It Can’t
Be
A Modern
Ambrose Tale by Sylan
Three weeks had passed since the lab accident that relocated Ms. Waverly’s Freshman Biology classes to one of the school’s trailer classrooms. A string of substitutes had filtered in from one week to the next, trying and failing to cover much of anything out of the book. Angelina’s 5th period class degenerated into kids moving chairs to socialize, ignoring the flavor-of-the-week substitute made futile attempts to get anything across. Angelina was one of the few kids set apart from the gatherings, and so she diligently kept notes even though there was no telling what subject they might be covering from one day to the next, much less if any of it was going to be covered on a test. It gave her something to do, something to help block out the malicious comments that were directed her way whenever one of the cliques ran of out of things to talk about.
The sign on the door of Trailer 6 appeared on Monday, a printed message that simply said that classes would once again be held in room 212 of the Science & Technology building. As Angelina walked across campus, weaving through the flow of students hurrying to class, she wondered if that meant Ms. Waverly would be back. When she stepped into the classroom the smell of fresh paint was still hanging in the air. A few kids were milling around, some of them sitting on the tables, and when Angelina entered they all looked over. One girl scoffed and rolled her eyes theatrically at the short leather skirt Angelina was wearing, and a boy in the group smirked. Angelina ignored them and moved for an empty table across the room, near the back. Within seconds the others lost interest and resumed their conversation about the latest scandals amongst the popular cliques. Angelina was rummaging through her backpack when she heard footsteps. She realized picking a seat close to a back had been a mistake from the moment she saw Randy Mason and Chad Lewis walking towards her. They claimed the table right behind her, the preferred choice of kids who didn’t even want to make the pretense of learning something. Angelina very pointedly kept her attention on her bag, suddenly inspired to rearrange her notebooks and binders. She knew that wouldn’t throw them off. It took a few minutes, but she had a feeling she knew what was coming.
“Hey, Angelina,” Randy whispered. She made the mistake of
looking back. At some point Randy must have taken a test tube from one of the
shelves behind their desk, because when Angelina turned around he was sliding it
in and out of his mouth in a parody of fellatio.
Angelina felt her cheeks flush despite herself. Her mouth dropped open in outrage, but she quickly snapped it closed before it could give them any satisfaction. Her lips pulled into a tight smile as she said, “Yeah, you two have a lot of experience with that, don’t you?”
“You know it,”
Randy took the test tube out of his mouth, looking immensely pleased with himself. A thread of spit traced a line from the rounded tip of the glass tube to his lip. When the thread broke it slapped across the sad excuse for a soul patch he had cultivated. Randy kept his eyes on Angelina as he wiped it away, trying to make even that look suggestive.
Angelina’s smile was fixed. “So I guess you practice on each other all the time, right?”
The full meaning of what she said didn’t sink in until after
The grin had died in the same instant he realized what
Angelina was implying, replaced by a look of horror as he realized he’d almost
agreed.
“Slut,” he hissed at her. Angelina pretended not to hear, but she still couldn’t keep herself from curling the fingers of both her hands into fists. She kept them in her lap, under the desk, as just then the teacher walked in.
The buzz of conversation in the room died to a few scattered whispers. Those that weren’t still talking tracked the teacher’s progress across the room. Angelina recognized him as Mr. Teague, the school’s soccer coach. Mr. Teague was in his forties, with receding hair that he tried to conceal with a trendy hair cut made popular by the likes of George Clooney. Worse than that, even sadder than that, was growing waistline his starched blue dress shirt couldn’t hide. Angelia had heard once that Mr. Teague used to be one of the cool, lenient teachers. Twenty years of teaching Sophomore Biology must have changed all that, because what she heard even more of were horror stories from other students. He walked into the classroom like an army general, turned to face the classroom in the same manner. His eyes swept over the class like he already suspected each and every student of something suspension worthy. The room was suddenly very quiet.
“Welcome back,” Mr. Teague said. “I sure all of you enjoyed your time with the substitutes, just as I’m sure all over them were able to cover a great deal these past few weeks.”
There wasn’t even an attempt at sincerity in the words. A few students shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, but Angelina kept her gaze trained ahead. She wasn’t one of the bad ones, and she felt strangely compelled to try and project that. Giving Mr. Teague even the slightest reason to think anyone was a trouble maker was begging for a whole year of torment from him. The fact Angelina was sitting alone at the table near the back of the class probably didn’t help her, nor would her clothes. She knew Mr. Teague was very fond of enforcing the school’s dress code by sending students home for anything that could be taken as remotely inappropriate. Angelia tried to pull her skirt down further, even though there was no way he could possibly see under the table from where he was.
Mr. Teague began to pace the front of the room. In his hand was a manila file folder. As he walked, his pace slow and deliberate, he cracked it open to examine the contents.
“You’ll notice that the damage to the ceiling has been repaired. And in the past few weeks you may have guessed that Mr. Dempsey and Mr. Corbin will no longer be attending this school.”
The heel of his loafer squeaked softly as he turned and began pacing back towards the windows.
“You might also notice- Mr. Lewis- that as much as you turn the gas nozzles, nothing comes out of them. That’s because the main gas line has been turned off. There won’t be any experiments involving fire in any science class for the foreseeable future.”
He paused to look out the window at the empty school grounds below.
“In addition,” Mr. Teague said, his words become even more carefully measured. “Ms. Waverly has decided, after the incident, to take a sabbatical from teaching.”
There was a ripple of movement as everyone in the class exchanged looks, searching for anyone who knew the exact reason for this. Naturally, someone always did. Ms. Waverly had been a good teacher, a little naïve, but good. Angelina had heard she’d gone that the year before she had taught Second grade science, and it had been obvious from the first day of school that she had no idea how to handle a class full of freshmen. She gave very little homework to try to appease them, and when she reprimanded anyone it was in the kind of sugary tone only acknowledged by dogs and anyone under the age of seven. Add that to a curriculum that required use of Bunsen burners and other potentially dangerous equipment, and it disaster was inevitable. Angelina was out sick the week it happened, and when she returned the accounts circulating around the school were too varied and wildly exaggerated to know what to believe. She was pretty sure it had something to do with a fire, because whatever it was had made it necessary to close the entire building while repairs were made.
Then, at last, someone said what everyone else was wondering. Someone always knew.
“Nervous breakdown,” Angelina heard the girl in front of her whisper to her tablemate. “She checked into a clinic and everything.”
“You have something to share, Ms. Johansen?” Mr. Teague said, his eyes zeroing in on the dark haired girl.
The girl sat up very straight and stammered, “N-no sir.”
“Then be quiet. Please.” Mr. Teague turned away from the window. “Ms. Waverly’s classes have been divided up amongst the rest of the faculty. As you may have guessed by now, I will be teaching you for the rest of the school year.”
He stopped in the center of the class and opened the manila folder, withdrawing a sheet of paper from it. Even from the back of the class Angelina caught a glimpse of the grid laid out on the sheet.
“We’ll start with seating arrangements,” Mr. Teague announced. He paused to take in the chorus of groans from the class. “Everyone stand up and move to the back of the room. I will call your name and point to a seat. You will sit there for the rest of the year, and the person next to you will be your partner for every lab we having during that time. No exceptions. No complaints.” Several students clicked their tongues to show what they thought about the arrangement. Mr. Teague’s eyes touched on every one that did it, silently promising each of them some form of minor harassment later. Angelina didn’t know whether to be impressed or very frightened. The rumors about Mr. Teague might not have so exaggerated after all, except for maybe the claims he was a robot, among other things.
Mr. Teague moved to stand by the first desk on the front row, the one closest to the door. He pointed to the first chair and said, “Zachary Savoy.”
That ruled out the possibility of things going alphabetically. As Mr. Teague went down the list it was clear the seating arrangement wasn’t completely random. He seemed to know exactly who to split up in the class. The cliques were split up first, and no one was put anywhere near anyone they might have considered a friend. It was uncanny. Angelina was still trying to figure out how he knew who to keep away when her name was called. She saw Mr. Teague had worked his way across the room, and was pointing to a desk positioned by the window. She got the seat on the aisle.
She gathered her things, but before she had made it across the room Mr. Teague was pointing to the other seat, the one next to the window. “Ambrose Maurlias.”
She almost tripped over her own feet. A few people snickered, but Mr. Teague was already moving on to the next row. She’d been shackled to one of them, one of those uppity middle-class idiots who thought they knew everything about her. Angelina dropped her book bag on the floor and settled into her seat, pointedly keeping her eyes on the desk. She didn’t scoot her chair forward, the point being to force Ambrose to squeeze past her. Instead he crossed around the front of the desk and sat down. She saw him stealing nervous looks at her, making it painfully obvious who knew all about her from his pigheaded buddies. Angelina glared at him, daring him to say anything. Ambrose focused on getting out his books instead. She had to give him points for not sliding his chair away from her. There were no derisive snickers from the herd he’d been cut from, by then even they were too afraid to draw Mr. Teague’s attention. Angelina and Ambrose sat in silence while the rest of the class was given their seating assignments. They both tried not to look at the other, but Angelina found herself stealing glances at Ambrose and Ambrose kept stealing glances at her. She didn’t realize until they accidentally made eye contact. Angelina scowled and looked back to her notebook. All the notes she’d taken over the past few weeks were a mess, jumping from one chapter to the next thanks to what the different substitutes had chosen to work from. There had to be some use she could get out of them. She’d better, given what she’d heard of how tough Mr. Teague’s assignments could be.
“Now then,” Mr. Teague’s voice made Angelina look up in surprise. She looked back, and saw that everyone in the class was already seated. Mr. Teague picked up a stack of papers from the desk at the front of the room. He dropped them in front of Zachary Savoy, who like any freshmen went through the programmed response of taking one and passing the rest along. Once the papers were in motion Mr. Teague turned and started pacing again.
“We’re going to go back to basics for the rest of the week,” he said. “This is a worksheet on lab safety. You may recognize it from your six grade classes. On the back I’ve added a few essay questions.”
There were no groans from the class, not anymore, but the dismay that rippled through the class was palpable.
“You will work on this assignment individually. Meaning independent of your partner. Meaning, above all, no talking. You may begin as soon as you receive a worksheet.”
Angelina felt strangely relieved. The assignment at least saved her from having to deal with Ambrose just yet. She knew his type. When they weren’t gossiping they were sitting back while she did all the work, and then they copied down everything she wrote like they were entitled to it. She’d have to teach him a lesson if he tried that, show him she wasn’t easy and she couldn’t be walked all over. Her resolve drove her to hand the stack of papers over a little too forcefully, and Ambrose looked at her surprise when his shoulder was slapped with them. Angelina smiled, but he still said nothing as he took a sheet and passed it back. The silence continued as they worked on filling in the most basic, common sense rules of lab safety. The only sound in the class room was the sounds of pencils scratching across paper, Mr. Teague’s footsteps as he slowly paced, and the occasional cough.
She knew it couldn’t last, even with someone like Mr. Teague, and she didn’t look forward to see what Ambrose had to say to her.
If she could make it through the rest of the school year without letting him get to her, she’d be happy.
* * * *
*
“That’s really what you thought?” Ambrose asked, taking a cookie from one of the trays on the coffee table.
“You asked,” Angelina said.
They were sitting in the living room of Angelina’s house. Her mother had left for work at seven. They both knew she probably wouldn’t be back from the club until after two in the morning at the earliest. They had the place to themselves, which was vital for what was about to happen. The coffee table was overloaded with food. There was a bowl of chips, two trays of cookies, and a plate of slightly burnt pigs in a blanket. Back in the kitchen there were grocery bags that still hadn’t been unpacked. Laying things out on the coffee table was unnecessary, but it made it look like a nice, normal party for just the two of them. Once what was laid out was exhausted, they could give up the pretense and move on to the rest. There were two nights of the full moon left, and Angelina and Ambrose held these little parties together long enough to know how much food was needed.
While Ambrose munched thoughtfully on the cookie, Angelina rose from the couch to look through the selection of movies for the evening.
“Do you remember how long it took,” Ambrose asked. “Before you thawed?”
“Thawed?” Angelina laughed. “Come on, it was a few years ago. We talked, we got to know each other, you know the rest. What I remember the most about is that first day back, so there you go.” She turned to face him, holding up two DVDs. “Now, do you wanna start with a Romantic Comedy or a Horror movie?”
“What about Romantic Horror Movie?” Ambrose said, trying to wipe crumbs from his clothes. He didn’t know why he bothered, they were going to come off soon anyway.
“Not until they make a movie about us,” Angelina said, not looking up.
Ambrose paused, mid-reach for one of the pigs in a blanket. “You wouldn’t really call it a horror story, would you?”
Angelina winced, realizing her mistake. She set the Movies down and moved back to the couch, slipping around the coffee table to sit next to Ambrose. “Don’t be silly,” she said, putting an arm around him. He looked to her, and when their eyes met Angelina smiled. “It’d be more like the greatest love story ever told.”
“You’re just saying that.”
Angelina leaned closer and lightly kissed him. “Am not.”
Ambrose smiled and kissed her back. “I think believe you now… But let me be sure.”
He kissed her again, more deeply. Then, before it could go any further, they were interrupted by a knock at the door. Five sharp, insistent raps were all it took to kill the mood. With a grunt of annoyance, Angelina pulled away and glared at the door. “Who the hell could that be?”
Ambrose looked the other way, to the window in the far wall. The shades were drawn, but the last light of day was fading. It wouldn’t be long before there was nothing but moonlight to pour through them.
“There’s not much time left,” he said, looking back to Angelina as she stood up from the couch. She nodded absentmindedly as she smoothed her skirt and quickly ran her fingers through her hair.
“I’ll take care of them,” she said, starting towards the door. She glanced back and pointed to the archway opening on to a short and narrow hallway. “Go to my room, in case it starts.”
Ambrose nodded and stood up. Instead of going straight to her room he hovered by the arch, watching Angelina as she unlocked the door. She glanced back and, seeing him still standing there, gestured two quick nods of her head that he go on. Ambrose obliged only as far as taking a step closer to the hall, but he stayed where he was. Angelina sighed and turned back to the door, giving up the fight in favor of preparing for sending their unwanted guest away. She opened the door as far as the security chain would allow, but before she could say anything the door was slammed backwards, snapping the security chain free. Angelina fell backwards with a cry of surprise, and in an instant Ambrose was moving forward to take on whoever was responsible.
It wouldn’t matter if he started to change in the middle of things, no one would believe a burglar’s hysterical account of a teenager that suddenly turned into a really big dog. Angelina, still stunned, looked up over her shoulder as he approached. Ambrose felt a growl rising in his throat.
The growl turned to a gasp of surprise when the intruder stepped inside. “Dreu?”
It was Dreu, there was no mistaking that, but he was a wreck. His blonde hair, usually perfectly styled, was a ruffled mess. The dress shirt he was wearing over a t-shirt and jeans would have been a nice fashion statement if he hadn’t missed two buttons, leaving one side hanging askew over his badly wrinkled jeans. The look in his eyes was nothing short of crazed. While Ambrose gaped at his disheveled brother, Dreu pointed a trembling finger at him. He didn’t have a gun, not this time, but seeing as he’d apparently barely managed to dress himself it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Even so, he pointed his finger at Ambrose as if it were a weapon.
“I know what you did!” Dreu yelled. The force of his words was like a jolt to Angelina, who scrambled backwards into Ambrose. She climbed to her feet, never taking her eyes off Dreu, but he seemed oblivious to her. All his attention, all his hatred, was focused on Ambrose.
Ambrose looked to Angelina. She shook her head, her eyes wide, showing she was just as clueless as he was. When he turned back to Dreu, he felt the familiar crawling sensation starting just beneath his skin. He saw a bead of sweat running down the side of Dreu’s face, his eyes gleaming as he advanced. “You just couldn’t stand being the only freak in the family, could you?” Dreu said. His voice, like the rest of him, was trembling with rage.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Ambrose said. The crawling sensation melted away by the warmth that flooded his body. He was running out of time. His clothes suddenly felt heavy and constricting, as though he was wearing many layers instead of just a light shirt and jeans. He almost raised his hand to pull his shirt away, but it was too dangerous to make any sort of move with Dreu in the state he was. He looked back to Angelina helplessly. She was very slowly inching backwards along the wall, back towards the couch and the phone resting on the side table.
He shouldn’t have looked. The glance was enough to draw Dreu’s attention on Angelina. Dreu pointed at her, and she froze, but by then his hand was trembling too fiercely to be remotely threatening. While Angelina stared he began to breathe heavily, forcing him to break up his accusations. “You both… You both thought it… it would be funny.. t-to completely ruin my life… Didn’t you?” He grinned, looking more like an animal baring its teeth. “Didn’t you?”
“What?” Angelina said.
“Admit it!” Dreu screamed.
Ambrose’s eyes inadvertently drifted past Dreu, to the security chain that lay hanging from the wall. The panel connected to the door had been ripped completely off, leaving a small shred of wood dangling from the end. He thought about the amount of force it would take to do that as he looked back to his brother. It had been so long, he had barely noticed he had begun to sweat when Dreu had, that he had begun to pant at the same time. All he had been aware of until then was the warmth that was quickly becoming unbearable. Their eyes met, just in time for Ambrose to see Dreu’s eyes turn from blue to amber.
It can’t be, Ambrose thought desperately, there’s no way it could happen to him too!
But that couldn’t change what he was seeing, what was happening.
He opened his mouth to try and say something, to try and explain, but there was no time left for words. The moon had risen for its second full night, and there was no stopping what it brought- for both of them now. All that Ambrose had to say was choked off by a groan of pain, one that was echoed by Dreu. Ambrose had a decision to make and very little time to make it in. He felt the first patches of fur emerge on his back and he closed his eyes. There were two quick pops, a brief flare of added pain, and he was pitched forward. As he caught himself with his hands they were already changing. His nails thickened and turned to claws just before his fingers spasmed and pulled themselves into paws. He lifted his head and saw, to his surprise, Dreu was also on the floor. Their faces were very close. Dreu’s eyes welled with tears as his face began to push forward, his nose and mouth coming together into a muzzle. Black fur tipped with dark brown sprouted around his face, helping to chase away any vestiges of humanity. His blonde hair turned black and receded until it was no different than the rest of the fur covering his lupine head. It met at his ears, which folded back against his skull as soon as they had finished lengthening and repositioning themselves. There was a horrible grinding noise as his teeth grew sharper, though perhaps Ambrose was only hearing his own teeth forcing themselves into new shapes. Dreu’s groans of pain turned to high pitched whines, the cries of a wounded animal, while Ambrose fought to remain silent. He was used to this, or at least he was supposed to be. The truth was it never got easier, but he felt he had to show he could handle it better.
Ambrose’s focus was forced back to his own changes as his tail emerged, pushing painfully against the seat of his jeans. He shifted position, but it was too late. Combined with the pressure from his changing legs his jeans were ripped apart, the feeling of relief too great to allow him to worry about their condition. He kicked them off without another thought, tore away what was left of his shirt with his teeth. It was nearly over, and the warmth was beginning to feel invigorating rather than stifling. He shook himself as though that would encourage the last of his fur to grow. The pain was still there, but the certainty that it was almost over helped to carry him through the last muscle spasms, the last pops of bones resetting themselves. His feeble human senses were left behind, replaced by the welcome sharpness that always felt like a small reward for what he was forced to go through. The scent of food was everywhere, almost strong enough to overshadow the sweet and comforting scent of Angelina. She was still there, but he knew she was very afraid. Because of the new scent, Ambrose remembered, because of Dreu.
He was still close to his brother, though he had unconsciously stepped back from the ruins of his clothes. Dreu’s own changes seem to have slowed, leaving the grotesque sight of a wolf’s head awkwardly placed upon a man’s shoulders. For a moment Ambrose worried that he had chosen incorrectly, that he should have shifted into a hybrid form, but just as he wondered if there was time Dreu threw his head back and howled, his skin rippling violently. Ambrose took a step back, his tail slipping between his legs. He could not remember if his own first changes had been so horrific, but then again he’d never been able to see them as it happened. Dreu writhed on the carpet as his back arched, splitting his shirt as dark fur emerged and his spine adjusted itself. Spittle flecked his tongue and traced lines between his teeth as he whined and panted. His fingers dug into the carpet, then simultaneously flexed before they pulled themselves into paws. Both his t-shirt and the dress shirt that had been under it fell away as Dreu slid out from under them, moving backwards as though he was trying to escape not just his shed clothes, but everything that was happening to him. He yelped again, loudly, as his legs suddenly shifted, forcing him on to haunches that weren’t done reforming, tangling him in his own jeans and underwear. Dreu slid forward, whimpering fiercely again, and tried awkward to kick them away. His hindquarters were still naked, the fur choosing to spread from his head to tail like a dark oil spill. His genitalia remained mostly human until the fur spread to his legs, making Dreu yelp once more as skin grew in a new sheath to conceal the final change in shape. Ambrose did not think to look away as it happened.
Dreu’s transformation ended with his tail, as fur spread to the tip of the new appendage. He remained sprawled on the floor, trembling all over again, while Ambrose and Angelina looked on. The door was still open, and with the commotion over the crickets beyond the front porch began to chirp again. Inside there was silence. The smell of food was making it difficult for Ambrose to concentrate on Dreu, but he didn’t dare turn his back on him. He heard the shuffling of footsteps behind him as Angelina took a few steps closer. She had, in the midst of all that had happened, made it very close to the phone, but there was no use in calling the police now. If anything, they’d need animal control.
Dreu slowly drew himself up, his legs wobbling as badly as a newborn colt. His eyes looked very wide and very bright in the midst of all that dark fur, showing terror even with all human expression gone. Ambrose watched him warily, but Dreu seemed oblivious to everything around him in the midst of the change. His eyes were unfocused, and even as Ambrose tentatively placed one paw forward he didn’t seem to notice or care. His own brother, standing there transformed and shaking just inside the door. It was too much to believe, too horrible to be true.
Ambrose thought back, years ago, to the she-wolf who had explained his curse, but she had never said anything about the possibility of this. If Dreu could be a werewolf too, why hadn’t he been bitten years ago? Why had he gone so long, tormented both Ambrose and Angelina for so long, before he suffered the same fate? Maybe it was because of all that, Ambrose realized, making it a punishment for one who truly deserved it. As much as Dreu might have had it coming, however, Ambrose couldn’t get past the fact that he was his brother, and the transformations were a terrible thing to go through. Maybe through them they could finally find some common ground, maybe the curse would even humble Dreu.
Filled with hope that things could be better, Ambrose crept closer. He was almost nose to nose with his brother, but Dreu still appeared to be in shock. Not sure how he could communicate what was going through his mind, strangely elated now at the prospect of having another like him- even if it was Dreu- he very lightly licked his brother’s nose. It was the closest thing he had, in wolf form, of extending a hand in friendship.
Dreu blinked, and at last his eyes focused on Ambrose. He stared at him blankly, and Ambrose allowed his mouth to loll open in a close approximation of a toothy grin.
A low growl rumbled from the back of Dreu’s throat, rising with his hackles. The offer, it seemed, was rejected. Dreu snarled, showing his newly formed fangs, and Ambrose backed away slowly. He tried to communicate, as loudly and obviously as he could through whimpers and body language, that he did not want to fight. Dreu either did not understand or refused to accept that. He lunged, and the only thing that kept him from falling upon Ambrose was the hind paw that was still tangled in his jeans. Dreu hit the floor head first, landing with a yelp of pain and outrage. Ambrose backed away while Dreu was busy tearing the jeans away with his teeth, angrily shaking them as though they had willfully held him back. Angelina was standing by the couch, one hand resting on its arm as she stared at the scene. Ambrose nudged her heard with his head, trying to snap her out of it and get her into the kitchen. Angelina started to move towards the door, nowhere near as fast as Ambrose wanted, just as Dreu flung his shredded pants away. Ambrose turned to face Dreu, only to see that Angelina’s movement had drawn his attention away. Dreu’s head turned back to Ambrose only long enough to gauge his position, and then he was off.
Dreu lunged for Angelina, attempting to cut Ambrose off before he had time to react. Angelina, sensing the movement, turned just in time to see the large dark form running towards her. She put her arms up, for all the good it would do. Just as Dreu leapt Ambrose tackled him. He slammed Dreu against the wall, jarring the collection of DVDs from where they’d lain atop the TV. He tried to pin Dreu, but the angle was wrong, and as soon as Dreu recovered he rolled Ambrose off him and renewed his attack against him. Ambrose couldn’t pull away in time. Dreu caught him by the throat, his teeth forcing out a yelp of pain and surprise from Ambrose as he bit down.
He felt Dreu’s breath on his throat, felt his own blood ooze out around his fur and into his brother’s mouth. He tried to fight, tried to pull away, but that only helped to make it worse. Unable to move his head he could look at the dent they’d left in the wall as Dreu attempted to savage him just as he done to his jeans, only he knew the results would be far more bloody. Still, Ambrose kept fighting against him, through the pain. It did not register that Angelina was no longer standing by the door until Ambrose heard a thud. Dreu shuddered, but refused to let go. It happened again, rocking him more violently. The third time, he heard something snap, and Dreu let go with a cry of pain. Ambrose turned his head, sparking little jolts of pain from every point Dreu’s teeth had dug into.
Ambrose saw Angelina stagger back, tears streaming down her face. She barely kept her footing as she still had one leg poised to kick him yet again in the moment Dreu released him. She stumbled backwards as Dreu turned his head, growling at her. Ambrose, in the brief moment of delirium that followed being let go, vowed to never again question why she insisted on wearing heavy, steel toed boots like that. He shook it off quickly, the pain at his throat already fading. Dreu, meanwhile, was turning his back on him to face Angelina, wobbling from the new found pain of a broken rib. His hatred for both of them so great that he was unable to focus all of it on one or the other for very long. It also made him careless. Ambrose leapt on top of Dreu before he had another chance to jump, pinning him to the ground. Dreu tried to twist around, but all that did was the defer the bite Ambrose tried to inflict on his throat to his face.
The fight was his in an instant. Ambrose’s teeth savagely raked across Dreu’s face, cutting bloody paths across his muzzle and over his eyes. They missed taking out one of his eyes only by a fraction of an inch, but the blood that oozed from the fresh cuts blinded him just the same. Dreu howled and shook his head frantically, taking the damage to be much worse than it really was.
Thinking about what Dreu meant to do to him, to Angelina, Ambrose didn’t hold back. He caught Dreu by the throat just as he raised it in another panicked shake, and he sank his teeth in enough to show him what he’d just done had felt like.
Dreu flailed against him, but his paws could find no purchase on the carpet. Ambrose didn’t shake him as he had, he simply held him by the throat and let his struggles do the rest.
All he had to do was bite down hard enough and the struggling would end. He could do to Dreu what he had meant to do to him.
But then, in the midst of it all, he saw Angelina standing nearby. She was staring at him in horror.
He couldn’t do it.
Ambrose released Dreu just as he began to weaken. He allowed him to scramble out from under him, and watched as he awkwardly tried to rub away the blood with his paws. When Ambrose growled he froze, his tail burrowing between his legs. The cuts were quickly healing, but he still couldn’t see, and Ambrose knew the mingled scents of blood, food, and human sweat would be especially unnerving to him then. Ambrose cast one quick glance to Angelina, but there was no way he could explain what he was doing to her. She would just have to see for herself.
Growling menacingly, Ambrose slowly approached his wounded brother. The anger in Dreu’s eyes was gone, suddenly replaced by fear. And why not? Ambrose had done him one better than the damage he’d inflicted himself, had spared his life we he could have easily snapped his neck. Ambrose stalked forward slowly to give those simple facts time to sink into his brother’s mind, so that by the time they were once again almost nose to nose, Dreu flopped over on to his side. Tail still tucked, he rolled on to his belly. Ambrose moved a step closer, so that he loomed over him. It would be even easier like this, one bite and all sorts of vital organs would come tumbling out. Dreu was helpless. That was the point.
Ambrose lowered his head and licked Dreu’s throat, then his muzzle.
Just like that, it was over. He had won.
There was no way Dreu could argue with that, something deep inside him, the same thing that had compelled him to roll over, wouldn’t let him deny it. Feeling empowered, Ambrose stepped back and allowed Dreu to scramble back up to his feet. He did saw awkwardly, trying and failing to keep from aggravating the injuries that were stubbornly slow to heal. Dreu backed away from him, moving slowly towards the open door. It was a small blessing there were no neighbors across the street who might have seen the spectacle, the only things looking in upon the scene were a fading For Sale sign and a dark and empty window. Dreu reached the door and hesitated, looking back at Ambrose and Angelina. Ambrose snapped at him, and even from across the room it was enough to send Dreu bolting out the door. He ran across the street, where he disappeared around the side of the empty house. Ambrose watched him go, elation joining the feeling of power. This was, he realized, the first time he had ever been able to assert himself in such a way. While he reveled in the glory, Angelina moved forward and shut the door. She turned the deadbolt back into place and flicked the ruined security chain before she turned back to him.
“Okay,” she said, leaning back against the door. “What the hell was that?”
All Ambrose could do in response was rear up on his hind legs. For a moment he hovered there awkwardly, like an oversized dog trying to do a trick, but as he concentrated that all began to change. Pain followed, as he always did, but he was in control of it this time. During the full moon it was always one or the other, and at the moment he needed the other. His rear paws grew, becoming more suited to supporting him as he stood upright, and the changes spread upward from there. His legs remained covered in fur, but they shifted to something that was just a little more human. The same happened with his chest, which broadened and made his arms shudder as they began to become just that- arms. The toes on his forepaws lengthened, becoming hands with five fingers, even that meant they were also hands with pads at their bottoms and claws at the tips of each finger. His head itched as his hair grew out again, an odd dash of blonde falling around his still wolfish ears and face.
Angelina was in his arms before the last of the changes were over, leaving him unable to speak for a moment. Moving from one form to another had given him some time to think, even in the midst of things, but that still gave him no answers. The same questions as before rolled through his head, but nothing new occurred to him. How could Dreu be like him? What were the odds? Why hadn’t it happened sooner if it was possible? What would he do now that he was like him?
As soon as he found his voice, he answered truthfully. “I wish I knew.”
“Do you think he’ll come back?” Angelina asked.
“No,” Ambrose said, surprising even himself with his certainty. “He won’t.”
“Why not?”
He leaned closer and lightly licked her cheek. “Because now he knows his place.”
Angelina looked up at him, frowning slightly, but rather than press him about it she laid her head on his chest. They stood there like that for several minutes, letting the tension of the fight drain away.
“So what do we do now?” Angelina asked at last.
“I don’t know about you,” Ambrose said. “But I’m starving.”
“Is that all you can think about?” Her laugh tickled the fur of his chest. “The food’s definitely cold by now, you know.”
Ambrose grinned. “Who cares?”
* * * *
*
Ambrose woke the next morning feeling refreshed, the memory of what had happened the last night mostly faded. It already seemed like a bad dream, too surreal to have ever happened. He and Angelina had spent the remainder of the evening as they did every night of the full moon- watching movies while Ambrose stuffed himself. He had returned home early in the morning, giving himself enough time to get a few hours sleep, as much as he was ever able to manage during that time of the month. A few hours were all he ever needed, and with Angelina’s helped he’d grown to look forward to the full moon despite his transformation. As he dressed he thought about the story she had told him, about the day they had first met. He remembered how certain she had been then that they would never be friends, that they were too different to ever make it work, and it pained him to even think about how things might have been if that had been true. The important thing was it wasn’t like that at all. He and Angelina had gotten to know each other, had become friends despite their initial meeting. Strange to think that assigned seats would be what ultimately led to them becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. Ambrose smiled to himself as he finished combing his hair, and as he walked downstairs for breakfast he found he was actually humming as he went.
The tune died mid-note when he saw Dreu sitting at the kitchen table. His mother had her back to them, her attention focused wholly on not burning the bacon, so the look exchanged between them was lost on her. Dreu looked nothing like he had before he changed last night. He was as immaculately dressed and groomed as ever. His shirt was properly buttoned, his hair was perfectly in place, and the nails he was digging into the kitchen table were all neatly trimmed and clean. He stared at Ambrose as he moved into the kitchen, kept staring as Ambrose pulled out a chair and sat down. When Ambrose met his eyes, Dreu quickly looked down into his lap.
“Good morning, Ambrose,” his mother said cheerfully, not looking over as she transferred the bacon from the pan to a platter. “I hope you’re hungry, because I made plenty.” She turned and counted off the other plates on the counter. “We've got eggs, bacon, toast, sausages, and pancakes. No waffles, sorry, the iron's broken. Your father had to leave early, but one of you can have his share. Oh, and I’ve decided to try a new vegan diet, so the meat’s all yours. They call it the ‘Clean Diet’, which I think is really what I need. Really cleanse myself, you know?”
She had a new and amazing diet or hobby every week.
“Okay,” Ambrose said, still not taking his eyes off Dreu. He saw there wasn’t so much as a scratch left on him.
Dreu wouldn’t meet his eyes. He straightened and realigned his knife and forked again and again, rubbed at imaginary spots on his plate when they couldn’t be straightened anymore.
As his mother began setting plates of food down on the table, Ambrose began to wonder if maybe he had imagined everything from last night. The tension was still there, but that could have been normal, knowing Dreu. His mother was oblivious to it all as she laid the final plate down. All the while she beamed over the simple fact she’d managed to prepare so much food without help and without incident.
“Dig in,” she said, turning back to the fridge. “I’ll get the orange juice.”
Ambrose leaned forward and began to pile his plate with bacon and sausage, scraping on a helping of eggs and toast only as an afterthought. Dreu watched him as he did, but made no move to fix his own plate. That didn’t go unnoticed.
His mother paused as she sat down with her plate of tofu. “Aren’t you hungry, Dreu?”
“I’ll wait,” he said tersely.
She looked at him blankly. “Wait for what?”
He muttered something barely audible.
“What?”
“For Ambrose,” he said.
Mother looked to Ambrose for explanation. He shrugged and tried to hide his smile as he bit into a piece of bacon.
“That’s nice of you, honey, but I made plenty.” She pushed the plate of sausage towards him. She had made plenty of food, for most people, but with Ambrose- and now Dreu’s- appetite, it wasn’t quite enough, especially with one night left of the full moon.
“I know,” Dreu snapped.
“Well… Okay, if you insist.”
Dreu’s eyes were fixed on his lap once more. “I do.”
Ambrose grinned as he helped himself to some more sausage, thinking things might turn out better after all.
Dreu could have whatever was leftover.
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