InsaneJournal

Who: Lone and Micah
What: Meeting
Where: The alley
When: This morning
Warnings: None

Lone had never been mugged before. It was the most fascinating experience. The young skinny human that smelled of rot and chemicals had a knife, a pig-sticker type knife that he kept waving around while he yelled at him. Lone sometimes tuned out what humans said with their voices and paid more attention to what they were saying with their bodies, the way wolves spoke. This adolescent had undoubtedly been driven from his family, if he ever had one to begin with. Lone was sure that he was mad without needing to see the foam at his mouth. “I don’t have any cash,” he told the insane human, watching the movement of his arm rather than the knife.

Lone’s position in this alley wasn’t the best. He’d responded to an interesting sound and unique scent signature at the end of this alley, but it had just proved to be this drugged out human and an unconscious homeless woman. People said his kind were vicious; this man had been searching the woman (she smelled of drink) for valuables before Lone had showed up. He didn’t have to change to deal with the skinny human, but he didn’t like how unpredictably that knife moved. He was hoping to talk the human out of it before he got cut. If he got cut, he’d have to change, and then he’d have to tear the human’s throat out. He was pretty sure he could do it before he died. It depended on how fast the human was.

Micah never took the alleys home. He had turned in his new car to pay for Iris’ now-vacant apartment, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t afford a cab or the subway. No, he was in the alley for another reason entirely - a handoff.

Getting medicines wasn’t easy for Micah. He worked for the medical examiner’s office, which meant living people (and, therefore, people needing medication) were not in his area of practice. He could get his hands on sedatives easily enough, to deal with the grieving, but the types of medicines his contacts needed to transport to Cuba were much more difficult to come across. Fake prescriptions would still cost thousands, and the drugs were highly regulated. He’d had to resort to stealing from the hospital associated with the medical examiner’s office, and he’d tried to do the best he could to cover his tracks via the computer system in his office.

He had a medical bag full of chemotherapy drugs on him at present, and so when he heard the scuffle, he froze. Putting the medicines down wasn’t an option, but leaving without seeing if someone was in trouble wasn’t an option either. He cursed, kept the bag in his hand and pulled his gun. The safety clicked softly as he rounded the corner, his hazel gaze moving from the unconscious woman, to the man with the knife, to Lone.

“Problem?” he asked, keeping the gun centrally pointed, since he wasn’t certain who was friend or foe in this unfamiliar menagerie of players.

The woman was clearly out of the picture. Both men, however, turned immediately. The skinny junkie’s bloodshot eyes widened, but Lone let his eyes roll upward in a long sigh. Great. Another stupid young human with a gun. If he got shot, it was going to be even harder to avenge his own death than if he got stuck with a knife. Life wasn’t fair. “My young friend here was telling me about his financial difficulties,” Lone said politely, laying the old man verbal distance on thickly.

The junkie seemed to go nuts at the sight of the gun. He waved his knife at Lone, who tensed but didn’t retreat, and then at Micah, as if a man with a gun would be impressed by a man with a knife. “I’ll kill you, mother fucker! And him! I’ll cut him up!” More knife waving. Lone’s nose wrinkled, and he took a vague step back to avoid the skinny man’s scent. That proved to be a mistake. The junkie whirled and stabbed at the air where Lone had been a second before. Lone stopped moving, and his cool seemed to break. He lifted one edge of his lip in a very wolfish snarl, and just at that moment, he had the canines to back it up. “Kill you!” the junkie screamed again, eyes rolling.

The only reason Micah didn’t immediately register the canines was because he was too busy tracking the knife with his eyes. He discounted Lone and the woman as a threat almost immediately, and he sheathed the gun a moment later; it wouldn’t be necessary. The man was skinny, and he was high, and Micah had full confidence in his ability to deal with the situation without shooting anyone and without the old man getting hurt (Lone, of course, was the old man). He placed the bag carefully on the floor, and he kicked it away.

He waited a beat, just until the man turned back to yell at Lone again, and then Micah rushed him and grabbed him from behind. One arm went across the young man’s throat, and he pulled back and pressed against the man’s windpipe with his arm. His other hand reached for the man’s wrist, which he squeezed and held away from his body, trying to get him to drop the knife. Despite the fact that his technique wasn’t particularly skilled, Micah had size and sheer strength in his favor in this encounter.

Lone thought this was all getting out of hand. His sharp eyes snapped toward Micah as he made the dart in (actually very impressive, for a pup that age), but it wasn’t enough to warn the junkie. As soon as Micah got his grip on the guy, Lone took advantage of the opening. He stepped in closer, entirely within striking distance, inches from the junkie’s face. He let his mouth change.

The snout came first, melting together like really sick skin-colored candle wax, and then there was a crunching of jaw. It sounded like popcorn being stepped on. Long canine teeth and a wet black nose snapped out of the old man’s face an inch from the junkie’s right eye. He screamed and dropped the knife. Lone retreated again, and the long canine jaw and teeth crunched and melted back to what they were supposed to be.

Only now he was grinning.

Micah’s reaction was nothing like what it would have been six months ago. He didn’t let go of the junkie, and he didn’t yell, and he didn’t wonder if he’d gone insane. “Shit, you’re from Bellum,” he said to Lone, and then he slammed his fist below the junkie’s ear, just under his jaw, and when the man became a dead weight in his arms, Micah let him slump to the alley floor.

Lone was chuckling in long growls. He put his hands in his pockets and sidled over to where the knife had fallen. He gave it a sharp kick under the dumpster before he turned to Micah and watched to see what he’d do to the junkie. Humans could be strange and vindictive. Or perhaps he would see if he had money. Lone sniffed at the air around Micah, then frowned. Death? No... old death.

Interest piqued, he decided not to make the quick exit he’d been considering. “You’ve seen me around there, have you?”

Micah crouched and checked the fallen man’s pulse, and when he found it steady and strong, he moved on to the unconscious woman, and he did the same. He looked up at Lone a moment later, and he chuckled. “Hardly, viejo,” he said truthfully. “I just don’t know any other building where people can grow snouts and canines like that. You new?” Micah didn’t know everyone in the building, but thanks to recent drama and the hunt for unbiased jury members, he had a pretty comprehensive list. This guy? This guy he didn’t know.

The grin came back. Snouts and canines? “I don’t know what you’re talking about, son.” He said it just like that, ‘son,’ and it had heavy implications of youth and inexperience. Lone was an alpha even when he wasn’t wearing fur.

Micah chuckled, and he settled both bodies comfortably before standing. He didn’t take offense at being called son - not by someone this man’s age. It was different than when Eliot did it. “Viejo, don’t play estupido conmigo,” he said casually, as if finding out someone had a snout was an every day occurrence. He couldn’t tell what kind of snout it had been, but it had definitely been a snout. “How long have you lived in the building?”

Lone appeared to think. “Couple weeks now, I think. Nice building.” He just said it because all humans talked about the subject at hand like it mattered. To Lone one building was a lot like any other. Unless it had tasty prey in it. This one was lacking in the tasty rodent category, however. He looked down at the junkie. “Neighborhood needs work.”

To Micah, who didn’t care about the structure (rather about the people within), the building hadn’t been very nice lately. “Everything needs work,” he said honestly, wondering how anyone could live in Bellum for weeks and call it a nice building. “So, the snout, what does it go along with?” he asked. He really didn’t want anything bigger than wolves or lions; they had enough of that. “A nice dog, maybe?”

Grin. Wolves didn’t grin with their teeth like humans did, so it was a conscious effort, but Lone had been playing the human a long time. “Dogs are nice too.” The old man is slightly hard of hearing. “Thanks for the help. You going to pick up your groceries?” He pointed at the bag Micah had been holding when he walked in. He knew very well there wasn’t groceries in there.

Micah sighed, and he reached for the bag of discarded drugs. “Listen, I don’t want to patch up anything you eat, entiendes?” he asked. He didn’t want to, and he was sure Watson didn’t want to (even though the bastard never talked to him). “We have enough shit going on without new, fun fuzzballs in the building. And the full moon is coming up.”

That got Lone’s attention. The grin vanished and everything about him sharpened with interest. His eyes seemed to glow with predatory observation and he glided a step nearer. Shane went out of his way to hide his nature; Lone rarely did. “Fuzzballs in the building, you say?” There were a lot of interesting smells in that building, that was for sure.

Micah gave the old man a look that was all please and yeah, right. “Listen, mi herma, you’re new. Tell me what you can turn into, and I’ll tell you about the fuzzballs. Tit for tat, entiendes?”

“Big wolf,” Lone said, knowing full well it didn’t matter who Micah told about it. I know this guy who can turn into a wolf, he’d say. And then every human Lone ever met would go, Yeah right, pal, forgot your meds?

Micah groaned.

Beasts, Micah had found, stayed on their roof. And lions moved out of the building. Even the stray kitten didn’t hang around long. But the wolves? The wolves caused trouble. Every moon, without fail, and even in between. “We don’t have a good track record with wolves in the building.”

“The black cub,” Lone said, betraying his amusement.

That didn’t mean anything to Micah, who hadn’t actually seen Shane in his furry form; he’d just patched people up afterward. “The Big Bad Wolf, actually, and we don’t need another one.”

Now Lone did laugh. He laughed like he wasn’t standing in an alleyway with a couple unconscious homeless people at his feet, talking to a big adolescent with a gun in the back of his pants. “Big and bad?” He laughed again.

Micah’s expression was dead serious for a moment longer, and then he gave in and laughed at how completely ridiculous this all fucking sounded. “Actually, he’s normally small and pretty dramatic,” he admitted. “But he likes to lose his temper and tear the shit out of people with those teeth,” he added, the laugh fading.

Lone sobered, but he wasn’t in a hurry about it. “Temper, huh. How very human.” He tipped his head in a very canine expression of innocent interest. “And you, what are you? A vulture, maybe. You smell of death.”

Micah wasn’t offended; he scoffed. “I would be better off if I was a vulture.” He held a hand out to the man in front of him, respectful based on the man’s age alone (his mami had taught him well). “Micah, forensic pathologist and sometime vulture.”

Lone, who knew the drill, shook the younger man’s hand. Good grip. “Forensics. Interesting field for a man with a gun.” It was a broad, broad hint. Lone didn’t dance around things when he got the reaction Micah had to his real face.

“Nombre,” Micah said, letting go of the other man’s hand, and it wasn’t a question or a request.

“Lone,” he said, surprised he’d forgotten the human formality.

Micah let his hand fall, and he tugged his jacket aside enough so that Lone could see the badge he had clipped there. “It’s a registered gun,” he said, and it was true; this one was. His gaze was intense; it said don’t ask.

Lone didn’t pay as much attention to human law as he probably should. To him the badge plus the gun meant it was allowed, according to humans, and it meant they didn’t shoot things at random. His curiosity stopped there. Wolfish logic didn’t apply to most human interaction, which meant that Lone used his best guess and that was about it. “Ah,” Lone said, and nodded. “Good you came along when you did,” he said, undisturbed. Then: “Suppose I should be running along then.” He wanted to know a bit more about just how clumsy the boy had been about his other shape, but he didn’t think he could go about it the right way.

There was something off about the old man, Micah realized. Normally, he would have noticed it earlier, but his preoccupation with Iris and the medicine made him more reactionary than cautious; it was a dangerous pattern, one he tended to fall into, and he very intentionally pulled himself back from that place. It was a visible process; a straightening of shoulders, an intensity in the eyes. “We watch out for each other in Bellum,” he said, and it was fact and warning all in one.

Lone wasn’t smiling now. He watched Micah’s face and the way he was bristling up. Wolves did that when they were trying to intimidate each other, and as Shane had found out five minutes into his acquaintance, Lone didn’t stand for being intimidated. The slim corners of his eyes narrowed slightly as he inspected Micah’s shoulders and the way his hands were beginning to curl. Interesting. “Oh?” he asked, waiting for further illumination.

Further illumination was not forthcoming. Micah just stared back, and eventually he nodded. Lone could be part of the we, or he could be on the outside. It didn’t matter; what mattered is that there was a we, and that Lone knew it.

Lone wasn’t going to be the first to blink. “I hadn’t seen anyone doing any watching me specific,” he said, drawling a little in a way that was very unlike New York and its environs. “Should I have?” Lone was trying to figure out if this was a threat or not.

“We watch out for one another,” Micah clarifying, the statement strong, but not aggressive. “If you’re part of the pack, you’re part of the pack,” he said, using wolf terminology. “We keep each other safe, entiendes?”

Lone rocked back on his heels, surprised. He appreciated the use of terminology, and it was clear. “I see. I didn’t know humans bothered with that sort of thing in big cities.” He seemed to be re-evaluating Micah, and probably the building. “Why do I smell so much blood in the building, then?”

“I’m not from a big city,” Micah admitted, relaxing when Lone rocked back on his heels. “Where I’m from, everyone takes care of everyone else. It’s just taking Bellum awhile to figure that out.” The question about the blood was direct, and he appreciated that. Maybe this viejo was going to be okay. “We’ve got a problem with murders and attacks, and we only have one culprit incarcerated right now, but he isn’t one of the violent ones.”

“Some pack,” Lone observed, pondering this new development. Then, after a moment, he looked Micah in the eyes again. This, at least, wolves shared with humans. “I have moved in to the neighborhood,” he said, seriously. “I am acquiring the territory. I am not part of your pack, but it is in my interest if yours is whole. Entiendes?” He did not speak Spanish. In fact, he didn’t have any idea what he was saying. But he repeated it the way Micah said it, in the same spirit. That was how you learned how to speak human, after all.

“Wait up a minute, mi herma, what do you mean you’re ‘acquiring’ the territory?”

Lone had no idea how to further clarify. “I am making it mine.”

“And the rest of us, how do we fit into this ‘mine-ness?’” Micah asked. This wasn’t a dictatorship.

Lone stood there and blinked for several seconds, trying to figure out what the human was saying. Then, finally, a bark of laughter. “Ah! I see. You think I want to control. No. I mean, I make the territory a place that’s mine. I hunt and live here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t let other creatures hunt and live here.” Lone made a face. ”We are not so exclusive as you.”

“Just don’t hunt in the building,” Micah said. “We’ve got enough to deal with your cub and his tendency to attack people because he can’t control his love life,” Micah said, having read enough on the forums to know what was behind Shane’s apparent problems. “If you want to help, we’d be glad to have you,” he said, thinking another level-head would always be a welcome thing in Bellum. Micah hadn’t figured out the way the tales worked yet, but he was certain that some tales had transformation abilities when it wasn’t the full moon, while others didn’t. The former were more dangerous, as far as he was concerned, and it was always better to keep dangerous things close and hope for the best.

“I don’t hunt unless I’m hungry,” Lone said, equivocally. “And there’s a really nice grocery store on the next block.” His eyes narrowed again as Micah spoke further about the boy and his apparent history in the building. That was officially Not Good. If there was a wolf (or wolves, for that matter) in his territory, then that wolf (or wolves) would be associated with him, pack or no pack. Besides. Lone did sort of feel a proper kinship with the boy, fumbling as he was. “You say he has problems with control? He cannot control the change, you mean?”

“He can’t control his temper,” Micah said. “You know him?” he asked, wanting clarification of some sort that this man knew Shane, that it was okay to talk to him about this. He motioned toward the edge of the alley, wanting to move before their ‘friends’ regained consciousness.

Wolves had temper. They usually managed to control it by the time they got to Shane’s age, though. Lack of a pack had left many things wanting when it came to Shane. Lone was pondering this while he wandered back out of the alley, leading instead of following. “You mentioned pack,” Lone said, finally. “I don’t expect you to fully understand the term--” yes, some wolfish arrogance, “--but the boy is likely the closest thing to me here. Possibly anywhere. It is a unique situation.”

Micah didn’t understand a pack, but he understood family, and to him they were synonymous. “Your cub, he can’t control his ‘mate,’ and when she steps out of line, he eats people. He doesn’t cover his tracks, and he doesn’t win her back; he just eats people.” It was blunter than Micah generally went with description, but he was starting to think animal-types weren’t about adjectives and florid prose.

“Eats people?” Lone said. Now he was horrified, and stopped short to turn and stare at the other man. A wolf that actually ate humans, that was a huge problem. It wasn’t that humans were inedible, it was that if you started eating humans, particularly the soft chewy ones, the other humans started to notice, and then they would come and wipe you out as sure as an exterminator would an ant hill. (Besides, Lone and Shane could both turn into humans. It made him slightly uneasy, the way you would feel uneasy feeding hard boiled eggs to chickens.)

Micah rubbed at the back of his neck. “Eating isn’t the right word,” he admitted, realizing Lone was a little more literal than was the norm. “He has this girlfriend; the girl slept with someone else, and he clawed the other man near to death. Then the girl did something else, and he turned into a wolf and almost bit his friend’s leg off because he was upset. Then we had someone incarcerated, and he attacked him as well. Entiendes?”

Lone just frowned. "That's unfortunate. Perhaps he has not adapted properly. I will... Discuss it with him." There was a certain authority imbued in the verb.

Micah almost laughed - almost. He nodded once, in parting, and he picked up his medicines and walked out of the alley. Another wolf in the building; he’d have to tell the others.