In these desprate times

With the thoughts of his mate, the doberman colored wolf was transported to cloud nine, but only for a brief time. As soon as Awaken began talking, Gargoyle's ears began to turn back and shoulders began to stiffen. It scared him how familiar those first words sounded. It sent a tremor down his back, bringing back things to the front of his mind that he had wanted to forget ever happened. His ears pinned all the back as Awaken rattled off a catalog of his sins. Though it was a token of Awaken's trust in the other male that he spoke at all, Gargoyle didn't need to hear this. He didn't want to hear this. When Awaken spoke of the killing, there was such a strange chemical mix of reactions within the male -disgust, anger, thrill, empathy, guilt, sorry- that it was a wonder he didn't explode. The conclusion was the worst, however. To hear Awaken say that what was past, wouldn't necessarily stay there. At that, the chief and father within Gargoyle suddenly grew dangerous. His hackles raised a little, made all the more eerie by the fact that those lifeless yellow eyes never changed. But the friend and comrade in him won through when he saw that Awaken was even more distraught and broken about it than he was. He calmed himself, pushing through the maze of reactions within while outward his features remained the same as ever.

A growling sigh drew itself from his chest. Gargoyle's mind stumbled for something to say. What was there to say? He had only just gotten to the point where he could assure himself that he wouldn't have a relasp.... what was there to say to the male... He'd known that Awaken's past was bad. He'd put the peices together, thanks to the clues that Sixx had given. He'd known that for quite some time. But to hear it all in one blast and to hear it - not as some long forgotten memory, but as a danger to the future... it wasn't easy. It was almost impossible to believe. Awaken? A murderer like that? But thanks to the time of amnesia, there were two different wolves with two different lives and two different moral codes living inside this one head. Gargoyle feared it most because he understood it. He had a morbid bloodlust of his own and at times had only pulled through by the thinnest shreds of luck. He knew how impossible it was to win a war against your inner demons.

But maybe Awaken realized that. Maybe that was why he asked Gargoyle to put him down if he lost it. Gargoyle met the male's gaze, holding it with the strength that only an Alpha can pocess. He didn't like this. He didn't like this one bit. But the words came anyway, hollow and even rougher sounding than usual, as if rasped out of the very back of this throat: "If you ever became a threat to the pack, I would no longer have a choice in the matter." the words were final; there was nothing else to say now. The asking of the favor was one of the most powerful displays of trust and pain and brotherhood that either wolf was likely to see in their lifetime. And though Gargoyle would some day look back and appreciate it, in this moment he detested it.

Gargoyle watched the male carefully. "To tell you the truth," he rumbled, gravely. "I considered ending you after that first encounter with Sixx on the border." Whatever sort of a shock came at these words, Gargoyle would continue through it. "Or at the very least, asking you to leave and not return. We're too alike, and, unforuantely, that's the last thing I look for in someone I want around my kids." He left Awaken to wonder over all that that meant, but after a moment he added. "Yet in the end I gave you a chance," and he didn't have to say that he was glad he did. "And if I can, then I think it's time you give yourself the chance. If Merci makes you feel like the man you want to be - then you after her and if she returns your love, you hold onto that ray of light with all that you've got. Understand?"