Tad Jones, PhD.

Cahill hadn’t washed his clothes in two weeks. Normally, he’d have made things work if he needed to or didn’t have enough time to wash clothes. As busy as work and life had become over the last few weeks, it wasn’t necessarily a time issue that stopped him from cleaning as much as it was the fact that their washing machine had broken in the midst of all the other hell that was currently happening. Even with Jude gone now, Cahill hadn’t fully recovered. On top of the fact that the entire town now smelled like dead bodies. He’d been in better moods.

Now, with no clean clothes left and the ones that were dirty at the point of not being able to pass for everyday wear anymore, he needed to take care of it. The better part of the morning had been spent trying to fix the washing machine before he gave into the fact that it was beyond his technical skill, which meant spending another hour or so on the phone to try and get a repair man out. Which wasn’t going to happen until the end of the week, at the earliest. If Noah hadn’t been at school and Eliza hadn’t been at work, he probably would’ve just called them both to come and help him fix it on their own, despite lacking all of the necessary parts.

Instead, he had sent Tad a message and was throwing the majority of his clothes in a duffel. It hadn’t really occurred to him that he should have asked more thoroughly before heading over to Tad’s house with a bag full of dirty laundry, but he thought it was fairly apparent when he’d asked if there was a working washing machine and got confirmation that there was. With Dave comfortably nestled into his little pocket and close to Cahill, he was heading out the door and getting on his bike.

It wasn’t until he was parking in front of Tad’s that he was second guessing the choice to not clarify what he wanted. Especially given the fact that he’d never been to Tad’s before and the first time he was showing up on his doorstep he was doing it just because he needed to wash clothes. But he didn’t have the keys to Eliza’s place on hand and he didn’t feel like going to the laundromat, so he was getting off the bike and heading up to the door, ringing the bell once and then taking a step back.

The sound of the bike’s engine approaching the house warned him ahead of time that something was coming, and, until the guy actually came close enough that Tad could see him, he’d been slightly worried it was some warden or a teenager who was messing around and probably going to die. Needless to say, he breathed easier when it was his mechanic friend who showed up! 

Tad had been prepared for something at his messages, but not him coming onto the porch with a puffy bag slung over his shoulder. “Cahill? What can I do for you?” 

Was this normal for people? Probably not. But he was still grinning and opening the door wider, beckoning the large man inside. Having actual people come into a space that only hosted himself and his frogs was strange, but the slight oddness was more than made up for with how glad he was to see the other. They’d only met once before, but here he was, clasping his gloved hands together and trying not to look overly pleased. 

When it came to telling people that you were a werewolf, there were varying degrees of reactions. Panic was a big one. Anger was likely second. Awe and a morbid sense of curiosity fell somewhere in the middle. Acceptance was rare. Even with the level of supernatural activity in Ashkent, it wasn’t often that someone heard ‘werewolf’ and thought anything other than giant killing machine. Expressing that he was a werewolf was dangerous, especially when he was vulnerable and completely at someone else’s mercy.

From everything he had seen from Tad thus far, he didn’t think it was that big of a risk. And instead of shove Cahill’s unmoving, large body off of him and run away, he was asking a question instead. Are you going to be safe? It made Cahill smile a bit, and the easy answer would have been, of course. But the more detailed one meant maybe. Usually. It’s not me I’m worried about. It was never himself that he worried about. Shifting during the full moon was easier than it was any other time; a compulsion that was nearly unavoidable. But the hunger that came with it? That could be controlled, especially after having his whole life point towards the practice necessary to keep it under control.

But others? The younger wolves and those bitten? The didn’t have the same level of control, and it was them that he worried about when the full moon rolled around. He worried about Noah. Gabe, who still occupied the loft in his shop and still has little to no idea how to handle anything about his new life. There were a lot of reasons that the full moon and safe did not belong in the same sentence. “I’ll be alright,” he finally said, dismissing the concern that hovered over him constantly.

Instead, he was focusing on the fact that he could feel his hands. And the fact that, despite being able to feel them, he refused to move, because Tad started to scratch at his scalp in a way that made him close his eyes for a second in contentedness. He probably should’ve been a lot less willing to sit on the sidewalk and enjoy the fact that he couldn’t move, but he wasn’t about to argue with what his body apparently wanted, which was a head massage. “You’re like the Robin Hood for frogs, then.” If he was allowed to hoard all the cats in Ashkent, he wasn’t going to begrudge someone for keeping all the frogs. Someone had to do it, after all.

“Not really. But I’ve been doing it for years. But I would think taking care of frogs the right way was hard, so it’s pretty relative.” He huffed, a slightly better laugh than before, and smiled. Apparently he could also feel his face again, rather than just having a bunch of loose muscles that refused to show expression. “Don’t worry. It’s my first time. You’re still special.”

“That was a long pause.” Of course, he couldn’t know exactly what was making Cahill hesitate, but he got the feeling it was more than the things he worried about on his nighttime hikes. 

There was always an element of danger in being a nonhuman, especially one that interacted heavily with the outside world (which was just about every nonhuman out there). He was at risk every time he walked through the forest at night and slept in the creek. It wasn’t absolutely necessary, but when he was tired of his bathtub, he’d put himself at the mercy of the forest, and he never let himself stop being aware. There was also the ever-present worry that he’d lose a toe or eye (or his skin, or his life) to anyone who realized that Naiad parts sold for top dollar in the black market. And, worst of all, was the constant threat of Wardens.

He couldn’t know what the other experienced, if he felt hunted and watched and unsafe constantly, or if it was different because he- presumably- had a pack of friends to watch his back. But being a big, scary werewolf probably put a target on his back. Was there a non-creepy way to say ‘I hope you don’t turn up dead in the woods in a few days?’ Probably not, so he stuck with shooting a concerned glance at the head in his lap.

But he couldn’t maintain it for long, because the quip about being Robin Hood sent him into a cackling fit, his hand flying up to cover his face before it warped into the fourth dimension. 

“That’s a new one,” he said, clearing his throat and fighting back a force of giggles. Right. Focus. 

“Do you have a shop in town, or are you more of a freelance bike builder?” Only after he spoke did he realize that he was asking just the sort of question he’d been hoping to avoid. “Oh! You don’t need to answer that if it was too much or something. I don’t want you to be worried I’ll turn up at your workspace and... I don’t know. Find you. Pet your cats.”