"Kidnapping is frowned upon, bro."

Walker grunted as he held the door open with a booted foot while trying to maneuver the sleeping man in his arms. He'd tried to wake him when they'd arrived, since he didn't want to startle him by trying to pick him up from the back seat, but he couldn't get him to come around.

"I think his system kind of went into hibernation abruptly when he got warm in the back of my car," he said as he walked over to where his brother was lounging on the couch. He was clothed, so Walker's attention didn't linger there as he looked around the room.

"Where is mom?"

Ranger smirked at him and pointed toward the ceiling.

"Upstairs cleaning. She's very interested to meet your new boyfriend, too."

You're a pain in the ass.

His brother's face contorted with laugher as he replied mentally.

That bear in your arms is gonna be your real pain in the ass soon.

Walker blinked at Ranger, confused about the innuendo. He never thought about a relationship with the guy he was holding. Hell, the only thing he'd honestly thought when concerning him was his well-being because winter was coming.

"I bet you fifty bucks he's gonna top you," Ranger said as he finally calmed down from laughing.

Deciding to ignore his brother's idiocy, Walker carefully nudged off his boots, then headed up the stairs. His mother was thankfully inside of another room, giving him the chance he needed to slip into his own and get Marshall tucked into bed. He added a few extra thick blankets when the guy unconsciously began to bury himself farther beneath the ones that were already there. Within moments he could no longer see any of the young man's form. All that remained was a small outline from the blankets and, eventually, the resuming of his quiet growl-snores.

Okay. At least he's good for now. I'll check on him again a bit later.

As soon as he stepped out of the room and quietly closed the door, he felt a presence staring at him from behind. It was no surprise when he turned around to see his mother standing there with her arms crossed over her chest and a raised eyebrow.

"Why is my son kidnapping shapeshifters from the middle of the woods during a snowstorm?"

Well, that was straight to the point. When he didn't answer right away, Walker winced as his mother grabbed one of his ears and began yanking him toward the stairs.

"I don't know what's gotten into you, but I raised you better than this, Walker Candace Fang," his mother berated as she dragged him down each step faster than Walker could manage his legs.

Thankfully, he didn't fall, but it was close a few times. When they got to the first floor she pulled him over to the sofa and made him sit down next to his smirking brother. Said brother got a flick to his nose immediately, making him drop his grin and fight back a scowl. No one scowled at their mother. Not even his shift.

"What the heck is going on here, boys? I came to have a nice short visit and make sure everything was getting taken care of here, and I walk in the door to you," she pointed at Ranger, "telling me that your brother has run off in the middle of last night's terrible snowstorm to find a bear in the forest. A bear, I might add, that did not wish to be removed from said location."

Her hand moved toward Walker, the pointing finger still extended and only a few inches from his face.

"And you! I can't believe you'd do something so stupid. If the temperature had dropped much more, your car could have started having problems again. That would have meant that not only would you be stuck out there until someone happens to find you, but you also might have frozen to death!"

Walker was just opening his mouth to respond when his mother's eyes narrowed on his damaged nose. He still needed to get that treated before it got infected.

"Get your backside in the bathroom and take care of that injury. Then wash up and help your brother get some of the meat from the freezers defrosted so that we can get dinner started."

Not one to try and argue after their mom has said her piece, he hurried back up the stairs and, after very quietly retrieving a set of blue flannel pajamas from his room, he got himself into the shower. Not wanting to waste what little hot water their old heater was able to manage, he quickly scrubbed himself up, then washed his hair before rinsing and stepping out.

He tugged on his pants, then quickly took care of his injured nose, combed his hair, and brushed his teeth before adding his shirt and walking out the door... right into a very sleepy Marshall. The guy looked like he was about to fall over where he stood, but when he realized that the door was now open, he hobbled past Walker and abruptly began peeing in the bathtub.

I... should stop him, but he seems completely out of it.

Thus, he waited silently, staring at the mirror so that he wouldn't make things awkward... at least for himself. He doubted that Marshall gave a crap about who was watching him relieve himself. Once he was done with his impressively-long urination, he slowly turned around and walked right back toward the door.

Uh, we're going to at least do one extra thing.

Walker gently shut the door and gestured toward the sink as he turned the warm water on, then picked up the hand soap bottle.

"Wash your hands, please?"

Marshall still didn't seem able to focus, and after looking back and forth between the closed door and sink a few times, he finally looked up at Walker as tears began to run down his cheeks.

Wait, what?

"H-hey, it's okay. Here, I'll help you so that you can get back to bed," Walker said nervously as he moved behind Marshall and gently guided him to face the sink.

He then quickly added some soap to his own hands before gently rubbing his together with Marshall's. The guy didn't seem like he was enjoying himself, but he also didn't fight him much. Just a few light tugs to try and remove his hands, but no growls or nips.

"There we go. That's all," Walker said as he quickly dried the guy's hands, then opened the door for him. "Go ahead back to bed. We're going to get working on dinner."

He was going to ask if he wanted his meal uncooked or cooked, but considering how out of it he was, there didn't seem to be a point in the question. So, he simply watched the guy walk back to his room and silently nudge the door closed.

I'll just get him some uncooked and then a helping of whatever mom makes. Maybe he'd enjoy a home-cooked meal since he probably hasn't had one in years.

The idea made him smile, but it disappeared after a few moments as he headed back downstairs. He knew that getting Marshall to come around enough to enjoy being around them wasn't going to be as easy as cooking him delicious food.

It will be a process, but I'm willing to make the effort.

Good, now get your effort down here so that we can get shit rolling, bro.

Shaking his head, Walker hurried past his mother, who was already busy getting vegetables chopped in the kitchen, and headed downstairs through the open basement door. His brother was already loading up several cuts of steak into a container. Walker grabbed one of the bags of ground sirloin from the other chest freezer and carried it up by himself.

Their mother had already gotten a huge tub of scalding hot water ready, so Walker carefully set it inside, then got out of the way as Ranger came up with his own container full.

"So, tell me about that boy upstairs," their mother said as Walker got busy cleaning off the dinner table, which they rarely had time to use when their mother wasn't over.

Ranger snickered at her question but quieted when a glare was directed at him over her shoulder. The lady was a foot shorter than them, and her dark brown hair was already starting to turn silver, but neither son would dare try to chastise her for scolding them.

"He's a shifter that decided to live his life out in the forest. Me and my group of hunting buddies stumbled across him while he was desperately foraging for something to eat. He's really skinny, and since he was running out of time to pick up weight for the early winter, he decided to try and attack and eat us," Walker said as he walked back into the kitchen and got down some plates and glasses.

"So you decided to bring a ravenous, aggressive, probably-not-house-trained shape-shifter into your home by force?" his mother questioned with a look that pretty much screamed my son is a few cards shy of a full deck.

Biting back a chuckle, Walker set down the glasses in his arms at each spot on the table, then turned to smile at her.

"He's actually house trained... almost. He peed in the bathtub, which I totally forgot to clean..."

Ranger was just starting to laugh out loud when their mother turned to him and pointed up the stairs.

"Get going. Go make yourself useful and get that scrubbed. It needed it anyways."

Walker glanced sideways at his brother, doing his best to hold in his own laughter. Ranger worked his ever-loving ass off outside, but when it came to household chores, he was sorely lacking in skill. He'd probably have to go upstairs later and redo some of his work, but just knowing that his brother had to actually scrub the bathtub was pretty funny.

Once the table was set for four, though he doubted Marshall would join them, Walker headed back upstairs and got changed into some warmer clothes, checked to see that the young man was still asleep, then headed outside to tend to the evening chores around the property, since Ranger was preoccupied. He returned about two and a half hours later with a pale full of eggs and mussed up hair from the windy evening.

After removing his boots, he stepped inside and shut the door, then brought the eggs over to the sink to clean and put away into cartons. By the time he was done they had three full ones in the fridge.

"Dinner smells amazing," he noted as he held himself back from opening the oven to check.

His mother hated when they poked around her things while she was cooking. The food would be done when the food was done. Until then, they just needed to deal with it and make themselves useful.

Since it probably wouldn't be long before everything was ready, Walker retrieved the pajamas he'd previously been wearing and took a quick shower in the downstairs bathroom. It was usually just for guests, but he could smell the bleach coming from the upper one, even though his mother had told him that Ranger had finished awhile ago and was taking a nap.

When he came back out of the bathroom, fully dressed and rubbing at his hair with a towel, he was shocked to see Marshall standing in the kitchen sipping slowly at a cup of water. He wasn't look at anyone, just staring mostly downward, but his mother was glancing at him every few moments as she got the food over to the table.

Walker wanted to run over and ask him if he needed anything else, or if he wanted to eat with them, but he knew that he probably didn't want to talk to him.

I did kidnap him... twice.

He was just starting to walk toward the table when his mother hurried over to where he stood in the hall and grabbed his shoulder. Walker was a bit surprised, but he realized that she wanted to talk to him privately when he suddenly felt their mental connection stir to life.

I did a little research on bear shifters. They aren't too common, and they can be pretty aggressive.

He couldn't argue with that information.

There is one thing I was curious about, though. You said that he preferred to stay in the wild, so I looked up hibernation. It seems that, unlike most shifters, whose animals don't really interfere with their human lives, bears are different.

She turned and gestured toward Marshall, who was still nursing his glass of water without paying any attention to them.

While I don't condone your actions, you did probably save him. Bear shifters have to hibernate, to an extent. They get very groggy and zone out to the point where they can't function properly. They usually use their vacation time from work to rest for whatever portion of winter they feel that their symptoms are the worst.

Walker nodded slowly, taking in the information.

He's one of the shifters that hibernates at the beginning of winter?

His mother nodded, then added.

I'm not sure how he is going to work, honestly. That's just some information that I looked up while cooking, but it was all about normal bear shifters. None of them wanted to live in the forest, at all. Your boy might be different, more heavily influenced by his animal side, but I wanted to let you know that you don't need to try and wake him up from this. He's okay, just going to be terribly tired and minimally reactive to things for a while.

Walker smiled, reassured that Marshall's behavior was at least considered normal for his kind of shifter. He headed toward the table and sat in one of the pushed-out seats, then looked over his shoulder at his mother as she called his brother down. Ranger took a bit to join them, but that was fine. It allowed him to turn his attention to Marshall, who had finally finished his large glass of water and was now staring hungrily at all of the dishes set out on the table.

"You're welcome to anything you'd like, sweetie. Walker even thawed out some brisket, if you'd prefer to eat raw," his mother said as she walked over and retrieved that one final plate and brought it to the table.

Marshall eyed everything quietly, though they did linger on the raw slices of beef on the smaller plate at the end of his appraisal.

"There is plenty more of everything, so eat what you'd like," his mother said as she finally sat down at the same time Ranger descended the stairs and took a seat beside her.

When Marshall didn't move from where he was standing, everyone seemed to silently decide to just start eating. Walker was slower than the others, taking his time scooping some mashed potatoes and steak onto his plate. He added a massive helping of the mixed vegetables his mother made, too.

Ranger's plate looked a bit more carnivorous. His meat was triple what Walker had taken, and there was not a single vegetable in sight besides a tiny plop of mashed potatoes. He ate much faster than anyone else, either, finishing off his food before Walker even started on his pile of vegetables.

Since he was already full, Ranger took his empty plate and glass to the sink. He got busy on the dishes while the other two ate, which would normally be frowned upon, but they all seemed to notice how Marshall was keeping a good distance from the table and, every once in a while, looked toward Ranger nervously.

When the man was finally away from the food, Marshall slowly shuffled closer. His eyes focused in on the raw meat, and the moment he got within reach, he slowly reached out and picked up a large piece. Instead of sitting down to consume it, however, he made his way to the far corner of the living room and sat down there, nibbling quietly on his little meal.

He's adorable.

Walker couldn't help but sneak glances toward the young man as they both ate. He was just about to make Marshall a big plate of food and bring it over to him once he'd finished his own meal, but his mother beat him to it. Her plate looked a bit odd to him, though. There were two pieces of the cooked meat, the rest of the raw, but beside it was a huge pile of vegetables.

Don't give me that look. Bears are foragers. They don't hunt all the time so you shouldn't feed him just meat.

His mother rose from the table at that point and walked over to Marshall without looking at him most of the way. When she got close enough, she set the plate down in front of his feet, then gave him a warm smile before returning to help clean up the table.

"Now then, my boys are going to take care of putting away the leftovers and cleaning up the kitchen while I enjoy a nice big glass of wine and your comfortable sofa."

He couldn't argue. She helped them clean up and cooked a feast. She was also super sweet to Marshall, which he greatly appreciated.

"We got this. Go relax, mom."