Enough is never enough

[Kang Taebin]

Josh was not used to being ignored.

Normally he didn't have to work very hard to be noticed; there was something about him that made people look up and take notice. Going through life as the center of attention made it difficult now to stare at the face of his phone, black and silent, and be okay with it, especially because it was Rae that he waited on. Rae who normally responded if only to insult him was conspicuously quiet now.

Unsettled, Josh kicked away a chair that stood between himself and his bed. He dropped heavily onto the mattress and slid one hand behind his head, letting the other with the phone in it fall beside him. After the previous night's fiasco, Rae dropped off the face of the planet. Josh had gone down to the police station earlier that day to see if they had taken Rae there, but they hadn't. He probably ought to have stayed long enough to see where they took Rae the night before but at the time, his only instinct was to get away.

Besides, he thought that Rae would call him once he changed back and let him know where he was.  Then Josh could reluctantly drive there, pick him up, make a snarky comment about how Rae was 'losing his touch' and things would return to the way they were. That was how it played out in his own mind but obviously Rae insisted on being a pain in the ass, being nowhere to be found.

So not the police station then. It wasn't as if Rae was dying. He was just being kept somewhere, probably feeling sorry for himself, and Josh didn't want to be subjected to that. Yes, yes, loyalty was important to Rae but he was the one who had to ruin everything by confessing.

Josh knew it wasn't real.

Those feelings Rae professed to having for him weren't completely Josh's. Part of him still wanted the fox and Josh couldn't stand it. He couldn't accept Rae's feelings when Rae had them for someone else and frankly, Josh felt like he was being lied to when Rae claimed to love him. Rae didn't love him, Rae was desperate to be loved. Those were two patently different things.

It burned inside, burned down deep, boring a hole straight on through to the other side. If Rae didn't feel about him the way he felt about Rae, then it wasn't enough for Josh. His feelings didn't come cheap; Rae wasn't earning them by dithering between Josh and an undeserving cripple.

Suddenly, his phone went off and almost embarrassingly eagerly Josh brought it up to look. Aldon? His lip curled as he flicked open the message to read the frantic text. Aldon was asking him about what happened the night before, giving far more information that he probably should have handed to someone like Josh. Well, they were friends, weren't they? Sometimes Aldon was almost useful. Once Josh got past the slew of exclamation marks, he found out that Rae had ended up at the shelter, having been abducted by animal control services. Josh did laugh a little nastily at that.

Josh: Is he still at the pound?

Aldon: No! Alva got there and convinced him to go to the hospital! I'm gonna go pick him up and bring him over to my place in a bit.

Josh: And who told you to do that?

Aldon: Um... nobody. It was my idea!

Josh's brows lifted in skepticism. Right. It was Aldon's bright idea to take Rae in, instead of letting him go home with Josh, who was his lover. That had the fox's scent all over it. So Alva was back in the picture, was he? How sweet—now he was playing hero. Josh dropped his phone and got up abruptly, stirred into action by a cold and ugly fury rising up inside. Just when he was beginning to think that he had Rae, Alva came around to ruin everything. That fox ruined everything.

He couldn't just stay away, could he? Couldn't let well enough alone. Even when he already had someone—when he had all those other people in his life doting on him and fawning over him just because he was in a wheelchair—he still had to dig his claws in deep with Rae. How selfish could one person get? Well a wolf's fangs could sink in deeper than a fox's claws. Josh snarled softly in the privacy of his bedroom, as he stalked over to his closet to pull on a leather jacket. It was beginning to rain, and the temperature was dropping; he wasn't going out in the thin sweater that he was currently wearing.

Where was he going?

The hospital.

It was time to get rid of that fox once and for all. If he couldn't outright kill him, then maybe he could out-smart him. There was more than one way to skin a fox, after all. Maybe brute-forcing things wasn't working for him; he needed to change up his tactics.

Where the fox was, his little witch was sure to also be there, and Josh had long been toying with the idea of employing his unique set of skills. Witches were a problematic lot but Josh honestly was beginning to think that he and this particular witch had a lot in common, especially after he heard stories from Aldon about the witch using memory charms on the fox and his little cousin and friends. And Rae. Really, the idea came to Josh after Rae's memories of the fox resumed. It sort of just... clicked.

Yes. Yes... He could take the fox out of Rae's life once and for all, and not have to dirty his hands...

Looking at his own reflection in the mirror, Josh smiled thinly to himself. It was more of a self-satisfied smirk, really. He adjusted his collar, smoothed back his hair and then turned to grab his phone and car keys. It was a short drive down to the hospital, and once there all he had to do was find the fox and wait. And didn't they always say—all good things come to those who wait?

Well, he was going to wait for that witch to come to him.