Briar Hemming 🌗 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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adventureic2024-03-05 09:31 pm
arietids) wrote in adventureic2024-03-05 09:31 pm
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WHO: Byron Best & Briar Hemming
WHEN: Monday, 3/4, ~ late afternoon/evening
WHERE: Some hills in West Virginia
WHAT: Briar attempts ~*bonding*~ with Byron and it isn't like, catastrophic at least.
WARNINGS: Nope!!
Briar has been trying, for what feels like ages, to figure out how to connect with Byron, or at the very least convince him to be more accepting of help. But the young man handles things very differently from him, leaving Briar at a loss. He's not going to give up, though, so he'd asked the other wolf to go with him to West Virginia for a bit of an outing and a drink, and while he's not sure exactly what they're going to do or how it's going to go, he's focused on making at least a small breakthrough.
They teleport to the top of a hill, overlooking more rolling hills, and trees, and a small highway, and while it's not exactly remote, there are no people in sight except for the ones passing through in their cars. It's relatively serene. It's nature without the feeling of being completely isolated. Briar sits down and pulls out a bottle of whiskey and a few beers from a bag, looking out over the unfamiliar but beautiful landscape.
"You ever been out here before?" He'll stick to niceties for a little bit, at least.
Byron isn't sure what to expect from this trip, but he's too nervous to say no; he doesn't really understand either Hemming, and he's pretty sure the feeling is mutual. Expressing his anxieties and… well, despair over his current circumstances has not gone over well, so he decides to try out the Stoic Cowboy Thing™ from now on to see if that annoys them any less.
And so, instead of giving Briar a straight answer, Byron does his best John Denver impression: "Life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze…" he sings, pitch-perfect and pleasant. Who could be mad at that?
Indeed, who could be mad at that? Briar doesn't seem to mind this musical interlude at all, looking out across the hills as he opens the whiskey and takes a short swig from the bottle. In fact, he hums a few bars of the chorus, hoping that will serve as some kind of olive branch. He's pretty sure he makes Byron nervous.
He offers Byron the bottle after a moment. "I never made it out this far east, before the society. But I figured a different kind of scenery might be good." Different from Toronto, and different from their far north cabin, used for the full moons.
Byron accepts the bottle and takes a deep swig of liquid courage, even as he begins to anxiously ramble, "You know, the Appalachians are part of the same range as the ones in Wales. From, like, before the continental divide. So in a way, this is just a weird mirror version of home." He takes another big sip before handing the bottle back, already kicking himself for not having anything normal to say.
"Didn't know that," Briar admits, taking the bottle back as it's offered. Truth be told, he feels a little awkward, unsure of how he's going to actually make things better now that he's gotten this far. He takes a drink, much more measured than Byron, wondering if just talking a bit will help.Sharing. He's not really a fan, but maybe it will help the young man feel a little more connected to him.
"Bracken and I were homeschooled, so things like that sort of fell to the wayside. But, sounds like I picked a good spot if it feels even a little bit like home."
"Did you like it—being homeschooled? I mean, not that it's any of my business. You don't actually have to answer that if it's private," Byron babbles some more, then covers his face with his hands, exasperated with his own lack of social grace.
Briar looks over to Byron, taking another drink before once again holding out the bottle, tempering his frown. "I don't think I minded it as much as I should have, back then."
He fidgets a little, huffs a sigh, resists the urge to try to pull the young man's hands away from his face.
" ...look, I want you to trust me. And I figure getting to know each other better might help with that. If I don't want to answer something I won't, but I won't be bothered by the question either. So just… say whatever you want. Ask whatever you want."
Byron takes another drink—probably a bigger gulp than he should have, but he's a werewolf now, so who cares about boring human ideas like moderation, right?
"I don't really know what to ask you. I just don't want you to be pissed off at me," he confesses. "We don't even have to talk at all, we can just go throw rocks at a train, or whatever."
"I'm not going to get pissed off at you for asking things, 'specially when the whole point of coming out here was to" bond? "get to know each other."
Briar's gaze shifts again to the hills, thoughtlessly searching out trains at the suggestion. "Plus, what do you think's going to happen if you piss me off? Your brother pisses me off all the time. Keda pisses me off all the time. I'm sure I've pissed you off."
"I don't know, I piss everyone off. I've got four siblings. I was pretty much born to be annoying," Byron sighs. He spots a bird to focus on in the distance—an American kestrel, he notes—and stares at it to avoid having to figure out where to point his eyes.
"What about you, is it just you and Bracken, or do you have a big family too?"
It takes a few moments for Briar to respond, mostly because he's trying his best not to sound dismissive of Byron's words. "You give yourself a pretty hard time. There's no way to always keep on everyone's good sides. And it sounds pretty exhausting trying."
The question on his family draws up the usual cold discomfort in his chest, but he lets out a huff of air and reminds himself that this is all for a purpose.
"Five younger siblings. And they were real annoying." He shakes his head. "But obviously we haven't spoken to them since we left."
Byron also crosses his arms, apologetic and uncomfortable. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—sorry, sorry," he says quickly, trying desperately to think of a neutral topic that won't make either of them feel awkward.
"Do you like… birds?" Byron asks, pointing at the kestrel, which now appears to be ripping apart a vole.
Briar huffs again, quiet, feeling bad that he seems to be struggling with this interaction as much as Byron is. He wants to steer the conversation towards more serious things, particularly more serious things about the young man, but he doesn't want to spook him either. He's not cut out for these sorts of things.
"Nothing to be sorry about. Like I said, I don't have to answer anything if I don't want to. It's been a long time, anyways. You work through it."
He follows the line of Byron's finger. "I do. Don't have as much animal sense as Bracken, though." Another sip of the whiskey, and he's looking to Byron again. "We can talk about the shit with my family, if you want. If that'll help any."
Byron takes the whiskey again, for lack of anything more productive to do. "I dunno. Don't feel like you have to. I read what you guys were saying about your… old pack, I guess. Sounds rough. I'm sorry. Is sorry the wrong thing to say about a thing like that? It sounds like a fucked up situation, so if you're not there it's their loss, I guess."
"Honestly? There's not really any right thing to say. Sorry's as good as anything." Briar has gotten over it, mostly, but talking about it so directly remains uncomfortable, to the point where he rolls his shoulders a little.
"It was fucked up."
He's quiet for a long while before shifting to lean back on his hands, trying to choose his words carefully. "I know it's nothing like what you're dealing with, but after that, and then after… after I left Bracken, everything felt pretty hopeless." Maybe this, at least, will help Byron feel like there's some sort of shared experience between the two of them.
Byron frowns thoughtfully, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Yeah. Guess that makes sense. But then you found Keda, I guess? Or you found each other? She seems nice. You're cute together."
"We did, but it was years later. I was living out of my truck for a while, just wandering. Angry and a little self-destructive. And even after we were together it was fucked up for a while."
Briar does his best to keep his tone even despite the fact that this is far beyond what he'd normally share. He feels vulnerable like this, but Byron won't use it against him. And since he's emotional himself, he likely won't dismiss it either.
"Just to be clear, this isn't supposed to be a pity party for me or anything like that. Just… sometimes there's some hope when it doesn't seem like there is."
Byron doesn't hold it against him. He hesitates for a moment before remembering that Briar is also a werewolf, and stronger than him, then reaches out and gives Briar a very gentle pat on the shoulder before keeping his hands to himself again, putting them back in his pockets.
"I'm glad you made it out the other side," he says, happy that someone was able to. Byron, however, had already hit rock bottom and somehow found a way to get even lower. He was already paying the price for his self-destructive tendencies, and he had no one to blame but himself.
"Think I'm gonna save up all my Adventuring money and buy an old abandoned lighthouse, or something. Fix it up. Be mysterious on my own little island," he adds, hoping that's hopeful enough for Briar.
"Thanks."
The pat is nice, in some ways - it's the most contact they've ever had when not in wolf form, so that's something. A step in the right direction. But then Byron is talking about running off on his own, and it's hard to keep his brows from creasing.
"...you can manage it. But we're social. It'd be tough." Briar doesn't want to be negative, but he also doesn't want to act like that's likely going to end up being a satisfactory existence. He wants to tell him that he's probably making himself worse by isolating so much, that he at least needs to try to be more himself around them, but… it all feels like too much pushing. Fuck if he knows how to do any of this.
"What would make you feel like your life isn't just over?" Because it's not is implied in his tone, but Briar figures that's not going to be helpful right now.
Byron scoffs sadly. "Oh, I know it's not over. The worst part of this is that us wizards live extra long, so I've gotta couple hundred years of living like this," he says , his tone teetering somewhere between laughing and crying. "Say I get unlucky and live to be 250—that's 2,640 more painful transformations during which I don't know whether I killed someone or not. And in between all of those transformations, I'm thinking about the next one. Like, no offense or whatever, but that's not a fun prospect."
He knows that Briar doesn't like to hear about any negative stuff that plagues his thinking (how lonely it is, or how he'll never fulfill any of his potential), so he sticks to this—it's objective, he feels. Can't argue with math.
Briar had said to Bracken before that he had wanted to shake Byron, and that feeling wells up again now, mostly because he wants to fix this but has no idea how. He keeps his expression, and his hands, in check though, watching the other wolf with brows knit tight in concern but not frustration. Or, he hopes it appears that way.
"Who would take offense to that? It sounds horrible." A weak reassurance, but he feels like he needs to make sure that Byron understands that he's absolutely not offending him. "But you're so positive that there's no way to make any of it better? The pain, or the memory loss, or even the lead up to the moon?" It's not a challenge, even though he wants it to be - it's a genuine question.
Byron sighs. "I don't know if it's possible, but now it feels like even practicing with you guys has strings attached, and I can't even do that if I don't plan on joining a pack forever—so I'm stuck," he confesses. "I don't even know any bitten wolves who've got their shit together—like, sure, some of them say they're fine, but are they really? 'Cause I also read a story yesterday about a bitten wolf getting arrested eating garbage at the dump, which kind of seems more like the kind of place I'm headed, to tell you the truth."
"There are no strings attached," Briar corrects. Everything Byron says is depressing, and he can't blame him entirely; having his life change so completely and in such a terrifying way is a lot, and it's not easy to just let go of hurt like that. He himself had wallowed in his own pain for a while, but eventually he'd had enough of it and went out seeking something better. It's possible, he knows, that Byron will have the same trajectory - but why leave that to chance?
"The help we're giving is because we're friends. Because we want to help. Not because we're expecting a pack or anything else." He releases a short sigh and shifts a little, reaching for the whiskey bottle once again.
"You've got us, no matter what you decide to do about being a pack, and we're sure as hell not going to leave you to that kind of fate. I know you might not be able to trust that learning control is possible, but at least trust that we're not going to leave you high and dry."
Byron wraps his arms around himself as though he's cold, not really able to believe any of this fully. He was frustrating and clueless; they'd get sick of him soon enough.
"I feel like I'm holding Maya and Sharona back. They've got enough going on without worrying about me. None of you signed up for this," he says, still feeling as though he'd crashed a party and made everything about himself.
"I promise there'll be no hard feelings if you decide you can't fix me."
After a long moment (and a swig of alcohol), Briar shifts to rest a hand on Byron's back, figuring the pat he'd received is enough permission for contact. It's hard to just listen and not immediately try to argue with what he says, but he manages to, and even considers his words before replying with an even tone.
"We agreed to this, knowing the situation y'all were in. No one came to us pretending to be just a hair short of controlling their shifts. And Maya and Sharona can control it as well as you can, and have their own shit too - there's no holding anyone back."
Byron's final comment is the hardest to reply to. He wishes Keda were here - she'd probably have something better to say than him. He really just wants to tell Byron to shut up, that he doesn't need to be fixed, and that he should accept that he's stuck with their help.
"Bracken and I are stubborn as hell," is what he finally settles on.
Byron tries his best not to get too choked up at the unexpected contact; he's been so touch-starved these past seven months that even that reassuring pat is enough to bring tears to his eyes, though he does his darndest not to react too obviously.
He manages to give Briar a weak little chuckle. "Oh, are you? I hadn't noticed."
Broderick had said to not treat Byron like a child, but Briar would argue that shifting his hand to ruffle the young man's hair is something he'd probably do to Bracken, too. Plus, it seems to be doing some good - he can feel a slight shift in Byron's posture, though it's not obvious how affected he is.
"You haven't even seen the worst of it yet. We've been on our best behavior."
"Really. Well, so have I," Byron jokes. He gives Briar a tiny smile and a genuine, earnest, "Thank you."
Briar finally cracks a small smile at this, mussing Byron's hair one more time before pulling back his hand. This certainly doesn't fix everything, but it does make the older wolf at least a little optimistic.
"Good to know. And it's nothing, really. Just… keep telling me things. So I can be annoying and keep trying to help."
WHEN: Monday, 3/4, ~ late afternoon/evening
WHERE: Some hills in West Virginia
WHAT: Briar attempts ~*bonding*~ with Byron and it isn't like, catastrophic at least.
WARNINGS: Nope!!
Briar has been trying, for what feels like ages, to figure out how to connect with Byron, or at the very least convince him to be more accepting of help. But the young man handles things very differently from him, leaving Briar at a loss. He's not going to give up, though, so he'd asked the other wolf to go with him to West Virginia for a bit of an outing and a drink, and while he's not sure exactly what they're going to do or how it's going to go, he's focused on making at least a small breakthrough.
They teleport to the top of a hill, overlooking more rolling hills, and trees, and a small highway, and while it's not exactly remote, there are no people in sight except for the ones passing through in their cars. It's relatively serene. It's nature without the feeling of being completely isolated. Briar sits down and pulls out a bottle of whiskey and a few beers from a bag, looking out over the unfamiliar but beautiful landscape.
"You ever been out here before?" He'll stick to niceties for a little bit, at least.
Byron isn't sure what to expect from this trip, but he's too nervous to say no; he doesn't really understand either Hemming, and he's pretty sure the feeling is mutual. Expressing his anxieties and… well, despair over his current circumstances has not gone over well, so he decides to try out the Stoic Cowboy Thing™ from now on to see if that annoys them any less.
And so, instead of giving Briar a straight answer, Byron does his best John Denver impression: "Life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze…" he sings, pitch-perfect and pleasant. Who could be mad at that?
Indeed, who could be mad at that? Briar doesn't seem to mind this musical interlude at all, looking out across the hills as he opens the whiskey and takes a short swig from the bottle. In fact, he hums a few bars of the chorus, hoping that will serve as some kind of olive branch. He's pretty sure he makes Byron nervous.
He offers Byron the bottle after a moment. "I never made it out this far east, before the society. But I figured a different kind of scenery might be good." Different from Toronto, and different from their far north cabin, used for the full moons.
Byron accepts the bottle and takes a deep swig of liquid courage, even as he begins to anxiously ramble, "You know, the Appalachians are part of the same range as the ones in Wales. From, like, before the continental divide. So in a way, this is just a weird mirror version of home." He takes another big sip before handing the bottle back, already kicking himself for not having anything normal to say.
"Didn't know that," Briar admits, taking the bottle back as it's offered. Truth be told, he feels a little awkward, unsure of how he's going to actually make things better now that he's gotten this far. He takes a drink, much more measured than Byron, wondering if just talking a bit will help.Sharing. He's not really a fan, but maybe it will help the young man feel a little more connected to him.
"Bracken and I were homeschooled, so things like that sort of fell to the wayside. But, sounds like I picked a good spot if it feels even a little bit like home."
"Did you like it—being homeschooled? I mean, not that it's any of my business. You don't actually have to answer that if it's private," Byron babbles some more, then covers his face with his hands, exasperated with his own lack of social grace.
Briar looks over to Byron, taking another drink before once again holding out the bottle, tempering his frown. "I don't think I minded it as much as I should have, back then."
He fidgets a little, huffs a sigh, resists the urge to try to pull the young man's hands away from his face.
" ...look, I want you to trust me. And I figure getting to know each other better might help with that. If I don't want to answer something I won't, but I won't be bothered by the question either. So just… say whatever you want. Ask whatever you want."
Byron takes another drink—probably a bigger gulp than he should have, but he's a werewolf now, so who cares about boring human ideas like moderation, right?
"I don't really know what to ask you. I just don't want you to be pissed off at me," he confesses. "We don't even have to talk at all, we can just go throw rocks at a train, or whatever."
"I'm not going to get pissed off at you for asking things, 'specially when the whole point of coming out here was to" bond? "get to know each other."
Briar's gaze shifts again to the hills, thoughtlessly searching out trains at the suggestion. "Plus, what do you think's going to happen if you piss me off? Your brother pisses me off all the time. Keda pisses me off all the time. I'm sure I've pissed you off."
"I don't know, I piss everyone off. I've got four siblings. I was pretty much born to be annoying," Byron sighs. He spots a bird to focus on in the distance—an American kestrel, he notes—and stares at it to avoid having to figure out where to point his eyes.
"What about you, is it just you and Bracken, or do you have a big family too?"
It takes a few moments for Briar to respond, mostly because he's trying his best not to sound dismissive of Byron's words. "You give yourself a pretty hard time. There's no way to always keep on everyone's good sides. And it sounds pretty exhausting trying."
The question on his family draws up the usual cold discomfort in his chest, but he lets out a huff of air and reminds himself that this is all for a purpose.
"Five younger siblings. And they were real annoying." He shakes his head. "But obviously we haven't spoken to them since we left."
Byron also crosses his arms, apologetic and uncomfortable. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—sorry, sorry," he says quickly, trying desperately to think of a neutral topic that won't make either of them feel awkward.
"Do you like… birds?" Byron asks, pointing at the kestrel, which now appears to be ripping apart a vole.
Briar huffs again, quiet, feeling bad that he seems to be struggling with this interaction as much as Byron is. He wants to steer the conversation towards more serious things, particularly more serious things about the young man, but he doesn't want to spook him either. He's not cut out for these sorts of things.
"Nothing to be sorry about. Like I said, I don't have to answer anything if I don't want to. It's been a long time, anyways. You work through it."
He follows the line of Byron's finger. "I do. Don't have as much animal sense as Bracken, though." Another sip of the whiskey, and he's looking to Byron again. "We can talk about the shit with my family, if you want. If that'll help any."
Byron takes the whiskey again, for lack of anything more productive to do. "I dunno. Don't feel like you have to. I read what you guys were saying about your… old pack, I guess. Sounds rough. I'm sorry. Is sorry the wrong thing to say about a thing like that? It sounds like a fucked up situation, so if you're not there it's their loss, I guess."
"Honestly? There's not really any right thing to say. Sorry's as good as anything." Briar has gotten over it, mostly, but talking about it so directly remains uncomfortable, to the point where he rolls his shoulders a little.
"It was fucked up."
He's quiet for a long while before shifting to lean back on his hands, trying to choose his words carefully. "I know it's nothing like what you're dealing with, but after that, and then after… after I left Bracken, everything felt pretty hopeless." Maybe this, at least, will help Byron feel like there's some sort of shared experience between the two of them.
Byron frowns thoughtfully, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Yeah. Guess that makes sense. But then you found Keda, I guess? Or you found each other? She seems nice. You're cute together."
"We did, but it was years later. I was living out of my truck for a while, just wandering. Angry and a little self-destructive. And even after we were together it was fucked up for a while."
Briar does his best to keep his tone even despite the fact that this is far beyond what he'd normally share. He feels vulnerable like this, but Byron won't use it against him. And since he's emotional himself, he likely won't dismiss it either.
"Just to be clear, this isn't supposed to be a pity party for me or anything like that. Just… sometimes there's some hope when it doesn't seem like there is."
Byron doesn't hold it against him. He hesitates for a moment before remembering that Briar is also a werewolf, and stronger than him, then reaches out and gives Briar a very gentle pat on the shoulder before keeping his hands to himself again, putting them back in his pockets.
"I'm glad you made it out the other side," he says, happy that someone was able to. Byron, however, had already hit rock bottom and somehow found a way to get even lower. He was already paying the price for his self-destructive tendencies, and he had no one to blame but himself.
"Think I'm gonna save up all my Adventuring money and buy an old abandoned lighthouse, or something. Fix it up. Be mysterious on my own little island," he adds, hoping that's hopeful enough for Briar.
"Thanks."
The pat is nice, in some ways - it's the most contact they've ever had when not in wolf form, so that's something. A step in the right direction. But then Byron is talking about running off on his own, and it's hard to keep his brows from creasing.
"...you can manage it. But we're social. It'd be tough." Briar doesn't want to be negative, but he also doesn't want to act like that's likely going to end up being a satisfactory existence. He wants to tell him that he's probably making himself worse by isolating so much, that he at least needs to try to be more himself around them, but… it all feels like too much pushing. Fuck if he knows how to do any of this.
"What would make you feel like your life isn't just over?" Because it's not is implied in his tone, but Briar figures that's not going to be helpful right now.
Byron scoffs sadly. "Oh, I know it's not over. The worst part of this is that us wizards live extra long, so I've gotta couple hundred years of living like this," he says , his tone teetering somewhere between laughing and crying. "Say I get unlucky and live to be 250—that's 2,640 more painful transformations during which I don't know whether I killed someone or not. And in between all of those transformations, I'm thinking about the next one. Like, no offense or whatever, but that's not a fun prospect."
He knows that Briar doesn't like to hear about any negative stuff that plagues his thinking (how lonely it is, or how he'll never fulfill any of his potential), so he sticks to this—it's objective, he feels. Can't argue with math.
Briar had said to Bracken before that he had wanted to shake Byron, and that feeling wells up again now, mostly because he wants to fix this but has no idea how. He keeps his expression, and his hands, in check though, watching the other wolf with brows knit tight in concern but not frustration. Or, he hopes it appears that way.
"Who would take offense to that? It sounds horrible." A weak reassurance, but he feels like he needs to make sure that Byron understands that he's absolutely not offending him. "But you're so positive that there's no way to make any of it better? The pain, or the memory loss, or even the lead up to the moon?" It's not a challenge, even though he wants it to be - it's a genuine question.
Byron sighs. "I don't know if it's possible, but now it feels like even practicing with you guys has strings attached, and I can't even do that if I don't plan on joining a pack forever—so I'm stuck," he confesses. "I don't even know any bitten wolves who've got their shit together—like, sure, some of them say they're fine, but are they really? 'Cause I also read a story yesterday about a bitten wolf getting arrested eating garbage at the dump, which kind of seems more like the kind of place I'm headed, to tell you the truth."
"There are no strings attached," Briar corrects. Everything Byron says is depressing, and he can't blame him entirely; having his life change so completely and in such a terrifying way is a lot, and it's not easy to just let go of hurt like that. He himself had wallowed in his own pain for a while, but eventually he'd had enough of it and went out seeking something better. It's possible, he knows, that Byron will have the same trajectory - but why leave that to chance?
"The help we're giving is because we're friends. Because we want to help. Not because we're expecting a pack or anything else." He releases a short sigh and shifts a little, reaching for the whiskey bottle once again.
"You've got us, no matter what you decide to do about being a pack, and we're sure as hell not going to leave you to that kind of fate. I know you might not be able to trust that learning control is possible, but at least trust that we're not going to leave you high and dry."
Byron wraps his arms around himself as though he's cold, not really able to believe any of this fully. He was frustrating and clueless; they'd get sick of him soon enough.
"I feel like I'm holding Maya and Sharona back. They've got enough going on without worrying about me. None of you signed up for this," he says, still feeling as though he'd crashed a party and made everything about himself.
"I promise there'll be no hard feelings if you decide you can't fix me."
After a long moment (and a swig of alcohol), Briar shifts to rest a hand on Byron's back, figuring the pat he'd received is enough permission for contact. It's hard to just listen and not immediately try to argue with what he says, but he manages to, and even considers his words before replying with an even tone.
"We agreed to this, knowing the situation y'all were in. No one came to us pretending to be just a hair short of controlling their shifts. And Maya and Sharona can control it as well as you can, and have their own shit too - there's no holding anyone back."
Byron's final comment is the hardest to reply to. He wishes Keda were here - she'd probably have something better to say than him. He really just wants to tell Byron to shut up, that he doesn't need to be fixed, and that he should accept that he's stuck with their help.
"Bracken and I are stubborn as hell," is what he finally settles on.
Byron tries his best not to get too choked up at the unexpected contact; he's been so touch-starved these past seven months that even that reassuring pat is enough to bring tears to his eyes, though he does his darndest not to react too obviously.
He manages to give Briar a weak little chuckle. "Oh, are you? I hadn't noticed."
Broderick had said to not treat Byron like a child, but Briar would argue that shifting his hand to ruffle the young man's hair is something he'd probably do to Bracken, too. Plus, it seems to be doing some good - he can feel a slight shift in Byron's posture, though it's not obvious how affected he is.
"You haven't even seen the worst of it yet. We've been on our best behavior."
"Really. Well, so have I," Byron jokes. He gives Briar a tiny smile and a genuine, earnest, "Thank you."
Briar finally cracks a small smile at this, mussing Byron's hair one more time before pulling back his hand. This certainly doesn't fix everything, but it does make the older wolf at least a little optimistic.
"Good to know. And it's nothing, really. Just… keep telling me things. So I can be annoying and keep trying to help."
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i also love: that both hemmings reached out within two days of each other and no ooc coordinationt to do so jdkrngkers. BYRON WILL NEVER BE FREE!!!
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