The inmates are running the asylum

[Alva Ren]

Alva stroked Ryland's ears gently after Susumu pulled the seatbelt across his chest, keeping a wary eye on the woods. He saw a little into the trees and he could sometimes make out a white streak jumping back and forth—Aldon wrestling with Josh, who seemed hell-bent on fighting his way to them. If Susumu didn't hurry, Josh would be out here with them, and Alva was under no delusion about the strength of an enraged feral. Josh would smash through the windshield just to get to them, he was sure.

Good thing Susumu was quick! He was never more relieved than when he heard the hum of the engine, and felt the car lurch away. "Don't apologize. It was an accident." Alva turned to Susumu; he couldn't muster up a smile but he did reach over to lay a comforting hand on the crook of Susumu's arm. "You were trying to help."

Sadly, Ryland got the brunt of the potion but if it was just a sleeping spell, and if he was going to wake up in a few days... Alva didn't blame Susumu, though. He had a feral charging at him, and had to watch as Josh turned on Alva. Poor Ryland was a casualty of the chaos.

He glanced over his shoulder, through the back windshield, but he didn't see Josh tailing them. A wolf couldn't outrun a car, thank goodness. Still, Alva was on edge and he wondered if, with all his cunning, Josh would think to ambush them at his house.

"...Susu... can we go to your place? Josh knows where I live."

[Shimizu Susumu]

For a time, it seemed like Josh might come at them from the woods but soon, Susumu's car seemed to be able to put enough distance between them and that cursed forest. The school, too, fell behind them in his rearview mirror. He sighed but his shoulders remained tense. It was hard to fully take in a breath. The chaos of the scene back there kept flashing in the back of his mind. Crushed bodies. Blood. That baby.

"I know. I just..."

Susumu glanced over at the hand on his arm. For once, warmth began to suffuse his body and he was able to smile. He was trying to help but these accidents were ugly and unbecoming of him. Alva didn't know yet what a perfectionist Susumu could be. The fact that he'd messed up twice now was a brand on his name. There was no way to clear it, never fully. There would always be that mark, the fact that he'd accidentally cursed the wrong person. But still, he felt especially responsible for Alva. The fox in the backseat would wake up. There was no doubt about that. But Alva...

He said my cure was working. He's fine. That didn't stop him from glancing at Alva but he couldn't see the mark at the moment. Or the place where the mark would have been. It was covered up.

"Oh, of course." Neither Rae nor Josh should know where Susumu lived so all three of them would be safe there. He was silent as he drove. The world around them felt too quiet but it seemed right for the moment. Susumu couldn't remember the last time things felt so dire and somber. It wasn't until he drove his car into the garage that he finally spoke again.

"Alva," he said as he cut the engine and slowly turned toward him. He reached out and gently touched his arm. "...you don't deserve any of this. That was hell out there. Are you going to be all right?"

[Alva Ren]

Alva too was quiet, with his head resting lightly against the cool window. He stared, unseeing, outside into the thinning mist. At least the fog looked like it was clearing. A few days ago he couldn't see two feet in front of him; now he was able to make out the shapes of trees, buildings and sometimes a person or two. Absently, he stroked Ryland's fur, hands working on automatic while his mind tried to escape the horrors of what he had witnessed that night--not only the massacre of the rabbit and coyote family, but Rae's actions, too.

He started softly when Susumu touched his arm, belatedly realizing that they were inside the garage. Alva turned to Susumu and blinked, swallowed. He didn't want Susumu to think... to think that he was like this all the time. That he was a ranting, raving, angry man who flew off the handle wildly over every incident. That wasn't the Alva Ren that the world knew.

"I... don't know." He didn't know if he was going to be all right--not for a while. Alva lowered his head, slipping a hand over Susumu's. There was comfort in the touch, in the warmth of simple human contact.

"When I was eight, my cousin Ryland, my brother and I went to play in the woods. A hunter killed my brother. We couldn't go back for his body because--" he paused, breathing in deeply to steady himself. "Because it was too dangerous. We didn't know if the hunter would still be there and when we finally did go back to get him, he..." Alva's voice broke. He turned away, staring hard out of the window at the other cars.

"He'd been eaten. By wolves." Just like those poor rabbit children out in the woods that night.

[Shimizu Susumu]

What an idiotic question, he thought in retrospect. He knew Alva wasn't all right. Who in their right mind would be, after what they'd just witnessed? Yet Susumu wasn't fully certain how else to start a dialogue with Alva, to help him let it out. Since he was something of an expert at holding in emotions when he most needed to express them, it felt important to allow Alva to do so. Despite everything, Susumu wanted to do better by Alva than he'd done by past partners.

So when Alva spoke, Susumu half expected to be rebuffed. I'm fine, perhaps or I'll be fine. Alva, it seemed, was more honest than that. Susumu should have seen that in earlier interactions with him. Susumu slightly tilted his head as he listened, turning his hand over so that he could gently slip his fingers over Alva's hand, to hold it. For all of Alva's misguided hero-worshipping, Susumu thought it was Alva who was the real hero. Most in the supernatural community had experienced ugly things but Alva had been so young, to see his brother die, to become paralyzed from the waist down, to grow into the person he was. How was he so trusting? Susumu felt he should have been hated from the moment the two met, after what he did to Alva--accident or not.

Wolves? Alva's brother had been eaten by wolves? And yet Alva had dated one for five years. His capacity to forgive was wide. It seemed like it was narrowing before Susumu's eyes. For a beat, Susumu was silent, letting the words really sink in. Then he reached out and gently brushed Alva's hair from his eyes.

"We'll make the forest safe. You and me. We can do that for them."

[Alva Ren]

Accidents happened.

What happened to him could have happened to anyone. Alva wasn't angry about being cursed, though undeniably it led to the downward spiral that his life began to take. He was upset by what happened to Ryland but he didn't blame Susumu because--accidents happened.

But what Rae did was no accident and it was harder to forgive, when Alva tried with all his might and main to get Rae to stop. To take a step back. To really think about what he was doing, what he was about to do. Alva thought only of Rae's well-being and Rae... Well, Rae only thought about Rae, too. Even after being confronted by the consequences of his hasty actions, Rae could only bluster and offer up excuses.

He let out a soft breath when he finished speaking, closing his eyes in the silence that followed. When Susumu brushed away his hair, he opened them again. It was strange, how safe he felt with Susumu. They hadn't even known one another for that long but Alva felt as if Susumu truly understood him. Not only that, but he sympathized; empathized. He shared Alva's feelings and didn't try to bulldoze over them, or leap to offer solutions where there were none.

He was... kind.

"You and me." Alva's lips curved slightly. "Let's go inside, Susu."