Beware The Wolf - Pt 3 - The Outfit

Brutus and Steven go on a small adventure. This piece follows after the last of the "Rise of the Leatherwolf" stuff I'd posted a year or two or whatever ago. If you read these and feel a bit confused, that's actually intentional. I'm screwing around.  A segment of my brain wants to do the "Dhalgren" thing, I guess.

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Brutus and Steven stood in the back alley behind “Black and Silver Leather”. Steven looked like he belonged near a store with such a name: lanky build, long black frock coat, fine mesh club shirt exposed over his pale chest between the lapels, three different necklaces featuring metal talismans of his own designing that rattled slightly when he moved, fingerless leather gloves with ornate rings worn over several of the leathered first joints, black PVC pants, and over-calf leather boots laced up the front and buckled up over the laces in goth-industrial-chic frippery. He had short raven-black straight hair cut at fashionably uneven lengths, a gothy and perfect fit for his pale half-Korean countenance.

Brutus, on the other hand, wore a paint-stained gray hooded sweatshirt and pants, and no shoes. His clothing was absolutely not gothic or industrial or leather-culture in any way, and instead he simply looked homeless. He made up for the shabby appearance by also being a werewolf. His large and bony hands stuck out from his sweatshirt cuffs, humanoid, with black clawnails, rough finger-padding, a smattering of dark charcoal fur, and a sickly inhuman gray cast to the skin. His feet were similarly adjacent to a normal man’s, plantigrade but with black nails, similar rough pads, the same dark furring, and the same undead-but-really-just-lupine skin coloration. The most obvious wolfish part, his head, only showed in the form of his mostly-wolf-but-not-quite dark furred muzzle, sharp teeth, and yellow eyes that peered out from the dark shirt hood.

Steven was unconcerned with the wolfish state of his companion and sneered equally at everything around him. “This is a terrible idea.”

“You said the alarm system doesn’t work right.”

“I said, that the alarm system is cheap and stupid and relies on the internet, which I happen to know how to crash because the router thingy is also cheap and stupid and gets very upset if you download a file from bittorrent, and there’s terrible cellular signal inside so the alarm backup won’t work.”

Brutus returned a flat look. “Sounds like a break-in to me.”

“Yes, and while everything I just mentioned is the bane of my existence during work, with our luck, I won’t be able to crash it by downloading ‘Larks Tongues in Aspic’ from TPB on my phone right now.” Steven, while he spoke, attempted to do just that.

“What the fuck is that? Is that some kind of porno? And are you bit-torrenting on your phone? I haven’t used that shit for ten years.” Brutus sniffed several times, in different directions.

“It’s prog,” Steven hissed through a stiff mouth, “And yes. I’m as surprised as you are.” Moments after connecting to the wifi and starting a download, the download failed and the signal indicator disappeared. “I’m in. Ok, let’s go.” He then pulled keys out of his pocket and opened the alleyway door.

Steven knew everything about the situation because he was one of three store employees aside from the owner. That also explained the keys. They went through the metal door and closed it quietly behind them. While there was a soft chime from the alarm system alert box, there was no frantic delay beeping, no sirens, and not even a ‘back door opened’ alert on Steven’s phone.

“So, no alarm?” Brutus said, standing slightly hunchback in the crowded back storage area. He looked around and sniffed more. He had been to Black and Silver many times, and knew the small clothing front and fetish back rooms like the back of his now-paw; he was surprised to find that the actual back room was nearly as large as the rest of the place. Aside from storage, one corner was an office space; there were numerous cardboard boxes and racks of goth-punk clothing half-prepped even extending into the office.

“No alarm. I hope you’re laser focused on what you want. I want to get this over quickly. I’d like to remain employed.”

“You logged into the wifi with your own phone and used your own keys.”

“And the boss doesn’t understand any of this shit because I’m doomed to be the only person who knows what’s going on in any room at any time,” Steven groused, then led Brutus into the actual storefront. The back room was full of fetish gear on the walls, harnesses and jockstraps and hoods and halters, with glass display cases full of sex toys both vanilla and chili-spice chocolate. The front room was full of punk and goth clothing for the most part, with a heavy tilt towards bad-girl attire which formed a significant proportion of the store’s business. There were several racks of very standard male biker-bar leathers from gay and non-gay purveyors, and more racks of consignment jackets, pants, chaps, shirts, and boots.

Brutus immediately went over to the consignment racks and started rifling through them. Steven cleared his throat quietly. “You realize you could buy nice, new things.”

“I want what I want,” the wolf-man growled. “Like these. They showed up a few weeks ago, after I got fired.” He held up a pair of leather pants that had side laces made of chains and a codpiece pouch that was studded with punk pyramid studs.

He was just removing them from the plastic hanger when he stopped in mid motion. He whipped the hood back and his very lupine ears twitched and swiveled. Steven opened his mouth to start speaking, and Brutus clapped his hand over it. Then, Brutus sniffed at the air. “Someone’s taking a shit.”

Steven wrestled out from under the grasp and made several facial expressions starting with disgust and ending in horror. “What do you mean taking a shit?” He whispered hard.

“I mean someone’s taking a shit.” His ears twitched again. “Now they’re wiping.” Twitch. “There isn’t any toilet paper on the roll, so they’re using the paper towel dispenser. I didn’t know this place had a bathroom.”

“I’m gonna fucking take a shit, god dammnit, this place is supposed to be closed!” Steven immediately broke into a flop sweat and looked between the door to the storage space and the front door. “Shit shit shit!”

A door banged and then the back door hurled open. A rather tall man with long curly hair, a leather vest, bluejeans, and hipster dress boots burst into the room. “I fucking knew it!” He then pulled out a revolver. “Don’t fucking do anything! I’ve been sick of this shit for months!” He then squinted as he brandished the gun. “Steven?”

Steven immediately put his hands up. “Don’t shoot me Dalton I’m not the one stealing things from here all the time it’s probably Sara I tried to tell you that she’s a klepto but she has tits and that seems to make everyone with a penis stupid,” he rambled.

“Yeah you’re immune ‘cuz you don’t have one,” Brutus added, while otherwise acting unconcerned. He also felt unconcerned.

“If you’re not the one stealing things then what are you doing here, with someone, who is holding some fucking clothes from a rack?” Dalton - who was the store owner - moved the gun from Steven to Brutus. “And a furry, too?”

“I don’t think you wanna point that gun at me,” Brutus said.

“Yeah you kinda don’t need to shoot anyone, because while technically Brutus is stealing and I’m helping him because I kind of let us in by crashing the internet, I mean he kind of has an excuse.”

“I don’t wanna fucking walk around in a dirty hoodie looking like a bum,” Brutus said. He then grabbed the neck opening of the shirt with both hands and tore it straight down to the waist, then struggled out of it and whipped it onto the floor. He then did the same with the pants, leaving him completely naked with no underwear. “Oops. Now you’re gonna have to gimme something to wear.”

Dalton’s gun hand started to shake and he lowered it, then holstered it back. “What the fuck is going on? Seriously, what’s with the fursuit stuff? If you wanna do some sort of thing I mean, you could ask nicely and I’d go along with it. That’s a badass getup. That’d be great in a gear show. But uh, you kind of went past the asking nicely phase by breaking in.”

“How about this,” Brutus said, and walked right up to him. “You let me do what I want, and you don’t fire Steven because he needs the fucking money because you pay him like shit and yet he loves selling dildos to straight bitches. Or I eat you.”

Dalton laughed. “That’s great.”

Steven stared on. “Brutus, that’s not a good idea.”

“Hey,” Dalton continued, “You sound familiar, too. You sound like that guy who’s always coming in to buy spray poppers and shit like that. Steven’s friend, what’s his name, Henry?”

“Deadnaming me? Oh, I’m going to eat you and make you watch. I’m gonna rip unimportant parts of you off and eat them while you-”

“Brutus, I don’t, you aren’t actually going to eat him are you?” Steven’s flop sweat now left him looking green.

“Do you think this is a joke?” Brutus gestured to himself, and tugged at some of his chest fur, which was black wolf dark and a bit thinner than a summer canine coat. “Do you think I’m some weirdo who runs around dressed up like a wolf and sticking his dick in people in hotel rooms?”

“He-... Brutus, really, you don’t,” Steven now tried to interject, while Brutus got up in Dalton’s face and Dalton looked truly shocked and confused.

“Grab me. Try to pull something off. I fucking dare you.”

Dalton meekly reached out and pulled on some of Brutus’ shoulder fur. The skin bowed outward slightly with it, and sprung back when he let go. He tried again, and Brutus visibly flinched. Again, hard enough to take a few furs out, and Brutus growled. “Oh, what the fucking fuck?” Dalton breathed, and reached for Brutus’ ear, then tugged hard on it.

“Oww you fucker!” Brutus barked, and simultaneously punched Dalton in the shoulder and snapped in his face. Dalton cowered back with his arms up in front of his face and made a pathetic whimper. “I’m not wearing a fucking costume! I’m a real life monster! A naked real life monster who’d much rather be wearing some badass fucking leather to replace the real badass leather I had and ruined when I turned into this!”

“That’s… that’s true,” Steven held up a finger to cut in, like a conniving and helpful TV accomplice. “It was disgusting, I think his skin melted into bloody stuff, and he threw up black bile everywhere. Plus, he got evicted and everything else was put out and picked up by a junk hauler before we could do anything about it.”

“Do whatever the fuck you want!” Dalton squeaked.

“Do whatever the fuck I want and? And?” Brutus backed him up until Dalton banged his head on a wooden display shelf. “And you won’t call the cops or do anything. And Steven here gets to keep his job.”

“Fine! Fine!” Dalton continued to cower as Brutus snorted in his face, gruffed, and backed off.

The wolf then went back to the rack of gear, cracked his neck, and continued going through it. The pants he’d selected before fit, although they were too short, and he struggled to get the codpiece to settle. He snapped it off, inspected it a few times, then tried again.

“You… ahh, you really have quite a dick, Brutus,” Steven said.

Brutus held his soft but ample shaft in his fingers while he dangled the codpiece from the other. His shaft was black, entirely the same color, and uncircumcised. Nonetheless, the cocktip peeked out from under the skin, having more of a point and slope than most regular people. His balls were similarly dark and barely covered in fur, though the skin coloring quickly changed back to disgusting gray elsewhere from his groin. “Yep.” He then draped his shaft over his balls and packed them into the codpiece. “Oof. Well, if it feels tight then it looks good, I guess.” He turned and picked through several jackets, all of which were biker classic and at least a size too small. The only one that fit was vintage and battered and bestudded like a heavy metal relic. He could zip it up to the chest slant in the lapels and no further.

“Maybe… a harness?” Dalton said, and both Steven and Brutus stared over at him.

“Like a fucking dog?” Brutus huffed.

“No, like a, it’d look tough.” Silence. “Are you kidding me? I own this place, I do this stuff all the time, go get a harness and put it on under the jacket!” He then gestured to the back room.

Brutus walked over and picked one down off the wall, shrugged out of the jacket, and buckled the straps on. The harness he chose was an unusual one, similar to a bulldog style one that crossed the upper pecs, but with a neck piece like a long collar, wrapped in pyramid studs around the actual neck. He pulled the jacket back on, then walked back in.

“Whoa, that’s something,” Steven said. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“It’s four hundred dollars,” Dalton groaned.

Brutus stepped up to the racks of consignment boots and picked up the largest pair, simple engineer boots that were knee high with a buckle around the ankle and a top gusset slash on the outside. He pulled them on and paced back and forth with a heavy clomp. “Gloves. I need gloves. And I have these things, so fingerless.” He made a claw-scratch gesture.

Dalton pointed to a display case featuring numerous gloves, male and female-oriented. Brutus stomped over, made a fist, and pulled back as if to punch.

“No no no! Don’t! Just use the keys!” Dalton squealed, and threw a keyring across the room. It hit the glass with a clatter, and didn’t break it.

“I wanted to fucking smash it,” Brutus sniffed, then took the keys and unlocked the case. “Holy shit!” There were some traditional fingerless motorcycle gloves, fingerless opera gloves, and then at one end, an ornate pair of leather armored gauntlets with fingerless leather gloves inside. The outsides were festooned with leather straps and d-rings and rivets, and the leather made large dragon-scale shapes up the outside of the forearm. He snatched them and jammed his hands into the gloves; the heavy leather fit easily outside of his jacketed arms. “Look at this fucking ren-faire shit! I love it!”

“Those are also four hundred dollars,” Dalton said, eyes sad with escaping dollar signs. “And they’re consignment, I think they cost even more new. You know I… I have to pay the people who gave us that stuff, or else you’re not just stealing from me.”

“Alright, Steven, we’re done here,” Brutus ignored Dalton and gestured for Steven to follow him, then stalked out into the storage room and into the back alley.

As soon as they were outside and the door slammed shut, Steven lifted his shoulders. “You’re crazy! What the hell were you thinking? He had a gun! He could have shot us!”

“Your boss is a fucking baby. He looked like he’d be pissing and shitting himself if he hadn’t already done that in the bathroom.” The wolf looked around. “Clothes, check. Now it’s time to find somewhere to live.”

“Uh-huh. And how do you suggest we do that late at night? Break into someone’s apartment and threaten to eat them unless you can sleep in their bed? I’d like to see you in some granny’s dressing gown-”

Brutus had already turned to leave and was halfway down the alley.