Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His hands were shaking. 

Jacob wanted to reach out and hold them, let Ezekiel know that everything would be okay. 

While being a Librarian meant more brushes with death than normal, Ezekiel seemed more shaken from this than their normal. 

“Hey, you okay?” Jacob moves to place a hand over Ezekiel’s shoulder as he flinches away. “Ezekiel?” 

“It’s fine!” Ezekiel spits, pulling away from Jacob, and Jacob finally gets a glimpse of what Ezekiel’s hiding. 

“You’ve been bit.” 

“Clawed actually. Biting is more for vampires.” Ezekiel retorts, clamping a hand over his arm to staunch the blood. Jacob pulls his hand away and his breath catches. Bloody claw marks marr Ezekiel’s skin. Blood stains Ezekiel’s sweater and his hands and his arm and it’s on Jacob’s hand too, the metallic scent filling his lungs and choking him. 

“-kay, it’s fine.” Ezekiel was speaking, but Jacob couldn’t focus. 

“You’re hurt.” Jacob interrupts Ezekiel’s near manic attempts at reassuring him. “You’re hurt and you didn’t tell me.”

Ezekiel’s face falls and he lets Jacob manhandle him to get a better look at the cuts. Jacob looks back up at Ezekiel, his face getting paler the longer they stand and the shine in his eyes that isn’t from tears. 

“Zeke…” Jacob trails off, all anger dissipating as he cups Ezekiel’s face in his hand, the one without any of Ezekiel’s blood on it. Tears slide down Ezekiel’s face and Jacob wipes them away, leading the two of them to one of the cots. 

Jacob’s radio crackles to life, Cassandra’s voice frantic as she talks. “Jake! Jake, what’s happening!” 

“It’s Ezekiel.” Jacob responds, getting Flynn’s attention as he responds. “He’s hurt.” 

Ezekiel grabs his hand and steals the walkie away. “I’m fine, it barely hurts-“ 

“You’re changing, Jones.” Flynn says. “The physical changes are the last, but they will happen.” 

Flynn backs away, his eyes wide. “This is my fault. I lead us into a trap because I let my emotions get the better of me.” He’s mumbling about to himself, alternating between rereading the message on the ceiling and fidgeting with Charlene’s necklace. 

Ezekiel slumps over, most of his weight now resting on Jacob. 

“Hey, man, stay awake, you’re okay.” Jacob slaps his cheek and shifts so he’s cupping Ezekiel’s face in his hands. Ezekiel blinks, eyes cloudy and breathing shallow. 

“S’okay, Jakey. I’ll either die or turn into one of the creatures trying to kill you.” 

“I don’t like either of those options.” Jacob growls. “Flynn! Get over here and help !” 

Flynn freezes. “It’s too late.” He says. “Once you have a werewolf’s venom, you can’t undo it. At least not with what we have here.” 

“No.” Jacob stands up and crosses the room to stand in front of Flynn. “No. Not good enough. If you’re so smart, fix this! Fix him!” Jacob jabs a bloody finger onto Flynn’s jacket, smearing Ezekiel’s blood on him. 

“I can’t.” Flynn’s voice is so quiet Jacob can barely hear him. 

“No. There’s always something that we can do! Isn’t that what you taught us?” 

“I’m, I’m sorry-“ 

Jacob rears back and punches Flynn. He hears bones breaking but he doesn’t know if it’s Flynn’s or his. 

“Jake!” Ezekiel cries, wrapping his arm around Jacob’s and pulling him away. “What the fuck!” 

“We’re going to fix this. We’re going to fix this and leave with or without you.” Jacob hisses. 

“Jake! It’s okay!” Ezekiel pushes himself in between Jacob and Flynn. His blood drips onto the floor, echoing in the sudden silence. The only thing Jacob can hear is his racing heartbeat and he gently moves Ezekiel out of the way and offers a hand to Flynn. 

“Sorry, man.” Jacob says, not meeting Flynn’s eyes. He takes Jacob’s hand and pulls himself up. Jacob winces as Flynn’s hand comes in contact with the split knuckles, but he shoves it down. 

Cassandra’s voice crackles through the walkie again and Flynn picks it up. “Is everything okay? What’s wrong with Ezekiel?”
“He was scratched.” Flynn answers. “We don’t have any way to cure him and no way to contact Jenkins to get a door to leave.” 

“If he’s changing, could he get to the pipes to clear the halls?” Cassandra asks. Ezekiel sits up. 

Flynn pauses and looks over at Ezekiel, who’s leaning heavily on Jacob, his breath hot on Ezekiel’s neck. 

(A voice worms its way into Jacob’s head, whispering that at least he’s breathing.)

“Lupine parvovirus changes your physiology first.” Flynn murmurs. “Werewolves detect by scent first, and scent glands are the first things to change.” 

“So I’ll be able to walk through unharmed.” 

“Most likely.” 

“And what if it doesn’t work.” Jacob asks. “What then?” 

Flynn falters, looking between Ezekiel and Jacob. 

“I’ll do it.” Ezekiel says, pushing himself off of Jacob to stand up on his own. “I’ll take the walkie talkie and Cassandra can guide me to the valve.” 

Flynn nods and hands over the walkie. Jacob freezes, panic tearing through his chest and he rushes at Ezekiel, pulling him into a tight hug. 

“Be careful.” Jacob murmurs. Ezekiel pauses for a fraction of a second before burrowing his head into Jacob’s neck. 

“I will.” Ezekiel says. 

Jacob breaks the hug, pushing Ezekiel lightly towards the door and hiding his face, wiping the tears off his face. 

Ezekiel would be okay. He had to be.

Chapter Text

And he was okay. Mostly. 

It was too late for Jenkins to cure it entirely- there are side effects. 

When the rest of them found Ezekiel, scratches on his arms and slashing his face, blood spilling down his face, Jacob nearly lost it, biting his cheek and looking away as Eve dropped to the ground, pulling out emergency bandages from a pocket.

“Temporary till we can get him back to the Library." She explained, not looking up at them. 

Olfactory senses weren’t fooled for long. Cassandra thinks that there was an underlying smell of human, that once they caught on, they started attacking. That’s when Eve and Jenkins found them. A minute later Ezekiel might’ve bled out, alone and unsure if he was able to help his friends. 

When they got him back to the Library, Jacob refused to leave his side, switching between watching Jenkins attempt to get rid of the side effects and watching Eve tend to his wounds. 

“None of them are too deep. They’ll all heal, just with scarring. And he’s gonna be benched for a bit.” 

“He won’t like that.” Jacob responded, eyes flicking over to Eve before back down to Ezekiel. 

“Good thing we have you to break the news.” Eve clapped him on the back and headed out of the infirmary. 

In the end, there was nothing to be done about the slight point of his ears, the sharpness of his teeth or the way his eyes glowed in low light. 

“Lycanthropy, in most conditions, is impossible to cure.” Jenkins explained after Ezekiel woke up. “While Mr. Jones won’t be going berserk every full moon, I dare say he inherited a few traits from his canine relatives.” 

Ezekiel seemed the most excited about this new development, stealing Jacob’s phone and inspecting his new features in the phone camera. 

Jacob didn’t know how he felt. 

No. No, he knew exactly how he felt. 

Guilt burns at him, gnawing at his insides until he feels sick. If he had corralled Flynn better, if he had kept a closer eye on Ezekiel, if he didn’t let Ezekiel attempt to go out alone, none of this would’ve happened. 

Ezekiel notices right away. 

“You’re acting weird.” He lowers himself onto the ground, ignoring all of Jacob’s protests. 

Jacob had found a corner, in the back of the Library where he hoped no one would find him. If anyone was going to find him it would be their thief. Jacob didn’t know if this was good or bad. 

“I’m not-“ 

“Lying.” 

“I’m not lying to you!” 

“You are. I know you, I’m a thief, I know what your tells are.” Ezekiel pokes him in the arm.

It takes Jacob longer than he’d like to admit for him to build up courage.  

“You were going to die, Jones. I know after you got clawed it’s blurry but you were on the ground in a pool of your own blood when we found you. If Baird and Jenkins didn’t come and find us you would be-“ A lump forms in his throat and he shuts his mouth, looking down at his lap. 

“Hey, hey,” Ezekiel cups Jacob’s cheek in his hands, bandages scratching Jacob’s cheek, as Jacob looks at Ezekiel for the first time. 

The claw marks across his face have mostly healed, Bathseba’s Oil of Healing can only do so much with a wound caused by lycanthropes. Zip stitches line Ezekiel’s forehead and cheek, mostly unneeded, but Baird insisted. It was the quietest Jacob had seen Ezekiel since the military base with the Atlantean Thaumatite. 

“I’m okay.” Ezekiel continues, like nothing’s wrong, like he isn’t forever changed, like Jacob can look at him without seeing his body lifeless on the ground. 

“But you almost weren’t!”
Blood fills Jacob’s mouth, copper choking him, the memory refusing to leave him. He can’t look at Ezekiel without seeing it, a ghost haunting him long after he left.
“Jake…” 

“Look at you!” Jacob bursts out. “Jones, you’re-” 

Bloody, dying, hurt, dying.

Ezekiel draws a shaky breath and pulls his hands away. “Oh.” 

Jacob grabs Ezekiel’s hands as he stands up, tears pooling in his eyes, and it clicks what Ezekiel might’ve heard. 

“No, Zeke, I didn’t mean it like-” 

“I know what you meant, Stone.” Ezekiel pulls his hand out of Stone’s and turns away. “I just didn’t think you would be the one to say it.” 

.

Ezekiel wipes the tears off his face, ignoring the stinging saltwater mixing with the cuts on his face. 

Of course that’s why Jacob was avoiding him. Ezekiel thought they were getting closer, that they’d moved past all the arguing and resentment that they’d had when they both started, but it apparently was just a facade, or a temporary fix until everything happened. 

Jacob never liked magic, never liked when it wasn’t kept safe in the Library, Ezekiel shouldn’t be surprised. 

Ezekiel never regretted moving into the Library more than right now, when he wants nothing more than to collapse in his room and scream into a pillow without alerting someone that something is wrong. 

Tears stream down his face as he continues walking, no amount of pressing his palms into his eyes and attempting to put it out of his mind is able to stop it. A part of him wants to use the Door, find a random forest in the middle of nowhere, but there’s a chance he’ll run into any of his friends and he doesn’t want to see them, doesn’t want them to have to see him. 

Footsteps echo down the hallway, getting closer. Ezekiel’s heartbeat speeds up as the pounding steps get closer and he finds the nearest unlocked door and slams it behind him. The room is dark, dusty, and empty, though Ezekiel’s not focused on that as his back hits the wall opposite the door. He slides to the floor and tries to calm down. Nothing’s wrong, it’s just Cassie with a new discovery, or Eve trying to corral them, or Flynn with a new mission. 

“Ezekiel, please!” The voice is just outside the door, the one person Ezekiel was hoping it wasn’t. Jacob knocks once, before opening the door. Light slices through the darkness, beaming straight towards Ezekiel, hunched on the ground. 

Jacob closes the door quietly, leaving them both in darkness again. 

“What do you want?” Ezekiel hisses, trying to pretend like his voice didn’t crack, like he’s not trying to not have a breakdown in some random room. 

“To apologize.” Jacob takes a step forward and Ezekiel presses himself further against the wall. Jacob freezes, hurt flashing in his eyes. 

Ezekiel doesn’t say anything else, and Jacob continues, sitting down in the middle of the room. 

“I meant your injuries.” Jacob starts, avoiding looking at Ezekiel.. “We’re a team, I should’ve done better to keep you from almost dying. Baird said most of your injuries will scar over but never heal fully, and that’s my fault.” 

“Bullshit.” Ezekiel says. Jacob’s head snaps up and Ezekiel continues. “That’s bullshit. You’re not in charge of me, it’s not your fault for any of this. If anything it’s Flynn’s fault that it was a trap but we chose to follow him! I chose to help the people there, and I chose to leave and hope that I could turn on the steam to get you a path to the reactor. I made those choices alone, and I would’ve made them knowing what would’ve happened. So what if they’ll scar? I’m here! I’m okay. We all are.” 

“I keep seeing you on the ground. There’s so much blood and you’re not moving.” Jacob says. “If we were a little bit late, you wouldn’t be here and it haunts me.” 

Ezekiel pushes himself off the wall so he’s kneeling in front of Jacob. Ezekiel takes Jacob’s hand in his, holding it to his chest. 

“But I am here.” Ezekiel murmurs. “You can’t get rid of Ezekiel Jones that easy.” 

Jacob laughs wetly and exhales, dropping his forehead against Ezekiel’s. “Promise?” 

Ezekiel tightens his hold on Jacob’s hand, shifting so he can press a kiss to Jake’s forehead, before pulling him into a hug.
“Anything for you, cowboy.”