We might just miss each other

[Aldon Huang]

Knock knock knock!

Aldon stood with a hand poised, glancing over his shoulder at the neighbor just coming out of her apartment. He smiled at her. The smile was bright and flashy; she smiled back, almost shyly, and turned towards the fire exit to take the stairs.

Turning back, Aldon knocked again, rapping his knuckles sharply against the door. There was a buzzer but he didn't like those things; they made his ears ring. With his sensitive hearing, even the tapping sounded louder than usual but that was one of the unfortunate side-effects of being a werewolf, with all of those heightened senses. Too bad he couldn't turn them on and off at will.

Still, Gregg ought to have heard him by now, what with two sets of knocks at his door. At their first meeting, Aldon exchanged numbers with him--after they'd showered and gotten all of the dirt off their bodies from rolling around on the ground all night. Being the friendly person that he was, Aldon offered to help Gregg acclimatize to his newfound werewolf... ness. At first, it was simply good will.

Then, after the mess that happened with Ryland, it was a good way to distract himself. When he was focusing on someone else's problems, he wasn't thinking about that hole in his chest that throbbed and ached. He wasn't trying to replay conversations or scenes in his head. For little short bursts, he could put Ryland out of his mind, although invariably the memory of Ryland returned to plague him.

That was why Aldon was here now. He wanted so desperately to forget Ryland, to blot out the fact that he had finally been discarded. Ryland always threatened to do it--maybe not verbally but the implication was always there. It was always a sword hanging precariously over Aldon's head, swinging lower and lower each time that he skittered away from commitment. Then ironically, the moment he steeled himself to commit, the sword fell.

His own fault, really. Nobody to blame but himself.

That didn't make him feel better, though.

Gregg, on the other hand, did. Aldon didn't know what it was about him in particular, whether it was his too-serious face or the fact that nothing seemed to faze him. He was a calm man; an unflappable man. Something about him grounded Aldon and made him feel (and act) like less of a lost child. Maybe it was that elusive factor which also saved Gregg from a gruesome death on the night of the last full moon. Aldon couldn't remember any other wolf or human who had that effect on him. Even Ryland had to be far away from him, and Ryland was--

No. He wasn't going to think about Ryland anymore. Ryland sure as hell didn't think of him when he smiled at and kissed his boyfriend in front of Aldon. That was deliberate; it was the biggest middle finger he could have given to Aldon. Enough said. He was over Aldon, and Aldon had to somehow learn to get over him.

"Hey Gregg!" The too-big, too-bright smile grew even bigger and brighter as the door opened. Aldon was the master of hiding his emotions, after all. Maybe his eyes weren't as bright as his smiles but it would have taken a highly observant person to notice it. To everyone else, he seemed Fine.

"Guess what?!"

[Greggory Lennox]

For the first time ever in his life as a hunter, he was questioning whether he wanted to go through with his job.

Aldon was likable. His friends weren't all quite so likable but most of the wolves were decent... people.

That was his problem: he now saw them as people. When he was hunting, he saw them as nothing but monsters. Beasts with a drive to kill, a thirst for human flesh. Now that he was one of them and now that he knew some of them... he was beginning to see himself as less of a hunter and a hero and more of a...

Killer.

Murderer.

Sliding his hands over his face, he stared into the bathroom sink and made himself remember to breathe. Turning on the faucet, he splashed his face with cold water to snap himself out of it. Just as he was grabbing the hand towel from the hook nearby, he heard it.

The door.

Quickly, he looked around the bathroom and grabbed his clean clothes, putting them on in a hurry as the person at his door knocked again. Once he was halfway presentable--at least in a pair of jeans--he made his way to the front door and peered through the peephole.

Aldon?

Unlocking the door and pulling back the chain, he opened it to Aldon's overly smiling face. He stepped aside for him to let him come inside. How could one person smile so damn much?

"Yeah," he said. "What is it?"

[Aldon Huang]

"Helloooo!" Aldon said cheerfully--and appreciatively as his glance settled on Gregg's bare torso--while walking into the apartment. There was a sight that he definitely couldn't complain about! (And yet, secretly, he was just reminded of a different, slimmer figure and marked all the differences between them in his mind.)

"Put some clothes on Gregg, we're going downtown!"

He grabbed one of Gregg's hands and slapped a ticket down onto it. "Hope you like strawberries, cause we'll be swimming in 'em soon! There's a big festival and it's only for today!" Obviously they had to go. Obviously!

[Greggory Lennox]

"We are?" he asked, looking down at the ticket slapped down into his hand. Even as he lifted it up and turned it over to read the words on it, Aldon was explaining it. A festival. A festival? Somewhat skeptically, Gregg looked past Aldon but there were none of his usually present friends around.

"Just us?" he asked, somewhat secretly amused as he stepped further into his apartment to grab a tank top from his clean clothes pile. He pulled it over his head, then reached up to swipe his damp hair back.

In truth, Gregg was allergic to strawberries but he doubted he'd be forced to eat any. And if he was, well... At least he could say he'd warned him:

"I'm allergic to strawberries," he said, with the barest hint of a smile.

[Aldon Huang]

Aldon nodded. "Yep! We're going!"

No arguments brooked, and none given apparently as Gregg pulled on a tank top. Freshly showered, it seemed, his hair was still damp and a shade darker than usual. Aldon reached up to pat down a sticky-out strand, with a softer smile than the forced bright ones of just moments ago. "Just us. No objections, I hope?"

He'd already canceled with Rae and Josh for the weekend trip, since he had planned on being with Ryland for the weekend (and had bought the tickets, in fact, for them). Then after... The Incident, he didn't feel like refereeing dogfights all three days. When he was already down and tired and heartsore, watching other people arguing didn't seem appealing. Sure, they'd made plans way in advance but it wasn't like this was the last long weekend ever. There would be other long weekends, other trips to Josh's cabin in the woods.

But then Gregg dropped the bombshell and Aldon's smile faltered. "Oh." He frowned. "That's a weird allergy!" It was, though. Why was Gregg allergic to strawberries? "Are you gonna swell up and die if we go? Should we go somewhere else?" Everything there would be strawberry-related, from the food to the drinks to the crafts to... well, everything! It was a strawberry festival, after all!

[Greggory Lennox]

"Nah." He didn't care if it was just the two of them. If he was honest, he'd rather it be the two of them. He got the distinct feeling that the others weren't all that fond of him.

Although it was rare, he let out a rusty laugh.

"No." He wouldn't swell up just for going to the celebration. It wasn't as if simply touching strawberries would make him sick, either. It was consumption. Of course, if he touched a strawberry and then licked his fingers, he'd have problems but he wasn't going to do something stupid like that.

"It's a minor allergy."

He wouldn't swell up and die. His tongue would just get itchy and he'd get a stomachache. Maybe allergy sounded too severe. He should have said he had a low tolerance for them.

[Aldon Huang]

Oho, a rare laugh! Aldon smiled in response. It was hard to get Gregg to laugh but somehow, he did it! He did it, all by himself! ...he just didn't know how or why but a victory it was, nonetheless. And he didn't even have to resort to tricks or sneak attacks in an elevator.

"I'll protect you. Any strawberries that get too close... I'll eat them!" Aldon laughed as he grabbed Gregg's hand and tried to tug him out the door. Strawberries were his favorite fruit. (Or, rather, berry.) He didn't think he could ever get enough of them and every year that the festival was held, Aldon showed up without fail.

"What else are you allergic to?" Just in case Aldon tried to take him somewhere only to inadvertently trigger a life-threatening allergy. Dates were more fun... without the threat of death.

[Greggory Lennox]

"I feel safer already." It was said in such a deadpan tone that he could have been serious. Really, he wasn't that worried about the strawberries but the idea of strawberries attacking him only to find themselves in Aldon's mouth was mildly amusing. The smallest of smiles appeared. Something about Aldon made him feel stupidly at ease.

"No." There were no other allergies or intolerances. It just came as an amusing coincidence that the one festival that Aldon decided to take him to happened to be all about the one food his body absolutely disliked. That was all right. He imagined there would be other things, even at a festival involved around strawberries. They tended to have a lot of different vendors at festivals.

"What about you?"

[Aldon Huang]

"Me? I'm not allergic to anything! Healthy as a horse, that's me!"

...except for the feral thing but that had nothing to do with food allergies, at least. Aldon flexed in the classic strongman pose, except moments later he banged his outstretched elbow on the wall and gave a very unmanly yelp. He rubbed the elbow lightly as they approached the elevator.

"Oh by the way," Aldon said casually as the door opened--lucky them, it was on their floor still. "This is totally a date. I mentioned that, didn't I?" He might have gotten distracted by Gregg's allergy woes. Aldon meant to tell him--or... er... ask him--but he was so flighty and so easily side-tracked by the slightest things.

[Greggory Lennox]

Gregg lifted his brows at Aldon's show of strength that resulted in a yelp not unlike a puppy getting his tail stepped on. Oh yes, Aldon was strong. Very strong indeed. Just look at him.

Actually, he wasn't too bad. It was obvious that he took care of himself and he wasn't a lazy slob.

Still, if they were going to have a contest over arm muscles, Gregg was positive he would come out the winner. Best not to run all over Aldon's delicate feelings.

He was given pause, however, at Aldon's declaration. A date? He almost didn't step into the elevator but had the wherewithal to reach out a hand to stop the doors from closing again when they started to. As they jerked back open, he said, "No."

Aldon neglected to mention the fact that this was a date.

[Aldon Huang]

Aldon's finger was on the button to keep the doors open but Gregg had a hand between the gap, to prevent the thing from going down without him. He made a thoughtful noise and adopted a thoughtful expression.

"Oh! Well. Do you wanna go out?"

A bit late, though, since Gregg had already agreed. But he agreed without knowing it was a date. Hm. Did that still count as giving consent? Aldon thought it over while the doors closed on them and as the elevator began its gentle descent to the ground floor.

"I want to go out," he said almost as an afterthought, trying desperately not to think about Ryland, and what he might think of Aldon asking someone else out. He feared that Ryland would think nothing of it, and the idea filled him with a certain sense of distress.

[Greggory Lennox]

First a question, then another declaration. Gregg had no idea they were doing this as a date. If he had, he wasn't even sure he would have said yes to going. This whole dudes with dudes thing wasn't typically his scene. When he bought a woman for the night, she was just that--a woman.

But just because they were going out together didn't mean they were going to fuck afterward.

It wasn't even the dudes on dudes part, really, that bothered him. He wanted it to. He wished it was that. But really it was the idea of going out on a date at all. There was a reason the other hunters in his group called him Frigid Gregg. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

Aldon didn't know that, though.

"Why?"

[Aldon Huang]

"Because..." Aldon shrugged. "I like you."

He did, too. He liked Gregg. He liked the serious way he always set his expression. He liked the stern, low tone of his voice. He liked the way that Gregg had of making a guy reevaluate every life decision just by glance alone.

Gregg was different from anyone that Aldon knew but that was no bad thing, considering who his friends were.

Did he need any other reason than because he liked Gregg? Aldon wasn't poetic or a romantic, despite what some people thought. He declared it to the world, his feelings at any given time, his thoughts, his musings. He was an open book... most of the time. The few instances in which he hid his heart were only with people that mattered deeply--like Ryland--but Gregg wasn't half-way there yet. He was just someone interesting and intriguing, someone distracting, someone handsome.

"No? No date?" He looked up at Gregg with almost a kicked puppy look. "You don't like me like that." Not a question--a statement. Why wasn't yes and Aldon experienced a rising fear in the back of his mind that this could be like Ryland all over again with the post-it notes, where he opened himself up to someone and they... slammed the book shut on him.

[Greggory Lennox]

Why meant everything. Why him? Why a date? Why all of a sudden? They were getting sort of close, in that buddy way that came with the territory of suddenly becoming a werewolf and needing a ready mentor. At least, that was how Gregg saw it.

It threw him for a loop that Aldon saw them differently. When they first met, everything had been laid bare before one another. There was hardly a mystery on how Aldon looked and Aldon had to know what he looked like. They weren't shy about the bath, they weren't shy about their bodies.

It was just that Gregg didn't know. Should they really do this? Go on a date?

The logical side of him said it was a great way to get closer to Aldon. But he had enough on them by now to destroy most of their little group by now. And he hadn't done it. Hadn't said anything. Hadn't even gone back to his hunter friends at this point.

"No," he said slowly. Aldon could do that kicked puppy look like nobody else. He could probably look another hunter in the eye like that and manage to squirm away with his life.

It sounded like he was saying no, he didn't want a date, he didn't like Aldon that way. No. But if he said yes, didn't it sound just the same? Yes, no date. Yes, he didn't like him.

Language.

"I just normally don't date."

[Aldon Huang]

No...

Aldon wilted visibly.

So, another dead end. He turned away from Gregg to apply forehead to wood panel (of the elevator wall), dejection showing in every line of his body, from the droop of his head to the sag of his shoulders. Even his knees lost strength, bending slightly and giving him the air of a deflated balloon.

But then--faint hope. Aldon inflated again, turned back to Gregg. "But I'm not normal!" he said with rather a proud air, for such a queer declaration of uniqueness. He meant that he was special--that Gregg could try to date him. Instead he thought he made it sound as if he was crazy.

"I mean!" he hastened to explain, putting a hand on Gregg's arm almost pleadingly. "I'm not like other people! You should just try dating me!"