Rhapsody

7: tonight we are strangers

Maverick doesn't know what in the ever-loving fuck is going on anymore. It's been almost two days with Emery, and the werewolf is already turning his life into a confusing whirlwind and shit, Maverick hates him for it.

The snow doesn't begin to fall until eleven o'clock at night. The spiraling flurries shroud the headlights of passing cars, and the tracks left on the roads by slick rubber tires disappear beneath mounds of white just minutes after they appear. Ice sticks to everything along the street. The skyscrapers, the curbs, the lights, even Maverick's hair.

It's eleven o'clock at night, and, against his better judgment, Maverick is not at home. Oh, no. His weird as hell encounter with Emery at the precinct is way too fresh in his mind to be anywhere that makes sense. Confused and perhaps a little embarrassed, he does what Maverick Carson does best: he gets drunk.

When his skin tickles from the memory of Emery's breath, he drinks. When his neck flushes from the memory of Emery's closeness, he drinks. He drinks and drinks, until the images in his brain are so hazy, he can't remember if they really happened or he just made them all up. It's not beer tonight, but rather hard liquor that sears his throat and burns all the way down. It warms the deepest pits of his stomach, and when he breathes the fumes into the winter air, he can almost imagine he's breathing fire.

He's confused. And lost. Really, really lost—and not just in his thoughts, either. Was he supposed to turn right or left at the corner? The thick flurries make it difficult to read the street signs, even when he's standing right underneath them on his tip-toes with his eyes narrowed in concentration. Damn New York winters.

Oh well. He thinks he's going the right way.

For all his detective skills, he cannot, for the life of him, figure out why Emery is such a fixed point of interest for him. The werewolf is an annoyingly intriguing enigma, sure, but there's no reason why he should be occupying Maverick's thoughts this much. He wants to chalk it up to the alcohol, but deep down, Maverick knows that it has to be something more than that.

It's midnight when he finally reaches the graveyard. The small plot is behind a old church whose denomination Maverick can't remember, but in any case, he's almost certain he isn't allowed to be drinking on their grounds. His face flushes with the alcohol and the onslaught of frostbite. Neon signs shed vibrant light across the new layer of sleek white, and the spire of the church casts a long shadow over his head.

"Hey, Ma."

Talking to his mother is a habit now, like the drinking and the smoking and the sex, and yet somehow, of all of them, this is the one that wrenches his gut the most.

"Hi," he begins again, louder this time. He lowers himself to sit beside the grave's headstone. "It's late, I know. But I didn't want to go home."

He takes another swig of his drink. Shit, this stuff is like Satan's ceremonial parade all the way down his throat, and it makes him feel so alive. Blearily, he blinks at the snow around him. It's pristine white, and untouched except for the signs of his obvious struggle to sit down. There are heaps of flowers, too, piled up around the grave, frozen mid-wilt. Lilies, Maverick thinks with a sneer. His mother hated lilies.

He sighs, shoulders deflating. The back of his skull brushes the engraved letters: ELEANOR CARSON.

"Where do I start? God, I can't remember what I last told you." He drums his fingers against the glass. Tap, tap permeates the quiet of the night. "I haven't seen Callum since—damn, Christmas? Yeah, Christmas, 'cause I spent New Years with Cassie and Mandy. You remember Cass, right? And her girlfriend, Mandy? Two of the craziest goddamn people I've ever met, but I think they're gonna make it, Ma. I really do. Cass really loves her."