Born Wolf

Kay blinked once, then twice, then three times and he'd been to a ridiculous amount of parties in his thirty years of life now. There was always a guy with a guitar at those parties, hell, that's practically how they'd met and he'd let said guy with a guitar fuck him in the bathroom. Crashing on couches in his early twenties, he'd even slept with a decent amount of those guys, the musicians trying to make a name for themselves by doing open mic night at bars. The thing was, none of them had ever played something for him beyond him maybe requesting a particular cover. He's a writer, he's a music guy himself, what Dante is proposing tics a lot of boxes, it's some Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist coming of age movie stuff. They can come of age at like thirty, they can come together except not like that....Except exactly like that later- "Yes. Yes I can even maintain eye contact."

"Alright, yeah, um... Sit... Yeah, take a seat, and I'll take a seat, and then we'll both be uh... Sitting." Fuck that sounded dumb, anyways; Dante took a seat as he perched himself on the surface of one of the picnic tables as cleared his throat. He strummed a preparatory few strings as his calloused fingers moved over the familiar chords. It was still in tune, but he was kind of just killing time before it was going to be too apparent that he was uncharacteristically nervous.

There's a lot he could say to that. Like the fact that Anders had totally fucking bodied that guy. Or that he was wondering why the one guy knew how to play the spoons, was that some kind of lost art? But anything he could say sort of just goes to the wayside the moment Dante's hand runs through cropped hair. It was definitely done in a moment of crisis, but it was kind of a clean slate. The last time he'd shaved it had been after he'd left home nearly a decade ago. "Less to pull." Is what he says instead, aiming for playfully disappointed. Because it totally meant more choking was on the table, probably. He wasn't quite sure where they stood at the moment as far as that, he'd touched what had to be a soft spot. Dante was allowed to have them, hell he had plenty of his own. But he'd still called and Kay thinks that was what mattered. "And I like watching you play, you're great." That's somewhat sheepish because yeah, he could go on, he could gush about it. "Even accompanied by the spoons."

"Well, nothing's perfect." It was a give-and-take, but this suited Kay, at least for now. Maybe Dante would bleach his hair again so they could be one of those gay couples that looked identical. The shorts were already rubbing off on Kay. "Can I uh-" Dante held up his guitar, "can I play you something?" It was a lame offer, but it was a quintessential white boy with guitar behavior to want to serenade your boyfriend. Boyfriend. That was still a word that Dante was wrapping his head around because he'd never really been that to someone in a way that was significant. Nothing that lasted, but here they were; Dante had really been in Rome for a fucking year now. His dad had really been dead for a year. The two of them had yet to really talk about it, Kay didn't ask, and Dante didn't like the subject. "Just me, staring and singing at you for an uncomfortable three minutes?"

Connor had his own reason for having left that everyone in the pack definitely knew about. His mother's handless body was enough of an explanation for him to want to run. It wasn't as if he had thought that the pack would've killed him on the spot. No, it was the mere fact that he had done it that bothered him. Running away had seemed like the most logical thing to do in his mind at that age. He'd been...so young. Younger than Dante was saying he was when he left. "Guess we should stick together then, huh?" It was phrased jokingly, but really it was the truth. He didn't have anyone from his past in his life that didn't look at him like he was a monster outside of the two cousins he'd run into here. Having Dante around probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. "Me? Alpha? Yeah, right. I don't know any of these people and I definitely wouldn't tell them to follow me," he stated as he stood up. "But I'll be fighting. I assume you won't be. I think a stiff wind would knock you the fuck out, string bean."

"I don't have any better plans." The joke returned as he kicked at the other lightly, Dante had spent a long time running away from the Tana; obviously Connor had as well, Anders had been out looking for himself for so long that he'd forgotten why he left in the first place. Maybe this place, this shitty little wolf town with all these crazies was exactly where the three of them were meant to end up. "Hey- hey, easy: no need to be fucking rude, but uh, yeah. Fuck that. I hate fighting, better to let knuckleheads like you and Anders beat your skulls together." Dante laid back and rapped his knuckles against his temples, "Because we all know there's not much up there anyways."

He'd spent his life being the second-born son, he wasn't good enough for their dad, he wasn't strong in the same way as Anders was, and from the time he'd come to Rome the number of conversations he had with people where his brother wasn't brought up could be counted on one hand. He just always felt like a consolation prize and he couldn't even blame Anders for it. "I'm going to be thirty in a month, you don't have to worry about getting me in trouble. There's more to me than my brother." Dante's clothes were already on as Kay was babbling behind him about everything that he should probably not be saying at this moment. "You're right, I didn't." He was angry and reasonably so but he felt bad as soon as the words left his lips. There was a beat where he lingered in the doorway and pressed his forehead there for a second, idly beating his head against the frame. This was what happened when you stuck your dick into an actual hornet's nest, getting stung was inevitable. Dante sighed, guilt obvious on his face but as easygoing as he was he didn't want to let it slide, regardless of Kay's word vomit. "Whatever man, I'll call you, alright?" Dante didn't wait for the dhampir to answer before he took off.

He'd been preparing for the worst, for Dante to grab his clothes off the floor, maybe eat a peanut butter sandwich, and then leave. He's left blinking, taking another long drag of his cigarette before he's rolling to set it on the ashtray on the nightstand. And then he's rolling back over and practically resting a cheek to the wolf's shoulder and taking a deep breath. "Anders isn't going to like, kick my ass for not being a wolf, right?" It's rhetorical, Anders had already kind of confronted him about this whole thing. If he wanted to kick his ass, he had no doubt in his mind that he'd have done so already. "Like I've never quite been vampire enough for vampires but I've always been too vampire for wolves." Or at least that was what his mom had always told him, that they wouldn't care, vampire fangs were vampire fangs.

Yeah, yeah, misfit this, never felt like he belonged that, whatever because here Dante was giving his best supportive boyfriend, and there Kay was once again talking about another guy. "Are we ever going to have a conversation where you don't bring my brother up?" It's not playful; it's pointed because they're lying there with their dicks out, and once again, Kay is talking about Anders. He moved to get up, afterglow officially ruined as he got out of the bed and started to reach for his clothes again.

There's a protest about how he had to research all of this somehow combined with the fact that whole "A/B/O" thing was ridiculously popular thanks to....Was it Supernatural? Some show like that. But he instead sighs and shakes his head. It hadn't been an entirely fruitless endeavor, Dante had helped in his own kind of way. Raised a lot more questions than gave answers, but at the mention of supernatural STDs, Matteo thought this was a nice stopper to the conversation. "You know what, thanks for the pep talk." Clapping the musician on the shoulder, he just hoped he forgot about this by the time Thursday rolled around and he got to see his All Four's set without being reminded of the pop bottle suggestion.

Matteo was a good kid and fucking with him was too much fun, most of his advice was pretty solid: stretch, use protection, be prepared, just with a lot of comedic twists. "Yeah man, anytime." Dante grinned before he moved to pick up his guitar again so he could keep busking. Those milk bones didn't pay for themselves. "Maybe pickup a donut to sit on in case you get blown out again, that's what some of the guys in the Tana used to swear by." Poor betas. "See you at Wolfchella."

Anders looked relieved that Dante thought it was a good idea; he wasn't sure how long it would last, but he'd make something out of it, at least. "I have a link," he had written it down somewhere. He remembered the sigh he'd gotten when he'd told the twink at the store he was going to write down the exact url. "I'll send it to you. When I find it at home." It was there by the laptop, he knew it was. Anders huffed out a laugh, thinking about Nicolas for a moment, "I said I'd give it a try. But who knows what the fuck will happen." Everyone had watched a volatile win last time, Anders didn't want that to happen to him, but a good fight was a good fight. "If I can't go home yet, then maybe I'll stick it out here. I'd be a good one." Anders would be good up until he forgot a few names here and there. Or a meeting with the Senate. A problem for another time.

"Did you write it down somewhere?" Dante asked, knowing Anders he'd probably have left it somewhere by his computer. He'd come a long way, though; Dante was impressed, who said you couldn't teach an old bottom new tricks. "Just don't go getting your heart ripped out; I heard Connor is going to be fighting, too." Dante was really hoping that old Coop was going to beat Anders' ass but that was just typical little brother behaviour. He'd be fine with Anders losing as long as he lost to someone from inside the family.

"Yeah." To both of those things but not really because he's putting off the 'you are out of a job bozo' breakdown for sometime in the next couple of days. "The damn fountain is something called a Keres. Apparently we, or at least I seemed to have pissed it off. Cloe and I appeased it or whatever." Rolling over enough to get at his pack of cigarettes and his lighter off the nightstand. "That's crisis number one averted, at least I think so." He's losing a little bit of hope every day, he's still disassociating so hard he's winding up in places he doesn't remember going, but still! There's so much he wants to say but he lights the end of his cigarette, takes a long, slow drag before holding it out to Dante. Turning his head away to exhale smoke, he tries to sort through everything he wants to say, how to say it. "This is a lot for me." It's less to the wolf and more just a thought out loud. Kay thinks it's the first time he's really pumped the brakes in a long time. "I'm already a lot, I get that, I'll never not get that. But this is going to be worse and I don't want you to have to see...." It's entering rambling territory so he pauses to take a breath. Because it's about more than that. "I want this." He says with finality, exasperated with himself even as he gestures between the two of them. "But I am a mess and I can clean up time and time again but that's the thing. It's again and again." And being with him meant dealing with it again and again.

"Yeah but I mean... I kind of get a say in it all, don't I?" Dante didn't really know how the whole sobriety thing worked, he'd heard that people going through recovery could either get clean, or they could be in a relationship. They were two different things and one didn't bode well for the other, but Dante had already tried to keep away from Kay and he'd failed miserably. "Don't I get to say when I've had enough?" It's not at all pointed, the lycan was characteristically unserious, everything seemed to more or less roll off of him because the alternative was just too much of a drag. Maybe that all this meant he was just enabling the other to be as chaotic and unbound as he wanted without ever really holding Kay to any sort of consequence. What was he supposed to do? Dante wasn't the dhampir's keeper. "It's cool... You know, do what you have to do. This is all unchartered territory for me." Dante hadn't ever fucked the same person for longer than two weeks so if he was supposed to draw a hard line in the sand and stand on the other side of it he just wasn't going to.

Anders knew his gift had hit the mark. He did so well. Every year. It would help if he remembered what he'd gotten Dante every year, but it had been a while since he'd seen his little brother for Christmas. "This one has magic," he reminded him, like that wasn't obvious. Either way, he appreciated the thought behind the other's gift, tilting his head, "Kind of you, little brother. I'm going on the facebook, making a page for my carvings. Winter has less building contracts, so I figured I could do something with everything I make." He forgot the facebook page was Dante's idea, but he was excited nonetheless.

It was a thoughtful trinket, but a predictable one, obviously Dante put it on immediately because what else was he supposed to do with it. Maybe he'd give one of his spares to Connor, though Dante wasn't sure they'd fit. "Nice, that's a good idea." It had been Dante's idea, but it was putting Anders' talents to better use than the inevitable day he forgot to put a hard hat on and fell off of scaffolding. "Let me know when your page goes up and I'll share it." Not to brag but the lycan had a cult following of white girls who were obsessed with his music. "You throwing in for alpha?"

It's like the moment Dante's out of and off of him, when he's left staring up at the ceiling with a dull throb in the side of his neck. Among other places. The stickiness is already getting to him. "First off, I think Cloe and I figured out the fountain thing. Maybe." Think was the really the key word, he had no idea but maybe for the moment he's fine, bought some more time. Sitting up on his elbows, he takes a slow breath and no amount of afterglow from 'thank god we're alive sex' was going to make this part easy. "And I had to put the gun and the badge on the desk until I clean up. It's not like I haven't done it before it's just...." His lips purse it's just that they both know he's obviously hasn't been sober now. Which means it's apparent he's already fallen off the wagon before, he's putting it out there. "It's not pretty."

"There's a fountain thing?" Kay had been pretty off the wall for the last few months, he talked a whole lot of nonsense, but Dante generally ignored it and stuck his dick in the crazy anyways. "Damn, so you're what, unemployed now? That's wild." Dante's brows raised at the other's admission, Kay was clearly bothered so the lycan wouldn't laugh it off; he'd obviously known since they got together that Kay was anything but straight and narrow. Admittedly, that was one of the things that Dante liked about him; he was kind of damaged, and they both were. "Being a marshal sounds lame anyway; you can get a job anywhere. Fuck them."

A pop bottle. A pop bottle? Matteo couldn't think on that one too hard because he was afraid he was going to start thinking of logistics. "There any other weird supernatural sex stuff I should be watching out for?" The sigh of that leaves him is the sound of defeat, it's acceptance that things could always get weirder. "Like you're not gonna tell me Wattpad had it right the whole time, right?" There's the tiniest tinge of hope to his voice because surely things couldn't get that weird.

"I've never been on Wattpad, but you seem like someone who spends much of their time there." Dante ribbed, "There's probably much you should watch out for. Careful around demons, some of them will suck the soul right out of you." Dante made a lewd gesture with his hand to his mouth as he poked the corner of his cheek with his tongue. This poor baby lycan had no idea what he was doing around here, and it'd be adorable if it wasn't so terrifying. "There's also all kinds of supernatural STDs, I knew this one guy who's butthole closed up and he had to get a permanent colostomy bag."

"Right. After." Dante breathed as he managed out of Kay and lay next to him, the lycan was already fumbling around for a smoke as he put it to his lips and started lighting it. Playfully basking in the afterglow, he waited to hear what Kay had to say. Their lives had gotten pretty messy, well Kay's life was messy, Dante's life had stayed pretty unchanged. Which was a mess for him; he'd have been lying if he said he didn't still have that itch to just pack up and leave, take some midnight train going anywhere. It's like they always said, some would win, some would lose, and some were born to sing the blues. "So what's up?"