Many Meetings

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Starring

 * Cody Isaiah Bridger
 * Eevee Joy Finch

Many Meetings
Cody Bridger



Cody cracked his knuckles as he made his way out of the small shop that was located within the sleepy little fishing village of Marken. It was nice to get away from home every once in awhile, everyone deserved time alone and Cody was no exception. The one thing he found very annoying was all of the 'be careful' remarks he got every single time he left. He wasn't a freakin' child and he wasn't an invalid either! He knew how to be careful and he knew how to take care of himself. It really wasn't all that hard!

The shop he had left was little more than a small diner that seemed to dream of being a restaurant. There was fish; of course what shop or eatery wouldn't sell fish? Marken was a fishing village so one would have to be an idiot not to sell it. Besides that there was meat but that didn't seem to be as popular.

Marken was small compared to the city; small and quaint but it did have a level of activity that wasn't too widely known...at least to most humans. The village had witches, probably a few vampires and definitely a few Lycan's living in and around them.

As he passed by a bait shop he heard Some Enchanted Evening filtering through the open door. Oh for the love of God! Seriously?! He knew the owner of that shop was a hopeless romantic but that was simply intolerable! Reaching in to his pocket he withdrew his iPod and his headphones. He placed the buds in his ears and hit play. All of a sudden Owl City's Take It All Away came blaring through a little too loudly.

Flinching Cody immediately grabbed for the volume control level that was a part of his headphones. He lowered it to a tolerable level before he continued on his way. He liked most kinds of music and he wasn't opposed to 'romantic' pieces but there was a time and place for everything and that was neither the time nor the place for that song!

Cody skirted the outskirts of the village and went to Keukenhof, making sure to stay within sight but out far enough where he could be on his own away from the people. It wasn't that he hated being around anyone he just liked being by himself. Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye he turned his head to look.

Oh great...it was a girl. Perfect. Wonderful! Not! Girls were something he really didn't understand or even want to try and understand...they were just so...different. Cody groaned to himself, hoping that this female whomever she was wouldn't notice him or if she did that she would leave him alone but the way his day was going he doubted that would happen.

Eevee Finch



Eevee was out and about, walking through the Keukenhof, taking in the sight and smells of the tulips. There were dozens of colors, colors she didn't even know existed in the realm of Tulips. She smiled, letting the fragrance fill her nostrils, replacing the sweat and grime of the Albrecht pack. While most of her time and energy was focused around the pack and rising to it's top, she needed to get away every once and while and simply be real with herself, to put it frankly. Pretending to be this perfect, nice, little Lycan was exhausting.

She stopped walking for a moment when she spied the perfect bulb. It was just about to open and was sunshine yellow, except for the tips, which were splashed with just enough pink to see from above. The smile on her face only grew as she bent down to pick it up, but stopped as she realized plucking it would kill it and thus end it's beauty. She could put it in a vase at the Mansion, or she could freeze it and then press it, but it wouldn't be the same. There was something to be said about living beauty versus still beauty. True, it would be beautiful framed in her room, perhaps with a nice mahogany frame, but it would be dead. The thought of it repulsed her. Dead things were those that decayed and then fed the world to become something else. The process was interesting, but not beautiful. No, this flower, the way it was just about to bloom, swaying ever so gently as the wind caressed its petals, was divine in its natural, living beauty.

She stood straight again, still looking at the flower from above, ensnared by its loveliness as she stretched upwards, her hands towards the sky. Her back cracked and she sighed loudly. It was as though a thousand year old crick had finally released itself. This walk was doing wonders for her, body and mind.

Suddenly, the relaxing illusion of solitude within the field was shattered as she heard a loud groan from behind her. Her shoulders slumped in disappointment and the crick settled itself back into her spine. She allowed herself to close her eyes. She felt them roll back into her head as she let herself sigh silently, reverting to her normal act of perfect Eevee, since the person behind her was probably one of the pack members. The Keukenhof was just too close, and too full of prey at all times of the day for the pack to ignore it.

She turned, a happy smile plastered upon her perfect face. There was a bounce in her turn that screamed pure joy in life. Her hair floated around her face, curling perfectly in loose ringlets of dark brown and faded red. Eevee looked like the kind of woman everyone wanted to know and be friends with. Little did they know, she wanted nothing to do with most of them.

Her bounce lessened when she saw it was a male from the pack. He looked familiar, though she couldn't immediately place him. All she knew for sure was that he either ranked the same, or lower than her, and therefore, was of no use to her. Nevertheless, she needed to keep up her facade for all the members, lest they go running to Julius.

Taking a few steps toward him, she tilted her head and took a good look at his face. He was the Omega, the lowest of the low. She almost shuddered. Even when she was new to the pack, and no one knew her from Adam, she wasn't banished to his position. However, she kept her happy-go-lucky smile, as she was so good at and addressed him. "Hey, Cody, right? What are you doing out here? Taking in the sights? I love the tulips myself, their beautiful this time of year."

Cody Bridger



Oh no! Not her! Cody suddenly had the wish to bash his head against a tree. It was Eevee, another member of the pack who outranked him. Honestly though who didn't outrank him? Even rats and mice were held in higher regard...or so it seemed. ''"Hey, Cody, right? What are you doing out here? Taking in the sights? I love the tulips myself, their beautiful this time of year." ''

Flowers? Okay was she seriously talking to him about flowers?! Oy...what was the world coming to?! Girls just didn't talk to guys about flowers...they just didn't. It wasn't natural. Flowers could only be so exciting and Cody didn't understand why girls liked to get them. What was the point of having something to sniff for a day or two? The flower would just wither and die and look all wilted and ugly before then.

“Yeah it's Cody and yeah I guess you could say I'm taking in the sights. It's better than staying in that big ol' house all the time and besides it rained last night. Everything smells and looks fresh after a good rain.” he replied evenly. He found Eevee's seemingly bubbly personality annoying and that day there was no exception. Why did girls have to be so...well...annoying didn't seem like the right word. They were more than annoying, more than bothersome. They were the type of creature where people just wanted to do something, anything really to drown out their whines.

“What are you doing out here? Picking flowers?” He was about to say, 'picking flowers or some such crap like that' but he had managed to cut himself off after the picking flowers bit. More than once he had been told to treat the ladies with respect. Respect?! Females were just so...well let's face it...they weren't guys. From what Cody had seen most girls would freak out if they chipped a nail and hearing girls talk about flowers, nail polish, their 'girl friends', their crushes and how they wanted their hair to look got very annoying very fast.

He didn't know too much about Eevee and he hoped that she wasn't like that but when she started to talk about flowers Cody's hope began to dwindle. He didn't want to be dragged in to a conversation about a colorful plant that served no purpose except to take up space in the world.

“Have you explored much of the area?” he asked. Whenever he could Cody would come out this way and just walk around for hours. Exploring was fun and you never knew what you might see or find. The last time he had been out he had come across an old fossil and a piece of obsidian. Another time he had found an old revolver from the early 1900's. The place was like a treasure trove in a way which was one of the reasons he preferred exploring Keukenhof over the lands immediately surrounding the house. Keukenhof was just so vibrant, so alive and normally so peaceful and quiet whereas the land by the house was just so plain and uninteresting.

Eevee Finch



Eevee straightened her back, realizing she was still slightly hunched from before. It simply wasn't attractive to slouch. Not to mention, Julius could be watching, or he could appear at any moment. She wouldn't dare be caught looking like a slob around him. In the confines of her room, her looks didn't interest her at all. In fact, she found such matters boring, but when it came to her public appearance, well, public appearances were all that mattered. Even the fact that the red in her hair was severely faded bothered her. She really would have to dye that back to normal soon. Perhaps she would go back to her normal color again. Which would Julius prefer, her current edgy look, or her natural blond? Sadly, she feared he would prefer the blond.

She snapped herself out of her thoughts to look back at the man in front of her. Cody's face appeared to be bored and dull. However, this was no surprise to her. Every time she had seen him around the mansion he looked this way, haggard and devoid of life. Though, she assumed that was the lot of the omega. She watched as people picked on him, often laughing in their jokes, but never allowed him a second glance, never spoke out for him. But then again, why should she? Actually. No that she thought of it, she should begin to speak up for him. Yes, some of the others might look upon her as weak, but perhaps Julius would look at her with kind and approving eyes. Yes, she would test this out within the next few weeks to see how the Alpha responded. Afterall, his response was all that mattered.

She nodded as he spoke. He was right, it did smell fantastic out here. Then again, everything smelled fantastic compared to the mansion. It constantly reeked of dog, sweat, and piss from the young pups. "Everything is fresh compared to the inside of that mansion. I know we have cleaning people, but I don't think all the cleaning in the world would get the stench of ammonia out of the nursery wing." Eevee smiled, offering a gentle giggle. As she did so, her hands felt out of place and she crossed her arms over her chest. She knew it looked defensive, but she really didn't care. She just needed something to do with them.

"Picking flowers? No. I don't see the point in picking them, they loose their natural beauty. I'd rather they stay where they are, untouched and unbothered." She looked him in the eyes now with her piercing brown irises. He was a sweet looking boy. She wasn't sure how old he was, but she was sure he was younger than her. In fact, she was positive.

"Yeah, actually, I'm out here all the time. Though, I'll admit, I'm often out alone. I know, not very Lycan of me to go off alone, but sometimes I just need to get out of that house. Everything is so loud, so smelly." She laughed again, hoping she could illicit a smile from him. She wanted him to feel comfortable with her, perhaps even build a bond with her, even if it was completely fake on her end.

Suddenly, her face became very serious, the smile leaving her face except for her eyes. Her eyes were always sparkling with joy, well, at least around the pack members. "I'm sorry everyone always picks on you. Does it ever, well, get to you? On a personal level?" She tried her best to sound genuinely concerned and was rather positive she sounded at least slightly concerned. At the very least, she sounded superficially concerned, which she was, but concerned nevertheless.

Cody Bridger



Cody was able to hold Eevee's gaze for a few moments before he broke eye contact. It always creeped him out when people insisted on eye contact. What was the point? It wasn't like anyone's eyes were totally hypnotic or anything of that nature.

He heard her laugh and in that moment he wanted to turn the volume up on his iPod again. He still had the earbuds in his ears but had turned the volume down low so he could talk to her. Sighing, he put his black iPod in to hibernation mode before flicking the top button over, locking it in that mode so if a button was accidentally pressed, music wouldn't come erupting out of the earbuds. Smoothly he took the earbuds out of his ears and lightly wrapped them around the iPod and then he stuck everything in to his right front jeans pocket.

To be honest her laugh sounded just like all of the others. What was she trying to do? Make sure he knew his place in the pack? He knew his place...it wasn't like he could forget it any time soon. With a sigh he looked back up at Eevee and saw the seriousness in her face. Great...here it comes. What needed to be done now? What had he screwed up this time?

Most of the time whenever someone looked at him like that it was because he had not done something or had not done something correctly. He was always handed the tasks that no one else wanted to do; babysitting the young pups, cleaning up after them...sometimes he was even delegated to be the Pack's errand boy...yeah that was just so exciting!

'' "I'm sorry everyone always picks on you. Does it ever, well, get to you? On a personal level?" '' Cody shrugged his shoulders a little. “I think your question should be 'when does it not get to you?' I know most of the time it's all harmless banter but still...it's...not like I can really do anything about it. I just have to put up with it and shut up about it. No point in complaining to the Alpha or the Beta about it...not like doing that is going to make it stop.”

He shrugged his shoulders again and kicked at a stone that was by his foot. He didn't really think that Eevee wanted or was even interested in the answer to her question which was why he kept it short and sweet. Why should she care? Yes she was part of the pack but she had her own life. Why should she care about an unhappy Omega?

Seeing something on the ground he bent down and picked it up, wiping the wet dirt off with his fingers. He didn't care that he was getting the wet dirt underneath his fingernails, he liked getting dirty just so long as he didn't go overboard with it. “Hmm..Chrysocolla...” he muttered, identifying the blue rock. He wasn't a huge rock collector but he had a few as well as a tumbling machine in his room. He didn't make them to turn them in to pieces of jewelry, he just shaped the rocks to see what they would look like all smooth and free of imperfections.

Standing back up he shoved the rock in to his pocket. “I guess it doesn't really matter if you are sorry or not,” Cody began picking up the conversation again, “Just be glad that you aren't in the same situation.”

Eevee Finch



Her face still serious, she took note as he averted her gaze. She couldn't help but wonder why. It was moments like these, where people took a special care to avoid something that she wished she was an empath as well as an empathic manipulator. She always felt that the two would have worked so nicely together, but no, she was allowed only the latter. Of course, she was far from complaining. It had gotten her many places in her life, her ability to change people's emotions about anything and everything. It was a lovely trait for someone as manipulative as Eevee to possess.

She eyed him as he put his iPod away with a sigh. She was clearly annoying him. That would never do. Somehow she would have to either end his boredom or simply just end this conversation before she did permanent damage on his opinion of her. Afterall, as always, appearances were everything.

Honestly, she was a little annoyed that she was even aggravating him at all. She wasn't much higher than him in the pack hierarchy, but she was in fact higher. He shouldn't be displaying his aggravation, if anything he should learn a thing or two from her and learn to hide how he was really feeling. For the second time today, she cursed her inability to know what he was feeling without controlling his emotions. Of course, she could always just tip the scales and make him feel how she wanted him to. Should she? She hadn't manipulated anyone's emotions for the sheer hell of it before. Of course, that would make it fun, fun and naughty.

Eevee listened as he spoke, answering her question. The boy had a point. Constant jeers from his supposed family had to be trying on the mind as well as the emotions. She wondered what his self-worth was like, if he even had any. He had to at least have a smidgen of the stuff, most people, even the most down-trodden of the lot, had at least a smidgen.

She felt herself nodding as he spoke, taking in his words. Most of her annoyance had faded with her thoughts of manipulating his emotions, which she had decided she would do. She didn't plan on changing them entirely, just enough to where he would perhaps smile or laugh with her. Then, tomorrow, when he looked back upon this day he would remember she had made him smile and would have a more positive outlook on her as a person. A smile was all it took to make someone think even slightly better of you, this she had learned throughout her travels.

"No, it wouldn't help if you complained, but talking to someone usually helps, even if they're just listening. Julius would listen to you, at the very least. We both know that." She paused as she looked at him intensely, finding the aura that was his emotions. It was currently cloudly, but as she manipulated the levels it became a light yellow, the color of happiness. She smiled mentally as she realized it was now the perfect shade of yellow around him. He should be just happy enough to find her company at least somewhat enjoyable. "You know, I know we don't know each other very well, but if you ever need someone to talk to, or if you need anything, my door is always open." She offered a gentle smile, one laced with a certain level of earnesty.

She watched him as he picked up a stone. "What did you call it? It's interesting looking, but all rocks look the same to me." She giggled a bit as he spoke again. "I am glad it's not me at the bottom, but it shouldn't be you, either. No one deserves to be labeled at the bottom like that."

Cody Bridger



Cody shrugged his shoulders a little when Eevee mentioned Julius. He knew that the Alpha would listen to him. He also knew that it was more than likely that Julius would even talk with the others. However in the grand scheme of things it was likely to do more harm than good. He could just picture everyone else making fun of him for going to Julius. Shouts of 'Daddy's Boy', 'Tattle-tale' and a few other more choice words entered his mind.

'' "You know, I know we don't know each other very well, but if you ever need someone to talk to, or if you need anything, my door is always open." ''

Cody was taken aback by that. That offer was something he hadn't been expecting at all. He softened a little. Perhaps Eevee wasn't as bad as he originally thought. Perhaps she wasn't like the others. Perhaps he could actually trust her. He didn't laugh or smile when she did but his eyes did soften.

'' "I am glad it's not me at the bottom, but it shouldn't be you, either. No one deserves to be labeled at the bottom like that." '' “I'm at the bottom because I'm different. I'm the weakest...I'm the one everyone feels they have the right to mess with but if I'm ever in any real danger I'm the one they feel that they have to protect. I know it really shouldn't bother me; all of the jibes, pranks and all but it does.” Cody shrugged a little as if it didn't really even matter.

He took the stone back out of his pocket and showed it to Eevee. “It's called Chrysocolla. It's actually a mineral but it's as tough as a rock. It doesn't look like much now but I usually shape the stones and gems I find. I shine them up, smooth the edges until they look brand new. Do you want it? I can clean it up for you if you want.”

Cody didn't really know why he was offering to not only give Eevee a stone that was to go in to his small collection, but clean it, shape it and smooth it as well. He never offered any of the pack any of his work. Rocks weren't their forte and to be honest it really wasn't his. He just did it for fun, he never expected everything to turn out as well as it did.

The guarded look and semi tense posture was gone. Cody was as relaxed as ever and he only relaxed that much around the Alpha and Beta; never when he was around other people. There was something about Eevee, some aura of calmness that he was reacting to. He couldn't explain it but it was as if the world was suddenly brighter; if only by a little bit.

Eevee Finch



Standing there, Eevee couldn't help but be overcome by a ping of true sympathy for the boy. She knew her manipulations had taken hold and that it was changing his outlook on her, however, the life of the Omega truly was a solemn one. There was an element of family in being the Omega, since, that cursed soul was indeed part of the pack, but then, there was the overwhelming element of errand boy. She knew Cody's role in the pack was moreso the latter than the former and this is where her sympathy stemmed from. In no way was she willing to help take the burden from his shoulders, though. Not physically anyway. However, as she had said, she was was more than willing to listen to his emotional woes, without even manipulating him. She liked the way his face looked. Not in a I-want-to-rip-your-clothes-off-and-jump-your-bones way, but in a he-adds-a-pleasing-aesthetic-to-the-room way. Eevee was in the business of lovely things, at least, she was in her head.

Her fingers had found their way into her hair, twirling away at her gentle curls. It was a terrible habit from her childhood that caused the most ruthless of knots to tangle her hair, but she always found herself doing it when she was honestly trapped in her thoughts. This boy had caused her to honestly think about what it was like to be at the bottom, to remember it from when she lived in Romania. She had been there once, she had been even lower than the Omega position when she lived in the Orphanage, and even lower still when she was confined in that mental ward and tested on under those horrid lights. Her fingers worked their magic in her hair while her eyes went black as she remembered those horrible, horrible days being poked and proded, awake for the entire thing, merely a child.

It wasn't until she heard him spoke that she blinked and the bright lights and the surgeons flew out of her mind. Blinking a few more times, her eyes returned to their normal brilliance, sparkling enough to hide her dark memories.

"What do you mean it shouldn't bother you? If it does, it does, there's no getting around that." She sighed, her memories creeping back upon her, their evil tentacles wrapping around the happiness of the day, choking it out. She smiled brightly at him, though her eyes began to grow dull. She hadn't thought about her childhood in some time and it was making her grow weary. She had forgotten how to stave off the memory of the fear, of the pain. In a poor attempt to make it go away, she decided to keep talking to him, make him speak to her of things. Perhaps the conversation would distract her.

"You are different, but you are not the weakest. There are Lycans weaker than you who are higher rank. I'm sure if we were to fight under the full moon I would walk away with plenty of wounds." She smirked, knowing this to be true despite the fact that she was quite strong, she was no fighter. She hadn't the strategic mind for physical fighting. "Honestly Cody, the people who are at the bottom of the pack are often the ones at the top are afraid of for some reason or another. You probably have something inside of you that everyone that teases you is trying to suppress. Next time someone pushes you around, remember that." The words escaped her before she had time to plan them, which was something that almost never happened to the meticulous Eevee Finch. She was in slight awe of herself that she said something so true and honest to the boy, that she had tried to give him a true insight into the workings of the pack simply to ease his emotional distress. What was wrong with her at the moment? It was clearly her own vulnerability leaking out. She finally pulled her fingers out of her hair and straightened her back once more. She didn't enjoy being vulnerable.

"Chrysocolla? How do you remember that? It sounds like too many consonants and not enough vowels. Honestly, it sounds like a made up word." She giggled, the first honest sound she had made in their conversation. When he offered her the stone, well, the mineral, however, she smirked to herself. Her manipulations had taken hold of him so nicely. He was even offering her a gift. "Sure. It'd be better than keeping a vase of flowers. At least this would last for longer than a week."

Cody Bridger



The thought that someone could be afraid of him was hilarious. Who in their right mind would be afraid of him? He was nothing in the grand scheme of things. He really had nothing to offer anyone and when it came to everyday life he had a disorder that could very easily kill him if he wasn't careful. What the hell was there to be scared about?!

Eevee's sentiment was a nice one but Cody only believed it to be wishful thinking. He watched her play with her hair for a bit. One thing he noticed was most people did that when they were thinking about something or it was some sort of nervous tick. What did Eevee have to be nervous about? If the two of them ever came to blows she would be able to beat him hands down!

Hell...most anyone could beat him hands down if they knew where to hit him. It didn't even have to be a major artery either. All they had to do was open him up, step back and watch. It was almost quite literally that simple.

Cody shrugged when Eevee asked how he knew what the mineral was. “I spend an exorbitant amount of time reading,” he replied, “I know it sounds stupid but reading helps me relax...as does music but I normally have to hide my CD's from everyone else.” He had learned the hard way not to let anyone borrow something that he considered to be valuable. Either A) he never got it back or B) he got it back in such a state that he had no choice but to throw it away. It really became annoying when it came to his CD's. Most of them he loved and would listen to them over and over but when he started having to buy replacements because his packmates scratched the ones he let them borrow...! That was why he started hiding his music.

The one thing he didn't hide was his keyboard and guitar. The keyboard was leaning up against the far wall of his room and his black steel guitar was in it's case under his bed. Sometimes he would grab one or the other and just play around. He especially did this when he was sad or depressed about something. He found that music was really the only thing he could turn to and just let everything go. That was why he never quit on his music, he just didn't play very much. When he did he would go all out...until someone banged on his bedroom door and told him to be quiet.

“We'd be here for a month if I named every single thing that everyone does that bothers me. Suffice it to say...it gets pretty bad when someone...and I'm not naming any names, decides to make my babysitting duties more difficult than it has to be by giving the pups sugar. Also when they try to get me to join in their 'games'...yeah let's not go in to that whole nightmare,” Cody said.

He didn't even bring up some of the other things he had to do that went with being the Omega. While about 60 percent of the jobs that were given to him weren't all bad, the other 40 percent were because he kept having to dodge all of the others for fear they would add something to it. Despite all of this the one thing that bothered him the most was when someone (and he wasn't sure who) kept moving his medication. It wasn't like he had to take the stuff every single day, he only had to take it when he had a bleed but that wasn't the point. He would find the unopened bottle on counter tops, in cabinets, he even found it buried in the dirt once or twice. On some occasions he would get to it in time, other times the factor had been left out too long and had to be thrown away.

The bottles had to stay in the fridge until they were needed. If they were left out in room temperature for too long then the factor wouldn't be affective at all. He hated having to throw the medication away because not only did he pay for it out of pocket but he would always have to order more and it would take up to two days to get another bottle which meant he would have to be extra careful not to get hurt.

Cody rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders before he put the mineral back in to his pocket. It wouldn't take too long to get it polished and shaped. “Let me ask you something,” Cody began, “Why do you even care about the way everyone treats me or are you just trying to be nice?”

Eevee Finch



Eevee watched as his face contorted over the thought of being a threat or being feared for some reason or another. It was true though. The things that people were afraid of, they belittled in order to keep them down. They rounded them up and ran experiments on them, unable to understand the way they worked, even when they were the exact same as the person doing the experimenting. It had happened in the forties under Hitler and it had happened to she herself. She was sure she wasn't the only supernatural, the only Lycan, who had been put under the microscope. The people who watched her, chained her as they did so, kept her in a padded room with prison security and never let her play like a true child. They kept her in isolation, alone to her own childish thoughts. It was in those conditions lesser people went mad. Or perhaps, it had nothing to do with her own strength, perhaps it had to do with the fact that she was a child and children's minds are already too close to insanity to go any closer. Nevertheless, the people who kept her chained were afraid of her strength. This was something she did not realize until years later when her mentor Eponine had explained it to her, and now, she in turn was attempting to explain it to Cody, who seemed all too deep in disbelief. She shrugged. She could make him believe it, easily, but she just didn't care enough about the particular subject to make it so.

"Why would that sound stupid? Reading is an escape from this world into another one. I get it. I never really got into it, but I get it. It gives you something to hope for from the next page, something to cheer for." As he continued to speak, she realized she had let her own memories get in the way of controlling his emotions. It had returned to an ashy gray, which was completely unacceptable. She had to put forth a little more concentration than before, since she was still fighting back her own emotions, but she eventually returned it to the pale yellow she had it at before. She smiled as she watched the yellow aura start to take hold over his emotions. Sometimes, she wished she could control her own emotions in the same way. It certainly would make one portion of her life much easier.

CDs? People still listened to CDs? She had figured with the advent of iPods and digital music that the CD has lost its popular hold on society. She was apparently wrong. "Yeah? What kind of music do you listen to? I would try and guess, but I'm always wrong about things like that." This was in fact, complete truth. Since she was over a hundred years old, her music taste was a bit different. She preferred Opera and snappy Broadway tunes to the horrible garbage that was modern music.

She listened as he spoke, dismissing his emotional distress as though it were nothing. She liked the sound of his voice. It was laced with defeat and anguish. It meant befriending him would be easy, all she would have to do was build up his self-esteem and alter his emotional state a few times. She might not even have to touch his memories, which she hadn't even looked through yet. She was still too lost in her own.

"Medicine? Medicine for what. I mean, I saw some stuff in the refrigerator a while back, but it kind of comes and goes. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not." She wondered who would have been moving it. Obviously, it wasn't her and it certainly wasn't Julius or Gwennan. They were both either too busy or too kind for something like that. It had to be one of the idiot mid-level pack mates. She shook her head. "Some of the wolves we're forced to call family are idiots and truly are animals."

Suddenly, the conversation took a turn in a direction she did not expect. He had asked her why she cared or if she was just trying to be nice. Well then. How was she to answer that? Honestly, no, certainly not. With a lie? For some reason, a lie felt treasonous right now, as though the poor boy deserved more than a clever Eevee lie. In the midst of her thoughts, the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. "No one should be treated the way I've seen you treated. I empathize. I've been at the bottom, worse than the bottom. I know what it's like to be picked on, be prodded at constantly and absolutely no one deserves that kind of treatment. I don't care where they rank in the pack, we're supposed to be a family, and families don't treat their siblings that way."

Cody Bridger



Cody crossed his arms not because he was angry but because he almost always had his arms crossed. It was like a security blanket or a self hug in a way. Sometimes he didn't even realize he was doing it while at other times he couldn't help but do it. What Eevee said about family did make sense. While most of them were not related by blood they all made been joined together as one so they were a family held together by one leader. So why couldn't they truly act like a family?

“Wanting things to change is just wishful thinking. I don't necessarily mind all of the insults and being messed with but there is such a thing as too much and having to deal with that on a daily basis; deal with it and not being able to defend yourself... still it would be rather weird if everyone just stopped,” he said.

Yes it would be weird if suddenly everyone stopped their little verbal attacks on him and straightened up. He would wonder who the hell the people were and what they had done with the pack. He looked down and played with a little of the wet bark with his shoe. He was debating about whether he should tell Eevee about his little problem. It wasn't like it was a nationally guarded secret still it wasn't like every pack member cared that any little cut could very well have the potential to kill him if he wasn't careful.

“When I mentioned my medication...I don't know if you know this but...I have Hemophilia. It's a hereditary genetic disorder. It basically impairs the body's ability to control blood clotting, meaning that if I have a cut or something that breaks the skin I'll just continue to bleed. With normal people a scab will form over a cut. My body has a defective chromosome which prohibits the scab from forming which is why I have to take the medicine in the fridge. While it has another name, it's genetic name is 'Factor' which is what I call it. It is the replacement clotting factor, meaning that with it my blood can clot normally. Without it I just continue to bleed. It's not that I would bleed faster or anything like that it's just that I can't stop the flow of blood without the medication. That's why it annoys me when people swipe it. I know they are trying to be funny and all but that stuff is expensive and it has to be refrigerated to be any good,” Cody explained, “And besides...while ordering more is a simple process it takes anywhere from 48 to 72 hours to arrive so if I get hurt and don't have any Factor on hand...you could say I'm basically screwed.”

He really didn't know why he was telling Eevee all of this. While she was family, what business was it of hers and more importantly why would she care if he had a disorder or not? He knew that most lycans always tried to make themselves appear stronger than they really were, while he just admitted a weakness he had to another. It wasn't unheard of but it wasn't usual that a lycan would admit to something like that.

“Sorry...I don't mean to dump all of my issues on you,” Cody murmured after a minute. He felt bad about dumping everything on Eevee even though she had said that he could talk to her. The problems he had were no one elses but his own. It really wasn't fair to be dumping them on another.