Wordcount: 886 words
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 (cursing)
Summary: Christopher meets Theo and Susan, drama ensues.
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Su Casa es Mi Casa
The rest of the drive was blissfully short and silent and by the time Meg pulled into the driveway she’d almost convinced herself that Christopher wasn’t going to recommend immediate pack disbandment. Getting an appointed Alpha would be bad, but better than being scattered. They might be a dump pack, but Southside was the closest thing to family she had.
The home was a gift from her biological father, his awkward apology for accidentally turning her into a werewolf. A generic brick ranch stamped from the same cookie cutter mold as the rest of the development, it wasn’t large, but after Donny’s death Meg was the only one in Southside with room to play host.
If Christopher was expecting something more impressive, he was polite enough not to say anything while they wrestled his bags out of the car. Maybe this won’t be so bad.
~*~*~*~*~
Things went downhill as soon as she opened the front door.
“Hey furball, grab the potatoes will you?” Theo yelled over the music blaring from the kitchen. She had her back to the door, chopping something leafy with a disturbing amount of glee. Her short black hair clipped up with one of the chip bag clips and her borrowed apron was streaked with flour… and possible Hershey’s syrup.
“Why is Theo cooking?” Meg dropped the suitcase on the couch next to Susan, but the ninety year-old pseudo-teenager was ignoring Theo to give Christopher her best ‘drop dead yesterday’ glare. At least she’d dressed up somewhat, trading her normal well-worn work uniform for jeans and a t-shirt.
The werewolf curse meant you stayed in perfect health and thankfully for the younger converstions that meant they did grow to adulthood. But Susan had the unfortunet quirk of genetics that made her look years younger than she actually was. So while the rest of the child-wolves looked roughly thrity, she looked a permanent eighteen.
Which tended to color one’s outlook on life.
“Wasn’t a rhetorical question.” Meg said with a sigh, heading into the kitchen while Christopher hovered warily at the door.
Susan muttered something under her breath and shrugged.
“Po-ta-TOES.” Theo turned, pointing with the knife at the oven and had the kindness to look startled when she saw Christopher. “Shit– Dammit Meggie, we need a door chime.”
“I know, I know.” Meg was already grabbing the hot-mitt to rescue the side dish. “Why are you cooking?”
“I wanted to, I dunno, make a good impression?” Theo shrugged. “You said it would take longer to pick him up, so why feed him pizza if we don’t have to?”
“Because pizza won’t burn my house down?” Meg put the slightly singed tubers on the stovetop to cool. “Rule 18?”
“‘Don’t burn the house down.’” Theo recited with a sigh and returning to her chopping.
“Not burning the house down is a rule?” Christopher was tactfully ignoring Susan and thankfully sounded more amused than alarmed.
“Actually 18 is ‘No one lets Theo cook because she’ll burn the house down.’” Meg tossed the oven mitt at Theo who dogged without missing a beat. “Most of the rules are about Theo, come to think of it.”
“Ah. So where’s the rest of the pack?” Asked Christopher, as he moved his suitcases so he could sit down. Susan growled at him from the other side of the couch and he continued to ignore her.
“Most of them have to work, so they’re coming after dinner,” said Meg as she starting setting the table. “I figured you might want a bit to get settled anyway.”
“S’What you get for coming on a weekday.” Theo said, finally finished maiming vegetables for the salad and scraped them into a haphazard pile. “Not that there’s much of them left anyway.”
“Theo,” Meg winced as Christopher gave her a sharp look. “Look I’m sorry, but the general consensus was that the Council was going to disband us so a bunch of them disbanded early.”
“So they ran away.”
“Basically.” Meg shrugged, trying not feel at fault. Not like I could have stopped them— if you’d gotten here sooner it wouldn’t have been a problem.
“You can’t hide from the Council, they should know that.” Snapped Christopher. “All they’re doing is making things worse.”
“Oh really–” Susan finally joined the conversation and Meg cut her off before she could she could get going.
“Susan, stop it.” Meg said tiredly, “Please?”
Susan snapped her mouth shut, gave Christopher one last glare and then pointedly found something very interesting to look at on the opposite side of the room.
Christopher had started to snarl back at Susan and Meg could see him pulling back, confused at the sudden lack of opposition. He turned to Meg, but a sudden racket from the dining room cut him off.
“Sooie, pig-pig-pig!” Called Theo happily oblivious as she put the last plate of food on the already full table and snagged a chair. “Suppers on!”
“Can we do this after dinner?” Meg asked. “There’s no point in fighting about it, what’s done is done and you wanted to wait until the pack was gathered, right?”
Christopher gave a frustrated snort, but nodded. “Fine.”
Susan ignored him, which was as much of a truce flag as Meg was going to get.
The rest of the meal didn’t go much better.
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