Chapter Four: Boozehound

Quil was working away at the books for the reservation as he waited up for Claire. Harbouring werewolves was no easy task due to the excess of food and clothing needed, and it was hard to account for the discrepancies without an extremely careful reworking of the records and a heck of a lot of falsification. He'd started out just helping his grandfather brainstorm solutions. The council had eventually entrusted him to the task, which had overwhelmed him until he'd been driven to get some accounting qualifications to learn to properly take care of things.

He didn't feel good about what he did, but he didn't know what else the tribe could do to afford the packs. The fact that he of all people was not just the only one of the werewolves to go to post-secondary but was an accountant still felt surreal. His friends teased him about it regularly. He consoled himself, though he did not dare share with anyone, barely even whispered to himself in his mind, was the idea that he could support his as-of-yet-mythical family with it, one day.

There was a knock on his window. He looked up and caught the infection of Claire's joy as she made faces at him from outside. He got up to let her in.

Claire. It had been difficult not having her around. He'd given in and ferried up to see her a few times. In the end, he'd had to concede that it was better for her to not have him interfering and backed off. Sometimes it felt their whole relationship had been him backing off, resisting the bond of the imprint and just trying not to get hurt from their inevitable separation. Imprinting was a bitch to try and resist, but he'd tried to keep a certain distance since the beginning, and that helped him now.

If only an imprint was just love, and that was all it was about. That would be so much easier, without the weird compulsions or obsession involved; there would be some selflessness involved. If science was his thing, he'd probably find some fancy way that imprinting was a virus, and cure it.

Who was he kidding, he'd be a terrible scientist. Maybe the Cullens would know what to do, though. Because amidst the joy of falling in love, there was a steady beat that harmonised with the already terrible percussion in his heart that always went, "She's left you-she's gone." Things had already been hard enough. He wanted her to go, needed her to, for her sake and safety, and yet he always felt a sense of helplessness, being washed up in La Push until she rushed in with the tide to bring him back where he belonged.

This would be bad, completely awful, and he couldn't do it. Definitely not. It would be wrong.

Yeah, having a cure to imprinting would really be great. He wanted to yell to the sky, "I've done it already, I love her! Now I'm in love with her! You've done what you have to, now you can let me go!"

No such luck.

He did love Claire, but it was not fair. He wanted a wife and kids and pet, like, yesterday... was in that stage she wouldn't be in for years - inconvenient. What it had come down to in the end was that he had, despite all promises to the contrary, put his life on hold for the imprinting.

If he'd been settled down by now, he knew that he would be too in love with his wife to be able to see Claire as he had today.

He suppressed his line of thinking, took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Heyooooo," said Claire. She pressed herself against the doorframe. "I'm drunk."

"So I see," he said and brandished a couple of bottles. "Too drunk to have a beer with me?"

"Never," she vowed, swaying into the house. He had to catch her as she nearly swung into the wall and sniffed surreptitiously as she passed to check her intoxication level. Meh, good for one more.

"I take it you had a good time."

She led him in a meandering catwalk into his living room.

"I finally kissed him," said Claire. She flopped down on the couch and gave a dreamy sigh. "Jay Abanee."

An angel on Quil's shoulder would surely be telling him how he had not only expected, but hoped for Claire to have such opportunities. The devil had gone straight to punching him in the gut. He wrenched open his beer. It wasn't a twist-top, which only made things worse.

"Now I don't like him anymore, though. That ever happen to you?"

"No," said Quil. If only.

"How do you pick someone up, anyway?"

"I like to start with, 'I'm hot-blooded, check it and see,'" Quil said, trying to be loosely honest yet utterly unhelpful. The ab-flashing strategy could be put to far too dangerous use by her in other areas. "Helloooooo nurse!"

There was a long pause. "I don't get it. Is that a reference?"

"And you're valedictorian! They really do teach nothing in school these days! Why, young grasshopper-"

"Shhhhhhhhhh, Quil, shh. It makes less sense the more you talk." She giggled and hiccupped, and he reluctantly grinned. Claire could always pull a smile out of him.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, drinking their beers.

"So tell me again," she mumbled, eyes closed, "how we met?"

"Aw, c'mon, Claire," Quil protested in disbelief. "You must've heard that story a thousand times."

"I had a good night." Whatever that had to do with it. "It was special. I'd like to end it on a high note." She trilled in literal demonstration.

"Okay, sheesh. So there you were visiting your auntie Em, and I had recently fursploded, pack, ways, blah blah blah."

"Not so fast. Nyquil! Tell it like you mean it!"

This, reflected Quil, was the issue of telling someone stories since she was little. She always reverted when the story got retold.

"Soooooooooooo theeeeeeeeen-" come to think of it, she might not be the only one, though her pout definitely won for childishness- "my sense of smell had expanded beyond my wildest imagination. I could smell anything and everything from a couple yards away, and I totally thought I had, when suddenly I smelt the best scent in the world."

"What did I smell like?"

"Hey, no jumping ahead, young grasshopper."

"Fiiiiine. Continue."

"If you took all the places that I ever felt happy in, that's what that scent was. It was the scent of home. And it was attached to you... for a while, anyway, then you had an accident."

"Why do you always have to add that part? Gross."

"You're telling me. So I went to your aunt, and I said, 'Who is this kid? I gotta know her.' Good thing it was Em, too, because she was practically the only one who knew what imprinting looked like. And that's how I became sucked into your craaaaaazy world. By the next time I had a cold, it was already too late: you were officially my favourite person."

"Awww. I love that story! Can I ask you 'bout it, though?"

"Just don't ask me to repeat it."

Claire ignored that. "What does it mean, Quil? Like, for us."

"Um... not sure what you're asking here." He laughed nervously. Strange that it took a fuzzy mind on her part to get this close to the truth.

"You always say it that way, 'favourite person'. But everyone else who imprinted is off getting married with baby carriages and stuff. You never mention that part of it. But isn't that what it really is?"

"I played peek-a-boo with you; I really didn't think-"

"Don't pussy around, Quil! You wanna be with me? Isn't that how this works?"

That was definitely something she never would've said sober. He'd had a kickass speech planned out for whenever this came up, but it would probably go over her head this many beers in.

"It's not how it works," he said simply. "It's like... a magnet. I'm not gonna believe that it controls you or me or anyone's future, it's just-just something that tells you about this awesome person out there, and then they happen to be so great you wanna stick around."

Which wasn't really like a magnet at all, now that he thought about it. Damn, he sucked at improvising.

"What if I wasn't great? Then what?"

"Pfft! Impossible. Look, no one else recognised what was so great about the scent of anyone else's imprint, only theirs. It's a sign."

"A sign what?"

Damn, he'd hoped she wouldn't follow up on that. "A siiiiiign thaaaaat... the imprint and their wolf are good people for each other. That they can get along perfectly." He moved closer to her end of the couch. "Is that wrong?"

She was staring straight ahead, looking at nothing, the spark gone out. "No, it's not."

"Look, everything will wo-"

"How can you not want me?" The words burst out of her, and she lifted large, imploring eyes to his. There was an awful silence in which he could not answer. Her question echoed in his imagination as if it hung in the air between them.

Frankly, he wasn't quite sure how to react. This was not Ashley, or Megan, or Kaila, or any of the other casual girlfriends he'd had over the years. Even Leah, a category all her own, had only wanted so much from him after a few years. The way Claire was staring at him, it was going to be tough to lie - if that was the right thing that was to do. He hurt when she hurt and didn't want to cause her pain.

Somewhere, a little part of him was crying out that she had not mentioned love. Well, it wasn't time. She wasn't ready.

Maybe he was being unfair. Maybe it was what she meant, and her current state - no, he couldn't think that way. She was just starting university. She needed to experience life more before he could spring this on her, get a chance to grow up without him for once. The chance to choose someone for herself, not have some bullcrap smackdown-of-destiny. The choice was hers all along, not his to bestow upon her, and always would be.

It sucked having to be the one to think of these kinds of issues and consequences and commitments and everything else. Someone had to do it, though. If things were going to happen between them, he wanted it to be naturally, without any weird magnetic compulsions. It made him a bit of a weirdo amongst the pack. They seemed to expect girls to be impressed by having a furry doormat, and then ride off into the sunset together. The fact that it kind of kept happening that way didn't help.

He probably wasn't a very good wolf. Quil was determined it could be done differently, and he would be the one to do so. One day, he hoped, a wolf would imprint and come to him and talk about how his imprint, wonderful as it would of course be, was wrong to think the traditional dreams about, or want to know how not to hurt the imprintee and imprinter. He could write a book on it by now.

Of course, that would suggest that he would wish that on someone. He would get piledriven by a sweaty pack for even thinking it - good thing about those mental barriers - but maybe it was better to imprint on someone and have it be about discovering how fantastic that someone was, not as much with the ulterior motive of wanting to get with them.

It had been a long and winding road for him, though, and now he was in that same pathetic place as his brethren, having an imprint he wanted to be with. But this was Claire whether they ever made it or not, and he had always loved her even if now he was in love with her. Maybe the latter sentiment would fade. Did he want it to? Probably not, but it would make things a lot easier. Could happen.

Looking at Claire's anguished face, what she'd said played again and again in his head. "How can you not want me?" He wondered if he would always hear that now, if it would haunt him.

He still had to answer her. In a night where he had continually been at a loss for what to say, he was drawing the biggest blank right about now.

"Do you want me?" he forced himself to ask. He had to know her answer to gauge what would be right for him to say.

She waved off his issue. "How is that the question? You're amazing, gorgeous and my best friend, and anyone would be crazy not to want you, hello," she said, flippantly counting the list off with her fingers.

A quote, long buried in a labyrinthine poem from an English class, came to him in response - "'That is not it at all/That is not what I meant, at all.'" - and the question after it: "would it have been worth it, after all?"

And it was still tempting; he was still a wolf in the horrifying throes of an imprint, no matter how lightly he had explained it away to Claire. They probably would eventually find a way to make it work through strength of their friendship alone. She wouldn't have been in love with him, and she wouldn't have picked him as her first choice, but they'd be together now rather than waiting. Quil had never harboured the expectation of coupledom, but his wishing and hoping and thinking and praying for a future together had been long in the making. Only since today, though, had he wanted her in that way. Look how well that was turning out.

Had they not spent so many precious years together as comrades - their imprint bond shaped differently as a result - Quil probably would wear Claire down with doggish devotion and adulation right now, like his packmates would.

It would not be worth it, after all, and he knew it. Right now he was just using the fantasy of that dark path to avoid how very hurt he felt over her response. Very general, very complimentary, very devoid of anything deeper.

This night just was not working out.

"-always pictured," she was saying, "I know it's wrong, but I thought one day, if we didn't have anyone else, we would end up together."

You know you're an imprinted werewolf when you get a commitment boner - even when you're the consolation prize. That was probably what he deserved for assumng himself the guy his girl would dump other guys for.

"So?" she burst out. "Answer my question!"

Trying to comfort her, he moved towards her very slowly, more feline than canine. It occured to him that he probably looked predatory looming above her so he sunk down next to her on the chesterfield.

She bolted upright, bringing her face near his, and stroked his arm, sending the hair on his arm on end.

"Come on. There must be something?"

Then he understood.

This wasn't about him or his feelings in the slightest, but her issue, a failing she thought she had. Claire would only ever be with him now because he'd be the only person to ask her. It would take someone else - probably a number of someone elses, much as he hated to admit it - to prove her otherwise.

His decision-making processes factored in how sad and agitated she looked, and he yielded instantly to the truth. He pushed through the air that had become so heavy and placed his lips to her shoulder. She jumped and bumped into his nose.

They had to laugh. Of course something like that would happen with the two of them involved.

His lips explored her soft skin slowly, tracing a way up from her wrist to her elbow, her clavicle, the nape of her neck. Slowly, so slowly, not taking his eyes off hers, so that even she in her intoxicated state could catch his meaning. His hands he did not dare lift, knowing they would overtake him. He licked a trail to her ear, sharp-tasting on her neck from perfume, salty and sweet and slightly boozy, and whispered into it, "Anyone would be crazy not to want you." She shivered, goosebumps rising along her arm. His stomach lurched and leaped.

For just one sweet moment, burying his face in her shoulder and neck, breathing her in, he indulged himself a little longer. He hit a sensitive spot and she jolted, gasping, and oh wow.

Quil thrust himself away from her, reaching for her hands to hold. Wonder and awe were clear in her gaze. He loved seeing that look in a woman's face, that oh wow, but it looked so utterly unfamiliar in hers - not quite right somehow. Even she seemed unused to it.

He sighed. She wasn't the least bit ready, let alone interested in him. This was a mistake, and, after the rest of the night, the final straw.

"I think it's time to rest now," he said, nudging her off the couch. "You better go get ready for bed."

She brightened at the idea of bed, and he tried very, very hard to ignore that, mind firmly on his wireless bill instead. He frog-marched her up the stairs ("Come on, Claire-bear, get on up") and they went their separate ways to their separate rooms.

He heard her collapse back on her bed and make a sound like a kettle letting off steam. He took a shower.

It took him a long time to get to sleep, staring at the ceiling and sweating through his pajamas (when you hang around with someone that much younger, you wear as many clothes as possible). When almost asleep, the poem whispered to him once more, all in a jumble, not quite how it was supposed to be.

"And I have known the eyes already, known them all—the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, and when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, when I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, then how should I begin to spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume?"

There'd been a line somewhere in it about daring, too.

"How can you not want me?"

He did not dare.

A/N: the poem Quil is thinking of is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot. Just a short epilogue left, now.