Bad Influence

Who: Ransom and Charlotte
When: After the party
Where: Her house

Nobody stayed late, but nobody had ever intended on staying late in the first place - it being a school night and all. Charlotte had tried very hard not to become distracted by ghostly news, but that wasn't easy. As much fun as it had been, she was somewhat relieved when the party was over, and there was a bit more space in her own head. After closing the door after one of the last to leave, she turned back to face Ransom and gave him a small smile. "Hey."

"Hey," he smiled back at her. "You threw a good party." He'd definitely enjoyed himself, even if it meant not spending very much time alone with her. He had her now that everyone was gone, so that was enough, even if they were cleaning up. Not that there was a ton to clean; one of the good things about a less rowdy party was that people did a better job at cleaning up after themselves. "Did you have fun?"

"I did," she confirmed, grinning for a bit. "Thank you for talking me into it. Did you have fun?" The various animals of the house had all come out of hiding, and all four of the cats were playing with a fallen streamer. They were apparently amused as well.

"Yeah, I did," Ransom grinned, then followed her gaze towards the cats. That earned a little laugh and a shake of his head. "I'll never understand cats," he said, "But they're fun to watch." Looking back at her, he took her hand, just wanting to touch her. "I'm glad I got a chance to meet some of your friends. And you could meet Jessalyn. She really likes you."

Charlotte did one better, stepping close to stand on her toes and wrap her arm around his neck and hug him. She couldn't say why, she just felt like it, and that was enough for her. "I like her too." she said. "She seems really sweet." Even if she had been horribly embarrassed, looking back on it, she had brought it on herself. And it was kind of funny. Kind of.

"She has horrible foot in mouth syndrome," Ransom grinned as Charlotte's arms wrapped around him. "But she's also blessed with the gift of now being embarrassed about it. Instead, I get to do that for her." His arms wrapped around her, hugging her back, before he leaned down for a kiss. "I'd been wanting to do that all night."

For some stupid reason that made her shiver, perhaps because she'd sort of been in the same boat. She smiled softly up at him and kissed him again, which helped her brain feel a little less on edge. There was stuff going on that she didn't know anything about, and that had to be remedied soon, but there was other, more important stuff to be done first.

Oh, more kisses. He could do with more kisses. In fact, Ransom would be happy standing in the middle of the room and kissing for a very long time. He was sure the animals were rolling their eyes or something, but he was happy as a clam to have her in his arms, pressed against him, smelling like Charlotte. She always smelled so good... Pulling back slowly, he nuzzled his nose against hers. "What are you thinking about?" he asked, somehow sensing the wheels in her head were turning.

Charlotte wrinkled her nose up and made a face at him, but she didn't pull away. "How do you do that?" she asked, showing that she was at least a little amused. "I'm trying very hard not to think actually, thank you very much. Because once I start I'm pretty sure I'll be lost to the world for a while."

"I don't know," he said, equally amused. "But if you don't want to think, I'm perfectly happy distracting you." Though now he wondered just what it was she was thinking about that would have her lost to the world. That was never a good sign and he preferred to keep her there with him, wrapped up in his arms.

Charlotte grinned a bit. "Glad you see it my way then." she said, still making no effort to move, though she knew she really probably should have. Any minute now she'd start to feel shy and self-conscious. Really. She sighed and gave him another kiss, telling herself that would be it and then she'd at least talk to him about the Gabe stuff like she had promised.

When he kissed her again, one hand moved up to the back of her neck, his fingers gently moving through her hair. His tongue brushed against her bottom lip, teasing gently as his hand rubbed back down her back. He knew there was stuff they probably needed to talk about, but none of it seemed all that urgent at the moment. It could wait a while longer, since they had such a nice distraction.

She'd really had every intention of pulling back, but he was extremely distracting. Almost alarmingly so, and sometimes everything still awakening inside of her still knocked her off guard. How did he do that? She cupped his face in her hands and drifted a bit closer to him, feeling the room go very quietly. Apparently the animals had decided the humans (or human-shaped) were being a little too human.

Ransom wasn't paying attention to the animals right now, his focus on Charlotte, the warmth of her body, his tongue gently touching hers, the beating of her heart. Able to sense as much as he could, it was far too easy for her to turn him on, and so he was careful to keep the slightest bit of distance between them. He kept thinking that any second they would stop, but he really didn't want to, so he'd let her make that call. If she was okay with remaining preoccupied, then... well, he didn't blame her. Nothing else could make him quite as happy.

Charlotte was a little oblivious to her physical effect on him, still being at least innocent enough not to know any better - for better or worse, which was debatable. But she was getting swept away too, and if nothing else, the rush of how much she felt and how fast was enough to shock her back to earth. God, get a grip. she told herself. Unable to stop herself, she nibbled lightly at his bottom lip before pulling away just enough to look up at him and smile shyly. Oops.

Ransom smiled, his head lolling against hers as he playfully groaned. "You're gonna drive me crazy," he said with a little laugh, though part of him was sure it was true. That innocent little smile was enough to make him shiver, which probably meant it was a good time to stop before he really did embarrass himself. Now he was glad his costume wasn't tight in any way.

That just made her blush wildly, and grin a little bit as she bit her lip and looked away. The thought occurred to her to ask how, but she immediately thought the better of it. "I'm glad you stayed." she said instead, looking back to him. That was better.

"Thanks," he smiled. "Me too." Any time spent with her was well spent, but it was even better when he got kisses like that. "Want me to help you clean?" he asked, figuring they could at least take the decorations down. It would also put some space between them, which was well needed at the moment. If he could just get his heart to slow, it would help.

"Sure," she answered, even if it really wasn't necessary. They hadn't made a mess of anything, even with pumpkin carving, but there were still things to toss out, and more than that, tons of food to put away. She let go of Ransom and stepped away, putting distance between them as she went to grab a garbage bag.

Ransom moved to the table and began gathering up the leftover sweets. As he did so, he took a little plate and set it aside, selecting one of each item for Kaysen. He remembered Charlotte saying she was going to drop some by later. It was a random memory brought about by a pumpkin cupcake. The jack-o-lantern looked angry. "What were you thinking about?" he asked, looking over at her.

Charlotte was ripping up empty pizza boxes to make them fit in the trash when he asked. She sighed as she debated how to answer. "My mom called." she said. "Maybe an hour ago? If that. Something's happening in town again. It's ghosts this time. They're not hurting anybody, but they're there. And I don't know anything about ghosts. Demons and vampires I'm ready for, but ghosts? I never saw that one coming."

The face he made was one of annoyance, not at Charlotte, but at the ghosts. Like her, he knew little about them, which made him feel unprepared on how to handle them. They weren't attacking people, though, which made them better than the shadow creatures. "I thought I saw ghosts today, but it was always just out of the corner of my eye. Like, I'd look, and then they'd be gone. I was hoping it was just because it was Halloween," Ransom said, looking over at her. "Funny things can happen on Halloween, so why not, right?"

Was that true? He might have had a point there. Didn't every horror movie or ghost story always say that on Halloween night, the veil between the living and the dead was lifted? Was that really all it was? It didn't feel that way, but Charlotte was a cynic. She questioned everything. "That could be." she gave however, wanting that to be the case. "I'll probably be hitting up the internet after you leave." Only there wasn't a lot of 'probably'.

"I could be wrong," he said. "It's kinda just a hope. Things have been so crazy lately that I was hoping it'd be quiet for a while." It was hard to say how long a while was these days. Things came up so often that it made a few weeks seem like a pretty long break. He didn't prefer it that way, but it was just the way it was. "Did your mom say anything else? Everything's okay, right?" That was his next concern, since he generally didn't think of ghosts as friendly.

"She's fine." Charlotte answered, with a small smile as she moved on to the counter to clean up. "Same as she always is, pleasant and accepting. I think she might have been a flower child on a commune somewhere if she'd been born a little earlier." She felt like she and her mom covered both ends of the spectrum of the typical 'earthy' stereotypes. "I would have told you earlier, but I didn't want to freak everyone out and ruin things. Sorry."

"Oh, it's okay," Ransom said with a little laugh. "If there's ghosts running around Marquette and they're harmless so far, then telling everyone would just cause them to freak out. Hopefully they all made it home safe and they'll be gone in the morning." He also figured that a portion of the party was well enough of the supernatural to not totally freak out... though he had to say that ghosts were creepy, harmless or not.

Charlotte smiled a bit at him and grabbed another garbage bag. Ransom took everything so easily. It was kind of nice, since it kept threatening to throw her brain into overdrive. "...Do you want to hear about the Gabe stuff?" she asked, realizing she'd meant to do that in the first place.

The Gabe stuff. He'd almost forgotten, even if it wasn't the sort of thing he should forget. "Yeah," he sighed, nodding his head. For him, this was a much heavier topic than ghosts. "Was he just bitten? I mean, in all the attacks that recently went down?" Any earlier and he figured he'd have caught on sooner. Werewolves just had that scent. It was hard to miss one when he was one.

Charlotte took a deep breath and nodded. "He'd seen of my reading material before and knew I knew a bit about this kind of stuff. And I had told him what I am. So he told me after it happened and I gave him a lot of books and stuff." she started.

Ransom nodded, figuring that made sense. If Gabe knew it was a werewolf that had bitten him, he'd turn to those he could trust that knew something about werewolves. Charlotte was actually a fairly good source, seeing as how she was dating one, but he didn't know what she knew about cursed werewolves. "He knows not to go around telling people, right?"

"His mom knows what he is now, and he has a few close friends he's told. He's in a good situation, I think he'll be okay with it. He won't tell anyone he doesn't trust." Charlotte answered. "There was a slight... problem. But I think I handled it successfully." Here's where she started to get nervous.

"Close friends will be important for him. Having a support group. Kinda like a pack," Ransom said. He had the feeling Gabe would take easily to pack mentality, just from what he'd seen of Gabe at school. He refused to let it bother him that another wolf was spending time around Charlotte-- he'd seen well enough that Gabe was interested in someone else. "What kind of problem?"

"Okay... I'm going to tell you something you're probably not going to like." Charlotte said, setting down the bag to face him. "But I need you to bear with me. It involves Kavin. And you may kind of sort of have a strong opinion on the situation." She didn't think any were was going to enjoy such close proximity to a were-killer.

He already didn't like where this was going, but he was glad she was giving him a heads up, rather than just dropping it on him. He could at least try to prepare himself for whatever it was, though the fact that it had to do with Kavin was never a good sign. "Okay," he said, nodding. "Then just know that if I get mad, it's not at you. Though I'll try not to get mad at all." If he did, though, it was hard not to show it.

Charlotte wasn't entirely sure that would remain the case, but she could be hopeful. "Okay. Nate was with Gabe when he got bit. Nate told Kavin, which was probably the worst thing he could have done. Deciding to be 'helpful', Kavin showed up at Gabe's door and freaked him out. By telling him he was a hunter. I took care of it!" she said, saying that last part awfully quickly. "Gabe told me and I took care of Kavin." She decided to wait to see how Ransom took that much before going on.

The first thing that happened was that Ransom's eyes got very wide. Then the stomping commenced. Yes, there was stomping around the kitchen as he put things in the trash, and if someone had gotten in his way there might have even been growling. "Does he-- How could he--" Ransom cut himself off each time, the hair on his neck bristling as his hands clenched into fists. "What the fuck is wrong with him?" It was a simple question but it just about summed up all of them at once. Realizing he'd cursed at Charlotte, though, he softened, frustrated. "Sorry," he said, jaw tight as he bit back the fury. "I'm just wondering what kind of a stupid-ass hunter goes and provokes a newly bitten werewolf."

Charlotte stood still and let him stomp around, putting her hands on the island countertop and giving him time to process. She faced him again when he had a bit of it out of his system. "It's okay, I swore too." she offered, giving him a brief ghost of a smile. "To answer your first question, a lot, probably. As for the second, Kavin. In his mind he was trying to help, he wanted to get him a cage. He was just... ridiculously stupid about it, and everyone's very lucky that Gabe didn't kill him for it."

"Luck is right," Ransom said with a little, humorless laugh. "Gabe has a temper. Kavin should know that. Not just because I thought they were friends, but because it's public knowledge. Gabe even broke Craig's nose for-- for some dumb reason, I'm sure." He could only imagine that telling Gabe he needed a cage didn't help the matter. But Kavin was alive and damn lucky for it. "So, wait, you took care of Kavin?" he asked, realizing that's what she said earlier, though now he wanted to know what it meant.

Charlotte nodded. "When I broke up with Kavin he told me about being a hunter, he went into a bit more detail about it. When Gabe told me what Kavin had done, I got him aside in gym, and I told Kavin that if he ever bothered him again, I was outing him. And that I would ruin him with it." And there it was.

So... wow. That surprised Ransom. In a rather... pleasant way. He hadn't imagined her threatening anyone, ever, but given the right circumstances, it was kind of awesome. He had to bite his tongue to remind himself that now was not the time to smile. "So... you took care of it," he said, agreeing now with her earlier statement. He couldn't help but smile. It wasn't avoidable. "Nicely done."

Charlotte blinked at him, and couldn't help but look a little surprised. She was a little taken aback by his reaction. She'd been hoping she wouldn't get too bad of a response, but she hadn't expected that. She nodded. Yep, she'd taken care of it alright. "So... I totally threatened to kill him. You're okay with that?" At the very least, he didn't think she was the antichrist. That went well.

"I'm... okay with you doing what you think necessary to protect your friends," Ransom said, hoping she realized that didn't include being completely insane. Thus far, she hadn't been. In fact, she'd been just the right level of sane. He didn't think a conversation over tea was going to get anything through to Kavin. "I think you know Kavin better than I do, and you looked at the situation and decided it would take that kind of a threat to get through to him. I don't think that means you're gonna hunt him down and chop him into bits if he opens his mouth, but correct me if I'm wrong."

"No, no. Not under present circumstances, at least." Charlotte agreed. Then she nodded, both in agreement with his assessment of the situation, and in acceptance of it all as a whole. So. Yeah. That went very well. The corner of her mouth twitched, threatening a smile, which she quickly fought away. "You know what I said before about you being a bad influence?" she asked, before giving another slight nod. "It applies here."

"Does it?" Ransom asked with a little smirk. "Should I have been upset that you'd threaten a hunter? Or scared?" he asked. Neither reaction seemed probable to him, or even reasonable. "If I'd been in your situation, I'd have probably done the same thing. I don't like people threatening those close to me. The problem there is that I don't really wanna alert Kavin to my family of werewolves back home, so you have the advantage."

Charlotte returned the expression. "It does." she confirmed. "But I'm okay with that." Extremely, and again perhaps alarmingly, okay with that. "No, you talking to Kavin would be bad. He wouldn't hunt you, but..." she shook her head. "This'll work, as long as he doesn't make me do it." And that would probably work too, if she didn't lose her nerve.

"I think I like being a bad influence," Ransom grinned. He didn't quite know how he could be corrupting Charlotte when he wasn't all that bad himself, but he didn't mind. He thought part of it was a natural spunk that she had, that maybe them being together brought it out more in her. Maybe it as confidence. "If he makes you do it? He's not only an idiot, but he's a bad hunter. A really dumb one," Ransom said. "I think the number of people in Marquette that would like to tear apart a hunter is alarmingly high."

Charlotte grinned back at him, feeling ill-timed butterflies in her stomach all over again. He was good at that. She just watched him for a moment before she forced herself to get back to cleaning. "I think you're right." she agreed, and she was counting on Kavin being smart enough to at least figure that out. "At the very least I'd be able to run him out of town."

"And maybe he'll think a bit more before corning a werewolf next time," Ransom said, shaking his head as he began picking up once more. There wasn't a lot to pick up and it was moving fairly quickly, which was nice. "So... just so we're clear... Has Kavin been hunting werewolves here in Marquette?" Ransom asked, looking over at Charlotte. He didn't like the idea of him hunting them anywhere, but actually doing so in town made it worse. "Does he realize we're people, or...?"

Charlotte had been waiting for that line of questioning, and had initially intended on covering it a lot earlier for Ransom's sake. She mentally scolded herself while she paused to face him again. "He told me he only hunts the ones that have gone bad, or evil. Anything that fits that bill, so vampires and stuff like that a lot too. The things that terrorize towns and kill people. And as far as I know, he doesn't hunt here. He travels a lot - and that's where he's going."

That was much more reassuring, since not all hunters knew the difference. Some would kill any monster they saw on a full moon, whether they were terrorizing the neighborhood of minding their own business out in the woods... or locked in a cage. Hunters that tracked and killed the cursed werewolves just to stop the curse were one of the worst kinds out there. "Okay," Ransom said, feeling a little better. "That's... good, I guess."

"If it were otherwise... if he hunted for darker reasons... I would have tried to stop it as soon as I heard about it." Charlotte clarified, but she was pretty sure Ransom already knew that. At least, she hoped he did. It warranted saying, either way. "He could have been lying to me, but I don't think he was."

"I know," Ransom said with a little smile. He couldn't imagine Charlotte letting something like that go on. She didn't even eat meat because she could talk to animals, so how could she stand to let someone hunt down harmless humans? He'd figured as much, but he had to ask, otherwise he'd regret it if he was wrong. "If he was lying, then it doesn't make sense that he'd have told you in the first place," Ransom said with a little laugh. Not that he thought Kavin made that much sense, but it was worth trying to reason. "So, what can I do? Kavin's taken care of... Does Gabe need anything I can help with?"

She smiled gratefully at Ransom for a moment, still unsurprised by his stance on the matter, but happy for it. "If you're okay with it, I'd like to tell Gabe what you are. He knows a were, but not a wolf. That might be good for him, but it's not necessary if you'd rather I didn't." she started. At present, she was more concerned with his emotional well being, though she had no trouble looking at the whole picture. "Past that... if he's okay with it, I'm going to get my mom to help me out with," here she cringed at the word, "-cages. And you might be a better judge of what would... work."

Ransom hated the idea of cages, but he knew they were necessary when it came to a cursed werewolf. They couldn't be allowed to just run around on the night of a full moon, since no place was secure enough to keep them from harming others. "You can tell Gabe what I am," he nodded. "Give him my number, or email address. Whichever works best. As far as cages go, I can check with some of the elders in the community. Or, if he just wanted to build one from scratch, I could help test it. You don't want the first time to test it to be when he's in it."

Charlotte nodded in agreement, happy to trust his judgment on anything in this field. "Whatever you think is best. I'll talk to Gabe about it all tomorrow, probably." If school wasn't canceled to do a ghost-takeover, which she wouldn't completely rule out as a possibility.

"Great," he smiled, glad that he could be of assistance. While he wasn't cursed, he definitely felt for Gabe and knew this was going to be a huge change for him. He'd do whatever he could do to help. "So, is that all that happened today?" he asked, teasing lightly as he came over closer to her, done with a large part of the cleaning. "Or is there some other huge event I've missed out on?"