Darken Your Doorstep | F&R
The spring sweetened wind did little to combat the rancid stench of old rubbish and piss. Brick buildings were damp in the night, the cold and moist air slickening them with a layer of wetness the smell clung to. Street lamps poured a sickly orange glow onto the sidewalk and road, illuminating graffitied buildings and littered curbsides.
Music blasted from open windows and raucous laughter spilled out of an open storefront as he passed. The miasma of rubbish bins, cigarette smoke, and car exhaust was broken up every now and again by the smell of greasy Chinese food and the occasional twenty-four hour diner. Even at this hour east end was alive with the shouts of disgruntled neighbors, young gangbangers, and rowdy drunks staggering out of pubs in search of whatever flat surface they crashed into first.
When he’d first followed Remus Lupin home, this wasn’t what he’d expected. Fenrir didn’t exactly live like a king, but this… it was squalor, and it bothered him.
Remus was his progeny. While Fenrir was glad to leave many of his sired children to find their way back to him on their own, there were more that he paid special attention to. If the boy’s transition into wolf hadn’t been to punish his outspoken father, Remus might have been one of those he hand reared into the apex predator he was always meant to be. But Fenrir had left him with his parents, to serve as a daily reminder of what he’d said and how he felt, that if he thought werewolves were "soulless, evil, deserving of nothing but death,” then he had to think the same of his own flesh and blood.
The flip side of that was this. Remus, who was one of the most powerful creatures on this Earth, was living like he was beggard. Fenrir had given him strength and power, and not only was he wasting that potential, but the pup himself was wasting away. He couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t understand how one of his progenies could be so weak. Could choose this weakness, when he’d given him a gift.
No one acknowledged him as he ducked into an alley and surveyed the side of the building, following the blueprint he had in his head. He stopped under the fire escape and stared up at the elevated ladder. Rolling his head on his neck and pushing his shoulders back, Fenrir tapped that primal power and called his wolf forward. Nails sharpened and blackened into claws, for tearing and shredding, and also handy for climbing brick walls, it turned out. He bent at the knees and, with a snarl, launched up far enough to claw the rest of the way up to the ladder.
It creaked and groaned under his weight, but rust held it in place as he climbed. Fenrir cleared the first few levels before stopping at his desired window, where he removed his wand and tapped it to a window whose cracked glass was being held together with duct tape. The enchantments warding the flat were weak enough that he --a self-taught magic user-- had little issue undoing them. The latch popped open and the window slid up with a shrill scraping sound before he ducked inside.
He exhaled heavily at what waited inside, gritting his teeth and shaking his head at the mattress pushed into the corner and small kitchenette. Since there weren’t a lot of seating options, Fenrir strode over to the kitchenette and made himself comfortable against a chipped countertop. He reached into his duster’s breast pocket and took out his pipe. After packing it and lighting it up, he savored the smoke that filled his chest. It’d keep him calm as he waited for the boy to find his way home.
