Night's Omen

  Aurora rolled over in bed, the early morning light peeking through the blinds. A freckled shoulder, half-exposed, was just at her eye level as her vision came into focus, and she leaned forward inches to plant a soft kiss on it. Drew didn't wake up, though - he'd been out terribly late, and she could smell it on the clothing he'd thrown on the floor on his way in. Actually, he'd more or less wiggled out of it, since he'd been too drunk to actually take it off gracefully. She was going to have to remember to reprimand Joshua for suggesting they go to the Mojo Lounge, but it wasn't like they could have gone many other places for the drinks that intoxicated shifters.

  Well, there was one other place, but she would never have to ask if Drew had gone there. All Hallows was a place he'd never be going in again, she was confident - Melisande still worked there. She couldn't believe it had been almost a year since they'd been divorced; actually, she couldn't believe they'd gotten divorced at all. She'd never thought that it would have happened, because Drew was such a nice man, but then again, sometimes the pull of your own blood type is too strong to resist. She'd seen it in hyenas many times, and in the rare Anubi/Bardi shifters she'd read about. Still, she couldn't fault Melisande as much as Joshua and Drew did - the "Cheating Bitch", they called her. She'd lost her name to them, and they'd lost a friend.

  Aurora wouldn't admit that Wesley had come into the library not too many days before to grab a research book for Melisande's friend Aimee. Aimee was also a very carefully neutral party, since she and Joshua and Drew were so close. Everyone sort of avoided the topic, actually, but Aurora was soft-hearted, and so she didn't hate Melisande or Wesley. Sometimes things just happened - obviously, Aurora ended up with the good end of the deal, anyways. She had a wonderful, loving and warm boyfriend that her brother finally approved of. From what she'd heard, Wesley and Melisande were doing well too, but she was a little biased about her end of the bargain.

  She slipped out of bed and headed for the bathroom, starting up the shower. In the mirror, she viewed her curly blonde hair, a mess from sleeping on it. She ran a quick wide-toothed comb through it before jumping in, and began her morning ritual. Wash hair, wash body, use specialized de-scenting spray that she'd bought to hide her vulpine breed from potential predators, and then stand in front of her closet in her bra and a slip and try to decide which pencil skirt to pair with which blouse while Drew slept until noon. She wasn't going to wake him up though - he deserved a day off.

Drew slept through Aurora kissing his shoulder, but he started to stir once the warm spot beside him had vanished.  He'd long since gotten used to the fact that being a shifter changed more than he'd initially expected, and that 'changing more than he'd expected' had included some rather strange things that he would have expected more of house cats than tigers.  I mean, tigers are big and badass and totally not cuddly, right?

Well, Drew was apparently a cuddly tiger, because the instant the body heat beside him was gone, he was rolling over in search of it.  When he didn't immediately find it ('immediately' meaning 'within twenty minutes of reaching, dozing off again, searching some more, dozing again, and then finally realizing that he wasn't finding anything), he squinted one eye open to peek around.  The body heat had moved itself onto a shower at some point, and was apparently finished with said shower by now, from the smell coming from the bathroom. 

That really just wouldn't do.

He crawled out of bed with a wide yawn, already thinking that he really shouldn't have drank as much Mojo Juice if it was going to make him feel like this, but what right did he have to complain?  He was a shifter now, so this was really the only time he ever felt like crap short of REALLY bad situations at work, and those weren't even as horrible as they used to be.  Being a shifter certainly helped when it came to getting your ass kicked.  Especially when you were prone to being pissed and snapping at the biggest guy in the place.

Yeah, that tended to get painful if it went too far.  Drew was a good sport about it, however, considering the situation.  He didn't hold it against anyone who had to get rough breaking any shit up, and he'd calmed down in the last few months about it.  He was pretty sure that Nick LeCroix had also had a word with Wes about trying to hold his temper, though.  That alone pissed Drew off even more, since just THINKING about Nick LeCroix and his happy little hyena wife and baby girl only served to remind him that Mel didn't HAVE to be with a lion.  That it was perfectly possible for a lion and a hyena, who should have hated each other, to be madly in love.  What had been wrong with them? 

Good thing he wasn't at all bitter.

He shouldn't be, he knew that.  It was over, the divorce finished for close to a year, and he was happy with Aurora.  He really, really was.  She was a sweetheart, and gorgeous on top of it.  She was also someone that he could protect and love and hold, and there was no gigantic fucking lion going to sweep in and mess his shit up this time.  He'd taken too long to hurt less over Melisande and open up this much to Aurora, and screwing it up was not an option.  Staying in bed while Aurora finished her morning routine wasn't much of an option, either, which meant that he had to slink into the bathroom as quietly as he could so that he could grab her up from behind.

He made it a point to breathe on her and ensure as much skin contact as possible.  He knew he needed a shower, he knew he had morning breath with Mojo Juice to make it even tastier, and he knew that she was going to want another shower by the time he was done.  That was precisely the point.

To top the whole thing off, he totally sneezed on her accidentally when he got a good, strong whiff of that spray she liked to wear.  Yeah, that was graceful.  "Yech!  You been wearin' that stuff a lot lately, you tryin' ta scare me off?" he asked, scrunching his nose a few times as he tried to clear the itch.  "It makes my nose tingle, you know, an' I like it when you're smellin' foxy."

He buried his nose instead in her hair, which smelled clean and more like her, to prove his point.  He also gave her a squeeze, hoping it could get his desire to protect her across.  He knew why she wore that spray, and he hated that she felt so afraid for her safety.  He would do anything to keep her safe.

  "That's... thanks," she said, wiping snot off of her arm. She glared at him as he strong-armed her into a hug, and wrinkled her nose. "Come on, one of us does have to work today," she said, trying to weasel out from his grip. She finally managed after an awkward dance they did in the small bathroom that resulted in her licking the side of his face - it was enough to make him loosen his grip in surprise, and allowed her room to free herself. She promptly began brushing her teeth.

  "You know," she said, pointing at him with her toothbrush, foam in her mouth. She looked positively rabid. "My sense of smell is every bit as good as yours. I can probably tell you everyone you saw last night if I take a good enough whiff of your hair, which, by the way, is spectacular right now," she said, turning to spit into the sink. She swiped a hand across the bathroom mirror to let him see it. "Joshua would love a photo of you with an alfalfa sprout on the back of your head, wouldn't he?" she asked.

  "And I have to wear this stuff," she said, looking up at him as he burrowed into her curls. She smiled; how Disney they seemed sometimes. "I work at the library, it's an open invitation for all kinds. I know that you're awesome and kick-ass, but it's not like you're going to walk down the street carrying a cart of diamonds and just expect nobody's going to try anything. I'd rather take precautions; it would be dumb for me not to," she said. She turned and laid a small hand on his chest, giving him a sincere look.

  "I'm just trying to make your job of being the hero a little easier, hon," she said. She gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek and then fled the bathroom to put her clothing on (more than she'd already managed to, anyways). While she tried to choose between a lavender and a lilac blouse, she called back into the bathroom, "So how is Joshua doing?"

  Aurora didn't call him Josh for whatever reason. She said he looked like a Joshua - he said she was the only one who called him that. Not even his mother called him Joshua, and Aurora had only shrugged and said that it would be 'hers', then. He'd countered that he'd never known Arctic foxes to be possessive, and she'd stabbed at his hand with a fork while he'd cleverly tried to harvest a stuffed mushroom from her dinner plate. It was the first time that she'd met him, or Aimee, actually. The three of them hung out a lot, though Aimee was the one who was more willing to fill her in on the things they wouldn't - like the entire history of Drew and Melisande.

  Aimee had merely said she was letting her know what she was getting into. The jury was still out on whether or not she was trying to scare her a little, but since the both of them were generally sweet girls, the motives had been lost to a casual friendship by now.

"Welcome," he offered pleasantly over the sneeze, doing what he could to be all up in her business while she was trying to get ready for work, and he couldn't really help himself.  If she was really going to go into work without him, he was going to end up going back to sleep, but he didn't prefer it.  He had much better ideas for that.  "I ain't questionin' your sense of smell, but I sure as hell ain't used ta that stuff," he offered, making a face when she mentioned Josh wanting a picture of his crazy hair, and he resisted the urge to fix it, just in case she tried to GIVE Josh that picture.  He'd done it before, so he couldn't really say it wouldn't be fair.  He resisted, but only because he was confident that he was safe.  That, and he had other things on his mind.

Things that didn't involve Josh, but she'd asked.  "Man, I dunno, Josh is Josh.  Me an' him were trashin' on Wes for awhile las' night, an' then Aimee dropped by an' Josh wasn't so intristed in me anymore.  'Sides, I was kinda 'nnihilated by then, anyhow.  If Josh sends you any pictures, don't open 'em," he warned, and that was really more for his pride than her sake.  It wasn't like he'd done anything that would upset her, that he knew of, but more that Josh would only have taken pictures of him being a retard, and Drew didn't remember if any pictures had been taken.  They were assholes to each other.

"You know, you could make my job of bein' the hero even easier if you called out sick an' stayed in bed with me," he offered with his most persuasive, 'you-know-you-love-me' tone AND look immediately after that little kiss, because he REALLY wanted her to come back to bed.  He topped it all off with another kiss, like the cherry on the hot fudge sundae. 

  "Joshua hasn't sent me a photo yet, but you two keep warning me about it," she said, glancing back at him as she buttoned her little pearlescent buttons one by one. She stepped into a long, charcoal-hued pencil fit skirt and pulled it up, tucking the blouse into it, unphased by Drew being... himself. "I'll keep it in mind, though." She paused when he mentioned how Josh stopped paying attention to him when Aimee came about.

  "Eh, they're the same breed. Sometimes they just do that," she offered. She immediately winced, realizing that that was precisely what had happened with his marriage. "I didn't mean..." she trailed off. No, there was no way to fix that. Well, except for: "Yeah, I think he has a little crush on her," she followed quickly, hoping Drew just wasn't paying attention.

  She grimaced and sat down on the bed to pull on her shoes. "I can't stay home from work, dear. We do this every week. You have an off day because you bust your ass and keep us safe; I have an off day because the library has to close sometime. You need to just lounge around. I got most of the house stuff taken care of during the week, so there's nothing for you to do except relax - and shower," she suggested.

  She smiled at him, then stood and went to the mirror by her vanity to put on her lip gloss. She was running very early, at least.

He wasn't complaining over the fact that Josh hadn't sent her any pictures yet, but he knew it was coming eventually.  Josh would probably just wait for a really good one, and then Drew would never live it down.  He could just see it coming.

He didn't see her remark about the 'same breed' coming, though.  He made it a point to look as though he hadn't heard it, but that wasn't going to stop his mind from rushing off in that direction.  At least with Josh and Aimee, it was something he'd seen coming pretty much since they'd met, but his suspicions about Melisande and Wes hooking up had been dealt with early on, so he'd been much less prepared for that one.  It still pissed him off and hurt like Hell, especially because of just how much he'd put into that one, but he tried not to dwell on it.  He had Aurora to think about, and dwelling on your ex-wife was NOT the best way to make another woman feel loved.

"A crush?" he repeated, deliberating not commenting on the 'species' comment.  Brushing it off, three, two, one...  "I can't get why they ain't hooked up, yet.  It's plain as day they're crazy 'bout each other."

God, was he lucky, or what?  He had a girl who TOLD him to sit around and basically do nothing on his day off, though she was probably smarter than he was giving her credit for on that one.  He laid around and just chilled some days that he had off, but he had a habit of getting restless and doing whatever he could find, anyway.  Sometimes that involved catching up on the video games that were totally awesome and he didn't play so much anymore, and sometimes it involved getting out of the house, but he'd been known to do chores he knew she didn't like or more 'manly' stuff that she'd been wanting.  His last day off had been devoted to putting shelves in her closet, which had been a more insane venture than he'd intended.  She had a hell of a lot more in that closet than he'd expected, and he'd had to move it all so that he didn't get it all messy while he put the shelves in.  He'd felt bad afterwards and offered to help her organize it all when she got home, because he hadn't wanted to do it himself.

He was NOT the most organized of people, especially when it came to clothes.  He could handle a sting operation or a complicated plan involving fooling locals who may or may not be involved with a terrorist organization, but ask him to organize shoes and clothes in a woman's closet?  Yeah, not happening.  He did what he was told when she knew how she wanted to do it.

"Shower?  You sayin' I stank?" he asked, looking insulted for about a quarter of a second before he cracked a grin and gave her a mock-salute.  "Yes, ma'am.  Anythang else you want?  S'long as it ain't gonna cost me a kidney or somethang, I'll take care of it."

Even as he made the offer and she went to put her lip gloss on, he had to follow her and distract her some more.  Stepping up behind her so that he could wrap her up again, he saw just how right she was about his hair being crazy, but he didn't care.  He'd worked hard, played hard, and slept like the dead.  He had a right to look like he'd done exactly that.  His helmet hair was sometimes worse after jobs, so it wasn't a big deal.  It was SO not a big deal, in fact, that he immediately tucked his head into her neck to kiss her there. 

No sense in ruining that lip gloss RIGHT after she'd put it on, right?

  "Maybe Aimee's still not ready. Her ex was an asshole. Treated her like shit. That doesn't shake off too easily," she said. She wrapped an arm around him as he kissed her, snuggling against him tightly for a moment. Aurora was downright lucky to have Drew - lucky as anyone could be. Not only was she saddled up with a bright and bold man, but he was a tiger, and she was a fox. She was well-protected, and that was something that had been always stressed to her, so it was important to her. Aurora never allowed herself to be anything but thankful for Drew, even if she didn't say it verbally often.

  "Do you want to meet Josh and Aimee for dinner later?" she asked, releasing him. She had a long day ahead of her, but she would be willing to suck it up if it meant a casual dinner with friends. She smiled at him, reaching up to brush her fingers against his hair. She'd never thought she'd like a redhead before - but then again, if you'd told Aurora five years ago she'd have been dating not only SWAT but also a tiger, she'd have laughed in your face.