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Some days just fucking sucked, and knowing some days just sucked did not a damn thing to mitigate the sucking when it came.
It was extra bullshit because Beau knew, right, the suckage was coming from inside the house. Nothing had happened today that would ruffle her almost any other day, but every typo and every fumbled word, every snotty customer she'd offered a smile while forcing her muscles to unlock - every bit of it felt targeted somehow, like she was special in the worst way.
And it was raining. And she'd missed her bus. Which, not the biggest deal since they came every half an hour, but she didn't feel like sitting. She could sulk and walk, catch the next one. She spared a glance at the awning where Yasha waited, uncertain what to do with the mingled disappointment and relief to find nothing but an empty wall. Best not to inflict this mood on her, but she couldn't escape the feeling that just maybe it would have been harder to stay like this with company.
She'd see Yasha on a better day. Tonight, she had Jester and a new tin of hot cocoa. It was a start.
Beau was shivering when she got off the bus, a combination of summer rain and the bus air conditioning that had her feeling soaked to the bone instead of vaguely damp. The lights were off in the house save for the lamp on the living room end table, and that was when Beau remembered Jester's earlier text. Impromptu run to her dad's, back later hopefully tonight. "Hell," said Beau to nobody in particular, then "fuck." No Jester meant no Wolf either, and though she admittedly hadn't checked the yard on her walk up it was unlikely that her dog was anywhere close if she hadn't come barreling out of the woods to greet her.
So again, this fucking sucked, but at least there was nobody around to bring down with her either.
In some ways, she thought from within the shower's warm embrace, Beau kind of resented therapy. Things had been oddly simpler when she could be in a shitty mood without knowing why - without the reflex of combing through her own memories to find which fucked up thought patterns were closer to the surface today. It used to be that when she was pissed off for no reason she could shower and think about nothing and wait for it to pass.
The days, a clear mind and meditation went hand in hand - and meditation was cool, but sometimes it also meant her memories were a little too confident in the way they showed up to crowd her head. She didn't know why most of them were what they were - why on a sullen and rainy day she could randomly remember being at a store with her mom that had closed down when she was ten, or the water gun fight she'd instigated in the middle of January at fourteen. Some thoughts were just thoughts, but there were others that pressed, that clambered over other thoughts to be noticed with the sole intention, such as it was, to fuck her up even more. Nothing about today had a reason to make her feel trapped, so why couldn't she quit finding excuses to touch handcuff marks that had faded two years ago? What brought the memory of helplessness so close to the surface today, and why was some part of her apparently determined to wallow in it?
Beau stared at her wet reflection wrapped miserably in her big gray towel as the shower dripped behind her and set her jaw. If she was doomed to a night of bullshit - or even just a few hours - she would force herself to eat something and at least get comfortable to wait it out. If her bad mood wanted to stick around, it was going to have to work for it.
She was in the middle of squirming into a sports bra when a scratching noise from the window caught her attention and alerted her to the presence of one indignant-looking, very damp and familiar dog on its other side. The window was partially protected by the awning above, so the majority of the wetness making it hard to see clearly had more to do with Wolf's soaked paws and the insistent nose leaving little clouded spots as the scrabbling continued than any direct weather effects.
"Okay, okay." Beau couldn't help a smile at the sight of Wolf, the little tendril of warmth at the appearance of at least one semi-sentient creature who looked happy - or at least determined - to see her. "Give me a second."
She snagged her towel and headed for the front door with a little huff as Wolf began to cry as though Beau hadn't noticed her, like she might die if she wasn't allowed inside for pets and attention immediately. Simple enough. Why did people brains have to overcomplicate it with fun shit like "repression" and "trauma" or whatever? Maybe Beau wanted to yell about shit too on some level, but that seemed even more unrealistic somehow than the actual fact of her about to invite a whole-ass wolf inside for comfort.
Beau flung the door open and stepped onto the porch with her towel and a short whistle, and a second later a streak of white came scrambling from the side of the house to skid to a stop on the concrete and stick a cold, wet nose immediately into Beau's shower-warm stomach. "Heya. Good to see you too, you big wet lump. C'mere." Wolf wasn't usually a jumper, but the way she pawed at Beau's hip and mouthed at her hands and arms as she did her best to towel off all that fur seemed to Beau like it carried an extra weight today. Or maybe she was just in desperate need of a snuggle. Whatever.
"Alright, inside. We're gonna have to use the hairdryer before you're allowed on the couch. Shoo."
Wolf dropped to her forepaws and spun in a circle, then tore off inside and down the hall to spin around again with a strangled vocalization that made Beau chuckle as she pulled the door shut behind her and approached. Wolf watched her, frozen until she was just steps away before slapping her paws on the carpet and flattening her muzzle. Her tail whipped harmlessly along the wall over the spot where a picture frame had once hung, now moved safely elsewhere, and Beau watched her for a long moment before heaving a sigh and stomping in quick succession.
Wolf's ears shot up and she rocketed in a circle before flopping on her back to squirm and mouth at Beau's calves while she laughed and stomped whichever foot was free so that Wolf contorted left and right, paws waving to snag on Beau's pants or bump her stomach.
"You're ridiculous," Beau told her. "You know that?" She dropped the towel over Wolf's face and snickered as she watched her dog paw and bite and worry at the material. Finally she stilled, belly-up and panting happily as Beau reached down to scratch her furry chest. "You good now? Calm? Not gonna try to eat the hairdryer?"
Wolf was something approaching sulky by the end of the drying process, but Beau felt ten pounds lighter as she patted down some of the fluff on that great big chest and got a tongue in her ear for the effort. The hair dryer escaped with only a little scratch on the end; Wolf might not have understood electrical hazards but she seemed to do her best overall to keep her teeth to herself.
"Fluffy," Beau proclaimed with a tap to her nose. The day still wore on her shoulders, but it was harder to remember the depths of the gray feeling with a massive wolf piled into her bathroom and mouthing, very gently, at her hand. "Okay. Let's get us both fed and curled up for a dumb movie or something." Beau scratched at the fur under her jaw, flipped the light off, and headed for the kitchen with Wolf content at her heels.
It was almost enough, the hot food and the hotter chocolate and the brainless movie, almost what she needed to come out the other side with the day sloughed from her shoulders. But as the credits rolled, Beau blinked hard up at the ceiling and pulled every bit of her therapy lessons in to reminding herself that it was good and okay to cry, feeling ridiculous at both the action and the need to remind herself at all. Crying was nothing more or less than release valve, a way to shed some of the layers of feeling and emerge a little raw but clean. It took effort to remember that things were different now, that there was no one looking for a weakness to exploit and that allowing herself to start didn't mean Beau wouldn't be able to stop. Tonight wasn't a spiral, just a bad day with no apparent cause.
She sniffed hard, and like magic there was a soft muzzle lifted from her lap to touch gently to her cheek. No long pink tongue snaked out, no snuffle came to blast air in her ear. She felt Wolf's tail stir against the couch just the once, but she just stayed there with her nose resting on Beau's shoulder and didn't move away when she turned to wrap her arms around that great furry neck and take furious sips of hot air as the tears began to fall.
She didn't cry herself to sleep, but in the wake of the few minutes she spent with her face buried in Wolf's fur Beau became aware of how tired she had already likely been, the exhaustion she was just now relaxed enough to feel. Wolf watched her with interest as Beau let go of her to lay completely sideways, head tentative on Wolf's shoulder, and offered only the smallest lick when Beau rubbed her gently under the jaw.
She'd intended to stay out in the living room for just a few more minutes, waiting to see if Jester would be home, but before long she found herself drifting in the heat and the softness under her cheek and seconds after, she tumbled into sleep.
Beau woke disoriented some untold time later, eyes anchoring on her computer charge light even as the rest of her body got to work informing her she was in her room, under the blankets, Wolf curled behind her as usual. Jester must have come home, she thought, and carried her to bed. It wouldn't be the first time, but most of the time Beau was awakened by all the jostling that came from someone her same height trying to maneuver her limbs if not necessarily her weight. Must have needed the rest more than she thought.
Beau closed her eyes and matched her breathing to the sounds of Wolf asleep next to her and began to doze off again with the feeling that whatever had weighed on her day had diffused somehow, drifted somewhere it couldn't reach her for a while. She was warm, she was comfortable, and she was loved - and then, with a long sigh of release, she was out.