pretty fly for a wolf guy

It didn't matter now, did it? Freedom was here and he was the one pushing her away. Colt turned to meet his sister, seeing the pain in her eyes made his heart stop. "Don't go, Freedom, come on in and stay the night." Where else would you go, baby sis?

But his voice does stop her, and after a moment's silent consideration she does turn back around.

It is late. And she is tired. And he is her brother, who she hasn't seen in, like, literally forever. His stupid pouty face makes her feel bad, which makes her feel angry, but she beats that down and decides to count this as a win, at least for now.

She was grown now, wasn't she? The rancher didn't turn around. He'd promised himself he wasn't gonna do that anymore, wasn't gonna turn around and look at the past.

"You got a phone, Freddie." A quiet sound, a plea hiding beneath all the noise; leave, leave, leave. What kind of trouble was she looking for out here? "I'm a lotta things, baby sis, but I ain't the brother you remember." It wasn't her fault. He knew that. God knew he knew that. But whenever he looked at her, his mind drifted right back to their mother, because she was her mother's daughter and in his head, the two of them were one.

"What'm I supposed to do here?"

His head dropped, chin nearly touching his chest as he stood there trying to sort right from wrong, same as he'd done a thousand times before. He didn't want to send his sister away, but he knew damn well that in a couple hours his phone would be ringing off the hook. What was he supposed to tell her mother? That Freedom missed her big brother? What did she even remember of him after all these years? Hell, what was there to miss?

So she whips her phone at the back of his head. "Fuck you, Colt!"

She stands there, face a sad-sack of upset, eyes wet but refusing to spill. "She knows I'm here, we've talked. Sorry you might have to fucking talk to her. Or anybody. Or whatever. I'm not going home." She can't. Not with what's happened. She plods through the space between them to pick up her phone, cradling it in two hands. "Fuck it, I'll just leave you be. Have a nice life with your fucking horses or whatever."

It was a lot to take in, all of it, but it would be better coming from someone who could be there for Freddie, to walk her through everything.

"Look I can't... I can't be the one to take you through all this stuff. I'm not the right person, or the right species, and I'm new myself." She wasn't ready to take someone under her wing, especially with someone that she couldn't possibly imagine everything the wolf was going through, or would go through.

She half-laughs, to reassure that she's at least kind of joking.

At the question, she took a step backwards, hands raised, "You still smell like wolf, and that's not from tussling the one in the freezer. Which means you know only one thing could move that fast, and you also know I saved your life, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't freak out and go all primal and bite me." Thao half-teased, though it masked the truth. The last thing she wanted was to have to run from another wolf to avoid being bitten.

"You know who that was? Know if they're likely to lose their shit once they wake up?"

"Uh-" the words stutter out of her. "I'm sorta new? Around here?"

She hadn't planned on staying, but something fucked is happening here, and it seems like people can't leave.

"To all this." Freddie adds, motioning between the two of them. "I don't know shit from fuck."

Liam let out a groan. "I fucking told you to not get in the way." But no, why listen? Liam draped an arm over his face as his forehead pounded. The bright lights of the pizza shop only caused an increase in the pain in his head. He closed his eyes as he tried to focus on what he needed to do next. His body would heal fairly quickly, but that didn't mean all of his problems were resolved.

Fingers brushed against him and he quickly jerked away from the touch. "Fuck-- don't touch me!" Then he grunted as his left thigh protested his movement. He blinked and glanced down at his shredded pants. Blood coated his jeans, along with his leg -- deep claw marks showed itself through the tattered pieces. That might take longer to heal.

He jerks away from her touch, and she startles at the sudden movement. His eyes travel to his leg, and hers follow, and her expression transforms into one of sudden concern. "Oh, shit-" she starts, but then he winds up again, shouting, and she shrinks back intially, but all his barking is stirring something new, something she's not really figured out how to ignore yet. "Hey, fuckin', chill out!" she says, backing off. She looks at the wolf, then at the guy, and then stands.

Staggering around as she tries to figure out where a first aid kit might be stashed, at first she mutters a bit more, but then calls out; "You're not my boss or my dad, dude, don't fucking yell at me." She yells, gruffly, as she locates it.

As she looks back down the street, eyes darting across the snowy landscape for a sign of her newfound friend (escaping a werewolf terrifyingly trying to break out of a walk-in made you friends with someone, right?), and instead locks eyes with the monster, just a few feet behind her.

"Fuck."

A split-second decision; a stupid one, one that she hoped she lived to regret as she dashed forward, fingers splayed and reaching for Frankie's wrist. "Come on! Faster, you need to be faster, and we need to--" To what? Go where? Eyes widened at the realisation that it would likely just keep following them, but she didn't stop.

"H'ooooaugh god," she says once her feet touch the ground, breath puffing out of her mouth as she hunches over - pretty sure she's about to hork Pizza all over the sidewalk. She's not even sure where they are, or what direction work is in - but she doesn't smell the werewolf anymore through the clarifying cold... that has to be plus, right? Wait. Her eyes bug wide.

"What the hell was that?!" She says, turning back towards her rescuer, but it's all breathless, shouting whispers.

His gaze pinned on her.

"But you didn’t come all this way for nothin’," he said. "Ain’t ‘cause you found some old picture and started missin’ your big brother." He’d never been this man before. This cold and angry man.

Rough hands dragged over his face, then back through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. His palm scraped over the stubble on his jaw. Then he turned, starting back toward the ranch. "If you got somethin’ to say, say it inside. Storm's rolling in."

"She was sc-" She starts to defend her mother, but she stops - because he's leveled so many things at her, and she doesn't know where to start and there's this anger that she's never felt bubbling inside of her. Anger not that he doesn't care but that it feels like he wishes he didn't, and that hurts more.

"Or maybe that's exactly why I came - " she protests.

He beckons her inside, nods at gathering clouds. Freddie watches him turn away, walk towards the house. She takes a few steps, because she thinks maybe it's okay, suddenly - maybe this is him telling her he didn't mean all that.

I just wanted to say hello. She says, under her breath, too quiet for anyone but herself to hear. But then there's a flash in her mind. Against her better judgement though she chases after. "I didn't know I needed a... god damned application to talk to you," she says on the front porch, before they get into the door. "You're bein'a jerk!"

Thao gives Freddie a somewhat pointed look, brows raised, "Yes, I believe in crazy shit, and I think you're definitely onto something there." She groaned under the weight of the door, pushing back on it whenever it threatened to burst from its hinges.

Nobody's seen a bullfight, she thinks. Probably. Maybe.

"Like that."

The newcomer starts a countdown after they figure out the plan (fucking run away, which like, yeah) and Freddie nods, but she's not super prepared for the fact that Three! Means that her new friend is going to vanish in an instant. She feels very suddenly alone, but not so alone that she's deer in headlights alone, and so she turns, rolls over the counter and skids out the door, slipping on ice in the freezing cold before the thing behind her blasts through the steel and glass of the front door.

Oh god, she realizes, as she scrambles. She's so fired, wow.

The thing also skids on the ice, it's four legs trying to find purchase on icy concrete and asphalt with long, clicking claws.

She glanced around the restaurant, her eyes snagging on a blanket folded neatly over one of the chairs in the main dining room. She quickly hurried over to pick it up before returning to the freezer, laying the blanket softly over the wolf’s body. If it weren’t for the slight snarling snore, they looked almost content.

Estrid let the door softly close before turning her attention on the employee, an assessing eye evaluating the other for both their well being and if the realizations of the day were about to cause a secoundary problem. “How you holding up?”

She keeps stealing looks at the snoozing beast - is that what she looks like? All big and hairy and made of knives? What the fuck?

Leaving Modesto might have been a mistake.

Freddie's pulled from that consideration by Estrid's question, and she investigates herself. Head, shouders, knees and toes. She checks her hands. "Yep, all ten."

She looks up to Estrid. "Uh... I'm good. You uh, you good?"

Also why are you chill?

"Worse shit." A low chuckle escaped his lips. "Nothing this wolf can do to me is worse than anything I've already experienced." It was more information than he gave most people about his life. "You're right. It's not." Agreeing that it, in fact, wasn't a full moon. But not all wolves needed the moon to turn.

His body jerks forward for a moment before settling the door back in its place. "I really don't give a fuck where you hide. But I'd prefer it to be in a place with a barrier." Liam clenched his jaw as he watched her move over the counter, settling behind it. "That's-- fuck, no. That's not going to help you."

Even as he said that though, the wolf protested again against the door. Liam was trying to keep it closed so that she could escape to somewhere safer, but clearly the girl did not know how to listen. "If I can't manage to control it, I need you to fucking run." He spat out as the hinges on the door creaked and shifted. In a split second, the metal flew off the frame, scattering onto the floor.

The metal of the door pushed into Liam's back and then the whole thing gave way. He managed to spin out of the way of the door without allowing it to topple him over. Then, he turned and jumped towards the wolf, wrapping his arms around it and tackling it into the nearby wall.

Teeth and claws scraped against Liam's skin as he held onto it. It was too big, and heavy, for him to carry. He grunted as he tried to use his feet and arms to push and pull the wolf towards the exit of the shop -- dragging the both of them along the floor as he did so. "Do not--" Liam ground out. "Get in the way!"

His muscles protested as the claws sunk into his skin this time, imbedding into his left thigh. Liam cursed as he felt his own flesh peel and tear from his body. He jerked his head back and then threw it forward into the wolf's head. Again, and again, trying to knock it out. It took longer than what he wanted, with the wolf struggling and writhing in his locked arms. By the time Liam had finally managed that, his head ached so bad that he could barely keep his eyes open. It almost overshadowed the other forms of pain throughout his body.

The counter rocks and shakes along with the rest of the shop, and she watches empty pizza boxes and styrofoam containers flip and fly all over the place as they struggle.

They thud against the counter and she hears the wood creak, enough to scatter her backwards, her sneakers squeaking in and amongst the snarling furor as she gets to her feet, running around the counter to the entrance behind, where Liam tangles with this thing. Blood fills the air, curls it's scent into her nose, and she finds it familiar and she finds it makes her stomach rumble in a way she still isn't super comfortable with.

Holy fuck! She mouths silently, and twice she thinks she's gotta get the thing off of him. Maybe if she tackled it like a footballer, but by the time Freddie steels herself and her spine enough to take of into a run, the two of them go dead quiet and still, and Freddie finds herself barreling into a quiet and unconscious lump of muscle and fur, the dead weight shifting off of Liam and sending Freddie ass-over-teakettle as she flips over the hairy thing and onto the floor opposite. Oof.

She sits up, rubbing the back of her head where it's clonked against a bit of stainless steel. "You alive?" She grumbles out, turning to see the unconscious werewolf start to turn back to its human shape. It's weird to see from the outside, and she winces.

This was his baby sister, the same one he used to hold hands with when the night turned dark and scary. She’d ask him to keep his eyes open for her, be her light while she drifted to sleep. And he was — her knight, her protector, her home. It wasn’t her fault he’d been left alone. It wasn’t her who walked away, and he knew that. Colt knew that damn well.

It ain’t her to blame, Colt.

The longer he looked at her, the smaller she seemed to get as if time itself was turning backward, winding the years back, back, back — until she was just a kid again, standing there and begging her brother to love her back. And he always had. He’d never stopped loving her. So why was this so hard? Why couldn’t he just hold her?

He could only mumble in return, the most honest truth he had: "’Course I wanted to see you. I always wanna see you, Freedom." His hands slipped into the pockets of his worn-out jeans, knees still caked with dirt, while he rocked slightly on his heels. "But I ain’t in much of a place to do anything for you, sis." Colt glanced away. "This ain’t your home. Your home’s with your mama." Sorrow buried itself deep in the undertone of his voice. She was her mother now — not his anymore. The widow who lost everything only had one child left.

He forced his eyes on his sister, one more time. "So why’d you come all the way out here?" A beat. "What’re you expectin’ from me?

It carries all the weight somebody her size can offer. She hadn't thought this far ahead.

"Why's it gotta be I need something? I just figured you wouldn't come down to Modesto."

She shoves her hands in her pockets, going from looking hurt to something a little colder.

It's weirdly, eerily quiet in the pizzeria now, only the hum of lights and the muted blustering of blizzarding winds outside accompanying the hum of the freezer. Her eyes take the chance to scan the damage.

Oh definitely getting fired, no shot, she thinks.

She waits.

Waits some more. The phone rings sometimes. She's so fired.

The thudding's stopped for an non-descript amount of time when she realizes she's been staring at the unfolded boxes under the counter for who-knew-how-long. "You done?" She asks again.

...

Nothin'.

The door cracks open so quiet and so slow and only just so far. She doesn't see fur, doesn't hear growling, so she opens it up a bit more until she can confirm that it's a person sprawled on the floor.

Freddie stands there, unsure of what to do for a solid minute before an idea lights over her head.

"I need you to hide somewhere first." Liam said as he lifted a foot and placed it on the opposite wall, using it as leverage. "I need you to back up away from this door and find a hiding spot. Preferably behind another door. Is there an office or something in here?"

Yeah, rabies.

"Or like worse shit? You know" She says, almost as a question in her breathless tone, as if to ask Liam if he does, in fact, know.

"He just started raging out, like it's not even-" she stops before saying the full moon, because again, how does she know if he knows. She backs up after another crash hits the door from the other side. " There's the uh, the bathroom?" She points to a wide door down at the other end of the place. I'm not gonna hide though."

The other girl is doing a formidable job of keeping the door closed but at her refusal to leave the store, Estrid feels it’s time to resort to other tactics. “Another time we might have to talk about your employer’s disregard for the safety of their employees.” She nods to the other, “and no,” Estrid swallows with more weight, “I don’t have a gun.”

This girl was having an evening to put it lightly, if she hadn’t been aware of the supernatural before this incident would surely be an unpleasant wake up call, but Estrid had been raised in this world, she knew the wolf in the freezer wasn’t just a wolf but a person and the thought of using lethal force on someone who was probably just having a bad move made her stomach churn.

Her fingers finally curled around one of the many jars in her bag. Humans were resilient, and Estrid hoped that if this girl’s illusions hadn’t been shattered by encountering the freezer beast, what she was about to do wouldn’t further break her reality.