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Clever Title Not Found [Reese Moods]
#1
It started as a test, as so much in Reese's life has. Out on a job after working his way to a decent paygrade, he'd found himself at a dealer's house. It wasn't all that uncommon, really, to wind up in such a place; he liked pot, and knew where to get the good stuff. And smoking down was for him, at the time, a largely social thing. Pills happened sometimes, when he needed to sleep or stay awake and was having trouble. But smoking, drinking and pills? Those weren't enough, this time.

"Did you know," asked the smug frat-boy looking kid holding a gun in his lap, pointed casually at Reese, "that cops can't shoot up on the job? What they do on their own time is different as long as they pass their drug tests."

Reese raised an eyebrow and gestured with his kit; heroin, anything hard, wasn't his thing but he knew what to do to get what he wanted. Getting the hemoglobin to pull it off hadn't been easy, or cheap, but he'd managed. "You've seen me shoot."

"Yeah. But not my stuff." A fresh syringe was nudged towards Reese, challenge and danger written on the face of the dealer he'd come to see, and with no hesitation Reese shrugged.

"Whatever, man. Here." Reese took the needle, applied it to his vein, and . . .

++++++++++++++

This time when Reese calls home, he has the sense to not risk the house line - it goes straight to Shelley's cell, and if he gets voice mail the first try he doesn't leave a message, just tries again in a half hour or so. This isn't the kind of conversation he can have with a computer server, left for her to pick up whenever she feels like. That he's nervous is painfully obvious, or would be if he made the call with anyone near.

"Hey, Mom," he says when he gets an answer, be it the first try or the fifth. "Everyone well?"

++++++++++++++

When Reese left home, Sam was 15 and quickly approaching 16. Henry was 13, Parker was 11, Olivia was 9. Every two years, give or take a couple months, there'd been a new Evans kid to ooh and ahh over for whoever was inclined to do so. It's possible that the youngest two don't remember all that much about their oldest brother beyond the fact that he'd been constantly fighting, constantly challenging, constantly needing something different, more, less, something right for him. It's difficult for anyone living with an Ahroun, and Reese's struggle was only unique in that it was happening in front of them, in that they watched the battle age both their brother and their father in front of them.

To be fair, Reese never wanted to be a problem. He wanted to be happy with the weekends at the cabin, with the training and constant vigilence and all that. He wanted to be the man he was sure his father wanted him to become, but never thought it best served anyone for him to do so through blind acceptance of what was thrown at him. So yeah, he trained. He learned to track, to hide, to shoot, to fight.

He also learned to draw, to paint, to digitally manipulate images and through that to manipulate what people bought, both idealogically and materially. It was clear to him from a very young age which skill set was more valued by the people he loved most, the people he most wanted to please, the people he most wanted to love him for who he was.

That Sam, Henry and even Shelley did, he had no doubt. Parker and Olivia, so much younger? Of course. Marshall, though. Marshall was as much challenge for Reese as Reese was for him. Exponentially more so, even.

+++++++++++++++

"I've been off of work for a couple weeks, been a bit . . . sick." It's as good a thing to call it as any, right? Obviously, he knows that Henry knew before, and probably Marshall did too because of the expense inherent in fixing the problem. And he knows that Sam knows, now - but that doesn't mean he's going to open up about it over the phone, to his mother. "Yeah, Sam's been to see me - with Jake, too. It was bad for awhile, so I was staying with a friend. I'll be back at my place soon."

His mother's voice is warm; it's good to hear from her son even semi-regularly after so long, and she'd worried when weeks had passed without a call or email. "I'm glad you're better, and that someone's looking out for you," she says, and there's relief there; even when he was a child living under her roof it had been difficult to tell when he'd lose patience and start fighting. Now that he's an adult out on her own, where she hasn't seen him for more than a few hours with lots of distraction in the form of a new grandbaby, it's even harder. "Are you still going to New York soon? Parker and Henry are looking forward to it, from what I hear."

"Yeah, I think so - I'll check in with my client when I'm back at the office next week, but there's no reason that should be off." There's a pause then, and a quieter, questioning, "Mom?"

++++++++++++++++

. . . nothing was the same after that once. It took two days to come down, two days of hallucinations and clawing his skin when withdrawal made him want to shed it, to emerge something new. And then, he wanted more. It was so easy to get, to go chill at the dealer's house when he was off the clock. It started out as an after-a-big-job celebration sort of thing and escalated from there, until he was flying more often than he was sober.

++++++++++++++++

"Yes?" Reese's eyes close, and he takes a deep breath (a fortifying drag on what is one of far too many cigarettes for this relatively short conversation) - it had been one thing with Sammy, just the two of them. But at least this is Shelley, not Marshall.

"I . . . um. I wanted to let you know because I'm seeing someone and it's kind of serious, maybe." As much as such a thing can be, anyway, with a Garou. With such an age difference. With Tribal differences and - well, there's a lot more reasons for this thing not to work than there are for it to come together. "And I thought family should know before anyone else."

There's a pause, and then concern; once upon a time, Shelley and Reese had been as close as a mother and son can be, without said son being called a Mama's Boy. "Is everything alright, Reese?"

".....actually, yeah. Better than, all things considered." There's a brief pause, and then quickly - it's easy to picture a small boy looking away and doing something painful as quickly as possible so as just to get it over with. "I just . . . I'm gay - or, well, bi I suppose. And the person I'm seeing is a guy."

It's not quite laughter in her voice, twined there with still more relief, but it's definitely something. "Reese, honey. It's about time."

"What?" He's not quite sure how to take it, this reaction; he'd been prepared for so many things, for so long, but not this.

"We all know, and have known. We just thought it best to let you come to us on your own time. Are you coming home for Thanksgiving?"

".................."

"You can bring your boyfriend, obviously."

"............................"

"Reese?"

"I'm here, Mom." There's a pause, and then, "He's a Shadow Lord. And a little bit older than Olivia. And . . . I don't know about Thanksgiving, we'll see how work is. I'll let you know, okay?"

"Alright. I hope you'll make it." There's a pause, and then, "We all do. I hope you're feeling better."

"I am. Way more than I thought I would."

Again, there's not quite laughter in Shelly's voice, and such fondness. "We want you to be happy, Reese. And well. As long as you're those two things, the rest is just details."

".....thanks, Mom. I . . . um . . . I should let you go. Talk to you next week?"

"Of course. Love you, Reese."

".....love you too, Mom."

+++++++++++++++++++++++

A seventeen year old boy snuck out of the house at some ridiculous hour when his father wasn't home, and left his car in the garage where he'd parked it; taking it would provide one more way of tracing him. The next morning, he went to his family's bank and emptied both his checking an savings, everything he could possibly take - from mowing lawns when he was eleven, a part time job that started when he was fifteen, from birthdays, Christmases, the tooth fairy, almost all the money he'd ever earned. He paid cash for a bus ticket - it didn't really matter where, so long as it was far from Montpelier - and was gone.

As far as he knew, he'd never see his family again.
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