Boundaries

Conor: life before

{Conor}

I woke up to the smell of strong spices and soy sauce. I opened my eyes; Tish was dangling a noodle over my face since I had fallen asleep in the chair next to Ralph. I didn't realize how tired I had been; I couldn't remember the last time I had fallen asleep involuntarily.
I bit the noodle hanging over my face, slurping it down. Tish laughed and gestured to the makeshift table of Chinese takeout. Stefa and I had gotten some once; Stefa had ordered, but since I liked everything I had tried, that hadn't bothered me.
"We thought you were going to sleep the day away again," Tish told me. "Ralph insists he's on a crazy diet, so it's up to you and me."
"It's not crazy," Ralph protested. "It's prudent. Makes no sense for me to have all this muscle bound in this chair. It's just more weight to move."
Tish shrugged and handed me a pair of chopsticks. I stared at them and then shook my head.
"I couldn't figure out these last time," I said. "I don't suppose there's a fork?"
"There is, but forks are for quitters," she told me. "Here."
She bent my hand and placed the chopsticks there, showing me how to open and close my hand to pick up food. I could manage in a slow, bumbling way, but since this was my only option, for now, I focused on the movement and resolved to improve.
"Where's Grant?" I asked.
"He had to get more blood from Sasha; we had an incident earlier today," Tish replied. "I don't really want to talk about it if that's okay."
"But Grant is all right?"
"For now, yeah. He's fine."
Tish was able to put down a whole container of noodles in the time that I had taken to get through half of my carton. I wanted to ask about Grant, but I recognized the anger in Tish's eyes; something had happened, and she didn't want to dredge it up again.
"So Ralph, do you have any good stories about Conor when he was first turned?" Tish asked. "I'm sure you do."
Ralph laughed. "It's not fair; it's too easy to make fun of him during that time," he pointed out. "It took getting kidnapped by hunters to get Conor to regularly wear clothes. And he wouldn't let Mel cut his hair."
"I like having long hair," I replied. "And now you know how I feel about clothes. They are messy and cumbersome."
"Only when I'm shifting, which I don't do as frequently as you," he replied. "I wish you could have been there for that first full moon. I was terrified we were going to accidentally kill someone, or that we'd get hurt. That Keith would challenge Mel again. And then suddenly I had this big bushy tail, and things seemed..." he sighed. "Simpler. I do understand; being a wolf is simpler."
"What will you do about yours and Mel's family?" Tish inquired. "The human members I mean. Mel said you hadn't seen them in a while."
"We'll have to tell them about this," Ralph gestured to his legs. "They'll want to come visit, and we'll have to...I don't know. Plan carefully. We'll have to have some human reason for the pack, and I have no idea what we'll tell them. My parents are old; we can go visit them on a day trip or something. They aren't terribly good people, they're incredibly critical of Susie Lynn, and I don't really like her to be around them."
"What?" I questioned.
"Last time -you stayed home to watch the farm, Conor-, last time they thought Susie could afford to lose weight, tried to convince her to eat salad when we were out, sent her like, yoga pants and an exercise ball for Christmas. I haven't made much of an effort to see them more frequently."
"Susie's not fat," I objected. "That's absurd."
"She's built like Mel's brothers," Ralph said. "Men who can like, throw bales and calves around like it was nothing. And they were fully human. My parents never liked Mel's side of the family, so they don't know. Mel's brothers are scattered around the country. Her parents want to come 'when it's not busy' but of course, it's always busy, or it's winter when they don't want to brave the weather. I haven't worried about it much. I'd like to get to the point where we can invite Casey's parents, or Keith and Aidan's parents, but everyone assures me that no one's parents care. I just find that hard to believe. And a little sad. I'm glad our band of misfits has found each other."
I heard footsteps and looked up to see Frank coming into the room. He smiled.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Tired," I admitted. "Better though."
"Can you shift yet?"
I rolled my shoulders, feeling whether or not I could access my wolf senses. I shook my head.
"Not yet," I replied. "My bones feel achy enough I wouldn't want to try it anyway."
"I'm very sorry that that happened to you," Frank told me. "Ralph, since I know Conor won't tell me, let me know if he needs anything. I'm headed out for the night."
"Will do," Ralph smirked. "Thanks, Victor."
When Frank left the room, I scowled. "I'm not so bad," I protested.
"You've gotten better," Ralph replied. "But if you had been able to hide the silver poisoning, you would have, Conor."
"And you were trying to tell me that you were fine that morning," Tish recalled. "Despite being the thinnest person I know, you have taken that macho man 'I can't show weakness' to heart."
"What?" I demanded.
"Nevermind, eat your noodles," she told me.
I rolled my eyes and continued my attempt to get the noodles to my mouth with a little difficulty. Tish finally took pity on me and handed me a fork.
"I thought these were for quitters?" I asked.
"Yeah, well I'm going to finish this meal off entirely in the time it's going to take you to consume that one carton. And I got this all for you, not just myself."
"Didn't want to eat in the cafeteria?" Ralph inquired
"Sasha threatened to poison me, I'm making a statement," she replied. "Okay, she didn't exactly threaten me. More like intimated. The intent was the same. So I bought all of this on the company card, and I'll tell them exactly what Sasha said to me. Taxpayer dollars at work, my friends."
"I don't really like the idea of spending my taxes on the people who have shot my pack," Ralph mused. "Ah, but at least I'm getting some of that money back."
"And then some," Tish laughed.

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