Chapter 2: Morning after.

Josh had post transformation jitters. Since Nora was off to the Canton Reserve in New Mexico to monitor her pregnancy, the boy was heartsick and a bit horny. With the Cage on the hunt for new 'wolves, Aiden and he both agreed to transforming the basement to a cage for the month.

Fortunately, the werewolf was also a bit heartsick (and as far as he knew, not horny) and spent the evening being docile while gnawing on a steel pipe. It didn't even eat the half of rump roast that he'd prepared the weekend before—which now lead him to wonder what he was going to do with a raw, two day old slab of meat.

'Throw it out, most likely', it wouldn't last till the next moon, and despite being a feral animal in the night, Josh really squirmed at the idea of eating slightly rotted meat.

After Aiden takes him home tonight, he resolved to toss out the rump.

Their short silver Camry pulled up in front of the emergency ward of Suffolk County Hospital and Josh leaped to his feet (nearly blacked out) and grabbed his bag leaping into the passenger side.

"Dizzy?"

"You know how it is, day after the 'wolf, going back to…" Josh then realized that Aiden was smirking. He said the same thing to him every time he picked him up the morning after. "Just drive home."

"Yeah, like, now."

Josh made a sound of surprise when Sally's head appeared through his window. She was standing outside, in her slippers, peering over the edge of the car- which may have looked somewhat normal if the window wasn't still closed.

"Really Josh? A scream? Shouldn't you, like, expect me everywhere by now?"

"I didn't scream," Josh whined, he choked a bit trying to adjust his octave, "I cried out in surprise."

"Yes… in a very high pitch."

The dirty blonde just rolled his eyes, then tried to shoo her grin out of his face. "What do you want and can't wait the twenty minutes to come home?"

"Oh. Okay, twenty minutes." And then she materialized out of view.

"With traffic it could be half an hour," Aiden said sympathetically, as Josh appeared to be picking ghost particles out of his hair.

"Just drive already. I've had a long day."

Josh wasn't kidding. With the hospital down-sizing. He was fighting tooth and claw with older orderlies and younger nurses convinced that the next text they received demonstrated a matter of life or death.

Senses and strength already dulled after the culmination of the month, Josh just wanted a quiet day of wiping tile floors, changing bed pans and eating alone in the corner.

"New vamp in the blood section." Josh tried to say it as if it were a new temp at the counter. "He's watching me, I know it. You and this arrangement just seems to mean more bloodsuckers at our work place."

"They're only there till Mother moves Balraj to St. Grace. Then things will be quite at Suffolk."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you want to get rid of vampires in a hospital you are abandoning. Not add to them?" Josh decided to leave out the part where the lunch interns had decided to bite the backs of his legs. Must be some new vampire dare—and he snarled at them reminding them that werewolf blood was poisonous to vampires.

They said juvenile things about how wet dogs smell then were called aside by Dr. Suresh. Who, after three years of working under him, Josh was still astounded that he was the high ranking vampire at the hospital.

Suresh appeared like a middle aged Indian doctor with an oddly impeccable British accent. Well actually he was just that, just very few people passing him would know he was in fact over a 500 year old Hindu vampire. Not that his religion had anything to do with how old he was.

Of all the monsters he had met, Josh had the least skepticism about Salarjung Balraj 'Suresh' Praveen. He just seemed so… well, wise. And his discovery of his boss's history only enforced the werewolf's opinion.

Dr. Suresh was Bishop's counterpart (and Aiden's mentor in self control) at the hospital. After the police officer got staked and ashed by their very own ghost roomie, Suresh took over watching the orphans in the cleanup. The task had been allotted to Aiden, and as direct result of his actions, they were all destroyed. Except the orphans under Suresh's aid – Mother allowed those half dozen-ish to live.

"Come on Josh, every transition requires subtle changes. Nothing happens overnight." Aiden appeared to have thought of Josh's condition then decided to not elaborate. Josh realized his room mate hoped he didn't notice the change in expression on his face. But Josh also knew by now being OCD meant he noticed everything and nobody liked hearing him complain about the little details.

"Oh, and when are the cages going to get full, already? A wolf last month, two the month before, another one last night. I swear, if another twenty-year-old blood-sucker is going to tell me about how he'll see me in the arena again, I will bite someone's head off."

"Another one last night?" this was news to Aiden, who had spent most of the morning at the hotel planning for the meetings that were to occur between Mother and Snow before his trips. The entertainment was to be arranged entirely by Olfaq, one of Mother's more capable menservants. "Could be a ring fight."

"Boxing right?"

"Well…" Aiden spared his roommate the details. Though neither doubted it was a cage match to the death. Josh barely survived his first experience in the Cage last year—he didn't like talking about it, even though he was among the fortunate many who didn't remember any part of his transformation. "If it's a big one, which it sounds like it might be, they'll need at least ten."

"TEN?" Josh tried not to jump out of his seat. He sat there looking a bit sick. "Geeze. Can you imagine catching ten werewolves just for a cage fight?"

"They might just infect ten people."

Josh gave the vampire a very dirty look then Aiden clamped his mouth shut. But it lead cause to wonder: why were they catching wild wolves at risk of their own safety when using caged wolves may work just as well.

They did that in the First World War; tie the refugees to poles just out of the reach of the wolves' long claws. Sure there was the risk that they would actually die instead of turn… but at that time, they weren't very concerned about keeping a low profile at the time.

"You guys are sick."

Aiden figured he meant 'Vampires as a whole' and that he himself was exempt of the accusation, but he couldn't help but feel a bit insulted at the stereotype.

"British werewolf in Boston."

"What?"

"One of the Orphans said it," Josh started, "They thought it was funny, I guess. They had said something about an agreement, and he broke it. Was out in the woods last night and they hooked him. Imagine Aiden, my woods. That could have been me."

"Except we'd get you out."

"Like you did last time?" he glared. This was obviously still a sore part.

Though Josh was only half irritated. If it weren't for Aiden in the first place, he might have been happy just being a cage pet under ground for a week in a month. And it wasn't as if Aiden didn't try… or feel guilty about it.

And it wasn't as if he didn't kill the old dog.

"It's different now."

"Yeah Yeah." He pouted. "But I'm not sure how good this house arrangement is. I mean, sure there are the bars, and Sally can hold me inside the house at least. But every month? Maybe next month I'll go to the reserve with Nora."

"Ma'ma already said that those who can't remember aren't invited."

"I can fake it can't I? How hard can it be? 'Oh I do remember, I ran around and sniffed bushes, dug up a dead deer and then nibbled around the horns for a little while.'…" Josh trailed off when he realized his own fabrication was making him want to vomit. "Anyway… I think the 'wolf gets separation anxiety."

"You can clean up your own used tissues," Aiden quipped as he pulled to the curb in front of the Haunt.

"I don't have any dirty used tissues…" Josh started, and when he saw the vampire smirking, his head switched to the implication and he just said "Gross. And not very mature for someone your age."

"What, You don't think that kind of thing gets old when you've lived a few centuries do you?"

"GROSS!" repeated the werewolf, "And, I so did not need to know!"

Aiden locked the car door then started making jerking motions in the general direction of the werewolf. And Josh started flapping his hands in front of his face trying to physically dismember the mental image of an undead man jerking off.

"You are evil."

The door to the house swung open and Sally waved them in. She looked excited. Her grin as wide as her face. They shuffled in quickly, partially so that the neighbors didn't think too hard about the door seemingly opening by it's self and then called another exorcism. As the last one didn't go over so well.

AN: I know, short chapter. That's only because the next one is kind of long.