Howl (BW version)

You're mine... don't leave

Chapter 11:

When Win next came to consciousness, it was to the sound of two people arguing. Making no effort to whisper, their voices were startlingly loud in the room, echoing around the space. Scrunching up his nose, Win began drifting back to sleep, allowing the noise to fade away.

Something slammed open, the voices suddenly getting louder.

Jerking out of his sleep, Win huffed, wondering when the speakers would leave him in peace. Whoever they were, they didn't seem to realize that he was in the room, however, their voices steadily rising in volume, their tones becoming more and more aggressive.

Irritated, Win tried to sit up and tell the pair to shut up. For a long moment, nothing happened. Eyebrows drawn, he tried again, telling his body to move. His finger finally twitched, but the rest of his body refused to obey his silent order to get up. After a few more moments of confused struggling, Win relaxed, deciding to go back to sleep. Lying on his stomach, he kept his breathing even, trying to make sleep return to him.

Except, with the voices in the background, he was having a hell of a hard time getting anyway near dreamland. Lips turning downward, he tried to recall the previous day's events. He'd learned this trick when he'd been younger: on nights when he couldn't sleep, he'd try retracing his steps, moment by moment, until he drifted off from the monotony of it all. It had served him well throughout his life and usually worked well enough to cover screaming voices.

Where had the day started? Win drew a blank, unable to remember what had occurred. Feeling a prickling of discomfort—he could always recall a days events easily—he tried again.

I woke up in my bed and got up to brush my teeth. He paused. No, that didn't seem right. He remembered waking up in his bed but the memory was too fuzzy, too faded to have taken place the morning before. Plus, from what he could tell, the sheets of the bed smelled different from the ones he normally used.

Okay, so if I didn't wake up in my house, where did I wake up?

Nothing. Suppressing the building worry at his inability to remember anything, Win changed tactics. If he couldn't remember the morning before, then what could he remember? Picking a random point in time, he flashed forward through his memories, skipping through assignments and faces and events. It took him some time before he reached something that looked relatively recent, the voices in the room fading in and out in the background. Pausing at the memory, he studied it: Bright, his face a cold mask, staring at Win from across a club.

The club.

Okay, so he knew that there had been a club. But what had happened after that? His mind continued to draw up blanks, unable to fill out the picture enough for him to connect the pieces.

Fine then. If Bright was in a club and angry with me, what would he do?

He would leave. Or rather, he would stay, but try to keep out of Win's sight long enough to make Win think that he had left. Had Bright done that? There was a flash of memory.

No, he hadn't left, not until the confrontation with the other lupin.

Win replayed the scene in his mind, the ghost of warm hands slipping beneath his shirt and lightly scratching him, the throb of the club lost between urgent pants and moans, teeth clacking against each other as lips meshed together, flushed skin yearning to meet heated skin. He slowed it all down, with the hope that his brain would continue along its path. Except, as soon as he reached the part where Bright left, the memory ended, his brain returning to its sluggish state. Win felt his lip twitch as if from far off, but he ignored it.