Dhruv managed a smile in return, though his attention was already being pulled elsewhere as someone was asking him a question, but his eyes drifted toward the doors as Vivek slipped through them. Though there was no reason he could immediately find for it, an uneasy feeling settled low in his stomach. He chalked it up to nerves. The night had been a long time coming. Too much work, too many conversations that had started with what if and ended somewhere neither of them had expected. Maybe this was simply what it felt like to finally stand at the edge of something they'd spent so long chasing. Vivek had promised he'd be in the front row anyway, so Dhruv turned back toward his colleagues, forcing his attention into the conversation.
"Dhruv? There you are." His mother's voice reached him through the conversation, hand settled against his arm. "They're about to call you."
He nodded automatically but his eyes never left his phone as he sent off another text. More urgent than the last five. "Yeah, one second. Vivek's not here yet so I'm justâŠ" Another text followed. His breath quickened for reasons he did not like, but what else could he do? The doors stayed closed. Vivek didn't walk back inside.
His phone buzzed in his hand and for a second, just a second, relief hit so sharply it almost hurt until he looked down.
Something came up. Sorry.
Dhruv stared at the screen longer than necessary, like more words might follow if he waited. Explanation. Time frame. Anything.
Then irritation hit. A small, hot spike of it that came easier than anything else. "Are you fucking joking?" Dhruv typed before he could think better of it.
what does that mean?
you promised
where are you?
"I'll be right back." Dhruv barely waited for his mother's questions before rushing outside. The doors opened onto the cool night air, but beneath the wash of the exterior lights, everything was quiet and almost unnaturally still.
"Vivek?" Nothing. "Vivek!"
He moved farther, searching around the side and even the parking lot for the familiar silhouette. But as seconds ticked to minutes, initial irritation began to curdle into something else as he looked at the text again. Was that all? After everything? After promising he'd be there? Dhruv breathed out, the anger suddenly feeling less comfortable, but it was easier to be annoyed than to admit he felt abandoned. Left behind again by another person he cared about.
Three was a pattern but twice hurt just as painfully.
"Dhruv?" His mother found him again. "What are you doing? They're ready."
"I can't find him, ma. I..." Dhruv considered saying no. No, he wasn't going back inside. Not yet. "I don't know how to do this without Vivek." But his gaze swept once more toward the empty stretch of pavement and found no one. "He said..." But whatever his attempt was, was overlapped by his mother saying something that hardly registered.
The hall glittered with an almost artificial precision, laughter rising in carefully measured waves. Lunar Cove knew how to celebrate, that was for sure. Power gathered easily here, dressed in velvet and silk and something older than both. But Dhruv stood at the centre of it and felt like an error in the design.
He kept looking at the doors. It wasn't obvious at first. Just a glance, just a slight turn of his head, but it kept happening. Again. Again. Each time slower to correct, each time harder to pretend it wasn't deliberate. He told himself Vivek would still come back, wrap up whatever it was that had come up, but... nothing.
Across the room, a glass was tapped. The sound rang clean and bright, slicing through conversation with practised ease. "Ladies and gentlemen, if we could have your attention. Tonight, we have guest who redefined our understanding of lycanthropy. Please join me in welcoming the scientist behind it, Dhruv Mehta."
Applause rose instantly, but Dhruv didn't move yet. His gaze foolishly flicked toward the door again, waiting for it to open until he couldn't ignore the audience any longer. He adjusted the microphone, buying himself a moment that didn't feel like enough, eyes lingering on the front row for half a second longer before he forced them away and onto others. "Thank you," he said, and thankfully his voice held, which felt like a small, undeserved mercy. "This isn't... where I thought I'd ever be. Please ignore my lack of tie, I was told it wasn't needed." There was polite laughter that Dhruv gratefully accepted and awkwardly continued, gripping the podium slightly to ground himself with something solid.
"Much of this began with work that Vivek and I were already conducting into magical biology. What we encountered was unexpected, but it gave us an opportunity to examine something we'd never been able to study so closely before." His eyes flicked toward the empty front row and looked away before the absence could become something far heavier. "Vivek's been instrumental in helping me recognise that there was more to the process than we previously understood. He believed in the work when it didn't look like anything, when it was incomplete. He believed in me when I was uncertain, even moments ago, too. He's been my pillar of reassurance and confidence." My idiot. "I wouldn't have gotten here without him, really can't thank him enough." The words came easier than he expected, because of course, there was never a doubt.
"The full findings are detailed in the paper published earlier this week, so I'll keep this brief," Dhruv continued, voice smoothing into something more clinical, into the familiarity of explanation. "For as long as we've known it, lycanthropy has been treated as this fixed state, something you either inherit and trigger or survive. I couldn't quite accept the final without understanding how it begins. This research focuses on the point of contact, the moment of transmission, to what actually happens internally, going deeper than just the physical shift. Magic tells us the origins already, our research fills in the gaps. What I found is that the transformation is biochemical. Werewolf saliva carries a complex venom which enters the bloodstream and integrates with a person's neurology and genetic structure, altering it at a molecular level. In simpler termsâ it rewrites you." Not cleanly, he didn't add, but Dhruv watched the audience absorb what he said all the same.
"The existing DNA structure isn't erased, just reconfigured with this new 'werewolf genes' as the human baseline shifts to introduce new expression patterns. Our research also indicates that the delay between exposure and first transformation isn't arbitrary nor immediate," he added. "It's gradual. Incremental changes occur within making for a period of systemic adaptation as the body prepares for a state it has never occupied before. And when the full moon rises, it completes the change."
Dhruv let it sit for a moment as he chose his next words carefully. "I underwent the change, and made the decision to document the process as thoroughly as possible to understand what was happening from within rather than relying solely on secondhand accounts or historical records."
The lie settled into the space as his gaze drifted again, almost instinctively searching for some sign that he'd said it right. That the crafted version of events sounded believable. But there was no familiar smile, no nod of reassurance. The front row seat still remained empty. He forced himself to look away.
"And this encompasses all the physiological, neurological, and psychological effects. Each stage of the process is detailed out, as objectively as I could. What we've learned so far suggests that lycanthropy isn't as fixed as we've always believed. There are mechanisms at work beneath the transformation that we're only beginning to understand. I don't have all the answers, there's more work still to be done, but we have more than just a foundation now. We have a way to study and understand this. not just for knowledge sake but for the betterment of our community and world."
He was careful not to think too much into what exactly that meant to him, and what he planned to do, knowing there were far more telepaths in the audience than he could possibly identify. "Hope that didn't bore you all. If you thought that was a bunch of jargon, you should really read my paper." With a forced smile that looked genuine enough, Dhruv stepped back with a final, "Thank you for this opportunity to contribute."
The sound of applause washed over him without weight. People smiling, celebrating, pats on his back. Joyous. He should have felt it within himself too, but never did.
Later, they would keep telling him it was remarkable. Groundbreaking. Fascinating. He would only remember the empty seat in the front row where Vivek promised to be.
