Sibling Bonding - Lockwood Style

who: caleb and mathias
where: the middle of damn nowhere
when: fiveish on

Caleb came walking in the door at almost five on the dot, which was weird. And he'd had to take off from Jamie's, but oh well, it wasn't like he hadn't been there long. Either way, he had seen the note from Mathias to be home by five...so...whatever. If his brother was going to be making some kind of an effort, he was at least going to give him a shot. Or something, whatever, he was home. On time. He opened up the door and came inside, noting Mathias in the living room. "I'm here." he greeted. Hello was overrated.

Mathias was lounged over one of the chairs, a leg hooked over the arm as he slouched, looking indecently relaxed and totally at home. He pushed himself up though as Caleb walked in, grabbing his ratty holdall from where it'd been sitting at the base of the armchair. He was actually impressed - he'd expected his brother to be late. "Come on then kid, let's go," he said - also forgoing the 'hello' as he walked straight past his brother, out the door and down to the curb, where there was now parked a newish second-hand car. It had a few scratches on the paintwork, but the engine was good and Mathias didn't go for outwardly flashy - preferring something reliable and with a bit of extra kick under the hood.

Caleb quirked an eyebrow but then turned and followed Mathias out. "Where are we going, and...when did you get a car?" he asked, dropping down the stairs after the elder Lockwood. "You weren't exactly forthcoming with information in your note." he added.

"You'll see and this morning - get in," he said, unlocking the doors and slipping into the driver's seat. He threw his bag onto the back seat, wondering if Caleb would even notice that he had it with him. Dorian? Now Dorian would have known exactly what Math carrying that bag meant, but then again, it had been strongly highlighted recently that Caleb didn't know his eldest brother at all. He turned the key in the engine and waited for Caleb to get in.

Caleb got in. He shut the door and leaned back, glancing in the back seat at the bag, then turning his brown eyes on his brother again. "What's in the bag?" he asked. Though by now he didn't actually expect an answer. What with the brushoff he'd gotten entirely already.

Mathias pulled away from the curb and headed down the street. He turned a corner and set them heading out of town, looking the very picture of relaxed and calm. He glanced at the bag, then over at Caleb before his eyes flicked back to the road. "My life," he told his brother with a small smile.

Caleb eyed Mathias out of the corner of his eye. "Your life?" he asked. "Um...just so you know, I do actually have plans tomorrow, so I can't just drop off the face of the planet or anything...you're not taking off, are you?" he asked.

"You'll be back by tomorrow," Mathias reassured him. He paused. "And yeah - everything I need is in that bag. The kind of life I lead, I have to be mobile. Anything else I own? Anything at all? Is disposable - I have to be able to leave it and walk away. You said the other day that there wasn't that much difference between going looking for trouble and trouble finding you. You were wrong in that. The difference is Dorian's house. And my bag. I'm not taking off, but I've hardly let that bag out of my sight for the last fourteen years." In fact, it was testament to how out of trouble he was intending to stay around his family that he hadn't been bar hopping with it over his shoulder the other night. Of course, he was currently breaking that rule, but he had his reasons.

"Okaaaay..." Caleb said, taking that in though he wasn't sure he exactly got the point. "Why is it Dorian's house? I'm not following." he admitted. He was starting to think that everyone around him was deliberately being as confusing as possible, just to fuck with his head.

"You're a half demon," Mathias said, speeding up as they reached the edge of town, the road stretching out ahead of them. "Which means that trouble's generally going to find you. It seems to work that way. Trouble'll find Dorian, but he doesn't go looking for it. He has his settled life, with a house and a store and everything that goes with that. He avoids trouble whenever he can, for the most part. I don't - I actively go out and look for it. And when you go looking for trouble, if you're any good at what you do, sooner or later trouble's going to come hunting you down. That happens to me - a lot." Mathias was, unsurprisingly, good at what he did. "So, I live out of this bag. I lived out of the back of my car for a the first year after I left home, but once I'd had to abandon a series of cars and start again from scratch, I learnt to think slightly more compact. You've got to be ready for anything all the time." Not that he sounded unhappy about this - he enjoyed it. Which was the reason he was still doing it.

Caleb was listening, though was still fuzzy on why he was getting the rundown. Maybe his brother really was just...attempting to let Caleb understand who he was. "So the trouble hunting you down. We going to be getting any surprises I should know about?" he asked, looking over at Mathias fully now instead of just half watching him.

Mathias shook his head. "No - nobody in my world knows about you guys." And he'd made damn sure that was the case. "And I covered my tracks before I came here. If I thought that my life would have been able to follow me here, I wouldn't have come." He looked over at Caleb. "What would you do if I said there was that chance?" he asked, interested.

"What, that something was going to come hunt you down?" Caleb asked. Then he thought about it, shrugging as he watched the trees going by. "I'd ask what was after you, how bad it could get, and try to figure out from there what kind of defenses needed to be put up, I guess. Figure out between the three of us what could be done...get Ten the fuck out of the house..."

Ten can look after herself... "Even if it was just a chance? A possibility that something could come and you didn't know what it was, what it might be, or when or even if something might turn up. What then?" he posed, pressing on the gas even more now that they were well out of town. The non-descript car was coming into its own now, the engine humming with power as they practically flew along.

"If it was just a chance, then I'd just...be careful, I guess. Ask what would most likely be coming, and keep an eye out." Caleb said. "Why?" he asked. "You suddenly have a lot of questions, here."

"Dorian never showed that much interest in what I do," Mathias told him. "I think he's always been determined not to 'give in' to what we got from our mother. I think that's how he sees it. That the demon blood we have is something that needs to be controlled, or tamed, or something. Like there's a danger there. If I asked him whether he'd ever go looking for trouble, his answer would be a 'no'. Yours wasn't."

That had Caleb pausing thoughtfully. Yeah, he could definitely see Dorian flat out refusing to go digging up trouble. Caleb had of a tame variety the night before, but he wasn't sure he should share that just yet. The subject, however, was really spiking up some of Caleb's own questions. "...is there anything there?" he asked. "Are we predisposed to shit because of it, or..." he trailed off, watching his brother carefully for his reaction. "Honestly I can't tell yet. If I constantly have trouble because I attract it because of what I am, or if I'm just lucky like that."

Mathias considered this before answering. "I've always been of the opinion that we're attracted to chaos. Hell, even Dorian's said as much - though he probably hasn't in front of you." He grinned. "At least, the times he's been out with me, tasting my world? He's really enjoyed it." He fell slightly more serious, looking over at his brother. "What we're not is what mom was before she gave it all up. We're not scrios. We have that blood in us, but that's not what we are." It had been a shock, the first time he'd met a scrios. One that hadn't ascended like their mother had. One that still embraced what he was. That had been a steep learning curve.

Caleb never would have thought it, but hanging with Mathias was giving him more information on what he really needed to know than like, all of the time he'd spent with Dorian so far. But then, Mathias wasn't treating him like he couldn't handle the information, either. "Never met one. Okay so we're not demons. At least not like that. I wonder. About everything." he continued, eyes out the window, because that made it a bit easier on him. "With some of the shit I've seen, I have to wonder what the difference is, or if there even is one."

"You meet a scrios? You'll know the difference," Mathias reassured him. "I didn't want to think about it for the longest time. If felt like a betrayal of mom to think badly of what she was," he admitted. "I fell in with him when I was twenty-one. I guess I was still naive. Definitely overly cocky. I all but hunted him down - thinking it would be cool, that we shared blood and everything. I didn't really appreciate what I was letting myself in for. Their entire reason for existing is to cause havoc, pain and suffering. The more, the better. And everywhere." That had been the steep learning curve - he hadn't appreciated that Scrios didn't play well with others. He hadn't realised that when the demon agreed to let him join in, what he'd been doing was setting Mathias up to take the fall for all of the shit they were causing. He'd gotten out of that one only by the skin of his teeth and a whole heap of good luck.

Caleb was silent for a few moments, taking that in. "...I believe it." he muttered. But then he'd had a different experience with their parents than his brothers had, and he kind of didn't want to talk about it. Kinda sorta ever. His eyes remained hard out the window, and he opened it to let the breeze in, arm resting on the door. Absently, he tapped his fingers. "So where's that leave us?"

"Us?" Mathias asked, seeking clarification of that. "You mean as half demons? It leaves us wherever we want to be."

"Where we want to be. That's it? Just...wherever?" Caleb asked, sneaking a glance back at his brother, but it didn't hold.

"You want more?" Mathias asked him, taking a fork in the road, hardly slowing at all. "What do you want?"

"I don't know yet." Caleb said honestly. "Still figuring that out. At current, to finish high school. After that, I'll see. I don't think I'll go to college. I'm not really that good at anything in particular, and anything I'd be interested in Dorian's already scholar-boy on. So...no idea." He shrugged. "I kind of always thought it didn't matter much." Or I didn't.

Mathias frowned a little at that. "What does it matter if it's something that Dorian already does? If you're interested in it, you should go for it," he said. "It's your life - you get to say what you do and don't want to do."

"Yeah, but it's not like I want to do what he does. I'm not going to go to school then become a book store owner. I'm not really that..." Caleb paused, trying to find the right word. "Settled." he finally decided on. "Maybe it's okay for Dorian, I just don't see it for myself."

"You could always go to school to be something else," Mathias pointed out. "Or just for the experience. Not that I'm one to talk - I hardly even lasted my freshman year. I was never 'settled' either. What Dorian does? It suits him, but it's basically a perfect picture of my worst fucking nightmare. If I had to do what he does? Live his life? I'd go insane within a week."

Caleb quirked a little half smile. "I think I probably would too. Maybe I'd last longer than a week, but...definitely not long term." he finished. "So what...what do you do?" he asked, because he didn't know. Not really. Dorian was easy. He was a book shop guy. But Mathias?

Mathias laughed. He'd been waiting for that question. Dorian had asked it years ago as well. "The short answer is 'have a hell of a lot of fun' - but I realise that's less than descriptive. What I do is more of an aim in life. I move things out of their natural order - or what people think should be the natural order of things. Dorian would probably tell you that what I do is cause chaos. And at extremes, he'd be right. But it'd probably be more accurate to say that I'm attracted to chaos and it just so happens that when I can't find it, I tend to make my own."

Caleb was back to looking at him, and he quirked a little quizzical expression. "Create chaos. That's it. You just...wander around and stir shit up?" he asked. Seemed really...simple, really. Damn.

He had to laugh at the look on his brother's face - it was an absolute picture. "Yeah - I wander around and stir shit up. Told you - I have fun. And it's a damn sight more interesting than owning a store, I can tell you," he grinned as he turned them off the main road onto a track road, thick forest on either side of them.

"Good to know." Caleb said, shaking his head. That was...eye opening. "So this is off topic, but I asked Dorian and his advice fucking sucked, so I'm going to ask you too." he said. He was already blushing faintly, and pointedly looking out the window. Wow, trees. Didn't see those every day. Oh wait, yes he did. There wasn't anywhere in this town where there weren't trees. "There's two girls, and I happen to like them both. I'm just not sure what to do about it. Suggestions?" Then he paused. "Suggestions that aren't going to get my ass kicked and possibly drawn and quartered because this is a small town and if I dated them both nd they found out about each other, everyone for the next three communities would know within a day?"

Of course, it was eminently possibly that Mathias' advice was tainted by the knowledge that one of the girls Caleb was talking about was almost certainly going to turn out to be the angel of wrath, but there was also a chance he would have given the same advice in any event. "The last thing you want to do is make yourself enemies in a new town," he told his brother. "There are two girls, you like them both. I would never advise you to date both of them, unless you were 110% sure and had it written in stone that they were both good with playing the field. In my experience? You can never get 110% positive. Sooner or later, one of them will decide that they want you exclusively and when women make the rules, they don't do things like letting us know what they are. I'd say hold back until you're more certain - don't go jumping in to anything." And choose the one that's not Ten.

"I've been wondering if I should do anything at all." Caleb said, after listening to Mathias's advice and taking it in. Seemed sounder than Dorian's, at least. And wouldn't get him into a really bad situation he couldn't handle. He knew that. He wouldn't be able to handle it, period. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I tend to attract trouble. I kind of don't want either of them caught up in it." he explained, shrugging like it didn't matter, even if it really, really did.

Mathias finally slowed them to a stop at the side of the road and switched off the engine. He turned to Caleb in his seat. "You can't live your life basing your dating decisions on whether or not you're going to bring trouble down on someone else," he said, seriously - completely ignoring the fact that he? Did just that.

"Easy for you to say, you don't seem like you have a girlfriend. I mean I could be wrong, but I think you might have mentioned by now." Or not, who the fuck knew. Caleb didn't. "But fine. Noted." he added. "Where the hell are we?"

"I don't do girlfriends," Mathias said - which was the complete truth. He didn't do relationships. He couldn't - it wasn't fair to them and it made it harder to walk away. And he had to always be able to walk away. So, he didn't do girlfriends, not past the 'casual fling' stage anyway. If it seemed it was getting any more serious than that, he walked. "And we? Are in the middle of nowhere. We're ten miles from the nearest house, where there is nobody home - and their phone line has seemingly been vandalised. It doesn't work. Shame. Get out - we're going for a walk."

Caleb opened his mouth to ask what the fuck was going on, but got out. Then he asked! "Um...the fuck?" he asked, looking around. Yeah, check that out. Middle of fucking nowhere. B.F.E. as he'd never seen it before. They were in the damn woods, trees choking in on both sides of the road, and he was watching his brother out of the corner of his eye. "Why are we here, and what the hell are you on?"

Mathias got out of the car, grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder before locking the car doors and pocketing the keys. He headed off into the trees. "See," he said, talking loud enough and walking slowly enough that Caleb could hear him. "The thing is that I worry." He looked back over his shoulder. "About my family. About Dorian - about you. I'm not around much and I don't want to come home one time to find one of you dead. I'd like to think my brothers can take care of themselves. Or, at least, have the sense to stay out of trouble." He looked away again and continued walking. "I'm not convinced on either point about you."

Caleb followed, wondering what the fuck was going on. At first he'd been confused. Now he was starting to drift over into concerned land. "A week on my own in New Orleans isn't enough for you?" he asked, frowning at his brother's back. The whole dead thing he couldn't actually counter because he wasn't exactly of an opinion that he was going to live a long healthy life. He'd given up on that notion the moment he discovered the only thing he really had a talent for bitchslapped so hard it almost wasn't worth it. Almost. In the end it was, but still.

"See, that's what threw me," Mathias admitted, still walking ahead of him - Caleb could catch up if he wanted, but until his brother made that decision, Mathias wasn't stopping to wait for him. What he was doing though was setting a pace his brother could keep up with and maintain, rather than the one Mathias would usually trek at. "You survived a week in New Orleans - you obviously encountered some shit, though you won't tell me what. And you came out of it with all your limbs intact. Which means you have to have something going for you. And your attitude has me fairly convinced you're not going to be leading the quiet life." He suddenly stopped, changing his mind and turning to face his brother. "So - I want to see what you can do."

Caleb stopped abruptly when Mathias did, not that far behind him. He frowned at him. "See what I can do." he said. Wow, did that ever sound like a really fucking bad idea. "And how do you propose I do that?" he asked, even though he was fairly sure he didn't at all want to know the answer to that. Because his surroundings were even more obvious to him then. Middle of nowhere...out of screaming distance to anyone, and apparently on the off chance anyone heard, it wouldn't matter.

"We walk into the lions den," Mathias told him with a knowing smile. His posture was relaxed, confident - as if he did this kind of thing every day. Which, to be fair, he did. "Over that rise-" he said, pointing behind them. "There's a nest of creatures. Demons, of a sort. This is their territory and they don't like intruders. Any type of intruders. You may have noticed the lack of birdsong...."

He did, in fact. Actually, to Mathias's relaxed sort of stance, Caleb's was the opposite. He was tense, and actually already instinctively waiting for a strike of some sort, even if he didn't at all realize it. "I don't--" he started, which was of course when the first attack hit. From the underbrush on both sides, two creatures charged out of their cover and dove at them both. Right before he hit the ground, Caleb noted that the creature that was going at Mathias was probably bigger than a wolf but smaller than a man, dark green colored and spiney. Looked like something out of a monster movie, really, some sharp clawed, moth full of fangs creature. Caleb got the mouth full of fangs part from the one that was trying to bite his shoulder when he elbowed it on the underside of the jaw.

Mathias stood calmly as the creature leapt at him - and simply wasn't there when it reached the point it was aiming for. Instead he was slightly to one side and the strap of his holdall was round the demon's neck as Mathias pulled back, throwing the demon to the ground and swiftly strangling it. He turned to watch Caleb as the sounds of more of the creatures could be heard fast approaching through the undergrowth.

Caleb got it round and back down from taking out one of it's joints with a kick, then was left on one knee, hand to the ground to steady him as he heard more approaching. The one who'd been on him wasn't dead, it was squealing and trying to get away with a limb that was bending the wrong ways. He looked up, and stilled as he heard the rest of them. Fuck, fuck, fuck... he had time to think right before the second onslaught hit.

The creatures were nearly here. He could hear them, the sound of branches breaking as they stampeded through the trees. Apparently the entire nest had come out in force for them. Mathias looked across at Caleb, meeting his eyes as he raised an eyebrow. "See you back at the car kid - you're on your own," he told him, before turning and heading at full tilt back into the trees - moving faster than Caleb could, even if his brother decided to run.

"What?" Caleb asked, then his brother was gone. "Son of a fucking--" he started, but that's when the first of them was out of the underbrush again, and he was back on his feet, moving back towards the only cover he'd seen nearby, which was a rather large tree. Putting his back to that, he turned to face in the blurs of motion he saw, at least three of them that were coming at him then and more behind them. So, he did what he could do. The first wasn't quite right and raked at his face, and he caught a slice on the forehead, followed abruptly by a slash right under his chin. What he'd been looking for though was the one coming at him lower, and he held up his arm. It looked like he screwed up, just gave the creature an opening to take a free hit. The claws sliced into the heel of his hand and across his wrist, leaving long gashes that were immediately bleeding. And really that's what he'd been going for. The spell he'd already been murmuring sparked up right before he dropped down and slammed his palm flat to the earth. A faint trail of reddish light was left in his hands wake, and when it hit, there was an immediate rumbling in the earth and slices that looked like clawmarks rising up out of it were seen, racing out from him in five different directions.

Two of the demons that had been in the way were cleaved in half, dropping twitching and squealing to the ground, and another lost it's arm, it dropping off cleanly. There was more squealing in the bushes, but he didn't have time to worry about whether or not he'd hit all of them, more were at him. The backlash of the spell hit then too, three parallel slices opening up on his right forearm, though he didn't pay it the slightest bit of attention. One that had got through was there then, and he got a clawed hand to the eye, though it was a bit off so he didn't have the unfortunate business of losing it. More were coming out, tramping over their fallen members to try to swarm and he was knocked back, flat on his back for a few heartbeats as he kinda sorta thought he might die now.

He just didn't give up that easy, and another spell was said, as he quickly traced a symbol in the air, leaving red afterimages in it's wake. A shockwave was sent out, knocking everything within five feet back another five, and the one that was on him tumbled away like it had been crushed, bones snapping. He was back up again, looking around as he felt his shoulder open up with a crooked slash partway down his back, though that one wasn't too deep. It was ignorable. Looking around, Caleb actually smiled, a dark sort of expression as he waited for the next attack, crouched down as he listened. He knew there were more.

Now that he wasn't scrambling anymore or off guard? This was the kind of thing that he never admitted, but he found fun. That dark little part of him that reveled in the fight, and he hadn't had one this dire in a while. Definitely not since he'd got to Marquette. Hearing them approach again, they seemed to be coming in in a larger number, but slower. Huh. Smarter than your average animal. He started whispering again, tracing symbols on the ground in front of him in his blood, swiping his arm over his forehead to get the blood out of his eyes. He wasn't even feeling the pain right then, far too immersed in what was going on. He stopped just before he completed the last one. Waiting, he watched his surroundings. "C'mon, that's all you got?" he asked under his breath. "Try again. Please."

They did, attacking in a collective pattern that time, all at once from different directions. He moved only enough to complete the last symbol. When they got in close, around a foot and a half, magic rose up, dark black lightning crackled from the holes in the earth he'd left with his first spell, seeming to elecrocute them. It arched out to hit the ones who were just that little bit behind, until there weren't any coming at him anymore. He paused, listening, then stood up, swayed a little bit, the backlash hitting him then as four rake marks slid up his chest and over his collarbone, just barely curling up towars his neck. He was breathing hard, bleeding what seemed like everywhere, but there wasn't a fucking thing moving around him anymore. He took a step, grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, then steadied himself and started back.

Mathias was waiting for him a little way down the path. The older Lockwood looked actually a little frazzled, his shirt torn to reveal a wound across his shoulder that was dripping blood. He didn't say anything as he watched Caleb walking towards him, though the look on his face contained a hint of caution.

Caleb was holding his forearm tight with his other hand, those wounds the worst. But then that spell always kicked his ass the hardest. It hit hardest, had the most range, and did it fast. He hadn't seen anything stand up to it so far. When he saw Mathias, he stopped abruptly, half tensing as if he was going to have to defend himself from that angle. "You asshole."

"This," Mathias said, pointing to his shoulder. "You did this - what the fuck was that?" he demanded to know. He hadn't expected that. He'd been watching, making sure that what was throwing itself as his little brother wasn't too much for him to handle, taking down some of the numbers so that Caleb wasn't in over his head. What he hadn't expected was whatever his baby brother had been doing that blindsided him and nearly killed him - half a step to the left and he'd be headless by now, he was sure.

Caleb was frowning hard at Mathias. "Good! You fucking left me!" he said, starting to walk again, because hello--still losing blood. "Son of a fucking bitch," he continued, muttering angrily. "That was blood magic." he added, louder, though still obviously pissed. Shit, he was fucked up. He was all scraped up and he had shit to do annnnd...he paused, sliding his sleeve up his arm as he looked down at the gashes.

Those were deep. Staring down at them, he saw dark, wide gashes that seemed to be rivering blood. He was leaving a nice trail behind him. He reached up with his good sleeve to wipe at his eyes again, then put more pressure on his arm again. The other shit would be fine, bleed, sure, but his arm was probably not gonna stop on it's own.

Mathias caught up with him easily and spun him round. "I," he said, looking his brother up and down as he pulled a fairly hefty first aid kit out of the hold all he was still carrying. "Did not leave you," he ground out. "Take your shirt off and let me see to those."

Caleb was of course spun, but he swung at Mathias's hand on him. "Fuck you." he spat, turning again to head back to the road. Where the hell he thought he was going, he had no idea, but rationality wasn't his friend right now. He grabbed his arm again, still trying the pressure thing. Ha ha was that ever not working well.

Mathias wasn't the kind of person to be swayed by being told where to go. He had thicker skin than that. "I didn't leave you - I needed to know that you could handle yourself," he repeated, not actually following Caleb this time. He'd expected his brother to be pissed off with him after all.

"You didn't? Well sure as fuck seemed like it to me!" he shouted, and because he wasn't being followed, once Caleb was a healthy distance away (or unhealthy, considering Math was the one in possession of the first aid kit) he turned to face him again. "I thought for a minute there I was fucking dead!" He hadn't been, but still!

"You were never going to be dead, Caleb! Do you honestly think I would put you in that kind of a situation?" Mathias demanded - probably a bad question, given the circumstances. "I made a judgment call on what you could handle and took care of the rest. You needed to think you were alone, or I couldn't be sure you weren't relying on me!"

"You just did!" Caleb snapped back. The back of his mind was informing him of one thing though. That there was a minute there, right around when he thought he'd been going to be killed, that he'd thought there were more of them. And Math had gotten hit by one of his spells. First one, by the look of it. Which meant he'd been far--but not that far. Close enough to get hit, anyways. Which brought him up short, and he looked away, glaring at a middle distance as he set his jaw and waited. For what, who the hell knew. Seemed like he was doing a lot of that lately.

Mathias gave him a long look. "I was here yesterday, I knew how many of them there were, I knew where their nest was, their strengths and their weaknesses. I brought you here because you'd been talking about finding trouble, or it finding you and I needed to know if you could handle yourself. The first two came at us, I killed one and then took a step back. I walked into the bushes and circled round to between you and the nest. If you don't believe me, go count bodies - the ones I took down were the ones that don't look like they've been ripped apart. The second wave, I let more through, because you could clearly handle them." He paused. "Possibly better than I can," he allowed.

Caleb almost wanted to go back and count the bodies. Just to see. But he didn't. Not because he was especially trusting of his brother right now, but because he was still losing blood and he needed to stop that. He wiped at his eyes again, and said nothing for a long minute, alternating between glaring at his brother and off to the side somewhere. He moved just a little, to lean slightly against the tree he was nearest to. His adrenaline was ebbing, crashing down and his body was saying 'hey! you're hurt over here! And over here, and over here, and oh yeah, there's all this blood flow that isn't coming back, what's up with that?'. The pain wasn't bothering him, but it never did. The physical effects of exhaustion and bloodloss though. That he couldn't ignore as well. "...depends on your point of view." he said quietly--just loud enough that Mathias could hear. "Do you have anything I can stitch my arm up with?" Stubbornly, he didn't want anything Mathias had right now, but practicality was winning out over that.

Mathias approached him then. "I told you - I'll take care of you," he said, equally quietly. "Sit down, let me have a look at you, Caleb."

He slid down the tree, ignoring the twinges in the slice down his shoulder. It was minor. It felt better to be sitting down, though, and he felt less like he might be in danger of passing out any time soon. He eyed Mathias warily, then finally took his hand off of his arm, which with all the blood, hey, it covered up some of the scars. Though not all of them.

"You're allowed to hate me, by the way," Mathias said as he sat down next to his brother. "I don't care if you hate me - as long as you're alive to do it." He set out nd started to clean up Caleb's wound, ignoring his own for now - he'd had worse. And so had his brother, by the looks of things. "Where did you get all this from?" he asked.

Caleb didn't answer right away. He was busy being pissed that Mathias had given permission for him to hate him. He didn't need Math's permission to do shit. But it wasn't the point. So when he calmed down from that, he looked at some of the scars, and at the wounds, wiping at his forehead and eyes again. "Fights. Backlash." he said, voice dull and a little hoarse. "Does it matter?"

"So that - the blood magic stuff. It causes this? This isn't because of the demons then?" Mathias asked, frowning slightly. He'd never really gotten involved with magic at all - he'd never really needed to.

"It backlashes." Caleb said. "You have to...pay for it, I guess. But it hits hard and not much is left breathing after you use it. So..." he trailed off. So it was worth it, considering he didn't have shit else going for him.

"So - not as cool as it looked then?" Mathias suggested. Because, really - it had looked cool. When it hadn't been nearly killing him, that was. "Question: can you fight? Normal, ordinary, no special abilities fighting? Or is blood magic all you have?" Because if it rips you apart, you don't want it as your primary weapon.

"I can fight." Caleb said. "Just against shit like that, I'm not going to overpower them. I'd be killed in .2 seconds if it was just a physical fight." he muttered. "And yeah, it's cool, right up until the stitches are needed." he said drily. "And it all scars. If you haven't picked it up yet, that's why you're never going to catch me wearing short sleeves or anything." he added. And to illustrate just a second, he rolled up his other sleeve.

Mathias' eyes darted to the other arm and he whistled, softly. "How long have you been doing this for?" he asked, cleaning away the last of the blood. "And I'll give you the choice - either I can do this here, or I can drive you to a hospital and they'll make a better job of it."

"I don't want to go to the hospital." Caleb said immediately. "Ten stitched me up last time, and whatever, it's not like I have to worry about the job, it'll scar anyways. They all do." he informed him. "How long? I picked it up around the time I took off from home. I tried a few other things, but this..." he paused, eyes distant for a minute and his voice was as well when he finished. "...it was the only thing I was really good at."

"Okay," Mathias said, pulling out a suture kit. He'd picked up field medicine over the years - though usually he was working on himself. Unfortunately, the one thing he didn't have was anesthetic. "Sorry, bro - this is gonna hurt," he warned as he started in on the wound. "Looks like you are good at it though - fucking surprised me, I can tell you. I mean, I knew you had to have something going for you, but... Dude."

Caleb didn't even flinch. "Pain doesn't really bother me." he said. "And yeah, can we talk about how awesome it is when I'm not bleeding?" he asked. But he did quirk a faint sort of smile that disappeared almost immediately at his brother. "I needed something that hit hard enough that whatever was in the way probably wasn't going to be getting back up to take a second shot at me."

"Hell - you definitely did that," Mathias told him with a small laugh. "And then some. The words 'killing zone' came to mind." He paused, concentrating on the wound. "Dorian doesn't know about this, right?"

"No." Caleb said. "And I'm not entirely sure he'd react terribly well if he did, so maybe he should just keep on not knowing." he said firmly. The last thing he needed was Dorian...doing Dorian things. Worrying about him, or trying to figure out a different way for him to do things, all shit he'd ultimately fail at. Caleb hadn't gotten into blood magic because it was fun and easy. He'd gotten into it because it was all he could do with any natural talent.

"Agreed," Mathias said, finishing off the sutures. He cut the end off and covered the wound with a dressing. "How about the rest of you? I've got some paper stitches that can go over that one on your chin," he added, looking his brother over. "So - what are you going to tell him about what happened today?" he asked, carefully.

"I have no fucking idea." Caleb said. "Any suggestions?" he asked. Right then it hadn't actually occurred to him that he wouldn't be covering. "We're both injured, we could just say it was an accident. Ran into shit while we were out...walking and bonding or some bullshit like that." he said, wiping at his chin and trying to get the blood off. he thought his forehead had stopped bleeding though, so that was good. His eye...that was going to be black, and he could feel scrapes around it too, but none of them were deep. He tried to assess which was worse, the one over his collarbone and by his neck or the one on his back, and decided it didn't matter. The deepest was probably the claw wound on his chin so he was going for that.

"Thank you," Mathias said, honestly. Because Caleb didn't have to cover for him and could have gotten him into shit. He packed up the rest of Caleb's wounds in silence, before stowing everything back into his bag. And then he looked back at his brother. "I wouldn't have let anything happen to you," he said once more. "If you'd turned out really not to have any abilities at all - I wouldn't have let anything happen to you."

Caleb looked up at him, then pushed himself to his feet, feeling steadier than he had when he'd sat down. He was quiet for almost a minute and a half, and when he spoke again, his voice was even. "...the range on that first spell's a max of about twenty five feet." he said. "It hit you, or grazed you. Proves you weren't that far." he said, turning to walk back towards the road.

Mathias would give him that. Along with the right to walk off. And so he waited, patching up his own wound and then repacking his bag before he stood and walked back to the car.

Caleb was sitting on the trunk, laying against the back window as he gazed up at the line of sky he could see between the trees. He was calmed down completely now, and was really just sort of contemplative as he did so, though he looked over as Mathias appeared again. "Hey. Are you okay?" he asked finally. Late, but he knew his spells fucked people up.

Mathias unlocked the car and threw his bag onto the back seat. "I'll live - I move quick. Got my shoulder rather than my head. But I'll know for next time, won't I?" he asked, throwing that out there for Caleb to do with what he would.

"If I'd known you were there, I wouldn't have done that one." Caleb said. "There are other ones, Picked that one because of the range, really. And most shit that it comes anywhere near is in two pieces instead of one by the time it passes. But...yeah. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known."

"My own fault," Mathias shrugged, leaning against the side of the car. "But I did really want to see what you could do when you had to. I meant what I said about not wanting to find you dead one day. I needed to know if I needed to be teaching you shit. Right now, I'm kinda feeling like it should be the other way round," he admitted.

Caleb blinked, then half sat up, looking back at Mathias with a clearly blindsided look on his face. "Huh?" he said intelligently.

"Seriously - that back there? I would have gotten my ass handed to me if I'd tred that at your age! I was thinking we'd come out here, I'd take out the majority of those things, let maybe half a dozen of them, tops, come at you. One at a time probably. By the time the second wave hit? You were taking out more of them than I did. You? Didn't actually need my help today. Okay, so maybe a little bit - the first wave possibly could have overwhelmed you without back up, but it would have been a close run thing. I don't have anything like that. At all."

There was more blinking going on. Caleb was staring at Mathias like he'd never seen him before. He almost wanted to ask who the fuck was he and what had he done with his brother. He finished sitting up, one arm down on the trunk of the car to prop himself up because he still felt like he'd been run over by an elephant. "What I can do? I need time to do it. I can pull it off fast, sure, but if I can't? Seriously, for a second there I really did think I was going to die. For all I know, I would have, if you hadn't taken out whatever other ones there were." he said, frowning in confusion at Mathias. Yeah this conversation was massively Twilight Zone for the youngest Lockwood.

Mathias nodded, taking his brother seriously - because it was a serious subject. "Okay, I'll remember that. You know I'm gonna want to know more about what you can do, right?" he asked, obviously intrigued. "But, I don't think this is the time or the place. Look - I told Dorian and Ten I'd have you back in the morning. Which means that we have until then to do whatever - what do you want to do tonight? Whatever you want - it's on me."

Caleb paused. "Beyond 'stop bleeding', I haven't really thought about it." he said. He had things to do tomorrow--and probably a ton of getting bitched at, but whatever, he could do that on little sleep. He didn't get a lot of that in the first place. "I dunno. It's been a while since I've been in a good fight." he said thoughtfully. "So, that was something. I'm not really ready to go home yet." he added. "Last night I broke into some bitch's house and destroyed a bunch of her shit...so minor vandalism's been done.." He wasn't mentioning Leija because he didn't want anyone knowing she was involved at all. "Most of the time I just walk around and so that's been done too. What do you usually do on a night like tonight?" he asked curiously.

"Usually? Drink lots and see if I can find a party to crash," Mathias admitted easily. "Which we could do, if you wanted to," he added with a grin. He wasn't actually sure what his brother was into, but he did intend to find out.

Caleb didn't usually do that, mostly because of the experiences he'd had in New Orleans, but this was Marquette. Not exactly the same thing. "Sure why not." he said, shrugging. "Though--" he started, hopping down off the trunk of the car. "Out of town." he specified. He didn't care where else they went, as long as it wasn't in Marquette proper. He stretched, cracked his neck, then offered his brother a little half grin back.

"Oh hell yes - very definitely out of town," Mathias assure him with a grin. "And what happens out of town? Stays out of town? Come on, get in and we'll go find some fun to have," he added, pushing up and opening the driver's door.

Caleb laughed a bit, then dropped down into the passenger's side, leaning back. It was definitely a night he would never have imagined happening, but he could think of worse ones. Which was probably fucked up, but he was surprisingly comfortable with that all of a sudden. Yeah. Not bad at all.