The were had never really been close to anyone throughout a vast majority of his life. At the beginning, when he'd been young, his youthful mind had yet to discover its potential and his path very much unwritten and left to the responsibilities of the dog's parents for molding and shaping, at least dependent on the best as they could do for their child who could have been so full of well-aimed ambition and promise, there was the natural if not instinctual attachment he'd had towards his mother and father. Yes, it was hard to believe that the asshole almost all women rolled their eyes at was once a little boy with bright eyes and innocent, but was that not how most children so new and naïve started? So, naturally, it had been his mother and father that the were had looked to for guidance and affection, which they'd readily given the boy. In truth, they had been decent parents, save for always seeming absorbed with their careers when the boy grew older and they had expected for him to be able to entertain himself like the other children his age easily could. Now, Levi did not struggle with entertaining himself. If anything, perhaps that had been the entire reason that the boy became the thief that he was today. Had they been there more in his later years to see the intelligence behind their young son's eyes, the way that his mind seemed to make such light work of puzzles or homework given by his grade school teachers, if maybe they'd listened to the praise from his teachers that later shifted into voiced concerns about his knack for taking things from the other kids, they might have been able to guide young Levi onto a path that would have kept him from finding the rush that came with thieving and testing his hand at manipulating those in his world. Maybe, if they had been more mindful of just how clever the boy was becoming, as he was discovering ways to get what he wanted, then they could have saved themselves from the years that were to come as a result of their negligence.

It went without saying that when he began what they'd hoped was just a troublesome streak of rebellion, they'd done what they thought was enough to discipline him. He could hardly count how many times they'd put him in a timeout, condemned to face the corner of the kitchen while his mother worked from home or sit on the wooden stool in the living room while his father sat reclined in his lazyboy with feet kicked up, reading about the stock market or perhaps a novel which had captured the man's fleeting fancy. They'd taken away his Gameboy, his television privileges, kept him trapped inside the house and unable to run amuck through the neighborhood â€" especially when the boy started coming home with bikes or skateboards that weren't his. They'd scolded him as decent parents often did. He'd been reprimanded with wooden spoons and belts. They'd done just about everything that they could to straighten the young thief-in-the-making, but it was all for naught. The more they disciplined him, the harder he worked at becoming craftier about things, only beginning to test his mother and father and their attention to what it was he might do. He can't exactly remember at what age the distance slipped between himself and his parents, only knowing it was when he'd discovered what he could do when left unsupervised that he'd started growing more independent and far less interested in the activities that they tried to tempt him with. They were far too late to try and engage the clever boy they'd brought into this world. Maybe it was around the time that he was six or seven... maybe eight? Not that it mattered. What they had mistaken for simple disinterest when in reality it had been a lack of effort to give the were boy something challenging enough to keep him intrigued was where it was Levi's seemingly perfect parents had gone wrong with him. Had they paid closer attention to their son, this story would â€" and this particular afternoon even â€" would have been much different.

As the pup grew into a juvenile, things only ever got worse. In school, he'd taken to stealing and getting into trouble at school, which ultimately had rendered him an outcast it hadn't been anything that the dog had tried to correct in the slightest. Especially considering he'd never really had any friends, so there wasn't really anything for him to lose. The were hadn't ever been interested in their children's games or what their ideas of fun things to do had been, and perhaps this played a small part in the reasoning behind his lack of any solid foundation for a halfway decent social structure. After all, when one was cast aside more or less intentionally, it was hard to see any sort of necessity in the companionship of others. Eventually, their threats to kick him out only became a challenge for the were. Their words meant to induce a sense of shame or create a desire to change did nothing. So many times, they'd told him how disappointed they were. His father had even gone as far as to start disowning the juvenile when it didn't seem that anything was working. It has always been the man's mother who refused to give up on Levi, even after he'd packed up his backpack with a couple pairs of clothes and left for good. She was the one that bailed him out whenever he got caught by law enforcement for stealing or vandalizing. Sure, he could still hear the frustration and sheer disappointment in the man when he made those phone calls to her after getting picked up by the cops and tossed into a holding cell for twenty-four hours, but just the fact that she continued to be there when he needed a ticket back to the streets where he could resume his lifestyle choices was enough of an opportunity for him. One might dare to wonder if perhaps there was a part of him at all that appreciated his mother for willingly enduring all the shit she was put through by her only child, or maybe even just felt at least a minute fraction of guilt of shame for the way that he was, but there were no such thoughts of feelings in the dog towards the woman that had given the man life and raised him. Those ties, that bond had been severed and the bridge burned long ago.

Smoldering earthen eyes watch the woman and that curiosity which seems to flicker fleetingly across her gaze as he rubs the place on his jaw where she'd landed a solid blow. It would leave a bruise, that was for sure. And she'd even managed to break open the skin there, crimson staining his fingers though he hardly cared. He'd had much worse than this. However, that look is soon replaced by something akin to annoyance as her voice ushers through the saltwater cave and Levi cannot help the doggish smile that pulls onto his features."Got a name, then?", he drawls smoothly, almost wondering if she would provide him with one. Half the time, the pretty faces he did encounter tended to give him false names and aliases, but it never bothered him when they did. A name was a name, it wasn't as though he intended in remembering it for the rest of his life or anything like that. Hell, he almost always expected not to see them again anyway. Plus, even a false name to a beautiful face served the same purpose as a truly birth-given one, especially when it was faces that the dog recognized more than what they felt like calling themselves. They could give him no name at all if they really thought it would work to disengage the dog, but then again, if they did that, he usually gave them nicknames of his own choosing until they gree tired of his games, grew annoyed with him, or decided to play his game after all."Mine's Levi", he says casually to the woman clinging to the back of the cave. He always gave his own name, regardless on if he ever obtained theirs or not. Why, he wasn't entirely sure. It seemed to serve as an icebreaker more than anything, easing the pretty creatures he fawned over into a sense of false comforting or trusting. It was amazing what being honest - for the most part - could earn, how much more willing it made others want to comply, thus having the man more than content to keep it amongst his arsenal of strategies and ploys to manipulate.

He doesn't miss the way that her voice falters when she attempts to say that she hadn't needed his help, that the storm wouldn't have hurt her, and it was the witch's words that move his attention back to the world outside the cave. Now, the clouds had dissipated and the sky returned to a bright baby blue. The tides rolled in and out, foam-crested waves crashing against the sandy shore in that same lulling rhythm as they had before. It was like there hadn't almost been a catastrophic ocean storm at all, having nearly been upon the city moments ago. The man looks back to the woman, seeing the almost defeated expression that finds her then, and perhaps if he had any sort of compassion he would have softened in turn. But that just wasn't like him. So he simply shrugs."If you say so", he remarks nonchalantly. If she wanted to insist on such things, then he would hardly fight her on the matter or bother lecture on how she should learn to get a handle on her powers. This wasn't a counseling session, and he was probably the absolute last individual that should be giving any sort of advice about what she should do about her lack of control. The witch seems to relax almost instantly - well, physically judging by her scent and stance - when the were steps aside so she could run past him if she as desired, instead settling herself where she'd been thus far in this unexpected encounter. Revealing to him what the dog had already suspected, he scratches idly st his chiseled chest, the stain-less steel chain clinking as his fingers brush against it."Well, I doubt he's still after you now, but if it makes you feel better I'd be happy to knock his out for ya... though you seem plenty capable of that yourself", he replies then, smooth tenor tones accompanied by a crooked grin. It was a strange truth, but a truth all the same. If the guy came running up trying to fuck around while Levi was here, well, the were would hardly hesitate to do the woman a favor and take care of the problem. It wasn't out of some innate need to protect or something actually chivalrous, but it definitely could be considered somewhat of an anomaly about the man. He would just chalk it up to the dog in him not particularly caring for another tenacious male's presence. It was almost a way of asserting his own dominance over the other, and yet it took certain situations to ever trigger that part of the canine.

Lifting a hand, he runs strong fingers through his drenched hair filled with grains of sand. He ruffles those dark locks to rid it of most of the sand, though he knows well that it would take a nice, warm shower to rid him of the rest that essentially covered him from head to toe. Not that he minded, it was more or less just the equivalent of a dog sitting on his haunches to scratch idly at its side of neck as it waited for who knows what. Now that he saved her - or thought he had, whatever the case may be - the were almost didn't know what to do. His usually tenacious flirting hardly showing itself from beneath the almost lackadaisical appearance as he watches her shift against the rocky wall. It was a rare moment she'd caught him in, the man only offering cheeky remarks instead of the full efforts to win her interest. Perhaps it was simply because he knew that his odds now were pretty much nonexistent after what had happened, and even the act of pulling her into the cave and stopping the storm had pulled more from him than he'd ever intended in giving today. Her gaze settles softly over the were, something he wasn't entirely used to, and when she posed a question not many ever had fall over their soft lips, Levi simply shrugs and he decided to lower himself onto the sandy floor."I'm not a good guy, but I'm not a heartless asshole either", he says easily, again speaking a truth that he could easily assume no one would expect him to admit to. Why hide it, though? He was a thief, and cheat, and a liar on most all occasions... but sometimes it just wasn't worth the energy he didn't feel like wasting. Right now, the most appealing thing he had going for him was thinking about his next meal and where he would get it. Food sounded amazing right now."What about you? Do you always have your Sunday strolls crashed by pushy pricks that don't wanna take no for an answer?", he asks her as he looks up and across the space to meet her gaze, his own defined back leaning against the rough surface of the stones there. It seemed like a reasonable question, especially considering she had asked him why it was he'd seen it fit to save her when she'd initially thanked him with a punch to the face - not that he blamed her for it, but still.