Dinner was finished, the chickens were safely in their coop, the horses had been stabled... all that remained were the dinner dishes, and it was Liam's night to-

"Heading out to a party," Liam said.

"Hey, it's your dish night," Sammy said, throwing his hands up and then gesturing towards the kitchen.

"We traded nights, remember?" Liam said, his steps not faltering as he headed for the front door.

"Oh... right," Sammy said. He opened his mouth to ask if he could come, but faltered. They were Liam's friends, not his. And as much as he wanted to spend more time with kids his age, his generation, his peers... what did he have in common with them beyond chronology? He was a homeschooled, farm-living werewolf. Most kids couldn't relate to some of those things, and couldn't know about the last one. His brief foray into high school life had ended in disaster. And as a result, to most of them he was either the unstable, violent weirdo who had attacked other football players at the start of a game, or the poor victim of BioPharm. And, honestly, he didn't know which was worse.

"Well, have fun," he said, as the door closed in front of him. It really did suck, being one of only two teenagers in the pack. Too young to partake in the adults' conversations around the dinner table, and too old for the kiddie table. But Sammy couldn't even bond with Liam despite their closeness in age. He had originally expected that that fact alone would have given them something to bond over, but Liam had already had his human social circles by that point.

And now... aside from the dishes... he didn't know what to do with himself. Sammy peeked into the kitchen. It was a weekday night, and one of those rare evenings no one in the pack had come over. In fact, they were down one mouth here in the House since Mady had flown back to California to spend the summer with her parents. So there wasn't a lot in the way of dishes compared to most evenings. No doubt there would be more on whatever night Liam made it up to Sammy, so he had gotten the better end of the bargain there--but that only gave him a brief flash of satisfaction.

Whatever. He put on some music and got to work. Half an hour later, he was done, and... what next? Sammy had expected to play video games with Liam tonight. And while there were plenty of solo games in the library... somehow, playing solo when you'd expected to have company just felt pathetic.

He headed upstairs. Hatchet had gone into his room after dinner, and was doing... whatever Hatchet did in the evening when he stayed in. Listening to Frank Sinatra? Sharpening knives? Making moonshine? Anyway, the old man probably wasted enough time on Sammy during their morning training sessions. Yesterday he said Sammy was coming along, though he'd said it in the same gruff tone he used to criticize him with. Sammy had no idea how long this was going to go on for. Probably til frustration finally outgrew the pity.

Sammy crept towards the master bedroom. Maybe one or both of his alphas would watch a movie or run through the forest with him. He didn't particularly feel like going wolfside tonight, but it would be preferable to being cooped up at home with nothing else to do. While most of the rooms were soundproofed as best as could be managed for werewolves, he started hearing their muffled, raised voices leaking out through the door. Standing against it, he could make out words like "budget," "finances," "investment portfolio"... boring adult stuff. And they were getting pretty worked up about it too, though they usually got worked up over most conversations in the bedroom... which meant only one thing later. Sammy beat a hasty retreat back downstairs.

He picked up his phone, slumped down on the couch, and scrolled through his contacts. His thumb landed on a name and he tapped the green phone icon beside it. And waited as it rang...
"Yello?"

"Hey, Roxanne. D'you wanna drop Jenny off over here so you and your hubby can have a date night?"

"Uhm, it's eight o'clock, Sammy. We just put her to bed."

"Oh! Right... well, what about tomorrow night?"

"That's nice of you to offer, but we actually already have plans with Jenny. I promised her we'd show her my favorite movie when I was her age. The Last Unicorn. It's a classic."

"Oh... that actually sounds really sweet." Sammy hadn't seen it himself, but this sounded like a family bonding thing, and he didn't want to intrude or even put Patience in an awkward position of having to turn him down. "Well... have fun."

"You too," Roxanne said, then hung up.

Sammy hmm'ed, and then scrolled up on his contacts to Elizabeth.

"Hey, Sam. Now's not really a good time." She spoke hurriedly, and sounded out of breath.

"I'll be quick," he said. "I just wanted to ask if you wanted to video call over your lunch break and chat."

"Lunch break? Hah!"

"I thought... you were [i]supposed[/i] to get a thirty minute break?"

"Legally? Yes. But we're shorthanded [i]again[/i], and between missing my break and risking someone fucking dying on my shift, what do you think I'm gonna choose? Besides, staying on the clock means a few extra bucks."

"Oh... I'm... sorry?"

"It is what it is, Sammy. Now, I really gotta go." The call ended.

And that was pretty much the last of his options. While, yes, he had the numbers of every member of the pack saved in his contacts, that didn't mean he felt familiar enough with all of them to call them up and ask them to hang out. And really, they were all... Odysseus' family. Not his. At least not yet. Sammy felt like he was on the back foot of every relationship he had. He wanted to be friends with these people a lot more than they seemed to want to be friends with him. He did all his chores to earn his keep, but that wasn't the same as [i]contributing[/i] to the pack. Oh, sure, he had earned his pack name by saving Mady's life, but that had been a one-off. What had he done for them recently? What [i]could[/i] he do aside from being a burden?

So. He was on his own tonight. Just then, he heard a familiar steady squeaking in the ceiling. While, yes, the bedrooms were soundproofed... it was a [i]very[/i] old house... with the odd loose floorboard... including one [i]right beneath Odysseus and Night Sky's bed.[/i]

Sammy leapt off the couch and made his way back towards the kitchen. Well, since he had already done some work in the kitchen, he might as well do some more. Night Sky's cookbook was a big, well-loved binder barely holding together pages of varied stages of yellowing. Some pages were even loose and the book had to be carried a certain way to keep anything from spilling out. Sammy carefully laid down the tome and leafed his way to the chocolate cake recipe. He had the routine almost memorized, but he still preferred to consult the recipe just in case. He had the batter finished by the time the oven finished preheating, and while it baked he washed those dishes. Store-bought frosting was one of the few premade ingredients Night Sky tolerated in her kitchen, due to many pack members' lactose intolerances. But even then, she typically jazzed it up. Sammy mixed some cinnamon and nutmeg into the frosting before application, and before long he had himself a treat.

He served himself a slice with a mug of hot tea and sat down. No doubt the smell of the cake had wafted upstairs. He took a bite and waited to see if it would bring anybody down. Chewed, took a sip of the tea and savored the warm sweet mix in his mouth. Swallow... repeat. The cake tasted all right, but sank to the bottom of his stomach like a lead weight. They were gonna be up there all night, weren't they?

Sammy knew that he was just... a consolation prize. They had raided BioPharm to rescue Sarah, and brought him home instead. If they'd been able to choose, they would have picked Sarah over him in a heartbeat, he was sure. And he didn't blame them. He was nobody, nothing. No one had even known he existed before his rescue. It took the capture of someone who actually mattered for anyone to come looking. In a perverse way of looking at it... Sarah had died for him. And she was going to be a scientist who cured diseases. He was struggling to catch up with the years of schooling he missed. How could he ever hope to make up for her loss?

Sammy sighed and wrapped up the rest of the cake for tomorrow. It was only nine o'clock but he might as well go to bed. He could get a jump on the chores in the morning, and hopefully have better luck finding someone to spend time with tomorrow.