Wolf | Part Twelve: not a vegetarian
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Simon gets the first date complete tags + cws
Simon didn't get nervous, he didn't worry about whether he was off putting or standoffish with the people around the village. As far as he was concerned he made sure they were well fed, they could put up with his more taciturn of moods. Even the lads knew not to expect much from Simon on most nights, with them he doesn't have to try, doesn't have to care, doesn't have to worry that he's not acting entirely human.
So as he stands in the tiny little flat above the shop that he only uses when he needs space, he isn't sure why he asked you on a date. You're attractive, he understands why Kyle stumbled into the kitchen of the farm grinning from ear to ear after the afternoon he spent fixing your chimney. John was no better, although Simon knew it was harder for him. There was more history there.
Then there was the idiot wolf who had made himself right at home with you.
But Simon had never been one to be swayed by a pretty face, occasionally by a ruggedly handsome one with a wolfish smile, but never by someone pretty. And you were pretty, and normal, and oh so very human it made his teeth hurt, his bones ache.
He had offered, no, insisted that he pick you up from the cottage for the date. You were a beacon for trouble and having you driving around the countryside in the dark was just asking for it. It had taken a lot of back and forth over text, his stiff fingers fumbling over the keys before he had finally called you, all of the sass gone once he had you on the line.
He is walking out the door when his phone starts to buzz, he answers without looking assuming it's you.
"Too late t'back out, olready on my way."
"On your way where?" John's voice crackles over the line.
"Fuck, thought you were someone else," he grumbles. Simon hadn't told John or Kyle he had plans tonight. He had had the urge to gloat, gloat that he was doing something with someone that wasn't their sorry arses, gloat that he had managed to get a date with you.
In the end, the fear of the date going poorly had outweighed the need to rub it in their faces.
"Got plans ye didn't tell us about? Johnny finally back to his old self?"
Simon locks the door to the flat before lumbering down the dark stairs that lead out to the back alley behind the butcher's shop. With each step he considers how to answer, considers what John will think of him. Will he even care?
"He's still playing house."
"Course he is," he says with a sigh."Not goin' to tell me who it is then?"
Simon considers his options before settling on, "not much to tell yet. You and Garrick goin' to sit around and gossip about it like a couple of school girls?"
John huffs, "ran out of here like a bat out of hell earlier. Imagine I won't be seein' him until he gets it out of his system."
"Aye, this close to the full moon it could 'ave been anythin'."
Pain, anger, excitement, jealousy. Anything could have triggered an early turn.
"Am I waitin' up fer you?"
"Better not, I'll see ye in the morn."
John bids him goodnight. Simon knows the old man well, with no one else there to worry about he'll eat an early dinner, lock up the animals for the night and then drink himself to sleep in the den. On a warm night he might stay there till morning, on a cold night, like tonight, he'll wake shivering once the fires died down properly then drag himself to bed.
Simon had found him there more than once, brow furrowed even in his sleep, glass of whiskey abandoned on the coffee table, a book more often than not rested against his stomach, threatening to slip off his lap with each rise and fall of the old man's chest. John worked hard on the farm, he deserved the rest.
The road to the cottage was familiar. It looks like many of the roads that wind through the Highlands, but Simon has been here before on a handful of occasions before it was yours. Two man jobs with Kyle and that one last time with John.
You're already waiting on the front step when he arrives, fussing with your jacket, only looking up when his truck's tires crunch over the gravel drive. Your smile is bright and warm, and far more than a man like him deserves, but he enjoys it nonetheless.
"You're prompt," you tease, dramatically pulling up the sleeve of your jacket to look at your watch, walking over to where he has stopped the truck, window rolled down to greet you.
"Said I was goin' to be 'ere in ten, I'm 'ere in ten."
If the curt way he speaks bothers you, you don't show it. You simply roll your eyes and make your way over to the passenger side of the truck. Maybe he should have gotten out, opened the door for you like a gentleman. He's never been good at this romantic shit and he's still not really sure why he asked you. There's the lie he tells himself, that if you're with him you're less likely to get yourself in trouble.
You pull yourself into the cab, dropping a bag down onto the seat next to you before buckling up.
“So where are we off to? Is it a surprise?”
This, this is exactly why he needed to ask you on this date, keep you occupied for as long as possible so you didn’t wander off into the woods around the cottage.
He grunted in affirmation, left hand firmly on the wheel, right rest on his right knee, fingers itching to reach over and take a firm grasp of your thigh, feel the warmth that bled through the pants you wore, feel the way your body felt beneath his touch.
Simon could tell himself this was purely magnanimous, that he was looking out for you, but he would be lying to himself.
You fill the quiet space in the cab of his truck, talking about the garden you planned to plant in the spring, your research into native plants, growing seasons, the kinds of thing John would be able to talk about, help with.
You don’t hide the surprise on your face when he pulls into the village, turning down the alley that leads behind the shops.
“You're not bringing me all the way here just to kill me? Would have been easier to do it at the cottage then leave me for the animals," you say with a laugh, not an ounce of actual worry in your voice.
"Easier clean up," he jokes back.
Your laugh at his dark humor sends heat down his spine. Its not often that others join in with him, and certainly never anyone as pretty as you.
He parks the truck, easily maneuvering into the spot behind the shop. It's dark in the alley even though the sun has yet to fully set, but the buildings block out any traces of light. You slip out of the truck, slamming the door behind you, peering curiously around the alley.
"Are we really going to the shop?"
"Nah, got a flat upstairs. 'S not much but," he shrugs.
You follow him eagerly, your steps echoing his as he leads you up to the unadorned door to his flat.
You are oddly silent as you walk into the flat. He knows it's not much. There's a second hand sofa shoved against the wall with a crochet throw blanket Johnny had shoved in his hands one cold day. There's a coffee table with ringed stains that sits on a ratty rag rug. The living area was open into the kitchen where he had a butcher block island and a couple of mismatched stools.
Down the dark hall was the bathroom and what passed as his bedroom. He had brought fresh linens over from John's, making the bed with the fraying quilt and two lumpy pillows. It had been months since the last time he had stayed here and it was only out of necessity, John and him having drank too much at the pub for the drive back to the farm. They could have called Johnny and Kyle, begged the two younger men to pick them up, but neither man had wanted to ask that favor.
Simon had no expectation that you would end up in that bed with him, especially when his motive for tonight was to get you away from the woods, but maybe staying the night was the best way to keep you safe. No chance of you getting into danger if you were tucked into his bed, held firm in his arms.
"I wasn't sure what you had planned," you say, standing nervously by the island as Simon moves about the kitchen with ease. Cooking has always been one of his escapes, so even though he does most of it at John's now, there was a time where this kitchen was where he spent most of his time when he wasn't at the shop downstairs or in the pub.
You pull a plastic container out of the bag. He can't see what it is, but you push it across the island towards him.
"It's gingerbread biscuits. I don't know if they're any good," you explain.
Simon takes the container and pops off the lid. The smell of ginger and sugar is strong. Even though he didn't have the best Christmases growing up, the smell still evokes a feeling of nostalgia for something he isn't quite sure he ever had.
He pops the whole biscuit in his mouth, trying to ignore the way your eyes widen as you watch him chew. He thinks you're waiting for him to give his appraisal, confirm that they're good, but your eyes trail down, dragging over his neck as he swallows before settling on his lips. There's none of that uncomfortable pity or outright disgust that Simon is used to when someone looks at his scars, just open curiosity and perhaps a hint of heat.
"Well?" you snap, eyes finding his as you wait for the answer.
"Goin' to leave me the leftovers?"
You laugh, smile bright as you snatch one for yourself. "Guess I can always make more. You ever build gingerbread houses before?" He shakes his head in response. "Me neither, want to give it a go but didn't want the gingerbread to taste like shit."
Simon doesn't know anything about gingerbread or gingerbread houses, he had never considered that you might actually want to eat one after construction.
"Let me help you with dinner?"
Simon lets you help. It's not much, nothing fancy. He could have taken you to the pub, or made the drive out to Sully's, the restaurant everyone from the village went to, but this was better. Just two people spending time together. No one to watch him blunder through what was supposed to be a date.
You stand next to him, following his lead as he chops vegetables, herbs and potatoes. He tries not to think about the way your arm grazes his, the soft pressure, the drag of your shirt against his skin. It's too easy to then think of what it would feel like with your skin against his.
"I didn't take you for a vegetarian," you say as the two of you sit at the island, two plates heaped with veggies and potatoes, a bottle of beer for each of you.
Simon stabs a potato with his fork, "not a vegetarian."
You wait for him to expand, to explain, and when he doesn't you simply roll your eyes.
It's rude of him, he knows that. He's the butcher, of course you would assume he eats meat and think it odd when he's not serving up a juicy steak, a roasted chicken or even a cottage pie. He did eat meat, rare, straight from the bone. It was a hunger that he had been unable to satiate, that he didn't fully understand until he started his apprenticeship as a butcher and had open access to untouched carcasses, long before he met John and learned more about what he was, what he could do.
It had never bothered Johnny or Kyle, the palate of wolves was far from refined. It wasn't uncommon to find them stealing meat raw from the fridge in the days before and after a full moon.
"I was trying to figure out how you look like that without a steady diet of protein."
"Like wot?"
"All broad and muscly," you say simply, waving your hand over his body.
"Been lookin', have ya?"
"Hard not to. It wasn't your glowin' personality that had me saying yes to this date," you joke.
Simon swallows hard. He's thankful the island is firmly between the two of you because he isn't sure if he could stop himself if it wasn't. You're here, you're pretty and you're eager for him if the heat behind your gaze is anything to go by.
"I look like the type t'put out on the first date?"
By the time dinner is finished, the dishes washed, and fresh beers open the sun has long set, the moon making its way across the nights sky. Simon can see it from where he sits on the sofa, ghostly and ethereal where it peaks between the trees out the window. You catch him staring before he can look away.
"Oh wow, look at that."
You stand, walking across the room until you stand in the window as if in a trance as you peer out at the moon.
"It never looked like this in the city," you whisper the words to yourself.
Simon knows the feeling. The night sky in Manchester had never wrapped Simon in its embrace, had never stretched out endlessly over him, dotted with stars and galaxies. He had never felt the touch of the moon's grace before John brought him here.
You could have felt it more had you been outside, free of barriers, the glow of the moon on your skin, your hair, your eyes. But Simon wouldn't risk it. Just like he wouldn't risk fucking you on a first date. He would keep you here for as long as possible, let you drink his beers, share the biscuits you brought and when the desire to fuck you is almost too much to ignore he will bundle you back up, walk you to the car and drive you home.
He might not be a gentleman, but he could sure as fuck try to act like one. And if he managed to get a second date with you he would be brave enough to ask if a gentleman was what you wanted.
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