“Oh, the poor man must be exhausted…”

Annie Sawyer cupped her hands beneath her chin and stared across the room at George Sands, who lay half-curled up on the floor amidst a massive amount of debris and damaged furniture. His pale, naked body lay motionless on the wood floor except for the slow rise and fall of his chest, and he rested on his left side with his right leg slightly scissored forward in an unconscious position of modesty, hiding his genitals from view. George’s head rested on one stretched-out arm, with his right hand drawn close to his face, and if he’d drawn his hand just a tad closer to his face, he could’ve easily regressed to sucking his thumb for comfort after the previous evening‘s traumatic events.

John Mitchell, who’d been staring around the demolished downstairs living space in shock, blinked and looked at Annie with the same stunned expression. He surveyed the area again with open-mouthed wonder--this time, not at the damage done, but at his flatmate‘s reaction to it all.

Our things have been torn to shreds… her things have been torn to shreds, and she couldn’t care less, Mitchell observed. She’s a good person, our Annie…

He quickly got his emotions under control as Annie turned to him, and her dark questioning eyes asked what had to be done. Mitchell gave her a tight-lipped smile.

“I’ll get him upstairs,” Mitchell whispered.

Annie nodded. “And I’ll… get started down here,” she replied in a soft voice. She took a step to her right, paused, then redirected herself to weave through the mangled remains of the furniture. “If I can get to the kitchen,” she muttered.

Mitchell picked his way across the main room carefully. He had two issues on his mind: one, he didn’t want to fall and break a leg in the mess before him, and two, he didn’t want to wake George from sleep. The man hadn’t slept well for about a week and a half (“I can‘t get my brain to turn off,” George had complained. “It‘s like the smallest issues are of major importance all of a sudden”), and the previous evening’s transformation certainly hadn’t helped his already-exhausted body. Another concern rested with just how much of the wolf lingered; Mitchell knew he could fend off any attack from the mortal George, but out of general concern for his friend, he didn’t want the wolf’s keen hearing to disturb George’s much-needed slumber.

With a grace born from a hundred years of earthbound life, Mitchell made his way around George and rolled him onto his back. He then slipped his hands underneath George’s prone body, one arm under the man’s knees and the other arm around his shoulders, then hoisted George up with a grunt as he stood. He breathed a sigh of relief as his concerns about George’s hearing appeared unfounded; the form in his arms barely stirred. His mouth slacked open as his head rolled back over Mitchell’s coat sleeve. His slack, unrestrained penis flopped to the left as Mitchell gave a quick hoist of the body, in order to better reposition George in his arms.

With care, Mitchell maneuvered his way towards the stairs, turned slightly, and moved George sideways up the narrow staircase, his own steps sideways and executed with caution so as not to risk dropping George. The young man’s eyes remained closed the entire time, oblivious to the carry-journey that he found himself on.

Mitchell, however, endured the trip with a tightness in his chest. He had the strength, of course--he tapped into that extraordinary vampire strength that had allowed his kind to live for thousands of years, so that made the physical part of his task easy--but the odd, delicate moment pulled at his heartstrings.

How long had it been, he wondered, since George had been carried like a baby, bare-bummed and unconscious to the world, completely trusting those around him to take care of him? How long, in fact, had it been since Mitchell himself could say the same thing? Not from infancy, surely. As for experiencing such a deep level of trust, that element about humanity had almost been stripped from their grasp with the first bites and scrapes to their bodies. Sure, they’d come to trust one another and they’d come to trust Annie. But so few other opportunities made it possible for them to let go, to give themselves to another person so completely…

Mitchell pivoted and guided his burden through the doorway of George’s bedroom (the gnome room, his mind echoed), then hesitated because the bed, in typical anal-retentive George fashion, had been well-made. After a moment of indecision, he cautiously lowered George’s feet to the floor, let the man’s upper torso lean against his, then reached out and quickly snatched the coverlet and top sheet back.

“C’mon, George,” he whispered, more to himself than to his sleeping friend. “Time for bed.”

Lifting George’s legs again, Mitchell tucked them in between the sheets and shifted George from his arms to the bed, this time resting him on his right side as he tucked him in. Mitchell gave one last swat to lay the sheet over his naked body, then stood there for a few minutes, staring at that peaceful, worry-free expression with new amazement. He’d never watched George sleep before, but Mitchell caught a glimpse of something that he so rarely saw: the real George, free from anxiety and fear… and from that deep-rooted yet always denied level of anger he carried around. Just as he lay stripped of his clothes, so, too, did George lay stripped of his burden. Wolf time had ended, and he had a long stretch of days before it came again. Caught up in sleep, he didn’t have his genius brain gnawing at him, reminding him of all he knew and all he’d given up after the dreaded transformation.

For that space of time, Mitchell could see George as a regular person--one who loved animals (Lord knows that no living creature would tolerate their presence now, sensing the wrongness of what they had become), someone who cared for himself and others, and who had been an important, contributing member of human society…

Reduced to nothing more a konked-out, snoring form in a cheap bed, above some trashed flat in Bristol.

Mitchell left the bedroom and eased the door shut behind him; the metal lock barely clicked as he turned it into place. He walked back downstairs, then paused as he entered the main room.

Annie had worked diligently to clean things up and, in true ghost form, had done a wonderful job in a very short amount of time. The abilities that she’d once used to stack furniture and frighten away tenants in “her” house had been put to use again, so now the majority of the broken heavy items rested in a corner while she undertook the more normal, mortal task of sweeping. She smiled at Mitchell as he nodded to her, gave her a smile of his own, and began cleaning.

“Is he all right?” she asked.

Mitchell nodded. “George is having a wonderful sleep.” He glanced around at the disaster area. “I truly envy him that right now.”

“It’s not like he did all this on purpose,” Annie reminded Mitchell gently. “And you did encourage him to transform in the house, you know.”

He nodded sagely. “Yes, I know. Which makes this as much my fault as his, I suppose. I thought perhaps in a confined space, there would be less… action from the creature.”

Annie smirked. “You thought locking a four-hundred pound wild animal in your house comes without consequences, eh?”

He put his hands on his hips and puffed out a breath. “I really had no idea how violent and scary the whole experience would be. Or how loud.”

“I suspect there‘ll be some explaining to do to the neighbors,” she remarked.

Mitchell shook his head. “No. I’ve got friends in the police force. If they didn‘t show up after all that ruckus last night, then they‘re not going to…” He winced as he looked at the black leather sofa that he adored so much, now up righted thanks to Annie but missing its seating. “Oh, no! The cushions,” he muttered. Annie gave Mitchell a sympathetic glance and continued sweeping.

“And to think,” she muttered, “that I’d just done the Hoovering in here, too.”