Is It Scary [Mattie]

[Cesan]

It’s precisely 11:59 PM when the hunter’s phone rings. Stormy eyes snap open, meeting the darkness of his apartment. In the corner, on his nightstand, a harsh spot of white light illuminates the corner of the room, causing Cesan to cringe under its blinding glare. In a tired swipe, he grabs the phone off of the surface of the table, tapping the “answer” button on the touch screen without stopping to read the caller ID. He expects some crime scene—to hear the urgent voice of an officer on the phone telling him that he’s needed, so he answers in a sluggish voice, not yet conscious after being so viciously ripped from the grip of his slumber.

“Ruthven,” his voice breaks the silence of the room as he speaks. But he does not receive what he expects. Far from it, in fact, when the reply he gets is a hasty “I know your name, jackass. Listen to this—” and his friend (read: contact) goes on to explain what he had heard from someone else. It becomes immediately evident that, yes, he had picked up his “work” phone, but not the work phone that he had been expecting to ring.

And what he hears is enough to send the man immediately coming to his feet, staggering across the room to turn on the light, and gather clothes faster than he has in his life. He hangs up the phone before his partner has the opportunity to finish, and the “getting ready” process takes longer than it should have. Cesan pulls on the first pair of jeans that he sees, and soon follows with a red button-up that only manages to be buttoned half-way before he starts putting his socks on, and then his boots. With his hair already pulled back, his only job left is to collect his supplies.

He manages to do this much faster than he had getting dressed—the silver knife is slipped carefully between his belt and the loop of his jeans, and his silver-loaded pistol is slipped into his pocket next to it. A flashlight is put in one pocket, immediately followed by a much smaller black-flashlight, and his Homicide badge is pushed carelessly into the other pocket (he never goes anywhere without it). All that’s left is the luminol.

It’s not very often at all that Cesan has the opportunity to use basic forensic science in hunting. The call he had received had detailed what is apparently an injured werewolf, bleeding and staggering, aggressive and dangerous—something that Cesan wouldn’t miss for the life of him. It’s 12:16 AM by the time that he finally leaves the apartment. At 12:33 AM, he finally makes it to the last known location of the thing. Parking his truck, Cesan wastes no time. Slipping into the darkness of an alley with his flashlight in hand, he sprays luminol all over the surrounding pavement, and points the flashlight downward to examine the area for specks of blood.

And he sees them.

Scattered and pooling, droplets close together, leading further and further away. The animal, however big it is, is making an obvious attempt to find some sort of safety, safety that it will not find. And for this reason, as he continues to spray the chemicals and follow the trail, he is silent, holding his breath and straining his ears for even the smallest of sounds. It’s quiet tonight, quiet enough to warrant caution. But even still, Cesan does not expect any visitors tonight.

He never gets them anyways.

[Matthias Walker]

Matthias does not appreciate Boston—even if he is not, technically, within Boston anymore.

Either way, he is outside, and it is far too cold for the hoodie he had stolen from the bottom of the endless pit of suits that is Silas’s closet, but it is all he has since his jacket was thoroughly bled upon. He misses the warmth of Silas’s apartment and his bed and while it may be in his job description to take to the streets like a wraith in the wee hours of the morning in pursuit of the things that go bump in the night, it is not an aspect of hunting that Matthias particularly enjoys when he is freezing and alone and there is a werewolf-shaped space heater waiting for him in a perfectly nice bed.

This werewolf does not live or run in Nate’s outlined territory; that Matthias has ascertained earlier in the evening, and it has been disturbingly deliberate in its kills—a quiet, subtle trail left in the homes of people who are not missed, who do not qualify to make the papers except in inch-long segments. Matthias can’t quite decide if that makes it better or worse than the normal brutality, but it ends up mattering very little because when he finds the werewolf he gets one shot before the creature turns and bolts, and he knows better than to just fling himself after a werewolf, and so the chase had begun.

It takes less than ten minutes before Matthias is well and truly lost and by twenty he cannot decide if he is trying to find the werewolf or just his car—he would not pass up either and by the half-hour mark he cannot keep his mind from wandering to Silas and sleep.

It comes as a surprise when he turns into an alley and finds that he is not, in fact, alone: The man is merely a silhouette in the dim light but he is certainly not a wolf, but…thoughts of sleep dispersing, Matthias steps into the alley, gun in his palm pointed loosely at the ground, and whether it is the rustle of his clothing or the soft sound of his footsteps that alerts the man to his presence Matthias has no idea.

What he does know is that there is very suddenly the gleam of a gun and he freezes, hands coming up instinctively in the universal unarmed gesture that would have been infinitely more convincing had he not brought the gun up with it. The shock passes quickly into wary interest; Matthias squints into the dim lighting to make out the man in the alley, and with his hands still in the air, pistol aimed harmlessly at the sky, his mouth goes ahead and says without actual permission from his brain, “Would you prefer ‘Mercy’ or ‘Don’t shoot’ because most people just go with ‘Nice night for a walk’ and move on, but this is, you know, dramatic, that’s cool.”

Cautiously—he associates downtown with gangs, thanks in no small part to the wolf pack centered there, but his judgment in these things is notoriously poor—Matthias indicates the alley floor with his free hand. “Got a thing for radioactive glowy graffiti or what?”

[Cesan]

The cold of the night clings to him—absorbs into the fabric of his clothes and sends a chill down to his very bones. It makes the Scot vaguely wish that he had brought a proper jacket, instead of simply slinging on a thin hoodie during his departure from the apartment. A shaky exhale leaves his chest, visible only by the fading white vapor in the air. With his own breath muted, the sounds of the night wrap around him, booming louder as his attention focuses on them. He can hear what sounds like droplets in the distance—wind colliding with the corners of buildings, flags swaying in the breeze, loose objects creaking from their lifelines. Among these sounds, there is something else; something that does not belong.

Among the glowing neon blood under his flashlight, he hears something else. Footsteps. Behind him.

There is little hesitation in the way that Cesan whirls around, twists on the balls of his feet to face the intruder in a motion faster than the other could react to—It is pure instinct and reflex that causes the Hunter to aim the Colt right between the silhouetted man’s eyes, with his finger on the trigger. It hadn’t originally been his number one plan to waste a silver bullet, so there is a short wash of relief and a steady decline of his adrenaline when the other man throws his hands in the air in a sign of surrender. And his words soothe him just as much. Cesan slides his pointer finger carefully away from the trigger, lowering the gun and allowing his shoulders to drop as he straightens himself. When he speaks, there is both irritation as well as slight amusement present, lining the expression of the older man’s face. “Good lord, lad,” In his surprise and adrenaline rush, his accent is thicker—noticeable only by the rough tone and the way that he drags his o’s and taps his r’s. “Yeh got’a be careful.”

“Almost put’a bullet through yer’eyes.” Cesan has no intentions of hurting any of the civilians today, but something tells him that the man is out for more than just a stroll by the gun that rests so conspicuously in his hand. His own gun returns safely to his side, as a fair indication that he is not going to shoot him. He turns his flashlight to see the face of the man in the darkness, clicking the button once to dim it to a much less blinding brightness. Whoever he is, he’s young and fair-skinned, attractive and only a few inches shorter than himself, from what he can tell through the darkness. “I reckon yer not out for just any stroll, are’ya laddie?”

Of course he’s not. Not with the gun in his hand, following the same path that Cesan had started to track. His attention turns quickly back to the blood—he’s losing time. “S’not ‘radioactive’ anythin’. S’blood.” And from a side angle, where he can see both the blood and the man from his peripheral vision, he points towards what looks like small pools. “Yeh see how it pools, drops close together,” With the flashlight illuminating the space on the ground, he indicates the spot with his free finger while the other two hold the much smaller blacklight flashlight between them. “As the body loses blood the heart pounds harder to compensate. Laddie’s hurt bad, I figure—” He pauses, looking up at Matthias with an apologetic expression.

He forgets sometimes, that not everyone partners with him in the police department.

He returns to his feet at full height, this time extending a gloved hand in Matthias’ direction—temporary peace offering, while they’re here. “Name’s Cesan.”

[Matthias Walker]

Lad?

Matthias squints in the glare of the flashlight pointed in his direction, hands dropping to settle more casually at his sides, the butt of his gun tapping against his thigh absently. This is not part of the plan—people do not just appear in his hunts, and since his arrival in Boston it is becoming a startlingly regular occurrence. But there are worse people to run into at one in the morning than tall strangers with interesting accents, so Matthias gives into the rampant curiosity, tucking his gun back into his pants and slipping cold fingers into his pockets casually, flashing the man a faintly bemused grin. “What? Nah, dude, I love freezing my ass off in the middle of the night, it’s my favorite.”

The things that go unsaid will remain unsaid a while longer, it seems; whether the man is hunter or police or something else entirely Matthias is not comfortable guessing, but as his attention turns to the glowing spots, Matthias steps closer, tucking his chin in his stolen hoodie, to look, too. If it is blood, then it is the trail that will lead them directly to the werewolf—how many people run around at one in the morning dripping blood that happens to coincide with the wolf he is tracking? The details fail to register; Matthias is already following the path of the visible blood droplets with his eyes, and he snaps his gaze a little guiltily back to the man as the words break off into an introduction.

“Matthias,” he answers easily, takes the proffered hand even if it means taking his hand out of the warmth of his pocket. “It’s a gunshot wound, by the way.” He nods at the trail of blood, breath streaming out in a cloud of white, and his mouth curls up at the corners in a smile that is more mischief than amusement, “But I guess you coulda gotten that one too, huh?”

Up close, and without the beam of the flashlight pointed at him, Matthias takes a moment to appraise the other man: He looks like he has a few years on Matthias and even in the darkness he is attractive, but it is neither age nor attractiveness that Matthias is looking for, but tells—the little giveaways. There are only ever three kinds of people who follow blood trails at night and Matthias does not have a good track record with any of them: He has only ever met other hunters briefly and collaborated grudgingly, but this time…he can make an exception, he supposes. The priority here is the werewolf and the cold, not his pride—and the company could be worse.

His hand finds his pocket again for warmth, and Matthias blows out his breath in a long stream of white before he says, “So when you say ‘hurt bad,’ do you mean like—” It is cruel to hope that the werewolf will die even if they don’t find it, because he has seen the way wolves react to silver and it is exactly why he tries to kill in one shot when he has to, but between the suffering of one werewolf and the deaths of more people, there is hardly a competition. “—‘we have got to find it and put it out of its misery’, or ‘we’re fixing to find a body in a couple minutes here’, or, uh, something else? Uh—also, silver bullet, so. Suffering like royalty. Um. Not to be morbid.”

[Cesan]

The night seems to only grow colder. While cold is not exactly something that Cesan is unfamiliar with, it’s not comfortable either. Matthias is right about one thing—it’s freezing out. But Cesan returns the gesture with a humored smile of his own and lets the sarcasm roll off his back, drawing in a deep breath and settling his expression to someone who is anything but uncomfortable in the bone-chilling temperature. It’s not very often that the man is accompanied along these trips, or so much as greeted, and in that, this is a first for him. But it is not an event that he declines. Some might not have considered this as smart—trusting a stranger in the middle of the night, presumably with his back, as he turns away from the younger. Despite the gun that rests in Matthias’ hands, Cesan is met with no danger vibes. The man is placed in a more innocent category, hardly any threat to warrant his caution. “Good,” is his only response to Mattie’s sarcastic response.

His eyes follow the other watchfully was he moves forward, following the trail illuminated by Cesan’s light. The hand that is offered in return is shaken curtly by the Scot, who attempts to focus on the job that he had come here for. The distraction had not been asked for. But Mattie’s next words bring more insight than anything else, and Cesan arches a brow in interest. “Gunshot, eh?” He had already figured as much. “Yer’ sarcasm is quite flatterin’, Matthias.” His tone is more playful this time, replacing the more serious one from before. All work, no play, makes Jack a dull boy. Safety procedures aside, the stranger has brought some life into what would have otherwise become a very dreary night. “So this—“ he waves the area around with his free hand, referring to the blood. “This is all yer’ doin’?” It answers his original question—Mattie is the reason for the call.

Boston itself has never been too safe of a city, but surely some town civilian would question the meaning of dried blood all over the back streets. But of course, the focus returns.

He moves forward and closer to Matthias just as he begins to question, taking his place beside the younger man to nod his head in thought. “Come.” He moves forward, simultaneously coating the ground in luminol and waving the flashlight over the area. The blood gets thicker, and more spread out. “I work in Forensics and Homicide,” he offers as an answer to any future questions Matthias might have about his radioactive glowy graffiti. When the blood begins to truly scatter, Cesan stops. “Depends on how long ago yeh shot’em.” If it hadn’t been too long ago, Cesan would think that the furry bastard would be hurting right about now… but still strong enough to take a chunk out of anyone that would get in its way. If not—well then, they’d be stumbling across a cadaver in no time. “I’d be a great deal disappointed if it weren’t.” A hunter wouldn’t be a hunter if they were shooting with anything but silver. Any bullet to the head would do the trick, but Cesan thinks in terms of dedication.

Even when practicality is at stake.

The thought of some deserving animal writhing in agony does not bring any sympathy to the older man’s heart. He turns his head to give Matthias a significant glance, the crooked smile returning to his lips. “So, what’s yer’ call?” Hunting or not, he still has manners. Had he been the one to fire the first shot, it would have been a much different story. “Yer’ bullet, yer’ wolf.” He can hardly act as if he is more superior here, can hardly behave as a kill-hoarding arrogant fool—and it would be a shame indeed to let Mattie’s bullets go to waste. Cesan, despite his more gruesome job, still prefers to think of himself as one of the more respectable hunters.

And even with their more stationary positions, Cesan knows that if the damn thing is still alive, it won’t be going too far, if the silver and the blood are any indication of injury.

[Matthias Walker]

Even if the night shows no sign of convenient thawing anytime soon, at least his company does. Matthias’s smile widens at the man’s words, gives himself a moment to appreciate the way the accent wraps around his name—it may be the victory that makes the hunting worthwhile but it is the little things that can make them enjoyable and with the night as cold and dark as it is, he is left with very little to amuse him other than the surprise company, and he has always had a thing for accents anyway—and steps closer to peer down at the trail of blood. Only the instinctive caution of being caught off guard keeps him from kneeling down to examine it more closely; he does not need to in order to get the information he needs, after all, even if the subtler details might escape him.

“Not all,” he offers, the quirk of his grin more sheepish now, “Maybe, like, twenty-five percent, or something, but at least seventy-five has got to go to the asshole who wouldn’t stay still to be shot.” It is embarrassing as well as annoying; Matthias prides himself on his aim at the worst of times and that this one werewolf slipped away with only a limp is an affront to the superficial vanity—besides, had he been able to take out the werewolf the first time around, he could have been back in bed and asleep by now. Instead, he is here: Freezing and trying to ignore the unwelcome pangs of sympathy that stem from the knowledge that the silver must be killing the creature unless he has managed to shift back and remove it.

That said, Cesan is enough of an anomaly, a twist in the plotline Matthias thought he had figured out right down to the climax and beyond, that Matthias finds his irritation with himself and the wolf is muted at best in favor of simple fascination and curiosity. He follows obediently, cannot help but laugh at the explanation for the radioactive blood, the sound misplaced in the dark silence of the city. “Forensics and Homicide—” he echoes, and shakes his head, grinning, “Jesus. Your life sounds a hell of a lot like serial killer drama meets CSI meets horror movie, dude, at least all I’ve got to deal with are the monsters.”

Still, there is probably something to be said for having a steady job, something to pay rent with, being able to stay wherever—but Matthias is just stubborn enough to refuse to believe that it is worth dealing with people.

“Half an hour ago or something. Took off running after that, and I haven’t got the power to make a radioactive yellow brick road to lead me to it, so.” Even with the sobering return to the wolf, Matthias slants a curious glance at Cesan, offers the older man a crooked grin, “As long as it’s dead by morning, man, I’m happy. Why, getting close? Feel free to, you know,” he absentmindedly tucks his fingers into a gun and mimes shooting, but he is distracted by a more important thought. “So, hey, did you just happen to come out here for this werewolf today or did you end up out here because it was bleeding all over the place? ‘My doing’ and all?”

Whichever it is will make very little difference, in the end: That Cesan is a hunter at least in some aspect of his life is enough, but it is still…strange. He had assumed that with the Boston pack so prominent in the area any hunters would be essentially removed from the equation, that he is the exception and not the rule—benefits of sharing a bed with the right werewolf, he supposes. One more hunter that slipped through the system is not in and of itself unlikely, but one that holds enough strings to be here, now, because of his doing—that is surprising.

And—even at risk of going behind the back of the wolf pack that he has, apparently, struck a ceasefire with—it means Cesan is worth getting to know.

[Cesan]

“Only twenty-five, eh?” The hunter responds in a short laugh and a widening grin. Of course it’s the wolf’s fault—how dare he not stand still. “Be sure’ta tell that to the body later.” Accidents happen, and Cesan knows this far too well. Some slip beneath the cracks, some manage to move just in time to get away. But Cesan isn’t completely worried about the animal’s whereabouts any longer. There are much better things that he could be paying attention to. Grant it—spending his night out in the freezing cold had never been his first plan, but the sudden company makes it worth it. At times, the unplanned greetings often become the greatest. Matthias brings something new and interesting to the mix: a breed of hunter that Cesan has never seen. Less serious than he is, a more lighthearted individual. The change is one that is welcomed by the senior of the two.

Despite Mattie’s thoughts on Cesan’s career, his life has the potential to get dull sometimes. Even killing wolves has never been enough to fill the gap there. Serial-Killer-Drama-Meets-CSI makes things sound much more exciting than they are. In the real world, things aren’t like in the TV shows. Blood spatter analysis is dull and repetitive, only offering the more intriguing cases by way of a morbid mastermind behind the act. Cesan shakes his head, but the smile doesn’t leave yet. “I would hope yerr’ not comparin’ me t’Dexter.” He throws Mattie a side glance with the arch of his brow, and this time his expression is more playful. “The monsters are the highlight of the day.” While hunting the “bad” wolves, there is something dark about the job. Killing the wolves is effectively killing another human being.

Most of Mattie’s next words aren’t entirely absorbed. Cesan shifts his weight over, spins on his heels to bring himself in front of the younger man. It’s a much more comfortable position than beside him. There’s still a thoughtful look about his expression when he next speaks— “And he who was lost like a dog will be found like a human being, and brought back home again.” The words are spoken unusually soft against the chill of the night. A three-lined stanza from a newer poem stored somewhere in the chambers of his mind, no more than a quiet reflection of the events that had unfolded.

But he is reminded again, suddenly, that he had been supposed to answer a question, and his eyes scale downward from the darkness beyond Matthias to instead meet the man’s eyes in the shadows instead. “Neither,” Had he? “Just got a call from’a friend.” The answer is cut short as Cesan tilts his head, and there’s more mischief in the way that he shoots a crooked grin at him. “What got’ya into this mess, now, Matthias? Or did yeh just come out here for my company?” But the wolf is truly his last concern now. Most likely writhing in agony or dead somewhere—still, he may be making a bad choice as a hunter. But maybe he doesn’t care.

[Matthias Walker]

Hope he is not comparing him to…what, who now?

“Never,” Matthias vows, raising an eyebrow, mouth curving into a grin in the darkness, and he is unable to resist adding soberly, “That would be callous and thoughtless and shallow and I’m offended you think so little of me…Dexter.” It is an easy tease, lighthearted mischief quirking up at the corners of lips chapped with cold; he does not know who Dexter is—pop culture figure, he supposes, if he is supposed to know, but Matthias does not have the time or resources to keep track of these things and it does not particularly matter in the end. Cesan is the one who brought it up and Mattie is simply playing along.

With this, too. Eyebrows arch in surprise that is deftly caught by the shadows of the buildings and of the night around them, and Matthias’s smile widens. The recitation is not of poetry that is familiar to him, but it is still poetry and even freezing, even now with a werewolf dying somewhere just beyond the capabilities of their eyes and ears to see or hear, he appreciates it. Fingers slip deeper into his pockets a moment, thumb pressing against the cool plastic of the grip of the pistol, and he shrugs, laughs—“Your company—figured you might be lonely, you know, not every hunt you get to meet someone like me.”

There is a more serious thread Matthias knows he ought to follow here. He stalks the werewolf because of the crimes it played its hand too overtly in, because of one too many women found dead in their apartments; if Cesan is not hunting for that, then either he has missed something or the other man does not need a reason to kill the werewolf.

Either option is alarming; he cannot decide which is more so, or whether his concern stems from the werewolves he has come to think fondly of or simple morals.

And it is easier, then, to turn to the other man with a crooked half-grin, blue eyes flickering in the darkness, to offer, “Here the stone images are raised; here they receive the supplication of a dead man’s hand under the twinkle of a fading star,” because Matthias never feels more hollow than he does hunting and it is fitting, he supposes. Hollow men. Them and the wolf or them versus the wolf, and either way it does not matter: They are all creatures of the night right now, running blind.

Then something shifts in the darkness, in the distance, and Matthias draws the pistol without conscious thought. It may be the wolf; it may be a last lonely wanderer lost in the city. If it is the wolf, it is no longer a threat—the movement is slow and muted by harsh shadows, and Matthias spares a moment to flash a grin at Cesan, and this time the poetry is borne purely of laughter and the flash of hope that maybe this hunt can end, now, maybe they can move on, because he cannot leave the wolf to die alone regardless of its crimes, regardless of how much he wants to, “Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair—”