Closed RP Give and Take

This RP is currently closed.

For just a moment, Ethan was worried he had killed Todd.

When the scream came, he wasn’t ready. It was a noise he had never heard before. He had never, in all of his life, ever been exposed to a sound that made his bones turn to ice and his blood run cold. It pierced through the hall, leaving Ethan’s ears ringing. He gasped slightly at the volume, but he didn’t let go. The sound eventually died down, but for the half a beat immediately afterward, Ethan was sure that Todd was dead.

He managed to keep his arms around his body, pinning his arms to his side. That was probably good given the fact that right after he finished screaming, Todd began convulsing violently. Ethan readjusted his grip and kept him upright and pulled him close to his chest. He held on tight, trying to restrain him enough that he wouldn’t hurt himself. He could feel the sudden change in Todd’s energy, could feel it suddenly shift. It took everything he had pumped into Todd and turned it into heat.

He only relaxed entirely, the fear leaving him, when Todd opened his eyes and cried. With a small gasp of relief, Ethan moved back until his back hit the wall, then he slid down. He pulled Todd closer to him, keeping his head elevated. He wasn’t sure what was going on at that moment, but Todd needed him right then. What Ethan had done had worked, just not in the way he had intended for it to. He gently laid Todd’s head on his shoulder and spoke in a carefully even voice.

“Are you there, Todd? Is that you again?”​
 
The figure holding Todd relaxed and gasped against his body, then started pulling him away. Away, back and away. Random spasms kept climbing around his body like there was a monkey swinging between his bones. But the arms cradled him, pulled him closer, and he relaxed into them as best he could, taking short, sharp breaths of – something earthy, with a kick, that his brain didn’t have a name for right now. The ringing in his ears faded out, and he heard the voice.

“Is that you again?”

He blinked slowly, letting more thick tears roll down his cheeks and into the figure’s shirt. What did they mean, was it him again? Had he been someone else? He tried to search his memories, to pull himself out of the fog. What could they possibly mean, unless –

Oh.

Oh, God.

Oh, God, no.

Oh, God, please no.

Another spasm racked his body before he could finish articulating the thought that just echoed those words in his mind. Muscle spasms. A symptom of withdrawal, along with elevated body functions. Withdrawal. Todd didn’t get addicted to things, because his metabolism was too fast. No drug would work on him enough to make anyone question whether he was himself again.

Except for the huntsong.

One by one, flashes of memories came back. The honey-sweet thickness of the hunt and its movements. The crunch of bone under his teeth. The tearing of flesh under his hand, under his claws. A scream. Blood and fear and –

In a burst of energy, he pushed himself back, trying to break the hold. The arms around him tightened, and he felt the tears come hotter, more heavily than before. Someone had seen that. Someone had seen him in full hunt, had seen what he became, had seen the animal that hibernated in his bones. He took deep, heaving breaths of the earthy scent, filling his lungs with it, trying to get rid of the blood that stuck to him.


But the burst of emotion passed, and he collapsed again into the shoulder. The scent filled his head where the fog had been, and his brain finally put a word to it. Several words. Black pepper, sure. Black-pepper-kick Ethan.

“Ethan – god, Ethan, did I– did I hurt you?”

Ethan had seen what he was. Ethan was holding him. A fellow predator was holding him. And he couldn’t resist, couldn’t fight. Just buried his face into the man’s shoulder like a child, feeling as stupid and helpless and guilty as a child caught doing something irreparably wrong. He couldn’t tell where the blood and the fear were coming from. He couldn’t remember what had happened. His head was a tangled mess of ideas and emotions that refused to sort themselves out in his moment of panic.

And all he could think was that if it had been Sam here, he would have died before he could snap out of it.
 

Todd was okay. That was all that mattered. He tightened his grip on the man and pulled him in close, just as though he were holding a child in his arms. He was surprised that his own eyes were wet as he held him. He pulled him up so he was sitting next to Ethan instead of sprawled out across his chest. He turned to help him sit, helping him lean against the wall as Ethan looked him over.

“Todd, thank god. No, you didn’t hurt me. You didn’t hurt me at all. Are you okay? What the fuck was that? When you said you might do something, I never thought you would mean something like that.”

Ethan moved away from the wall so he was facing Todd, but stayed sprawled out on the floor. Now that the situation was handled, he was stuck wondering what the fuck had just happened. Ethan knew what withdrawal looked like. He’d had to help Rhody get through the withdrawal of morphine when they had first brought her in from that hellish organ harvesting operation she had been trapped in. She’d had a severe addiction to opioids, and it was all they could do to keep her from dying when she had insisted they let her quit cold turkey.

Todd was presenting like someone coming off a strong addiction. Ethan had no idea what was going on, but he reached a hand out and took Todd’s face in his hand. He checked his eyes, looking for any sign of real clarity. His words were slurring and his eyes looked clouded. He was still coming down, then. Ethan swallowed and let go, letting his hand fall to his chest. There, he felt Todd’s elevated heart rate and felt how warm his body still was.

This wasn’t great, but Todd also didn’t seem to be fully dying. That was good, even in these circumstances. He sighed and leaned back on his hands, trying to relax. He thought about Kenton in the next room and shook his head, his red curls falling in his glasses. That was going to be an entirely other problem, but hopefully, the man had collapsed from blood loss and exhaustion so they could just carry him out. They would have to wait for Todd to be well enough– Ethan wasn’t physically strong enough to carry a man.​
 
He let Ethan guide him into a sitting position. His vision was still blurred, though whether that was the tears or the confusion was hard to say. He tried to focus on Ethan’s face, but that sent an icepick of pain through his eye, and he flinched and forced himself to relax.

Ethan’s hand went from his face to his chest, and then the other predator pulled away. He wanted to reach out, to try to follow him the way he might’ve followed Sam. But he stopped himself. Of course he’d pull away. Todd had no idea what he’d seen, but the flashes of memory told him it was nothing good.

“I was hunting.”

His voice was soft. His mouth was dry and sticky. He tried to wipe one eye with his open palm, then paused as he remembered his claws. Instead of wasting time to remove them, he just sighed and put his hand down.

“It’s been so long,” he continued, his cloudy eyes and thick voice giving him a dreamy quality, “I forgot… god, I thought I remembered, but I forgot what that felt like. That’s all I can remember – the feelings. Some vague images. The crunch or tear, here or there. But… god, that high.”

He found the strength to curl up, to pull his knees to his chest and lean back against the wall. Tears fell again when he closed his eyes, and he sighed again, shakily. There was something at the forefront of his mind, distracting him from his body’s demands that he lie on the floor to recover. Not yet. He needed this pain, as another shudder passed through him. He needed to stay grounded.

“Nobody else has ever seen it before. I know – I know I just devolve down to an animal. But I don’t remember what happened.”

His eyes opened, and, headache be damned, he focused his blue eyes on Ethan’s face, searching for emotions with his nose still burning with hunt and blood and fear.

“Ethan, what did I do?”
 

“I know – I know I just devolve down to an animal.”

Ethan froze, looking over at Todd. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face. There was a moment of silence as he thought about how to answer him. Then, he moved, scooting back to the wall and putting himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Todd. The kid needed the support. Especially with what Ethan was about to tell him.

“Are you sure you want to know?” He turned his face toward Todd’s and waited. After a moment, the young man nodded weakly, and Ethan sighed again. Todd was going to hate himself for this. He was going to absolutely hate himself. But Ethan had already decided the day they met that he wouldn’t lie to him. So with a short huff, he started.

“You weren’t an animal. You were intelligent. You were in control. You spoke and you bantered and you hunted a man for sport. As far as I can tell, based on the blood trails, you chased him all the way from one side of the house to the other. At some point, you ripped out his ankle and at some point, you took his whole hand. You squared up to me, and you decided I wasn’t scary enough for you to have to deal with, so I took you down.”

Ethan ruffled his own hair nervously. He was trying to choke back the concern and the tears that threatened to flow from his eyes again. A dozen thoughts raced through his head. He didn’t even know what he did. He had no idea the kind of monster that actually lay under his skin. He had gotten control over it the moment Todd had started to convulse, but he had been afraid of the younger man. He hadn’t let it show or control him, but he had been afraid.

Would this happen again? Or was Todd in control? God, if he had done that around anyone else– if he had done that around Samantha–

Todd would never forgive himself if he let that monster out around Samantha. He could barely accept he had done it in front of Ethan. If it had been anyone else, then Todd would have likely killed them. Ethan was just good at playing a monster and he was fast enough and strong enough to handle Todd. Ethan felt the brand on his chest burn softly and knew if anyone else was able to take on Todd like him, it would have been Samantha. He breathed out, watching Todd.

Maybe he wouldn’t immediately jump to that conclusion.​
 
After his nod, Todd couldn’t bear to move his head again. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, even leaned a little into Ethan’s shoulder. He might not be able to look, but he listened. He kept his face neutral as Ethan told him what he’d done, what he’d observed.

This was new information. Important information, but brand new. If it’d been anyone but Ethan, he might’ve assumed it was a lie, or a misinterpretation. Intelligence in a predator of his caliber… banter, and conversation, and hunting intelligent prey – it made sense, obviously it did. The hunt had always been about the fear and the chase, and he found himself horrified, but not surprised, to hear that it could taunt.

His eyes opened, bleary but without more tears, and he looked down at his hands. Bloody, as expected. He now remembered the rip of muscle and tendon under his palm, the feeling – the feeling, not the decision or the thoughts behind it or the words he might’ve said. He remembered the tear and pop of the wrist under his palm, and the crunch of bone under his teeth. A hand, that fit the memory. He just… couldn’t remember where he’d gotten the hand. How, or at what point.

“Thank you,” he said, whispering. “I… I don’t know what to do with this, but I needed to know it. Especially since… since I…”

And then the fear and worry came into his face, and he shuddered again. He’d relapsed. He’d fallen back into the high. Seven years of work, gone in a night. This was what he’d been afraid of. Now he had to start again, just as he thought he was getting the hang of a normal place in the human world. Not to mention the fact that Ethan had been the one to see. Better Ethan than Sammy, of course; Sammy wouldn’t have given him the second chance. But out of anyone in the world, the idea of Obsidian seeing the monster some part of Todd still recognized he really wanted, or worse, the scariest person in Pittsburgh being afraid of a coyote like him just because he sometimes didn’t have fear.

He closed his eyes again, this time because he couldn’t bear to see what exactly lay behind Ethan’s calm exterior. He didn’t know what would make him feel worse – horror from the worst monster he knew, or acceptance from a fellow predator. Maybe both, in different ways.
 

Ethan watched Todd, saw the flashes of emotion over his face, and heard it in his voice. He didn’t have all the pieces, but Todd clearly hadn’t wanted this to happen. At least this meant that Ethan had done the right thing by interrupting him. He looked away for a few moments, then turned back to look at Todd, to rest his chin on the younger man’s head. There was really only one thing he could do in a situation like this.

Ethan wrapped his arms around Todd and held him tight, cradling his head into his shoulder, this time more like a brother protecting a younger sibling. He ran a soothing hand over the man’s curls, sighing. “I don’t know what that was, and I don’t know why you’re so upset about it. But I’ll support you however you need it right now. Just tell me what you need, Todd.”

His voice was clear, finally, of the worry that had kept it low and rough. Now, his touch was strong and comforting instead of wary. The tears were gone, and instead was a determination in him to save the kid– no, to save the man in front of him. Todd might have been younger than Ethan, but he’d seen just as much hell as the older man. He wouldn’t keep thinking of him as a kid, not after this.

“Whatever that was? It wasn’t you. This is you. I don’t know what that was, but it’s not you. You’re Todd Fowler, metahuman, my friend… and the guy fucking my little sister.” His voice took on an uptick of humor as he gave a small smile. Maybe the situation would benefit from a little laughter right then. Maybe that would help Todd the most. Ethan sure as fuck didn’t know what else to do in that moment.​
 
Todd let Ethan lean into him, allowed whatever touch the other man would offer. The human contact was helping. It enveloped him. It was making him feel weak, childish… human. Like a real person again, and not just the cold and the ache and the hunger. He was still hungry, he was still cold. He shivered while he was being held. But he didn’t pull away.

“We’re not fucking,” Todd insisted, with a hoarse laugh that died on his lips after only a second. He pushed his forehead into Ethan’s chest, as if the proximity would make the new wave of tears just stop. It didn’t work. “This is… this is why, we’re not fucking. God. Sam…”

He tried to take deep breaths. He halfway succeeded, even if they were almost sobs. Finally, when he felt like he could speak again without completely melting, he did.

“That was… a relapse. I haven’t hunted like that since I met Arlo. It’s – it’s me, there’s really no denying it. And when it hits it feels like it’s the real me, that there’s nothing else I could be. It’s so easy to just let everything go when it happens. There isn’t any worry. There isn’t any fear. People aren’t people, to it. Just… just food, or threat. I just – I thought it was all instinct. I didn’t think there was any thought to it, either. But if even part of me knows what I’m doing…”

The guilt swept through him, but now, he felt like he’d shed all of his tears. There was just the exhaustion. He needed to eat, but the thought of looking at the man he’d just hunted for sport made the human part of his mind recoil. How many people had died like that? All of his earliest hunts had been in full song, and every second in between had just been chasing the next high.

“I… I don’t know what I need,” he admitted. “I don’t even want to see him again, I just want to –”

To curl up and go to sleep, and hope he never woke up. He couldn’t tell Ethan that, obviously. Not when he was doing so much to try to soothe his- his friend. But that was the truth. He wanted to tell Ethan to lock him in a basement and throw away the key. He’d rather feel the all-consuming burn of real starvation again, than have to live with the risk of relapse. Not with Sam. Not with Nat, or the pack, not with all of them so close. Any one of them could take him, he knew that, but – but if he could think, there was always a chance, a risk, that they wouldn’t be fast enough, or that it could bait them or trap them or –

He was hyperventilating. He caught himself, and forced a single deep breath into his chest and out again. His voice was small. Everything about him felt small as he spoke up again.

“I can’t– I can’t risk this again, Ethan. I can’t let it – let me – I can’t become that again. It’s so easy, and – and I don’t have Arlo this time. I can’t risk people like that again. I can’t risk her like this.”
 

Ethan sat for a moment with Todd’s fear, trying hard to stay grounded. He held the man tighter, and then let him go, pushing back so there was about half an arm’s space between them. He gave a quirked grin and started with, in his opinion, the most lighthearted thing he could say. He circled back around to the beginning.

“I mean, you’re not fucking now, but do you want to be?” There was a chuckle under the statement, a gentleness that said no matter what Todd said, Ethan wasn’t going to hate him for it. A gentleness that said it was meant to bring his thoughts to something more pleasant, and as much as Ethan did not actually want to know if Todd wanted to fuck his sister, he was willing to talk about it if it helped to ground Todd.

Then, he paused, letting the smile stay in place. There was no point in going back to a serious expression if he could avoid it. He rolled his head from one side to the other, then started in on the bigger issue. “What it sounds like, is that you have no control over this. You need to learn to control it. Maybe… maybe I can help you with that. I have a few ideas of how we could work on that. That is, if you want to work on it. I understand if you’d rather not. You’re distressed about this.”

He brought his hand from Todd’s shoulder to the back of his curly head and brought their foreheads together. He held him there for just a moment, a single breath, and then he pulled away. Ethan looked Todd in his eyes, searching them. “So what? So what if the monster is under your skin? Take your power back from it. Don’t let it have control. This you, this version of you, is the real you. That seemed more like… a washed-out version of you, one that has all the violence that has ever existed in you, Todd. But you, this you, the you right now, this is the real you. Let me help you figure this out. You’ll never hurt anyone you love if you learn to control it.”

Ethan gave a softer smile, one that was barely there, as he looked at Todd. He didn’t want Todd’s monster. He didn’t want his violence. But he did want to help him control it. Ethan knew the feeling of being afraid of hurting everyone around you. He knew the feeling of being the monster in plain sight. If he could help Todd with even some of those feelings, those problems, maybe there was hope for him after all.​
 
Todd wiped his face with the back of his hand when Ethan asked the first question. He smiled, but none of the sadness, none of the exhaustion, really went away. “I think she does. I’m… not sure. I’ve been so caught up in the… the way it might end, that I haven’t really… thought about that part. I know she does. But I… don’t know about me.”

He looked into Ethan’s yellow eyes, the same gold as Sam’s. The same red curls, the same slope of the jaw. He let Ethan see the exhaustion there, the fear, the grief that he didn’t have any right to. He’d done so much harm, and the idea that he’d done that harm knowingly, in any capacity, broke his heart two hundred times over.

And maybe he’d see the part of Todd that really just wanted to rest. To let himself slip back, to start chasing the quiet thrum, the drifting warmth that spread through him and promised that all that tiredness and all that grief would go away, were just a burden to be shrugged off. After seven years, fifteen minutes like that, without all that weight on his shoulders, really did feel like heaven. He shivered at that thought, and the smile died.

“It’s not really something that can be controlled. It’s– if I take care of myself, if I don’t push myself like that again, it’s something that can go away and I can be afraid of it without seeing it. If I get cocky enough to think I can control it by myself, I’ll just… disappear into it. Maybe it’s just a version of me, but if that happens, it’ll be the only version of me.” Then, he put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder, and a shadow of the smile faded in. “And it’s too much of a risk to ask for help, for anyone else to be in the way of that. I can’t work on it, not like that. It’s not a habit or a vice. You could pull me out of it again, but the more I slip, the more I’m going to want to look for it.”

Ethan thought he had a plan, that much was clear. That was partly why Todd didn’t give an outright ‘no’. But he wouldn’t ask for the plan, either. He didn’t want to hope. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want to be this or have this. He didn’t want the power or the strength. He just – he just wanted his life, the life that he’d created with his bare hands, the life that was now in danger from himself if he couldn’t keep his act together.

One slip. One slip was all it’d take. And that scared him more than anything in the world.
 
Ethan looked at the hand on his shoulder and then tucked his own on top of it. The faintest hints of freckles were washed out on his skin. He squeezed the younger man’s hand and then removed it, putting it back on Todd’s lap. With a small smile, he once again tackled the easiest point to hit. Todd’s reaction to his question had been so weary, so miserable, that he sighed and looked up at the ceiling for a moment as he started speaking before his eyes eventually found Todd’s again.

“That’s a problem, Todd. You need to make some choices about your relationship with her. You know she wants to, and you know she loves you, and you know she wants this. The way you talk about it, it’s like you don’t know if you even want to be with her at all. The happiness she has thrust into your hands, not the happiness you want. She wants to sleep with you, and you have no idea if you want that. Todd. Get your shit together on this and figure out what you want from this if you’re so sure she’s going to kill you when she finds out. You don’t have a lot of time then, do you? If you want this, want her, make it worth it. Don’t just string her along and leave her with nothing.”

He paused, realizing that he had been rambling. He made a small face, closed his eyes, and sighed again, clearly not fully at ease with the idea of telling his friend to sleep with his sister. And still, he chuckled and let his eyes flick open. With a playful smile he added, “And I swear to god, if I hear one thing about how you’ve never responded to her like that because you’re too busy being miserable and full of self loathing, I’m going to ask you to step out of the closet and just admit you’re gay.”

After that was said, he moved on to the more difficult topic again: convincing Todd it was worth trying. “Todd, how would you know there’s no controlling it? What you’re talking about doing is just called repression. And repressing this isn’t going to help you. You’ll eventually slip back in again. You won’t stop relapsing if your solution is suppression. Listen, give us a chance. I think Lapis and I can help you with this. Just agree to talk to us about it and we’ll talk about it then. Give me a chance to help you… the way you’re helping me.”​
 
Ethan did make Todd laugh, with the last comment about the closet. He really just hadn’t just given himself the time to – well, think about that. He’d vaguely considered it, but it’d always been shot down. Hunger and lust were about two steps off from each other. If he slipped then–

Okay. Okay, that was why he didn’t think about it, and that was why he wasn’t going to think about it now. Ethan might be proposing a solution, or proposing something that was just going to backfire. He took a deep breath, then decided to change course. The conversation about sleeping with Ethan’s sister wasn’t exactly appealing right now, especially given – well, given that it’d probably end with her at least getting hurt, and he wasn’t going to tell Ethan that and get another lecture about his sexuality.

Instead, he focused on something Ethan had said, and tilted his head a little. His nose might have wrinkled, just a little. “Lapis? Why Lapis?”
 

Ethan could almost hear the gears in Todd’s head turning as he spoke. His expression fell, slowly, but he watched as the younger man brushed it off. Damn it, he was letting himself get caught up in the off-chance bad things could happen, instead of just asking if he wanted it. He was letting his fears get in the way of even knowing what he wanted. That much was clear.

He wasn’t going to have that. So when the questions came about Lapis, he shook his head and sighed, almost aggravated. “Lapis’s power, she can invoke sensations and feelings and mess with your brain’s chemistry. She can probably trick your brain into falling back into whatever chemical state you were in.”

Then Ethan leaned in until their faces were close, until there was a hair’s breadth between them. He looked him in the eye and searched, as though he would find all of the answers and drag them out of him. “I don’t think you understand that this is important to me. I need you to know what you want. I won’t sit here and watch both of you get hurt when she finds out what you are and doesn’t want to leave you, and you realize you never wanted her to begin with. Now tell me, Todd, do you fucking want to be with Samantha? Are. You. Happy?”

Pushing it. Ethan was pushing it and he knew he was. But he’d be absolutely fucked if he didn’t make sure this would work out. Ethan’s regrets were innumerable, and while Samantha had the number one spot, Zeheb would always haunt him. He had thought on so many occasions how things could have been different. He still loved him, in a way, and wasn’t sure anyone would ever be able to replace that. He had fucked up by not telling his human partner what he was, and then by killing him. There was so much he hadn’t done, they hadn’t done, because Ethan had always been scared of hurting Zeheb.

Todd wasn’t going to make those mistakes. He wasn’t going to let him. And he especially wasn’t going to let him make them with Samantha. Samantha, who he knew without a doubt wouldn’t hurt Todd. It didn’t matter how or when she found out. She wouldn’t hurt him. But Todd would never accept that. Todd would never listen to him if he told him that. He knew who Todd was by now, the big, self-loathing baby. He was going to need a square kick in the ass and even then, he wouldn’t accept it. Not until she told him herself that she didn’t care.​
 
The information about Lapis had to be set aside for later as Ethan kept pressing. He was realizing now that he really hadn’t had somebody push him like this, not since – well, not like this at all, and not at all since his court-mandated therapy after his dad’s arrest. He felt a little color crawl into his face.

“Of course she makes me happy, Ethan,” he said, and even though he felt his hackles rise a little, he knew he didn’t feel threatened. He was just being defensive, because he’d always been guarded about how he felt. “I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t want to be with her. And I wouldn’t be so worried if I wasn’t happy. But if you’re right, and she’d never hurt me, you have to realize how much worse the alternative is if this –” he gestured vaguely at himself “– happens again. It’s because of this that nice things don’t last for me. They never have, and they never will. And I am not going to put her more at risk than I already am. You don’t know what I can do. And apparently…”

He stopped, realizing he wasn’t even angry, just frustrated that this seemed to be going in circles. The concept that he could lure and trap was coming back to him again. He remembered the dinner, remembered the gentle kisses that could’ve ended with his teeth in her neck, and her never knowing. Or worse, a bite elsewhere, and a hunt of a lifetime. He looked away from Ethan, almost scowling, but not quite having the energy for that much emotion.

He huffed. “Apparently, neither do I. So let’s just… focus on the hunt, and figure out the rest from there. Sam and I are fine, for right now, unless I do something like this. If you think you and Lapis can help me, then– then at least I’ll think about it, and talk about details.”

He suddenly remembered the scars. They’d started to itch, he realized. His body must be trying to heal, with the little bit of food he’d given it. He’d need to finish that, but they really had to finish this talk first. The idea of talking about Sam while eating… definitely did not appeal to him.
 

A smile, the first big one since this had all started, crossed Ethan’s face, and for a moment, he looked truly happy. Forcing Todd to say it out loud was forcing Todd to recognize it and hopefully embrace it. Despite his worries, despite everything, he had to know how he really felt. So with that, Ethan took in a satisfied breath and said, “Good. I’ll accept that answer for now. We’ll have to work on– well, we have work to do.”

He pushed himself to his feet and dusted off his coat. Thankfully, on inspection , there was no blood on his clothes despite the trail of it down the hallway. He looked down at Todd and gestured with his head toward the door behind them. “I think Lapis and I can help. I do. So let’s talk about this later. For now, we should probably bag Kenton and get out of here. You need to eat, sooner rather than later.”

He offered a hand to Todd, warmth that was normally absent apparent in his face. Warmth, because there was a chance for Todd and Samantha. He would help Todd get through this. Ethan could be wrong about everything, but he had a deep, gut feeling that he wasn’t.

At least one of them could be happy.​
 
Ethan accepted it, which let Todd drop the tension he’d carried through this part of the conversation. He nodded as Ethan mentioned the work they’d had to do. He wasn’t hopeful, but at least it was something. Something more than sitting still and hoping the phase to pass, waiting for the predator to just go away again. He didn’t want to have to relearn how to be a person, not again. He – he was a person, even if he wasn’t completely human. He’d taken the time to learn that.

Maybe he could learn other things, too.

Maybe the hunger was just starting to get to his brain. He didn’t know. What he did know was that as soon as Ethan mentioned it again, the itching got worse, and he felt the cold that had seeped out of his bones into everything else. He sighed. He still didn’t want to see what he’d done to Kenton, and really hoped the man had passed out in the time it took Todd to come down from the hunt. He nodded.

“We’re gonna need to find my mask.” He reached up, and carefully took Ethan’s hand so he didn’t accidentally scratch or puncture it with the claws. He pulled himself up – mostly – and let a shudder pass through his body. He was more than ready to eat, now. The regret would hit, but as always, it would pass. He’d move on from it, because he’d need to move on to survive.

He looked down at his hands, once he was standing. At his boots, at his coat. At the floor leading this way. He sighed again, heavier this time. He let the remorse sit in his chest for just a moment longer, before he looked back at Ethan. “But, you’re right. Let’s get out of here.”
 

Finding Todd’s mask had taken longer than carrying Kenton’s body to the car had been. They’d wrapped him securely in some thick old blankets, heavy ones that looked like maybe emergency blankets. After he was securely placed in the car, they climbed into the front seats, this time with Ethan in the driver’s seat. By the time they had pulled back onto the main road, Todd had passed out.

This gave Ethan a lot of time to think. He didn’t like that. He didn’t want to think about what had just happened. He didn’t want to think about anything that had happened that night. He didn’t want to think about what had happened with Todd just a few minutes prior. As he looked over at the young man’s sleeping face, he swallowed. If he never saw that happy glint in his eyes ever again, then he would be equally as happy. But for Todd’s sake, he would bear it as many times as was needed for the young man to get control over it.

Ethan didn’t want to think about Sam being alive. He didn’t want to feel the brand on his chest from her hand burning like she was still there, in his hands, dying. He didn’t want to think about how much work this was going to be. Already, the plans were forming in his head for trying to connect with her. After all, it was his sister. It was his sister, and she wasn’t dead. It was his sister, and she was alive. God, the sense of relief that filled him with was unfathomable.

But he didn’t want to think about any of that right now. He just wanted to drive, without thoughts. They came to him anyway, filling his mind with jagged edges and burning spots. The drive to the warehouse that Todd had picked out wasn’t far. It was closer to their side of the strip, so Ethan was able to drive them just outside the area, in a street with dead lamps. Once he parked the car– which had surprisingly driven like a dream- he turned to Todd and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Todd, wake up. We’re here. Let’s get this moving.”​
 
The trail of the chase hadn’t bothered Todd as much as it should’ve; maybe he’d just been used to it, or maybe he was just exhausted. He was almost asleep before his seatbelt was buckled.

His dreams were red. They bled together, connected by the taste of copper and cinnamon. Snapping bones and tearing meat. Gentle pleas for the monster she loved to stop loving her the only way he knew how. They weren’t unpleasant dreams– not until Ethan’s hand pressed against his shoulder. Not until he woke up and remembered them.

He groaned. He could still taste copper and meat. Kenton, he remembered, belatedly. He was tasting Kenton, not her. Not tonight. His whole body stretched, some joints cracking and popping, but nothing crunching. He muffled a yawn with one hand, then finally opened his eyes, blinking a few times before they focused on Ethan’s face.

“Right.”

He rubbed his face, then rummaged in his pockets for the bagh nakh. He probably wouldn’t need them, but if Kenton woke up while Todd was carrying him, this would be easier and sadly more humane than most alternatives.

He flexed his fingers, then shivered. Sleep had cleared the last of the fog from his head, but the cold and hunger were back in his bones. Seemed like the hand he’d taken hadn’t lasted long, and neither had whatever else Ethan had pumped into him. Everything throbbed as he got out of the car, a frigid burn with each beat of his heart as he focused on the promise of food.

He went to the trunk first, and slung his butcher’s kit over one shoulder. The knives inside clanked against each other. He didn’t seem to notice as he closed the trunk, then opened the passenger side of the back seat to start hauling the body out to toss over one shoulder, as long as his prey – victim, now – didn't squirm too much.
 

Kenton, thank god, stayed unconscious as Todd pulled him out of the car. Ethan would have offered to help, then, if it wasn’t for the fact that even pumped up on energy he was as weak as a wet kitten. What he lacked in strength he made up for with speed and quick deaths. Mal had always been the one who–

No. He didn’t want to think about Mal right then. Not when he was about to watch Todd eat. That was just too grim, too dark. But he knew that despite that, he was going to have it at the back of his mind. Mal had died like this, had been eaten like this. He was going to get to see what Todd did with the bodies. And that was both a distressing thought to him as well as a curious one. He wanted to see the other predator in action, and now he had. But unlike Ethan, the hunt wasn’t the entire process for Todd.

He followed behind Todd into the warehouse he had chosen. Inside, it was relatively clear, but there were still some crates and a few stacked shipping containers. But inside, there was also an assortment of furniture, that looked like it had once been maybe a break area. A table sat in the middle of it all, and Ethan watched as Todd began to set up shop there. He made a motion to help him, but Todd just shook his head at him.

So Ethan fell back and just watched. Despite his best efforts, the image of steel and plastic pieces laid out over bloody clothes flashed through his mind. He swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them back up, his expression was set in determination. He would see this through, even if it wasn’t really what he wanted anymore.

He pulled up a chair from the floor and dragged it over to sit on the opposite side of the table, a little ways away in case blood started pouring down. He already had enough on his shoes that he was going to have to buy new ones, but god forbid if he got it on his pants or coat. Once seated, he sighed and watched Todd’s hands as they moved. “So how does this normally go?”​
 
Todd deposited Kenton on the table and unwrapped the blankets. He slipped his claws into his pockets, then shrugged out of his coat, dumping it far from where the blood was going to pool. He shed the turtleneck, too, showing off the scars one more time as he switched into the cheap black t-shirt he stowed in the butcher’s kit. He looked down at the slacks he was still wearing – already partly ruined by the chase – and sighed. Then, he pulled out the black sweatpants he’d gotten for this, and disappeared behind a stack of crates for a few seconds.

He reappeared in the sweats, dumping the slacks with the rest of his clothes, and picked the duffel bag back up. The concrete felt familiar under his bare feet as he walked and finally stopped beside the prey. Kenton’s chest was still lightly rising and falling. That meant it was going to be on the messier side. He glanced up at Ethan when he spoke. For a moment, the pale face turned a shade redder. Then his body remembered that embarrassment was a waste of energy. He shook it off.

“Well, first, I’ll stick him.” He rummaged in his bag for the butcher’s knife. “I mean, it’s not technically sticking – I don’t have a knife for that. I’m going to cut his throat, and he’s going to bleed out. It’s… I’ve found it’s one of the more humane ways to do that, after everything. Breaking his neck is a close second, but it still hurts. Even if he’s not conscious, bleeding… there’s enough time for relief.”

He ran his thumb along the edge of the knife, letting it catch on his fingerprint. He was nervous, but somehow, the explanations were coming out clinical, calm. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe he was just too tired to worry. He walked around to the head, and aligned his knife.

“Once he’s stopped breathing, I’ll strip him, take the limbs off – I’ve got a bonesaw for that – and start at the head, then organs, then ribs and spine. Arms and legs are easiest to carry, so I save them for last.”

He set the knife under Kenton’s chin, and braced, taking a slow breath. There was a moment of steadying, a moment of just existing. The last moment where they were predator and prey. If he’d been religious in any sense, Todd might’ve even considered it sacred. But no god, especially not a loving one, would let him exist to do things like this. And if they did, this wold be the most profane moment, not the most sacred one.

He cut Kenton’s throat.

The spray wasn’t as serious as it normally would be, given the amount of blood he’d already lost, but it was still enough that Todd was glad he’d changed and left the victim’s clothes on. They’d absorb most of the blood from this part, at least, reducing the overall mess. He wiped his face on the back of his arm, and wiped the knife on his pants leg. And then he walked over, and sat down next to Ethan.
 
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