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5

The closer to their apartment the two got, the harder the rain fell. It slithered down buildings in rivulets, struck their faces like tossed pebbles, and made it near impossible to navigate the streets through.

Vaughn didn't mind getting soaked, but he'd already been soaked that night and was used to the feeling. Sticking close to Nomac, he'd lift his muzzle and peer into the clouds above, heavy and black as smoke. The rain would trickle down his snout and into his eyes, dangle from his whiskers and cheek fur, course down his body like he was submerged in a river. Again, he didn't mind. He liked the rain. He even managed a smile when thunder rolled like a tympani over the city.

"Fuck meeeeeeeeeeeeee," Nomac groaned, pulling his body into an even tighter ball as he walked. "This suuuuuuuuuucks!"

Vaughn wanted to laugh, and in normal circumstances--and with a normal fur--he would have. But looking at Nomac shuffling along with his back bent, clothes drenched, an air of utter despair covering him like a mist...well, the folf's smile vanished. His roommate looked broken, like a ghoul scuttling through a storm seeking shelter.

Vauhgn wiped the back of his paw across his cheek.

He missed the old Nomac. He missed the Nomac before that prick Richard came along. The tiger destroyed him. Stole him. Vaughn growled deep in his chest as an image of the arrogant cat flashed through his mind. The folf would give anything to run across Richard in a dark alley. He'd give anything to get some semblance of retribution for his friend.

Vaughn clenched his paws and held them up. His knuckles popped through the wet, spiked fur. Thick veins traced over the backs and into his chorded forearms. He tightened his grip and rolled his fingers, the digits popping. His right paw was stiff from socking Nomac earlier.

"Fuck, Vaughn! Come on!"

The folf glanced up. Nomac was in the doorway of their apartment building and holding the door open. Monstrous raindrops were falling from the roof right onto the coyote's head. He'd wince each time he was struck. Vaughn hurried and slipped inside and Nomac let the door slam closed.

"Sorry," Vaughn sighed, shaking water from himself.

Nomac shirked away, rain streaking out of his hair, and headed up the stairs with his paws in the pocket of his hoody.

"Whatever."

Nomac's footsteps were heavy against the steps as he went, like he was trying to stomp clean through the wood. He counted the steps as he went, spacing out as he climbed floor after floor, lost in the mundane thought process of tacking off number after number. Past the first floor, the second; 61, 62, 63 Nomac counted. It helped to calm himself down a bit.

He felt Vaughn close behind, his steps much quieter. He thought about stopping. He thought about turning around and saying something to the folf--what exactly he wasn't sure. Should he apologize? He snuffed at himself and frowned. Maybe. He had been kind of an asshole. Vaughn did hit him, though, but...he said he was sorry. Or he implied that he was sorry. He never had to say it. He just had to feel it and Nomac could sense it. Besides, the coyote didn't like hearing those words. They were too hollow. The pity was irritating. He felt it often. He felt it from everyone. It made him angry.

Only those who wanted him didn't look at him in such a way. They longed for him. Denver had been longing for him...at least until Vaughn burst in and shattered the moment into irreparable fragments.

_ Poor baby lab,_ Nomac thought. Big, hunky sap.

He bet the dog's mocha-colored eyes wouldn't ever look at him the same way again. If he ever saw the lab again, that is. Their school was a big one.

Damn Vaughn...damn Rai...

His steps became heavier. He took a breath. The toe of his shoe snagged on a step. He gasped, grabbing ahold of the rail, knee cracking on the step's edge. He growled and bit his lip as the pain seemed to split his leg in two.

"Whoa, hey," Vaughn said, hopping quickly to Nomac's side to help him up. "You alri..."

"I'm fine," Nomac said through clenched teeth. He'd balled a shaking fist. He glared at the steps and got the urge to just punch them. Vaughn pulled him to his feet, though.

"Come on," the folf said tiredly.

To Vaughn's relief, they didn't pass any of their neighbors in the hallway. It was a bit late, the folf realized. Nomac didn't care, though; he didn't normally register the time. Days passed like his nights did--pained and blurry. Everything tended to run together after a while.

The two got to apartment 308 and Nomac stepped to the side, just gazing blankly at the doorknob. Vaughn cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Forgot my key," the coyote sniffed.

Vaughn rolled his eyes and unlocked the door. Nomac just shrugged.

Their place was small, but it was cozy. The agitation radiating from Nomac seemed to ease as he stepped inside. He felt safe in the apartment. Secure. He sniffed and caught whiffs of his own scent and Vaughn's; no one elses. It was comforting. It was home.

Nomac kicked his wet sneakers off at the door and padded toward their sofa, stripping out of his wet hoody as he went and tossing it across the back. Vaughn followed suit, his eyes catching glimpses of Nomac's ribs poking through his fur as his shirt got yanked up, his much-too slim waist, his vertebra poking out at the base of his back.

"Mac," the folf gasped, eyes wide and still taking in his roommate's frail shape.

"What?" The coyote asked, pulling his shirt back down and heading for his room. His eyes squinted. "Don't ogle me, dude. I've had enough of you for tonight as it is."

Vaughn huffed and followed the coyote, to his chagrin.

Nomac's room wasn't as big a mess as Vaughn expected it to be. The bed was made, there weren't any clothes littering the floor, the loveseat tucked into the corner wasn't covered in trash. It didn't look like anyone had been in the room in days...weeks even. Vaughn was used to the coyote disappearing for a few days every once and a while. He never asked what he was doing (deep down he knew he was going on) but the fact that the room was so pristine bothered him. The only thing that looked used was the laptop and swivel chair at Nomac's desk. There were a few protein bar wrappers across the thing, empty bottles, too--Pepsi, Pabst Blue Ribbon. Vaughn frowned at seeing the beer bottles. Nomac just rolled his eyes.

"They're from a few weeks ago," the coyote said. He then held up a paw. "Scouts honor." Vaughn looked away but still caught Nomac's fingers curling down--all except the middle one. The folf just ignored him.

The coyote had clearly been home. Vaughn took a sniff and the Nomac's scent came through strong. Why wasn't the place...messier? It was odd.

Nomac sat on the edge of his bed and peeled off his wet socks. He tossed one and it landed across Vaughn's foot. The folf sneered and kicked it off, staring at Nomac.

"Just do it already," Nomac grumbled, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He winced and shifted the one he'd hit against the stairs, the bed squeaking.

Vaughn knew what the coyote meant, but he wasn't in the mood for playing the stern caretaker right then. The lecture could wait.

The folf stepped closer to his roommate. "Take off your shirt."

Nomac smiled sharp and sarcastic. "What?"

"Take it off."

"Why?" The coyote leaned back, arms wrapped protectively around his chest. "Why the fuck would I do that?"

Vaughn opened his mouth to speak. Nomac--not even realizing it--ran his fingers down across his chest to the right like a scratch, but the motion was too contemplative to be a scratch. The coyote all but trembled as his fingertips ran across the scars Vaughn knew were there beneath his shirt. The scars that he'd forgotten about, that Nomac despised.

Richard's last goodbye.

The folf sighed. "Mac, I don't care about the scar. I've seen it before..."

"Then what are you..."

Vaughn slapped his thighs angrily. The fleshy pop was like a gunshot in the little bedroom. "Because I want to see exactly how much fucking weight you've lost!"

Nomac's lip curled sourly. He bounced once on his bed, his tail lashing about across the comforter. "Why's that any of your conce..."

Vaughn rubbed his eyes. "Take your shirt off, Mac."

"No. It's my body!" He jabbed a finger toward the door. "Just get out. Don't..."

Nomac jerked back as Vaughn all but leaped the distance between them to leer in his face.

"Take. Your. Goddamn. Shirt. Off." The folf's tail snapped at his ankles.

They held one another's cold gaze, but then Nomac relented and pushed Vaughn aside as he stood and shuffled to his nightstand. With his back turned, Nomac slowly tugged up his tee shirt. He paused, though, and glared at Vaughn in the mirror.

"Didn't think you were into me like this, roomy..."

Vaughn grunted and crossed his arms.

Nomac took his shirt completely off. A rattling breath spilled across the folf's lips as the coyote turned back around, cocking a hip. The bone looked so sharp beneath Nomac's thin skin that Vaughn kept expecting it to cut through.

"Mac," he stuttered, paws rising to his face. "For the love of..." He stepped toward his roommate, arm extended as if to touch his frail body. He stopped as Nomac growled, backing away and shaking his head.

Nomac, when the two had first met, was a scrawny thing--no doubt. Over his college career, though, he grew into his body and buffed up by hitting the gym religiously. He stayed lean--not becoming freaky and bulgy--and took good care of himself. He attracted a lot of attention. He was a handsome guy...sexy. He was humble.

Then he met Richard.

The tiger was handsome, too, and modelesque. But, unlike Nomac, he thought he was God's gift to the world and everyone else was lower than his shit. The longer the tiger was together with Nomac, the more the coyote changed to suit him, the tiger's attitude seeming to seep into the coyote via osmosis or something. Vaughn could only sit by and watch as Nomac's personality soured. The coyote grew bitter to everyone but Richard.

And then Richard ended their relationship.

He hadn't told Nomac a reason, as far as Vaughn knew, other than saying "I'm too good for you" and trying to shrug the coyote off. They'd been together for five months; five months of sex and drinking and partying and God know's what else. Nomac didn't take the out-of-the-blue breakup very well. He tried to keep Richard from leaving, tried reasoning with the tiger...

And Richard got angry.

Vaughn eyed the five gross, pink scars across Nomac's chest and remembered the coyote stumbling into their apartment bleeding and bruised and out of his mind with grief. The folf had never seen Nomac cry before that night. And he cried long into the morning, Vaughn holding him and holding a towel to the coyote's chest to stop the blood. Vaughn thought Nomac would die there was so much blood, like his heart was crying, too. But it stopped and scabbed. The towel had dried into the wounds, though, when morning came and Nomac awoke a changed fur. An overnight nihilist. Nothing mattered anymore. The coyote had simply gotten up from Vaughn's arms, stared down at the towel stuck to his chest, then ripped it off scabs and all. But the cuts didn't bleed again, not bad at least. Vaughn took it as an omen--a bad one.

Nomac had had his heart turned to stone.

The end result of this hardened heart stood glaring at Vaughn now: baggy-eyes, sunken cheeks, sunken stomach. He was cut, that was for sure, but it was only because he had no body fat at all. He was one misstep away from starving to death, it seemed. So close.

"Happy now?" Nomac growled. He turned, and Vaughn could see the muscles in his back and sides flex and twitch like they were bare to the world. He stared at himself in the mirror--stared at the scars. He scowled. He watched Vaughn staring in disbelief and scowled harder, his ears pinning down and tail flicking unceremoniously. "Now get out."

Vaughn just flicked his eyes up, paw still covering his mouth. His words were muffled when he spoke. It was just three words, but they made Nomac's fur hackle. "You need help."

"Get out, Vaughn."

The folf advanced. "Mac, you need to go see a doctor."

"Get. Out."

"Mac, I'm serious--"

Being mostly coyote, Nomac had never wielded much of his puma attributes, but he roared when he rounded on Vaughn. It caught the folf off guard and made him jump back in surprise. Nomac's eyes flickered like fire-light as his throat trembled from the shrill, piercing sound. He snarled when it was done. "GET OUT!"

Vaughn's jaw hung limply. He'd never seen Nomac so angry. He'd pushed him too far, he understood. He never wanted to do it again. He only wanted to apologize, but he knew that would just make Nomac even more pissed. So he just stared. Nomac stared right back, huffing quick breaths and clenching his fists.

"Clean up and get some rest," the folf finally said. "Please." A pressure was building in his skull. Unlike Mac, he wasn't beyond shedding tears but he wouldn't--couldn't--let Mac see him do it. He knew he needed to do something, but--

"I'll walk to work in the morning," Nomac growled.

--now wasn't the time.

Vaughn just nodded. He paused at the door and looked back, though. The pressure grew. "Remember what I promised, Mac."

Nomac's icy demeanor cracked for a split second. Vaughn caught the shift and knew the coyote remembered all too well.

"Go to bed," Nomac sighed. He slammed his bedroom door after Vaughn padded out.

The folf wandered to the couch and slumped into it, staring up at the water-stained ceiling. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

_ I won't let you get hurt again,_ he'd said. I promise.

A sob twisted his chest. He only wanted to sleep now and escape this nightmare. He wanted to dream of a world where his best friend wasn't on the verge of cascading into oblivion. He wanted to leave, but--

"But I have promises to keep," he whimpered. "And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."

The storm raged on through the night.