there's a flaw in my design

I was secretly hoping you'd pop in here, Rach! <3

He froze mid-step as a bark addressed him. Foreleg half-risen in incomplete motion, he took in the opposing male with wide, venomous eyes, pupils engorged with some unreadable sense of wrath. He did not relax upon realizing that this was a wolf from his own pack.

His own pack. The phrase had been foreign to him before, but he'd gotten used to it well enough, even appreciated it. Now, with sickness addling his brain, it was an unattainable puzzle piece to his slowly crumbling life. He could never belong again. Not with knowing that he was being driven to madness, surely every day, with each passing second. Paranoia swelled in his lungs, and for a minute it appeared uncertain if the wild, bristling wolf would bolt or charge.

Instead, after a too-long moment, he put his foreleg down and stood stock-still before the superior male. Rank mattered little to the virile sadist. But in some form of sanity he recognized that it would be unwise to treat this particular wolf with violence, and his virus was momentarily kept at bay.

He watched the crystal-eyed devil in incredible wariness, uncertainty exuding from the black dog in palpable waves. Haunter didn't speak -- he had nothing to say -- but he waited, instead, to see what treachery the beast would bring upon him.