first class.

Rafael

'That guy' ends up packing wolf's bags. Which means a random assortment of clothes get thrown in: way too many nice things that look nice, not nearly enough jeans and grey t-shirts. Some socks. Maybe a change of shoes. Toiletries.

His driver picks them up from Naomi's place. Girl has her suitcase, which seems entirely packed at random to wolf. If there's a logic to it he can't figure it out. Girl's wearing some sort of coat for the weather. Wolf's wearing his motorcycle jacket with the plates taken out.

They pile into the back. He's reminded of the last time he took her to the airport for thanksgiving. Strange that it's been a year already. Seems shorter. Strange that he doesn't drop her at the curb this time. Gets out with her, follows her in. He's still not very good at air travel, wanders around confused, mostly just tags along while girl gets them checked in. He doesn't have an app for his boarding pass and it seems too much trouble to email it now, so they get printouts, old-fashioned. They're flying first class, because of course they are.

In the first class lounge, wolf piles his little plate full of whatever meaty appetizers he can find. He gets a glass of OJ too. Stands near a window looking out at the airplanes taking off and landing while he waits. Eats and drinks and occasionally eyes the other travelers with a certain wariness.

Devon

Devon still has to finish packing, to tell the truth. But first: she snuggles on her bed with her boyfriend a while longer. She asks him to tell her that he's not just going because other people are stupid. He is, perhaps, agreeable to this (if still grumpy, curmudgeonly, growly, just like how he tells her that he loves her or that she makes him happy). But eventually he kisses her somewhere, shoulder or neck or cheek or something, and moves to get up. And finds himself pulled down again, not to keep cuddling for.ev.er. but to make out for a while.

Which is something they almost never do. Just making out. Kissing without pulling each other's clothes off. Kissing, stroking each other, without fucking. Not that they don't want to. Not that rolling around together in her bed making out doesn't turn both of them on a little. Or a lot. But maybe he starts pulling at her shirt or wanting to take off his jeans and she stops him, gently laughing, panting a little that she doesn't really want to have sex right now. She just wants to make out. Which she's a little sheepish about, or embarrassed, or something,

maybe because if he took his own shirt off first, she certainly didn't stop him.

Anyway.

Rafael's going to leave. He'll see her tomorrow morning. She kisses him again and packs her backpack and considers setting out her stuff for tomorrow but that seems dumb to her when she might wake up and want to wear something else. She does not plan these things.

--

Next day, she's done things like call her godparents. Rafael's gotten her ticket upgraded, or his people have, and that's pretty cool. Rafael staying with Devon in her old room does not even seem like a question, and it doesn't come up in the call. But all of that is several hours of sleep old. It's morning, and it's stupidly early, and when his driver pulls up to the curb Devon has gotten the text saying they're coming and she's waiting downstairs with her rather large suitcase and her rather shabby backpack and her hair up in a very very messy bun.

She has little cat-eye wings of eyeliner though, of course. Dark eyeshadow. Slightly glossy lips. These go well with her red tank top, her holey sweater (which she dug out of her suitcase this morning) and her black leggings, which look like leather but absolutely are not. She's wearing those clompy black boots she likes, the laces basically undone because she knows she's going to have to take them off and on later. She has a coat, but she's not wearing it. So when she climbs into his car while the driver is hefting her 'luggage' into the trunk, she slides herself in between Rafael's body and his leather jacket, arms sliding around his waist, mooching his warmth like she mooches everything else.

At DIA, they climb out again. Lots of travel. It's busy, it's cold, and they're hurrying inside with their stuff. It takes Devon a moment to realize that Rafael isn't sure where to go; his driver was told what airline, which is the part of the curb they were dropped off at, but once they're inside, he's frowning and looking around. She wiggles her free hand into his and just starts walking, clomping along in those stupid boots up to the shorter, status-holding, fancy-people line, because... well, because she's guessing wildly. That's why.

Devon checks them in. She looks at him regarding the boarding pass stuff, but he's frowning again, so she just gets the printed kind. She hands them both to Rafael, slips her hand back into his, and they go through the fun that is security. Supposedly one day they're going to move TSA out of the grand room where it doesn't belong and stresses everyone out, but not yet. So they go down escalators and get in another line and Devon, having picked up a thing or two following him around, starts getting ready well before it's their turn. Shoes off stupid scanners blah blah blah.

Eventually they make it to a lounge. And this is where Devon doesn't know what's going on, really. She's never flown first class before. She didn't even know there was a lounge here, but the clerk at the counter told them to please enjoy the lounge and Rafael saw the lounge so now they've flashed their boarding passes and they're in a lounge and she's the one frowning in consternation, holding her boyfriend's hand with unconscious tightness.

He sees meat. And this, they can handle. Food.

Devon gets herself a latte. And some quiche. And some fruit. She gets a muffin for Rafael while he's getting bacon and sausage and these little lamb things on skewers and juice. They find a corner to commandeer and Devon sits down

on the floor, her back to the windows Rafael is looking out of. She proceeds to tuck into her breakfast with eagerness, tearing the muffin in half and handing one side of it up to Rafael. People look at them: his jacket, his jeans, her schlubby backpack, her undone laces, her sitting on the floor, and Devon doesn't seem to notice.

After a while, she tugs on his sleeve, urging him to sit down with her. She has her phone out. Latte is mostly gone. Quiche is destroyed. Fruit is being nibbled. Muffin is picked at, and she will probably give him the rest of her half. "C'mere," she tells him, scrolling through something on her phone.

Rafael

It makes him smile when she gives him half a muffin. It's not like he can't get a muffin for himself. Would have, if he'd wanted one. But when she hands him half he discovers he does want it after all. Eats it with his breakfast sausage, which makes for an interesting palette of flavors to say the least.

There are other travelers in here. The other elite and status-holding, who have paid for the privilege of not waiting with the great unwashed. Some of them eye wolf and girl. Some of them shake their heads, chalk it up to rich parents, annoying upper-eastside brats rebelling via slum fashion. For the most part wolf and girl ignore them. Occasionally, when one passes too close, wolf looks up, eyes them, gives them the sort of stare that makes them at once reconsider who,

what these people really are.

He is tugged. He looks down, eyebrows knitting. Then without complaint or any sort of vocal response, really, he slides down to the floor. He still has some meat on his plate, which he demolishes. Snaps up the last bit of sausage wholesale.

Devon

Devon shows him a picture. Different one than the one she sent him last year that includes that one asshole.

"Uncle Brian," she says, pointing to a man who is not her uncle, christ only knows how he's related to her father. Man has hair that is mostly blonde, a tracery of red, a couple of wings of barely-visible white. He has brown eyes and a paunch but is missing a side tooth, which only shows because his smile is really big. He's either closing in on fifty or just settling into it. In the photo, he is holding an excited-looking small boy upside-down by the ankles, and the boy has a mop of pin-straight red hair and no front teeth at all and his Spider-Man t-shirt has flopped up and exposed his belly. "Don't remember the kid's name," she mentions.

Thumb swipes to the side. "Aunt Sheila," who has thick, curly, dark auburn hair and blue eyes about ten shades paler than Devon's own. She looks a trifle younger than Uncle Brian, but only just. There are strands of silver in her hair, she is positively painted with freckles, and can safely be called 'curvy' in a way that isn't a euphemism. She's got her eyes wide, eyebrows up, looking with either mischief or warning or both at the camera, which is too close to show what she's doing.

"Think they're second or third cousins or something to my father," Devon explains. Shrugs, tightly, the way she always tenses up when she even thinks about him. "Sheila may as well be mum's sister though, the way they get on."

Rafael

They're sitting side by side on the airport floor. Backs to the window, which is cool even through their jackets. He looks at the phone as she shows him pictures. Uncle Brian. Aunt Sheila. Some kid. Wolf's quiet for a while, considering the faces.

"Guess you got your freckles from them," he says at last. "Not the hair though. You grow up with these people?"

Devon

She nods. "More or less. Mum came to the States when I was around two. He left half a minute later," she says, with venom. It comes and goes. "Stayed with them til I was... fifteen, thereabouts. Mum took me back to England a while after we found out he'd died. Think she was always sort of waiting for him to come get us."

Devon exhales, tapping a button on the side that darkens the screen. She puts it away and picks at the muffin. "Soon as I finished school I went back to live with them."

Rafael

"Nice that you have them," he says. "Especially when your dad's a fuckhead. Nice that his whole family wasn't like that."

Devon

She snorts air out through her nostrils at his description of her father. She almost corrects him: was a fuckhead. He's nothing now. Except that isn't true: he's a void where there should be a memory. He's a bruise. He's a scar. He's a pervasive feeling of doubt. He's a pit of anger that sometimes gnaws at her from inside.

He's still a lot of things. Fuckhead can fit right in.

Devon leans against his shoulder. "Brian and Sheila are great, actually. Taught me the craft. Helped me when... things started moving. Told me what I was, when the fuckhead died."

Rafael

She leans against his shoulder. He likes it. Reminds him, suddenly and poignantly, of their trip through central and south america. Makes him imagine traveling with her, being a goddamn nomad, just the two of them and the clothes on their back. Going places. Maybe he'll hunt. Maybe she'll read cards, work magic. They could live like that.

He eats his last sausage. "They witches too?"

Devon

Devon thinks about that before answering. "Probably wouldn't call themselves that," she says. "Pagans, though, definitely. More... spiritual about it than I am. More traditional." She hesitates here; glances up, around, shrugs and looks down. "Sheila taught me what I know, and she can trick the weather sometimes. Little nudges. Brian's not very magical, but I think he's a bit of an enchanter. His tools don't break, car doesn't rust. Knives don't go dull. Things like that."

She clears her throat a bit, still examining a spot on her knee.

"The... other thing, that I do. That's not really... normal. The other stuff you can learn, you can be taught, if you have the knack for any of it at all. No one we know of in the family does the other sort of thing."

Rafael

Wolf reaches over. She's looking at her knee so that's where he puts his hand: covers up that spot, palm warm against ... her tights? Leggings? What does one call those? Wolf has no fucking idea; they are just Clothes She Wears.

"It's not bad. Just because no one else can do it doesn't make it bad, Devon." He looks at her. "You're not bad. Or weird or unnatural or whatever the fuck."

Devon

So she looks at his knuckles, then. On her leg. On her fake-leather leggings. Her 'absurd' clothing, as he once put it.

"Don't know that for sure, Rafa," she says quietly, after a few long, stretched-out seconds. "Cuz we don't know where it comes from. Or why I don't... smell."

Rafael

"Do know that for sure," he insists. "Live, breathe, eat and sleep with you. Would know if you were bad. My job is to know if something's bad."

Devon

That actually makes her smile a little. Partly the bit about how it's his job to know if something's bad. The corner of her mouth quirks a little, quivers, anxious to smile.

But it's also how he talks about her. Live, breathe, eat, sleep. It warms her.

"I know I'm not bad," she murmurs, nuzzling his bicep through his jacket. "But you can't say it's not weird. Or unnatural. It is."

Rafael

Wolf shrugs, stubborn. "Probably say it's weird and unnatural to be a werewolf too. Except it's not. It's more natural than anything else." He lifts his arm over her shoulder, pulls her against his side. "Not our place to say what's natural or not. You're exactly the way Gaia made you. Know that, because you don't smell like something the Wyrm made.

"How much does your mom know about all this, anyway?"

Devon

It doesn't really help.

That he wants to help is nice. And she appreciates it. That he's really stubborn about her being totally, one hundred percent normal and fine and natural is kind. But it doesn't drill down past the surface. He can maybe see that, sense it. Feel it. Devon doesn't really answer. Doesn't have the words to make it make sense to him: she knows she's not bad, or of the Wyrm. That's not why she's uncomfortable.

But if she had the words to explain to him what's wrong, maybe it wouldn't feel that bad to begin with.

--

He asks about her mom and she huffs a breath. "My mum's... she's not kin, even. She knows more or less about paganism, but she's not. Doesn't know... any of the real stuff."

Rafael

He's not quite getting it right. He can see that. He's not making her feel better. Or less ... alone, maybe. Different. Singled out. Doesn't know what to do, though, so he just ... kind of gives up. Leaves his arm around her shoulders. Leans against that glass and idly watches other travelers. Airplanes.

"Must suck," he says, about her mom not knowing. "Seems like you tell your mom everything else. Would suck not to be able to tell her about this big part of you."

Devon

Okay that he's not getting it right. Or that she's not feeling better. Okay, cuz... it's not about feeling alone. But he doesn't know that. She can't tell him that. He gives up, and this is okay, and she is held, and that is more than okay.

Devon just gives a small shrug. "Sometimes sucks. Can't explain you to her sometimes. But never thought I'd have to. Never wanted to end up with one of you."

Rafael

Wanted. That's the word she used. Not never thought I'd. Not never considered the possibility.

Wanted. Volition, consciousness, decision. It gives wolf a moment's pause.

"Why not?"

Devon

Devon twists. Lifts up a bit, turning her head, not quite extricating herself from under his arm. Looks at him.

"My dad," she says, quietly. "All the ones looking at me like they were going to pull my liver out."

Rafael

Wolf's eyes slide away from hers. He's embarrassed; feels dumb.

"Oh."

Devon

Her brow wrinkles. She leans into him, though is still looking at him. Her hand reaches out; covers over his knee, as he did with her not so long ago. "Hey."

Rafael

Contact draws his eye, even before she speaks. He looks at her hand, narrow and fair. Then at her, eyebrows together, saying nothing.

Devon

Her eyebrows are together too, far less dark and thick than his. Her brow is smoother, gentler, fairer. Furrowed now, but not as deeply. Her hand moves on his knee, a very small squeeze. Or scritch. "What is it?" she asks, quiet as a secret.

Rafael

Wolf wraps his hand behind her head; pulls her forward, kisses her brow.

"Nothing," he says. "Just don't want you to change your mind."

Devon

Devon is very confused. Not by the kiss; Rafael loves her. Wants her close, wants her near. Last time she was upset with him, even for a minute, the physical and emotional distance between them made him miss her. Hold her more tightly, because for a second there she was gone. They don't address it, don't say it out loud, but his heart is far more tender than the rest of him. At least: where she's concerned.

The kiss does not confuse her.

But his words do. She tips her head, looking up at him again. "About what? I don't understand."

Rafael

"Being with me." He mutters it; is back to avoiding eye contact. "Said you never wanted to be with a wolf."

Devon

"No," Devon says, much like the insistent way she said no when he told her that if he lose it, he might have to go away from her. Her hand tights on his knee, then searches for his hand, wrapping tight around it. He doesn't make eye contact, so she doesn't stare at him. She lays her head on his chest instead, ear to his heart. Her hand finds his and slips in to hold it, forcibly if necessary.

"Not what I meant," she goes on, quiet. "Taking you to meet my whole family, babe. Don't think I'm just going to...change my mind."

Rafael

Wolf likes this better. No searching eye contact. Just bodies pressing together. Her ear to his heart. He wraps his arm around her; she takes his hand. Firmly.

"Yeah," he says, low. "I know. Just being stupid. Just ... like you a lot." Quick shake of his head. "We don't have to talk about it anymore."

Devon

"You're not," Devon tells him, regarding his stupidity, not insistent this time but just... close. Firm. And this is fine the way it is, for a while: he holds her, she holds his hand, and he says they don't have to talk about it and says he likes her a lot because they're in public and he doesn't say the other thing because the sun is bright in the sky and they're surrounded by strangers. She gets all of that.

But a while later, she also says, softly: "Okay to talk about it. Don't want to hurt you."

Rafael

"Know that too," he says, matching her tone: quiet.

Doesn't talk much more about it, though. Because sun's in the sky. Because they're surrounded by strangers. And because he's who he is, taciturn at best; doesn't like words anyway. Keeps his arm around her, though. Stays there on the ground with her, back to the glass, nevermind all the comfortable couches all around.

--

Soon enough it's time to board. Because they've paid for the privilege -- paid for the ticket, paid for the lounge, paid for all of it -- an airline representative comes to get them. She calls him Mr. van der Valk, calls her Ms. Paredes. Gets the pronunciation right, even. They board down a different jetway from the hoi-polloi and settle into the front of the jet. Someone takes their coats. Someone wants to know if they'd like champagne before the flight, as though the very act of traveling might be a cause for celebration.

Wolf just stares at the attendant, frowning, uncomprehending. "What?" he wants to know. "Why? No."

Her practiced smile falters a little. Then she moves on to girl: repeats the question.

Devon

They are called. And then they clamber off the floor, picking up Devon's backpack and so on. Devon thinks it's weird they don't even board like the other passengers, but what are you going to do. She has no coat, at least not on her, as she gets into the suite-like seats with the touchscreens and fold-down seats like they're going farther than Boston.

A wry twist to her mouth. She's been quiet since her offer to talk about it, to understand how he's feeling, to listen, was rejected. Or, more accurately, probably misunderstood. She's offered champagne and wrinkles her nose a little, shakes her head. "Mojito?"

Which is what she'll get. For an after-breakfast treat. She settles in, not buckling yet, kicking her backpack under her chair, closing the windowshade halfway so that the still-ascending sun doesn't sear their eyeballs.

Rafael

She gets her mojito. He caves in and gets a coke. They have seats that are next to each other, but each is self-contained, a little bubble of privacy divided by an aisle, a little half-wall. He thinks to himself he can probably squeeze into hers later, after they take off.

Pulls out his phone for now. Texts her. From four feet away.

did you tell your fam i'm coming along

Devon

This jet is ridiculous, Devon thinks. Next time she's just going to tell his people to just get them first class on jetBlue or something where she can actually sit next to him, at least. And still get a mojito. Which she sips through its little black straw as she settles in. She hasn't turned her phone off yet for takeoff, since the plane is still boarding and will be for some time, so it buzzes when he texts her.

Devon looks over at him. Blinks blandly. She hasn't even read the text.

She's trying not to smile. "What is wrong with you?"

Rafael

That catches him off-guard; makes him shoot her a glance across the aisle.

"Didn't want to yell," he says, trying to keep it low.

Devon

Now she does smile. Just grins, shaking her head, looking at her phone. And then texts back a series of emojis.

One is a picture of a man and woman and a child.

The next is a picture of a phone.

Then a smiley face who has a dumbstruck mouth and hearts for eyes.

Finally, a thumbs up.

Rafael

A baffling sequence of tiny pictures streams onto his phone. Wolf looks at them. He has no idea what they mean. He looks over at her.

"What?"

Devon

Devon makes a face at him, wide eyed, eyebrows hopped up, and gives him an exaggerated shrug.

Rafael

He looks at the emoji again. Frowns at them for some time.

"You told 'em and they're cool with it?" He's yelling across the aisle after all. Well; talking loudly.

Devon

She grins!

And then she huffs a laugh. "Course I told them. They aren't okay with it, though."

Thankfully, she only lets that rest half a moment, just until he has the barest tiniest beginning of wariness, no more, before she adds:

"Excited to meet you, dumbass."

Rafael

"Way to leave me hanging," he grouses, and on that note, leans back in his private little alcove. Out of sight.

Couple seconds later her phone buzzes though.

come over when we're in the air

Devon

Actually, while he's texting her again, he gets a cashew thrown onto his face, arcing across the aisle to smack his nose. Because she can't see him. She doesn't like that.

Does look at her phone, though. Smirks at it. Texts back:

maybe.

Rafael

Cashew. Wolf leans forward, lets her see him ... popping it in his mouth. Then he reaches across the aisle, palm cupped, mutely demanding more.

Devon

That makes her smile. Him. Eating a stupid cashew. He reaches over. She gives him a weird Look. "Um.

"Get your own."

Rafael

He growls at her.

And then he flumps back into his alcove. When the flight attendant passes by, he asks for almonds. Because they're better than cashews.

Moments later, an almond flies over the wall and bops girl on the head.

Devon

They are not better than cashews. But this is not an argument Devon and Rafael are currently having. These are just nuts.

However, he might get the point when she tosses his nut back at him. It hits him in, ironically, the crotch.

Rafael

He eats that too. And no more nuts go flying over. Soon enough, the cabin doors close; the safety presentation begins. Wolf listens to that, very intently. They're instructed to buckle up, to straighten their seatbacks, to turn off their phones.

The plane taxis. The plane pauses. The plane lines up on the takeoff and roars down the runway, and the ground tilts, and they're airborne. Acceleration pushes them this way and that. They bank out over the city, turn east, settle into the long climb to cruising altitude. A bell dings when they pass ten thousand feet. Another one when the seatbelt sign turns off.

Wolf gets up from his seat. He comes to lurk at girl's alcove, leaning on the wall.

"Want some company?"

Devon

Devon wishes he weren't so far away. Stupid stupid servants putting them in stupid stupid trans-Atlantic style seats when there are equally nice first class seats that aren't made for sleeping. Mother of Christ. She curls up a little, clutching her armrest, wincing as they lift from the ground, her breath catching. He may hear it, sense it, but likely not, over the noise -- the popping in his ears.

They level off, and it feels calmer. She's relaxed again when he comes over. Lurks. She smirks up at him. "You're too big," she informs him.

Rafael

Wolf glances over his shoulder, almost like he expects someone to come running over to scold him. Max occupancy one!

No one does, though. So he steps into her alcove and shuts the little privacy door, squeezes in beside her. "No I'm not. Want an almond?"

Devon

Devon laughs at him. Looks up at him from her seat. She is still wearing her safety belt. She shakes her head at his offer, and crooks her finger at him. C'mere.

Rafael

So he sets his almonds down. It takes a bit of wedging and cramming, but he manages to settle in next to her. Puts his feet up. Drops his arm over her shoulders.

Devon

'Wedging' and 'cramming' is one way to put it. He has to get her to unbuckle her belt. She ends up standing up, because he's making her claustrophobic, and then when he's settled, she gets onto his lap, legs draped over his thighs, leaning half against the plane wall and half against him.

"So," she says, propping her arm on his shoulder, "what's up?"

Rafael

He blinks. Then he gets this sly look: "We are."

Clever.

Devon

God, how she rolls her eyes. She would groan, but she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction.

"Ugh," is all Devon says of his joke. Lays her head on his shoulder, replacing her arm.

"Going to see my bedroom," she tells him.

Rafael

"Yeah?" He considers this. "That something I should look forward to?"

Devon

This gives her pause. She shrugs. "Don't know," uncomfortable. "Thought you might."

Rafael

He didn't mean to make her uncomfortable. He pulls her against him, firm, rough.

"Do," he says, a small monosyllabic bandage for her feelings.

Devon

She's squished. She wrinkles her nose. "You should," she confirms, adamantly. "I'm your girlfriend."

Rafael

Wolf gives this grunt of a laugh. "You are," he confirms. "You grow up in that room or something?"

Devon

With a curve of her fingers, she flicks his chest. "Sort of," she says. "After the fuckhead left, it was a few years before mum could get us a place of our own. We lived with Brian and Sheila. And I was still there all the time after we moved. I always sort of had a room there. Then I lived there properly when I came back from England."

Rafael

"Hm." It's a low, thoughtful noise; lives mostly in his throat and chest. He tries to imagine her. Five years ago. Ten. Maybe fifteen. "Sort of kid were you?"

Devon

"Weird," she says. Shrugs a little. "Solitary."

Rafael

"Really?" He thinks about that a little more. "Thought you'd be popular. Solitary maybe. But figured other kids flocked to you."

Devon

She give a small shrug, a little shake of her head. "You've always thought I'm popular and... extroverted, or something. Always been wrong, too."

Rafael

"Never thought you were extroverted," he says. "But people like you now. Figured they liked you then too." Shrugs. "I like you. Find it hard to look away from you. Figure everyone else is the same."

Devon

Devon frowns a little. She shakes her head, more slowly at first. "Babe, it's not like people hate me or anything, but you --"

she lets him finish. What he says actually makes her cheeks pink a little in embarrassment. She glances away. "Weirdo," she mutters.

Rafael

"Not a weirdo," he says, oddly serious. "I just like you."

Devon

"Know that. Just mean..." she looks down at her hands, fiddling with them together. Exhales. "You have this idea of me and it's wrong. Feels weird."

Rafael

"So? It's why I'm asking you. So you can tell me what's right."

Rafael

"So? It's why I'm asking you. So you can tell me what's right."

Devon

"Not really asking much," she says, turning to look at him, frowning a little. "Saying stuff. Makes me have to... tell you no, no. Instead of just answering."

Rafael

"Well. Tell me, then. What you were like. What you did. What you liked." Wolf shrugs again. "Just wanna know you."

Devon

Devon squirms. Which, given that she is on his lap, may be a little awkward. Maybe not. She just shifts, uncomfortable. Frowns. "Not sure how."

Rafael

She's so awkward now. Embarrassed, ill at ease in her skin. It makes him sigh a little, though not in impatience. He wraps his arm around her waist. Leans over to nuzzle her shoulder.

"Never mind. Maybe when we get to Boston you can show me where you went to school. Stuff like that."

Devon

She tips her head into the embrace. Away from it, in a way, where he can sniff her neck and find her soap, but not her essence. Feel her, though. Soft. Sense her heartbeat if he wants to. She gives these sorts of things unconsciously, heedlessly, as though on some level she is trying to make up for the lack of intimacy granted so immediately and primally from scent.

"Not a long flight," she says softly. "Want to watch Netflix, though?"

Rafael

"Yeah," he says; shifts around a bit to get a little more comfortable. These alcoves are designed for one. The engineers never foresaw the possibility of a werewolf and his girlfriend insisting on not being apart even for a three-hour flight. "We got time for a movie."

Devon

She smiles at that. Nods her head at the touchscreen in front of the seat. "Know how to work one of these?"

A beat. "Think they'll make us popcorn?"

Rafael

"No," answers in tandem, "maybe. We can figure the screen out."

And so they do: poking at it, realizing it's a touchscreen, flipping through the airline's selection, settling on a movie. A classic, maybe.

They get popcorn, but it's the pre-popped sort that comes in bags like potato chips. They get meal service, which is a cramped and awkward affair, though no one makes wolf go back to his seat. Maybe they think it's kinda cute. More likely they don't want to stir up that hornet's nest. Wolf gets a passable steak for lunch; girl might opt for the seafood option instead. Or maybe not. Wolf gets a beer, too, which he sips while they watch their movie.

Flying west to east, the day passes them by. It was mid-morning when they took off. Evening when they land. Wolf goes back to his seat for the final approach. After they pull up to the gate, his jacket is returned to him. He grabs his bag out of the overhead compartments; he'd packed lightly enough not to need to check luggage.

In the aisle he reunites with the girl. Puts his arm around her shoulders the way he does.