in the midnight sun - act II, scenes i-ii
In the end, you chicken out and you leave him a note.
“Alex.
I’m still mad at you so I’m going over to Matt & Danny’s for a little while. If the weather stays this shitty I’ll probably stay over there tonight, I don’t really want to drive in this storm. Same goes for you too, OK? Don’t go driving around looking for me if I don’t come home. I will call and let you know where I am, so stay put.
Love you xx”
Then you drive the three miles to your best friend’s house and hope that someone is home. You really don’t want to be alone right now. It’s raining so hard the roads are turning to mud. But you couldn’t stay in the house reeking of Alex’s betrayal. He wasn’t going to tell you. God, he wasn’t going to tell you. What did he think was going to happen? The full moon would come, and what? Because probably if he had waited that long to tell you, to be honest, you probably would have ripped his throat out mid-change. If he survived it at all…
And that’s why you’re really angry. It’s not just him that is going to change. It’s your entire relationship dynamic. It’s the fact that now you’re going to need to cover not only your own tracks but his too, now, and that’s easier said than done since he is one of only two veterinarians working at the animal hospital. Alex can’t just take off for a week every month. It’s different for you and Matt; you’re contractors, you can pretty much maintain your own schedule and no one says a word about it if you don’t do a job for a week. He is an idiot, you think. He is a goddamn idiot and you kind of want to punch his gorgeous face because you are really that angry at him. You sort of struggle with that sometimes; he does really asshole-ish things and you can’t ever stay mad at him for more than a few minutes. But this time, you are livid.
The idea does occur to you that maybe you’re angry at yourself, too. You’re the one who put him in a position to get bitten in the first place, so it is kind of your fault. And then you’re angry at yourself for your complete inability to stay angry at him, which is just… great.
*
“I’m going to fucking eviscerate him,” Matt says after you’ve told him. There’s a vein popping out on his forehead. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen him this angry. He looks especially fearsome since he’s making dinner at the same time you’re telling him what happened; he’s been chopping vegetables and you’re not sure that right now is the best time for him to be holding a knife.
Danny reaches around and gently pries the knife from his fingers. “No one is going to eviscerate anyone,” he says calmly. You sigh miserably from your perch on top of the counter. You are supposed to be stirring the pasta sauce, which looks… pretty lumpy. Matt growls in the back of his throat and opens the refrigerator door with so much force one of the hinges snaps cleanly off. Danny just groans and shakes his head. “Is it shitty that Alex wasn’t going to tell you? Yes. Could it be a lot worse?”
“No,” you whine childishly at the same time Matt says yes. “He wasn’t going to tell me but he told Jeff Maker first.”
“You are doing this wrong,” Matt informs you. He takes the wooden spoon from you and pats you on the shoulder with his free hand. It’s the most comfort you’re probably going to get from him; Matt has trouble with the whole ‘retaining his humanity’ part of being a werewolf sometimes. Although that is why he and Danny work so well as a couple, because Danny is the most steadfastly moral person you know and that always manages to rein Matt in. “You need to stir with a steady hand,” he says.
Danny hugs you tight and whispers, “It’ll be okay. He’ll probably show up here begging for forgiveness as soon as he’s off work.” You hug back and bury your face in his shoulder. They haven’t been together for long, but you’re really glad that he and Matt found each other. It’s just a fight, you tell yourself. Normal couples have fights all the time. But as it gets later with no word from Alex, you start to get worried. He’s known to call three or four times a day to check in with you. You try not to think about it. Even though you’re pissed off, you miss him terribly.
Matt notices you glancing at the clock and says, “He’ll call.” You hope he’s right.
Another hour goes by. He doesn’t call. It gets to be almost nine at night and he never calls and you feel positively sick. You don’t feel right without Alex right there. “I need to go home.” You ignore their reassurances that he’s fine, the weather is just really bad so maybe the phone lines are out because honestly? It doesn’t matter. “I’ll call you when I get there,” you tell Matt so he’ll stop fretting. “I’m fine to drive.” Which you are; you haven’t had anything to drink and you just took your car to get your winter tires off so it’s in working order.
It takes maybe fifteen minutes to get home. The driveway is slick and muddy when you pull in, but Alex’s truck is in the garage like it should be. Despite that, there might as well be someone waiting inside the front door to punch you in the face, because that’s what it feels like. And now you understand why he didn’t call.
“Babe,” he says. “I thought you were staying at Matt’s tonight.” The guy he’s been making out with has that guilty look on his face - good, you think, at least one of you knows you’re doing something wrong. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
You’re still standing with your hand on the doorknob, mouth agape because you can’t fucking believe this. “Then you’d better have a damn good explanation, because it looks a hell of a lot like you’re cheating on me.” You tighten your fingers on the knob. You want to hit him - hit both of them, actually - but you know you’d be an idiot to start a fight with him in this state. Because, at the heart of the matter is this one small problem: Alex is a fucking werewolf now. He doesn’t know his own strength, so only a fool would get into it with a brand new werewolf. And stupid you may be - for coming back home, for thinking you should hear him out once you got over your anger - but you’re not that stupid.
There’s no point in hearing him out. You don’t want to hear it right now, or possibly, ever, so rather than listening to him beg for your forgiveness, you turn on your heel and storm out. The door slams behind you; the sound, however satisfying it may be, is drowned out by the thunder shaking the sky. You peel out of the driveway so fast gravel goes spraying everywhere and drive back to Matt’s and Danny’s. Oh God. You are the worst kind of idiot. How could you trust him? How are you ever going to trust him again? It takes all of your concentration just to keep from crying as you drive.
When you walk back into their house, Matt looks up and growls, “I’m going to fucking disembowel him.”
“Matt, don’t,” Danny says quietly, laying a hand on his chest to still him. “No one is going to entertain any murder plans tonight.” You collapse on the couch between them; Danny stays up late with you watching shitty nighttime talk shows and Matt paces back and forth, back and forth, back and forth cracking his knuckles and cursing under his breath. It doesn’t stop hurting. You’re on your best friend’s couch crying your eyes out to him and his boyfriend, soaking up all the love they’re giving you, and it still hurts too much to bear.
Next