Turns out, Scarlet could balance two second-hand James Patterson novels on her head. Trying three only resulted in the hardcovers falling on her feet, effectively bruising her toes. It’d probably be easier if she didn’t have an audience, and if she didn’t have to pretend to be unaware of the audience.
It was almost like a game to her at this point, where Scarlet waited to see how long Noémie would go on staring before realizing that Scarlet was watching them, too. It was admittedly both strange and cute, how they’d try to act nonchalant once getting caught. But Scarlet had long gotten bored of this game, and gotten far too curious about Noémie’s intentions. Grey wasn’t around today, so what gives? Plus Scarlet wasn’t always doing something dumb enough to warrant attention. Noémie was weird, and not the good kind of weird.
“Enjoy the show?” Scarlet asked as she knelt down to pick up the books that had just fallen off of her head. It was the first time she ever called Noémie out and it felt a little strange, like she was breaking some unspoken rule. “If you’re going to watch, you can at least give me a little applause. Or join me? It’s easier than it looks, and I promise I don’t bite.”
The thing about Blackrock was that information spread like wildfire, someone having heard it from a friend, who heard it from their second cousin, who had heard it from their neighbor’s babysitter — you get the deal. Given this, it hadn’t taken Noémie long at all to find out where Scarlet worked, but working up the nerve to step into the bookstore took all the longer. It hadn’t been a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’; they knew they were carefully tiptoeing a line they were all too close to crossing, but they couldn’t help themselves, no matter how hard they tried. Every time they’d get close to walking away, a nagging, overwhelming voice urged them closer, pushed them to find her. It wanted answers.
So, perhaps Noémie could’ve feigned their intentions and swore to anyone that asked that they simply were there to flip through a cozy mystery —who could resist Till Death Do Us Tart? — but anyone who paid even the slightest attention would see that their gaze was more affixed the other girl in the bookshop, who appeared to be balancing books atop her head for... fun?
Humans were strange. If that’s what she still was.
When the books came clattering down, the abrupt noise just about made Noémie jump out of their skin and they quickly looked down to the paperback in their hands, flipping idly through pages, as if they were genuinely considering buying it.
Only it was Scarlet’s voice that made their heart drop to the pit of their stomach, eyes tentatively traveling from the pages to meet the other girl’s. Shit. Was she really talking to her?
I don’t bite. A beat of dead silence. They blinked and said the first thing to come to mind — “I might.” Well, fuck.
“Kidding,” they said with a grin they hoped appeared nonchalant while their heart hammered in their chest. As often as she caught herself watching Scarlet, she never envisioned that she’d actually talk to her. “So.” Shit. How did she forget how to act like a fucking person? “This is what you do when business is slow.” She found her words again. That was better. “If it were three books, then you’d get your applause, but two is amateur hour.”
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Raine parked their car in the driveway, given that it was empty safe for one other car that was used by most of the pack. They only had a few cars, especially considering how many people lived in the house. Raine had their own car, they would drop someone off to work if necessary, but their working hours were flexible, and given that they were also the one fixing everyone’s car, they liked to have this thing for themselves. They stepped out of the car and saw the next one coming around the corner and parking at the side of the street.
They recognised Noémie as the driver, and resisted the urge to just run back into the house and pretend they didn’t care very much about what they were doing. But they had promised themselves - and Diego - that they wanted to be better, which included extending basic kindness to others. They waited a little, and then walked towards the door to hold it open for them.
“Done with work?” they asked, trying for some friendliness.
Tense fingers were coiled around the steering wheel as Noémie rounded the corner that led to their home. All of their time at work had been spent imagining this very moment, but the sweet relief hadn’t settled in just yet, perhaps awaiting the moment they’d cross the threshold of their home to strip away the niceties they were forced to comply with when on the clock. The too-polite grin they donned when at work would fade into a more severe thin line, one that wasn’t as inviting, one that told others to keep away. Their patience was always a hair shy from wearing thin past the point of no return, but they needed to keep this job — their last job hadn’t been nearly as luxurious, working in a small gas station right off the freeway, and they remembered distinctly how putrid the bathrooms would smell at the end of a particularly hot day.
Noémie shivered at the thought.
No, they’d play nice if it meant they could still bring home the occasional plate of food the cooks would offer them, and not to mention the sizable discount that afforded them the ability to treat the pack to a nice meal when they were feeling particularly generous. That didn’t mean they couldn’t complain, though, which they had grown considerably great at doing. To say the least, today had fucking sucked. White women with the Kate Gosselin ‘do circa 2007 loved the sound of their own shrill voices, especially when it was used to talk down to her, claiming Noémie had done everything in their power to inconvenience them and their family of five.
All Em wanted was a shower, a smoke, and the side of mozzarella sticks they had ordered from the kitchen on their way out. Was that too much to ask?
Maybe so, because as they walked towards the front of the house, they saw Raine just up ahead, and they made no effort to hide the sigh that left their parted lips, wondering just what attitude the other had to greet them with. Except — there was no snark. And they had held the door open for Noémie. Immediately, her eyes narrowed. What the fuck was going on here on this day?
"For the foreseeable evening,” they said, dropping their bag at the entrance once the door had closed. It was a horrible habit they hadn’t yet kicked, but someone would inevitability remind them sometime soon to pick up their shit, so it was a problem to deal with later — as they said for most of their problems, but who had time to get into that when they could get into some mozzarella sticks?
“What do you want, Raine?” they decided to forgo beating around the bush to have them instead spit out whatever was on their mind. “Because if you think you can make a go for my food, you’ll have to fight me for it. And if you just want a fight, at least let me get comfortable first.”
Values: Above all else, Noémie values hard work. They value someone who takes pride in what they do. Would they ever openly admit it? Very unlikely, but someone who knows who they are, who likes what they do, who can point to all their accomplishments with pride — it makes them hopeful that perhaps one day Noémie could ever feel the same. Not that they think the day would ever come, but what else was there to live for if not to foolishly hope?
Flaws: Noémie is known to isolate themselves when the going gets tough, much to the chagrin of anyone who cares even the slightest about them. They keep others at a distance, even those of their pack, and many who have met Noémie since the passing of their parents can’t say they know too much about the recluse. They claim to be working on being more open, but being open invites vulnerability, and they haven’t figured out quite yet how to be vulnerable without simultaneously wanting to find the closest ditch to fall into.
History.
TW: Car crash, death, depression, grief.
“When they ask you, say that you are no descendant,” Noémie’s parents would say. “Tell them you are an ascendant — ascended from the great wolves before you and the great wolves before even them. Their blood courses through you. Their strength is your strength. It’s why you’re here today. It’s a sign that you are to continue their legacy. You were destined for it, our miracle child.”
Noémie could practically recite these very words by memory given how often it was uttered to them; it used to fill their chest with pride, bloating an ego that needed no help. But Noémie learned that talk was cheap, especially when said by people who were six feet under, right alongside the supposed greats that couldn’t evade the inevitability of a cold, anticlimactic death.
Their parents had passed in a car accident — there one day, and gone the next. Noémie was only a few days shy of turning eighteen; all week they had talked of giving them something special. They never did find out what it was.
Whispers were muttered around town speaking of the poor Bouvier child, that pitiful girl, who had lost their family, and every time they stepped outside, curious, hungry eyes bore into their skin. So, they stopped going outside.
At least for a while. At least until a stench almost as bad as death — just almost — wafted from the living room, where boxes of half-eaten pizzas were strewn about, empty cans of Coca-Cola were left haphazardly wherever they were tossed, and where a person-sized indent had formed on the worn-out couch while sleeping in the same foul sweatshirt they had worn for… was it two weeks now? Three weeks? A month? God only knew. That’s when, with every ounce of strength they still had, they peeled off every article of clothing on their person and hauled themselves into the shower, where even then all they could manage was to sit cross-legged on the floor as the water worked to wash away the grief they felt.
They cried. They screamed. They disparaged any god would that listen. And when the water ran cold, they turned off the faucet and stepped out, their gaze affixed to their reflection staring back at them in the mirror. Their eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. All color had drained from their sunken cheeks. Their shoulders appeared frail, as if one wrong touch would make them crumble into themselves. A pathetic scoff left their lips; so much for the destined one. Is this what the great Bouvier line had come to?
It had taken time to gather the pieces their parents’ passing had shattered; and even then, they wasn’t sure they would ever find them all. A jigsaw puzzle with a few missing pieces, always so close to reaching its potential, but never close enough, always irreparably incomplete.
Joining the pack hadn’t been a question of ‘if’. If not the pack, then where would they go? Who else could they turn to? Noémie had made it up to that point by the skin of their teeth, and they had no leg to stand on. There was no pride to swallow. They needed something. Someone. And a pack afforded Noémie quite a few someones who would watch their back as they watched theirs. They would never be what they had lost, but they were as close as they would ever come again to their family.
Nowadays, they still have their reservations about those they come across; Noémie could see how some hold their breath around them, how they long to see just what this natural-born wolf is capable of, how they plan to uphold their legacy. It weighs on Noémie so much more now than it did in the past, even if there is seemingly nothing to uphold with everyone gone but them. It’s made even worse given that all they have amounted to now is making a living asking if someone would like a table for two.
Is this really all they were destined for?
Connections.
In relation to their backstory.
Before. Oftentimes, life is equated to a light inside someone, a light so bright and inextinguishable, it exudes from their very being. That was Noémie before, well... everything. There was a light in them. And YOUR MUSE could see it from miles away. Perhaps, that’s why they were drawn to them like a moth to a flame. And Noémie allowed them in; they let YOUR MUSE know them, know almost all of them, but when the news broke, it was a miracle if YOUR MUSE could get even a ‘read’ receipt in one of their numerous unanswered text messages. The relationship fizzled quickly thereafter, and now when Noémie sees them in public, they could barely get themselves to meet the other’s eyes. Isn’t it funny how quickly one becomes a stranger? | OPEN
During. The one time Noémie built the courage to step out of their parents’ home and do some grocery shopping (read: buy frozen pizzas and bags of chips to serve as their main source of sustenance), all eyes were on them. Some of the more gossip-oriented folks of Blackrock whispered between one another as they sized Noémie up, noticing their faded, coffee-stained hoodie (their father’s favorite, one Noémie’s mother tried her best to rid of to no avail), the dark bags under their eyes from nights of restless sleep. They even spoke of Noémie’s parents, and hearing their parents’ name upon someone else’s lips made it suddenly hard breathe, suddenly impossible to move. Their words rang in Noémie’s ears, over and over until ELIZA overheard and intervened — “Don’t you have something better to do than stare?” This small act of kindness is not one Noémie has forgotten. It’s one they hope to repay when the proper moment arises. | TAKEN
After. Noémie isn’t one for conversation these days. Luckily, neither is YOUR MUSE. Together, they have settled into an amiable companionship. Neither ask too many questions. Neither get too personal. They’re not friends, per se, but they’re more then mere acquaintances. Sometimes, they share a table at The Ugly Mug, both sipping away at their drinks while one reads a book and the other scrolls through their phone. It’s calm. It’s something both need, the slightest bit of human interaction that is as superficial and frivolous as can get to take away some time from how overwhelming every other aspect of their lives can be. | OPEN
General connections.
Exes
Childhood friend
Regular at work
Friend with benefits
Significant annoyance
High school sweetheart
Co-worker
Drinking buddy
Smoking buddy
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