Flashback Unexpected Development

Sune

Grumpy Badger
Moderator
Benefactor
Developer
This is going to take forever.

Dev's own words echoed back in his mind as he struggled to move yet another box from the back of the truck to the storage room below. He'd been at this for little over an hour, and so far he'd only managed to move 5. Well, 4. This would be the 5th one, but he'd had to stop half way to catch his breath.

He wasn't exactly out of shape, per say. He could run better than than most of.. Well. He didn't know who. But he could run several miles without slowing down. Lifting was a whole other matter. The most he usually lifted was if he needed to pick up his desktop from the ground. Once.

This was way heavier than his desktop and there were about 20 more boxes behind this one.
 
"You should lift with your legs, not your back," a quiet voice stated flatly, interrupting Dev's internal monologue of complaints. When he looked up to identify the source of the infinitely helpful advice, he found a familiar face watching him from the doorway to the Den - his bright yellow eyes seeming to stare right into Dev's core.

The white-haired teen was Snow, one of the other prospects Dev had been passingly introduced to earlier in the week. He looked at least a couple of years younger than him, but had seemed at ease around the pack members who'd handed out their duties in a way that most of the older new recruits weren't. It was the first time he'd actually spoken where Dev could hear him, having responded to everything during that little gathering with a silent, serious nod.

"You probably won't hurt yourself like a human would if you don't. But it's easier."

It was hard to tell if he was being as serious as he seemed, or if it was meant to be a backhanded jab at the fact Dev was struggling.
 
Dev was still breathing heavily, looking over at Snow to try to get a read on him. Of course, Dev had no practice at reading people though. Most of his teenage years had been spent behind the closed door of his room, traveling no further than the living room of his parents house unless under duress. And even then, he had to know if was because the house was on fire or not.

Dev rested his hands on his knees with a sigh. "I'll give it a shot, but I honestly think my problem is I wasn't built like some marbled god or something. Or I skipped leg day. One or the other. Or both." He got out between quick breathes. "It also seems these boxes just keep getting heavier.. First one wasn't so bad. Stairs sucked, but eh.. But this one is definitely heavier." If it had been a backhanded jab, it would seem to have flown over Dev's head. Or he ignored it. Bullying was part of why he'd given up going to highschool in person after all.

He sighed and finished bending down, this time squatting so that he'd be forced to lift with his legs. With a grunt and gritted teeth, he managed to get it up, albeit a bit unsteadily.

"T-thanks." He grunted. "Snow was it?"
 
Snow puffed a small sigh, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He felt like he'd outgrown the nickname, but apparently the rest of the pack disagreed, and he didn't want to deal with the effort of going around correcting everyone who'd he'd been introduced to by it. He'd just deal with it for now.

"Yeah... that's me," he murmured in reply, rolling his shoulders in a shrug. His eyes flicked between the other teen's struggle, and the pile of boxes still sitting in the truck behind him. If he was already flagging now, things were only going to get worse. Snow wouldn't have been surprised to hear that the guy had been saddled with the task solo as a way of 'hazing' him, given that as far as he knew these shipments were usually a two-person job unless it was being handled by one of the pack's stronger members.

He sighed again under his breath, unable to help feeling sorry for him. There were better ways to weed out people who weren't fit for the pack than stupid tests like this.

"Your name was... Devon, right?" He asked, thinking back to when he'd first seen him among the other nnew prospects earlier in the week. Then, after a short pause: "... you want some help?"
 
Dev noticed the slight irritation at the name. Interesting. He'd have to look it up during a time when he wasn't burdened with a box of booze. He'd only gotten through about half of the actual patch members' profiles at this point. Snow just found himself further up the list.

"Yeah, most call me Dev though." He grunted, waddling towards the stairs. Then he heard Snow utter the most blessed words a computer nerd forced to do manual labor could hear. But, he'd also had people make his situation worse by offering to help, only to not be help. So he gave Snow an incredulous look. ".. You serious?" He asked. "Why would you offer to help me? Not that I wouldn't want the help, I'd be thankful if it was legit because otherwise I'd be here this time tomorrow and still no where close to being done... Or are you going to 'help' and like.. Sit on the box or something?"

He bounced the box up higher to try to get a better grip.
 
Snow frowned, more perplexed than anything by the idea that someone would bother pretending to help, only to do the opposite. Dev sounded like he was speaking from experience, though, so he guessed that must be some people's idea of a 'joke'. He didn't think that it was the fault of his lacking sense of humour this time that it didn't sound very funny.

"I don't usually say things when I'm not serious," he replied with a shake of his head. "You just look like you need help. No other reason."

He shrugged and brushed past Dev to make his way over to the truck, where he tugged one of the boxes over to the edge to test its weight. The clinking sound it made as he moved it told him it was probably full of booze; enough that it was definitely heavy by most peoples' standards. Lucky for him, he wasn't most people.

With all the casual ease as if he were lifting an empty cardboard box rather than a crate full of alcohol, Snow unceremoniously hefted it up onto his shoulder, holding it in place with one hand. He considered slinging a second one onto his other shoulder, but that would make opening the doors on the way awkward, so he settled with just the one - for now.

He made his way back over to rejoin Dev, pausing once he caught up to give him another assessing look.

"... if you just want to handle the doors, I can take that one too," he offered after a moment. Then he hesitated, realising it might seem like he was insulting Dev, and quickly offered an explanation. "My wolf makes me strong even unshifted. So... it's easier for me. That's all."
 
Dev watched as Snow didn't even look like it was a struggle to lift the box. He stood there, mouth agape, feeling a tad jealous of the other individual's apparent casual strength.

When Dev was first turned into a wolf, he was only 6 years old. Super heros and such were a big thing back then and it was the thought that he'd get some super power that kept any sort of joy in the two weeks prior to his transformation. He couldn't remember much from that, but he remembered hoping he wanted to either be super strong like Superman, or super speedy like The Flash.

And yeah, he was strong and fast for a human 6 year old. But not enough to really notice much difference. The disappointment had been real when he discovered he didn't even have regeneration abilities or super fast healing. After having been a recluse for most of his life, he knew other werewolves existed and each had different levels of 'abilities' but he hadn't seen how vast the difference was. He was just pretty sure he hit the genetic lottery of being low tier in everything.

It was then, the boy realized he'd been staring an uncomfortable amount of time and shut his mouth with a 'click' of his teeth.

"Oh, uhm.. Yeah, sure if you don't mind." He said, carefully handing over the box over to Snow. He then trotted over quickly to open the door for him, looking a bit crestfallen. "Seems pretty cool to have super strength abillites." Dev admitted. "I'm pretty sure I'm just a human with fur."
 
It hadn't been Snow's intention to show Dev up, but he didn't have to be good with people to recognise the look on his face for what it was. This was why he didn't talk much. "It's... useful, I guess," he murmured after a beat, nodding slightly as he stepped through the side door into the Den's back rooms, walking slowly both to keep the boxes balanced and to let Dev scoot ahead again to get the door to the cellar. "I broke things a lot as a kid."

He was told that a pair of toddlers about as strong as a kid twice their size had caused their fair share of accidents over the years, before he and his sister had the presence of mind to be more careful. Even now, it was something he always had to be conscious of in a fight. If he threw too hard a punch at the wrong person, there was every chance they weren't getting up again. But he guessed Dev didn't want to hear him complain about the downsides of being superhumanly strong, all things considered.

"A lot of the pack are the same," he added after a prolonged pause, giving the other boy a glance. "They're not just going to judge you based on how many boxes you can lift."
 
He hadn't thought about the consequences of having strength more than the average would have as he scooted to get the next door. "Huh." He said. "I hadn't thought about it having a downside." He admitted. "Usually in video games, having super high strength just means you can hold more stuff or lift heavy things, or hit enemies harder. But I guess that doesn't always translate well in RL."

He shrugged slightly. "I know. Well, I think I know anyway. All I know about packs, I learned on some wiki fan pages named 'Fir-ee's R Us' or something like that. According to the wiki, there's usually some sort of pecking order that's usually determined by combat. Sometimes its other things, like passed down from generation to generation."

He sighed and watched as Snow put the two boxes down. "Honestly? I normally wouldn't leave the house. But I read the wiki and then some more things and it just gave me more questions than answers. I wanted to see if there was something that I was missing." He admitted. ".. So far? Apparently its manual labor and booze."
 
Wiki fan page? What on Terra was one of those? From the context, Snow assumed it was some sort of information source, but clearly not a very accurate one. Or at least, extremely oversimplified.

"I'm not sure what a 'wikee' or a 'fir-ee' is... but most of the pack rankings don't involve any fighting," Snow replied with a shake of his head. "That's only if someone wants to challenge the leader. Or at least, that's how we do things. I ... don't think there's a rulebook all the packs follow."

The thought actually had the corner of his mouth turning upward in an amused smile - it was small, but it was there, and genuine. He nodded for Dev to follow as he started to walk back to the stairs for the next trip. "A pack is somewhere to belong," he added quietly as they ascended. "It's... family."
 
Dev legit stopped moving in that moment and gave Snow another jaw dropped look. "W-wait. Wait. Hold on. Time out. Reverse." He made a "T" with his hands. "You don't know what a wiki page is?" He narrowed his eyes at the other youth as if to judge how old he was again. "Dude, what rock do you live under? Wiki pages are like.. Some of the best places to find information. Most of it is wrong, and you gotta read between the lines sometimes and determine if someone's being a troll and changing the information on purpose.." Not like Dev would ever do that, nooo.

"But its a good place to start any information hunt. As for challenging a leader? If I ever decide on a death wish, maybe. Have you seen the biceps on Baron? I'm pretty sure the dude could literally break me in half like a toothpick."

A family, huh? He had a mom and a dad who'd done everything they could to make him happy. But they were always a small family, his parents not wanting to risk Dev accidently biting or scratching any siblings they could have had. He also had no aunts, no uncles and his grandparents on both sides of the family passed well before this point. Maybe that was something he missed all this time.

"I guess that could be nice." He admitted. "I've always wanted to have someone to play video games with on a game console instead of just having to rely on MMOs." He grinned. "Wanna come over some point and play CoD?"
 
Snow had stopped to look back at Dev, taken aback by his emphatic surprise over not knowing what a wiki was. He still wasn't really selling, it though. Why would you look for information somewhere you knew it was probably wrong?

And what did trolls have to do with any of it?

If that hadn't been confusing enough, Dev's final question only served to baffle him further. Why was there a video game named after a fish?

"I... haven't played video games before," he admitted with a shrug, looking off to the side to try and hide a faint, embarrassed flush over his apparent ignorance. "My mom doesn't like computers or televisions, so we don't have one."
 
He gave Snow another look. "By the holy matrix, I'm going to have to fix this." He said, until he noticed Snow's embarrassment. Dev wasn't the greatest at reading other people's queues, but that one he knew. "Ah, strict parents. I knew some kids whose parents were like that. Nothing to be ashamed over though." He gently nudged Snow.

"I owe you one anyway for helping me out with these boxes. How about one night soon you can come on over and I can get some pizza and teach you how to play a video game. Or what a computer is, for code's sake." He gave a sheepish grin. "Sound like a deal?" He offered out his hand for a fistbump.
 
Snow was a little bewildered by the quick turnaround. It felt to him like he'd navigated this entire exchange with his usual trademark lack of social grace, and yet... Dev still seemed eager to hang out? Maybe he hadn't put his foot as far into his mouth as he'd thought.

"Uh... yeah. That sounds... good." Snow tentatively lifted his hand to bump fists, returning the grin with a shy smile of his own. He hadn't been over to a friend's house before, but given that his mom was perfectly happy for him to go off hunting in the woods alone all night without even telling her... he had to assume she wouldn't mind.

"I do know what a computer is, though," he pointed out, arching an eyebrow. "The rock I live under isn't quite that big..."

He kept a straight face for just long enough for it to not be totally clear whether or not he was actually offended, before he let the corner of his mouth curl upwards with a faint twinkle of amusement in his eyes. He nudged Dev back, then started ahead back toward the stairs, nodding for him to follow with a small smile still painted on his face.

"Come on... I still have a lot of boxes to carry for you."
 
Admittedly, Dev was sweating bullets for the briefest of moments that he'd actually offended the other teen. He gave a nervous chuckle once he noticed the mischievous look Snow gave him, his grin widening.

"Oh thank the motherboard, hope is not all lost for you." He joked back. Now more energized, he would talk Snow's ear off while helping with the remainder of the boxes.

.. And for the first time since he was turned into a werewolf, he felt like he may actually have made a friend.
 
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