Morning came quietly to Moon Lake with a few patchy clouds that hung overhead, but for the most part bright sunlight came down on the small town in Washington State as its residents began a new day and a new week. For Ben Twist, with his bedroom on the east side of the Twist home, the light warmed his face and helped wake him up. He sat up in bed and gave a slow yawn while stretching, before bringing one hand down to flick off his alarm clock.
"Time to get up," Ben figured and climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom that was next to his room to prepare for a quick shower before getting dressed and being ready for the school day. A part of him wanted to ask on how his mothers had fared the previous day, but as he came out into the hallway, their bedroom door was still shut.
In the Twist's master bedroom, Samantha and Frances were cuddled up together in the same position they'd been in when they fell asleep the previous night after a long and stressful day. They were fully asleep and most of the world didn't seem to matter, and even the sound of the radio playing "I Get Around" by the Beach Boys didn't stir either werecat from their slumber. It was only the sudden hum and rumble that came when Ben turned on the water to get ready for his shower that the two finally stirred.
"Morning already?" Samantha said slowly as she blinked and tried to rouse herself.
Frances managed a small glance to the clock's display screen. It read: 6:45 AM. Clearly it was morning and she sat up.
"It would appear so," Frances said to her wife and two did more to rouse themselves, "The start of a new week."
"Yeah... though... I'm not sure I can go in," Samantha sighed, "at least not until I can get someone from Jenkins Construction to look at replacing the window."
"You might only get an estimate," Frances commented, "as while the shot didn't damage the frame... the glass will need to be replaced and I think even they would order the glass from somewhere when it comes to window repair."
"Maybe," Samantha answered, "but I still have the ability to take a personal day for this... Don't you have one last day with Jenny?"
Frances nodded as the two of them began to resume their human forms to prepare for ultimately going outside. Tails retracted and fur was pulled back into their skin. Their feet grew shorter and putting them into a more plantigrade stance. Like many weres, resuming human form was something like saying goodbye to a dear friend for Frances, but the law was the law and it wasn't like she could shirk her responsibilities. Of course, this last appointment was mostly to make sure that Jenny was fully recovered from her unplanned welcome to Moon Lake's were society and being incomplete for as long as she'd been. Though, from what Frances had seen, Jenny had done amazingly well with Harry by her side.
"Yep," Frances nodded, "Today is the last day... or at least the last scheduled day. So long as there aren't any sudden surprises, I'd say she's fit and isn't a concern with regard to her mental health as a were."
Samantha then slowly nodded. Frances generally didn't tell her that much about sessions that she'd had with her clients, particularly as people did come to Frances for various and often private things. However, Jennifer Harper... now Jennifer Jenkins... having been clawed by Yvette Smith while camping and having her transformation be incomplete for a few days was essentially required to have the therapy sessions to make sure that the stresses that had been put on her didn't leave her mentally unstable. Because Moon Lake could not afford an unstable were. In a world where technology was rapidly reaching the point where they wouldn't be able to hide in plain sight for much longer, they had to make sure that every were was stable and not stressed to the point where mistakes would be made.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Next door, things with the Andersons began in much the way they always did. After their own passionate night together, William and Martha slept well and awoke close together, a way in which both had really come to prefer. For both of them, it came from the strength of William's bond to her, which both noted as being strong but extremely so. In that, their previous issues with William's high libido (for a normal) leading him to infidelity, and Martha's repressing that she was bisexual had been solved by their respective transformations, and neither would go back if they could now.
Their only worries were in the knowledge that their sons were sexually active, or at least had been. For Nate, it wasn't quite as bad as he was older and his seventeenth birthday wasn't that far on the horizon, but for Eric, who was fourteen going on fifteen, there was the worry that sort of sat in the back of both parent's minds. Now, neither William nor Martha were exactly Puritans with regard how they looked at sexuality, to some degree even before they became weres, but that didn't mean that either of them were entirely comfortable with Eric in particular being sexually active. True love was nice and they were happy that he'd found true love with Julie, but that shouldn't be an excuse to truly get into things that they'd have centuries for after they turned eighteen.
"Another day..." William said as he stood up beside the master bed, "and a new week."
"And hopefully a quiet day, unlike yesterday," Martha answered, her mind thinking back to the sound of gunshots that had woken them up in the woods the previous morning after some fun with one of their Den members in the Moon Lake Skulk, Joyce Carlson.
William nodded and moved to get ready to take a quick shower and noted that he could already hear the hall shower running. That meant that either Nate or Eric was already up and preparing for the day. Martha heard it too and moved to follow her husband into the master bathroom so as to talk privately with him.
"So... how do you want to handle the talk with Eric?" Martha asked softly as William turned back to his human form and turned the water in the shower on.
"Preferably together," William said slowly as he looked back to Martha...
"That's a given," Martha cut him off, "It is something that worries me... but I don't think I could really put my foot down on this on my own... I'm worried, but at the same time I don't want to do something that would make Eric run away from home or do something that might get him hurt."
"We'll do it together," William assured her with a smile, "but I'd be looking at sometime after school or after dinner. That'll depend on whether or not he brings Julie home to do homework or goes to her house to do homework... or not. As this would be a parental sort of talk... and I don't think we could do that with Julie without her parents both giving permission and being there."
Martha nodded to that, "makes sense."
"Any other plans for today?" William asked.
"Probably just to handle the day to day things that I had planned to do yesterday," Martha answered.
William retained a small smile and nodded, "anyway... I'd better be getting ready..."
"Can I join you?" Martha asked, "I clear your back, you clean mine?"
William only smiled to the beautiful woman before him.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
While his parents got into their shower, Eric got out of his in the hall bathroom. He heard Nate knocking on the door.
"Eric are you done? It's almost seven!" Nate called through the door.
"Yeah, you can hop in, there should be plenty of hot water left," Eric answered while rubbing himself with a towel.
With that the door opened and Nate rushed in with a set of clothes draped over his arm and wearing only a pair of boxers. He dropped them onto the floor near where Eric had his shirt and jeans before getting into the tub and pulling the curtain closed so to make sure no one could see him pull down his underwear and then toss them over the rail that held the shower curtain. He could soon hear Nate humming Credence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" as he turned the water back on. It was a hectic morning, especially as Eric had decided to shower that morning.
Normally Eric showered in the evening before bed, get all the dirt acquired during the day off. However, with all the drama related to battle between Dymixious and law enforcement, he'd missed it. On one level he couldn't complain, as it meant he got to spend the day with Julie, the most beautiful girl in Moon Lake, but by the time she went home for the night it was too late shower before bed. That put Eric in the position where he was now where he was showering when Nate normally did, but the two brothers got along fairly well and Eric paid Nate no mind as he finished drying off and getting dressed.
Eric was about to head out of the bathroom when he heard Nate stop singing to ask him a question.
"Hey, Eric... are you going to get a ride with me and Ben?" Nate asked, "Or are you going to ride the bus with Julie to school?"
That made Eric stop and think. Moon Lake did run bus routes that effectively carried students of all ages to the various schools and even kids with cars didn't HAVE to drive to school. The big thing for Eric to ride the bus was the name Nate mentioned last, Julie. While the two of them took many of the same classes, they didn't have them at the same time. This meant the only time that Eric got to see Julie during the school day was either to ride the bus with her, enjoy lunch with her, and to walk home with her after school. And Nate's mention of her name made him stop and think of her...
Eric found her beautiful and intelligent. He found her kind and caring, and every time he was near her, his heart seemed to feel ten times stronger than what he figured a human heart muscle should feel. And while he knew there were some things that he probably should be patient on... the knowledge that she was his one true love and that they were meant for each other often added to the rising libido he'd found developing ever since he became a weremer to be with her. It was like he couldn't help but show her how much he loved her... even though he knew that both of their parents probably wouldn't be that easy with it.
"Eric?" Nate asked, snapping Eric from his thoughts.
"Given were we are with showing and all that... I'd think it'd probably be safer to catch a ride with you and Ben," Eric spoke, "I'm going to go down for breakfast."
And with that, Eric went out of the bathroom and toward the stairs, ready to confront the day and hoping that while he wouldn't get to spend all day with Julie, she would have something interesting to talk about at lunch. Because he felt quite confident in her being "the one" and that nothing would ever come between them.