The Good, The Bad, and The Hairy [Logan]

[Sabra]

It had been a mistake, letting her emotions, her pride get the better of her and stomping out of the Maliks' office yesterday morning. Any sane human being--or otherwise affiliated creature, would have accepted the offer, gained Malakai's trust and admiration with carefully fed information, but Sabra didn't have it in her to play the suck up to another high and mighty leader. She was tired of the parts she had played and Boston felt less like a city and more like the yawning jaws of a beast, ready to eat her up and spit out her bones.

She only stays out of pure stubbornness, and if Sabra allowed herself to admit it, for James as well. Even that was under threat though, the relationship was still new and he could brush aside her faults, the late nights and the tension in her shoulders that took his strong hands time to iron out, but his patience would unravel soon enough.

A canny old hunter like her knows that, and Sabra waits and dreads for the day when he demands answers and she would have no more excuses left for him. The old adage of you can run, but you can't hide wasn't always the case for enemies, certainty none had found her in Boston, but when concerning the people she loved, it was a hard truth to choke down. James is a good man, a beacon of hope in these dark affairs, but nothing so good lasts very long and he would wise up before the year let out.

No one wanted a wolf around their baby, they had the tendency to bite the hand that fed them, they were wild. After all.

The beer helps, along with knowing there is someone coming to sit on the other side of her empty table. Logan Duvall. Not a particularly auspicious name, but it has a resilience to it, and if she's heard right, so does the man that it belongs to. She had called him through a contact of a contact, betting on an enforcer, someone who worked the streets like she did, who knew the underbelly with a intimacy rather forgotten, would have more sense than those who had spent all their looking from the seat of a throne. Or a shifter with no more knowledge of the pack than what she could keep from him.

It is easy to conjure up imagines of a war torn man and Sabra flickers between the idea of a younger Clint Eastwood, circa "A Fistful of Dollars" or someone like John Wayne, equally rough and tough, but less gritty and sans the beard. Maybe her penance for films were interfering with daily life, but it made her smile to turn Boston into the spaghetti westerns of old her father had made her suffer through as a child. She takes another swallow of beer and feels herself relax, to envision the Three Kings as the sheriff, Nikolai as the acting deputy and a wave of outlaws as the force that had knocked the town all to hell.

Overhead the moose stares out dumbly, it's antlers covered in dusty hats and Christmas lights for the holidays, and Sabra wonders if Mr. Duvall will have a ten gallon hat and a Texan drawl or not.

It was easy to sympathize with the outlaws when she thought of it that way. She should have taken the queue and gotten out while she could, but it felt better to know there was at least one other person in the world who was either too stupid or to stubborn to leave.

[Logan]

Logan treats the wolves like he does conversation at the dinner table; never stray into politics. When an order goes out, he performs it, nothing more and nothing less. The dynamics between the higher players are of no importance to Logan. They matter only when their ridiculous games threaten the secure life he has managed to piece together for his young nephew. Rumors nowadays are sharp enough to reach deaf ears, and Logan has heard enough to be worried.

Sleepless nights spent staring at his bedroom ceiling, coming up with one contingency plan after the other, have drained the old man’s energy supply. He is tired in a way reminiscent to the years spent on the road, never settling and always moving. Logan has played the pack game carefully; he is important enough that they will not toss him aside, but he is miniscule enough that, should he choose to leave, he will not be missed. Leaving is the last option. Boston is home because Aaden feels safe here. He has his friends from school, he has his favorite movie theatre and park.

The hunter is by no means a seasoned father, but he was a kid once, and he remembers how important friends and security were. Over breakfast, over dinner, the conversation about moving has been at the tip of Logan’s tongue; but Aaden inevitably mentions something about his day at school, or about how he is looking forward to spending the day at Sammy’s house. Logan cannot take that away from the boy, not after his life was irrevocably uprooted when his parents suddenly disappeared from the picture.

They will stay as long as circumstances permit. Logan, due to his secluded nature and unwillingness to dabble in pack affairs, is handicapped by a lack of trusted information. When Sabra calls, Logan reluctantly agrees to meet her. A chance to get a beat on Boston’s pulse is not one he can responsibility pass up. The night is set, the time established. Logan asks Sammy’s mother if it would be okay for Aaden to sleep over. She says yes. She always says yes. She also tries to set Logan up with her friend ‘Jan’ for the fifth time. Logan politely declines, citing the fact he is too busy to date, and leaves for the bar.

Inside the establishment is décor and atmosphere reminiscent to the bars Logan used to haunt in Dutch Harbor. Those years spent out at sea were the hardest goddamned days of his life. He misses it, sometimes. The rolling sea, the black night skies, the dangerous pitch of the ship deck as wave after wave crashed by. Those were dangers he could live by, because nature is not insidious or selfish. The wolves and whatever else is lurking in Boston’s upper echelon, are a different story entirely.

Logan finds Sabra easily enough and slides into the seat across from her. Storm gray eyes peer at the woman with guarded curiosity. Logan is no cowboy from old; he looks more like a dockworker stumbled in for a beer. There is a black-knit cap snug over his skull. On the border, words written in white thread – Bona Fortuna. They mean ‘good luck’ to those savvy in the Italian language, but to Logan they have a different significance. The ship he served on those decades ago bore the same words on her hull.

He could cut straight to business, but Logan instead decides to open with --

”Don’t look now, but I think that moose is checking you out.” He follows with a disarming smile. There is no reason that he cannot be kind, even in the face of so many questions. John taught him better, and how to treat a lady.

[Sabra]

A werewolf with a sense of humor, what a rare beast that was. She cracks a smile for him, glancing over at the dusty old mount besides the bar. Logan almost falls in line with her visions of the West, he has the beard of course, but he's missing the red dust on his clothes. No, this one belonged to the North, to the chilly winters and the harsh winds that rolled off the Great Lakes. "Can't say much for his tastes then." In the looks department Sabra would give herself a generous six and a half, only deducting points for the bum shoulder, the scars, and that damnable tendency to drool on the furniture. It had to say something, that her furry side was a sight more friendly than the side with brains and human emotion, all those important things that were supposed to elevate people above animals.

Sabra had a theory, that the only reason werewolves tended towards such vicious dispositions was because of the human half riding around inside their skulls. All those warring thoughts and feelings, a mental tug of war--it couldn't do the animal any good.

With a little nod of acknowledgement, she takes another drag out of her beer. "Pleasure to meet ya, Logan. Not exactly like we have conventions, us knights in shinin' armor." More like the trashmen, but she hardly thought either of them needed to be reminded of their positions in life. He wasn't a small man, that was for sure, and he looked to have seen some work in his lifetime, his beard peppered with salt, creases beneath grey eyes, and laugh lines at the corners of his mouth that reinforced the genial nature she had suspected him of. Sabra decides that she likes him, mostly because the wolf decided it first, but that's of no matter.

"I didn't ask ya here on account of pleasantries though. I have some questions I thought ya might be able to help me answer and--if it so happens that you have some of your own, well," She crosses her arms over her sizeable chest, and leans back into the worn cushions of the seat, directing her gaze downwards rather than enter into a staring contest. At this moment, Sabra held no interest in figuring out who was tougher. "I'm obliged to fill in the blanks where I can." It was a bit presumptuous to assume that she knew anything more than he did, but Sabra tries to offer something. Folk didn't like working for nothing and she intended to ferret every kernel of information she could out of the older wolf.

It felt like the most talking she had done in a long while, and it was refreshing to be the one dealing the cards out for once.

Swiping a handful of peanuts from the bucket on the table, she knits her eyebrows, trying to think of where she should start in the long odyssey. "You're up to date, on Boston and all? Malakai?" Sabra can't hide the vehemence in her voice when she speaks her cousin's name and the brittle peanut shells crack in her grip. Being backed into a corner did little to sweeten her temperament. Normally, she viewed Malakai as a sort of mysterious entity that came and went of her own free will with little lasting effect upon her life, but that had changed and the enforcer resented it with every last part of herself. Maybe, given a name and a face, Sabra was simply focusing all her pent up anger, but it didn't change the fact that the black dog was set to ruin them all.

She brushes the empty shells to the ground and looks up to meet Logan's eyes, searches them for feeling or direction. The windows to the soul often hid more than they shared, but on occasion you could gleam a thought or two from them. "You've been here longer, can ya tell me what ya know about the Maliks? Why everything fell to pieces all sudden like?" It sounds a hair desperate to Sabra's ears and she quiets, settling back into her seat contemplatively to allow Logan to answer what he would.

Now more than ever, she could use a sailor's wisdom. Who better than a seaman, to help her negotiate these stormy waters?

[Logan]

”Aw, he knows a lady when he sees one.” Logan offers a wink and an easy smile, but the gestures lack any heat. He isn’t here to flirt, especially with a she-wolf. The hunter can think of nothing more terrifying than a woman with carnivore teeth, but Sabra projects no such danger. Reading a book by its cover is a sin Logan is not liable to commit; he knows there is more to the woman than her ease of posture and intelligent eyes. There is always more and it is the more that keeps Logan cautious.

Grey eyes sweep the innards of the establishment; a cursorary action born from a persistent, if controlled paranoia. Boston is crawling with wolves and with the recent change in leadership, there can be no telling who might be listening – and for what. ”Friend, I don’t know what you heard about me – but I’m no knight.” Logan turns a jaded but good-humored look onto the woman. ”But I suspect you know that, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this chat.”

Logan is the quintessential man; he is built like a truck, grizzled like a veteran, and has an air about him that suggests a more than fair share of hardships. Sabra is soft around the edges, beautiful in ways only a woman could manage – but the pair are much alike. Logan can sense the woman’s trepidation and it mirrors his own. They are hand-shy dogs unsure of their new master. Time and circumstances will see whether Logan bites the hand that feeds, or if he pulls free of pack chains and becomes a stray.

”I know how Nikolai died.” The papers deemed it a bizarre death; his corpse was found at home with wounds to suggest a brutal mauling. A storm grey gaze flicks up to meet Sabra’s eyes dead on. ”And I know what that means.” A change in leadership is never so uneventful as an election or a celebrated coronation. The realm of wolves is far more brutal and Logan, more than ever, wonders if he is doing the right thing by keeping Aaden. ”As for what’s going on now, and for this Malakai character—“ He shrugs, ”I got nothing. So I’d appreciate if you gave me something.”

Information is in short supply. Logan can’t make sense of what trickles in from the rumor mill, but what he does hear strikes him wrong, off-color, like there is a cloud of dread gathering and no one can put name to it. ”Ah, hell, I don’t know if it was sudden. There’s always things happening behind the curtains, you know? The rest of us only realize it when things finally fall apart.” The old man scratches at his chin and rubs the rough stubble there. ”From what I hear – the brothers went quiet for a while, no one knew why?” He isn’t clear on the details. ”I, personally, find it a might suspicious that they disappeared the night Nikolai died.” Thoughts float around in the void and Logan snatches them as he can.

He presses his mind and thinks back to the weeks leading up to the Malik family’s exit from Boston’s story. ”There were rumors – before everything changed. People kept saying Nikolai was planning to up the pack tax, and to buckle down on the wolves that couldn’t maintain absolute control.” At this, he looks at Sabra and his eyes say what words do not. Buckle down is a nice way of putting cull. ”Figure some wolves must’ve got scared—angry even. Maybe angry enough to do something about it.” Logan does not pretend to know anything; what he shares are ideas, nothing more than possibilities. ”I just can’t shake the feeling that Nikolai was a scapegoat.” For the pack. For the brothers.

”The man was a strict bastard, but he did what was best for the pack. He didn’t deserve to go out like that.” Logan had a relationship rooted in respect with the now deceased pack leader. Nikolai’s sons, however, were two people Logan went out of his way to avoid – especially after that Jericho creep kept making passes at him.

A thought-filled silence descends over the man and he stares, pensive, at where his hands rest on the table. ”All I can say is this,” he sounds tired as he looks up to hold Sabra’s gaze, ”When the kings and queens are done playing their games –we’re the ones left picking up the pieces.” Not knights, but trashmen.

[Sabra]

Sabra gets a kick out of that one. Lady. Well, it was a sight better than being called a bitch. As unlikely as it was that a woman like her handled Boston's rabid dogs, it seemed just as odd that Logan could kill; even as he takes in his surroundings as she's seen many an old wolf do and disregards the title of knight. It strikes her just the variety their kind took on. It was easy enough to lump people into one group, to make the world black and white.

Sometimes it was the only way she was able to do her job. They were not knights in any respect, but Sabra couldn't label them as mere killers either.

At Logan's behest she takes the risk and tells him the truth. "Malakai's my cousin." Somewhere back in those sky reaching family trees was the black dog, but hell if she had ever been able to find her. What could anyone gain, claiming blood to a low class citizen with nothing to her name but an old car and a few guns? She was forced to take Mal's word for it. "Older than dirt and crazier than a shit house rat to boot." Sabra suspected the crazy was a product of being older than most fossils. "But she's smart too, a business woman. She sees dollar signs and power far as Boston's concerned. Nothing good comes out of that, ya know it as well as I do." That was most leaders though, and who was to say that Nikolai hadn't invested so much time in the pack for the same exact reasons.

She sits up and listens when he speaks, absorbing the explanations he supplies. Prideful though she may be, Sabra has always been curious. It was only the secretive nature of wolves and the often violent repercussions of asking questions that had kept her quiet for so long. "Normally, if you're killin' for power ya stick around to take the throne." Witness to as many power struggles and territory wars as she had, Sabra could hardly imagine going through the monumental efforts of killing such a man and not taking his crown afterwards. It was like Alexander the Great conquering the Persian Empire and then deciding to go back home for a nap. "Why go to all that trouble and leave Boston to the mercy of a buncha starved dogs?"

A scapegoat. Nikolai Malik was one hell of a person to pick for the role and she struggles to wrap her mind around the idea of it all. Understanding it took some sideways thinking and seeing from an entirely different perspective. To kill someone like that, not for power, required a more personal motivation. She had contemplated the murder of a few of her past alphas and it wasn't to stop the chaos, it was to stop the abuse perpetuated on her. Who gave a damn for the rest?

She swallows thickly and mourns the tiredness in his eyes, the same she knows is reflected in her own. His words leave an uncomfortable weight in her chest, a truth she would rather shake off. "Ya want a beer? It's on me." Before he can argue, Sabra waves a waitress over. It was a quiet sort of thank you, and simply put, no one wanted to drink alone.

"Logan, ya have a family? Someone to protect?" Her hard gaze grows soft and the tension in her shoulders eases. He wore no wedding ring, and there was no band of white around his finger to suggest a divorcee, but rings meant little these days and in Sabra's experience men didn't often live to have grey in their beards without the accompanying ties of family. Even beasts had kin, loved ones. The only problem being a beast with a family meant that you had to be willing to face those who might want to gobble them up. "I do. A good man and a little girl." A shy smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. I feels good to admit such a close guarded part of herself. Even if her own carefully controlled paranoia didn't much agree.

With a sigh she reaches for her beer and takes a long drink. "We don't have much a choice, in any case. I am damned tired of pickin' up the pieces. It gets folk kilt." She says it plainly enough, but there is anger and exhaustion two fold in her voice. "But bein' a rogue don't appeal to me much either." Fearing an enforcer's wrath and always having to be ready to leave, just in case the hounds did pick up your scent.

Being human had to be easier than all this.

[Logan]

Whispers along the lower rungs of Boston’s echelon have long served to facilitate the hunter’s paranoia. That things are now changing has the man leaning towards the flight variable of the fight or flight equation. It is not self-preservation that drives Logan, but the implicit need to keep his godson safe. Family first, no matter what- - it is the Duvall creed and one Logan will never break.

It appears that family is the same chain that binds Sabra to Boston, if for different reasons. ”Your cousin, huh?” There is not much more than that Logan can offer if he means not to offend. Power struggles and politics are two monsters the hunter would prefer to keep away from his bloodline – especially where wolves are involved. ”She must be a hoot at family dinners.” Maybe he is just an idiot layman, but Logan has never much enjoyed talks of business and dollars. Money, in the end, is only paper and as long as he can make due and provide for Aaden, he will want for no more.

”Hell if I know. I just take the orders and carry them out. I don’t ask questions. Dangerous business, that.” Logan’s broad shoulder rolls in a shrug. What goes on behind closed doors or between the pack elite were previously of no real concern. The boat has been rocked enough to take on water, and Logan cannot be sure if the pack is sinking yet or not. He has a plan to get the hell out of Dodge, if things go further South.

Before Logan can tell Sabra that he does not drink, she calls for the waitress. Logan orders a coke because he knows better than to turn down the woman’s hospitality. It is a gesture of gratitude, a pleasantry that reminds the aging man of home. ”Thank you kindly,” he says with a tip of his chin and an obliging smile. Moments in which he can relax with another adult are few and far between; he will take this chance as the gift it is.

Sabra talks, Logan listens and falls into a polite lull. Grey eyes wander the woman’s features and he grows to appreciate her lopsided smiles and little quirks of expression. She is beautiful in ways only honesty can bring to light, and Logan finds himself relaxing with each passing word. ”Yeah, I got a boy. Almost eight.” The pull at the corner of his lips is more wistful than anything, and suggests that there is more to this story than father and son.

”He’s small for his age, nothing like his dad was.” A rush of sugar dances over his tongue, and Logan almost wishes his drink was alcoholic. Thinking about Ben twists at the man’s heart in the most bitter and wonderful ways. But that’s the nature of memory, to inspire both laughter and tears at the same time. Logan doesn’t cry anymore, not since the day he heard about the accident, but he sure as hell has come close.

He sets the glass down, now half-empty, and nods in agreement. ”I’ll take the kid and high-tail it out of here at the first sign of real trouble, there’s no doubt about that.” Loyalty is a virtue by which Logan lives his life, but he owes Boston nothing. The hunter has paid his dues; he has done his part without so much as a complaint. There will be no guilt in the man’s heart should he ever leave the city and its wolves—only relief.

Two fingers tap against the wooden table and Logan worries his bottom lip between his teeth. He meets Sabra’s eyes and asks, ”Your girl, is she as hard to talk to as my boy is?” Aaden’s situation is unique and Logan will never fault his nephew for being introverted, not after his life was turned up on its head. Still, he wonders if he is doing something wrong – or if he can’t do something better. ”I can’t even remember the last time I had a real conversation with him.” Two word answers, a grunt or a shrug are Aaden’s preferred methods of communication.

Logan just wants the kid to be happy, but it’s difficult when Aaden won’t even talk. He is a hunter, a father, a handyman, and a proverbial jack-of-all-trades – but he’s no mind reader.

[Sabra]

She could probably learn a thing from Logan, but knowledge allowed her to anticipate. Keeping an eye on the tides meant she'd have a better idea of when the next storm might come. Staying in the dark, while comforting in the short term, didn't seem practical, not when her concern extended beyond herself.

Still, Logan looked a hell of a lot happier than she did.

They drink together, and Sabra feels some of the tension leave her muscles as she nears the bottom of her bottle. "Least I can do." For answers, for a little company she hadn't known she wanted. The cozy atmosphere of the bar is welcomed on a cold day like this, pleasantly hidden away from city life with its bustling cars and the crowded sidewalks. If she closed her eyes, Sabra could almost believe she was back home in Kentucky.

Like his dad. There's a story there, a tug on her own heartstrings, but Sabra doesn't feel compelled to pry. Sometimes, after being so wrapped up the things that went bump in the night, she forgot that there were other pains out there. She wished she could profess the same as Logan, but her mesh work of a family didn't need her to survive. If it all went to hell in a hand basket like she suspected it soon would, Sabra knew they'd be better off without her.

"Izzy's just a lil thing, doesn't do much talkin' yet." Mostly babbled. Sabra still wasn't entirely sure what to make of the child. She liked to think of herself as a jack of all trades, from mechanics to the best sort of soil to bury a body in and keep it buried, but the toddler may as well have been from another planet, as well as she understood her. "Her father's another story." Sabra waves a hand, trying to encompass James. "He doesn't know anything about me bein' an enforcer, or much about the pack for that matter." Shame drops her eyes from Logan's and she exhales through her nose, fingers wrapping around the cool beer bottle to take another swig.

Secretiveness had been bred into her over the years, just another side effect of the virus. "Not the easiest thing to explain. How much does your boy know?" It was hard enough to broach the topic of all that she was with a grown man, Sabra couldn't imagine attempting the same with an eight year old.

She finishes off the beer and debates on ordering another. While not quite buzzed yet, one more would do the trick. "I know I can't lecture, but far as I can figure, kids are a lot like wolves. Don't get much honesty, so the truth they do get," She wasn't so old and embittered that she forgot what it was like to be young, and it wasn't so hard to recall the tender months after her turning, scrambling for answers in world where being tight lipped was the norm and curiosity was rewarded with harsh looks and harsher hands.

"Well, it's damn appreciated."