He groans and grabs the red marker, adding aggressive arrows pointing at the wavy lines. Then he draws a mouth, crosses it out with a big X, and points at himself.
“You can’t eat the wavy lines?”
“No!” He catches himself, frustrated. He tries again, opening his mouth to explain, and I watch his jaw work, watch the words form and then dissolve. His hands curl into fists at his sides. “I just...FUCK!”
I cross my arms, studying the whiteboard. Two figures connected by wavy lines. A crossed-out mouth. A padlock. A building.
And then he draws one more thing, a third figure that’s taller than the other two, with what appears to be wings coming off its back. Or a cape. Or possibly just really aggressive shoulder pads.
I take a wild guess, because when it comes to Sean, that’s the highest chance of success. “Is that Villeneuve?”
Sean’s eye goes wide. He nods so hard his eyepatch shifts.
I look at the drawing again. Villeneuve, connected by wavy lines to... me? And a crossed-out mouth, and a padlock.
Sean is watching me with the desperation of a dog who can see the treat in your hand but can’t figure out how to perform the specific trick you want him to do.
I open my mouth to ask a follow-up question, but then I look at the bottom corner of the whiteboard where he’s added what appears to be a crudely drawn penis.
I lose my train of thought.
“Is that a dick? Is that what this is about? You want a blowjob?”
Sean freezes. His mouth opens, then shuts, and his entire face cycles through about thirty different expressions in two seconds. His face settles on a curious combination of defeat and hopelessness. “I mean... well. Yeah. Always.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “You’ve been so weird this week. You know that, right? The running in circles, the mouth thing, the arguing with Killian in the courtyard at midnight…”
He drops the marker. Some of the frantic energy bleeds out of his shoulders. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just...Fuck. This is hard to...” He trails off and clearly tries to finish the sentence, but he can’t.
“The stress is getting to all of you,” I say, because it is.
The virus spreading through Killian, Knox breathing down our necks, Kyle still being missing, the necromancer still hiding out there somewhere. It’s a lot. Even for a pack of wolves whose entire existence could be summed up asa lot.
And then there’s Sean’s injury…
He seems to be taking it all in stride, but that’s the thing about Sean. He’s always there for everyone else, always throwing himself under the bus to make the rest of us laugh. I’m pretty sure if hewashaving a hard time, he wouldn’t say anything. He probably wouldn’t even notice, because he doesn’t think of himself like that.
“You don’t have to go to these ridiculous lengths to tell me you need some quality time,” I tell him.
He groans and drops his head. “I’ve got a ridiculous length to show you.”
The words come out flat, like he hates himself for it but literally can’t resist telling a bad joke.
I laugh again, harder this time. “You aresucha dork.”
Sean’s grin spreads slowly, sheepish and warm, and when I step forward and hook my fingers in the waistband of his sweatpants, his breath catches.
“Really?” he asks, like he can’t believe his own luck.
“Get on the bed before I change my mind.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. He practically falls backward onto the mattress, tugging his shirt off on the way down, and I sink to my knees between his legs as he shoves his sweatpants low enough to free himself.
He’s already hard. Probably has been even before I touched him. Those were some pretty vigorous charades. I wrap my hand around his shaft and his hips jerk, a low sound escaping his throat.
“Fuck, Storm, your hands are cold.”
“Deal with it.”
