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Jet wiped at his forehead, hugging close to the building as he stopped to tug at his shirt collar. He'd been running hot the past few days and the city had been experiencing a remarkable heat wave. It probably wasn't helping that he'd been wearing a jacket ever since a night of bad decisions saw him waking up alone and with a disturbingly bloody shoulder. The marks, teeth marks because apparently drunk him decided on a biter, had been aching some fierce for the past few days and no matter the amount of ointment he slathered on, it was still angry looking.

Thus the jacket in the high humidity. He didn't want to deal with questions, or listen to his co-workers laugh at him, over the remnants of a night out. He'd rather take the heat stroke.

Jet gave himself another few moments of leaning against the building, watching people file by on the street. Most didn't so much as glance at him, just another uninteresting sight during early morning foot traffic. A few would glance over and he'd stare them down until they passed or got too uncomfortable. He wasn't sure why, no eye contact was practically a rule of city crowds and Jet had never felt the need to break it. Something about the cold, unimpressed looks set him on edge, made him feel more aggressive that the heat should allow.

He surprises himself that he's not just staring, he's outright glaring. He has to loosen his hand from the fist he'd somehow made and with a start, Jet pushes away from the wall to barrel through the crowd. He doesn't know where the sudden spike of anger came from, but it's settled low in his stomach and making the pain from his shoulder all the sharper. He tears his way in the crowd with the barest civility, knocking into elbows with only a quick, guff apology.

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Kobra's on his own for a few days. Most of his pack is upstate for what he feels is a pretty stupid social obligation, leaving the whole big city for him to roam. There are some perks to being the alpha's brother, at least.

Of course, there are other packs around, but he mostly sticks to areas that he knows they won't be. Sometimes it's nice to have a few days to really be on his own without worrying about pissing contests or hunters.

The neighborhood he's walking in now is what he would argue is pretty firmly in their territory. Most of the other packs aren't stupid enough to challenge Party on it, so he shouldn't be smelling another werewolf, but that seems to be exactly what he's smelling.

He wrinkles his nose and follows the scent through the crowd, cringing at the mix of perfumes and stale sweat. It's too close to the full moon for him to be around all these people without complaint.

When he pinpoints the smell down to a big head of hair and a too-warm jacket, he decides to have a little tracking fun until they get to a less crowded place. For all he knows, another pack figured out that he's the only one here right now and they're going to make a move, so he follows the man through the crowd, doing his best to not be too obvious about it.

Jet was far too concerned with getting some place less crowded to let himself even think about anyone around him. He never considered himself the violent type, so the surge in aggression was as worrying as it was setting him on edge. On top of that, he was getting a bit of a headache; something about the city was too loud to the senses and he could feel the tension at the base of his skull.

Maybe he was getting sick, maybe that woman had given him some kind of infection along with the world's worst attempt at a hickey.

Jet ducks into an alley, stops behind the store he was supposed to start stocking five minutes ago. Away from prying eyes, he pulls at the arm of his jacket and the neck of his shirt, trying to look at the bite in the reflection of garbage bin. Of course he couldn't see anything. He still tired, touching around the edges and hissing under his breath.

He turns, mind made up to just go back home to call in for a day off, and thinks he hears something out in the alley. Thinking it's a coworker, he groans.

"If you're trying to sneak up on me Kevin, don't." Jet winces a little at how gravely his voice sounds. "I'm going back home."

At the top of the alley, Kobra has to make a decision as to how obvious he wants to be. He tries to duck behind some old crates, but obviously that's only going to do so much. The alley's only so big and his smell will be more obvious without the crowd to cover it.

Once he catches sight of the wound the man is sporting under his jacket, things start to make a little more sense. It seems no one had seen fit to warn him what areas of the city were off limits to him now. In any case, he hopes that this Kevin will get used to never sneaking up on the man again.

Kobra steps out carefully, hands raised to show he's not holding anything. "'M not Kevin." Slowly, he relaxes his arms to rest at his sides. "And someone shoulda told you not to come here."

He stills when he realizes it's no one he knows walking up the alley, more so when he finds the realization was not from the face, but from smell. He scrubs at his face, trying to rid himself of the strangeness today was determined to bring.

"Told me not to come to work?" He looks at Kobra in an assessing manner, frowning after a moment. It's not that Jet though of himself as a very intimidating kind of guy, but the blond in front of him was a little skinny for what sounded like a threat.

Jet crosses his arms over his chest, frown deepening. "This isn't the place to come lookin' for trouble. I don't know what you're playin' at, but don't go startin' something here."

Kobra just shakes his head. "Consider this a friendly warning, man. This neighborhood is ours. If you keep hangin' around, you'll be the one lookin' for trouble. "

Briefly, he wonders who might've bitten the guy who would be dumb enough not to explain anything to him. There's plenty of dumb werewolves around. Seems like half of them can't respect borders unless they're shown why they should.

"I'd suggest you start lookin' for a new job in a place you're more welcome. Like your own turf. "

Jet could feel what was left of his temper wearing thin. He already felt like shit. Why did today have to be the day some gang member had to come around trying to cause trouble? Why could he wait until after Jet left and let everyone else on schedule today deal with it?

"I don't know what your problem is," Jet started, ground out from behind grit teeth. "But this is a nice neighborhood. We don't need some gang or whatever tryin' to run people out of here."

He takes a few steps forward, getting dangerously close into Kobra's space. It feels wrong, more like a declaration to fight than it should. But he holds his ground and glares at the man before him. "I've lived here for years. You're not goin' to run me off."

He snorts, walks past Kobra tight enough that their shoulders knock. "I suggest you get out of here before someone calls the cops."

"Gang?" Kobra laughs, head shaking. "They haven't explained shit to you yet, have they?"

It's not really his job or his place to fix that. He has no clue who might come back for this guy or who might wind up sniffing around if Kobra lets him be. Even one violation of their territory is a perceived weakness they can't afford, especially when Kobra's the only one in town right now.

"Who gave you that? I gotta have words with them 'bout how they're doin' their business." He indicates the bite with his pointy chin, demeanor shifting to what he considers professional, but it probably comes off as only slightly less gruff.

There's a moment of confusion. Who was supposed to be explaining what? The other man seemed to be legitimately shrugging off that this was gang related but Jet couldn't imagine what else would lead to this kind of confrontation. Maybe these are the types who think themselves above that kind of acknowledgement, the kind that want to pretend they aren't just a group of thugs. It almost makes Jet angry all over again.

And then Kobra has to go pointing out the teeth marks.

"I don't think that's much your concern. And it wasn't business." That Jet had a rough night with someone didn't seem here nor there. Certainly not something for a stranger to ask about. Furthermore, he'd like to think he'd remember bringing home someone who wanted to be paid, drunk or not. "People typically don't go around askin' strangers 'bout their intimate lives, man."

He's just going to ignore that nagging little voice at the back of his head that said this wasn't about that. That the bite wasn't just someone idea of a rough night and that this man might know a lot more about it than Jet was willing to give credit for. He wanted that plausible deniability right now.

Kobra purses his lips together. If someone's just going around biting people like that, there's no telling how many other people are out there like this.

"Okay, back up. You realize that you were bitten by a werewolf, right? Don't care who you've been fuckin'."

No one's ever credited Kobra with having a great amount of tact and he's not looking to change that. He's never had to give anyone The Talk and he'd had Party there during his own transitional period.

"Really don't care where your dick's been unless it's comin' towards me, for the record."

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