#barbwritesstuff

~

"Just a minute, leech."

Hyun only doesn't flinch because they're dead. They meet Minjo's eyes, and she gives a little shrug. Great. Well, it probably is. She looked a lot worse when she thought Hyun was getting decapitated.

"Alpha has a question for you."

"Okay?"

Then, there's a foot on the back of Hyun's chair, tilting them until they're looking up into golden eyes. "I want to know if your kid enjoyed the movie."

~

Eventually, one of Nathan's students approaches the bleachers. "So...what are you?"

The werewolf looks up from her phone. Apparently Dan getting shot point-blank convinced her she doesn't need to keep as close an eye on him as her boss-man--her words--instructed.

She grins at the kid, eyes hazel and teeth all human-teeth-size. "What do you think I am?"

After a bit of shuffling they finally answer, "Well, you're...not a vampire."

"I'm not." She sticks out her hand and the human gives a small flinch. "See? Pulse and everything."

The veins are blue and visible against her pale skin, soon covered by the human's bronze fingers as they give her a feel. Something deep in the recesses of Dan's mind stirs. Werewolf blood....

"So, what can you do?" the human asks.

She reaches down to one of Dan's discarded bottles and gives it a sniff. "Squirrel."

She sets it down and picks up another one. "Raccoon."

Again. "Mmm...mostly rat, some mice."

She stills when she smells the next one. A flicker of gold enters her eyes, and a chill runs down Dan's spine.

"Rabbit," she mutters, tossing the bottle aside.

~

Ash learned soon after moving in with Roe: he loves baking. Loves it. He's good at it, to boot. He's considered more than once sending Alpha Addie a batch of cookies after he finally got the recipe down. Though, the logistics of sending enough for the entire pack through the mail makes him think he should wait for the next clambake.

Speak of the devil, he thinks when his phone vibrates the tone of the pack in the city. His pack a small part of him still thinks.

He opens the text immediately when he sees it's from Ed. Someone's graffiti'd a rabbit on the husk of a burnt-out building, surrounded by the words LONG LIVE THE QUEEN. Ash reads the message Ed sent with it. He reads it again.

what do u mean *vampire turf war*

~

Hyun grits their teeth and steps forward. "You can't stop me from seeing--"

Chris stumbles back. Hyun realizes they haven't grit their teeth: they've bared them. Like they're correcting someone in the Court who thinks fledglings can't bite.

They step back, twice, and feel death steal back over their features. It makes Chris look more scared than when they had their fangs out.

And now Marco's got him cornered, because he's been subtly and coolly asking around about him, because, come on, he's stupid hot and mysterious and all, but he's also a stray with haunted eyes that doesn't talk, and Marco can't be the only one curious about him.

He tried to ask the Alpha, with subtle, leading questions like "Where'd you even find that weirdo?" and "Has he said anything about me?" And when the Alpha oh-so-rudely brushed him off, because he's a consummate professional at ignoring Marco's badgering at this point.

Marco simply took that as an order from his Alpha, and did just that.

The stray doesn't have his own room yet, if he even intends to stay, but he's been crashing on the couch in Nikolas and Sergi's trailer. Though, he doesn't seem to sleep much, according to Sergi. The blanket they gave him is folded on the back of the couch when they roll out of their beds in the morning, and he's long gone.

"May as well be letting a ghost stay with us," Sergi says with a shrug. "At least he cleans up after himself, if he even makes a mess in the first place."

"Why are you asking so many damned questions?" Nikolas asks, quirking a brow curiously at Marco, who brushes it off like a champ, even though his neck and ears are feeling a little hot, and turns tail and walks (doesn't run) calmly away from their knowing stares to head straight for the source.

And now the source is staring at him through the darkness with a carefully neutral expression, as if Marco didn't just pop out of the bushes to catch him mid-midnight-jog.

Which may have been a tactical error, all things considered.

The stray is tall, a head and a half taller than Marco, at least, and probably twice as broad, with attractively tousled hair so dark brown it's nearly black that hangs around his face in damp tangles. His eyes are gently drooping, heavy-lidded, and stormy grey with stupidly long lashes for a guy, a straight nose and soft lips curled down at the corners as he stares stoically (and handsomely) at Marco. His tawny olive skin shines in the dim light of the waning moon drifting through the trees overhead with sweat, and he's only wearing ratty sneakers, and low-slung grey sweatpants as he jogs through the woods in the middle of the night like some kind of maniac.

Marco tries really hard to focus on his face and not his chest, but seeing as he's almost eye level with the guy's tits, heaving and sweaty and dusted with thick, dark whorls of damp hair, it's a fight he's rapidly losing.

It's only then that he realizes he's forgotten the stray's name, if he ever remembered in the first place, because when the Alpha was introducing him to the rest of the pack, Marco's brain was just making dial-up noises because he made eye contact with the towering, brooding stranger and had to wonder if he was suddenly in some trashy romance novel because he couldn't stop thinking about the guy's mouth.

Speaking of mouths, his opens and closes mechanically as he tries to think of what the hell he was going to say, but he's starting to realize he had no sort of plan going into this, because he's Marco, and he doesn't do plans.

He finally manages to peel his eyes away from the stray's chest, and bring them to his face, and then he notices the deep, dark bruises of sleeplessness under those stupid, pretty eyes, and his mouth finally decides to work, but in pure Marco fashion, it's without any real input from his brain.

"Jesus, I thought Sergi was exaggerating when he said you didn't sleep."

The stray blinks at him mutely, cocks his head, and then keeps blinking.

Marco has no trouble filling the awkward silence, of course. He just hopes whatever comes out of his mouth is at least a little bit smooth. "You look like shit, dude."

Nailed it.

The stray squints at him. And then he speaks. "Thanks," he says dully, and it's honestly impressive how much sarcasm is oozing from that single syllable.

Marco might be in love.

"What's your name again?" he asks, because it's the only thing he's got going for him at the moment. This is a conversation they're having, if a weird one, but it's more than can be said for anyone else in the pack. "I know the Alpha introduced you and everything but my memory is shit and I forgot." Thankfully, he keeps the whole "I got distracted by how obnoxiously pretty you were, so I don't know if I ever heard your name in the first place," to himself.

"Vesper," the stray says, still eyeing Marco like he's got two heads.

"What the fuck?" he says, eyebrows flying to his scruffy fringe, "Seriously? That's cool as hell." He kinda wants to know if Vesper picked it himself, but feels like that might be weird and overly personal, and he's got some tact at least. Not much, but some.

"Thanks," Vesper says again, only it's a lot less acidic this time.

"What are you doing shirtless in the woods?" Marco asks, because he's got to keep things going somehow. Against his will, his eyes flicker down again, but he snaps them back up quickly. "I mean, I know we're werewolves and all, but this is a bit of a cliche, don't you think?"

"Are we playing 20 Questions?" Vesper asks, and the bemused quirk to his pretty, pretty mouth is so goddamned cute Marco wants to scream. He feels like someone should give him a prize. For his self-control (in not screaming) and for getting five whole words out of the taciturn stray at one time.

"We can play Truth or Dare, if you'd prefer?" Marco offers, because he's running out of steam but he wants to keep things going. They might almost have a rapport going.

Vesper crosses his arms across his broad, hairy chest, and it squishes his pecs (tits) together in a way that makes Marco almost start panting. "Sure," he says.

"Really?" Marco's jaw drops, but he shakes it off quickly and rocks forward. "Uh, well, Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," Vesper says easily.

"When was the last time you slept?"

Vesper looks away quickly, almost guiltily, pinches his lips into a taut line, and looks back. "...Dare," he amends.

Marco senses he's struck some kind of nerve. "I dare you to go the fuck to sleep," he quips, because, yeah, he's having fun, but the guy looks exhausted. And if he looks this bad when the moon is barely a sliver in the sky, the chances of him going crazy when it's full and screaming will be through the roof. And maybe Marco's got an interest in keeping the guy around, and maybe it's not all that altruistic, but it's something. Or, at least, it could be.

Vesper's broad shoulders tense up more, somehow, and now that he's not wearing a ratty, oversized hoodie, Marco can see the tautness of his muscles pretty well (and God, he is looking) and he notices how painful that tension looks. Like he's forgotten how to relax. He falls silent again, and this time, Marco has nothing to fill it with, so it hangs between them, heavy and suffocating.

"Minjo might still be up," Marco suggests after the silence stretches on for way too long. Vesper is so still he looks like he's gonna turn to stone. "She makes this tea that tastes godawful, but it'll knock you right out. It's almost good if you drown it in honey first."

Vesper's quiet for a while longer, and he looks back over his shoulder, towards the sky.

Marco only just realizes that with the direction he was going when Marco jumped out at him, it's almost like he was trying to outrun the moon.

His shoulders relax in increments, and his arms drop to his sides. A muscle in his jaw twitches, and his fingers clench around nothing, and then unclench again. "Maybe... Maybe I'll see," he says, and his voice is soft, and tired. "I think I'll finish my run first, though," he adds, nodding in Marco's direction.

"Oh! Yeah, uh. Right. Sorry." He scrambles out of the way while the stray, Vesper, shakes his head and stretches his arms a bit, as if to warm himself up again. "That might help, actually. Wear you out, I mean. Mind if I join you?" Not like Marco particularly cares about running when he's human-shaped. It's more fun when he's a wolf, but also he never really has anyone who wants to run with him. It's boring on his own.

Vesper smiles, an odd, tense little smile, but still a smile, and looks away, his face shadowed by the trees overhead, with a shrug. "Sure."

Marco really wishes he weren't wearing jeans for this, but he's not gonna waste this chance no matter what, so he does a quick, perfunctory stretch (as if he knows what he's even doing) before he gives Vesper a short nod.