Connor smiled a bit as he'd watched Tad leave. Meeting up with his friend from Quantico, Virginia was great, and he was glad to be able to hang out with his friend again. But Moon Lake had its own surprises in that it was largely populated by were-beasts of various kinds, and Connor had gotten the added surprise that Tad had been a werewolf all his life and that his mother was a werecat. It was all surprising, but Connor could never abandon his friend and in some ways, he actually found it cool, particularly when Tad also proved that werewolves were not the slobbering monsters that they were in horror movies. That was all good and it then let him meet some of the friends that Tad had made after he'd moved to Moon Lake earlier.
Of course, that also lead to some issues that Connor had long tried to hide while in Quantico. Growing up, Connor had wanted to be like everyone else, and often, wanted to be like Tad, his best friend. But when the two of them started to reach maturity, there were things that were different between them, and not just the fact that Tad was a werewolf. Some of it was more in relation to attraction and everything else that often related to teenage boys. Tad would talk about girls at school that were attractive, and even tried to hook Connor up with dates from time to time. The issue was more that while he had found some girls attractive, there were times where he found them unattractive and then when he found some men attractive. That only left him questioning who he was, and he didn't want Tad or anyone else to look down on him or anything like that. Of course, he should have trusted his parents, Kent and Diana Ross, and his younger sister, Ava, but at that time the fears were there.
But then meeting Tad's present friends, a female werewolf named Amy and a werewildcat named Ryan. Ryan had a Chinese American father, and together with Tad's friend and with Ava's own determination to prove her point once she found out, that had gotten Connor through much of what him puzzled and worried. Mostly because he found out that Tad didn't mind his issues because his mother, as a werecat, was bi, and that Moon Lake had generally accepted fairly openly for far longer than the rest of the country because of their werecat population. There were various tricks and gimmicks that came into play regarding legal paperwork and all that, but within the town, it seemed to be accepted and tolerated, which put a lot of Connor's worries at ease. It got even better when it led to his having the talk with his parents and finding that he never needed to fear them in the first place.
And as Connor found through all of this that he might be bisexual himself, he found Ryan more than happy to help him recognize things and come to grips with them as well. It was something that went a bit farther than what even Tad could manage, and Connor found himself more and more open to discussing things further with Ryan that led to other things. Namely, Connor began to see Ryan as someone he could actually date and accept the open acceptance that Ryan had given him. It might mean becoming a werewildcat, himself, and would mean that he would be at least bi if he was wrong about what he felt about his sexuality, but the more Connor got to know Ryan, the more he found himself open to that and that lead to a rather pleasurable night as Connor became a werewildcat with his fursona based off the Canadian Lynx and providing the Ross family with their "family were," as per Moon Lake's laws.
That though, came with its own plans to be made. Connor was happy to be included in Ryan's pride, but for the moment, that pride was largely made of Ryan's father and a few other werewildcats, and while Ryan's father was happy to accept Connor as a boyfriend for his son, any sort of formal pride recognition would probably be different. It might be more personal, since Connor's induction had been private, but there was still stuff to plan out, and with Tad on his way out, Connor now had to get ready for it. He was supposed to return to the Chang house and handle that planning over lunch. They probably would have done more of that over breakfast but given that Connor had been out a bit longer than expected with regard to his first date with Ryan and there was some agreement that it was best to return to the Ross house to provide the updates to the Ross family on how things had gone. That had all gone well, and Tad had then dropped by and remained the same good friend Tad had always been. It left Connor pleased but needing to prepare himself for the lunch time meeting.
Connor started by heading back upstairs, and easily taking two stairs at a time and not even feeling any strain as he dashed up them and ignored the sound of the hard thumps as he moved up the steps. It wasn't a high flight of stairs, but he was still relatively impressed by how fast he'd taken those steps and the way in which he had done so. Connor wondered if this was just something that related to being a were and now having better stamina and energy. It'd be something to ask Ryan about later, but he turned his focus to going down the hall. He'd start with a warm shower and getting some scents off him. He didn't think there would be too much concern over Ryan's scent lingering on Connor, but because of the fact that it was a new day, it made sense to be clean and have fresh clothes.
He could hear Ava in her room listening to some music, and he assumed that she was thinking over friends she'd made at Moon Lake High and all the other things that had come about, and he was happy for her. It'd certainly make for some good family discussions in the future over what to do, but Connor knew he couldn't focus on that for the moment and turned to collect his towel from the bathroom and then going across the hall to his bedroom. He set the towel on the bed and set to looking over things to change. He took off the shirt he was wearing and dropped it into the laundry hamper in the room. His pants followed afterward. The last thing done was to collect clean clothes to wear. He easily found a pair of jeans and a shirt and laid them out on the bed. He then finished by laying a clean pair of underwear on top the clothes he'd gotten out. He'd worry about socks later and then stripped off his underwear and dropped them in the hamper as well.
From there, he wrapped the towel around him and then crossed the hallway again and went into the bathroom that he and Ava had to share. The tile was cool under his feet, but at that moment, the tile wasn't what he was noticing the most. The thing that hit him the hardest was actually some of the scents in the bathroom. He could smell some of the soaps that were on the counter on the white plastic tray that they were supposed to be on. He could even pick up the faintest scent of the shampoos that he and his sister used that were in the shower itself. They weren't as strong, as they were inside plastic and under a cap, but it wasn't a perfect seal and that let him catch a faint scent of it. The strongest scent was actually the air freshener that was plugged into the wall on one corner the counter near the toilet. The soaps all seemed to have a detergent type of smell. It wasn't dirty, but it wasn't natural either.
The air freshener had an even more "artificial" scent to it. There was floral element to the scent and Connor caught it easily, but it was mixed with something else that made it clear that the floral scent was still something artificial that was made to smell LIKE some kind of flower. Connor didn't know what kind of flower, but he was still amazed by how much he could now smell things and even identify things.
"It's all strong," Connor thought to himself as he shut the door to the hallway behind him and then flipping the switch that turned on the exhaust fan. "I wonder if that's something Tad and Ryan... or any other were goes through?"
He didn't expect an answer and didn't get one, as he was the only one in the room. And it wasn't as though things smelled bad enough that he would be sick, but he was still amazed by how acute his sense of smell had gotten, just by becoming a were. Some of it was even more puzzling that this was also going on while in human form. To some degree, Connor didn't expect that. It was interesting and would merit some questions for Ryan latter, or maybe even Tad, since Canids were supposed to have a stronger sense of smell than Felids, so Tad as a werewolf had to have a stronger sense of smell than Ryan or now Connor as werewildcats. However, first he had to shower as it wouldn't be too much longer until he would need to head back to the Chang house for the planning for the pride induction ceremony.