The Brief History of Armand and Journey
Journey is new to the Pack, and Armand is watching her walk around HQ with a faintly bemused look on his face. She’s from the UChicago, and has brown hair and is kinda pretty in a scholarly, girl-next-door kinda way. She also should have been around in the sixties; flower-power and get back to nature and embrace your inner animal and all that other New Age crap. Armand isn’t quite certain how staying back for summer ethics classes is balanced with embracing your inner timber wolf, but Journey seems rather taken with the whole idea.
He doesn’t get her; from the get-back-to-nature to the ethics classes to the hanging out with them, she’s in the same closed book as nearly all of his former girlfriends.
She can’t understand how he dropped out of high school to fiddle with the insides of cars, but thinks his loyalty to Russ is a living monument to the original ideals of feudal society.
They get along fairly well.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The first time they sleep together is in July. Stinking hot July and he’s sitting out on a fire-escape in nothing but ragged jeans and the necklace that his sister Elsie gave him. It’s night-time, so he smells her approach before he sees her.
Cheesecloth skirt, her hair swinging free with a daffodil behind an ear, and even though he is in a dark, bitter mood he can’t help but snort at the sight.
“Missed your calling, sweetheart,” he calls down to her. “Shoulda been up in the mountains with the rest of the hippies and hermits.”
“I had class. Want some company?”
The memories of Claire are hot and furious and twisting in his chest, so he says “Not really.”
Journey ignores him, and climbs up the fire-escape anyway. Eventually, he tells her about Claire and Charlie, and falls asleep curled around her on a mattress with faded flower-prints.
It’s the first time he’s had a decent night sleep in months.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Journey’s drunk the first time they have sex. Armand hasn’t been drunk since Claire, doesn’t even touch the stuff anymore, so when the rest of them drink he either stands guard, watches and comments from the peanut gallery, or goes to work on the motorbikes.
Or sleeps and makes loud banging noises at the crack of dawn.
He’s sorting out his toolbox by oil-lamp light when she comes over, giggling faintly and unsteady on her feet. A true artist, he doesn’t actually notice the girl’s presence until she’s on her knees and the whispers in his ear turn to a kiss on his cheek and an arm around his shoulders.
That gets his attention, as does the French kiss when he turns his head to face her.
Oh.
Oh, oh, so this is what…oh.
He kisses her back, faintly greasy and dirty hands reaching up to pull her into his lap because it’s pretty, loopy miss Journey and it’s been so damn long since anyone has touched him, wanted him, like this.
They end up in what used to be the office, on the visitors’ couch, and in the morning Armand ignores Russ’s comment about the lingering smell.
Fucking werewolf senses.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sex with Journey is interesting. The girl is fucking insane, of course, but she’s fun. It’s sometimes rough, sometimes gentle, tinged with laughter and heightened werewolf senses. They’re not going out, exactly. And the sex isn’t very regular or often, either, because they are not in love, not in lust, and it is hard being alone when you are living pretty much in a commune. Friends with benefits, perhaps. Friends with not that much in common but who get along anyway, though he still looks at her in a bemused way. But it’s not just sex, really. A bit more then that, because in her own strange, Journey-like way, she helps to heal the damage that Claire did. Claire, Claire, honey-blonde and dead Claire, yes, but the first time after Claire Pullman noticed Armand rather then Russ’s right-hand wolf, Armand shoves Journey against a wall and kisses her as if he wants to just vanish before stalking off hack some wooden beams into firewood.
Later, as Journey runs her fingers through his shaggy hair, she says thoughtfully, “She frightens you, doesn’t she? Claire Pullman.”
Armand snorts, and resettles himself against her and the flower-print mattress.
“This is because she is one scary hell-bitch on wheels.”
After a thoughtful pause, Journey says, “No, it’s because she reminds you of the other one.”
He doesn’t get a lot of sleep that night.