"Uh, no ..." Rhys glanced over his shoulder toward Gina and the trio of kids she and Adam had recently adopted and made part of their family. "I think he got into a fight," he explained, though he didn't know the details yet.

"Ah." Nat turned back to step in through the front door. "Do you need the kit, then?" she asked, not even trying to pry about just how Joey had got into a fight just yet. She didn't need to ask why he was here now; she knew the boy loved his family enough not to want to traumatize them with the sight of his bloodied face.

"Maybe. I've haven't had a good look at him yet. He made a beeline for the bathroom," he said, closing the door behind her once she and Micah were inside. The dogs greeted them with friendly barks and wagging tails, but had learned better than to assault their master and mistress and little charges with too much jumping and licking.

"Then you should go and take a look at him," Nat told her husband firmly, opening her arm to take Ana onto her other hip as she nudged the dogs toward the living room. "I will keep them in here with me until you're both ready."

"Are you sure you don't want me to handle the kids?" he asked, leaving her an opening to play Mom with Joey, if she wanted - or maybe he was just looking for an excuse not to have to deal with it himself.

Natalya's eyes narrowed at him in amusement. "Oh, no," she refused, shaking her head. "Even I know that a young man's first fight, he does not need to be mothered. He needs a man to talk to about it. And hopefully that man is not going to give him idiotic advice." She flashed him a teasing grin.

"I'm not his Dad," Rhys pointed out, though he had, in fact, known Joey just as long as Adam had, before Adam had adopted the boy. He narrowed his eyes a moment at Nat's remark, teasing or otherwise. "What kind of idiotic advice?" he asked, a little defensively.

"Anything on the theme of revenge is idiotic," she told him warningly, though she knew he would likely disregard this if he felt the situation called for it. "And no, you are not his father, but you are his friend. You have been a consistent figure in his life, Rhys; always close to Gina. It is no reflection on his relationship with Adam that he has come here, to you."

"I guess not," Rhys replied, thoughtfully. In fact, it was probably a good thing, as Joey seemed to have implied that he didn't want to worry his parents by letting them see him before he got himself cleaned up. He didn't quite agree with her on the subject of revenge, but this wasn't the time to argue it. "I'll go talk to him," he said, seeing as he didn't have much choice.

"Good boy." With Ana giggling and waving over her shoulder, Natalya blew him a kiss as she bore both children and both dogs into the living room, out of the way of whatever they might see in the bathroom for a while.

Rhys grumbled a little under his breath, but down deep, he was proud the kid trusted him - them - enough that he hadn't thought twice about coming here. He made his way back to the downstairs bathroom, pausing a moment to see if he could hear what was going on behind the door.

What he got out of that little pause was the sound of Joey swearing under his breath, running water, and a long-drawn out hiss of pain. Whatever the teenager had got involved in, he was at least trying to deal with it himself. But he'd come somewhere safe to do it, that was the main thing.

Rhys frowned, nibbling at the corner of his mouth worriedly at the sounds coming from inside the bathroom. He remembered himself at that age and the countless injuries he'd endured in school and out. "Hey, you okay in there?" he asked, as he rapped his knuckles on the door to let Joey know he was there.

"Uh ....uh, yeah, fine!" The edge of panic was a perfect rendition of a boy who knew he was going to get into trouble for getting into trouble, but was currently panicking about someone seeing him with his shirt off.

"Don't sound fine. Why don't you let me in, so I can take a look?" Rhys asked, unconcerned about what the kid looked like, shirt on or off, so long as he was all in one piece.

"Uh ..." There was a pause, and the sound of scrambling for a moment. Then - "Sure, it's not locked."

The door opened a crack, left for Rhys to let himself into the bathroom and survey the damage. The sink was streaked with blood, though Joey was doing his best to wipe that up. A tooth was lying on the counter, carefully cleaned up. The mirror showed up the worst of the damage, though - Joey's left eye was swollen almost shut, his lip was split, his nose was bleeding but not broken. His knuckles on both hands were bloody and bruised, and judging by the stain spreading on his torn t-shirt, he had at least one cut under the jersey cotton, too.

He fidgeted awkwardly. "I'll clean up."

Rhys took one look at him and clucked his tongue, glad he'd decided to come here first before going home and scaring the crap out of his mother. "Yeah, never mind that," he said, ignoring the mess, which was easily cleaned up and looking the kid over again. "I hope the other guy looks worse," he murmured. "Take your shirt off," he said, noting the stain that was spreading across the kid's shirt and hoping it wasn't as bad as it looked. "Nat! Where's the med kit?" he called back, not even bothering to try keeping any of this a secret from his wife.

"One of them does," Joey told him in satisfaction, wincing as Rhys called to his wife.

Natalya answered easily. "In the kitchen, on top of the fridge," she called back to him. "There is clean laundry in a pile on the counter, too!" Because Nat knew that anyone who'd been in a fight and needed a medkit also needed a clean shirt.

Rhys seemed to reconsider a moment as he eyed the black eye, the missing tooth, the blooming stain on the boy's shirt. "Nat?" he called again, trying to keep the worried sound from his voice. "Can you give Aurelia a call and ask her to swing by for a few?"

"Of course." There was the sound of footsteps - evidently Nat had decided not to let Rhys go looking for the medkit, but to bring it herself. She tactfully had her eyes closed as she handed it in through the bathroom door, already dialing the Evans' number as she headed back to the living room.

Joey relaxed when he heard the door close, moving to peel his torn, bloody t-shirt over his head, revealing the cause of the spreading stain - three narrow cuts, that could only have been made with a flick knife, along his ribs on the right side. Thank God he wore a leather jacket.

Rhys took the medkit from Nat and set it on the counter, wincing at the look of the kid, though he was more concerned about the tooth and the black eye than the narrow cuts on Joey's ribs. "Okay, spill," he said, the tone of his voice leaving no room for argument, as he moved to scrub his hands clean before he could administer first aid.

Joey rolled his eyes ....well, his one good eye ....grimacing at the look on Rhys' face. "I got my ass handed to me," he said gruffly. "End of. It won't happen again."

"Mmhmm. No argument there," Rhys agreed, opening the medkit and pulling out a clean gauze pad, which he then pressed against the cuts near the kid's ribs. "Anything broken?" he asked, assuming the kid would know by now whether he'd cracked or broken any bones.

Joey shook his head, hissing as Rhys started on the rudimentary first aid. "Don't think so," he admitted. "No one got any kicks in - I stayed on my feet. Broke one nose, too, I think."

"How many of them were there?" Rhys asked further, hoping to keep the kid talking in order to distract him from his injuries - or rather, Rhys' treatment of his injuries. First, he had to stop the bleeding a little, before he could clean him up. The sooner Aurelia got there, the better, but in the meantime maybe he could get the story out of the boy.

The answer was forestalled briefly as Aurelia removed the tooth from the cup in Rhys' hand, and inserted it back into Joey's gum, muttering something. There was a painful crunch, and the tooth was secure once again.

Rhys couldn't help but smirk again as that tooth went crunch as it was reinserted into Joey's gum. The look on the kid's face was priceless, but he knew this was no laughing matter. "Nothing. I'll just tell her you stopped by to see Ana and she didn't want you to leave." It was probably going to end up pretty close to the truth, anyway. Their daughter had grown fond of the teen, and though they were years apart in age, she lit up every time he walked in the door. "We'll get pizza and watch a movie later ....after you do your homework."

There were tears in Joey's eyes, but there was no way in hell he was going to cry in front of Rhys, even if Aurelia's magical first aid was more painful than losing the tooth to begin with. That was the worst of it, though. "Hey, Nat could help me with that, right?" the teen asked when he deemed it safe to move his jaw again. "We're doing, like, the Cold War stuff, and everyone at school's gone mad anti-Russian."

"There you go. Perfectly acceptable reason to stay overnight. Research for school! But you are gonna have to face the music sooner or later," Rhys warned. The music meaning that of his parents and, to a lesser degree, the school. "You know, don't you think it's kind of stupid for Perfect Ed to pick a fight with you when you have a Federal Agent for a Dad and a cop for a neighbor?" he asked, watching Aurelia work with mild interest.

Joey snorted in disgust, watching with equal interest as Aurelia held out his hand and dripped a particular potion onto his split knuckles. She muttered again, and the splits healed, the bruises fading. "Aw, man ....do I have to keep the eye?" he complained on seeing that, looking up at Rhys hopefully.

Rhys shrugged. "Your choice. 'Course, if you get rid of the black eye, Chloe won't see all the trouble you went to for her," he added, letting Joey decide for himself, though he tossed a wink at Aurelia.

Joey grimaced. "Are you kidding" She already dumped me for Mike," he informed Rhys, wincing as Aurelia rearranged his limbs to get to the cuts on his ribs. "Hey, if I get rid of the eye, does that mean Mom doesn't have to know?"

Rhys sighed. "No, that doesn't mean that Mom doesn't have to know. Did you hear a single word of what I've been telling you?" he asked, trying not to sound too much like a scolding parent, but it couldn't really be helped. "She's gonna find out sooner or later, believe me, and it's better if she hears it from you first."

Aurelia bit down on a smile as she glanced between the two of them - one, a man who had done the opposite of the advice he was giving too many times to count; the other, a boy impatient to be a man and forge his own path. "If you do not tell her, I will," she offered, giving both of them a way out. "In detail."

Joey looked aghast. "All right, all right, fine, I'll tell her!"

"You know, your mom is a lot more resilient than you think she is," Rhys added. "I don't think I need to tell you that the reason she gets so upset is because she loves you. Besides, it's not her you need to be scared of because if I find you screwed up, I'll kick your ass myself," he warned, though there was a smirk on his face so it was hard to tell if he was talking literally or figuratively. Either way, he reached over to affectionately tousle the kid's hair the way he had been doing since he'd been small. "Might as well fix him up right so he's pretty for the girls."

"It will certainly scare the little bastarde who thought he won this fight," Aurelia noted with a faint smirk. She might not approve of the fighting, but she definitely approved of putting the enemy off-balance. "Very well, petit, tip your head back and don't open your eyes."

Joey did as he was told, all his other injuries fixed, trying not to flinch as Aurelia went to work on his swollen eye. "I don't want her to get upset," the teenager tried to explain himself to Rhys. "She freaks out enough when the kids get a little bit scared. I'm not a kid, I can look after myself."

Rhys arched a brow, hearing the same speech he'd made himself countless times at that age. The only real difference was that Rhys had been forced to take care of himself at a young age, while Joey had not. "Why are you in such a hurry to grow up?" he couldn't help but ask. "You've got a nice home, a family who loves you, friends, girlfriends. Roof over your head, clothes on your back, food on the table. So, you have homework and a curfew. So you have to follow a few rules. So what? Would you really rather be all on your own, with no one to come home to' No one who gave a damn if you had a black eye or a couple of busted ribs" Is that really what you want?" Rhys blurted all at once, saying a lot more than he'd wanted to say, and hinting at his own childhood.

Joey's mouth worked silently for a long moment, unable to look Rhys in the eye thanks to the firm grip Aurelia had on his chin and forehead as the swelling around his brow and cheek went down under her magical intervention. But the truth was, he had nothing to say. He'd come to Rhys for help, and yes, he'd gotten help ....but he was being scolded by the one constant father figure in his life from age zero, who seemed to be taking all this very personally. He didn't have an answer.

Rhys sighed again, knowing he'd gone one step too far. He didn't want to lose the kid's trust, and yet, he didn't want him to grow up too fast either - the way he himself had. "Look, all I'm trying to say is that I don't wanna see you grow up too fast. I know you're all in a hurry to be a man, and I know being a teenager sucks sometimes, but you're not alone, Joey. Your mom only freaks out because she cares. Try to remember that. I care, too. And so does your Dad and Nat and Aurelia and everyone. But this isn't your fault, and I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself. I am. Just don't wish the years away so fast, okay?"

"It would've been worse if you and Adam didn't teach me how to take a punch," Joey pointed out, feeling the need to point out that he might not have engaged in the unfair fight if he hadn't had a certain amount of training.

Aurelia bit her lips, gathering her supplies together. "I will ....go now," she said cheerfully. "They will never know I was not next door."

Whatever it was Rhys was going to say to Joey was sidetracked by Aurelia's leave-taking. He turned to face her, a grateful smile on his face. "Thanks, Ree. I owe you one," he told her simply. In reality, he probably owed her a lot more than that, but then they had settled those debts a few years ago.

She shook her head with a smile. "You brought me back to myself and gave me a new life," she reminded him. "Whatever you think you owe me, you do not." She kissed his cheek fondly, turning to give Joey a wink. Then she shimmered, and was gone, leaving the two of them alone.

Joey fidgeted, one hand rising to gently test his newly healed eye.

Rhys smiled at the kiss, not quite blushing. He and Aurelia could have been something more than friends, if things had gone differently, but he was perfectly content with how things had turned out, and he assumed she was, too. He didn't bother to explain to Joey what Aurelia had meant by her remark. Joey already knew enough to make a pretty good guess at her meaning. "You need to change and I need to call your mom."

The teenager nodded, reaching for the pile of clothing Aurelia had left behind. It looked as though she'd raided his closet on her way over, helpfully enough. "Hey ....Rhys?" he said, dropping the torn t-shirt into the trash. He turned to look at his mother's best friend. "Thanks."

"Anytime, kid," Rhys replied with a smile, hoping he'd somehow managed to get through to the teenager. One problem still remained and that was how to deal with Perfect Ed and make sure Joey survived high school, but maybe that was better left for Joey to figure out on his own. Rhys knew he couldn't solve all the boy's problems for him, but if he could save him for some of the same suffering he and his parents had endured, he would. "I'm gonna go call your mom and let Nat know you're okay. Okay?"

"Well, if everything he does comes back to him three-fold in short time, as Aurelia's withcraft believes, then he will either kill himself being a horrible little shit, or mend his ways." She tapped her finger against his lips. "I know, bad worb, bad mama."

"That seems kind of harsh," Rhys said, though he supposed if the kid didn't learn his lesson sooner rather than later, he might end up killing someone eventually or being killed. He smiled and kissed her finger as she touched his lips. "I'll just have to punish you later," he warned, with a playful waggle of his eyebrows, before turning to fetch the milk from the fridge.

She snorted with laughter, raising her voice to call out. "Joey! Your mother is bringing some pajamas over for you! I suggest you spread your homework on the kitchen table so we can pretend we've been working on it!"

A low laugh resounded from the living room. "Got it, Nat!" the boy called back.

Rhys found himself frowning again as Joey called back to them in the kitchen, though it was hard to tell what exactly was eating him this time. He poured out some milk for Ana, brooding on his own thoughts silently for a moment, and taking longer than necessary to stir the chocolate mixture into the milk.

"You are thinking again," Natalya pointed out to him as she poured out the rest of the cocoa. She glanced up to see Joey enter the kitchen with his bag over his shoulder, Ana clinging to one hand, and Micah on his hip.

"I found these," the teenager informed the parents with a faint grin. "Do you want me to put them in the trash?"

Rhys opened his mouth to say something, but before he could share his thoughts, Joey had entered the kitchen, accompanied by Ana and Micah. Whatever it was he was going to say was just going to have to wait until later. "Hmm, do they belong to anyone?" Rhys asked, mirroring the teen's grin.

"Well, this one blows bubbles," Joey pointed out, hefting the six-month-old on his hip. Micah giggled and obliged with a long groan of spitty bubbles. "And this one," he added, waving Ana's hand, "keeps kissing random furniture."

The toddler's eyes went wide as though he had betrayed her deepest secret. "I does not!"

"Sound like a couple of troublemakers to me," Rhys teased, scooping Ana up into his arms and turning his face toward hers. "How about a kiss for your Papa?" he asked.

"Are you random furniture, milaya?" Natalya smirked faintly, obligingly taking Micah from Joey's arms so he could spread his homework out on the table. Ana stuck her tongue out at her mother, throwing her arms around Rhys' neck to smoosh a very wet kiss to his cheek.

"There," Rhys said with a grin. "I am not random furniture." He returned the favor, touching a quick kiss to his daughter's lips before setting her in her booster seat at the table. He let Nat handle Micah while he took care of Ana, not because he preferred one over the other so much as that he didn't want Ana to get too upset by Joey's teasing.

"You is Papa," Ana agreed with him, swiping her hair out of her eyes as he sat her down at the table. She eyed Joey, who had wisely put himself and his homework at the other end of the table. "Is you colorin'?"

Joey laughed quietly. "No, Ana, I don't get to do coloring," he told her. "That's only for special princesses like you."

Rhys had to stifle some laughter at Joey's response to Ana's question. "I don't know about that. I color sometimes, and I'm not a special princess." As soon as he said it, he knew Nat was going to comment, but it was too late to take it back. "Joey is doing his homework, Ana," he tried to explain.

"You are just a normal princess, Rhys," his wife said, rather predictably, glancing up to let Gina in through the back door.

"Wha's ho'murk?" Ana asked curiously, clutching her small hands around her own cup of cocoa.

Joey grinned over at her. "Stuff that school asks me to do so I'm ready to do more stuff at school, squishy."

Rhys rolled his eyes at Joey's explanation. Oh, yeah. That was crystal clear, but he didn't bother to add anything to it. "Hey, Gi!" he greeted Gina as Nat let her in. "Want some hot cocoa?" he asked, holding up a mug as proof. Nothing to see here. Everything was perfectly normal as normal could be.

"Thought that was my prize for coming over with the dude's duds," Gina answered with a grin, though her eyes flickered to Joey with concern. Joey met her gaze with as reassuring a smile as he could manage, watching her relax at the sight of him before he settled back into his homework.

Nat chuckled quietly to herself, nudging Rhys out of his seat so she could go and sit with the younger contingent and get started on that homework.

"I didn't know you needed a prize to get you to come over," Rhys countered, mirroring Gina's grin. "I think we're getting kicked out," he said, chuckling at Nat's nudge. "Take a seat and I'll get you a cup of cocoa."

"Honey, I deserve a prize just for walking in these heels," Gina commented, pausing by the table to drop the bag down beside Joey and kiss his hair, squeezing his shoulder as he murmured a hello to her. She made a wide grinning face for Micah, wriggling her fingers for Ana, and headed back to the kitchen counter to claim a stool as Rhys set about making her a cup.

It wasn't much to whip up another cup of hot cocoa, but it gave them a few minutes to talk away from the others, so long as they kept their voices down. "Is Adam home with the rest of the brood?" he asked, though the answer was obvious. He hadn't really had much of a chance to ask how all that was going, but if anyone could make it work, it was Adam and Gina.

Gina nodded, chuckling faintly. "I promised I wouldn't be more than half an hour," she told her friend fondly. "I'm home all day tomorrow, so he gets to run away for half an hour when the kids are everywhere if he needs to."

"How are things going" With the kids, I mean?" he asked, with a quick glance over at Joey. He was more worried about how Joey was handling sharing his home with three new siblings than they were with him.

Gina let out a long breath. "It's ....getting easier, slowly," she said, wrapping her hands about her cup as her eyes followed his glance toward Joey. "It was never going to be easy easy, but it was tough-going for a few weeks there. We had to get a lock for Joey's door a couple of weeks ago; that seems to have helped. He gets on with them, he loves them, but he's not used to being followed around all the time by an eight-year-old boy who's never had a big brother before. He did scare the crap out of some little prick who was trying to pick on Laura, that was kinda funny." She flashed a grin at Rhys. "Just loomed up behind her. Apparently the kid nearly wet himself."

If anyone knew what it was like being an orphan, it was Rhys. He'd been orphaned when he was nine and taken in by a hunter named Dylan, but he'd lost Dylan to vampires during his teen years. After that, he'd found his way to New York and eventually met Gina. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" he asked, before taking a sip of his own cocoa. He'd taken it upon himself to claim the place of protective older brother in her life at a time when she'd needed it most.

Gina laughed at the sight, rolling her eyes. "Okay, back to my calmer mad-house, I think," she said, pausing to look at her son. "Are we good?"

Joey offered her a smile, rising to let her hug him. "We're good, Mom," he assured her.

"Good." Gina nodded, letting him go. "See ya, insane-o-nauts!"

"Insane-o-naut to you, too!" Rhys called back, which didn't make much sense but he was too caught up in the moment to care. "Good boy," he told Cody, rewarding him with a ruffle of his fur. "Sasha, sit," he told the other dog, a little more forcefully, gesturing with one hand to indicate what he wanted her to do.

Tongue hanging out, Sasha finally obeyed, glancing at Cody as though teasing him for being a teacher's pet.

Natalya chuckled, hoisting Micah onto her other hip. "I take it I am ordering pizza tonight, hmm?"

"Unless you want me to make some," Rhys said, his attention fixed on the dogs for a moment. "Stay," he told them, extending one hand to enforce that command. He waited to make sure they obeyed before moving to fetch them each a treat.

"We don't order in that much," Natalya considered thoughtfully. She threw him a smile, knowing Sasha would be struggling to stay on command. "You can make the mush for your son, though."

"Oh, yay! I get to make the mush!" Rhys remarked with a chuckle, as he offered each of the dogs a treat. He knew Sasha was struggling to remain in one place, but she was getting better.

The dogs' impatience was not helped by the fact that Ana was repeatedly saying, "Sit, mush!" around his back.

Joey glanced up from his homework with a grin. "Is it always like this over here?"

"Ana! You're going to confuse them!" Rhys told Ana, with a chuckle, but at least she wasn't chanting swear words anymore. "No, it's pretty quiet when everyone's sleeping," he told Joey with a wink, as he headed for the door to let the dogs run around in the yard for a while. "C'mon you two, before you wear a hole in the floor," he told the pair of dogs.

Sasha was predictably the first one up, bolting for the door only to bounce off it .She whined, wagging tail hopefully as Cody trotted over to make sure she was all right.

"Sometimes it is like having five small children in this house," Nat sighed exaggeratedly, winking at Joey behind Rhys' back.

"Don't count me in that mix!" Rhys called back, overhearing Nat as he almost tripped over the dogs trying to get them outside. "Sasha, are you all right' Cody, take it easy!"

It was a little chaotic, but it was a happy kind of chaos. With Rhys being adored by the dogs, and Joey suddenly with a lapful of Ana, Natalya laughed in resignation. Just another evening in the Bristol house.