t even have been able to get back to Cloud County, let alone done something that caused so much damage. But then… the writing had been on the wall for a year. Ever since Rob had sung Rockhouse’s dying dirge. Ever since Curnen herself had torn Rockhouse’s throat out with her teeth. It had been only a matter of time.

And she couldn’t even say she hadn’t felt it coming. Every time she played or sang, she had had to fight harder and harder to keep from singing or playing “Edward” yet again. Even now, the song was pressing against her mind. It was the only thing she could hear, it was the only song that would come out. The night wind had been crescendoing from a whisper to a roar at her for the better part of a week.

It would happen tonight. She knew it. But she wasn’t fully ready to admit what it was. Only that she couldn’t go home tonight. Her roommates were humans, they wouldn’t understand.

Winter and Phouka? She couldn’t bring this kind of darkness to their home. Fin and Willy? Her throat closed just thinking about it. Fin, maybe, if they were still separated, but… she couldn’t show this to Willy. She couldn’t.

And so her feet and the rising howl of the night wind directed her to a certain bookshop around closing time.

Comments

[leloupnoir]

Akeem saw from her reaction that he had surprised her, and realised that she likely had no idea how much control he usually had over himself, given the only time she had seen him as a wolf. "Come on, then," he accepted her answer with a nod, and took his mug with him into the lounge, holding an arm out for her to come with him.

[wispofathing]

She followed him, though for a moment she felt a little overwhelmed. "You're very kind," she said, so soft and mumbled and shy it was almost a mush.

[leloupnoir]

It was a good thing that Akeem's senses were a bit more than entirely normal, or he might not have picked that up. "I do hope you wouldn't have come here if you'd expected me to turn you away," he told her gently, drawing her close so they might walk over to a large armchair together.

He was not normally this tactile with anyone he knew so little, but Curnen was an exception, it seemed.

[wispofathing]

"No," Curnen agreed, letting him guide her. "But it was... a hope. I wasn't sure."

She had learned not to ask for much from anybody in terms of emotional support or comfort. Hell a piece of why she was here was because she was too scared to seek out Willy despite his professed affection for her.

[leloupnoir]

"I would hate to disappoint," Akeem assured her, settling on one side of the large armchair, so that she had options to choose from. Beside him, on the arm of the chair, in his lap, whatever she was comfortable with.

[wispofathing]

Curnen settled in beside Akeem and curled up against his side. She'd been given permission, she wasn't going to continue questioning if he really was going to give her what she wanted. Needed.

[leloupnoir]

Akeem wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her close, having no problem with the silence that settled between them. He stroked his thumb on her shoulder now and then, and sipped his tea. Once it was done, he would shift for her.

It was a good thing he had not had plans tonight.