Friends or Foes?

As a young kid growing up in a big and busy city, Jeremy had never been one to really get down and dirty out in the woods. The most he ever got to see as a kid were the trees at the park, and the mud puddles his father had trained him to steer clear of since, as guys, they weren't exactly pros at getting stains out of their laundry. Hell, the few times that they'd gone camping, they had a trailer with working indoor plumbing and a small television there with them. Running off like a madman through the trees and flora of the forest without a care in the world wasn't something Jeremy thought of as fun... Until now.

It was the wolf in him that taught him to enjoy the freedom of it all--not having to rely on human inventions to get by, thriving by simply following his own senses and instinct--it was an amazingly liberating feeling when he allowed himself to act as the predator he was. There was a doe that had just crossed too close to wolf territory, and according to Jeremy's nose and growling stomach, it was right about lunchtime. Even in his human form his nose was particularly sensitive, so the fact that he could already smell his prey meant that it was ridiculously close by. In mere seconds, the smile that spread across his human face was quickly replaced by a wolfish grin as he shifted forms to begin the hunt.

He had no idea that he wasn't the only hunter in the woods that day.

Due to pure restlessness, Samuel had chosen to patrol the forest.
While nowadays he preferred taking on Vampires, due to how common they where. He couldn't pass up the idea of wandering through this forest during the day, he was in the mood for a hunt, natural or supernatural made no mind to him.
One way or another he was going to get food or money out of this little venture.

He stepped silently through the trees, making as much noise on the ground as his owl would in the air.

Having picked up the trail of a deer earlier, the Australian followed it's trail. Looking a head of him to see if the deer was near about, he saw something else entirely. He saw Jeremy.

Jeremy was a boy he met when he moved to this town two years ago. He paid the kid to run odd jobs and errands for him, he was efficient and effective, mouthy for sure, but he always got the job done. He even enjoyed the American's company when it came his way to.

He didn't have long to ponder why the other was in the forest before he saw him shift form in front of his eyes.

His eyes narrowed feeling somehow betrayed and annoyed.

He followed after the wolf, his target was now a him over the deer.

Jeremy had always been careful not to shift if there was a chance that he'd be seen, but that sense of caution had gone with the wind when he this far in werewolf territory. He'd been openly roaming this area for years now and there had never been a problem for him since humans usually steered clear of the forest, but today was apparently the end of that streak. He didn't even sense another person following him since his pursuer's scent was downwind, and he was focused solely on making that kill for his lunch.

True, he knew that there was always Sam around somewhere, but it'd been a little while since he'd last done a job for the man and he'd last heard that the guy was more interested in hunting vampires than weres as of late. The chase came to a fairly abrupt halt after Jeremy lunged and toppled the doe sideways. Before the poor creature could even realize what had happened, the wolf had already ripped her tender stomach wide open and was busy mauling the girl's neck until she moved no more. It blissfully took less than thirty seconds for Jeremy to make the kill, so the doe didn't suffer for long.

Stalking the wolf was easy enough, the second the beast broke cover to maul the deer he was revealed to the world.

Admittedly, Sam didn't hear through any of his contacts about there being a price out for any werewolves of late, do he would probably only receive a base finders fee for the animal. However, his rent was due and his van needed a major over haul, so money in any amount was never going to be turned away.

He leant against a tree and lined up his shot through the scope. the cross hairs locating a spot at the base of the wolf's skull. He cocked the rifle and fired a single shot.

The second the click of a cocked gun reached his ears, Jeremy immediately leapt away from his spot in time. Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough as the bullet still managed to graze and take a small chunk out of his shoulder. His howl of pain was probably loud enough to alert every creature within a two mile radius of his location, and no doubt his brother had felt the sudden sharp pain through the link they shared. His landing was shaky at best, but he was still able to growl and snarl threateningly and to quickly locate the source of the gunfire.

At first, it didn't register to him that he was looking at the face of someone he knew--all he saw was a dangerous threat that needed to be neutralized. Fueled by instinct, he weaved left and right to keep the other from getting a clear shot at him before he got close enough to flank to the man's side and pounce on him with his teeth bared and itching for flesh.

he cursed silently as the bullet sunk into the wrong section of flesh. Cocking the rifle he went to try again, glaring at the wolf the moment her realised it was avoiding his aim.

As Jeremy pounced at him, Samuel realised he didn't have enough time to drop the rifle and reach for his kukri. So when he turned to see the beast he raised the rifle in front of him with a growl of his own as the force of the attack knocked him on his back.
Keeping the rifle between himself and furious teeth, Sam kept his strength on the gun with one hand as he tried to reach back for the curved knife only to find that the sheath had no give in it with both his and the wolf's weight on it.

"...Aww, piss..."

Jeremy's teeth snapped dangerously close to Samuel's fingers as he tried to get the other to release the rifle, but he kept getting a mouthful of metal whenever he tried to get to the hunter's hands. His growling never ceased as he pinned the other down with his weight, but there was a split moment of hesitance when it was suddenly a familiar voice cursing lowly beneath him, and not an enemy's. In the second it took for him to get a proper look at his opponent's face, his fight instinct halted dead in its tracks as recognition flashed through his mind.

S-sam?! What are you doing here?!

Forgetting to shift back before speaking, his voice came out as a small series of surprised sounding barks.

He continued to do his best to keep the canine back, cursing himself for not expecting the creature to run at him, he'd clearly gotten rusty.

He raised a curious eyebrow when Jeremy stopped trying to attack him and almost whined at him. He didn't think on this moment for a second, jerking his gun towards him then slamming it back to push the wolf away. And as an act of good measure he kicked at his hind legs to make him unstable, before rolling away, letting the rifle fall to the ground as he slipped his knife from the sheath on his back.

"C'mere, ya mucky mongrel. Lets finish you off"

It came as no surprise to Jeremy when he was shoved roughly off to the ground, but he did yelp in surprise when his legs suddenly buckled and he was caught lying on his belly while the other pulled out and raised his knife at him. His eyes widened in shock as he shifted back as fast as he could to his human form and scooted backwards across the dirt until his back hit one of the trees surrounding them. "Whoa whoa wait a sec! Sam, it's me!" Jeremy had one arm raised above his head, ready to take the brunt of the knife blow, while his other hand was pressed gingerly to the bleeding wound in his shoulder. "Shit, how'd you find me out here?!"

He let weight of the blade shift in his mind as he let it glint in the afternoon light filtering through the canopy above as he took a menacing step forwards.

"I know who you are, beast."

He watched Jeremy with a dark look on his face. He had trusted the boy, which wasn't something he did very often. So he felt a sting of betrayal at the fact that his errand boy was actually a huntable creature instead of a normal human.

"Caught ya transformin', and a wolf huntin' alone's pretty rare for a pack hunter"

he stepped closer again, his shoulder and elbow moving fluidly in a simple motion pulling up and back to swing the blade down on the target below.

The hand he held in the air curled a little closer to his body as Sam's words sent a wave of betrayal crashing over him. The other had known... and yet he still chased him down and shot at him. "You-... You knew...? And you're still gonna kill me?" Jeremy's expression was pained in more ways than one as he dodged and rolled to the side to avoid that unmistakably deadly path of the other's blade. "Yeah, I'm a wolf, but what the hell did I ever do to you?!" Anger was starting to bleed into his voice as he crouched down low to the ground, ready to shift and make a run for it should the other approach him again.

Even though it was probably naive of him to have thought so, especially looking at the situation now, Jeremy had grown to feel safe in Sam's presence. The man was a pretty successful hunter going by the stories he had heard, and the muscle he could see beneath the vest only added to the legitimacy of Sam's tales. It was like he was a little kid all over again with his boyish admiration for the badass vampire slayer he'd read comics about (he never asked to hear Sam's werewolf hunts), except better because this man was actually real. This was a living breathing person he could feel and touch, and he was only too eager to help the man out with the added motivation of getting a bit of pay out of it. He'd been doing jobs for this man since he'd first moved in and, despite knowing the dangers, he'd come to think of the hunter as a good friend after all the downtime they'd spent together.

That had been a stupid mistake.

Samuel kept his face impassive, however he did not look into Jeremy's eyes. His nose, lips, forehead yes. He might be a hunter but he still had the courtesy look his kill in the eye. His fondness for this particular kill made it damn near impossible to look in his eyes, the smaller man's expression didn't help matters either.

"It's my job to hunt your kind"

He shifted his getting ready to move again, his movement's were less eager than normal and more movements out of obligation. If Jeremy hadn't been a wolf he would have never had to kill him, werewolves were dangerous killers that had to be stopped.

"Never done anything to me, mat- ... Wolf. Killing you now assures you'll never hurt anything ever again."

A shallow twist of the wrist had the blade shifting to prepare for another cut, though other than that he made no other movements.

"I'm not a monster!" Jeremy roared indignantly as he took a couple steps back. "I never hurt anyone even after I turned! Same for my brother!" It was true. Though he and Joey had gotten into some pretty bad fights, they had never killed a human in their experience. Enemy wolves or intruding vampires maybe, but no human had ever come close to seeing that kind of bloodshed.

Jeremy's voice lowered as his expression hardened, his instinct to shift and fight at war with the desire to continue speaking and defending himself with his own words. "I didn't chose to be this way... If I were a killer, you think I would've stuck around you this long knowing what you do?"

His gaze hardened as Jeremy roared, his hand tensing around the handle of the large knife, waiting for the other to make a move, and found it slightly unexpected that he was choosing to keep rationalising. Something his previous wolf kills never did.

"...You could have been doin' it t'keep tabs on me, so I'd never find out"

It would be a lie to say Samuel wasn't a little revealed to have Jeremy try to talk him out of it. He didn't really want to kill him, but he had to.

Jeremy snorted and stood a little straighter, even though doing so made the wound in his shoulder twinge. "You were close enough to tell it was me when ya saw me change. If I did all I did just ta keep tabs on you, then I did a pretty fuckin' bad job, didn't I?" As tense as the situation was, the fact that he was still alive and still talking at all gave him a small bit of comfort in knowing that the other didn't want to kill him... At least he hoped that's what this was.

Samuel frowned, Jeremy did have something of a point.

"...You seemed pretty focused on that deer..."

He knew the point was a weak one, but he wanted to exhaust all possible reasons for Jeremy getting caught by him. For all Samuel knew, this wolf was trying to get him to lower his kukri to afford him a change to change form and attack him.

It might be an unusual wolf tactic, but he's had lower class creatures try to do just that. Hunting had him become a cautious man.

Jeremy stared at Sam as if he'd suddenly grown a second head. "... Don't gimme that bullshit and tell me you've never eaten the game you've hunted around here. It's like what, 1:30 in the afternoon? It's lunchtime and I was hungry."

With the way Jeremy stood, arms crossed and with an irritated scowl on his face, his father would have called him the spitting image of his mother after catching her husband coming home past midnight, minus the carefully maintained manicure and the large pearl necklace.

"You got no legitimate reason to kill me, do ya?"

Samuel straightened, standing at his full height to get back some of his intimidation to the other.

"Killing you lot, is my job. It's the only reason I need..."

Admittedly, it was the only reason he had left. His blade tip dropped slightly.

Even though Samuel had quite a few inches over Jeremy, the slight lowering of the other's weapon let him know that he pretty much had this argument won, and the faint victorious smirk on his face showed it.

"If ya do, you're losin' probably the damned most efficient errand runner you've ever had in your whole damned hunting career. I'd love to hear where you're gonna find someone who can do a job as fast as I can that ain't some disgustin' blood sucker. At least I've still got a heart beatin' in my chest and can choose to eat a burger instead of a human wanderin' through the woods like you."

Gives Jeremy a long scrutinising look, as if assessing him for the first time in his life. Which wasn't true, he'd done the exact same thing when they first met.

He was looking for any sign that Jeremy could be dangerous to him. He couldn't find it, something he found a great relief.
He'd gotten used to Jeremy showing up looking for work or just bothering him at his house waiting for him to give him something to do, even if that was just making him go shopping for him so he'd go away.

However, because Samuel tried to keep himself detached about everything not letting his feelings get in the way. He rationalised that if he killed Jeremy, he'd be considered a murder. In wolf form he could have at least collected something.

The silence wasn't making this whole situation any less awkward, and Jeremy's stomach deciding that that exact moment was the perfect time to loudly voice its needs certainly didn't help either. Rolling his eyes at Sam, he allowed his gaze to wander for a moment back to the fresh kill he had made as his tongue peeked out to lick his lips longingly at the food.

"Hey, you like to eat wild game sometimes, right? I dunno about you, but I'm still fucking hungry." His stance was still guarded, but his overall demeanor was quickly falling back into his usual smart-mouthed self as his impatience and hunger grew. Even while human, he would put food before fights when he could. It'd usually make the meal with his father or whoever he was fighting with a thousand times more tense since they'd either eat in angry silence, or would be sending curses at each other from across the table to prove their point, but it was still a trait that he'd managed to hold on to even after being turned.

"Either you're gonna try and shoot me right now so I can run and be done with it, or you're gonna help me start a fire or somethin' so we can both have some steaks for lunch. We can talk later... or during... I don't give a shit which as long as I get food."

His look because slightly quizzical. Samuel should have expected that Jeremy would start to want to eat, and he smirked ever so slightly as he was given the ultimatum.

He returned his knife to it's sheathed position on his back, and went over to pick up his rifle which he unloaded and made safe. He turned to regard Jeremy.

"Ya mean it when you say you haven't killed anyone?"

He too kept a guarded stance, holding the rifle in a way that he could still protect himself if he needed to. Even so he turned to regard the doe, mentally taking stock of how much fire you'd need to cook her.

Much of the tension, save for the bit caused by the irritating sting and throb his shoulder, left Jeremy's body as he flashed the other a cocky grin and knelt back down to inspect his kill.

"Wasn't a human killer for the first eighteen years of my life, just because I was turned didn't mean I was gonna start. Knocked off a vampire or two though."

He could've eaten the thing raw, skin, fur, and all, but changing back into a wolf would probably make the other uncomfortable, even more so if he were to savagely devour it while still in human form. It'd been a while since he'd had to skin and cook his kill, but he was content to do so if it meant the two of them could get a peaceful moment to talk it out.

Samuel watched Jeremy move to the kill, his eyes moving to the others body, in particular his shoulder. He watched the blood trail down his back slowly watching the dried blood crack as he'd move. Sam shook his head to himself and aproached the shorter male.

"No one's going to lament the loss of one of them. Sit still"

Sam dropped down onto one kneeusing his natural hieght to look down at the shoulder, he poked at it slightly ignoring any reaction the other may come out with.

"This'll hurt... Bite me and I will not be pleased"

The Australian dug into his pockets and pulled out various first aid items. Taking tweezers into hand he started poking about in the shoulder for the metal slugg he knew would still be in him. Dropping both the slug and the tweezers casually before he started on cleaning and dressing the wound.

"Huh...? What're you doin-" Jeremy let out a surprised yelp as the wound was prodded before falling back onto his ass, his hand going up to cover up the wound as gingerly as he could manage. "That fuckin' hurt!" he glared and growled softly up at Sam, not really sure what the other was doing until he saw the things that the other had taken out. Oh. Well then.

He remained silent as Sam fixed up his shoulder--silent being that he wasn't cursing directly at Sam, but more as a means of distracting himself from the pain as the tweezers dug into his flesh. He groaned loudly in relief when the whole ordeal was finally over.

"Some freakin' apology that was..." he mumbled as he turned back to look at Sam, the frowning pout being the closest thing the other would get to a "No hard feelings for shooting me". Jeremy wasn't one for gushy emotional apologies and forgiveness, so settling back into their old routine was the easiest path probably for both of them.