play the cards with spades to start. [Nate]

[Matthias Walker]

The crack of dawn finds Matthias washed up on Nate’s doorstep, armed with a cup of coffee and a truly impressive temper, thanks in no small part to the sleep deprivation of the past night. It’s one thing to stay up a night for Silas’s wolf that will inevitably end in sleeping with the wolf sprawled next to him, another to wake up on occasion to coax the man out of his nightmares and back into a steadier, safer sleep, and another entirely to stay up the entire fucking night, constantly tense with the anticipation of another nightmare and another fruitless handful of minutes spent floundering through the right combination of words and touches. Silas, goddamn lucky bastard, found sleep (frankly closer to a coma, Mattie thinks) early in the morning, and Matthias could not have stayed still another fucking minute longer.

He’s settled firmly into the peculiar stage of sleep deprivation, he thinks, in which he has never felt farther from being able to fall asleep; he knows he owes the energy in equal parts to excessive caffeine and anger, but what the hell, he’s not planning on giving up either in the near future so it should hold him over pretty well.

On the other hand, Matthias is not so far out of it that he thinks more caffeine is anything but a Very Bad Idea. (Not that he’s prone to bouncing off walls, but wound so tight throwing a punch is not entirely out of the question as it is and generally speaking Mattie’s not terribly fond of getting into fights with people that are sober or that he doesn’t intend to kill.) The coffee is for Nate, perversely enough; Mattie isn’t sure what state of consciousness he expects to find the werewolf in, but he’s not very interested in yelling at somebody too sleepy to comprehend what he says.

It’s also incentive for him not to lose his temper.

Punching someone holding coffee he’s paid for is a waste, and all.

Making sense has never been one of Mattie’s strongest priorities. Neither is being polite; upon reaching the doorbell Matthias promptly bypasses it completely to just bang on the door. The approach may be Neanderthal and overdramatic, but what the hell—pounding on the door is all symbolic and shit, and sort of therapeutic in its own way. He is nice enough not to supplement the banging with yelling, too, less out of concern for Nate’s sunny morning disposition and more because disturbing his neighbors isn’t part of his game plan. Besides: See above re: Coffee and states of consciousness. There’s no need to waste his breath just yet.

He monopolizes on what little element of surprise he may have—showing up at ass o’ clock in the morning isn’t something Mattie makes a habit of—when the door opens to shove the Styrofoam cup of coffee into Nate’s hands in lieu of a good morning and slide right on in, the gift of caffeine utterly at odds with the glare he levels at the werewolf: The anger is somewhat drained by the dark circles under his eyes and the ruffled, owlish cast to his hair, but it’s still sharply present in the lines of his mouth and the tension in his shoulders.

“Do you know,” he snaps, pushing the door shut behind him, and maybe the words are a little loud for what Matthias intended to be civil conversation (really. His intentions were so fucking pure). “—what I just spent the night doing? Because I am not a fucking therapist but even I’m not goddamn stupid enough to fuck around and come back to my—my boyfriend or what the fuck ever you’re calling him—reeking of sex, okay, why the fucking fuck—” Eloquence at its finest. Sleep deprivation at its loveliest. “—what the hell are you doing!”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Dawn breaks upon a sleepless city. The sun struggles vainly against the slow and inevitable march of autumn, fighting its way into a grey sky, and Boston is already thrumming with energy beneath its oppressive weight; the sound of car horns and squealing breaks cuts into the fresh morning, pulsing like lifeblood. The metropolis carries on, oblivious to the individual labors and woes of its occupants, and though the infrastructure of her pack runs through Boston like so many bones and stretching sinew, her populace pays no mind to how it groans and shudders.

Nathan’s careful and measured hand cannot stop the tide of change that has gripped his city. Though he had been a sound choice to take the reins following Nikolai’s untimely demise, there are whispers of deception lurking in the wings; there are complaints regarding his age, his time in Boston, his sordid personal affairs. Suspicions and doubts are voiced quietly but even the possibility of threat is enough – Nathan’s wolf reacts violently, viscerally, and it sets the whole of him on edge. He is spread thin and wound taut. A play has already been made to pull Three Kings out from under him, and his time as impromptu sovereign is likely to be short and inglorious.

Little wonder, then, that he sleeps so fitfully.

A calculated mind cannot comprehend its own demise; Nathan firmly clings to routine even as the terrain shifts beneath him, and recent weeks have seen a deliberate coldness descend upon his usual good humor. Disengaging is a conditioned response to vulnerability. The wolf makes its bid to keep itself safe, and it does not care who it hurts in the process.

Silas is merely an innocent bystander caught in the tumult, one small piece of a larger picture. Nathan’s infidelities, over the course of his life, are both numerous and customary; a foreign town, a hooded glance, and the wolf in his blood had brought him to his knees without a second thought. Old habits die hard, and it had proven a quick fix to the beast’s voracious appetite, a hunger gone unchecked in the chaos of Boston’s upheaval. The man doesn’t even have the good sense to regret the act until he’s home – until he sees the suspicion in Silas’ eyes, the hurt and fear that blossoms there upon recognition.

Nathan has never been known for apologies; guilt is too self-sacrificing an emotion. When Silas makes to depart in a rush, the werewolf simply lets him go.

It is a long night alone, long enough to shape remorse into blame and doubt into anger. He is dressed in slacks and a half-buttoned shirt when Matthias at last comes calling, and what blooms in Nathan’s chest at the sight of the other man is a sudden and wolf-born bitterness; sidestepping to allow the hunter in, he accepts the coffee thrust upon him with only the briefest hint of confusion. If this is a gesture to placate him, to drop his guard enough to allow peaceful conversation, it fails miserably. Discussing emotions is not his strong suit, and neither is accepting fault.

Blue eyes narrow as Mattie begins his tirade, and though Nathan had his suspicions, the reason for the early-morning visit suddenly make sense. It would figure that Silas would go crawling to Matthias – or more likely, that the kid would be waiting for him in the home they share, the bed they share – and the beast rises in his blood in a reckless bid for control. The expression that crosses Nathan’s face is nothing short of a snarl, but the man stymies it, smothers it, tempers hot rage into a cold and smoldering ire.

”—Sleeping with Silas?” he interjects, daring to answer the rhetorical question. The smile that crosses Nate’s lips in response is dangerous and sharp. It is not Matthias’ place to question his actions, and the werewolf does not balk when faced with the consequences he has wrought – too often, when bitten, Nathan’s first instinct is to bite back. He steps from the doorway and into the living room, discarding the Styrofoam cup atop an end table and allowing Matthias further into the wolf’s den.

Jaw tight, Nate lifts his chin to hone in upon the hunter with dark and feral blue eyes. This space is the animal’s home; this city is its empire. To confront the beast in the heart of its territory is to become the scapegoat for weeks of frustration, and the challenge in Matthias’ words and his stare hums electric in Nathan’s blood. His wolf is not Silas’, to be cowed by harsh words or whispered to sleep; it is the very sort of monster Matthias has been trained to kill, and it is incensed that the hunter should forget his place.

The answer, then, is a simple one.

”Whatever I want.”

[Matthias Walker]

So this is how it’s going to be.

The sneer and the words that ring like an accusation channel the red-hot flare of indignation on Silas’s behalf into a colder fury; Matthias isn’t sure what he expected when he came to see the other werewolf but this isn’t it. If Silas is transparent to Mattie he can only imagine how easily Nate should be able to read him, and the cavalier arrogance does more to sharpen the anger than anything Silas could possibly have done or said to him. That he came for Silas, on the doctor’s behalf, slides forgotten into the back of his mind as he steps in Nate’s wake deeper into the apartment, ignoring the coffee left on the table; even with Nate still a man and the unfamiliar personal offenses it’s too close a parallel to the familiar hunts for Mattie not to look at him without the automatic wary assessment of his options and escapes—

But not close enough for them to matter. He discards every instinct, lets the fury propel him far too close to Nate for anything remotely resembling personal space, matches the werewolf’s dangerous smile with a sharp grin turned absolutely feral by bright eyes and the tension thrumming up his spine, scorn caught in the hollow laugh, “Do you even fucking hear yourself? Fucking God complex—anything you want, Christ.” The flash of his smile twists into sharp sarcasm, and Matthias steps back, eyes narrowing in mocking consideration.

It should be concerning, all of it: How willing he is to go to war for Silas, how easily he discards civility, how little he concerns himself with Nate’s side of the story—how simply he convinces himself that there isn’t one. Not one that matters, not when Silas is paying the price for whatever happened and Mattie’s the one that picks up the pieces and it should have been Nate there, last night. It should’ve been Nate or someone better than Matthias at stitching things together, especially things as fragile as love, and he nearly resents Nate for making the responsibility fall onto him when his hands are too slick with blood to offer to anybody.

“Do you know,” he says, voice deceptively soft, “How bad the nightmares got? Have you ever even seen them, does it make you happy to do anything you want, are you fucking happy because he went looking for a beating last night because it was better than what you did?” It’s for Silas and maybe Matthias is being a massive dick but no, he’s not a goddamn therapist and he’s under no binding confidentiality; if Nate is Silas’s weakness then Mattie is willing to bet—hopes, for Silas’s sake, as if the betrayal were not enough—it goes both ways.

“You sure get fucking jealous over him for a guy who’s being a massive jackass.” The comment is laced with faux-curiosity, eyes sharp with the inviting tilt of his head. (Maybe Silas isn’t the only one who goes looking for a beating, but Matthias is so goddamn tired of trying to find the right words and gestures to placate people and the venom is so much easier.) “What—think he’s gonna sleep around on you?”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

A near painful itch has started in his chest, a tingle in his fingertips that rides the edge of danger and a loss of control; when the man smiles, it is a liquid and feral thing, accented by a show of teeth that read more as fangs. Whatever Nathan had intended for his fallout with Silas – however he expected this eventual discussion to go – it certainly hadn’t involved Matthias shouting at him at dawn. The hunter has always had a penchant for somehow getting himself involved between the two of them, and where Nathan would have preferred to let the matter burn to ash and die, the fire has instead been stoked.

It is wrong that Matthias becomes the target for unrelated fear and anxiety, for uncertainty and insecurities that haunt Nathan so; it is worse still that he feeds his own jealousy while simultaneously stripping Silas of the same. The animal is both possessive and selfish. It does not often share – but what it wants, it takes.

With the younger man so close, the werewolf can veritably smell the anger on him, the concern that spikes into raw emotion at his backlash of arrogant words. The wolf throws out images of bloodied flesh and torn skin, all twisted in the name of justice and self defense, and for the briefest of moments Nathan is sick with the effort of repressing it; stress and pressure from too many sources have rendered him nearly incapable, and it is only for the muscle-memory of resistance born of years or practice that he stays his hand. Rarely has the beast clawed so desperately at his skin, and rarely has Nathan ever let himself descend to such a wretched state.

He can think of only one time before, and the measures he had taken then are no longer available to him. It is a bitter and ironic thought considering the circumstances.

Nathan turns as Matthias backs away, making for the counter that separates the kitchen and living room, and presses his palms flat against the marble as he leans forward. Fingertips press against the unyielding countertop until his knuckles are white, until Mattie’s words strike a bolt of worry back into that mindless, animalistic wrath; Nate lifts his head, brow furrowed, and though his eyes are dark and wild the threat of challenge has dissipated. He runs his tongue over his teeth and swallows tightly, unable to ease the strain from his jaw but under some measure of self-possession.

”Did he get hurt,” Nate says flatly, unable to even express the emotion it takes to form a question. Silas’ nightmares are certainly no mystery to him, but they are far from his fault – and the werewolf understands physical action far easier than emotional states. ”Did he—“ Nate cuts himself off with a snort as the kid continues, breaking their held stare to turn his head away. Perhaps Matthias is right in the idea that this weakness runs both ways. Perhaps the petty comment would have had the intended effect if the hunter had stopped there. The unfortunate reality is that Nathan avoids relationships because the vulnerability thy require is the one thing he cannot stand – and when the crack in his armor becomes apparent, his gut response is to excise it.

”Maybe he should.” Silas is no font of confidence, and for his part, Nate had certainly tried to bolster his lacking self esteem (no matter how he is ruining all that work in one decisive blow). ”It would hardly be sleeping around on me.” Both wolf and man are rankled at the very idea, but for sheer stubbornness and an unwillingness to be disproven in front of Mattie, Nathan does not admit as much – he discards the emotion as simple territoriality. Crossing the room, the werewolf withdraws a cigarette from the pocket of a discarded jacket, and the atmosphere he affects while lighting it is one of cold disinterest.

”Tell me,” he begins conversationally, though he gestures at Mattie with his cigarette accusingly. ”Did we ever seem like the committed type? Did I?” Rhetorical questions serve as an easy way to reassure himself of his rightness; Nathan will not be blamed. The parameters of their first meeting are proof enough of his point. ”Is – looking for a beating a sign of a healthy relationship? Do I seem like the sort of guy who can fix that?”

The last is honest, the werewolf’s voice rising in volume and pitch as a sliver of honest emotion slips through – an admission of his own self-doubt and failings. Whatever he feels for Silas is tempered by the knowledge that Nathan cannot make him better; that he is not, and will never be, the pillar of support the doctor needs.

And maybe he laments that – but it is still a harsh truth.

[Matthias Walker]

It should make it easier that Nate keeps the distance between them, but the evasiveness is infuriating instead. Matthias is too accustomed to bleeding out anger the same way Silas tried last night, with anonymous bar fights and the lingering soreness of bruises and raw knuckles: This is a colder fury that trembles like ice down his spine at the lack of familiarity, and the confusion only coils into the pit of his stomach and morphs into added fuel. Blue eyes narrow at the werewolf, and Mattie snorts, does not justify him with an answer, resentful: Now he cares, now he worries because Silas might have gotten a few cuts and bruises?

Like Matthias would’ve let Silas get hurt.

Like Mattie would’ve ever let him go alone hurting like that.

There’s a moment of disconnect, of surprise, where his gaze shutters into confusion a moment before settling back into safely closed-off, jaw clenched and his heartbeat still loud in his own ears. The look Matthias levels at Nate is calmer, still sharp and frayed at the edges, and he makes no move towards or away from the other man, wrinkles his nose pointedly at the waft of cigarette smoke Nate sends his way; it’s not a smell that bothers him but the immaturity is therapeutic in its own right, a sulky rebellion in miniature.

“Did you even ask him what he wanted,” he says, low and caught between anger and honest exhaustion because whether or not the nonchalance is an act doesn’t matter; Mattie’s too fond of Silas to let him be so easily dismissed. “Are you just fucking blind or is it just a game—worth fucking but not worth trying?” Trying or loving; the beginnings of a confession turned accusation (he loves you) burn to dust in the back of his throat and Matthias swallows the dryness: This is a confession he’s too invested in to hand over so easily, the weight of Silas’s trust and the responsibility settling tight against his lungs.

If Silas even knew he was here—

He’d left a couple aspirin and a glass of water on the nightstand for Silas, and a casual lie scribbled on a neat little sticky-note, signed with a joke and his initials, and Mattie still can’t shake the prickling guilt of betrayal.

The exhale scrapes rough at his throat on the way out and Matthias glares mutinously at the abandoned cup of coffee. Goddamn Silas and his affections, the stupidly endearing vulnerability, the generosity, fucking all of it. Mattie’s never asked for this uncertainty or the affection, and maybe life hadn’t been great on the open road all the time with fresh blood on his hands every few days, but it was better than this, strung tight and itching for something concrete.

Very levelly, though, he lifts his gaze back to Nate, says deliberately, “Last night he was so goddamn drunk that he walked out in the middle of the road and almost didn’t fucking notice in time. So no, that’s not healthy,” sort of like everything else about the entire situation, “but at least I gave enough of a shit to be there to get him back home. What’s your excuse—didn’t notice something was wrong when he left? Too much paperwork? God, it’s not like he thinks you’re a perfect fairytale prince come to sweep him off his feet,” hopefully, in retrospect Matthias isn’t actually sure exactly to what extent Silas’s willful blindness to flaws goes, but he’s not going to retract anything he says right now, “But you could fucking try to fix it.”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Pacing the room, the act of tending his cigarette, they are all glaring insights into the nervousness that sets Nathan so on edge and has his wolf primed for a fight. It is not solely in response to the obvious, to the twisted web of mistakes and emotions he has woven around Silas, but with Matthias presiding as judge it is these actions he finds on trial. The thought of justifying himself burns bitterly in the back of his mind. The more Mattie pushes, the more he questions and doubts and threatens, the more Nathan withdraws; though that fire is tempered and wrestled into tameness it still burns in bright rebellion.

He had warned Silas, all those weeks ago. Nathan bites. It is not always intentional and it is not always hard, but there is no escaping his ability to turn the sweetest moment sour. Silas had fought his way close – too close – and found himself burned. Where Nathan’s moment of weakness has the potential for recovery, reconciliation is the furthest thing from his mind with Matthias calling him out.

For a man who prides himself on logic and reason, he certainly sides with the knee-jerk reaction of defensive anger when his flaws are put on display.

”Of course it’s a game.” The statement is matter-of-fact, as though there could be no other possibility. ”You win, or you lose, and not everything works out.” Nathan prefers winning, and that often means allowing himself to be blind to the mess he’s made – and getting out before the advent of sight threatens to undermine him. Silas had been – is – a rare exception to his usual method of handling romantic prospects. ”And you don’t know me well enough if you think I didn’t try. Sometimes it isn’t enough.” Whether or not Nate is speaking for Mattie or to convince himself is unclear. For the duration of his haphazard testimony, the werewolf does not meet the hunter’s gaze; he turns to stalk back to the kitchen, clutching his cigarette like a lifeline.

This is wrong. He is wrong, and he would rather burn the building down to hide his own failures than admit to them. Had secrets remained secret, ignored and avoided and hidden from the light, the façade of their relationship may have yet stood even as the wood rotted beneath it – but there is too much at stake. The turning tide in Boston is a threat that Nathan is, for once, ill-equipped to deal with. Cutting Silas loose may have seemed a sound option even in the best of times, but with the wolves at Nathan’s heels and his own twisted sort of love lurking as invisible threats, he has convinced himself his back is to the wall. Everything he does is for the best; surely Matthias can understand.

”If you care so much,” he says after a moment, slowly and deliberately, eyes burning holes into the laminate beneath his hand. ”You can have him.” Nate’s words are dark, but there is a flatness to them, a level of detachment that is unexpected. One palm spreads flat on the countertop, the fingers of his opposite hand briefly pressed to the bridge of his nose; tendrils of smoke curl from the cigarette still burning there, half-forgotten. ”You were the one there for him, right?” Nathan’s gaze flickers upwards, an unhinged thing, and pins Matthias beneath it. ”I knew. I knew and I sat at home, and I drank, and I went to bed and you were there. Are you telling me you think he deserves that?”

Straightening, Nathan inhales a calming breath and drains the last of his cigarette through its filter before snuffing it out in an ashtray. There is something brittle and broken inside him, some nameless fear he cannot voice or dare regard, but all he offers the other man is a dismissive and leisurely wave of his hand. ”So go to him. Get out. Be there.” If Silas’ response to Nate’s mistakes is to play in traffic, it is for the surgeon’s own sake that the werewolf should steer clear. ”Tell him what a monster I am, if it makes him feel better. But don’t let me break his heart a second time.”

[Matthias Walker]

The bluntness, the werewolf’s easy dismissal, isn’t necessarily a surprise, but the callousness of it still has Matthias going still, the old anger rising in his chest again. It’s one thing for a relationship to just not work out—he gets it, really. There’ve been ex-girlfriends, and in the wake of every broken relationship there’s always suffering, but he just—isn’t this just Nate not being able to keep it in his pants? (If it makes it worse that Nate can’t even look him in the eye, well, Matthias isn’t going to say so, but the avoidance, the way the other man keeps pacing away from him, reeks of guilt and knowledge of his mistakes.) He swallows, eyes dark, but he follows, stubborn pride preventing him from stepping away from a problem that isn’t even his to fix.

“He doesn’t want me.” Simple, straightforward, because drawing it out or going in circles around it is only going to hurt more, and Mattie doesn’t need that kind of self-inflicted clinginess when it’s so much easier to just settle in the realm of anger, eyes steady on Nate. It doesn’t matter that the werewolf thinks he can just hand Silas off like a present, wrapped in a tie and reeking of bourbon, doesn’t matter what he thinks Silas deserves, because in the end it’s not Matthias that Silas is hung up over. Mattie resents being a rebound, a second choice because the first one didn’t work out. The hunter leans on the counter, the edge digging into his stomach, repeats, “You know he doesn’t want me.”

And yeah, it stings, but he’s not cruel enough to force it.

That doesn’t mean it hasn’t occurred to him, what Nate is suggesting. To go back to Silas, pick up the pieces, wait for him. Hold him together, scrape him off the ground: Blame Nate, tell him he deserves better, whatever it takes—but his pride still burns too bright for that, and that isn’t the kind of shit you say to someone still in love.

He’s too deep into this to walk out, may very well be the only thing between Silas and a real car accident, a mugging in the alley, alcohol poisoning, if Nate isn’t even bothering to step in anymore. That doesn’t stop him from resenting the hell out of it, though, the bitter resignation to being designated the friend never good enough to fill the gaps left by someone else sinking heavy in his stomach, and God, maybe getting out would be better. Boston can become one more stop on the way to a world without borders; he doesn’t need a home base for a job that by definition takes him cross-country every few days. Still. Silas. The responsibilities and duties that come with even just friendship.

He’s trying not to be a massive douche, but it’s fucking work.

“I’m going,” he says, swallowing, trying to piece together what Silas wants and what Silas deserves into some kind of patchwork thing that can actually stay together. “But I’m not fucking telling him anything, so just—you know I’m not a goddamn therapist and you know he’s not going to just let go, so do something.”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Admitting his own incapability to be what Silas needs is far easier than acknowledging his own blame; it slips out in snippets, in evasive half-truths, and paints a twisted Rorschach for Matthias to interpret. Nathan finds it simpler to play the monster. That his infidelities may have been disguised, worked through, or in any way dealt with is irrelevant; it is the fact that Silas had a problem that he chooses to find fault in, bristling defensively at Matthias’ demand for answers and lashing out in response. There is nothing safe in how hung up Silas is over him. Nate should never have allowed the lines of their relationship to become so blurred, but in the end, he feels justified in having given warning.

”Give him time.” Nate shrugs, shoving himself away from both the counter and Matthias as the hunter continues to hound him. The yielding body language is entirely human, dismissive and disengaging, though the wolf is a fiery tempest in his chest that demands recompense. ”He’ll figure it out.” Lingering bitterness is tempered by despondent certainty, by a hollow acceptance, and the man rolls his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. Blue eyes flicker upwards to hold Mattie’s stare, Nate’s expression unreadable. ”You’re what he deserves.” All the things Nate can’t – won’t – be.

The animal fights him, drives him to keep a clutching death-grip on things it perceives as his, but the man has always been in control. Even now, with Boston spiraling out of his hands; even with Silas on the line.

”Boston is changing,” Nate offers finally, shrugging into his suit jacket without looking up. ”I can’t guarantee your safety.” It is not a threat, or at least not meant to be one – it is an honest representation of the shift in power occurring around him and beneath him, and a blunt truth for Matthias. Whether or not the hunter chooses to believe him is, ultimately, irrelevant. ”You might want to lie low for a few weeks. Or get out of town.” A shrug; soon, he thinks, none of this will be his concern. Why he should even grant Mattie this knowledge now, when the kid has only come here to fight him, the man isn’t sure – but some remnant of obligation and friendship tugs at him, and he relinquishes the information for Mattie to take or leave.

Nathan makes for the front door, unlatching it and holding it open for the younger man, all of the morning’s energy wiped out of him and replaced with a tiredness rarely seen. ”I am doing something.” The entire city is doing something. The werewolf’s hand may have been forced long before this fuck-up came to light, but the coincidental timing has proven to be providence. A deceptively steady blue-eyed gaze settles hollowly on Mattie’s face, and Nate leans up against the open door to see the man out. There will be no heart-wrenching breakdown, no earnest confession. This is not a movie, and Nathan is no hero.

”Goodbye, Mattie.”