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Post by Zephyr on Oct 26, 2012 21:44:14 GMT -5
As of late, Silas finds himself frequenting a lot of bars, and frequenting them alone. He wonders about this, from time to time, but that train of thought usually leads to him getting drunk because he hates where those thoughts lead. It’s just easier to drown himself in bourbon than it is to think about things he’d really rather not. They say time heals all wounds, but if you don’t air them out, they’ll heal slowly or just fester. Silas knows this, because he’s a doctor.
The bar he’s picked is a new one. He doesn’t know if it’s brand new, or if he’s just never noticed it before. Probably the latter, because for all he frequents bars, he doesn’t leave downtown too often. It’s just easier for him to stay within pack territory. It isn’t out of loyalty. Silas muses as he stares at the dark liquid in his glass. Well…maybe it is out of loyalty, but not loyalty for the pack as a whole, but loyalty to and individual. He owes almost everything to Nate, and he’s the only real friend Silas has. Nate and that brat.
He hasn’t seen him in a while, Matthias. He figures that the kid finally made good on his thread to leave the city. That or Silas’ attempts at avoiding him have just been going really goddamn well, but he’s never that good at anything that doesn’t include cutting into someone’s brain or spine…so he doesn’t think that’s it. He finishes deciding whether his booze is going to come to life and takes another drink. His head is painfully full. Thoughts and emotions and shit that he’s never wanted to feel in his life. It’s making getting drunk off his ass really fucking hard. And where he’d normally be pleasantly buzzed at this point after a full glass of bourbon and half of another, it just…isn’t coming.
So, Silas does what he does best. He licks his lips and finishes his glass.
He’s ordering another one when a small group enters the bar. Silas doesn’t pay attention to them, not at first. He may or may not know them, but it hardly matters. No one talks to him and he keeps his grumpy asshole knob turned up to full power so as to make sure that it stays like that all night. His plans for the evening are set in stone. He’s going to drink until the bartender pulls the plug, then he’s going to pour himself into a cab and collapse in his bed until he has to wake up for work. Nothing is going to ruing this plan.
His left eye twitches when a peculiar scent comes to him. Silas is, by now, used to most of the supernatural population of Boston. He hardly goes out of his way to talk to any of them, but their presence is not something that takes him by surprise anymore. Well. Now he knows that the small, rowdy group of boys who came into the bar are actually skinwalkers. “Fanfuckingtastic.” Silas mutters under his breath before he takes a sip of his alcohol. Not like it mattered or anything. They wouldn’t fuck with him, not when he looked predictably grumpy.
Something happens though. Between the time it took him to notice the presence of the dogs and the time it took him to take a sip of his bourbon, he heard a voice. A voice that was so fucking familiar. Not as familiar as Nate’s voice, something he could notice in his sleep, that can pull him out of the hell that he descends in the nightmares that wrack his body and pull quiet moans from his lips in the darkness. No…this is a voice that has visited him before in nightmares, but only recently.
He freezes, hearing the skinwalkers that had just walked in run out in a flurry of footsteps and the scent of dog on the breeze, and Silas puts his glass down slowly, gripping the bartop and tightening his grip until his knuckles stain white against his skin. That goddamn brat. What the fuck is he doing luring a pack of skinwalkers towards him? Ignoring a woman’s question off to his left, Silas silently gets up, eye twitching dangerously and muscles straining in his neck and jaw, and he stomps outside, eyesight adjusting quickly to the darkness.
Where the fuck had they gone?
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Post by Matthias Walker on Oct 26, 2012 23:15:26 GMT -5
The funny thing about skinwalkers is that Matthias usually likes them, ever since that one in Minnesota: They don’t lose control when they change the same way werewolves do, and they can be genuinely good guys. Besides, Matthias is willing to give at least a little bit of respect to anybody who can weasel a place to stay at night and food out of people without lying back and thinking of England. So they don’t fall into the same category that ghosts do, where it’s either the kinder thing or the necessary thing to kill them no matter their crimes or lack thereof: Skinwalkers stay off his radar for the most part and Matthias is okay with that. There are worse crimes than playing at innocence if the reward is a place at the fireplace hearth.
But these guys couldn’t be more on the radar if they started signing their names on the bodies they leave with the ribcages split open and the hearts gone, and following them into a bar is not ideal but Matthias has spent four days carefully tracking every connection and every family and he doubts he’s ever going to have them all together at one time again. It is easier and cleaner to take them out in one fell swoop, in the long term, even if the short term is going to be a bitch.
At least the first part is easy.
He gets barely a glance as he steps into the bar but picking a fight is as easy as breathing by now. One guy snarls when he jostles up against their table, a loose wave of one hand spilling beer over the skinwalker’s lap and his friend’s shirt.
“Watch it—”
“Oops,” Matthias says, raises an eyebrow at the guy who’s jerked out of his seat, pulling his sopping shirt away from his skin, casts a slow look around the rest of the table. “Wow, clumsy of me, sorry. I wasn’t aiming to meet people who’re ugly and reek of wet dog.” The emphasis gets their attention; after that it is a matter of leaning in and plucking a shot of something off of the table, murmuring with casual indifference laced through his tone, “Of course, just smelling like dog never killed anyone, did it.” He knows they hear him; there is dead silence around the table as he knocks back the shot, places the empty glass back on the table, and turns and walks out of the bar.
They catch up to him in the alley, and he suspects it is their youth and their numbers that propel them to attack without hesitation. And, in fairness, the advantage should be theirs; the rough hands and shifting bodies at his back knock him to his knees on the wet cement, but he rolls with the motion and comes up facing them, a wall five yards from his back. It comes as little surprise to find that words have warped into animal snarls, the sleek bodies of dogs—big, well-fed, strong—pacing to surround him, lips peeled back in aggression, and it should be—and is—scary but this is what he’s been doing for years and the gun comes up steady in his hands.
The first crack of it going off is still ringing in his ears when the first skinwalker yelps and collapses, and the other three jump at him, and it is on.
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Post by Zephyr on Oct 27, 2012 1:42:45 GMT -5
He takes another step outside the bar, senses tuned for the most miniscule of disturbances, Silas’ face shifting into a mask of bewilderment and frustration. How could Matthias and four rowdy college kids just disappear. He’s about to snarl his frustration, or even all out for Matthias when he hears the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.
Silas freezes completely. The sound is way too loud in the relative silence of the area directly in the bar. It’s close, too close. His blood runs cold when he hears the snarling coming from the darkness somewhere to his left and Silas barely hesitates before he turns and runs towards the alley.
He’s changing before he even starts moving.
Shifting has never been easy for Silas. It’s still barely tolerable. He snarls in pain as he trips and falls to the ground right outside the alley, his body writhing in pain as muscles tremble and bones shift and change shape with a sickening sound. Silas bites his bottom lip nearly clear through trying not to cry out. The taste and scent of blood overwhelm him and he just lies there for a moment, clothes shredded on the cold, wet ground.
The wolf lays there, a mass of fluffy black fur, panting for a moment as the pain recedes slowly. He isn’t terribly inclined to move until the snarls rip through the air. He comes back with an answering snarl, ears lifted straight up to pinpoint the source of the sound.
The alley.
The wolf snarls, and Silas lets it take control as it bounds towards the alley, slipping unseen in the darkness. The dogs don’t see it, with how intently they are pursuing their current prey. This is not it’s territory, but the scent of the dogs rubs the wolf’s pride all the wrong way, and it wants to rip and tear and escaping from the man is not something it gets to do often, so the wolf is enthusiastic as it pounces upon one of the dogs, a bulky rottweiler that tries to take a snap at Matthias’ arm. The wolf sails towards it with a snarl, and the dog jumps, but it’s too late. The wolf’s jaws close around the right hind hock and press down hard.
The dog squeals, the sound deafening in the closeness of the alley. The feeling of bones crunching is as satisfying as any midnight hunt. It didn’t draw blood, but triumph burns through its veins all the same. In an instant the dog whirl upon the wolf, but it has leaped away. It had the element of surprise on the first attack, and it should have gone for a wound slightly more debilitating, because the dog is still on three good feet, and it snaps at the air where the wolf had been a moment before. Suddenly, the wolf realizes it is outnumbered when the other dogs turn on it. It stands there, snarling viciously, lips lifted over black gums and teeth glistening in the moonlight.
It challenges the dogs and rushes headlong into the three left. Barely sidesteps before another gunshot rings through the air, and the german shepherd drops with a strangled yelp. The wolf barely gives it another thought before the rottweiler and the pit bull are upon him. Teeth rip at fur and flesh. Jaws are closed around the wolf’s scruff, but there is so much fur that the teeth don’t quite reach flesh.
The wolf twists and writhes in the mass of fur, flesh and muscle. Yipes and squeals fill the air, and the wolf feels teeth close around flesh at every turn. Once, there are even jaws on his face, dangerously close to the wolf’s eye, but it twists out of the dog’s grasp and just barrels it over. Blood clots on black fur now as the wolf moves to crush all of his weight into the fallen dogs chest when another gunshot sound ricochets off the walls of the alley.
Searing pain fills the wolf’s body, and it stumbles over the dog, crashing to the ground as the silver penetrates its vision, fracturing white hot and painful behind closed eyes. It barely registers more gunshots, gasping as it is against the ground. The wound is a bloody cavity up near the dog’s back, blood pooling to the surface and getting caught on thick fur. Pain is all the wolf knows, and it is only increased tenfold as the wolf retreats, snarling and in pain, snapping wildly at the air.
Green and brown eyes burn hotly and focus in on the man with the gun leveled at it. The wolf tries to get up and snaps blindly at the air towards the man. The pain is excruciating as the silver bleeds into its body, and it just wants it to fucking end already. It tries to get to the man, tries to get him to pull the trigger again, but its legs aren’t working right with how the pain seems to consume its every thought.
Finally the wolf runs out of fight. With another vicious snarl towards Matthias, the wolf just falls onto its side, whining in pain as the scent of its own blood fills the air. Beaten, broken and bloody, the wolf resigns itself to death, still looking at the blue eyed man with the gun, gaze fierce and unbroken.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Oct 27, 2012 12:57:25 GMT -5
There are four.
He is so certain that there are only four of them that are in this, that they have isolated themselves in their imperfect round table to preserve their secret, that his finger stutters over the trigger in surprise at the sight of a fifth. It is too dark in the alley to make out the specifics but the shape is distinctly canine, larger than the other four, and Matthias does not have time to analyze the meaning of its presence before the others are on him and he drops to avoid the first dog’s leap, snaps the butt of his pistol up into snarling teeth, the cement cold and burning when he twists to protect his throat with his arm, fumbling to recover from the surprise. If there is a fifth then there may be more and—
The smother of fur vanishes for a moment, leaving the scent of blood and dog, and Matthias uncurls and levels the pistol without thinking. There is very little more visible than a mass of fur, and he should be more careful, he knows, but he’s unaccustomed to people interfering in his hunts and with a shot this easy there’s no way he can pass it up for another skinwalker or werewolf or even just a very stupid and very helpful dog. The job comes with sacrifice, no matter how much Matthias wishes it did not, and he gives himself only a millisecond to breathe and steady his hand before he squeezes the trigger.
One more down.
Two—three?—more to go.
He could spare the last one, the one that came to help, but they are so thoroughly entangled, and without any of them gaining ground, that it comes down to sheer luck in the end. And yeah, Matthias knows that killing those four skinwalkers, it’s more important than preserving one innocent creature, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the guilt down to his gut when all’s said and done and the thing’s snarling and whimpering on the dirty ground of the alley, the blood dampening dark fur. He keeps the gun out, clasped loose in his palm, eyes wary as he steps over the skinwalkers towards the last one. It’s got too much animal in its eyes to be skinwalker or shapeshifter, and its reaction to the silver bullet speaks volumes.
It would be kinder to kill it.
Matthias knows what silver does to the supernatural—to werewolves, and he hasn’t got the antidote to silver poisoning, or anywhere to get it from. At best if he can coax it into turning back he can dig out the bullet, but whether or not that will be enough is beyond him, and it will certainly be painful. He steps carefully over the body of the pit bull, to the werewolf’s side, staying light on his feet and wary, and the gun comes up again, reluctant pity tugging his eyebrows together as he cocks back the hammer.
When he looks back up, he’s close enough to see the werewolf’s eyes.
“Shit,” he whispers, and drops to his knees by the wolf’s side before his brain catches up to the why, sick unease settling heavy in the pit of his stomach as he sits back on his heels, stares in disbelief. The green-brown of the creature’s glare is so painfully familiar, and he is justifying the chances in his mind: The probability must be microscopic, that he would be so lucky as to sleep with the one man in Boston who is not only a werewolf but also happens to pass by at the right time and gives enough of a shit about him to do this, and however unique his eyes might be there must be others with the same starburst of golden-brown and green somewhere—
And in the end, Matthias is unwilling to risk it. He sets the gun down, shrugs out of his jacket, and tosses it around the wolf’s back, half-ready to jump back should the wolf turn on him as his fingers carefully settle at the base of the creature’s ears, run down the blood-matted fur, murmuring a soothing, “Hey, c’mon, I got you, shh. It’ll be okay, trust me, just calm down half a sec and we’re gonna get your furry ass out of here, okay?” The words serve as distraction to the slip of his fingers over the wolf’s spine and ribs, light and careful, checking for wounds more severe than that of the silver bullet—if the creature will even let him.
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Post by Zephyr on Oct 27, 2012 17:34:35 GMT -5
The wolf realizes that its body is burning from the inside out. It wants to writhe on the cold ground, wants to rip at flesh and fur until the burning subsides, but it has no more energy. The rage with which it ripped at the dogs, the misplaced anger at the man…all has left it sapped of energy and perhaps the will to live, if dying means an end to the agonizing pain. To this end, the wolf eyes the man, eyes angry and fierce. It dares him to use the gun, the look in its eyes a direct challenge.
But this man is not one if its. This man is human, and humans are so terribly daft. They cannot read the subtleties of the wolf’s body language…and the wolf’s request is ignored in favor of the man approaching it. The wolf wants none of this. The man means danger, even though the gun is out of commission. It jerks away, squealing as it shifts the bullet and fresh blood wells to the surface. So the wolf freezes as the man approaches. It growls lowly, menacingly, but it’s shivering with pain and goddamn fear as the man reaches a hand out and strokes it. The wolf’s mind screams that it should get away, but it can’t move, and the gentle weight of the jacket is welcome and the growls quiet.
It perks though, when the man speaks, ears lifting curiously despite the intense pain and fear coursing through its body. That voice. The man’s voice. It makes the wolf want to listen. It whines piteously, wanting to reach the man for some reason. It knows him. It wants him to help. The wolf looks up at him with sad eyes, a whine radiating from the center of the wolf’s chest. It just wants to touch him. For some reason, it wants the man to be okay.
Suddenly, the wolf goes rigid. Even though it had no energy left, its entire body begins to writhe in pain. A barely human sound escapes its throat as it shifts. Bone crunch and rearrange, muscles slide against tendons. Organs shift. And through it all, the bullet stays, ripping through muscle and tissue, deepening its hold in the wolf’s body, tearing and poisoning. It shouldn’t be a big deal, the bullet…but it’s the silver that has the wolf trembling in pain, the sounds coming out of its shrinking muzzle more human and less feral, but no less blood chilling as the wolf turns into a man again.
Silas shivers on the ground, naked save for Matthias’ jacket draped over him. The wound on his shoulder is a freshly bleeding, gaping hole. Without fur to clot the blood, it drips freely down his skin. Shifting did nothing to make the wound better. If anything, it made it much worse, driving the bullet further down into his body, ripping and tearing its way through. Even the dog bites hadn’t healed through the shift thanks to the bullet, and Silas doubles over in pain, digging fingers into the pavement of the ground until blood wells to the surface.
“Fuck…” Silas moans, grinding his teeth, tears rolling freely down his face, creating rivulets in the blood streaming from above his eye. He blinks them open to stare at Matthias for a second, pain written in every line on his face. “Matthias.” He breathes for a second, the word warping at the end as another round of excruciating pain rips through his body.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Oct 27, 2012 20:50:38 GMT -5
“There you go,” Matthias says softly, reassuring, “See? I’ll get you out of here in no time, trust me. And you guys have killer healing, right? We’ll get this fixed up and you’ll be good to go and back to bitching in no time…” It is senseless but intended to soothe; the wolf is startlingly complacent under his hands as he skirts the gashes where the skinwalkers broke skin, but for the most part the bullet wound is the source of the blood. So he moves his hands back up to the nape of the creature’s neck, threads his fingers through the thick fur at the ruff, pulling the jacket up a little more over it. “C’mon, sweetheart,” he croons, “You got this, change for me, okay?”
And he will preserve the disbelief for later, that the wolf does; he can feel the beast go stiff under his fingers and then the impossible shift of bone and muscle and Matthias doesn’t let go through the agonized sounds or the audible snapping sounds. His fingers are still warm against the nape of Silas’s neck when it is man, not wolf, shaking beneath the dubious cover of his jacket on the pavement, blood slippery under Matthias’s palms, and it turns over his stomach to see the man hurting so badly. But in the end there is very little he can do here, in the shadowed alley with the skinwalkers lying around them.
“Okay,” he murmurs, thinking as he carefully wraps his arms around Silas, shifting to avoid the bullet wound and the bite marks, fingers pressing reassuringly against the curve of Silas’s bicep, “Okay, c’mon, I got you, sweetheart,” the endearment slips out before he can catch it, natural after the times he’s been into the hospital but for once it’s not a tease, “Up you go, can you get your arm around my shoulders? My car’s like five feet away once we get out of this alley, oops, hey, I’m gonna try and keep us from getting arrested for public indecency.” The jacket is darkening with the blood that soaks through where Matthias knots it rapidly around Silas’s neck by the sleeves, and Matthias makes a mental note to get a makeshift bandage in place yesterday as he half-pulls and half-guides Silas to his feet.
“Shoulda figured you’d be the hero type,” he huffs; Silas is heavy against his side but Matthias is nothing if not determined, and the words are a mindless distraction as he drags the man out of the alley and fumbles to hold him up and grab his car keys at the same time. “I mean, doctor, right? But throwing yourself at skinwalkers for me, man, that’s kinda overkill. This is my car, okay, I’m gonna get you in the passenger’s seat and strap you in, please ignore the copious amounts of shit everywhere.” The request is self-deprecating but also sincere. There are too many things in the backseat that give too much away: The silver bullet casings and rock salt and the wooden stake from the vampire in Iowa.
Still.
If Silas is willing to give up his secrets and his life…
Matthias swallows, ducks his head and blinks his eyes hard as he deposits Silas into the car. He pulls his shirt up over his head next, yanks until it gives way and rips into a long strip of fabric, leans in to wrap it in quick, efficient movements around Silas’s shoulder; he is too accustomed to treating his own wounds to not know how to bandage something properly, and if it is slightly messy, it doesn’t matter: It will have to come off soon again anyway. He stops chewing his lip as he moves down to one of the worse bite marks and guides Silas forward with a hand on the nape of his neck to wrap the fabric around it.
“Okay,” his brow furrowed in concentration as he steps back to cock his head at Silas, checking his handiwork before he closes the door and loops around to throw himself into the driver’s seat, “So I’m thinking the hospital isn’t going to be our best bet right now, and the guy I stayed with last night was a douchebag and I don’t think he even had antiseptic, never mind the shit we’re going to need. You want me to get you to a motel or to Nate’s?” In this his gaze is frank and assessing; he thinks he could pull off the doctoring whether or not Nate helps but it comes down to a matter of cleanliness and trust.
He’s pretty sure that being in a motel room with him would have exactly neither.
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Post by Zephyr on Oct 27, 2012 21:53:29 GMT -5
The man is barely aware of what is going on around him through the haze of pain. His shoulder is burning more than it had been when he had been a wolf now that the bullet is lodged in deeper, and he doesn’t know how he’s losing so much blood; didn’t realize that shifting has only pressed the bullet down into his flesh more. He might be a doctor, but he’d never been shot. He’s had to remove silver from wolves before. A knife here, a bullet there, never much to make him an expert on the subject, and removing something from someone else’s body is completely different than having something lodged in your own.
He’s also barely aware of Matthias’ words, only half listening as he doubles over on the pavement, his body on fire. He moves to rip the jacket off of his burning body, sweat and blood clinging to flesh. Matthias is there though, wrapping the jacket more securely around him and lifting him. He breathes through his nose, breaths short and labored, gritting his teeth against the pain. Silas whimpers as moving twists his shoulder the wrong way, and before he knows it, he’s leaning against Matthias. He has no mind for balancing his weight properly on the kid, so it’s probably a heavy and awkward thing to have to carry him through the alley. But Silas goes. He remembers thinking that he shouldn’t be in so much pain. It’s only a bullet, and while he’s never been shot before, he knows that bullets don’t take away one’s ability to think.
But silver is different. This is what he’s been told a hundred different ways since he turned. Silver is bad. Silver will kill you if the wound’s too bad. And with each step, he leans heavily against Matthias, and can feel the bullet shifting. The pain is barely tolerable, and he can’t tell which way the bullet’s moving. If it gets to his heart, he’s done…silver or not.
He drops onto the seat Matthias provides, trying to keep his shoulder away from the seat. There’s really no reason to soak blood stains into the kid’s upholstery, even if the car is a really, really shitty one. Silas can see this even though the white hot pain. It isn’t receding, but it isn’t getting any worse, so he’s able to focus on Matthias some, with his head leaning against the headrest, watching the kid strip.
“Didn’t know all I had to do was…g-get shot to get you to take your clothes off for me.” He hisses softly through gritted teeth, trying for some humor when the only thing he can feel is pain. Seeing Matthias serious…it just doesn’t seem right. He wants to make him laugh, no matter how irrational and misplaced that thought is. He doesn’t want to see him so worried over him. Silas didn’t matter that much anyway. All he wants is to see a cocky, arrogant smirk…because if he sees that, it would mean that everything is going to be okay, that he is going to be fine.
He gives up though, halfway through trying out a smirk for Matthias, sagging uselessly against the seat. “Sorry.” He hisses, closing his eyes tight and gripping the padding of the seat with knuckles going white under skin. “About the jacket.” Because even he could see it was ruined. There was no way they were going to be able to get all that blood out of it. But it was helping, keeping him from bleeding out, and when Matthias asked him where he wanted to go, it wasn’t even something he had to think about.
“Need…Nate.” He breathes. The name is a mere whisper, a soft exhalation of breath, but everything he could have tried to convey in one word. He knows that the motel is a bad idea. Even injured, he’s a doctor and knows the necessity of a sterile working environment. Nate’s apartment isn’t exactly a hospital, but it’s a hell of a lot cleaner than a motel. He’d know what to do about the silver. Silas can barely think anymore, dizzy from pain and blood loss, and it’s just…a hell of a lot easier to let unconsciousness take him as Silas slips out quietly, still leaning against the seat.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Oct 28, 2012 1:14:17 GMT -5
Matthias does a double take that is near comical at Silas’s weak rasp of a voice, eyebrows arching up in bewilderment and mouth twitching in an unsure half-grin. That Silas resorts to humor at times like this is startlingly endearing, because Jesus, it’s so wildly inappropriate for the situation. Now, of all times, Silas is hitting on him? And apologizing? Matthias shoots him a grin that does not reach his eyes as he starts the engine, peeling away from the curb and ignoring the fact that he nearly bowls over a guy who looks absolutely wasted, if the way he’s hanging off a lamppost into the street is any indication—he is barely looking at the road, in fact, his gaze sharp on the paleness of Silas’s face.
“Buy me a new one later,” he tries, the lighthearted jab rough in his throat, and licks his lips, “I’ll let you take it off me, too, if you want—” The light ahead turns yellow, and Matthias jams his foot down and twists the steering wheel to snap them around the corner, throws a glance over at Silas. He is unaccustomed to this kind of emergency; normally he is the one bleeding and he has never tried to save a werewolf from silver poisoning before, cannot comprehend or calculate how many days, hours, minutes Silas has left. The bullet is high in his shoulder, but how the shifting affected it he has no idea, does not want to ask because he knows the answer is going to be bad.
“Nate,” he repeats, and nods to himself, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “Right. Hold on like, five seconds, just—” The next glance has his heartbeat doing an arrhythmic painful skip in his ribcage before he catches the faintest flicker of eyelashes and the sound of Silas’s breath between his lips, and Matthias swallows and focuses on the road and the shortcuts that must exist between Nate’s apartment and the bar.
It has become a place he frequents, Nate’s apartment, in the past week or two: When he is ejected kindly but firmly from the library at closing and has nowhere better to go or when he just isn’t in the mood to pick up a stranger at the bar or just because why not. He has accidentally memorized the streets and back roads that will take him there, and the most recently stolen coffee cup has a spot of honor in the cup-holder for the inevitable next time. Matthias has never wasted time getting there, but this time he breaks every speed limit and several other laws and gets them there in record time.
Getting Silas out of the car and up to Nate’s doorstep proves infinitely more challenging than navigating Boston’s streets.
“Okay,” he mutters under his breath, and then louder, “Silas, c’mon, I can’t carry you without fucking up some serious shit, wake up—focus.” The determinedly encouraging slips into a soft croon as he gets Silas up on his feet, the other man’s skin sticky with sweat and blood where he leans on Matthias, “There you go, sweetheart, almost there. One step at a time, okay? I got you, promise, I’m not gonna let you fall.” Whether or not it has any effect, Matthias cannot tell; Silas is little more than deadweight at his side and he is panting with the effort by the time they reach the doorstep.
He slaps a palm over the doorbell and holds it there, rocking back to brace bare shoulders against the wall so he can support Silas, pressing a kiss against the man’s temple in devout apology. It lasts only a brief moment; when Nate proves to be not standing directly inside of the door waiting to fling it open at a moment’s notice, Matthias turns his head to the side and yells for him in lieu of waiting—“Nate, c’mon, open the fuck up!”
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Post by ♥ Nathan ♥ on Oct 28, 2012 3:27:56 GMT -5
Working late is not the high point of Nathan’s day. An early morning is compounded by a heavy workload; a heavy workload is made difficult by meetings, by mistakes, by the varied incompetence of his employees. By the time the late evening rolls around the werewolf is still holed up in his office, using the quiet hours after everyone has left to actually get something done. Even this proves futile; the amount of tasks waiting for him has hardly dwindled by the time Nate gives in to the headache building in his temple, and he takes to Boston’s streets without a single look back.
Home is not where he wants to be, but home is where he ends up, alone in his apartment reviewing endless stacks of paperwork and numbers. Nathan nurses a glass of whiskey – and inhales a few cigarettes – to take the edge off the pounding in his skull, but no matter the application of vice, he finds he cannot settle; the text swims and blurs before his eyes until it is rendered incomprehensible, and it is with a frustrated sigh that he abandons all thought of responsibility for the evening. A few aspirin and some shitty primetime television sound like an appropriate way to round out a remarkably abysmal twenty-four hours, and Nate has the remote in his hand and a half-formed thought in his head when his best-laid plans are violently derailed.
The apartment’s buzzer cuts through the air once, twice, then held down as to render the building’s occupants utterly incensed. Nate glowers at the speaker before rising. There is no one he is expecting – and more telling, no one he is in any great rush to see – which leaves a very small series of options as to who would be calling on him at this hour. At the top of the list rests a brown-haired, blue-eyed man with a charming smile and a mug to return, and for once Nate debates telling the damn kid no.
Brow furrowed irritably and skull pounding, Nathan unlatches the bolt and throws open the door.
”You know other people live—“ but whatever annoyed accusation he means to make catches in his throat and is bitten back with a stutter, and blue eyes that can see but not processes focus numbly on the sight of Silas, on the blood that covers the two men on the threshold. For a paradoxical moment that lasts only seconds but stretches on like an eternity, Nathan cannot move; he cannot understand what is happening, or what is expected of him, or how this is a scene drawn out of reality and not some nightmare dreamt in fits on his couch. The smell hits him, then, the coppery tang of fresh blood and gunmetal, thick in his throat; in the next instant he breathes, and his eyes catch Matthias’ for one vulnerable second of confusion and fear.
Adrenaline and instinct take further decisions from him, and Nathan shoulders forward to help Silas out of Mattie’s arms, clutching the injured man tight to his chest. ”Let me,” is his only method of explanation – but it becomes clearer when the werewolf hoists Silas up with the barest amount of effort, his motions as gentle as the situation allows. The distance from the entrance to his apartment, to his living room, are a blur of truncated thoughts and distracted questions that Nate puts aside one by one for being pointless. Explanations can come later; what lies in his arms is more urgent, more important.
Inside, the werewolf gingerly places Silas down upon his couch, and it is only then that he will turn to Matthias for answers. ”Tell me what happened.” The anger in his tone is not something Nathan can bite back, though it is not directed at any individual in particular; there is a frightful pain that is clutching at his chest, a thing that writhes and twists when he looks at Silas, and anger seems like the only way to handle it. The man removes the blood-soaked coat, and picks tentatively at the ragged edge of the crimson bandage wrapping the surgeon’s shoulder before beginning to remove it.
”There’s a first aid kit under the bathroom sink,” Nate adds, a statement tossed clipped and hasty over his shoulder. ”Get it.” Get it, and leave Nate alone for the briefest of moments, just long enough to for him peel the bloodied scraps of shirt back and reveal the mess of bruising and torn flesh beneath – long enough for him to exhale slow, collect his thoughts, and feel the seriousness of the situation sink uncomfortably home.
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Post by Zephyr on Oct 28, 2012 10:48:30 GMT -5
He wakes up about the time Matthias drags up out of the car. A strangled moan of pain leaves his lips and he struggles against Matthias for a moment, falling prone at the endearment he uses. Why does it not sound like a joke? Silas isn’t sure why he’s thinking about this now. Instead, he growls halfheartedly at Matthias, seeing the sense in getting his feet on the ground and helping out, because Matthias doesn’t have the strength to carry him up to the door. He lets his head fall against Matthias’ shoulders, lips brushing the kid’s neck, because it’s far too much work keeping it up.
Silas realizes that he must have passed out again for a brief time, because when he comes to again, he’s wrapped in strong arms and being carried. He blinks rapidly and tries to make sense out of his surroundings. “Nate? What?” Like he almost can’t comprehend what is happening, but he’s on the couch and the others are talking and it’s nice and he just wants to sleep. He can’t sleep though. There’s something far more important, he has to do, namely making sure Nate knows the urgency of his condition at the moment.
Nathan isn’t a stupid man, though. He’s going to know that it’s a little more than just a damn gunshot wound. But he’s still talking to Matthias, and Silas just wants to sleep. He blinks his eyes open, staring at the ceiling for a moment before he sluggishly lifts his hand and reaches over to grab at Nate’s wrist as he pokes at the bloody bits of shit Matthias wrapped around his shoulder. He probably stopped the worst of the bleeding. He probably saved his life.
Matthias had also been the one who shot him. Is there a moment when good actions outweigh one’s bad actions? Silas isn’t sure, and it’s far more philosophical than he likes to think when he’s completely healthy, let alone when his head is light with blood loss and pain and going to sleep seems like a far better option that dealing with heave eyelids, even if it means that he won’t be waking up again. He doesn’t even understand, can’t comprehend at the moment why the kid had a gun with silver bullets in it, and why he’d been throwing himself at a small pack of skinwalkers. That isn’t normal behavior.
All he knows is that he cannot bring himself to blame Matthias. Silas liked the kid, since the first meeting, and even if he doesn’t know about Nate and Matthias’ rendezvous, he has an idea (an idea that settles white hot and burning in his gut, but an idea nonetheless), that Nate likes Matthias too. How will this new information work out in the dynamics of their relationship? Silas might have been realizing that Nate sleeping around bothers him, but it isn’t a bother he’s ready to admit to Nate anytime soon. He’d still rather have Nate happy than not have him, or worse, have him miserable. And he isn't fucking vindictive enough to tell Nate that Matthias shot him when it could lead to the kid getting killed...at least not when he still felt like he was going to pass out at any second.
Silas catches Nate’s gaze, his head pounding from all the goddamn thinking. He just stares for half a second. “It’s silver.” He manages to get out before he rubs the thin flesh beneath Nate’s wrist, taking comfort in the man’s pulse, strong and undeniably present. No matter how tired he looked. This isn’t a man who’s been out all night. He looks tired and sleep deprived and like he does when he’s been working all day and Silas’ brow furrows, and he has this irrational fear that he should have been here for him instead of our drowning himself in bourbon because his feelings had been hurt. “You work too much.” Silas observes helpfully, and hypocritically, based on how much Silas has been working, especially lately, for a moment before releasing Nate’s wrist and letting his head fall back.
He wants to sleep, because he’s really fucking tired…but his shoulder is still burning, and he doesn’t like how Nate’s living room is spinning in front of his eyes. So he just lays there and lets the world dance in front of him.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Oct 28, 2012 12:52:12 GMT -5
He can only imagine the picture they paint as Silas sags pitifully against his chest; his shoulder is burning with the strain of holding the other man up and he swallows, meets Nate’s eyes just long enough to catch the horrified confusion. But, thank God, he does not ask: Matthias has no idea what he would say, in any case; for once the necessary lying does not come easy and he mutely surrenders Silas to Nate, using his wrist to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. The adrenaline rush will fade, he knows, but for now he follows the men into the apartment, wound too tight to consider leaving Silas even to somebody who can care for him. There is too much guilt and too much blood and the chances are far too slim for his liking.
And of course it had to be skinwalkers. Matthias does not always load his gun with silver; it is a waste if lead will serve just as well—but skinwalkers are as vulnerable to silver as werewolves and of course this is the one time Silas comes into the equation in all the wrong ways. He should have known, or noticed; there are always signs of peculiarities and he is supposed to be good at picking up on them, but…Matthias wipes his palms on his jeans, swallows at Nate’s questions and meets his eyes with a thinly veneered defiance.
“Some skinwalkers jumped me in an alley. Silas got involved and got shot.” It is the truth, oversimplified. The gun is still lying in the foot space of the passenger’s side of the car, and he knows that it is his fault, that Silas did not ask him to judge the situation worthy of taking the shot regardless of the risks, but it is not something he is proud of or willing to admit. That Silas received the only wounds between the two of them to speak of save bruised knees is good enough a tell of the sacrifice that Matthias did not ask for. “It’s—”
—silver, is what he was going to say, but Silas speaks up, and the way he says it means everything: Nate at least knows, because silver would mean nothing otherwise. And even now, the way Matthias looks up at the pair of them is assessing, careful, if brief: He turns away after another moment obediently to get the first aid kit, adamantly does not look at his own blood-stained reflection in the mirror as he carelessly pushes bottles and toilet paper aside until his fingers hit the first aid kit and he scrambles back to his feet with it, keeps avoiding his own eyes in the mirror until he is safely out of the bathroom again.
“If you need me to get the bullet out, I can,” he says quietly, once he’s set the first aid kit on the coffee table and flipped it open. It is hardly stocked with a small hospital but Matthias is accustomed to working with less, and if he has never dug a bullet out of anybody’s shoulder before he is willing to wing it—it cannot be that different from systematically removing one from any other part of the body. “And stitches, I can do okay stitches, I just didn’t know how to deal with the silver poisoning—”
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Post by ♥ Nathan ♥ on Oct 28, 2012 15:54:46 GMT -5
Blue eyes flick upwards at the subtle shifting, the realization that the man before him is not entirely unconscious – and Nate’s gaze settles on Silas, worry written briefly along the line of his brow. He should be healing better than this; he should be healing at all, not strung out and feverish and too pale for his own good. The hand wrapped about Nate’s wrist is a grounding lifeline, and he turns his palm upward to clutch at Silas’ forearm reassuringly. There is an unspoken tension in his fingertips, pressed tight to clammy skin, and he has to drop his eyes at the mention of silver. A tongue flicks across his lips; confirmation of his fears sits like ice in his chest.
Silas releases him and Nate takes the opportunity to run the back of his knuckles down the man’s cheek affectionately, shooting him a hollow smile. ”You’re one to talk,” he whispers, and then leans away to rise. ”Don’t move. I’ll get you fixed up.” It is a promise made for himself as much as it is for Silas; a dull reminder that this is manageable, that he is capable, that action and results have to stand before doubt and worry. The festering wound in Silas’ shoulder will not heal itself – and with the bullet hole exposed to the air, staining his couch dark with the slow run of blood, Nate can recognize that it smells wrong, that there are worse things lurking beneath his flesh. The urgency returns to his step as he leaves the couch, and there is a subtle tremble in his fingers.
”Put pressure on that,” Nate barks at Matthias, all of his bedside manner and apparent gentleness gone. There is only the energy dancing electric in his nerves and a growing list in his mind of what he needs, what he has to do; he makes for the kitchen in a rush, returning with a collection of odd-and-ends scavenged from drawers and countertops and never meant for this sort of use. Silas had always been there for the pack to rely on; it has been ages since Nate has been responsible for someone’s welfare, left to patch them together with only the crudest of instruments, and now he is regretting his own complacency. Vegas would have never seen him caught so unprepared; he vows, when this is through, to not make the same mistake again.
”Skinwalk—“ he stutters, then catches himself. Oh. That means Mattie knows, which will at least make the subsequent bullet-extraction slightly less awkward. Nate would leave the damn thing in there if it weren’t silver, weren’t slowly leaching poison out into Silas’ bloodstream and killing him slow. ”What the fuck were you doing, messing with skinwalkers?” And where – or why? The inquiry is more rhetorical than anything. There are too many questions the scenario prompts that he cannot bring himself to ask – questions involving Mattie and Silas together, involving a mysterious silver bullet, involving some sort of scuffle happening too close to home. But none of them are important – none of them matter until Silas is fine. The man, at least, has his priorities.
Nate deposits his collection of equipment beside the medical kit on the coffee table; towels, a bottle of water, a thin and wickedly sharp knife. He wets his lips and shoots Matthias an assessing glance, hesitating in the moments before he must turn back to Silas; the option to let the kid take the lead is a tempting one, one that allows Nate to avoid hurting a man he cares about, but his sense of possession and niggling paranoia override that selfishness.
”I’ll need you to hold him down. Did he shift?” His gaze is hard, level, and too serious; discussing things like being a werewolf with relative strangers is not his strong suit. ”After he was shot? Was he a wolf?” The path of the bullet may be skewed; it may be nowhere near Nate’s vague estimations, and the thought has a shudder running beneath his skin. Silver poisoning – and he cannot imagine what he will do if it is too late, if removing the bullet isn’t enough. Turning, Nathan kneels down beside the couch and slides his hand softly over the injured man’s bare chest, stalling only as long as his sense of urgency allows before leaning forward and getting Silas’ attention.
”Bite down and keep still, babe.” The werewolf offers a bundle of cloth to Silas’ lips, his eyes apologetic and pleading. ”I’ll make it quick.” It is a promise he makes good upon as soon as Silas relents and Matthias moves to assist him. Nate presses the palm of his hand tight to the surgeon’s shoulder – the time for tenderness, for fearing pain, has long since passed – and then that knife is between deft fingers, applied to skin before either man has a chance for second thoughts. Nathan spares no thought for the blood, for the way Silas thrashes beneath him, for anything but the act of his hand and the blade it wields; it is torturous minutes before the lump of silver clatters to the floor, and Nate drops the knife to the table as if burned.
Silas needs to be cleaned up, to be treated for shock and stitched whole again, but Nate’s grip is too slick for a hold on a needle and there is a tremor in his hands from adrenaline and anxiety; his fingers are stained crimson, stark against pale skin, and all he can see of Silas is blood.
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Post by Zephyr on Oct 28, 2012 18:15:26 GMT -5
When Nate touches him, Silas leans into his fingers, letting his eyes close, and almost succumbing to sleep. He still has his head screwed on straight, despite the shock of pain and blood loss. He knows that sleeping when you’re so bad off is never a good idea. He shivers when Nate pulls away, listening to the questions Nate is asking Matthias, but not quite able to find any answers to help the kid out. The only thing he can think to say is it hurts, and that’s hardly going to help anyone at the moment. So he just lies there, trying not to pass out.
Oddly enough, it helps him to focus on something. Shifting his gaze, he chooses to focus on the things Nate has brought from the kitchen. His eyes settle on the knife. There’s a disconnect there. He doesn’t understand where Nate would bring a knife out. So he just stares at it. He keeps his eyes on the knife, the thin blade shining from Nate’s lamp. It keeps him from succumbing to the lure of dragging out of consciousness. And he knows he should probably, because there’s a bullet in his shoulder, and it’s going to have to be dug out from his flesh, and if he thinks it hurt going in, or that it hurts now…he can’t imagine how much that is going to hurt.
There’s also a disconnect there. He can’t wrap his head around pain worse than this, and he swallows heavily, his throat terribly dry despite the slickness of his skin. No matter what is said, Silas doesn’t pull his gaze away from the knife, glittering wickedly on the table. He’s almost unable to when Nate kneels next to him and Silas wants to tell him not to worry, but the words won’t leave his mouth because he’s never been known to sugarcoat things ever…in his life, so he just watches him, nodding as he takes the cloth and presses it into his mouth. He closes his teeth down tightly around the bundle, lowering his hand to clench fingers tightly around the couch cushion.
And now there’s no way he can keep his eyes off the knife. And Nate is good to his word. Silas has barely any time to prepare for the pain before the knife is in his shoulder and the pain is barely tolerable. The only thing keeping him from crying out is the pressure of his teeth wrapped around the cloth. He does thrash however, tries to get as far away from the pain as he can, but there are hands on him…Matthias’ hands.
He tilts his head back to look at the kid and he doesn’t like the look on his face. He doesn’t remember Matthias being so strong, and yet, he can’t get away. He can’t scream. He can’t even cry even though tears roll freely down his face. Silas wants to stay awake for this. He wants to tell Nate and Matthias not to worry. He wants to kiss Nate on the temple and tell him that he’s going to be fine and not to worry because he’s going to be alright…but he can’t.
The pain is too much and he passes out before the bullet falls to the floor.
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Post by Matthias Walker on Oct 28, 2012 19:41:45 GMT -5
He is not so distracted that he misses the stutter over skinwalker, but the few secrets Matthias has left he is inclined to keep for time being. Maybe not always; he knows he owes Silas, at least, who flung himself headfirst at monsters who had no quarrel with him for him, an explanation—but it is not the time or place and he shrugs, averts his gaze from Nate in favor of watching Silas’s face as he presses one palm over the bullet wound. It must hurt but Silas looks near delirious already and the blood has only just started to congeal—he has never heard of a werewolf bleeding out before but Silas is deadly pale and it’s fucking scary, kneeling on the floor next to him with his hands covered in blood.
“Did he—yes. Yeah, he shifted, he was a wolf when he got shot,” and it is troubling in its own way that Silas shifted for him, that the wolf seemed to trust him; it hits a little too close to home with the knowledge that it’s his fault that Silas is here, in every sense of the scenario. His fault Silas tangled with the skinwalkers and his finger on the trigger—why hadn’t he been more careful about where he picked his fight? And even though it might make him feel better to be the one to remove the bullet, Matthias doesn’t argue; he shifts sideways to press his forearm across Silas’s chest to hold him down and catch his arm at the bicep with the other, exposing the torn flesh at his shoulder where the bullet entered.
He can feel the way Silas tries to writhe up against the pain when the blade cuts his skin, throws his weight forward and catches the man’s gaze and holds it, finds himself whispering as the seconds drag into minutes, “Shh, almost done, we got you, sweetheart, c’mon, breathe for me, okay?” His fingers twitch against Silas’s bicep with the instinctive urge to run his fingers through the sweaty spikes of the man’s hair to calm him, but Silas’s muscles are tense under his grip and he doesn’t want to look away to see how Nate is coming. So he rubs his thumb against warm skin and before he can reconsider the words he croons, “S’okay, puppy, you’re doing great, c’mon, almost there—”
—and then the man’s eyes roll back and Matthias bites his own lip to cut off the words as the resistance vanishes from tense muscles and he slumps over Silas, turns his head to Nate and the silver bullet that slips from his fingers to the floor.
For a moment there is silence as Matthias reaches up to ease the fabric from Silas’s mouth and drop it on the floor, and then he turns to Nate, who only looks marginally better than Silas and only due to the lack of a bullet hole in his shoulder. Matthias’s throat feels dry and rough as sandpaper but he forces himself to straighten, catching Nate by the wrist and squeezing to get his attention. “I got the stitches, okay? Should probably get a washcloth or a sponge or something, clean up some.”
The words feel oddly hollow in their loudness, and they are half an order and half a request: He does not wait before he turns to pick up the suturing needle and thread it. Focusing on the tug and yield of skin and needle that follows settles his heartbeat into its proper rhythm again, pulling torn skin together into a neat row of dark sutures that clot with the flow of blood. It is oddly therapeutic, fixing it, and by the time he knots off the end he has slipped past the adrenaline-fueled jitteriness and settled into an efficient calmness.
It’s only afterwards when he sets the bloody needle onto the coffee table and sits back on his heels that the exhaustion hits him. The laugh of pure relief that bends him over Silas’s prone body, lips brushing over the slow steady pulse at his throat, is halfway to hysterical, bleeds into a bone-tired sigh that shudders down his spine. So he’s killed four skinwalkers and actively saved a werewolf all in one fell swoop—another day, another adventure, what a life. Rubbing the blood off his fingers and palms onto his jeans, Matthias leans back to look at Nate, uncurling himself to settle against the edge of the coffee table.
“I’m sorry,” he says, quietly, and means it. “I didn’t know he was there. I thought—shit, I don’t know, I didn’t think anybody would play hero against skinwalkers.”
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Post by ♥ Nathan ♥ on Oct 28, 2012 22:31:44 GMT -5
It is not often that Nate finds himself at a loss – for either words or actions – and so when he comes up short following the bullet’s removal, rendered incapable of continuing by the blood on his hands, for a moment the werewolf balks under the pressure of what to do. Matthias’ gentle mantra is still ringing in his ears but he cannot even find the emotion for jealousy, for anything other than the hollow worry that clutches at him mixed with a heady dose of smoldering anger. It is this latter emotion that he latches onto, a feeling bolstered by the wolf’s sense of possession, and Nate uses it to erase the concern from the lines of his face as he rises. Lingering fingertips leave fresh crimson trails along Silas’ forearm when he pulls away, reluctant to simply let the man go.
Surrendering Silas into the other man’s care is hard enough, but it is a sacrifice made easier by the grounding touch of Matthias’ hand and the measure of command in the kid’s words. That Silas is blissfully unconscious helps; there is a modicum of time in which Nate can clean up, compose himself and return before he chances to wake, and the werewolf leaps upon it to extract himself and stumble to the kitchen. The blood runs from his hands and into the steel sink in rivulets, leaving unmarked flesh behind, but still clings to his shirt and slacks (and to the images behind his eyes) in a sanguine and clotted mess.
Action is easier than waiting; Nate does not know how to manage the latter now that Silas’ recovery has moved into the realm of patience, and when he returns to the couch it is with a cigarette dangling from his lips and a bottle of whiskey clutched in one hand, a folded blanked tucked under his arm. Silas will be disappointed in his liquor selection when he wakes, and the thought is nearly enough to make Nate laugh with its absurdity. Settling to the coffee table, the man is possessed by an air of strange and detached calm, security drawn on every breath of clove-laced nicotine and hardened into truth by pure stubborn tenacity. They are fine; Silas is fine. Things will be fine.
Nathan is busying himself with cleaning the blood from Silas’ shoulder and chest when Matthias chooses to speak, and he does not pause in his methodical work as revelations spill from the other man – a confusing flood of words that manage to paint a picture their previous exchange could not. He wets the towel in his hand with clean water from the bottle, gently wipes the last of the obvious blood from around Silas’ wound, and pointedly avoids looking at Mattie for a tense and drawn-out instant. It is only when Nate turns to discard the cloth and reach for a clean bandage from the medical kit that he matches the other man’s gaze, swallowing tightly, a thousand dangerous questions reflected in those cold eyes.
”You shot him,” the werewolf states for clarification, with no edge of inquiry to the flat way he speaks. Nate shifts the cigarette between his lips casually, tucking it to the corner of his mouth, and draws in a steadying series of breaths. ”—it was your goddamn gun.” Skinwalkers, silver bullets; Nate has been at this for a long enough time to have the pieces of the puzzle fitting together, to leap to a conclusion his logical brain does not find either wild or far-fetched. The likelihood that he – the authority behind security for the entire fucking pack – has been unintentionally harboring a goddamn hunter under his roof suddenly seems impossibly high. It is a realization that reads of sudden betrayal, of a gross failure on his part.
Like he somehow could have known.
The tremble that runs down Nate’s arm is not one of concern, not now; it is a cold and barely-restrained anger that is fueled by his wolf’s outrage and his own rampant paranoia. ”You brought him here.” Speaking aloud helps, allows Nathan to follow this half-laid trail of data and fact back to its conclusion and not merely give in to the wolf’s violent predilections. Matthias is a hunter; Matthias shot Silas accidentally; Matthias brought him to Nate and put him back together. The man frowns, then, an expression born more out of confusion than distress, and distracts himself by applying the bandage still clutched tight in one hand to Silas’ shoulder.
He wants to be angry. Anger is easy, is simple, is solved with a swift application of fists and shouting – but it is the sight of Silas sprawled out on his couch, all pale and vulnerable, that eventually spares Matthias from any physical backlash. Nate leans forward, picking the blanket up from where he had discarded it on the floor, and takes to covering the injured man up with a few idle puffs on what remains of his cigarette. That the kid had saved Silas is enough to stay his hand – he is indebted for that – but it does not mean that issues are settled between them.
”We’ve got a lot of fucking things to talk about, kid,” but Nathan speaks with an amount of tired resignation, of leaving further complexities out of the equation for now. He reaches out to take Silas’ hand in his, and though the wolf is a bold and vehement presence just beneath the thin veneer of his skin, he pays it no attention; instead, contemplative blue eyes are focused upon the surgeon’s face, and his shoulders are slumped in exhaustion and defeat. ”But you got him home.” It is as close to a thank you as the hunter is like to get.
Nate snuffs out the remains of his cigarette in the table’s ashtray before leaning forward, sliding his hand from Silas’ wrist to his chest and bumping the man’s cheek gently with his nose. ”Hey, babe, y’gotta wake up.” The grit and gravel in his voice at his anger, at his worry, is not entirely gone, but he disguises it with a swallow. ”Silas.” Patient; insistent. ”C’mon, baby. I need to make sure you’re alright.”
Because if he isn’t – if Silas isn’t – no simple cage of flesh and blood will manage to restrain the wolf.
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