Longer Writes

Hurt (College AU)

2 in the morning. It was 2 in the goddamned morning, and Brin was stomping around the common room like an agonized elephant.

Normally, Garth wouldn't care -and it would kind of make him a hypocrite to call his roommate out- but it was a flipping Saturday. That meant sleeping in, not...whatever he was-what the hell was he doing? Because that was most definitely a scream.

Garth rolled out of his bed and wrestled on a binder in the dark, bouncing off the door before he managed to open it. Poking his head out, he was greeted with the wonderful sight of what looked like a murder scene. Blood trailed throughout the common room, tracked with half-human prints and smeared along the walls in large swathes.

"What in the ass?" Garth gingerly scooted out of his room and shut the door, wincing as something tacky touched the back of his calf. "Uh, Brin? I really hope you know how to get all this out of laminate, because I-" A harsh noise stopped him dead, coming from behind the kitchenette counter. "Dude? You okay?"

Carefully creeping around the dark stains, Garth edged towards the shuffling noises.
He'd always known Brin was some flavor of supernatural from the moment they met -normal humans didn't just...not react to his natural static, even if they were used to it- and recently, Brin had fessed up to being a werewolf, but this? This was not what he had envisioned at all.

Hunched over and shoved into the corner sat a massive beast, bloody mud staining it's grey fur black. It's broad shoulders were marred with deep, fresh cuts, one of them tracking a line up his neck to the corner of his mouth. It seemed to be hiding it's left back leg behind all the others, that side shoved into the back of the kitchenette cabinet.

Brin's normal underbite was more pronounced like this, sharp lower canines jutting out from black lips. The normally neat, inky-black spill of his hair was now a coarse mane that guarded his nape, white shock tracing down the middle stained with, you guessed it, more red. Brin tracked him with a glazed look, chest heaving. There was something akin to fear in those amber eyes. No, not akin to, it was fear, the wide-eyed panic of a cornered animal evident in slit pupils and pinned back ears.

"Oh, B, what'd ya get yerself inta?" Garth kneeled down and reached for the side of his over large head, only to narrowly miss getting bit. Brin snarled and jolted forward, but drew back just as quick, warning rattle spilling through his bared teeth. "Hey hey hey, easy. Easy, bud. I'm not gonna hurtcha. I's just me." He held out his hand for the wolf to sniff, this time a small ways out of biting range. 

Slowly, rattling like a can of rocks down a hill, Brin leaned closer; cut up nose wriggling furiously and glare never breaking from Garth's downturned eyes.

"We okay? You gonna let me help ya?" In response, Brin shoved his face into his roommates outstretched palm with way more force than strictly necessary, and ended up toppling over on his side with a yelp.

Any other moment, Garth would've chuckled, would've snorted and rolled his eyes, but then he caught sight of the wolf's back leg; or rather, what was left of it. Everything below his ankle was mangled beyond recognition, tendon and bone exposed to the air and filthy with dirt, grass, and half-formed scabs. Skin and fur hung in strips off his shin, fluttering at the fine tremor still shaking his body. His talons were broken and twisted, leading the awful splay of his toe bones.

He grit his teeth against the violent wave of anger and sickness that welled from his stomach, tamping it down for the sake of the beastly shadow that was his roommate, trembling and belly bared on the stained laminate.

"I'm gonna make some calls, and I'll be right back to help ya to the bathroom, 'Kay bud?" Unfocused eyes flickered towards him, all fight replaced with pain and tiredness as Brin grumbled at him. Garth rubbed the velvety soft patch on Brin's snout with a knuckle before he stood, pushing off his knees and edging back to his room.