Seasoned Beginner

        “— yeah.” She huffed between motions. Her hands always returned to their resting position inches from her face, acting as a barrier. Stray strands of hair were ignored as she focused on the task at hand. “So your brothers took the blessing and you didn’t? Why?” When she first learned of Myles’ past, she truly thought he was lying just to get a rise out of her. That never went well. It was left at the bare minimum of details for a while, but she was curious. So, she bit. “You just… opted out.” And that made absolutely no sense to her. She just didn’t get it. Hunting? Her whole life; she couldn’t imagine it a smidge differently.

The question caught him off guard as he tried to get back into proper stance. He hadn’t really had to discuss his choice with another hunter before. Not one that wasn’t already family. Myles struggled to find words that wouldn’t cause some kind of argument. A discussion was fine, he could do that. In fact, he kind of wanted one. It’d been years and he hadn’t ever really gotten into it with anyone. “I’d like to think maybe I’d have reconsidered if the environment was different.” Shifting his feet, he tried to mimic her stance, tried to think of himself as lighter. “I think my family had good intentions, but something got twisted along the way.” He’d like to think at one point the Hart’s hadn’t been so black and white when it came to the supernatural, there’d once been gray area. At least for the wolves, maybe there’d been a time when they hadn’t been spoken about with such obvious disdain. Hell, maybe he could hold onto hope that things were different at home right that moment.

“Um…” Shifting his weight and lowering his arms a bit, Myles readied himself for another round. “What about you? Why’d you take it?”

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Vasa rose an eyebrow at Myles, trying not to laugh at the look on the other male’s face. The Rhodes was currently sitting on the bar counter of the small kitchen, huffing out a laugh before he looked at Isadora, “Yeah, she likes to cuddle. We can all share my bed if you need someone to hold you, Myles.” He looked back at the other, a smirk on his face since he clearly couldn’t help himself at this point. “You guys need anything? I don’t really have a lot of food. But there’s a pizza place that delivers.”

@isxdcrx​

While she’d almost fully expected Vasa to have already pieced together some near basic reasoning behind why they might have known each other, the jarring shock as he so carelessly spoke of something that may or may not have happened in the first place caused her to splutter a little on the blood bag she’d emptied into the mug in her hand. “I — that’s..” She cleared her throat, looking between them both before she settled a near guilt ridden look on Myles, “We never..— Vee’s been helping with.. you know.” And truthfully, it’d been one of the only reasons she’d agreed to seeing him in the first place, Vasa promised to help, and she’d simply already been here when Myles suggested it. “He’s right you know, he skips right over buy essential food items for bags of jumbo marshmallows and trust me, it’s really not pretty.”

Amused, Myles couldn’t help but smile a bit at Isadora being caught off guard. It was something he didn’t expect from her, he’d only ever seen her as kind and collected, even whilst distressed. Yes, this was going to work out just fine. It would seem they kind of shared the same kind of relationship with the hunter and that comforted him somehow, that they at least seemed on even footing. “Jumbo marshmallows?” He raised his brows at Vasa and broke into a soft grin. “Is that what your diet consists of then? Jumbo marshmallows and tequila?” He could definitely afford to eat as much junk as he wanted, the way he must burn calories off in the ring. His attention shifted to Isadora but he leaned back in his chair and brandished a hand in the hunter’s direction. “I know him because I watched him fight one time and then he decided to either get me in the ring or get me really drunk.”

“Well, I had to be if I wanted the job,” Naomi shrugged. “And I wanted the job.” God how she had wanted it. To have given up after everything she went through to get there would have been criminal in Naomi’s mind. Mallory was someone she wanted to learn from, and whether she had fangs or fins didn’t change that. Naomi had been–and still was–desperate to make something of herself, to go further than her family ever had or thought she would. Where else would she have gotten that type of opportunity?

“I guess it all depends what you learn and who from,” she offered up, understanding what he meant. Naomi had been given free rein to research and ask questions. And multiple species worked at BITE. Whereas if she was understanding what she was reading between the lines, Myles’ education about the supernatural had been a lot less balanced.

“Yeah. I guess so.” He thought about it every so often. How different things could have been had he headed to New York knowing nothing. Or knowing absolutely everything from a different perspective. Another state, another house, a family with a different profession. Myles wasn’t really a ‘what if’ kind of guy, he took things as they came and tried his best to just kind of deal with them. But those first few months away from home often had him lying awake and wondering. “I’d like to think things are better now. I have better people to learn from.” He flashed a soft smile in her direction before ducking his head to scratch the back of his neck, feeling a bit sheepish.

Vasa shook his head, lifting another shot, “Manuia, Myles.” The Samoan language flowed off his tongue much easier than English ever had, and the more he drank, the more difficult he found pronouncing all the words of the latter language correctly. “What do I do for cash…well, I work here. As a bouncer. People don’t really fuck with you when you’re the one leading the security detail. What’s the phrase? Head bitch in charge. Yep.” Vee smiled a little at Myles, genuinely interested in every word the other male had to say, “Are you New York’s most sober twenty two year old? We all have our quirks, Myles. So maybe we should find a place with a dancefloor instead of a fighting ring.”

“I don’t do the kind of dancing around here. Probably because I’m definitely the soberest twenty-two year old in New York.” The idea was actually bizarre to imagine. Considering Myles knew he was mostly limbs, he didn’t think he was particularly cut out for….Whatever dancing clubs held. He’d been to many a school dance and had stuck against the wall, baffled by the whole event. However, being the youngest of four boys, he was the one paired off as ‘the girl’ when it came to teaching each other to slow dance for said affair. Just because he could, didn’t mean he particularly enjoyed it. Being in such close proximity was a necessity for such a thing and that was still uncomfortable. Choosing not to get into it, he nodded along to indicate he was paying attention. And then proceeded to dismiss a lot of what was said to focus on that word. “What language was that?” His curiosity was piqued, head tilted just a little.

“Well, once I passed the hiring process and had accepted the job…they told me.” Naomi could still remember the thrill of being told she had been chosen for the position. She had had tingles from head to toe. “And then, well they told me there was more I needed to know and sat me down and…told me.” She could still remember that too. The shock. The disbelief. Different employees of the various species had been brought in to show her. “It led to a lot of homework for me,” she laughed ruefully. “I wanted to know everything and they needed me to.” 

“And you were okay with it?” Brows raised, Myles tried to imagine it, being told in recent years. Naomi had obviously taken it all in stride, had made a point to educate herself and just roll with things. That’s what he liked about her in general, that she was used to all this weirdness, accepted it was just part of life. “I grew up knowing about all this.” His free hand gestured vaguely about the room. “To be cautious about all of it. Being here, has me unlearning all of that. Kind of.” Not every werewolf was out to kill someone, sometimes they were really just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ultimately they were all still people, just leading different kind of lives and that’d been hard for his father to grasp.

“You don’t–” Naomi shook her head, and gave Myles a gentle smile. “I’m sure that would be nice.” She didn’t want him to think she was pressuring him for information, or judging him for not going home. It was up to him and no one else. Naomi knew people who had left toxic relationships with their families. It was none of her business how they decided to deal or cope with it. 

She laughed a little at his hesitation. At this point, it was just as much of her normal if not more so as spending time with humans. Strange, but true. “I mean, I spend most of my time at work, and I make friends so…yeah?” she shrugged a little helplessly, not exactly knowing what answer he wanted. “I’m kind of a workaholic,” she admitted. As if Myles didn’t already know that about her. It wasn’t something Naomi exactly hid. “I don’t…I don’t really think about it, honestly. Too much.” 

“How did you find out?” Myles rested a cheek against his right hand, content to just sit and listen to her talk. He imagined that Naomi had led a relatively normal life before taking on the job as Mallory Bordeaux’s assistant. She’d been thrown into all of this, he imagined she had a lot of stories to tell. “About Mallory, I mean.” The CEO, like all of the originals came across as some kind of mysterious entity. She’d been some kind of fairytale creature to him at some point, part of a story to tell. Finding out Naomi worked for her was like finding out she worked for Snow White. “I imagine it came as kind of a shock.”

Naomi shrugged helplessly, holding her hands out in an apologetic gesture. She wasn’t even sure what she was making the move for, considering her brain was still trying to catch up with what exactly it was Myles was taking offense to. The supernatural beings had been a problem, but then also people were prejudiced against them? She sensed it had less to do with her and what she said and more to do with his own feelings and upbringing. “I didn’t know about any of it for most of my life, so you’re going to have to forgive my ignorance.”

Her arm along the back of the couch, Naomi propped her head up with her arm as she listened to Myles. She didn’t think she had fully realized it before, but it seemed that he had cut almost all ties with his former home. “You-you don’t ever see her?” she asked softly, hesitantly. Hoping she wasn’t prying. “You don’t have to tell me,” she added as a disclaimer. It was none of her business, and she knew that. But she was also curious about what could have been so bad to make Myles not only move but supposedly not look back. 

She smiled back, a bright flash to break the somber mood. “Not all of them, but a lot of them. And I’ve been in a room with all of them at one time or another,” she said. Naomi knew who all the immortals were in any case–though sometimes when faced with people like Claire, it was easy to forget. She had even been in contact with many of them through email or phone calls when arranging meetings or notifications. “No official introduction in most cases,” she said with a slight laugh. 

“It’s um, it’s fine.” Everything was fine with Naomi, she was a safe space. It’s not like he minded talking about home all that much. If anything, the lingering emotions afterwards got to him more than the actual conversation. “Maybe I’ll go back and visit this summer.” Myles offered a small smile, gave a casual shrug of his shoulders. To see his mother only, meet her at their favorite bakery. While he missed his brothers, he didn’t think he could see them without getting some kind of guilt trip. And he sure as hell didn’t want to see his father.

Instead he chose to focus on what she’d said about the Davenport’s. Original’s, both vampire and wolf were a part of her everyday life, they were something she had to deal with. “Do you hang out with other…?” How did he phrase it? “People you know aren’t human? Like I have Isadora and that’s as far as I know.” It’s not like he asked everyone. It didn’t really matter, but he was curious. “I learned so much about everything growing up, but I haven’t really encountered much.” Knowingly at least. He had suspicions about people sometimes, found himself looking for little things out of curiosity.

He tried not to laugh at the look on the other boy’s face, but a smirk tugged at his mouth anyway. “Want another?” he teased, though he was more than ready to keep giving Myles alcohol. One beer couldn’t be fun. “I have plenty of time,” he grinned, flashing Myles a wink before he shook his head at the question. Truth was, no one really showed a mild interest in him – ever. He was usually too focused on the task at hand, and maybe he was too young to understand what some kind of commitment in a relationship would look like. Didn’t mean he wasn’t looking forward to trying, anyway. “You could say that. I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life. Hunting doesn’t exactly pay all the bills.”

The wink was almost worth another eyeroll. A facepalm, something like that. Instead Myles just gave a soft chuckle and shook his head at the offer for another shot. Hunting didn’t pay the bills, that’s why his family had always been so adamant they all learn a trade. His father had carpentry, two of three brothers were into mechanics. When he’d left, the last of them had been undecided. He himself had just been comfortable doing whatever repair work he could get with family connections and that’d served him alright from Colorado to New York. “So what do you do for cash then?” He was genuinely curious. Something told him Vee wasn’t the type to be running off to the police academy. In fact, if he hadn’t seen him fight, he wouldn’t really believe the guy was a hunter. “Are you New York’s most chatty waiter?”