Beware The Wolf - Pt 4 - The Building

Brutus and Steven continue to solve their immediate problems generated by Brutus becoming an anthro wolf monster. This time: a place to live. 

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Steven and Brutus approached “The Underworld”, a bar that was built into a strange old urban mansion that looked far more gothic than its actual former use as a fraternity meeting space suggested. Brutus was on a mission in the back alley, while Steven hurried to keep up.

“You really shouldn’t be storming around like this outside, you know, with your head exposed, because people might see that you’re a wolf.”

“And do fucking what?” Brutus laughed without looking back. He strode up next to the dumpster and banged on the alley door. “It’s two thirty in the morning. They’re either drunk, high, or homeless. Besides, they’d just think I was another version of that violin werewolf guy.”

“The violin werewolf was a person in a werewolf mask.”

“And how do they know I’m not? I’m not letting just anyone try to pull my fucking ear off again. Not unless it’s important.” Brutus pounded on the door again, and again. “Hey! Antler brains! Open up!”

“Antler brains? What the hell are you on about? And stop that, you’ll attract too much attention,” Steven hissed.

Seconds later, the door flew open with a red-haired man in a leather bar vest and black jeans standing in the frame. “Stop banging on the door and go find food in someone else’s trash!” He then looked between Brutus and Steven. “Huh? Oh great, someone’s going to rob me. Just what I need, less money.”

“Hi, Brad. You remember me. It’s Steven and, uhh, my friend who’s usually here with me. Can we come in?”

“We just closed for the night, sorry,” Brad said, and looked genuinely disappointed instead of just stressed from moments earlier.

“It’s not for drinks. It’s, ahh, a social visit.” Steven side-eyed Brutus, who very effectively loomed in his newfound brash black leathers and monstrous visage.

“Hey, nice wolf outfit,” Brad added. “But sorry, no, I’m just… I gotta do some business stuff while I’m still awake.” He now looked disappointed, exhausted, pained, and about to deflate on his feet.

Brad started to close the door and Brutus stepped forward and grabbed it. “I don’t think so,” he said, and pulled with a jerk, yanking the door hard enough that Brad let go and recoiled as if protecting his arm from being pulled off. “See, this is business, too. Don’t worry. We’ll pour our own drinks while we discuss. And if you don’t want to negotiate, I’ll turn you into venison sausage.”

“Seriously, Brutus, what is with the deer thing? Brad, like myself, seems to be very human.”

Brad turned so red that his freckles disappeared. “Okay. Okay, you can come in.”

They went in through the back door and through the kitchen area, into the front bar. Steven and Brutus sat at the counter while Brad took his place behind it and sighed.

Brutus sniffed around. The bar stank of beer and liquor, then leather, then male sweat, then male sex, then piss. One of his boots stuck to the floor in one spot, and he pulled it up, propped it on a bar stool, then leaned down to sniff at the sole. “You let people fucking nut on the floor?” Then, without a moment for anyone to react, he licked at it. “God damn, it was one of those keto assholes who only eats meat. You’d think people’d have a vanilla milkshake once in a while.”

“While my wolfy ‘friend’ here gives himself a venereal disease by licking the floor,” Steven said, and air-quoted around the term of endearment with his black fingernails, “I’d like to explain what we’re doing here. Brutus has had a very bad turn of luck and was just evicted.”

“I lost my job, ran out of money, turned myself into a wolf monster, and then was evicted,” Brutus added.

“You might be thinking, but strange gothy person and wolf guy, why am I - Brad the bartender - listening to this? And that is because you first are a bartender, and second own a building that has two more floors above the bar which aren’t being used for anything, by your own admission, if I remember correctly from a few weeks ago.”

Brad squinted, then looked up towards the ceiling, then back to the odd couple. “I don’t own anything here, I’m in debt up to my eyeballs-”

“Antlers,” Brutus snapped.

“I’m in debt and leasing everything, and yes actually the floor above this technically isn’t being used, but that’s because it’s a complete shambles. I think this place was rented out by some sort of arts collective so it wouldn’t sit unoccupied, and they were trying to build one of those artist flophouse kind of things. Like there is a total of one working bathroom’s worth of utilities up there but there are three bathrooms. And then there’s the weird church room-”

“Weird church room?”

“This place was built as a fraternity administration and meeting space, so there’s this kind of cathedral-ceiling… room on the third floor. That’s why it looks churchy up there, they put in stained glass windows. That sounds really cool but honestly I can barely afford to stay open, this whole thing was kind of a mistake. Barely anyone cares about gay leather stuff and make it gothy? Now you’re slicing it too thin.” Brad looked sad as he spoke.

“How about this,” Brutus said, and climbed up onto the bar, partly onto all fours. He then grabbed Brad by the vest lapels. “You let me live up there, and I won’t eat you.”

Steven rolled his eyes. “You can’t threaten to eat people just because you’re a wolf.”

“Uhhhh,” Brad shuddered, and grabbed at Brutus’ leatherclad arms. “What’s with this wolf makeup stuff anyway? I thought you said you just got evicted. This is serious business. I’ve seen how much this stuff costs, it’s thousands of dollars.”

Brutus leaned closer and twisted his muzzle into a wretched snarl, enough that he drooled and it dripped onto the bar counter. “You think this is makeup?” He then lurched forward, kicking one of the bar stools back with a clatter, and toppled Brad backwards onto the floor with a thud and a whuff of air. “This isn’t makeup. I’m a freak. I found some weird box in an antiques store, and what was in it? A kit of stuff to turn someone into a werewolf. So I used it on myself, because I had no money and no job and no fucking future and exactly one friend and that’s even debateable.”

“What are you doing? Don’t hurt him!” Steven leaned over the bar aghast.

“See? He doesn’t care about me, he just doesn’t want me causing a mess. Well, I won’t cause a mess if you let me squat in your filthy hovel of an upstairs. In fact, I have an even better idea. He can move in with me. Steven still has a job, and he can pay rent.”

“You’re assuming I’m not fired after you broke into my job and stole the outfit you’re wearing,” Steven crossed his arms and stood back.

Brutus responded by simultaneously growling and yelling like a confused beast. “Stop being a brat for five seconds! I’m gonna do it one of these days. I’m gonna fucking maul someone uncooperative! You, antlers, you’re gonna show us up there as soon as I crawl off of you.”

Brad wheezed and his voice came out at a croak. Brutus reluctantly shoved him against the floor and sprang back to his feet. The human curled up, then stretched out and tried to stand.

“Since this has obviously gone south, would someone please explain the deer references?” Steven held up a finger to cut in.

“This red-haired piss-pants bartender is a fucking deer furry. And everyone knows what deer furries like to do when a wolf shows up.”

Steven wrinkled his face. “Brad, are you a deer furry?”

“Y..eah. I don’t really wear it on my sleeve. I’m too busy with this place lately,” he breathed. “Okay, okay, I’ll show you upstairs.” He withdrew a keyring and slowly backed out from around the bar.

‘Upstairs’ was through a door blockaded with a few boxes hidden in the back corner of the dark and disused ‘back room’ of the bar. Brad’s description of the place as ‘unfinished’ was an understatement. The entire second floor had been gutted down to framing and haphazardly renovated, though none of the work seemed to be complete.

There were three bathrooms, though one was entirely inoperable, with the toilet sitting on the floor and the drain hole plugged with a rag. A second one featured an impromptu squat toilet setup made from a mangled stand-up shower pan and a utility basin for a sink; the third featured another nonfunctional toilet but an actual shower setup that had a tarp for a curtain.

There were three room setups, though none of them had a kitchen of any sort, and only one of them was completely walled in with a doorway. That one featured a mattress that still had a pile of mismatched bed linens and pillows, a desk made out of milk crates and plywood, and an antique armchair made of buttoned leather seating and wood.

“This is just as good as your shack,” Brutus smacked Steven in the side of the arm.

“This is not at all anything like my small rental cabin,” Steven corrected, “Because that actually meets rental code.” While he spoke, Brutus ignored the response and went to investigate the mattress. The wolf sniffed around the mattress and pillows, then lifted it up off the frame and withdrew not one but a collection of actual pornographic magazines which he then proceeded to sniff.

Brad looked pained except when he looked at Brutus, whereupon he just looked confused. “Is your friend okay?”

“Ungh, this is tittie porn. Can you imagine if I fucked a pussy like this? I’d have to pay child support to wolf puppies.” He chucked the magazines out of the way, then dumped himself onto the bed and rolled around despite his intimidating leather gear. “I’ll take it.”

“I can’t just… let people live here. I mean it. I could fix it up and rent it out and… that’d be okay. But just letting some weirdo live here?”

“Wolf. I’m a wolf.”

“Is he actually a wolf guy?” Brad looked wide-eyed at Steven, as if for the first time considering that it was a possibility.

Steven nodded gravely. “Unfortunately, I’ve been cursed to be friends with a misanthropic wretch who, instead of killing himself like a normal despondent lout, turned himself into a monster. Honestly I wouldn’t believe it myself, if it were anyone else.” He looked over his shoulder as Brutus made a racket by pushing the bed all the way into the corner of the room.

“That… you can’t do that. I mean, you can’t turn into a wolf.”

Steven shrugged. “I didn’t watch it happen, but I saw the aftermath, and it was certainly a disgusting messy biological thing that happened.”

“It fucking sucked, but now I look like this and that’s pretty awesome. Check out my dick,” Brutus laughed, and showed off just like back at the store. “I mean, sure, I lost all my shit, but now I’m a wolf. And no one expects anyone to be a wolf, so I can do anything I want. Laws only apply to people.”

“Okay, how about I actually take him up on the suggestion that I move in here as well,” Steven sighed. “I’ll pay you rent. I’ll even try and fix up things a bit. Just a bit. Unless I can get more money, in which case I’ll-”

Brutus leaped up from the bed and stomped over, then put his arms around both. “Great negotiation. Let’s go see the real upstairs.”

They went up to the front of the second floor space and took another stairwell to the third floor, this one making a turnaround. They emerged into a cavernous, cathedral-ceilinged space that looked very much like a small church. There was little furniture, though there were tall arched windows at either end and a skylight that admitted the appropriately full moon.

“Oh my god,” Brutus gawked as he looked around. He immediately started prowling about, stomping crudely and aimlessly, second by second more like a large dog brought into a new place than a person. “Oh my GOD!”

“You know, I’m actually impressed, you’re all warning us about this nasty little hovel downstairs and what, there’s a church up here? Fuck churches, of course, preferably with something medieval like a flail, but you know. I’m quite a bit of a goth and this is absolutely fantastic. Why aren’t you hosting the bar up here?”

Brad’s constipated hedgehog expression turned into embarrassment. “Uh, well, I just kind of, figured the downstairs…”

“Are you just dumb?” Steven put his hand on his hip.

“Fine. Fine. I guess this is better than just being a struggling small business owner. I could be a struggling small business owner with a weirdo sideshow living in the attic,” Brad snorted.

Brutus started frothing at the mouth and rushed back to Steven and Brad, grabbing them together hard enough that both winced. “And if you don’t let me do it, you know what’s going to happen.” He gripped each outside bicep and knocked the two together.

“Oww! You’re strong! Be careful,” Steven hissed, then patted down his coat when Brutus let go.

“THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER!” Brutus yelled. “We could have sex rituals in here! We could make a werewolf sex dungeon!”

The wolf ran to stand directly under the skylight cupola, gauntleted arms spread out in a pitch-perfect movie supervillain cackle stance. He then howled, and the sound resonated in the space as if ready to rattle the nails loose.