The decision to come out together turned out to not be that simple. After getting assurance from Seth that they could do it together, Al seemed to develop a strong drive to accomplish it as soon as possible.

"I've told my parents. They were shit about it. Can't get worse, right?" he told Seth on one of their walks home. Despite the faux confidence, his voice trembled. "I just want to get it out of the way."

"And do it when? Tomorrow?" Seth had been joking. When Al said he wanted to do it soon, Seth had been surprised, but even then he hadn't been expecting it to be that soon. But Al bit his lip, and Seth realized that tomorrow would be a feasible option if he gave in right now.

Seth sighed. "We're not ready. Or at least I'm not ready."

"You came out to your mom and sister before I came out to my family," Al pointed out almost angrily. "It's been more than four months. How isn't that long enough?"

There was no logical answer to that question. All Seth had was how he felt, and he told Al as much. "I don't know. I just don't feel ready. I don't think it's time yet."

"Don't think it's time yet or are too scared?"

There was no way to interpret Al's tone as anything but confrontational. His pitch had heightened, and his brow had furrowed. They'd never argued before. There had been a few minor disagreements, but nothing that had caused Al to look as worked up as he did now. Seth's own posture began to stiffen and mimick Al. He kept his mouth shut in an attempt to stop himself from snapping and saying something he would regret, although he already had a feeling he would regret this entire conversation.

"Maybe I am too scared," Seth admitted. He had wanted it to sound annoyed instead of weak, but a slight tremble managed to work its way into his voice. "So what? Would you really shame me for that, Al? Really? After everything?"

It was like Seth had managed to pop a balloon. Al's shoulders began to droop, losing some of their tension, and his eyes dropped towards the ground. He let out a long breath.

"No," Al muttered at the ground instead of Seth. "I wouldn't mock you ever. I just-I just feel so desperate."

Seth glanced around them with a sigh, making sure no one was around to see what was happening. That was the last thing they needed. They'd paused to argue along a stretch of street that was only ever traveled on by those who lived along it. Al's house was the next one down, but it wasn't visible from where they stood.

Al looked like a wolf with his tail between his legs, but Seth couldn't get rid of the last vestiges of anger. He knew he would eventually, but in the moment, he couldn't forgive Al. He needed some space and time away from him to clear his head and get over what had just happened. He had never expected such a comment to come from Al, and it felt like the most terrible sting he'd ever received.

"Look, I'll see you later. We can talk then, okay?"

Seth's voice still sounded angry. He couldn't control it when there was still so much anger in the pit of his stomach. Al cringed without looking up from the ground.

"Okay," he whispered, turning around without glancing up at Seth for even the briefest of seconds. Despite how angry he felt, Seth felt a stir of regret at that. Part of him wanted to reach out for Al and hug him, help him feel better. Watching him walk away looking dejected felt painful, but it was mixed up with the anger. Seth didn't know how he should be reacting or what he wanted. He felt so many things, and none of them aligned with each other.

He kept his head down as he cut through the woods behind Al's house. He was out of sight if Al was glancing out any windows. He couldn't bring himself to use the street for that very reason. But he still felt self-conscious as he passed by where he knew the house to be.

The mess of emotions within him were warring away when he made it home.

He had to patrol in only an hour. That knowledge made everything worse. He was with Quil today, one of the wolves who could get inside his head and who was obtuse enough to push Seth about what was wrong with him. He couldn't show any signs of what had just happened, but he couldn't calm himself down like he usually did.

He buried his face in his pillow, hoping that would block the world out. He wished he could leave the world completely. Only after thinking it did he realize how terrible of a thought it was. He hadn't meant it that way, but he desperately wanted to sleep and get away from it all for whatever amount of time he could.

Al had become Seth's lifeline in a sense. The one person he could trust to share his feelings with. They weren't supposed to judge each other; they were supposed to understand each other. But Al had gone and shattered that illusion. Now Seth felt stupid, like he'd expected too much. Maybe it was impossible for any one person to never judge you. They would all get mad and say hurtful things, the things that you had been absolutely sure that they, above everyone else in the world, would never say.

He felt foolish, like some dumb child who still had a tendency to view the world as an inherently good place. Try as he could, Seth couldn't shake that sense. He'd become jaded in many ways. He knew there were bad people in the world. Not everyone had the potential to be nice like he had once thought, but Seth still tended to view people as good until they proved they weren't. He still viewed everything as good, as positive, until he was forced to view it differently.

Everyone viewed Seth as someone who viewed the world in shades of light without darkness. At least they had until recently when he'd become disillusioned with such a view. But what they didn't know was that the change didn't go as deep as they thought it did. Try as he might, Seth couldn't abandon the belief he'd cultivated for years of a world that was inherently a good place. That belief had become worn at the edges. Seth had tried many times to tear it to pieces, but it always mended itself, damage or no damage. Seth couldn't change the way his mind had become wired to work.

And that led him to shitty situations like this where he got let down. Even shittier was that he blamed himself. He was the one who had placed Al on a pedestal, believing that Al alone would never hurt him. This was Seth's fault more than Al's, who couldn't help being a flawed human being. That was what Seth's innermost thoughts kept telling him, even as Seth tried to sort through how messed up it was to blame himself for something Al did that hurt him.

If anything had changed by the time Seth left for patrol, it was only that his thoughts had become darker. His mind was a jumbled mess that not even he could sort through. Skipping patrol wasn't an option though. Seth prided himself on being reliable. He was, perhaps, a bit too eager to please, always feeling like he needed to prove himself worthy to the older wolves. That had become especially true after having to beg Jake for a permanent place in his pack.

He knew Jake would never force him back into Sam's pack after it had been so long, but he'd never shaken off the feeling of needing to be adequate enough to prove to Jake that he had made the right choice.

His only saving grace was that his thoughts might be enough of a mess for Quil to tune him out. No one would want to have this going on in their head, that was for sure. If Quil did bother to pay attention, he ]wouldn't be able to make any more sense of it than Seth could. That was what he kept telling himself as he ambled into the woods and prepared to phase.

Took you long enough, Quil shot at him as soon as he was a wolf.

When Seth had left the house, the hands of the clock had ticked right onto the hour. By now it would have been one or two minutes past their assigned patrol time. Quil had left Seth waiting longer than that before, so Seth felt justified in not dignifying Quil with a response.

Instead, he kept his thoughts on putting one foot (or paw) in front of the other, on not running into any trees, and in following the usual path around the perimeter of the reservation. It should have been easy to tell that Seth wasn't in the mood for was classic behavior for any of the wolves when they didn't want to be sharing their thoughts with the others but had no choice in the matter.

Quil knew that, but he still rambled on as if Seth was going to respond. At first, Seth was annoyed, wanting to be left in silence. Then he started to realize that the more Quil went on, the easier it was to focus on the stupid stories Quil recounted than on his own, dangerous thoughts.

They did the required laps around the reservation, not detecting anything out of the ordinary. By the time Seth was heading home again, Quil was on his tenth ridiculous story of the evening. This one about the time Claire had wanted a "real" tea party, and Quil had ruined the tea by pouring the leaves directly into the water and then not knowing that he should attempt to remove them before drinking it.

Seth was in a better mood. He'd forgotten how easy talking to Quil could be. When he finally reached the edge of the woods and was preparing to phase back, Quil sent him one last thought.

Glad you're feeling better.

It had been such a casual thought. Quil phased out immediately afterward, and it was clear that he had thought it more out of instinct than having prepared some inspirational words or anything stupid like that. But it caught Seth by surprise, causing him to freeze in place for a moment, phasing back no longer his primary concern.

Everything was quiet in his head now. His worries had been pushed aside, and there were no longer the thoughts of another invading. For the first time, Seth realized that Quil's stories might not have been about Quil's own inability to shut up, whether that was spoken or inside his own head. While that had certainly been part of it, maybe Quil had been attempting to cheer Seth up too. That struck Seth when he'd been so closed off about telling the other guys what was wrong over the past year and then some.

So much of his facade hinged on them not caring enough to poke around and question him, but the idea that they did care even if they allowed him the freedom to not explain himself left him feeling much better after the roller coaster of a day he'd had.

Phasing back, Seth kept a small smile on his face as he made his way out of the woods and back home.