It’s too late. His eyes are glassy, breath shallow enough that he looks ready to buckle in on himself; his body still shakes from pulling one skin out of another so abruptly. There’s a pretty pool of red beneath the pile of flesh and clothing and bone that Ben can’t seem to tear his attention away from.
“I.” A thick syllable that catches on his lips, it’s not enough. Slowly, he sinks to the gravel driveway and buries his face in his hands. It wouldn’t do to look now. “Didn’t mean to. Didn’t.”
[dira necessitas] "Did anyone else see you change like that? Anyone at all?" Poe tried to keep the question from being a demand, and tried to keep his voice down. Save for the distant growl of a lawnmower, it was overwhelmingly quiet in those predawn hours, while they stood shoulder to shoulder at the rim of some nameless, empty retention pond.
Little crescents peppered his palm where his nails dug patterns into the skin. He racked his thoughts for a moment, futile as it was to think he’d be able to remember much while in his natural state of being. The coyote ran on instinct, moment to moment. “I don’t… think so?” His eyes avoided Poe’s, preemptively ashamed of any negligence on his part. “I don’t think so.”
dira necessitas ◇ 1. What kind of a talker are they? Loud or very quiet? Do they stop to listen or do most of the talking? Do they use their hands a lot? 2. How is Ben's imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Living in memories? Or grounded in the present? 3. Describe the material items he kept with him even as he transitioned to Brendon's home.
1. Ben speaks softly and hesitantly and often has very little to say. Rarely will he get a point across in a single go, or even at all, preferring to let others talk for him. He’s very good at shutting up and minding his own, to his detriment.
2. Memories aren’t something Ben dwells in. Thoughts of the parents he abandoned when foolish and human are tainted by guilt and regret, and his imagination is a terrifying thing when left to its own devices, filled with dark horrors and everything Poe never warned him would come. Even in the flickering light of the television with Hux’s breath on the back his neck, it’s best not to let his mind wander.
3. Most of the trappings of his homeless life prior to Brendon’s “generosity” stayed behind in that shitty tin can of a trailer, but there were several little wooden animal carvings he was rather proud of that he kept wrapped up in a bandana and hidden from sight under the bed. As time wore on he forgot they were there, and once moved out, he unintentionally abandoned them.
"So, basically, I look like I’ve been mauled by a werewolf. That’s not surprising since that’s exactly what happened.“
"You’re one of the lucky ones,” the nurse offered unhelpfully as she rounded the corner with a tray of neat, separately packaged items Brendon assumed to be food. “Did you see the news last week? Poor boy. I don’t know why they can’t catch that darn animal.” She spoke of it like one would speak of a nippy chihuahua, tutting softly. An epidemic of dead joggers, and others who found themselves out and about between dusk and dawn, all at the fault of one darn animal. Yes, what a shame. “Press the button if you need me, Mr. Hux.” Brendon muttered a thanks for the food, and thankfully, the nurse departed without any further sentiment.
They’d kept him to test the wound for any sort of DNA sample they could extract from it, but he’d be out of here soon, they’d promised. Crutch-bound, even wheelchair-bound, but mobile. More or less. The flesh of his leg had been mostly reassembled, though the jagged lacerations had proved a challenge. He’d been shown the image of the scores in his femur and subsequently felt ill. Ribbons of skin and muscle, flayed by teeth as long as his fingers, chunks missing altogether.
Brendon speared the Jell-O with the flimsy plastic spoon he’d been given, lacking the stomach to ingest it.
“Mr. Hux?” She really ought to knock. “You have a visitor.” ...Family, then? Coworkers? A neighbor, perhaps?
No such luck. A homeless man, by the looks of him, scuffed and mussed and spotted with some substance that might’ve been motor oil. A mop of black hair all but obscured any defining features until the man pushed it away and revealed a boy, instead.
The boy from--
Brendon’s EKG beeped erratically at his bedside, though he gave no outward signs of distress. A lookalike. It’d been dark, he’d been in pain. Yes. That was it. Blood loss had a tendency to skew one’s perception of reality. “You are?” he asked curtly of the boy, upset they’d let this vagabond enter the hospital at all.
“I’m, um.” The words fell thick and heavy, shaken by nerves. There was an obvious, rhythmic twitching of the boy’s hands as he wrought them behind his back. He refused to look at anything but the floor. “No one. Just wanted, um, to...” Brendon’s patience was already wearing thin, but the boy chose that moment to raise his eyes, and there Brendon saw nothing but fear. “I’m so sorry.”
The boy bolted from the room just as the spoon fell from Brendon’s hand.
