Nate stirred slightly as he heard a few soft tweets floating on the breeze around him. It soon awakened him to realize that there was a sparrow singing from one of the trees that he and Alex were presently camped under. Nate looked up to the bird as it sang a short good morning type of song, which was soon joined by a second sparrow, and he watched as the two flew off together.
"Not a care in the world," Nate mused silently to himself and then looked over to the other werewolf beside him. Both of them were still transformed, but had fallen asleep in a way that both of them were essentially holding onto each other. Alex, in fact had an arm around Nate's arm and his head was resting on Nate's hand. To Nate, Alex's sleeping form next to him looked wonderful, and the fact that he was in his were form made it even better. After all, for Nate, actually having a werewolf boyfriend was something he'd occasionally daydreamed out, mostly because of how much of a fan he was of werewolf movies, and he did still like them. They may not be one hundred percent accurate, but in many ways storytelling was storytelling.
The accuracy of a story may be more correct, but it isn't necessarily more dramatic or powerful. The movie "Gladiator" was a good case in point. Nate had found this out in an online search once that there really had been an emperor named Commodus who HAD been assassinated by a "gladiator." However, unlike the movie where it was in open combat before a crowd and with the army ultimately turning on Commodus, the assassination had occurred in private and in far less dramatic circumstances than the movie. Nate figured that werewolves and their portrayal was the same. The movies may not be accurate, but neither were they supposed to be. It made him think a bit on how he'd try to cover the same topics in his own stories when he got started.
"And we shouldn't have a care either," Nate smiled to himself and then nudged Alex with the tip of his muzzle, "Hey, Alex!"
"Wha?" Alex asked back groggily.
"The sun is coming up... we'll need to change back and get breakfast," Nate spoke, "See what you do for a special breakfast to start November."
Alex rose up onto all fours and then stretched himself out. After that he rose up onto his two feet and stretched again, twisting side to side as if to look over one shoulder and then look over the other shoulder. Then he stretched sideways as if to touch his toes going sideways. Nate joined him in stretching in and then beginning to change back. The two of them lost some of their additional height that they had in their wolven forms as well as the clearly animal like features that their were forms had. There were a few cracking noises as their skulls flattened into the more human shape and as their feet shorted to allow for a plantigrade stance, but there was no pain. It was one of the thing that Nate REALLY loved as a werewolf fan. While the idea of a painful transformation in the movies made sense from a dramatic point of view, that didn't necessarily mean that he wanted to be in agony every time he transformed. The fact that the actual transformation after the first was painless was a great selling point.
"I don't want to fight my mom over the kitchen, assuming they didn't leave for the weekend as part of their plan to conceive a sibling for me, but the coast is clear, I can work on breakfast," Alex answered, "and at nine, we can put on the television and watch the pre-game show. Dallas comes to play Seattle today."
"I'm more of a Vikings fan," Nate answered as the two hurriedly dressed themselves, "but... any day the Cowgirls lose is a good day."
"You said it," Alex nodded, "they act like they win the Super Bowl every year... year they haven't even gotten farther than the division in the playoffs for the past twenty plus years."
"More often than not they don't even MAKE the playoffs," Nate answered, "there IS reason they finish eight and eight EVERY year."
Alex nodded and gave a small cheer to that. Once dressed the two made their way in and found that Alex's parents weren't home. This likely fit in what they had said to Nate a few days back, that they were seriously thinking about conceiving a younger sibling, and given that a female were's heat cycle could last a full week, that would mean a rather large amount of mating to ensure a pregnancy. In that, while Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey might remain in Moon Lake during the week, they were heavily busy when they weren't at work with things that related to procreation. Being polite, Nate and Alex had no intention of bothering them, even if they were there, and being gay, they had no real interest to peak. If they wanted to see naked men, they could look at each other. The gurgling of stomachs, however, kept all minds focused on the task at hand.
Alex ultimately directed Nate around the kitchen to retrieve things from the proper shelves and cabinets, as well as from the refrigerator. Most of this was due to the fact that Nate didn't know where the Ramsey's kept everything, and he paid close attention and did his absolute best not to make a mess while Alex began mixing batter to make pancakes while the pan for them warmed up on the stove.
"Well... this is nice," Nate commented as he could smell the pancakes cooking. They smelled delicious, even as they just started cooking.
"Yes, a nice normal Sunday morning in Moon Lake," Alex answered with a smile, "where werewolves eat pancakes."
"If you can make them shaped like deer, you'd get brownie points," Nate commented.
"You don't put whole brownies in pancakes!" Alex teased, "you chop them up into small pieces and THEN put them in. That way the cake cooks around them and holds the brownie pieces in place... Though, normally you'd use chocolate chips if you're doing that."
"My folks prefer apples," Nate commented, "and that isn't bad. My comment on brownies was just a joke."
Nate watched as Alex beamed back at him and flipped the pancakes perfectly and without looking. In that, Nate knew his boyfriend was fully aware that he'd been joking and was playing along. It felt fun and in a way, normal. It was true that a lot of that would depend on the definition one used for "normal," but the more Nate had learned from others he'd met at Moon Lake, not just Alex and Ben or from Julie when Eric brought her over, the more he came to see how the word normal was really all relative. When his family had first moved to Moon Lake they were all "Normals" in a town largely full of weres. To Moon Lake, being a were was the normal thing and being a normal human being was what made one the odd one out. In this, people put too much value into the word normal and not enough thought into "who's" normal.
Nate's thoughts, however were soon dashed as Alex finished cooking the pancakes and soon had them on plates. Nate could see the steam rising from them as they moved to the kitchen table and sat down. Alex left the pancake pan in a position where it wasn't directly on the burner that was on, but was close enough that it could be heated up quickly when it was time for seconds. The two were soon seated and chowing down.
"You know... with the wedding over..." Alex said slowly, his cheeks stuff full, "maybe now we can... get... into some of the fun things for the year."
"Fun things?" Nate wondered as he watched Alex swallow.
"Yeah... things closer to what normal towns would go through during the school year, football games and so forth," Alex commented.
"But... Moon Lake doesn't have an official team," Nate commented, "It was odd... in the sense that the school's website shows the football field, but the school has no real athletic department worth mentioning... Neither really does the college..."
"A lot of that is to prevent Moon Lake getting just about every news station reporting on weres breaking Olympic records while in High School," Alex answered, "when we do compete in sports its more intramural. Upper classmen versus underclassmen or predator vs. prey. That sort of thing. Or in sports like track its pushing personal records against the clock and so on. Nothing that gets reported on outside Moon Lake."
"Uh-huh," Nate answered.
"While all the stuff was going on related to Yvette Smith and then the Jenkins/Harper wedding, I was worried that the school might be forced to cancel it before we got it going," Alex commented.
"I take it you want to try out?" Nate asked.
"I have every year," Alex said with some pride, "Best wide-out and safety in the school... No matter WHAT the werehorses say."
"There's a story there," Nate said slowly.
"Sure... but I'll only tell you if you try out with me and Ben when they set up the match up for the Moon Lake Thanksgiving Day Scrimmage," Alex smiled.
"Ben goes?" Nate blinked.
"He's our linebacker and running back," Alex answered, "when it's predator vs prey. Upper class vs. lower class... then he runs plays in as a back in the rotation."
"And you guys do this on Thanksgiving?" Nate asked.
"Unless you'd rather fly across the country to see a parade," Alex answered.
Nate was about to answer when a series of gunshots rang out. They didn't sound super close like they were right outside the Ramsey house, but they did sound like they were in the general area. Like closer to where the Andersons and Twists had their houses on the other side of the woods. It made both of them turn and look with some surprise. Nate didn't even get a chance to ask anything when his cellphone rang. Fumbling with it, he got it out of his pants pocket and found his father speaking quickly and nervously as he answered.
"Hello?" Nate spoke.
"Nateareyouokay?" Nate heard his father ask over the line.
"I'm fine, dad, I'm at Alex's right now," Nate answered, "both Alex and I are fine."
"Good... for the moment, stay there," William Anderson said over the line, "Someone's shooting something..."
"Are you and mom okay?" Nate wondered.
"We're fine, son," William answered, "our den went out into the woods south of town for some fun after we finished our pranks for the night last night... but the gun shots woke us up. Stay where you are. We're going to check on your brother and make sure he's okay. Stay where you are."
"Okay..." Nate spoke and thought he heard his mother saying in the background, "Eric isn't answering" before the phone call ended. All that left Nate able to do was look up to Alex and say, "Well... something is up..."