“You’re really good at making friends, ya know that?”

Lucas looked up from his tablet to squint at Shaun in confusion. The dry tone of his partner’s voice was obvious, but Lucas had to follow Shaun’s gaze before he realized what he was talking about. In the opposite corner of the bar was a small group of four men, all shooting dirty glances in Lucas’ direction.

He shook his head and turned his attention back to the tablet. “I wasn’t aware I was supposed to be making friends.”

Shaun snorted. “It wouldn’t hurt, ya know.”

“I’m just here to have a few drinks while I do my job. I’ll leave the friendly carousing to you, since you seem to have a talent for it.”

Shaun glanced over his shoulder at the men. “What did ya say? They look mad enough to start somethin’ with ya.”

Lucas, realizing he wasn’t going to get anymore research done until his partner was satisfied with answers, locked the screen and set the device aside. Shaun was looking down at him with that mixture of amusement and exasperation both of them were well-acquainted with. Both men had learned how to deal with one another’s individual quirks and habits over the years, even those habits that drove one another crazy. In this case, it was Lucas’ inability, or unwillingness, to be friendly to all but a select group of people.

“They came over here to ask why I was by myself, rather than hanging out with you,” Lucas explained. “There were a few jokes about how you were going to get some ‘tail,’ since you were being friendly with the pretty little bartender. I told them I didn’t have any interest in sleeping with the bartender, and then the jokes about my possibly being gay entered the discussion. When I casually pointed out that they were the ones, sitting in a group of all men, rather than attempting to get laid, they took issue.”

Shaun looked at the group of men again, then back to Lucas. “They were teasin’ you about bein’ gay?”

“After a moment, yes,” Lucas told him.

“Why didn’t ya just tell ‘em that ya weren’t? Or ya know, that the guy hittin’ on the girl they obviously wanted so badly was actually the gay one?”

Lucas raised a single pale brow. “Why would I tell them anything? It’s none of their business.”

“Because it woulda been really funny to watch them try and start somethin’ with me,” Shaun stated simply.

“Uh huh. Are you that drunk that you want to start a fight?”

Shaun looked insulted. “I’m not drunk! And I ain’t wantin’ to fight nobody. Well, maybe a little. I just thought you were, ya know…”

“Grumpy and unsociable like you’re always accusing me of being?” Lucas finished for him, fingering the rim of his cocktail glass.

“Aw c’mon Lucas, ya know I’m right! Ya always been a bit grumpy with new people. Ya were grumpy with me at first.”

Lucas scoffed. “That’s hardly a good measure, considering how much of an ass you were when we first teamed up.”

Shaun tried his best to look innocent, and Lucas thought he fell at least a mile short of it. “Me? I wasn’t difficult. You were just too uptight and didn’t know how to relax.”

He snorted. “And I’ve figured it out since then?”

Shaun’s innocent expression turned to a leer. “I’d like to think I had a hand in that. I got that magic touch.”

Lucas rolled his eyes, though the corners of his mouth quirked up slightly. “Is that what you’re calling it now?”

Shaun just continued to leer at him knowingly, refusing to avert his gaze until Lucas gave in first. Lucas knew what his partner wanted, and wasn’t going to admit it that easily. It was true that the discovery of some serious sexual chemistry between them had done wonders in making the both of them more agreeable and willing to compromise. It was hard to be angry and stubborn with someone when you knew that an excellent way of relieving the tension was through a passionate bout of sex.

Finally, Lucas gave in, looking away with a roll of his eyes and deliberately not returning Shaun’s stare. It was all his partner needed to feel victorious, taking a large drink from his beer mug. The intense blue of his eyes shone even brighter as he silently crowed over what Lucas felt was only a small victory. Yet Shaun was in an excellent mood tonight, and he didn’t want to be the one to spoil it. Shaun was usually in a good mood, certainly the more cheerful of the two of them, but he was even more upbeat than usual.

“I am serious though,” Shaun said taking a deep breath following his gulps of beer.

Lucas stopped reaching to grab the tablet. “About?”

“You bein’ grumpy. You’ve been even more grumpy than usual.”

His willingness to keep Shaun in a good mood began to slip. “How so?”

Shaun knew Lucas was being evasive, dodging the issue until he could think of a good defense against whatever Shaun was about to say. It was how Lucas operated, both on and off the field. There had to be a plan of action, even if that plan was made in the heat of the moment. In contrast, Shaun lived by his instincts. It didn’t matter if they were his instincts in battle or simply those regarding other people: they were usually pretty good. Lucas knew Shaun already had his target in his sights and would figure out a way to bring it up in the conversation unless Lucas concocted a decent defense, and quickly.

“Ya know, don’t mess with me, Lucas. Ya been grumpy and quiet for weeks now. Not like ya been any different with me, but ya been something else with new people, and even some of the other hunters. And don’t think I didn’t hear ya rip into Colton, either.”

Lucas sighed at the reminder. “I was having a bad headache that day, I apologized to him later.”

“All the guy did was ask where we were at, so he would know what we might be workin’ with.”

Lucas looked away. “It wasn’t intentional, and as I said, I apologized.”

“So, ya just ain’t gonna talk about why you been actin’ like this?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Lucas ground out, now glaring at the nearby wall.

“This is about Ana.”

He refused to wince at the mention of her name. “I really would prefer not to talk about this.”

Shaun tapped his finger on the table to draw Lucas’ attention back to him. “Ya never do. Lately I gotta pry just about anythin’ from ya and ya ain’t talked about this once. Ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of that you’re hurtin’ over it. Ya thought she was your friend and she ended up bein’ fake, and stabbing ya in the back.”

Lucas held up a hand between them. “Just, stop. Please.”

Shaun looked him over, still frowning as he assessed whether or not he should try to push Lucas on the subject. Lucas was hoping his partner would drop it and allow them to continue with what was one of their more normal nights at some random bar in some forgotten corner of the country. He didn’t want to talk about this any more than he wanted to talk about his parents, or his life before he had been thrown into the world of hunting the supernatural. The less said, the better in his opinion. He would deal with his own problems in his own time.

It had been six months since Lucas and Shaun had stumbled headfirst into a conspiracy to kill hunters. One that had been going on for years. It was a conspiracy born of an age-old vendetta, and it had been led by Ana, a woman Lucas had once thought of as his friend. Her main target had been someone by the name of Nicolai, a kitsune, or were-fox, like herself. Nic hadn’t known it until the final confrontation, but he and Ana had been half-brother and sister, and Nic’s killing of their insane father had driven Ana to her own madness. The same madness had driven her to kill an untold number of hunters before he and Shaun got involved, and her willingness to kill Lucas in her quest for revenge still ate at him.

“Ya talked to Nic about it?” Shaun finally asked, using what Lucas hoped was the last tool in his box.

Lucas finally looked at Shaun, a little surprised. “No, nor do I plan to at any point. I imagine It’s no more pleasant for him than it is for me.”

“Ya talked to him at all?”

Lucas found himself surprised again and lapsed into another silence as he watched Shaun’s expression. His partner was attempting to look relaxed and non-committal. Sadly, for Shaun anyways, his attempt looked more painful than uncaring. Shaun wasn’t the type to let any supernatural creature get away from him alive if he could help it. Nic’s help and friendship while dealing with Ana had stayed Shaun’s hand for the first time Lucas had ever seen.

He looked at his phone, sitting dark-screened next to his tablet. “We’ve…conversed.”

“So yeah, you’ve talked to him.”

Knowing it was a potentially tricky subject, Lucas nodded slowly. “Now and then. It hasn’t been regular, and it’s been awhile since the last time I heard from him. He has yet to return my few texts or calls.”

“And uh, when were ya gonna tell me?”

He had known that question was coming, and he had dreaded it. The fact that Shaun asked it with a sense of trepidation only made it worse. If he knew his partner as well as he thought, he knew Shaun was still reeling from the blow of learning Lucas had once kept a large secret from him. Namely that he had helped a werewolf woman and her children escape when they were meant to be hunting them, and to make matters worse, he then kept the information to himself. It had dragged up some ugly aspects of their partnership that they were still trying to figure out. Namely that Lucas didn’t necessarily trust his partner to always be reasonable and that Shaun couldn’t trust Lucas to be completely honest with him.

Finally, Lucas decided to flip it around on his partner. “Would you have wanted me to tell you?”

Shaun looked confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you’ve never been a big fan of the fact that we let him go without trying to do something about it? Because it’s the first time you’ve ever done anything like that in the whole time we’ve been partners, and I’m fairly sure it was the first time in your life. I assumed that you knew he and I would continue to be in communication, but since you hadn’t asked, I honestly believed you didn’t want to know.”

Shaun shifted uncomfortably, mulling that over for a moment. “He alright?”

He’d known that on some level Shaun had cared, at least a little, about Nic’s well-being. Shaun was probably still sore about the fact Lucas and Nic hadn’t told him what Nic was, yet that simple question showed he still cared. It was, in Lucas’ mind, the same as Shaun’s willingness to continue to be his partner. Shaun was, in many ways, a simple man, and he dealt with things very simply. A breach of trust was a big deal to him, and he had dealt with that a lot from Lucas in the past year.

Feeling both guilty over those breaches of trust and relieved that Shaun was still here, he nodded. “Last I knew, he was. It’s been a few weeks since I last heard from him, so I don’t know if he’s currently okay, just that he was.”

“Someone hasn’t found him and gutted him, then?”

Lucas shook his head. “He’s survived this long without any other hunter getting the best of him. I don’t think he’s going to be killed so easily now. I would imagine after what happened, he would be even more on his guard than he probably was before.”

“Ya wouldn’t think he was all that on guard though,” Shaun said, looking thoughtfully down at his half-full beer.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because of all the noise he makes? He’s always so happy and energetic, talkin’ up a storm and what not. It’s supposed to be you quiet ones that we’re supposed to look out for,” Shaun told him, still looking like he was mulling something over.

Lucas laughed at that. “That’s what everyone says. I think that’s why us quiet ones don’t get away with it anymore. Everyone thinks we’re up to something. But no one expects the chatterbox in the center of the room to be the one noticing everything. A bit like how he managed to hide that anything was wrong after we…finished with that hunt. He distracts everyone with a lot of flash and smoke, while keeping all the interesting things hidden off-stage.”

Shaun snorted. “Did ya just call him a magician?”

Lucas shrugged. “Just the way I see it. It works as a comparison, though. You’re so busy looking at what he’s showing you, that you aren’t seeing what he’s doing. It’s a clever bit of social sleight of hand that I noticed, and was impressed by.”

“So, everythin’ he does is just…a magic trick?”

There was that look of discomfort on Shaun’s face once more and Lucas hesitated as he attempted to think of the path Shaun’s mind was walking. When his partner shifted in his seat and grew a little pinker in the cheeks than before, he thought he knew what was on Shaun’s mind. Before he had known what Nic was, Shaun had willingly participated in a rather intense bit of shared intimacy with Nic and Lucas.

“Are you by chance thinking of a certain night in a hotel room?” Lucas asked innocently.

“Maybe,” Shaun answered quickly, his gaze everywhere but on Lucas’ face.

Lucas shook his head. “I don’t think that was him faking anything. I think he did it because it sounded like a good idea. He’s a bit like you: he does what feels right to him and doesn’t think too much about it. He’s a very in-the-moment person as far as I can tell, and I think he can’t help but delight in getting into a bit of mischief.”

“Do you think it was?”

The sudden intensity of the question surprised Lucas. “Do I think it was what?”

“A good idea.”

Which meant his partner was feeling unsure about not only having let Nic go, but having slept with him in the first place. Not just that night of the three of them in that distant hotel room, either. Both he and Shaun had independently had sex with Nic as well. Lucas had done so more than once, but that would weigh less heavily on Lucas than Shaun’s fewer times would on him.

Lucas was far more comfortable with the idea of the supernatural being allowed to exist than his partner was. He firmly believed that if a supernatural creature wasn’t causing harm to the world or to humans, then he saw no reason to hunt them. Ever since the incident with the woman and her children, he had come to believe that the supernatural had every right to exist and to kill them without a valid reason was morally wrong. The leap from treating them as people in his mind, to being comfortable with being friends and having slept with one, was a small one for Lucas.

He didn’t want to lie to his partner however, and gave a small shrug. “I don’t regret what we did, if that’s what you mean.”

He could see Shaun sinking back into his thoughts, absentmindedly sipping his beer. There was something weighing heavily on his partner’s mind, and Lucas knew it was better to wait. Once upon a time, he might have tried to push Shaun to talk about it, unnerved by the normally expressive man being so withdrawn. It had taken Shaun pointing out that it was hypocritical of Lucas to push when he himself was so unwilling to share, to make him finally stop trying. Now, he waited until Shaun was ready to say whatever was on his mind.

“I think,” Shaun began, speaking slowly as if the words pained him, “you should call him again.”

“You do?”

Shaun winced. “I’ve just been…hearin’ some stuff is all.”

Lucas sat a little straighter at that. “Like what? I haven’t read anything unusual.”

“Not really the sort of thing you’d be readin’ on that there tablet. It’s probably just hunter gossip, but I’ve been hearin’ of a lot of stuff going on. Hunters are all over the place, digging up more creatures, cutting contacts off, distancin’ themselves from others, stuff like that. It’s just a bunch of rumors right now, but I’ve been hearin’ about it more and more.”

Information was a weapon, especially in the hunting world and it made no sense. “But why?”

Shaun looked away. “Ana.”

The only way other hunters could have known what happened with Ana was if one of the three who had been there talked. Lucas wouldn’t have told a soul about what happened, still aching from the sting of betrayal. He didn’t think Nic would be willing to talk, having gone back into hiding after everything that happened. That left Shaun, whose guilty expression told Lucas everything he needed to know.

“You told them,” Lucas said, not phrasing it as a question, but a declaration.

“I had to,” Shaun protested.

Lucas took a deep breath and let it sink in, rather than immediately launching himself at the larger man. It was obvious Shaun was unhappy that he had told other hunters, and Lucas knew Shaun would have considered giving away such information as a breach of trust between the two of them. The only reason Lucas could think of that would drive Shaun to break that trust, would be because, as he had said, he had to do it. A well known and for some, vital, information based contact had been found to be a traitor and a murderer of hunters. She had been well-regarded and trusted for years, and if someone like Ana could turn out to be a danger, who else couldn’t be trusted?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lucas asked quietly.

Shaun stared into his mug. “You can’t even talk about what happened, Lucas. How was I supposed to tell ya that now other people know what she was?”

Lucas jerked. “You told them what she was?”

Shaun’s eyes went wide. “Not like, what she was, but ya know, that she betrayed all those hunters along with us, too. I didn’t tell no one what kinda creature she was or anythin’, and no one knows Nic was there at all.”

Relief flooded him, and Lucas nodded. “Okay, thank you.”

“You ain’t mad?” Shaun asked, incredulously.

“Well, I’m not exactly pleased that people were party to my personal tragedy, but you’re right. You had to tell them. The story will make everyone question where they’re getting their information from. Maybe it will flush out a few more traitors so no more tragedies have to happen.”

Shaun nodded, seemingly glad that Lucas wasn’t yelling at him. “I don’t know how I feel about everything that happened with Nic yet. But, I sure don’t want him killed before I make up my mind about it, okay? They’re out there digging through everything, and some people are goin’ off the grid to do it. I don’t want him bein’ surprised and if he’s hidin’ out somewhere, I don’t know if he’s heard nothin’ or what.”

“I’ll call him then, and make sure he knows and is alright. Don’t know if he’ll respond this time, but it’s worth a shot.”

Shaun downed the rest of his beer and set the mug down with a thud on the old table. Lucas could see the familiar gleam in his eye that told him his partner had an idea. From the looks of it, that idea involved causing some trouble. Shaun may not realize it, but Lucas could see more than a few similarities between his partner and Nic. Probably even more than there were between himself and the kitsune.

“What ya say you and I get out of here?” Shaun asked.

Lucas pocketed his phone and tucked his tablet under his arm as he stood. “Bit early for you, isn’t it? The night is still young.”

Shaun stood up to his full, towering height. Before Lucas could realize what he was up to, Shaun had reached out and pulled him into a firm kiss. Confusion was lost in the moment as he felt the strength of Shaun’s body against him, and the soft rumble where their chests met. Every serious and foreboding thought that had been going through his head was erased with that one simple kiss, taking his breath away for a brief moment.

“Which means we got plenty of time to have some fun,” Shaun whispered huskily to him.

A little dazed, Lucas followed after his partner, glancing briefly at the table of men from earlier. “I think you shocked my new friends, Shaun.”

“Imagine what they’d say if they saw what I’m about to do to ya,” Shaun grinned as he pulled Lucas out of the bar and into the night air.