*Title from the song "Cousins" by Vampire Weekend.*

Family got a free pass. Which was why Adon walked into Mungo's like he owned the place. And in a way, he did. He'd donated a lot to the place. Mostly in blood. But also in confessions of undying love, which had done wonders with winning over the staff. (Some whose reciprocated feelings were more welcome than others.)

So Adon had asked for Kurby Bagnold's room, had signed on the clipboard, and had walked in only seconds after knocking.  Kurby didn't move much--a light groan, and so Adon stepped carefully over to the side of the bed and pulled out a brown paper bag from his gym bag. 

He set the bags down--both--and moved to the metal tray resting on the bedside table.  He picked up the glass vials and bottles, examing them curiously.  The soft sound of glass and metal must have roused Kurby enough. Adon regarded a now conscious Kurby through the clear liquid in a square-shaped bottle.  “Kurb, what potions you on?” Adon greeted.  He picked up a green glass vial, sniffed it and put it down.  Fingers grazed the stopper of the lavender-coloured potion Adon’d craved like water while he was at Mungo’s: the pain killer. He smiled mischievously and reached over to tuck it into his gym bag. When he sat back upright, his smile wavered when he saw just how haggard his cousin looked.

Helpless--though he'd never let Bagnold know that. Taking a seat in the chair--things felt different, from this side of the bed rail--he regarded Kurby cautiously. One of the healer's said he'd been bit.  At the time, Adon'd been too concerned getting in to see his cousin, and so hadn't actually checked to see if. . . Kurby had become, in fact, a werewolf.

A werewolf werewolf hunter. That would be intensely awkward.

"Because I brought something; you don't come to Mungo's without an offering," he added.

Voices had drifted in and out all day.  He'd slept through most of them; the potions had aided in that, but slowly, surely, they'd been wearing off, and the noises had become harder to ignore.  It had taken a few moments for him to register the presence by his bedside.  He stirred slightly, taking a moment to squint through the bright light.  If the scars hadn't given his cousin away, the harsh sound of his vowels certainly would have.

As far as family went, Adon Eleor was an anomaly.  The Eleor branch of the extended Whitman-Bagnold-Grimm clan had never been invited to the family gatherings when Kurby had been a child -- as far as he knew, they hadn't even been in the country.  He'd first met his half-Israeli cousin after they were both adults, when the Auror-In-Training had transferred to the British Ministry and had subsequently fallen under the watchful gaze of his numerous relatives. 

They weren't friends, but they got along.  Adon was as cocky as the other Aurors, but he was gritty underneath it all and didn't seemed inclined to fall into the political games perpetuated by the rest of their extended family.  For once, it had been nice to have a relative who was something of an ally and an outcast, who hated Grimm and didn't put up with the purist dribble.  But Kurby didn't maintain any illusions that the alliance went beyond that.  Adon might be family, but he hadn't been raised as family.  Even now that they were back in England, the Eleors rarely saw fit to acknowledge their connection to the rest of the clan.

The potions made him feel like he was fighting to the surface just to think.  Opening his eyes was a struggle.  He finally managed it, regarding the Auror through barely cracked lids.

"Just potions," he said sluggishly.  That seemed the appropriate response; the fact that they were potions and they were working was all he cared about.

The werewolf hunter let his eyes close.  With his thoughts already muddy from the potions, the effort of keeping them open and trying to carry on a conversation at the same time was too much.  But considering his cousin's profession, considering their usual lack of family ties beyond the occasional sparring session or vent about Grimm, it didn't take much of a clear thought process to figure out why he had probably come.

"I'm not dead," he informed him in a drained voice.  This, similarly, seemed an important sticking point; offerings were what one usually brought to funerals, not to hospital beds.  "What d'you want, Adon?"

"Good. Because if you were dead--moaning and talking--then it'd be Grimm here, not me. And that's not going to happen," Adon said adamantly. 

"What d'you want?" To the point. Adon appreciated that, even if it lacked something in delivery.

"Well, I did want to get you drunk..." he considered the prone werewolf hunter.  It was probably two or three days too soon. Kurby was probably worse than drunk right now. Dizzy, a little disoriented, and most likely nauseous.  "But I guess I'll have to hide this in your room for later use. It's good stuff, too."

Not that anything probably sounded good right now.

The sound of his voice was probably obnoxious.

But that didn't mean he'd leave.

Adon was just that good of a friend.

"Have to say," Adon stated, stretching his legs out luxuriously, "from what I hear, you made pretty decent work of MacDuff." Adon wasn't sure where he'd heard that, or if it had been deductive reasoning.  It would have taken an extended fight to exact the sort of pain and damage that the healers had stated had been subjected onto Kurby.  And an extended fight was a fairly matched fight.  "Did you know it only took him about 25 seconds to get me down and out?"

Adon wasn't proud of that. He wouldn't have said this to Kurby at any other instant, because he knew Kurby would use this against him as often as he could. Publicly. Unless it became an understanding. Even if it didn't, Adon would risk a little dignity to preserve the man's in the bed. It'd give Kurby something to think about--besides his failure--for the remaining 4-5 days he would be laid up at Mungo's.

"Is the hot redhead your mediwitch, by the way? Is she coming back any time soon?" Though Kurby could not see, the shiteating grin inflected Adon's tone as he glanced back towards the door.