An Intangible Pattern - Fate Bound.

What's the difference?

"I want to be in Noah's team!" squawked Leo, rushing over to where Noah sat cross legged on the floor, helping Mia untangle a new doll from its packaging.
"How come you don't want to be on your uncle's team," pouted Arthur in feigned disappointment.
"Cos Noah's an alpha! That means we'll win!"
"I wouldn't count on it Leo," said Noah dryly, tossing the empty cardboard packaging on the fire.
"But alphas are the leaders and they're the smartest."
"I'm not that smart, I just worked very hard," rebutted Noah, repeating a well recited phrase, "...Graeme's an alpha and he's smarter than me, are you sure you don't want to join him and Arthur?"
"Yeah, but he's old," scoffed Leo looking impudently at the grizzled old man.
"Leo!" Scolded Rachel severely, while
Graeme laughed raucously and scratched his beard.
"Old enough to have learned a thing or two, young man."
Noah arched his brow at the boy and sighed, "Don't say I didn't warn you."
"Can I be on your team too?" said Mia, brushing out the long dark tresses of her doll and looking earnestly up at her cousin."
"If you like."
"I'll join you," smiled Ben, who had been watching Ava play with Saoirse with some amusement. The little girl had fallen in love with the gentle Irish setter and was busy trying to position a plastic tiara on her head. Saoirse tolerated her attention with saint-like patience, but occasionally she glanced over to Ben as though silently appealing for rescue.
Arthur turned his attention to his wife as she gracefully wound around the crowded lounge, refilling her guests' glasses.
"What about you Cat? Want to be on my team?"
"Don't be silly, I'm the quizmaster. I wrote the questions!"
"Why don't I join you," chirped Marianna, squeezing in on the sofa beside Arthur.
"So, how many teams do we have?" asked Cat as she set the bottle down on the dresser and pulled pencils and sheets of paper from the drawer.
Arthur scanned the room counting the clusters of people, seated on mismatched chairs and cushions. "Four, with five or six people per team."
Cat handed a sheet of paper to each team as Alex emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray with more food. Arthur watched as she unobtrusively placed it on the dresser and reflected that, if it were possible, she seemed more withdrawn and quiet today: perhaps she was just overwhelmed by the crowd of people squeezed into one room.
"Alex! Put that down and come join us!" he yelled jovially.
She started at hearing her name shouted and flushed, suddenly finding herself the center of attention.
"Why don't you join our team, we could use another adult." Suggested Ben.
She hesitated, with the appearance of wanting to refuse, but relented under Ben's gentle, reassuring smile and picked her way around the crowd to the fire.
Cat scanned the room and called out, "Is everyone here? Good. So everyone, pick a team name and write it across the top of the page."
Arthur picked up the pencil and hovered over their paper, "What should we call ourselves then?"
"Something christmassy, like Santa's little helpers," burbled Marianna, taking a sip from her wine glass.
Rachel rolled her eyes, "Surely we can come up with something a little more creative?"
"Elf hazard?" suggested Graeme.
"That's good. Let's go with that," said Rachel's husband, Frank.
"Alright we're an elf hazard," chuckled Arthur.
Cat laughed and scrawled down the team name on her clipboard. "So we have elf hazard, anyone else?"
"Wolf pack!" cried Leo enthusiastically and howled.
"I thought we agreed on Santa's little helpers?" Grumbled Noah, the tips of his ears were scarlet and he looked moderately uncomfortable.
"That's rubbish though!" insisted the little boy and folded his arms. "Mines better."
"Alright wolf pack it is!" agreed Cat, heading off a tantrum before it could spoil the evening, and scrawling the name down on her clipboard.
"Yesss!" Leo punched the air triumphantly and sat back down grinning ear to ear. Noah frowned and stared into the fire.
He wasn't the only one who appeared to be uncomfortable in the group: Alex was wearing a strained smile as she listened to Mia chat enthusiastically about what she hoped Santa would bring. Only Ben appeared to be unconcerned.
His attention was pulled back to the rest of the room as the next two groups announced their team names:
Gillian's group had settled on lock, stockings and two smoking baubles while his parents' team had called themselves Snowmaggedon.
"Everyone ready? Alright, the first round is music. Which artist had the most Christmas No.1 singles?" announced Cat.
She turned the volume up on the stereo and Mariah Carey blared from the speakers.
"Ooh, ooh! The beatles!" whispered Marianna into their huddle.
"Really?" asked Rachel.
"Yes, it's the Beatles, they had four," confirmed Graeme.
Arthur glanced around the room, it appeared that most other teams were confident about their answer, apart from the wolf pack who looked nonplussed.
As the quiz drew on, Arthur marveled at Marianna's extensive knowledge of pop culture, though she floundered in the science and geography rounds. It pleased him that, with her help, they stood a good chance of winning.
"Lastly, what is the distance between the North and South pole? Closest answer wins."
"Any idea?" asked Frank.
Graeme shook his head and spread out his hands. "Not a clue, shall we take a guess?"
"Well the distance around the equator is about 25000 miles, so half of that maybe?" reasoned Rachel.
Arthur glanced at her for confirmation before scratching down their answer, "12500 miles?"
Rachel shrugged, "I guess so!"
He glanced around and saw that Alex was whispering urgently in the huddle of her group, while Noah and Ben nodded attentively. He smiled to himself - She knows the answer.
She seemed to have forgotten her shyness in the face of a competition, and he was also relieved to see that she no longer cringed away from Noah like a frightened child.
It would be good if those two could get along, it would make my life so much easier. - He thought, thinking of all the times he had found himself mediating between them. Just being able to have a normal family dinner, or to meet face to face to talk about the investigation would be an improvement. A recollection of something Cat said, months earlier, stirred in his memory and he found himself periodically stealing glances at them.
Is something going on between them?
He shook his head, if he kept looking he would start imagining things.
"Alright, everyone pass your papers back to me and I'll total up your scores. The winning team gets a special prize!"
There was a general shuffle as the party passed sheets of paper to Cat and chatter resumed around the room. Alex excused herself from her group and joined her sister by the stereo, where they sat with heads close together as they tallied up the marks. Arthur glanced at Noah, noting that his eyes followed her across the room, and he continued to gaze at her with an absent expression until Ben said something and his attention was diverted.
Is there actually something going on with him? - He thought incredulously.
He had not known Noah to show much interest in potential partners, so even this subtle attentiveness to his sister in law struck him as odd. Noah gave the impression that he viewed the sexual aspect of his nature as a burden, something that got in the way of work and he would rather do without; though Arthur fully believed it was the loss of control while in rut that deeply disturbed him, and he certainly noticed he became more withdrawn as he matured.
Noah's love life, or lack thereof, had long been a topic of curiosity among Arthur's family, and the general consensus was the only relationship he had that even came close to being romantic, was with Ben. Certainly, Noah was incredibly protective of Ben and went above and beyond for him, while Ben seemed equally devoted to Noah, but Arthur had never seen anything to suggest that they were more than close friends. Then again, who knew what went on when they were alone.
"Ladies and gentlemen," cried Cat theatrically, standing up on her chair. "The results are in! Drum roll please..."
She let her guests thump whatever surface they could for a few moments in an appreciative rumble, then held up her hand.
"In last place we have the wolf pack with 28 points! Good try!"
"What!" cried Leo indignantly, a look of disappointment on his face. He turned and glared at Noah.
"I warned you I wasn't smart, I only know stuff about genetics," shrugged Noah nonchalantly.
"But Alpha's are supposed to be the best!"
"I'd say that's an exaggeration. It sounds like something an alpha would say to get people to do what they want. Just because someone is an alpha, doesn't mean you should follow their lead: quite often, we don't know what we're doing either."
Cat cut them off before Leo could create a fuss, "In third place with 36 points, we have Snowmaggedon." Arthur's mother and father laughed and they patted their teammates on the back.
"In second place it's Elf Hazard with 48 points. Which means that Lock, Stockings and Two Smoking Baubles is our winner with 52 points!"
There was an eruption of cheers from Gillian and James's group.
"Good try folks," chuckled Arthur and winked at his mother in law, "Can I call you the next time I do a pub quiz?"
Marianna grinned, "Sounds like fun!"
Graeme shot her a conspiratorial look "Cooper's has a quiz once a month... there's a cash prize!"
She laughed and the two of them became engrossed in conversation.
Ben and Noah got up from their spot by the fire and started to pick their way to the door, with Saoirse in tow.
"Excuse me a moment," apologized Arthur and followed them out into the kitchen.
"Well that was interesting." He laughed as he approached the two men, "...I'm surprised though, I thought for sure you would have got more than 28 points."
Ben shrugged and opened the french doors to let Saoirse out into the garden, but Noah scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
Arthur lowered his voice, "What?"
"I uh...I threw the game. Sorry." Muttered Noah with an apologetic look at Ben.
Ben chuckled and answered with a knowing glance, "It's alright, I got what you were trying to do."
Arthur looked quizzically at them.
"I was trying to teach Leo a lesson. I'm starting to worry about that boy, his obsession with alphas is getting out of hand." he explained.
Arthur waved his hand dismissively, "Ah, come on! He's just a kid."
Noah shook his head, "Exactly, he needs to wise up before someone takes advantage of him. Or, if he does have the alpha trait, he thinks that gives him license to do what he wants. All this nonsense about wolves and alphas being the best, it's not healthy."
"It doesn't help that he's a sore loser," Ben agreed, holding the door open to let Saoirse back inside.
Arthur rolled his eyes, "He'll grow out of it. Just give him time."
Noah sighed, "I wonder if Mech and Schenkel ever thought their work would get twisted like this."
"Who?" Arthur blinked in confusion.
"The scientists who popularized the term Alpha: they studied wolf behavior and that's where it comes from, but the early research was flawed. The social dynamics they studied were among captive wolves, so they were essentially studying animals that were half mad with stress." Noah ranted irritably, Arthur suppressed a chuckle but didn't interrupt. "...They were never meant to be shoved together in a tight space with other strange wolves. They don't follow a hierarchy based on violence, or competition in their natural habitat, they're just families trying to survive... and that terminology should never have been co-opted to prop up an archaic class system in humans. It's all just a ridiculous fantasy."
"Maybe you could lend Leo a more up to date book on wolves? It might change his attitude." suggested Ben with a frown.
"God, I hope you're right. Someone has to step in and teach him to think, before he does something stupid. He's too impressionable."
Arthur laughed, "You know who you sound like? Graeme! You spend too much time around that old anarchist."
Noah grinned lopsidedly, "He's right though. The more of it I see, the more it seems like a collective madness."
"Well, that collective madness is the reason any of us are where we are," shrugged Arthur, he looked into the lounge where Cat was chatting cheerfully with Gillian, "...I sometimes wonder if I would have been as fortunate as I am, if it weren't for my family's status."
"That's not fair," bristled Ben hotly, "...Cat loved you all the time you pretended not to be rich."
Arthur looked up at him in surprise, then felt a little ashamed: of course Ben was angry. It was true, Cat would have landed on her feet no matter who she chose, she'd have made it happen eventually, with or without his family's wealth. That optimism and resourcefulness was part of what made him love her. "You're right, that was a stupid thing to say."
"Speaking of stupid things to say," interjected Noah with a grim expression, "I need to tell you something, Ben."
"What is it?"
"You might want to sit down."
They each took a seat at the dining table and Noah looked cautiously at his companion, in a hushed voice he explained, "Yesterday, I found your matched pair."
Ben blinked in surprise, then looked down at Saoirse and scratched her ears. "Are you sure?"
"Positive, they demanded to meet you."
"And did you tell them who I am?"
"No, I pretended I didn't know who the sample belonged to."
"Are they local?"
"No, they came up from London."
Ben smiled serenely and met his eyes, "I have no desire to meet them."
"Are you sure? That's like winning the lottery! Most people would kill to experience that kind of love!" exclaimed Arthur in disbelief.
"Leave it, Arthur," said Noah quietly. He was watching Ben studiously, his chin propped against his hand.
Ben turned and fixed Arthur with a calm, steady gaze, "Is it love?... Or is it addiction?"
"What's the difference?" murmured Noah solemnly. His eyes flicked back to the lounge where Alex could be seen, now playing snap with the children.