"Isn't that something," Alex says, fascinated. "Delighted as I am that my son is much harder to hurt now, though, the idea that there are people out there hunting him because of what happened to him overseas... well, not gonna lie, it boils my blood and I would very much like to do something about it. Especially since Bel was making hero faces about the idea earlier, and he's quite large, I don't think Erskin can sit on him sufficiently to stop him from going on crusade."
"I don't suppose anyone's offered you the change—? Oh, well. If you decide differently at any point I suggest you catch it off your son, there are some damn fine speznaz-derived lineages in the middle east. Huge and healthy." He shrugs. "I suppose I could recommend my own but being a hundred pounds after a good meal makes a fellow a trifle more suited for espionage and infiltration than, say, direct combat." He refocuses—comparative genetics is a topic of perennial fascination for most werewolves— and eats another slice of pastrami. "You could give him something else to do," he suggests. "Werewolf hunters operate just about everywhere, really, there's even a few hunter groups that consist of werewolves— and there is, in fact, a distinct necessity for them. There's some real monsters out there... It's not a situation that one young man can solve, though of course I'm sure it's exactly the sort of situation that a young man would think he could solve."
Alex sighs regretfully. "Bel has always wanted to be a great big hero, however much he denies it. A little bit of trying to live up to my example, a bit of trying to live up to his mother's -- and a lot of Bel being Bel. I love him for it, but the headaches." A chuckle. "He certainly managed the big part. And yes, 'huge and healthy' would describe him in both forms. Erskin upset him by trying to sell him on the idea of having sixteen babies." He leans back so he can reach the drawer with the takeout menus in it. "Will you stay a while?"
"Let me guess— something shaggy and nightmarish and bloody well a hundred kilos if he's a gram? My poor Erskin. Still, he must have seen something he likes, if he's started thinking about children, I never thought I'd live to see the day he settled down." At the takeout menus, he looks interested. "Certainly through dinner. I haven't had American pizza in ages. Do they still use that plastic sort of cheese?"
"Not the places I order from!" Alex says indignantly. He picks out his favorite. "Let's buy out the store, the boys are going to wake up ravenous. Trying to heal up on a hospital diet after a two-week hike? I'd be eating my bedding." While Aspera peruses the menu from a four-star pizzeria in Excelsior that uses wood ovens and local artisan cheese, Alex considers the observation about Erskin settling down. He remembers the conversation they had when they were here, but he also saw the way they acted in the hospital. Sometime during the two weeks in between, they settled into a stable orbit. "I think they might be genuinely serious," he muses at last. "I think you and I might end up in-laws sooner or later, Reginald."
"Ha! Well, welcome to our circus, then, if you don't mind being a rare curiosity," Aspera says, clapping his palms against the table. "Not too many pure-blooded homo sapiens around in this branch of the family tree—as far as I can tell my poor old mother hasn't stopped spinning in her grave since the sixties. Didn't approve of breeding across the channel, let alone across the pond or the species barrier."
Alex laughs. "It sounds like a quality circus to me, I think I'll enjoy it. Do you happen to know Erskin's favorite pizza toppings?" He orders enough pizza to feed a regiment. At the worst, there'll be leftovers. But the knife nicked Bel's liver, not his stomach; he knows how his kid can eat. "You're welcome to bunk in my guest room," he says after he hangs up. "I'm bringing in an army doctor friend of Bel's to look after them, but she won't be live-in. And Erskin seems determined to live on Bel's bed in fur, so he doesn't need the room."
Aspera blinks. "I don't think I've seen Erskin in skin since he was in short trousers. Or would have been if anyone could have convinced him to wear any. He's the wild type— his birthday suit included a fur coat, you know. That sort. They never take well to human things." At the last he finally looks a little melancholy. And eats another slice of pastrami. "I might take the guest room, if it's on offer, though it's no trouble at all to get a hotel nearby if any of you want your elbow room. Money's not an issue."
"No, please, take the room. I'll feel safer with you on the premises. It's not as if my address is hard to find, and there were reporters at the airport when we came home." He takes Aspera's empty cup and gets up to refill it. "I haven't seen Erskin in skin often, but he's kind enough to do it when we need to talk. Can a pure-blooded homo sapiens learn wolfspeak? He's expressive in fur, but he usually has to resort to pantomime to tell me anything. Bel uses Morse code."
"I don't think so, no. Just one more of those aggravating magic things, you know." Aspera shrugs. "Learning the way normal wolves talk to one another gets you conversant with the very basics, I've heard, but there's still a drastic cut-off... I think it's a bit like having face blindness, there's a level of communication those without the condition just can't access. A particular subtlety that's nearly impossible to memorize if you don't have the instinct for it. Morse code's a clever workaround, though. Wish more of my kids were military."
"I'm glad Erskin's not, to tell you the truth. Bel needed a civilian perspective in his life." Alex shakes his head, smiling fondly. "You should see them, Aspera; they're so theatrically protective of each other, and yet I've never seen Bel relax like he does around Erskin. I know I'm being a bit of a back fence Betty about this, but I haven't had anyone to gush about it to. Bel's my only child, and such a loner. I wasn't sure he'd ever find anyone."
"Well, it's good to see you happy, you old thing. Here's to young love." They clink coffee mugs and Aspera settles back more comfortably in his seat. "I don't really know how much I can tell you about Erskin in particular, though, to be honest. He split off from the family so young, and he's been such a rover— he's my own flesh and blood and of course I love him dearly, but he's.... been gone. And there have been so many other children to go gray over." He tugs a lock of his unruly white hair—not a single darker strand to be seen— and laughs.
"Then I hope you don't mind if I spoil him rotten." The doorbell rings. "And there's a good start to it!" He throws a cardigan on to hide his shoulder holster as he goes to answer it -- no need to scare the hell out of the delivery driver, in the overwhelmingly likely probability that they really are just a delivery driver -- but makes sure it's loose, looks through the peephole first, and when he does open the door, cordially invites the driver in 'to warm up' while he pays and hands off the stack of boxes to Aspera. No hordes of silver-wielding madmen rush the unbarred portal. He tips the driver well, locks up, and feels his shoulders loosen.
Aspera pats him clumsily on the back, balancing his stack of pizza boxes, then carries them off to the kitchen. "Let's get a drink," he says. "You look like you need several."
"Hell yes I do," Alex says. "What wine goes with pizza? Red with the sausage, white with the veggie lover's?" He gets two beers out of the fridge.
"Well I know know a nice venerable ditchwater goes with roadkill, but after that I'm lost," Aspera jokes. He looks the sort of regal old-money gentleman who was born knowing his wines, but he pops the bottlecap off with bright, slightly-too-sharp teeth. A few slices into the first pizza, there's the unsteady clicking of claws on the staircase, then Erskin puts his snout around the corner. He goes, "Dad?" a joyously surprised yip, and bounds clumsily forward, claws skittering everywhere, to jump into Aspera senior's lap. Paws on the man's shoulders, he licks every square centimeter of neck and chin, his tail thrashing wildly against the underside of the kitchen table. "Hello to you too, you walking, whiskered ulcer!" Aspera laughs, and bites one of his son's orange ears. Erskin goes into spasms of adoring delight.
Alex gawks, delighted. He'll readily admit he's a sucker for happy reunions. After a moment he deftly moves Aspera's beer and plate out of tail-knocking range. He loads up a plate with pizza slices and fills a bowl with water. "You're welcome to have a beer if you want," he tells Erskin as he sets it down, "but I bet you're thirsty for water first."
You hop down and drain the bowl, think about how much better the pizza will go down if you've got an omnivore's stomach— and how much easier it is to talk with Alex— and lope out of the kitchen and back up the stairs. You change, dig out one of Bel's big shirts and some boxers, and thump clumsily back downstairs. You're really going to have to chew your stitches out, soon, they itch like mad and the area's fairly well closed up, even if it does ache like hell when you're moving fast. When you pad into the kitchen, your dad chokes on his beer, and has to thump on his chest to clear it out. "Oh my word, come here," he cries, pulling you over to stand in front of him. "Look at you, handsome in two different shapes! Let's see that jawline— ha! You're your mother's line, all right, but at least I got a few licks in around the face. Exhibit A, Colonel Kadros, that excellent smile. They must be bidding over you out there in the world, eh?" You blush with pleasure and shyness as your dad makes a fuss over you, and sit down in your chair with the overwhelming urge to stick your head in a pizza box and not come out. "What's all this mess then, though—" your dad gestures at the side of his face, where on yours you've got the brightest scaring and not all that much eyebrow. "Capped teeth," you say. "I thought I might try pitfighting." "You never!" You laugh. "No, I never. I was visiting that collective family in the alps, the Abeilles, and there was a monster— he did have capped teeth. Capped fangs, apparently his family was... bad. The collective was understandably averse to discussing it with me. But we finished him off. I think they went after the rest of them but I left, I didn't want to get involved in a full-blown war." At Alex's look, you explain, "A monster is when— the human part of you says, others should be destroyed, and the wolf part of you says, it's so fun to hunt, and so you just kill and kill until someone kills you. It's who that hunter we met should have been spending his damn silver on."
"Good grief, Erskin," Alex says wryly, "and here I thought you were the sensible one, threatening to sit on Bel to keep him from riding to tourney over werewolf hunters. Now it turns out you're a monster slayer yourself." He puts water and ice in a glass, since a bowl is impractical now. "He still asleep?" Getting an affirmative, he says. "Good. More sleep, faster healing. Pizza can be reheated."
"Jumping on one mad bastard who's trying to eat children right in front of you does not exactly make for a whole crusade," you point out. "I'm not exactly taking up arms and charging off on my— my— whatever people charge off on these days, that's not a horse." You grab the hottest slice of pizza you can find and hum happily at the first bite. "Cheese is good!" you report.
