Better Left Unanswered

Who: Mathias, Dorian, and Caleb
Where: A remote cabin in Colorado
When: Night

Luck would have it that the first chance Dorian got to have a shower, he'd had to deal with horns and claws. Both he could handle, though it made things far more difficult than he would have liked. There was no way he was waiting though, so he was forced to deal with all the tiny scratches that now littered his body. It was a small price to pay for being clean. Dorian laid out on the sofa, shirtless as he poked at the scar from the bullet he'd received prior to meeting up with his brothers. It was healing nicely, or as nice as it could seeing as how he'd sewn it up himself. Once it was completely done healing, maybe he'd get another tattoo to cover it. "What do we have to eat?" he asked.

Mathias was lying on the floor, in front of the open fire that he'd built up before the moonrise. doing it after dark, given his claws - well, that would be too hard. "N't shure," he said, his voice distorted round the fangs he sported to match the claws. This form really wasn't built for in depth conversation, after all.

Caleb came in from where he'd been out on the deck, talking on the phone to a girl he didn't know, and yet couldn't quite leave alone, and he looked less than pleased. His impish form was less hindering than some things his brothers had going on, but it was still annoying a lot of the time. "...assuming we head home any time here...we can go through Ohio, yeah?" he asked, hopping up to perch on the seat of one of the chairs, automatically starting to pick at a loose thread on the bottom of his jeans leg.

"Ohio?" Dorian asked, his own fangs now near as impeding on his speech as Mathias' were. "What's in Ohio?" Not that Dorian had anywhere else he needed to be, other than back home. But where was home now? He pretty much considered it to be where his brothers were, regardless of the fact that he owned a house and a shop in Marquette. If his brothers were here, then the location hardly mattered.

"B'rwo, 'f y'ant to go thwrew Alashka, ve c'n," Mathias tried,m before giving up with the rest of what he was going to say. "Yef," he amended, jumping to his feet. "G'n'g f'a walk," he explained to the others - in depth conversations weren't going to fly right now, Dorian and Caleb could work it out between themselves.

Caleb watched Math go, then turned his red eyes back on Dorian. "Rose. Some girl who was from the town Math and I went through that was missing. I just got off the phone with her." Caleb explained, and hoped he didn't get a shit ton of questions about it, considering he didn't actually have satisfactory answers.

"The town was missing?" Dorian asked, raising a brow. "That's... a first, for me at least. I saw a town that'd been met with some fucking crazy carnage, but they weren't missing." Dorian could have asked questions by the mouthful, but Caleb didn't look all that happy about whatever conversation he'd had. "How you holding up?" he asked instead, aware that his little brother had taken quite a beating on his behalf. Oddly enough, he didn't look it at this point.

"Yeah, we went through a town...everyone and everything was gone. Looked like people tried to leave, but absolutely no one was there. Food on the table still, all that shit." Caleb said. "We didn't hear anything about it on the news so I had Dean look it up for me. There's this chick who's from there, her whole family went missing, she had a contact emaill..." he trailed off. "And fine." he added, blowing off the concern, considering he figured he was fine. "I'll heal. You?"

Yeah... It was the kind of thing that Dorian knew he could beat into the ground with curiosity if he wanted, so he decided against it. He could tell it meant something to Caleb, if he'd contacted the girl, both of which interested him almost as much as the missing town itself. "I'm good, considering. Better than I've been in a while," he answered, but then he was changing his mind, wandering back to the topic that he thought he should drop. "So you called her?" he asked, or said, since he knew. "I wonder what does something like that... makes people disappear..."

"Yeah, I called her, she seemed pretty lost and Dean said maybe she would feel better if someone at least told her she wasn't fucking crazy." Caleb said, just a little defensively. He couldn't help it, he was still sort of half assedly rebelling against the idea that he wanted to help this random chick who probably was just going to be some silly little nobody girl who'd never heard of anything weird in her life and was some god fearing christian who would drive him nuts. "And I don't know, killing people and dumping them in a mass grave seems to disappear people pretty well." he added cynically.

"Yeah. That's true," Dorian said of the later. "So were there signs of a fight? Because mass murder's pretty hard to accomplish without leaving some sign of a struggle. People tend to run and hide, or fight back, unless you take 'em out all at once." Well, wasn't that cheery, thought Dorian. Surely there were better things to talk about than the investigative properties of a murder scene. It wasn't like he was an expert of any sort. "You know that thing you did yesterday, where you can pretty much take down a shit load of demons at once? That pretty much kicks ass," he told Caleb. He'd been impressed at the time, and even more so the more he thought about it.

Caleb looked over at his brother. "...Dor, I'm not an idiot." he said. "If there were signs of a struggle or a fight, I probably would have had at least a theory of what went down. I'm not completely stupid, I know what to look for." Then he relented as Dorian mentioned the other thing. He quirked a little half smile. "Works better when I don't have to worry about bleeding out, but thanks." he said. "Least it works for taking shit down when it's necessary."

"I know," Dorian said, lips turning up slightly as he reached off the couch to dig through a bag. "I wasn't there, so I'm just talking. Probing. Curious. You'd know better than I." He drew a pack of cigarettes out, along with a lighter, fumbling slightly due to the claws. "There'd have to be a drawback, right?" Dorian said, aware how blood magic worked. He had been from the beginning; he just hadn't seen what his brother could do with it. "How'd you learn to do that? Is it just trial and error?"

"That's the weirdest part--there's nothing to tell. Just...looks like people tried to mass-exodus, no nothing going on, and poof. Everyone's gone." Caleb said, shaking his head. "And yeah, there's always a drawback. Though the knife Math hooked me up with helps a ton." he added. "And I don't know. I learned a few spells elsewhere, got good at them then started writing my own." he added. "I stick to a select few though. I mean, I only need it for certain shit, pretty specifically, so I don't need to try and memorize sixty spells or some shit, all I need are the dozen or so that work best."

"What's the knife do exactly?" Dorian asked. He'd heard mention of it several times now, but hadn't put all the pieces together. What he did know was that he never wanted to touch it, strict instructions by Mathias. "You're writing your own spells?" Dorian asked, trying to contain how impressed he was at the prospect. The last time he'd spoken with Caleb about his blood magic, Dorian had been too concerned about the damage it was doing to Caleb to really understand how far along he was with it. In Dorian's opinion, a dozen spells was a lot of heavy spellwork, especially considering Caleb's purpose. "Wish I could've paid a little more attention yesterday. If I hadn't been so distracted, I'd like to have watched."

"It heals me for as much damage as I do with it. So, it'll take care of backlash for me if I don't outright kill shit with the blood magic. I've been kind of working at doing both lately, my only issue is I've recently run up against two things it does fuck all against. The demons the other night, and recently Marquette was attacked by these fucked up shadow motherfuckers that were easy enough to shred, but even if I sliced at them with my knife, it didn't heal me. They were sort of..insubstantial, I guess." he explained. "And yeah, I'm writing my own spells. Sort of trying to have a couple of backups that do something slightly different. Just in case." He paused at the bit about liking to have watched, and he arched an eyebrow. "...really?" he asked. That kinda mystified him.

Every bit of it interested him, especially the part where Mathias had managed to acquire a weapon so perfect a match for Caleb's blood magic. There were few instances when it wouldn't work as desired, but otherwise it pretty much solved the problem Dorian had had with Caleb's blood magic in the first place-- that being that it could get his little brother killed. While that was still the case, the chances were lowered, plus the fact that he'd seen first hand how far Caleb could take it and still survive. Add to that that Dorian had just returned from getting his ass seriously whipped by demons and Dorian was pretty sure he didn't have room to talk. Caleb was doing a far better job at staying out of trouble than he was. "Yeah. I mean, set aside the fact that you're taking damage for every spell and it's pretty fuckin' impressive, Cay," Dorian said, taking a drag off the cigarette. He considered for a minute, then offered his brother the pack. "Do you smoke?" he asked, feeling like that was something he should know, and still not sure if he should care or not. He decided not to-- Caleb wasn't going to die from lung cancer any more than he was.

Caleb shook his head at the offer and question. "No. Not really. I mean I have before, but it's not an active thing." he said. He wasn't going to start now. Though occasionally, he thought he should, just for stress-relief purposes. The flipside being if he didn't have any, that would possibly me more stressful and he was high strung enough, probably. "And thanks, on the impressive thing. It gets the job done, and effectively." Which was why he'd done it in the first place. It definitely dealt damage he needed.

Dorian nodded, knowing he hadn't been an active smoker until recently. He'd picked the habit back up when Mathias and Aiden came to town and it only got worse when he'd left home. It was definitely a stress reliever for him, and in this case a method of trying to stay calm. Despite the previous day's fight, he was always fidgety the night of the new moon and wanted to be outside causing trouble. Staying in and staying put went against everything he desired for the time being, even if he knew it was for the best. "Welcome," he said, his smile flashing a bit of fang. "So, did you miss me?" he teased lightly. There were better ways to have a reunion, he was sure, but this would have to do.

Caleb quirked a half smile. "Sure." he said. "You miss me? It's been...real interesting without you in town. Shit's happened." He wasn't even going to start getting into half of it, though. Like what happened with Leija, or other crap. He'd hear about the vamps eventually, and Caleb had just mentioned the shadow demons.

"Of course," Dorian chuckled. "You and Math were a reason to come home eventually. Now you're here. Just didn't intend to drag you away like I did. Sorry about that, by the way." It hadn't been his intention to throw his brothers into a panic, but now he was thankful they'd reacted as they did. If they hadn't left home at his first phone call, it would have taken them even longer to meet up. "More shit's happened?" Dorian asked. "What is it about Marquette that seems to pull in the crazies?"

"I don't know." Caleb said honestly, shrugging. "And don't worry about it. Just...maybe next time attempt not to start shit with packs of demons who are by all rights tougher than we are." he added. If there had been more of them, they very well could have gotten themselves really, really dead. He also didn't offer up what brand of crazy was going on in Marquette, since Dorian hadn't asked and Caleb wasn't offering up the information.

"It was never my intention to get in over my head," Dorian said, though that was probably obvious. He hadn't realized it was a pack he was dealing with; it had all started with one. "So... are you gonna tell me what shit has happened? Or leave me guessing?" Dorian asked. Something he'd learned with Caleb was that he had to pry for information. Caleb wasn't just going to give it to him. Dorian hadn't been all that spectacular about it in the past, but then, that was probably because he operated in a similar fashion. Plus, he'd been rather focused on himself. A month of time with no one to focus on but himself allowed him to realize what he was missing. He just wasn't all that sure how to go about reconnecting with everything he'd left behind.

"You hadn't asked." Caleb pointed out. "Vampires. Shadow demons. I haven't seen Leija in a while. I don't think Math has seen his non-woman for a while either." he said. "What the hell were you doing though? When you did get into this shit? How did that even happen?"

There was an awful lot to take in at once. Dorian remembered Caleb had been bitten, or almost bitten, by one vampire, but Caleb had just spoken in plurals. And what were shadow demons? That didn't ring any bells for Dorian, which was no good in his opinion. Then the issues with women came into play... it didn't seem like any of them did very well in that court, though Mathias having trouble was a new one. "Wait. Okay. Vampires, like, lots of them? And I heard you mention that shadow demons before, but I don't know what those are. Where'd Leija go? What happened there? And Math-- is the non-woman Olivia, or someone else?" Yeah, he'd been in the dark way too long. Dorian took a long drag off his cigarette before attempting to answer Caleb's questions. "I was just wandering, I guess. I hunted a little. Discovered that that pays a shit-ton more than running a bookstore does. Let things get out of hand. Killed someone I shouldn't have, though the bastard deserved it. The whole thing just snowballed. Three more came after me. I went after them. More came than I could handle. It was all just a first class fuck up."

"Yes, pack vampires, they tore their way through town." Caleb said, not answering the bit about the shadow demons because he didn't know anything about them either. All he had known he'd already sort of told Dorian. "And yes, Olivia, and Leija...fucked if I know. I don't really want to talk about it." There were huge issues there, and there was the bit where it had wound up with him having a bit of a break again, mentally, and Math had taken him to that demon bar, which still actually gave him bad dreams. So--not getting into that in any fashion, thanks. "You're hunting now? Where the fuck did that come from?" he had to ask. He knew that's where he was specifically headed, even more now that he'd had the contact with Rose and everything, but for Dorian...it was something he couldn't wrap his head around.

Dorian got not wanting to talk about issues with women. He wasn't all that fond of them himself. He still wasn't sure how he felt about all that went down with Eury. It was just such a cluster-fuck that he preferred not to think about it. That didn't mean explaining himself to Caleb was much easier. Dorian was quiet for a moment, violet eyes watching the end of his cigarette burn. "I wanted to kill something," he finally said, looking back up at Caleb, waiting to be judged. "Hunting gave me a reason to do so."

Caleb wasn't sure what to say to that. "You just...wanted to kill something. So you went out and decided to hunt." he repeated. Then he just didn't say anything, because he didn't really like what he had to say on the matter. "I'm heading outside. I thought I saw something a little weird out there anyways." he added.

So maybe it had been a bad idea to admit that to his little brother. Great. Dorian wasn't all that crazy about the answer himself, which was a large part of the reason he hadn't been ready to go home. He wasn't happy. He wasn't entirely sure he was human. And it was just what he needed for one of the two people he was closest to to confirm he really was losing his mind. "Okay," Dorian said, unable to object. He'd been trying to get away from himself long enough that he wouldn't deny anyone else the privilege.