“I’ll take it off if you ask nicely,” he said, smiling sweetly at Mac and knowing that the other never did anything nicely.
“Take it off or I’m biting you,” he warned, baring neat, sharp teeth at him. He had the keres teeth along with the vampiric fangs, making for a rather charming look overall.
“Yeah, but did you really know what you were getting stuck with way back when you made that decision? Because I don’t think you did. I think you were just being stubborn because I wasn’t interested,” he returned.
“Does that really matter? Because I love you, grumpiness and all,” she pointed out, never one to let him get the last word in when she thought she was right.
“Maybe. Kinda freaks me out that she’s latched onto Chance though. I don’t know if that means she’d even wanna meet me, let alone talk to me about that stuff.” Matt admitted, fidgeting a little as he hadn’t meant to drag the conversation down and make Tucker feel uncomfortable.
“Only one way to find out though, right? And the dude aunt Manson and uncle Angelo are taking care of doesn’t seem like a good bet for talking. At least the girl, latching onto Chance has to mean she’s not the same kind of broken, right?” He didn’t say that it probably also meant the girl was a killer.
He perked up a little at the mention of jerky. That was one thing he was familiar with and knew he liked the taste of, even if he wasn’t a wolf and more inclined to carnivorous food choices anyway.
“Please?” he nodded, oddly polite in a way that suggested that the manners he had were been beaten into him.
“I have hickory, teriyaki, and bourbon style,” she listed, pulling each pouch out individually. “Oh, and venison jerky that my brother’s girlfriend brought home from the pack she spends time with.” She was rather partial to the venison herself.
Matt looked a little saddened by Tucker’s response but he understood it. Sometimes Matt forgot they weren’t actually related by blood, especially because that didn’t matter to him at all, but Tucker acknowledging that he couldn’t relate to how he was feeling in that moment made Matt suddenly feel a little alone, but he didn’t tell Tucker that.
“It’s okay. Guess it’s just a really difficult situation all round?”
He tried to console him again, but that was something their sister was better at than he was. Honestly, it made him feel a little uncomfortable, but he didn’t say it. The last thing he wanted to do was make his brother feel like a burden.
“Maybe once the girl’s settled, you could talk to her? See what she knows, try to see if she’s from the same place as you?”
Quinn shook his head. He’d never had anything even remotely resembling candy until he came to live with Angelo and Manson, and they’d been careful about introducing him slowly to different foods and flavours so that they didn’t accidentally make him sick.
Of the things he had tasted so far though, he had quite liked the taste of ice cream, though the coldness gave him a headache if he ate it too quickly, and cheesecake, which had confused him completely at the concept of putting cheese in a dessert.
“These are chewy and fruity, no sour,” she promised, still holding the pack out to him. They were definitely easier to handle than the sour candy worms, but still sweet enough for her to have more than one pack with her.
“I have beef jerky too, if you’d rather have some of that.” She had taken to keeping meat snacks on her too mostly because of Trace, but she thought he might like those too.
“I know. It’s just… you know?”
Part of it made him wonder if the things his possible-siblings had been subjected to might somehow stand in the way of him actually getting to know any of them, or at least finding out any more about where he’d come from.
He didn’t. Not really, anyway. He had a link to his past, someone that remembered but refused to give him the answers he wanted. Even Jeff wouldn’t tell him about the circumstances they were taken in under, but it didn’t hold a candle to Matt’s situation. He knew he didn’t have any other siblings out there. He knew there was never the possibility of a random broken kid being related to him.
“Not really. I mean, I’ve got Gwen. We weren’t being sold. I have no idea what you must be thinking or feeling.”
Quinn looked hesitant and a little doubtful as he cautiously reached for one, looking it over briefly before he took a tentative bite, another face pulled at the initial sourness, but that was only momentary before the sweet taste came through.
It wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever eaten by any means, but they were something he figured might be more of an acquired taste, the texture a little strange to him also.
“You’re not used to candy are you?” She set the bag aside and began pawing through her giant purse, looking for something he might like a little better. “Here, try this. It’s probably a better start with junk food,” she offered, pulling out a pack of starburst candies.
Matt went quiet again for a few moments. If there was a possibility that the damage to his eye had been caused by abuse when he was just a baby, then it was also possible that the others had been subjected to far worse even at such a young age and the thought alone made him whine slightly in sadness.
The whine made Tucker wince a little and hesitated before awkwardly patting Matt on the shoulder. For a canine, Tuck had never really grown to be very affectionate. “Dad’s working on it.”
Name: Arcadia
Face:
What: Shapeshifter (wolf/domestic dog)
Duties: Former tracker for hunters
Age: late teens, early 20′s
Sexuality: Undecided
Talents: accelerated healing, heightened sense, shapeshifting (wolfdog)
Arcadia is the result of some pretty fucked up and sketchy breeding techniques instituted by a band of hunters. She has watched a good deal of other mutts used as first kills, but she was trained as a tracker, something of a bloodhound, and used to killed other shifters at limited risk to the hunters that controlled her.
When Jeff broke in and killed her handler, she fought against him only to wake up lying in a hospital bed, her collar gone, and a man that smelled of death and blood sitting by her. Given her reaction to Jeff, they felt Chance might be a good fit for talking to her and she took to him easily.
ofviolentdeath 