Ridgefield wrecca (nsfwrecca)

The laugh earned him an openly offended scoff. Sorry, not everyone pretended they lived in a nudist colony, Max. She didn’t mind being naked—how could she at this point?—but she didn’t want to flash her neighbors. They already thought she was weird enough to begin with.

All the same, she leaned into the kiss, huffing in disappointment that she couldn’t join him. The wolf was far too hungry for that, bounding around in excitement the closer she got to the bounty of takeout bags on the counter. "Better make it a quick shower." She sing-songed in solemn warning. No promises. (She wouldn’t though.)

After briefly following him into the bathroom to clean up and the bedroom to grab a t-shirt and soft lounge shorts, she set about microwaving herself a plate. Whenever he was done, he’d find her perched on the couch, notably on a blanket, plate in her lap as she scrolled through Netflix.

They should probably talk about what happened, but what if they didn’t?

Huffing another laugh, Max led the way into the bathroom, dumping his clothes in the hamper and letting her take some time to clean up, before he hopped into the shower for a more throughout wash. It was quick, Max never one to linger, and he detoured to the bedroom to pull on some sweats before he joined Emily again.

Max fixed up a plate for himself, moving to settle with a faint 'oof' on the couch, feeling a little sore, but pleasantly so.

He could spot something was on Emily's mind and there really was just one thing it could be. Not the issue of leaving the pack, he didn't think. They'd thought their way through that and been firm in their decision, but clearly Natalie and Katya had some kind of idea of being owed an explanation. They really didn't, far as Max was concerned, but he knew Nat and Em had something of a budding friendship. And his, with Katya. Not that he really agreed with her assessment at all.

So he nudged Emily gently with his elbow, catching her attention. "How'd your call with Nat go?" Quiet, very aware of how his call with Katya had gone.

They had to start somewhere, figure out where to go from here. He knew what he had to do, but hardly knew if it'd be effective.

The faintest shadow of a frown crossed her features. It had been a naive hope, she supposed, that they could put this away. Before she answered, when he settled next to her, she leaned in and pressed a kiss to the side of his head, lingering. The wolf didn’t like how he washed her scent off in the shower.

Settling back on the pillows, she exhaled, chasing a bit of butter chicken around her plate. She was just about to get up for a refill.

"It really hurt her feelings." she answered, a little low-energy. "She wanted to know why I didn’t say anything sooner."

And if she could go back and change that, she would but. It was not the first time she had done wrong by a friend and it would not be the last. All she could do was try to fix it.

Max leant into her when she kissed his cheek, turning his head to rub his cheek to hers in some imitation of a wolf. It was an unconscious move, but Emily still smelled overwhelmingly of him and he liked it. The soft moment passed quickly, though, bringing them back to the matter at hand.

Emily enlightening him as to Nat's reaction was welcome, but he knew there wasn't much he could say about it. He had his thoughts, that they'd made a choice and then acted on it, working on priority. Leader and then informing the rest. He supposed they lost their chance of telling Tomás to let them tell the others when it derailed. That little step might've avoided this.

Even as he understood, Max found it difficult to be sympathetic about the hurt feelings. Possibly his experience with pack was too different. One that recognised and understood that people decided to move on, to move, refocus, willingly and unwillingly, when the leader didn't work for them and a challenge wouldn't solve anything.

"Careful about blaming yourself," he said softly, nudging her gently. "I know you didn't spend much time at the gym, makes it easy to avoid thinking about it, enjoy the happier moments. I tried to forget it, most of the time. Managed, too." It had only hit him at Thanksgiving, really how much he'd forgotten and what had unmoored in the space between. Then, whenever he'd been with the other wolves when he wasn't busy with work or study, it'd been some event or another.

"I know I wanted to explain it all once it was all off my chest. Free from being tied down to that." He looked down at his food, huffing out a bitter laugh. "Although that didn't end well, Jesus."

Putting the remote down, Emily reached out and touched his arm with her free hand, exhaling and smiling in quiet understanding. It was a strange thing to be accused of: deception. Knowing Max, it made complete sense it had gotten under his skin. Emily couldn’t talk. Much to her own shame, she’d lost it at the actual meeting—it was really difficult being confronted with such gross incompetence. She wouldn’t like it in herself and certainly didn’t like it in her supposed superiors.

There were a lot of misunderstandings here that remained to be cleared up, but at least she was on the same page as Max.

"I do a little. I went with her to Starling Hills a few days before but..." She shrugged one shoulder, fingers tightening slightly around his forearm. "I didn’t want to ruin it by telling her then. I should’ve."

It hadn’t seemed right and she’d been a coward.

Possibly right, if it had been on Emily's mind while she was with Nat. But Max understood why she'd kept it to herself. There was a lot there. A lot that had happened getting under their skin, culminating in that one big betrayal. The attempt to wait it out hadn't done much but make it all the clearer how much they'd wanted out.

Settling a hand on her upper back, he rubbed in slow circles.

"She'd be happier then, maybe." Or not. They all took it strangely personally. "But no one's owed the stuff in your head, Emily." Not even him, even if he had that undeniable matebond link. Ultimately, it was up to Emily to put it in words for him and only if she wanted to. To want to leave it until things felt safer, without the weight of it all, was something the both of them were allowed.

He leant forward, kissing her temple.

Quiet at that, Emily considered something in the middle distance, unseeing, feeling a little adrift. It was a little frightening to contemplate the steadiness to this moment to the uncertainty of the past year. She wasn’t sure what linked the two thoughts either.

For the first time, she thought she could agree simply because a vicious spike of self-doubt had been slowly washing from her consciousness from the moment she cut ties. She wasn’t struggling to figure out a way to make herself useful in a pack she didn’t believe in. It was just her, her wolf, and Max and his. What a relief.

The remaining sticking point was... yeah. The uncertainty with Natalie and Katya.

"I at least owe Katya and Nat an apology." She said, drawing back into herself as he kissed her. Another one, but in person. "For now though, I’m just..." She smiled at him softly, her head dropping back as she sighed, "God. Happy to get away from all that."

Letting out a gusty breath, Max nodded once. Right enough. Some damage control because things hadn't gone the way they'd planned. No plan survived implementation, Max knew that, but he wished it had.

"Yeah, it's... a weight off my shoulders." One thing off his mind, letting that hyperarousal hopefully fade, gain some equilibrium back where it'd been torn away. "Gotta apologise to Katya about blowing up on her, but... yeah. Just relieved."

With Emily there, he'd manage. She'd seen some of his rough nights, seen a panic attack get him, even if he hadn't... hadn't fully told her what it was about. She might've guessed, but eventually he had to crack open that tightly protected part of himself.

Emily was glad to hear this. She hadn’t expected him to not apologize but she wasn’t looking forward to a possible drawn out feud. But it wasn’t worth it, was it? All there was to do was give their mea culpas and move on.

Forking the chicken at last, she brought it to her mouth but just nibbled. Then she noted, "I think this is the best I’ve felt since May."

Since, you know.

The reminder of May made Max look away, blinking rapidly at the curtains drawn over the windows. It made the room dim, but it was a little soothing to not have the ambient light from outside shining in. Closed in and a little safer.

"I'm sorry, about that," he started, hushed, poking at his food. "I don't- you got a bad start from the beginning. I should've-" Steadying his plate with one hand, he brought his other to run at his face. A little too much hindsight. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't been so quick to tell him."

That frustrated him the most. Tomás had handled Emily's infection like an asshole, taking Max by surprise and making him doubt everything he'd been told about the man. Maybe even sabotaging Emily's efforts to grow, whether she realised it or not. The fucking gossiping- he was going to get angry again thinking about it, so he consciously decided to not think about it.

Sliding his hand into his hair, he rested his elbow on his knee to prop his head up and look to Emily, expression a wry twist of a regretful smile.

It was like she’d lifted the bandage from a wound that wasn’t festering but remained sore and open. They didn’t talk much about May, did they? They’d just simultaneously decided not to address it. Emily had her reasons and she thought she knew Max’s.

This one was new though. It wasn’t about the violence or the infection. It was about her handling as a freshly infected person. Her insides twisted to think of it—the surprise, pain, and fear still hit like it was fresh. She balled the fingers of her left hand into a fist and then loosened it. There was the lightest sensation of stretching, scar tissue thicker than her skin. She felt that in tandem with the little twinge of anger in Max. Again, putting the fork down she reached for him, for his hand.

She couldn’t say it was okay because it wasn’t yet. But she didn’t blame him.

"If I were anyone else, it would’ve been the right call." she said, and then paused, rethinking it. "No, it was the right call. I was just the wrong person."

Another member of the STF as a wolf! It spelled all sorts of trouble. Not that it was handled with any grace whatsoever.

It made him angrier, hearing her say that. Angrier in a... undirected, frustrated sense. Emily wasn't shifting blame, but certainly shifting the focus.

"Fuck that, Emily," he said, voice wavering with anger, but not at her. "No one's the right person to have this happen to them. When you call yourself a leader, of anyone, you need to act like it, okay?" He shifted to put his plate on the coffee table, pushing a breath out his nose and wanting to avoid tipping it over onto the floor. Then he twisted to look as her, elbows braced on his knees. "What he did? That's not how you handle people. He lashed out at you for something you didn't have control over. It doesn't fucking matter that you were a cop, you were a victim too, and I don't know how he could forget that with the sort of job he has."

But Tomás had. Forgotten it and then turned around to gossip about it, leaving someone already vulnerable feeling cornered and talked about behind her back. Max should've walked, but he'd been clinging too hard to the illusion that pack meant safety. That Emily'd be fine so long as there was a pack watching out for her. All the pack had done was sabotage that.

It was easy to see in hindsight, all the little things undermining Max's trust. Whatever reason behind it, absent-minded neglect, chronic mismanagement, or favouritism, they were both better off out of there.

Hand going to rest on his shoulder instead, Emily felt the anger roll over her, like heat radiating from his skin. It was hard not to let it root and flare inside her as well, especially as he peeled back the layers of what happened. Put words to the discomfort.

She managed, the wolf huffed, nosing in close in concern. His emotions on it were not her own. Her own felt... colder. She’d compartmentalized.

"I know." She said softly, softer now, in response to the hard edges of his words. "I don’t think how he handled it was okay... but everything he’s done has been so ridiculously incompetent that I might even call it malicious if he didn’t seem to function on moon-logic. Complete disconnect."

Didn’t they all function on moon-logic? Besides the point. And besides all that, she didn’t like the focus on herself. Again, she tried to twist away.

"It’s not the first bad start I’ve had in my life, not the first bad boss either. But it’s done."

Shifting his arms, Max settled a hand on top of Emily's on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. Letting out a careful breath, he listened to her as he let that angry frustration fade. It was behind them, even if they were still reeling from the after effects of it. A lot of Max's mistakes made worse by someone who'd... taken Emily's turning personally? Some weird twisted logic, that just sabotaged a new wolf.

He wasn't convinced Tomás choices had been made with much consideration, reactive rather than proactive, dealing with something when it had already happened and there wasn't anything to be done or just leaving it to linger. The ask for forgiveness, not permission approach didn't work for something like this and Max couldn't twist his mind around to accept it.

Incompetent was a good word for it. The excuse that Tomás never wanted the position didn't absolve him of the fuck ups. He could've easily said no. Easily stepped down. The chance had been there.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." He couldn't push Emily into being angry about it, didn't want to, but he didn't want to see her take it on herself. He turned his head to look at her, frowning gently at the subject. "But you know you didn't do anything wrong, right? I did. He did."

The knee jerk urge was to contradict him again. The idea that she’d done something wrong and crossed an unseen line were so firmly planted that she had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to avoid saying anything.

Between the way she’d come into her wolf, all the heartache she’d caused, and the gossip—Emily frowned at the floor. It wasn’t what she wanted to be thinking about right then. Not now, not in the afterglow.

And it was hard to look at Max and say what he did was wrong. Not when she reaped the benefits every single day.

Objectively it was true, though. He’d bitten her, she was a victim, damn the ideas that had been percolating in her head. But... what the hell was there to say about it?

"Right." She replied even though she didn’t feel it. She squeezed his hand, apologetic. "It’s uh... I don’t like to unearth all that. I almost wish I had asked. Then I’d at least have something to stand by." all she had now was confusion and the incessant need to pick up her own blame.

Tugging her hand off his shoulder, Max pulled it into his lap, shifting to pull one leg up on the couch to face her fully. Max squeezed the hand, interlacing their fingers and rubbing his thumb over her skin in a slow circle. He could tell she wasn't fully taking in his words, but he knew he couldn't make her think much of anything, just push the idea so she'd be kinder to herself.

He didn't know what she meant though. Something to stand by? About what? About being a werewolf? Did she think she couldn't be happy about it even if she didn't ask for it? A lot of assumptions to make, but Max just took a small breath and asked outright.

"What do you mean?" Soft and curious.

The urge to curl in on herself instead of explain herself was powerful. She gave Max a pained look as if she hadn't just said something that invited speculation.

As their gazes met, her expression softened. Max was too good to her. So fucking patient. Her hand gripped his tightly so she wouldn’t just pull away.

"I don’t know." she sighed, honestly. Plate balanced on her lap, her free hand dragged through her hair. Filthy hair. "I didn’t ask for it, but I wish I did. So I’d have something to stand by even if was wrong or strange. The whole thing got out there anyway. I just wish I’d been able to say “yes, that’s right. I picked this.” Instead of-" She swallowed, squirming in her seat. "Being confused about where I belonged."

This felt like a moot point over all. She looked at Max, willing him just to pick it apart and understand.

Some manner of identity crisis, connected to... the issue of having the choice taken away from her but wanting to have made the choice anyway. Maybe something about others having perceived it as a mistake.

Belonging though, that tripped him up a little. Did she mean comfort with the wolf or simply belonging in a pack? Was there a human versus wolf dichotomy in her brain? But that didn't wash, if she was carrying on fine with Morgan. Even texting with that camper they'd come across, the one who didn't know Emily's face but knew what Max's dick looked like, topsy turvy like a lot of shifter shit.

"Whatever way you came to be a werewolf, it doesn't define you. Doesn't say anything about where you belong, say anything about... having something to stand by." He curled his free hand around their joined hands, bringing them up to his mouth to settle a light kiss on her knuckles. "You decide what to do with it. You're a werewolf. Where do you want to belong?"

Frankly, Max’s word meant more when there wasn’t a king standing behind him with a wholly different idea of what it all meant. Secret rules, different faces—there was a word for people like that. But! Taking out that destabilizing factor and... Emily sighed, the knot in her heart loosening a little, tense shoulders dropping.

He didn’t totally understand, she could feel that, but she didn’t mind. They- she could define what being a werewolf meant, huh? Hand her back the controls and... Well.

"Here with you." She said almost instantly, grinning edging back in. Sappy. A moment’s thought and then she added, "I’ll have to give some thought to more but... here, with you. That’s where I’m starting."

The instant response was gratifying, along with her actual words. Here with him. Wasn't that a novel thought? He'd spent so long thinking a pack was the only way he could have someone there, at his back, unerringly, but he'd found that in Emily without needing the pack. It was easy to see it was only doing them good to be out of the shadow of that.

"Gotta start somewhere," he murmured, a sly little grin on his face, leaning forward to kiss her, pressing into it but stopping himself from sinking into it too far. He pulled back to speak, softly. "We'll figure it out together, yeah?"

Even Max had things to learn. To put some distance between himself and the way he'd experienced pack. They'd be rogues, for a while, but the potential of something in the future was there. They'd talked about it, tentatively planned for it, but he knew it wouldn't be wise to charge into it right after what they'd just gotten out of.

Lay the groundwork, at least, for themselves.

Max kissed her and some part of her brain wanted to tell him to focus on his food. Another part shrieked gleefully and crumpled as if she were fifteen years old and getting her first kiss ever. Why did he never wear a shirt?

One hand lifted to put gentle pressure on his shoulder, but before she could ward him off, he pulled back anyway. Of course, she was disappointed and relieved both at the same time.

"Of course." Emily murmured, eyes lifting from his mouth to his eyes. Then she exhaled and leaned back, grinning warmly but extricating herself from his orbit. "You’re stuck with me, Max. I think it’s beginning to bank on forever. I may even haunt you." All this, said with the straightest of faces.

Max huffed a laugh, shaking his head a little and shifting to focus back on his food. The moment of angry frustration was past, small little worries and fears circling around still, but he knew it'd be better once they let it settle.

He shifted his legs again and let them drop to the floor, facing the coffee table with his plate on it.

"Forever's a long time. Sure you wanna be stuck with me?" He nudged her leg with his knee, glancing her way as he leant forward to dig into his food.

Honestly, she couldn’t- wouldn’t contemplate a life without Max in it. The idea twisted something badly inside her. But they were joking and she did better than to be her melancholy self.

"I’ve found nothing objectionable about it yet." she noted sweetly.

Max caught it, the little twist that was banished so quickly, but he let it lie. Instead, he smiled sweetly at her, leaning over to settle a kiss to her shoulder out of a lack of anything else to say.

He didn't linger, knowing any more and he'd just be tempted to have another go at her. Maybe that was the first thing she'd get sick of, Max always wanting to have his hands on her.

The food was good and deserved his full attention.