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He follows the acrid scent of distress diligently, a permanent scowl on his face because he hates to recognize that smell so easily. Like some lovestruck teenager.
It's a wet and dark alley because the light on the street flickers until it goes out. Not that Deacon needs artificial light to make out the shape of Clifton sprawled out on the floor like a sack of potatoes.
Something is very wrong.
"Hey!" Deacon calls. Refusing to see the situation for what it is, he has a quick look around and finds only a deserted street, locked shops, not even your typical easy pray stumbling around drunk.
Deacon doesn't need to breathe, but if he did he would've stopped.
He takes a step forward.
"Hey, werewolf."
Clifton is on the floor, lying awkwardly with his shoulders against the dirty brickwall but slowly slipping down like he can't keep himself upright.
He obviously can't.
"Shit." Deacon takes another look round the block to ensure his anonimity and crouches down next to the younger man. He's panting like a dying animal, he smells like a dying animal. "Werewolf. Can you hear me."
Clifton isn't conscious.
One of his hands is loosely clutching at his abdomen and when Deacon slowly draws it away to assess the damage — which he doesn't need to assess, because you don't just render a werewolf to this pitiful state without knowing how to do that — he sees a deep cut where Clifton's hand once was, and his clothes drenched in the blood he could almost taste on his tongue because he's really drenched in it.
"Fuck."
He smelled it from afar.
He'd hoped he was wrong.
"Wake up," he tries, gently slamming a hand over the werewolf's cheek to no avail. He's out cold.
Well, he's burning. But he's out cold.
"Wake up! I'm going to take you home!"
Clifton hangs off him like a puppet and when Deacon tries to grab a firmer hold of his frame he's suddenly coughing up blood. He tries to take a deep breath in that sounds nothing like breathing — there's fluid in his lungs. He lets out a wheeze of pain when Deacon slips an arm around his back and hoists him up.
By all means he should be dead. Whoever left him here was definitely expecting a slow and painful undoing, probably walked away relishing in that thought, killing a werewolf in cold blood, stabbing him with silver, twisting a dagger round his guts when the poor kid clearly didn't stand a chance — it makes Deacon's blood boil.
Or it would. If he had any.
"That Alpha is going to be insufferable."