Zed had never been in the downtown library before. He had a card, but never used it. Eliza comes here all the time, occasionally with Bonzo, but not him.. He never really had a need for the public library when he barely used the school provided one. Wyatt looked relieved to be inside the building, letting out an audible sigh as he draped himself along the provided couch.
"Giving up so soon?" Zed joked, slowly making his way to the endless rows of shelves.
"No way! I'm just taking a small break. Willa made Wynter and I stay up till four in the morning to scan all our library books, for the third time!" Wyatt threw his hands up in the air, "She thinks we're going to find something new everytime we reread a book. I've been in this library twice."
Zed picked a book with a promising cover. "I mean, did you find anything interesting?"
"Nah, I only found a book explaining the history behind witches. Nothing on our current wolf curse." Wyatt yawned and stretched before standing back up. "I should probably check anyway though."
Zed couldn't help but feel bad for Wyatt. Willa didn't seem like the person to just hand out breaks when someone was a little tired. He remembered how frustrated she got when they had done each other's nails. Wyatt seemed like he needed some time off.
"Do you wanna get froyo?" Zed blurted out.
Wyatt's hand froze on the book. Shit, wait, was that weird to ask your friend? Were they friends? They'd been on good terms for a while, ever since Addison broke up with him. So they are, right?
"I mean, I can check out a few books and we can head to the froyo place down the street instead." Zed added quickly, rubbing his neck. Wyatt didn't move. "My treat."
After a few seconds, Wyatt smiled and turned to face Zed, his tail thumping happily against the sofa. "Really?"
"Yeah, I mean, why not? You deserve a break and I'm desperately craving something sweet." Zed shrugged.
"Zed Necrodopoulus, you sure know how to treat a wolf. Let's go!" Wyatt handed Zed a book, racing to go wait by the door.
Ah, okay. That wasn't so bad, was it? Zed placed his newly acquired books on the front desk, letting the librarian scan the books and his card. He noticed his hands had a slight tremble as he picked up the three books. Why was he so nervous? He felt his heart thump against his ribcage as he approached Wyatt, who was eagerly standing by the door.
The froyo shop was slightly more expensive than the cart, but they had a wider variety of flavors. Of course, that didn't really matter to Zed, because he always went with vanilla.
Wyatt was thrilled to see all the flavors the froyo parlor provided. He had eaten the classic vanilla that Zed had suggested, strawberry cheesecake, and cotton candy. Zed didn't mind at all, seeing at how happy Wyatt became with each bite. He assumed he could consume so many calories because of his werewolf metabolism. Lucky him.
"It's a bummer we don't have this stuff at the den, we're usually stuck with wildlife, berries, and nuts in the woods." Wyatt licked his spoon, "It's getting harder to find deer these days, though."
"You guys actually eat wild animals? Raw?" Zed asked before taking a dainty bite from his vanilla froyo. He didn't know if he could stomach another bite after Wyatt's answer.
Wyatt smirked, "We are wild. Besides, you talk as if your ancestors didn't eat brains."
"Touché." Zed muttered, taking another bite of his frozen dessert anyway. "Speaking of being wild, you never explained why you wolves, well, look more like wolves now."
"Oh, these," Wyatt gestured to his fluffy ears. "It happened about an hour before we got to the police den. Our moonstone's went haywire and next thing we knew, we had new appendages."
"Do you think it had anything to do with the fight? Eliza said that the only wolves to ever attack their partners were dating outside of the pack." Zed explained, albeit dumbed down.
Wyatt's face grew concerned. "Maybe. Eliza actually came by the den and said the same thing before we got wind of the incident downtown. We're going to have to keep wolves with human or zombie partners away from them." Wyatt sighed, looking down at the table.
"I guess we can look through these books in the meantime- Before you have to go back to the den and tend to your official pack duties." Zed teased slightly, becoming relieved as he heard Wyatt chuckled under his breath.
"Yeah, you're right. Hand me a book, zombie boy." Wyatt grasped the book he was offered and opened it to a random page.
It was a nice comfortable silence after that. The idle chatter from the other patrons inside the parlor provided a pleasant white noise. It was easy enough for Zed to block them out and focus on the pages in front of him.
It was also slightly easier to drift off into his own mind. The last few weeks were jam packed with events, one thing after the other. The field trip was a blur, which is strange considering the tour was only yesterday. Of course, he remembered the awkward outburst towards Addison and Wyatt saving his life, but he couldn't remember the events in between.
After yelling at Addison he ran off into the woods, punched some stuff, and then Wyatt was separating him from a pack of wild wolves. He must have blacked out or something. Maybe from the amount of stress?
Football was about to kick up again. The first few weeks of school were a sort of break for Seabrook Highschool. The Coach liked to sell ice cream during the hottest weeks of the year, then go right back into coaching football practice. Zed estimated he'd be done by next week.
Zed was snapped back from his thoughts as something tapped against his hand. He looked up to see Wyatt wearing a concerned expression.
"Spacing out much?" Wyatt said.
Zed cleared his throat, "Sorry, I was just," he debated on whether or not to tell Wyatt. He might be able to explain some things on one hand, but he didn't want to add on to Wyatt's already hefty list of worries. "Thinking about football is all." He wasn't lying, he was thinking about the sport.
"Alright then. You wouldn't mind if I grabbed another small cup, right?" Wyatt asked, but Zed didn't think he had much of a choice as Wyatt was already slowly slipping out of his seat, staring at him with hopeful eyes.
For some reason, it was difficult to even want to say 'no' to the werewolf. "Go right ahead." Zed said, smiling. Wyatt was up in a second, already at the counters. The lady gave him a bewildered look, surprised to see him up there again. Zed didn't miss the way Wyatt's tail started wagging again.
Zed went back to looking through the books, realizing that he should probably be focused on reading and not Wyatt. The pages all read exactly the same. Old witchy lady usually, vengeance, selfish, potions, blah blah. They're practically plagiarised from each other. Zed paused, rereading a page after mindlessly staring at it.
No matter the strength of an individual witch, they all have similar weaknesses. If a witch is simply not powerful enough to cast a spell, there's a considerable margin for errors to occur. This margin will expand as the difficulty of the spell increases.
Witches also need to obtain a tremendous amount of focus for spells that go over large distances and/or affect multiple individuals. They will always need a resting period from performing magic before continuing on with the same level of intensity, slowly increasing the power, or dramatically changing her input to the spell.
Resting periods are the most dangerous for witches, as it is easier for them to be killed. With their magic greatly depleted, they are rendered essentially to the status of a human mortal. Some witches manage to avoid this by hunting powerful creatures from magical backgrounds, despite their natural dislike to them, and using them as shields.
Of course, witches enjoy showing them off to others and flaunting them to obtain higher statuses, however, many use them for a second purpose, bodyguards. Witches resting are more vulnerable, much like how creatures need to sleep and are rendered defenseless. Witches will use their exotic creatures to fend off intruders, assassins, and anyone the witch does not want near their home.
"Okay, well, that's new," Zed mumbled to himself, glad he didn't dismiss the page.
"Aw, your shirt is like, totally ruined."
"Yeah, looks like you're gonna need to find a new one, puppy."
Zed froze, because he swore he just heard the ACEY's-wait, did they say puppy?
He turned around in his seat to find all three of the Acey's in front of Wyatt, who had a huge scoop of frozen yogurt smeared all over the front of his shirt. Wyatt wore a polite smile on his face, looking almost apologetic to them. Zed stood up, his chair screeching against the tiled floor, and walked over to the four.
"Why hello, Zed," Jacey sneered, resting his hand on his hip.
"What did they do?" Zed asked Wyatt, completely ignoring the ACEY's in favor of grabbing some napkins and helping get the frozen dessert off Wyatt's shirt. He resisted the urge to snicker when he heard Jacey scoff in disbelief.
"I didn't watch where I was going and accidentally bumped into them. It's no big deal." Wyatt gave a smile, flashing his fangs discreetly at the ACEY's. They didn't miss it.
"Whatever, you two have fun on your date." Stacey rolled her eyes and strutted out, the other two ACEY's giving them a final glare and following in her footsteps. Zed didn't realize the cafe had gone quiet until chatter started back up again. The ACEY's just always had to start a scene.
"I swear they have nothing better to do than follow people and make them miserable." Zed sighed, throwing the napkins in the trash. Wyatt's shirt still didn't look any better, the bright red dessert muddled down and mixed in with the dark orange color of the shirt, creating quite an ugly looking shade of brown.
"You wouldn't happen to have an extra shirt on you, would you?" Wyatt asked, not expecting a positive answer.
"Sadly, no." Zed made a show of checking all his pockets but stopped at his jacket. That's right, he has a jacket. That zips up. "But I have a jacket." Zed offered.
"Are you lending me your jacket in the middle of a froyo cafe?" Wyatt raised a brow and Zed sighed, shrugging off the jacket.
"Yeah, just change into it. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't wear three layers of clothing in this weather." He held out the clothing for the werewolf and he gratefully took it, giving him a smile before walking off into the bathroom to change.
Wyatt's got good definition in his arms. Also, more tattoos than he thought. Not that Zed was purposefully checking him out, but he had never seen his shoulders, or shoulder, as weird as that sounds. They left the cafe after Zed paid, taking their library books while Wyatt held his folded clothes and for some reason, he couldn't stop staring at his arm.
That has to be creepy. He really shouldn't be so fixated on someone's arm, it's literally just skin, like the rest of everybody else's body, nothing special. But, it was different, seeing Wyatt wearing his jacket. The way his muscles flexed when he stretched his arms or adjusted the jacket and-
"Zed? Are you spacing out again?" Wyatt snapped him out of his trance once again, waving his hand in front of his face. "You've spaced out twice this trip, am I boring you?"
No way Wyatt was boring him, quite the opposite actually. "What? No! I'm just a little tired from walking around all day." Zed wasn't lying this time either. He had been walking around for a good handful of hours and was a little tired.
"Right," Wyatt replied, not sounding convinced, but thankfully let it slide. Zed decided to walk in front, to prevent himself from continuing his staring.
Wyatt's hand shot out, dragging him back next to him by the back of his shirt. Zed lost his footing and crashed into Wyatt, dropping his books in the process, but the werewolf didn't budge, only moving his hands to steady the zombie. A bucket full of water was splashed onto the concrete in front of them.
"You missed you dumbass!"
"Well I didn't know they were going to walk back!"
"They can hear you two yelling, you know that right?"
Indeed, they could. Wyatt was less than impressed by this judging by the rumbling noise coming from his chest. Zed bent over to pick the dry (Thank god) library books, seeing to his right that the ACEY's were pressed up against the alley wall, failing miserably at camouflaging themselves.
"Har har, you guys are so funny." Zed straightened back up, dusting off the library books and putting them back in his arms. "Must be hard being so funny all the time. I bet you were going to impress a lot of people by pulling that stunt, huh?"
Stacey huffed, "Oh shut up. Our little prank backfired, so what? We have more where that came from."
"You mean more poorly thought out ideas? Sure," Wyatt pulled Zed to walk with him, away from the three morons.
"Hey, wait! You can't walk away from us like that!" Jacey yelled at them.
Zed did a small check for any children, then held up his middle finger.
They were in the forest now and it was beginning to get dark. The sun was setting gently over the horizon. The two had been walking in silence for a bit, just bathing in the sounds of nature. Zed didn't get to hear it often, only the occasional arguing from neighbors and the TV's blaring noise on the nights his father fell asleep watching TV. It was so different. So relaxing.
"Do you always want to be out here?"
Wyatt looked confused, "What do you mean?"
"The outdoors, nature, do you enjoy all of it? Or are there nights where you wished you lived in town, with air conditioning, and supermarkets so you don't have to worry about where your next meal will come from?"
"It gets hard out here sometimes, with winter making it more difficult to take down prey, and the occasional altercations with hunters trying to shoot in our territory, but I still love it here. This forest is the only home I've ever known. My family has lived here for generations and they have always protected this forest. I grew up admiring the beauty of nature and to not take too much or too little. A change of scenery is always interesting though, and provides room for new perspectives. Sorry if that didn't answer your question." Wyatt replied, absentmindedly brushing his free hand along the plants that passed by. "What about you? Do you always want to be in town?"
It took a little bit to process everything Wyatt had said. He wasn't expecting an in depth answer from such a laid back guy. He must really love his home to have had such a fond look on his face.
"Me? Not really. I mean, Seabrook is still getting used to the fact that zombies are allowed to roam free and use the same bathrooms as them. With werewolves here now, the city feels like it's being strained, as if we're asking too much, to simply be treated as equals. It sucks sometimes, but I guess like what you said, I still like it here despite the bad. Yeah, people are awful and should just shut up, but I've made so many good memories with my friends in this town that it almost evens out. I love Seabrook, but hate the humans."
Wyatt slowed his walking to a stop, Zed following suit. "Aren't you the main reason the town is allowing zombies and werewolves to walk in? Addison helped too, but you've done so much for the town, praising it and uplifting it so it can be a place you're proud to live in."
"I guess you're right, but sometimes I wonder if it's even worth it. Still have a bunch of racists." Zed laughed dryly.
Wyatt gripped Zed's shoulder. "Listen, Zed. I haven't been in the town for nearly as long as you have, but I can still sense a change everyday. I know you love your home, if you didn't you wouldn't have even bothered. I know it's not necessarily your job, but you and your friends have done such great work by letting people see things from a new angle. This conversation is a little different from our usual banter, but it's always good to sometimes voice doubts. I also hated the humans when they started to pollute the forest, but us werewolves got together and cleaned it up." There was a shift in Wyatt's eyes, they turned softer, the firm grip on Zed's shoulder receded to a gentle placement of his hand. "Afterall, when you love something, you want to keep it safe."
Something happened, Zed didn't know what or when, but he was suddenly aware of his pounding heart, it sounded as if his blood was roaring in his ears. He was leaning down, Wyatt was leaning up, his eyes slipped close as he felt fingers run through the back of his hair. He was so warm.
Wyatt's comforting hands were jerked away and Zed's eyes flew back open, he pulled even farther away, suddenly taking deep breaths. He looked to Wyatt, who had his back turned to him and was hunched over, looking as if he was in pain.
"Wyatt? Are you-are you okay?" Zed stuttered, his hands had a vice grip on the library books now, not knowing where else to release his sudden panic.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just-" Wyatt made a pained noise from the back of his throat and Zed rushed up to him, opting to place the books on a nearby rock.
"You're not. Let's get you back to the den and-"
Wyatt turned around at that,holding his hand up to Zed. "No, no, it's all good." The werewolf straightened up, cracking his neck. "See? I'm fine, it must have been all that froyo I ate." He said with a smile that did not reach his eyes.
"Okay, but we still have to get these books back to the den so I can just come with you to make sure you're-"
"No!" Wyatt's eyes flashed yellow, his voice sounding almost panicked. It had taken Zed by surprise and Wyatt immediately changed his tone, "I mean, no, it's cool. You go ahead and head home before it gets too dark to see."
"Are you sure?" Zed couldn't believe he was going to just let Wyatt walk away.
"Yeah," Wyatt had picked up the clothes and books and was already turned around. He paused for a moment. "Be safe," he finally said and headed towards the den.
Zed stood there for a few moments, not understanding the situation. Had he done something wrong? Wyatt must have changed his mind halfway through and ran away. Zed was already regretting letting him walk away so soon and with such a poor excuse. What had even been happening? He had to have been doing something Wyatt hated, where did it go wrong? They were talking for a bit, Wyatt had reached up and-oh my god.
They were about to kiss.
"Fuck."
(Thank you for waiting so long, and sorry there aren't any pictures this time, I couldn't get the illustrations to look the way I wanted. Thank you so much for reading the story so far <3)