Crazy. Everybody was crazy—and Alva felt crazy as he sat in his living room, watching Yoojin through the window watching him through her windshield. It was like something out of a terrible comedy but rather than laughing, Alva felt like crying. He was just so... frustrated. So worried and anxious and angry and concerned and frightened, all for Rae. That was a lot of different emotions to feel for one person, while under the influence of eight bottles of beer. Alva wasn't drunk but he was well on the way to Tipsy Town, at that stage where all the bad decisions seemed like good decisions, and the voice of reason that normally resided in his head was drowned out by the alcohol singing in his veins.
Another car pulled up and Alva almost did cry with relief. It was Susumu, at last! He clutched the shirt that belonged to Rae tightly between his fingers—so tightly that his nails were digging trenches into his palms. There were sure to be hairs on the shirt. Just one would do, right? Susumu didn't specify how many hairs he needed but Alva had lots of Rae's things in his room. (He tried not to think about that, though, because it was going to send him spiralling down the path to a mental breakdown. Again.)
Keenly, he watched Susumu's car easing into the driveway. It was wide enough to accommodate two cars, but only just. Yoojin glanced over at the car, bent her head to look at something in her lap, then looked up again. Alva was shocked at her transformation but with everything happening all at once, he barely had time—or the mental wherewithal—to process it. It felt like the universe and fate just didn't want him to catch a break! Everything had to happen all at once. The curse, the fight, Rae cheating, Alva shamelessly grabbing a date not even an hour after the break-up... Ryland. With his logic. And his dastardly kidnapping plot.
God, when did Alva slip into a badly written B-movie??
I think she knows it's you, he texted Susumu, just in case. Then he carefully wheeled himself over to the door, peeking through the peephole to see what Susumu would do to Yoojin. Hopefully not curse her. Maybe just... karate chop her in the neck or something, enough to buy them time to get away from the crazies.
Getting the girl (what used to be a man...? if he recalled something Alva said earlier) out of the way without hurting her would be tricky, especially since he didn't have the luxury of time or the benefit of stealth on his side. The girl clearly saw him and he saw her. But they were both now in front of Alva's house and Susumu wasn't going to smash his vehicle into hers. He couldn't pour anything on her or feed her anything but luckily, most of his magic didn't work that way. Like the spell he'd been weaving on the hunter he'd been hunting when Alva met him, he didn't have to necessarily use the potion directly on anybody for it to work. And some things worked when one took it themselves.
Watching the girl in the car to make sure she didn't do anything like get out of the car and come over to try and subdue him, Susumu reached beneath his seat, feeling the caps of several tiny vials arranged for emergencies. Each cap was carved with a different sigil, one that described its contents. Slowly, he slid one out. Alva said she was a witch, too. She might be prepared with a counter spell. Keeping it out of view, Susumu thumbed the cap off and poured some of the contents against his fingertips. He spoke the words of the spell softly, looking into the rearview mirror for a second, then over at the girl. Their eyes locked.
That was all it took. He finished the spell with his gaze still locked on hers and watched with keen eyes as she fought it. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. If she had any counter spells arranged, she wasn't fast enough--the spell worked quickly and Susumu wasted no time getting out of the car, setting the vial down in the cupholder and heading toward the front door.
Alva nearly forgot to breathe as he watched Susumu and Yoojin, both outside of his house. Yoojin was fae—her magic was strong, he knew. But Susumu was an experienced witch; that death curse couldn't be whipped up by an amateur. If Alva was hoping for an epic battle, however, he was disappointed. From his vantage point, all Susumu did was look at Yoojin and then she was slumping forward over the steering wheel.
Gasping, Alva's hand flew to his mouth. Was she... dead?! She wasn't moving! He hurriedly flung open the door as Susumu approached the house, still clutching the shirt. "Susu!" He wheeled his chair outside onto the doorstop, half keeping an eye on Yoojin in her car, and half on Susumu himself. Susumu promised that he wouldn't hurt Yoojin and Alva trusted him at his word. But... it didn't stop him from feeling that half-beat of fear, for just a split second, knowing that curses could go wrong. After all, he was a prime example of that!
"Do you think she'll be okay out there in her car?" He asked anxiously, peering around Susumu at Yoojin. "Maybe we should bring her inside..."
Honestly, Susumu did half expect the girl to get up, to find that she was faking it. But she didn't counter his spell and she seemed out cold. Perhaps he'd used a little too much magic in that spell. He'd been rather... forceful with it. But he couldn't spend too much time thinking about it; Alva was soon coming out to greet him and Susumu smiled reassuringly at him.
"She'll be fine. It's just a sleep spell."
It was the kind of spell he kept prepared in case a hunter caught on to him or a cop tried to stop him from doing something he should be doing... legally. In truth, it was one of the few spells in his arsenal that wasn't a curse or a counter spell. He just chose not to share that part with Alva. Dear, sweet, Alva. He was such a wide-eyed innocent. Nothing like Susumu's old partner in the least. Some part of him worried that he'd change him for the worst, but... It was hard to think of this Alva ever becoming anything like.. him.
"I'll take her inside," Susumu said, glancing about. The mist had grown quite thick around the little town and there were some unsavory creatures hidden within. Leaving the girl in the car, even if she was a witch, could be her death sentence. Susumu pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped what was left of the vial's ingredients from his fingertips. Carefully, he picked her up and warily watched her as he brought her inside Alva's home.
"Where do you want me to put her?"
"Oh! I--" knew that, he wanted to say, but that was obviously a lie. Alva said nothing instead and let Susumu go back outside to take Yoojin out of her car. His eyes goggled a little out of his head when he saw her in the light. "Holy crap!" he murmured under his breath and mostly to himself--she looked so different! So... much like a woman! Yoojin had always been effeminate and small, with slightly delicate features, but one could never have mistaken her for a woman before she went for those operations. Whatever surgeon worked on her, Alva gave the guy props. He did good work!
And--Ryland was all wrong about Susumu, whatever crazy theories he held. Susumu was respectful; he didn't drag Yoojin out, or sling her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He carried her inside, like a proper gentleman, even though she nearly ran Alva over and was clearly intent on running interference earlier. Alva pointed to the couch that Susumu could set Yoojin down on; she could sleep it off there, instead of being hunched over in her car with monsters and hunters out there in the mist, lurking.
"Are you okay?" Alva slid closer to Susumu and put out a hand, lightly touching Susumu on the arm. His gaze was concerned. Did Yoojin manage to do something before Susumu put her to sleep? Alva tried to look for signs of magical interference but Susumu seemed fine. Then again, Alva probably seemed fine and he was a terrible wreck inside--not to mention five-eighths tipsy.
Hm. Holy crap? What was that about? Somewhat alarmed by the exclamation, Susumu discreetly looked around but he saw nothing currently watching them or stalking them. The girl also seemed passed out and beyond waking up any time soon. She would likely sleep straight through the night and she might wake up with a bit of a headache. The sleep spell seemed to a number to some people, even making them feel almost as if they had a hangover (which worked out just fine for Susumu!)
"I'm fine," Susumu said. As far as he knew, the girl hadn't managed to strike him with a spell of her own before he'd knocked her out cold with the sleep spell. Mentally, he checked himself over but he didn't think anything had happened. Perhaps he'd well and truly taken her off her guard. The girl was settled down onto the couch and now... He looked down at the hand on his arm. Alva seemed to be searching him for something, watchful, concerned.
"Really, I'm fine."
He'd been dragged out of his bed on a cold evening but despite that, he'd been happy to come out and rescue Alva. Even if it did mean having to go out and come head to head with Alva's ex-boyfriend. And what a character he seems to be. Truthfully, Susumu thought from what he knew of him so far, he'd make a better destructive partner to Liam.
Better not to think of him.
"Is that it?" he asked, indicating the sweater Alva had in his lap. He studied it for a moment, then reached out and plucked a longish black hair, peering at it. It seemed too long to be Alva's and not long enough to be the girl's. "This should do."
"All right," Alva said, but doubtfully, still scanning Susumu's face. He looked down, too, then up--all over him, checking to make sure he was really okay. Maybe Yoojin didn't have a chance to do anything. Maybe Susumu got to her first. She did seem distracted in the car, and Alva had a few theories going as to what was distracting her--the front-runner would probably have to be receiving instructions on kidnapping Alva, from Ryland!
He lifted the sweater and nodded at Susumu's question, ignoring the lump forming in his throat when he noticed that it was Rae's favorite sweater. That was why it was here with Alva; Rae wore it when he came over, or changed into it sometimes before he left. He hastily shoved it away and out of sight after Susumu picked out the dark hair, hiding it underneath one of the cushions of the loveseat nearby. Then he pretended that he didn't do anything strange, and turned his entire body away from the hidden sweater.
"Can I do anything to help? We have to hurry, before they--before he gets hurt!" He didn't mean to be pushy, but it had been a while since he last spoke to Rae and the urgency of the situation was becoming more and more apparent. Alva didn't know how Rae would find hunters, but he knew that Rae--and Josh--would. And then they would go in without a plan, swaggering like stupid wolves, because they believed in their own superiority so much that it exceeded the boundaries of reason and common sense.
And that was on a good day!
Okay, that was strange behavior. Susumu watched with an impassive expression but he got the feeling there were still deep sentiments behind Alva's actions. Of course. He loved him and they were together just earlier tonight, were they not? The first time Susumu and Liam broke up, he was a mess, too. He was still a mess, if he was honest with himself but he was a tired mess. A mess that just wanted to move on to somebody better. Alva seemed better in every way. He was soft, not edgy. Despite everything, there was something pure about him that made Susumu want to simultaneously protect that purity and taint it with his own darkness.
"No," he said with a small smile as he reached over and lightly squeezed Alva's shoulder. "But this won't take long."
Scrying was one of the simplest spells a witch could learn. Children often did it without meaning to. Susumu knew; he had been one of those children. His abilities were strong from a young age and before he even fully understood his own powers, he was using them. It still took some concentration, however. Some people needed a reflective surface with which to "see" but Susumu used a crystal he wore around his throat. It acted as a conduit. A third eye. When he closed his eyes, his mind's eye opened and he kept the hair in his hand, visualizing the one it belonged to.
Susumu didn't know him, but the hair showed this "Rae" to him. The world around him swept away and he was flying away from the house and down the road. The road grew rocky and trees became more abundant. There were more and more trees. The woods. The school. He saw the wolves then. Only a pair of them, attacking a family of shifters. Susumu opened his eyes suddenly, the world rocking back to him with nauseating speed.
"We should hurry," he said urgently to Alva, without explaining why.
Nothing strange about stuffing a sweater under a couch cushion. What? Alva could've set fire to it right there in the middle of the living room, but he didn't--he was civilized, thank you. He was just going to drink until he numbed the pain. Which... he realized was obvious, by the bottles still on the table, so while Susumu closed his eyes to scry, Alva discreetly moved four bottles from atop the table to under the table. Maybe Susumu wouldn't notice them.
When Susumu's eyes snapped open suddenly, Alva sat up straighter. He took his cue from the urgency in Susumu's voice, though his heart shook and his mind flew to all sorts of terrible scenarios. "Okay," was Alva's quick response, as he headed out the door. He looked over his shoulder once at Yoojin, sleeping peacefully on the couch. She would be safe here.
"What did you see?" It wasn't until they were in the car and headed away from his house that he gathered enough courage to ask. "Is Rae... Is he okay?"
"He's..."
Susumu didn't know how to answer that question. Rae, okay? Rae was the one connected to the hair, wasn't he? Then he most certainly couldn't be referred to as okay but that wasn't what Alva meant, was it? He wanted to know that Rae was unhurt. Susumu set his jaw for a long moment without saying anything. As they made their way to the car earlier, Susumu had whispered another spell, one that would stop Rae--from hurting anybody else in the vicinity. But he had a feeling that wouldn't go over well with Alva, so he didn't share that with him.
After all, beyond simple spells like sleep spells--which required eye contact--he could only cast curses.
"He's not hurt," Susumu finally said. Still, okay wasn't the right word for somebody who had just slaughtered several shifters and was now currently lying paralyzed on the ground so that he didn't hurt anybody else.
"Oh, thank god!" Alva cried out, relieved beyond description. Rae wasn't hurt! Even if his stupid, bonehead attempt to hunt hunters was completely idiotic, he was okay! Alva didn't bother asking about Josh, however; in the moment he was too bitter to care if Josh was okay.
As they pulled up to the woods near the school, he saw Rae's car parked near the fringe of the woods. Then, as they came to a halt, a bus stopped nearby and somebody hopped out who looked awfully familiar. Alva stared as Aldon waved his arms at them so vigorously that it looked like he hurt himself doing it.
"A-Aldon?!" Alva craned his neck out of the window. Aldon ran up, panting.
"HUNTERS!" he yelled, right by Alva's ear. "They're gone now! But Rae! And why are you with HIM?!" His finger shot out, pointing at Susumu.
"He's with ME! Come on, Susu. Let's go find Rae." Alva rolled up the window to Aldon's continued ranting and raving. "Ignore him. He's one of the crazies."
"I believe you." Susumu raised a brow slightly at the rude pointing and shouting that the noisy man was throwing in his direction. Aldon, was it? Susumu thought he'd heard the name a few times from Alva already. A friend of Rae's. Something else, too, although at the moment, Susumu couldn't remember what it was. The crazed Aldon appeared to keep on talking even after Alva had rolled the window up on him. Susumu cleared his throat and reached for the glove compartment so he could pull out gloves. He began to yank a pair on and then smiled generously at Alva.
"I have a few more pairs, if you'd like to borrow some."
It was fairly cold out and he hoped that Alva would take him up on it. Now he lamented the fact that he'd already put a pair on because... he could have helped Alva put his on. Still, he smiled gently at him... until he heard something leap up at the driver's side window. Startled, Susumu turned to see a tiny red fox with its paws against the window.
"I take it he's a friend of yours, too?" Susumu asked.
"Thank you, but I'll be fine." Alva was more concerned about Rae than his cold hands, although he did smile at Susumu warmly, shortly before a psycho fox leapt onto the side of the car.
"NOOO RYLAND! I TOLD YOU TO STAY HOME!" Aldon shouted as he wrestled with the red fox that was Alva's crazy cousin.
Alva pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes as he breathed out deeply. "That's my cousin," he replied in monotone. "The one who tried to get my best friend from earlier to kidnap me, and run me over. The other one's his ex-boyfriend. Who's dating a hunter-turned-werewolf, by the way." It sounded so sordid, and that was just the synopsis of this insane episode that Alva's life had become. He hadn't even gotten into the actual details.
"I'm so tired of this shit," Alva muttered in a low aside to himself. He watched Aldon hauling Ryland off to the side, yelling incoherently at him. "...come on. Let's get going before they bring the hunters down on us."
"...ah."
He didn't know what one said in response to all that. When Alva mentioned something about the crazies, he thought he'd heard the craziest parts of the story. However, it seemed that was only the tip of the iceberg. Susumu tried to wrap it all around his head--the friend of the ex who was currently wrestling with the small, wily fox, who looked difficult to hang onto as he looped through his arms, smooth as water. So... that one happened to be dating a hunter that was now a werewolf... Yes, it was all very sordid. Susumu really had no idea what to say so he lightly shook his head.
"Ah," he said again, as if he understood. He didn't. Not fully. There was no time to sit around and discuss it, however. Susumu slid out of the car and swallowed. The hunters. Didn't the wild eyed one say something about hunters? Did Alva not hear him? Alva still thinks they hunted hunters.
"Maybe... maybe you should stay here," Susumu said, suddenly fully aware of the repercussions of Rae's actions.
"At least Aldon will keep him busy," Alva muttered, watching a white wolf take the place of the insane babbling man. The wolf tried to grab Ryland by the scruff of the neck, prancing around like he was demented as he attempted to pin down Alva's sly fox cousin.
"What? No! I have to go—" There was no question about it, Alva had to make sure with his own two eyes that Rae was all right. And so that he could give Rae a piece of his damn mind, for acting like a spoiled punk. He wouldn't even listen to reason, and all because of what? Because he couldn't deal with the fact that his own actions had repercussions? Not only that, but he dragged Susumu into this, and Aldon and Ryland, and he put them all in danger.
Mad didn't begin to cover what Alva felt, now that the relief at hearing that Rae was all right was wearing off. HIs expression was set and determined as he waited for Susumu to bring out his chair, so that he could slide into it. "I'm going. And when I find him, he's going to wish hunters got to him first."
"All right," he said softly. Alva was quite the spitfire. It was easy to mistake him as a weakling and an easy target because of that innocent face and the fact that he was stuck in a wheelchair. But Susumu was quickly learning that he was anything but an easy target. Not that Susumu had ever intended to target him in any way. He was still genuinely sorry about the curse. If only they'd met in better circumstances. After a moment, Susumu reached out and gently ran his hand over Alva's arm.
"Let me."
The forest wasn't an easy place to traverse on feet, let alone on wheels. Somewhere in the mist-laden forest, he heard it--the keening of a wolf. It wasn't the white one, because he was currently high-tailing it after the slinky fox, who had run off, close to the ground in that way foxes did. The wolf probably had his hands--paws?--full with that one. Just the same could be said for Susumu and his fox, too. Alva might not be in fox form, but he still behaved just like one.
Susumu pushed the chair over fallen leaves, the wheels crushing them and leaving behind an earthy scent. The hair acted as a radar and Susumu followed its heat. There were areas where people had obviously been camping and left in a rush. Susumu's lip curled.
"Hunters," he sneered. But they were gone. There were signs of them left behind but they'd hastily left the area. He could guess why--when their enemies decided to kill one another, they would just stand back and let it happen and come back to see what became of any survivors.
As they kept going, he saw the blood first.
The fox, who had managed to escape the wolf and was walking somewhat alongside them (several yards away but in the same direction), stopped in its tracks, ears flattening against its skull. Susumu's gaze followed the fox's and he saw the first victim.
It was a young child. A shifter, by the looks of it because it was in a hideous half-shifted form, part rabbit and part child. Its throat was torn out, obviously by an animal and not a hunter.
"Thank you." Briefly, Alva laid a hand over the back of Susumu's hand, smiling up at him. Susumu didn't have to offer, and Alva didn't need help, but it would have been rude to refuse, when Susumu obviously meant well. Alva could take care of himself, but sometimes it was nice to have someone lend a helping hand.
Not that Rae never tried to help... If anything, he was always quite eager to prove how useful he was. The problem was in the delivery. Susumu had the gentle touch down to an artform; he didn't make Alva feel like his aid was mandatory and necessary. Rae, on the other hand, was blunt to a fault. It wasn't his fault, exactly, but Alva was stubborn in his own way and they didn't always see eye-to-eye on when Alva needed Rae's intervention, and when he could take care of things on his own. Hence, the rocky end to their relationship.
The deeper they got into the woods, the stronger the smell grew. Not the hunters—though they reeked, too. It was wolf. The scent of wolf, of familiarity. Alva noted the scattered campsite and while he didn't sneer, his gaze was full of scorn, too. Clearly, the hunters had scattered; their scent was fainter, their trail cold. But the smell of wolf persisted, growing stronger, alongside the scent of blood and death in the air. Alva felt a little sick even before they approached the site where the attack happened.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw, though.
"Oh!" His hands flew to his mouth, eyes wide with horror. It was a child. A small boy, with his body flung across the ground in a grotesque attitude of death. Alva let out a cry of shock, of pain. He broke away from Susumu and wheeled himself forward, taking in what lay beyond the bushes. More bodies. Two adults, their torsos torn open. Eaten. More children. A baby. A campsite that looked like it was newly erected, as though the shifter family had just begun to settle into their surroundings.
"Oh no... no, no, no..." Alva wanted to stop looking but everywhere he turned, there was carnage and death. And the smell of wolf.
The scent of Rae, and of Josh.
Rage. Death.
Death was everywhere. Rae saw only red. Fully feral, there were no thoughts concerning morality. No. Everything that stood in his way was subject to death. Amidst the innocents that were mowed down, a larger, more aggressive coyote made himself known. Snapping jaws and a bloody fight later and Rae had nearly torn that coyote apart, too. He was viciously proud of himself, letting out a howl of triumph as he sniffed out where Josh had gone.
He trotted across the bodies that were scattered around the forest, finding Josh with a warm body. The red was dying down now that he'd satisfied his bloodlust. He'd tasted and eaten several bodies by then and he felt full, fat, and satiated. Generally, that meant nap time so he nuzzled against Josh's side and let out a half growl. Then he smelled something new in the wind. Turning his head away, he raised his nose to the wind.
Something smaller than him with a long bushy tail and a curious stance--it was close by but it had frozen in place, like prey. Rae lowered his head and raised his hackles, letting out little more than a warning growl before he pounced on the fox. Or that was what he was going to do but... he couldn't. Instead, he flopped down to the ground and couldn't move. It was as if a switch had gone off inside of him the moment hunt mode tried to turn on. He lay on his side, panting and letting out a long howl, irritated and a little afraid. Why couldn't he move? He couldn't move anything--not his legs, not his head, not anything.
Stupid slippery sly fox! Aldon was an agile wolf, but he couldn't keep up with Ryland and soon lost him. It wasn't hard to find him again, though—he followed the scent to where the small party was headed. Once he sighted Ryland, he pounced with a victorious bark that died in his throat. As he landed on Ryland, he saw the bodies. He'd already smelled blood in the air but he thought it was hunters.
Not...
Babies. Kids.
Slowly, Aldon rolled off of Ryland. His dark eyes flicked over the scene and the feral blood in him rose, but he fought hard to repress the urge to finish off the carcasses. Aldon wasn't as far gone as his two friends and even so, he had to take a few steps back to get himself further away from the temptation of freshly killed bodies. Rabbits, it looked like. Shifters—not hunters.
"Where is he?" Alva's voice rang out through the small campsite, shaking with emotion, angrier than Aldon had ever heard him. Alva wasn't easy to piss off but by the look on his face, he was out for blood. When he turned to look at Susumu, Aldon saw the raw fury etched into every line of his face. His eyes were shining—those were angry tears, if Aldon had ever seen them. "Where's Rae?!"
Without a sound, Aldon loped off, disappearing rapidly into the forest. He had to get to Rae before Alva did. Hell, not even the witch could do anything worse than what Alva was going to do! He sniffed the air hard. Rae's scent was faint, not easy to follow. Josh's too, was indistinct but it was still in the air. Aldon ran fast, following his nose and then the sound of the howl, until he burst through some bushes and saw Josh nosing at Rae, who was laying prone on the ground. Nearby, two coyote corpses laid, their stomachs torn and throats ripped out.
Aldon shifted out of his wolf form quickly and stumbled onto his knees beside Rae. "Alva!" He gasped, checking Rae over in confusion. He thought Rae was hurt, but there wasn't a mark on him. "Alva's here with the witch! You guys. You... you didn't get hunters, it was rabbits. Alva's gonna KILL YOU! You guys have to go before he gets here!"
That look on Alva's face earlier?
That was a look of pure murder.
Nothing like this had ever happened to Rae in his entire life. Nothing. NOTHING. He knew things sucked for Alva, not being able to move his legs but this was beyond even that--Rae couldn't move anything. He couldn't even move his eyes as he laid there, prone on the ground. What he felt like was very much like prey. The wolf mind didn't comprehend what was happening--it willed itself to stand and nothing happened. The human mind, increasingly moving to the forefront now that the ferocity had moved away due to fear, panicked.
Finally, he let out a sound and it embarrassed him. It was the kind of short little whimper a pitiful whelp might let out if it lost its mother or its pack mates. After a moment, the locked up feeling gave way to shivering. It was like the strain of his muscles trying to move could only manifest themselves in the shivers. Which, honestly, made Rae feel all the more pathetic.
Josh didn't seem to have any clue what was going on but at the very least, he hadn't left Rae on his own. Maybe he heard it, too--the others in the forest. Rae let out another sound and it sounded like the whine of an injured dog. Not much better. He snorted in frustration; some smaller muscles seemed to be able to move now. His eyes could move again. They strained upward to see what was coming toward them. Aldon. Aldon? How the fuck...?
He couldn't shift back. Was he stuck this way now? He understood the magnitude of Aldon's words but he could hardly react to them. Somewhere farther in the forest, he heard Aldon's ex-boyfriend calling for him. What, was everybody here to see... to see...
He could smell blood everywhere now that the red had faded from his vision. Shifter blood. Fuck.
Too... late...
Aldon heard Ryland's voice calling to them, and he knew that the foxes' keen sense of smell would lead them to him. And Rae. And Josh, who sat defiantly close to Rae as he stared into the darkness in the direction from which the voices came. Inside, Aldon died a little. He had to warn Rae, because Rae was one of his best friends, but he didn't want to be branded a traitor.
Anybody who knew anything about Alva knew that he had a soft spot for the defenseless--for the shifters and the supernaturals that couldn't stand up for themselves. Alva worked hard to make sure that shifters like those rabbits were safe. That was how he found and rescued Rae, too, after Rae was hurt by hunters all those years ago.
He was out there protecting others, trying to make sure that nobody else ended up like him. Aldon knew that Alva was no more than a kid himself when he was shot, and seeing those babies torn apart must've torn him apart on the inside.
That was why he had that look on his face, why there was so much unrestrained anger and hurt. And Aldon sorta betrayed him to come here, trying to warn Rae, except Rae looked totally helpless and was making frightening noises--vulnerable noises. Aldon half leapt to his feet, wildly grabbing one of Rae's hind legs like he would drag him off to safety. But then Alva was already breaking through the trees, his dark eyes like lasers cutting through the grim dimness. And there was Aldon, in the act of dragging his paralyzed best friend, with another one looking scornfully at the approaching group.
"Murderer!" The word shot out like a bullet, so hard that it made even Aldon flinch. Guiltily he dropped Rae's leg and stood by awkwardly as Alva drew closer, looking like the harbinger of doom. "Susu, set him free."
Aldon shuffled off to the side, trying to hide behind a tree. He avoided everyone's gazes--particularly Ryland's--but when he side-eyed Josh, he was still just sitting there, staring, clearly unapologetic.
Susumu stepped calmly through the trees, although inside, he was anything but. Death was something he looked in the eye on a fairly regular basis. He tortured and killed hunters for this exact sort of act. Personally, he wanted to do more than curse Rae with paralysis. He wanted to do more to him. He had the hair, though. And now that they were in close proximity, he could gather more than that from him. Susumu's smile was small as he regarded Rae with stone cold eyes. He hadn't paralyzed the other one because he didn't have what he needed to do it. But he had other spells for him if he tried to interfere.
If he was fast enough. He knew feral wolves were nothing to mess with. Typically, he wouldn't have but this time, they had gone too far. Children. Infants. Innocents. The smile--all traces of it--were gone now as he stared Rae in the eyes. Such a pathetic creature. He yanked the spell back but with more force than was needed. Rae let out a pained rasp of a growl and then he was shaking out his head and shifting. A wolf couldn't talk. A wolf couldn't fight back--but nothing this filth said would make up for what he'd done.
"No!" Rae denied vehemently. "I'm not a murderer!"
"They were children! And babies!" Alva didn't care if his voice echoed, or if he was half-screaming at Rae in his anger. Rae denying it only made it worse, because Alva knew that he could smell it. They all could. The blood that tainted the air wasn't human blood, it was clearly shifter. It was supernatural. Even those two poor coyotes laying close by, who had done nothing but cross Rae's path, made Rae's denial completely ineffective.
"You killed them! You and Josh! That family did nothing to you and you-- You have your head stuck so far up your ass that you can't even listen to reason anymore!"
"H-hey, Alva..." Aldon stepped forward, holding out his hands before him placatingly. "Maybe it was just a--"
"Shut up!" Alva saw Aldon flinch, back down. He turned his fury back onto Rae, wheeling himself right up to him. Dried leaves and twigs crackled underneath the wheels of his chair as he advanced. Josh rose and growled, choosing to remain in his well-protected wolf form--like a coward--but Alva ignored him. Nothing that Josh could do to him would remove the images from his mind. Children. Babies. Innocent rabbit shifters who were trying to escape persecution from hunters, only to meet a cruel fate at the hands of an--
"Idiot! You're a complete idiot, Reagan! You're not a hero! You're a murderer!"
His nostrils flared and he took in a breath but there were no words. Why had he bothered shifting? To argue? He shut his mouth and set his jaw. Somewhere behind him, he was aware of Aldon's stupid boyfriend or ex or whatever the fuck he was moving closer to Aldon. He was pretty sure he shifted back into a fox--which made Rae twitch slightly--but his burning gaze was on Alva. Alva, who was shouting at him with more fury than Rae had ever seen. Despite knowing he was in the wrong and that what happened was horrifying and unintentional, Rae couldn't help it; he had to defend himself.
"Fuck you. You don't get to pass judgment on me. You and that guy."
Yeah, he saw that asshole witch with his head tilted slightly upward and that smug ass look in his eyes. What an asshole. Oh, but wasn't he so perfect? A goddamned hero somehow, for killing hunters. When that fucker accidentally cursed Alva, he was still a hero. When Rae made a horrendous mistake, he was a fucking... murderer!
Sickness roiled unpleasantly in his gut. He hadn't yet come to terms with the murderer thing. He couldn't even look at the surrounding massacre because what was happening in his stomach was too precariously close to spilling out. He started toward Alva.
"What are you going to do about it? I'm just as bad as any hunter now. Are you going to kill me?"
He was a few steps from Alva when he felt it--that awful paralyzing feeling. It stopped him in his tracks and he couldn't move a fucking muscle again. He glared at the witch.
"Stay away from him," the witch said.
"Fuck you!" Rae snarled through his set jaw. If he could move, he would fucking kill that bastard for starting all of this.
All Rae had to do was apologize.
All he had to do was admit to his wrongs and show a little remorse for the slaughter of the rabbit family--of the children and the babies. Maybe he wasn't in control of himself when he killed them--Alva knew how difficult it was to be a feral--but the fact of the matter was that Rae still did the deed. It wasn't hunters that he massacred. It was an innocent family.
It was so simple, and yet, Rae never could fess up to his mistakes. He always had to be right, and it didn't matter how many people he hurt. He had to be alpha.
Alva's anger was mingled with deep disappointment. "I'm not the one who came here with the man I cheated with!" How did Rae think that was going to look, him cavorting around these woods with Josh? Alva was so furious that he almost did it--almost reached up to slap Rae in the face. Because that was what Rae was doing to him, right that minute--slapping him in the face with his own concern. To think, Alva had been worried. Worried that Rae would run into trouble! That hunters would kill him!
He stood his ground as Rae advanced, though, never one to back down at the height of anger. They were alike in that way, he and Rae--never back down. Only Alva's stubbornness was still tempered with a little common sense. Before Rae got to him, however, he suddenly froze and Alva looked over his shoulder at Susumu. Alva knew that Rae wouldn't hurt him, though. Not physically. He hurt Alva with words, with his callous attitude, with his refusal to simply admit to being careless and wrong, but he wouldn't raise a hand against Alva. Too bad Alva already felt like he took a pummeling that night.
"You are not the man I thought you were, Reagan Ryang." Alva tried to stop his voice from shaking--with anger, with disappointment, with the disillusionment that hit him like a punch in the gut. "I thought--I thought you were better than this. But you're not." Rae showed that clearly tonight. Alva turned away, wheeling his chair back. "I'm going home."
As he turned his back, he heard a sudden scuffle behind him and before he knew it, a large wolf was streaking past him, headed directly for Susumu. "Josh no!" Aldon shouted, then-- "Alva! No!"
Alva did the first thing that came to mind. He grabbed onto the wolf's tail as it passed him, grabbed it hard and held on even as Josh turned on him with a vicious snarl, bowling him over and out of his chair, teeth inches from his throat.
Susumu's opinion of this Rae was lower than it had ever been for anybody. That included the moments when he swore he hated Liam more than any other person in the world for hurting him. This was different. Liam was just a junkie and a cheat. He had never killed an innocent person. Hunters only. They swore it when they partnered up and beyond accidentally cursing poor Alva, neither of them had hurt a hair on another person. Except one another.
The kind of pain this man was inflicting on Alva, however? Not only was he a disgusting waste of space for killing children and showing little--actually no remorse for it--he was also talking to Alva like he was worthless. The tone of his voice pissed Susumu off--he was more than happy to curse the bastard and he had more than paralysis up his sleeve.
Before he could say anything else, however, the wolf accompanying the lying, cheating bastard came at him. He was a huge wolf, too, and he was diving straight for Susumu with what looked like murderous intent in his eyes. After what the pair of wolves had done to a helpless group of rabbits and coyotes, Susumu had no doubt that the wolf coming at him fully intended to kill him.
Alva stepped in.
Not literally, of course, but he tried to stop the wolf.
For a few breathless seconds, Susumu's head spun with that knowledge. Alva had just thrown himself into the fray to save him. He wasn't just stubborn. He spoke so highly of Susumu but really, Susumu couldn't remember the last time he'd met somebody so selfless and heroic. Rae could only stand helpless in the face of the attack and the fox rushed forward to help with a loud sound Susumu could safely say he'd never heard come from a fox before. But it was Susumu that acted. From his pocket, he grabbed one of the vials he'd brought with him for protection.
"Alva!" The cap came off the vial and then Susumu was dousing the wolf with it, the spell on his lips. Unfortunately, it was the fox that took the brunt of the spell because he'd leapt onto the wolf and sank his teeth into one of the wolf's ears. His body effectively blocked most of the wolf from the spell's ingredients. It knocked him out almost immediately. Another sleep potion. Shit! "Alva!"
"No! Stop!" Alva cried out but not to Josh. He saw Ryland leaping forward, then slumping down after Susumu accidentally threw something onto him, and he tried to shield Ryland with his own body, curling up around him the best that he could. Josh was still on him, stepping on him, teeth snapping around him as he first tried to get rid of Ryland, and then when he fought against the white wolf that leapt onto the pile.
Finally, Aldon dragged Josh off of them. He had Josh by the scruff of the neck and he was pulling Josh away, growling in warning. Aldon was the only one who could deal with another feral.
"Ry? Ry!" Alva cradled Ryland closer to his body, in case Josh broke free. He couldn't move or even crawl anywhere, so he used his free arm to drag himself out of the way. Close by, he heard Aldon's growls, and the scuffling sounds of two wolves fighting it out.
"Susu! Get me back in the chair! We have to get out of here!"
Everything had descended into pure chaos. Susumu was reaching for another vial but even as he did, there was another wolf, this one snow white and it was attacking Rae's friend. Wasting no time, Susumu dove over to pull Alva away from the snarling mess. He held him safely against his chest, heart ramming hard against his ribcage. For a moment, he checked Alva over, running a hand over his face. For the most part, he seemed unharmed. Heeding Alva's words, he grabbed the wheelchair and pulled it away from the fight.
Frightening growls and snarls filled the air as he righted the chair and settled Alva into it. Normally, werewolves didn't intimidate Susumu but at the moment, with Alva to protect, he felt distinctly vulnerable. He cast barely a glance at Rae--didn't care what happened to him. But he did look over at the sleeping fox. Alva must think the white wolf would win the fight if he hadn't mentioned him.
He turned the chair away from the fighting ball of fur and put as much distance as possible between them and the war going on behind them.
"I'm sorry," Susumu said several times. "It was just a sleep spell. It was supposed to stop that wolf." He shuddered to think what might have happened if he'd used one of the others he had prepared with him.
"I'm okay. I'm okay Susu, we have to go now!" He knew that Susumu wanted to make sure he was all right—he wasn't—but this wasn't the time. Alva's right shoulder had been bitten, and he suffered several bruises and contusions from where Josh had stepped all over him. But those were minor injuries to what Josh was capable of inflicting. A fully feral werewolf in its prime was not something that they could take on by themselves.
After Susumu placed him back into his chair, Alva laid Ryland across his lap. He glanced around as they began to move away from the fight, desperately looking to see where Rae was. Was he all right? Did he get caught in the cross-fire? Alva only managed to catch a glimpse of him—still, it appeared, frozen in place—before the woods swallowed them up.
"It's fine. It's just a sleeping potion, right? Ry—he'll be okay." He was saying it to reassure himself, mostly. Susumu was a skilled witch, he knew, and if he could cure a death curse then... a sleeping potion surely was nothing to him. Alva still hugged Ryland close, protectively, murmuring his own apologies to his sleeping cousin. He hadn't meant for things to get so out of hand. He only wanted to stop Rae from getting hurt, to stop him from acting like a goddamn idiot.
"There's the car!" Alva almost cried with relief as they broke through the trees, and Susumu's car sat there, like a beacon of safety. They were almost at the car when a dark shape shot out of the woods and Alva almost threw a rock at it before he realized that it was Aldon.
"Go!" Aldon panted, as he shifted out of his wolf body. "Go! Josh is right behind me! I can keep him busy for a little while but you guys gotta get the fuck outta here!"
"Aldon... I'm so sorry!" Alva reached for the door handle. "Be careful!"
"Take care of Ry!" Then he was gone again, a white flash streaking through the woods with a long, low howl.
Oh, good. Susumu was secretly relieved to see that Alva was taking the fox along because... well, he had no idea how well a sleeping fox might fare if the white wolf lost his battle. So many what ifs. So many ways things could go wrong. A few had already gone sideways so far. Susumu looked down at the sleeping fox. He was so out of it that his entire body was limp and he looked dead. Susumu shivered at the thought. Killing hunters--he had a reason for that. To protect people like Alva and his cousin and the little rabbits and the coyotes. Tonight, he felt like a disgusting failure. And not only had he failed to protect the community he cared for... he'd also managed to make the situation worse.
Gods be damned. He should have slit that wolf's throat with the dagger in his boot. That would have been easier. Quicker. Nastier, though. He deserves it. It was hard to see those two wolves as anything other than monsters now that he'd witnessed the atrocities they committed. Once things calmed down, he vowed to come back and put their souls to rest. If not... they might became trapped eternally between planes in torment.
"Kuso!" Susumu swore in Japanese, he was so startled by the newcomer. This time he did reach for the dagger but stopped mid crouch when he realized that the wolf was just one of Alva's friends. The wolf that had been on their side, for lack of a better way to put it.
"Thank you," Susumu said, opening the door Alva had been reaching for so he could help him and the sleeping fox into the car as quickly as possible. The fox was still very limp when he moved him from Alva's lap to the car. Discreetly, Susumu checked his pulse. Still alive. Still breathing.
"I apologize," he said again, more softly as he helped Alva into the car. "He'll be okay, though. Usually, sleep potions last for a while, though. He won't be waking up for a day or two."
He checked to make sure that Josh wasn't after them. He was still fighting the white wolf but they were getting closer. Susumu quickly buckled Alva in and closed the door before swiftly leaping behind the steering wheel so they could get the hell out of there.
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."
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 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.
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."
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."