☾ ——- ❝ ＥＬＹＳＩＵＭ ❞ — [ closed ]

[chase.]

𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑 xxxx ♛
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[ raven ] [ he/him ] [ location - outside boathouse ] [ feeling - like the humans are really in for it now ]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxA faint flicker of movement caught Rio’s eye as he turned from Josie. It was subtle, a shadow shifting just beneath the doorway; but it was enough to snap his attention away from the panther-shifter entirely. His instincts flared and the hairs on the back of his neck rose, damned be his fear of the water—if the humans had stalked him here, then he’d let the frigid temperature of the Canadian river claim them; then at least he would finally be relieved of their burden. Without hesitation, Rio moved swiftly across the room; his steps soundless despite the old wooden floor that tried to groan beneath him. The expression on his face hardened, grey eyes glinting with the light of the lamp, and his spine straightened as he snapped his usual composure back in place. The redness in his eyes would likely sell him out, but perhaps the darkness of the night would grant him the dignity of concealment.

He reached the door in a fluid motion, his hand gripping the handle with a quiet force as he threw it open. It swung towards him with enough force that the October air’s chill sent goosebumps rippling up his exposed forearms; not that Rio cared nor noticed. Instead he glared at the figure with a practised intensity, prepared to confront whichever human had been foolish enough to follow him against his wishes.

But as the door swung wide, and the dim lighting splashed out of the threshold, Rio faltered. Detached steel eyes met watery brown ones, and Rio’s expression was washed away with a muted surprise as he stared back at his medic. Salem’s expression wobbled, and Rio’s lips parted in shock as the fox whimpered out his name with quivering syllables. The raven stared blankly in response, his thoughts—usually so meticulously composed—tangled and twisted in a writhing mess behind his eyes, moving too fast and too chaotically to be carefully unwound. There was no canvas in which he could bleed his emotions onto, no parchment nor paper for him to use as a tool to delicately pick through his mind. There was nothing but the haunting lullaby as the river lapped against the bank, and the faint hum of the lamp left to protect Josie’s body.

Rio stood rigid in a rare display of apprehension, uncertainty brushing its fingers against his skin as he watched the wetness dribble down Salem’s face. The shorter man peered around Rio, and the shifter found himself following the motion with his eyes; not able to angle his head from where he’d first been looking at the other man. The fox made a motion to speak, but all that came out was a pained and choked sob, a broken sound that scratched harshly at Rio’s bruised heart. Salem moved his hand from his stomach to his mouth, and Rio’s chest ached with a feeling he’d worked tirelessly to stamp out.

The embers in his ribcage whined weakly against his steeled composure, the glow dimming as the raven pulled his emotions back—like a dog yanking against the lead, almost slipping its head out of the collar. Then, right as Rio was on the cusp of smothering the embers for once and for all, a force crashed against his chest and the embers sparked into a violent inferno, a conflagration with no hopes of being washed away by pitiful willpower alone.

Salem’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, his head buried against his shoulder—tragic sobs muffled by the soft fabric of Rio’s shirt. Time felt as if it slowed for a moment, the whirlwind of thoughts in Rio’s mind simmered down as the fox cried against him; warm breath tickling Rio’s jaw. The pounding of his heart echoed in his ears, and Rio’s eyes flickered from Salem, to the shadowy dock, and then towards the main clearing—where its light could be seen through the sparse trees that seperated the boathouse. To where the humans had been left, and the direction Salem had come from…

Rio acted on instinct. With a force slightly harsher than he had intended, he shoved the medic away. One hand shot out to steady Salem, and the other carefully grasped his chin. Unbridled lividness shone in his grey eyes as he silently curled his fingers around Salem’s jaw; tilting his face up towards the dim light. His touch, though firm, was cautious and tender as he inspected Salem’s features for any sign of injury. A cold dread clambered up his spine, his concern making itself known as a reflexive fear washed away all rational sense. Memories of the past—of what the humans had once done to someone he’d loved long ago, played in his mind. Rio’s breathing quickened, his gaze tracing every inch of Salem’s face, searching for bruises, cuts, any mark that might betray harm. His composure had slipped entirely, his ire and concern splayed clear as day across his pale features. His promise to Coby be damned, if the humans had seen fit to attack one of his own—not even Reyna or Andi would be able to prevent the carnage that would ensue. By the stars, he would put the grim reaper to shame, that was his unwavering declaration to whatever higher power there was.

Though, as his eyes roamed over Salem’s unblemished skin, the tension in Rio’s shoulders began to ease. His breathing was loud, laboured, as it filled the silence between Salem’s crying. The mental gears shifted in the tocks of a wheel as they aligned. Salem was unharmed. The strangers hadn’t struck him; at least not physically. The murderous glint in Rio’s eyes faded away, replaced instead by a raw, unveiled look that the raven always effortlessly covered. Relief, deep and unexpected soothed the hatred that burned against his skin, and the grip on Salem’s jaw loosened to just a lingering, feathery touch.

Finally, he let his hand fall away, the dried blood on his palms having been forgotten in his haste. Rio’s stern exterior faltered, it itched to take its usual place, but the raven was too emotionally raw to produce the energy necessary to try and conceal his emotion. He blinked, the weight of his earlier fear still lingering in his chest, without thinking, without the usual guarded distance he kept even from those close to him, he pulled Salem back into the embrace he had harshly shoved him out of moments before.

His arms wrapped around the fox with a soundless affection, holding him close this time. The wetness of Salem’s tears felt like a cold-brand as the damp bled through the cotton of his clothing, the sound of the man’s sobbing echoing painfully against the night. The hug was firm, protective, and Rio delicately guided Salem’s face to rest against the crook of his neck. The medic sobbed still, and Rio threaded his hands tentatively through his hair in response, carding through the blonde strands as Andi had once upon a time done for him. “You’re alright.” Rio soothed in his usual deep tone, breaking his vow of silence at last. He was not sure who he was trying to convince more. His face had appeared unmarked, under Rio’s careful examination, but that did not mean the humans were innocent in their actions.

“I take it you have been informed of what has occurred?” Rio asked softly, once the sobs had begun to wane. It was almost a rhetorical question, but Rio’s meticulous nature demanded he check regardless. By any grace, Coby would have been the one to broach the situation with a gentle hand. Guilt nipped at him at the idea that Reyna had been forced to lay the truth bare for the others, it was a burden he never would put on her shoulders—but admittedly one that might’ve accidentally befallen her in his absence. He had heard her voice when he’d returned at last to the clearing with the remaining stragglers; she had made it home okay. That was the main thing, everything else could come second to the safety of his group.


The shifter allowed the embrace to last a moment longer, before drawing away slightly—just enough to see Salem’s face clearly so his answers would not be muddled by Rio’s own clothing. “You would tell me if any of them had laid a hand on you? Or spoken out of turn?” He pressed. His tone was stern, it left little room for argument but he knew his nature was fundamentally different to that of the fox’s. Salem was a medic, a healer; he had gone through years of education to learn expertly how to care for others, how to tend to their needs, spared from judgement for their backgrounds and beliefs. A person could spit in the face of their doctor, and somehow still be treated free of discrimination. It was not a profession Orion would have excelled in. Salem was a good man, who would put the needs of others ahead of his own—potentially even the needs of people who did not deserve it. Aadhira had attempted to lie to Rio once, to save someone from his wrath. He trusted Salem would not follow in his sister’s footsteps. Rio did not consider himself to be cruel, but he was unforgiving and lacked the mercy others would so freely bestow—it was not a far cry to believe he would be purposely misled to ensure someone else’s peace.

With a measured exhale, Rio’s spoke again. “You do not have to treat them, I will not ask you to,” Rio paused for a breath, “whatever you choose, or potentially have chosen, you will have my support.” The roaring blaze in his chest had died to a manageable flame, and Rio allowed his expression to soften as he searched Salem’s eyes with his own. “Whatever you require, I will do my best to aid you, all you need is ask.”

[ inventory : oh my god is that a heart?? n/a ]

[ tags, salem ] [ mentions, coby, reyna, andi ]

[друг]

❝ no matter where I run, the ways they lead me right back herexxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI think it's time I stop running from myself

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⸸ ⋅ ─── ⋅ 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐆𝐄 ⋅ ── ⋅

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tagging; andi
mentioned; rio, mercer's victims <3, coby
location; main cabin
twenty-seven x⋅x cismale, he/him x⋅x wolf

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The sharp bark of a dog from outside briefly intercepted the metallic whining of the butter knife as Mercer idly spun it against the countertop, all the while unconcernedly chewing on the half-eaten sandwich clutched in his other hand. It might have been for the best if he were to vacate the kitchen soon, because it sounded like the news he had so bluntly delivered were beginning to sink in, and he wasn't looking to be in the path of anyone charging back into the cabin in search of someone to punish for the chaos. The futon shoved into his glorified closet of a bedroom was beginning to call his name, whispering of a little oblivion to escape from the situation that had shipwrecked itself on the shores of what should have been an island distant from any human society, and perhaps if he happened to be deep asleep by the time anyone came for his scruff, they wouldn't have the guts to drag him out of bed by his hair.

indentindentMuch to his annoyance, the dull thud of feet coming down the stairs told him that he wasn't the only one awake in the cabin, and he harshly stopped the movement of the blunt knife by flattening his hand against the counter, before loosely wrapping his fingers around the handle. The fading red of the blood juxtaposed with the harsh black of the tattoos on his hands looked like war paint in the glaring light of the kitchen, a fresh mask with which to greet an enemy, only for Mercer to be met with the sight of Andi in oversized cookie monster pyjama pants. She was clearly straight out of bed, and for some reason, this irritated him to no end — he had been torn out of bed by the sound of an apocalyptic crash and she had slept right through it without even the slightest concern, and now she had the audacity to interrupt his meal with questions about what had happened.
indentindentindent"It's a sandwich," he grumbled, taking another bite and staring at her while chewing. It was obviously not what she had meant, but he wasn't feeling terribly co-operative.

indentindentWhen his deflection wasn't enough to deter Andi from asking further questions, he stared at her for a while longer, frowning as she yawned. What an annoying sound. It briefly crossed his mind that he might want to be careful about messing with someone close to Orion, but he was already standing at the bottom of a deep pit with a shovel in his hand, intent to keep on digging until he found exactly what the limit was. Yet he couldn't be bothered with mustering quite the same level of effort for an audience of one as he had for the group outside, even if that one happened to be their esteemed leader's apparently coddled make-believe sister. What was it about siblings and frustrating perfection? Mercer may have shared a father with Noah, but the latter had never had to endure a rotten upbringing by the notorious Eddy Page. And without knowing the extent of it, everyone would look at Mercer and wonder why he couldn't be some kind of saint.

indentindentBecause that violent world from which Noah had been saved by his mother was the same one in which Mercer had spent the first twenty years of his life. He hadn't been so much a son to his father as he had been a tool, someone to prepare to be his underling so that he could craft some manner of dynasty within a gang that did not care whether he lived or died. It had cared whether you could kill and make a profit, and if you couldn't, it would chew you up and spit you out, and even if you could, it would teach you that nothing was enough. No amount of money was ever good enough, no power grab so great that it could satisfy. Mercer had been involved in his first armed robbery at fourteen, which had taken him to juvie, where every boy bigger, tougher, and meaner than him had made sure that he knew just how much of an underdog he could be. Worthless trash. He had had his share of black eyes in those days, but not once had he cried. He had refused to, because what good would it do him?

indentindentWhen he had gotten out the first time, he had done so only to learn that Eddy had gone to prison. Not even the big bad wolf could forever evade every consequence of everything he had done. These should have been the best years of Mercer's life, a liberation from the influence of his rotten father, but he had already been in by then. The black claws of the gang had wrapped tighter around him, pierced further, pulling him in deeper, because where else could he go? What else was he good for? There was no loving family to welcome him back home and tell him that he had learned his lesson. A few months free, and he had gone right back to juvie, this time for assaulting someone the gang had convinced him was his mortal enemy, a rival. He had only returned to those cold halls as someone crueler, stronger, a boy willing to hurt others the way he had been hurt. Landing in a group home at seventeen should have merely been another nail in his coffin, another year before he would have aged out and ended up right back where he had been, onto the path to prison just like his father, but instead, he had met Coby.

indentindentCoby, a scrawny, frightened girl, who had witnessed at a young age the darkness that had claimed her parents, and still fought each day through the hopelessness to keep things good for her brother, who had been too young to remember. Mercer should have dismissed her the moment he had first seen her, trying to coach Archie through his homework in the restless noise of the group home, and instead she had changed everything in a way that few things in life could. For the first time, he had cared about someone other than himself, and understood the power of self-sacrifice for the sake of another. He might have returned to the world at eighteen, but he had returned to it with a different mindset. Instead of engaging in the meaningless destruction of the gang, he had sought to survive it, fighting for a cause that was better than anything he had known before. Two years later, he had risked his life and ran off with money stolen not for himself, but to save someone else. That money had dragged the three of them through the days, before any of them had known about the pack. Yet here he was, with nothing left.

indentindentMercer's dark eyes honed in on Andi, a vindictive spark lurking in their depths, before he dropped his gaze almost casually to the countertop and took another bite of sandwich.
indentindentindent"You missed all the fun," he muttered through a mouthful of bread. "Josie bit the big one. If you want to put those claws of yours to use and smack around the guys who did it, your brother invited them for a sleepover. They're right outside." His delivery was rather monotone, as he half-heartedly gestured towards the door with what remained of his sandwich. "I got a head start on payback by trying to shred one of those humans, but Orion didn't seem to like that." Bitterness lingered in his words, emphasized around the name of the raven. It wasn't exactly how the night had gone, but Andi had made the mistake of asking him. Could she really expect total honesty?

[chase.]

𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐘xxxx ♛
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[ security ] [ he/him ] [ location - wreckage] [ feeling - squeaky clean and out of his depths ]

xxxxx

xxxxxA mistake had been made, a pretty pathetic mistake all things considered. Collie, saddled with enough blankets to warm a village, could only chew his lip in slight uncertainty as he looked at his shoes. In his haste to help Coby, he had neglected to remember that his boots were in fact lace ups, and would require at least one free hand to tie up appropriately. As it stood, Collie had zero. The laces dragged across the floor as he stepped past Coby and back out of the warmth of her cabin—unwilling to leave her waiting for him. She had so kindly propped open the door for both himself and Captain, and he wasn’t going to just awkwardly put all the blankets down and do up his shoes in front of her like some stupid school-boy.

“I’m sure the floor will be fine, me and Soren have had worse I would imagine, I’m just thankful we’re not sleeping on the side of the road.” Collie chuckled lightly, the sound very slightly tainted with nervousness as the shepherd stepped precariously close to the trailing laces—entertained like a cat with a laser toy. Please don’t, Collie pleaded internally, as if the dog could hear his thoughts. Being tripped up by his dog was not the way he wanted this evening to go, not when he’d already left a bloody towel in the woman’s bathroom and offered her a dog treat. The latter may have been justified given the circumstance, but the memory still caused a red flush to burn across his cheeks. As far as poor first impressions went, that one was particularly spectacular. Oh, he couldn’t wait to tell Soren. ‘Hey bro, guess what I did? Yeah I met a really pretty lady, she saved Briar and I think she might be the most badass woman I’ve ever met, oh and I tried to give her one of Cap’s chicken cubes.’ ‘Oh brother, how’d you manage that?’ ‘I don’t know, I’m tired and I was too busy being pelted by your M&Ms to sleep in the car, oh wait actually I thought she was a dog at first.’ Collie paused his internal dialogue to consider how that would sound if he actually let the words loose. That was going to need some work. Never in his life had Collie been particularly gifted with words, his thoughts just seemed to leak from his mouth in their raw, unfiltered form. Calculated and articulated responses were for Danny, Collie was built to live in the present and the unfortunate caveat to that was a painful lack of hindsight.

Life had already thrown them so many hurdles in the last twenty-four hours, he wasn’t sure how many it realistically had left. Being confronted with the jarring existence of people who could change, at whim, into an animal, was not something he’d have put on his bingo card for the company work trip. Collie tried to chew on the information that he’d learnt—and there’d been a lot of it. Mammals could be shifters, as could birds and reptiles. That..was that not pretty much everything living? Did that stretch to more exotic mammals like lions and kangaroos, or maybe it was region based? Region based seemed more likely, it was hard to fathom a Canadian growing up just to randomly turn into a giraffe. Or a person deep in the Sahara waking up as a polar bear. Birds were a terrifying thought, seagulls had given him enough grief throughout the years without the added threat of them potentially being sentient. It would make sense though, sometimes the little rats seemed like they just had it out for—

A tug at his boot jerked him out of his thoughts, and he shot his dog a glare as Captain prodded at one of the laces. Honestly, it was like Captain just wanted to embarrass him at this rate. As if Collie hadn’t dug the hole deep enough on his own accord. It seemed however that there was still further to dig, as he watched Coby stiffen at his question. A sickening feeling of defeat washed through his veins, and Collie’s face fell at the sound of her voice.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t,” Collie staggered softly over his words before pausing entirely. “I was in the army, that’s how I saw Europe.” Collie began again, desperately hoping that he hadn’t royally tanked his chances at a light-hearted conversation. He adjusted his hold on the blankets, tilting his head so he could glance at her. “Seventeen, my social worker actually helped me with it, I started to fall into the wrong crowd and I suppose I just wanted to get a fresh start and the army seemed like a good gig. Money, food, shelter, what more could you want?” He huffed with a sentimental smile, “Got to see the world with them, not Antarctica or Australia—but I can’t imagine there’s anything too worthwhile there other than a whole lot of ice and some of the devil’s pets. Europe was a nice place, though the Norwegian army took their job too seriously. Sickos chased us for seventy-two hours through the Lyngen Alps.” Collie couldn’t gauge whether or not he’d succeeded in gently smoothing things over, but he continued regardless—already too wrapped up in the memories. “But when we weren’t training or working, we were given time to go on our own ventures. The stingrays were in France, it was one of the boys’ birthdays, he was a real shark buff, so we ran off early one morning to go gallivant around. Twelve hours round trip by train. Dear god we were in a state when we got back, but he was happy so it was worth the lashing.”

The largest cabin seemed more daunting the nearer they drew to it, and Collie found his eyes glued to the shadows that moved by the windows. He hadn’t asked for a headcount, but by the sounds of there was a fair few of them. Rio, Coby, Mercer, a medic who could turn into a fox, another mystery individual that had led Felix and his little group back. That was at least five. Collie hesitated midstep. Coby had mentioned a brother—oh Christ, how he hoped that wasn’t the wolf-man. Maybe with any luck the brother was a nice, friendly golden retriever. If people could even be domesticated species, that was. Maybe a golden retriever was too far a stretch. He’d settle for whatever type of dog Coby was.

“I think you’d like South Cyprus, it was warm but it still had greenery, and the water is the bluest colour you could ever imagine. It genuinely looked like the postcards, if you’d believe it.” He trailed off, starting to become aware of just how much he was talking. The blonde had always been talkative, it’d helped earn him his name—the constant buzz of energy and the overall presence that you can’t really ignore unless you hit it impossibly hard with a crowbar. Collie had experienced his fair share of being pelted with increasingly dangerous objects. A rather spectacularly well-aimed, steel-toed work boot had probably been the most painful occurrence since the army, courtesy of Ennis. One moment he had been telling Danny in a particularly colourful manner that he was not going to be doing the paperwork required, and the next moment he had dizzily declared that Ennis was the world’s worst suck-up. Collie sighed. Okay, he was going to miss the dead man, just a little.

Maybe it was childish, the way Collie purposely slowed his steps—trying to extend the time he had alone with Coby. The laces being undone was a decent enough excuse if he got called out, or maybe he could blame the sharp pain that sparked in his side from the cracked rib. The bags had already been conveniently left in the poor woman’s home, along with his jacket, and there were only so many ways he could engineer this interaction to last as long as possible before it became downright psychopathic. It was strangely unlike him, to employ teenage tactics to try and run the clock, and it wasn’t something he had done in years. Yet somehow, despite the brutal tragedy that had occurred, he couldn’t take his thoughts away from the brunette.

Collie clenched his jaw gently, his strides almost half the length they usually were. What was the correct thing to do? Ask her for her number? Boatload of good that would do, considering his phone had disappeared in the crash. Knowing his luck it’d been sent careening out the front windshield and shattered into a million tiny, expensive, pieces. Without his wallet it wasn’t like he could offer to take her out for coffee, as if there was even a café within a hundred miles. How did you tell someone who had damn-near magic abilities, that you maybe wanted to see them again? Perhaps under better circumstances where two people hadn’t just lost their lives. At least he was more confident that she was into men, if the earlier interaction had been anything to go by. Collie hid his smile with the blankets, Christ it felt like he was a doe-eyed recruit again.

He coughed subtly, attempting to clear his throat. “So, how long have you lived here for?”

[ inventory : blankets! ]

[ tags, coby] [ mentions, soren, danny]

[! ‎]

███ 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗧 ███████████████████████████
──────── bear ── location is the cabin ── tagging mercer, andi ──


one glow-in-the-dark star sticking to the ceiling of his bedroom; that was what nish had been staring at in the dark, laying down on top of his bed. one, two, three hours. the clock on the floor, a little thing with a bell, spoke with every passing hour— tick tick tick! —and every passing hour he was not sleeping, because he had been staring. cycle was not the word he was thinking of, because a cycle is a series of occurrences. this was not a series of occurrences, because it was not a series. there was always the occurrence, always the staring—ah! habit. habit was the word. in the past, the star had been the only one he found inside of the house, the only one hiding on top of a shelf in the broom closet; and in the present, it was glowing alone on top of a bed of snow-white paint, a lone solar system in the middle of his bedroom. though, the more and more time he was staring at the glow, the less and less bright the glow. it was dying. he was sure that if he stayed there staring at the glow for too long, stayed there laying on top of his bed for too long, he could watch it fall from the blanket of snow-white paint like it was the snow itself; untethered from the sky and falling to land on top of his chest, the glow inside of it trailing behind it like a ribbon of light. without the glow the star would die, and it would become a shadow to match with the shadow of the rest of the room. then, then he could sink with the weight of it, he could sink further and further into the mattress he was on top of, his body slipping through the comforters and the pillows to disappear into the same place in the dark that the ribbon of light went to die without the star to hold it inside.

nish sat up. his hands fumbled in an attempt to push him up and off of the quicksand he seemed to be stuck in, looking for solid ground that could anchor him level to the surface and keep his head above the sand. his own feet felt like the rocks that they would be tied to to weigh him down and the rope was in the shape of the scar tissue that dotted his ankle like the "cut here" instructions of a piece of paper in a children's craft, the cold metal sinking into his skin where it was instructed to. when he finally threw his feet over the edge of the bed to land on top of the floor was when he could release the breath that he was holding inside of his throat, his hands capable of moving to the edge of the mattress instead of continuing to drown in the middle of it. the mattress, the small size of the room, the darkness that surrounded him like a cocoon— and that was strange, for a man that was bigfoot. he was not mothman —what had always been a comfort to nish about his room all of a sudden felt to be suffocating, as though a blanket had wrapped itself around his neck. the silence in the air something of a buzzing inside of his head; a fly that he could not feel with his skin or see in the dark of the bedroom, but inside of his skull, landing on top of bone. go, go, go, it was whispering to him, and it was screaming at him.

that was how he found himself at salem’s room, like he often did in the middle of the night, standing in front of the door with his hands at his side. when he finally did get the strength in his arms to raise his hand and knock on the door, it didn’t take long for the door to open and for salem to appear in front of him, letting him inside of the room like they often did. the light that he could see in the room behind him was the most comforting thing for him at that moment, like a moth that saw the safety of the moon in the nearest light bulb hiding inside of the shade of a lampshade; he needed to orient himself.

inside the middle of the lantern and its fire was warm, and nish was quick to make his way to what was considered "his corner" of the doctor's room, what was a pile of blankets and a pile of pillows with blankets for the ceiling, too. a yawn ripped open a jaw with an arm lazily slung over the top of it to hide the sound. a blanket fort, though nish would prefer to call it a blanket den. and though the word den simply does not sound as cool as the word fort, objectively and subjectively, it was more comforting to the man that was now bundled up inside of it. he did try to listen to listen to the book that salem was reading, he did! and he would tell you that he was, and that he was not falling to sleep; though, looking at him now, that would be hard to believe. his eyes were closing, no longer staring at the ceiling, and sherlock holmes would just have to wait for the morning if he was wanting him to help solve the mystery.


nish was following a rabbit. he didn’t remember what he did to get here or why he was following the animal that was scampering from bush to bush in front of him, but with the sound of leaves crunching underneath the weight of him and the smell of wet mud filling the inside of his head, it was right, for him to follow the rabbit. the rabbit would tell him what the ache in his chest was, what it was doing there. mud covered his hands— the hands that he thought to be his, that is. though whether or not they were his real hands I could not say. I could say they were the hands that nish saw every time he closed his eyes, and every time he woke up in the middle of the night —running through the forest, his lungs shaking with every heavy breath that shuddered through them like the wind through the trees. he didn’t remember how long was running for, either, but he did know that he could not stop. there was something that was telling him, a feeling that was squeezing his heart and screaming inside of his head, that if he stopped running─if he stopped running, the rabbit would be gone, and it would never tell him what he wanted to know.

the deeper into the forest he went, the denser it became, the trees growing taller and wider with every bounding step that he took in pursuit of the animal. the trees were hollowing out from the inside out and the fruit that was on all of the bushes started to rot in front of him, berries that were too sweet falling to the forest floor like they were melting off of the branch. nish didn’t have the time to slow down, to notice that leaves no longer crunched underneath him, because the rabbit was right in front of him, in front of him and inside of the bush, the rabbit was—the deafening crack that echoed through the forest caused him to stop dead in his tracks, the bush that the animal was in no longer rustling with his presence, and the sound of something hitting water following the crack. it was, undoubtedly, there all the same; nish was sure of it. it didn’t move, and neither did he for the longest time. he didn’t notice when he started to move towards it, pulling his feet from the mud that seemed to get deeper and deeper with every trudge, holding his hands in a warm clasp and telling him not to look. he should have listened, of course. face to face with where the rabbit once was, he leaned into the bush to look for the messenger, just to meet nothing in its place—really, there was nothing.

nish was falling. with one wrong step into the bush, there was nothing to meet his foot, a feeling of dread filling his body as it fell through the air like the leaves did before, though it wasn’t the forest floor that he hit. the sound of something hitting water, the feeling of something rushing into his ears and past his body in this place where there was no light to accompany his sight. the taste of iron filling his mouth.

i should not be here.

but that is the thing with should and should not. he should have listened, and i should not be here. but he did not, and i was. and i wondered—and maybe nish would have wondered too, should he have had the time to take in the view, falling upside down into a hole that was so deep he could look up and see a sky full of stars in the middle of the day—is this where the star went when it died?


his hand flew up to his throat, tearing at the top button of the button-down pajamas he was wearing like the animal he could remember being. his chest rising and falling with the speed of if he was running and a leg sticking outside of the blanket on top of him, that was when it hit him in the face; he was alone in this room. though the lamp was on, the soft light pouring from the lampshade like a cup of water that’s been overturned on top of the nightstand, there was nothing warm inside of it this time. instead, he only saw the shadows that the light cast across the room, reaching across the floor like the branches of a tree. the room that was once the moon to him reduced to nothing but a light of a bug trap, a metal cage. a shiver went through his body. he propped himself up from the floor with his elbows to scan the bedroom. where was salem? the door to the bedroom was open, a sliver of light breaking in through the crack— something was wrong with this. his body did not want to work with him, though that was beginning to feel like a theme with him; fumbling with the pillows and the blankets that was the cave in his corner in salem’s room, there was no time for this. there was no time for fumbling.

standing for a second, his head touching the top of the blanket fort, his knee hit the floor of the bedroom the next second. his hands hit the floor to stop his body from falling on top of the hardwood, his feet pushing him the rest of way up off of the floor and back into standing. for all that his heartbeat inside of his chest and his lungs pressed into his ribcage like the jaws of a crocodile, the world felt like it was in slow-motion, like he was still sleeping in his corner. wake up, wake up, wake up, nish. the door to the bedroom was open and the house was quiet; the sound of salem reading hardy boys, or the sound of reyna baking with neil in the kitchen, the house was too silent. where did they go? the question repeated in his head, over and over like a broken record player that was bought from a flea market. where did they go, where did they go, where did they go—you understand it, i don’t have to repeat it to you. but it repeated to him. it was all he could think of, from when he went to the door of the bedroom to open it the rest of the way, the light of the hallway flooding into the bedroom; well, just from there, really. once the door was open and nish took the time to process what was happening, a hand in front of his eyes in order to adjust to the light pouring in, he could plainly hear the voices of his family in the kitchen. he was not alone in the house.

he could relax, then, loosening his hold on the handle to the door that he was thinking he might have been a little too loud with running to and opening. this time, he turned the handle softly when closing it to avoid the click of the door before turning back to the hallway. though a lot of people in his family had the habit of staying up in the middle of the night, they did not often have the habit of leaving the light of the hallway clicked on when they did. the floorboards creaked with every gentle step he took, as gentle as they could be for a man that was a bear on the inside, sneaking in a manner that made him look cartoon-ish in his movement, like he was tom trying to catch jerry in a trap. he clicked off the light in the hallway before making his way to the landing of the staircase.

everything was okay! a smile painted itself onto his face with every step down the stairs, the voices of the people in the kitchen becoming louder and louder alongside every step. he opened his mouth close to the bottom of the stairs, a strangled sound of what would have been the beginning of 'hello" lodging itself in his throat as soon as he got close enough to the scene in front of him. he was half of the way through a step when he readjusted his foot to stand solidly on the step, his stance uneven on top of the staircase and with a hand still holding onto the railing. he surveyed the scene in front of him; mercer was holding a sandwich in his hands that did not look too sanitary if i was honest, though nish did not mind nor did he care to think of what was and was not sanitary when he will eat a fish with his bare hand, and bear hands. still, though, what was on his hands looked to be blood, something that was entirely out of the ordinary for the ordinary sandwich the man was eating. stranger still was andi standing there in front of him, band t-shirt and cookie monster pajamas— is that where they were? if nish could never find his clothing, considering the state of the room, at least andi could seem to —and, well, standing there. if mercer was hurt, something... something more would be happening in the kitchen, a commotion or— salem, the doctor. something more would be happening and salem would be in the kitchen.

but they were the only two people in the kitchen, three now if you were to count nish half of the way on the stairs, and mercer's hands were coated in blood. his smile faltered from his face; a splash of paint thinner on top of the paint. ah, everything was not okay, then.

he did not know the half of it.

[chase.]

𝐀𝐀𝐃𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐀 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐇 xxxx ♛
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[ bengal tiger ] [ she/her ] [ location - kitchen > beside medic cabin ] [ feeling - ‘mum come pick me up please i’m scared!’ ]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxMercer had never been the most hospitable of spirits, but somehow Andi still found herself wavering at his demeanour. She tried to see the best in people, she always did—but even she couldn’t understand Mercer’s incessant need to be the least helpful as resolutely possible. He was a mystery, a dark swirl of turbulence, vindictive towards the world and all it had to offer. Yet Andi couldn’t bring herself to hate him, or really dislike him for that matter. People appeared here from all walks of life, some chipper and upbeat and others looking like they’d crawled through hell and back just for a chance at salvation. Andi hadn’t the slightest clue of what had really unfolded in Mercer’s history, but anyone with a chip on the shoulder as large as his really couldn’t have had it that easy. She watched wearily as he took another bite, weight shifting between the balls of her feet as she slowly tracked the movement. He seemed entirely too casual about the fact there was blood cracked over his palms, and Andi briefly wondered if she should just excuse herself then and there. Maybe she’d be better off running to Court or Vic, they were ten-fold more comforting than Mercer, and right now she wanted nothing more than to be reassured.

Mercer spoke again, and Andi furrowed her brows in confusion, too distracted by his words to care about his lack of manners as he spoke through a mouthful of bread. Mercer’s idea of fun would probably give grown adults nightmares—so either he had an awful timing for sarcasm or something truly horrid had occurred. Andi leaned back ever so subtly, the remnants of sleep finally leaving her clouded mind. Bit the big one? Rio inviting people for a sleepover? Andi was fluent in English, almost indistinguishable from a native speaker, but the gears shifted sluggishly in her head as she tried to process the idiom. Bit the big one? Josie bit someone? Andi looked to the floor, staring past the cuffed ends of Nish’s stolen pyjama pants, and to her bare feet. The big one. Faint pages of the hundreds of books she had read flickered through her mind, learning Rio’s fancier English had been hard enough without all the added fluff of Americanisms.

Finally after a hesitant second, the gear finally clicked into place. Andi gasped softly, her hand raised to cover her mouth. She looked up at Mercer, pupils dilating in poorly veiled shock. Mercer seemed jarringly unaffected, gesturing loosely at the door with his sandwich as he continued to speak as if he was just narrating last night’s football game. The tigress couldn’t even bring herself to shed a tear, instead just stuck in the harsh limbo of shock—left staring wide-eyed at the wolf. Josie had been murdered. The murderers were outside. Rio was letting them invade their home and stay the night? A hazy blackness crowded the edge of her vision as she swayed slightly, blood rushing to her head. None of it was adding up. Mercer had tried to hurt them, but Rio had disapproved? That couldn’t be right, it just couldn’t. Her brother had done far worse over far less. The idea of him shying away from violence was foreign, Reyna and Coby had been the best influence she could’ve ever hoped for, for the raven, but surely even their kind hearts couldn’t have deforested his at its core.

“No, he—he’s,” Andi stuttered in a whisper, moreso talking to herself. “He’s killed for, uh, I, he wouldn’t just—” it was a pathetic tumble of words, and Andi moved to place her hands on her hips as she forced her breathing to even out. At least the tiredness had fled completely. Rio wouldn’t just… would he? No. No, she’d known him since he was twelve, and even then he had been unblinking in the face of a cracked moral compass. Why now would he abstain from brutality? The thoughts swirled, and she could only blink at Mercer and the floor, trying to get some residue of sense out of the entire situation.

Andi wasn’t an aggressive person in herself—she believed in seeing the good in people until they were wholly, irrevocably, beyond redemption. If these people had killed Josie in cold blood, nothing she could imagine would absolve them of that sin. So what, in the name of all the gods, had granted Rio’s mercy? Had he been leveraged? That was hard to imagine, his cards were always kept impossibly close to his chest. Andi felt bile rise in her throat. It couldn’t be Coby, not if Mercer was so easily standing here and eating. She blinked up at Mercer, trying to sift through the pack in her head. Reyna. Mercer hated Reyna. Rio loved Reyna like a daughter. Had they done something to Reyna?

Andi stared wide-eyed at the wolf. It was pointless to ask him for clarification. If her earlier questions had been any indication, she’d only get a cryptic, or even blatantly incorrect, answer. Her eyes narrowed marginally at him, upset at his lack of cooperativeness. Anger was too strong a word for it, she didn’t harbour any resentment nor grudge against the man, but sometimes she couldn’t help but feel her patience thinning at his antics.

The soft thump of a person up the stairs snatched her attention, and she turned to look up at the tired bear-shifter. The tension between her eyebrows fell away as she blinked, doe-eyed, at her friend. “Nish-” She practically whimpered, the reality of Mercer’s words settling heavily within her bones. She itched to move towards him.

There was a beat of silence, and Andi just barely caught the sound of a door creaking open outside. Her head snapped to the window, as if she could see past the glaring reflection of the kitchen. She had been here for four years, she knew the sound of the medic cabin’s door like the back of her hand. Someone was injured? Or were they ransacking Salem’s space? What if they were hurting him? Andi’s chest rose and fell more dramatically, her mind split between two options. Mercer didn’t seem to care, more than happy to let the world burn, and she didn’t have the words to fill Nish in—

The conflict behind her eyes only lasted a moment; her protective nature winning out as the instinct surged through her veins. Andi leapt past Mercer, throwing the door open, not even glancing back as she fled like a hare down the wooden stairs. Her hair whipped around her face as she looked to the left, trying to catch a glimpse of her friends, nothing. She could still hear numerous voices though, but they seemed to be concealed by the buildings that circled the clearing. It was disorienting, and Andi could feel her rational-mind subsiding. Anxiety bubbled under her skin and her breathing fastened the same way it did after a nightmare—leaving her judgement clouded and her eyes wide. She should’ve crashed into Nish, sobbed against his chest and clutched to him in place of Rio. She shouldn’t be out here, she wasn’t supposed to be out here, she was supposed to be sleeping peacefully inside; safe from this nightmare within a carefully-curated pile of blankets.

Then she heard it, the low and unmistakable British accent—faintly carried through the trees that concealed the boathouse. Her expression softened, mouth parting in relief—and then she saw the shadow moving behind the medic cabin, shifting ominously towards the direction of the voices. Andi’s pupils constricted, her heart lurched into her throat. Unlike her raven brother, she did not have the same level of control over her shift—emotions could tip the feather-sensitive scale in her genes in an instant. The spark of fear ignited a delicate pile of kindling within her chest, and Andi couldn’t protest as her fur rippled in place of skin, four paws hitting the ground with a devastating force.

She rounded the side of the medic’s cabin, each step leaving muddy indentations in the soft autumn soil as she pushed off of it, taking the turn as sharp as she possibly could without losing her balance. The shadow jolted, but Andi’s massive paws collided with it before it had a chance to move further, and she tumbled with the figure to the ground with a force hard enough to clatter her teeth together.

The weight beneath her was solid as she pinned it to the floor, claws half-unsheathed as they lightly pressed against the fabric, poking pin-prick holes in the weaving. Fear still gripped her chest, and despite being the significantly more threatening creature, Andi’s golden eyes stared wide at the face of the man she had tackled. He was a little smaller than his shadow had led her to believe, but his shoulders were broad and she could feel the bulk of muscle beneath her paws—the natural kind of muscle that was carved into people who laboured often, practical and well-used. The tiger bared her canines in threat, an almost silent grow rumbling in her throat as she stared down at the man—muzzle inches away from his face. Hot breath began to mist in the cool night air, but doubt creeped into her eyes as the human failed to retaliate with any semblance of violence. He wasn’t reacting like someone who had just felled another big cat.

Andi paused, sniffing the air. It was all wrong. With one paw kept firm at the base of his throat, right on the top of the sternum, she dragged her nose down the fabric covering his chest, inhaling deeply. Her whiskers twitched as the sniffing hastened, becoming more urgent as she tried to paint a picture of the victim splayed on the floor. It was almost comical, and under different circumstances she’d have giggled at the sound she was making.

But it was wrong, it was all so wrong. Josie’s scent was near nonexistent on him, Rio’s cedarwood tones were more pronounced but still it barely clung to the fabric the man adorned—instead the man smelled of something else entirely. He smelled of fear, of adrenaline and sweat, some of it his own—but most of it seemed to belong to someone else. He didn’t smell threatening—there was no scent of malice or violence clinging to him, only the unmistakable, nervous tang of a terrified human. She pressed her nose firmly into his chest, pushing her heavy head into the stranger, inhaling where the smell seemed to be the strongest. Someone was hurt badly; the scent drenched in terror, blood and…Mercer?

Andi recoiled as if a bucket of ice had been tipped over her head, her body shifting and reshaping as she returned to her human form in an awkward haste. She clambered off him, sickness and guilt twisting her stomach in a painful lurch. The woman stared at the man, shame burning across her face, eyes glistening as she tried not to bawl in mortification. She should’ve just run to Nish. She should’ve bulldozed into the taller man and not have taken a single step past the cabin threshold. Not even his pyjama pants were offering her much comfort right now, despite the many smiling faces of the Cookie Monster staring back at her.

“I am so, so sorry.” She whispered, her voice hoarse as she fumbled for the cap she had knocked off him during their tumble—pressing the material against his chest as if it could make up for her actions.

The tigress didn’t know where to begin, she reached a trembling hand out to the man, as if to help him up—but she flinched in the fear that she would only traumatise him further. “Are you, are you okay? I’m so sorry, I thought—I thought you were gonna hurt someone,” She breathed pathetically, her voice somehow even shakier than her hands as her accent thickened with the emotions. She was violently upset with how wrong she had been and how easily she had been misled by the wolf in the cabin. Her fear had blinded her, and she’d only gone and taken it out on an innocent man.

The dampness of the ground soaked into her pyjamas, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind as she stared at the stranger. Andi hadn’t the slightest clue what had unfolded, but it was starting to become clear that Mercer’s account had been awfully biased.

[ inventory, n/a ]

[ tags, mercer, nish > soren ] [ mentions, rio, reyna, coby, briar[implied], mercer, nish ]

[друг]

❝ watching the weather in the 4x4, with the headlights onxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxyou look pretty when you cry, and pretty when you don’t

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◈ ⋅ ─── ⋅ 𝐂𝐎𝐁𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 ⋅

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tagging; collie
mentioned; rio, mercer, (briar), (andi)
location; main cabin
twenty-five x⋅x cisfemale, she/her x⋅x dog

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Coby listened to the hushing sound of Collie's shoes dragging through the wet grass, hampered by the untied laces which she politely did not mention out loud. It wasn't a long way between the two cabins, and she had certainly made the trip herself with a less than ideal pair of shoes before. Had she known Collie better, she might have taken a crack at a joke about having slept on the side of a road before, but even with the grim circumstances of their meeting, it might have been a bit too much too soon. Neither did he have a choice when it came to his accommodation for the night, and she had no desire to make him feel like he needed to run off, even with nowhere else to go. In fact, it might have been especially awkward. It didn't help that she remembered what Rio had said to her by the road, about being unable to let them leave. Was she lying to Collie by virtue of acting as if they were staying only for one night?

indentindentCoby's steps faltered for a moment, before she returned to pace. The urge to tell him was there, but her fears in terms of the aftermath were twofold: considering she had not received any details from Rio when it came to his plans for the morning, she worried about sending the humans into a panic. What if, when she told them that Rio had no intention to guide them to the nearest town, they were to turn against the pack? Fear could be a powerful, uncontrollable force, and she didn't want to see any of her friends hurt because the humans misunderstood the situation. Neither did she want them running off into the woods with no plan, looking to get away and only hurting themselves in the process. Or worse. But what manner of cataclysm was she brewing by letting the news wait when she had every chance to tell them now? Would their reaction be any better in the morning, or was Rio intending to go about his day as usual and hope that the humans simply never noticed? But what was she supposed to do, set the humans free in the woods like a herd of horses and tell them to run while they could?

indentindentCoby's nerves made themselves uncomfortably known, and she clutched the pillows tighter to her chest, like a child frightened by a nightmare. She didn't like doubting Rio, because that quickly robbed her feet of any stable ground upon which to stand, but he had disappeared without leaving behind all that many instructions on how to handle the situation. She understood that he was grieving, and he had every right to do so, but she desired to be doing the same, and yet she needed to get the humans settled. Day-to-day chores never really did like making way for grief. Coby was exhausted, and all she wanted to do in that moment was to go back to her cabin and collapse into bed, where she could form a cave out of her blankets and pretend that the outside world didn't exist. But the reluctance to return alone clung stubbornly to her, and there wasn't a chance that she would be falling asleep in her own bed, and yet if she were to crawl in beside Mercer just to sleep in a familiar comfort, she would be hating herself for the next few weeks for giving in. She had broken up with him, and she couldn't just go back for a cuddle whenever she was sad. It didn't work that way. Maybe she would try to stay awake through the night and join Rio for his vigil.

indentindentCoby heard Collie's voice slowly bleeding into her consciousness again, and she realised she hadn't been listening, which was unbelievably rude. His social worker. Coby stopped walking and turned around to look at him — a chance to truly take in everything he was saying, which was, really, a lot to process for someone who had only been to enough provinces to count with the fingers of one hand. He had been in the army. Norway, France. She had no idea where the Lyngen Alps were exactly, or what could cause Norwegian soldiers to chase someone for three days straight in what she imagined were unpleasant conditions. Any Alps must have been up high after all, and snowy. At least that's what she knew of them in general. Her punk sensibilities and grievances with the government should have told her to spit in the face of anyone involved with the military-industrial complex, but he had been seventeen. It sounded as if he had enlisted to pull himself out of what might have been an even worse situation, and when had Coby ever held a grudge against someone for doing what they must to survive in a monstrous system? She had survived, too.

indentindentHer eyes drifted down to the scars on his bicep, or at least what she could now see past the sleeve and the blankets piled in his arms. Were they from before, or from when he had been a soldier? It didn't seem appropriate to ask that as the first thing after he had just opened up about what must have been some of the more memorable times. Whatever men he had worked with, they must have been close. Frankly, her sensibilities would have been disgusted with her, but she thought that the fact he had been a soldier was attractive. Her heart beat a little faster. Yet, thankfully for her dignity in front of the man she was clearly already becoming attached to, this wasn't the thought at the very forefront of her mind: instead, the words social worker had stuck around to echo like a strange ghost from her past. It had been a long while since she had last met someone new who could understand that world, and the particular pains that came with it. But to what extent had he dealt with them? Was he like her, someone who had ended up adrift in the system as a child, or had his run-in with a social worker merely been the result of involvement with the wrong crowd?

indentindentEven with the short amount of time they had known each other, Collie might have been one of the most interesting people she had ever met, and Coby was trying hard not to be nervous about that. The knowledge that they shared at least some aspects of a past — meaning they were aspects he could understand — made her want to open up about her own experience, but it wasn't really like her to pour her heart out at the first chance to do so. One part of her was desperate for connection, and the other feared the possible consequences of every word that came out of her mouth. Not only that, but it occurred to her that she must have been staring at him without saying anything for a while. It might have been the worst option, when it came to oversharing or not sharing enough.
indentindentindent"Cyprus sounds nice..." she finally replied, just a little bashful after her silent staring session. "I can't say it gets warm here very often."
indentindentSpeaking of which, after the comfortable temperature of the cabin, the chill outside was beginning to make itself felt again, in spite of the sweater she had changed into and the pillows to which she was clinging. With a distracted glint of a smile, she returned to walking so that they could get back indoors. The lounge wouldn't be as private of a place to talk, which was unfortunate considering all the things she wanted to ask him, but she didn't wish to be shivering through their conversation.

indentindentThe porch was vacant now, in sudden contrast with the crowd that had been gathered around it earlier. Only the soft glow of the outdoor lights, buzzing with the last insects of autumn, marked the side entry to the cabin, which would take them closer to the lounge. The guilty feeling of having failed to present the miserable news about Josie lingered, but Coby tried to convince herself that it had been the right thing to do — it was a pack matter, and forcing everyone to process the loss in front of the humans might have been unfair. No one knew how they would react until they finally did. With Collie's undone laces in mind, she climbed the steps slowly, as if memorizing the small give in the wood, then held the door open as she had done before. The warm air from inside greeted her as less desolate than that of her own home now that Josie was gone, and she stepped in almost eagerly, a shudder running up her arms with the cold night having finally been left behind yet still clinging to the fabric of her clothes. It was more quiet inside than usual, with only the fragments of voices reaching them from what must have been the kitchen.

indentindentindent"About two years now — it isn't always easy to keep time so far away from everything," she explained, watching him leave his boots near the door, before continuing down the hall. "We— um— Mercer and I came here together." It must have been as weird to hear as it had felt to say it, but it was the truth, and there had once been a time when it hadn't been strange. At least not to her.
indentindentThe urge to clarify that they may have been romantically linked once but not anymore made itself known, and she could already feel herself beginning to fumble through the words without even having opened her mouth. When she realised that one of the voices coming from the kitchen belonged to none other than Mercer, she stopped in her tracks the second time that night and turned around to face Collie, silently urging him to wait and listen. Things were already messy enough without her willfully contributing to them.
indentindentindent"I'm sorry if Mercer isn't very nice to be around right now," she began, keeping her voice low to hopefully keep the words from carrying to anyone else who might have been listening. She may not have been responsible for apologising for him as his girlfriend anymore, but being the pack's second unfortunately meant that, in other aspects, he remained her responsibility. Even if she wished he didn't. "Or I guess I should really be apologising to your friend. Um. I hope he's alright is what I'm trying to say." She winced at herself. The news of her and Mercer's breakup had sort of spread themselves, considering the yelling that night hadn't kept much of it private, but Collie hadn't been there then. Likely for the best. She bit at the inside of her lip. "We've, uh, broken up recently."

indentindentThe look in her eyes was almost pleading, as if asking him to understand what she was so clumsily trying to say without demanding further explanation. Mercer wasn't the most palatable person on an ordinary day, and Coby had always forgiven him for that, but their separation had been difficult for him. The front door opened and closed rapidly, echoing through the rooms with some force, and she worried even then that it might have had something to do with him. Had he still had the certainty of their relationship, it was unlikely that he would have attacked Briar in the way he had. Not only would Coby not have been alone in the woods at night, but he might even have done her the courtesy of asking whether she was threatened by the stranger in her presence before resorting to violence. Not to mention the circumstances, which could be considered extenuating: there had been a lot of blood.

[друг]

❝ If I was aware of the open outside, of the planets and the citiesxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxand the flowers and the bedrooms — I’d go away for too long now

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⯭ ⋅ ── ⋅ 𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐄𝐋𝐋 ⋅ ─ ⋅

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tagging; salem, briar, andi
mentioned; rio, collie, eva, felix, drew
location; med shed > ground
thirty-two ⋅ cismale, he/himx⋅xcontractor

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Soren stood there, feeling useless as the medic pelted him with sharp words while working Felix's arm into a sling that looked much better than the makeshift one he had been wearing before. It wasn't really anything novel for Soren, to be caught in the tangles of a hectic situation in which no one wanted to be and end up as the unintended target of someone venting the excess of their frustration — frankly, it was like a homecoming, with the shed standing in for a medical tent, and this medic serving the same purpose as an overworked army doctor with patients flowing in through the door before the ones already there could even be seen to. There were never enough hands to deal with the mess being made outside, with guns, and bombs, and blades. And now cars. He tried not to take the harsh words personally, with them bouncing off his chest and falling to the floor like shell casings. Searing hot but harmless. The medic was clearly dealing with something more than their sudden arrival, because he was wiping tears from his eyes with his sleeve each time he thought no one was looking.

indentindentSoren's patience lasted all the way until the medic took an undeserved shot at Ennis. At first, he couldn't believe what he was hearing, with the words causing him to become impossibly still where he had already been standing in place. One moment, the medic had been cleaning up the wound on Briar's scalp that Soren had barely even noticed with all the other injuries that the poor boy was suffering from, and the next, he'd said the words that persisted as an echo in Soren's head, like a cruel refrain. "The other one died? How lucky for you, huh?" He couldn't understand this viciousness, or what well it could have been springing up from. The cold man with the strong accent who had led them here had been one thing, but to be left in the care of someone who couldn't even stay quiet if they had no platitudes to offer for the loss they had suffered? Ennis had been their friend. His friend. And to hear him mocked, with the memory of how his broken chest had felt under Soren's hands so fresh on his mind, was... it was upsetting. Infuriating.

indentindentReally, he considered himself a pacifist. Soren had seen too many men and women torn apart, body and soul, in the army to come out the other side believing that violence could ever solve anything. He had hardly thrown a punch since, or raised his voice for anything other than one of his and Collie's stupid jokes. Yet he found himself standing there, his fist tightening around the cap in his grip, feeling his shoulders tense like he was readying himself to pounce on the medic and beat out whatever lack of sense had made him say such a thing. His jaw ticked, and an angry heat stoked itself in his chest, goading him to do something utterly unthinking that would land them in a situation much worse than the one they already found themselves in. He stared, unbelieving, like a provoked bull as the medic only continued with his vitriol, targeting Eva of all people. She had only offered to help. Soren barely heard the medic excusing himself, when he followed his retreating path with his body, slowly turning around, and then finally following with angry steps when the medic reached for the door.

indentindentindent"I come here carrying an injured man, with our friend dragging back the body of his boyfriend, and you treat us like this?" he bellowed at the medic's back as they stepped through the door, leaving Soren behind in the shed. "What is wrong with you? What's wrong with all of you?!" he shouted as the door closed in his face. "You'd walk away from bleeding patients?" The last of his words were pointless, with the door closed tight and the medic probably long gone into the night, to do whatever he had gone to do, and Soren was left to breathe through his anger, his shoulders heaving as he seethed. In all likelihood, he had only made things worse. If the medic had had any intention of coming back, he probably wasn't going to now. And Soren's friends were still hurt. He turned around shamefully, retracing his steps back to Briar's side, and collapsing into a nearby chair.

indentindentHe leaned his elbows against his knees and dragged a callused through his tousled mop of hair. He was disappointed in himself for having lost his temper, and the shame of having done it in front of his friends, the ones he should have been doing his everything to protect right then, was burning at his back. Soren had always been good under pressure before, he wouldn't have made it a day as a marine otherwise, but it was difficult to see his friends hurt, especially when they had done nothing to choose it, or to put themselves in harm's way like a fellow soldier would have. He felt their eyes on himself, and stayed hunched, staring at the floor between his muddy boots. What had gotten into him?

indentindentStaying was awkward after his outburst, especially combined with the fact that there was nothing wrong with him requiring medical attention, but he had promised Briar to stay until he was asked to leave. It was clear he was frightened, and Soren himself wouldn't have wanted to be alone in a similar state. In fact, when he had been injured before, it had been a significant help to know that the people around him had his back. He straightened slowly, placed the crumpled cap into his lap, and laid his arm on the counter to hold Briar's trembling hand. He squeezed it gently, as an apology.
indentindentindent"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled," he spoke softly into the room, intending the apology for everyone present. Adding anger into the situation did not help anyone, or allow Briar and Felix the rest they required to heal. Soren held Briar's hand for a while longer, before letting go and dropping his arm back into his lap. Yet empty hands merely made him feel awfully idle, and so he reached for a roll of medical tape on one of the shelves and began fixing the snap on his cap, which had broken in the crash and cut his forehead. Once he was satisfied that it would hold at least temporarily, he placed the cap back onto his head. It immediately made him feel much more like himself, and kept the hair away from his eyes.

indentindentSoren waited a while longer, silently praying in his seat that the medic would return, but when there was no sign of him, he decided that he needed to do something to remedy the situation. Briar wasn't going to get any better without treatment, and the only thing within Soren's capabilities was to find the medic and apologise. The thought of leaving Briar's side after having promised not to do so made him feel awful, but he had little choice. It wasn't as if he could send Eva or Drew to apologise in his stead — he could only picture it as making things worse. What kind of man couldn't deliver his own apologies?
indentindentindent"I'll go see if I can find where the medic went — I won't go far. If I can't see him from the door, I'll come right back." Another promise that he didn't want to break. But Soren felt stuck between a rock and a hard place: stay here and wait for something that might never come, or go and make sure that his friends could get the care they deserved? The chair scraped slightly against the floor as he stood and adjusted the sweater he had originally draped around Briar in the hopes that it would keep him warm — one of the few things he knew was that it could be so easy to get cold when you were injured, and hypothermia was the last thing any of them needed.

indentindentSoren pushed open the creaky door of the shed and stepped outside onto the wet grass. It was dark, and while he waited for his eyes to adjust after the brighter lights inside, all he could see was the glow coming from the cabins and the immediate surroundings they lit, and the impressively starry sky above, largely taken up by a massive moon. The stripe painted across the deep blue sky, like a bruise-coloured canyon, must have been the milky way. The door closed heavily behind him as he paced around near it, attempting to peer through the darkness in every direction to see if he could locate where the medic had gone, but he saw no one around. He had stepped around the corner to look behind the shed, when he heard another door closing somewhere behind him, followed by heavy, rapid footsteps which thudded as they struck the soft earth. He turned around, only to be struck square in the chest.

indentindentSoren went down like a dead weight, aided by the force that continued to push against him. It drove him to the ground and his back collided with it hard, with the grass doing awfully little to cushion his fall. The air was knocked out of his lungs and he gasped out forcefully, his chest seizing up and leaving him unable to pull a single breath back in. It felt like a direct hit to plate, but he was wearing neither a vest nor had he heard a gunshot ringing out in the yard. All he knew was that the weight looming above him was physical and large, but the darkness combined with his desperate need for air made it difficult to focus long enough to discern exactly what it was. He thought that it might have been a very big dog. A very, very big dog, like someone's loose mastiff, and if he only could have breathed again, he might have placated it enough to keep it from turning him into a living bite suit.

indentindentFor a moment longer, he struggled against the seizing of his own lungs, before it finally eased enough to allow him to drag in a shallow breath. The weight pinning him down by the chest remained, and what he imagined to be claws pierced just far enough to sting. The spreading ache over his sternum told him that the seatbelt had probably bruised him deeper than he had thought. Soren stared against the dark, only to see the massive head looming over him and blocking out the moonlight. Its jaws opened, revealing stalactite teeth, accompanied by a barely audible growl that rumbled in his ears. Gusts of hot breath struck his face, and where he had been writhing slightly against the spasm gripping his lungs, he became still with shock, arms splayed on either side of himself. There was not a chance that these people had a pet tiger, yet here it was. At least it explained why they lived so far away from anything.

indentindentInstead of treating him like a hole punch, the tiger moved its boulder-like head downward. Puffs of air stirred his shirt, tickling his skin as if he weren't in mortal danger. Maybe he would be fine — or at least stay alive long enough for one of the owners to lure it away from him — if he simply stayed still, the way one did with brown bears. No one had ever taught him a nursery rhyme in preparation for a tiger attack. It was all he could do, because fighting back would have surely just gotten him killed. Suddenly the nose pushed into his chest, and he stiffened even more where he thought he couldn't have gotten any more still. This was surely it. He was going to die. Blood and movement flowed back into his limbs, and he grasped at the grass around him, clenching it between his fingers in a desperate attempt to drag himself further away from the shed, as futile as it was with the weight keeping him pinned. It could eat him, but it couldn't eat his friends.

indentindentAbruptly, the wide paws were no longer holding him down. Instead, there were lithe limbs, which flailed across his body. A sharp angle, likely an elbow, knocked hard into his stomach, and he curled in on himself on reflex, his fingers releasing their hold on the grass, and he choked out a pained sound into the dirt against which his cheek was now smushed. The pain was sharp for a moment before it ebbed and turned into a dull ache, and he rolled onto his back again, unable to bring himself to rise from the ground. He didn't understand what had happened, but instead of meeting the golden eyes of the tiger, there was a young woman sprawled not far away from him. She looked as shocked as he had been, and with her being clad in a hoodie and cookie monster pyjama pants, he imagined she had come over in a hurry, likely straight out of bed. She was apologising and thrusting his cap at him, and he grasped it in confusion.

indentindentAn arm was offered, but just as he pulled his shoulders off the ground to reach for it, it was drawn back, and he dropped to the ground with another soft oof escaping from his mouth. Soren considered her question, which had reached his brain with the quality of thick sludge, and he raised his head minimally to look down at himself and confirm that all limbs were still attached. Besides the dirt staining his shirt, and the pinpricks of fresh blood blooming where the needle-sharp claws of the tiger had pierced, he seemed to be alright. And alive. Not long before, he had imagined that to be an impossible outcome. He laid back down, staring up at the sky, and thought about how clear it was away from the light polluting the surroundings of any city.
indentindentindent"I'm alright," he breathed out, the words slightly slurred with the adrenaline pounding through his body. "Ain't gonna hurt anybody." The throbbing in his ears slowly subsided, but he still made no effort to get up. What he thought had happened was that this woman had come to rescue him from the family's pet tiger and wrangled it somewhere away for safekeeping, before somehow tripping over him. "No skin off my teeth... just thought you were amish... or something."

[n ‎]

❝ 𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗪 𝗬𝗔𝗡𝗚🡖 ꏢ ❟❟
└──────────────────┐

''│
(@)wreck --> cabin |'mentions; surely
tags; felix eva soren briar help sososo

└──────────────────┘


drew was dissociating.

the only reason drew was keeping it together to the degree that he was, the only reason he was doing so well at keeping a poker face held on was due to how badly he was beginning to dissociate. the sound of the medic walking around and speaking back to the trio of them all was getting blended into the sound of ringing in the back of drew's eardrums, his throat running dry.

it could have easily been chalked up to the blood loss, but drew also felt like he was losing touch of reality starting with his hands.

drew couldn't breath all too properly, the blood in his nose feeling like it was blocking his airflow, along with every time he swallowed he could only taste the overwhelming iron in his mouth and throat. what a dreadful feeling to have stuck in his mouth. his eyes were still only locked on the shiny droplets of blood on the tips of his converse as drew held his hand onto his stomach, his eyes dazed forward.

everything was making him feel anxious and doomed, but he knew it wasn't the time to be letting that take over him right now. he knew the dire situation in front of him, and how stressful it was for every party included. it was clearly stressful, the medic spitting venomous words at them every time one of them spoke up. drew didn't know what to do, the panic setting in to his own chest felt like it was going to cause his ribs to collapse into itself. his eyes following the medic's movements in a hazey manner, occasionally stopping to look back at felix, his eyebrows furrowed heavily with worry and his frown only setting in further the longer felix had to sit in pain. it made drew's heart feel like it was getting squeezed in his chest violently. it was killing him, and drew couldn't feel his own hands.

the medic was behind them. felix's eyes had started dripping tears, even if he was trying to fight or hide it. drew's stomach had never felt more twisted, it had never hurt worse. it felt so unfamiliar, but drew had absolutely no idea what to do to comfort the male next to him. scooting himself closer even further, drew only let his hand move to grab felix's left hand and pull it to his lap gently, cradled in both of drew's hands. his own breathing shaky as he tried to rub his thumb against his knuckles softly, in any sad attempt to even slightly ground him. he leaned his head against felix's for a moment, squeezing his hand lightly in his lap. "it's okay, it's okay," he hushed, "cry, it's okay, let it all out.. it'll all be okay, i promise," he leaned his head against felix's for a moment longer before sitting himself back up straight- he didn't want to get in the way of the medic's movements or anything he was doing - but he still wanted to be near him, he wanted to help him.

god, he felt so useless and stupid.

"it's going to be okay, i promise, i'll- i promise.. y-you can squeeze my hand as hard as you need to," drew whispered to him, hushed and quiet, he only hoped he could hear him over the sound of the door swinging open. drew's anxiety shot up through the roof, one of his hands moving to grabbing his own thigh as he jumped from the sudden sound, his gaze snapping up quickly towards the door. it was soren and briar, they had made it over. as unfortunate as it was, drew had forgotten about the rest of them in the whole situation they had been through. sorry, collie! the sudden wolverine was just really mind numbing!

the medic didn't seem to enjoy the newly arrived company - the tension in the medic's shed so sharp you could cut it with a knife. the arrival of the two clearly had set him off, it was scary to watch him react. drew could see him struggling to stay gentle with felix's sling - drew's anxiety almost feeling suffocating as he watched the movement with fear, scared that any movement from the clearly unstable blonde would hurt felix in any way. while his actions remained gentle and slow - every word that came out of his mouth was a direct contradiction to his actions. they were vicious and venomous, making the knot in drew's throat feeling impossible to move. it was scary to speak - even if he wasn't that scary or intimidating physically, drew couldn't find it in himself to not feel threatened by every stranger in the situation. he was just so, so grateful it had been soren that opened that door.

he appreciated felix feeling comfortable enough to squeeze his hand when it hurt- even if it felt like it folded his hand in half sometimes, he much preferred the feeling of this rather than felix dealing with it all on his own. drew couldn't take his eyes off of felix, his eyes staying stability glued on him with an unbearable amount of fear and anxiety bubbling over in his stomach. he felt bad for the others, he really did- but he couldn't help but focus on felix fully, his heart feeling like it was tugging itself downwards. he tried to be patient when the medic was finished with his arm, he thought he was- but really, drew quickly pushed himself closer to felix again to wrap his other arm around his left arm gently, his head immediately leaning against felix's again. "is it any better? even just slightly?" he asked nervously, his breath shaky as he kept his focus well on felix until the medic spoke again on ennis. ohh, that's cold.

his gaze only drifted over to the duo for a moment, his eyes searching their reactions. briar seemed defeated - and gone, really. the light in his eyes felt dim, or maybe it was the light in the medic shed. he couldn't tell, he just knew briar wasn't fully there. it felt scary, seeing someone he knew seem so distant and gone, so contrasting to the usual being. soren looked angry, his hands tight around his own cap - he was holding back. it felt understandable, the jab at the dead felt unnecessarily cruel. drew didn't know what he was supposed to do anymore - the situation was getting so far out of his own hands he felt scared to even move, worried it was going to get him unnecessarily scolded. poor eva. drew closed his eyes and let himself lean into felix defensively as soren started to raise his voice at the medic - letting the moment ride out as the medic slammed the door in his face behind them, feeling like the walls shook with the force of the moving door. drew didn't know how long he had been holding his breath for, he only felt it when he finally exhaled after a quiet moment had passed. he swallowed lightly, his chest feeling heavy.

"it's fine, soren, we're- we get it," drew huffed out an anxious sigh as he continued to hold onto felix, hoping his body wasn't shaking as badly as he thought it was. drew didn't know if the room was as silent as he thought it was, or if the ringing in his ears was loud enough to drown everything else out. when soren spoke up again, drew only let out a small huff of air again in acknowledgment as he watched the blond remove himself from the shed - drew only closing his eyes as he leaned himself into felix again. "are you okay? do- do we want to wait for him to come back?" chewing hard on his bottom lip to fight the hard knot in his throat as he fought the shaky words and breaths, blinking away his own tears. "also, ignore him, eva- he's just a jerk. you didn't do anything wrong," he muttered lightly, his breathing only getting heavier and tighter in his chest. the heavy constricting feeling in his chest never seemed to go away, like his own ribs were trying to shrink themselves.

he was so, so scared.

[The Trickster~]

N E I L

╔xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx╗
xxflying fox // he/him
xxlocation; cabin
xxtags; nish
xxmentions; mercer, reyna, andi, rio
╚xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx╝

Neil was awake. This wasn’t unusual, the bat spent most of his nights wide awake and besides, he had managed to slip in a nap around 6:30, so really, there wasn’t any reason to sleep. The unusual part was that Neil was sitting in his room. It wasn’t really an actual bedroom, Neil had elected to simply take a storage closet, letting the people that actually slept have a full room.

The floor was littered with various blankets and pillows, more of an odd nest rather than a bed. He didn’t even have an actual mattress, not that he cared. The ground was perfectly comfortable, and if he didn’t like that, he could simply hang from the ceiling. He could always sleep better in his shift, although that probably had to do with spending some of your formative years fully as a bat. The walls and ceiling were speckled in glow in the dark stars. He had collected them slowly, siphoning them away from Rio’s room. They were decently easy to steal, especially when he was in his bat shift. He only had to crawl along the wall, and snatch one of them in his mouth and scuttle back to the closet. Hopefully Rio didn’t mind. The stars were the main light source in his little closet, the overhead light simply too much. Bright lights always gave him a headache, although they were unavoidable.

Still, Neil was hanging out in his room for the night. He was flipping through an old cookbook, looking for recipes he had yet to bake. He had been slowly getting everyone in the cabin to bake with him, trying to teach some of the other shifters some new kitchen skills. Although, there were several people still holding out on joining him. Neil didn’t expect Mercer to ever want to join his little baking escapades, although the image of the wolf in a frilly apron made him giggle to himself. Neil squinted down at the cookbook, trying to make out some of the smaller words in the dim lighting. Maybe trying to read a book in a dark room was not a good move for his already horrible vision, but he didn’t care. Bad vision was just part of the package deal when you could turn into a bat. A particularly delicious looking tiramisu recipe caught his eye, and he dogeared the page, continuing to flip through the book.

He didn’t know how long he had spent reading over recipes, but he knew that it was late. Or, at least, late for most of the other shifters in the house. Two, or three maybe. Generally, people would be asleep by now. Which is why he found it so strange that he realized he could hear people up and about. Not just one person either. It wasn’t unusual for someone to still be up, maybe Reyna or Andi, and usually he’d just go and hang out with whoever it was until they felt like going to sleep. Or else he’d just wander around, watching them sleep. But this was different.

He’d been too engrossed in his reading to actually process the things around him, the sound of the house and the surrounding area finally registering in his head. Something was wrong. People were talking, although he couldn’t make out any words. He could barely make out the sound of people outside, more people than he was pretty sure should be here. Someone was running, the sharp whack of the cabin door loud in the relative silence from Neil’s closet. He cursed the inability for human bodies to echo locate, a true failing of design. He needed to go check on the situation.

Hesitantly, he cracked open his door. He was only wearing an old, ratty white t-shirt and soft grey shorts, the fabric pilled with wear. His glasses sat askew on his face, almost permanently crooked. No matter how often he corrected them, they never were fully straight. There wasn’t anyone standing in the hallway outside his door, although the sound of the cabin was clearer as soon as he stepped out of his room. Neil walked slowly over to the stairs, a familiar figure stagnant in the middle of the steps, gripping the handrail tightly.

“Nish,” Neil almost whispered as he padded down the stairs, pausing on the landing next to the bear-shifter. Neil only came up to the other man’s shoulder, slightly dwarfed in size. It was a bit surprising to see him awake, especially at this time of the year. The air had begun to take on a frosty tinge, especially at night, and Nish always seemed to get as much sleep as possible during this time. Still, Neil couldn’t help but be glad Nish was actually awake and the one he had run into, even if the sight of the bear-shifter certainly meant something was wrong.

Neil placed a hand on Nish’s shoulder, slightly frowning. “What’s happening?”

[chase.]

𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐘xxxx ♛
─────────────────────────────────────────
[ security ] [ he/him ] [ location - lounge] [ feeling - ignorance is bliss ]

xxxxx

xxxxxCollie kicked off his boots by the door, trying his best not to spray mud up the wall as he did so. Two years wasn’t that long, it wasn’t nearly as long as he had anticipated actually. Maybe the group wasn’t as well-established as he had thought. The blonde hummed in acknowledgment, slightly weary of speaking aloud now he was in a building that could very well have another apex predator lurking round the corner—at least Coby’s cabin had been empty aside from the dog-girl and the ghost of the woman Briar had hit. Josie, he reminded himself. Collie winced at the consideration, he somehow doubted they were going to call the police on them, but he dreaded to think what their own justice system might entail. He’d seen the films—it usually ended up with the people like him and Soren going first, blocky and barely blonde, just enough screentime to serve as eye-candy on the poster. He bit the inside of his cheek gently, following Coby down the hall. Military experience would surely give Soren and him some help if it all dissolved into anarchy, but for some funny reason the army hadn’t taught him how to go toe to toe with what must’ve been the largest wolf he’d ever seen. Collie swallowed thickly, was anyone actually going to notice that he had gone missing? Aside from the HR department when they realised they’ve been significantly less busy than usual; actually, considering how often they pawned Collie off onto the likes of Danny, even they might not notice until it was Collie’s turn to file the monthly security report.

Collie had already slowed to a hesitant stop by the time Coby turned around, hearing unfamiliar voices was always bound to send a prickle up his spine, especially when he was in such a precarious position. Coby was an angel, that much he had decided, but he couldn’t speak for the rest of the characters that just so happened to co-exist with her. Captain stopped beside him, the shepherd’s nerves having finally settled after the circus earlier. With a slight bend of his knees, he leant to rub the dog’s ears, balancing the blankets between his arm and his chest as he listened to Coby.

Was this the third apology she’d spoken to him tonight? He couldn’t remember, but bless her heart she seemed to be doing it an awful lot of it considering she hadn’t done anything wrong. It was alright, Collie had decided, being able to turn into a wolf definitely earned you privileges, and one of those was the fact that Collie was not going to tell Mercer to his face that he wasn’t being very welcoming. If the broody, tattoo laden man wanted to be left alone, Collie could do that. Along with the spooky emo Englishman. He almost wanted to ask what Rio’s animal counterpart was, just to gauge the level of threat, but the idea of not knowing seemed better than the idea of asking and being told it was some god awful eldritch leviathan. Collie blinked. ‘Please just be a black cat, or even a goat would suffice—a pygmy goat would be beyond appreciated.’ Or maybe he was something pretty tragic like a porcupine and that was why he seemed to have the aura of death and bitterness surrounding him; just eternally sulky that he hadn’t been something more impressive like a dog or a fox. Collie couldn’t blame the man if that was the case, it would be hard not to feel a little singled out by the universe if your friend was a wolf and you wound up as Cottontail or something.

The blonde tilted his head ever so slightly as she mentioned Briar. Last he had seen, Soren was with the driver and Collie trusted Soren inexplicably; he was perhaps the most capable one given the situation. A flush began to creep across Collie’s cheeks as he withdrew his hand from Captain and rubbed the back of his neck, if he had been considered reliable in a crisis before, he certainly wasn’t now—not after disappearing into the woods and cosying up to a stranger he had just met. ‘No man left behind’ had apparently been left behind in the wreckage.

Collie parted his mouth to speak, an adamant ‘you don’t have to apologise, it’s not your fault,’ on his tongue, but the words died in his throat. He blinked, coughing as he tried to disguise the fact he had choked on his own saliva. The force of the cough made his nose burn with a pain that spread across his face, and he winced as his eyes watered. The wolf was her ex-boyfriend. The wolf, the wolf that had taken a very frail and an incredibly injured Briar and rammed into him like a bull to a red rag, that wolf?

The blonde forced a strained smile, staying adamantly out of sight from wherever the voices had been coming from. “Right, the protectiveness makes sense then, can’t really blame him I suppose.” He tried lamely, his own voice lowered to mimic hers. If she had a reason to hush the tones, then he certainly did—being the very unwelcome guest. Oh, oh Christ, he had left his jacket and the belongings of everyone here, including his own, in her cabin. How in the name of mother Mary was he supposed to get those back now? If he simply walked over did he risk getting tackled by Cujo’s feral reincarnation? Collie had so many more questions, all of which he swallowed back down. Asking a woman how long she had been broken up with her ex for was not in the handbook of things to bring up on a first meeting. Then again, there was no handbook for what to do if your newfound crush had once upon a time dated the big bad wolf. The answer was probably to turn around and leave, use it as a party story and never show your face within a thousand miles again. Collie’s thoughts flicked back to the wreckage, the bare metal rims of the tyres and the engine that had wrapped itself around a tree. Not to mention the way the entire vehicle was down a steep embankment, a good fifteen feet from the road. Collie was going to die here, lost as a chew toy to Coby’s ex once he noticed the jacket in her cabin. The jacket that she had been wearing. ‘Oh Jesus H Christ is he going to smell it on her? Did any of their senses carry over to their human counterparts?’

There was a slam, and the noise jerked Collie into motion after a few moments. With any luck it had been the sour mutt storming off to give Collie time to think of a game plan. Not that there was a particularly reliable game-plan when it came to fending off a seventy kilogram animal with human levels of intelligence and perception. Collie would most likely find out which religion had the right idea by the time the sun peeked over the horizon, but it wouldn’t be for lack of trying to fight a wolf, that was for sure.

“Thank you again, for the blankets and such—I know we’re all imposing on you guys but we’re really thankful for the hospitality.” Collie breathed at last, changing the conversation as his mind continued to jump to the worst conclusions like a morbid game of leapfrog. The blonde began to move away from the noises of the kitchen. Staying in the hallway was just too daunting, with a door that led outside right behind him and more entries through the hallway in front, it was more risky to stay put in his mind. He kept himself instinctively tight to the walls, which was a little comical given the stack of blankets in his arms that rendered any notion of stealth null and void as his shadow splayed across the wall behind him.

He turned through a door frame, glancing around at the room he had stepped into. It was large and damn nice too, he’d admit that much—carpeted with two sofas lined against a wall, both facing a television that was mounted beneath a pair of antler sheds. There was a mug on the coffee table, an obnoxious shade of orange with a cartoon of ‘tigger’ on it, beside it sat a book about—who on earth was reading the ‘the works of Shakespeare, volume seven? Surely that hadn’t meant they’d read one through six?’ The entertainment within the group must be profoundly lacking, either that or one of them was just too far gone to be rehabilitated.

Collie paused for a moment before he turned to Coby. “Am I alright to set up here for my mates, or did you want us somewhere else?” He asked quietly, making an effort to stay out of sight from the hallway. The shepherd beside him was cooperating for once; the dog remaining glued to Collie’s leg as he spoke. He could still hear the sounds of other people in the house, and for a fleeting moment it felt rude of him to not seek them out to introduce himself, but then he remembered the fact that he was a mere human and his only trusted source of protection was the woman standing nearby. There was also the slightly unnerving realisation that was the fact he was the only one inside the cabin from his crew; as far as he could tell. How long do you leave it before it’s polite enough to ask your incredibly accommodating hosts if they’ve eaten your friend? “you don’t happen to know what’s keeping everyone occupied, do you? I thought maybe two of them were injured enough to warrant a medic.” Another question desperate to claw out his throat was the ‘so what happens now?’ but as they say ignorance is bliss, Collie had a nice thing thrumming between him and Coby, and he did not wish to lose it because of an ill-timed joke.

[ inventory : blankets! ]

[ tags, coby] [ mentions, mercer, briar, rio, soren]