Armin woke holding his head and grumbling to himself.
I thought I had her. I have no clue what happened.
He walked toward the campfire and poured himself a cup of coffee from the percolator which sat on the grate. It was a dark sludge. He walked over to the cooler and took out the creamer. It lightened the sludge, but not by much. He took a swig and walked toward the opening of the cave.
He had not realized his newest pup wasn’t in the cave until the teen was walking up to him with a deer around his shoulders. Armin smacked the kid on the back of his head.
“What’d you do that for, man? I was just getting food?”
“Did you pay attention to how close you were to the city? Were you watching for other people in the woods, or were you in tunnel vision mode and oblivious?”
Nick scratched the back of his head, “Yeah, I guess you have a point.”
Armin snatched the deer from the teen and pushed the youth further into the cave.
“Get in there. ‘I guess you have a point.’” His tone was a mocking one,.
“I’ve tried to tell you we need to lie low. This is the time of year when hunters come out to bag deer and stock their freezers for the winter, and here you are bringing home food we have no storage for. This is a waste.”
Armin threw down the carcass and started to clean it, “You can’t think like your parents. That’s thinking human. You can’t store food.”
Nick stood confused, “But if we don’t store food, we’re gonna starve when it gets cold.”
Armin let out a heavy breath, “That’s what I mean. You’re thinking human. We move with the food. We eat what we can and leave the rest. We can’t afford to put down roots.”
“What happens on a full moon, chief.” Nick looked worried.
“We hunt humans, and I will teach you how NOT to make pups.”
Nick looked around the cave trying to take all of it in and understand it all, “This is a lot to take in, man.”
“That’s why I have been teach-”
Nick interrupted waving one hand around, “You think this is teaching? You call THIS teaching?” He scoffed as he motioned with both of his arms to the cave and everything in it, “All you do is get up, drink coffee, leave for the day, come back, throw back beers, and yell at me when I do something wrong. If anything, I am learning by myself and you’re there to growl at me when I fuck up.”
“Well, you’re learning what not to do. So, I’m teaching you.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, man. You have done shit else. You’re the ‘sire’ here. Least you can do is-”
The kid made a gurgling sound as Armin almost took him out of his sneakers and held him in the air by his collar, “Listen, welp, I will not take that tone from you. You are learning what not to do. That’s just as important.”
Nick hung there with his arms across his chest gathering his breath. When was able to inhale, he rolled his eyes, “Whatever. Learning what TO do would be more productive and a lot less painful for me, but you don’t seem to want to do that.”
Armin put Nick down, “Pain is a good teacher.”
“Yeah, and while I am learning what NOT to do, I am learning how fast I heal and nothing else about what to expect,” He waved his hands in exasperation, “I don’t wanna know how you taught all the others you bit.”
“I left them to their own fates.”
“Oh right, you said as much the other day. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“If you keep taking that tone with me-”
Nick turned to Armin and held his hands out at his sides, “You’ll what? Kill me? You’ve already fucked up my life. I can’t go back to my folks. My friends are nothing but memories, and all you can do when I talk to you about how you’re not teaching me is threaten me? Go ahead. Kill me. Finish the job you botched.”
Armin glared at Nick hoping he would stop talking, but the kid had one more thing on his chest, “What? You’re not going to tell me you sired me on purpose did you?”
Armin did nothing but look at the wall, “No, but now that you’re here, I might as well teach you.”
“‘…might as well…’ So, I am a bother. I could just leave, or, like I said, you could kill me. Why didn’t you anyway.”
Armin locked eyes with Nick, “You remind me of a nephew I had long ago. I don’t want to kill you. For some reason, I feel there is a connection between us, and that’s why I want to teach you.”
“Well, until you figure out how to teach me better, I am not leaving the damn cave. I am tired of being yelled at and hit.”
The teen walked to his corner in the rear cave and sat. Armin went for a walk in the forest.
House of Geek 