Chapter Text
Pinpricks of water, nearly ice, patted against a tattered and worn out coat.
The coat was torn, dirty, and small bits of dried-out blood clung to it, no matter how insistent the rain was to get it off.
It couldn't even be considered a coat anymore; or a jacket, more of a cloak with how thin it was, but better looking, Tommy insisted.
Right, the boy.
Flaxen hair was hidden under the 'coat', said coat soaked in water, cold and harsh tears of clouds hitting the owner's forehead and nose, mostly.
He walked in the dimly lit streets, some bulbs flickering occasionally, but Tommy couldn't get scared, The boy was fourteen! And a half !
His eyes almost glowed in the almost completely dark sidewalk, light blues mixed in with other shades.
Tommy's skin was deathly pale, and oh, his bones; his bones pressed aggressively against his skin, the result of eating nearly nothing, but enough to move, and that was almost enough for Tommy.
Almost.
Sometimes he'd pretend he was better off, three meals a day.
He'd pretend he had nearly fancy clothes, but not enough to be a snob, no, no!
Tommy used to pretend he had a family that loved him, not that he'd remember what that was like.
He quickly squashed that line of thinking down.
No one would want him.
Your friends do, a small voice whispered. He ignored it.
His worn boots squelched against a patch of mud, earning a groan of disgust from the boy since the mud got in one of the holes and onto his bare feet. Tommy wouldn't get socks, they get dirty easily and are overall useless in the end.
"Fuck." His voice scratched out, he wrinkled his nose at the texture of the mud squishing between his toes, a more than unpleasant feeling, cold and warm at the same time. Wet, but not liquid enough.
Tommy had just come from pickpocketing someone, earning a forty dollar watch. He could buy a few items of food with that if he sold it, but it was a nice watch and so shiny!
And, yeah, he could use it to tell time since he couldn't afford a phone, but it was shiny! It's basically a necessity, right?
If phones were considered a necessity to rich people, watches were a necessity to poor people, he supposed.
It wasn't a Rolex or anything (Tommy swore only snobs bought those), but it made a voice in his head go "need, need, need," and he just couldn't resist.
Before he could think, he clasped it on his left hand, not having a preference for using his hands since he was ambidextrous.
Tommy almost let out a pleased growl, but he heard something that sounded like a thud, his ears flicked around; his ears faced near him, near a nearby alleyway in front of him, only a couple feet away.
He froze, 'What the fuck was that?' He thought; he didn't dare voice it out, afraid of what could be just around the corner. danger-hurt-leave-den-danger-fear
Tommy almost ran with his tail between his legs; he almost ran, but he heard a pained yelp and a voice.
"It's over." It— they growled out. "We didn't do anything!" A new voice came in, significantly more low spoken and feminine, it sounded mostly unused to yelling, a voice crack when they raised their voice in volume.
Tommy had two choices.
Leave and let, what he assumed was two or more people die at the hands of someone, left with a guilty conscience.
Or, he could attempt to save them, most likely die along with the other people from a scary fucking man, and die with a good conscience.
He really didn't want to die, but he really didn't want to be a bad person.
But, fuck, did he want to live to see twenty-five. Maybe he would help when he was twenty-six.
Another thud, yelp, and panicked swear from a new voice was enough to make him move.
It was like he blacked out, like a different person controlled his body; one second he was by a streetlight, safely on the sidewalk.
The next, Tommy was in the dark alleyway, in front of four people, he didn't bother to take in what they looked like.
All he knew was one had messed up knuckles, towering over the three of them, a malicious grin on his face.
The idiot didn't even get to process Tommy's arrival before he sucked his teeth into his arm like a leech and bit. Hard.
The person started punching at him but he didn't let up, instead biting harder, preparing to fucking pull, even through the fabric of their jacket.
"Fucking — get off me!" The assaulter choked out. Though, he supposed maybe he was also considered an assaulter now.
Or a hero, that would be cool. He even had the cloak for it!
Tommy could hear the sounds of someone stumbling, then he felt his prey get yanked away from him.
Flesh tore off the man's arm, most of it, and cloth, in his mouth; he could feel and taste the blood.
A scream broke out; the fucker didn't even lose that much flesh, big pussy, he was.
Once Tommy registered what happened and his wolf brain wasn't yelling, "prey, prey, prey!" he looked at the person who pulled the man, it was probably done purposefully so this would happen.
"Fu—" The man coughed mid-word, "I'm calling the p-police!" He then scurried off, dick up his mouth and head in his ass.
He probably wasn't going to call the cops.
Maybe.
After a good two minutes of silence, a voice broke the atmosphere. "...Uh. Nice, uh, nice… job?" It was phrased like a question and very awkward.
It's not everyday you see a werewolf that bites off barely any of someone's arm.
His ear flicked to the new voice, "Yeah… um. Thanks, big— are you okay with 'big man'? Actually, wait, why was that guy— nevermind." He chose to backtrack, afraid it was some gang thing. But when he looked over at them, he realized that was probably wrong.
There were three teenagers, around his age, maybe.
One, the one who was talking to him, had fluffy ears on their head, much like his own, but… more cat-like.
Their hair was curly brown, their eyes brown as well.
They were shorter than Tommy, but about average height. I mean, Tommy is fourteen and six-foot-three.
The person wore a mask for the bottom half of their face, fixing it since it must have gotten messed up.
They wore a black hoodie and what looked like sweatpants, with sneakers. He couldn't tell if they had socks on or not.
Their tail swished nervously behind them, erratic flicks.
The one on their left was completely covered. He couldn't tell what they looked like besides the fact they had a dark grey t-shirt with a design he didn't bother to look at, a black coat over it.
They had dark jeans on and sneakers, along with fingerless gloves.
Their hood was up so he couldn't tell what their hair looked like, and they had a bottom mask along with sunglasses.
'No-face', he dubbed them, had black boots on.
But what intrigued him the most was their wings.
The coat and t-shirt had slits in them, perfectly placed for their wings.
The feathers were narrow and looked sharp; he wondered if they actually were.
The colors, oh, the colors.
Golds, whites, and a few rare light pinks adorned them. They gleamed in the dim light, he would stare forever if he could, caught in awe.
He knew the wings weren't very big, but they were still so very awesome.
When he skimmed their outfit again, a pin caught his eye. He quickly realized it was a pronoun pin, (see, he wasn't completely oblivious!) that read he/him/xe/xeir. .
Okay, now he knows his pronouns.
Lastly, he looked at the last person.
They wore a distant look on their face, like they were spacing out.
Their eyes were… grey, he thought? Maybe hazel. Their hair almost matched his, what he dubbed 'honey' colored hair cut just above their chest, a bit messed up.
The ears were a bit pointy, but looked normal. Well, human-normal; Tommy learned to not judge a book by its cover, though.
Their face wore freckles against pale skin, like they never got any sun. Deep eyebags were on their face, either genetics, stress, sleep, sickness, maybe all.
What they wore was a black crop top, fishnets on their arms, to their hands, but like long fingerless gloves, except fishnets.
They wore dark blue shorts, long white socks pulled up to their knees.
He looked at their feet and they had short boots, five inch heel boots, actually.
The cat and whatever this person was both had black nails, the cat's nail polish more chipped.
No-face had yellow nails, the shade you'd associate with joy, and it made him almost smile.
"Ahem," he cleared his throat, "are you all furries?" Tommy raised his left eyebrow; or he tried to. All he accomplished was raising both of them, damn the universe.
"...you're a werewolf, dipshit." The first one, the cat hybrid, replied. "By your dumb fucking logic, you're also a furry, plus you're British, so you're inferior." They added.
No-face started laughing a bit, the blonde one cracked a smile while suppressing their laugh.
"I am a werewolf, but what's convincing me that you lot don't just have mechanical tails 'n shit for your fuckin' furry stuff?" He countered, his tail wagging a bit in amusement. Tommy couldn't remember the last time he made playful jabs at others without ending up in bruises… or worse.
He thinks he'd take that over the yelling and insults, though.
"Okay, well—" "I win, bitch." Tommy cut them off, a smug smile on his face.
"I also saved your life, so I'm a better person by default." He added.
"Since you saved us, we might as well give a complete rabid-wolf-stranger our names." The feline replied, "I'm Grayson. He, they, xe, doll." They gave him a challenging look, as if just asking him to be rude about the neos.
Tommy just nodded, then No-face spoke up, "Uh, I'm Toby. Pin has my pronouns." Xe said, shuffling a bit.
He looked at the last one, "Oliver or Rev. Pronouns change, but I go by any including nouns and nounselves right now, like 'it' or, uh, 'mew', I don't really care." It said, wringing its hands.
"I'm Tommy, he slash him, but I'm also fine with they-them." He informed them all, "Nice to meet you all, except Grayson." Tommy hoped they took that as a joke, people normally didn't appreciate his jokes; he had the bruises to prove it.
Toby let out a startled laugh, Oliver's cheeks puffed with air trying to keep a straight face, and Grayson's mouth was -what he assumed, from the mask moving away from his nose- agape, a false offended look on his face.
"Stop with the Gray slander; this is so unfair." Grayson joked, faux offense in his words.
"Imagine speaking in third person, bitch." Tommy smirked; he was very pleased with himself. He saved two — no, three people from a big as fuck dude and he was spitting out jokes -or insults, depends on how you look at it- like there was no tomorrow!
Though, if he gets killed by these three strangers — acquaintances, no one else would know, and that was very un-pog, if he says so himself.
(He does.)
"It was nice to meet you lot, but I have many women to get to, so I must be off!" Okay, they're not that intimidating, and they don't look that strong, -maybe Grayson- but looks are deceitful.
You don't need to know how to throw a punch to knock someone the fuck out. It's more smarts, not strength.
You could be jacked and physically capable, but if you're stupid as hell, you're not going to do shit.
Throw kicks and punches all you want, you won't win if you're not also mentally capable and able to adapt to surroundings and use your surroundings.
"Oh, yeah, it is late, isn't it?" Grayson says, (not asks, despite it being phrased as a question. It's not a question he's supposed to answer,) "We need'a go, too. I don't want to be locked out of the building again," The last bit was more-so directed to Toby and Oliver.
"Yeah, uh, well, bye. Tweet about my heroic move, the ladies will love it," Tommy insisted before starting to walk away.
Just barely audible, he heard one of them whisper to the others: "Cis dudes, am I ri—"
He was too far to hear the rest and everyone's reactions, but he heard a loud screech of startled laughter from the person who said it and a yell of: "I'm sorry— it was funny, though!"
He reckons they're right'uns, the lot of 'em.
Now, to go to his apartment, shared with his two friends, Ranboo and Tubbo.
When the building came to view, he let out a sigh of relief, until his pup brain started acting up, chanting, den-nest-playmates-friends-love-love!
'Annoying bitch.' He ignored the slight purr building up at the thought of his bed. (Definitely not his friends, surely not. That wasn't the reason.)
( That's a lie. )
He blinked, he's in front of the apartment building entrance.
He blinked, he's on the stairs.
He blinked, he's in front of his shared apartment door.
He blinked; Tubbo was rubbing his eyes, facing a bright monitor, despite it being on dark mode, on a coding website.
Tommy looked over to the bunk bed, Ranboo passed out on the top bunk, snoring a bit loud.
Tubbo took a moment to register the sound of the door opening and closing, his head snapping to where Tommy was standing.
"Oh, hey, bossman! Ran left work early and passed out on the couch, something about someone being able to take over his night shifts, so he only has to work five AM to three PM." He explained.
Oh. So Tommy will have to pickpocket more and work a few extra hours at Trivial Café.
"Go to bed, Tommy. You look like shit," Tubbo kindly supplied, "I'm goin' to bed soon, this coding commission is gonna take me a few more hours."
Tubbo had been working on that commission for a week now, he must've been relieved that it was almost done.
"Yeah, okay. 'Night, Tubs," Tommy yawned, walking over to his twin sized bed, the springs messed up from various reasons, such as all three having to share it at first— which was unpleasant, given that Ranboo was 6'7, Tommy 6'3, and Tubbo… he wasn't very tall, but it was three people, anyway, and Tommy just crashing onto the bed to sneak-attack the others when they were relaxing.
Ranboo and Tubbo had a white bunk bed, Ranboo had the top, black sheets with two white pillows and an Enderman plush -egotistical bastard, having a plush that was the same species as him- named Oobnar, proudly named by Tubbo. Ranboo's blanket was a once fluffy blanket (it's not as soft and fluffy anymore, probably from drinks being spilled on it which had costed Ranboo money to wash at the laundromat) that was light blue and white, mostly blue.
Tommy thought the name was shit. ( That's a lie. )
Tubbo had the bottom bunk, grey sheets, one white pillow, and two blankets that were plaid, red and black.
Tommy's bed was nothing special, it wasn't customized to his liking like theirs were. It was plain, dark grey sheets that definitely had a few holes (covered by his white pillow which didn't have a pillow case) and a few drink stains that never washed off completely, and a black, thin blanket.
Tommy launched himself onto the squeaky bed -after taking his shoes, bag, and cloak off, you hooligan- and shoved his face into his pillow.
Warm-happy-den-nest-love-warm-sleep, 'Baby Wolf Tommy' purred, happy.
Regret filled his stomach when he realized he still had mud between his toes, and most of it was probably dried.
'Shit.' Was his last thought before he passed the fuck out.