Aries was born in April (yes, yes, the zodiac and all that), twenty-two years before the bombs fell in 2077. At 22, he was mauled by his own creation and left for dead. He crawled into a cave in the Appalachian mountains and just barely survived. Once in better shape, Aries traveled. He had found four different sheepsquatches-- one was all white, one was female, one had very very sharp quills (that was a new one, even to Aries). On his way to find his next four sheepsquatches (he liked numbers, even ones), he ran into a few creatures that he wasn't expecting.
The Beast of Beckley was nothing more than a large wolf.
The Blue Devil, on the other hand, couldn't be explained by a mutation. It seemed to show up only on a full moon, but also observed on the night before and the day after a full moon. It usually didn't attack, unless provoked. And Aries? He provoked.
He hadn't started working at Blue Ridge at this point, no, he had just been on the road and sleeping under the stars. He did an apology tour to the Truthseekers (and found them pretty much all dead). He didn't even think of his sister-- he doesn't like to think back on that. Aries never knew the difference between taking care of himself and being selfish. It felt like a difficult thing to understand. Looking back, he wished he'd even considered going to her for help.
Aries says it's because he didn't want the Assaultron to come after her. He was so goddamned ashamed. More than embarrassed, he betrayed her and got himself killed.
Then he nearly got himself killed again, with the Blue Devil run-in. A traveling doc was able to stitch the long claw marks that went from should neck to shoulder blade. The next day, the stitches had popped out altogether as he had already healed.
But his face and throat continued to be fucked up. Stupid Blue Devil, not even granting him cosmetic goodies.
It was far less than a month before he found out what the Blue Devil did give him-- a painful transformation with exposure to moonlight. The pain made him black out for the first few years. He would heal by morning, back to the state he was in when the god-damned thing scratched him.
Years. And years. He watched the wasteland change. He met his nephew, Carver, and apologized to his sister. Time went on, Carver had children, and after Shelley died... Aries had to go missing again.
He stayed 49 years old for 175 years. The mask he wore that once kept his face on, that once hid that face in case the Bysshe-bot could somehow recognize him, well, it came in handy when you wanted to settle for awhile. Most people knew ghouls, or Vault dwellers from cryo. Synths wasn't a word most people used yet, but some people in the desert would tell you they've seen mirages. Enough peyote and you will see your twin.
Aries had spent so much time in the Midwest, the south, even went up to Boston. He had to be careful and keep a calendar on him. Over the years, he had stopped blacking out. Aries kept his mind, he kept his memories.
He hated it. Aries couldn't call himself a sheep in wolves' clothes, or whatever clever way he had separated the Wolf from Himself.
He didn't want to kill anyone, at all, if he could help it. He would lock himself in before the moon came up. He'd find a way to keep away from living things.
Heading West made it easier. There were caves on caves on caves! Aries knew he would have to stop and find a place to hide himself during the night. A place that, were he to sleep, he wouldn't be killed for his pelt.
When Joshua Graham was a child, eyes straining by candlelight as he poured over his dusty old hand-me-down of a Bible, goodness had seemed so very simple. Had he been in Eden all those thousands of years ago, surrounded by the abundance of God's love, he would never have taken that apple. Even when it had become clear that he was not like his brothers and sisters, that he saw shadows and spirits where no good man should, he knew that his feet would never leave the path. In many ways the young man who had left New Canaan ten years later had barely been any wiser.
Then he'd met Edward Sallow.
Ignorance was no excuse for what followed. But Joshua still feels a stab of pity alongside the guilt when he thinks of the young man so parched for approval that, when the wine turned to vinegar, and the vinegar to venom, he'd gulped down every last drop. Between Edward's extensive education and his own forbidden gifts, the arcane had unveiled itself to them with tantalizing ease. Power beyond imagination.
For thirty long years, their shadow swept across the desert wastes. Tribe after tribe fell before them. Edward- Caesar- commanded. Joshua made those commands a reality, crafted from the blood and bones of conquered men, and from the unholy demonic power each ritual bestowed upon them. Why he thought that he would be spared from the cruelty upon which they had built their empire, Joshua could not say.
Arrogance. Blasphemy.
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
When the NCR snuffed out their armies at Hoover Dam- when Caesar had him burned, hellfire scorching his very soul- it should have ended. Instead, in some unfathomable act of divine mercy, Joshua had managed to claw his way out of his own ashes and dragged himself back to New Canaan like the Prodigal Son himself. Now he sees the truth to which his hope had blinded him: staying in New Canaan had never been an option. In the end, no matter where Joshua wandered or to whom he pledged his devotion, it all reduced to blood and flame just the same.
Deep down, he knows that his new home in Zion Valley is as vulnerable as New Canaan had been. Any day, Caesar and his forces could blacken the canyon walls and turn the Virgin red. It's one part of why Joshua rarely stays for more than a few weeks at a time; the other is the knowledge that he has scarcely begun to repay the cost of his own redemption. There is darkness in this world that most ought never to see for themselves, and if his experience means he might be the light by which it is confounded, then so be it. They couldn't expect God to do all the work.
*
Nightfall does not concern Joshua so much as the thought of what might be waiting for its arrival. He hasn't been in these parts for long, but each settlement has furnished him with a new beast of some description or another. Most of them would inevitably be mutants, of course- a glowing ghoul, or a radstag with a third head- but every now and then a detail or two would take his interest.
Along this road, it's a howl that chills to the bone, one that can only be heard for a few nights a month. And the moon.
It lurks low on the horizon now like a malformed pearl, brooding over the last of the sun's light. God willing, he will reach a town or homestead before the next evening; experienced or not, he does not relish the thought of sleeping under a full moon here. Tonight, a cave will suffice.
This one seems safe enough: sheltered, dry, and without the tell-tale musk of a yao guai den. Joshua claps his flashlight a few times to get it working before taking a few steps into the dark.
Aries had tucked himself far into the back of the cave-- dry and cozy, as it dipped down the further you went. His bedroll once had a Blue Ridge logo on it. He considered working for the Crimson Caravan out here, but some mail carrier iced that woman who owned it.
His went to unpack the little he had. Beyond the sleeping bag was just tinned food and drugs. Aries couldn't barricade himself inside, but he found that he was far enough from the moon that he could trick himself. Mix a little calmex with a little med-x, have a little whiskey, remove his pants, and hopefully wake up tomorrow! He's been able to sleep through a transformation. It's a little treat for him.
Aries was mentally kicking himself for not carrying chains with him-- that was so heavy when you carried your house on your back. A ram, a snail, a wolf, what even were you, Aries?
He's just finished injecting his two Papa's Little Helper chems and is nearly bare-assed naked when he hears the sound of a thud? A smack?
There's no campfire for sure, but he had a few small candles so that he didn't fall face first into a rock. Or so he could protect his cock from a mantis. Dang, he was writing poetry while struggling to snuff the candle or put his pants back on-- he can't decide and so there's a sound of both Aries tumbling and the hollering at the candle's flame getting too close to his skin. "Augh, nng, hi! Hello! Someone's in here!"
By some miracle of self-control, the sound of thumping and yelling doesn't immediately have Joshua whipping the pistol from his belt and firing into the darkness. It's just as well, too, because once the initial burst of adrenaline settles he realizes that the voice calling to him sounds perfectly normal- probably just a ghoul hiding away from unwanted human attention.
As a precaution he does draw his gun, but keeps it lowered.
"I mean you no harm," he calls back. The echo of his voice tells him what he suspected- that the cave goes back further than he'd guessed, far enough to hide any inhabitants from him. "I'm coming in."
With a lit torch in one hand and a firearm in the other, Joshua edges forward. Sure enough, as soon as the cave begins to dip he spots the dancing glow of (unsnuffed) candlelight. Moments later, he finds the candle- discarded syringes- and their owner. A lot more of their owner than he expected, in fact.
To call it staring would be to undersell the level of bafflement that keeps Joshua's attention pinned to the near-naked man.
"... I see this is a bad time for you," he settles on, eventually. He should probably apologize and leave before this obvious lunatic tries to explain himself, but- but the ruin of his skin is prickling beneath the gauze.
Aries pulls his knees to his chest, trying to hide his shame. He was also obviously not armed, and heavily scarred on his face and throat. Not a ghoul, just someone who got too close to something very sharp.
"It's not what it looks like, I'm not jerking off." Not yet, at least.
Then what it is? How would he explain himself? It's not as if this happened all the time!
(but, oh, what providence!)
"I have night terrors. I'm just trying to get comfortable." Seeing that the other man was heavily bandaged, he could probably understand that kind of pain. "I have food and chems to share." He held his hands up and out, still keeping his knees bent.
No! NO no no, he forgot the other reason. The giant furry reason. "Wait, no, get out!"
The man curls in on himself, as if, with enough concentrated embarrassment, he could simply collapse into a black hole and vanish. Guilt stirs in Joshua's gut, but not enough of it to unroot him from the spot.
The man- and he is definitely human, in spite of that voice- is perhaps around his own age, with the lean, wiry build of a wanderer. But even now, though, his attention is stolen by the patchwork of his skin, the scars of what must once have been perfect carnage all the way from his nose to his shoulders, and perhaps lower still.
Perhaps it's sympathy he feels. Perhaps something else, something stranger. Either way, Joshua does not believe a word that comes out of the man's mouth. He holds his ground.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says, low and solemn as a prayer. He's already holstering his gun. "My name is Joshua. Are you in some kind of trouble?"
There's always a chance that he really is just looking at a burned-out chem-fiend shooting up in a cave in the middle of nowhere... but even then, the Lord would have a reason for bringing them together.
The hands he held out for defense or mercy were now waving around, except for when he used them to crawl up from the ground. Sorry, Joshua, this was bigger than modesty.
"No no, stay back. I'm sick. That's-- uh, why I get the night terrors. It's safer for both of us if you just turn right around and go out the way you came!"
He doesn't advance on Joshua, Aries just paces near the back wall of the cave like captive animal. He thinks that lie should work, that should be fine, this guy will leave -- "Hnnng," the moon was a backstabbing bitch! Aries' knees buckled with the pain.
He was starting to transform. He thought that maybe being in the cave, being away from the moonlight, it might slow the process. He thought that if he loaded himself up on drugs, he would be able to float through the night. Sleeping dogs lie, and all that!
Aries held his chest and attempted to will himself 'right' for long enough to try and warn Joshua (oh no now he knows the name of the guy he's about to eat?!), "I don't want to hurt you," and then he fell flat on his face, gurgling. Still breathing, and only bleeding a small amount from his perfect landing (onto a rock).
Panic that primal can't be faked; if it weren't for the pacing Joshua would probably hear the hammering of his heart from halfway down the cave.
Night terrors? he wants to scoff; then, more urgently, safer? Only, by then it's too late. The man grunts in pain, grits out a warning- a threat- and Joshua's blood chills to ice, then-
Then the man drops like a brick.
Joshua stares. Common sense dictates that he leave, quickly, before whatever cocktail of drugs the stranger has taken wears off, but scripture wins out. What kind of believer would Joshua be, were he to leave an injured man alone in the darkness?
Now that any overt threat has passed he can move quickly. Down on his knees, he rests his torch at an angle and rolls the man onto his side. At least the graze on his face is superficial, addressed easily enough with clean gauze and alcohol, though he'll almost certainly wake up with a nasty headache.
Even so, Joshua frowns the whole time he works. Beneath his fingertips the man's face is tacky. The sweat glistening on his bare skin gives him the sickly glaze of a junkie, but it's more than that. This isn't a high, it's oblivion. But why?
Aries is sweaty, he's naked, he's unconscious. That was part of the plan, Joshua was not. Removing his clothes before the moon-stuff was just another way to preserve his light armor and favorite clothes. It was pretty difficult to find another pair of pants while ...not wearing any pants.
The man's bones begin to shift under his skin, pulling and stretching his form. There's a sickening crack and crack and crack of the bones resetting to where the wolf needed them. Long, blue-black hairs sprouted quickly, in one fluid stroke. If Joshua needed to blink, he might miss it all. Claws and paws, such big teeth to eat you with my dear, and a body stretched to be far bigger than it once was-- If Joshua had a good look at the man before, he might see it in the creature's face. Elongated nose and a mouthful of scary sharpness, along with his tongue lolling out as he drooled.
When the creature finally stilled, he whimpered and kicked while still deep in whatever chem-fog he put himself into. It happened so quickly that the nails on his feet swiped too close to a man that ... probably didn't expect this at all.
It happens both all at once and in horrifying slow-motion. Claws burst through the man's nail beds between one ragged breath and the next, skin vanishing beneath a forest of hair- no, fur, but not enough of it to cloak the brutal reconfiguration of skin and bone. Not nearly enough to deafen the crunch and stretch and tear.
Joshua has heard of shapeshifters only in hushed whispers: demonic, sometimes cursed. Seen a pelt or two, too large for a wolf but too warped for even the most mutated of yao guai. But this-
- is hesitation, and hesitation is deadly. With his mind at a standstill simply trying to parse what he has seen, he's blind to that sudden jerk until it tears through his forearm, rending his ruined flesh as easily as the bandages that contain it.
Every nerve in his arm screams, but Joshua does not. With teeth clenched vice-tight he reels back, slapping one hand to the fresh scarlet gouges as if he could keep the blood from spilling with willpower alone. It looks bad- feels worse- but it's superficial, and he knows immediately that he's been lucky. Those claws could have shredded the muscle from his bones.
Shaking, scarcely breathing, he sets about cleaning and bandaging his own wounds. The whole while he keeps his eye on the slumbering beast; he tells himself it is in case the scent of fresh blood overpower the efficacy of those chems. The truth, he knows, is that he does not want to look away. Not until he has answers.
While the drugs have worked in the past, they never kept him through the night. Three hours pass, the beast snores, and every last drop of drugs rushes through his bloodstream until it's spent.
The wolf then stirs, just soft groans and grunts, like any wasteland canine. He whined-- high pitched and just on the edge of stop that sound, I cannot take it anymore before it ceased.
And then a more human cough followed... Then same grumbled voice-- except it sounded as if it were layered on top of each other several times, an eerie rendition of Aries' voice.
"Ffffuuuuuck, where am I--" the wolf's head snapped to look at directly at Joshua, into his soul as Aries sensed somewhere before he saw him. "Fffffffffuuuuuuuuck."
The wolf's eyes were electric blue, framed with a black sclera; despite his creepy eyes and painful howl, he sat back on his awkwardly-stretched haunches. His claws and paws went to shamefully cover his nose (he couldn't remember a time when another person saw him like this).
WHY IS THAT MAN BLEEDING? "Ffffuuuuuck! I told you!" His voice raises, and it might make one's teeth hurt. It made the cave shiver, at least.
Aside from the adrenaline- then, when that wore off, the agony- those three hours are not only manageable but, somehow, utterly fascinating. The first of them is tense; the whole time that Joshua cleans and re-wraps, nearly grinding his teeth to nubs with the effort of keeping quiet, he's sure that the copper-dark scent of spilt blood and sweat will be enough to pull the beast from his repose.
Yet the night wears on, and the wolf sleeps like the dead. Joshua inches closer. His shape is an uncanny blend of man and animal, those long limbs and that thick neck packed solid with muscle. Though his teeth are safely tucked away in his muzzle, Joshua remembers their gleam as vividly as if they were still bared in a growl. A predator through and through.
At the third hour he lays his hand on the wolf's back, fingers carding cautiously through the thick fur at the base of his skull- warm, not so coarse as he expected. It's as he raises his hand to stroke that the beast begins to stir, whimpering like a dog kicking its way through a nightmare- then whines, and Joshua reels back as violently if it were a scream.
He does not get the chance to recover. Suddenly the wolf's eyes are open and fixed upon him, and Joshua's hand flies to his gun, God is my refuge and strength-
Oh.
Loose rubble skips its way down the walls at the sound of that voice, but Joshua simply stares. A raving, slathering demon is one thing, but a demon that talks like a hungover wastelander...?
"You did," he says, partly because he is still too astonished to do much more than agree. Little by little, his mind catches up with his mouth. "But when the Lord delivers me unto a lost soul, I refuse not turn away from them. What are you?"
What are you? He tries to make himself as small as possible, but his tail (not very fluffy, a little bit like those wild mongrels of the wasteland) is between his legs-- and he's not so much worried that the man is going to shoot him.
Aries had been able to retain his intelligence and language after being this thing for so long. The first couple of years with this curse, he'd black out. Waking up naked, drenched in the congealing blood of a brahmin, or near the gore of mutated insects (or laying on carapaces and stick-legs). One morning he woke near a brahmin that was part of a caravan, and he could make out a Blue Ridge uniform on what was left of the bodies.
That was when he decided to started to track the moon cycles, and hiding himself away. He got on some zen-type shit, attempting to will the Wolf away. All of this did not mean he trusted himself with this strange preacher man.
...hmmm or maybe not. What if the Lord needs to "free" Aries by putting a bullet in his brain?
"My name is Aries, when the moon goes down, I'll be human again. Please don't shoot at me. You'll make it mad."
He has not yet drawn his gun. If the wolf were to bite, he would take Joshua's head from his shoulders in a single snap. Yet the beast is all but whimpering, shrinking from him like a frightened pup, as if he were not the cause of the blotchy crimson oozing through the fresh bandages of Joshua's forearm. As if he could not still lick his blood from his claws.
Pity wells up within him, but only for as long as it takes to reason it out. He is not afraid of me. The revelation unfurls in Joshua's stomach like a moth from a cocoon, plays across his eyes as confusion becomes tension. What, then?
It.
Joshua lifts his hand clear of his pistol- slowly, as much for his own nerves as Aries'. Aries. Like the god, or the ram? Either way it strikes him, distantly, as a ridiculous. A literal wolf in sheep's clothing.
"I will not hesitate to defend myself, but I have no intention of hurting you." Careful, so very careful. From any other man what he is going to say next is just as ridiculous as Aries' name, but he says it like an inevitability. "You are a werewolf."
[(secretly switches which set o'claws got joshua)]
If you squint, and tilt your head, you could almost see through the wolf. Furry but transparent, underneath was an underfed older wastelander-- desperate to still see the sun rise. He holds out his gangly paw, in horror, realizing that he was wiping Joshua's blood all over his muzzle (he knew he smelled it, and honestly, he was so used to the smell of blood in his nose, and the adrenaline--) "No shit, Silver Shroud!"
Aries squints his eyes and attempts to clear the blood from his hands but wiping them on his haunches. Big brain activity isn't happening currently.
Who on earth is the Silver Shr... no, that's not important right now. The wolf- Aries- is panicking, which is the last thing either of them want in such a close space. The copper-wetness scenting the air is testament to that.
"Quiet. Breathe."
Whether he's talking to a bloodied, shell-shocked recruit or an impossible mythical creature, Joshua's voice is the same: crisp, confident and just a little cold. In the back of his mind his common sense- an advocate for leaving this cave with the rest of his body intact- is becoming hysterical at the very thought of ordering a werewolf around, one that's already drawn blood, but it's all he can think to do.
With his backpack in tow he edges closer to Aries again. This time, he forgoes the disinfectant; instead he punctures a can of purified water and drenches a clean shirt. "Give me your paws."
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sheepsquatch) wrote2026-05-13 02:50 pm
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The Beast of Beckley was nothing more than a large wolf.
The Blue Devil, on the other hand, couldn't be explained by a mutation. It seemed to show up only on a full moon, but also observed on the night before and the day after a full moon. It usually didn't attack, unless provoked. And Aries? He provoked.
He hadn't started working at Blue Ridge at this point, no, he had just been on the road and sleeping under the stars. He did an apology tour to the Truthseekers (and found them pretty much all dead). He didn't even think of his sister-- he doesn't like to think back on that. Aries never knew the difference between taking care of himself and being selfish. It felt like a difficult thing to understand. Looking back, he wished he'd even considered going to her for help.
Aries says it's because he didn't want the Assaultron to come after her. He was so goddamned ashamed. More than embarrassed, he betrayed her and got himself killed.
Then he nearly got himself killed again, with the Blue Devil run-in. A traveling doc was able to stitch the long claw marks that went from should neck to shoulder blade. The next day, the stitches had popped out altogether as he had already healed.
But his face and throat continued to be fucked up. Stupid Blue Devil, not even granting him cosmetic goodies.
It was far less than a month before he found out what the Blue Devil did give him-- a painful transformation with exposure to moonlight. The pain made him black out for the first few years. He would heal by morning, back to the state he was in when the god-damned thing scratched him.
Years. And years. He watched the wasteland change. He met his nephew, Carver, and apologized to his sister. Time went on, Carver had children, and after Shelley died... Aries had to go missing again.
He stayed 49 years old for 175 years. The mask he wore that once kept his face on, that once hid that face in case the Bysshe-bot could somehow recognize him, well, it came in handy when you wanted to settle for awhile. Most people knew ghouls, or Vault dwellers from cryo. Synths wasn't a word most people used yet, but some people in the desert would tell you they've seen mirages. Enough peyote and you will see your twin.
Aries had spent so much time in the Midwest, the south, even went up to Boston. He had to be careful and keep a calendar on him. Over the years, he had stopped blacking out. Aries kept his mind, he kept his memories.
He hated it. Aries couldn't call himself a sheep in wolves' clothes, or whatever clever way he had separated the Wolf from Himself.
He didn't want to kill anyone, at all, if he could help it. He would lock himself in before the moon came up. He'd find a way to keep away from living things.
Heading West made it easier. There were caves on caves on caves! Aries knew he would have to stop and find a place to hide himself during the night. A place that, were he to sleep, he wouldn't be killed for his pelt.
i am so sorry
Then he'd met Edward Sallow.
Ignorance was no excuse for what followed. But Joshua still feels a stab of pity alongside the guilt when he thinks of the young man so parched for approval that, when the wine turned to vinegar, and the vinegar to venom, he'd gulped down every last drop. Between Edward's extensive education and his own forbidden gifts, the arcane had unveiled itself to them with tantalizing ease. Power beyond imagination.
For thirty long years, their shadow swept across the desert wastes. Tribe after tribe fell before them. Edward- Caesar- commanded. Joshua made those commands a reality, crafted from the blood and bones of conquered men, and from the unholy demonic power each ritual bestowed upon them. Why he thought that he would be spared from the cruelty upon which they had built their empire, Joshua could not say.
Arrogance. Blasphemy.
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
When the NCR snuffed out their armies at Hoover Dam- when Caesar had him burned, hellfire scorching his very soul- it should have ended. Instead, in some unfathomable act of divine mercy, Joshua had managed to claw his way out of his own ashes and dragged himself back to New Canaan like the Prodigal Son himself. Now he sees the truth to which his hope had blinded him: staying in New Canaan had never been an option. In the end, no matter where Joshua wandered or to whom he pledged his devotion, it all reduced to blood and flame just the same.
Deep down, he knows that his new home in Zion Valley is as vulnerable as New Canaan had been. Any day, Caesar and his forces could blacken the canyon walls and turn the Virgin red. It's one part of why Joshua rarely stays for more than a few weeks at a time; the other is the knowledge that he has scarcely begun to repay the cost of his own redemption. There is darkness in this world that most ought never to see for themselves, and if his experience means he might be the light by which it is confounded, then so be it. They couldn't expect God to do all the work.
Nightfall does not concern Joshua so much as the thought of what might be waiting for its arrival. He hasn't been in these parts for long, but each settlement has furnished him with a new beast of some description or another. Most of them would inevitably be mutants, of course- a glowing ghoul, or a radstag with a third head- but every now and then a detail or two would take his interest.
Along this road, it's a howl that chills to the bone, one that can only be heard for a few nights a month. And the moon.
It lurks low on the horizon now like a malformed pearl, brooding over the last of the sun's light. God willing, he will reach a town or homestead before the next evening; experienced or not, he does not relish the thought of sleeping under a full moon here. Tonight, a cave will suffice.
This one seems safe enough: sheltered, dry, and without the tell-tale musk of a yao guai den. Joshua claps his flashlight a few times to get it working before taking a few steps into the dark.
ah ha! take this!
His went to unpack the little he had. Beyond the sleeping bag was just tinned food and drugs. Aries couldn't barricade himself inside, but he found that he was far enough from the moon that he could trick himself. Mix a little calmex with a little med-x, have a little whiskey, remove his pants, and hopefully wake up tomorrow! He's been able to sleep through a transformation. It's a little treat for him.
Aries was mentally kicking himself for not carrying chains with him-- that was so heavy when you carried your house on your back. A ram, a snail, a wolf, what even were you, Aries?
He's just finished injecting his two Papa's Little Helper chems and is nearly bare-assed naked when he hears the sound of a thud? A smack?
There's no campfire for sure, but he had a few small candles so that he didn't fall face first into a rock. Or so he could protect his cock from a mantis. Dang, he was writing poetry while struggling to snuff the candle or put his pants back on-- he can't decide and so there's a sound of both Aries tumbling and the hollering at the candle's flame getting too close to his skin. "Augh, nng, hi! Hello! Someone's in here!"
you've killed me!!!
As a precaution he does draw his gun, but keeps it lowered.
"I mean you no harm," he calls back. The echo of his voice tells him what he suspected- that the cave goes back further than he'd guessed, far enough to hide any inhabitants from him. "I'm coming in."
With a lit torch in one hand and a firearm in the other, Joshua edges forward. Sure enough, as soon as the cave begins to dip he spots the dancing glow of (unsnuffed) candlelight. Moments later, he finds the candle- discarded syringes- and their owner. A lot more of their owner than he expected, in fact.
To call it staring would be to undersell the level of bafflement that keeps Joshua's attention pinned to the near-naked man.
"... I see this is a bad time for you," he settles on, eventually. He should probably apologize and leave before this obvious lunatic tries to explain himself, but- but the ruin of his skin is prickling beneath the gauze.
Joshua does not move.
i know cpr and *mouth to mouth*
"It's not what it looks like, I'm not jerking off." Not yet, at least.
Then what it is? How would he explain himself? It's not as if this happened all the time!
(but, oh, what providence!)
"I have night terrors. I'm just trying to get comfortable." Seeing that the other man was heavily bandaged, he could probably understand that kind of pain. "I have food and chems to share." He held his hands up and out, still keeping his knees bent.
No! NO no no, he forgot the other reason. The giant furry reason. "Wait, no, get out!"
omg are you cupcakke
The man- and he is definitely human, in spite of that voice- is perhaps around his own age, with the lean, wiry build of a wanderer. But even now, though, his attention is stolen by the patchwork of his skin, the scars of what must once have been perfect carnage all the way from his nose to his shoulders, and perhaps lower still.
Perhaps it's sympathy he feels. Perhaps something else, something stranger. Either way, Joshua does not believe a word that comes out of the man's mouth. He holds his ground.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says, low and solemn as a prayer. He's already holstering his gun. "My name is Joshua. Are you in some kind of trouble?"
There's always a chance that he really is just looking at a burned-out chem-fiend shooting up in a cave in the middle of nowhere... but even then, the Lord would have a reason for bringing them together.
i had to go look that up, oh my my my
"No no, stay back. I'm sick. That's-- uh, why I get the night terrors. It's safer for both of us if you just turn right around and go out the way you came!"
He doesn't advance on Joshua, Aries just paces near the back wall of the cave like captive animal. He thinks that lie should work, that should be fine, this guy will leave -- "Hnnng," the moon was a backstabbing bitch! Aries' knees buckled with the pain.
He was starting to transform. He thought that maybe being in the cave, being away from the moonlight, it might slow the process. He thought that if he loaded himself up on drugs, he would be able to float through the night. Sleeping dogs lie, and all that!
Aries held his chest and attempted to will himself 'right' for long enough to try and warn Joshua (oh no now he knows the name of the guy he's about to eat?!), "I don't want to hurt you," and then he fell flat on his face, gurgling. Still breathing, and only bleeding a small amount from his perfect landing (onto a rock).
Oh. The tranquilizer did work!
you're so welcome
Night terrors? he wants to scoff; then, more urgently, safer? Only, by then it's too late. The man grunts in pain, grits out a warning- a threat- and Joshua's blood chills to ice, then-
Then the man drops like a brick.
Joshua stares. Common sense dictates that he leave, quickly, before whatever cocktail of drugs the stranger has taken wears off, but scripture wins out. What kind of believer would Joshua be, were he to leave an injured man alone in the darkness?
Now that any overt threat has passed he can move quickly. Down on his knees, he rests his torch at an angle and rolls the man onto his side. At least the graze on his face is superficial, addressed easily enough with clean gauze and alcohol, though he'll almost certainly wake up with a nasty headache.
Even so, Joshua frowns the whole time he works. Beneath his fingertips the man's face is tacky. The sweat glistening on his bare skin gives him the sickly glaze of a junkie, but it's more than that. This isn't a high, it's oblivion. But why?
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The man's bones begin to shift under his skin, pulling and stretching his form. There's a sickening crack and crack and crack of the bones resetting to where the wolf needed them. Long, blue-black hairs sprouted quickly, in one fluid stroke. If Joshua needed to blink, he might miss it all. Claws and paws, such big teeth to eat you with my dear, and a body stretched to be far bigger than it once was-- If Joshua had a good look at the man before, he might see it in the creature's face. Elongated nose and a mouthful of scary sharpness, along with his tongue lolling out as he drooled.
When the creature finally stilled, he whimpered and kicked while still deep in whatever chem-fog he put himself into. It happened so quickly that the nails on his feet swiped too close to a man that ... probably didn't expect this at all.
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Joshua has heard of shapeshifters only in hushed whispers: demonic, sometimes cursed. Seen a pelt or two, too large for a wolf but too warped for even the most mutated of yao guai. But this-
- is hesitation, and hesitation is deadly. With his mind at a standstill simply trying to parse what he has seen, he's blind to that sudden jerk until it tears through his forearm, rending his ruined flesh as easily as the bandages that contain it.
Every nerve in his arm screams, but Joshua does not. With teeth clenched vice-tight he reels back, slapping one hand to the fresh scarlet gouges as if he could keep the blood from spilling with willpower alone. It looks bad- feels worse- but it's superficial, and he knows immediately that he's been lucky. Those claws could have shredded the muscle from his bones.
Shaking, scarcely breathing, he sets about cleaning and bandaging his own wounds. The whole while he keeps his eye on the slumbering beast; he tells himself it is in case the scent of fresh blood overpower the efficacy of those chems. The truth, he knows, is that he does not want to look away. Not until he has answers.
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The wolf then stirs, just soft groans and grunts, like any wasteland canine. He whined-- high pitched and just on the edge of stop that sound, I cannot take it anymore before it ceased.
And then a more human cough followed... Then same grumbled voice-- except it sounded as if it were layered on top of each other several times, an eerie rendition of Aries' voice.
"Ffffuuuuuck, where am I--" the wolf's head snapped to look at directly at Joshua, into his soul as Aries sensed somewhere before he saw him. "Fffffffffuuuuuuuuck."
The wolf's eyes were electric blue, framed with a black sclera; despite his creepy eyes and painful howl, he sat back on his awkwardly-stretched haunches. His claws and paws went to shamefully cover his nose (he couldn't remember a time when another person saw him like this).
WHY IS THAT MAN BLEEDING? "Ffffuuuuuck! I told you!" His voice raises, and it might make one's teeth hurt. It made the cave shiver, at least.
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Yet the night wears on, and the wolf sleeps like the dead. Joshua inches closer. His shape is an uncanny blend of man and animal, those long limbs and that thick neck packed solid with muscle. Though his teeth are safely tucked away in his muzzle, Joshua remembers their gleam as vividly as if they were still bared in a growl. A predator through and through.
At the third hour he lays his hand on the wolf's back, fingers carding cautiously through the thick fur at the base of his skull- warm, not so coarse as he expected. It's as he raises his hand to stroke that the beast begins to stir, whimpering like a dog kicking its way through a nightmare- then whines, and Joshua reels back as violently if it were a scream.
He does not get the chance to recover. Suddenly the wolf's eyes are open and fixed upon him, and Joshua's hand flies to his gun, God is my refuge and strength-
Oh.
Loose rubble skips its way down the walls at the sound of that voice, but Joshua simply stares. A raving, slathering demon is one thing, but a demon that talks like a hungover wastelander...?
"You did," he says, partly because he is still too astonished to do much more than agree. Little by little, his mind catches up with his mouth. "But when the Lord delivers me unto a lost soul, I refuse not turn away from them. What are you?"
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Aries had been able to retain his intelligence and language after being this thing for so long. The first couple of years with this curse, he'd black out. Waking up naked, drenched in the congealing blood of a brahmin, or near the gore of mutated insects (or laying on carapaces and stick-legs). One morning he woke near a brahmin that was part of a caravan, and he could make out a Blue Ridge uniform on what was left of the bodies.
That was when he decided to started to track the moon cycles, and hiding himself away. He got on some zen-type shit, attempting to will the Wolf away. All of this did not mean he trusted himself with this strange preacher man.
...hmmm or maybe not. What if the Lord needs to "free" Aries by putting a bullet in his brain?
"My name is Aries, when the moon goes down, I'll be human again. Please don't shoot at me. You'll make it mad."
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Pity wells up within him, but only for as long as it takes to reason it out. He is not afraid of me. The revelation unfurls in Joshua's stomach like a moth from a cocoon, plays across his eyes as confusion becomes tension. What, then?
It.
Joshua lifts his hand clear of his pistol- slowly, as much for his own nerves as Aries'. Aries. Like the god, or the ram? Either way it strikes him, distantly, as a ridiculous. A literal wolf in sheep's clothing.
"I will not hesitate to defend myself, but I have no intention of hurting you." Careful, so very careful. From any other man what he is going to say next is just as ridiculous as Aries' name, but he says it like an inevitability. "You are a werewolf."
[(secretly switches which set o'claws got joshua)]
Aries squints his eyes and attempts to clear the blood from his hands but wiping them on his haunches. Big brain activity isn't happening currently.
"Sorry. Sorry. Sorry."
you've completely destroyed my immersion
"Quiet. Breathe."
Whether he's talking to a bloodied, shell-shocked recruit or an impossible mythical creature, Joshua's voice is the same: crisp, confident and just a little cold. In the back of his mind his common sense- an advocate for leaving this cave with the rest of his body intact- is becoming hysterical at the very thought of ordering a werewolf around, one that's already drawn blood, but it's all he can think to do.
With his backpack in tow he edges closer to Aries again. This time, he forgoes the disinfectant; instead he punctures a can of purified water and drenches a clean shirt. "Give me your paws."