She's not in love with him, she knows that when she pushes away from him and her bare body presses back down to his own slick chest. The two of them are tied down together, huddled up close in the tight confines of a single cab Chevy truck; it's the middle of September but the heat shared between them makes it feel like the hottest day in June. Between the smell of their breaths mingling and the tang of teenage sweat, the interior stinks of past make out sessions shoved back into the stained fabric of the bench seat. 

The windows are just barely cracked, and the doors are locked out of habit; outside the air is cold enough to be an obvious separation of temperatures. She breathes out on the glass, nose barely touching the cool surface as the hot air filters through; it flares up with fog until the only source of light outside, the moon, becomes nothing more than a blurry reflection on the creek's surface.

He's probably not in love with her either. But, he likes her in a way that makes it hard to admit. He attempts to cover his tracks by staring in the opposite direction and turning up the radio whenever any mention of feelings manages to come up in conversation, and for this reason she doesn't hold on too tight and counts whatever is between them day by day. 

"Come on, Dove," he whispers in a voice that probably sounds husky to himself. To the girl above him, it sounds completely wrecked. His fingers wrap around the nape of her neck, they only stay anchored because of the callouses of his rough hand earned after countless days spent as a farmer's hand, and he brings her back down to his lips.

She liked his mouth at first, it splits if she kisses too hard, becomes ruby red and swollen after a few minutes spent on her own. It's beginning to taste like mint gum and her own breath and empty space. All she imagines is the way he lies so easily, and how none of this really means anything and how many other people have been in the middle of nowhere, watching as everything that was supposed to mean something became nothing but a way to past time or forget time.

They kiss, Dove's mouth dancing with his, and when they part, it's obnoxiously loud in a way that makes her pretty blue eyes roll.

He thinks he's playing her. He thinks she's falling in love with him. He thinks he knows her, like she's simple and malleable and completely gone for him. That she'll give him everything because he calls her beautiful every other day and shakes her daddy's hand and compliments her momma.

It helps that the world is ending, too. That's probably why she continues to search for something she can only find temporarily in another warm body. And by this, she meant the heat from another human being, not the searing temperature of one of the wolves.

She likes it when he pushes his hands deeper into her back, and refuses to let go of her neck, and meets her halfway in between her frantic thrusts in search for friction. She trusts him enough with her body, even though his hands are lost and confused until they restrain. And how strange is that, she thinks, that the only thing he knows how to do is keep her flush against his body.

"I need your hands, Eli," she demands, fingers pushing up from where they had locked onto either side of his jaw to capture his wandering touch and plant one palm on her ass. The other escapes and moves to Eli's own accordance. It captures her hair, brings her up until she feels muggy air on her sticky abdomen. She bites her bottom lip like she wants more, even though she doesn't know if she really likes it.

"Damn girl," Eli tells her. It's the only coherent thing he can say in between his lips moving frantically over her skin. She doesn't say anything, just continues to grind down, and wonders why she trusts him enough to do these things to her body. Right, the world is ending. She forgets that sometimes.

Suddenly, his hands wrap around her ass, and she finds her back on the cracked leather of his seats, the buckle digging into her tender ribs. He folds Dove in half, the back of her knees finding a temporary home in his broad shoulders; the freckles she's not sure she likes so much anymore hardly visible in the dim light.

It turns practically missionary, and he keeps guiding her head back in efforts to look at her face. Maybe he does love her. Maybe he's imagining someone else. Maybe he just wants to feel more normal instead of inevitably damned like the rest of mankind, in the tiny little universe of the truck. Maybe he wants her to think all of those things.

"Eli!" She huffs, like she's losing her mind and not growing bored. "Harder, c'mon," she rolls her hips until she can feel something better than his desperate hands trying to make her legs shake. He listens to her, but she still wants to tape the definition of friction to his forehead.

She turns her head up like she's being unraveled by sloppy rubbing until she can see the clear stars above her and thinks of what love means to her. And it's not this, cramped in a hot truck as they both chase after a finite and fuzzy feeling.

"God, you know what you're doing," he applauds while his constantly moving hands settle on the jugular of her throat, pushing until her breaths become harsher and her cheeks tingle.

"When do I not?" She whispers back to him in a voice only throaty from his hold, and watches as his body shakes.

It's an empty question, but it manages to fill the air. She doesn't know what she's doing, no one does anymore. All they do is this, like they have always done before, distracted themselves from what is inevitable, using each other's bodies as a coping mechanism. 

Dove won't allow herself to feel guilty for it, for losing herself in the hands of a boy she barely knows instead of letting herself sit around at home and restlessly stare out of the window and listen for a howl.

Because the world is ending, and not in the strictly angsty teenage way.

*

"Did you hear?" 

Dove glances up from where she leans haphazardly on the wall of the high school, fingers combing through her long hair out of habit in attempt to rid herself of the tangles that never leave.

Her best friend stands with both hands wrapped tight around the straps of her backpack, sporting the same outfit most seniors, including Dove, do after the first week of school: a pair of cotton joggers and a t-shirt.  She nods her head towards the general direction behind her, a silent gesture to tell Dove to casually look down the hallway. 

"'Fraid I didn't hear nothin', Sonya," Dove replies in a tired voice, but her eyes find exactly what the other teenager warned her about. 

Their principal, a woman who's casual enough to wear converse to school but so obviously stern that she possessed most of the student body's respect, stood with two strangers on either side of her. Her short and chubby stature seemed even tinier next to these beings who towered over her and stuck out like sore thumbs, too old to be potential classmates and too young to be interns or teacher aids. 

The girl-- or woman, probably freshly twenty-- took a glance around the hallway with little interest, her legs shifting and her arms crossed, clearly uncomfortable in her newest setting. She looked tough in a way that most couldn't be, a natural physique of muscles that came with a long and careful line of strong blood. The male beside her, around the same age, mirrored this. Clearly, they weren't sibling, but they stood in each other's space with enough comfort to suggest a bond like friendship.

"Wolves," Sonya's mouth moved with the word, but never allowed it to become an actual sound. 

Dove didn't know how to act, but her interest became obvious. A wolf was one thing, wolves were another; where one could find a wolf, wolves followed, and eventually, a Pack. An entire community of beings who pushed at every taboo, the origin of all nightmares, and the unclear and strange courtship that most humans shied away from. 

They may look human, but they are not. Their life, their love, their own blood could be defined as the opposite of mundane, and Dove knows this before she even takes a step forward. But, she still takes that step.

"Doe," Sonya's tone becomes tight with the nickname, her hands outstretched to her friend like she's afraid if she allows her to pass, Dove will make a lasting mistake that won't go away after a few sessions of angrily singing along to break up songs on the car ride home. 

The teenager pauses; it's enough for Sonya, who takes that as an excuse to fully block her away from her intended targets. 

"The world is ending," Sonya whispers with a swift glance behind her shoulder as she says it. The two Wolves aren't listening to the teenagers, but still, caution had become a staple in Sonya's vocabulary always and not just in the last few months. "Don't make it come even quicker," she advises seriously through gritted teeth.

Dove gives her a look that screams she wants to do the exact opposite, but remains cemented to her spot. 

*

The thing about coping mechanisms is that they never last long for Dove, and in this instance, the latest coping mechanism goes by the name of Eli Abbot. 

He fell into her hands, and Dove gladly took advantage of that. 

He took every southern-cliche to church and back; loved his mother, loved his sister, and even more than either of them, his truck. He chewed, but on the days which saw Dove, he distracted himself with mint gum. His biggest dreams were settling down on his family's land with two and a half kids, surrounded by a white picket fence and welcomed home with dinner. 

Dove didn't disagree with those, it all sounded nice, in theory. And although the world was ending-- at least, that's what every pastor in the bible belt claimed-- she still possessed dreams herself. Except, for this instance, they were the opposite of everything Eli could want. 

Eli's dreams were achievable to the point that Dove pissed herself off when she thought about it. Dove had dreams that were going to be a complete bitch to achieve, but the hustler in the teenage girl didn't fade in the presence of a male. That scared him. 

"Am I a sociopath?" Dove turns to face Sonya, who carefully stares at herself in the mirror provided by their art III teacher and craves out the general area of her face. The classroom overflows with underclassmen; none bother to listen to their private conversation. 

"What? No," Sonya's pencil drags too hard on the sketch paper, leaving no room for error, which isn't a problem, considering she won't make a mistake. "I mean, maybe... why?"

"I kiss Eli and I don't--" Dove clutches the air with her fingers, attempting to find words that might help her discover what she was looking for. "I read these books, and I listen to these people, and I know what I should feel for him-- but I don't." 

"Don't?" Sonya pauses her charcoal pencil, it hesitates where she draws her long dark hair. "Don't love him?"

"Don't like him," her voice drops dangerously low. "It's mediocre, it's-- it passes time." In this case, passes can be interchangeable with wastes. But, she doesn't allow herself to be that unfiltered, especially here, in a classroom full of students who could be listening out of boredom. Doesn't know if she could admit it to herself, either. 

Sonya pulls away from her sketch book, amber eyes solely focused on the girl she's called best friend since diapers, and raises a thick brow. "At least you're admitting it," she tells her and nothing else. 

*

Dove has always watched people. When every international news station confirmed the existence of the traditional werewolf, the teenager could hardly be surprised. People were strange; people fell into categories; people weren't always people sometimes. 

She inherits the knack from her mother, who could determine someone's life story from a few words, or lack there of. 

They study people sometimes, sit in diners and trade theories about the old men sitting on the edge of the counter like candy. Either one of them could sum up a person after two minutes of this careful watching; when they were wrong, they took note and adjusted. 

But people weren't always people, and Dove knows that as she stares at the strange girl who sits in the office with a flannel wrapped around her slender shoulders and a smiley face drawn on her worn jean's knee. In a lot of ways, she looks too young to be fourteen. At most, twelve. But, she's still here, waiting for Dove to say something as she stares at new girl's transcript. 

The principal had caught her in the hallway, gave her the run down of the kid with a low voice, and shoved her out of the broom-closet office out into the front foyer, where she's there, waiting. She heard everything, too. Obvious in the way she tries to appear smaller, her dark eyes drawn to the yellowed tiles of the floor, her bottom lip sucked into her mouth with little thought. So practiced it seemed natural. 

"Cody Ulfric?" Dove asks the young girl. 

Her head raises, her eyes hardly find her for longer than a second before they're back tracing the cracks of the tile. 

"I'm Dove Ramsay, call me either," she holds out her empty hand even though she doesn't know if she should. 

It's too quiet in the foyer. In the office, she can imagine all of the staff leaning over the video feed, watching and waiting for a moment that validates their barely-hidden fear for the strange.

Her hand waits in the air, silent and patient for the girl's. 

"Is it-- do you not like touchin', or do y--" 

Before Dove can say another word, tiny searing hands wrap around hers with an iron strength. It's odd, jumbled-- unsure, as if Cody had never touched another girl-- a human-- before in this manner, in welcome. 

Dove doesn't let go until the heat creeps up into her neck and reminds her of Eli's fingers restraining, restraining, restraining. Only then do their hands fall apart; Dove's own crawl up to her throat like she's drumming breath back into body. 

Not all people are people; Cody Ulfric is one of those people. 

Author's Note

I tried???

I love Dove. Love Cody. Love the people I'm going to introduce soon. Love how this fucks me up :-) 

Tell me what you liked, what you didn't. Sorry I was gone for so long, got distracted from the hustle for a while.