Snippet #2072650

Wynston was not an idiot. He could be overbearing, blunt, and assumptive, but he didn’t lack for intelligence. His education was spotty, but that had stopped mattering to him. It might bring the hot sting of shame to his cheeks to encounter a word he didn’t know, or some tidbit of knowledge that almost everyone else seemed to regard as commonplace, but he accepted that. He never needed to ask twice, in occasions like that, but he always asked. The idea of feeling the that shame a second time, that he couldn’t justify at all. He hadn’t needed to know things like history, literature, or lofty mathematics in order to survive on the streets of Detroit. That had been his place of learning, and the lessons he’d endured there would serve him better on The Isle than any book or dead president’s name or logarithm.

Wynston’s intelligence had been shaped by his surroundings. He’d been a city scavenger at first, too young and inexperienced to do much more than get himself in trouble and rely on friends to see him through. He’d evolved though, faster than Darwin would ever have thought possible, into a city predator. He’d learned both the value and limitations of intimidations. He’d learned how to throw a punch, how to kick, when to run. He’d learned how to find shelter in almost any urban area, and how to get precious calories worth of nourishment when cash-flow from petty crimes fell through. It was best classified as a combination of cunning and impressive analytical capabilities, which had only grown more potent with the Awakening of his Balaren heritage and senses.

So it was, as Vendicare took Wynston’s hand, that the younger wolf realized several more things. The first was that none of this exchange, not a mote of it, was lost on Vendi. He understood all the significances of each gesture, facial movement, and word. It was almost like they were, in a way, communicating without words. With their eyes locked, he felt a stupid, childish thought bubble up: that somehow, they actually were engaging in some sort of low level telepathy. Like most children hoping to escape terrible home lives, Wynston had, in his youth, devoted a somewhat embarrassing amount of time staring very hard at things or even people in the hopes of spontaneously developing advanced mental powers. Logic asserted itself quickly, clamping down on the throat of that foolishness and wrestling it to the ground. It was because they were both Balaren, both versed in wolf-speech, which needed to be seen as much as heard to be understood completely. Human interaction was paltry and thin compared to what a human mind with wolfish body and instinct could accomplish.

The second was that he had underestimated Vendi. He didn’t know much about the man, but he’d heard that he’d spent quite a long time only in wolf-skin. He’d been expecting, when his hand wound up in Vendi’s (that hot sting came, when he realized this) stronger one, that the other Balaren would assert himself in whatever way he could. If he was going to submit, he would have already, when they were merely staring. He’d been ready to enter into a contest of strength that he would certainly have lost, the usual sort of squeezing match that jarred the bones of the hand together. What he wasn’t expecting all was the blink. It was, in essence, an echo of his own actions. Offer his hand, but maintain eye contact. Take the initiative, but disrupt eye contact. The elegance of it would certainly have been lost on almost anyone else, but Wynston found himself in a very strange combination of shock and admiration. It showed on his features for a split second in the form of eyes that had widened and lips that had parted just slightly, but Wynston wiped that away, taking part in the very human ritual of the handshake. He didn’t try to hurt Vendi, but his grip was as firm as he could make it without moving things back into the realm of challenge. It was exactly as firm as Vendi’s, or close enough that the difference would be infinitesimal.

The handshake wound up being held for a full second to long, and that was Wynston’s fault. When he realized that he hadn’t simply released, he retracted his hand very quickly, just shy of wrenching it away, and then hid the offending appendage behind his back, as if doing so might somehow undo the extra instant of contact. That was odd was all he could afford to think before Vendi said something, again in Italian. His ever-present anger bubbled a bit, but the older boy was quick to correct and seemed genuinely upset with himself for the slip. That was the third thing that Wynston realized: that even though they were from very different places, they shared a certain innate lack of experience with most of the other charges. Vendi had his language difficulties, the thousand day swath of his life that had been spent completely detached from human society. Wynston had his drop-out status to contend with, and had been similarly detached from the conventional family-friends-school model. They both struggled with their respective issues, as proven when it took an almost embarrassing amount of time for Vendi to summon the English cognate for the word he’d used.

Wynston shrugged in reply. As long as the language barrier wasn’t being used to discretely insult him, it was just a reality that had to be faced. He was back to simmering. His eyes moved quickly to the beers that Vendi had indicated so lazily, then back to the indicator. "Beer,” he supplied, without any intentional condescension. He shook his head. "But, no. I’d rather be in control of my senses all the same.” His gaze tracked to the mixers that had been provided. Sugary drinks. He would have preferred something that would provide more of a contrast to the candy he’d just eaten, but he didn’t want to break away yet, either. Something about Vendicare was intriguing him more than he really understood, and it would have been a little absurd to walk up, introduce himself, refuse a drink, then wander off.

There was some cranberry juice. That would have a hint of tart. He glanced back to Vendi as he poured himself a cup of the stuff, sniffed it with mild approval, and then held the drink forward; offering it to the other Balaren, if he wanted it. If he took it, Wynston would pour another, then keep it for himself. He didn’t need to bother asking Elvis in his silent way; he was sure the Omarain would be hitting the booze before long. He just seemed like the sort. This was a point of the dominance game that might have wound up confusing to those unskilled in it. Pouring a drink for someone seemed submissive, but by choosing the beverage and not asking Vendi’s preference, he was the one in control of the drink arena. However the situation sorted itself out, he’d soon be taking a sip of the juice. It splashed his tongue in a torrent of flavor, and his lips wound up slightly puckered as a result. Once he’d swallowed and the taste had time to linger on his palette, it was actually quite good, for all the sugar that had been dumped into it for no reason by the manufacturers.

"We should go running, sometime,” he suggested nonchalantly. Running, of course, had nothing to do with gym shorts an iPods. He meant in wolf-form, in the wild, and Vendi would know as much from the slight significance he gave the word.