Longer Writes

Observant (Pt 2)

The door to their room was locked. Not manually, but shut with a personal code that only three people could override. And both B and Saturn were back at HQ. Brin knocked and almost immediately got a "Go away!" from the third.

"Sparks, dude, I've been awake for 34 hours, I just want to go to bed." The room behind was skin-crawlingly silent. "Please, I'm just gonna pass out in the doorway otherwise." It took a long moment -and he was seriously considering just going and crashing in the rec room- but eventually the lock pad chimed.

A choking, sour barrier of pain and fear and something else caught Brin at the threshold, and he staggered into the wall; barely registering the sound of the lock going back into place behind him. Bad chlorine and rotten citrus fruit churned at his stomach, and if he could take deep lungfuls to calm it, he would've. But the room was full, and something close to anger was starting to boil at his blood and shorten his breath. What in the fuck had caused this?

The wolf lurched towards the tiny, shivering ball of Garth, leaning heavily on his nightstand and praying the flimsy thing wouldn't break.

"Talk. Now." He grit out harsher than he meant, and Garth whimpered a pitiful sound, panic twisting in the pungent air. He trembled harder in lieu of response, wracked with stifled, coughing sobs, and Brin knew he'd done something wrong. He dropped to a knee as careful and quiet as he could manage, coming level with the shaking alpha.

"Sparks..." he started softer, but trailed off as his eyes caught on gleaming darkness. An off-colored, warped patch of...something stretched across the back of his shirt, blooming from the curve of his shoulder. It shined wet and black in the low light of the floor strips, but they'd both been beaten battered and bloody often enough for him to know exactly what it was. "What happened?"

Something unintelligible bubbled between Garth's hiccups, drowned before it began, and Brin leaned closer. In that half-second when his head crossed the threshold of the hyena's bed, the problem made itself very, very evident.

Overripe fruit and cold winter stuck in his throat and tainted the copper tang of blood, sickly sweet in only the way a pack-renounced omega could be. The fear, the lock, and the quiet, broken bawling all lined up and fell like dominoes, prickling at his hackles like thousands of burning needles.

"I'm gonna fucking kill him."

"NO!" Quicker than either of them thought possible, Garth twisted and snagged Brin's upper arm, sparks flying off his skin in an arc. His glowing eyes were tired, fearful, and tear-ridden, snot bubbling down his bitten lips. His face was blotchy, but nothing compared to the dark scratches that traced down the column of his throat and disappeared under the stained collar of his shirt.

Never before had Brin seen so much panic and exhaustion tied up together in one body, from his drooping ears and sunken head, to the noose-like grip and anxious, arhythmic thud of his tail. It was like a knot that had frayed beyond expectation, and that visual alone beat every venomous thought back into their corners. Now was not the time for them, not when his roommate, his friend, his fucking Pack Alpha looked ready to come apart at the threadbare edges.

"Not-no, please." He hiccoughed. "Not right now, I-I can- I don't want- I just- I don-" watery, frustrated snarls started pouring out of him the longer he tried to speak, and Brin closed a hand around his forearm. Garth's stressed electricity jumped through the wolf like a live wire now there was two connection points, but that was secondary at the moment. He would've tried to say something reassuring, but Brin had always found actions easier than words.

Leaning in slowly, like approaching a wild animal, he closed the distance between them until ginger strands curled around black and white and he could feel the heat radiating off of wet, freckled cheeks. Brin didn't say a word, just sat and breathed slow in a silent bid for Garth to do the same, thumb rubbing gentle circles below the glands of his wrists.

Somewhere along the way, the hyena followed, breaths burbling wetly and fingers kneading in time with the scratchy pads rubbing against his skin.

Brin wasn't quite sure when he migrated from the floor to Garth's bed, but his knees weren't complaining and neither was he; even if it meant he was now trapped under 200-something pounds of sniffling Pack Alpha.

Garth's cheek lay on Brin's collarbone, fresh tears soaking into the soft down of his neck, and his shoulder left a dark stamp over the wolf's heart. That anguished, putrid scent had softened to a tired sadness, but still clung along the stormy edges like glue.

Brin started to comb gentle fingers through tangled curls, setting them right with the patience of a...well, not a saint, but perhaps a cat politely trying to unstick itself from a sherpa blanket. He'd stop if he could, but every snarl undone seemed to catch his claws up in three more, and it was getting harder the further up he went.

"Jeez, Sparks, at this rate it might be easier to get you a haircut." The wolf joked lightly, tongue catching between his teeth when he got no reaction. "Garth?"

Finally succumbing to his exhaustion, the hyena had fallen asleep on Brin's chest, numbing pulse of electricity quieting back to its normal static until he was nothing more than a limp noodle in his arms.

A noodle that worked through everything put on his plate by himself, that swallowed every problem down without questioning whether he should, that shouldered the pack and the Legion and so much more like the old Atlas myth. It had to change, before he destroyed himself.
——————

"Garth, you better be done with your fit!"

Brin's jaw twitched at the pounding of the door, shuffling Garth up into the corner and baring fangs at the locked entrance. A vicious protectiveness wrapped frozen claws around his heart and iced over the golden ties that settled there, closing him off before the inevitable phantom panic trickled in. He didn't need their concern, they hadn't given a damn about Garth last night, so what good would it do now?

The thud of a fist on metal grew louder, and Brin's ears pulled back to block it out.

"Fucking leave, Rokk, you're not wanted!"Acid dripped off every word, searing and snarled, and yet the fucker couldn't take a hint.

"This is between me and mine, Brin, open the door or stay out of it."
"He's not yours, rat! Not to have, not to see, and certainly not to fucking hurt!" He'd have listened to Rokk's response, but the shuffle of fabric against fabric pulled his attention away.

Garth had burrowed back into that little ball of pain and anxiety, loosing soft whimpers that pierced Brin's heart. With his tail between his legs and ears flat and low as they'd go, everything about him begged to not be hurt. There wasn't a single spark of Lightning present, doused and beaten down until he'd shattered, and fury burned anew.

Brin slipped between Garth and the wall -keeping his arm slung around the redhead's back as he nudged him into Brin's chest- and snapped out a threat he fully meant.
"Open that door and you'll never live to see it closed."