Welcome to the black parade

[Kang Taebin]

Fuck. This fog was seriously getting on Josh's nerves. He peered intently through the gray mist, looking for the turn-off from the highway that would lead him onto a small side road, towards the bait shop. Why the fuck did the owner want to open up a shop here, of all places? And how the hell did Rae wander all the way out here in the first place?

Grimacing as he nearly missed the turn-off--and bumping the rear tire against something that Rae might curse him out for later--Josh finally found the right exit and slowly trundled down the dirt road headed for the bait shop. It had a small, glowing sign that flashed; a welcome beacon for Josh, who couldn't see anything at all out of the dense fog.

He turned in at the bait shop and honked the horn once. Rae would hear it--super werewolf hearing and all that. Then again, the truck was so loud itself that Josh probably didn't even need to honk, and Rae would still hear it coming.

"Hurry up!" he shouted bad-temperedly, not too keen on being caught at a crime scene. Fuck whatever happened to the old man who ran the bait shop. Josh didn't care who did the deed; he didn't care about some filthy human.

[Reagan Ryang]

The fucking bait shop.

Rae hated it.

He never hated it before today but he hated it now.

When he'd arrived, he knew it was closed. Most businesses would be closed to the crazy fog outside. Oregon had its share of fog but this was ridiculous. It should have burned away with the sun but it persisted and it looked like it was just going to keep on persisting into the night. Rae didn't want to be caught in it any more than he had to be. It was too early for this. Or too late, depending on how one looked at it.

Knowing the shop was closed, he thought he'd be a clever little wolf and sneak in through the back. He could be somewhere warm and indoors for a while. Somewhere away from that shuddering sense that he was being watched. Hunted, even. Maybe. Or looked over while the hunter found bigger game. Rae hated to think what was bigger than a wolf out in the wilds of Oregon. Sure, there were bears but bears usually left others alone. They weren't really hunters so much as they were scavengers.

But when he came around back, the door was already open. And beyond that...

The old man had been gutted. Whatever killed him certainly wasn't human but it didn't look like a typical werewolf attack. With a pang, he wondered if it was his cousin. They kept him way out in the forest for a reason. He was a danger to everybody around him. The people he'd killed were tortured but it was hard to imagine even this being the work of his claws and teeth.

The marks looked too big for that.

Waiting for Josh to show up was a lesson in patience that he never wanted to partake in again. The moment he heard the familiar motor of his truck, Rae was up from where he'd been sitting huddled up against the front of the bait shop. He waited as the truck came to a stop and then he came around the passenger's side and practically threw himself into the seat beside Josh.

"FUCK!" He jiggled his knee and slid his hands over his thighs, feeling sick and jittery. "Something huge is out here. Get the fuck away from the shop."

[Kang Taebin]

Josh raised his brows in surprise as Rae hurtled in through the passenger's side of the car. Not even an argument against Josh driving his precious truck? No vicious demand to hand over the keys, or risk his life?

He studied Rae briefly before gunning it, noting the way that Rae's nerves seemed frayed at the edges. More than frayed, in fact--he was practically a torn mess. "You all right?"

Now, normally, Josh didn't ask people if they were "all right." Mostly, he didn't give a rat's ass about other people. If they weren't doing well, that was their business and not his. There were maybe two people in the world that he cared enough about to ask--one of them was in the truck, running his hands over his thighs and jiggling his legs like a hyperactive kid who couldn't sit still.

Whatever was out here--something "huge" as Rae so eloquently put it--they weren't sticking around to find out what it was or what it did to the old guy at the bait shop. Josh wasn't the curious type anyway. He headed out onto the highway, towards Eagle Ridge. Word was that hunters were gathered there; it wouldn't be hard to find a camp or two. Rae might've been in it to forget what happened with Alva, but Josh was in it purely for spite. Because--yeah. Rae left without a word, to go running with his tail between his legs to Alva.

How could that possibly sit well with him?

[Reagan Ryang]

"No."

Rae was the furthest thing from fine. His boyfriend officially broke up with him (after Rae broke up with him first), he just witnessed something he'd never witnessed before in all of his life, and he was feeling the most emotionally unstable he could ever recall in his life. Rae was never exactly the most stable person but generally, he had a quick temper that flared and then disappeared in a flash. Now it wasn't just anger; he felt devastated. He felt regret. Sorrow. He hated himself more than he'd ever hated himself, which messed with his head. Rae was more accustomed to pride and confidence than he was to feeling like a lowly runt with his nose in the mud, tail end in the air.

He already missed Alva but he couldn't even express it properly, especially not in present company. What did he think he was going to find in Josh, anyway? Sure, he offered raw, animalistic sex and a dangerous allure that Alva never would. But with Alva, Rae could expose his softer spots without worrying that they'd be ripped from him, stripping him of pride. Josh was always waiting for that exposure so he could point and laugh and push him back down into the mud. Josh wanted to be better. Josh wanted to be an alpha but to do it, he didn't seem to care who got pushed down in the process.

Honestly, Rae had no idea how he was going to live from here on out, without Alva's steady hand to keep him on track. Without Alva, Rae was basically just Josh, wasn't he? And as much as he loved his best friend, there were parts of him he saw in Josh that he didn't want to see in himself.

"Where are you going?" Rae asked, noticing after a few moments that they weren't heading to Josh's place.

[Kang Taebin]

"I'm going to help you not feel like a sad sack of shit," Josh responded simply, peering through the fog. He noticed the tail lights of a car up ahead and slowed down, not wanting to get into an accident even before they created another... accident... out at Eagle Ridge.

"Why? You want to go home? Go curl up in the shower and bawl the night away?"


He glanced over at Rae, silently judging him with his eyes. Where was the anger? Where was the seething blind rage that Rae always seemed to feel, oh-so-acutely, every time something didn't go his way? Rae's anger was what made him vulnerable and predictable. Without it, Josh didn't know how to read him.

Something was off, though. Something was wrong with the son of the alpha. Maybe soon to be the alpha, if none of his brothers stepped up. Josh turned his gaze back onto the road, shrugging. "Not too late to turn off the highway but..." If Rae wanted to be goddamn miserable over what wasn't even his fault, then fine. Wasn't like Josh was trying to cheer him up, in his own clumsy (and some might say counter-productive) way.

Not like he cared or anything.

[Reagan Ryang]

Yes.

Instantly, that was his thought. He just wanted to go home and do exactly that: curl up and cry. To his chagrin, Josh had already called him out on it once, but at least at the time, he could blame it on the rain. Now he was inside the warm interior of his truck so if he showed so much as a sign that he would start crying, Josh was going to give him so much shit. Like Josh knew anything about having feelings. Rae never realized just how deficit Josh was in that area until now and he didn't know what to think of it. Maybe Josh was just that much more alpha. Maybe he just had a hard time expressing himself, too.

Rae didn't know, but he blinked and looked away, forcing back his emotions by sheer force of will.

"No," he said. "Let's do whatever." Whatever helped him not be a sad sack.

[Kang Taebin]

"Good." Josh kept driving, taking the exit off the highway and heading towards Eagle Ridge. Maybe he wasn't the most experienced in terms of break-ups--he had certainly never dated anyone for more than five months, much less five years--but he knew what would make Rae feel better. A distraction, that was what he needed. Something to help him forget about Alva, and whatever happened at Alva's place.

"I heard some hunters have a camp set up near Eagle Ridge, so we're paying them a little visit."

He didn't look at Rae, but he caught the movement out of the corner of his eyes, of Rae's head turning. Josh bit the inside of his cheek. Words--cruel words--rose to his lips but he held them back. If it were anyone else--even Aldon--he would have said them but... Well, he always did have a soft spot for Rae, even if he would never admit it on pain of death.

[Reagan Ryang]

"Hunters, huh?"

His tone was bitter. If there was anything he hated more than himself right now, it was hunters. The disgusting assholes who blew his father away without a thought as to what they were doing. Rae had always hated hunters, for all the fucked up things they'd done to his kind--to Alva and his kind--but now it was more fucking personal than it had ever been.

And he liked that burning, raging hatred inside of his chest more than he liked the other feeling. He didn't want to get emotional or cry like a baby in front of Josh. It was better to embrace the anger, to let it control him. They would fuck up those hunters the way they fucked up his family and they wouldn't leave any alive to come back and join them.

[Kang Taebin]

"Yes. Hunters."

For Josh, it was deeply personal. People he didn't know, who wanted to kill him for existing? He'd get them first, before they got him. It fit neatly into Josh's perception of the world—the world where people were either champions or chumps. And Josh, he was no chump.

The ride to Eagle Ridge wasn't all that long, helped in part by the fact that most cars were off the roads in the thick fog. Josh didn't speak much; he was thinking. Thinking about Rae sitting beside him, thinking about Alva breaking up with Rae, thinking about what it meant now—for him. He couldn't help it, the fact that his thoughts immediately leapt to what benefit this had for him. Josh was selfish, self-centered. Who didn't know that by now? Here, he saw an opportunity to get what he wanted. This might be his only chance to break Rae and Alva up once and for all.

After the truck slid to a stop near the fringes of the woods, Josh cut the engine. "We'll have to shift and go in from here. Their camp's near the old coyote den." He looked over at Rae, noting the way that Rae was struggling to maintain his anger—and not give in to deeper emotion—and something in his gut twisted unpleasantly. Wordlessly, Josh reached over and slid his hand over the back of Rae's neck. He pulled Rae in even as he leaned across but he didn't kiss Rae. Instead, he rested his forehead against Rae's. His voice was low, commanding, and his gaze bore into Rae's like a red-hot laser.

"Let's fuck them up."

[Reagan Ryang]

Anger was better. He wanted so badly to embrace it. But guess who made that difficult? Next to impossible, even? Alva.

Rae's traitorous heart leapt into his throat when he felt the buzz of the phone and he looked down with great trepidation. His hand shook slightly as he responded back, but he kept it brief. There was nothing between them anymore, was there? Should Rae grovel? He couldn't, not when he was next to Josh. Inside, he struggled, every part of him feeling uncomfortable in his own skin. It was like an itch he couldn't scratch, invading his nerves. It made him irritable. It made him uncomfortable. It made him want to go out and do something completely crazy.

And the more he talked to Alva, the more he felt it. He needed to go out and just gnash his teeth and snap somebody's neck in half. Swallowing hard, he let the phone slide somewhere behind him on the seat. Dimly, as Josh drew closer and touched him, he could hear the phone going off one last time before it clunked to the floor of the truck. It was only somewhat distracting because most of Rae was focused on the way Josh's fingers touched the back of his head and the way their heads closed in together. For the count of a breath, he thought they were going to kiss--and he didn't know now how he felt about it--but they didn't.

The darker, feral side of him responded in kind to the dark molten gaze that locked on his. He reached out to grasp the back of Josh's neck to give it a squeeze, a bitter smile twisting his lips. Fuck them up. It didn't just mean the goddamn hunters, either. It meant that asshole who hunted hunters, too. Alva thought they were such fucking heroes. Well, look at him and Josh. And he wanted to stop me. His smile was somewhat malicious with Alva's memory embittering him all over again.

"Don't leave anyone alive."

[Kang Taebin]

"Good."

For a couple of moments, Josh thought that Rae was going to pussy out--especially after Alva started texting him--but it seemed that he wasn't as whipped as Josh thought. His smile mirrored Rae's--dark, sinister, full of ill-intent. They were going to make those hunters sorry tonight. And it would be a warning to all hunters, not to fuck with the wolves in their clan.

He held the gaze for a beat longer, then pulled back. Josh slid out of the truck and outside into the cool fog, shrugging his shoulders--loosening them up for the fun to come. It wasn't long before he was leaving his clothes behind too, in a heap on the driver's seat, as he changed into a large, mottled gray and brown wolf. Josh let out a short bark to get Rae's attention--to get him moving--before he was off, bounding through the woods at an easy lope.

The old coyote den was easy to find even in the dark, especially with his enhanced senses. Josh knew that the family who lived there had moved closer to the high school, in the woods nearby. He slowed as he neared it, and glanced over his shoulder to locate Rae. Not far off in front of them, he heard movement; the sound of voices, and feet shuffling through leaves and loam.

Josh let out another staccato bark, then a long howl as he sprang forward in a frenzy of teeth and claws. The first dark figure that he saw, he pounced, bringing it down to the ground with his weight. Josh sank his teeth into something soft and heard a wet gurgle. He tore out the hunter's throat savagely, letting the taste of blood override everything. All was red--the bloodlust stole over him as he sprang on a figure running past, with a low and victorious growl.

[Reagan Ryang]

Yeah, fuck hunters. Fuck everything about them. He understood why Alva hated them so much. More so than he had ever--they hurt Alva, they hurt Rae. They hurt everybody left behind in Rae's family. Now the pack was in tumult as they snapped and fought over the alpha position. Just because it was Rae's father didn't necessarily mean that Rae would gain the position or even that anybody in the Ryang family would. That wasn't how wolf packs worked; they weren't monarchies. They didn't vote, either. They fought, tooth and nail, for that position. Rae's father was the alpha and leader because he was the strongest and the most willful.

Rae had to show he was the same way, if he wanted to run the pack after him. He certainly couldn't go moping over a breakup with a shifter. With a goddamned shifter. Why did he ever let himself get dragged down into that business either? Because of some stupidly misplaced sentiment? Fah. Well, he didn't need that anymore. He needed to be strong. Tough. Alpha. He had to become alpha.

He couldn't let his father down further. It was bad enough that he hadn't been there during his death.

Shifting came easily to him. It didn't quell that dark fold of resentment in his chest but it bloomed heartily as they moved through the forest. Hunters, hunters, hunters. His blood sang for their blood and like Josh, when he found a body, he immediately leapt onto it, gnashing his teeth through flesh, rending it, listening in satisfaction as the voice was stolen from his prey.

The hunters would never mess with the wolves again because by the time they were through with them there would be no hunters left.

[Kang Taebin]

It was over far sooner than Josh had hoped and when he lifted his head, mouth dripping blood and gore, there wasn't a single hunter left standing. For hunters, they put up surprisingly little resistance. In fact, it was like they didn't fight back at all, or like their panic was so great that they forgot how to fight. Josh snuffled as he padded away from his grisly meal; he had feasted on the best parts of the body, on the fatty organs like the liver, and there was nothing of interest left.

His mind was clouded by the wolf's consciousness. With the feral genes in him, it was difficult to separate himself from the animal and he didn't notice that some of the bodies were small—child-sized. He didn't realize what it meant for the hunters to not fight back, to be unable to withstand the attack of two grown wolves. All he felt was satiation. His belly was full and his bloodlust was appeased, for now.

Josh sought out Rae, headbutting him almost playfully against his side. He yipped, a youthful, puppy-like sound, and bounded away a short distance. It was an invitation to play. After all, their enemies were dead. They were full, and their base desires were mostly satisfied. Josh came at Rae again, nipping at his heels, before leaping towards the fringes of the woods. It wasn't a full moon but he felt the blood gorging in his veins, humming in his ears.

The feral side of him was unpredictable, coloring even his human side, and tonight it was out in force. Tonight, at that moment, Josh wasn't Josh any longer. He was a wolf.