Night's Omen

"Shu---"  He'd been about to tell Ken to shut up, as was usual lately with his sour mood, but he stopped and just STARED at the other man.  He hadn't thought about THAT point.  "Wait, you mean, the way I was infected might fuck things up?"

Oh, hell, now he REALLY didn't want to shift!

He didn't get much time to even process that information before he turned a sort of pole-axed expression at Vin and Lore as they walked through the door.  He recovered himself fairly quickly, but now he was worried.  He didn't like ANY of this.  "Hey, Lore, Vin," he greeted, getting up from where he'd been sitting on the bed.  Despite being on lockdown in what could have passed for a cross between a hospital room and a bomb shelter, he was dressed, had been sure to work out some when he was finally feeling up to it, and was trying to function like something other than an invalid.  He felt more like a prisoner, but hey, at least he didn't have the jumpsuit.

"You know, Kiev, not everyone has your luck and a crazy effing Spaniard on their side," he pointed out, even curbing his language in front of Lore.  It was habit, since he'd known her a few years and she wasn't 18 that entire time, and he figured it'd make Vin happy to think of her as younger.  "I don't know HOW you've both managed to stay human all this time, but neither of you have played ball with the Chinese Crazies."

Wasn't that the truth?  Erik never wanted to play around with them again, so he couldn't imagine anyone else who'd want to. 

Wait, food?  Speaking of food, he was STARVED.  He didn't really care for much of what Mitchell was having sent to him, which meant that he wasn't eating all that much, and as Ken had put it in the car on the way back from the airport, his fasting was done.  "Lore, you're a lifesaver," he told her, already cracking open the tupperware to see what was inside.  He had a fork chilling out somewhere, so he settled himself right back down on the bed to dig in.

"So, how's school?" 

The mention of school elicited a long-suffering eyeroll.  "School is school.  I'm doing fine."

At Erik's comment concerning Vin and Dom not getting infected, Vin shrugged.  "Just that good, I guess," he said modestly.  Of course, he know how Dom had managed not to get infected all these years, but as for himself...  Well, come to think of it, Vin'd had a few close calls, too.  Did that mean he was immune, too?  He'd have to look into that later.

As he considered this, his cell phone rang.  "Oh, hold on a sec."  Flipping it open, he made a few single-word exchanges with the caller, ending it with an "I'll be right there."  Vin sighed.  "Connor wants me in his office.  Lore, wait in the car when you're done pestering these two.  I won't be long."  With that, he waved and hustled out of the observation room.

"Okay, Vin.  I'll head out there in a second," she assured her brother.  The instant he was out of sight, she smirked at Erik and managed to wiggle herself in between the two Hunters on the bed.  Erik, of course, was still noshing on the food Lore had made.  "I'm glad you like it.  It's just an improvised pasta bake thing." 

Glancing over at Kenji, she noticed the sucker sticking out of his mouth.  A sniff told her the flavor.  "Ooh, cherry!  My fave," she cooed, yoinking the candy right from the raven's surprised mouth and popping it into her own.  After a couple of entirely too suggestive licks, she stuck it back in Kenji's mouth before he'd even had a chance to protest.  "Thanks, Ken," she purred, giving him a wink.

Kenji stared wide-eyed at Lore, unmoving.  He didn't seem to know how to react to the sudden theft and equally mystifying return of his Tootsie Pop.  Slowly, he removed the sucker from his mouth and turned his stare upon it for a few moments, before returning his gaze to Lore.  "Please do not do that again," he mumbled.  It was the first thing he'd said since Vin and Lore had come into the room.  Around people other than Erik, Kenji tended to get very quiet and withdrawn.  Since he didn't know how else to deal with Lore, he proceeded to ignore her, turning to face Erik instead.

As for Erik's previous question, Kenji couldn't be entirely sure about the ritual thing.  It might have made a difference, but it might not have.  He just didn't know.  Which was exactly why they had to keep him under observation, just in case.  "I am hoping that your first shift will be able to tell us whether or not your unusual circumstances for contracting lycanthropy-- or, in your case, 'tigranthropy'-- had any extraordinary effect.  However, the chances are low that it did anything special.  This is merely a precaution, in case it does affect your shifting, so that we can do something about it right away rather than let it cause trouble."

Well, Erik certainly got the prize for the most boring question possible.  Given everything that had happened, that could be talked about, he'd chosen to ask about school.  Nice job, Erik.  We're all proud of you for the attempt at normalcy.  Moving on, then?

Vin's departure wasn't really THAT surprising, all things considered.  Batten tried to tailor hits and offers to the hunters involved, so it wasn't too strange to get a call from him.  Vin was probably getting a job, one that Erik might even have been able to take.  Bastard.  Instead, he was stuck in the glass room inhaling pasta bake.  Even if the pasta bake was good, it was still less than exciting.  "It's awesome, and I'm starving, so you've got great timing," he told her, not about to hear her put it down.  Had he mentioned that he'd missed real food?  Even before he'd been captured and locked up, he'd had to eat local food, so he hadn't had anything good in awhile.  He really didn't want to think about what they'd been feeding him while he was delirious and stuck in that hole, since he didn't remember it being anything....'kosher'.  Lore was a good distraction, however, especially when paired with Ken, who seemed to withdraw from social activities whenever there was someone else around.  He needed to fix that, for real.

"Come on, Lore, don't tease him too bad.  You might give him an aneurysm while he tries to figure out what to do about it," he told her, smirking some and raising an eyebrow at Ken.  Whereas Erik wouldn't mind at ALL if a cute young girl, even one he'd known was a much younger girl, wanted to swipe a lollipop from him for a few licks, Ken did.  Ken was a strange guy, to say the least.  Of course, Ken was also obnoxious about his subject changes, since he immediately took them right back to topics that Erik didn't want to talk about.  It figured.  He should see if a nudge would get Lore to steal Ken's lollipop again.

"Well, I'm glad to hear the chances are low, I guess," he returned, the humor from a moment before evaporating.  He really, really hated this.  The fact that it had to get worse through him shifting before it would get better, meaning he'd get to leave, wasn't any better.

Lore flashed Erik a megawatt smile.  She'd always liked Erik, ever since he'd joined the guild when she was nearly fifteen.  Teasing Ken had been a favorite pasttime of hers ever since she'd met his ex-mercenary partner, since having Erik around got her over her initial fear of the raven shifter.  Yeah, when Kenji joined the guild, she was only eleven, and he creeped the hell out of her back then.  Now that she was old enough to realize that he really wasn't so bad (though still creepy), and had Erik to back her up, she enjoyed picking on the shy raven every chance she got.

The sudden change in topic wiped her mirth away pretty quickly, though.  Brows drawing together in concern, she frowned at Erik.  "So that's why you're in here?  Man, tough break.  Why haven't you shifted yet?  Didn't you get back like, days ago?"

"Lucio-kun has been remarkably uncooperative," Kenji interjected, his monotone sounding suspiciously sulky.  He never, EVER knew how to deal with Lore's teasing.  He'd preferred it when she was all shy and slightly terrified of him.  That, he could understand, and knew how to react accordingly:  ignoring her usually did the trick.  Stealing his candy and doing unspeakable things to it before putting it back in his mouth was rather harder to ignore.

"The sooner you shift, the sooner we can let you out."  This sort of reasoning didn't seem to be working yet, but Kenji was nothing if not stubborn.

Erik didn't really WANT to be uncooperative, but it happened to coincide with his preferences, so it worked.  Besides, it was impressive, as far as he was concerned, to be able to do ANYTHING that Ken thought was 'remarkable'.  On some level, he was proud of himself.  Unfortunately, he was just about as stubborn as Ken was, and neither of them had yet figured out how to trump the other on that one.  Occasionally, Erik managed it just by pushing through Ken's defenses on whatever issue it was, but that wasn't going to work here.  He was stuck, so either he was eventually going to have to suck it up and deal, or he was going to sit there.  Ken had the advantage.

"Yes, I got back four days ago.  I spent the first two in a delirious haze with a lot of sleeping, yesterday still sucked, and today I'm actually feeling alright," he grumbled, having rather preferred having the subject on teasing Ken.  He didn't want to discuss this. 

Really, how did he explain to two shifters that he didn't WANT to shift?  Ken had been born a raven, and Lore had adapted pretty well to being a wolf, but it wasn't like everyone wanted to be a shifter.  Sure, a tiger was a really cool form to have, especially when the alternatives included birds and snakes, but he still preferred being human.  He just...didn't have that option anymore.

"I still don't see what the damn deal is.  I feel like I'm sitting on display in a fucking zoo or something with everyone hovering around waiting for it," he snarled, mostly at Ken.  NOT a happy camper.  He'd have much preferred house arrest so that he could try it out the first time in private.  He didn't WANT an audience.

"Ooh, someone's cranky," Lore observed.  "And no wonder, since you're stuck in here all the time.  Come on, you might as well just get it over with.  It doesn't hurt.  It's actually pretty easy after you do it a few times.  See?"

To demonstrate, she hopped down from the bed and moved to the center of the room, where she shifted down to her wolf form.  She wasn't a big wolf, but she was about the size of an average German Shepard, with cream and gold and red in her fur.  More "pretty" than intimidating, as far as werewolves went.  She sat down and wagged her tail a little, hanging her tongue out in a canine grin. 


"A teenage girl can do it," Kenji pointed out, not without a hint of mockery in his voice, "so why is it such an issue for you?" 

Tilting his head thoughtfully, he remarked, "I think I like you better in this form, Loreanna.  You are quieter, and less likely to steal my candy."

In response, Lore growled and got to her feet.  She wouldn't really attack Ken, and her body language said that she wasn't really angry, but she couldn't exactly make a snappy retort with that muzzle of hers.  Playfully, she stalked towards the bed, snapping her jaws as if she planned to take a chomp out of Ken's exposed feet.

Great.  They were both idiots, trying to get him to turn into a great big predatory cat, because he was going to end up eating one of them for being so annoying.  Well, not really, but it was a good threat.  They both knew he'd never purposely hurt them, which was obviously why they felt the need to bust his ass all the time.  Too bad he was usually pretty nice, or he'd fix that the Verde way.

"I hope she bites you, you asshat," he told Ken, though that threat wasn't nearly as good as his own.  "Or I might, whenever I decide to shift."

It was true, Lore looked a lot prettier than any werewolf had a right to, and not really all that intimidating.  He'd have assumed she was a friendly dog, even with the wolfish features, though body language and perhaps his own impression of Lore as a human contributed strongly to that.  She also wasn't all that big, which was another factor.  He'd met wolf shifters, and seen them in their wolf forms, and some of them were BIG and scary.  Or at least, as scary as he thought animals got.

"She will not bite me," Kenji said, sounding confident, though he drew his bare feet away from the edge of the bed.  "I would almost rather you DID bite me.  At least we would know what sort of temperment you have as a tiger, that way."  He was needling Erik again, as usual. 


Almost as if to prove Kenji wrong, Lore nipped at his toes.  Then, with a glint in those gold-blue eyes that could only be described as mischeivous, she leaped up onto the bed and pinned Kenji to the mattress.  Long, fanged jaws drew closer to his unprotected face and throat... and she began licking him sloppily.

Kenji probably could have thrown her off, but having a wolf suddenly sitting on him and licking his face was so unexpected that he didn't do anything except squirm and flail ineffectively.  "Help!  Lucio-kun!  She is tasting me and covering me in wolf germs!"

Doofuses.  Or was the plural of that something else?  Doofi?  Doofusi?  Whatever.  The point was that each of them was a doofus.  He didn't know if either of them thought this would make him want to shift, but it wasn't working. 

"I can bet that I'd have the same temperament I do now, which isn't all that great," he returned, though he wasn't so sure that Ken was even paying attention by then.  With Lore jumping up on the bed (and making it rather crowded, Erik hopped off to give her room to hassle Ken.

"No way am I helping you.  Lick him all you want, Lore, he deserves it," he told her, smirking somewhat.  Watching Ken get covered in 'wolf germs' was almost satisfying.  Almost.  It was a short distraction, at least.

Lore took Erik's suggestion to heart, but soon moved away from Ken's face to attack another vulnerable area:  his tummy.  She stuck her cold, wet nose right up under the hem of his shirt and began slurping at his pale, defenseless belly. 

"Ah, stop!" Kenji pleaded breathlessly.  He wasn't a giggler, but it was pretty easy to tell that he was fighting hard not to laugh.  Kenji Matsumori did not laugh.  He did, however, make stupid jokes.  "This is not how I imagined getting molested by a pretty girl would be."


Lore DID bite him for that:  lightly, right on his side (where the "love handles" would be if Ken weren't so damn skinny), which made him squawk indignantly.  Then, tired of messing with Kenji, she turned and gave Erik a wolfy grin.  Your turn, that look seemed to say, just before she bounded off the bed, straight for the other Hunter.  Her front paws landed squarely against Erik's chest, as she knocked him to the floor.

He HAD to snicker at seeing Ken totally being RULED by a wet wolf nose and tongue, and especially the stupid joke the raven cracked.  As annoying as Ken's sense of humor could sometimes be, he was occasionally REALLY funny.  This was doing an excellent job of distracting him, which he hadn't realized he needed so badly.  He hadn't really thought about it all that time, but he'd been on edge since...well, since he arrived in China.  That was a long time without the opportunity to really relax, so it felt good right then.

Of course, it also meant he wasn't paying enough attention to Lore as she suddenly changed gears and jumped on him.  If he had been, he could have taken the hit and pushed her off with no problem, but it actually startled him, which shouldn't have been a bad thing.

If he hadn't been a shifter who really needed to shift.  The combination of the relaxing and the sudden 'attack' from Lore startling him seemed to be all that was necessary to jolt him into the other form, and there was suddenly a tiger rolling away from the wolf, not a man.

Oops. 

The biggest 'oops' in there was actually that there was no confusion there.  Not in the first few seconds, or after he had the chance to realize what had happened.  That might have been a good thing, except that there also wasn't much in the way of human reasoning where there should have been.  His tail flicked back and forth and his head lowered a little, fixing the wolf with orange-gold eyes.

Had he mentioned that he was hungry before?

Oh.  Shit.

Erik wasn't just a tiger, he was a fucking HUGE tiger.  No cat in the natural world got THAT big!  He was easily fifteen feet long from nose to tail, probably closer to eight hundred pounds than six, and solid muscle.  Lore, not quite one hundred pounds herself and the size of a medium-large dog, didn't stand a chance against this behemoth if he decided to take a chomp out of her.

Slowly backing away, Lore averted her gaze instinctively.  Staring a predator in the eyes was generally a bad idea, as it implied a challenge.  Hopefully, there was enough Erik in there to remember that she was his friend, and not lunch.


With Lore off of him, Kenji snapped to attention immediately as Erik shifted.  The size of the tiger surprised him, but he could understand why Erik was so gigantic; the tiger whose blood had been used to infect him had been treated as a god.  It was no big leap of logic to assume that he'd been a pretty damn big tiger.

The problem was, Erik did not seem to be aware of his humanity for the moment.  That could be bad news for Lore, if he attacked.  There wasn't enough room in here for her to run. 

"Loreanna," he said in a low, even tone.  "Get behind me and shift back to your human form.  You will not be able to fight back as well, but you do not stand a chance against him, anyway.  When I tell you to, get out of the room and lock the door behind you."

He slid off the bed and slowly began to approach the massive tiger.


Lore did as she was told, not about to argue with the smart birdie.  Once she was in human form, she waited tensely for the chance to bolt for the door.  "Oh man, he's gonna eat us," she moaned.  "Look at the size of him!"

The massive tiger watched the wolf's every move, and his growl intensified when she suddenly changed shapes.  Strange trick out of a canine, but not interesting enough to distract him.  He was slow about his approach, considering there were two of them and neither of them smelled like typical humans (or wolves), but he didn't see an immediate exit for the prey to take. 

If they tried to escape, he'd have them in an instant.

Tigers, even big ones, preferred to attack from behind, anyway.  He was hungry, and nowhere near a typical tiger in demeanor, so being face to face with them wouldn't chase him off, but being offered their backs would be a sure sign to attack.  If one of them ran?  Lunch time.

Fortunately for them, it didn't even occur to him that he was larger than a typical tiger, something which might have made him a little daring if he'd been consciously aware of it.  Not that he really needed to be, since he outweighed Lore by nearly seven times her weight, and Ken wasn't much better off.  In his raven form, he'd just be an appetizer.

He was going to have to make it a point to eat regularly from this point on, just in case.

As much as his "flight" instinct was kicking in, Kenji refused to shift.  He would be no good to himself, or Lore, as a bite-sized bird.  Instead, he continued to step closer to the tiger (for he couldn't really think of it as "Erik", considering the state of mind it was in).  His arms were out to the sides slightly, as though he could block the tiger from Lore if it chose to pounce.  Noble, but not very effective.

"Lucio-kun, do you remember what I told you about man-eating tigers?" he asked, keeping his voice clear and even.  "Only a few tigers in the world hunt humans as a semi-regular part of their diet.  Most are old or injured, unable to hunt faster prey.  It is interesting, as the tiger is the only mammal aside from the polar bear that considers human to be regular prey." 

Without changing his tone or looking at Lore, he said, "Lore, now."


Lore made a dash for the door.

The male in front of him was making mouth sounds and moving closer, trying to keep his attention.  It was actually working, even if what was being said didn't do all that much for him.  It was simply the talking and the moving directly in front of him.  Ken would have been better off on a personal level if he stayed still, though that still wouldn't have kept the tiger off of him.

Funny, Erik wasn't thinking of himself as 'Erik' right then, either.

Despite Ken's attempts, Lore was still VERY interesting.  She was afraid, he could smell it incredibly strongly, and the instant she shot for the door, he was after her.  Of course, Ken was in the way, and had to be bowled over first.  Lucky for the raven, the tiger really WAS focused on Lore, and therefore didn't do anything more than shoulder check him before leaping for the door.

Only to smack into it with paws outstretched as she slammed it right in his face. 

That wasn't terribly graceful for a giant jungle cat, but who was really going to tell him that?  He recovered quickly, took a sniff at the offending door, and made it clear just how pissed off by that he was.  By roaring.  Now, the funny thing about a tiger's roar is that it carries the rather impressive ability to make even grown men wet themselves.  It's loud, it's threatening, and it's generally not a good idea to be in the area when one goes off.

Poor Ken.

With Lore gone, the angry, hungry tiger turned its attention on the raven again.