“Bit fancy, don’t ya think?” Shaun asked him. He had stopped in the doorway and was gazing around the room.

The room was certainly not their usual standard, since they normally stuck to remote motels. It wasn’t so much the price that kept them away from nicer places, though that was certainly a part of it. You could only spend so much on credit cards that you’d gained falsely before someone became suspicious enough to investigate. There was also the fact that it was easier to hunt when you stuck to places most people avoided checking into, unless they had no choice. The busier and more populated the location, the greater the risk of discovery or even collateral damage in the case of a fight.

“It’ll be harder for them to find us in a packed hotel,” Lucas told him for what seemed to be the tenth time. Shaun had never been fond of busy areas with a lot of people around. Lucas was never quite sure if it had to do with the fact that Shaun had grown up in a quiet part of the country, or if he was just nervous about something going very wrong in the middle of a crowd.

When he looked up, he snorted as he saw Shaun hesitantly making his way into the room. “It won’t bite. We’re not going to be staying here long, remember? All we need to do is stay in a place we normally don’t, with plenty of people around to use as camouflage. Worst case scenario? Whoever is keeping an eye on us finds us sooner than we expected and we have to go somewhere else. If this works, it’ll give us a chance to find out who’s tracking us before they have a chance to find a hidey hole to dig themselves into.”

“Just feels like this place is too nice for us to be in,” Shaun muttered, pausing before throwing his bag on the bed and instead letting it drop on the floor.

It wasn’t often that Lucas got to see the normally self-assured man look doubtful and a little afraid. It was sweet to see a man who could face down a furious werewolf be unnerved by delicate stitching and wallpaper that looked new. Lucas came from a family that had stayed in places far nicer than this, and his home had been what some would call opulent. The transition to a hunter’s life hadn’t been that hard, since he had still been relatively young when he’d been orphaned. Still, it was comforting to be in a nice looking, comfortable place. It was just as comforting for Shaun to be around the smell of stale beer and country music coming from a corner jukebox.

Knowing there wasn’t anything he could say or do to put Shaun at ease, he turned his attention back to his new computer. In the interest of not drawing too much attention to them, he had used an entirely different fake credit card to buy this computer than the one he’d used to rent the room. He also made sure they stopped to get the computer outside of the city, too. He was sure it was paranoia on his part. Atlanta had plenty of places he could have bought a computer without being noticed, and he didn’t have any proof that whatever was trying to keep an eye on them knew enough to track their purchases. Still, he thought it was better not to take any chances and had used a different card that now no longer existed.

“Enjoying your new toy?”

The slightly hard edge to Shaun’s voice brought Lucas’ head up. “Just trying to get everything back to where I want it. New computers always have added functionality the companies load up to tempt buyers, but it’s never as helpful as they make it out to be.”

Shaun seemed edgier than he should have been, even with his discomfort at being in an expensive hotel room. He’d managed to sit down on one of the chairs beside what Lucas assumed was meant to be a dining area. The kitchenette lay beyond that, apparently equipped with everything they might need to make meals, save for an oven. Shaun really did look out of place, but it was the stiff manner in which he was carrying himself that made his discomfort stand out for Lucas.

“Just settin’ up, then?”

And there was the accent thickening. “I’m also messaging Ana again, letting her know we’re okay and giving her my new account info. I don’t want to risk having our new friend peeping on me anymore than they already have.”

Shaun huffed. “I’m hungry. Can’t you two wait to kiss after we get somethin’ to eat?”

Lucas’ shoulders stiffened slightly as he leaned back from the keyboard. “Are you capable of waiting a few more minutes? I would prefer to get this taken care of before we go out again. I would feel much better having a safe connection to information, considering we might just have a tracker on our hands.”

“I know what you both get like when ya get to talkin’. We’re gonna be waitin’ forever if you two start up.”

The accent was definitely getting thicker, and his tone was getting belligerent. It had been awhile since Lucas had heard it get that bad, and he knew they were edging toward an argument. Whenever Shaun sounded like that, it was a sure sign he was gearing up for a fight. No matter how Lucas approached him now, there would be no calming him down. He’d tried loads of different ways to diffuse these situations: diplomacy, respectful, quiet, barbed commentary, and even yelling, but none of it stopped the inevitable.

So, Lucas sighed and leaned back in his seat. “Alright, I give up already. What is it that I have done now?”

Shaun crossed his arms across his chest, getting that stubborn set to his jaw. “Ain’t done nothin’, nothin’ at all. Go on with your conversation with her. I’m sure y’all still have plenty to gab on about.”

Lucas’ brow furrowed, knowing that Shaun was being that strange mix of oddly specific yet vague for a reason. He wracked his brain for what the larger man’s issue could be. It wasn’t the first time Shaun had showed irritation at the mention of Ana’s name, and it always puzzled Lucas. The two of them had never interacted as far as Lucas knew, and she had never done anything that should have counted against her. There had never been a real issue before. Now though, it was obvious that whatever was making Shaun angry had everything to do with Ana. What had changed recently to bring that about?

Lucas’ eyes widened slightly. “You weren’t asleep that morning I was on the phone with her, were you?”

At Shaun’s silence, Lucas reached up to close the computer, finding his own anger slowly rise. “You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?”

“Hard not to when you’re sittin’ a few feet from my bed,” Shaun retorted, sounding a little nervous but still mostly just plain angry.

“Right, because it would have been difficult to tell me you were awake,” Lucas shot back, “or to not have pretended you were asleep.”

Shaun uncrossed his arms, nostrils flaring. “Just like you coulda told me you let that mutt go free, but you didn’t!”

“Yes, because that would have gone over marvelously. Look at you, Shaun. You’re already about ready to pop a blood vessel. Why the hell would I admit that to you?”

“Because I’m your partner! We’re s’posed to tell each other that kinda stuff, in case ya forgot. Instead I gotta learn it by eavesdropping’ on a conversation you’re havin’ with someone ya haven’t even met in person before. How do ya think that made me feel?”

Lucas pointed his finger emphatically at Shaun. “Don’t act like this has everything to do with the fact that I hid it from you. You know full well why I didn’t tell you. You wouldn’t have gone for it and then found some way to kill that woman even if I had stuck to my guns on the idea.”

“You’re damn right I would have!” Shaun yelled, standing up. “That thing didn’t need to walk out of that city and yet ya let it! Ya went behind my back to let that thing go free, and then, even after the event, ya still didn’t have the balls to tell me. But ya can tell Ana.”

“Don’t say her name like that.” Lucas could hear the familiar cold anger creeping into his own voice. “You don’t know her and this isn’t her fault. It’s yours.”

“Mine?” Shaun asked, sounding both incredulous and offended.

“Yes, yours. You’re the one who can’t accept any other solution except the one you think is right. You stand there and accuse me of going behind your back, but you sure don’t make it easy for me to say it to your face. You said it yourself, if I had stuck to my ideals of wanting to spare that woman, you would have killed her anyway, and that’s going behind my back. So don’t act like you have the moral high ground here.”

“We’re hunters,” Shaun growled, stressing the word. “That’s what we do.”

“No, that’s what you think we do. You might be content to just kill without question, but that’s not me. I actually try to think things through before I rush in.”

Shaun’s jaw set even harder. “Just because I don’t go weepy-eyed over a few monsters with a story to tell don’t mean I don’t think. Dunno how you can stomach them, when they’re the reason you’re even in this life. Why you’re here with me in the first place. Why you ain’t got the family you had before.”

Lucas looked away, the comment sinking deep into his chest like an ice pick. “You don’t get to use my family to make your point, Shaun. I’ve told you that before.”

“Lucas!”

Ignoring Shaun, he snatched up his phone and jammed it into his pocket as he made for the door. He wasn’t going to stand here and defend his actions against a man who wouldn’t listen to reason anyway. They’d both known how the other felt about killing or sparing the supernatural creatures they came across, but they never spoke about it anymore. Lucas didn’t know if Shaun believed he had changed his mind about it over the years because he hadn’t said anything, or if he had just kept his peace because Lucas had kept his mouth shut. It didn’t matter either way, because he wasn’t staying in this room to listen to Shaun’s crap anymore.

“Jus’ gonna go runnin’ off like usual?” Shaun demanded, not moving from his seat beside the table.

Lucas turned to him as he threw open the door. “Sorry, but I don’t see the point in standing around and fighting a useless fight. That’s your job.”

He stepped out into the hallway slamming the door behind him, effectively cutting off any reply. Before he could second-guess his decision to leave or before Shaun had the chance to come after him, he began to walk toward the elevator. The trip to the lobby was spent slowly calming himself down. It wasn’t often he lost his temper like that, even with how good Shaun was at pushing his buttons. It had been the comment about his family that had done it for him, ending the “conversation” before it had really started.

When he stepped out of the elevator onto the marble floor of the lobby, he stared first at the doors leading outside. Laughter drifting from one side of the lobby caught his attention and he turned toward the hotel bar. He considered his options for a moment before deciding it was better to drink here than try to hunt down an open bar somewhere else. That, and Shaun would probably think he had left the hotel altogether and wouldn’t look for him there. Also, the chances of Shaun choosing to drink at the hotel bar were slim to none, meaning there was little chance of his partner stumbling across him accidentally.

Knowing he probably exuded a mood-killing aura, he sat himself at the furthest corner of the bar, as far away from other guests as he could get, and ordered a drink. He had no intention of getting wasted, but a bit of alcohol would do wonders to calm him down. Their fight was a prime example of why he despised arguing with Shaun. Even that short argument had led to both of them saying more than they should have.

“Bring my family into it,” he muttered as he took the drink placed before him and drained it in one gulp. The burn as it hit his stomach seemed to clear his mind a bit, steadying the rampaging emotions flying around in there and slamming into one another.

His family was supposed to be an off-limits subject between the two of them. Even in a compassionate moment, Shaun touched on the subject very lightly. Having had his family for all his life, a rarity in a hunter’s world, he didn’t know how to empathize with Lucas. For Lucas, the subject was too painful to talk about and he gladly took advantage of Shaun’s hesitancy. That Shaun had addressed it at all was a clear sign of just how furious he had been.

Lucas wasn’t sure if Shaun was more livid about what he’d done over a year ago, or whether it was the fact that Lucas had hidden it. If he knew his partner like he thought he did, he was sure the man couldn’t make up his mind either about which one angered him more. Lucas wouldn’t have changed what he did by saving that woman, though perhaps he should have told Shaun sooner. He knew it would have been better for his partner to have found out from him personally, rather than having to overhear a conversation with someone else.

Even through his anger, Lucas could see where the confusion over his willingness to spare one of the supernatural came from. Most of the hunters who bore a blood thirst for killing every creature they came across, also happened to have a background like Lucas’. He acknowledged that the creatures he and Shaun had killed in the past had been dangerous and needed to be put down. They represented a threat to humanity and someone had to stop them. Yet, there were humans who were equally dangerous, and they didn’t judge all humans based on the few that were. It was all too easy to see all the supernatural creatures as monsters, when all you exposed yourself to were the monstrous ones.

A tall shadow fell over the counter in front of him and he sighed, automatically thinking Shaun had found him. When he turned around however, he realized that while this man was almost as tall as Shaun, he wasn’t nearly as wide. Sharp eyes that seemed to shift in color under the lights, and a wicked smile that Lucas immediately found endearing, looked down at him as the stranger started to sit down beside him.

“Hi. Sorry, you looked lonely and a little frustrated. Mind if I sit with you?”