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Furball bristled as he retreated into the dark recesses of an alley, ears pinned against the crackle of the battle outside, and teeth bared at the enemies slowly creeping closer. He may have been down an eye -glued shut from the blood dripping down his brow- and a set of claws -putting pressure on the gaping wound that raked over his ribs- but the look in his eyes was wild and vicious, and gave his attackers pause.
“ Come closer, I dare you .” Brin taunted in Zuunian, ending with a snap of teeth comparable to a gunshot in sound alone. And though they had a job to do, neither one was eager to find out whether his bite felt the same.
“Easy, doggy, just come on nice an’ easy and we won’t hurtcha.” The one on the left placated, reaching slowly for the black baton on her hip.
“ That makes one of us. ” Brin snarled, coiling up like a spring secured with zip ties, dangerous and liable to go off at any moment.
“All you gotta do is take a nice nap for us, that’s all.” The other soothed, shuffling closer. “One little nap and you’ll be on your merry way home to daddy.” Brin’s entire body tensed, back claws digging into the concrete as they closed in with intentions now clear. With a newfound fury for them lit by an old grudge, it was easy to pick them out from the shades of red his vision was turning to.
——————
When Garth touched down in a random alleyway, he really wasn’t expecting much. Brin had disappeared in the middle of the fight, and his ring had come up unresponsive when they tried pinging it, so the entire team had taken to manually canvassing the surrounding city blocks for any trace of the giant Furball.
“Timbit, you down here?” He called absently, glancing around at the glassy metal walls that rose up high on either side of him, a stark contrast to the gritty dumpsters and filthy ground settled down low beneath his feet. “C’mon, man, Tinya’s gettin’…antsy.” He fell to a stop at the sight of a black boot, hidden in the shadow of a dented dumpster, and slowly looked ahead.
Dark, drying blood spattered across the concrete, centered around two twitching bodies clothed in enemy colors. Between the two, swaying like a popsicle stick house in the wind, stood Furball Brin. His claws and arms darkened in gore, heaving pained breaths and baring his left side to protect his right.
“Oh, B , what’d you get yourself into?“ Garth reached for him without thinking, hand open and trusting and-
Brin’s jaws snapped shut centimeters away from his fingertips, the shock of it causing them both to recoil from each other in fear and surprise. Garth drew in on himself, protecting his arm with his prosthetic on instinct, and Brin lowered himself to the floor like a scolded dog, still leaning his injured side towards the wall.
Garth wanted to yell at him -to spit and aggravate until Brin blew up on him- like he did with everyone else, to ignore the problem and cause a different one to lessen the original, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t.
He couldn’t not look at the way Brin seemed to be shaking apart on three limbs, couldn’t unsee the fear lacing through every corded muscle and raised hair, or stop tracing the red staining at his grey fur. He couldn’t block out the sharp, panicked sounds either; low yelps and growls and trills that sounded like noise to any other person came to Garth as broken pleading.
It was a Zuunian tumble of begging, for forgiveness, for help, and to not be hurt, as well as an ever-growing string of ‘no’s that tied like a noose around Garth’s throat. He carefully relaxed his arms, keeping his hands up in view like he was he was surrendering.
“B…” He started slowly, taking a tiny, inching step that had the wolf’s wildly darting eye zeroing in. “You know me, puppy. You know I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Brin rattled warningly at him, but even that sounded hollow, an empty threat as Garth took another few steps, carefully avoiding the flung-out arm of one of the unconscious enemies.
“I just want to get you home-“ Brin stiffened at that, lips pulling back, and Garth hastily corrected himself, “- our home, B, ours! Not whatever shit these idiots tried to sell you.”
Garth was close enough now that he could reach out and hold Brin’s cheek if he wanted to, but he simply let his hands fall to his side instead, and his wolf fell silent.
“It’s okay , Brin, I’m here now. If either of these fucks wake up again, they’re gonna have to go through me, and we both know I don’t go down easy.” Hesitantly, Brin stretched for him, teeth clicking in their normal thinking way until his muzzle pressed into Garth’s chest.
“Hi, doll.” Smiling bittersweetly, Garth carefully took his partner’s head in his hands, thumbing at the dried blood that darkened his cheek and glued his right eye shut. “They sure did a number on you, huh?”
He glanced back at the prone bodies on the ground and tapped at his communicator.
“ Glad to see you did one on them too. Hey, Brainy, could you call the SP to my location? We got a couple more from earlier.”
“ They’ve been alerted, have you found Timberwolf yet? ”
“Yep. Lil worse for wear, but he’s still up and grumbling.”
“ That’s good. Feel free to head home once the Police show up.”
“Will do, bud.” He hummed, tapping his comm again and rifling through his belt. “Might wanna sit down, doll, it’s gonna be a minute.” Huffing gratefully, Brin did just that, yelping as the movement jostled his paw from his wound.
“You never make things easy, do you?” Garth asked, easily holding his partner’s giant head back from affrontedly shoving him into the ground. “Oh, keep your socks on, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Gives me somethin’ t’do. Now, sit still.”
And even though he pulled a face, and winced at the burn of a wet wipe on his brow, Brin listened and leaned in, good eye lidding into a tiny sliver of amber.