Who: Carson and Rylee When: Sunday, Nov 5, late morning Where: their place Status: Complete
Adam had offered to walk Carson up to his apartment, but he declined. This was going to be hard enough without dragging him into the radius of Rylee’s wrath. He had his shredded clothes bundled up in one hand -- thank God his leg had been fully intact -- and his phone in the other as he shuffled to the door. Carson pulled his keys out and unlocked it. He’d told Rylee that he was spending the weekend in Portland with some military buddies, so he knew she wouldn’t be expecting him back so soon. Fuck, if only he’d actually been drinking and bullshitting the night away. Instead he was coming home scratched and bruised up, hypothermia narrowly avoided, in another man’s clothes. And all that was petty compared to the heavy fact that he was cursed now.
He stepped into the apartment, aware that he looked like hell and felt worse. Carson was queasy, his stomach still unsettled from whatever viscera he hadn’t thrown up yet and from what he was about to have to do. He knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. Closing and locking the door behind him, Carson shuffled further into the apartment. “Rylee?” he called, quietly enough as not to wake her up if she wasn’t yet.
Rylee was awake, but still in bed in her pajamas, lounging with a cup of coffee, her laptop on her lap. She was working on some school work, enjoying the quiet while simultaneously missing Carson. But she was glad he had gone to visit some of his buddies this weekend. Getting out of town to have some fun might be the kind of break he needed for everything else, so she had done her best not to text him the night before or this morning to check in. He was an adult, and she didn't want it to seem like she was hovering, even electronically.
Because she wasn't expecting him home for awhile, it was startling to hear the front door open and shut. Rylee had frozen, her fingers tightening around her coffee cup as she held her breath and listened. And then she heard his voice and Rylee relaxed with a sharp exhale before moving the laptop to the side and slipping out of bed. Carrying her coffee down the hall and into the living room, she was about to ask what he was doing home so early but then she took in the sight of him and her lips parted in surprise. "Holy shit, what did you guys do?" she asked, simply assuming that Carson and his friends had partied too hard the night before. Those didn't even look like his clothes. "You look awful, Carson."
His anxiety had already been high -- as high as it could get with his body being so exhausted, at least -- but hearing Rylee’s footsteps coming down the hall kind of made him want to run. And then there she was, looking comfortable and so homey in her pjs, coffee cup in hand. Carson just wanted to wrap himself around her in bed and cry himself to sleep. He kind of wanted to cry right then and there, but he had to keep his shit together at least long enough to tell her what was going on. Or to make the attempt. His next deep breath was very unsteady though, and he couldn’t make his expression anything but pained and tired and scared. All of which he was feeling; he’d never been good at hiding from her. “I got something to tell you,” he said, his voice kind of wavery. He’d been to war, for fuck’s sake, but this was scarier. “I didn’t-- ... I didn’t go to Portland.”
Rylee was fully expecting to be regaled with some ridiculous story of crazy 'boy' behavior and alcohol, but her stomach turned cold at the look in Carson's eyes. Given everything that he had been dealing with lately, Rylee quickly realized this was no silly story they would be laughing about later. Her fingers tightened on her coffee cup before she blindly reached out to set it down on the kitchen island. Confused marred her features when he revealed he hadn't gone to Portland. Had they changed their plans? Wouldn't he have at least texted to let her know? Rylee took a step toward him. "What? Why... where were you?"
Carson hated this. He hated everything about it -- that look on Rylee’s face, how badly he just wanted to collapse on the floor and burst into tears, the fact that he’d just added yet another complication into their lives. A really bad one this time. Fuck, maybe he just should’ve ... left. Packed a bag, taken his car, disappeared, saved her from all of this. Carson knew she would’ve never understood that though, and it would do nothing but hurt her. He just didn’t want to hurt her anymore, but everything kept getting in the way. Carson shook his head a bit, forcing himself to look away while he tried to find the words. It felt like a ton of bricks was sitting on his chest. “I was, uh ... out ... in the woods. In a cabin, running a-- running a ... test ...” Fuck, that sounded pretty crazy all on its own. He met her eyes again, his own pleading silently for understanding. “The full moon was last night, Ry,” he murmured, then took another shuddering breath, his words starting to come faster. Too fast. “You know how I kept saying what bit me wasn’t-- wasn’t a dog? Or a normal animal? I was right, and it bit me and it cursed me too and I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for sure and I’m really sorry, but it’s true. It’s fucking true and I’m a fucking werewolf, Rylee.” Carson’s face started to crumple as that fact really hit him again, but he tried to keep it under control.
Rylee did her best not to interrupt him as he spoke, even though questions continued to form on the tip of her tongue, followed by confusion and then disbelief. Like most things Carson had been revealing to her lately, that one was a bit hard to comprehend and Rylee stared at him, searching his eyes desperately for any sign that he was fucking with her. But that kind of pain was difficult to fake, and suddenly Rylee could hear Nic's voice in her head, so nonchalantly telling her that werewolves existed. Only no, he hadn't said they existed, not directly. But he had told her she should believe in them. What the hell was going on in this town? What was going on with Carson. He looked terrified, not crazy and Rylee felt the ice in her stomach start to spread through the rest of her body. "What kind of test were you running?" Rylee asked. She was pretty proud of how calm she sounded when everything else seemed to be trembling. "Did you do this alone?"
He couldn’t quite read her face, which was kind of distressing but maybe hopeful? Carson didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. He was completely out of his depth and panicking and he didn’t know what to do about any of this. He shook his head, desperately hoping that Adam being involved wouldn’t make things worse somehow. “No, with uh, with Adam? The nurse guy? He came and talked to me with like, photos from some government project thing, I guess, but it was a werewolf in a cage. And he said maybe I got bit by one like that. And we set up a plan, to try and keep me, uh, under control, if it was true. Out in the woods, restraints, tranquilizers ...” Carson looked pained -- she probably wouldn’t like the chains and drugs part of all of that, but they had seemed like good precautions at the time. “The tranqs didn’t work though, and I apparently ... got out.” Carson fumbled with his phone a bit, dropping his shredded clothes so he could pull up the pictures of the destruction done to the outside of the cabin.
Adam the nurse guy who had come into her apartment to ask her about how Carson had described the animal who bit him. Rylee was both relieved that Carson had someone with him through whatever had happened, but also incredibly hurt that it hadn't been her. He hadn't even told her that this was a possibility. There was a very brief moment of nausea when he mentioned tranquilizers and drugs, because what if Adam had been some psychopath, luring Carson out into the woods with some grand lie about werewolves? What if Adam had hurt Carson, or killed him? Rylee would have never known. A throb started in her temple and her gaze followed the bits of clothing that fell to the floor. Then she walked to him to look at his phone. She took a look at the pictures, that sick feeling in her gut only deepening. "Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered. "Why would you keep this from me? What if something horrible had happened to you? I mean, something horrible did happen."
He’d known it would hurt her, of course, but Carson had felt so cornered, what choice did he have? Rylee had been skeptical about everything for so long, and it felt like it had taken a lot for him to convince her that the mirror stuff and the dreams were real ... this was so much bigger. Looking pained as he watched her face, he shook his head helplessly. “Everything’s been so bad,” he mumbled back. “I wanted to protect you. I knew you’d want to be there, and I couldn’t risk hurting you, not before I knew for sure. There’s been so much crazy shit happening already. Even with ... pictures, I wasn’t sure I believed it, you know? I was hoping so hard it wasn’t true, that Adam was wrong, and then ... and then I would know and it wouldn’t be a thing and I could just let it go and you would never have to know that I thought maybe I was a fucking werewolf. It sounds like fucking insanity stacked on top of craziness, but it’s true and it happened. I fucking did that to a cabin and don’t remember any of it and I just woke up naked in the middle of the fucking woods.” He bit his tongue on adding that he’d puked up all kinds of nasty stuff too; he was already throwing a lot at her, and too many words were coming out of him too fast and he was probably fucking everything up even worse. “I was scared and I’ve already been so much trouble ...” he added in a hoarse whisper.
Rylee shook her head. "Stop it. Jesus Christ, Carson, stop. If things were bad you should have told me. I don't care how insane it sounds. I don't care if there was a possibility that it wasn't true because there was a possibility that it was true. You went out there with a virtual stranger and let him restrain you and use tranquilizers. What if you had died? Even... even after you had turned into whatever you turned into. What if someone in town saw you and had a gun?" Her breath hitched in her chest and she had to resist the urge to shake him. "You were scared and you couldn't even tell me. How would you feel if you were in my shoes, Carson? If I kept things from you, if I went through all of this without telling you? God." She ran her hands through her hair, gripping the strands tightly before she closed her eyes. Rylee didn't want to hear that he had wanted to protect her, because she wasn't sure she bought that. Maybe he just didn't need her the way she always thought he did. Between this and the dreams… Releasing a soft breath, Rylee swallowed hard and opened her eyes to look at him again. Really, she needed to focus and figure this out. Maybe she would just have to talk to Adam to at least know what they were going to do if this happened again. Carson looked terrible and terrified and she hated that she didn’t know how to fix it. "So what does this mean, then. If you're a werewolf. If the tranquilizers didn't work, what do you plan to do now? Did Adam have any ideas?”
For one hot, choking moment, anger rose up and Carson wanted to shout at her. She hadn’t believed him about the mirrors, she hadn’t believed that what bit him wasn’t a dog, it had taken proof that other real people were involved for her to believe him about the dreams -- if he’d gone to her saying he thought he might be a werewolf, she would’ve had him fucking locked away. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but Carson couldn’t imagine Rylee believing him without question. It would have been a problem. Adam had come to him already believing, and he’d seemed sincere and he’d proven sincere and not a psycho, and he’d been helpful and supportive. Carson felt lost and traumatized and Rylee was making it about her. He didn’t have the energy for anger though, and it drained away very quickly into a sadness that felt like it was crushing his chest. What he’d thought was best and safest obviously hadn’t been, and once again he’d handled his insane problems all wrong and driven another wedge between them. How long before she gave up on him completely and left? Carson’s legs suddenly felt like they wouldn’t hold him anymore, and he couldn’t even make it to the couch. He squatted before he could fall, then rocked back onto his ass and slumped to the floor. He felt exhausted and shaky and like everything inside and out was falling apart. He was a monster now, or would be on a regular basis, and he had no idea what to do about it. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, slowly rubbing his hands over his bent face. “We’ve got a month to figure it out.”
It was like the real world was starting to crack around her and any day now, it would just shatter. She was learning that the stuff that she only saw in scary movies and books was actually real. Or at least, some of it. Witches. Werewolves? Nic had implied that other things existed too and now how could she not believe it? Rylee wished she could be someone who just accepted things blindly because someone said so, but it was scarier that way. She didn't want to be afraid, and to worry every time she walked out her front door. The worst part of all of this was she had so little time to wrap her mind around this. Because the most important person in her world was smack dab in the middle of it all, and she was so completely useless to help him, and he seemed to know it too. But there were obviously other people who could help him, and she just had to let them because Rylee hated seeing Carson like this. It was the worst feeling.
Rylee watched him sit down and felt a surge of guilt. She shouldn't get angry with him. He didn't tell her these things for a reason, and even if she didn't like it, it was what it was. And frankly, she wasn’t really angry with him so much as she was angry with herself. Her throat felt full and Rylee knelt down beside him, slipping an arm around his shoulders. "There has to be books about this. Or... people who know. Adam, obviously. But maybe other people in town can give us some suggestions. Nic? Or... I don't know, we'll figure this out. You said last night was a test, right? So... even if it failed, you learn from it and try something different next time." God, could she just Google 'werewolves'? Would that give her any useful information, or just bring up Twilight or something. Rylee pressed her forehead against his temple. Her voice shook briefly, but she thought she sounded okay as she spoke. "I'm sorry this happened. I'm sorry. Are you in pain? Do you need any painkillers? A hot bath? What can I do?"
As soon as she was at his side, Carson was leaning against her. The shift in tone got to him, and emotion he was helpless to stop welled up in his throat. He felt like he was always doing this these days -- crying on Rylee’s shoulder about something insane. Carson almost wished that he was just losing his grip on reality, it meant that there was help out there, that he wasn’t actually a huge danger to everyone, and caught up in terrifying bullshit. He turned his dirty face into her neck, shifting so he could get his arms around her, and cried for a couple of minutes. He was so fucking scared, and so fucking tired, and felt so lost ... Rylee might have thought she couldn’t help him, but she was wrong. He couldn’t get this from anyone else, and he needed this. Carson desperately needed her support and her love, to remind him why he had to work to find solutions in the first place and shouldn’t just toss himself into the ocean.
He was too tired to cry very hard or for too long, so the tears and sniffles dried up pretty quickly. “Adam knows a guy,” Carson forced out eventually, his voice rusty and thick. “Who knows stuff. That’s where the pictures came from, of the werewolf caged up somewhere. Maybe he’ll have ... I dunno, some advice. A safe place to go.” As for what he needed, Carson moved his hands where Rylee could see them, filthy with mud and dried blood. He pushed his hoodie sleeves up a bit to show that he was that dirty and scratched up all over. “Need a shower,” he mumbled. “And I’ve got ... cuts.”
Rylee held onto Carson as he cried. She felt her own emotions overwhelming the logic in her head, but she pushed them back, wanting to only focus on her cousin for the time being. His tears made her want to cry but that wouldn't help anything. So she held him tight, one hand petting his hair slowly until she could feel the sobs wracking his chest start to settle and finally stop. Filing away the fact that Adam 'knew a guy', Rylee nodded. She would have to talk to Adam, and this guy, whoever he was. Like she had gone to talk to Nic. It was another case of catching up, but Rylee needed to know what was going on, and if there was anything more that could be done about this. "We'll get it figured out," Rylee said, echoing his words. She took one of his hands in hers, careful not to agitate any of the scratches and cuts. "We'll get a shower going, and once you're cleaned up, I'll put some antiseptic on the cuts. Then I think you need to rest for awhile, Carson." He looked exhausted, and she could only imagine what he had gone through the night before. And in the morning. She pressed a kiss against the top of his head before slowly getting to her feet to help him up.
Rest was what he wanted to do the most, even though Carson already knew any sleep he got would be plagued with nightmares. If he’d been awake all night as a werewolf, then it had been over twenty-four hours now since he’d gotten real sleep. But he was dirty as fuck, so a shower had to come first. He was itchy and sore and dying to get the fucking blood off of him. Carson muttered some agreement, then let Rylee help him to his feet. He felt dimly grateful yet again that his prosthetic hadn’t been destroyed in this whole process. He would have to remember to take it off next time. Because there would be a next time. Carson went with Rylee into the bathroom and sat on the closed toilet while she started the shower. He started peeling off Adam’s clothes, revealing just how dirty and scratched up he was from being naked in the goddamn woods and having to crawl through underbrush. Between that and the blood on his arms and chest, he was sure he looked like a walking fucking corpse. Carson took his leg off.
Rylee was sort of hoping that he would be so exhausted that his sleep would be dreamless, but she knew that wasn't always the case. She already decided to call off her shift at work so she could stay home, just in case he might need something, and Rylee didn't really want to leave him alone. With the shower water running, Rylee turned to Carson, taking the clothes he discarded so she could get them in the wash and back to Adam, whom she assumed they belonged to. Carson's body looked awful and she could see the scratches against his chest and sides. It looked like he had walked through a thorn bush. She had the vague, weird hope that he hadn't rolled around in any poison ivy. A dozen or so questions began to surface in her mind, but Rylee opted to ignore them for now. Carson needed a shower and a bed more than anything else. Answers would just have to wait. But god, there was so much dried blood and she had to quite literally bite into her tongue to keep herself from asking if it was all animal blood. Had he eaten animals? Had he hurt anyone? These were questions she was sure he wouldn't have the answer to... unless he was conscious while he was a werewolf. A fucking werewolf. It sounded so unreal in her head that she wanted to outright dismiss it, but she knew she couldn't. Rylee had to believe him. By the time she had all the dirty clothes in her arms, her temple was throbbing. "I'll get some bandages ready while you get cleaned off," Rylee told him. "And I'll get you some water and your meds. If you want to get into bed when you're done, you should. I'll bring everything to you."
Carson nodded as he pulled himself to his foot to make his way into the shower. “Thanks Ry,” he murmured, giving her a tired and grateful glance. He had a million questions himself, the most pressing of which was of course ‘did I hurt anyone.’ His sense of self-preservation was scrambling as much as it could to assure him that he’d only killed and eaten animals. They’d been out in the woods, after all, and hopefully that had been enough to keep the predator he’d apparently turned into satisfied. Still, his stomach didn’t feel like it would ever be right again, both from anxiety and disagreement with whatever he had eaten.
He got into the shower and perched on the ledge in there. The hot water felt almost painfully good, and Carson just sat in it for quite a while before he started to tiredly wash himself. It took a while, and it left all kinds of dirt on the floor of the shower, but he felt marginally more human as he got out and dried off. Carson wrapped the towel around his waist and made his way to his room to sit on the edge of the bed, looking at himself in the dresser mirror across from him. He did look awful, like he’d been through hell. He had been, he supposed. It felt distant now though, and all he wanted to do was sleep.
While Carson showered, Rylee got the antiseptic and bandages, though she wasn't sure how many of his cuts would need them. She supposed she would know once his body was clean and she could get a better look. She poured some ice water and got his meds together, trying to focus on the task at hand, despite her trembling hands. All of this was so unreal and she realized she would have to wait until Carson was asleep before she freaked out. Because she would freak out.
Once she heard the bathroom door open, Rylee gave him a moment to get to his room. Then she carried the water and meds down the hall, thankful to see the blood and grime was gone from his body, but the scratches were definitely redder and more prominent on his skin. "Here," she murmured, handing him the water and pills. "Take these and I'll get the antiseptic. Do you want me to grab anything else while I'm out there? Your phone?"
Carson took the stuff she gave him, feeling only half-awake and numb from the tiredness. He shook his head at the question. “Just leave it out there, I don’t wanna talk to anybody,” he mumbled, then tucked the pills in his mouth and washed them down. He’d been scheduled off work today anyway, and he could worry about canceling his appointments for tomorrow later on. If he woke up in the next twenty-four hours, anyway. But Carson didn’t want to be any kind of reachable yet. He was done participating in the world for a while, as soon as he laid down.
Rylee nodded and turned to leave the room to collect everything else while Carson took his meds. She returned a moment later with the first aid supplies she'd gathered. "I'll make it quick," she promised him, setting everything on the floor in front of him. "Are there any particular cuts that are bothering you more than others?" Rylee twisted the cap off the tube of antiseptic, her eyes roaming over his chest and stomach to try and pinpoint the worst looking ones. She couldn't help but wonder what he looked like as a werewolf, if he felt any residual pain from it. If... he had both legs? Four legs? Jesus, what a mindfuck this was.
“There’s one on my back,” Carson murmured, twisting himself to point it out to Rylee. He couldn’t quite reach it, and even though he couldn’t see it, he knew it was a deep one. That had been a nasty branch. His knees and palms needed attention too. All in all, he wasn’t really hurt, which he was grateful for. Just scraped up. He finally felt all the way warm, thankfully, and he was dimly glad all of this hadn’t happened to him in the middle of winter. Dying of exposure would’ve been such a bullshit way to go. Carson closed his eyes and let Rylee dab at him, the sting barely registering over everything else. He felt like there was a lot to say -- Rylee probably had questions, Carson owed her apologies for not telling her sooner, on and on ... but he couldn’t find the energy yet.
Rylee cleared her head the best she could and got to work. She cleaned out the deeper cuts the best she could without hurting him, and thankfully none of them looked like they needed stitches. There was a welcome blankness to what she was doing and she went through the steps meticulously, her lips dipped in a frown, her brows drawn together in concentration. She placed adhesive bandages on the larger cuts, but not many of the smaller ones appeared to need band aids. She finally took his hand in hers to dab at the scratches marring the palm with a cotton ball she had soaked in antiseptic. Rylee knew she couldn't pretend to know what he had been through, or how painful it probably was. But she was thankful no one had seen him and pulled out their gun. She knew about the strange attacks on the nights of the full moon. Danny used to talk about them all the time, like it was some kind of pattern. She hadn't been a believer, but surely there were some people out there, paranoid and scared, peeking out their windows when the full moon rose and night settled in. This was all terrible, but Carson was lucky he wasn't hurt any worse. "We'll keep an eye on them," Rylee murmured, settling back on her heels on the floor to put the cap back on the bottle. "Make sure they don't get infected. You should probably call off work for the next day or so, so they don't get agitated with sweat or anything."
There was something soothing about being cared for, even if the caring kind of stung here and there. It didn’t matter, Carson appreciated Rylee’s soft touches and direction and attention, if he was being perfectly honest. He felt like he’d done so many things wrong, fucked up so much, that he was just a breath away from losing her completely. He was a monster now, maybe that was ultimately for the best. Maybe it was the exhaustion, but it all made him feel so dead inside. Once Rylee was done, he lightly caught her wrist before she could get too far away and met her eyes. “Thanks, Rylee,” he murmured. He would probably be calling out of work anyway, he doubted one sleep was going to make him feel fixed. Carson rubbed his thumb against her hand and looked a bit sheepish while he asked, “Will you lie down with me? Until I’m asleep?”
There was no part of Rylee that considered Carson to be a monster. He was Carson. He wasn't whatever he had turned into Saturday night, and he wouldn't be that creature next month either. They just needed to figure out what was going on and how to fix it, or at least control it. Maybe there were parts of his life that she wasn't a part of now, or that he didn't trust her with, but he wouldn't lose her, not like that. He had been her best friend since they were kids, and that wasn't going to change. If he needed her, she would be there. So when Carson asked if she would lie down with him, Rylee knew she wouldn't tell him no. She could stay until he fell asleep, then she would get online and try to figure this out. Or at least find some real answers. Maybe she would find Adam and try to figure out who this other guy was so she could ask him questions. "Of course," Rylee said, setting the bottle to the side. Rylee got to her feet to move around to the other side of the bed. "I'm going to stay home today in case you need anything."
He felt kind of selfish asking, but Carson really wanted the comfort of her weight and warmth in bed with him. It wouldn’t take him long to pass the fuck out, so he wasn’t going to be putting her out too much, he supposed. He hoped. There was a pair of boxers not too far out of reach, on the little bench he tended to toss clothes onto at the foot of his bed. He leaned and reached for them, then pulled them on before he shed the towel onto the floor and turned himself to get under the covers. He would’ve preferred to sleep naked, but he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. Carson shifted around onto his side and cuddled up to Rylee once she was in with him, slipping his arm around her waist and settling his head against her shoulder. “I’m sorry for everything,” he mumbled after a moment. It was hard to be specific when he felt like he was sorry for his whole damn existence. As if he hadn’t been enough of a burden before, now things were even more complicated.
Rylee let him press up against her, her arm resting against his once he had settled it against her waist. Ideally she would fall asleep with him and block all of this out of her head, but her mind was racing with too much now for her to sleep. For once she felt out of place in his bed, like she didn't really belong there. It was a strange feeling, and one she pushed aside for the time being. Rylee stroked her fingers against his hand, pausing for only a brief moment when he spoke. "There's nothing to be sorry for," Rylee murmured back, her eyes fixated on his wall. This wasn't really the time to talk about anything, with how Carson was feeling. She felt like she ought to apologize, but he needed to sleep more than he needed to listen to her lame reasons for reacting the way she had. Whatever it was Rylee was still clinging to, she knew she needed to let it go and just be there for Carson to help him through this. "Get some rest," she added in a whisper, going back to stroking his skin softly with her fingertips.
Carson disagreed that there was nothing to be sorry for, but he was under the influence of some heavy self-pity and utter exhaustion and it was useless to argue anyway. He couldn’t fix his fuckups now, he could just hope that Rylee could forgive him. Holding that hope close in his mind, Carson closed his eyes and started to drift. The painkillers were kicking in and the ache in his joints and head began to ease. He hadn’t really intended to fall asleep on Rylee, but the warmth of her body against his and the steadiness of her breathing lulled him until he finally succumbed to what his body badly needed and he passed out cold.