Chapter 10
chapter
ten
For the second time in two weeks, Alexander helped Tobias stagger into his apartment.
“We’ll put you in your bathroom,” Alexander said. “I’ll bar the door.”
Tobias sagged into him, shoving him into the closed front door.
“Tobias,” Alexander pushed at his chest, trying to shove him off and grab for his jawbone knife.
Tobias made a rumbling noise, dragging his nose up Alexander’s cheek.
“Gotta smell you,” he slurred, eyes glowing gold. “Can’t…get territorial.”
Alexander gritted his teeth, desperately telling his body to only send fear endorphins and nothing else as Tobias pressed closer, getting Alexander’s damp hair all over his face.
“Tobias,” Alexander said again. “You need to let me go, or I’ll have to hurt you.”
Tobias’s leg bones snapped. He fell to the floor with a horrible yelp as his spine lengthened and clothes ripped, fur sprouting underneath it. He dragged Alexander down with him, pinning him under his rapidly growing bulk.
“Wait,” Alexander managed, shoving fruitlessly as Tobias writhed and grew above him. “Please don’t make me hurt you!”
Tobias threw back his head in a horrifying howl.
Alexander flinched. He was trapped, all his limbs motionless under Tobias’s bulk. He could barely breathe under the weight, let alone reach for the knife strapped to his ankle.
Tobias stared down at him, his eyes still glowing gold from the transformation. His scarred muzzle was open, those horrible fangs glinting inches away from Alexander’s face.
Alexander shivered. “It’s me,” he said. “You know me. We’re…we’re friends.”
The howl died. Tobias looked down at Alexander, the gold fading from his eyes.
Amid the panic, Alexander realized he was glad of it. If he was going to die, he wanted to do it looking in those big brown eyes.
“Tobias,” he whispered.
Tobias cocked his head. He bent down and pressed his nose into Alexander’s damp hair.
Alexander held his breath, waiting for the end.
Tobias licked his neck. Then he sniffed again, louder, and his ears pricked up. A third sniff, and Tobias whimpered excitedly.
Alexander frowned, confused. This was not the bloodlust frenzy he’d been warned about. This wasn’t even the vicious wolf he’d seen in the arena, eyes golden and unrecognizable. The eyes staring down at him were undoubtedly Tobias’s, who was starting to shake from how hard he was wagging his tail.
“Um,” Alexander said. “Tobias?”
Tobias yipped, burying his snout in Alexander’s neck. Alexander stiffened, but apparently he needn’t have worried: Tobias’s teeth didn’t come anywhere near him. Instead the wolf seemed focused on rubbing his face all over him, whining happily as he did so.
Holy shit, Alexander thought, dazed. All that sniffing actually worked.
“You really did lick the other wolves in the arena,” Alexander said disbelievingly. “No wonder Muzzle doesn’t want you to fight during a natural transformation.”
Tobias yipped. The fur on the scarred side of his muzzle was damp from rubbing so rigorously against Alexander’s drying hair.
“That’s disgusting,” Alexander told him.
Tobias rubbed his muzzle down Alexander’s face, getting damp fur up his nose.
Alexander coughed, spitting out coarse fur. “Alright! Okay! Thank you for not killing me. You need to get off me now.”
Tobias ignored him. But he sat up slightly, which allowed Alexander to start shoving him.
Tobias barked in protest. But he eased back enough to let Alexander get his legs under him and push him away with his knees.
“Don’t,” Alexander warned, batting Tobias’s huge paws away as they tried to push him back down. “Hey—hey! Don’t.”
Tobias nipped his hand. Alexander ripped it away, horrified. But there was no blood. Tobias didn’t even dig his teeth in enough to sting.
Alexander climbed shakily to his feet.
Tobias stood with him, tail wagging eagerly. He looked expectant, though for what, Alexander couldn’t begin to say.
“You’re…very docile,” Alexander said slowly.
Tobias woofed. His tail wagged harder, knocking over a set of motorcyle magazines Alexander recognized from the local laundromat.
“Honed into your basic parts,” Alexander said, echoing Tobias’s words from the roof. “Nerves and instincts. So…what, you really want to annoy me?”
Tobias woofed louder. He kept making that strange noise under his breath, half-whine, half yip, like a puppy asking to play.
Definitely asking for something, Alexander thought as Tobias pawed at him. Tobias’s wolf was small for a werewolf, but still big enough that they were practically looking each other in the eye. It would have been more intimidating if Tobias didn’t look so…cute, for lack of a better word.
There was no violence in his eyes. Nothing but eagerness and deep yearning for whatever he kept pawing at Alexander about.
“I can get you some food,” Alexander said.
He took a step toward Tobias’s kitchen. Tobias scampered in front of him, tail wagging.
Alexander sighed. “Okay, then what do you want?”
Tobias barreled into him and knocked him over. Then he curled up on Alexander’s chest, most of his body falling off his perch. Alexander’s chest width was no match for Tobias’s huge bulk.
“You’re being ridiculous,” Alexander choked.
Tobias barked and tucked his wet muzzle next to Alexander’s cheek.
“You really like sitting on me, huh?” Alexander managed.
Tobias licked his ear. Alexander shoved him, determinedly not thinking about Tobias’s human mouth at his ear in the LIV-MART bathroom.
“Off,” he hissed.
Tobias whined. Then Alexander dug his blunt nails into his soft underbelly, and Tobias rolled off him with a grudging growl.
Google’s suggestions were all the same: food, attention, sleep, play.
“Well, you don’t want food,” Alexander said. “And you’re not tired. Obviously I’m not playing with you. You’re already knocking everything over just standing there. Your apartment is too small to play fetch.”
He threw his phone onto the couch.
Tobias leaped after it and snatched it off the cushion. Then he bounded back and nudged Alexander’s slack hand.
Alexander took the phone back reluctantly. It was sticky with saliva. Tobias had fit the whole device into his big mouth.
“The answer is still no,” he said.
But Tobias was already dropping into a ‘play bow,’ as Google called it: his head bending toward the ground, front paws straight in front, tail erect. Watching Alexander like he was expecting another game of fetch any moment.
“It isn’t happening,” Alexander assured him.
Tobias barked and spun in a circle. Then he took off around the living room, knocking over the coffee table and scattering a couch cushion and toppling a picture frame from the windowsill while Alexander hissed for him to stop.
Suddenly, he stumbled to a stop, his ears folding down against his head. Then the whining started up again: loud and pitiful, nothing like the quiet yearning from before.
Alexander sighed, bending to pick the couch cushion off the floor. “What is it now?”
Tobias turned to him and dangled his paw pathetically. It was dripping, Alexander realized with alarm.
“You’re bleeding.” He rushed over, appalled. “What did you do?”
A shard of glass gleamed in Tobias’s paw pad, a remnant from the photo frame he’d knocked over from the windowsill.
Tobias’s blurry family beamed from behind the shattered glass. Alexander lingered on it for several seconds too long before Tobias whined again.
“I know,” he told Tobias. “Hold still, I have you. Where do you keep your first aid kit?”
Tobias blinked at him with those big, sad dog eyes.
Alexander found the first aid kit on top of the fridge, of all places. He took it back to the living room and sat down in front of Tobias, who had tried to limp after him until Alexander genuinely hissed at him to stay.
“Brave face,” Alexander said as he gripped Tobias’s hurt paw. It was what his big brother used to say to him before treating an injury, and Alexander swallowed against an unexpected wash of grief that his family used to assure him would be long gone by now.
He plucked the glass from Tobias’s paw pad, holding him still as he flinched, and then as he dabbed disinfectant into the cut.
“That’s what you get for running around all boisterous like that,” Alexander said, winding a bandage around his paw.
He eyed Tobias’s cocked head, which only contained base urges, and wondered how much Tobias would remember.
He didn’t remember much about being feral; what would he remember from a natural transformation?
Alexander rubbed the back of Tobias’s paw. “You know, I thought you were so laid back when you used to come into my work. Even after I knew you were a wolf, you were so…cool. Casual. Nothing ruffled you.”
He scratched Tobias’s ears, letting himself smile at his pleased whine.
“Should’ve known you were just a big puppy,” he muttered.
If Tobias registered the words, he showed no sign of it. He butted his head into Alexander’s chin, tail wagging happily.
His soul is dust, Alexander reminded himself reluctantly. Just push him away. It doesn’t matter.
Alexander sighed, cautiously letting Tobias closer until the wolf had his head in his lap.
“See?” Alexander said. “You don’t have to crush me. This is nice.”
He expected Tobias to nuzzle into him or try to shove him down again. But Tobias stayed there, his eyes on something beyond Alexander’s lap.
Alexander twisted to look behind him. The Rook family photo was lying where it had landed, glass cracked around it.
Alexander picked it up and placed it carefully on the coffee table.
“You must miss them,” he said. “Your whole family gone…I can’t imagine it. I don’t see my family, but I know they’re still out there.”
Tobias licked Alexander’s chin. Then he dropped his head back down into his lap with a pained noise.
Alexander frowned. He checked Tobias’s paw, which had already stopped bleeding through the bandage.