Feeding The Beast

[Existentially Odd]

"Come," the vampire repeated, backing into a bouncer that - as it happened- was staring menacingly at Tag, like he was about to cause some trouble and the doorman thought it would be a good idea to get rid of him before that eventuated. When he looked to the bartender - as if for confirmation - a clearer picture of events unfolded for Kerr, and he realised that the youth was now considered unwelcome. He would need to hurry him along as best he could (preferably without touching him), to keep everyone calm and the situation in hand.

Step after step, he backed to the entrance and then out onto the street. Tag was travelling eagerly with him by this stage, so the vampire felt more secure about turning and walking normally down the footpath, gaze constantly switching from his desired route to the being by his side. He was somewhat startled when Tag moved around him to sniff curiously at poles that they were passing; more than \'somewhat\', in fact. It was downright odd and he was compelled to ask the question that had burned in him since he\'d first encountered the boy.

He cleared his throat, hoping for Tag\'s attention as he spoke. They\'d paused by a particularly odourous post, it seemed. "Tag... what manner of... what are you?" he asked indelicately, eventually giving up on waiting for the hazel gaze to be directed his way. His tone was demanding enough that he figured that the boy would answer him... if he was capable of doing so. Would he even understand the question?

[Trillian]

Tag, who was a Were-Shifter but had never had it explained to him, looked warily at Kerr from the post that so many dog-smells were coming from (and he knew that this route Kerr was taking belonged to no creature in particular, for the territory was overmarked far too much - but the mix of scents was interesting).
 
"Wolf," he said after a long pause that was no doubt painfully expectant.  He\'d been a wolf for so very long - and he knew this form he changed into was not something the other wolves could change into, but even though he knew he wasn\'t wolf and he wasn\'t the same as those that looked like him in this form, he didn\'t have any other way to describe it.
 
He rubbed his forehead roughly with his palm, screwing his eyes shut as he did so, before frowning and peering up at the vampire who was leading him.  "Food?" he prompted, wondering if the promise would be fulfilled now that he\'d answered the other\'s question.

[Existentially Odd]

Nodding through his scowl, Kerr set off again, glad that the little mart wasn\'t far away. The more he learned, the more he didn\'t know about his charge; it was a confusing state of being, to say the least.

Wolf.  He\'s part wolf?  More than just part, though... his thoughts showed him being a wolf. And human.  But not were...

The vampire was equally baffled by the boy\'s declaration.

In the simplest of ways, he did understand that Tag was able to shift from one form to another and though he supposed there to be a more technical name for it, \'shifting\' was the term he (ironically) associated with the talent the feral youth appeared to have. He supposed he would get more answers if he took Tag to the Oligarchy chambers (because things seemed to go so well for him, there) and asked about what being was in charge of shapechangers. The more he thought about this plan, the better he felt about it being a good one all round. Not only would he be able to offload the wolfboy onto someone better equipped with understanding his species, he would not be in trouble for looking after someone as a pet

Fuck, could the term be any more appropriate for this guy?

and revealing his vampirism.  Again.

Once bitten, thrice shy, eh?  Sap!

Of course, that still left the time between shopping and turning up at the Oligarchy\'s hotel to account for.

Tag might buy food that had to be cooked; leading him to the conclusion that he should, by rights, take the child to his home, help him with his food and then introduce him to a bath before delivering him into someone else\'s care. The thought of bringing yet another mortal in made Kerr groan inwardly, and consider going to a motel room instead. There would be bathing facilities there and he could make sure the boy bought deodorant and soap now... but that still left the problem of cooking. Hotels didn\'t usually have facilities for that... unless he encouraged the purchase of processed food only when they got to the supermarket. He was sure that Tag would go straight for the meat section and there would be plenty of ready-to eat choices there. Hell, the wolfish part of him might dominate and he\'d prefer his food raw anyway.

Glancing at his bedraggled companion - to ensure he was still with him - Kerr was reminded that new clothes would also be in order; and there were no retail stores that would meet that need close to their current destination, as far as he knew. Could he stomach driving the urchin somewhere in his vehicle? What if the smell lingered far longer than it was welcome? He\'d always be able to smell it.

Realising his troubled thinking had distracted him the whole way along the street, Kerr looked up as he felt the splash of neon washing over him. The sign declaring that the store was open twenty-four hours flicked merrily over them as he held up a hand to stop Tag continuing without him. He had decided that one or two life lessons wouldn\'t hurt before entering the store.

"This is where you can buy food," he explained slowly. "Choose what you want but you need enough money," he touched the warm fist clutching the bill - given by the other vampire - briefly, "to keep it all." He waited for signs that this concept was being correctly processed before he continued, debating whether to elaborate on the fact that he planned to merely follow Tag around the store and watch him take whatever he wanted, paying the difference at the end. Perhaps it would be better if he taught the boy to stick to a budget and didn\'t give him any more money? Though... twenty dollars hardly seemed enough to satiate the ravenous hunger Tag was suffering, and he couldnt be cruel.

No, better to see how far he got with the twenty and see if more was necessary. Two distinct trips - with money from Kerr the second time around - should make him somewhat more aware of the value of a human dollar.

[Trillian]

Tag looked at Kerr while listening attentively whenever the other spoke.  He understood the words but not the concept of limiting himself to the money in his hand.  All he saw whenever money changed hands was food being handed over in exchange for the paper he was now holding.  He didn\'t know that a bill that said 100 was better than a bill that said 20, even though he knew one number was bigger than another.  It would have to be explained, and simply.
 
His nostrils flared when someone exited the store, taking with them the smell of fruits and foods.  His head snapped in that direction and he padded into the store, wary of the doors that slid open by themselves but distracted enough by the food to not pay it as much attention as he would\'ve on a full stomach.
 
The first area on the left were the fruit and vegetables.  Tag sniffed them all, reeling back when he reached the onions, and picking up an apple.  After rolling it around underneath his nose, he bit into it with a bite that became almost impossible to chew - in fact it was impossible to chew without dribbling some down the front of his t-shirt.
 
He grinned at Kerr with full cheeks, chomping and slurping, showing him his prize; the apple.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr\'s expression was disappointed as he realised just how little impact the money had on Tag\'s behaviour.  He obviously had no concept of what it was used for, which meant that this little lesson was about to turn into a much bigger drama than he\'d counted on.  So much for telling him to limit himself to twenty dollars; the steps he took here would have to be much simpler.

"Tag, no," he said firmly, holding out a hand in a sign for the boy to stop eating.  "Pay first, then eat," he instructed, the hand that had been held out as a termination signal moving to grasp the one that held the twenty dollar bill.  The process would be laborious like this, but he felt he needed to make the point early on.  He dragged the boy - looking a great deal more cowed - to the register not far away and spoke to the person behind it.

"My friend here is new to the country; he started eating the apple before he bought it.  Pay for the apple," he instructed Tag, giving the boy no option as he held the boy\'s hand out and forcibly loosened his fingers from around the money, so that it dropped onto the counter.

The shop assistant, wide-eyed and nervous, took the money, saying that the apple would be forty-five cents.  "That\'s fine," Kerr told the girl unblinkingly, "give him his change.  He\'ll want to make more purchases."  She did as she was instructed, counting out numerous bills and coins - all while eyeing the odd pair warily - then holding them out towards Tag, telling him how much change he would get.  "Take your money; shop more," the vampire told the shifter, hoping to God that this process was getting through.

[Trillian]

When Kerr declared the \'no\' so firmly, Tag ducked his head a little, expecting to be smacked on the back of it as Rancid had a tendency to do.
 
When he was dragged to the counter he made a few grunts of protest, howling when the money was loosened out of his closed fist.  He tried to pull away more than fight against.  He quietened when the girl spoke, listening to her explain something about senses (which he didn\'t quite understand) before she pulled out money from a drawer to give him.
 
Tag held out both his hands, cupping them together to catch the little jingles as the girl dropped them.  Watching her with the same wide-eyed expression as she watched him, he believed that he\'d received more money that what he\'d started out with - for now he had shiny jingles as well as numerous paper notes.
 
He grinned with all his teeth at Kerr, showing him his new prizes and grabbed the apple before returning into the store back past the counter with another huge bite being taken out of his newly purchased apple.
 
He was wandering down the paper aisle, looking disinterestedly at toilet paper and tissues before another smell hit him from the very back of the market.
 
He sprinted to the end and Tag\'s jaw dropped open when he spotted rows upon rows of what was obviously meat.  Forgotten, the apple dropped onto the floor and rolled a short distance away as Tag approached the cold storage display units and took some large sniffs.  He could smell meat, every now and again, but the smell was muted.
 
He picked up a pack of Eye Fillet steak (marked at $12.70) and bit into it, pulling back and staring at it with frustrated awe.  The plastic in which it was sealed was considered a very tough skin.  He growled and bit into it again, only just ripping a small hole where a teaser of raw steak seeped onto his tongue.
 
Growling with intensifying hunger, he attacked the steak in a way that would likely encourage Kerr to think of him as more wolf than boy once he came across Tag.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr - who had been waylaid by the checkout girl, agreeing with her assumption that his companion was, indeed, \'not quite right in the head\' and he was just trying to teach him a bit about shopping when there were likely to be less people in the store - panicked when he realised he\'d let Tag get away from him.  For good reason he saw, once he came upon the youth attempting to gnaw his way into a pack of steak.  Striding swiftly forward, he yanked the meat away, holding it down so that he could speak and, hopefully, have the boy\'s attention.

He could feel the urge to feed rolling off the wild youth in waves - Hell, he understood it, the smell of blood had his senses tingling too, despite it being animal blood - and the grubby hands (one clutching a fistful of money, one gripping the polystyrene container) fighting against him in an effort to get the food back to his face.  Kerr dropped his walking cane with a loud clatter and put his other hand on Tag\'s forehead, so that he couldn\'t dip his head and get to the steak that way.

"Tag, you need to buy first.  Use your money.  Eat outside," he growled impatiently.  He couldn\'t be bothered explaining that it wasn\'t socially acceptable for people to eat raw meat in the middle of a supermarket.  His question about cooking had been answered quite succinctly, too.  Best to attempt to get Tag and his food out into the darkness where no-one but he would have to see.  What possible objection could a vampire have to a wolf/person eating a bloody snack?  He empathised.

[Trillian]

Tag\'s wolfish instincts kicked in around the same time as Kerr\'s words, to take his meal someplace that nobody could disturb him. It was something he\'d always done in the forest, but here in the market there\'d been nobody to shy away from. He hadn\'t expected Kerr to take his food away from him, however, and so initially he\'d growled menacingly, sneering and baring his teeth, howling and grunting for Kerr to let go, he was hungry, he wanted to eat.
 
Outside
 
It seemed a good idea, it was this word that caught Tag\'s attention and he quieted.
 
"Out," he repeated, agreeing to go, quieter, but still wanting to yank the steak back from Kerr, suspicious gaze on the vampire. "Out," he repeated, a little louder, struggling for the steak a little harder.

[Existentially Odd]

"Pay first," Kerr hissed and chanced a hurried bend to retrieve his walking cane with the hand that had been pressing against Tag\'s head.  His other hand remained on the surface of the steak, his move executed in record speed - even for a vampire.  He tucked the now-annoying stick beneath his arm and used his hand to turn the boy, gripping his shoulder with only a slight wince to betray his true feelings about the child\'s stench.  He marched him to the register they\'d previously visited - noting the more accommodating expression on the checkout operator\'s face, now that she thought she was dealing with a simpleton, rather than a... well, feral.

"Money," he ordered Tag, pressing the steak package onto the conveyor belt and thumping his index finger into the price in its corner, tryng to make the point that there was a certain amount of money that the youth would have to pay.  He knew he wouldn\'t be able to read it; the vampire merely wanted to draw his attention to the sticker, so that he might note that the label had a direct relationship to the money clenched in his grip.  Well, he could hope, anyway.

Tag was - thankfully - more willing to surrender his cash this time and the girl was admirably lenient when it came to telling the boy how much he would spend and how much change she was giving him... speaking to him so slowly that her speech became almost indecipherable.  Kerr resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead offered a tight smile when the laborious exchange was concluded, guiding the youth to the front doors of the store.  He turned to the left when they were outside, one hand still covering the steak, the other now using the back of Tag\'s neck to direct him, but let go when they were a few paces away from direct light.  Concerned that the wolfboy would eat a lot of plastic, he ripped off the clinging wrap as hastily as he could, revealing the meat sitting freely on its polystyrene platter.  "There.  Eat," he said simply.

[Trillian]

Tag did everything as expected, uncaring about the fact less notes and coins came back the second time, he had steak that he could smell and he\'d kept hopping from foot to foot while drooling in anticipation of sinking his teeth into the meat.
 
Once he was out he did his best for patience but whimpered three times before Kerr finally presented him with his reward.  Snatching the steak out of its containter, he dropped the money in the process and sprinted away, turning up the alley and moving quite a distance towards the dead-end before hunkering down and eating the steak with soft growls.  Blood streaked across his face as he ate with uncaring relish.  This meat was somehow nicer than the meat he hunted in the forest - it was tender and didn\'t have hard gristly bits or big chunks of bone to eat around.
 
Too soon it was gone and he was licking his fingers before running them through his hair, which was dirty enough to stick out at all angles before seeing where Kerr had gone to.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr had decided to let the boy go, following his instincts, not his head.  Logically, he knew that he should continue to monitor the barely-civil boy\'s progress and be certain that he was protected (from the city as much as the Oligarchy; though should he come under scrutiny as a shapeshifter in public, Kerr didn\'t doubt his involvement would also come to light and further incriminate him), but his gut told him to let the boy go.  If he chose to scamper off to places unknown, why should the vampire argue?  Their lives didn\'t need to be inextricably intertwined because of a chance meeting and a stirring sentiment of sympathy.  Best to let him return to his natural state.

Still... he lingered around the shop\'s entrance, putting the plastic and the polystyrene in a nearby bin, picking up the abandoned money and counting it negligently.  He wondered if he should go in and buy Tag more steak... but figured that that would only be encouraging the stray to follow after him.  Surely he\'d done enough? Predictably, his inability to make a clean break from the wolf boy resulted in him being spied after the food was apparently gone.  "Good?" the Irishman asked, unable to ignore the remains of Tag\'s meal smeared across his dirty face.  "More?" he relented, wishing to at least see to it that the youth\'s stomach was full.

All the easier to send him on his way.

[Trillian]

Tag opened his mouth as though a civilised reply might come out, but a huge belch presented itself instead.  Afterward he behaved as any youth (or immature adult) would, by laughing over it as he approached the vampire, a grin on his face.  He patted his belly, which didn\'t look very round or full, but the gesture wasn\'t lost.  "Full," he confirmed, wanting to be fully understood even as he sidled up to Kerr, averting his gaze in order to recognise Kerr\'s dominant position and then snuggling against him, the filthy smell of him being rubbed on Kerr\'s arm as best he could.

[Existentially Odd]

Oh, dear lord he\'s touching me.  By all that\'s holy the smell.  That\'s just... how can that be natural?

Smothering the expression of repulsion just yammering to appear on his face, Kerr forced the youth away with a stiff arm, his stony gaze intensified by the clenching of his jaw.  "Tag... don\'t.  You smell bad," he advised as honestly and simply as he could.  "Do... are you going... go forest, now?  Or... stay here, city?" he stammered, caught between the need to get away from the stench and provide a means for eliminating it altogether.  But if the child was only going to return to the wild then what was the point in making him civilly presentable?  The immortal could see none.  His words were accompanied with the appropriate gestures for forest (waving away) and here (pointing at the cement beneath their feet), but he still had no faith he\'d be understood accurately and answered.

[Trillian]

Tag sniffed at himself then gave Kerr a curious look before sniffing at the vampire.  There was the stale earthy smell that he had which he associated with Rancid, but at the same time there was an interesting sweety musky smell coating the surface, and slightly below that a child smell, as though he had one in his pack, but there was something peculiar about it that Tag couldn\'t place because there was more of Kerr to smell than the child.
 
"City," he answered as simply as he was asked.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr\'s face fell momentarily, as many thoughts raced through his mind

Great.  City.  Where will he sleep?  Who should look after him?  He\'s obviously unequipped to survive on his own.  The Oligarchy will have to be contacted, it\'s that simple.  Fuck them.  They should deal with him; he\'s not normal, he\'s not mortal, he needs a lot of help.  But should he bathe first... will they reject him if he\'s not... well, if he stinks like shit and doesn\'t look much better?  Amusing, to see how much he\'d stink up their pretty lobby... have a nice day fellas, here\'s this wild thing I found; don\'t wanna\' get into any more trouble, so I thought I\'d let you all know up front.  And I didn\'t feed from him or tell him what I was but... keep your distance, eh? He\'s a bit on the nose, see you!

but he forced a close-lipped smile.  Best to let the animal decide his fate.

"In the city, people live in houses.  With rooves," he explained, steepling hands over his head, then dropping them when he felt a complete twat.  He stuck to pointing at nearby structures instead.  "Wear clean clothes," he pointed out, giving the lapel of his jacket a prominent flap.  "Where will you go?" he asked, indicating Tag with the back of his hand while mentally watching the thoughts the youth flicked through, to see whether he\'d understood - and whether he had plans to return to the vampire he was obviously fond of.  If he didn\'t think of a home in particular, Kerr would have no choice but to take him to the Oligarchy.

Whether it was clean or not was still open to debate, in the vampire\'s mind.