Shuffle

A/N Takes place in the same universe as Wolverines :)

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Auri lit up a cigarette and took a long drag.

He closed his eyes, almost gagging on the cheap vanilla flavour, and made himself drag the noxious smoke deeper into his lungs. How many times had he tried to quit? He asked himself. He didn’t have an answer. Every time he decided a pack of smokes was his last the universe, in its infinite cruelty, threw something at him.

He rested a hand on the brick wall and leaned forward, trying not to cough as he blew out a lungful of cigarette smoke.

It was strange, the way cigarettes worked. Hard to go a few hours without them, but when you finally managed to kick it for a week, starting up again was hard. Even as he craved the relaxing effects of the nicotine, his stomach rolled at the idea. And true to form, Auri ignored what his stomach told him and took another inhale. God, but it was awful stuff. The crap vanilla taste didn’t help a bit; normally he smoked regular cigarettes, but the cheap cigarillo balanced reverently between two of his fingers was all he’d managed to bum off the girl at the bus stop. He grimaced and took another inhale, gold paper pulling back from the red, glowing tip.

Auri hated his life.

As pathetic as that sounded, he really did. It’s not that he hated himself, or being alive. He hated the place where he was now, the place where a long chain of bad choices and thoughtlessness had led him.

Auri turned his back on the wall and leaned up against it, resting his head against the old brick. He closed his eyes in an attempt to block out the world around him, but all he managed to do was remember.

He shuddered at the scent of blood rising up from his shoes and looked down. You wouldn’t know it just by looking, but his feet were wet inside those shoes. And it wasn’t from the scattered puddles left over the afternoon’s rainfall.

It wasn’t fair, but then, life rarely was. Auri was tired of stupid Lycanthrope politics. He was tired of friends being murdered because they dared not show proper submissiveness to someone more dominant. Tired of fighting, tired of his shitty dead end job and tired of this dreary fucking city he grudgingly called home.

He’d leave, if he believed for one second they’d let him. But even if they did, he’d have nowhere to go. Or more specifically, no one to go to. Auri was dominant enough that he got decent treatment amongst his fellow Lycanthropes, but too submissive to ever rise into the higher ranks.

It wasn’t that Auri was a pushover. He could hold his own in a fight and was very confident in his own abilities. But he didn’t have the leadership or aggression to rise much higher than he already had. Auri had always floated haphazardly through life like a jelly fish in the ocean waves. He needed those above him to give him a semblance of direction.

In short, Auri may not like it, but he knew his place.

That in itself afforded him a strange standing in the group. Most of the Lycanthropes were always reaching for the stars, so to speak, with the few weaklings cowering at the bottom of the food chain and hoping they were left alone. Those sad, weak souls were often used, abused and discarded as the group saw fit. Auri thought it was sad. They were mostly just nice people that didn’t have it in them to embrace the brutality that was needed to survive in the new world they belonged to. Most of the other Lycanthropes thought they were simply weak and deserved what they got. But then, Auri reflected, most of the other Lycanthropes liked to pretend they’d never been human. That they’d been born with fur and claws and teeth, and hadn’t been raised to be peaceful and law abiding.

Auri was all about embracing one’s inner animal, but he remembered his roots. He’d been changed now for so long that it was hard to remember exactly what being human felt like or what kind of a life he led while he’d been one. What he did remember was cold, loss, hunger and fear. Yes, fear most of all.

Auri may hate Lycanthrope politics and pissing matches, but he revelled in what he was. Revelled in the freedom and power of running on four feet under a full moon. He was thankful for his beast, embraced it, rolled around with it in the dirt. He didn’t take it for granted like a lot of the Lycanthropes he knew.

Not that Auri was deluding himself into thinking that human and Lycanthrope social structures were the same thing, but they weren’t dissimilar either. A lot of the guys he knew were always talking about being better than humans and being true to the Animal Way, as if living in the woods and hunting was the Holy Grail of lifestyle choices. And it did sound nice to Auri, but frankly he loved running water and cable TV.

And, if he were honest, a lot of the guys that liked to pretend they behaved true to animal roots didn’t act like anything animal. They acted like greedy, self absorbed shit heads that would beat the living hell out of someone they didn’t think was being submissive enough. Even if the person in question was technically following all the rules of shifter etiquette.

Which was exactly what had happened tonight.

Auri finished the last of his foul tasting cigarette and carelessly tossed the butt away into a puddle. He moved away from the wall and started walking down the empty sidewalks towards the apartment he shared with one of fuckers that had been at the beat down earlier. No doubt his odious roomie had invited them all back with them to pat each other on the back, which was why Auri was dreading going home.

He huddled deeper into his coat and seethed. Even just thinking about it made him want to growl. Mary had been one of the nicest people he’d met in a long time. Honest and friendly, smart and tough. Auri hadn’t known her for terribly long, and he wasn’t one to romanticise everything and pretend like they were meant to be together forever. But his world had been a little bit brighter while she’d been a part of it, and that meant everything to him.

She was gone now, though, and dwelling on it wasn’t going to bring her back. It had all happened so quickly, Auri wasn’t even sure what precisely had set Kyle off on her. She probably hadn’t lowered her eyes quickly enough, or refused to suck his cock or something. It didn’t really take much with Kyle. Auri kicked a tin can, sending it clattering down the sidewalk. He wanted another cigarette.

He knew it was getting late and he should go home and try and get some type of sleep, but once he’d thought it, there was no taking it back. The need for a proper cigarette started nagging at him. And anyways, did he really think he could go home to Kyle and his cronies and not snap without a little nicotine to see him through? Or a lot of nicotine.

Maybe he should just get two packs. That might just do it.