Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Fresh Fangs

saturday morning. with the man what lives.

Something cold and wet brushes Addison's brow—prods at him just firm enough to make him frown, and he furrows his brow, squeezes his eyes shut tight, and tries lifting his arm to swat away whatever it is that's come to pester him, but a pain runs up his knuckles the moment he flexes his fingers, and he hisses. One stale ache bleeds into many; suddenly, all his bones moan, and his stomach's so tender breathing leaves it smarting like a bruise.

Jesus Christ. What in the Hell happened to him?

There was mist, and a gun—his gun.

That bastard.

Immediately, Addison's eyes fly open and he jerks himself up, but the world spins about him violently, and his stomach makes to upend itself, so he slaps a hand over his mouth and digs his fingers into his belly, but his intestines are squeezing themselves all at once, and he turns and vomits right off to the side. Acid and bile's all that comes up, and the color's a disgusting green-ish yellow that digs like a pickaxe right into the gray matter of his brain. His head throbs, and his stomach twists, so he lies for a moment on his side, chasing after all the air he'd retched up.

Something big and gray creeps close to him, but whatever it is pauses at the puddle of sick lying on the ground and starts sniffing at it.

"Hey!" a stranger barks out suddenly. He has a man's voice—loud and growling and rough—and Addison squints, grits his teeth, and forces his head to move. He's in a cabin, some shack thrown together with a couple planks of wood and a handful of nails, and the stranger's sitting atop a turned-over metal bucket just a few feet away, hunched over something in his hands. He's clear enough about the edges, but all which rests behind him is blurred.

The stranger barks out something else, but either his drawl's thicker than porridge, or he's speaking another language entirely. Whatever it is he's shouting at understands him just fine, though, and it lowers its ears and backs away from the puddle of vomit on the floor. Ears? Yes, it has ears. Two pointed ones, which it presses flat against its large head, and its snout is long and broad, but more pointed than a dog's.

It's not a dog.

The animal turns its attention back to Addison, and it's a wolf's face which peers at him—a wolf which now flares its dark nostrils and opens its wide mouth. He's on the floor. He's lying on a bit of cloth stretched out on ground and a wolf's leering down at him and the smell of his sick is in his lungs.

Oh God. Oh God.

Something butts against his leg, and he glances down and finds another wolf, grayer than the one which now peers back at him. The animal's nosing his pants, but now it starts pulling back its lips, making bare its sharp white teeth, and a bolt of fear so cold it rips right through all his aches and bruises tears into Addison's veins. He jerks back his leg and scrambles away from the two wolves, and his hand starts feeling around for his holster, but the belt's gone—his gun's gone. Where is it? Where the Hell did it go?

For God's sake where's his goddamn gun?

Another bark, again from the man. Addison pauses, looks up, and stares. The stranger's leaning his forearm on his thigh and squinting back at Addison, and another wolf—because of fucking course there's a whole goddamn pack of them pissing about—pads right up and rests its muzzle atop the stranger's leg.

Wait.

The stranger glances down at the wolf and sets a heavy, calloused hand atop its head, and then he looks back up at Addison and peers like he's waiting for something.