in the midnight sun - act II, scene iii
The phone wakes you and two facts register simultaneously. First, you’re not at home, which is ultimately depressing because then the second fact registered: Alex cheated on you. Is probably currently cheating on you with his little boy toy, probably in your bed. You feel a strong desire to burn the mattress. Then you realize that the phone is ringing, but by the time you’ve realized this, Danny has already picked up. He says, “Shit,” and then he disappears for a minute while you shake sleep off and stretch.
Matt comes out of the bedroom in sweats and a t-shirt. He shoves a hoodie at you - one of his - and tells you to put it on. “You need to go home right now.” You wrestle yourself into the polar fleece and stumble alongside him out to his truck. It stutters but ultimately roars awake when he turns the key in the ignition. You’re still half-asleep, so you don’t understand the urgency of the situation. And anyway, you don’t want to be at home right now very badly at all.
“Alex cheated on me,” you mumble, warming your hands on the heater miserably. Your fingers are numb, so numb, and you don’t understand why they should be. It’s summer, supposed to be hot. Why are you so cold? Actually your wrists ache too and everything feels heavy; maybe you are in shock. You don’t know why you feel so numb and stupid.
Matt says, quietly, “Jack called and told me he tried to kill himself.”
You scream. No, more than that - you howl in the passenger seat of Matt’s truck. You are so upset that the hairs start growing on the backs of your hands again even though it’s almost three weeks until next moon. “Drive faster,” you growl. When he doesn’t react, you grip his arm hard and repeat yourself. “Will you fucking drive faster?” If you felt like your heart was being ripped out earlier tonight when you walked on Alex kissing that guy, now it feels like your heart is trying to tear your heart from your chest because you don’t want this to happen. It can’t happen. Alex can’t die because you love him and you can’t, you can’t exist if he’s not alive, if he’s not real. Without realizing it you’ve started pulling out the hairs on the backs of your hands. “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real,” you whisper. Matt drives faster.
When Matt pulls into the driveway all the lights are on in the house. The garage door is open. You leap out of the truck before it’s stopped and run in through the garage, but you skid to a sudden stop when you see the blood. And then you immediately know how he did it; you feel sick. The guy - Jack, you think - runs out and grabs you, hurries you into the house. His clothes are bloodstained. Of course, the analytical side of your brain is taking in the details. Blood on the carpet. Blood on the wall, blood on the doorknob of the bathroom door. “I didn’t know who else to call, there’s so much blood…”
You swallow hard. “In his truck, there’s a bag - It has all his work stuff in it, go get it.” Jack doesn’t move, so you yell at him - “Go, you little shit!”
The water is blood red. Under any other circumstances, you’d mark this as the moment you start throwing up. Now you kneel beside the bathtub and feel his neck for a pulse, holding your breath. It’s right there like it always is, lbbb-dbbb-lbbb-dbbb, but slower. The slashes on his wrists are gory - he did a good job of it - but to be honest you aren’t terribly concerned for the moment. Already, they’re starting to heal. They’re not as deep as you think they would be for a suicide attempt and Jack called Matt’s almost half an hour ago. Jack returns with the bag, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry,” he says in a tiny voice.
“He’ll be okay,” you mutter. “A little fragile, but okay.” You open his bag and - aha! - find what you were looking for: gauze, those funny angled scissors, thread for stitches and needles. First you grab the little flashlight and turn it on, peel his eyelids back and check his pupils for reactivity. They dilate when they’re supposed to and contract when they’re supposed to, so he’s passed out. The blood loss is, admittedly, worrying.
The thing that probably no one else knows is that werewolves actually can’t commit suicide. Your bodies recuperate too quickly.
Your stitches are sloppy - fuck, you’ve never given anyone stitches before, never thought you would need to - but they do a decent enough job of holding the cuts together until he heals enough to staunch the bleeding and wrap his wrists in gauze. “Help me get him out of the tub,” you tell Jack, who helps you pull him out awkwardly, helps you drag him into the bedroom. The sheets look awfully clean, awfully neat and you know that Alex never makes the bed this neatly.
“I didn’t sleep with him,” Jack whispers. “Think whatever you want about what you saw, I don’t blame you, but I didn’t sleep with him. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He’s so earnest it makes you want to tear his throat out yourself. “I don’t care,” you growl. You shake Alex’s shoulders to see how far under he is. “Alex,” you whisper, “Alex, hey, wake up, asshole.” The blood seeps through the layers of gauze mummifying his wrists, making little red dots on the white fabric. He makes a soft noise in his throat. “Wake the fuck up,” you hiss. You poke his nose, which you know he hates.”Wake up, wake up, wake up,” you urge him.
“Hnnnnnf,” he says. It’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard in your life. He stares at you with deadened brown eyes and mumbles, “Moon pigs.”
You sigh and tell him to go back to sleep and kiss his forehead. “Do you have a place to stay tonight?” you ask Jack. He shakes his head; you can sort of tell that this isn’t the only thing eating away at his conscience but you don’t care to ask right now. As much as you’d like to make him the bad guy in all this, you don’t feel like you can do that. “You can sleep on the couch. Blankets are in the cupboard outside the bathroom door. One of us will drive you where you need to go in the morning.”
Matt is waiting for you in the kitchen. “Is he going to be okay?”
You’re not sure which one of them he is asking about. “They both will be,” you say. “Thank you for everything.” He hugs you tight and holds onto you for several minutes; you squeeze back just as hard and cry. He strokes your hair and tells you to call if you need anything, anything at all.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to rip his heart out once he’s feeling better?” he asks hopefully. Despite the situation, you laugh and give him a little shove. “Okay, okay, I thought I’d ask in case you changed your mind. Call us in the morning or Danny will worry about you all day. I love you, little bastard.”
“I love you too.” You give Matt one more hug and see him out. Then, with a sigh of resignation, you decide that cleaning up the house will have to wait until the morning. Jack is kind of following you around like a lost puppy, apologizing and being generally annoying and underfoot so that you’re tripping over him all the time. “Can you please stay out of my way?” You’re trying not to go off on him; it’s a combination of anger and betrayal and horniness and worry and not enough sleep and in general the effects of being a werewolf, but he won’t understand that.
He looks at you, sniffs the air delicately and goes, “You’re one too. I thought - I couldn’t - I didn’t, I’m so sorry, I swear I didn’t know, I swear, I’m sorry,” and then he bursts into tears in the middle of your kitchen. You recognize this behavior perfectly well, though; you feel like an idiot for not recognizing it in your own fucking partner. Jack falls to his knees and sobs hysterically, hugging himself and whimpering. Despite the fact that you still want to punch him out for this, you kneel down and put your arm around him.
“Okay,” you sigh. “Okay. It’s okay. I mean it’s not okay that you kind of made out with my boyfriend and I kind of want to fuck you up for doing that, but shhh. It’s alright. You’re just, you’re just…” you trail off, unsure of what to say that would be comforting. “I’m going to be really honest with you. This sucks. You are just a baby and it is going to suck because your body really hates you right now for getting bitten. I mean, until you hit the one year mark - if you survive that - or until you find your mate, yeah, you’re going to be uncontrollably horny for a while. You’re going to have mood swings and it is going to be hell. I just, I just… Yeah. You will be okay. Somehow.”
Jack says, “I don’t want to be a werewolf.”
“I know.” You give him a hug and help him find some blankets in the cupboard, set him up a makeshift bed on the couch. “Hey,” you say awkwardly. “Um. If you ever have any questions… uh. You could ask me, if you want. I mean I’ve been a - I’ve been, it’s been years for me. So. Um. Yeah. Goodnight.”
You go back to the bedroom to check on Alex, who is sleeping as soundly as he can for the moment. He stirs, but barely, when you lean over him and kiss his cheek. “Mmmmm,” he groans. “I’m sorry.”
“Go back to sleep. We will talk in the morning after you drive your friend home.”
Next
Matt comes out of the bedroom in sweats and a t-shirt. He shoves a hoodie at you - one of his - and tells you to put it on. “You need to go home right now.” You wrestle yourself into the polar fleece and stumble alongside him out to his truck. It stutters but ultimately roars awake when he turns the key in the ignition. You’re still half-asleep, so you don’t understand the urgency of the situation. And anyway, you don’t want to be at home right now very badly at all.
“Alex cheated on me,” you mumble, warming your hands on the heater miserably. Your fingers are numb, so numb, and you don’t understand why they should be. It’s summer, supposed to be hot. Why are you so cold? Actually your wrists ache too and everything feels heavy; maybe you are in shock. You don’t know why you feel so numb and stupid.
Matt says, quietly, “Jack called and told me he tried to kill himself.”
You scream. No, more than that - you howl in the passenger seat of Matt’s truck. You are so upset that the hairs start growing on the backs of your hands again even though it’s almost three weeks until next moon. “Drive faster,” you growl. When he doesn’t react, you grip his arm hard and repeat yourself. “Will you fucking drive faster?” If you felt like your heart was being ripped out earlier tonight when you walked on Alex kissing that guy, now it feels like your heart is trying to tear your heart from your chest because you don’t want this to happen. It can’t happen. Alex can’t die because you love him and you can’t, you can’t exist if he’s not alive, if he’s not real. Without realizing it you’ve started pulling out the hairs on the backs of your hands. “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real,” you whisper. Matt drives faster.
When Matt pulls into the driveway all the lights are on in the house. The garage door is open. You leap out of the truck before it’s stopped and run in through the garage, but you skid to a sudden stop when you see the blood. And then you immediately know how he did it; you feel sick. The guy - Jack, you think - runs out and grabs you, hurries you into the house. His clothes are bloodstained. Of course, the analytical side of your brain is taking in the details. Blood on the carpet. Blood on the wall, blood on the doorknob of the bathroom door. “I didn’t know who else to call, there’s so much blood…”
You swallow hard. “In his truck, there’s a bag - It has all his work stuff in it, go get it.” Jack doesn’t move, so you yell at him - “Go, you little shit!”
The water is blood red. Under any other circumstances, you’d mark this as the moment you start throwing up. Now you kneel beside the bathtub and feel his neck for a pulse, holding your breath. It’s right there like it always is, lbbb-dbbb-lbbb-dbbb, but slower. The slashes on his wrists are gory - he did a good job of it - but to be honest you aren’t terribly concerned for the moment. Already, they’re starting to heal. They’re not as deep as you think they would be for a suicide attempt and Jack called Matt’s almost half an hour ago. Jack returns with the bag, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry,” he says in a tiny voice.
“He’ll be okay,” you mutter. “A little fragile, but okay.” You open his bag and - aha! - find what you were looking for: gauze, those funny angled scissors, thread for stitches and needles. First you grab the little flashlight and turn it on, peel his eyelids back and check his pupils for reactivity. They dilate when they’re supposed to and contract when they’re supposed to, so he’s passed out. The blood loss is, admittedly, worrying.
The thing that probably no one else knows is that werewolves actually can’t commit suicide. Your bodies recuperate too quickly.
Your stitches are sloppy - fuck, you’ve never given anyone stitches before, never thought you would need to - but they do a decent enough job of holding the cuts together until he heals enough to staunch the bleeding and wrap his wrists in gauze. “Help me get him out of the tub,” you tell Jack, who helps you pull him out awkwardly, helps you drag him into the bedroom. The sheets look awfully clean, awfully neat and you know that Alex never makes the bed this neatly.
“I didn’t sleep with him,” Jack whispers. “Think whatever you want about what you saw, I don’t blame you, but I didn’t sleep with him. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He’s so earnest it makes you want to tear his throat out yourself. “I don’t care,” you growl. You shake Alex’s shoulders to see how far under he is. “Alex,” you whisper, “Alex, hey, wake up, asshole.” The blood seeps through the layers of gauze mummifying his wrists, making little red dots on the white fabric. He makes a soft noise in his throat. “Wake the fuck up,” you hiss. You poke his nose, which you know he hates.”Wake up, wake up, wake up,” you urge him.
“Hnnnnnf,” he says. It’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard in your life. He stares at you with deadened brown eyes and mumbles, “Moon pigs.”
You sigh and tell him to go back to sleep and kiss his forehead. “Do you have a place to stay tonight?” you ask Jack. He shakes his head; you can sort of tell that this isn’t the only thing eating away at his conscience but you don’t care to ask right now. As much as you’d like to make him the bad guy in all this, you don’t feel like you can do that. “You can sleep on the couch. Blankets are in the cupboard outside the bathroom door. One of us will drive you where you need to go in the morning.”
Matt is waiting for you in the kitchen. “Is he going to be okay?”
You’re not sure which one of them he is asking about. “They both will be,” you say. “Thank you for everything.” He hugs you tight and holds onto you for several minutes; you squeeze back just as hard and cry. He strokes your hair and tells you to call if you need anything, anything at all.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to rip his heart out once he’s feeling better?” he asks hopefully. Despite the situation, you laugh and give him a little shove. “Okay, okay, I thought I’d ask in case you changed your mind. Call us in the morning or Danny will worry about you all day. I love you, little bastard.”
“I love you too.” You give Matt one more hug and see him out. Then, with a sigh of resignation, you decide that cleaning up the house will have to wait until the morning. Jack is kind of following you around like a lost puppy, apologizing and being generally annoying and underfoot so that you’re tripping over him all the time. “Can you please stay out of my way?” You’re trying not to go off on him; it’s a combination of anger and betrayal and horniness and worry and not enough sleep and in general the effects of being a werewolf, but he won’t understand that.
He looks at you, sniffs the air delicately and goes, “You’re one too. I thought - I couldn’t - I didn’t, I’m so sorry, I swear I didn’t know, I swear, I’m sorry,” and then he bursts into tears in the middle of your kitchen. You recognize this behavior perfectly well, though; you feel like an idiot for not recognizing it in your own fucking partner. Jack falls to his knees and sobs hysterically, hugging himself and whimpering. Despite the fact that you still want to punch him out for this, you kneel down and put your arm around him.
“Okay,” you sigh. “Okay. It’s okay. I mean it’s not okay that you kind of made out with my boyfriend and I kind of want to fuck you up for doing that, but shhh. It’s alright. You’re just, you’re just…” you trail off, unsure of what to say that would be comforting. “I’m going to be really honest with you. This sucks. You are just a baby and it is going to suck because your body really hates you right now for getting bitten. I mean, until you hit the one year mark - if you survive that - or until you find your mate, yeah, you’re going to be uncontrollably horny for a while. You’re going to have mood swings and it is going to be hell. I just, I just… Yeah. You will be okay. Somehow.”
Jack says, “I don’t want to be a werewolf.”
“I know.” You give him a hug and help him find some blankets in the cupboard, set him up a makeshift bed on the couch. “Hey,” you say awkwardly. “Um. If you ever have any questions… uh. You could ask me, if you want. I mean I’ve been a - I’ve been, it’s been years for me. So. Um. Yeah. Goodnight.”
You go back to the bedroom to check on Alex, who is sleeping as soundly as he can for the moment. He stirs, but barely, when you lean over him and kiss his cheek. “Mmmmm,” he groans. “I’m sorry.”
“Go back to sleep. We will talk in the morning after you drive your friend home.”
Next