The Night After
Focus: Lysander
One-shot
That first night after the cat had been lost to them, Lysander found himself on the rooftop of his, or what had been Uncle Rory’s, house. The world seemed just a little bit more disturb and confusing as he watched the grey white smoke of his cigarette waft into the dark night sky. The shingles of the roof retained none of their warmth from the long gone sun, but the start had come out, what few that could be seen beyond the glare of the numerous lights of the small town. The metis exhaled loudly and ran his fingers through his hair as the words in Uncle Rory’s last letter ran through his head.
Despite everything he had been told earlier, now he was to believe that instead of being the product of incest he was the product of rape. His parents weren’t Molly and Thomas Reilly, but Caroline Reilly and Roland whatever-the-fuck-his-last name-was-Rapist. Not only that he was now suppose to believe that the two of them were both dead. Not like he would have embraced in some tend Lifetime moment if they were alive, but what the fuck?
These were the people he had hated his whole life. The two people he would have happily murdered for being sex-crazed assed incestuous fucks. Now they weren’t even that. One of them had actually apparently loved him very much, or so he was being lead to believe. He was somewhat starting to doubt Uncle Rory’s ability and perceptions of the ‘truth’ since most of it was unraveling before his eyes.
He sighed and took another drag, enjoying the second cigarette he had had that day. He shouldn’t keep doing this. Although werewolves were immune to all those silly little diseases like lung cancer and the other draw backs of smoking, Bridget wasn’t. Quitting for the sake of the lungs of the little girl was one of the first things he had done when he had decided to adopt her. He’d been smoking since he was sixteen, starting out back behind the bleachers in high school, then moving to the roof by the air vents in the winter when it was winter.
Lysander paused to think what high school might have been like if the cat and Schindler had been there with him. It might not have seemed like such of barren wasteland of stupidity, well if Schindler had been there. Hikaru was a cool guy, but all that business between jumping in car windows and the constant use of the word ‘awesome’ made him wonder if the werecat had two brain cells to rub together. He smiled a little at the mental jab at their missing companion.
They’d get the cat back. The guy was to ‘awesome’ to die. He didn’t know why he had jumped at that chick the way he had or where Katie had gone, but he figured they had their reasons. He didn’t like the idea of just waiting for the cat to stroll back in one day, loudly extolling the tales of his grand adventure and escape, but it was better than most of the alternatives. Digging him out wasn’t really and option, but they’d have to try..something.
God, the world was fucked up.
His mother loved him. His dad was a rapist, and still wanted him. Uncle Rory was a liar… and dead, but he still missed him. Hikaru was down a hole. Viktor had tried to kill them and had died for his trouble. All of Shani’s pack was dead. Schindler had lost his hand, and gotten it back. Weird tentacle monsters were trying to take over the world. That weird crow woman was still wandering around lacking eyes, and he was still supposed to be some kinda crazy messiah, while five zombie penguins had taken up residence in his basement.
Yeah, the world was pretty fucked up.
“Feel like Alice in wonderland.” He muttered as he exhaled, sending a dizzy puff of smoke twirling off into the heights of the night sky. The Irishman stood up from his sitting position on the black shingles and stretched like an old man with his hand on his hips. “Age 21 and already to old for this,” Lysander said to himself as he headed back inside, climbing down into the attic window.
Buddy was there, waiting for him as he slide inside. He paused for a moment to just sit on the sill and pet him. Buddy was about five years old now. He didn’t really have to the heart to ever reveal that Buddy was actually Buddy II. Lysander had first received a first Doberman he had ever had on his 5th birthday. Rory had told the crinos child that this dog would be his buddy and the name just stuck. Around his 17th birthday Buddy had been diagnosed with cancer and he had had to put his first and only friend to sleep. He had gone peacefully, but Lysander hadn’t spoken to anyone for almost a month when it happened.
At first he wasn’t going to get another dog, let alone another Doberman, but one day he’d been going past the junkyard. There was this scrappy little runt that was getting picked on by the other dogs. It was going to get killed, cornered to the chain link fence and mauled by the other dogs. When Lysander walked up to the fence what always happened took place. The dogs noticed him and growled as they backed away, sensing the greater predator. Lysander snarled back, baring his teeth, sending the dogs running back to their master. Funny thing was, when he looked down the little pup was still there, panting and looking up at him like he was the coolest thing since the invention of the Frisbee. He bend down and squatted on his side of the chain link fence and stared at the strange little pup, wondering if it was doing it just cause it didn’t know any better or if it was just dumb. It stared at him following the motion of his head no matter which way he tilted it. Finally Sander jumped the fence and picked up the little pup, holding him up and checking out his injuries. A couple of bite wounds and scraps, but everything was pretty superficial. Pup reached out and licked his cheek ecstatically and wagged his stump of a tail. “Come on Bud, let’s go home.” After that the dog ended up in his satchel and he took him home.
Now here he was, four or five odd years old. Best guard dog he’d ever had, totally devoted to both him and Bridget. He scratched the dog behind the ear as they went to check on Bridget. When they entered her room, Buddy hopped up on the bed and laid down next to her. She responded by putting her arm over him and hugging the cropped eared dog like he was her teddy bear. Lysander sat down in the chair that he normally read her bedtime stories from and stared at the pair of them. She wasn’t his daughter, she wasn’t his sister, or any kinda blood relation to him, but she might as well be. He die first before letting anyone destroy the little family that he had. So what if it was unorthodox. The rest of them could show their normalcy where the sun don’t shine. DNA could fuck themselves for all their shit about deviants. Just because somebody was human didn’t make them a half decent human being.
He kissed Bridget good night on the forehead and then petted Buddy one more time before going off to his own room. He stripped off everything down to his boxers before sliding down into his natural crinos and laying down on his reinforced oak bed. He stared at his furry clawed hand. How would things had been different if he had know the truth? How would it have been different if he had a regular homid? If he was human? Ideas drifted through his head till he rolled over and pushed them away. If ifs and whats were candy and nuts then all the squirrels on campus would have been following him around like the pied freaken piper, that’s what. It was late he was tired and it was time to sleep.
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