20.5th Howl: Third Full Moon [Action | Closed, Backdated to 8/22]

[professorwolf]

If it weren't for the pain of it, Lyall thought he might just pass out after changing back into a man again. But everything still felt sharp and grinding and aching, and his throat sore from howls that had turned into screams at the end, so despite the groggy exhaustion, sleep wasn't going to happen.

Something was different this time, though. He felt... more bruised, this time, than last. And there was a lingering frustration worse than last time. And there were claw marks in the door and walls, and spots and smears of blood. Lyall stared in confused horror, looking down at his hands. Had he done that...? The change seemed to have healed that, at least, aside from a torn fingernail or two, but the bruising from whatever else he'd been doing remained.

When he felt able, he dragged himself over to the door to his bedroom prison and knocked, the sharp pattern he'd made up for them to know he was entirely himself again. The wolf didn't remember patterns, of that he was sure.

Comments

[chalicejoker]

Hajime jumped a little at the sound of the knocking. "Coming!" Really, any noise that wasn't howling or screaming was a welcome one. He hadn't really slept, either. He wouldn't have been a good guard if he did, and the noise put the kibosh on any other thoughts of sleep. Lyall just might find a bit of a mess in the room where Hajime had been keeping his vigil; there were a few cans of Red Bull scattered around the room, the TV was once more on the awful local Japanese station Hajime seemed to favor, and there were also signs he'd been playing the old Playstation he had brought over when he roomed with Lyall the last time. There was also a fairly impressive house of cards built on the coffee table.

He'd tried his best to keep Lyall calm that night, going so far as to drag some of Lyall's stereo equipment over to the door and try blasting different sorts of music at the wolf to see if it had any effect. He'd tried every sort of genre he could conceivably think of, ranging from classical to rock to rap to disco to the shamisen music they piped in at the restaurant sometimes. Hajime had hoped it might cut down on the possibility the neighbors started complaining about the noise...or at the very least make it sound like a loud party instead of a loud haunted house. He'd blasted any and every sort of music he could think of at the angry werewolf, but he didn't think it worked very well.

Carefully, Hajime opened the door to let Lyall out. He was just a human himself, not the bug, even if a few of the noises Lyall had been making during the night--what the hell was that beating and thumping and scraping, anyway?--had brought forth the urge to change. There was no need for that now. "How are you feeling?"

He couldn't help but look past Lyall into the room, and he saw the blood and claw marks on the wall. There was a sympathetic grimace at that. "I take it your night was just as rough as it sounded."

[professorwolf]

It'd take him another minute to actually get out of the room, but having the door open made him feel less trapped. He was, in fact, still sitting on the floor, holding one of his arms-- still broken-- against his chest. "Like hell, really, but that's sort of expected at this point," he said, going for a light tone, but it mostly came out pained and flat with exhaustion. "Toss me my robe, would you? I already destroyed the clothes I brought in with me."

Hajime might have seen those remains in the room, too, torn to shreds. "Apparently I was a bit more active this time. I guess something changed."

[chalicejoker]

Hajime ducked away from the doorway for a moment, only to return with the robe. He tossed it to Lyall as requested. The nudity stopped him from immediately noticing the broken arm; he wasn't looking until Lyall was covered properly.

"Yeah, I thought as much..." Hajime trailed off as he got a full sense of the destruction in that room. "Some of the stuff I heard...only thing that stopped me from opening that door was the thought of how badly we'd trash the house." That, and he was afraid he might accidentally hurt a maddened werewolf Lyall. "I tried to calm you down, but I don't really know if it did much good."

[professorwolf]

"Probably not much. All I remember was frustration, I assume at not being able to get out and get at you." He rested his arm against his stomach and used the other to at least get the robe onto his shoulders. Given his other arm was still fractured in a place or two, too, this and the motions needed to get both of said arms through the sleeves resulted in a few grimaces and one not-quite-suppressed pained whimper.

But he did finally get the robe on, and wrapped it shut, with a little sigh of relief. That was when he looked out, past Hajime, to the things he'd left out. "It looks like you were trying a few things... music?"

[chalicejoker]

Hajime grimaced at that pained whimper. "Here, I've got some aspirin out here...it's probably better than nothing." Not that he really knew what to do for a broken arm when it would be healing up on its own shortly anyway.

There was a sheepish nod at that next question. "Yeah. Music, the noise the Playstation makes...anything that might have been a distraction." He glanced back at the speakers. "I'm not sure that it worked, to be honest. A few stations seemed to make you angrier more than anything else."

wow okay finally catching up...

[professorwolf]

"Probably even wolves don't like R&B much," Lyall guessed, a weak joke at best. "Most likely it was just noise in general, another sign that there was someone out there it-- I couldn't get to." Part of him did want to distance himself from "the wolf", but he knew that was a bad idea. He had to take responsibility for anything that might happen, and owning the creature was part of that.

"Aspirin would be all right," he added, levering himself to his feet and leaning on the wall to keep him there. "Though actually, I have a couple doses of Doctor Strider's medicine left. Get me that, would you? And one of the water bottles from the fridge?" No tap water, even inside. The idea of laughing right now sounded painful.

no worries!

[chalicejoker]

"I don't know...I think the R&B made it worse just because it was R&B." Hajime shrugged. He could roll with a weak joke. Nothing wrong with needing that to cope with changing into something freaky...and he knew exactly how tempting it was to distance oneself from the monster. He hadn't even taken proper ownership of the name his form had come with, after all, "Probably didn't help that you were smelling bug-man, either."

At Lyall's request, there was a quick nod. "Sure thing." He darted off for the requested items and soon returned both with the pill bottle and a water bottle, both opened to spare Lyall the trouble.

[professorwolf]

By then, Lyall had managed to maneuver himself, slowly and painfully, into the living room and onto the couch. It was much more comfortable there than on the floor, or leaning on the wall, and despite feeling generally exhausted, he didn't think sleeping on all the broken bones was going to happen. Not until he was a little more healed up, or until the pain meds kicked in, or both.

"Thank you...." He accepted the bottle, and popped the pills with a gulp. Then he settled back into the couch cushions. "I haven't been that active before... have I? Something must have changed."

[chalicejoker]

Hajime nodded as he switched off the TV. No reason for that background noise at the moment. "You haven't. It almost made me want to open the door and check on you, but I didn't know how hard it would be to keep you contained if you were that worked up." He looked back at the room he'd rearranged. "Trying to distract you with noise was about as good as I could do."

[professorwolf]

"Just being here was good enough for my peace of mind," Lyall assured him with a little smile. "I'm glad you didn't open the door, though. Apparently this curse or state of being or whatever it actually is, knows what it's doing, and isn't going to kill me even if I throw myself against the walls, apparently. I'm fine. Or I will be, anyway." Once he'd had a chance to heal up, and a chance for that drug to kick in.

[chalicejoker]

Hajime returned that smile. "Hey, it's the least I can do after you let me stay over here with my own little problem." There was a nod of understanding. "Yeah, I guess no one's died because of one of these changes yet, but it's still hard to listen to..." He shook his head. "I just have to wonder why the ways we change aren't consistent. Some of it's painful, some of it's controllable...nothing makes sense."