Jacob 'Monster Catnip' Sloper (lopingsloper) wrote in cultureic, @ 2016-10-21 17:25:00 |
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"Jacob, Jacob." "We're going to have to teach you the pecking order, Jacob." He wakes in bits and pieces. Jagged shards of his mind coming back to him; blinding, white-hot pain lancing through him as they slice back into place. He's-- Everything hurts so much. He wants it gone. Wants to be done. He's on his side. Outside. Assaulted by acrid, warring scents; piss, garbage, blood. So much blood, a pool of it, slick and sticky as he struggles to sit up. His head spins, bile rising in his throat as the world starts to right itself. Follows through and throws up when he puts a hand out to steady himself and everything ignites in new flashing stars of pain behind his eyes, heaving and wretching as the broken bones in his arm make themselves known. He's-- He presses his good hand to his stomach for a moment and it comes away warm and wet with blood and gore. He tries to think. Manages to stagger up onto his feet, his legs aching in protest, but they're bruised, battered and bloodied-- not broken. Small miracles. He tries to think. Fenrir. He needs to move. Greyback's never been one to do things by halves, and he'll come back to finish the job. He pats himself down and remembers with a rising sense of fear and anger that he doesn't have his wand. That that bitch took it from him. He's defenseless, half-dead, and close to dropping in some piss-soaked alley off of Canal Street. He needs to move. He takes his first step and slips in the mess at his feet, screaming out as he comes crashing down and makes every wound, bruise, and beating feel brand new. Shaking and shuddering, Jacob Sloper wishes for the wolf for the first time in his life. Wishes he could give everything up and let it carry him home. --- It all started with a call he'd been dreading, phone cradled against his shoulder as he paced back and forth around his flat, listening to it ring, ring, ring, and then. "Hallo?" "..." "Hallo?" "...Hey." "Jake? Is that you?" "Yeah, sorry, I-- I still had your number, and I-- is it late there? Am I waking you up?" A laugh comes down the line and his stomach goes tight, "No, we're just an hour ahead. You never did get timezones, did you?" "Fuck off. I just-- have you been keeping up with the news here?" "Yeah. Everyone's seen, about the Ministry, about-- I was going to call, to make sure you were okay, but things have been crazy here. We've got these Ridgebacks that broke free, and we've been trying to track them." "It's okay. It's-- I was just going to… I feel like a shit doing this, but I need a favour, and you're the only person I can think of who can help. The only I can trust." A moment's pause, "Alright, I'm listening. Tell me what it is." --- It all started with fieldwork for the Critters. A sleepy assignment tracking the migration of a small pack of Centaurs and making sure everything was alright. Charts, mapping, and a tent pitched around the edge of the forest each night. Nothing to write home about. Until the night fangs and claws had torn through Jacob's skin, savaging him as he screamed and thrashed. Blood everywhere. Sparks of pain coursing through him as his co-worker fought the wolf off and then hunched over him, begging him to hold on. Healing spells. Silver. Dittany. Then the numbing silence as he recovered. Hushed conversations. Quiet, tearful pleas. Bea's face a tight line as she agreed to keep it covered up. Sitting on his sofa with his head in his hands, trying to work up the courage to tell Lance, his-- whatever they were, whatever their respective issues let them call each other-- to say three simple words. "I got bit." --- He shivers under the ratty old blanket he'd managed to fish out of one of the dumpsters. Shakes all over, while the heat from the blanket leaves him sweating, and he knows that's a bad sign. He's so close. Hunched in an alleyway across from his flat, so close to being home, but he can't get this far and fuck it up now. Can't have hobbled down sidestreet after sidestreet in bursts of blinding, shaking pain looking like a homeless nutcase to keep people at bay just to get caught now. So he waits. And he shivers. When he finally convinces himself that there aren't any werewolves lurking on the corner, that most of his neighbours have trailed out for the day, he pushes himself away from the wall and uses what strength he has left to move quickly across the street. Pushing through the front door, he curses as he makes for the stairwell, hating himself for having picked a flat on the top floor all those years ago. At least it guarantees some privacy, though. Less people passing by means that noone seems to have noticed his door being left ajar, or the chaos within the flat itself. As he steps inside, he winces. The place is ruined, furniture upended, blood -- his, he realises with a sick lurch in his stomach -- spilled everywhere. He had settled here, he'd been happy here. But he knows he can't stay. Fenrir knows. If his neighbours heard the fight, they'll have called the police. If reports of the wolves got back to his Department, they'll know to. No, as much as he wants to stop, to settle on his old, familiar sofa and rest, he can't. That's not why he came back. Staggering towards his bedroom, he goes straight for the closet, dropping to his knees as he searches. They took his wand, it's probably gone forever, but they couldn't have known-- He lets out a shocked, shaky bark of laughter as his fingers brush against the old shoe box, his first stroke of luck. Pushing the lid aside, he reaches down with trembling fingers to grasp what's inside. Shiny black walnut wood, nine and a half inches, with a core of unicorn hair. His wand. His first wand. ...the one that stopped working for him so many years ago. But beggars can't be choosers, and he knows he has no other choice. He needs to get away, far away, and he's too fucked up to make it out of the city the muggle way. So, with a deep breath, he puts his faith in his old wand, hoping it'll come through for him one last time, closes his eyes, and apparates out with a quiet 'pop'. --- "Did they make it through okay?" "Yeah. The kids were a little panicked when I got there, but they calmed down. They're going to stay here tonight, then we're going to see about finding them somewhere a little more permanent. ...the money you sent isn't going to last them too long." "I know. But hopefully the father can find some work. I've probably got another coming to you in a few days, a Muggleborn girl, she might have to stay with you a little while longer." "...alright, but--" "What?" "What the Hell are you going to do if they catch you, Jacob? It's been four families now, and the more werewolves you do this, the more chance there is of them finding something." Jacob sighed, "I don't know. But I've got to do this. I was the one who let a fucking Death Eater into my Department, and the little shit's in bed with Fenrir Greyback. I have to fix this." "Even if it kills you?" "Even if." --- Lance had been supportive much to Jacob's shock. Too supportive when all was said and done. There for every Full, helping Jacob scout out places he could safely turn, securing them and then walking the perimeter each night, making sure he wouldn't break out. As much as it had warmed Jacob to have the support, to have someone to share in the secret, it had also scared the Hell out of him. To have someone he cared about so close, just within reach of his fangs. He'd found himself thinking about what it would take. One slip. A broken link in a chain. A padlock that didn't hold up like it should've. Then Lance would've been.... Hunching on the floor of an old, abandoned warehouse. Flinching as Lance fussed over him, checking him for injuries while Jacob worked up the courage to say five simple words. "We need to break up." Three days and four shouting matches later, Lance had moved his things out of Jacob's flat. Two days after that, he'd taken a job at a Dragon Reserve in Norway and left the country. And Jacob had rearranged his furniture to try and cover the space Lance's things had left behind and carried on, trying not to dwell on it. Four days after that, Jacob's wand had failed him; choking up on him during a fight with a pack of vampires that had been causing trouble. And Jacob had thrown a right hook, pulled through the fight, bought a new wand, and carried on, trying not to dwell on what it meant. --- He howls, brought to his knees by blinding, screaming pain and his leg going weak and shaky under him. He reaches down and instantly regrets it; a patch of fabric has torn away from his jeans and under it a chunk of his thigh is missing, cut away to the muscle and bone. He splinched. "Fuck, fuck, fuck…" He realises, through the shock and the cold gripping him, that he really can't afford to lose anymore blood. He's so close to the end. He's just a few feet from the cave entrance, from his mine. His mine's safe. His mine's secret. His mine has a bugout bag, a burner phone, and an emergency portkey hidden behind magic and wards in one of its walls. He just has to make it a few more feet. Pressing one hand to his thigh, hoping to staunch the flow of blood, he uses his other to claw at the ground. It's just a few feet, and he'll fucking crawl if he has to. --- "Hallo?" "Hi. Hey. I, uh, we're going to need to slow things down." "What's happened?" "I was going through the Dibble house, making sure they hadn't left anything behind that could lead to where they'd gone. And Fenrir found me. He knows." A pause that Jacob knew was an 'I told you so' being held back, "Jesus, Jake. You can't-- you need to leave. Get out of there, come here." "No, I can keep this going. I just need to cool it down for a week or two." "Jake--" "I'm not stopping. This has to be done, I have to do this." Another pause, "Alright, alright. But Jesus, Jake…" "Yeah, I know. At least I got a few good hits in, the fucker'll be feeling it." "I never should have dated a Hufflepuff. You're all maniacs in disguise. At least Gryffindors are upfront about it." Jacob laughed at that, deep and rich as he shook his head, "God, you haven't changed at all. Still an irritating twat." An answering laugh rang down the line, "Well, yeah. You'd know that if you'd actually asked about my life. But no, it's all 'Favour this', 'Start a werewolf railroad for me that'." Settling onto his sofa, Jacob chuckled softly, "Alright Lance, how's life?" "I wasn't trying to make you feel bad…" "I know, but really. How's life?" "It's okay. Work's crazy, like always. Those gits in Finland foisted a Romanian Longhorn off on us, think we're going to have to put her down, she's downright feral." "Yeah?" "Yeah. She's sick and her wings are all messed up, so she can't fly, and it pisses her off. We can't keep her here, or else she's going to kill one of the others. But can't exactly release her into the wild." "That sounds rough, I'm sorry." "Eh. It's alright. Just think sometimes it'd be a mercy to just let her find a cave somewhere, give her the chance to hole up somewhere and die with a little dignity." "That definitely has an appeal to it." --- It's just a few feet. Just a few feet more. It hurts so much. He has to make it. So cold. He has to… |