Chapter Text
“Hey, Gav, where the fuck is Michael?” Geoff all but burst into the office with a cup of coffee, followed by a quiet Ryan who absolutely stank of blood.
“Dunno.” Gavin shrugged, swallowing his gag, and turned back to his monitor, trying to level up before they recorded their next Destiny raid.
“The fuck you mean you don’t know where he is? He was in here with you, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, but he’s a bloody adult, inn’e? ‘S not my job to keep track of him.” He turned back to his screen, apparently waiting to be revived. Geoff groaned and rolled his eyes.
“Ray? You have any idea where he is?” Ray slid his headphones off of his head and turned to Geoff.
“Uh, no?”
“He fucking sits in between you two!”
“I figured he was going to the kitchen so I didn’t bother to ask!” Gavin’s voice was getting defensively shriller by the word.
“Well that’s where I was, so I would have seen him!” Geoff’s eyes flicked between a very annoyed Gavin to Michael’s desk, with its dark monitors and a silent computer. And then to the backpack still sat next to the desk. He silently ticked numbers off on his fingers before whispering a quiet ‘oh shit’ and pointing at Gavin, who jumped back in surprise.
“I-I didn’t do anything, Geoff don’t-” Geoff’s impatient snap cut him off.
“Did he look weird when he walked out of here?” Gavin’s face went blank for a moment as he thought before nodding tentatively.
“A bit, yeah. Didn’t say goodbye or anything. ‘s why I figured he wasn’t leaving.”
“Did he look like he was… glowing? Maybe stiff and kinda,” He waved a hand in front of his eyes, “blank looking.”
“Ohhhh shit.” Ray quietly cut in, clearly understanding something that Gavin was not.
“Yeah.” Geoff nodded in acknowledgement of this sudden realization before turning back to Gavin.
“He’s pale as hell, Geoff. He always looks like he’s glowing.” Gavin snorted at his own joke before an electric blue glare cut him off.
“Not funny, asshole.”
“Alright, alright, he did look a bit… radiant, I s’pose.” Geoff sighed roughly and turned to Ray who nodded and grabbed his hoodie off the back of his chair.
“Go to the car and wait for Jack and me.” Gavin looked between the pair, absolutely baffled.
“Could either of you tell me what the bloody hell is going on?!” Ray had already left, running into Jack as he did and dragging him away with a knowing look. Which left a very exasperated Geoff to explain, who had apparently not realized that his horns and tail had appeared; the latter was whipping behind him in frustration.
“Well. Sometimes Michael… gets a little… vengeful.”
“What- what the hell do you mean? Why don’t I know about this?”
“Well, usually we’re here to stop him before he gets out but… sometimes his ‘original programming’ takes over, as he puts it, and he needs to go ‘exact the fury of God.’ Or something like that. I mean, he hasn’t killed anyone yet.”
“Yet?!” Gavin parroted, eyes wide.
“We calm him down before he can- look, I can’t exactly explain the intricacies of metaphysical beings’ behavior. I have to stop said metaphysical being from killing some dickhead for breaking some obscure biblical rule. You and Ryan try not to kill each other and we should be back soon.” And with that helpful bit of information he was gone.
“Bloody hell… did you know about this, Ryan?”
“Hm?” Gavin’s question had pulled him out of the trance editing had put him in. “I think Geoff mentioned it, yeah.”
“Unbelievable! I only just moved out! And we work together!”
“Aw, are you mad that Dad doesn’t talk to you anymore?” Ryan chuckled and took a sip of the absolutely vile smelling mixture of bagged pigs blood and Diet Coke. The stuff was enough to make Miles all but projectile vomit a few weeks ago when, somehow, he mistook the pitcher of it in the kitchen for a blueberry smoothie.
Made for good content, anyways.
“Oh, shut it, Ryan. I just don’t know why you know and I never did.” Gavin choked down a gag, but Ryan picked up on it nonetheless and rolled his eyes.
“He probably told you and you just forgot.”
“Michael never even told me!” He swore quietly as he knifed his way off a cliff, eyes constantly flicking between Ryan and his screen.
“I have to admit, if I went around killing people on the regular, I wouldn’t mention it either. Not really a good icebreaker.”
“You are always talking about murder, Ryan. Creepy bastard…” Gavin laughed softly and returned to his game, the room falling into a not totally uncomfortable silence. That is, until Ryan walked past practically drenched in the scent of blood and Gavin’s gag reflex worked overtime to make sure he was almost emptying the contents of his stomach onto the floor.
“I have to eat too, you know!” Ryan spat as Gavin doubled over, dry heaving.
“You smell awful!” He choked out in between strained coughs as Ryan sighed roughly.
“Imagine how terrible this stuff tastes, and I’ve been drinking it since before I had teeth. Anyways, you always smell like wet dog after a full moon, and you never hear me complain.” Gavin scoffed, hurt especially because he knew that was a lie. He hadn’t been on a hunt in months, the pull of the full moon not even strong enough to convince him to hunt without a proper pack.
He had left his whole pack back home and hadn’t been able to find one in Austin accepting enough of outsiders. Packs were familial, mostly, and he vividly remembered turning people down back home. He hadn’t thought anything of the practice then. Didn’t think he’d ever be the outsider. The loose network of werewolves provided some sort of community that made hunts more successful and honestly, more fun. Wasn’t exactly enjoyable if your only accompaniment was a very tired, very sour demon who was really only there to get you home.
“I’m sorry, Ryan, the stuff makes me want to vom!”
“If you’d like to pay for my donor match account, be my guest. I’d much prefer to feed live anyways.” Gavin stuck out his tongue and crinkled his nose, slightly exaggerating his disgust at the prospect of feeding off of someone.
“You still do that? Isn’t it… messy?” In his head, it was a scene straight out of a slasher film, blood everywhere in some sort of disgusting, cannibalistic shower.
“Yes, vampires still feed live. Most of us do for all our meals, actually. Maybe if you actually knew anything about vampires you would know that.” Gavin had to restrain his eye roll. It’s not like he needed to know anything about vampires, right? He just had to work with one. “And yeah, it does get messy if you pierce the jugular and, you know, kill the person. But we don’t do that, because our parents taught us better than to be mindless animals that devour livestock and ruin economies. That and usually you can get people to come back for more if you don’t kill them.”
“People like that?”
“Tons, actually. Lights up a lot of pleasure centers in the brain is what I’ve heard.”
“Ugh, God, I can’t imagine that feeling good. Fangs all up in my neck and what not. ‘s just gross.” He shivered at the imagined sensation.
“You’d be surprised, Gavin. Most people don’t think they’ll like it and end up becoming lifelong donors. Though the almost constant sex probably doesn’t hurt.” Ryan tacked on with a chuckle as Gavin’s eyes widened at the words ‘constant sex’. “They don’t exactly come back out of the kindness of their hearts.”
“So do you…” The rest of the question died on Gavin’s lips and he just sort of waggled his eyebrows to get his point across.
“…Yes! No! Uh, sometimes?” Ryan folded his arms and huffed out a sigh. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It absolutely does! If I had as much sex as you just admitted you have I wouldn’t be able to shut up about it.”
“Well I suppose that’s what makes us different, Gavin. I don’t go around just-” Gavin’s phone nearly vibrating off of his desk cut him off.
“Hey, Geoff! What’s up?”
“We’re fucked!” Geoff’s panicked shriek made the both of them jump, exchanging a brief nervous glance.
“What’s wrong?” Gavin tried to keep his voice even, but Ryan could see his hands beginning to shake a bit.
“We fucking lost him is what’s wrong! He went into the fucking woods and we can’t track him dow- You.”
“Me?!” Gavin squeaked, nearly rocketing out of his chair.
“You’re a dog, right? Kind of?”
“Not really, but why?”
“Can you track people?”
“I’ve never- I don’t know- Probably. I can try.”
“That’s good enough for me. Get Ryan to drive you out here and we’ll go from there.” Ryan’s eyes widened at his name and he attempted to grab the phone from Gavin.
“I will be doing nothing of the sort!” Gavin scowled at Ryan who currently had a hand pushed into his face, the other groping for the phone just out of reach. “Tell him I am not driving you to the woods!”
“The hell you aren’t, Ryan!” Geoff’s angry yell sounded from the phone, audible even as far away as it was from the both of them. Gavin pushed Ryan off of him with a grunt, cradling the phone in his shoulder.
“I don’t think he’s going to do it, Geoff.”
“If he wants to keep his job he will!” Geoff really didn’t need to be shouting as loud as he was, and Gavin thought he could hear Jack in the background telling him to calm down.
“Tell him we’ll meet him… wherever the hell he is as soon as we can.” Ryan dug the keys out of his pocket with a sigh. Gavin relayed the information to Geoff, who to their relief, could no longer be heard with the phone an arm’s length from the both of them. Gavin nodded a couple of times and hung up, stuffing the phone in his back pocket.
“He sounded proper worried.”
“One of his employees is going on a biblical rampage. It’s only reasonable he’d be nervous. I’m sure everything will be ok.” Ryan smiled with a small shrug. With how panicked Geoff sounded the last thing anyone needed was Gavin freaking out too. “Let’s get going. I’d preferably like to stop the murder rampage as soon as possible.” Gavin chuckled and stopped fiddling with his watch band.
“I think that’s a good idea.” As Ryan went to turn the lights off and lock up as much as a person without keys could, he hesitated for a second, staring at the jacket still slung over the back of Michael’s chair.
“Do you think you’ll need something of Michael’s?”
“Huh?”
“You know to like, get his scent. That is how dogs work, right?”
“Again,” Gavin gestured to himself, “not a dog. Probably wouldn’t hurt though.” Ryan grabbed the jacket and closed the door behind him with a sigh. It was going to be a long night.
Despite the fact that the sun was sunk low in the sky, the air still held some warmth, warmth that Ryan hoped would last if he was going to be sat in the woods, waiting for his coworker to come down from his murderous rampage. He was probably going to be hungry and he considered grabbing another cupful of his ‘smoothie’, but just the thought of Gavin heaving in his car put him off the idea. He really wasn’t in the mood for scraping vomit off of his floorboard.
Ryan threw the jacket to the back seat as Gavin slid into the car and almost immediately kicked his feet onto the dashboard.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?” Gavin looked at him dumbly, as if he had no concept of what he was doing wrong… and judging by his blank look, he didn’t. Ryan gestured to his feet and Gavin took them down with a hardly concealed eye roll. What an… an animal.
“Where are we headed?” Gavin pulled out his phone as a response and after a bit of fumbling and cursing, got his navigation working.
“Listen to this and we should be good.” Ryan snorted a bit and started the car.
“I find your faith in that amusing.”
“It’s never gotten me lost before. Is it hard to be that cynical all the time?”
“It’s like second nature at this point.” Gavin laughed and leaned his head against the window lightly, testing if there was going to be protest from Ryan. When there wasn’t he settled in for the ride, letting the silence fall between them again, only broken by the robotic commands of the phone.
The traffic had kindly decided to be not terrible and let them show up a reasonable half hour later. Not that Geoff thought it was reasonable, if the way he was pacing around the parking lot with his hands shoved in his pockets and tail whipping behind him irritably was any indication.
“Where the hell were you?” Geoff was on them in an instant. Ryan hadn’t even finished stepping out of the car and he had a face full of furious demon.
“We could not have physically gotten here faster, Geoff.” Ryan deadpanned and gently pushed him away, not missing how the flame suspended between his horns flared angrily at the touch.
“We’ve been hearing shouting for the past few minutes, but look around.” Jack pulled Geoff away and gestured to the mostly full parking lot around them. “It could be drunk campers. It’s probably drunk campers, actually.”
“Which only makes this whole thing worse, because we don’t even have the screaming to go by.”
“We’ll find him. We always find him.” Ray was quiet, Ryan finally noticing where he stood.
“Now that I’m here we will!” Everyone turned to look at Gavin, proudly brandishing the jacket like a trophy. Ryan could see the wheels turning in Geoff’s head and his fears were confirmed when he spoke.
“Gav, Ryan you go off together. I’ll take Jack and Ray and follow where we last saw him head off.” Before Ryan could speak they were gone, Geoff dragging them away close to him. Gotta protect the normal and the literal walking corpse, Ryan supposed.
“This isn’t a-” He sighed, realizing Geoff either could not or did not want to hear him, “This isn’t a Scooby Doo episode. I was just… Gavin’s ride…” His arms hung limply at his sides, defeated. Driving Gavin to the woods was enough; he hadn’t anticipated having to track Michael down too.
“Are we gonna do this or are you gonna stand in a parking lot and make jokes all night?” Gavin looked at him expectantly.
“Honestly? I’d prefer the latter. But sure, let’s go hunt down our murderous angelic friend. I don’t get out enough as is.”