WILDFIRE (mxmxm)

6| Old Wolf: New Tricks

dedicated to @ladydragyn for being a real one since day one and SuperPretty11 for literally reading and voting on every single chapter of both this and "4th & Long" at once. gems really, the two of them.

**

Between Allen and my wolf I was getting an earful. Alpha Mason got a message through the link from Chris and quickly dismissed himself with one last disapproving scold at the situation before him. I was trying to sooth my temples to get some peace but that only set Allen off further.

He grabbed me by my tiny tight curls and twisted me down so that my torso was sprawled across his lap. He went on to reprimand me some more before he seemed to become aware of his proximity of my face to his and the contact of our bodies. When his eyes softened and he went quiet I took a moment to drink in the warm heat I felt of his lap against my back, the way his finger tips grazed my scalp as his grip on my hair morphed into a calm caress and his resolve threatened to slip away even further.

I've been depriving myself of this. I hadn't allowed myself to look into his eyes and appreciate how the rings of gold brushed gently against specks of burnt adobe and the green specks of the forest leaves around his pupils. Streaks of black trying to peek through the surface of the vibrant colors as they swirled like oil paints with the rest of his sweet mahogany brown irises. I wish I didn't love the way his thick lashes seemed to stick right at me from this angle. Shielding the beauty of his irises and forcing me to peek under them like a curtain at an art show not quite ready for the exhibition to begin. But I did love it, and I worked for it. I worked to look into his eyes for as long as I could taking in every detail so that he at least knows that I see him.

I see him the same way I saw him when Travis vanished from the scene of the fire. He sat there the next day on the torched ash remains of the once vibrant grass bracing himself against a barely-there tree trunk. We were seven years old at the time.

I had always seen him and Travis playing together and even though Allen would include me I could always tell that Travis was the one he enjoyed the most. They were each other's best friend and although Allen liked to say it was a trio of best friends, Travis and I knew the truth.

When the chaos of the fire was all over and we did a headcount Allen's joy seemed like it leaked out of him like oil from an old hoopty that never parked. It spilled out all over the ashes of the field all too quickly as he roamed around it before finding his place at the burnt tree. He didn't even bother to come and look for me he just went quiet.

I walked over to him and pulled him into a hug because I was so confused that I couldn't figure out what to do. Allen was the happy one of the three of us back then, always smiling and always seeing the tiniest of lights where everyone else couldn't see a thing at all in our pitch black realities. Travis was the charmer, relatively happy but he's always been a sly little devil. Me? I won't lie, I was a brute. Sarcastic and sometimes downright ruthless but I tried to play nice, just never really knew how.

My mom had me with some guy from another pack that I'd only seen for a few months but as a kid I didn't think to cherish those little moments because why would I? You know how little kids are, only logical little beings...simple creatures really. As a young pup I just wanted to race around like the big wolves in my pack so I bothered them and ran around in their huge footsteps. At some point we moved and returned here to Pridgeridge where my mother was born and I didn't see the man again. It was hard being a pup in a new pack because there weren't many in my old one. I could never figure out how to fit.

But Allen did it well. I saw him and instantly wanted to know how to be just like that. I'd say I was five when I realized it and of course Allen welcomed me right away because that's just how Allen was. He said,  "You have cool hair," and handed me a dead baby rabbit. Gross, I know, but he liked to hunt like the big wolves. My hair was bigger back then. My mom never bothered much with my appearance and my dad was always busy with other things so I didn't have my first haircut until I got to Pridgeridge. In fact it was after the fire...but that's jumping the gun, this is about Allen and those eyes of his.