Did It Hurt? (bxb)

XXI

A few hours before Oliver and Angel went back to the Young Household and gotten involved with their drama, Simon went to hunt food. That's how it started out anyway. He was still pretty upset about Oliver's news. He'd been kidnapped from a young age, experimented on, lost his memory, then adopted by his kidnapper, a "dad" he barely knew. Now, not only did he have a new power besides the standard perks of being a werewolf-,a new power he didn't even know how to use-, but once he found out the truth, Simon realized that his memories had been slowly returning to him, in the form of dreams. He was really taught how to shape shift by other wolves, and his real father was actually... the wolf king.

Did that make him the wolf prince? If that was true, did the pack work like faculty in a castle? How did a pack even work? What did that make Lexi to him? His sister? His half sister? His adopted sister? And what about his mother?

These questions plagued Simon's mind, which made it a bit complicated to hunt. He was in wolf form, and he was running. Normally, the wind running through his fur sand the crunch of the leaves and sticks under his paws was a thrilling feeling, whenever he got the chance to do it. Now, Simon was covered in nerves, and when he wasn't thinking about what animal he might kill,-rabbit? deer?-, he was thinking about his dad, his "dad", Oliver, Angel, and... Olivia.

Simon didn't believe in love at first sight. That was a dumb and cliche idea that only existed in the books he read. But he did believe that Olivia Baker was the most beautiful girl to grace God's green earth. Her blonde hair shined in the sun, and her glittering blue eyes took his breath away. From Oliver's complaints about her, he had some idea that she was cruel. And that deduction hadn't been wrong. Olivia was indeed cruel. She shot down all his attempts at flirting. She went out of her way to show no interest. Though he never saw it, Simon knew about his brother's warning looks whenever he observed the two of them together. Simon just thought of her cruelty as part of her charm, and an unofficial challenge. And it was a challenge he would greatly accept.

Olivia Baker was a dangerous girl to fall in love with. She might even end up being the girl that would break his heart. If so... if that was all part of the journey... Well, it should be fun. Simon didn't care what anyone thought. He didn't care if Olivia never returned his feelings. He knew he would always love her no matter what.

When Simon had finally managed to kill a deer, he felt too preoccupied to eat it raw. Instead, he shifted into his human form and gathered sticks to make a fire. Hunting wasn't the hard part. It was skinning and gutting the deer that was the worst part. Once he managed to do it and had the deer slow cooking over the fire, his stomach was rumbling. He felt terrible. Olivia was the only one who'd came after him when he'd run out. In some ways, it hurt. Simon thought his brother would've come out to console him; that's what he really wanted. Just to have his brother talk it out with him like they used to do on the nights Mom was in a bad mood.

Oliver would come into his room, just knowing that his little brother would be afraid by the noises coming from the other end of the house. He'd stride over to Simon's bookshelf, not saying a word, select a book, then crawl into the bed right next to his younger brother and whisper the words printed on the pages aloud, until Simon's fear melted away and he fell asleep. He missed being able to talk about absolutely anything with his brother. They had secrets that remained between just the two of them. Simon told him about the dreams he had, and his brother would listen intently.

"Simon," he used to say. "you have a really awesome imagination. If you wrote it down, it'd sell for a million bucks."

Of course, he knew Simon was seven, so that dream was a bit far fetched.

Simon would never forget the night when Oliver told him that he was gay. They were sitting in bed again, Oliver with a book in his hands, and Simon with the blankets in his. Their mother hadn't been in a bad mood that night, per se, but Simon was lonely. He hadn't been able to make any friends when he went to the park, and since his shyness and anxiety made him hate the idea of going to school, he depended on his brother to spend time with him whenever he could. Simon couldn't remember the name of the book, but he remembered when Oliver had set it down and sighed. "What's wrong?" Young Simon had asked.