Chapter Text
The sun was shining through the window; it seemed like midafternoon. Garroth did not know where he was; all he knew was that he was in pain and was terrified. The pain was excruciating, and he tried to call out for his friend, the one he was trying to help, Aaron. But before he could, he thought to himself about what had happened, then it hit him like a freight train; he had looked into Aaron's eyes, and that was why he was in so much pain.
Just when he was starting to panic and really think about the situation, Zane walked in and started talking about his day as one does to a coma patient. It had seemed as though Zane did not expect Garroth to be up because he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Garroth's eyes slightly open. Tears flowed from his face.
“Garroth… You’re awake.” Zane hardly managed to get out.
In a hoarse voice, Garroth responded, “Yeah, I guess so,” and continued with, “Where are we?”
“We are back at the house… We didn’t know if you were going to make it, but we couldn’t take you to the Starlight Hospital with what had happened. How would we explain all of this?” Zane started to ramble on and on through the tears, most of it nonsense to the barely conscious Garroth.
Garroth doesn’t think he has ever seen Zane cry this much; it breaks his heart to see his little brother cry. But one thing kept repeating in his head: “How would we explain all of this?” What did that mean, and why did that scare him even more, since he didn’t know what it had meant?
Garroth was too tired to ask; he knew he had the time later to ask all the questions he wanted.
Things started to become apparent to Garroth, like a heart monitor and an IV in his arm, that he had not noticed in the confusion of waking up. He saw that they were in his and Zane's shared room. Which made sense, Zane had literally said they were back at the house.
Zane had walked out of the room, presumably to tell others that he was awake. Garroth did not know if he had said something about leaving or not, but he knew he was safe, in a shit ton of pain, but he was ok for now.
All this thinking had made Garroth so tired that he couldn't stay up, but he wanted to stay awake to talk more to Zane, but he was giving in to the sleep. The constant beeping of the heart monitor did not help; it somehow made him even sleepier, and he did not know why. Maybe it was a feeling of safety; he could actually hear his own heart, and he knew it was still beating. Within minutes, he was out cold.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hours later, it was now pitch dark in the bedroom, and Zane was sleeping on the side of the bed; it looked like he had cried himself to sleep. He could make out another figure in the room, and he assumed that it was his mother in the room. Irene knows it was not his father; Garroth knew his father did not really care about him that much to be worried enough to sleep in a chair. Garroth sat up. He found he had some more strength than before. He had such a dry throat, and all he really wanted was something to drink. He tapped Zane on the shoulder lightly as he was the only one who was close to him at the moment, trying to get his attention without shocking him too much. This plan seemed to fail horribly because Zane jumped up at a scarily fast pace.
“Huh, what do you need? I can get you anything, just name it.” Zane said in a worried, fast voice. “Can you get me some water?” he said in a hushed voice. “Yeah, I can do that, funnily enough, I left earlier to go get some water for you, but by the time I was back, you were asleep, so there is some right over there,” he says as he gets up and walks over to the nightstand, picks up the glass, and hands it to Garroth.
Garroth downs the glass as Zane watches. His throat hurt a little less, and now he wants to ask questions.
Garroth looked at Zane with a confused look and said, “What happened? I know Aaron's eyes looked funny, but I don’t remember anything after that. Was that Ein I saw? How long have I been asleep-” Zane cuts him off and says, “I can answer some of these, but I don’t think I have the best answers. It's all pretty confusing to me, but I will try to answer what I can right now. You were asleep for about a week and a half, and yes we believe that was Ein we saw but nothing can confirm that” it seemed as though the next words were cutting at his heart, and he managed to get out something that left Garroth in shock, and amazement that somehow did not notice, it must have been all of the pain that shielded him from this, “but the r-reason you are like this is because you were transforming” after saying this he chokes back a sob and continues “transforming into a… a werewolf” the last word was so quite that he thought he hear him wrong but soon realized he heard correct as he raise his hand to his head to feel this new thing on his head, fluffy but little werewolf ears.
A feeling of horror sets in as he processes this new information. The thoughts in his head were going a million miles per hour. Did Aaron mean to do this to him? Was it on purpose? All he did was try to stop him from going after Ein. The worst thing that went through his head and leaked out of his mouth, “Am I going to live with this forever?” he felt a tear fall from his eyes; he was scared. He did not hate werewolves; he was friends with so many, but the thought of suddenly becoming one put the fear of Irene into his entire being. When Zane heard Garroth say this thought aloud and started to cry, he pulled him into a tight hug. “We are gonna find some answers, I know we will. Garroth, we know that Aaron took away Eins's ears and tail before, but he was a werewolf his whole life. The personal doctors of the Lycans think it's best to wait; no one has been turned and then unturned. They think it might be dangerous in your current state.” Zane held him tighter as if he was gonna lose him.
All Garroth could do was slowly nod as he cried into Zane's shoulder. He hated himself for being weak in front of his baby brother; he had never genuinely cried in front of him or Vylad like this before, but he could hold it together no longer. It was all too overwhelming in the moment, and all he wanted to do was go back to sleep. After he finished crying while being held by Zane, he again fell back asleep. This time, he didn't wake til the morning.