take a tip from a rodeo show [Mattie]

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Moving Silas isn’t necessary, but once morning hits and the man’s proven he isn’t about to bleed out on the couch or succumb to the last dregs of silver poisoning, Nate has Matthias help him move the man to the bedroom anyway. It’s more comfortable – he tells himself this is important, this is why it matters – but the truth is, the room is more secluded. More private. More Nate’s. He has no idea how long Mattie intends on crashing on his floor, but figures the kid would prefer the couch to the hardwood, bloodstains and all.

Better for everybody. Even if the memories of the previous day still make him grit his teeth in frustration and restrained anger.

Matthias is a lose end, one Nate feels obligated to tie down as soon as possible. Though he trusts the hunter enough to leave Silas in his care for the time he is at work (and Silas is in his care – no amount of protest that he is not an invalid will give him his strength back so quickly), he has greater worries than the personal and private ones centered around himself, around the surgeon, around keeping them all safe. In this, Nate is not selfish, and has never been; the pack is a driving force that he protects vehemently. Matthias cannot be allowed to jeopardize that, even unknowingly; it is with this in mind that the werewolf returns home to find the hunter still holed up in his apartment. He is casual – perhaps too much so – and it is with a flick of his fingers that he ushers the man to follow him, inviting him to the kitchen, where he shrugs off his coat and places down his things.

”We need to talk,” he begins, and though the fire of the previous night’s anger has faded to smoldering ash, it comes across more aggressive than he had intended. Nathan turns his head away, subconsciously falling to the wolf’s body language to try and make some small difference, a pointed aversion of eyes and soft drop to his shoulders. Though he is possessed with the instinct to posture, to threaten, Nate knows the error in giving in to those predilections too soon; direct confrontation throws walls up, and the werewolf does not want Mattie on the defensive. He huffs a clipped sigh and knuckles his brow, and when he lifts his eyes again, some of that heat has left them.

”I just need to know—“ I need to know he’s safe with you, he wants to say, though he knows the line of thought is irrational. Mattie had saved Silas; Mattie has had more than enough opportunities to put a bullet in them both, and yet here they are. ”I need to know what you do. How you operate.” If he has any morals, save for ones that spare the lives of one-time bedmates. Maybe the guy can’t kill people he’s slept with; Nate has no goddamn idea. What matters is making sure the plethora of individuals that are under his care – that seek out safety and freedom from men like Matthias – are not now potential victims of some mindless vendetta.

Matthias has so far proved to be a decent man, and it is for the debt that Nathan owes him that his 1911 remains holstered beneath his jacket. Hunters do not come to Boston; the ones that do are dealt with swiftly, are informed of the ground rules at best and go missing at worst. He hopes the kid has the sense to play along with the former.

Nathan seats himself at the small table in the kitchen, gesturing for Mattie to join him, and glances up to the ceiling as he mulls over the right words to say. ”I head security for Boston’s largest werewolf pack.” Bluntness has always suited him; and if the hunter had any doubts that Nate was a wolf, he absolves them in the same stroke. ”I am one of the most powerful men in this city that you are likely to meet.” There is no threat in his words, no amount of arrogant bravado – it is simply cold fact, uttered to drive his point home. ”Accidents… happen. But we police our own. The pack keeps people safe, keeps them in line, keeps everyone out of trouble.” It is a ruthlessly efficient system of codependence, one that has worked for decades, and it is a better solution than letting chaos take the reins.

Leaning back, Nate yields some of the space between them, pausing a moment before meeting Mattie’s eyes in a sharp, predatory stare.

”So if you’re hunting here,” and the silver bullets make a good case for that, ”I need to know if you’ll play by our rules.”

[Matthias Walker]

It takes Matthias less than two hours to realize that a Silas sans distractions is a very demanding grumpy bastard.

One hour after that, he has methodically strip-searched Nate’s apartment for anything remotely resembling a readable piece of literature, accepted with a few silent tears the complete lack of it, and finally picked up his own copy of Utopia; reading the entire book to Silas will take longer than they have alone, he knows, especially with the interruptions for water and food that will inevitably come. But it is therapeutic in its own way, smoothing down the well-worn pages with one hand, absently running his fingers through Silas’s hair with his other. It is only after Silas falls asleep again that Matthias carefully untangles himself from him, leaves him to his nap and ends up curled up cat-like in the armchair, studiously ignoring the rusty patches where blood has dried on the couch next to him.

He has not quite finished when Nate returns, but he looks up anyway, eyes shuttering into wariness. That he has been allowed to stay is surprising enough, but the inevitable conversation is not something he has looked forward to through the day. But putting it off is pointless and Matthias sets down the book, pads silently, barefoot, into the kitchen in Nate’s wake; the quick surge of adrenaline in his veins is almost amusing—there is, he hopes, no need for it, but that does not still the restlessness that has him rubbing his thumb hard against the edge of the counter as he watches Nate, and yes—the request is not unexpected, but he still has no idea how to justify himself to Nate.

Maybe if he had found out some other way, but not when Silas is a handful of rooms away with the wound still held together by threads, blood still on the couch, the gun still left on the floor in his car.

Matthias slides into the seat across from Nate, hooking his feet around the legs of the chair to ground himself as he tilts his head, lets Nate talk. He cannot help the snort that is half-amusement and half-disbelief—of all the people he could have gone home with that first night in Boston. Of all the werewolves he could have gone home with—still, he supposes he is lucky that it was Nate and Silas, that he is getting the benefit of a conversation at all where he would otherwise simply be an enemy. Whether or not he likes the idea of a pack, self-government and justice kept in shadows, he cannot say: He supposes the existence of it serves as some detriment to rogue wolves, but it rubs him wrong anyway.

“I don’t go around shooting people because I can,” he says softly, putting off judgment for a later time and date. He clears his throat, folding his arms across the table and leaning his weight onto his elbows, “I don’t—I mean, look, the reason I travel around so much is because I follow up on cases when things get out of hand, I came to Boston because of a ghost that kept strangling people and I plan to leave if something comes up somewhere else. I’m not just going to set up camp here. If the werewolves in Boston don’t start hurting people, then I’ll leave them alone. Fuck, I’d love to be able to leave them alone, you know? It’s not—I don’t, like, derive pleasure from hunting, it’s not like that; it’s just a necessity, sometimes.”

Matthias’s eyes flicker towards the bedroom, and then back to Nate. “What happened with Silas—I’m not saying it’s never going to happen again. The only reason I could even get him back here was because the—his,” he amends, “wolf liked me or something and that’s not—that’s never happened before.” He had not, in fact, known it could happen, but that is beside the point now. “But the skinwalkers—they’re dead, all four of them, and I’m not sorry for that.”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

This is not part of Nathan’s job that he looks forward to, but it is far from the worst; the paperwork and minutiae hardly suit him, but there is a joy to be found in the planning, the governance, the feeling of control at his fingertips. He would much rather be having this conversation from within a stark white room at the bottom of his office building, the door locked behind him, but he has extended Matthias the courtesy of a less formal interview. Call it a favor repaid, call it a lasting remnant of the affection he had felt for the man – Nate just calls it easy. No need to drag the kid downtown and intimidate him proper.

He is bold enough to think that if he wanted to, he could do that just fine right here.

Mattie’s responses are suitable, if vague, but the idea that he doesn’t plan on sticking around is reassuring on more than one level. As the kid speaks Nate stands again, restless and impatient, and withdraws a bottle of whiskey and two glasses from nearby cabinets. He would claim it is for the hunter, a none-too-subtle way of relaxing him and loosening his tongue, but he knows himself better than most. Something to keep between his hands to still those unquiet and twitching fingers – so revealing – can go a long way for appearing in control. Though he is hardly ill at ease, the werewolf wants nothing more than to seem the consummate businessman.

Nathan shrugs as he pours, dismissive. ”You took care of him, and that speaks for itself. I know how easy it would have been to leave him there.” Or to put a second bullet in him; a kinder gesture, even, than simply letting Silas die slow and painful and alone. The look Nate accents his statement with reads of all the dangerous fallout such a tactic would have lead to, and he can feel the cool metal of his pistol through the thin fabric of his shirt. ”So I’m inclined to believe you.” Just. Rampant mistrust and even paranoia have served him well and gotten him far, and it is a suspicion that is part and parcel of his position. He is not so cruel as to think Silas immediately an enemy worth exterminating, but neither does he think the problem is resolved; time can only tell. The idea that Matthias is simply worming his way into Nate’s good books for some greater purpose has not eluded him.

”All I’m saying,” he continues smoothly, leaning up against the table with a casual air, ”is if you kill my wolves, we’re going to have a problem. I don’t care if you think it’s a necessity. You will let me handle it.” Nate holds out the second glass, offering it to Mattie with an encouraging, if wolfish, smile. It is a gesture of hospitality with a wickedly sharp edge.

”In return, trust that I will handle it. I don’t like troublemakers any more than you do.” Supernatural species outside werewolves are not his responsibility – nor his forte – but a breach of this mask by one is a danger to all. In that, he can even respect what Matthias does, can see it as useful; they are not too terribly different in that regard. Dangerous animals get put down. It is a fact of life, and one the less human residents of Boston are made well aware of when taken under the pack’s protection. The rest of the city, as far as Nate is concerned, is free game. He kicks his chair out again with a foot before taking to it, glass caged between both hands on the table.

”I’m not asking you to apologize for anything. Off my territory, not my problem.” There is a cool level of detachment in his tone; he shrugs, sipping at his drink. ”If they were out of hand, you did us all a favor.” Perhaps not Silas, but the man’s alive and the pack is safe, and those are the important details. Nate soundly ignores the comment regarding the wolf’s behavior towards Mattie; he does not claim to know the nature of Silas’ beast, but he suspects it does not roll over so easily. He wets his lips, and then drowns the thought process in another long swallow of liquor. ”This is bigger than what happened with Silas.” Even if the flat way he replies indicates that it’s not; and that it had better not happen again.

It is only after a long moment of consideration that he finds his voice again, his eyes fixated on the amber liquid he swirls in his glass. ”I’ll get you a map. I can’t afford to have you misinformed.” It’s an extension of trust he does not want to grant, but Nate can see little other option, short of running Mattie off; and prior to yesterday, he’d liked the fucker. Silas, apparently, still does – masochistic bastard that he is. Blue eyes glance upwards as Nate leans back, rolling both his palms upwards in a subtle gesture of invitation, and a cocksure smirk dancing at the corner of his lip. ”Questions?”

[Matthias Walker]

The clink of glass strikes him as laughably misplaced, a strange parallel to however many nights ago at the bar that very first night, and Matthias leans back in the chair, watchful and musing. He has never operated under restrictions before, save for the ones he has established for himself. Staying alone, refusing the company of other hunters and civilians both for more than one case or one night, it is not an ideal arrangement and it is the loneliness that kept him returning to see Silas in the hospital and Nate here, but it has worked for him—removed the necessity of playing by the rules of someone else with goals and morals of their own.

Hunting has always been personal, and if it comes with the weight of guilt, Matthias prefers it to be only his weight to bear.

Still.

For however long he remains in Boston—days or hours—being able to turn a blind eye to at least some of the werewolves is a tempting proposition. It will be one less species that he has to contend with, one less story he has to weed out from unhelpful newspaper articles and outrageous interviews, and he wants to be able to trust Nate with it. It makes sense, even, to believe that if the werewolf pack has remained for so long they must have some means of control, but in the end Matthias is still unaccustomed to letting go with only words to seal the promise.

He accepts the proffered glass of whiskey, tips it towards Nate in a toast made bittersweet by the slant of a smile that does not reach his eyes. The burn of the whiskey is sharper and richer and more welcome than he expects, and Matthias carefully sets down the glass after his first sip, chin coming to settle on one hand thoughtfully. Perhaps it is his own skewed perspective (the only werewolf he cares about, after all, is the one asleep in the apartment—it is more difficult to care for Nate the same way when Silas is the one that wears his heart pinned on his sleeve if you know which side to look on) but for all the cool impersonality, it still seems to come down to Silas.

“A map,” he echoes, and gives in to the wry laugh that starts somewhere low in his chest, bowing his head over the glass of whiskey, fingertips pressed against the cool glass. It is not funny but he is still exhausted from too little sleep and too much worry knotting in the pit of his stomach, and the idea that a map will fix the future when he is so prone to fucking up is—it’s nice. Matthias looks back up after a moment, the laugh still caught in the corners of the lopsided smile, “Tons, but they kind of transcend the professional, so.” He shrugs, taps his fingers against glass. “I’ll leave your wolves alone, if you’ll take my word for it, and you’ll only have to worry about me for a few more days max—and if I come back through Boston, I’ll have the map for keeps, right?”

Still, even if most of the questions are personal things—because it is not often that Matthias gets the opportunity to sit down with a werewolf and there are things that he does not need to know by necessity that he would like to, like how it feels to change like that and how long Nate has been a werewolf and, okay, how he feels about those supernatural romance books—there are more genuine concerns too. “How flexible are the—the territory boundaries, do they change or are they pretty static, are there other packs I should be worried about?”

(If Matthias’s attempts to avoid thinking about the pack in terms of a gang with rival gangs are failing miserably, well, nobody needs to know that.)

“You head security—” He may not run with businessmen often but Matthias can recognize the rank for what it is anyway and this time the tip of his glass towards Nate is an ironically congratulatory toast, “The rest of the hierarchy, how does that go? If,” he adds dryly, checking the impulsive curiosity but not his tongue, “that’s something I’m allowed to know, what with the…lack of…monthly bad hair days?” It is a comment that surpasses irreverence entirely, he knows, but even with this much at stake, even now that he knows, he is unaccustomed to censoring himself around Nate, and the dry humor may be at the expense of the werewolves but it is not intended to be a taunt.

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Days ago, the easy way Mattie turns serious situations into breathy laughter was something Nate had vaguely appreciated, though there had always been an edge to his dealings with the kid. He’d been smart, funny, and cheerful; he had been a convenient distraction of the sort Nate enjoys most, no strings attached and no promises made. Enough of a fleeting and momentary thing for the man to disregard his strange apprehension; for him to ignore the unwanted jealousy that had occasionally risen hot in his chest. All that had changed in the span of an evening, in an errant gunshot and a revelation. Trust is not a thing Nate gives easily, and despite their time shared, Matthias had never truly had it to begin with.

But there is a balance restored as the kid takes his glass, a certain camaraderie established by the simple sharing of drinks. It may be a mockery of the night they met, of the others they have spent together, but there is symbolism in the gesture; they are transformed from the interrogation cliché to something tangible, and Nate manages to relax as the liquor hits his gut. Matthias is agreeing, complying, and that’s a start. Nate hadn’t wanted to believe the kid was harboring some secret sadistic side, but he’s met enough innocuous looking hunters – and wolves – that were anything but to avoid leaping to conclusions. He has enough faith in the man to give him this, to believe the words he speaks are the truth and little else, but it may very well be Silas’ influence that allows him even that small conviction. Silas trusts him. Silas’ wolf had trusted him. That is enough for Nate to rely on.

Hunters are trouble, but there are workarounds – the deal he offers Matthias is not unique, no matter how the werewolf’s opinions are slightly skewed from their prior interactions. If anything, their previous intimacy makes Nate’s hair-trigger response harsher, drawn more out of an irrational feeling of betrayal that he only has the roughest of handles on. He has known his fair share of supposed good men, those men and women forcibly dragged into this world and fighting their supposed good fight; he has worked with them, has pursued the same goals, has wished them well and sent them on their way. There is no reason Matthias should be any different; there is no reason this cannot work.

And there is certainly no reason Nate should feel disconcerted at the rift that has grown wide between them.

”You’re welcome to hang onto it,” he replies with a shrug, blue eyes darting upwards to fix upon Mattie’s. The implication there is clear enough: any such map would be the hunter’s responsibility, and misplacing it is not an option. ”And if you come back through, you find me. But the boundaries – they’re only a general idea. Downtown is ours, but that doesn’t mean someone isn’t living near the harbor, or in Fenway, or out in the suburbs.” Nate quirks a brow, waiting for further questions, waiting to make sure Matthias understands. Troublemakers outside the territory are one thing, but stalking random wolves in the night could have dangerous repercussions – no matter the location. If the kid wants to insist he has morals, he had better damned mean it.

With a shrug and a sweep of his hand, Nathan swallows down the rest of his whiskey, bearing his teeth in a grimace. He turns it into a wicked grin as he flips his tumbler over on the table. ”Other packs aren’t my problem. There aren’t any others big enough for you to worry your pretty head over.” For the briefest of moments, the flirt reads as honest, accented by a crooked smirk and an inviting lift of his eyebrows. The liquor may have done its part to relax him, but truthfully, falling into these patterns and donning the comfortable mask he has worn with Mattie until the night previous is easy. All he has to do is not think about Silas.

He is practiced at this lie. Without the need to press and intimidate, without worry tightening his chest, Nate simply lets Matthias default back into known roles. It is a façade made easier by the kid’s easygoing nature, and it is so believed that the werewolf very nearly laughs when the hunter raises his glass.

Everything will be fine.

”Mm, no,” he chuckles darkly, watching the other man with heavy-lidded eyes. ”Can’t tell you too much. But it’s better to think of the pack as…” Nate waves a hand in the air, trying to come up with a less-obvious word than the truth. He gives up, rolling his shoulders. ”It’s like a business. No one’s running around pinning people to the ground and dominating them. It’s all very civil.” The last word is clipped, pointed, though whether it is for emphasis or humor is unclear. ”I have my CEO, and he has his board of executives. It’s all very modern.” The way Nathan speaks is casual, as though any of this could be common knowledge – and in some ways, it is. The pack hierarchy and the upper echelons of Three Kings are one in the same.

”Most of the wolves – hell, most everybody – running around town just want to live. Don’t wanna kill anybody. They want to be safe.” Nathan slides his empty glass between his hands, pushing it from one side of the table to the other with a soft scraping his. He cants his head to one side and glances up, fixing a searching expression on the hunter, as though he can somehow impart understanding with a simple thing like words.

”I keep them safe.”

For Nathan, there is no greater responsibility – and thanks to Matthias, he had failed in that for the one person he cares about most.

[Matthias Walker]

Well. Map, then.

This thing is becoming more and more complicated by the second. Matthias tilts his head to one side, thoughtful, fingers sliding along the cool edge of the glass, blue eyes half-lidded and focused in thought. Having boundaries outlined is one thing; the restriction may irk his sense of pride and freedom but it is bearable, even helpful in eliminating pieces of the map he need worry about. This—that any werewolf even outside the territory lines might be taboo—is a whole new ball game. Agreeing to it for a few days is no ordeal, but the sooner he leaves Boston, the easier it will be; the restlessness has always been quick to settle in his bones and the beat of his heart and Boston need not be an exception.

For now it is easy to let Nate’s wicked smiles and the softer curve of his spine ease the tension from Matthias’s too; his smile is a swift flash of white, and he swallows the last of the whiskey. With the return of whatever had been here before—camaraderie or at least similar taste in drink—he pushes the beginnings of irritation out of his mind and leans forward to balance his empty glass on top of Nate’s. When he sits back again, he leaves it as is: A fragile little tower standing between them, throwing light on the table in distorted patterns.

“A business,” he echoes, and laughs because it a business with a CEO and fancy suits is so far removed from his mental fantasies of underground gangs and secret meetings that it is almost funny. Still, it is not a surprise; Matthias has become accustomed to the extraordinary and Nate does fit better in a classy business than in a cutthroat gang in his mind’s eye. Silas, too, with all the suits and shit. Matthias leans back in the chair, crooks a wry smile at the werewolf sitting across from him. “Pretty tight hiring requirements, huh,” he says, casual and light because there is no reason to be anything but.

Werewolves or businessmen—either way their reputation precedes them.

Mattie has never particularly liked either but if the overlap is Nate and Silas, he supposes he can make an exception for time being. Still, the smile lingers, a faint upturn of the lips, as Nate goes on, and blue eyes drop to the stacked glasses a moment, sobering. Keeping people safe—he knows all about that, and the difficulties of it, does not envy Nate trying to hold together and protect all the loose strings of a pack in the heart of the Boston chaos. For all that Mattie has never met another hunter except in brief coincidences and quickly parted ways, knowing that they are out there and independent of his mistakes and responsibilities has always been a steady reassurance.

“My dad,” he says, a little abruptly, because there is only so much reassuring he can do before it becomes redundant but the story has always been his secret before, “He was the one that taught me—y’know, how to shoot a gun, ghosts are basically overrated slugs with a hard-on for destruction, that shit. Anyway, he had my mom and my older brother and me, and I think he spent most of his life trying to protect us, seeing how he was that weirdo hunter with the family thing. He died a couple years back. Werewolf.” The sting of loss has faded; the only indication of sorrow is the ironic slant of a smile. “So back then, I had a few weeks where—it was more revenge than protection of the innocent, or whatever, but it was just really fucking hard, staying mad, so I just. Stopped.”

Maybe if he had loved his father more, but he has never been one to measure affection in teaspoons to see if it’s enough. “Anyway, yeah, I’ve been there, but I’ve been doing the whole—” A shrug, Matthias waving one hand in an abstract gesture, “—unsung hero, scruffy hobo streetwalker,” it is a description that merits a wry grin, because it rings more of truth than Matthias likes, “thing longer, so. I get the protection thing. Not so much the business thing, but, hey, respect, if you like the suits and ties, that’s cool, I ain’t judging.”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Relationships – true friendships – are difficult, trying things, and Nathan tends to avoid any hint of them at all costs. He has his work associates, he has his drinking buddies, he has Silas; he is practiced at the roles of businessman, flirt, and scoundrel. Settling into a routine that plays at companionship while harboring none of the honest emotion behind it is nearly second nature, a gesture that imitates closeness and keeps others away in the same broad stroke. So long as he remembers that Matthias is leaving – he will take his confusion and his betrayal with him and go – Nate finds it easy to return to their games and playful banter, to a mask of self-delusion. That there is some kernel of truth buried in the carefully crafted façade, some desire to let the ordeal rest and get Matthias to understand, is of no matter.

It says more than Nathan can even admit that he cares enough to explain; that their conversation has somehow slipped between the cracks of professional, of strictly business, to something far more revealing. The man’s expression grows somber as silence and reflection set in, and even the pretense of flirtation and faux amity slip from his shoulders. Perhaps it is due to Mattie’s strangely endearing nature, his mix of honesty and exuberance. Perhaps it is for their shared history, however brief, or the liquor numbing Nate’s nerves. In either case, the werewolf’s eyes remain firmly fixed upon the tower of stacked glasses throughout the kid’s story, and he does not interrupt – he does hardly more than breathe – as this new revelation falls between them.

Silent, Nate reaches for the glasses stacked between them, and idly twists the one atop the other; his face is thoughtful, detached, as he moves to place the tumbler upside-down on the table, beside the first. Part of him had expected this to be difficult. Matthias would deny him, or agree too quickly, and someone would end up suffering for their failures – but instead it had gone simply, easily, and in a way that leaves him all the more entangled. The wolf is still incensed at the hunter’s trespass and Silas’ injury; the man is irrationally irritated with himself for not having somehow known. At the root of the problem is the damnable fact that Nathan had liked Mattie, for what little he’d known him, and that combined with his little history has settled into a confusing tangle of emotions.

None of which Nate would particularly like to feel, and he briefly contemplates pouring himself another glass to wash it all away. In the end, though, it helps that some piece of him wants Matthias to be a good man, a decent man.

”It’s always something,” Nate replies with a shrug, eyes averted as he runs a hand down his face. ”No one gets into this willingly. Not on either side.” If there are exceptions to the rule, Nate certainly hasn’t met them. He slides a hand along his side contemplatively, tracing old and familiar patterns hidden away by cloth; sharing is not something he is particularly inclined towards, but Nate believes in the power of information, and trading one good turn for another. Matthias had divulged secrets without prompting, and it is with a furrowed brow that the man struggles to do the same.

”I was sixteen when I was bitten. Bitten doesn’t even cover it, really. Was in the hospital for a few weeks after, getting scraped back together. Had to drop out of school.” Nate rolls his shoulders, tracing the pad of his finger around the base of his glass. It seems paltry in comparison, his pathetic story against the fate of Matthias’ father, but it’s all he has. ”I wasn’t that close to my family. So. The pack picked me up, got me my degree, put me through a few college classes. Got me my job.” Gave him everything. It had been selfishly motivated, but Nate cannot deny that he would be nothing without it. ”Never ended up going back home.” He is not bitter over that – if anything, it is the opposite – but his is a unique case. Very few individuals are in the right sort of place to have their lives improved by a curse.

”So you’ll forgive me if I’m a little zealous, I guess.” He glances at Matthias appraisingly, lips drawn up in a crooked, if small smile. ”I owe everything I have to the guy who found me. Not everybody’s so lucky, and nobody asks for this shit, but you adapt. A pack helps.” The other option is usually death – at the hands of other wolves trying to keep their own secret safe, or a hunter culling the crazed from the masses. It is no small wonder that a place like Boston often seems the safer choice. The only choice. Leaning back, Nathan huffs a sigh, tipping his glass on its side, and considers the conversation soundly over.

”You do your scruffy hobo thing, I’ll stick to the suits.” A beat, and Nate narrows his eyes. ”—It’s not just fashion, you know,” he adds dryly. ”Some of us have real jobs and all. Dress codes.” He slides his thumb absently beneath his tie in demonstration. ”The business thing is a metaphor, but I really do work in security. And as long as we’re working towards the same end, everything’s square. Your past isn’t any of my problem.”

Because Nathan remembers that hot anger that had welled up inside him at seeing Silas, battered and bleeding – and he remembers the imagery, crimson and visceral, painted behind his eyes – and he thinks he understands.

[Matthias Walker]

The past has always been a fragile thing.

That Nate does not meet his eyes while Matthias speaks helps, a little, in its own way: He does not anticipate pity or even sympathy, but it is still important, the reason behind the silver bullets in his pistol and the pocketknife in his jeans. It’s not something Mattie discusses, usually. The memories of his father are not bad ones, or even painful anymore; he really doesn’t miss the man who taught him to hunt. There were as many memories he would rather forget as ones that keep him safe in his stalking of shadows, necessary evils in retrospect, but mention of his father is too closely allied with mention of his mother and of his brother, of the girl Mattie meant to propose to and of the best friend he left behind.

It has always been easier to ignore the memories. Nobody has ever been worth telling, anyway, but he…owes Nate this attempt at trying to pull together the loose ends into some coherent explanation and apology. Whether or not Nate gets it—well, apologies have never been one of Matthias’s strong suits.

His gaze flicks up from the manipulation of the glasses on the table to Nate when the werewolf speaks again; surprise registers in the brief furrow of his eyebrows before Matthias’s expression settles again. He had not anticipated a quid pro quo arrangement for information, but it is nonetheless appreciated—answers one of those questions that seemed too personal to ask. Sixteen. It is a bizarre parallel to his own age when he first began to hunt. Coincidence, and little more, but still startling; Matthias may not know exactly how old Nate is, but sixteen to present must be roughly a decade.

A decade.

It sounds just a little like hell, pack or not.

Matthias leans back in his chair, thoughtful, appraising, meets Nate’s gaze with the familiar upturn of lips that would be an easy smile if not for the stillness in his eyes. He has long outgrown the delusion of superiority to the creatures he hunts (that had been shattered the first time a ghost got the drop on him and broke three ribs and his femur easy as you please), and there may be exceptions but for all that the responsibility drags him across the country, what it comes down to is that he can stop. He can stop and they can’t, and hell, according to some philosophers that is the distinction between human and animal—you may as the free and proud shaper of your own being fashion yourself in the form that you choose—but it’s not a distinction that makes him feel any better.

If anything, it makes him feel worse.

The pack as a business thing is nothing short of civilized and he is the one creating his own laws, playing dirty in the illusion of heroism.

His laugh is more a dry huff of air than humor, then, the lopsided grin finally reaching his eyes as he arches an eyebrow at Nate. Soul-searching can wait, possibly forever. “Yeah, no,” he says, the twist of his mouth settling into true amusement at last, and he leans over and sets both glasses upright again—if they are supposed to be some extended metaphor, Mattie is in no mood or frame of mind to analyze it, “I wasn’t planning on writing you angsty poems or braiding friendship bracelets, promise, it’d be a bitch to try and match your ties.” He straightens in the chair, folding his arms on the table and tipping his head in the direction of the bedroom, “He’s sleeping, by the way. Fell asleep a couple hours ago and hasn’t twitched since, but the healing’s looking pretty good, no signs of infection or anything.”

The rundown is likely unnecessary at this point; had there been anything wrong Nate would have heard about it first thing, and had Silas been conscious they both would have heard about it before now. Still. Matthias rises from the chair, taking both glasses with him, and sets them in the sink: Waiting to be dismissed is the farthest thing from the forefront of his mind; even if this thing started strictly business it is so clearly blurring the lines towards personal now. And—“I got your coffee cup out of my car earlier,” easier to return it before Nate came back than after, with all the implications behind it, “You want me to give you a head’s up before I leave Boston anyway?”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Human is a thing Nate stopped feeling – or attempting to feel – long ago. The distinctions between himself and the rest of mankind, between werewolves and those other creatures that skulk about in the shadows, is a matter of philosophy far beyond his ken, and he really has no desire to waste his time analyzing it. Greater men than he have tried and failed. What occupies his thoughts are the everyday doubts and worries of mortal man: bills, work, romance; the wolf is not something either ignored or embraced. It simply is. He is. There is too much danger in attempting to be anything else, and Nate has cleaned up after the messes of both extremes – the animals without any shred of humanity left behind, and those poor individuals who vainly struggle and deny their fate to the point of madness.

There are those who hunt them like (and legitimately believe them to be little more than) mindless beasts, and members of his own kind who view humanity as a feedlot. Extremists, both. The rational conversation happening at Nate’s own kitchen table is proof enough of that.

But neither reflection nor musing suits the man, and as soon as the conversation takes a turn for the casual, the thoughtful quality to Nate’s expression and eyes slips from him as easily as it came. It is the closest he has come to talking about his family in nearly ten years, and he is keen to put that exposure behind them both and let it be. Not even Silas has wheedled much of his past out of him – and perhaps the surgeon knows better than to ask. Nate matches Mattie’s sudden smile with his own, crooked and inviting, brows drawn up in mild curiosity and amusement. The kid’s ability to bounce back – to simply go with the flow with a smile and a roll of his eyes – it nearly rivals his own, and were he of a mind do consider it, he would wonder what the hunter was hiding. He would wonder how they might have ended up, had circumstances been different.

Instead Nate simply laughs, an effortless sound, and waves one hand in lazy dismissal. ”I figured you’d be long gone if he’d died, and I’d sure as hell have heard him if he were awake. Let him sleep.” Lord knows Silas tends to need it, shot through the shoulder or not; Nate can check up on him when he wakes. Wetting his lips, the werewolf watches Matthias with a curious look as he sets the glasses upright. ”Their bottoms used to be rounded,” he interjects suddenly, an odd little aside. ”—The bottoms of the glasses. You’re supposed to flip them over when you’re done. It’s why they’re called tumblers.” Still, the sink is likely a better place than setting rings into his tabletop, and Nate rises after Mattie with a crack of one knee and a sigh.

”Thanks,” then, is the man’s lame reply, suddenly all too interested in the toes of his shoes. By the time Mattie turns back around Nate is glancing up, as though the implications behind that stupid little gesture had already been put aside and forgotten. It is not so much for loss that the reminder stings – the hunter was always a temporary fling – but Nate has never been particularly fond of complications added to what had been a simple plan, no matter how he prides himself on his adaptability. ”And yeah – if you could. Helps me sleep easy, and all.” He shrugs, and though it may be an unconscious gesture, his head turns towards where Silas is sleeping in the back bedroom. ”I worry.”

Despite its simplicity it is a brazenly open admission, but one that slips out easily in the aftermath of their discussion. Honesty, after all that, seems like the safer route – and maybe Mattie has earned enough of Nate’s begrudging respect to even deserve it. ”I dunno how much longer you’re sticking around,” the werewolf manages after a moment, dusting crumbs from the countertop absently. Matthias had mentioned days, but little about him seems definite. ”But you’re welcome to crash here for the night. I swear the couch was nicer before some asshole bled out all over it.” A flash of that trademark cocksure smile, and the seriousness of the moment is dispelled, the paltry offer left for Matthias to take or leave.

[Matthias Walker]

Are they doing historical fun facts now?

Mattie raises a curious eyebrow, faint mischief curling the corners of his smile upward. “Sounds messy,” he offers, but blue eyes settle speculatively on the glasses for a moment. Then, “If you trace ‘whiskey’ back to its roots, you end up with ‘water of life’ in Gaelic. Pretty sure everyone was just alcoholic back then, though.” It takes a classier man than him to care about the history of glassware, but then again, suits versus the worn old hoodie dug out of the endless pit of Silas’s closet, legitimate job versus total lack thereof—it should not be a surprise. Turning back to the kitchen and Nate, Matthias hooks his fingers loosely in his own pockets, leans back against the counter.

Even now, mentally beginning to map out a road that will take him far from Boston and the past few days, it’s difficult to see Nate differently. He and Silas are not the first werewolves Matthias has met or liked. Slept with, yes, but given his track record it’s easier for Mattie to think of it as only a matter of time than some spectacular affair. That one silver bullet later they are still civil at all is a new one, too, but Mattie suspects that is less a matter of relationships and more of the fact that everyone is still alive. His gaze follows the brief moment Nate’s turns towards the bedroom, and he shrugs, casual, simple with the barest trace of irony in the light of blue eyes and slant of his smile, “No problem, man, goodbye’s the least I can do.”

It is unnecessary; he does plan on letting Silas have the chance to check over his shoulder before he goes (also unnecessary, but a more easily justified indulgence) and he suspects Silas would tell Nate even if Matthias didn’t, but it’s still one of the few courtesies he can give.

His gaze sobers at Nate’s offer, contemplative. A place to sleep is always appreciated, and all things considered, it’s probably going to be one of the most innocent offers he’s going to get, but—“Nah,” he says, a beat too late to be completely casual even if the familiar grin still flashes, and pushes off of the counter to pad barefoot back into the living room, throws a brief glance over his shoulder at Nate, “Call me insanely picky, but bloodstains aren’t exactly my favorite sheet pattern. I’ll find somewhere else, no big deal. Thanks, though—mind if I drop by tomorrow or something? Don’t know how fast you guys heal, but if you need me to keep an eye on Silas…”

The crooked curve of his smile slips wider a moment as he picks up the book he left on the coffee table and tucks it absently into the pocket of the hoodie, “I owe him half of Utopia anyway, and speaking of, what’s up with the lack of books? I thought classy people always had books in, y’know, fancy modern bookshelves and leather binding and shit, is that not a thing?” The expression of grievous offense is not one he bothers to censor; any apartment without books is as good as an apartment wasted. Not that Mattie would trade an apartment for books, or anything, but come on.

[♥ Nathan ♥]

There is little else do be done. Nate has extended what limited gestures of kindness his mixed senses of guilt and blame will allow, and with Matthias’ lackadaisical refusal, the matter seems suitably closed. He may leave the city on his own sweet time, and if the kid wants to spend those last few days warming someone else’s bed instead of dealing with Nate’s couch – and the potential awkwardness involved – the werewolf can’t particularly blame him. Though he’s made his best effort and managed a roughshod, patchwork job of mending the cracks that lurk between them (an endeavor, this morning, he would have thought impossible), Matthias and Nate owe each other nothing.

Following Mattie out, Nate shrugs off his jacket and deposits it on the back of an armchair, loosening his tie from around his neck. ”Wouldn’t be a big deal, normally,” he replies, rummaging about in a pocket for a carton of cigarettes. While smoking inside his apartment is traditionally something Nate avoids, the stress of the last twenty-four hours and the need to keep his hands occupied overwhelms any desire to resist. ”It’s the silver that’s the problem. Everything heals slower, gets all fucked up.” He shrugs, lighting his cigarette. The scent of clove is immediate, and works to soothe his ragged nerves even before he lifts it to his lips and takes a slow drag.

”I’ve got work all week as it is.” And Silas likely does, too, which makes the mess all the more annoying; Nate likely won’t hear the end of it if the guy has to take too many sick days. ”So yeah, if you wanna check in, make sure he’s doing alright…” the werewolf cranes his neck, balancing the wolf’s urge to covet and hoard and protect with the rational, logical knowledge that Mattie only wants to help – and that both Silas and Nate could probably use it. (Silas would likely deny this, but holed up in bed as he is, the decision is rather stripped from him. The man might bitch about anything, but he can hardly see him having any honest issue with Mattie reading to him for another day, even if it has the hair on the back of Nate’s neck bristling.)

For all that this routine of wolf-and-man has become everyday, there are still long moments where he wonders which is which – and how much of the separation is a scapegoat, created solely to comfort his mind.

It is easier to focus on the fact that Nate has no idea what Utopia is.

”I don’t really read,” comes his slightly confused and defensive explanation, ashing his cigarette to a tray on the coffee table with a flick of his thumb. Nate’s piss-poor traditional education has a large part to do with his lack of interest in literature, a childish aversion to schooling that had always stuck with him. He tilts his head to one side, eyeing Mattie suspiciously – because anyone who likes reading so damned much they’d get offended over it clearly can’t be trusted. ”Never met a book that seemed worth it. Seems like a waste of what little free time I have.” Magazines and newspapers he understands as practical, but reading for pleasure continues to elude him. Classy? Maybe. Cultured, not quite.

Stains or not (flipping the cushion hadn’t helped as much as he would have liked), Nate collapses to the couch with a sigh, feet up on the coffee table, and settles to finishing his cigarette while watching Mattie lazily. ”…You need me to order you dinner or something?” How the hell did the kid even eat? Hunting ghosts obviously didn’t pay well, as evidenced by Matthias’ lifestyle, but living bed to bed and meal to meal is a concept Nate hasn’t dealt with since his own youth. He isn’t quite sure how much assistance the kid expects – how much his pride will even let him accept. ”Can hang out until Silas is up. You like pizza?”

He does not envy Mattie, not in the least.

[Matthias Walker]

Yeah, silver: Go figure. If had been anything but skinwalkers, his gun would’ve had more conventional bullets and the silver poisoning would be a non-issue, but Silas is nothing if not massively unlucky, apparently, or simply needs to learn risk perception. Mattie nods, anyway, refuses to allow himself to slip back into the guilt that has been gnawing through his bones all day. It is fine, or will be: Silas is healing and even if things are not going to go back to stolen coffee and cups with Nate, it was never meant to be forever anyway. This—having permission to come back, see Silas back on his feet again—is as close to forgiveness as Matthias expects to get. Closer, even, than he had been expecting.

Optimism has always been one of those nice ideals he’s never quite achieved as much as he claims.

“Great, I’ll drop by tomorrow morning,” Mattie says, honestly, leans his forearms over the back of one of the armchairs notable for the lack of bloodstains, Utopia tucked under his arm against his ribs. Equally honest, though, is the dismayed look that knits his eyebrows together, mouth pursing into a moue of disapproval just this side of pouting; that some people do not read is not a concept that escapes him, but he considers being offended for a moment before he lets it go—mostly—and pulls a wry face at Nate, “Maybe you should read to him then, Christ. Can I just retconn all the shit I said about class? Pretty sure classy people read.”

He’s about to drop some casual good-bye, till-next-time to carry him out of the apartment, cannot imagine that with things finally settled and squared away back to a comprehensible status and Nate capable of taking care of Silas on his own now that he’s back from work that his presence will be needed or welcome much longer, but—

“Pizza,” he parrots, blankly, looks up startled, caught between hopeful and disbelieving. The look is fleeting, passes into a quicksilver grin and an arch of his eyebrows, “Is that even an actual question? Nobody doesn’t like pizza. That would be awesome.”

Still too restless to sit properly, Matthias shifts his weight along the back of the armchair more comfortably, blue eyes turning inquisitive, “So, you don’t read. How much work do you have? Like,” rephrasing, because even if he knows more there are plenty more boundaries now, and he cannot imagine that going into how werewolf pack security works with a hunter is high on Nate’s list of Good Ideas, detailed or not, “What, d’you just sleep, eat, and go to bars a lot? Look up fun facts about the History of Glassware?” The crook of his lips turns mischievous and Mattie cannot resist adding a solemnly wide-eyed, “Secret Disney movie and romcom marathons?”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Harping on Nate’s lack of education is not the way into his good books, though Mattie manages it in such a way that the werewolf finds himself more indignant than strictly pissed. He screws his eyes up at the other man, lip drawn up in a near sneer and brow furrowed. ”The fuck would I read to him? Forbes?” Reading for pleasure is one thing – reading aloud to another human being is an idea Nate can’t even begin to entertain. He certainly wouldn’t be caught dead stumbling through whatever intellectual, literary schlock Mattie likely prefers. No one needs to hear that, thank you very much. ”And I don’t think you know shit about class.” The statement is punctuated with a mocking smirk, a set of blue eyes drawn pointedly down Mattie’s secondhand wardrobe and eternal bedhead, but it is meant as good-naturedly as possible for it bitter honesty.

Leaning back into the couch, Nate hooks an ankle over his knee and pulls out his phone, gesturing absently towards the chair Mattie leans on. ”Sit down. You fidget too much. You like sausage?” His hand pauses in its motion over the screen of his cell, and in the same beat, Nate shoots the kid a daring stare. Just say it. ”…on your pizza,” he clarifies, and resumes browsing. Pizza is totally classy. ”And I dunno, Boston isn’t fucking – y’know, New York. Pizza’s alright. Some people’re picky.” He’d been to New York, once, he likes to pretend he can understand the difference, but it’s all really the same to him. Food tends to be food.

How the hell he ended up yammering on about pizza with Mattie, of all people, with a bloodstain on his couch and a wounded werewolf sleeping in his bedroom, Nate has absolutely no idea. It’s been a weird series of days, but that’s sure as hell never stopped his appetite before – though it had managed to set him profoundly off kilter – and he has no plans on letting it do so now. Food is, after all, the great uniter. Feeding Matthias is no responsibility of Nate’s, but it’s easy enough for him to make the offer, particularly when he hardly has to go out of his way to do so.

Waking Silas with the temptation of a few leftover slices doesn’t hurt, either – nor does knowing that the doctor will somehow be pleased to learn Nate hasn’t bitten Mattie’s head off. Buying a guy dinner is like the antithesis of that, really.

Glancing up from his search for the restaurant’s phone number, Nate fixes Mattie with an exasperated look, unbelieving that he could be fixated on this book thing so strongly. He shifts in his seat, turning to face the hunter, and points at him accusingly with his phone. ”When was the last time you had a real goddamn job? Because, yeah, after hours, that’s kind of my schedule.” A beat. ”—Save the glassware thing. C’mon, you read so damn much and don’t even learn anything?” The last is spoken largely for Nate alone, half mumbled as he thumbs a button on his phone and lets Mattie wait in relative silence as it rings. ”…Horror, actually,” he reluctantly adds after a moment, and waves the kid off towards the entertainment center, within which can be found an impressive selection of classics, blockbusters, and B-rated trash alike. He places their order, disconnects from the call, and meets Mattie’s eyes with a vain amount of hope that they might yet salvage the whole having something in common thing.

”You like film?”

[Matthias Walker]

Forbes?

Forbes?

“Well,” Mattie murmurs doubtfully, ignoring the snipe about class—there’s no unwritten rule that a hobo cannot recognize class when he sees it; if there is no need to be a vintner to recognize good wine then, well, he’s as good a judge on class as anyone—“That’d send him right to sleep, I bet.” Not that Utopia had not, but it had taken a good half of the book; if there is anything remotely interesting about Forbes Matthias is just not in a stable enough economic state to appreciate it. Well. To each his own, and all; the fact that there is still an irrational disappointment in the lack of literature save for his own tattered paperbacks is dismissed with a loose, dismissive shrug as he obediently slinks around the side of the armchair to sink into it.

Not that being planted on his butt prevents the fidgeting; Matthias draws himself up into a casual cross-legged slouch, leans one elbow against the arm of the chair, tilts his head to smirk widely at Nate’s question. The pointed look the werewolf shoots at him is met with a waggle of his eyebrows and an utterly lascivious leer that melts into an amused snicker and then a shrug, eyes flickering with the memory of skyscrapers and coffeehouses and memorized roads, “I know—New York is a standard unto itself; believe me, my expectations aren’t that high. It’s pizza, not caviar. Sausage’s fine.”

That the overlap of New York City and Boston is becoming ever greater in his mind is unimportant; Matthias is pretty sure the only thing he will remember about either of them, in the end, is that he left them, and in that respect, they could be any other of a hundred other cities and backwoods towns in the country.

Eyebrows tug together for a second at Nate, and Mattie opens his mouth with the vague beginnings of a question about wait, really, Disney marathons? on the tip of his tongue before he decides that a slightly less offensive comment is probably in order. Still, there is very little he can say; Matthias never had a job except hunting and never planned on getting one either, and if hunting keeps him bruised and barely alive sometimes, constantly on edge with the adrenaline and paranoia, well, at least he doesn’t have to deal with the kind of time demands Nate does. And—“Horror,” he repeats, more bemused than surprised, and at Nate’s gesture, leaves the werewolf to place the order in favor of moving towards the collection of movies.

By the time Nate speaks again, Mattie’s attention has been thoroughly captured; he’s heard of some of the movies but most are entirely new, and curious fingers pick out a movie at random to inspect. “Hmm?” Absent, distracted, and then he looks up, eyes startled, to meet Nate’s gaze, and blinks, turns the movie over in his hands and settles for an honest, “I don’t know. I haven’t really seen many, my brother was kind of a pretentious hipster prick and movies were too mainstream for him or something and I was, you know, young and impressionable, I didn’t even see Star Wars till high school—hey, I’ve heard of this, though.”

Which is a surprise in and of itself. It’s not an extraordinarily old movie, after all, and Matthias is so accustomed to not paying attention to films that he barely registers their continued production anymore, but—“British zombies, right?” That may be the extent of his knowledge, but, “So, first movie for five years, worth it?”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Nate isn’t too sure Mattie’s ever had caviar – and honestly, his forays into the upper-class lifestyle haven’t left him particularly knowledgeable on the subject, either – but it seems better to let the analogy sit than to pick it apart. The kid’s expected response to is unintended and unfortunately recognized innuendo is utterly ignored; Nate busies himself with his call, watching as Mattie takes slow account of his selection of films, and rises off the couch after posing his original question. The enthusiasm (or lack thereof) with which Mattie browses does not bode well for this working. Not everyone can appreciate the absurd amount of cinematography Nate does, he gets that – old horror is bad enough, but his love for unknown indie films is far from understood – but who doesn’t watch them at all?

If he wants some vague sort of insight into Mattie’s horror at his unwillingness to read, Nate may have found it.

”Haven’t – seen many?” Nate pauses, tilting his head slightly and eyeing the kid up like he may have just grown a second head. ”Okay, you mean the original trilogy, right?” Right? Mattie is a conglomeration of so many confusing facts and talents that the werewolf can hardly wrap his head around it. The hunter is younger than him, certainly – he’s youthful, vibrant – and yet his world seems to consist of little more than his wannabe job, the road, and an irrational love of literature. Dead dad or not, it seems a remarkably unpleasant way of living, and though Nate has his own experiences with abandoning childhood – with being forced to grow up too soon – in some ways, he hasn’t at all.

Mattie is yet a stranger, a man Nate can view only from strangely parallel lines that stand a hair’s breadth apart but cannot touch. Placing himself in the kid’s shoes is more difficult than strictly impossible, so the werewolf simply stops trying. Soul-searching and analysis suit neither of them.

Movies, then.

Nate drops his eyes to the case Mattie holds, and though he grimaces at the idea that the kid hasn’t seen a movie in five years – he has to remember that living out of one’s car hardly lends itself to stopping by the theater – he huffs a resigned sigh. ”…yeah. Comedy.” Blue eyes dart to the hunter in a brief pause, assessing. ”Totally worth it. C’mon.” He motions with a jerk of his head back to the couch, gesturing for Mattie to sit, and puts the movie on before joining him. It’s not the worst way to end an evening, not in the least when he had expected to come home to a shouting match (or worse); the credits role, the film starts, and for the first time in two days, Nate finds himself relaxing.

He leaves only to rescue their pizza from a delivery boy and procure drinks, and consumes two slices in as many breaths. Shaun of the Dead is punctuated with the occasional (though restrained) needless and obscure factoid on Nate’s part, largely comical asides made for Mattie’s (hopeful) amusement, but even these grow short over time; eventually, the man ends up with his feet on the table, a beer clutched lazily in one hand, and the last ten minutes of the movie have slipped by without him noticing. It says something for how much the past days have worn on him (and how easily he’s somehow let Mattie in) that he dozes off at all – but it happens all the same, and well before the movie has ended he’s napping with his head tilted back and his mouth parted.

Classiest. Goddamn. Fucker.