#its a liiiittle melodramatic. but raleigh can have little a emotional manipulation as a treat

[writinglittlebeasts]

'Remember that time I died for thirty seconds?' Those words-- hell, the simple implication of those words in a pointed silence --got Raleigh anything. 'Remember that time your husband decided he didn't want a son who lived to saddle him with hospital bills? Remember when you abandoned me to mourn your marriage when half of my bones were broken and I couldn't fend for myself?' Raleigh shot her a look when he mentioned staying the night at Ruby Morrison's house or taking a ride out to Portland for the weekend. Once for an unfortunate In Mary's Name concert where the designated driver had slipped Raleigh his drink tickets and left him to stumble around the venue utterly pissed until he found himself on the sidewalk outside with his head crushed between his knees and a street hotdog cooling in a rank puddle on the concrete between his shoes.

When he'd caught her at the refrigerator in the dead of night and said 'I'm bringing a boy home,' she could see the old rejoinder before it ever reached his lips. She was so good about that one that he later wondered if he'd even needed to think it-- 'you need to be okay with that because you owe me'. His mother had pulled him close to her body and told him that she trusted him to make good decisions. He couldn't really do anything but cry into her shoulder, after that.

Werewolves, though? The specter of child neglect past may not be enough to ease that particular rock of the boat.