Pain crackled through Titus as he returned to consciousness. His head was literally pounding, a throbbing echo of his heartbeat that felt like it was going to split open his skull. Another bone deep ache had set up residence in his left leg, somewhere between the knee and ankle. All his muscles screamed in protest at the slightest shift to the point that he seriously wondered if every inch of his skin was black and blue. 

“Shhh. Be still.” A warm hand stroked over his head, gently pushing his hair back from where it had flopped into his face. “Give it another few minutes before you try to move.”

Titus felt like he should know that soothing voice, but the name just wasn’t coming to him. His brain felt addled, foggy, like someone had taken an immersion blender to the contents of his skull. “Owww,” he moaned, almost not recognizing his own voice at first. “My head…”

“There’s not much I can do for the concussion, I’m afraid. And I don’t think you want me to spit into a teacup for you. But your cuts and bruises are almost healed up. I don’t think that break’ll even scar.”

“Beau?”

“Yeah. I’m here. We gotta stop meetin’ like this, though.”

“Do we, though?” Titus leaned into the hand resting against the side of his head, not even registering what he’d just said. “Where am I?”

“On my couch. With the most dedicated nurse in the world parked on your legs. Oberon’s taken quite a shine to you; every time I tried to move him, the damn cat would go right back to makin’ a nest on some other part of you. An’ the one time I tried to lock him in the bedroom, he howled so much the neighbors a mile away prob’ly thought I was skinnin’ him.”

“What happened?”

There was a long pause this time before Beau answered. “I’m not sure.” Titus felt simmering tension tighten the hand he rested against. “All’s I know is that I got home and couldn’t sit still. So I went out for a run. When I got back, I smelled strangers. The scent was fresh, but not active. Then I smelled you, bloodied an’ hurt.” Another pause. Titus wanted to look, to figure out what was wrong that Beau kept falling silent. But his eyelids felt weighed down by bricks. “Someone had dumped you on my front step. I could tell you were alive an’ stable. But you wouldn’t wake up. So I brought you in an’ cleaned you up, then…” Beau cleared his throat. “This is gonna sound weird no matter how I say it. I…uh…licked you better.”

Titus contemplated that for a long minute, turning the words over in his befuddled state, trying to make them make sense. “Huh?”

“So, one of the things about being…what I am…is that my spit has healin’ properties. Not as good as how the rest of me heals. But I can lick wounds to make ‘em heal faster. And you were pretty bad hurt. So I brought you in, shifted, and licked your wounds, because I didn’t know what else to do.”

That was definitely weird, Titus decided. But also, weirdly sweet. And while his brain was too scrambled at the moment to be properly embarrassed, Titus did feel a stir of mild unease. “Wait. Did you undress me?”

“I just told you that I licked you while you were unconscious and that my spit made you heal, and that’s what you’re worried about?” Titus thought there was a bit of a hysterical note in Beau’s voice. 

“Am I still naked?”

“I’m just gonna assume that’s the concussion talkin’.” Beau sighed so heavily, Titus felt the wind of it across his face. “Yeah, you are. But I covered you in a blanket. Also, for the record, your clothes were pretty damn shredded when you got here, so there wasn’t much left to strip off. And I washed you off in the tub before helpin’ your injuries to heal up. Your leg was busted all to hell, too, so I had to set that before settin’ it to healin’. So I guess if you’re worried about the fact that I saw your bare ass or squeamish I might’ve ogled your junk, all’s I can say is that I wasn’t specifically concerned with your manhood while you was bleedin’ in my bathroom.”

“Are you tired, Beau?”

“What’s that gotta do with anythin’?”

“Because your accent gets stronger when you’re tired.”

Beau laughed, and though the sound was initially a brittle thing like old broken glass, Titus managed to notice that it eventually smoothed out into something a lot more genuine. “Just go the fuck to sleep, Titus. Ain’t supposed t’sleep with a concussion, but I figger it ain’t killed you yet an’ you need the sleep t’heal up proper. Actually, lemme get you a couple a painkillers first. Here, just a sec.”

The hand against Titus’ head disappeared, and as much as he wanted to protest that, he hurt too much. So instead, he just lay still feeling miserable for himself. 

After what felt like a year, or maybe only a couple of minutes, the touch returned. Titus couldn’t help the little whimper he made.

“Did that hurt?” Beau sounded extremely concerned.

“No. Just happy you’re here.”

“Well, you’re gonna be less happy when I help you sit up to take these pills. They’re just ibuprofen; can’t keep anything stronger around with Danni’s penchant for gettin’ addicted. But maybe it’ll at least take the edge off so’s you can sleep a little better.” 

Danni. Shit. Titus remembered that Danni had been captured. And he didn’t even know if the extraction had been a success. Based on the fragmented memories he had of events, it didn’t seem likely. “I broke my promise,” Titus wailed, then burst into tears.

“Christ fuck.” At least, that’s what Titus thought Beau muttered. “God dammit, Titus. Yes, but also no. And also, I’m not gonna talk about this with you right now. Hell, like as not you won’t even remember the better part of all the shit you’re mumblin’ right now once your brain fixes itself a little more. Now come on. I’m gonna help you sit up an’ take these pills, an’ then you’re gonna lay back down an’ sleep.”

Beau was almost too gentle, in Titus’ opinion. Every time Titus grunted, yelped, or swore, the other man would freeze up for an instant before readjusting to try and cause less discomfort. By the time Titus felt like he was more or less sitting upright, it was only because Beau had basically played Twister with him and was the only thing keeping him from falling over. He was wedged between Beau’s legs, leaning back against the other man’s chest, getting pills shoved into his mouth and a glass of water pressed to his lips by a pair of hands that weren’t his own. Beau was also swearing at the cat, who was protesting loudly at everything going on. Titus decided it probably would have been hilarious if he weren’t feeling half dead. 

Swallowing the tablets was precarious at best, with some of the water slopping down Titus’ chin until he managed to get a hand up to help control the angle of the glass. And even that felt like entirely too much effort. So when the glass was finally taken away, Titus just kind of gave up on anything having to do with holding himself upright and instead simply wriggled himself lower under the blanket to nestle his aching head into the crook between Beau’s shoulder and chest. 

“Ow! Hey! The fuck are you doin’? That’s my leg you’re smashin’ against the sofa!”

“You’re comfy, though,” Titus mumbled, turning slightly and burrowing his cheek into whatever soft part of Beau was underneath. 

“Less grabby hands, mister! There’s chest hair under that fabric and you pullin’ at it ain’t a kink I have.”

“Is it soft?”

“That’s a very personal question right now.”

Titus giggled. “I meant your hair. It doesn’t look soft. But I bet it is. Or would it be fur?”

“Excuse you! I take very good care of my hair!”

“Will you tell me about being a Gam…Gram…Garmr?” The word didn’t roll off Titus’ tongue even under the best of circumstances. He found it all but impossible with a concussion.

“Only if you fuckin’ hold still and stop squirmin’. This couch ain’t made for two people t’stretch out on it long ways and I ain’t the one who’s fixin’ t’fall off.” Titus immediately stilled, only distantly realizing he was snuggled up in a very familiar way to Beau and definitely forgetting he was completely nude. “Okay, that’s better. What d’ya wanna know?”

As sluggish as Titus’ thoughts were, it took him a long time to decide on how to answer that question. “Why is the name so hard to say?”

“Because some nerd thought it’d be fun to name us after the bloody wolf that guards the underworld in Norse mythology. And I mean bloody in a literal sense, not a British sense. Couldn’t just be a ‘werewolf’ or a ‘lycanthrope’. No, that’d be too damn easy! So everyone gets to twist their tongue into knots trying t’pronounce Garmr.” Absently, Titus noted that Beau lost his twang entirely when saying the name. He clipped the R sounds short, almost rolling the consonants. “Next question.”

“How’d you find out you were a…”

“You can just say ‘werewolf’, Titus.”

“Yeah, that.”

Beau sighed, his chest rising and falling beneath Titus’ head. “Well, that’s kind of a long story. Basically, Ma was suspicious the minute I was born. Y’see, I was way heavier than I shoulda been. Still am. Garmr are dense, and it’s usually not due to bein’ slow witted. Our bones and muscles are just heavier. Kinda like chimps and gorillas. And like the great apes, it means we can’t swim, either. Sink like a damn boulder. Anyway, Ma realized I weighed roughly twice as much as I should for a kid my size, especially bein’ a twin and born about a month before we shoulda. So when the school called her when I was in third grade sayin’ I was causin’ havoc on the playground because some little shit knocked me on my ass in dodgeball, she weren’t too surprised to find a wolf pup wearin’ fur the same color as my hair chasin’ kids around the tetherball poles. I was always the calm kid, too; usually it was Danni that had the meltdowns. So Ma came over, yelled my full name, then scruffed me up when I cowered. We had something of a ‘come to Jesus’ talk after that and she took me outta public school for a couple a years until I could keep my shit together.”

Somewhere in there, Beau had begun to stroke Titus’ hair. Titus didn’t know if it was intentional or not, but frankly, he wasn’t about to bring it up. Because Beau might stop. And Titus didn’t want that. It felt really nice. “What about your saliva? You said it makes wounds heal faster?”

“Yeah. I mean, I just heal fast overall. That mythic werewolf regeneration? Ain’t such a myth for Garmr. And even human spit has some healin’ qualities for the human usin’ it. It’s why you can lick your own papercut and it heals fine, but you lick someone else’s papercut and it just gets infected all to hell. But Garmr spit can heal other people, too. It’s why I licked you. Which still sounds plain wrong.” Titus yawned, his jaws creaking slightly. “You finally tired again?”

“Mhmm. But I wanna know more.”

Beau chuckled. “I’ll still be here when you wake up again. And then you can bug me with more embarrassing questions when you’ll be awake enough to remember the answers. For now, go the fuck t’sleep, Titus. I mean it this time. And I’m gonna keep on pettin’ your hair until it makes you pass out, because I’ve got nothin’ better to do now that you’ve pinned me to my own couch.”