Chapter Four:

Growling Pains

The situation in Ethan's bedroom was getting really bad, REALLY fast. The bedroom lights were on and cast light in every nook and cranny of the room possible, making Allison cease to turn her head in any direction towards Danny or himself. Here he was, not but feet away from the bed Danny sat on to his left, completely in the nude and staring at the side of Allison's head as she gingerly shyed away so as to not accidentally look where she didn't need to. His hand stayed frozen on the lightswitch, the other dangling limp at his side, but both of his arms felt numb from everything going on around him. He wondered why Allison refused to look in his general direction, forgetting altogether the one major part about the situation that gave it the awkward atmosphere everyone was being crushed under. Noticing her ever blushing face and tilted head, he caught on quickly enough and leaned down to retrieve a discarded pair of jeans previously belonging to Danny. He gulped a hard swallow in embarrassment as his eyes shot back and forth between her and his now broken closet doors. He wasn't entirely sure which scenario he was upset about more at this point, and doubted he'd even have an answer if he was asked later on. Maybe Allison's presence and the closet door she slipped out of held the same weight, he'd later figure.

Allison on the other hand, was frozen in place; her eyes closed despite her head being turnt far enough to the side where neither Ethan nor Danny were visible. She couldn't even believe what was happening and it involved her. Quite literally smack dab in the middle of something that was about to spiral out of control, and yet Allison still believed none of it was happening. Or at least she wanted to believe it wasn't. A quick question of why things like this don't happen to normal teenage girls passed her mind, but she quickly dismissed it. Her life- by no means -was considered "normal" and she knew that it was futile to inquire to her "lucky stars" with fantasies like that. Still, she liked to think that even her abnormal life would hold back on things matching this level of absurdity... There's only so much a girl can stand to take all at once...

And then there was Danny, who's pulse was beating so rapidly that even Allison could hear it- werewolf powers or none. He shot a look to Ethan, but it made his heart hurt. No, literally, he felt like he was in utter pain. In the back of his mind, he imagined that this was what you feel just before the beginning of a heart attack. Did Allison's abrupt appearance really scare him that badly? Was he even old enough for a heart attack? He was certainly too healthy for one, that was for sure, but the thought of collapsing on the bed from heart failure seemed so realistic at this point that it only made his pain worse. Just like Allison, Danny wouldn't move, and Lana Del Rey only added to the awkwardness as she finished the last remaining lines of her song...

...Oh, boy you're starry eyed...

Lie back... Baby, lie back...

...You've got heaven in your eyes...

I like that... Oh, I-

Hearing this, and being the only one close enough to do so, Danny reached over and closed the laptop with a loud slam. He was still barren and exposed to the world, so he felt, but Allison couldn't see and Ethan payed him enough respect not to look in his direction either. The music cut short just before the final lines of the song went along, leaving Ethan, Allison and himself in utter silence- not even the noise of the outside world bothering to intrude on the awkward situation. What felt like a loop of hours in repeated silence was really only a real minute or so from Allison's initial fall from the closet behind her. When Ethan finally spoke up, however, it still felt as if they'd all been stuck in the never-ending spell of deja vu.

"Allison?!" he yelled in disbelief, finally pulling his mind back enough to realize who she was. With a quick sniff no one seemed to notice, he could finally remember where that flowery perfume scent came from, and his stomach flew into knots at the cognizance.

Danny forced himself to pass another glance between Allison and Ethan, both of whom still would not look in his direction. His mind began to race with questions he wanted to ask, but didn't truthfully want the answer to.

"What're you doing in my closet?!" Ethan asked, surprisingly knocking one of Danny's own questions off the list.

Allison didn't speak, merely flinching at the raising levels in Ethan's tone. Her head still wouldn't move, but her mouth pleaded with her to at least say something.

"Er...I...gah... I'm...Ah..." she simply said, speaking more gibberish than she had the intelligence for.

Nice job, Allison. GREAT answer!

Hey, at least her brain still worked...

Danny was insulted by Allison's less-than-satisfying reply. Despite his nudity, he jumped from Ethan's bed in a frenzy, pushing him aside as he beelined for the door.

Noticing this, Ethan recovered from his now downed position, and reached out for Danny to stay.

"Wait!" he yelled as he stood himself back upright. Danny quickly pulled away and snatched the pants now dangling around Ethan's waistline. They were now inches apart, with Danny sliding back on his pants with no boxers beneath and Ethan slipping on his newly found boxer-briefs.

Now fully clothed, or at least dressed enough for some type of conversation, Ethan pleaded with his boyfriend.

"I can explain this, alright?" he said.

Danny had heard that before. Plenty of times before... It was the same type of crap he'd been fed from ex's who were caught in the act as well. He wondered if he could even call this situation being "caught in the act", because if he could, then it meant something that Danny was just way too out of it to contemplate without giving himself a sickening migraine afterwards. The fact that he was finding himself in some of the exact same feelings that those past situations left him in made his face turn a fiery red. This time, an anger he never knew himself capable of conjuring stirred itself inside of him. Danny had been able to get aggressive enough during lacrosse- hell, even cross-country practice brought out a little bit of an adrenaline coated anger within him -but the anger he felt now was much different.

It was so infuriating in fact that he had no idea why tears started pouring out of his eyes when he came up to Ethan and gave him the hardest punch he could manage. Hitting him squarely in the jaw.

"Oh my god...!" Allison squealed in utter disbelief.

She was facing the both of them now, and the sudden shriek halted Danny from continuing his onslaught the way he wanted to.

At this point, Allison was just watching, having somewhat gotten over the childishness of flinching away from their now partial nudity. She had seen enough of them both tonight as it is and looking away now would just be ridiculous. She was looking for the whole while after they'd both gotten themselves moderately dressed. Both were still shirtless- and Danny's pants were still slipping a little too far below his waist from the lack of a belt or underclothing -but she'd more or less seen them like that after lacrosse practice anyways. Seeing a guy with no shirt on wasn't nearly as bad as seeing two chicks without a bra on by a long shot... to her at least... As she quickly got over their bare skin, she could only watch as Danny reeled back and socked Ethan like he had done. The blunt of the blow wouldn't do much damage to Ethan at all thanks to his lycanthropy- and Allison knew that. Still, her hand clasped quickly enough around her own jaw as Ethan tripped over himself from the punch and landed in the embrace of his mattress.

"You son of a bitch!" Danny yelled as he restrained himself from pouncing over onto Ethan and physically destroying him. He had a mind to do- and say -the same to Allison, but the girly gasp she let out as Danny hit Ethan earlier made him remember what gender she still was and he talked himself out of it quickly enough. Still, he wasn't without words for the both of them.

"I trusted you, Ethan!" he continued, his voice cracking as tears threatened to escape faster than he could control. "I trusted you and..." His gaze shot to Allison, the sheer coldness of the glare making her jump back in shock. "...And you... And you go and pull off something like this?!"

"I can explain, Danny!" Ethan said as he tried to focus enough on his dislocated jaw to start the healing process. He could still manage to talk enough to try and reason with him, though. "I swear I had no idea-"

Danny quickly cut him off, pointing an accusing finger at Allison but never breaking eye contact with Ethan.

"And what the hell is she doing hiding out in your closet anyways?!" Ethan rubbed his jaw as his throat began to catch. He wanted to burst into tears right along with Danny, but felt like he didn't have the permission to do so.

"Is this what you made me come over for?! Some awkward threesome with someone else's girlfriend!?"

Allison attempted to step in. Calmly. Softening her voice. She tried to mediate the situation before it got any heavier.

"Now wait, Danny-"

His finger turned into a fist as Danny's voice reached an epic volume. "You shut the hell up, Allison!" he screamed, making dead eye contact with her as he yelled it.

Defeated, she had no choice but to oblige.

Ethan was now back on his feet, trying to pass over the one step it would take to get close enough to Danny to hold him in place.

"Danny, please..." he begged, not testing him further by actually taking that step outwards. "Just listen to me, okay?"

It was pointless. Danny was already so pulsed with adrenaline that everything he was saying at this point was a heartbroken verbalization of every bit of pain he was feeling now.

"You're some piece of work, Danny! You really had me fooled!" At least his hands weren't balled into fists anymore, but Ethan was more so worried about the alarmingly fast pace Danny's heart started to race in. It was unlike anything he'd heard his heart do, and that made him begin to panic inwardly as his inner wolf listened in on it.

"...What was all this for, huh?" Danny continued with a confused shrug. "Why the movies? The pizza? ...Why the hell would you put all that effort into something so stupid?!" He started to feel sick as his subconscious gave him a ludicrous answer. "Was it all just a front, Ethan...?"

Danny's question felt like another hard punch- this one to Ethan's gut - as he asked.

"Was it just to add my name to your bucket list? To try and see how long it would take for me to fall for you...?" He choked as his next sentence escaped him like a solemn whimper. "...To tell you that I loved you...?"

Both Allison and Ethan spoke up this time. Danny was thinking so irrationally at this point that even she sympathetically wanted to burst into tears. She managed to let loose a few drops during Danny's rant that she couldn't help but release. Her guilt was pilling up into something unmovable, but Ethan's heart was crumbling to pieces around him.

"Danny, stop!" they said, hearing enough.

"No! You stop!" Danny shouted back, throwing an arm around as if to push their voices away.

He looked once more at Allison, her eyes now flowing with sorrowful tears, and once more back to Ethan...who stood there with less than a sliver of moisture in his own.

"...Just stop..." he finished with a final painful sob.

Ethan and Allison again said nothing. They couldn't even begin to with Danny being as irate as he was. Nothing they could say- or wanted to say -would get through to him strongly enough to where he would even consider listening to them. To them, Danny was just hurt from thinking he had been tricked by another boyfriend. But the harsh reality of it all was that Danny was going through the painful realization of thinking that he could honestly trust no one. Friends were becoming an even bigger curse to him than his boyfriends were, and one Jackson Whittemore crossed his mind as he thought about this. Even those he held dear to him as his best friends had all eventually deserted him and left without less than a word of a goodbye. No one had ever truly been there for Danny...

Not his parents.

Not his friends.

...Not even Ethan...

And the pure agony these emotions gave him made Danny plead with his conscious, begging it to cease and leave him alone... For everyone and everything to just go away...

"...Please just stop..." he said again, but this time to a presence bigger than Allison and Ethan altogether. He almost shrank down on himself and fell to his knees from his sobs, which were growing more and more intense by the second. Allison and Ethan could do nothing, and that alone was causing them the same pang of helplessness that no one would want to feel for their friends.

He took the fact that Ethan wasn't crying as a sign that everything he had said so far was true:

...That Ethan was just like all the other guys...

...That he only went to all this trouble for some sick three-way fantasy...

...That Ethan didn't actually love him the way Danny thought he might've...

...That he was just another pretty face with an ugly personality to match...

Attempting to cope with that realization, Danny opened up the door to Ethan's room, ran out of it in a hurry and let the force of his pull slam it shut behind him. Ethan tried to run up to Danny and catch him before he made it out into the hallway, but it was too late. For once, not even his werewolf speed was quick enough to grab hold of his estranged lover.

As he pulled away from the door, now shut in front of him, Ethan's arm lightly bumped something soft close behind. Forgetting who else was with him for a brief moment, his head snapped back, shocked at whom he failed to remember was there. He noticed Allison's hand pulling back from the door as well and she instinctively took a few good steps back from Ethan's position. His eyes grew wide in disbelief. Allison was really in his room? She was really hiding in his closet that whole time? The physical reason Danny left out in such a saddened rage was still but mere steps away from him? ...And he was just going to do nothing about it?! The unfathomable hatred Ethan was feeling bubbled over deep within his being. His eyes glowed a foreboding shade of yellow that Allison grew uneasy upon watching.

Noticing the flesh around his face curling back in a snarling motion, she stood her ground and allowed her stance to show that she was preparing for the worst.

Hoping things could be discussed before they got that far, Allison maintained her soft tone, and put her arms up slowly.

"Ethan..." she calmly uttered. "Let me explain before this gets out of hand, okay?"

She'd forgotten her cellphone in her right hand, but Ethan noticed it right away. His wet guttural snarling continued underneath a murderous glare as his eyes shot up to it, and what he heard sent him into a fit of pure madness...

...Allison...?

It was Lydia, yelling into the phone from the other end of the call she never hung up on... Allison couldn't quite hear it, and didn't even notice Ethan was listening before it really was too late.

...Hello?...

...Did you get out of Ethan's place yet...?

Did they notice you were there?

Oh, god! I bet the looks on their faces would've been priceless!

...Allison?

...Helloooo~~~?

You still there, honey?

Don't tell me you're still stuck in his closet?!

Oh, for Christ's sake, girl!

Just run out of there while they're still gettin' busy!

They'll never even know you were in there!

...Allison!? Hey, Allison-!

Ethan had heard enough. Every single thing Lydia said only threw more forest into the path of the wildfire that was Ethan's inner wolf. Before he knew it, a huge hole presented itself in the wall that used to hold the lightswitch to the bedroom. In his rage, Ethan swung an arm around and sent it crashing into the whole of it, causing a huge shower of sparks to fly off before the power in the room went out completely. The booming sound of the smash sent a jolt of fear through Allison that caused her to drop her phone to the floor, it falling to pieces once it hit the ground below. The call with Lydia ended there, and left her alone in the pale moonlight with what was quickly becoming a deranged animal.

In the ominous darkness the moonlight created, Allison could almost feel the paralyzing fierceness of Ethan's phosphorescent eyes. His mouth drooled over with thick clouds of maddened foam, matching a wild dog in appearance. With one quick motion, his head tilted upward, and a blood curdling howl echoed throughout the room, shaking the very foundations of the house itself. Framed pictures, closet shelves and even Ethan's laptop all fell from their orignal perches, crashing to the ground below in broken messes. Luckily enough, Danny wasn't there for any of this, probably long gone by now with no real purpose for coming back.

"Ethan, listen to me!" Allison shouted over his screams. She could tell nothing she said had gotten through to him though.

Ethan swung another arm to the other side of him, shattering the closet doors where Allison had just seconds prior been standing. His body now formed the frightening figure of his werewolf form, something Allison hadn't seen since she couldn't remember when as it towered over her. He was now mere inches away from her, and way more than his average difference in height over her, baring his fangs in such a threatening way that left Allison with little choices left. Remembering something given to her by the order of her Argent bloodline, she reached to her side and pulled out the trusty Wolf Taser baton she always carries. It was just in the nick of time too, because just as Ethan lunged at her, did she pry open the mutli-tiered weapon and zap Ethan's midsection in midair. The shock of the stabbing motion, and the twenty something thousand volts of electricity she sent coursing through his body, left Ethan in a paralyzed mess of himself on the floor behind her. He was rendered unconscious as he slammed into the nearby wall headfirst and his liveliness suddenly slipped away from him in a matter of seconds.

After about a half an hour later, Ethan was left alone in the darkness of his bedroom. The power was still out, that much he could tell from the blood red outline everything had. He could see fairly decently in the darkness, and for some odd reason that was the color everything took to when he was forced to look out into the pitch black of the room around him. Moonlight wasn't seeping into his room like before, the moon having retreated away with the night sky to leave Ethan alone with his thoughts. He was lying on his back in the unsettling comfort of his bed, obviously by Allison's doing. He didn't have to sniff to notice it, but he was the only one in the house now. Despite the howl he let out earlier, Aiden had not managed to return just yet and he found himself scared to be so alone when he needed his brother's company so badly. A wet cloth had been placed on his forehead, and it was starting to irritate him. With an angered toss, he threw it off and it hit the wall with a splat as it fell to the floor seconds later. This left Ethan with no distractions from what had occurred. Nothing to take his mind off the perfect night that he thought he had planned from start to finish.

He kept going over the "if-only's":

If only he had managed to remember that scent. If only he'd have listened to his instincts and found Allison earlier. If only he hadn't suppressed his abilities just to be as human as he could manage to be with Danny...

...'With Danny'... he thought as he felt around his beddings. Seconds later, he sadly realized whom he was looking for was no longer there.

The events of the night would apparently not let themselves be forgotten. Sure, Ethan had been unconscious, but he wasn't so comatose to where he would forget something like this that quick. As the sounds of more broken glass and wooden planks fell down around him, he tried to come to terms with the fact that Danny was gone. With the misunderstanding of tonight being as strong as it was, Ethan doubted he would get him back so easily, either. His throat caught as he pondered this- pondering how unfair it all was. Why was karma being such a bitch to him now? Of all the chances Ethan gave her to do her worst, the idiot goes and ruins the one night he expected absolutely nothing to go wrong on.

What he was feeling at this point was a familiar pain, and his eyes began to itch with the preliminary signs of it. His heart was broken. It had been beaten to a pulp and spat on as it was mocked and ridiculed like it was less than nothing. He felt it was being tossed about like toys by the very hands who had created it. As he blamed the universe for his woes, Ethan's subconscious mind wished he wouldn't think like he was. It did nothing to help as his eyes flooded over with moisture. But he didn't stop them from coming. The bad thoughts nor his tears. He was now finally alone enough to where the full force of his emotions could come out. His heart was heavy, so heavy that he wished he could just rip it out and let it drag the house down on top of him under its weight. Ethan whimpered as he wept, his child-like sobs coming out worse than Danny's managed to. Ethan had felt this pain before, but only once. It was just before his drastic move to Beacon Hills, when he had more enemies than friends, and Danny wasn't even a factor up until a few weeks later.

As insult added to injury, Ethan's phone vibrated nearby. It was on the floor, in a pair of pants that Ethan realized was his own. Weakly, he pulled himself up to retrieve it, and wanted to literally die when he saw who it was from.

New Text Message From

-Danny-

If he was being sarcastic about karma being a bitch at first, he meant it now more than ever- and in all seriousness, too. He had forgotten that his cellphone reminds him of the texts he never opens by resending them later as fake "new messages". If it weren't for the timestamp that read just around the head of nine o'clock earlier that night, Ethan would have ended up more heartbroken than he already was by thinking it was an actual new message and opening it up to read it. He knew better than to think that now, and assumed this text to be the one that he didn't open when he'd met Danny at the door. He was scared to open it, for some irrational fear of it being a written form of their impromptu break-up, but did so anyways to scan over its contents:

"Are you going to open the door and let me in

or just leave me out in the dark all night lol"

It was the text Ethan had asked Danny to send when he arrived. It made the tears flowing from his eyes increase in their intensity, and the sobs that followed weren't screaming for Danny to come back. He kept remembering the first time his heart had been broken like it was today and the only person he could cling to to make the pain dissipate kept popping into mind. Ethan shut his eyes as tightly as he could manage, trying to shut out the demons of his past with it. When he realized it wasn't going to work, that everything was coming back full-swing and was coupling with the thought of losing Danny for no good reason, he began crying out in pained howls.

Ethan sat up over the edge of his bed. He felt cold, looked pale, was badly shivering and was one hundred percent positive his face was turning green. He hated this feeling and didn't know how to stop it. It scared him, mostly because he never thought he'd have to feel it again.

Not tonight... he thought. Everything was supposed to be so perfect tonight... I don't want to feel like this anymore, Aiden...

As loudly as he could, for as long as he could manage, Ethan called out for his brother. His lycan howls vibrated against the shattered walls of the room causing more rubble to fall around him and pelt at him as it did. He wanted Aiden to return from where ever the hell he was and come help him keep his sanity. He didn't care how childish he looked, how helpless he felt, he was going to scream, shout and howl for as long as it would take for him to come home.

And until he did, Ethan was going to howl... and I'll bring the whole damn house down with me if he doesn't...