@lyall

The full moon was coming in a week’s time but that still left plenty of time for drinking as far as Max saw it. In fact even in aftermath of the monthly transformation he would turn to drinking. It was always going to be his go-to and being a werewolf he was had the high tolerance of alcohol on his side and he of course was not going to misuse that. In fact when he had been with Esther he had been surprised she could down so much liquor but he just put that down to the bad influence he had on her. Sadly that was no more and he was working on moving on and so far the pair of them had only had a few instances where he and her and fallen back into bed together but that had not happened in a while and he just put it down to her ignoring him. He was not sure how to take that but part of him started to think she didn’t care anymore. He of course didn’t think she had to care for him, there were exes after all. She had been the one to call it off and now here he was a single wizard again. Of course he had been a wizard before he had been a werewolf.

Now that his day was over he could go and refresh himself with a drink or several, it was more than likely going to end up being the latter unless he came across a pretty face that would pull him away from the bar beforehand. Max was not against that. At least he was not on another blind date. The last one he had found himself on had been nothing short of a disaster. At least now he was just finding himself in foreign bed from time to time and he was sure that was what he would continue to do for now. He knew that would not be what Christina would want for him but it was what he was willing to do so he didn’t get hurt. Max was over getting hurt. Losing his girlfriend and their child in one go had been hard enough and at such a young age to. When he had met Esther he thought his fortune had changed but it wasn’t case and she called it off and now Max had promised himself he would not get hurt again.

He entered the Bitter Snake and gave a half a smile to the man who he had just done some ink who was seated at a table by the door. He shouldn’t be surprised that he would find his client in here after all this bar was frequented by all kinds of people just as he served all kinds of people at his tattoo parlour. Max seated himself at the bar and ordered himself a scotch, neat. As if he was going to spoil his drink by mixing it with something that would spoil the smoothness of the alcohol.

Really, the wolves owned the Bitter Snake. That was their place of work, that was where they hung around. Lyall knew that Dean Singer worked at the Roadhouse, so that gave them two places to go, but it was clear that the werewolves were in charge at the Bitter Snake. It was Lyall and Valentina, they were the ones who were running the place most of the time, and that meant that the packs and loners were always a bit more eager to be there. He knew that it was good for Cassian; he was so damn paranoid that it was safer that way. They wouldn't poison another wolf, they all stuck together and under the radar. They didn't want to cause anyone to peer too closely at them, they couldn't handle that. So far the regime was keeping them all in the dark, they weren't doing anything too dangerous... But it could change at any second. It could always change, something could happen in a heartbeat. So they had to stick together, they had to try to stay safe and they had to make sure that nothing happened to them. The wolf-owned places were always best for them, that was where he tried to send the younger kids when they started to cause trouble. They had to stay away from the Ministry, they had to keep out of sight... He wasn't having any blood on his hands, not this time. They were staying safe.

They were going to do just fine, he had to keep telling himself that. The pack would be fine, Rhia would be fine, everything would be fine. If he let that just rest in his mind it would all make sense in the end, and everyone would get out of this next series of events safe. So far, they were doing fine. There was nothing overly crazy going on in the Ministry that was affecting them specifically. It was just the muggleborns, and while that was terrible and frustrating he couldn't do anything to fix that for the moment. They just had to hold their breaths and hope, hope that nothing stretched towards them. They were doing better than they had been before. Well, most of them were. There were still some wolves that might have been caught up in the registration, he wasn't quite sure... He wished that he knew, he wished that he was able to help. Because he really couldn't do that much, not right now. He was busy making sure that Roland didn't do anything stupid, that Rhia and him were staying on top of everything... He wished he could do more to help. He wished he could do something, anything, but he had to think of the pack and his family, they were always first on his list.

He was trying not to focus too much on that, though, and he welcomed the fact that they had a customer. It was nice, really, nice to see that there was someone there so he couldn't get lost in his thoughts. That always pushed him onto tangents, and that generally ended up with him angrily thinking about unicorns... And that just wasn't good for his sensibilities. You could only rant about unicorns once or twice in a day, and especially not when you looked so macho. While he wasn't one to just go by his looks it was one of those times where he had to, he had to think about how he looked. So no more unicorn rants for the day. Lyall reached over to get the decent scotch, pouring it and placing it in front of the man who had requested it. "That it?"

Max was all for having fun and partying, being a werewolf meant he was more entitled to do it as the effect was not as serious as regular people. Of course he had not been a regular person for a long time and he had almost forgotten what it was like. It was only because he spent to much time with his family that he saw it first hand. Of course now that him and Val were more serious he was not spending as much time with them as he used to. Naturally he felt guilty but he had not updated them on his new relationship. He was far from ashamed of Val but rather he knew that his family could think he was moving on too fast. Maybe after they learned she was a werewolf also, his relationship would not meet such hesitancy. Max knew his family wanted only for him to happy and they weren’t against him having his own family one day. Truthfully if he was to do that with Val he knew that their child would definitely inherit the werewolf gene and he wasn’t so sure he could put them through that. He also wondered how werewolf parents would manager a baby wolf. It was not going to be easy to do but honestly the two of them were very, very early on in their relationship and for all Max knew, it could be possible that they not eve reach that step.

Coming to the bitter snake really was a no-brainer. He knew he was entitled to unwind and that was precisely what he was going to. It would just take a few and he would still be able to walk home. Granted he didn’t live far but he was going going to make the best of it. While he did have the white wyvern below him, he decided to change the bar he patronised, so that least he was going to be in a different atmosphere from time to time. Though given that now he and Val were dating, he was going to be hanging around here a lot more. There was nothing wrong with that of course unless he proved to be too much of a distraction of his girlfriend. He had a great fondness and he would find it funny if he was at her work and his mere presence distracted her. Thinking about it made Max want to do. She of course was not working tonight but he would make a mental note to do that the next time he knew she was shift.

Having been served by a bloke, Max easily picked up that the other bloke was a werewolf too. This was the making of a muggle movie script, it really was. It could not be planned any better. Max however was not going to dive right into discussing werewolf rights or anything. It was stupid to do that. He was here a s a customer and he did want to get kicked out because of what he was talking or rather rambling on about. Max nodded. ”Thanks Mate” he replied before he took a swig of his drink. It was so smooth and so refreshing and best of all, one drink had little to no effect on him. Max looked around the bar and saw that he really was the only customer here. Well lucky him, he would get all the attention. ”Is there something on?” he asked as he nodded over his shoulder to the empty bar. He supposed it was the middle of the week and it the emptiness spoke for itself. He often spent time alone in his parlour so this hardly bothered him.

At some point, Rhia was going to go back on tour. Lyall had been trying to ignore it for a while, and he had been trying to postpone it in his own way. He wanted to make sure that she spent enough time at home, that she could take a few days to herself and that she finally got a breath of fresh air. But it was hard, sometimes, to get her to settle in. She was so American like that. He remembered his time on the continent, just trying to get by, just trying not to fall into that endless string of partying that everyone seemed so accustomed to. He had partied as a kid, really, and he thought that he had done well with himself, but his time overseas had shown him how weak and so much posher his parties had been. There was a lot more violence in America, at least in his opinion, and although he didn't quite brand Rhia as a major part of that he did like to point out that she was rather similar to so many of them. She was restless, edgy... It took a great deal for him to get her to settle down, and he had finally managed to do that, at least for a little bit. She was taking a few hours off, now, or something like that. It was more likely that she was bossing everyone around, but she had told him that she was going to calm down before the next tour, that she wasn't going to go running off into trouble at the first sound of it.

That meant that she had probably thrown herself into the first bar fight that she could, but that was his wife. That was just something that Lyall did, really, and he knew that he had to just tolerate it and not blink when she came home bruised and reeking of alcohol. He would smell like it, too, so it wasn't like they were going to be a mismatched set. Two beer-smelling idiots grinning and in love. It was hysterical, really, since the kids were always so annoyed by it. Lyall knew that they just needed to shut up, most of the time. They were annoying kids, and they were annoyed that their 'parents' were so happy. And since he was the leader of the pack he could tell them to shut up, too, and they would have to listen. They did heed his words, most of the time. They knew that he meant well, they knew that he was pretty good at telling them what to do. He did tend to smother, but that was just fine. They would be able to deal with it all when they were safe, he knew that. Smothering and mothering was fine, especially since they all tended to get into the stupidest fights, Roland especially. Now that he was blind, though, he tended to be a bit safer in the house, but that didn't mean that he had said something that irritated Dahlia and she hadn't just reared back and punched him in the nose.

There really was a whole lot of punching in his house, if he was being honest. He knew that he should try harder to stop it, but it got amusing. "It's a Tuesday," he responded, shrugging his large shoulders. "Not many people want to come out during the week anymore. A bit of a pain when I'm at the bar, but I'll survive." 

Max knew that getting back on the dating scene was not going to be ideal but then again he was not going to force himself into a relationship. He was glad though he had met Val. Yes it was convenient she was another wolf but along with that came it’s challenges too. However he knew that the two of them were smart enough to come up with ways to overcome and learn to manage them. But not all hope was lost. People could still get along even with their similarities right? At least that had proved true so far and the two of them got along really well. Maybe it had been bolstered because they had started out as bed buddies first and now they were more and he was happy. Max had had a bad run of flings up until he had met Esther and now the two of them were no more but they remained friends and considering how they had broken up Max knew that they were friends and he knew that was more than what they could have been. Overall they were doing well. Though he was doing better with Val in comparison to where he was with Esther at this stage in their relationship. She had almost been fearful to be recognised as his girlfriend and that was without him being a werewolf. But Max realised it had only taken him two hands to count how many times she had told him that she loved him during their entire time together. Esther had been better at showing her feelings than expressing them verbally.

Val was different, she was more verbal but she showed her emotions through her actions too and that was something that Max appreciated. Right now it was hard to tell if they had longevity in their relationship just yet but he hoped they did. If he had thought that he and Val were compatible then he had never expected how well matched he and Val were. He was happy and he made her happy and that was what was most important as far as he was concerned.

His family had not yet met her but once they did he knew they would like her. He was at least a little more optimistic that she would not receive any hurtful comments from his sisters like Esther had or that they would not think she would leave as soon as she got a better offer or something. That was not to say that he was sure that Valentina wasn’t going to ever leave him but there something a bit more solid about her. Max had tried to search for something similar in Esther but it was already so visible in Valentina, he couldn’t deny it. She was something else.

The man knew it was wrong for him to compare both women but it was human nature, even if he was now only part human. It was common though regardless of who was in the relationship, be they wolf or human. Max nodded as the barman answered his question. He supposed that Tuesdays in knockturn Alley was quieter than other parts of magical London. Even Lufkin could be buzzing at this time of day. ”You look the type that would have little bothering him. “ he smiled as he held out his hand. ”I’m Max by the way….owner of the Tattoo parlour” he nodded slightly as he introduced himself

It was funny, really, when he thought about it. Everything was so much stranger than normal, even though it all felt the same. Maybe it was because he had given up on trying to understand politics and what was going on. Instead Lyall was so worried about making sure that everything was in order, that he didn't bother people that he didn't know, that his family stayed safe and out of the way. It was really out of sheer luck that he didn't have any muggleborns in his pack, and it actually made him feel a bit... Well, he felt that he had been biased, maybe, since all of his kids were of magical descent. But he hadn't planned that, so he tried to put it out of his mind. It would be harder if they were. He didn't want to have to worry about all of the extra work he would need to put into explaining to them why they couldn't go outside. Which he would, of course. Lyall's first thought was always to keep them safe. But they were young adults, teens, and generally problem children. They always thought that it was a good idea to be out and about and causing problems. He knew it had been a rough time when he and Roland had been captured.

Rhia had handled them, though, like Lyall knew that she could. They were fine, now, but Rhia had had to handle them while he was gone. She wasn't the leader, and they could sense it, but they had listened. They didn't have a choice, and he wondered what would have happened if they didn't already recognize her as the second-in-command. Chaos, worse than what had already happened. Chaos from Dahlia, probably, and most certainly from James. But they had handled it all, they had solved the issues, and he and Roland had been back for some time. He had been bedridden for a little bit, but he had recovered. Lyall was strong, and so was Roland. The major problem had been when Roland realized that he was really, officially blind. When they figured out that no, he couldn't see, and he was never going to be able to. That had been an explosion of magic. It was rough. It had been a time that he didn't want to repeat, but there was nothing that he could do about it. He had to just watch as it happened, and he had to try to help him recover.

It wasn't the same. It wasn't ever going to be the same. Lyall told them all to stay even further out of sight, and they had actually listened. They all stayed out of the way, they didn't look at what happened in the Ministry and they stayed unregistered because there was no other way to keep safe. He knew that it was a punishable offense, but how could they expect people to register after Durant? Durant considered them animals, so they had to just stay in the dark, away from everyone. Even now. Even when it might be getting better. They should stay out of the way, out of sight, out of mind. "I've got a handful of teens," he said, laughing. Lyall took the offered hand and gave it a tight squeeze, nodding gently. "Nothing bothers me anymore. It's nice to meet you, Max. I'm Lyall."