Snippet #1801962

The sight of a gorilla sitting on one’s chest would have been enough to make anyone question why they got out of bed that morning, but for Fitz McMillan it meant that today had just gone from bad to worse. He closed his eyes with a groan, letting his head bump softly against the ground. This prompted a sharp pain between his eyes, though, of course, with the gorilla potentially doing irreparable damage to how his internal organs were arranged, Fitz managed not to pay it much heed.
A shadow fell over him, just visible through the darkness of his eyelids. “Ah, awake at last, Mr McMillan.”

An order was barked and Fitz inhaled sharply as the air came rushing back into his starving lungs. The inhalation quickly turned into an unhealthy sounding cough, even to Fitz’s medically untrained ear, blood spattering on the already blood-slick floor as he turned his head to the side.

In no hurry to resume the situation, which was on hold for as long as he could manage to keep his eyes closed (it was delusional but he probably had a concussion of unknown severity so he didn’t question his logic), Fitz spat out the blood which still lingered in his mouth. Bloody ribbons of saliva hung from his lips, and he leisurely, gingerly, raised an arm to wipe his mouth on his jacket cuff. Somewhere beside his head, a foot tapped with impatience and he could hear the gorilla snuffling some way off.

Finally, unable to delay the inevitable any longer, he opened his eyes, feigning a look of surprise as he gazed up at his companion, green eyes somehow maintaining their customary twinkle of not taking anything too seriously. “Goodness, Williams! Have you been standing there long? Terribly sorry, I must have nodded right off. Glad to see the wife is doing well,” he said pleasantly, trying his hardest to keep the pain from leaking into his voice. He dropped his voice to a whisper, casting a surreptitious look at the gorilla, “Though, between you and me, she could do with taking a bath.”

Williams sneered down at him, lip curling up to reveal unnaturally large teeth. “It’s Wolf now.”

Fitz paused to run his tongue along his gum, silently thankful that all his teeth seemed to be correct and present; and the natural size. You could never be too careful when you passed out in a back alley in London. “You know, it’s funny. You would have thought that one of the Lupes would have thought of that name already, wouldn’t you?”

His benign smile was met with a snarled, “It’s not a name. It’s a title.”

“Oh, I see. So, what does that make you, then? Their maid?”

For a second, Fitz was almost fearful that Williams was going to do something really serious to him, like kill him, but at the last second something seemed to change in his demeanour. “I couldn’t expect you to understand. You’re just a human,” Williams spat. It was meant as every bit of an insult as Williams made it. In an age where it was fashionable to have gorillas spliced with human intelligence as bodyguards, to sport whiskers and tails and sharp teeth, Fitz had even seen several more extreme cases of unicorn horns, a horse’s body, and tentacles (the less said about that the better), Fitz really was something of an abomination. Which was just how he liked it. He’d heard the rumours (diligently kept out of the press, of course) of gorillas kidnapping young girls in New York, and lizard creatures going crazy and terrorising Japan, and he’d, quite frankly, rather not take the risk.

Williams snapped another order to the gorilla, which started to lumber over to the pair of them. Fitz eyed it warily, his ribs still protesting from his last meeting. However, the gorilla continued around him to stand next to Williams. “Next time we catch you snooping around on our territory, we won’t be so pleasant. The Lupes are watching you, McMillan.”

Well, they could join the club.


The day had started, as they often do, with Fitz being slapped by a woman. Only, this time, he felt that it was rather undeserved. “Ow. What was that for?” he protested, clutching a tender cheek with his hand.

“You’re no different to all the rest of them! You don’t give a damn about how many animals are hurt, do you?”
“Now, now, that’s not fair. I never said...”

Dammit, why were women so attractive when they were mad at him...

She didn’t pause to listen to any of his excuses, instead spinning on a heel and flouncing out the door. The guy at the table opposite gave him a sympathetic look and Fitz nodded politely, pressing his fingertips tentatively against his cheek before running his hand through his hair with a sigh. He really hadn’t actually said anything about wanting to join her protest. Why did they always assume that because he chose not to have his genes spliced with an animal that he was actually interested in animal rights?


In hindsight, that really had been the highlight of his day. Following that, he’d been called many malicious and unfair names by the woman’s friends, nearly been run over, threatened by the Übermensch, kicked out of his apartment, and he’d realised that it had been exactly two weeks since his last case. Not counting finding an obscene number of lost cats (the Felines were about one of the only gangs in the city that actually liked him). He was fairly sure that Mrs. Herman was just making excuses to come back and see him now; he would have shuddered but he was pretty certain that he had at least three broken bones. The ground was cold and wet beneath him and a streetlamp flickered despondently against the low hanging smog, what a charming place to die...

Oh, dammit, no way was he going to die here. Fitz slowly heaved himself upright and took a deep breath, slowly assessing just how much damage had been done. He definitely needed a drink.