Chapter Four: Maka
Earlier that day…
Maka shuts the attic door behind her with a soft click, sighing as she heads down the hallway, silver chains jingling almost merrily as she goes. Soul was a curious one, that's for sure, and she can't help but feel a little unprepared. Don't get her wrong, she knows a good deal about vampires, but it's all in theory, not experience. She could tell him the top ten easiest ways to kill one, or how many of them lived in a hundred mile radius, but she was beginning to fear that she couldn't help him acclimatize correctly.
God, it's just like when the twins were born all over again.
She sighs, heads down the stairs. Finds Sid doing dishes and Blake studiously scrolling on his computer, the news playing softly on the tv behind him. She cuts through the kitchen and out the side door, off the porch and over to the shed to put the chains away, makes a mental note to clean them later. She glances over her shoulder as she tucks the heavy metal box back under the workbench, watches for a moment as Stein pushes the clunky old mower around the lawn.
Good. She was glad the guys were trying to retain some sense of normalcy.
Maka tosses the gloves aside and dusts off her knees as she stands. Her eyes look to the peak of the house of their own volition, as if she could see right through the walls to where Soul now slept. She rubs her forehead, lamenting at the shit-show this is going to turn into soon if she doesn't get a firm grip on whatever the hell is going on around here. Shaking her head, she shuts up the shed and heads inside, doing her best to seem as business-as-usual. Blake glances up from his laptop as she enters, raising his brows a little; he can see through her facade effortlessly, knows her too well, knows that she's panicking in her own way.
She shakes her head, pulls out the stool beside him and sits herself on it. "Don't get me started." She nods at his screen, "Find anything?"
"Eh, yes and no." He turns the computer to let her see easier, and she comes face-to-face with Soul. Or, his Facebook page, at least. "He doesn't really post on here much, but he's been tagged in a bunch of fancy-pants symphony events." Maka raises a brow, and Blake switches tabs. "So, I did a little digging, and it turns out his brother is some big-shot violinist, his mother is an international clarinet star, and his dad is some sort of businessman-I dunno-and Soul was a rising pianist." Even Sid pauses, dishwasher half-full, his eyes wide.
They share a look. "'Was' as in, when he was younger?" Sid asks, voice carefully empty.
"Or 'was' as in before he was Changed?" Maka finishes, feeling her pulse quicken anxiously. If Soul was some up-and-coming classical music star, they were gonna be in much deeper shit than they'd anticipated.
Blake hums as he scrolls, chewing on his lip thoughtfully. "From the looks of it, all of his performances and such were when he was younger. Anything even semi-recently that mentions him are only in passing; all the focus is on his brother." Maka and Sid both relax, tension leaking from the air. One less thing to deal with. The atmosphere considerably lighter, Blake continues, shifting in his seat. "Aside from that, I found his instagram, buuuut it's private." He glances at her out the corner of his eye. "I requested to follow him."
Maka laughs, "I don't think he's gonna accept for a little while yet." Aside from the whole thing with him being a baby vampire and all that that entails, she still hasn't gotten around to finding a charger for his phone. Just something else to add to her never ending to-do list, she supposed. She checks her watch and curses under her breath. "Oh shit, okay, I gotta go." She leans over the counter and snatches up her phone, hops off the barstool, and kicks it under the counter with the side of her foot.
Blake nearly falls off his chair as he whips around to watch her, "What? Where're you going?" His eyes briefly flicker the ceiling, as if what he really wanted to know is why're you leaving us with him?
Sid leans against the counter, arms crossed and face serious. It's in that moment that she realizes that she hasn't seen him smile in days; not since he found Soul. Her stomach twists uncomfortably. She hopes this isn't a permanent development; she hopes she didn't ruin everything. "You sure it's a good idea to leave right now?" He asks, and she feels that piece of something special that makes her alpha shift and bristle. He's not challenging her, she knows, but she still has to beat down that intrinsic part of her that awakens at the suggestion of someone questioning her. Blake looks away, the lines of his body going rigid. Sid must see the way his question sparked against the flint in her blood, and he tilts his head downward, just a little, as if to appease the beast under her skin.
The alpha quiets, but she feels herself grow nauseous. She hates those moments-as scattered as they may be. Having a vampire in the house and her entire pack staying somewhere else is undoubtedly attributing to her touchy-ness, but it still wasn't any excuse. She presses her hand to her forehead, pushes back her frizzy bangs. "Sorry, guys. I...sorry." Both of them wave her off; no harm, no foul. She sighs. "To answer your question, yes. I'm sure. I'm going to see Kid, and since I've been putting it off for the past two days...yeah, it's time."
"Why're you going to see him?" Blake asks, the disdain in his voice apparent. After all these years, he still thought the vampire was too stuck up, no matter how often Maka had tried to tell him otherwise.
"Because we have an unregistered, unapproved baby vampire sleeping in our attic and as the leader of the local coven, he deserves to know." Blake tilts his head in acceptance; she had a point and he knew it. "I called him the morning y'all found him, but I wanted to talk to Soul before I went and saw him." She walks around the scattered living room furniture that cuts too close to the kitchen and counter space, lifting her jacket and purse off one of the hooks beside the front door before digging into the little bowl on the table underneath and scooping up her keys. "So, I'm gonna go see him now, and I'll be back before sundown. If, for whatever reason, I'm not back by then," she wrenches open the door, specifically giving Blake The Look. "Be. Nice."
Blake rolls his eyes, turns to Sid to mimik her as she turns to leave, and is promptly cuffed upside the head by his dad. "Didn't you hear her?" He asks as Blake rubs his head. "Be. Nice."
Their laughter chases her out of the house, and she pauses only long enough to wave at Stein before hopping in her truck and taking off down the road.
It's after almost an hour drive later when she's pulling into an old church parking lot, the pavement cracked and riddled with weeds. Above the door, letters that once shined gold are now faded, some missing, and instead of whatever it was named before, it now reads 'Ass Urch'. Maka slides out of her truck and tucks her hands into her pockets, casting a weary glance over her shoulder before heading inside.
The place has always given her the creeps. Not because of the people that reside inside, oh no, just that good old fashioned fear naturally instilled at the sight of an old church paired with the fact that there was nobody around for miles. She's not dumb and she's far from human, so at least the logical part of her brain knows that she'll be fine, but that scrap of human that lives in her very bones screams at her to watch her back or, better yet, go home. She pushes that nagging feeling aside as she wanders down the aisle, past the broken and crumbling pews, over the remains of what was once a stone pulpit. The whole room is bathed in shimmery, dusty colored light, the sun shining through the stained glass. It almost makes her able to block out the smell of mold and rot and death.
The latter of those scents only gets stronger as she ducks behind the giant statue of what used to be Jesus (she thinks) but is now little more than a eight foot robed body without a head. There, she kneels down and shifts aside a heavy carpet, finding the heavy lead door beneath. She has to put all of her weight behind it, but she's able to heft it open and slip inside, awkwardly maneuvering the door onto her back and shoulders all the while. It falls shut with a heavy bang behind her, but she doesn't pay it any mind as she makes her way deeper into the dark.
She almost trips down the winding set of stairs, the stairway scarcely lit and making it hard for her eyes to adjust one way or the other, but she hits the bottom without incident and heads down the long hallway. It's nothing but red carpeting and blank, black concrete walls. Classic vampire decor, though she never understood why. If the creepy abandoned Ass Urch upstairs didn't scare people away, why would a gothic hallway do the trick?
At the end of the hall, Maka comes to another set of heavy doors–though these ones are made of metal–and she raps her knuckles against it in a quick one, two, three succession. From there, it takes approximately five minutes for the little eye-slot to slide open, a pair of unnaturally blue eyes squinting suspiciously out at her. She merely raises an expective brow, the slot snaps shut, and it's quickly followed by the sound of no less than twenty locks being undone. When the door finally opens, she's greeted by none other than the Thompson sisters, Patti and Liz; the latter of the two is all long legs and dark blonde hair that easily touches her ass and cheekbones that could cut glass, while the former is almost the exact opposite; short, almost-yellow blonde hair, curvey where her sister isn't and baby fat that never seemed to have left her perpetually-rosey cheeks. Still, despite their differences, they were undoubtedly sisters; the same piercing blue eyes and tan skin, and the fact that they were both deceptively jacked couldn't be a coincidence.
Maka had been trying to get them to join the pack for years.
She nods to the both of them as she steps inside, the lobby a total opposite to the hallway leading up to it; all bright lights and clean, modern lines. Potted and hanging plants decorate anywhere there's room, as if they were recreating a greenhouse in the daylight; as close to actual sunlight as they can get. A few vampires lounge about the room's many furnishings, reading or chatting or dozing like cats in the artificial sun, few of them pay the sisters any mind, but Maka apparently warrants a bit more interest. Most only cast cursory glances her way, but a select few regard her with open suspicion, one even bares his teeth. She merely smiles in return as Liz turns on her heel and starts off toward the large, ornate doors flanking the left side of the lobby, while Patti gives Maka a smile and loops her arm through Maka's, practically skipping as they follow her sister. The two always seemed like polar opposites, night and day, but she's known them long enough to know that they're much more similar than they'd want you to believe. Not to mention, they're damn near identical in a fight; deadly, precise, vicious. Patti chatters in her ear, totally at odds with her internal monologue, and she catches the weary glance Liz shoots over he shoulder before pushing through the threshold leading to Kid's personal quarters.
Despite visiting plenty of times before, Maka still can't get over how massive the space is. Kid's quarters are bigger than her pack's entire house, and she can't help but to be a little jealous. It was a ridiculous amount of space for only three people to occupy. Meanwhile, she's in the process of making room for Soul in her already cramped home; the thirteenth member to reside under her roof. Though, after this conversation, Soul could very well find himself living here instead; across the hall and through the other set of equally ornate doors, with all the other vampires currently in Kid's massive coven. She hopes for and against that outcome in equal measures.
The heels of Liz's boots clack loudly against the marble, signifying their arrival, as if Kid couldn't hear or smell them from the second Maka pulled into the parking lot. Patti disentangles herself and takes off, damn near sprinting, and her excited prattle echoes back a moment later as she runs into Kid. Liz casts another glance at Maka before branching off her own way, apparently trusting her to find her way on her own; which wasn't going to be hard, considering Kid soon after appears around one of the corners, Patti clinging firmly to his back. They talk animatedly, Patti swinging the arm not wrapped around his throat wildly enough to almost knock pictures off the walls and vases off end tables. Kid indulges her with a small smile, hands in his pockets and shoulders thrown back as if her weight was nothing to him.
When his golden eyes land on Maka, she feels gooseflesh come alive along the line of her spine and her hair stands on end. Still, she flashes him a smile, ignoring the way her bones shiver at his presence.
Patti stops mid-sentence, eyes unfocusing for a beat before she's disentangling from Kid and skipping down the same hall Liz did moments before. He doesn't pay her any mind, and instead tilts his head in greeting as he comes to a stop before Maka, a wry smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Alpha."
She tilts her head in turn, mirrors his smile. "Princeling."
Immediately his smile sours, a groan building in his throat. "When will you stop calling me that?" He near-whines, turning on his heel as she falls into step beside him.
Maka laughs, beats down the flicker of self-consciousness as it echoes. "Whenever your daddy stops being king, probably." He scoffs, loops his arm through hers, skin cold and hard beneath the crisp fabric of his white dress shirt. The Thompsons might not trust her wholly—at the very least, Liz doesn't—but she and Kid have always been friends. Maybe it was something about being in charge, knowing the strain and the responsibility, or maybe it was just because they understood each other on some base level that was totally separate from their supernatural attributes. Whatever it was, she'd always liked the vampire, found his presence calming; a nice change of pace from the never-ending excitement she found at home. Her smile turns soft as she links her hands together, the warmth of her palms seeping into Kid's forearm. She knocks their shoulders together. "How've you been? It's been a little while since I've been out."
He sighs dramatically, ever the drama queen. "I've been well. Mostly handling the same old intra-coven politics and all that that entails." He cuts a golden glance her way as he leads her to his living room. "All of which you'd know in better detail if you'd come around once in a while." He relaxes his arm, and she lets her hands drop accordingly, allowing him to gracefully drape himself over his blow-up sofa like a lady dropping onto her fainting couch. Maka can't help her laughter as she follows suit and plops down on it's matching armchair, the plastic sinking and wobbling precariously under her as she settles.
"I know, I know. I've just been busy." Kid's head lolls as he looks at her with a raised brow. "Oh, don't give me that look. Between work and the pack and the kids and now Soul…" She sighs, slumping a little, the smell of plastic engulfing her as she shifts in her seat. Saying it all out loud makes her realize just how busy she's been. Weariness settles in her bones. She shakes it off, gives Kid a smile she's sure he can see through. "I'll find some time to pencil you in, promise."
He flaps a hand at her, dismisses it entirely. For people as old and everlasting as they are, the time they spend apart is bound to end up more than they spend together. "Speaking of the kids, though, how are they? I haven't seen them since they were—oh, I don't know—five? Six?"
Maka can't help her smile, chest swelling a little with pride. "They're fourteen, now." Kid curses under his breath. "Thunder is a never-ending stream of energy, so not much as changed. She's playing a lot of sports, though, so that helps. Fire, on the other hand, is...Fire." She shrugs, she never knows how to describe him. He's just...himself. "He's a good kid, a good balance to Thunder's wide-openness. I think he said something about joining the next school play."
"You'll have to let me know. You know I'm a faithful patron of the arts." Maka snorts. Yeah, he'll come with a thousand roses and a fat stack of cash, showing off to the goddamn PTA that the twins have the coolest uncle ever. She wonders if she'll be so theatrical once she hits a century, or if it's something that doesn't hit until you're well into your thousands. Especially considering his history, how neurotic he supposedly used to be, compared to the laid-back—if a little eccentric—man she knew now.
"For such a lover of the arts, you'd think you'd get a interior designer in here."
He at least has the dignity to look offended. "You mean to tell me you don't like my decor?"
Maka pinches the arm of her chair, plastic squeaking. "You have blow-up furniture from the nineties. I'm surprised there isn't a bead curtain around here somewhere."
"You haven't seen my bedroom," he says with a wink, smiling as she laughs before turning to survey the room. "What's wrong with my decorating?"
Maka doesn't even know where to begin. Compared to the sleek design of the lobby and the stylish-yet-muted decor in the hallway, his living room was...a mess. Not dirty, not unorganized–actually quite symmetrical. Like every time period he'd ever lived through threw-up in here. When she tells him as much, he scoffs. What does a girl from this little podunk know about design? "It's not about design," she says, "but you have blow-up furniture with a big ass flat screen over here, swords from medieval england hanging on the wall over there, and, if I'm not mistaken, that's a solid gold chaise lounge from the Byzantine empire back there." She points over his shoulder where, sure enough, a solid gold chaise lounge sits beneath a faux window, a full suit of mongolian armor at it's head and a marble statue that she was half-convinced that he had commissioned from Michelangelo himself at the foot. A stack of books sits in the middle, and she's sure half of them are original prints off the presses back when the damn thing was made.
Kid tilts his head, suddenly refusing to acknowledge the ridiculous opulence he's accumulated. Instead, he shifts until he's sitting properly, crosses one knee of the other. "When you've lived as long as I have you...collect a few things," he gestures about the room, "these are just some of my favorites." She raises a brow and pinches the arm of her chair again, as if in question, and he flaps his hand at her to make her stop. "I find them charming. It was better when everyone found them so, but now?" He sighs, dusts invisible dirt from his knee. "My favorite fads never last long."
Maka laughs, nods her head in agreement. "Alright, I see what you mean." She sighs herself, her mouth screwing to the side in thought. She tilts her head back, plastic chair squeaking against the skin of her neck, stares at the ceiling. "I think I miss the fashion trends the most."
"Oh, god." He makes a noise like a cat hacking up a hairball. "Okay, that's enough."
"What?"
He points an accusatory finger at her, rings glinting in the light of the chandelier. "I know you, and I know that look, and I know for a fact that you're not thinking of any of the good styles. You're thinking of flower-embroidered bell-bottoms and- and plaid-everything."
"Hey! Those were all the rage back in the day!"
"I know, and I'm sorry you were in your prime during some of the worst fashion revolutions I've ever seen." Maka sputters some offended squawks, but Kid pays her no mind. "Luckily for you, you got Changed. Now, you get to stay in your prime forever, see the error in your ways, and make up for it."
"Oh, whatever. I'd bet you everything I own that you wore some terrible outfits in your time." She makes a move as if she was getting up, brows raised expectantly. "If you horde all this junk, what would I find if I looked in your closet?"
Kid darts forward, so fast even her supernatural eyesight could barely track him, and he presses her back into the smelly chemicals of the pvc, his hands on her shoulders. "Okay, okay. Point taken." She crows with laughter as he releases her and perches on the edge of the glass coffee table. He laces his fingers together, lets them rest between his knees. His unnatural stillness-the same stillness all vampires have-always throws her through a loop. There's no rise-and-fall of his chest, no slight shift of his muscles or that distracted sort of energy that thrives under the skin of living things. Just hard, still, unyielding marble. The look he gives her causes her to settle, makes the hair on the back of her neck prickle as she sits up straight. He wets his lips, gold eyes shining brilliantly. "I think it's time we talk about our new...problem. It'll be dark soon and, unlike some people, I need to grab some sleep before then." She rolls her eyes, but nods for him to continue. "So, just tell me everything. From beginning to end, everything you know."
So, she does. From Sid having a bad feeling, to him and Blake finding Soul on the edge of their property, to pouring the blood down his throat, all the way up to the point when he woke up and bombarded her with questions. She shifts in her seat, crosses one jean-clad knee over the other, tucking one of her hands underneath her thigh. "As far as I know, he's sleeping now. I plan to be back by dark; I don't want the boys to scare him."
Kid laughs through his nose, an absent sort of sound as he mulls over what she's said. "Has he said anything about who attacked him? Any idea of who it could be?"
Maka shakes her head, chews on the skin of her lip absently. It was driving her crazy trying to figure out how this sort of thing happened, but she couldn't imagine what Kid must be thinking. The system created to prevent this sort of thing was his own invention, something he put in motion a couple hundred years ago to make sure their secret didn't get out and covens didn't spiral out of control. There are meticulous hoops to jump through, forms that need filled and filed. A vampire isn't to be Made without the explicit consent of the head of the local coven, and even then, the head usually has to go higher up the hierarchy, either pass the request through Kid or his father. And that's just for vampires that're part of a coven; let alone the nomads still out there. Violating these rules are punishable by death, and that's one of the better sentencings. There's unofficial wiggle room thanks to Kid-he's not heartless-but she highly doubts that Soul's Maker will fall into Kid's good graces. "No. I didn't ask during our little Q&A. I figure that's the kind of thing that he'll bring up on his own, or at the very least, I'll ask him about after knowing him for longer than twenty-four hours."
"I know you want to give him a little time to acclimatize, but time really isn't on our side." They both see the irony, but what little humor they had has leaked from their bones. They both know that there's something off about the whole ordeal. Even if it was a well-meaning vampire, someone who couldn't get their request approved or didn't know about the process to begin with, it doesn't add up. Why risk Turning Soul, only to dump him less than a mile outside wolf territory? Why tear his throat open after the fact? Maka switches from chewing on her lip to her nails, a nasty habit that makes Kid's eye twitch once, but he doesn't comment, knows the thoughts racing through her mind; they always thought alike. "The sooner we know what he knows, the sooner we can put this to rest."
He pats her knee reassuringly, giving her a small smile as she puts her hand over his and squeezes once. First, he rises-a clear dismissal, they didn't have much to go on and, like he said, he still needed sleep-and she follows suit with a crack of her knees that makes them both wince. Together, they make their way down the hall, the echoing of their shoes on the marble deafening in the silence. She can't help but feel like they're missing something important and blatantly obvious. They stop before that big ornate door at the end of the hall, and she crosses her arms over her chest, feels the Thompson's eyes on her even though she can't see them. She purses her lips, flips back and forth between voicing her question aloud, afraid of the prying ears in the lobby and beyond. Kid merely cocks a brow, knows the look on her face, and waits. She blows a soft sigh through her nose, her jaw working, like she had to chew up her words before spitting them. "Do you think...do you think it could've been one of your own?"
Kid blinks in surprise, and the already straight line of his spine somehow gets straighter. He runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth. "I can't rule it out." She knows he doesn't like the idea, and the tightness of his voice tells her that he'd much rather rule it out entirely and maybe even snap some insult, but he's nothing if not practical to a fault. She holds his stare, the liquid steel in her spine turning solid the moment she feels the silent challenge in the air. Twin growls slip through the air, shattering the silence neat as porcelain on tempered glass.
Maka and Kid both look to the source, find the sisters haunched in the doorway, eyes glowing and fingers turned to claws, sharp teeth bared. Kid holds out a hand at the same time Maka lets her own growl tear through the hall, satisfaction settling in her blood as they both flinch. They might be packless, but they can't deny her power, her authority. They're all just as much animal as they are human, but the thing about humans is that they're just glorified animals. There's more than what makes them wolves that makes the sisters cower at her power. It's primal, soaked into their DNA. The wolf beneath her skin shifts in excitement, ready to tear it's way free and into those girls.
Kid must sense it just as the thought hits her, because his hand is on her jaw in an iron grip. The sisters back off-Maka only knows because their scent is no longer assaulting her senses-but she still growls at Kid, bones shaking at the audacity. She's half-a-second away from tearing free of her skin and eating his unbeating heart, but he jerks her chin up and forces her to meet his eyes; no longer just plain gold, but double-irised in colors that don't exist. The fight leaks from her being immediately, teeth and claws and anger withdrawing to the very core of her, as if afraid he might reach out and pluck them from her grasp if they didn't hide.
Maka is very forcibly reminded in that moment that vampire is too simple of a word for what Mortimer Kidman is.
He's everlasting, undying. He is beginning and end and he can rip the very world from beneath her feet and never see a single repercussion for it.
She forces petrified muscles to work as she swallows, and she very nearly goes limp in his grasp, just to make sure he knows she's backed down for good. He releases her, blinks once and the infinite infinities that live inside him are hidden by pretty gold once more. Maka wants to rub her chin, refuses to give him the satisfaction, feels shame spread through her chest like liquid fire. Instead, she straightens her spine, tidies her clothes, and turns on her heel. She stops, only for a moment, as her hand rests on the doorknob, and she casts a glance over her shoulder that doesn't quite reach Kid's face. They were friends, yes, but that didn't mean they could ignore what they were, or that their responsibilities could put them at odds with one another. "I'll be in touch. Let me know when you figure out what to do next."
The lobby is empty, utterly deserted. Whether it's because of the outburst in Kid's quarters or because they had to go get ready for nightfall, she wasn't sure. She also wasn't sure why she's been so irritable, so...loose cannon, ready to fire. Maka was never one to let her instincts get the better of her, never one to let the animal that lived beneath her skin override the logical, rational human that she was. If it were one outburst, she might've written off, attributed it to the upcoming full moon or the stress of adopting a vampire or, or something. But two? Over minor infractions, the slightest grating against her nerves? No, something more was off.
And she was going to find out what.
Now…
It all happens so fast. First, she's just standing in her yard, minding her own business and trying to talk Soul's skittish, city-slicker ass down from having a panic attack over hearing...what? A raccoon in the woods? A coyote? The last thing she needed was for him to freak out over every animal he hears because, boy howdy, is he going to have a long eternity; especially if he was going to be spending any significant amount of time with them. And that's when it hits her.
She never told him they were wolves.
Then, that's the exact point that Harvar-Harvar, who should not, in fact, be barreling down on her at full speed and should, in fact, be in town at Kim's apartment with the rest of their pack-attempts to run them over and Soul takes off because what else do you do when a wolf the size of a small horse charges at you, hell bent on mowing you over? Good samaritan that he is, he tries to take her with him, but when instinct overrides and she digs her heels in and her shoulder gives way under his fancy new super-strength with a sickening pop, well, to say shit hits the fan might be a bit of an understatement.
From that point on, it's a domino effect.
She can't help the pained yelp that escapes her as her arm goes saggy and bone juts unnaturally from its socket. She's immediately hit with the realization that it was a bad idea to let them know she was hurt as the world crawls to a halt. She whips the hand of her good arm out and Harvar stops himself so forcefully that his momentum almost sends him hurling ass over teakettle, just as Stein comes barreling out of the woods on the other side of the property; startling Soul and causing him to trip over his own feet in his hurry to reverse his own supernaturally-enhanced speed. And, as if that wasn't enough, Blake nearly explodes out of the house, screen door literally flying off the hinges as he leaps off the porch with murder in his eyes.
She's not quite sure how she manages it, making them all stop in their tracks the way that they do. If not for the fact that she was alpha, she knows her boys wouldn't have listened to a word she'd said; too caught up in their own little world full of protective instincts and a strict "act first, ask later" policy.
"Woah, woah, woah!" She yells, voice echoing, trying not to wince at the way her bones grind and bark in pain under skin at the slightest shift. Harvar and Stein both bare their teeth and snarl, hackles raised in an attempt to make them seem impossibly bigger; Blake lets out a growl of his own, skin roiling like angry waves as he holds back his Shift; Soul scrambles backwards in the dirt, heels and hand tearing at the grass until he's practically pressed against her legs. She whips an accusatory finger at Blake, "Knock that shit off right now and if you ruin that shirt I'll tear you a new asshole." She swings around, points at Harvar. "You! Put your teeth away or you're next on my shit list and don't even get me started on how you're not supposed to be here." Stein, however, she barely gives more than a glance. She shakes her head, looks more disappointed and maybe even a little exasperated than anything else. "You were supposed to be inside, helping Blake. Take a break."
When none of them move, she bares her own teeth, grunts in frustration. "Oh for the love of-Get your asses in the house now." She leaves no room for argument. More than a simple "i'm the alpha" it's an "I'm The Goddamn Alpha, Do As I Say Or I'll Eat Your Face". Almost mechanically, Blake backs down, turns on his heel, and strides into the house; still fuming, but at least listening to what she says. Stein lumbers to the porch before Shifting back with a chorus of cracking bones and an increasingly human groan, until he's butt-naked and climbing the stairs with a hand on his lower back as he follows Blake inside. Harvar moves to follow, but she rounds on him with a gleam in her eye that says she'll kick his ass before he can even think about it. Soul wisely stays on the ground, refusing to look anyone in the eye, especially after seeing a strange man's ass after almost definitely getting eaten...by said man.
Maka sighs. This is not at all how she expected this night to go, but, hey, when has any part of her life ever once went the way she expected it to? Why start now?
Might as well make it weirder.
"Soul? I'm gonna need you to give me your pants."
It takes him a moment to process, then he's looking up at her with those creepy red eyes that shine in the moonlight as he asks a very bewildered, "What?"
"Soul, I'm gonna need you to give me your pants, because I'm gonna have Harvar here change back, fix my arm, and apologize for scaring you. And I need your pants because I don't think you want him to do all of that with his dick out."
He casts a glance at Harvar, who's still very much a giant wolf, before deciding that she's right and scrambling to his feet, his belt clinking too loudly in the quiet. Soon, she has his dirty pants in her good hand, and she holds them out to Harvar wordlessly. Soul pointedly watches his toes as Harvar shifts back and she has to hold in a laugh despite herself. Harvar stands tall, back cracking as he straightens, but being human doesn't make him any less menacing, she realizes a little too late.
Wordlessly, though without taking his eyes off Soul, he reaches for her arm. She turns, winces as his palm cups the ball of her arm, and she can hear the silent countdown before he wrenches her arm back in it's socket with a sickening, wet sort of pop. Luckily, she has the mind to hold back the pained noise she wants to make, and instead only sighs in relief as she testingly rotates her arm. Supernatural healing will take care of the soreness in a couple minutes. Good. Better. Now...the second she locks eyes with him, Harvar gives her a pleading look, one that begged her to let him rip Soul to pieces instead, until she raises her brows, taps her foot. Waiting.
Harvar sighs exaggeratedly, levels Soul with a look that makes him flinch, and says, "I'm sorry for scaring you." He immediately turns his attention back to Maka, and she waves him off, knowing it's as good as she's gonna get at the moment.
Instead, she busys herself with her current pet project, and realizes he looks much smaller and pathetic standing in the moonlight in only a tattered and dirty band shirt and his underwear. With Harvar a safe distance away, he straightens and manages to look her in the eye, opening his mouth to undoubtedly apologize, but she holds up her hand to stop him. "Don't even worry about it." The look on his face tells her he's going to do nothing else, and the watery sort of glint in his eyes makes her skin crawl with the unsaid apology. To avoid any more awkwardness, she grabs him by the elbow and steers him toward the house, shoots a glare at Harvar as he moves to follow. "Alright, so, I'm gonna have Blake set you up with some clothes so you can take a shower. Sound good?"
Something in Soul seems to relax as they reach the porch, his shoulders slumping. "Yeah. Okay. I'm probably smelling pretty ripe, huh?" She playfully wrinkles her nose, smiling when he laughs. There are grooves gouged into the supple old wood of the porch where the screen door hit it, the thing now hanging at an angle off the edge of the porch, teetering at every slight shift of the wind. Soul eyes the busted hinges warily, and she watches him instead of reaching for the door, allowing him to take his time before facing her family. "Do you think they'll kill me as soon as I open the door?" He whispers, as if that could keep them from hearing him.
She whispers back, but she can't help the way the humor floods her veins and makes her skin prickle; like she was in on a joke that he simply wasn't. "I think you'll be fine. They're not gonna hurt you, because I'll hurt them." She says it more for them, Blake and Stein, but it seems to comfort Soul all the same. She allows him to do the honors of pushing open the door and heading inside, and he makes it all of five steps before his brain catches up with his body, and he realizes that he's-quite literally-walking into the wolf's den. She leans in the doorway and snatches up the handle before it can bang back against the wall behind it, flashing a smile to her boys sitting moodily in the living room. At least Stein put some pants on. "Blake, you heard me?" He doesn't look her way-childish-but he nods once, and that's enough for her. "Good. Soul, bathroom's up the stairs, fourth door on the left. Use whatever you need, towels are under the sink." She goes to leave, almost has the door shut, but busts back in last second. "Oh! And, the plumbing's old and sucky, so if the shower head starts to whine, pull up on the diverter and give it a wiggle until it stops." She mimes wiggling the little knob helpfully, and then finally ducks out the door, leaving them to their own devices. She's at least semi-confident that they can survive about twenty-or-so minutes without her watching their every move.
That taken care of, she bounds down off the porch and across the lawn, meets Harvar down by the edge of the pond. He watches the water ripple, and he shifts from foot to foot as she crosses her arms and simply stares at him. Unluckily for her, he's the most stubborn of them all, second only to her, and she's had much too long a day to deal with this waiting game. "What the fuck are you doing here?" She snaps, once the silence becomes too much for her, craning her neck to force him to look her in the eye. "You were supposed to stay with the pack."
"And leave you with a vampire? By yourself?" Dark brown eyes, so dark they're almost black, meet hers. They seem darker in the night, the moonlight catching the curious sheen lining them. "We fought over who would come home, Mak. I had to argue with them for two hours to convince them they couldn't all come, and the only reason I came alone is because I snuck out when Sid got there!" He throws his hands up, exasperated.
There's a lot for her to unpack there, so she just starts at the beginning. "First of all, I wasn't by myself. I had Blake and Sid and Stein here to help me, if I needed it, which I didn't. I'm a little insulted you think I can't take a baby on my own." He shoots her a glare and she concedes with a tilt of her head. "Okay, I'm sorry. I know you guys were worried, and I should've worked harder to keep y'all in the loop. I...I just thought it was best to keep you guys...separate, from this. Until I figured out what the fuck is going on."
"How's that going?"
She laughs humorlessly, flaps her hand over her shoulder, gesturing at the whole mess she'd just cleaned up. "What do you think?" The broken screen door finally loses balance and clatters off the porch noisily, almost as if in response. Maka buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking that might be laughter or sobs or maybe a little bit of both, and Harvar takes the chance to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her into him, his own shoulders shifting a little as he settles contentedly. She slips her arms around his bare torso, leaning her forehead against the ball of his shoulder, eyes closing. He presses his nose to her hair. "I'm sorry."
"Me, too."
They stay like that for a long moment, long enough for the quiet to resettle and the crickets and frogs to start their chorus again. Then, he flexes his arm a little to get her attention, and says softly, "Hey, you wanna go for a run?"
"Oh my god, yes!" She throws her head back as she agrees, eagerly disentangling herself before whipping off her shirt. She goes for the button on her jeans, kicking off her boots, but she stops just as fast, eyes wide. "Fuck , what about the others? I can't-"
"They'll be fine." He forces her to meet his eyes, gives her a smile he knows she can't refuse. "Twenty minutes. Tops."
She shakes her head, but slings her remaining boot off and shimmies out of her jeans anyway. "First one to the woodline wins!" She takes off at a sprint in nothing but her underwear, laughing as she hears Harvar nearly trip over the skinny jeans clinging to his calves. Halfway there, she tears free of her skin, the literal tearing of fabric static in the back of her mind as her paws hit the ground thunderously. Wind whistling through her fur, senses heightened and her heart thrumming in like a war drum; behind her, she hears Harvar join her, feels his stream of consciousness slip into her mind, soft and easy as his hand slipping into her own.
He accuses her of cheating, but it doesn't matter as he falls into step beside her, tearing their way through the woods like a natural disaster set free.