Archive of Our Own ^beta

Laurance and Dante were waiting at the airport for the rest of their friends to return from The Vacation From Hell. Laurance was bouncing on his toes, frantically glancing back and forth and all about the crowds ahead of him. They’re arriving today, right? At this time?

He turned to Dante. “It’s today, right? We’re sure they said today?”
“Dude, I’m sure, unless the date and time somehow changed since the last time we checked five minutes ago.” Dante looked at him with a fatigued and worn-down concern. “Maybe take a deep breath, we know they’ll be here soon—“
A head of dark purple hair passed between the figures in the crowd. Laurance shot up stiff on his toes like a bloodhound peering for the movement of a squirrel. Dante stopped and looked out, though not optimistically.

The crowd decluttered. Other strangers irrelevant to his focus finally got out of view, and more familiar shapes and colors appeared to fill in the gaps. A head of short, white hair and green eyes, a muscular woman of pale skin and blue hair that slid into standing next to him, a white and blue plaid shirt—he buzzed with excitement—and a flash of purple, then brown eyes, then she, then everyone, as the chatter of the room turned into the low, murmuring voices of familiar faces.

Dante gaped. “Oh my god—“
“APHMAU!” 
Aphmau jumped into a defensive stagger—they all flinched stiff, actually, that’s odd. Nevermind that— Laurance nearly leaped into her arms. He tackled her head-on, the others reflexively reared up to attack him, before-
“Laurance?!” Garroth recognized. 
“Laurance?” Aphmau followed suit, then finally relaxed with a laugh of relief. The others let out their tension with a communal sigh. 

Dante ran over, beaming. “TRAVIS!” 

Travis turned to the sound and smiled like he was going to cry. “Dante!” The two collided in a hug. “You’re here! You made it!”

Dante pulled away enough to see him, keeping his hands on his shoulders, Travis kept his hands on his upper back. “You made it!” He laughed. Travis laughed at the joke as well, before it devolved into an existential “oh, god, yeah, I did,” whispered under his breath. He dropped his head against Dante’s chest, and the two hugged again.

Laurance pressed a heavy kiss against Aphmau’s cheek, then smothered her with a hundred more tiny kisses all over her face, taking her hands to kiss those as well. “Laurance! You-“ Her speech was broken up with laughter and giggling, as she smiled from ear to ear. Laurance lifted up his head to speak, when the arms of a damn mountain scooped them up into the air and squeezed hard enough that Laurance was pretty sure he felt a rib pop out of place. 

“Garroth!” He grinned. Garroth peppered him with kisses. He tried to struggle into a position in the hug where he could see his face. “Garroth, you’re okay! I’m so glad to see yo-“ He looked up, seeing two long, blonde, fluffy ears at the top of his head. “-oouuu- hhAVE— WHAT?!”

- - -

The gang said they couldn’t explain anything in a public place. “There are eyes and ears everywhere,” they said. They decided to go to the boys' shared home first. If it was safe, they would explain everything to everyone. Once they arrived at the driveway, Garroth told them all to stay in the car while he scoped out the place. Then Laurance watched him approach their house like he was going to rob it in broad daylight. His ears were pointed up and about, peering particularly pointedly at any corners in the ceiling. He unlocked the front door, entered the house like it was a booby trap maze, and disappeared inside for a very long time. 

In the car, Travis asked Laurance and Dante if they’ve had any strange or unexpected visits to their front door in the past few months, or if they’d seen any strange cars lingering on the roadside in front of the house. Laurance and Dante shared a nervous, wary glance, and shook their heads. 
“Not that I’ve noticed…” Laurance had told him. 

Garroth came back. “I couldn’t sniff out or hear any bugs. We’re probably fine.” He said. 

Laurance blinked. “What? Wait- did you think our house was bugged?”

“Yes.” Aphmau said to him, completely deadpan serious. “It’s very likely you were bugged and watched while we were gone.”

Laurance was silent in shock, now very, very worried about the well-being of Garroth and his friends. He had heard a lot on the news about what was going on at the resort, so this wasn’t too crazy of a revelation, but he never guessed it was this bad.

They went inside.

They explained everything.

The extra caution made a lot more sense now. Laurance felt like something could crawl up his back any minute now. “Are you sure it’s…still safe to live here, then? Should we…move…? Where would we even go?” He said, he, Garroth, and Dante sitting on the couch across from the rest of the crew.

The others looked amongst themselves, then Aphmau sighed. “I think...for the most part, we’re fine…” She kept her eyes on the ground. “Michael and Ein are both dead, and I think the Guardian Forces will be…very much under fire from the law for a while, after-..everything they did to us…”

Lucinda scoffed. “They’re lucky they haven’t been sued into the ground already…” 

“Money talks.” Travis added, leaning forward with his arms laid against his knees. “…And terrifying magical coercion.” He muttered. 

Laurance stared at him for a moment, then back at Aphmau. They all looked..so tired. “Do you all…want to stay here, for the night?” He offered, with an audible wince in his voice.

“Yeah! That’d be totally fine with us!” Dante piped up, worried as well. “We missed you guys so much!” Dante missed his best friend Travis, especially. Laurance had to comfort him through his whimperings of "I hope Travis is doing okay, do you think Travis will forget me? Is that Travis's dad on TV? Is Travis ever coming back-" a number of times while they were gone.

“Are you sure you even have the space to hold all of us…?” Kim said, visibly apprehensive. 

Dante froze. “…uh.” Laurance glanced to him. “…space is…a subjective term?” Dante shrugged with a strained, cringing smile as he spoke. 

Aphmau nearly laughed.

Katelyn deadpanned, “Thank you for the offer, but I’m not sleeping on the floor.” 

Travis leaned against her side, she laid an arm around his shoulder. “I guess we just…what, go home now…?” He trailed off to a faint whisper. “What am I even supposed to do now..?”

Katelyn softened and let out a sad sigh, then looked up to see Aphmau. “I’m staying with Travis, if that’s alright with you, Aph.” 

“Oh, of course!” She fretted, turning her body to the boy sitting next to her, “How are you feeling, Travis? Do you need any of us to stay with you for a while?” 
Laurance and Dante gave him the offer of their company by smiling directly at him, both still clearly very worried about him. 

Travis shrunk away in his seat, which was mostly Katelyn. The two had become incredibly physically close to one another after both of them were possessed and used against their own will to hurt the crew. The two had spent the entire trip home just silently holding on to one another. “Actually, I-…I think I want to be..alone..for a little while, if-..if that’s alright with you guys…” He mumbled. His confidence wasn’t what it used to be anymore. “I’ll have Katelyn stay with me, of course,” he held her hand and looked up at her, the two sharing a soft and solemn moment of connection as he spoke, “but I think-…I don’t know, I-I just need some space to process for a day or two, then I-…should be fine…”

“Of course! Do whatever you need to do to feel better,” Aphmau took his other hand, giving him the best, most earnest smile she could give in the exhausted state she was in. “Remember you’ll always be my Not-Alone Buddy no matter what, okay? You’re not alone, we’re all here for you.” 

The others nodded. Travis gave her a weak but genuine smile. 

“You need anything, you let us know, alright?” Zane said.

“Thank you…”

Laurance was at a loss for words, watching them. A few months ago, he was watching them leave for a joyous vacation. Now, he felt like he was watching a collection of broken-down people desperately trying to piece themselves back together.

- - -

At the very end of the day, the gang would eventually leave his home, each group going their own separate ways, promising to reunite the next day.

Garroth stayed. He did live here, after all.

He and Laurance could finally get a moment alone.

- - -

Laurance came in to watch and lean against the bedroom threshold while Garroth was going through everything in his old room. It was exactly how he’d left it. Well, some things got moved around a teensy bit, from the few occasions when Laurance was missing him dearly, so he’d come into his bedroom and look at his things, lay in his bed, maybe cry on his pillow a teeny itty bitty bit. It’s fine. He didn’t notice, it’s fine.

He surveyed the posters on his wall, merchandise he had bought from their last convention trip, his trophies from highschool and college that sat on his shelves, everything. He had a clean and busy space, with a decorated rug, photo frames on his dresser, art over his walls, trinkets lined up at his windowsill, and still some dirty laundry in the hamper that he had forgotten to wash before he left.

Looking at all his old things and recalling from when and where he bought them seemed to relieve him of something. He remembered trips to the mall with his friends. Gifts from last Christmas. They were all still here, just as he’d left them. 

“I missed you.” Laurance eventually spoke. 

Garroth turned to him, then gave him the warmest of smiles. He walked over, sweeping him up in another gentle hug. “I missed you too, Laurance.” He whispered, low and dear. Laurance squeezed him tight. 

“…Are you okay?” Laurance whispered.

Garroth was still, quiet. Then, “…I–…I’m starting to recover now.” Pause, then: “…it helps a lot to be back. And…hopefully safe this time.”

Laurance bunched up the cloth of Garroth’s shirt into his fists. “…yeah, hopefully.” He took a trembling breath, then spoke with better composure. “Hopefully.”

Garroth waited until Laurance was ready to pull away. He let him go. Garroth gave him one last smile of reassurance before he turned back to his things.

In his search, he found a framed photo of his family on the dresser. He froze, staring at it, unblinking, still.
He picked it up, staying silent as stone, as he held it in his claws. His thumb grazed the glass.  
…It moved to cover his father’s face. 

Laurance stepped further inside and tried to peer from behind his shoulder, to get a glimpse of an expression he couldn’t read. He watched him stand there in silence, standing like he was stuck there, still, completely absorbed in it.

Laurance saw his blonde tail twitch where it laid, its tip on the ground.

“So.” Laurance suddenly cleared his throat. “…You’re a werewolf now.”

Garroth’s ears twitched in his direction. He hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and set the photo back down on the dresser. He turned to face Laurance with a lighter, friendlier face. “I am.” He spoke with the same deep, warm, reverberating softness Laurance knew intimately well from their days in highschool. 

Laurance came further into the bedroom, swinging the door closed-enough behind him and sitting down on the side of his bed, slowly kicking his feet. “Tell me about that.”

Garroth nearly laughed. “What?”

“Come sit. I want to hear all about it. You know I have questions. Juicy questions.”

Now Garroth laughed. He rolled his eyes and sat down on the bed, leaving the photo behind him. 

The mattress sunk underneath him when Garroth sat down next to him, more than it used to before. Garroth bounced on his bed a little bit, and the bedframe creaked and whined with a noise that Laurance had deeply missed hearing. Garroth dusted off his old pillow and crawled onto the bed to lie down on top of the sheets. It’d been quite some time since he laid here last. Laurance spun around to face him, criss-crossing his legs and plopping his hands down on the blue blankets behind him to lean back.

“How’s it feel? Like in comparison to how it felt to be human?”

“Uh…” He rolled onto his back and stared at his ceiling. “Warmer?”

“Warmer?”

“Yeah, feel.” He held his arm out. Garroth had always had muscular arms before, but it seemed like his entire body had grown at least a few inches everywhere in overall size since Laurance had seen him last. 

He was a massive, wolfish man, with massive arms to match, covered in blonde hairs that coated the topside like all the purely natural hairs that had been there before had doubled and spread, giving him a thin layer of fur across most of his skin. Laurance ran his fingers through the fine fur, “Huh.” Then turned his arm over, and the underside was devoid of any extra hairs. He turned his arm back over, and moved his grasp to survey his hand instead. His fingers were longer, with parts of the underside of his hand—like the fingertips and the knuckles of his palm—now extended and toughened to form rough pads. His nails had grown and changed shape to resemble a mix between permanently unsheathed claws and human fingernails. Laurance thought about what it’d be like to paint them. “…Wow.”

“I know, right? I have like, twice the hair now, and I think every bone in my body looks different now. I keep looking at my hands and having to do a double take just to make sure they’re really mine. It feels so weird.” 

Laurance patted his bicep. “Nice.” 

Garroth laughed again.

“Did it make you stronger?” 

“I’m…pretty sure it did. I think I could lift a car now, if I wanted to.”

Something gleamed in Laurance’s eyes.

“Not now, though, of course.”

It deflated and went away.

“…Have you..How do I say this? It feels so weird to say this—“ Laurance said. “Have you-..been petted yet? Like have you had this form for long enough to know what that feels like? What does it feel like?”

Garroth thought for a moment, staring at the ceiling. “…no, I-…don’t recall having..the opportunity to try that out amidst everything with the Guardian Forces and Aaron being the Ultima and getting possessed by an emerald. We were all so swept up in the stress and the emergency of it all that I don’t think it even occurred to me.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, you try thinking: ‘Hey, I’m half-canine! I wonder what petting a dog feels like for the dog!’ While you’re running for your life!” 

“Okay, fair.” Laurance scooted closer. “…Could I try?” 

“Sure!”

Laurance leaned forward to reach his ear. Garroth shut his eyes and leaned into it, as his hand slid behind to the back of a blonde, fluffy wolf ear, tall and pointed with a lighter pink, veiny, hairy interior. He started to gently scritch the fur on the back of his ear, and Garroth shifted and moved his head about to lead him to the perfect spot. He smiled and his tail began to wag back and forth, swishing across the blankets. Laurance giggled, internally squealing and thinking to himself about how fucking weird it is that he’s giving his childhood [human] best friend pets and scritches and oh my goodness this is adorable!!

“How does it feel? Does it feel weird?” 

Garroth thought about it, then said, “…You know how I’ll rub your lower back sometimes and it’ll feel really good, even though it’s just your lower back? Like there are some parts of your body that feel better to be touched than others?” 

“Yeah?”

“It feels like that! But like…more…stimulating, I guess? As opposed to relaxing? Like when I give you a shoulder massage, it relaxes you. This is…the opposite of that!” 

Laurance laughed. “Okay, then!” 

Eventually, he pulled away to ask him another question, and Garroth almost looked sad and disappointed that he stopped.

“Are you a carnivore now? Do you only eat meat? Do you like…need to actively hunt things now, or…?”

“Uh.” He thought about it. “I think if I run in circles in our backyard, I’ll be fine!” He was (mostly) kidding.

“Hah! Maybe we should move to a new house with a big forest as our backyard. Just-…don’t bring anything you catch home, please, I’m not cleaning that up.”

Garroth gave an overly earnest nod. “I will try my best.” He promised in a way that was totally very sincere and not at all a joke. Laurance gave him an amused smile.

His smile would fade as he slipped into thought. There was one question that had been eating away at the inside of his brain ever since Garroth had told him that Aaron had turned him. He’d said that the risks of death were very high, but he survived the process, and they’d left it at that. 

If that was true, then that meant he almost lost him. And if he had died, he wouldn’t have even been there to say goodbye. Garroth could’ve slipped out of his hands forever, never to be seen again, while Laurance was just watching TV in the living room, lazing about obliviously. A whole half of his world, half of the planet his heart lived on, would have crumbled to dust, and he wouldn’t have even known. 

“Laurance?” Garroth woke him from his daydreaming. He had sat up, looking at him with nervous concern. “Are you alright? You look down.” 

He opened his mouth to respond, thought for a moment, then closed it. He bore to him all the worry he’d been hiding away. “…Did–…did it hurt? How-…” How close did you get to dying? Could you feel yourself slipping? Was it agony beyond description? “…how much did it hurt? To turn?”

“…oh.” Garroth shifted, his face falling. “…It–…did. It did hurt, a lot.”

Laurance held his hand. “Can you-…tell me about it? Is that alright?”

“It’s alright.” Garroth reached out and took his other hand into his own. “I-…I wish I could’ve told you about it sooner, actually…” The two boys held each other’s hands all the tighter. Laurance squeezed his palm, quiet in his sorrowful support. 

He took a deep breath, steadying himself. Garroth was always much better at keeping himself composed than Laurance was. “It-…it was like I could feel my bones-..breaking, and then remaking themselves.” He said. 
“It hurt more than any pain I’ve ever known, and will ever know again.” He grew quiet. “I-…I wasn’t sure I was going to make it…”

Laurance’s stomach churned.

“Everything about my body had to change. My teeth—my mouth was bleeding for a while, and they- the doctors had to do everything they could to soak up the blood, but- yknow. Good luck.” He nearly scoffed. “They put me on painkillers, the hardest stuff they could hit me with, but I don’t think even that could’ve saved me from the whole of the pain.”

He continued, “I had to grow a tail…and I- I was growing entire nerves..and bones, and muscle all at once, I could feel it growing…”

“Oh, god.” 

“Same for my ears, my human ears had to retract and my-…the doctors said my sinuses had to reshape themselves internally in order to- to make room for my new ones? And my legs and my hands had to change, my nails—“ He held up his other hand, looking anew at his claws. “You’d think they’d just have to like… grow longer, right? That that’d be it? Apparently not! That sure sucked!” Laurance cringed.

“The whole thing was just-…” He trailed off. “…I-..I never want to go through anything like that again. Never.”

“Did you get any scars from it…?”

“Oh, I’m certain. Stretch marks and scars from torn flesh all over my body. This…this isn’t anything that’s ever gonna go away.” 

“Could you…show me some of your scars?”

Garroth went quiet for a moment. He’d never seen him so down before. “…maybe another time.” He muttered. “I-…I don’t really want to see them right now, if that’s alright.”

“Of course. Whenever you want to.”

Garroth closed his eyes tight and did not speak again. Laurance had watched him sink down, sullen, as if he could run away into a deep, dark burrow in his mind at any moment.

Laurance shifted nervously and looked around for anything else he could talk about that would cheer him back up again.

Classic Zvahl Inspiration™ struck him. 

He spoke with an entirely different tone, one brighter and more playful, to signify the shift in mood and subject. “I really must know—I know Hollywood has quite the tendency to lie about such myths, and fiction is no better in its reliability,” Garroth opened an eye, ears slowly going back up again, as he looked at Laurance in steadily growing confusion. “But I figured, what better celebrity to ask for the truth, than the very special one sitting in front of me?” Garroth perked back up, his cheeks turning slightly pink. “Enlighten me, my dear,” Laurance asked with a wink and a sly grin, “Would you say that werewolf dicks are different from a human’s?”

Garroth stared at him blankly for a second, as his brain processed the question, and the second the loading bar in his brain beeped complete, he burst out cackling and wheezing. He rolled onto his side and keeled over from how hard he was wheezing and laughing. “What?!” He choked out in a gasp between hysterics. 

Laurance threw up his arms, his sly grin growing to a humorous one. “I’m curious! Sue me!” He folded his arms. “I mean, I’m going to end up finding out eventually! It’s only smart to ask in advance.”

Garroth could barely breathe from laughing so damn hard.

“We did have at least one talk about better communication as a couple! ...That I remember! So, this is me communicating! What else did you expect?”

“You’re- amazing—“ Garroth heaved, then continued to cackle like a mad fox. His face had turned completely red. Laurance started to chuckle, then he laughed along too, until the two were hollering loud enough for Dante to hear them from the kitchen, certainly confusing him. 

In time, the two’s laughter faded down to occasional chuckles and happy sighs. 

“Come here, love, lay down.” Garroth said with a chuckle still rolling through the word. He patted the bed right next to him. 

Laurance blinked. “Wait, did you actually want to—?”

“No, no.” He smiled, reaching out to Laurance and lightly pulling him over. 

“Oh, okay-“ 

The two laid down next to each other, and Garroth moved in to squeeze him close to his chest, holding him dear. He twined his fingers through his short and wavy brown hair, curling a strand around his claw as carefully as he could, then letting it go, then finding another to curl. Laurance rested his head against his upper chest, the top of his head just below his chin. Garroth’s tail-tip made a quiet pat against the wrinkled blankets with each slow up-and-down tail wag it rhythmically gave.

“I missed you.” Garroth hummed.

“I missed you too.”

“I wished you had been there beside me, the entire time.” Garroth spoke very softly. “When we were having fun at the start, I wish I could have heard you laughing alongside us. You’ve always been the best at making any date a blast, and so fun to be around. And, uh-…” He buried the lower half of his face into his wavy hair. “…it would have been nice to be able to come to you when things turned rough, too…”

“Oh, Garroth…” Laurance reached up and tried to scratch the base of his ear again. He leaned into the touch, closing his eyes, the slight wagging of his tail hitting the bed with a repetitive thump. “You could have texted…I-I would’ve called, at every opportunity! Maybe I could’ve found a way to be there, or take a flight!”

“The Guardian Forces were tracking our every move. If I had texted or called you while we were in danger, they would have recorded it. It would have put you at risk. Michael would have absolutely used you against us.” His voice lowered to a mutter that Laurance wouldn’t have heard if his ears hadn’t been so close to his voice. “…he would have used me against you.” 

“No, you-“ Laurance was going to protest that Garroth would never hurt him like that, he has nothing to worry about, but it died on his tongue. Garroth was always an incredibly strong man, even from their days in highschool. 

He remembered how one time he broke off the door to his locker on accident. He pulled it right off its hinges when he tried to swing it open. The school administration moved very quickly to fix their investor’s son’s locker, faster than they ever would’ve for someone else, then it was promptly swept under the rug by Garroth’s father. But Laurance still remembers being completely perplexed by the multiple demonstrations of superhuman strength he had witnessed from Garroth throughout their many years together.

And if that wasn’t already something you’d want chasing you under a spell of murderous mind control, the massive werewolf claws and fangs didn’t comfort much either. Sure, Zane was able to survive a confrontation with him, but he came out of it with grievous stab wounds, and Nana nearly got gutted from it, too. They’re both still recovering, and he’s certain that they’ll both have scars from the attack for the rest of their lives. Scars Laurance would have scored, if it had been him under the firing line.

Maybe he would’ve been the one to die too soon, if he couldn’t get through to Garroth fast enough. 

...It was a dark thought to sleep with.

“…we–…we would’ve figured it out together, if that happened.” He took Garroth’s hand, removing it from his waist and intertwining their fingers instead. “I would’ve figured something out. ‘Gotten us out of it. We would’ve turned out okay.” 

Garroth pressed his forehead and the bridge of his nose into his head, nuzzling him. “..You’re very clever, Laurance…”

“Well- aha- uh—I don’t know about that- but, thank you. I try.”

Garroth gifted him a lingering kiss against his forehead. When he pulled away, he spoke in such a whisper that made Laurance wonder if his vocal chords had undergone some change in the transformation that would’ve made his already smooth voice rumble something deeper. “You’re clever to me…” He said so very sincerely. He kissed his forehead again, lifting a hand to brush his cheek. “…I love you. I–…I don’t want to leave you like that, ever again.” It had gotten very warm all of a sudden, being bundled up in the embrace of a fluffy half-wolf man. “…I’m so sorry.” Garroth whispered.

“What, for not inviting me to your ‘Apocalypse And Die’ party?” Laurance joked, laughing and trying to turn it light-hearted. “You really gotta stop beating yourself up for not letting me butt into your dance with death, big guy.”

Garroth pulled his face away, giving him a solemn, tired look. “Well-…yes, I know, but-…”

He trailed off and left it to be silently said. Laurance got it.

Laurance caressed his cheek, mixing his natural charm with a cookie-sweet vulnerable honesty. “I’m here for you now, my love. I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere either.” 

He lifted up to give him a light peck on the lips. 

He leaned back. “You can tell me everything you want, ‘till it feels like I was there, fighting alongside you.” 

Garroth’s soft, lonesome—yet now a few shades pinker—loving gaze lingered on him, drinking in the dearest face he could finally hold again. He smiled, small and true. 
He pressed their foreheads together, holding him close.

“…Thank you. I love you, very much.”

“I love you too, Garroth.”