The man smirks at me some more, leaning against my door post as if he belongs there. His stance and the look in his eyes tell me that he’s not completely human. I can smell the wolf on him. I’ve never seen him before though, so I assume that he’s a Mutt, contracted by the Pack to bring me back to Ohio. Wes is smarter than I usually give him credit for, apparently.

“I assure you,” he says, straightening up some, “that I am not kidding. Wes sent me to come pick you up.”

“He did, huh?” I ask, even though I know he definitely did.

“Sure did,” the auburn- haired man says. “So, where are your bags? We’ll need to get going soon.”

I snort. “You’re going to Ohio alone. I’m not coming with.”

Before the man can respond, Sebastian walks out of the kitchen, wearing the apron I jokingly gave him a while back that reads “I believe I can fry”.

“Hon, dinner’s ready. Oh, who’s this?”

“Hon,” I reply gesturing vaguely at the man at the door, “This is, er… sorry, I completely spaced on your name…”

I didn’t forget his name, of course. I just need to make him see that I don’t think it’s worth remembering since I won’t be going to Ohio with him. A glint in his eyes tells me he knows exactly what I’m doing and that he’s not impressed. At all.

“It’s Kurt. Kurt Hummel. Nice to meet you….?”, he asks, a charming smile suddenly on his face and a hand outstretched to my boyfriend. Sebastian takes it and briefly shakes it before dropping it.

“Sebastian Desdardeaux,” he replies, and I can see Kurt struggling not to raise an eyebrow at my boyfriend’s- admittedly pretentious- last name. I know I laughed the first time I heard it.

“So, what can we help you with Kurt?”, Sebastian asks and my eyes shoot to Kurt’s, nearly begging him not to mention anything wolf-related. Normal humans aren’t supposed to know about us, unless under need- to- know circumstances. Like after being bitten by one. Or marrying one. Or in case of werewolf-pregnancy, which is basically a normal pregnancy, but when the children are born they’ll shift between human and wolf forms for the first couple of weeks to lay the basis for future transformations. Imagine a mother’s shock at seeing her baby turn into a pup, and back. Best to warn them in advance.

Luckily, Kurt catches my look and answers: “I’ve been sent to accompany Blaine back to Ohio, since I was going back myself anyways.”

Sebastian looks at me, confused: “Didn’t you just call to answer the message that guy left for you?”

“I did, yeah,” I answer him, ignoring the amused glint in Kurt’s eye. “Apparently, Wes thought it best to send someone to make sure I go back to Westerville.”

“So, are you going?”, Sebastian asks.

“I wasn’t planning on it, no,” I answer, looking pointedly at Kurt, who’s looking decidedly less amused now.

“The hell you’re not,” Kurt answers, looking like he’s on the verge of some kind of diva-esque fit. “You’re coming back to Ohio with me. Your father will be pissed at me if you don’t.”

I shrug, not really able to find it within myself to care about how pissed my father will be at this Mutt. Kurt might get his wrist slapped or something for not getting the job (meaning: me) done, but he’ll move on and get back to his life on the road, like Mutts do.

“Sucks to be you, then. I don’t really care”, I say, and from the intake of breath behind me I can tell that Sebastian is surprised by this.

I don’t usually show him this side of me: The Pack wolf turned Lone wolf that stopped caring ages ago and has the attitude and temper to prove it. Instead he just knows me as the dapper, charming, and sometimes boring law student I try to pretend I’ve become. Unfortunately this side of me, the real me, seems to be hard to repress lately.
Kurt suddenly smirks a little and I know that along with the sharp intake of breath, my boyfriend is giving me one of his looks. He has those, you know. They usually come out when he wants something done, or when he really disagrees with something I say. I sigh. Two against one then. Awesome.

________________________________________________________

I’m not entirely sure how it has happened, but I’m sitting at the dining room table, sharing some of my boyfriend’s delicious curry with the man who is about to drag me back to the one place I swore I’d never return to. My bag (just the one, I don’t intend to stay any longer than absolutely necessary) lies in a corner of the room. I’m fuming, and instead of trying to make me feel a bit better about having to return to Ohio (not that he would, after the speech he gave me not half an hour ago about the value of family in the safety of our bedroom, Kurt probably listening in gleefully from the sofa in the living room), Sebastian is a bit too busy practically having the pants charmed off of him by my hostage- taker.

“So, why did they send you to pick up Blaine?” he asks after having swallowed a bite of his curry.

Kurt’s answer follows immediately: “I live nearby and I was heading back for the same thing.”

“Oh, do you work around here, then?”

“No, I’m still in college. Tisch.”

My boyfriend pulls the appropriate impressed face. I struggle to reign in mine. That was the school I had wanted to go to, way back when I still lived at home and my father was going to pay for college. Now I got into law school on a scholarship, because I knew I’d have more chance of a well- paying job.

“Are you family then? Since it’s a family emergency and all.”

I barely supress the snort that’s threatening to come out. Of course not. I’ve never seen him before today, and Mutts are in no way related to Pack. Mutts are loners, they don’t stop anywhere long enough to create a family, nor do they keep in touch with the family they left behind when they were bitten. See, most Pack members are born into the Pack, and as such born a wolf. There are only a few Pack members that started out completely human, and they’re only Pack because they married into it.

Mutts are bitten wolfs. They’re rare, and I’m surprised to find one living so close by, but they exist. You see, not many people survive a werewolf bite. If the magnitude of the wound doesn’t kill you, the poison will. With the poison comes a fever. After that, delusions and general heavy sickness. The body will try to absorb the poison, and it is this poison that eventually –though this process can take months- mutates the human genes into wolf genes. In this period of hallucinating and fever sweats, the transitioning body will involuntarily shift between human and wolf a few times. It’s during these changes that most of those that didn’t already die from the bite, the poison or the fevers feel their bodies give in and surrender to death. Not many bitten wolfs survive by themselves, since they need constant care in the transitioning period.

“Not by blood,” Kurt answers, daintily (and seriously, who does that?) taking a bite from his food. Earlier, he had given me a look –and how annoying is it, that he has those too?!- at the amount of food I had on my plate, much less than a wolf should eat. He gave me the same look when I scooped the same amount on his plate. “You could say I was sort of unofficially adopted.”

I raise an eyebrow. No Mutt would dare say the Pack adopted them. How ballsy was this guy going to get? Apparently, Sebastian has thrown him a questioning look (‘Cause god forbid Kurt look at me at some point during the meal. Not that I want him to, of course…), because he elaborates:

“I became good friends with some of the other younger kids in the family after I transferred to their school halfway in my junior year. I was over so often they started setting a plate for me during weekdays,” here, he laughs, though I can tell there’s more to the story. He continues: “Then, I fell sick in the first few weeks of my senior year and they took care of me during those few weeks. My own parents were out of town during that time, and they lived two hours away from school anyways, so I didn’t really see them during the week anyways. I’ve kind of had a bed with the family ever since.”

The way he looks at me when he says he was ‘sick’, makes me think for a short while. He wasn’t sick, he was bitten. And on school grounds too, I wager. Dalton Academy for Boys (my own old high school) was full with Pack boys, so odds were big that one of them had lost control. Or a Mutt had run loose in Ohio, which I of course wouldn’t have heard anything about, since I left home a few months into Junior year. From the looks of Kurt, he’s about my age. He must have taken my place with my friends when I left. Not a Mutt then. Just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Damn, one less reason for me to dislike him.

The meal progresses uneventfully and it’s not even an hour later when I’ve managed to use every excuse I could think of to prolong my staying in New York. I’ve done the dishes, repacked my bag twice, done the bed up for Sebastian (even though I know he doesn’t care about a ready- made bed), tidied the living room a bit, and even contemplated cleaning the toilet. The grossness factor of that last one made me decide against it, but contemplating takes time too.

I send Kurt out to go get his car from the parking lot down the block (doing my very best to supress the urge to shoo him out) and turn to face my boyfriend, not really wanting to leave him for the week. I know it’s just a week, but it will most likely be a week of hell and Sebastian is one of the few things that has kept me sane these last few years. I could probably really use his serenity and pompous moments in the days to come. Before I can think about it too much, he pulls me in a warm hug that I immediately return.

“Now,” he says, face buried in my hair, “Don’t worry about me when you’re gone, like I know you will. Focus on whatever problem is disturbing your family enough to try and get you back to them and, who knows? You might even find that you’re mending some fences while you’re at it.”

I snort, finding that incredibly difficult to believe. He squeezes my shoulders a bit in return.

“Stop that. You’ve had a few years to cool down some, and so have they. Maybe when you get back together, old fights will be fixed and you can come to a truce of sorts or something.”

I just nod, knowing that there’s no stopping him when he goes off on a rant about the importance of family. Lord knows my ears a still ringing from the one I got before dinner. I pull back from the hug, pressing what I know to be the last kiss for the week to come to his lips. While we’re, er, busy with that, I hear Kurt’s car pull up to the house. It doesn’t sound like the prissy, small car I was expecting, either. And that’s another prejudiced thought down the drain. I’m not exactly having the best night.

Suddenly, Kurt’s voice sounds behind us, breaking us up: “Hate to interrupt, but I’d like to get going before a cop comes along and gives me a ticket for parking where I’m not allowed to.”

Sebastian’s arms disappear from around me and I have the childish urge to wrap my arms around his leg and not let go, so I won’t have to go. I envision myself behind dragged behind my boyfriend wherever he goes and I have to bite my lip to keep in the laughter that’s threatening to escape.

“Yeah, well, it was nice to meet you, Kurt,” Sebastian says, reaching around me to shake my abductor’s hand.
“You too, Sebastian,” Kurt answers, before reaching down to grab my bag from the ground and carrying it out to his car, not so gently throwing it in. I wince for a moment, then reach up to hug Sebastian one last time.

“I’ll call when I get there, ok?”

He laughs. “Honey, I better get a call every day. I’ll miss you.”

I smile. “I’ll miss you too.”

I stop us right there, knowing we can go on for hours like one of those typically clich� couples on the TV. Not because I wouldn’t like to escape my fate for a little while longer, but because Kurt is standing in the doorway, a mocking smirk on his face, undoubtedly wanting to mock us and waiting for the right amount of blackmail material to appear.

I put on my coat, it being unseasonably cold for early October, and follow Kurt out, glancing back to wave at Sebastian’s silhouette in the doorway before turning to face the car. For a minute, I stand still, unable to comprehend the sight before me. Where I had privately envisioned some type of sparkly, purple Volkswagen Beetle, stands a shiny, black Navigator. I sigh, and get in the car, needing to hop up a little before I can reach.

This day can’t possible get any worse.