You blink, study him for a long moment. "Sure, why not," you conclude. "Should be fun. We can get you in some practice. You'll need it, if you're going to be a, a, a rescuer. Ranger." Drinks are delivered, then, and you regard your ale with dismay. Why the hell did you order this? You could have gotten a soda pop, but no: bread juice. You transfer your straw over, somewhat reluctantly.
You raise an eyebrow at him. "You don't want it, buddy, I'll drink it. Why don't you order a juice or something if you don't like pale ale?" That's about as long as you can let this beautiful burger wait for you. You pick it up and bite into it with an obscene noise of satisfaction. Why would anyone choose to eat raw squirrel when this deliciousness exists in the world?
You tuck your arm protectively around the glass and scoot it towards yourself. No! It's yours! You sip defiantly. Bleh. The burger is better. A lot of interesting flavors, though the meat's too hot. You concentrate on taking one bite at a time, chewing it all up and swallowing it, having a drink, and only then going back for another bite. It horrifies people to see a human cramming food down all in a few goes, and anyway your throat really isn't set up for it. Manners are important.
You, too, have better manners than to snarf the whole thing down, but you're so hungry it's an effort. You've cleaned your plate and are halfway through your malt before you slow down enough to want to converse. "Does shifting take a hell of a lot of energy or something? I've been damn near as hungry since I came home as I was in theater -- I mean, on deployment -- even though I haven't been working half as hard."
"Hmm. I don't know. I doubt you've been on four legs much more than I've been on two, in the past year. But I think humans are just..." you wave a hand, nearly tip your glass over, fumble for it. "Confident. About food. Mostly. They've got dinner figured out by breakfast, and all, they don't need to be thinking about it all the time. With us it's more important to be on the lookout, and, and save up. Stock up? You know, for later." You finish the last of the ale, then contemplate the chocolate malt. Push it, with reluctance, towards Kadros. "Here, I'm not going to have the, the, the digestion for this, long enough. The liver? What's the bit?"
You hesitate in the process of slurping your own malt. "Oh shit, if I shift before I digest this am I going to get sick? Is it the sugar or the chocolate or what?"
"No, no, it's— don't shift for a day, you'll be fine," you assure him. "Tomorrow evening, no problem. It digests out. Caffeine and, and, the, the chocolate... drug, bit. Hits the system harder. Watch out for, ehh, what're they... garlic, caffeine, raw dough. Er. Alcohol." You give your empty glass a guilty look. "Just doesn't digest well in a, in a different stomach. Is all. Mostly you just bring it back up and you're fine. But it's a waste. Oh! Sugar-free, err, sugar-free, whatsists, chemicals? Those'll really ruin your, your day, those can kill you. I can read 'sugar-free' off any packet, I check. Some've it's bad as rat poison."
"Stay human for tonight. You can crash in my room." You push his malt back towards him. "How long's it been since you had chocolate, man?"
You hesitate, uncomfortable with the whole situation. You hate the thought of being trapped, and you're already feeling the warm, subtle disorientation of the ale, that's only going to compound itself once you're back on your proper set of paws.... you take a few polite licks of the malt, then just fuss with the glass. Chocolate really is an overrated phenomena. Mustard, now, there's a proper plant. Mustard's got conviction, and you can eat it however you like. Peanut butter? A delicious activity. Chocolate's just... ehh. You don't suppose you've ever been human enough to get a taste for it.
"You really don't like being human, huh?" you observe. Maybe a little regretfully; he really is cute.
You offer up a polite smile. "The company's not usually so pleasant," you say, diplomatically. Because no. No, it is not your cup of tea.
You shake your head slowly. "To each his own, but I'm having a hard time imagining how you'd prefer a life without books or music, no news, no conversation even, because you're out here alone, aren't you? Your family's back in England. And you can't phone them. Isn't it lonely and boring?"
You narrow your eyes at him. So much for diplomacy! "The human world is crowded, noisy, dirty, dangerous, stressful, noisy, and it runs on half a million rulesets, the finer applications of which are barely accessible to chaps born into those cultures. Humans are a violently self-obsessed blight on this planet whose finest creations include sandwiches and the right honorable sport of flying about in helicopters and shooting their prey from the fucking sky. What on earth would I want to read about? More humans doing more human things? One of those allegories about rabbits where the bloody rabbits are also doing human things? Shopping, shooting one another, going to school, taking the garbage out in evening and watering their lawns in the morning. And you can't get enough of it, can you? You have a shot at some— some rightness, some peace and purity, some genuine connection to the world, and what do you do? I bet you drive your big car out into the woods and you on a plastic chair and stare at all your electric screens." ...maybe you should not have defensively finished off that ale.
You stare at him with your eyebrows up for a long moment. You're considering calling for the check and ditching him without a further word. It's pretty clear you have absolutely nothing in common. Well, except for being werewolves. And he's the only one you've met so far who wasn't... alarming. Although this PETA-style rant about humanity-the-disease is starting to verge on it. "That's 'rightness', is it? Doing nothing? You can have it," you say calmly.
"It's not the same as— it's not nothing— just because it's not something that requires five fingers and continuous nattering," you protest. "I'm not— I don't do nothing." You're bristling. You want, very badly, to reach out and push over his water glass.
"What do you do, then?" You're all mildness. You wonder if you have a sadistic streak in you, because watching him get angry makes you feel peaceful for some reason.
"Well, it's not like you're actually here to learn that, are you?" you gesture at— him, this restaurant, out the window towards his car. "You've got— you've got this whole— you've got it all set up. All sorted out. Do you want the cure, then? Do you want to be fixed? Do you want me to take all your, your, your inconvenient dumb animal bits out? The mindless nothing bits? Is that what you asked me along for? So you can belong to all this again?"
"No. But I didn't ask you along so you could preach salvation through raw squirrel and illiteracy, either. I just want to know how things work, like the thing about not being able to digest chocolate or raw dough, I didn't know that."
"Hmmf." But you settle down. Any number of new fellows have grilled you on 'the cure', but of course there isn't one, really. "'How things work' is a fairly relative proposition, you know. Are you quite sure I can't tempt you on the illiteracy?" You give him a tentative, peacemaking smile.
You don't want to soften. You really don't. But that little smile is so cute. Before you know it you're smiling back, and wrestling the smile off your face just makes your ears heat up. "Well, anyway, if you hate humans, you're going to hate me, because I'm not about to give myself a personality makeover just because some Taliban-symp druglord took a bite out of me. I like music. I like to read. I like math, and puzzles. Art. Poetry. I like my meat cooked, I like fruits and vegetables, and yes, I do think humans are more interesting than wolves, because humans do things like send robots to Mars. So by your reckoning, I'm a disease with shoes. That's fine, you don't have to like me. Teach me, I'll give you sandwiches, that's the deal."
