Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rylan had left Cas a note.

Gone to farmer's market with the dads. Milk and protein powder in the kitchen if you want a shake. Back around 10.

Thanks to some jet lag that made no sense, it was 9:30 when Cas rolled out of bed with hair a-tousled and found the note stuck to the guest bedroom door. He pulled it off and flipped it over, recognizing Rylan's scrawl.

PS put on some clothes. My neighbors have kids.

Cas pursed his lips, looked down at his gloriously unclothed self, and shrugged. Ah. It wasn't an offense if he accidentally flashed someone while in the privacy of his own home - or... a home in which he was temporarily staying. The kids could deal.

When he emerged from the shower ten minutes later, he dried himself off, slung the damp towel around his neck, dialed Rylan's number on his cellphone, and wandered into the kitchen in search of the promised milk and protein powder. "Heyyyy buddy. Saw your note."

"Good morning, sunshine," came Rylan's voice from the other side of the line. "How was your sleep? Get that airplane smell off you yet?"

"That bed was so comfortable I couldn't get to sleep," Cas answered, dumping a scoop of protein powder into the blender.

"Sounds like a you problem, buddy."

"I'll let that go if you bring me a straw-"

"-berry Nutella crepe, I know," Rylan said with a laugh. "Lightyears ahead of you, Cas."

"You're a prince among men."

Cas stuck his bluetooth earphones into his ears and tossed the phone onto the kitchen counter. The blender whirred to life under his thumb, churning the brown powder and milk into a shake that somewhat resembled rich chocolate milk. A luxury, Cas would say, that he hadn't enjoyed in quite a few years. Not since U-Dub, where protein shakes had made up roughly half the diet of every single rower in the Tortuga house.

"I won't go as far as to say this protein shake tastes like heaven, but... it tastes a little bit like heaven," he said.

"Oh, s**t, hang on, it's the door," Cas said into the earphones, turning toward the knock. He set the glass down on the counter and strode across the living toward the front door, so comfortable in his own skin that he'd completely forgotten he was wearing nothing but a damp towel slung around his neck. "You expecting mail or something?"

"Probably," came Rylan's voice. "Just chuck it on the table by the door. I'll shower you with gratitude. Or whatever."

Cas let out a laugh. "Yea, or that whole... what was that thing Loffe used to say?" he said as he yanked the front door open, unaware that, standing as he was, he'd managed to proudly show off everything to anyone who happened to have passed by the front door just then. "I'll slather you in-- oh."

He stopped abruptly, mid-sentence, and a frozen moment hung between himself and Lucas as he realized, first, that this was certainly not the mailman and second, that he was absolutely, unabashedly naked.

Good thing the neighbor's kids aren't around, he managed to think in that moment in which everything seemed to stand awkwardly still.

And then, "Hah, sorry about that," he corrected, quickly reaching for the towel, yanking it off his neck, and bringing it down to (somewhat more) politely cover his junk.

Well.

This was certainly not what Cas had expected.

If Rylan had mentioned that Ashdown was an odd place, he'd laughed it off and taken it to mean that the randos lurking outside the supermarket were weird. He hadn't thought, for a second, that he'd unwittingly open the door on what could only be described as a werewolf.

It all happened within a few seconds. The metal hand shoved against the door - clawed, Cas registered - the growl. The inexplicable fury that washed over hairy stranger's face.

"Ah, s**t."

He didn't even really hear Rylan's suddenly worried responses from the other end of the line - What happened? Who's there? Please tell me you put on clothes - because he knew, even before Lucas growled, that something bad was about to happen and that he had to move.

Cas didn't wait. Moving quicker than he'd ever thought possible, he found the edges of the towel, folded it into a triangle, and frantically rolled it into just-about-serviceable towel whip. He cracked it up, aiming at Lucas' eyes, hoping that if he didn't at least hit him, then the crack would be enough to temporarily distract the furious werewolf.

What else is in this room? He thought, half in a panic because, damn, those teeth and claws looked nasty, and half calm as his Raider training started to kick in.

Vaguely, he remembered seeing a rack of knives in the kitchen and a row of hooks near the back door hung full of Fidget's leashes and collars. A leather leash? A chain collar? Something that he could potentially wrap around the stranger's neck and hold onto until he stopped thrashing.

The knife, he thought, was probably the better way to go.

Yea, enrage the guy, Cas, good job.

But there wasn't time to dwell on what he should or should not have done. What he needed now was to get off the defensive and attack.

He caught the first attack with his forearm, deflecting the punch, keeping an eye on the metal hand. That thing could do damage. Probably render him permanently unconscious if it hit him right.

He tried to catch the second blow the same way, not quite noticing the claws until they bit into his forearm and left red lines of blood sprouting rapidly as he let out a growl of his own.

Distantly, the sound of Rylan's voice cut through the haze of the fight, but he didn't quite hear the words. "WHY IS THERE A CYBORG WEREWOLF TRYING TO KILL ME," he bellowed, both at Rylan and at the furred stranger. Seriously, though. What the ******** retreated, realizing his towel whip was useless against the mostly-clothed werewolf now that the element of surprise was gone. The sight of the kitchen counter in his peripheral vision was a welcome one. There was no point in waiting. He lunged for the knife rack, managed to yank two out before knocking the rest into the sink, and stood with one in each hand, ready.

This guy thought he was going to have the upper hand because he had claws and a metal hand? <******** you too.

Cas could tell by the man's stance that he knew how to handle himself in a scrap. Which, normally, would have been fine. He would have preferred it for the challenge, almost, but he wasn't prepared to with this guy. The claws didn't have the razor-sharp deadliness of, say, a big cat, but they were enough. And half of them were metal. Cas could only imagine what it'd feel like to be raked across the back with those things, and he preferred to keep it that way.

Now in the midst of the fight, the questions that had run through his mind faded away. Who cared why they were doing this, or who this furry stranger was, or why he had a metal arm? What mattered was staying on his feet, staying focused, waiting for the right moment to strike. Trying not to get too clawed up in the process.

He leaped back when Lucas charged, eyeing the jacket, wondering how easy it would be to slice through the fabric with the knives. Getting wrapped up in that could prove to be fatal, and he'd managed to grab a cleaver with one hand, and a serrated blade that looked a little like a short bread knife with the other.

Next time.

He swung at his attacker as he passed, dodging to the left.

That's one, Cas thought, feeling the knife bite into the stranger's arm. Just keep drawing lines.

Somewhere, he vaguely understood that, in a matter of minutes, one of the would come out on top. And whether or not that would actually be him was impossible to know, but no matter what, it was important to drag this out as long as possible. On the off chance that the outcome was not favorable to him.

He danced away from the contact, then stopped and pivoted back, bouncing on the balls of his feet for a moment and taking stock of the situation before moving forward to reengage. There was a fluid sort of grace in his steps, in the moments he made that came to his muscles based solely on memory. He brandished the knives, wielding them as if they were part of him, and advanced with a somber determination.

The metal claws came at him, as he'd suspected they would as some point. There wasn't much he could defend with against those, but he swung the serrated knife at it anyway, hoping to catch it right in the crook where the thumb met the palm, and slashed the cleaver at the man's more natural, fleshier side.

Oh right, he thought. Naked.

If there was any lesson to be learned here, it was probably that he should keep himself clothed more often.

He felt the serrated knife sink into the metal hand and knew it was stuck. Ah well. It had done its job as intended, deflecting a potential hit from the claws. And at least the other, heftier knife had done its job as well.

You've been volunteered as tribute, knife, he thought, letting go of the serrated one to dodge the kick.

He caught the boot in the shoulder with a low grunt. Which hurt, but he whipped his now-free hand up to try to grab the stranger's ankle. Maybe yank him off balance. That high foot, though powerful, was nowhere near as scary as the claws. Cas didn't mind engaging that.

The metal? Not easy to hold. The friction of the twisting leg against his hand pulled at the skin on his palm. Cas gritted his teeth and tightened the hold, instinctively digging his fingers into the prosthetic limb. No good. He clung to it until he felt a twinge in his palm, waiting until the last possible moment to let go, but even then he only just managed to soften the impact of the kick.

It pushed his hand back into his chest and sent him toppling back, but he reached for and grabbed the leg again to pull the stranger down with him.

Yea this was exactly what you weren't supposed to do, dumbshit, he thought as his weight went backwards. Now he'd have to contend with those claws and teeth at close range.

Somewhere between losing balance and actually landing, Cas managed to bring his knife wielding hand up, in an attempt to slash at the werewolf's chest as he fell. Or punch it, whichever landed first.

Sharp edge up, asshat.