Almost a Lie
First posted in 2016
Set before the events of Little Wolf
Summary: Graham knows something is up with Albert but no one will tell him what it is. m/m
Graham wasn’t certain what was wrong with Albert. He wasn’t—he didn’t mean to be—so attuned to Albert’s moods. It was more that Albert was usually so easy to be around that when he wasn’t, when his scent was sour with agitation and worry and he couldn’t be still, Graham noticed.
Of everyone else in town, Albert was always the easiest to be around. Albert never pestered Graham for reading too much instead of playing or going up to the Meadows with the other weres his age. Albert didn’t sniff around him in confusion or make comments about “late bloomers”
in a consoling voice, as if Graham needed to be consoled about something.
Graham knew what they meant, of course. They meant the surge of hormones associated with puberty. He could hardly miss it. He was were too, despite how they treated him. He had a body, and it reacted to the constant hot/salt/iron scent of arousal in all his classmates even when he wished it wouldn’t.
But Graham didn’t smell like that for anyone. He didn’t glance around his class and see anyone who made him want to frolic, or howl, or do something equally silly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
But then, at other times, when he raised his head from his studies and found Albert pacing, or staring out the windows, and it was more obvious that Graham was missing something, he felt a spike of anger. Albert felt everything the other weres did. That was why the other weres would understand what was bothering Albert now, but all Graham could do was watch Albert look out at the snow.
Albert was supposed to be studying with him, although they were in different classes and Albert didn’t care much about most schoolwork. He did well enough to graduate, but when adults mentioned college, he shrugged and glanced away.
The adults would turn to Graham then, as if something was wrong. Again .
Graham wrinkled his nose in annoyance, then inhaled, leaving his mouth open to catch more scent. His bedroom smelled like books and some dust and the lingering scent of semen from the times he masturbated. But that was all distant and already fading compared to the steady warmth of Albert . Albert-scent was forever a muddle even though Graham knew it intimately and would recognize it anywhere. Albert was grass, and sharp wind, and something else, as familiar as Graham’s old blanket.
Usually, Graham could breathe easier, study with more focus when Albert was in his room. But Albert’s scent today was colder and nearly painful, like ice or grated lemon peel, and Albert wasn’t on his bed with him, curled up with a textbook. Albert was in Graham’s desk chair, staring out at the moon over the snow.
The silvery light made him appear sad, as if he wanted to be out beneath the moon and not with Graham.
Graham took a breath and only then noticed the heavy quiet in the room. “Albert.”
He was surprised at how soft his voice was.
But Albert turned, and his long hair streamed across his face. His eyes were bright until he blinked. “Yeah?”
He gave Graham a smile—and that was almost unthinkable. It was almost a lie.
Graham considered the facts, ignoring the knowledge he was always missing because until he knew what that was, he couldn’t do anything about it.
“Are you going to stay here when you graduate in the spring?”
Lots of kids left. Some went to college. Others went out to slightly bigger towns. A few even went to cities, although most weres didn’t care for cities for very long.
Albert moved his shoulders. “I don’t know.”
His scent became more of a muddle, with shards of worry at the center.
The weres who graduated and left town were the ones who wanted a life outside of Wolf’s Paw, or who hadn’t found anyone to run around with in the Meadows. Like Albert.
Graham dropped his gaze to his books and stared hard at the words. “I’m going to college. Next year, they think.”
He was sixteen, but the exams he’d been given had been easy.
He glanced up. Albert was staring out the window again.
“I know,”
Albert said, in the soothing voice he used sometimes around Graham. In Graham’s experience, most seventeen-year-olds did not speak that way to others their age, or close to their age. But Albert was always different.
It’s part of why Graham liked him, but also why he was so confusing.
“Across the country, probably,”
Graham added, and Albert drew his shoulders in.
But he nodded. “Yeah. You’re going to do great things. Convince everyone who doubts beings and weres that we have geniuses too.”
He meant it, but he wouldn’t look away from the window.
“You’ll miss me?”
Graham wondered, then flushed at his own stupidity and lowered his head.
“Yeah,”
Albert answered immediately, as if Graham were stupid for worrying, when he hadn’t been worried.
He just knew something was wrong, and there was no evidence, no hint of what it was.
Only Albert, who smelled upset more and more often lately, and who wasn’t sitting next to him, and kept staring at the snow instead of—
Albert crawled onto the bed with him, ending that train of thought there.
He curled up at the foot with the assigned English reading he’d abandoned, and pulled in his long limbs to keep from crowding Graham.
That was wrong, too.
Weres touched each other all the time.
But Graham had Albert back where he belonged, and when he thought about asking Albert to touch him, it felt… strange.
As if there was some reason he shouldn’t, or some reason he should. Or as if Graham ought to apologize for wanting it no matter how natural it was.
He frowned, and Albert laughed, a real laugh, but kind and not mean.
“Come on, genius,”
Albert sighed, then leaned forward to brush Graham’s bangs from his eyes. “Finish this chapter and we’ll watch a movie or something, okay?”
He took his hand away before Graham could shut his eyes and fall into it. But his scent was warmer up close, and the chill in his skin from being close to the window wouldn’t last long. So Graham gave him a smile, and went back to studying.
The End