#mongoose!will

Shifter, you thought as soon as you shook his hand.  But, judging from the way he never looked at you and only talked in your direction, you realized that he didn’t fully realize what you were.

You smiled at that thought.

  -x-

  The next day you brought him your special protein scramble.

“And how do you see me?” he asks as he leans back, chuckling at being compared to a teacup.  From the glint in his eyes, you think it’s the first time he’s actually laughed in a long time. 

“The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by,” and once the words are out of your mouth, you wonder at the hitch in his breathing and the narrowing of his eyes.

You write it on the notepad you keep in the room you’re building for Will and come back to it again and again over the next few days.  And then – after weeks, months, of you walking his dreams, showing him your other form, and fighting away his nightmares – the cobras show up.

  -x-

  Will called you one morning, voice straining to remain calm, and warned you to stay away, to not come for breakfast.

“What is the matter, Will?” you had asked, already standing and grabbing your keys.

He must’ve heard the metals clinking together.

“Please, Hannibal, I need you to stay away,” he snapped and then the line was disconnected.

“I don’t think so,” you said to no one in particular as you pocketed your phone and walked out your door.

  -x-

  It was deathly quiet by the time you pulled up to the house.

You saw a naked man in the yard, surrounded by three of Will’s dogs – they were dead.  You hear scuffling and glass breaking and violent hissing from inside the house.

Quickly and silently, you walk up the porch steps - you feel your antlers itch to rip free from your human form, to be bathed in the blood of whoever was threatening your Will.

And just as your hand touched the knob, something flew into the door and then through it.

You fell onto your back and the two of you rolled down off the steps and further before you jumped up and away – it wasn’t Will that had flown into you.

“Who the fuck are you?” the man snarled; you heard the underlying hiss in his voice, the air around him thrumming with his want to shift.

“I’m here for my mongoose,” was all you said and you let your eyes flash red and you felt the hairs on your body beginning to elongate and stiffen to feathers.  But you held the change back just long enough to ask, “Where is Will?”

“Hannibal!” Will was suddenly in the doorway and there was fear in his eyes as he looked between you and the snake.  “I told you to stay away!”

“You did,” you nodded once. 

And before you could say anymore, the cobra was shifting again and he was racing towards you – and Will was frozen when he realized that he was too far, that he would never reach you.

“Hannibal!” he screamed.

But in that half-second you had to spare, you simply smirked at Will and then you let your antlers out and you reared up and you called out to the sun still rising.  And before the cobra could even drop his fangs, your hooves came down on his head.

And when the dead shifter’s body reverted to human form, you thrust your antlers down into his stomach, reared up, and used your momentum to throw the body behind you – ripping it open and spilling blood and entrails and waste.

  -x-

  “It was a rogue stag,” Will told Jack Crawford later.

“A stag?” Crawford was giving him that look – the same one that said he didn’t believe what Will was saying, the same one that put Crawford in danger of winding up on your table.

“It is true,” you said.

“And the stag just so happened to kill the men that killed three of your dogs and were trying to kill you?”

“Crazy how some things work out, huh?” Will said to Crawford, though he was looking at you.

“Crazy,” you echoed as you back down at him.

Jack just threw his hands up in the air and stalked away.

  -z-

  End

For those unfamiliar with the books:

"You write it on the notepad you keep in the room you’re building for Will and come back to it again and again over the next few days. "