#whats a laser werewolf? no idea. but i want it.

[gorgynei]

i just need travis to be on the next 4sd cuz it's the halloween episode and they're dressing up, and one of the options was "laser werewolf" and i need it to be travis!!!

YES SO TRUE. chetney hasnt done much (outside of having the weirdo moments with ruidus) but travis should be on 4sd JUST for the laser werewolf. its made for him.

[countcvnt]

Howl

Chapter One: Coffee Shop Crush

[Werewolf!Poly!141 x GN!Reader]

Summary: Four years after a horrible attack, you and your childhood best friend move for her job. After the move, you frequent a coffee shop near your apartment, and you meet a cute ex-military man. You can't help but fall for him. Warnings: Mentions of blood, descriptions of scars, 2 named OCs (i know some people don't like that, and that's okay!) one of the OCs is a child (they are important, i promise) reader being insecure about said scars, pet names (from friend), no use of y/n Word Count: 2.3k A/N: I had an idea and had to write it!! THIS IS AN AU (obviously), I'm doing what i want and everyone is alive. Don't worry, I'm still working Experiment as well! I love Gaz, truly and deeply, you are about to see that in full swing baybeeeee! Divider by @cafekitsune

“This isn't so silly now, is it?”

Your friend looks at you, her hand on her hip. You can't help but roll your eyes. “I never said this was silly,” You deadpan at her. “I said–”

“‘The idea of wanting to go camping before you give birth is silly’.” She uses air quotes around the words.

“Yeah! The idea, not the action, Cynthia.” You bite back.

She rolls her eyes this time. She looks at the tent the both of you set up —mostly you— and smiles to herself. You can’t help but smile too. You groan at yourself and walk over to her. You pat her on the back.

“You’re right.” She looks at you, “This isn’t silly. I’m just–”

“A hater. I get it! I love you for it!” Her words stun you. You cross your arms at her and scowl. You grunt and walk away from her. “Hey!” She turns to you, “Where are you going?”

You click your tongue, “Gotta get wood for a fire, silly.” She gives you an enthusiastic ‘thank you’ and you walk off towards the treeline. The sun is setting and there is a horrible feeling settling in your gut. “You’re just a hater…” You mumble to yourself. “Nothing bad is going to happen.” You inhale sharply and walk into the woods. You grab some branches that look pretty burnable and rush back out to your campsite.

Cynthia says nothing about rushed actions, instead she motions for you to place the branches in the spot she made for the wood. You set it down and Cynthia grabs the lighter fluid. She douses the branches and sets them ablaze. 

She smiles and sits down a few feet from the fire and you watch her. She places her hands on her stomach and closes her eyes. She looks content. Genuinely, and utterly content. You sigh. One of her eyes squint open and she pats the ground beside. You don’t hesitate to sit down with her.

“What’s wrong?”

Your stomach flips. In a horrible way.

“I don’t know.” You look at the fire before staring up at the full moon. Your eyes cut back to her and she pats you on the thigh.

“We’ve been friends forever, you can tell me anything.” She gives you a soft smile.

“My stomach hurts.” It’s not a complete lie.

“Sorry, babes,” She shakes her head, “can’t help you there.”

“I guess–” You pause. “You’re so happy. Like, glowing… I want that too. What are you doing?” You let out an awkward laugh. Her face drops. “It’s not that I’m not happy, I just– I’m not happy like you.”

“Oh, sweetie,” She pulls you into a soft hug, her ‘mom voice’ coming out. “I promise, I’m not always thrilled. I mean, I’m about to be a single mom… That’s terrifying. But I do have you, and that means a lot to me.” Her hand rubs your back. “When we get back from this trip, we can do something you want to do!” She pulls away and presses her forehead to yours. “I promise.”

You close your eyes, nodding. “That means a lot,” You smile. Cynthia pulls away and you sigh. You can’t help but still feel sick. A loud whine comes from the trees behind you. An animal dying. You tense.

“Get in the tent.” You don’t even look at Cynthia, your eyes are laser focused on the woods.

“It’s probably wolves or something…” She doesn't argue though. Cynthia crawls into the tent and waits for you. You don’t get in fast enough.

Something big moves in your peripheral vision. You look up and want to scream, no noise comes out. Cynthia sees the pure shock on your face before she registers what’s going on. You're tackled to the ground by some creature. You figure it’s not an animal or a man. Definitely not a man. Its claws are large, too large to belong to an animal you know, and ripping into you in seconds.

A scream finally rips from your mouth. Cynthia doesn't move. You hope she doesn’t come out of that tent. You’re overpowered instantly; the creature gnashing its teeth above you, its claws rip into your stomach. Another one of your screams echoes through the woods. You look over at the tent.

Cynthia isn’t in the tent.

Your eyes widen. You don’t move.

“Get off– Get back!” Cynthia screams, her voice full of rage and fear. You can’t see what she’s doing but, suddenly, the creature removes itself from you and takes off away from the both of you. Your eyes cut to her. She’s standing there, holding a burning stick. Tears fill her eyes.

“Sweetie,” She’s using her mom voice again, you look at her with shock filled eyes. Adrenaline is dwindling, she sees it. “I need you to stay with me…” She’s fumbling for her phone. “I have service!” She calls what you can only assume is authorities, and everything is starting to fade in and out. She gives the operator the location and she’s trying to keep you focused on her. “Please, stay awake… I can’t lose you…”

You open your mouth to speak, but you are out. You’re too far gone to even comprehend what you want to say. You let the darkness take over. So much for doing whatever you wanted to do.

You sit at the coffee shop, eyes looking at the laptop screen in front of you. Your eyes move down to the time and your heart is in your throat when you see the date. It doesn’t get easier it seems. You know what day it is, really, you are always aware. But, seeing it makes it so real. You inhale sharply and look back at the screen.

You’re doing your annual “What The Fuck Attacked Me in Those Woods” research. It’s hard to constantly look things up. And, every year around the time of the attack, things become fresh. The scars, and the thoughts. It may be the worst time to look things up, but it’s the only time you want to.

So far, you’ve found a big wolf, a bigger bear (which you are sure it wasn’t either of those), and… A werewolf. That doesn’t make sense either though. Not completely. It fits the description of whatever attacked you. But those aren’t real. You sigh and continue looking at the pictures.

You come across an article. Someone claiming ‘a large creature’ (a werewolf, they are sure) had attacked their livestock. You want to look away when you catch images of the poor animals, but you can’t… You’re too busy comparing the marks on the sheep to the marks on your stomach.

It’s adding up…

“Whatcha lookin’ up?”

You almost jump out of your skin. A yelp escapes you and slam your laptop shut. “Gaz!” You whisper, swatting at him. “What the hell?”

“Sorry,” He puts his hands up and sits across from you, “but really… Were you looking up werewolves?” He raises a brow. He sounds playful. If only he knew you weren't playing.

Your brows furrow and your lips turn downward into a pout. “I’m not in the mood.”

Gaz immediately apologizes. “My bad,” he pauses. He watches you closely as you grab your coffee and take a sip. “Are you alright?”

You only nod. “I will be.” You solemnly sigh. Your eyes peer up at Gaz, his wheels are turning.

“Would now be a bad time to ask you out?”

You are certain the shock on your face is visible from across the coffee shop. Your jaw drops and you stare at him. Gaz shifts. You swallow hard and compose yourself. “Um, actually, I don’t think there would be a bad time for you to ask that.”

He is relieved. You see him relax. He gives you a toothy grin and you can’t help but return the smile. “What about tonight?” His confidence is back.

“Yes!” You are excited, you cannot help but feel so excited. “I mean, yeah, that's fine.” You rub your hands down your thighs and try to act nonchalant.

Gaz’s smile turns cheeky. “Perfect.” He jots something down on a piece of paper and hands it to you. His number. “I'm surprised I haven't given this to you yet, but here.” He stands from his seat. “I have work to do today, but tonight I'm all yours.” He winks at you.

Heat bristles across your cheeks. You nod at him as he leaves. You pick up your phone and quickly put his number in. You send a text to him, letting him know it's you. You slip your phone into your jacket pocket and bite the inside of your lip. You put your computer in your bag and begin to leave yourself. Your mind is running faster than you can keep up with.

Maybe it doesn't have to be a bad day after all.

As you're leaving the coffee shop you pull out your phone. One new message.

I forgot to tell you what I have planned for tonight

If you're up for it, I can keep it a secret? -Gaz

Your stomach knots. You want so badly to know. Maybe not knowing will help you grow. You trust Gaz.

Just let me know what I need to wear.

Something cute! But you're always cute. So that won't be a problem. -Gaz

Your face is burning again. You respond with an ‘okay’ and send a thumbs up emoji. You smile all the way home.

You open the door of your apartment and are greeted with a shrill scream of your name. You close the door and small arms wrap around your legs. You smile down at the child.

“Hey, booger.” You hug back. “Where's your mom?”

Footsteps come from another room and the child points towards the noise. Cynthia walks in and smiles at you. Her eyes narrow and she hums. “You seem… oddly happy.”

“Is that bad?”

“No, no!” She shakes her head. “It's good. Great! I know you were upset this morning… Did something turn your morning around?”

You shrug. “Maybe.” You smile at her. She perks up. “I'm going on a date tonight.” You are nonchalant this time. Playing it cool for your friend.

She runs towards you and hugs you, her daughter in between you and her. She squeals. Cynthia pulls away and smiles widely at you, after apologizing to her child who runs off. “For real?” When you nod, she continues. “With your coffee shop crush?”

You nod again. “He stopped by today just to ask me out…” Your stomach flips at the thought of that. You want to scream at how sweet he is.

“What's his name, anyway?”

You haven't told anyone his name. You met him a week ago and didn't want to jinx anything. You didn't dare mess anything up for yourself. Now, you feel obligated to at least tell Cynthia his name. “Kyle.”

“Know anything about him?” She cocks a brow.

“Well, we've only been talking for a week. I'm sure I know more about him than he does about me though… He’s ex-military. I know he works with his old military colleagues. I also know he has the prettiest eyes I've ever seen and is the sweetest man I've ever met.” You smile at her.

Cynthia beams at you. “I'm happy for you! We've lived here a week and you're already among progress.”

“Now I have all day to think about this date…” You pause, remembering your search from earlier. “Cynthia, I looked more up about–”

Cynthia’s eyes snap from her child and to you. “Sweetie,” her voice is soft but full of worry. “It's okay to not know what it was…”

“Maybe for you!” You keep from shouting. “Cynthia… I found someone saying something attacked their livestock and the marks looked like mine.” You whisper. “What they described is the only thing I can describe.”

“What'd they say?” She whispers back.

“Werewolf.” It's the only word that falls from your lips.

Cynthia tenses. She mumbled your name and sighs. “I know you want to know what happened that night– But maybe… Maybe it's best we don't know.”

That is her way of saying that werewolves aren't real. You bite your tongue. “At least I know I'm not crazy.”

Her eyes widen. “You aren't crazy. I saw what you saw!” She stops herself from raising her voice any further. “I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe it's best we let this lie.”

You keep from rolling your eyes. “Whatever.” You walk to your room and close your door. Inhaling sharply, you begin to find something to wear for your date. You have the rest of the day ahead of you, but you want to be ready. You see an old sheer top and scrunch your nose. You wonder why you still have it. It's not ugly, but…

You lift up your shirt slightly and look down at the raised skin stretching from the middle of your ribs down to below your belly button. The scar is big, gnarly, and reminds you too much of the attack to wear that sheer top.

“Hey!” A knock comes from the other side of your door and it swings open. You drop your shirt.

“Amelia–”

“I knocked.” She smiles at you. “Are you comin’ to my party?” Her eyes are big and round and sweet.

You nod. “I'm just going out tonight. Your party is tomorrow, silly.” You pat her on the head.

“Good.” She pats your thigh. “I'll be…” She pauses.

“Four.”

Amelia smiles even wider. “Yeah! Four!”

You can't help but smile. “Okay, Amelia, go to your mother.” You shoo her from your room. She exits as fast as she entered and you sigh. You shake your head and look back at your closet. “At least I have all day to figure out ‘something cute’ for tonight…”

[fluideli123]

Sonadow Fic Rec

Okay, before you jump down to the masterpieces listed below, I just wanted to state this:

These authors have given this phenomenal content for free, baked with time and effort. I have never once ignored this, hence why I try and comment on each and every one of these fics. However, my energy and ability to be verbose differs day to day. Some of these fics I have not given proper comments for, despite this, I will be on it the moment I can be. In the time being, (once I am able to find my comments on each of these fics) I will be sharing my adoration for them further in other posts (and most likely link back to this one).

With that being said, please, PLEASE take your time to check each of these fics out. If they're not your cup of tea? Valid! But hands down I have never dedicated myself to making a fic rec like this until now. But I MUST share and spread these works, they are much too dear to me not to, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

(All fics are listed by order saved in my bookmarks, not in the order read)

tangled threads and bite-marked shoulders by @rubyiiiusions

Words: 32,287 | Series | Complete

Shadow hissed in pain. The laser had just grazed him, but it still stung, and he instinctively gripped the wound it left on his arm. “You dare-” He stopped. The laser hadn’t hit him. In fact, it had struck Sonic, right on his lower left arm. So why did his forearm feel like it just got shot? He whipped around, fear climbing up his throat, and he suddenly became hyper-aware of something new. It was like a sixth sense, feeling the confusion that emitted from Sonic’s fur in waves as if it was his own. “What did you do?!” Shadow snarled. or, eggman accidentally soulbinds shadow and sonic, and no one has any idea how to undo it.

Sleepwalking by Tirainy

Words: 22,117 | Complete

'There is a strong arm curled around his torso, the appendage keeping him close to its owner, whose warm breath is ghosting over the back of his neck. Sonic is sure he went to bed alone the previous night, but he isn't worried about the intruder. After all, this isn't the first time this has happened…'

Secret Admirer by @trenchcoat-gecko

Words: 24,313 | Complete

Sonic understood well what it meant to be loved. He was a world-famous hero, after all; his presence never went unnoticed. For the most part, he lavished in that attention, he soaked it in and encouraged it. But not romantic attention. So, when the blue blur found himself falling in love? Well, the prospect was rather daunting, no matter how easy Amy had made it out to be. So maybe, just maybe, he should just take the easy way out...

Rose Drops Series by @magicstormfrostfire

Words: 122,489 | Series | Complete

Love, Intuition, and a little bit of magic ensues as Amy sends Sonic and Shadow on an unforgettable adventure.

Wolfboy by @trenchcoat-gecko

Words: 73,856 | Complete

World-famous monster hunter Shadow the Hedgehog has a job to do. It doesn't take long for the one-shot wonder to realize that this job won't be as simple as he'd expected: a small town, rumors of a lone werewolf, and a handsome, green-eyed, chronically-injured casanova who manages to worm his way into Shadow's heart... What starts off as a simple job turns out to be something much more life-changing.

Blizzard Bedfellows by @magicstormfrostfire

Words: 21,294 | Complete

When a rare blizzard takes over the island, Sonic is on the run to make sure a certain angry loner is safe and sound. Y-you know, because...uh that's what heroes do.

We never met but can we have a cup of coffee or something? by @whitejungle

Words: 3,630 | Complete

It's been almost two months since Sonic lost someone he didn't even know, but he can't stop thinking about it.

Clean Slate by nottheweirdest

Words: 155,880 | Complete | Note: Squeal pending and I am cheering you on author!! Whatever you decide I am excited to support you!!

Shadow has lost himself before. He knows what it's like to straddle the line between reality and false memories, but this time, it’s Sonic whose memory has vanished. A premeditated set of circumstances and an accidental injury leave Sonic with no memory of who he is, his life, or more importantly, his painful history with Shadow. It’s up to Shadow to remind the hero who he is in the midst of a global outbreak. It’s a chance for redemption. It’s a chance to right the wrongs of the past. It’s a clean slate.

say i reckon (i love you, for a millisecond) by @redamancering

Words: 30,205 | Complete

There’s a hand on his shoulder, barely making contact. A red gauntlet glows around the wrist. Sonic blinks, the pain having evaporated so fast he feels almost weightless. “Shadow?” Shadow’s breathing heavily. “Problem.” The retrieval of the ancient tech Shadow (and Sonic, in tow) has been sent to uncover takes a turn for the worst. In this case, the “worst” means… becoming physically and inextricably linked to each other. For the foreseeable future. OR: Metaphysical handcuffs, and general gay buffoonery.

Judge my sins, not my feelings by yellothebeeloved

Words: 228,479 | Complete | Note: Possible one-shots pending from the author for the series, I am here to support you author!! What ever you decide I'm here for it!

Maybe he's not meant to touch. It's the newest excuse he thought of in hopes that he could prolong the game a little more; a careful ruse to enjoy the bittersweet torture of seeing the days pass them by, while he pretends he doesn't seek azure blue whenever he's restless. At first, all he wanted to do was watch: but now the desire to touch, to have, to affect is at a point where he's not sure whether reaching for Sonic would truly be fruitless. He wonders that especially when Sonic's eyes light up upon seeing him. When he corners Shadow, when he invades his space and he touches and takes and then excuses it by calling it a fight. Shadow truly wonders then: if only he was brave enough to reach out, what would his grip find? Loose stars or a battle-worn body? Standing up, he glances at Sonic again, whose eyes have now met his own. There's something heavy in the eye contact, something Shadow doesn't dare name. Neither of them say anything, and yet Sonic's eyes move away from him again, like they did. Shadow warps away, hiding from the stars once more.

Child of Prophecy by @trenchcoat-gecko

Words: 139,321 | Completed

On the night the Mobius Castle was ransacked, the Queen received a prophecy. “One of three will not cry; send him down the river, for you can only save your kingdom if he does not grow up royal.”

Coming Home by nottheweirdest

Words: 55,740 | Completed

Shadow's life has been full of mistakes, some worse than others, but admitting his unrequited feelings to Sonic tops the list. He's spent the better part of a decade ruminating on his regret and hiding from feelings he couldn't bear to face. He never thought he'd see Sonic again, and he told himself that was for the best. Until now. At the bequest of his former rival, and in an attempt to finally get closure, Shadow has returned to Central City. The reason? Sonic the Hedgehog is marrying Amy Rose. And Shadow is invited.

[glitxhwayventeen]

The Smart One: Part One

Yeonjun

Characters: Yeonjun x female reader

Warnings: mentions of- violence, death, drinking, smoking, sleeping around (but it’s all consensual so i don’t see a problem with it. But i know some people do so TW ig), name calling (but they don’t actually mean it and none of them think they do, they’re loving nicknames), crying, pining/angsty love, Yeonjun being dumb basically poor baby

Author’s Note: Ahhh so I’m back. I hope no one’s too made i started a new addition to the werewolf/college universe but i really think these stories are gonna be nice and get me excited to start writing again so here’s to hoping! Let me know if anyone wants to be added to the tag list for any of the characters!

Please remember that all of these chapters and the content within them are a work of fiction! They’re just for fun/entertainment!

There Will Be Blood Masterlist

The Smart One: Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

🥀

Bold- Dialogue Italics- Thoughts

Tag list-

Yeonjun never understood his brothers. He never understood half of the weird shit they did. He never understood their constant need to be around one another. And he certainly never understood why they were so eager to find their mates.

So as he sat on the couch listening to the pup of their pack argue with the alpha over what their future mates must be like at the kitchen table, he couldn’t help but roll his eyes while he scrolled through his phone in boredom.

“Hyung, there’s no way you’ll get a mate that’s like you. That relationship could never last! Two control freaks don’t make for a happy couple!”

“Surprised you could do that much math! In fact, you better hope yours has half a brain because you’re too stupid to not have someone looking out for you for the rest of your life!”

Everyone in the pack knew that the youngest in the pack wasn’t always the smartest when it came to basic schooling and common sense. Hell, the only reason they found him and added him to the pack in the first place was because he had somehow managed to piss off a group of fifth graders who began chasing him, a high school senior, down the eldest’s home street.

So Yeonjun knew the alpha wasn’t entirely wrong for insinuating Kai probably needed a mate with a head on their shoulders. But that didn’t mean that he thought the boy was stupid. And that definitely didn’t mean he liked the topic at hand to begin with.

“I can take care of myself you know hyung.”

Yeonjun didn’t like the idea of mates. He didn’t like the idea of signing away everything that made them themselves to some stranger werewolf instincts told them they would have to love forever. He didn’t like the idea that his brothers were all trying as hard as they were to find theirs.

And he sure as shit didn’t agree with wanting to give up the lifestyle he had gotten used to over the years just because his dumb wolfy brain would be too obsessed with some innocent unsuspecting human to think straight.

“You literally wouldn’t be able to tie your shoes if it weren’t for us but whatever Huening.”

Because who would want to be tied down like that? Who would want to have to answer to some random person for the rest of their life that something as ridiculous as fate set them up with? Who would want a life that basically took away everyone in the situation’s free will and personal choices? Not Yeonjun, that’s for sure.

“That was one time! And it was only because I couldn’t find my contacts hyung!”

At that point in his younger brothers conversation, Yeonjun had pretty much tuned them out. Not that he could help it, they’re the ones who got his brain stuck on a topic he otherwise wouldn’t have given five seconds of his time on. Now because of them, his brain was laser focused on what finding a mate would mean for him in particular. And the thought started making his stomach churn with unease.

Because he was someone who liked going to parties. He liked the opportunity to make friends and socialize. He liked the free drinks and party favors. He even liked the god awful music because it meant he could dance his troubles away.

If he had a mate chances are they wouldn’t want him to go to parties. Or go out. Or have a good time with his friends.

He was also someone who liked to drink and smoke pretty regularly to handle the stress of his everyday life. Not that he was an alcoholic or anything, but he was definitely someone who had to go to the hospital more than a handful of times to get his stomach pumped after partying a little too hard. And he was definitely someone who always had a pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket in case he needed to chill out, but he didn’t think he was a chain smoker or anything.

But the pack was friends with other packs in the area, and let’s just say more than a few of them had mates that were heavily against their mate doing any smoking or drinking. With his luck, his mate would be the same exact way and he’d be forced to give up something he loved for someone his instincts would tell him he loved.

Yeonjun also liked to hook up with random people at the parties he went to. Some of them even on a regular basis because it was a situation that benefited everyone involved. They all would be satisfied with their sex lives and no one had to worry about mushy gushy relationship stuff like going on picnics or planning cheesy dates to get laid.

But he knew the second he got a girlfriend, that favorite pass time of his would be over or it would become the center of all their arguments. Which is exactly why he had never had one before.

Which was another issue, he wasn’t exactly a guy destined for monogamy. Hell, he wasn’t even able to promise his situationships that he wouldn’t go fuck someone else right after he was done with them. And everyone, everyone, knew that about him. Even people he had never even met or people from other universities knew he was the kind of guy who girls brought to their beds, not to meet their parents.

If he had a mate, chances were they wouldn’t be okay with an open relationship. In fact, they’d likely want to be completely exclusive and to only be with each other. Yeonjun would want the opposite of that. He wouldn’t even know how to go about having that talk with someone. Actually, he couldn’t even imagine the issues that uncomfortable conversation would cause him if he had a mate.

As the eldest stayed seated adorned in his usual black and leather get up, he couldn’t help but think of another rather unsettling complication finding a mate would cause him if he somehow did manage to warm up to the idea of having one: bringing a fragile little human into his rather chaotic and dangerous life.

Sure he had plenty of human friends, they had to stay unsuspecting to the outside world after all. And it wasn’t even that he thought less of them or had them for appearances sake. Yeonjun did genuinely like, and even at times envy, his human friends. But none of them knew half the shit that really went on in his life.

They didn’t know that he wore brown colored contacts to hide his naturally golden eyes. They didn’t know that his roommates were actually his packmates. They didn’t know he had to be locked up for almost a whole week twice a year to keep from fucking everything and everyone that crossed his path during his rut.

And they definitely didn’t know that if he ever let his emotions go unchecked and got too mad he could phase and hurt, possibly even accidentally kill, the people around him.

Yeonjun had known he had to take all that into consideration during every interaction he had with his human friends. But he had never really thought about what falling in love with one would mean for them.

Being a mate meant being part of his pack. His pack of very kind, albeit very dumb, brothers and their future mates. It meant always having to be tethered to them because Yeonjun was, no matter how big in size it would get or how rocky a relationship the person would have with them.

Being a mate meant having to keep a secret, a huge one, from all friends and family outside of said pack in order to protect everyone. It meant his mate would have to watch everything they said to be sure they never let anything slip out.

And being a mate meant being put in dangerous, possibly even deadly, situations. It meant that his mate would have to always be on the look out for werewolf hunters trying to use them for leverage.

It meant they’d have to be conscious of rivaling or vengeful packs/rogue wolves who’d have a bone to pick with theirs for one reason or another. It meant they’d have to get wrapped up with other packs and their business because Yeonjun’s never turned others away when they needed help.

It even meant that he could hurt his mate himself if he wasn’t careful while phasing or using too much strength when their weaker human body couldn’t handle it.

Being linked to him meant being linked to a revolver with one bullet in the chamber randomly firing, you just never knew when it would go off. How could Yeonjun ever be okay with doing that to someone who never had a say in the matter to begin with because of the feelings they would catch due to his werewolf instincts?

“Jjun hyung,” Soobin’s voice suddenly broke through Yeonjun’s thoughts, “I need you to drive Hyuka to the library for his tutoring session today.”

He couldn’t help but pull his brow together in annoyance, “And why the fuck would I do that?”

Yeonjun couldn’t lie and say he meant for his question to come out as rude as it did. But he truthfully didn’t see why he needed to be the one to take him. Sure the pup of the pack couldn’t drive yet, but others in the pack had recently gotten their licenses and could take him.

“Because I’m in charge and because I’m asking you politely to do it,” Binnie spoke hurriedly as he shoved some books into his already overflowing bag, clearly rushing to leave the house for, what the eldest could only assume based on his polished appearance anyways, work.

Yeonjun didn’t really think that was a good enough answer. Why couldn’t Beomgyu take the younger boy? Or Taehyun? Why did it have to be him?

He drove a really nice motorcycle that, even though it could fit two people on it easily, he didn’t like other people getting close to because they could scratch or dent it. Not to mention Hueningkai was absolutely terrified of riding it as he so lovingly pointed out when he deemed it a “coffin on two wheels.”

So Yeonjun let out a dry chuckle, “Nicely? Sounds more like a command if you ask me. Huening failing out of school is not my responsibility. Besides someone else will have to do it anyways because I have school myself sorry.”

While he knew that statement was a selfish thing to say, it was also true. If he could manage to get by in school with a hope and a prayer, why couldn’t the youngest of their little family learn to do it?

Sure other people did try to “help” Yeonjun with his issues once upon a time, but they just made him feel even more stupid than he already knew his parents thought he was. So he didn’t even fully see the point of the pup going to tutoring anyways. Chances are it wouldn’t work for him either. So it was a waste of money in his eyes.

The alpha pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly agitated and over the fight he hadn’t even had with the eldest yet, “Jesus fuck Yeonjun-ah, I don’t have time for this. Tweedle dee and tweedle dumbass’s timing of their classes today won’t let them do it and i have work. We both know you’re just gonna blow your classes off today like you do nearly everyday so you can do it you just don’t want to.”

Soobin sighed jaggedly as he ran a hand through his messy hair in an attempt to steady his breathing, “But if that’s what it takes to get you off your ass and to get you to be helpful for once then yes, it’s a command then!” He practically growled because he had to do something he hated and had to force his status on his brothers as he threw his bag to sit on his shoulder, “Take his ass to his tutoring so he doesn’t fail out of school. I dont know about you but i don’t want his sisters to come and freak out on us for being bad influences on him again!”

Even though he heard muffled snickers coming from Taehyun and Beomgyu sitting nearby, all Yeonjun could do at that point was throw a harsh scowl Soobin’s way.

He couldn’t disobey an alphas order anymore than he could stop breathing. And he couldn’t necessarily say the alpha was wrong in saying he was just planning on not going to his classes today anyways. He just really hadn’t planned on being Huening’s personal taxi driver for the day. Sometimes he really hated being a werewolf.

“Looks like you’re stuck with me hyung!” Kai put his arm over the eldest’s shoulder with a squeeze, a cheshire grin happily plastered on his face.

“You know I hate you right?” Yeonjun hissed as he got up to grab the keys to his motorcycle, much to the sudden mortification of the younger boy.

————

A whiff of old books and ancient dust seemed to flow through the air as the two boys stepped through the double doors to their college’s library. A library Yeonjun hated.

He hated the smell, even if the smell today wasn’t as putrid as usual for some reason. It still smelled musky and moldy like it normally did, just… less moldy and musky than he had known it to be previously.

He hated the goodie goodie people sitting at their tables studying, who no doubt thought they were better than him. Which was total bull. Because just because he wasn’t book smart like they were and could barely scrape by in his classes didn’t mean the brown nosing assholes scattered about the depressing building should have the right to judge him.

And he definitely hated having to be anywhere near the grouchy librarian who always told him he was too loud to be there. Which he found ridiculous because why should he have to be less noisy and more tame when ehe let everyone else do what they wanted to all the time anyways? He was 99.99% positive that the old crone just had it out for him.

“You just haaaaaad to flunk calculus didn’t you?” Yeonjun rhetorically asked his brother under his breath, his nose automatically scrunching up at the foreign aromas around him, slightly catching a whiff of someone’s delicious smelling cherry perfume that was sweet enough to almost have him forgetting why he was there in the first place. Almost.

But Huening paid no mind to the sulky boy as his eyes began to scan the rather large and echoey room for his rather small and quiet tutor.

The eldest knew that Hyuka had been doing sessions with you for a little over three months now and he’d say they had paid off substantially, his calculus grade went from a failing D to an above average B. Which was something none of his brothers had managed to help him do.

So, as annoyed as he was at his alpha for forcing him to take him to school, Yeonjun tried not to be too annoyed with the pup. At least he was putting in effort to do something good for himself for once.

But that didn’t mean he had to like the place you two did your study sessions. It was literally the most cliche and boring place ever.

“There she is!” Hueningkai practically squealed, his high pitched voice causing you to look up from the book that was in front of you at your table with a small, though obviously very shocked, smile.

While Kai was just happy rambling about what they were going to work on that day and why the session would take so long as he was getting tutored by someone he considered a friend, one of the few he had actually managed to make on his own, Yeonjun was in his own little world.

From the moment his eyes turned to you as you looked up to shyly greet his younger brother from afar, everything else around him faded away.

All the students mumbling around him were tuned out when he quickly realized the sweet cherry smell hanging in the air was linked to you.

All the sounds of chairs being pushed in and out from the tables scattered about went mute as your beautiful curls residually bounced from moving your head to look up.

All the passerbyers around you practically floated out of his line of sight as your dimpled smile radiated a warmth bright enough to reach even the coldest person in the room.

Before his current interaction with you, Yeonjun had only heard about you from his younger brother’s constant babbling about his new tutor friend. Soobin, Taehyun, or Beomgyu had always been the one to drop him off because the eldest never wanted to and/or was never home.

He never cared enough about something so trivial to listen to Kai’s mentions of you, which was something he was regretting in the present.

He didn’t remember much, but what did manage to sneak it’s way into his brain made sense. He had once told Yeonjun something about you being a foreigner. You definitely didn’t look as Korean as the people around you, yet you still managed to outshine every single person in the building by a landslide.

The younger boy had once spoken about how shy you were and, based on how your cheeks lit up with noticeable hues of pink and red even through your darker complexion once you saw that Kai hadn’t come alone, he guessed his assessment of you was correct.

Huening had also said something about you being very polished and conservative in appearance. Which was something exuded in your outfit choice: a pastel yellow cardigan that brought out the glow in your ebony skin and an olive green under vest that fit your rather curvy body perfectly.

And from what Yeonjun could see just under the open library table, you had a pleated skirt composed of similar colors and white laced tights that matched your headband on top of your beautifully and expertly styled hair.

To say you were the most gorgeous person the elder boy had ever seen was an understatement.

All Yeonjun wanted to do was go over, pull you up from your chair, and kiss your glossed lips until you both ran out of breath.

Sure it would be a little difficult to maneuver, Yeonjun could tell by referencing the size of everything around you that you were quite a bit shorter than him, actually probably a lot a bit shorter than him. But with his strength and your small frame, he was sure he would still be able to lift you with ease.

In fact, you would probably be just the right size for him to be able to wrap your legs around his waist and walk around comfortably. Which would mean that walking you over to the nearest room with a lockable door wouldn’t be a probl-

But before he could finish his line of thinking, you lifted your delicate hand in the air to signal Kai to come over to you and suddenly the panic of the situation truly set in, causing Yeonjun to react on instinct.

Heart nearly pounding out of his chest from the shock of having seen you, he quickly threw himself to the side of the nearest bookcase to hide himself from your view. Much to the confusion of his younger brother who dutifully followed suite in order to see what was going on.

“Yeonjun-ah,” Kai hesitantly spoke to get the elder boy’s attention, “Is everything okay?”

No, nothing was okay. Five seconds ago his life was great. Five seconds ago he was Yeonjun, the guy who smoked nearly a pack a day. Five seconds ago he was Yeonjun, the guy who always had a drink in his hand to take the edge off.

Five seconds ago he was Yeonjun, party boy who slept with whoever he wanted whenever he wanted without a care in the world. Five seconds ago he was Yeonjun, a normal human guy.

Now he was Yeonjun, the werewolf whose senses were going into hyperdrive and who’s brain was ready to throw all that away over some girl he had only seen once for less than half a second.

“T-That girl’s your tutor?” The elder boy asked as he worked on catching his breath, deeply gulping back a crack he knew his voice was desperate to let out.

Huening tilted his head in confusion and gripped the strap of the bag that was thrown over his shoulder a little tighter in discomfort, “Yeah… that’s ____… why…?”

Scanning the pup’s expression, Yeonjun could tell he was getting suspicious of what was going on. He knew the second the youngest understood what was going on he’d run an tell everyone in the pack.

After that there’d be no going back. After that everything would change. But he couldn’t let that happen.

He couldn’t lose what little life he had found for himself outside of his pack. He couldn’t let go of the few things he had left that make him happy. He couldn’t throw away a life of freedom for a life of fear.

And he couldn’t get you caught up in the mess he had created that was his life, not when he finally saw you. Not when he could tell you were a happy sweet innocent person who deserved a hell of a lot better than what he could give you. Not when every instinct in his body was telling him to protect you for the biggest threat around: himself.

Yeonjun knew he’d have to respond to his brother in a matter of seconds. He knew he was acting weird and that the youngest would come to his own conclusions.

But he still had one hope: no one else in the pack had gone through it yet, so no one knew 100% what the signs really were in real life. They only heard second hand accounts from their friends in other packs. So there was still a chance he could hide it. You still had a chance.

“No- No reason,” Yeonjun did his best to pull himself together and recreate his shattered normal cool guy persona, even though his heart was still in his throat and it was causing him to become light headed, “Just wondering. That’s all. What time do you need picked up?”

Based on Kai’s still confused face, he didn’t seem to buy Yeonjun’s answer fully. Probably because he could physically hear his brother’s pulse racing.

But he at least let it go soon enough when he heard you softly call his name, “I need a ride back at 4. I gotta go, thanks for the ride hyung!”

With that, the pup went off in a hurry to meet you at your table, giving you a quick hug and placing his things on the table for you to get your session started.

And while Yeonjun’s immediate instinct to his internal decision to stay away from you was to need to whimper because you were so close yet so far away from him, he shakily began to walk to the library’s exit so he could get back to his bike.

It felt like his heart was crushing in two. It felt like the world was crumbling around him. Like all the air was being pulled from his lungs with ever step further from you that he took. It felt like he was slipping away and that the only thing that could bring him back to earth was you. But he refused.

As he jumped on his motorcycle, started the engine, and he sped off and way from his university at full speed, tears began to slide down his face underneath his helmet.

He made a promise to himself and to you to keep you away from him, no matter how much it hurt. It was better for everyone that way.

He wasn’t meant to be in relationships. He wasn’t meant for commitment. He wasn’t meant to love people unconditionally. He physically couldn’t, he had no frame of reference to mimic to even show you he would be willing to try to figure it out for you.

He couldn’t be a boyfriend, he legitimately didn’t know how to be one. And he wasn’t about to force you to teach him while also putting you in mortal danger every single day because of him and his pack.

A part of Yeonjun’s distraught brain wondered if he should’ve felt bad for taking the choice away from you. After all, that’s why he hated the idea of mating in the first place.

But he decided that nobody should have to make that choice. Nobody should have to choose between a quiet life with someone you could never love right and a dangerous life that may be cut short because of someone you love madly. Nobody should have to feel guilty for unintentionally killing someone if they rejected them. Nobody should have to be put through it, least of all you.

You’d be safer and happier this way. And he could continue on living for his pack because you wouldn’t have verbally denied him.

He didn’t like the idea of mates and what they stood for. He hated that they took away free will. But as cheesy as it sounded, seeing you for the first time changed everything he felt just earlier in the day.

He saw you and he immediately wanted to stop partying. He saw you and would’ve instantly quit smoking and drinking if that’s what you wanted him to do. He saw you and felt the need to send out messages to all his previous fuckbuddies to let them know it was over between them, that he had no need for them when he had you.

Because all he could think about was the future he could have with you. The stereotypical one people always referenced with the nice big house with a white picket fence he would’ve helped put up himself.

One where you two had a stupidly expensive wedding where you looked absolutely stunning walking down the aisle towards where he would be at the alter bawling his eyes out knowing you would be his forever.

A future where you had normal human jobs you came home from at the end of the day and complained to each other about while making dinner.

A life where you had two kids: a boy who looked and unfortunately acted just like himself and a girl that luckily looked and acted just like you.

Now that he had met you, he wanted you to be together. He wanted you to be his mate, to be his. He was fine with his free will being taken away if it meant he was able to spend a lifetime with you.

But he couldn’t put you through that.

And driving away from you when he could’ve just gone to introduce himself to you and ask you out was single handedly the hardest thing he had ever done. And his life was only gonna get harder.

(Edited 5/25/2024)

[princeescaluswords]

Wait do the fandom actually believes that the Alpha Pack is there because of Stiles, and for Stiles???

Derek, i get it. They got wind of him turning Alpha mode and biting teenagers left and right without care n making his own army of deranged angst wolf teens with questionable morals (+ a deranged post-burnt uncle)

Stiles, on the other hand? Bro could've had his death story earlier if he wasn't friends with Scott. He got targeted because he's friend with Scott the lone wolf who defied his alpha(s). He's also alive because of Scott's weird tendency to befriend enemies. The reason Scott became a werewolf at the first place is because, canonically, Stiles doesn't give a damn about "killer on the loose, might show body later ttyl" shenanigans 😭

In this claim, I was referring mostly to the period of time between Season 2 and Season 3 (September 2012 to June 2013) and the Tumblr meta and AO3 speculative fiction that was produced then. There is plenty of content where the creator said "this is how I think Season 3 will go" and it has the Alpha Pack focused on Stiles.

But this was no surprise to me, after the fact. During every hiatus (until 6B and the movie) fandom content was filled with straight-up fantasizing about how the next season was going to be Stiles's season, by which they meant that the show would make him its incontrovertible focus. And when it came to 6B and the movie, when that option was no longer on the table, suddenly the show that they had spent so much time writing meta and stories about turned into, to paraphrase a vast majority of fandom, a sh*tshow.

Think about the contradiction there: the show became terrible and unworthy of their time only when it finally became impossible to imagine it being ultimately about a white male character.

But you're right, there was simply no indication that Stiles was destined for greatness in the first two seasons, though it was not because he was inferior to anyone. He had opportunities to go to the forefront and he chose not to. In Code Breaker (1x12), in Ice Pick (2x02), in Raving (2x08), in Battlefield (2x11), and in Master Plan (2x12), he had opportunities to take on the role of lead protagonist, to seize the narrative, and the writers had him make the very deliberate decision to remain where he was. This is not a negative criticism of the character. Stiles may have been written as insecure but he was also written as deliberate. He defined his own role in the first two seasons, the same way Scott did, and he never decided to do what was necessary to become the lead protagonist. He was never going to abandon his friends, he was going to use the talents he possessed, but he didn't want to transform himself in order to help others, the way Scott chose to do. Anyone who watched the show understood exactly why Stiles chose that.

Just as we understand that it is Scott's choice to become something other than he wanted to be for the good of others, made after experiencing the terrors of Season 1 and manifesting it through his decisions during Season 2, that makes him the target of the Alpha Pack in Season 3. The writers clearly intended for him to demonstrate something extraordinary, and Stiles, for all his cleverness, didn't. This was constantly displayed in the narrative and in acting choices, again and again and again.

So where did this idea that the show would eventually turn to Stiles for its lead protagonist come from? Well, if you've followed me for any length of time, you already know the answer I am going to give you. It's the same reason that a significant part of the fandom invests, with laser-like focus, in Stiles's dead mother, in Stiles's barely-mentioned ADHD, in Stiles's supposed super-intelligence, in his possession by the nogitsune, in the "chemistry" but not the content of his interactions with Derek as the only things worth paying attention to in the story. It's the same reason that the fandom disregards, often coupled with vicious dishonesty, Scott's strained relationship with his father, Scott's established disability, the way his heroism impacts his education, the sustained horror of Scott's repeated physical and mental violations, and the heart-felt content of his developing relationship with Derek. It is this reason that their reaction to the show is absolute hatred of a protagonist of color and the weird, bizarre, and twisted mutation of a perfectly fine white male character into a spectral avatar of entitled fandom resentment. (What else could produce the amount of fury we see because a 31-year-old Scott doesn't drive a 46-year-old Jeep?)

BUT IT'S NOT RACISM.

[wikifuck]

Fetcher Bree (he/him), 32 (werewolf)

Overview

Fetcher is a risktaker, never afraid to chase a thrill or accomplish everything in the least convenient way possible. Consequences? Don't know her.

He can turn on the charm if needed but rarely exploits his ability to do so out of a mix of pure incompetence and laziness.

He likes pretending to be a tough guy, dressing in leather jackets and dark jeans even in the heat of summer. He is smart but not smart enough to avoid heatstroke.

When he decides to care about something he could quite possibly take over the world if he wanted to, though due to being easier to distract than a cat in a laser factory he would struggle to get a project that big ever complete.

He has a big family that he lives with, or in his words is stuck with, as well as having a lovely fiance and a bright future ahead of him. The problem is that his fiance is a woman chosen by his parents, and Fetcher is gay. Until something beautiful arrives in the little town he calls home and turns the place upside down as it leaves, fetcher feels stuck and annoyed, having lost hope for an escape.

Like this character? Read his story here! :)

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Genre :: Fantasy, Contemporary Romance

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Name

Chewy Fetcher Bree

Fetcher goes by his second name and only his family calls him by the first. It's too cute for his tastes. Canineshifters from his area often name their pups similarly to how witches (or who we would on Earth call humans) might name their pets.

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Birthday

June 6

☯

Age

32 years old

Despite being very much an adult, Fetcher seldom acts like one. One might compare him to a bratty teen, especially when it comes to his views on authority figures and healthy coping mechanisms (he has none)

☯

Zodiac

Gemini

I'm not very good at remembering the western zodiac traits. Still, if communication, wittiness and being funny, curiosity, being outgoing and impulsivity are the traits of a Gemini, then they fit him like a glove.

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Gender

Cis male

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Sexuality

Gay

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Pronouns

He/him

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Personality

Overall Personality

Funny, charming, smart and impulsive, if he wanted to get something done he could get it easily. Even becoming a politician.

Were this to happen, humanity's last hope would probably turn out to be treats, as the way into the heart of this man is indeed through the stomach. His lack of impulse control means he has no idea when to stop and often ends up looking like a golden retriever gorging itself, though luckily with maybe two added brain cells.

He loves to study and throughout his long and fruitful career of living off his mother, he has completed many degrees he never plans to use. He has an interest in science and languages, but due to family pressure, he also has a degree in economics.

The point of that degree was to give him a good understanding of what he would be jumping into as the oldest and therefore the heir. He has spent all of his life up to the events of Puppylove doing his best to avoid having to inherit everything. Being essentially the mafia boss of a small town might sound like a cushy job, but acting as the boss of all six of his siblings, a town of witches and all the clans in neighbouring towns, sounds to him more like torture.

He enjoys the company of animals of all sizes, even the smallest.🐌 If given the opportunity he will meditate alone in nature for hours. I like to imagine that when he does that there is a faint ding every once in a while as his singular brain cell sails around his skull, because there for sure isn't anything profound happening in there.

🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌He hates seeing snails and worms get crushed on the street after it rains and his hobbies include meticulously saving every snail he sees 🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌

In terms of active vs. passive trauma response Fetcher is generally passive but in certain situations, he switches to active. He is more motivated by the well-being of those he cares about than his own thoughts or feelings. He isn't exactly the pinnacle of altruism yet he can go out of his way to help others while expecting no reward.

For such a cynical person, Fetcher is a little naive. His family, as shitty as they are, did accommodate him by being honest with him. However, they probably did exploit his naivety by lying to him about things that they wanted to keep secret. This bad but well-meaning act has left him with a sorely lacking understanding of how neurotypicals or society in general act.]

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Love Language

Since he gets bored easily he is rather hard to please. Food gifts are a reliable way to get through to him how much the giver cares about him.

He was never taught to show love properly so he often devolves into mindlessly doing everything his target of affection asks, be that appropriate or not. This doesn't really make him feel satisfied but he has yet to learn a better tactic. Hopefully being around people who appreciate him will alleviate this.

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Brain

The state of his mental health is mixed. Though he likes to think he is okay and "normal," he has unmedicated AuDHD and plenty of unaddressed issues stemming from his childhood. Thanks to this he never developed healthy ways to accommodate himself and often ends up going along with whatever his lowered impulse control tells him to do. A thrill is a thrill, be that overindulging in treats, drinks or sex under questionable circumstances.

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Habits

Fetcher has a habit of overexplaining when under stress. Even when he manages to hold it back, he often uses run-on sentences while looking like he isn't taking a single inhale in between words.

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Fears

Though I don't know what he fears, I know whatever it is, it is the reason he is so detached and apathetic all the time.

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Flaws

The aforementioned apathy is one of his biggest problems, though it is not so much internal as it is caused by his environment. Once he gets into a healthier place, he starts unpacking why he doesn't care about others if they don't give him something obvious in return or aren't in his face all day due to living in the same household.

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Appearance

Overall Appearance

as described by his love interest

"His presence wasn’t threatening whatsoever, despite his stature, outfit, and the obvious fact he was a shifter. 

"He was like a Greek god; just as handsome as his older sister, but in a more masculine way. Alejandro couldn’t help but admire the dark, thick, curly beard and hair, meticulously groomed to follow the jaw, before ending at a rounded point at the chin. It was as if he had climbed from the side of an ancient painted vase, with strong, dark features, and serious, intelligent eyes. He was tall and menacing, and the heavy, brown leather jacket extenuated his broad shoulders. The man was certainly taller than any human Alejandro had seen in decades. He could reach any shelf he wished, that Alejandro knew for sure. Yet, even under the beard, and the jacket that seemed way too hot for the bright summer weather, he looked pale and frail. His eyes were sunken, and his cheeks, almost hollow. He was strong, but something was eating him alive; something no one else seemed to be able to notice."

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Tattoo's

On his right forearm he has an incomplete sleeve tattoo comprised of a prominent collection of bands he listens to for the biker boy aesthetic, peppered with references to media he is actually passionate about. The whole thing looks faded and several years old, indicating that he got distracted and has no intention of continuing it any time soon.

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Piercings

He has two. Not that his ace boyfriend would find them though.

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Clothing Styles

Would he wear a dress?

Absolutely.

In public?

Hell no.

Does he wear makeup?

No.

Would he wear makeup if he knew how to use it?

Yes. Yes, he would. It would be subtle and natural

Everyday style

His everyday style is very rigid, mostly comprised of black leather and jeans in his human form. In beast form, he wears nothing unless it's cold outside. Though he has the money and the wish to look stylish, he often still ends up looking rugged and unwashed after disappearing to who knows where chasing squirrels or something. When he deviates from this look he usually lets others decide for him what he should wear.

Cold weather

Since his coat isn't very warm, in the colder parts of the year he can be seen wearing doggy clothes in his usual colours. This usually looks like A jacket, socks and a hat designed to be easy to put on and remove only using one's teeth and thumbless paws.

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Species

Weremane, a species of human related to werewolves that, as the name suggests, can turn into maned wolves. Unlike the werefolk of myth, these creatures can shift between their human and beast forms at will, without a worry about the full moon. Though maned wolves are solitary, thanks to humans being social animals, weremains can choose between living in packs or alone. Like most canine shifters, they tend to stick tightly to their family unit. Unlike nonsapient (or "normal") maned wolves, weremanes don't smell like weed. Well except for the ones that smoke.

Since even in beast form everyone likes being heard, shifters of all shapes have developed languages to converse with each other with the tools they have. Weremanes are no exception to this, and their language is called Manelish. This language consists of various growls and barks, as well as the famous roarbark.

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Culture

Though different from witches in many ways, shifters don't tend to have distinct cultures from them out of a misguided belief that if they try to meld in they won't be messed with. It's not like racist/speciest people will just make up excuses to be shitty, right?

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Religion

Though raised in the christian faith in a world with magic in it, he isn't very religious. At best, he has a vague feeling that if God exists, it's a cat. He wouldn't worship a God even if he knew one existed.

"No god that makes things work this way deserves any fucking respect"

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Language

Fetcher knows how to speak English and Spanish. English is his mother tongue and he studied Spanish out of boredom from being stuck living at home.

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Setting

Though distinct from Earth in many ways, the planet Puppylove takes place in is based on/inspired by it. Things like countries and languages are roughly the same, though not exactly. The time period is not yet clear but it's roughly speaking contemporary.

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Location

Before the events of Puppylove, Fetcher lived at home in Burneye, an idyllic little town in the countryside, one that his ancestors founded and his family still runs. He lives in the little tower of his family's mansion.

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Occupation

He is a full-time bum, never having worked a day in his life despite being in his 30s. Not that he could ever keep a job down, even with nepotism at play.

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Fact's

Shifters can have a preference for presenting in humanoid or beast form day to day. Though the split is roughly 50/50, most choose to present in humanoid form regardless of preference to fit in better. Fetcher's preference is rather neutral and he fluently switches depending on his mood and the "appropriateness" of the situation

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Theme Song

Animal

Chase Holfelder

It's a banger and it's so his vibe. He would totally put it on a loop on his headphones as he stares out the car window pretending to be the main character in a movie.

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Theme book

The Something Like series by Jay Bell, but he would especially enjoy Something Like Hail

The books are complex and interconnected, which would get him to pour over them looking for every last reference. He would especially enjoy the themes of Hail and in a weird way relate to Noah, the main character, even if their struggles and likes and dislikes are nothing alike. In essence, he would be obsessed with the book but understand it totally wrong.

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Relationships

Family tree

Familial relationships

Chaser Bella Bree(89), father's mother

Though everyone sees Bella as unnecessarily difficult, she isn't malicious. Just selfish. In her eyes everything is fine and she cares for everyone dearly. Fetcher however has gotten the strong impression that if he were to disobay her directly he would be instantly disowned. She is old and as is typical for older people with low self-awareness, she will be appreciated more in death than in life.

☯

Chewy Bounce Bree(58), mother

A savvy and territorial woman at work and home alike, Chewy is a force to be reckoned with. Due to the death of her husband, she has been co-parenting with her mother-in-law for over a decade now. Though good at masking, those around her with any understanding of neurodivergence know she has ADHD. Coincidentally she is amazing at everything she is passionate about, poetry, combat sports and all social aspects of business. She is probably the worst of everyone in the family when it comes to obsessions with family lines. Someone needs to introduce this woman to the Sims games to get her away from meddling with her kid's love lives.

Though she is strict and at times unreasonable, Fetcher gets along with her fairly well and it is widely accepted among the kids that by being friends with his mother Fetcher has accidentally doomed himself to be the heir.

☯

Father, unknown

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Straight Call Bree(25), sister

Most would agree that Call would have been the more fitting heir in every aspect over her brother. She is responsible, intelligent and creative in the way she gets things done. Fetcher wouldn't be surprised if she held some resentment toward him for happening to have been born first. He doesn't comprehend the fact that Call thinks he is okay and appreciates his company when he manages to take things marginally seriously.

In reality, their mother and grandmother have been debating the issue for years, Bounce being of the opinion Call should learn the same skills Fetcher has been primed in just in case he messes up, and Bella believes that Call is simply not a leader. She is a follower and would make for an excellent righthand woman for her brother's leadership. "All the boy needs is some motivation," Bella says, "Then it will all work perfectly!"

Has anyone asked Call anything on the matter? Of course not. That would make too much sense. She has resorted not to worry about it for her own sanity.

She married young, as is the tradition in the family, and she had the twins at the ripe old age of 19.

☯

Dig Bree(24), brother-in-law

Dig is Call's husband and if she is the 2nd in command he is her most loyal general. Dig and Fetcher get along decently but due to a lack of overlapping interests, they rarely interact.

He gets his name from the fact he enjoys digging and has done so from an early age. He uses this passion to help his mother-in-law clean up the backyard... after turning it upside down again.

☯

Nip Tackle(25), sister

Despite, or perhaps due to them being very similar in both taste and personality, Fetcher and Tackle don't get along and Tackle takes glee in exposing Fetcher's wrongdoings to the whole family. She isn't malicious, she is just acting out in a different way to him against the very same issues. As kids she and Fetcher got along rather well, causing chaos together all around them. Maybe it is better for the safety of society that they had a falling out after Fetcher became a recluse and Tackle found relationships outside the household.

Though her mother isn't a fan of her "arrogance," whatever that means, she is the 2nd in line for the inheritance after Fetcher. She hasn't told this to Tackle however and were she to become the heir, which is likely, it might mess up her plans a bit. She is engaged to someone not currently living in the household. The fiance is approved of by her parents, as far as they know, anyway. It may be that this mystery person has more to them than Bounce and Chaser have ever been told...

☯

Kid Bree(15), brother

Ordenarily one might call him the evening child since he was born ten years after the others, but Fetcfher was born 7 years before the twins, so does he really count?

Due to being the youngest Kid has the most freedom out of all his siblings and thanks to this has had the opportunity to postpone when they get their new cooler name. Kid is indecisive, you see, and has yet to comprehend the fact that he could change his name later if he wished. No, it has to be perfect!

Out of all his Fetcher is closest to Kid and since Kid gets along with his sisters also acts as the bridge between him and them. Sometimes Kid even manages to get all three to play Minecraft with him with relatively little grumbling.

☯

The Little Twins(6), niblings

Though probably not the best for a child's psyche, the twins are often referred to as such, the twins. Naming pups later in life, around the time they start developing into their own persons, isn't inherently damaging, but the Bree family isn't exactly known for having their members act sensibly. Dubbed Pup and Dup by their aunt and uncles, these two stick together. Pup prefers her humanoid form, whereas Dup likes presenting themself in canine form. Pup often acts as an interpreter to Dup, with both family and strangers. Pup is more inclined to follow "the way they should act," whereas Dup likes doing their own thing. The Bree family is decent at not shaming its neurodivergent members for acting "weird," but as Fetcher's situation has shown, Dup will most likely have to learn the hard way that most people don't accept their different behaviour.

Fetcher loves these two dearly and is probably the second-best person in the family to understand Dup, right after Pup.

:: ஓ๑♡๑ஓ

Friends

Though Fetcher knows many people in Burneye, doesn't exactly have many friends. Or any, really. People want to be his friend, there is no doubt about that, but he is simply too apathetic to put in effort to make meaningful connections.

:: ஓ๑♡๑ஓ

Partners

Solid Boogie Pyre (25), (ex)fiance

Until the end of Puppylove, when Fetcher breaks off the engagement, he and Boogie are betrothed to each other by their parents. To Fetcher the relationship is a curse but from Boogie's perspective, it is an opportunity. She likes Fetcher, at least when he acts his age, and generally wouldn't mind starting a family with him. She is by no means in love with the whiny little shit, but her family isn't wealthy and being equally as opportunistic as Fetcher, Boogie originally jumped at the opportunity to marry into this powerful and relatively safe family.

Luckily for her, she isn't too bothered either way, married to Fetcher or not and continues on with her life. Who knows, maybe she will try to get in the pants of another member of the Bree family.

She is a funloving and bubbly person on the surface, but once you get to know her you discover she is actually rather serious about many things. She likes nature just as much as Fetcher and runs a flower-themed Instagram account where she advertises her diner and posts about her garden.

☯

Sunny Hunter Pyre (27), (ex) brother-in-law

Boogie's brother and the guy Fetcher cheats on her with. To be fair, Boogie doesn't care. The relationship is transactional, Sunny gives Fetcher attention and weed in exchange for sleeping with him. One of many reasons why Fetcher's taste is as spicy as it is.

☯

Alejandro Ortega, Ali, boyfriend

When Ali shows up it's instantly clear that the town of Burneye is a bit messy. The witches don't really care about his being a vampire but the werefolk are oddly aggressive. Fetcher is the only sensible one of the bunch. Not that he is smarter than everyone else, actually it's mostly because he is very curious and too apathetic to care for the warnings of his family. What a mistake it would have been to listen to them too. Ali is the love of his life and he would do anything to keep him safe. Though most of the time Ali is the one looking after his dumb ass. They save each other from jams and oddly for an immortal, Ali is very quick to fall in love with Fetcher.

Ali is ace, and the agreement the two come to as they start the relationship is that if Fetcher craves something he is free to seek it from others.

Visual aid

:: ஓ๑♡๑ஓ

Enemies

As impulsive as he is, Fetcher doesn't have any enemies for the same reasons he has no friends. He simply doesn't care enough about people to hate them. This doesn't stop some from trying.

• ━━━━━ • ☽ • ━━━━━ •

Credit to the creator of the wiki template mine is based on: 𖤐_☾ 𝑅𝑜𝑥𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑎 ☽_𖤐

[cephalonserotonin]

Warframe Devstream 164 Notes

Another change to the Rebb Creative Director era (erra) seems to be bringing in new people on the team for each stream, which is great! Love to see more of the personalities working on the game

I also appreciate the awareness brought to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which I didn't know about as I don't live in canada

Pablo speaking Spanish :)

this isn't related to the content of the stream, but right as Ven'kra and Sprag were shown and I eagerly went to pause and examine the new art, twitch dropped no less than 3 ADS on me. So much for excitement in the moment. I am so angry at the state of online video these days

but speaking of Venkra and Sprag, their weapons look sick as hell and I'm excited that we're getting skins for them! Especially that hammer

making the Veilbreaker Challenges cumulative is a really good idea, very gamer-friendly

(Honestly I've been a big fan of every decision Pablo has made since being crowned Lead Designer)

Styanax Foley deep dive!! I adore Styanax's sound effects and it was neat to see the individual noises that comprise them (especially if your ear can't distinguish them like me lol) definitely check that out (about half an hour into the devstream) if you're interested in sound design

thought it was neat to hear the difference between the spear throw sound and the spear impale sound

As an aside, Slater the sound designer called the 4 ability an ultimate, which will make my clanmate happy as i always poke fun at him for doing that lol

this is not Overwatch.

REVENANT PRIME yeah boyeeee 👻👻👻👻👻 !!!!

y'all don't even know, Phantasma is among my favourite guns, Tastu is my favourite nikana, Revenant is one of my mains and who I play almost exclusively in the month of October. One of my first posts on here was my Spoopy Revenant. and now it's ALL GETTING PRIMED :D

my spooky boy arrives October 5th!!

Do Revenant Prime thralls have a different icon above their heads or are my eyes deceiving me??

"flesh arsenal"

he looks so. Victorian. 🧐

Dark Magician is right, Megan's look has big Yu-Gi-Oh vibes

"classic vampire trope, lasers" "I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the lack of laser vampires" this is very valid

haunted orbiter decorations!!

I kind of want to do Captura Tennotober but realistically I know I don't have it in me 😔

hello werewolf milf frame 🥺

chat doesn't like her but I think she looks great and I want her to tear my head off, personally

I'm interested to see what new Grineer lore Ven'kra and Sprag's interactions with Kahl will bring

the fucking. Dojo updates. Dojo decorations are the bane of my sleep schedule and it looks like I've got some more restless nights in my future!

the archon shard ephemeras look amazing, unfortunately for me as I do not do archon hunts

It's a small thing at the end, but ammo visuals are being changed to no longer rely on colour! Yay accessibility!

[zeydaan-isabella]

28 Izzys Later

Commission for and story by GreyHawk89 - where a favour of transformation spirals out of control.

Isabella's shift in the café kitchen was almost over, they carefully dried the last plate and put it away. "Ha, finally!" Blaze, at the other end of the kitchen, nodded. "Rough day." Izzy giggled a little. "Well, we're had worse. Time for me to go home and spend the rest of the night catching up on my She-Ra binge. Just lemme sign out and get 'changed' and go." The valstrax caught the emphasis on a certain word and rolled her eyes. The yellow Fey Dragon fiddled with the little computer hanging on the wall that had been designed to resemble a retro punch-clock device. "All done being Izzy for today." Isabella took a step back and closed their eyes. They concentrated, focusing on the the magic core deep within themself. The 'gathered' it, preparing it. Izzy imagined their body's original shape, the sensations that came with having it, moving in it, living with it. Then they released the power they'd built up. Somewhere within them, where magic energy and physical matter merged, a switch was flipped. All the little genetic and mystical 'codes' Isabella was composed of went from 'reading' Fey Dragon to 'reading' Werewolf. In a matter of seconds, all of the tiny velvety yellow fur coating their body coarsened and elongated, re-coloring into shades of black and grey. Their human hair on the top of their scalp remained the same length, but, except for the red tips, darkened from pink to black. Izzy's long dragon tail thinned and retracted as the growing fur turned it into a canine brush. The pink moth-like wings dispelled as the process of magic neared its completion. The nostrils moved slightly closer together as the skin around them grew black, moist, and bumpy, distinct from the rest of the snout. At the rear of the head golden horns retracted back into the skull. The little cartilage ridges covering hearing membranes lengthened and expanded greatly, growing into fuzzy wolf ears. Zeydaan stood where Isabella had been seconds ago, yawning a canine yawn. In fact, Zeydaan's jaws opened so wide as they yawned that they let out a cute little squeak in the manner of canines who yawn too wide. Despite being an armored dragon from another dimension who could shoot lasers from her wings, Blaze gave a coo of delight akin to an ordinary human woman, reached over and gently dug her clawed fingers into the fur and hair at the base of Zeydaan's eras, scritching away. Zey gave a surprised happy noise and leaned into the scritches. A random person just walking up to a furry anthro and starting petting them without consent was considered inappropriate at best and mild assault at worst, but Blaze was a friend. After a moment, Zey broke contact by pulling their had away. "Heh. nice. Probably should get going now though." They took a step and a half towards the door before spotting a curious expression on Blaze's face. "What is it?" "Oh! Uh." Despite having scales, the magic that had originally transformed Blaze from a feral dragon the size of a private plane into one of a more human size and shape both physically and mentally allowed her to blush. "What's it like?" "'It' what?" "Shapeshifting like that. Changing your body however you want. I mean, the one time it happened to me, I wasn't in a proper mental place to fully appreciate it. too busy panicking and falling out of the sky as my brain overflowed with all these new abstract thoughts of greater existence and personal identity." Blaze tapped her forefingers together nervously. "Oh, it's a-" Zeydaan paused, realizing this was going to be like trying to explain the color red to a blind person. "Hmm.." Then, Zeydaan had an idea! Zeydaan had a wonderful, awful idea! I'll dress up as Santa Claus and steal all the decorations in Whoville! No, wait, that's not it... "It's hard to use words to explain it. But if you trust me, I can show you. Err, your shift is almost over too, right?" "Oh? Yea?" Blaze's wings flickered on and off. "I'm gonna turn you into me!" "You wot now mate!?" The wolfish smile on Zeydaan's face was confident-perhaps a little too confident. "Ever since my dragon-side came out, I've been training myself extensively to help me use it better. I'm pretty sure I can infuse enough of my magical essence-pattern-thing into you to temporarily make you a copy of me." Blaze shuffled with nervous excitement. "That sounds cool, but are you sure it's safe? Just temporary?" Zeydaan's confidence wavered slightly. "I think so... my other friends have also been helping me train, so I do have some practice with this sort of stuff. Some. so far. I'll give you an extra 'charge' my energy so that you can change back to yourself at a time of your choosing, rather than just wait for the change to wear off on it's own at some random, possibly inconvenient time, okay?" The valstrax was growing slightly less nervous-excited and slightly more nervous-nervous but still nodded after a pause. It was nice to see Zeydaan so giddy about themself, so unlike the shy, almost mopey wolf who they'd first met a couple of years ago. "O-okay!" "Alright, just stand still and think about me, really, really, hard! I think it'll help!" Zeydaan reached out and placed a hand on Blaze's shoulder. They concentrated on the magic inside them, much as they had just a few minutes ago to switch between their two forms, but this time focusing on Blaze's draconic body instead of their own 'Isabella' body. They felt the little tendrils of they magic extending out of themself and into Blaze, threading itself though and into the other dragon's morphic field. When they thought it was 'enough', they 'expended' the charge. Their arm spasmed and glowed an odd blue color, black veins appearing on it. A flash of pink-grey light blinded Zey for a moment, and when they opened their eyes, they found themself looking at... themself. But, the wrong themself! Zeydaan boggled at a slightly befuddled Isabella. "Uh... only half-successful. I did make you me at least!" The new Isabella blinked, pink moth-like wings fluttering open and close. "Wuzza whent wrung?" Her snout was now longer and broader than her previous short beak-like snout, making speaking slightly trickier. She raised her hands and pulled the white gloves off, revealing yellow instead of lavender, but otherwise not so different. Zeydaan deflated with the shame of failure. What had gone wrong? "I dunno. Chalk it up to my inexperience I guess. I did turn you into a me, just not the me I was aiming for. Hmm, you should take a moment to focus yourself; maybe sit down? The much smaller wings are probably the biggest difference." The 'new' Blaze wobbled on her feet, but managed to keep standing. She lifted a finger up and stroked it along her snout, feeling the velvety yellow fur. "Softer, not scaly," she said with only a mild slurring. Zeydaan contemplated their semi-duplicate's newfound fuzziness and grinned. "One good scritch deserves another! It's not quite the same as my wolf-body, but Izzy has her senseative spots too." They reached out and started scrtiching away between Blaze's horns, then under her throat. Blaze found herself making a rumbling noise in the depths of her throat, almost like a purr. Wolf or dragon, Scritches Good! Amrin chose that moment to step into the kitchen. "Hey, now that we're all closed up we need to- Um, Zey, why are there two of you?" The real Zeydaan waved. "Oh, I'm me! That one is Blaze!" They quickly noted that that was clearly not enough of an answer for their boss. "Uh, I changed after work was over, and Blaze asked me what it was like being able to be something other than a dragon, so.... I tried to show her. Manually. With her permission! I, um, sorta failed."

"Clearly," Amrin stated dryly. She made little hand motions that indicated a strong need to commit some strangulations. She took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay then... and you're SURE everything will be back to normal in time for work tomorrow? Blue is still hibernating for a few more days. If Blaze is gonna be late for work because she still doesn't have to laser-wings to rocket herself here on time!..." Zeydaan gave a very canine yelp of fear and nodded vigorously. Blaze, unfortunately, was not paying as much attention. This wasn't so bad. She could feel what she guessed was the 'charge' of magic Zeydaan had mentioned, like a bubble somewhere inside her that could be 'popped' with a strong enough mental 'poke'. Then, Blaze had an idea! Blaze had a wonderful, awful idea!* I'll dress up as Santa Claus and- no, wait, not that. I wonder, how close a copy of Izzy am I now? Do I have their powers? Could I use this charge is a different way? Like, say, turning another person into yet another Isabella? Maybe my parkour friend Eli would be interested in what it's like to be a dragon!* Fortunately or unfortunately, she chose not to vocalize her plan to the others, merely watched them. They were too distracted to pay her any mind at the moment anyway.

Zey licked their wolf-chops hungrily. "Saaay..." they slobbered, "is there any chance you could let me have a couple of the unsold snacks from the fridge? I could use an energy boost for the recent use of my magic." Amrin raised an eyebrow but acquiesced to her worker's request. "Sure, why not." she grumbled. "Mind you, I'll watch to make sure you don't go into another feeding frenzy like LAST time." Just as the others walked over towards the big refrigerator Amrin waved her other employee off home for the night. Blaze waved back "Okay! See you both later!" As she went out the door, she vaguely heard a shout of "Wait, stop! Not the whole chocolate cake! No, not all the pies! Just one!" In her enthusiasm, Blaze failed to consider two things- Firstly, while she did in deed have a copy of Zeydaan's powers to a small degree, she had no training in using them whatsoever. Secondly, that sometimes, when you make a copy of a copy, it's not as well, sharp, as the original...

28 IZZYS LATER... It was mid-afternoon when Sapphira Azula Cerulea 'Blue' MacGregor woke up from her long winter nap with a mighty dragon-yawn. "Has it been almost month already? Ugh, morning mouth! Bad enough after one day, but after twenty-eight or so!? ...I need mouthwash. Strong mouthwash!" The Scottish Flood dragon pulled herself out of the bed she'd been dozing in in a near-coma. Despite the name for it, she only needed to go into 'Winter Hibernation once every five or six years, during especially cold weather. Or due to sheer laziness building up to near toxic levels if she ignored it for too long. She walked into her bathroom and spend a great deal of time catching up on various toiletries and grooming that she needed for feeling and looking her best. By the time she was ready to go out in public again, it was late afternoon. Fortunately, work was not far at all, less if she flew, but she swore that local air laws had been designed for bias against winged people. Oh well! She stepped outside in her glorious French Maid style outfit and strutted her stuff. As she was walking to work, she vaguely noted that the streets of Mailor City were oddly empty today, but she put it out of her mind by humming a cute song she'd heard on the radio before going to sleep. Then, when she was still a few blocks away from the café something yellow and pink wearing black and white stepped out onto the sidewalk right in front of her, finally grabbing her attention. It was Isabella, wearing their Maiden Menagerie uniform, walking slowly and awkwardly, a spaced-out expression on their face. Blue blinked. Usually, Zeydaan transformed into Isabella before starting work, then changed back into werewolf once their shift was over, but there was no actual rule about what form they needed to assume while on or off the clock. "Hey Izzy! How's it going? Is your shift over already today?" She glanced at the orange sunset sky. "Seems early." Isabella perked up upon realizing they'd been noticed. "Scritches?" they practically begged, tail wagging like the canine they sometimes were. "Huh..." Blue was confused. IzZey was not usually a touchy-feely person. Still, as a werewolf they'd always looked sooo fluffy, and she'd been curious what their fur felt like. Where did you scritch on a dragon though? "Uh, okay?" Guessing, she reached forward and stuck her claws into the mass of pink hair around the horns near the back of the head and began scritching away. It was very pleasant, if kinda weird to be scratching another dragon like that, but Izzy was making happy little whimpering noises. Just then, a second Iabella walked up to them. They were wearing a slightly torn pink t-shirt, ripped up sneakers, and the rear of their blue jeans had a tail bursting out of a hole. "Scritches?' they asked hopefully, seeing their twin on the receiving end of some. "What?" Blue said confusedly. "Why are there two of you?" "Scritches," the two Isabellas moaned in unison. Blue yanked her hand free from the first Izzy's hair and backed away nervously. "What!?" Her fingers were all itchy, they flexed under their own power. She pulled them closer to her face, eyes flicking back and forth between her them and the approaching Zeys. Her hands spasmed, fur was sprouting out from her scales. "What's going on!?" The itchiness was spreading all over her body. Her hands, now covered with tiny patches of fine yellow hairs just like the ones on the Isabella's hands. "Argh, soo itchy!" Her wings and tail flexed wildly; they were no longer fully under her control. A mass of pink hair was sprouting from the tip of her tail-spade. Likewise, little pink holes were painlessly appearing in her wing membranes, as though she was being eaten by invisible moths. The tip of her snout felt itchy as it changed from blue to yellow. She furiously clawed at herself, ripping her clothes. "OH! I need, I need... SCRITCHES!"

[lovevalley45]

#fictober22 day sixteen

"What are you doing?"

original fiction

word count: 332

After the time it had taken to get the apartment back in order after her first full moon, Josie wasn’t taking any chances this time. She was going to go back to those woods and ride out the transformation there, hopefully not getting into a rumble with the werewolf that had attacked her all that time ago. 

She had packed her bag complete with a change of clothes and wipes to get rid of any blood or dirt, ready to sneak out for the full moon. However, she couldn’t escape Rhiannon’s keen eyes. 

“What are you doing?” her roommate asked as she crept towards the door. “It’s the full moon.”

Josie sighed. Of course she’d noticed the phase of the moon. Ever since that first transformation, Rhiannon had taken great interest in everything lycanthropy. “I’m trying not to wreck our apartment again, duh.”

“So, what? You’re just gonna inflict your werewolf strength on everything else?”

“I am going to the woods, thank you very much.”

Rhiannon stood up from her spot on the couch. “Great! I’ll come along for observation.”

“Rhi, the exact reason I’m leaving the apartment is so I don’t hurt anyone. Especially not you.”

She seemed unfazed by the idea that Josie was actively trying not to hurt her. Then again, she’d managed to knock her out pretty easily that first night. “I’ll just trail behind you.”

“For a Masters’ student, you are so stupid sometimes,” Josie muttered. 

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Rhiannon said. “Let’s go, I’ll drive so we can get some coffee.”

That was the thing she’d learned about her roommate. She was utterly stubborn, and once she got onto something, she was laser-focused. The only way Josie could have gotten her to stay at this point was to duct-tape her to the couch, and even then she’d probably gnaw her way through just to get what she wanted. 

She adjusted the bag on her shoulder and sighed. “Alright. But I’m not paying.”

[jaydonsjam]

Man-Thing V

Man-Thing #2

Man-Thing #2 written by Steve Gerber and pencilled by Val Mayerik and inked by Sal Trapani

I love this comic so much. We meet a down-on-his-luck self-hating guy, Richard Rory stranded in the swamp without gas and he meets a woman, Ruth Hart who’s being pursued by a biker gang cause she stole their money. Or did she?

It’s heavily implied that the leader of the biker gang and the ex of Ruth (his name being Snake) had stole the money and was blaming it on her. Yeah his name is a little on the nose. But hey one of the main antagonists of this book’s name is F.A. Schist. Snake does have a pretty ironic and brutal death at the hands of his beloved chain. He takes a swing at Man-Thing and it gets stuck inside of the swamp monster. We also get introduced to a new villain working with F.A. Schist, Professor Slaughter who has built a metal box filled with discs that shoot millions of lasers at the victim. And they spring a trap on Man-Thing by playing a piercing sound coming from the box that Ted will want to stop and destroy. Man-Thing gets trapped in the box and is shot with the rays and when all looks lost, he uses the chain in his torso and starts smashing the discs in the box which allows him to leave. He throws the chain and it hits Snake in the head, killing him instantly. I didn’t mind Man-Thing falling into a trap because he is basically a shell with glimpses of humanity from Ted. I love how Steve Gerber characterizes this “monster” and builds the mythology of how this creature operates. This was a simple story with some fantastical technology that pushed the limits of believability at times but ultimately I loved it anyway.

Man-Thing #3-4

Man-Thing #3-4 written by Steve Gerber and pencilled by Val Mayerik and inked by Jack Abel

Man-Thing destroys the metal box and then battles some crocs to save some people. I love Val’s art and one of the things I’m sad about is that there’s a new artist starting on issue #5. Anyways, we got introduced to a new villain who thinks he’s a good guy which is the hallmark of great villains imo, The Foolkiller!

In a similar vein to The Hangman from Werewolf By Night (see my most recent WBN post) we got another vigilante but this time it’s a religious zealot with a purification gun. A Zorro wannabe, The Foolkiller calls people fools and then kills them with his laser gun. I’m glad they made a Zorro joke cause I immediately thought of Zorro after seeing his costume.

One of my favorite moments is after Man-Thing saved the people from the crocs found F.A. Schist who was on the run from Foolkiller on escaping in a jeep and Man-Thing threatens him to take the people with him. It’s just a great moment. I love this character. It’s weird that Foolkiller will give someone like Schist 24 hours to repent but won’t give the same opportunity to his other targets. But I think it’s there to point out his hypocrisy. He believes and worships god but kills anyone who he wants in the name of god. It’s a great way to show the hypocrisy of religious zealots. How they pick and choose from the Bible to punish or bully others. This is another storyline that really reminds me of what we’re dealing with in our current times with constant mass shooters who are mentally deranged psychopaths passing some kind of religious (a lot of the time) or political executions on innocent people. I might be reaching but I think they did a good job with Foolkiller here. I honestly liked this story arc more than The Hangman that I recently discussed. It was a great story arc and I couldn’t wait for Foolkiller to die. Again though like with Snake, he had an ironic death basically at his own hands with his gun ricocheting. But I didn’t mind it here although it was very coincidental. I have an idea that Marvel couldn’t have their heroes outright murder bad guys and that’s why they often have ironic things happen so they don’t have to show it. Punisher was still a villain at this point (I think) so they hadn’t introduced an anti-hero vigilante who murders bad guys.

Marvel Two-In-One #1

Marvel Two-In-One #1 written by Steve Gerber pencilled by Gil Kane and inked by Joe Sinnott

And we end this post to talk about a crossover between The Thing and Man-Thing in the first issue of Thing’s series: Marvel Two-In-One! Thing sees a newspaper with Man-Thing on the cover and heads to Florida to fight with him because he’s the only Thing that can have that name. I’ll admit this was a really stupid premise even though it’s written by one of the writers who I’ve really liked from what I’ve read from the 70’s in Steve Gerber. But I’ll say the art by Gil Kane was fantastic. I love the cartoony look to his art and when Molecule Man was in Citrusville transforming molecules was awesome and reminded me a little bit of Doctor Strange art. Molecule Man is the villain in this issue and I really liked his origin here and he’s a very powerful character that we’ve seen be used in recent marvel events. His costumes absolutely sucked though. Also, they mentioned the word porno which I was shocked by especially coming from this era. I will say Molecule Man’s weakness being he has to hold on to his wand or he’ll die was a lame weakness but he is really powerful so you have to introduce some way to beat him. I’m glad we didn’t get the cliche trope of superhero vs superhero in this issue which is something that bothers me (see my Avengers vs Defenders post). Also I loved seeing Ben Grimm and Ted Sallis in their human forms working together. It does end in a really hilarious way by Thing giving the wand to a kid. I laughed my ass off reading that. Overall it went differently than I expected and I enjoyed the villain and the chemistry between Ted and Ben really worked for me. Next up is a team up between Ghost Rider and Spidey!

[victorluvsalice]

Hello all, and welcome to a very special Chill Valicer Save update – the Valicer Spookfest Group Date, which I played back on 7/7/2024, aka the Valicer Anniversary! You may recall that I did a little "teaser post" on that date of the event, showcasing one of my favorite pictures taken during it – now you get to see the whole thing. :) Let's dive right in –

-->I started by heading back over to the Valicer farm to see how everyone was doing – Smiler was working on their Servo; Victor was in the upstairs white-and-blue bathroom, ready for a shower; and Alice was hanging out outside by the water collectors, having been stopped from mopping up puddles in a rainstorm. I had Victor take his shower and prompted Alice to let out a somber howl to lower her Fury (didn’t want to risk her having an “episode” during their date), then sent them both back to bed so I could speed up time for a while and get them to morning quicker. I slowed things back down around 4 AM to get Smiler to mop both a puddle that had ended up inside (I suspect one of the pets, but I have no idea which one – Shadow is pretty well potty-trained, and the cats have what I hope are plenty of litter boxes) and some mysterious symbols by the laundry, then had Victor and Alice get up around 4:30 to start their day (noting with amusement that Victor had a special “I Woohoo’d a Werewolf” flirty moodlet XD You certainly did, sir!). I had Victor clean the spoiled food out of the fridge while Alice took a feral poo, then had both of them grab a slice of blueberry pie for breakfast since that was the next thing in line to go off. They had a lovely meal, with Smiler joining them to have one of their plasma fruits, and Kelly joining them to beg for food. XD Alice ATTEMPTED to lecture the cat on not begging when she was done with her slice, but Kelly just seemed utterly confused by the concept of not asking for the people food right in front of her. XD

-->With breakfast done and dishes cleared (I think my Sims very much like their new dishwasher), it was time to take care of the chores! Victor of course was sent to take care of the greenhouse (lot of weeding to be done!), while Smiler cleaned the chicken coop and Alice cleaned the cow shed. Around this time, the official “it’s Spookfest” holiday overlay popped up, and I prepared to hop into Build/Buy to drag the decorations in the attic out –

And then noticed that Alice already had “Tradition Complete!” waiting in her action queue. It was only then that I realized that I’d never actually taken down the lights Smiler had hung up for the PREVIOUS holiday. XD Whoops! Well, I didn’t let that stop me – I got the ghost lights set up around the new entrance sign; put the pumpkin decals on the front of the house; added a new plastic jack-o-lantern, paper haunted house display, and the laser-light-show cauldron to the front porch; and changed the cards in the living room to be Spookfest and fall-related. And of course had Smiler go and change the hanging lights on the eaves to orange and yellow to fit the holiday, since the previous ones were multicolored. (Weirdly enough, we already seemed to have the right ghostly banners up on all of the fences. *shrug* Not complaining! One less thing to worry about.)

-->With the house appropriately tricked out, chores could continue – Alice scavenged the garbage she’d dropped coming out of Moory’s shed for parts, then stuck that in her inventory before cleaning, feeding, and chatting with the cow, while Smiler finished updating the decorations before going to feed and chat with the chickens. They then got the eggs (the promised orange egg from yesterday’s pumpkin treat to Leghorna and four regular eggs) and Alice the milk (usual six bottles) –

[mleelunsford]

Darkstalkers Redesign Thoughts Part 3

Continuing my thoughts on these redesigns! Only two sets left after this one.

If you wanna see the full image, click here

Felicia: Ok, so first of all, what to do with the naked catgirl who is barely covered by fur in a redesign? If we’re gonna have fun with it at least, let’s give her an all new outfit! Felicia was raised by a nun and wants to be famous in some way, usually it’s as a singer, sometimes as an actor. I decided to give her a bit of a pop-y Idol-ish makeover to keep with her cheery personality and some big cross dangle-ies as a reference to her past.

Victor von  Gerdenheim: A Frankenstein with electricity powers, simple idea, fairly simple design I made the scar run diagonally across his torso instead of straight down for a bit more interest, and made his whole left arm dark instead of half and half. I made his pants sort of patchwork and gave him drooping suspenders for more visual interest and motion. Fancied up his coat as well. And for some added flare, I put his bolts back at his neck instead of on top of his head and made them resemble headphones. Also added some volt meters that can light up more as he uses his powers.

Morrigan Aensland: A big one for me! I’m an outspoken advocate of Morrigan as she is in-game, rather than how she is portrayed everywhere else. You see sexy fan art of her all the time, in OVAs and Comics she’s portrayed as some high-and-mighty noble. In the actual games however, she IS sexy, she IS a seductress, but she also is a bit of a bimbo, lazy, and for some unfortunately unexplained reason, loves to use her bats to form things like jetpacks and giant mecha laser canons. I wanted to represent THAT Morrigan. So here’s a cool modern outfit for her to be out on the town shirking her responsibilities with her little bats in tow. I gave her some mech armor covering her boots for flare. And glasses to represent this nerdier side of her that goes unmentioned until she attacks. My goal was to have a Morrigan that could be seen going out to the club to get sustenance, and then go home and build some gunpla.

Jon Talbain: Honestly, I had no ideas for him. His backstory is fairly basic. He’s a werewolf who trains in martial arts to hone his mind and body. I tried adding some more athletic fighter-ish things to him, but his design is already pretty solid. The only change I made that I think benefits him is chilling his fur patterns out a bit. I hoped to give them a bit better shapes.

[maxwell-grant]

What are your thoughts on Jekyll/Hyde and his archetype of the human periodically changing into a monster ?

Jekyll & Hyde was the 2nd horror story I read following Frankenstein, I got it off the same library and it always stuck very strongly with me even before I got into horror in general. I even dressed up as Jekyll/Hyde as a kid for a school fair by shredding a lab coat on one side and asking my sister to make-up claw gashes on my exposed arm and paint half of my face, although in hindsight I think I ended up looking more like Doctor Two-Face than Jekyll/Hyde, but I was 12 and didn't have any Victorian clothing to use so I had to make do. The first film project I tried doing at film school was intended to be a modern take on Jekyll & Hyde, and I didn't get much farther than a couple of discarded scripts

Much like Frankenstein, Mr Hyde as a character and a story is something that's kind of baked into everything I do artistically. And it's not just me, as even in pop culture itself, none of us can escape Mr Hyde. I would go so far as to argue Mr Hyde may be the single most significant character created by victorian fiction, if only by the sheer impact and legacy the character's had.

(Fan-art by guilhermefranco)

Part of what makes Mr Hyde such a powerful and lasting icon of pop culture is that the very premise of the book invites a personal reading that's gonna vary from person to person. Because everyone's familiar with the basic twist of the story, that it's a conflict of duality, of the good and evil sides, but everyone has a more personal idea of what those entail. Some people make the story more about class. A lot of readings laser-focus on sex and lust as the driving force, and there's also a lot of readings of Mr Hyde that tackle it to explore a more gendered perspective, and so forth.

I don't particularly take much notice of the Jekyll & Hyde adaptations partially because the novel's premise and themes have become baked so throughly into pop culture and explored in so many different and interesting ways, that I'm not particularly starving for good Jekyll & Hyde adaptations the way I am for Dracula and Frankenstein. The Fredric March film in particular is one that orbits my head less because of the film itself (although I do recommend it), but because of one specific scene, and that's when Jekyll first transforms into Hyde on screen.

Out of all the things they could have shown him doing right that second, they instead took the time to show him enjoying the rain.

Just Hyde taking off his hat and letting it all cascade on his face with this sheer enthusiasm like he's never been to the rain before, never enjoyed it before, and now that he's free from being Jekyll, he gets to enjoy life like he never has before. It's such an oddly humanizing moment to put amidst a horror movie, in the scene where you're ostensibly introducing the monster to the audience, and it makes such a stark contrast to the rest of the film where Hyde is completely irredeemable, but I think it's that contrast that makes the film's take on Hyde work so well even with it's diverging from the source material, even if I don't particularly like in general interpretations of Hyde that are focused on a sexual aspect.

Because one, it understands that Jekyll was fundamentally a self-serving coward and not a paragon of goodness, and two, it also understands one of the things that makes Hyde scary: He wants what all of us want, to live and be happy. He's happy when he leaves the lab and dances around in the rain like a giddy child, he's happy when he goes to places Jekyll couldn't dream of showing up, he's happy as a showgirl-abusing sexual predator. Hyde is all wants, all the time, and there's not that much difference between his wants, his domineering possessiveness, and the likes exhibited by Muriel's father and Jekyll's own within the very same film, which also works to emphasize one of the other ideas of the original story, that Edward Hyde doesn't come from nowhere. That no monster is closer to humanity than Mr Hyde, because he is us. He is the thing that Jekyll refused to take responsability for until it was too late.

(Art by LorenzoMastroianni)

While many of the ideas that defined Mr Hyde had already been explored in pop culture beforehand, Hyde popularized and redefined many of them in particular by modernizing the idea. He was the werewolf, the doppelganger, The Player On The Other Side, except he came from within. He was not transformed by circumstance, he made himself that way, and the elixir merely brought out something already inside his soul. To acknowledge that he's there is to acknowledge that he is you, and to not do that is to either lose to him, or perish. Hyde was there to address both the rot settling in Victorian society as well as grappling concerns over Darwinian heritage, of the realization that man has always had the beast inside of him (it's no accident that Hyde's main method of murder is by clubbing people to death with his cane like a caveman).

I've already argued on my post about Tarzan that the Wild Man archetype, beginning with Enkidu of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the in-between man and beast, between superhero and monster, and that Mr Hyde is an essential component of the superhero's trajectory, as the creature split in between. That stories about dual personalities, doppelgangers, the duality of the soul, the hero with a day job and an after dark career, you can pinpoint Hyde as a turning point in how all of these solidified gradually in pop culture. And I've argued otherwise that The Punisher, for all that his image and narrative points otherwise, is ultimately just as much of a superhero as the rest of them, even if no one wants to admit it, drawing a parallel between The Punisher and Mr Hyde. And he's far from the only modern character that can invite this kind of parallel.

The idea of a regular person periodically or permanently transforming into, or revealing itself to be, something extraordinary and fantastic and scary, grappling with the divide it causes in their soul, and questions whether it's a new development or merely the truest parts of themselves coming to light at last, and the effects this transformation has for good and bad alike. The idea of a potent, dangerous, unpredictable enemy who ultimately is you, or at least a facet of you and what you can do. That these are bound to destroy each other if not reconciled with or overcome.

You know what are my thoughts on the archetype of "human periodically changing into a monster" are? Look around you and you're gonna see the myriad ways The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's themes have manifested in the century and a half since the story's release. Why it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever that Mr Hyde has become such an integral part of pop culture, in it's heroes and monsters alike. Why we can never escape Mr Hyde, just as Jekyll never could.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… - Hunter S. Thompson

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction that explains almost every terrible thing happening in the news today. And it's not the scene where Ving Rhames shoots that guy's dick off. It's the part where the hit man played by John Travolta is talking about how somebody vandalized his car, and says this:

"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It'd been worth him doing it, just so I could've caught him doing it."

That last sentence is something everyone should understand about mankind. After all, the statement is completely illogical -- revenge is supposed to be about righting a wrong. But he wants to be wronged, specifically so he'll have an excuse to get revenge. We all do.

Why else would we love a good revenge movie? We sit in a theater and watch Liam Neeson's daughter get kidnapped. We're not sad about it, because we know he's a badass and he finally has permission to be awesome. Not a single person in that theater was rooting for it to all be an innocent misunderstanding. We wanted Liam to be wronged, because we wanted to see him kick ass. It's why so many people walk around with vigilante fantasies in their heads.

Long, long ago, the people in charge figured out that the easiest and most reliable way to bind a society together was by controlling and channeling our hate addiction. That's the reason why seeing hurricane wreckage on the news makes us mumble "That's sad" and maybe donate a few bucks to the Red Cross hurricane fund, while 9/11 sends us into a decade-long trillion-dollar rage that leaves the Middle East in flames.

The former was caused by wind; the latter was caused by monsters. The former makes us kind of bummed out; the latter gets us high.

It's easy to blame the news media for pumping us full of stories of mass shootings and kidnapped children, but that's stopping one step short of the answer: The media just gives us what we want. And what we want is to think we're beset on all sides by monsters.

The really popular stories will always feature monsters that are as different from us as possible. Think about Star Wars -- what real shithead has ever referred to himself as being on "the dark side"? In Harry Potter and countless fantasy universes, you have wizards working in "black magic" and the "dark arts." Can you imagine a scientist developing some technology for chemical weapons or invasive advertising openly thinking of what he does as "dark science"? Can you imagine a real world leader naming his headquarters "The Death Star" or "Mount Doom"?

Of course not. But we need to believe that evil people know they're evil, or else that would open the door to the fact that we might be evil without knowing it. I mean, sure, maybe we've bought chocolate that was made using child slaves or driven cars that poisoned the air, but we didn't do it to be evil -- we were simply doing whatever we felt like and ignoring the consequences. Not like Hitler and the bankers who ruined the economy and those people who burned the kittens -- they wake up every day intentionally dreaming up new evils to create. It's not like Hitler actually thought he was saving the world.

So no matter how many times you vote to cut food stamps and then use the money to buy a boat, you could still be way worse. You could, after all, be one of those murdering / lazy / ignorant / greedy / oppressive monsters that you know the world is full of, and that only your awesome moral code prevents you from turning into at any moment. And those monsters are out there.

They have to be. Because otherwise, we're the monsters - 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters To Be Real, by Jason Pargin

(Two-Face sequence comes from the end of Batman Annual #14: Eye of the Beholder)

For good or bad, Hyde has become omnipresent. He's a part of our superheroes, he's a part of our supervillains, he's in our monsters. He lives and prattles in our ears, sometimes we need him to survive, and sometimes we become Hyde even when we don't need to, because our survival instincts or base cruelties or desperation brings out the worst in us. Sometimes we can beat him, and sometimes he's not that bad. Sometimes we do need to appease him and listen to what he says, about us and the world around us. And sometimes we need to do so specifically to prove him wrong and beat him again.

But he never, ever goes away, as he so accurately declares in the musical

Do you really think That I would ever let you go...

Do you think I'd ever set you free?

If you do, I'm sad to say It simply isn't so

You will never get away FROM MEEEEEE

(Art by Akreon on Artstation)

[masquenoire]

slurred words ( if you’re still accepting )

Send “slurred words” to hear my muse describe yours whilst ridiculously drunk.

“You know, that’s another thing that Red Hood did which royally pissed me off... stealing all my goddamn Kryptonite!” Roman spat in anger. Did that no-good punk have any idea how tough it had been getting ahold of all those pretty rocks? Almost certainly. In fact it had been one of his most expensive purchases to date, moreso than any other cargo consisting of military-grade weaponry and drugs. Pure Kryptonite was worth more than it’s weight in gold, despite being utterly useless outside of dealing with one specific person. ”So what if it’s not my usual modus operandi to be smuggling alien minerals? When there’s something out there that’s capable of doing all sorts of things no ordinary human being is capable of, you damn well want an ace up your sleeve in case he decides to go off his rocker someday and comes after you! Have you seen what Superman can do? He can fly, shoot lasers out of his eyes even! Don’t even get me started on him grabbing planes out of the sky! How’s a guy supposed to stand up against that? I’ll tell you how - with the one thing you know the bastard’s weak against, that’s how.” It hadn’t been easy on his wallet getting ahold of the fabled minerals, but Roman Sionis knew better than to wait and see. Even though he wasn’t native to Metropolis, Superman was one of the world’s most well-known superheroes for a damn good reason. The Man of Steel was powerful, sickeningly sweet and saccharine as he was. He much rather preferred dealing with the bat, dour though he was in a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Batman was, for the most part, just as human as he or anybody else. Superman on the other hand was a monster, or at least dangerous enough to become one if he ever decided he’d had enough of playing superhero someday. "I don’t plan on going to Metropolis anytime soon but I like to make sure my bases are covered. Failing that, I’d have had the largest stock of Kryptonite on the planet with more than enough to go around... until that shithead stole it all, anyway! Well, maybe not all of it. I’ve still got enough to make a special round of bullets just for Superfreak...” Everything had a weakness, Roman had learned. Even the mythical werewolf could be slain with something as humble as a silver bullet but for Superman, all he needed was a glowing green chunk of rock.

[maxineswritingcenter]

You Saved Me - Derek Hale x fem!reader part 8

So some of the details I’m getting are coming from the Teen Wolf novel On Fire that was published in 2012. It basically gave backstory into some of the characters that we never really see in the show. Like is describes Scott’s father and describes him having an asthma attack. I really recommend it. You can find it online for under 10$ so it’s worth it. 

TW: Mentions of S*xual Abuse

————

After the game ended, everyone else was celebrating. Beacon Hills lacrosse had qualified for the state championships. I played along until I was able to slip away back into the school, seeing as Scott was doing damage control with Allison and Jackson. The players and Coach were long gone, I slipped into the locker room door just as it was closing. 

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Stiles’ phone, and to my amazement I heard Stiles' ringtone echoing in the dark.

“Oh thank god.” I sighed in relief, following the ringing, “I was so worried about-” I stopped, the phone slipping from my hands. There Peter stood with Stiles’ arm in his grip. Derek stood in the shadows behind him. 

“Now who is this little thing, nephew?” Peter tilted his head to the side. His face had been healed completely of burns, nothing remained. 

Derek kept his stern expression, not meeting my eyes, “(Y/N) (Y/L/N).” 

Peter hummed, “Really? I haven’t seen you since you were about yea high.” He placed his hand at his chest. 

“Let him go.” I glared at him, not fooling around with his pleasantries. He dropped Stiles' arm. 

“Certainly, at the lady’s request.” He grinned. Without breaking eye contact, I reached forward and grabbed Stiles arm, pulling him behind me. He struggled a little.

“Now is not the time to be the man, get behind me now.” He complied.

“What the hell…?” I heard Scott’s voice ring through the empty locker room.

“Scott, no-” I was cut off by Scott walking around the corner of the dark hall, a towel around his waist. His eyes landed on Derek. 

“Thank God! Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea what’s been going on?” Our eyes darted towards Peter, and he finally saw him. 

Peter had picked up a crosse, looking over it in his hands, “I really don’t get lacrosse…”

Scott gasped, “It was you.”

“When I was in high school, we played basketball. There’s a real sport. Still, I read somewhere that lacrosse comes from Native American tribes, and that they played it to resolve conflict. Do I have that right?” No one answered, “Hmm… I have a little conflict of my own to resolve, Scott… But I need your help to do it.”

“I’m not helping you kill people.” Scott said firmly.

“Well, I don’t want to kill all of them– just the responsible ones. And that doesn’t have to include…” He looked back towards Derek. 

Derek sighed, “Allison.” 

“You’re on his side? Are you forgetting the part where he killed your sister?” Scott asked, incredulously. Took the words right out of my mouth. 

“It was a mistake…” He said the words, but I wasn’t sure if he even thought they were true. 

“What?” Scott asked, clearly shocked. 

“It happens…” Derek looked away.

“Just a werewolf thing, right?” I glared at him, he continued to find the floor more interesting. 

“I think you’re getting the wrong impression of us. We just really want to help you reach your full potential.” Peter set the crosse down. 

Scott scoffed, “By killing my friends?”

“Sometimes the people closest to you can be the ones holding you back the most.” He glanced towards Stiles and I.

“If they’re holding me back from becoming a psychotic nut-job like you, I’m okay with that.”

“Maybe” He walked up to Scott, I backed away with Stiles, “You could try and see things from my perspective…” He sunk his claws into the back of Scott’s neck. Scott groaned, and fell when Peter pulled his claws out. The alpha looked at me, wiping the blood off on his jeans. 

“You have potential as well. Mark my words, in the next few days you may realize there is more to you, (Y/N).” 

“I’d rather die.” I spat. Stiles grabbed my arm. 

“I guess we’ll just have to see.” Peter nodded to me, then walked out with Derek following behind. 

“Laura would be disgusted.” I glared at him. He paused, looking over his shoulder for a second, but continued on his path out the door. Once they were gone, Stiles pulled Scott by the shoulders and turned on the cold water. He gasped, breathing heavily. 

“Dude, we have a huge problem.” Stiles said. 

“Trust me… I know.”

-

After a confrontation with Jackson, Stiles and I drove home. There we found Uncle Noah at the kitchen table. There were papers and files spread all over and a bottle of whisky with a glass. 

“Whatcha doing?” Stiles asked.

“Work.” He slurred. 

“Anything we can help with?” He asked, so we came around the table to sit across from him. I looked at a paper. It was a report of the interview with Mr. Harris. 

“You know, if you poured me an ounce of whiskey, that would be awfully nice.” Uncle Noah closed his eyes, rubbing his temples. I took the time to take a picture of the statement, hiding my phone back in my pocket before he opened his eyes again. 

“Any leads?” Stiles asked, pouring the whiskey. 

“You know I can’t discuss that with you.” Stiles poured more into the glass, “Not too much!” 

Stiles slid the cup across the table, “Okay. There you go, Dad.”

“Thanks.”

“Bottoms up.” Stiles said, as we watched Uncle Noah down the whiskey.

 “You know, Derek Hale would be a whole hale of a lot-” He slurred and grunted, “Hale of a lot…?” 

“Hell of a lot?” Stiles corrected him 

“Hell… Yes… He would be a hell of a lot easier to catch if we could get an actual picture of him.”

“How do you not have a picture of him?”

“It’s the weirdest thing…” He slurred, “It’s like every time we tried to get a mugshot, it’s like two laser-beams were pointing at the camera.”

“Nice.”

“Oh, my God… Ohhh! God, that ounce hit me like a brick. And I have said way too much, and if you repeat any of that-” He warned, pointing to both of us.

“Dad, it’s us! We’re not gonna say anything. Come on!”

“See, the thing is, they’re all connected… I mean, the bus driver that got killed? He was an insurance investigator assigned to the Hale House Fire.” He pointed towards a paper.

“Terminated under suspicion of fraud.” Stiles read. 

“Exactly.”

“Who else?”

“The video store clerk who got his throat slashed? He’s a convicted felon– history of arson.” That was the attack that involved Jackson and Lydia. 

“What about the other two guys, the guys who got killed in the woods?” The two guys that Stiles saw in the woods when he got drunk with Scott. 

“Priors all over their records, including-”

“Arson. So, maybe they all had something to do with the fire…” Uncle Noah grumbled. Stiles wanted more info, “Another shot?”

“No, no, no. No more.” he slurred. 

“Dad, come on! You work really hard, all right? You deserve it.” It was enabling and wrong to get the sheriff drunk to get information out of him. The dots were all starting to connect. 

“Oh, my God… I’m gonna have such a hangover…”

“You mean you’re gonna have such a good night’s sleep!” He poured another shot for his dad. He looked at me, muttering out of the side of his mouth, “I’m gonna have an eternity in the lowest circle of hell…” I patted Stiles' arm.

“Let me know if he says anything else.” I whispered and came around the table, “Goodnight Uncle Noah.” 

“Goodnight, sweetie.” He called. 

I went into my room and connected my phone to my laptop so I could get a better look at the report. Stealing evidence was a crime, but I was already doing enough illegal things that I figured it would matter too much. I pulled up the picture and enhanced it the best I could. It was a transcription from Uncle Noah’s recorder. 

𝙱𝙴𝙶𝙸𝙽 𝚃𝚁𝙰𝙽𝚂𝙲𝚁𝙸𝙿𝚃 

𝙷𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝚂: 𝙸𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚜𝚒𝚡 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚊𝚐𝚘, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚍𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎, 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝙸'𝚍 𝚐𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚛. 

 𝚂𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙵𝙵: 𝙻𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚗, 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚘𝚗'𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚎 𝚐𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚝𝚘. 𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚍𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚊𝚢 𝚠𝚎 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚌𝚞𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚜, 𝚑𝚞𝚑?

 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝚂: 𝙸 𝚖𝚎𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚝 𝚊 𝚋𝚊𝚛. 𝚆𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚊 𝚕𝚘𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚍𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚔𝚜. 𝙰 𝚕𝚘𝚝. 𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚍𝚘, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚔𝚎𝚙𝚝 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜. 𝙳𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚊 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎? 𝚃𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚙𝚒𝚌 𝚘𝚏 𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚢…𝙰𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚟𝚊𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚏𝚊𝚌𝚎𝚜 𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛… 

 𝚂𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙵𝙵: 𝙳𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚜. 

 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝚂: 𝙻𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝙸 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍, 𝙸 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚎𝚍. 𝙸𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚊𝚜𝚌𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚏𝚏. 𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚖𝚎𝚕𝚝 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚋𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚟𝚊𝚞𝚕𝚝. 𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚟𝚎 𝚊 𝚋𝚘𝚍𝚢, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚖𝚞𝚛𝚍𝚎𝚛. 

 𝚂𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙵𝙵: 𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚊 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗?

 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝚂: 𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚊 𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚔 𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚜 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗. 

 𝚂𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙵𝙵: 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐. 

 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝚂: 𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚎? 𝙸𝚝 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚛. 

 𝚂𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙵𝙵: 𝚂𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖? 

 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝚂: 𝙽𝚘. 𝚆𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚒𝚜 𝚎𝚡𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙻𝚊𝚞𝚛𝚊 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍. 𝙸'𝚕𝚕 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛. [𝚂𝚎𝚎 𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 #𝟸0𝟺]

 𝚂𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙵𝙵: 𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜? 

 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝚂: 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚒𝚛𝚕 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚢𝚖𝚋𝚘𝚕 𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚝. 𝙸 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚝. 𝚂𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚒𝚛𝚕 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎, 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚊𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝.

𝙴𝙽𝙳 𝚃𝚁𝙰𝙽𝚂𝙲𝚁𝙸𝙿𝚃

I didn’t need to see the evidence to know what the symbol was. It was the Argent family crest and Kate Argent is the one that burned down Derek’s house. She’s the one that murdered the Hale’s. That’s why she was a touchy subject to him. But there was something else too. 

-

The next day I was out shopping when I saw her. Kate Argent was in the sporting goods department, looking at arrows. She must have sensed me staring so I went back to looking at…lamps. 

“(Y/N)?” She called. Shit. I looked up nonchalantly. 

“Um, yes?”

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N)? You remember me right? Swim class?” And that’s what it was. That’s what connected Kate to the school. She was a swim coach. She must have watched Derek from there. 

“Oh right.” I smiled, “I completely forgot. With everything going on it’s been hard to remember.” 

“Right, I heard about your parents.” She gave a sympathetic smile, “I’m so sorry for your loss.” She put a hand to her chest. 

“It’s alright. It seems that there’s a lot of fires in this town, huh?” I smiled, tilting my head to the side. 

Her smile tightened, “Yeah. Unfortunate circumstances.” We both nodded slowly. It seems like we both knew what was really going on here.

“What have you been up to recently?” She asked. 

“Oh I work at the school. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting your niece, Allison. Such a sweet girl.” 

“She is, isn’t she? Kinda like how you used to be. It seems you’ve been associating with Derek Hale. He’s a fugitive, don’t you know?” 

I answered innocently, “I’m quite sure you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Which one? Associating with Derek Hale or that he’s a fugitive.” 

“Ms. Argent, I think you and I both know what a real criminal is. Now I am sure someone was chasing your niece around that school and I wish she hadn’t been in that situation. And I believe we’re assuming that all these killings were committed by someone who enjoys seeing others in pain. Someone manipulative. You had Derek as a student, does that sound like him?” 

Kate chuckled, “I know him a lot better than you do. A lot better.” She left, taking her arrows to the front of the store. 

-

What did she mean by that? How did she know Derek “a lot”? Not like I really wanted to get answers from him since he decided to join his Uncle’s murder parade. Derek was good, he fought for justice for his sister. But now that he’s found her killer, he doesn’t want to hurt him. I guess, I could understand the point that Peter was his only family left. The point that Peter made it so he was the only family left was just too much to ignore for me. I just-…I couldn’t believe that he would do that unless he was trying to trick him somehow.  

I messed with the soup I made for dinner, placing the cover on the pot and letting it simmer. Stiles was running like a bat out of hell. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” I looked out at him. 

He skidded to a stop, “Peter Hale is taking Scott’s mom out on a date, I’m gonna go rear end them.” He took off again. That meant Peter wasn’t around Derek to influence him. Which meant I could talk to him alone. I turned off the stove top and grabbed my keys. 

On the drive there, I felt the terrible feeling again. Something was going to go wrong again. I parked in the spot that we had first parked when I originally got lost in the woods and found my way to the Hale house. It wouldn’t be hard to find it again. I walked for a while and I had finally found it, his Camaro was in front of the house. I was about to step onto the porch when I felt a sharp pain in my back. I inhaled sharply, arching my back. I reached around and pulled out whatever had hit me. I inspected it, it was a tranquilizer dart. Who the hell-…

My vision started to get a little fuzzy, I blinked hard to clear it. Soon, my legs get numb. I fell backwards, landing on the forest floor. I groaned, trying to move but my limbs weren’t responding. Kate Argent kneeled down next to me and smiled. 

“Guess I was right about one thing.” She pulled down a gas mask that had been on the top of her head and threw something through the open window of the house. The last thing I heard was Derek yelling at Scott to run.

-

I was slow to wake up. Whatever had been in that dart knocked me out real good, the effects were still lingering now even as I was waking up. I was back tied in a chair again. If I got out of this situation alive, I was throwing out every chair I owned. 

“There you are, sleeping beauty.” Kate’s voice echoed. She bent over to meet my eyes. I tried to pick my head up, fighting to stay awake. 

“Man, I think I gave you too much. Thought you could handle it.” She lifted my head up. 

“Wha-what did you give me?” I slurred. 

“Wolfsbane. Nothing deadly, just enough to knock you out.” She smiled, dropping my face. Why in the hell did she shoot me with wolfsbane? And why did it work?

“It took me a while, but I finally found your connection in all this. It seems Beacon Hills has two werewolf families.” 

I found the strength in my neck to look up, “What? My…my family aren’t werewolves. I didn’t even know they existed until like two months ago.” I grimaced. 

“Well they aren’t now, silly. How is Michael by the way?” She asked, the door opened behind me, two men walked in - dragging something large behind them. My vision was still fuzzy so I couldn’t tell what it was. 

“Michael?”

“Yeah, he was my little protégé. His family come from a long line of hunters. Just like me. He got too involved with his undercover work though. When we tried to destroy your clan the first time he couldn’t go through with it.” 

“You’re crazier than I thought.” I shook my head. 

“I don’t blame you for being confused. I didn’t know either for the longest time. My brother and your father had a deal of some kind, details. They kept you hidden from your own world.” She pouted dramatically. 

“Listen, lady. You are insane.” I blinked hard, my vision finally clearing. The two men had left, and it turned out the large thing they had been caring for was Derek. They had him chained up, by his hands, leaving him to dangle. He was shirtless and passed out. 

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” I asked as she walked over to him. She turned back, surprised. 

‘A little protective, are we? You can’t think you can keep him all to yourself, not after our history.” She hummed, running her finger over his chest. What she said hit me like a ton of bricks. That’s why he hated talking about her, why he felt so guilty when she was talking to him about Laura. 

“You sexually abused him.” I gasped, completely mortified. 

“I wouldn’t call it abuse.” 

“The law would. He was sixteen years old. He was just a kid!” She didn’t look the least bit phased, “You’re sick. A sick, sick bitch.” She crossed over to me quickly, slapping me hard across the face. I will admit that it hurt a lot, but the worst pain was that as soon as Kate’s hand connected with her cheek, Derek woke up with a gasp. She turned, a wicked smile on her lips. 

“Oh this just keeps getting better and better.” She smacked me again, sending me back into darkness. 

-

I woke up, not sure how much time had gone by so I could finally get a good look at Derek. There were wires attached to his right side, attached with black electrical and paper tape. He looked in pretty rough shape, worse off than I was. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, still not meeting my eyes. 

“I’m okay.” I nodded, “Derek, I am so sorry for what she did to you.”

His jaw tightened, “She told you.” 

“I thought she got to you just being the swim coach but I could have never imagined… I’m so sorry.” It made sense now why he didn’t want to be close, why he couldn’t be around me in the beginning. She took everything from him under the guise of love. She preyed on a child. He didn’t want to be vulnerable again.

“I can’t imagine how much anger you have. And guilt. None of this was your fault.”

“It was my fault. I was stupid and should have known better.” He glowered. 

“Derek, you were a kid. And she’s a psychotic manipulator who used her charm and good looks to seduce a child. She’s a monster.” 

“I know that. but that doesn't make the guilt any worse. I’m the reason they’re all gone.” His voice trailed off at the end. 

“No, no you’re not. She was manipulating all the people that Peter killed. The bus driver was an insurance investigator assigned to the case and got fired for fraud, Mr. Harris taught her how to make the bomb necessary to start the fire, she hired three guys with priors of arson. That’s why they were on Laura’s list, she figured out all the people helped Kate with the fire. But I guess Peter already told you that.” He stared, processing what I had said. 

“Did he not tell you that?” I narrowed my eyes, “He’s killing people and he didn’t tell you why, just that they were on Laura’s list?” He didn’t answer. 

“Why are you blindly following him? What good reason could he have for killing Laura? If he really wanted to kill those people, why wouldn’t he just work with her? He cut her in half and left her to rot! Left her for you to find!”

“I don’t need you yelling at me about it! I know he killed her and he has no justification for it. He’s crazy! I’m playing into this because if I don’t he’ll go after you!” He shouted, finally looking at me. 

“What?” I mumbled.

“He wants to make a new bloodline. As soon as he builds up a pack, he’s coming for you and-” Derek was cut off by a door opening. And in walked Kate Argent followed by her niece, Allison. Derek had shifted formed when they walked in, all of the anger and rage built up in his system and the change just happened. 

“What is this place?” She asked. 

“Let’s start with the basics– you know how every family has its secrets?” Kate came to me, wrapping a gag around my mouth before I could talk, “Ours is a little different…” She turned the spotlight onto Derek. He roared at her loudly. 

“Isn’t he beautiful?” She mused. Allison took a step back. Kate walked over to the electrical equipment, turning up the dial Derek gritted his teeth, his body became rigid as it went through him. At the same time, my vision clouded. I could feel my body hanging like his, the electricity flowing through my bones. The two only stood there, watching Derek struggle, scream, and writhe. 

“What are you doing to him? Is this going to kill him?” Allison asked, her voice echoing between the room and the vision I was in. 

“Oh, come on, kid. Don’t get all ethical on me now.” Kate leaned against the equipment. 

“What is he?” She looked between Derek and I, “What are they?” Kate finally opened the circuit, cutting off the electric flow. Derek hung there limply, breathing heavily. I was pulled from the vision, gasping for air and feeling all the soreness that came with being electrocuted.

“Her…” Kate hummed, “I’m not sure. But him - shape-shifter. Lycan. Werewolf.” Derek glared at them, his eyes burning bright blue. 

“But to me he’s just another dumb animal.” She flipped the switch again, sending more volts running through him. He screamed through his gritted teeth. I glared, fighting against the visions so I could focus, I could feel the static making my hair stick up. Allison, looking conflicted, looked between Kate and Derek. Kate turned off the volts again. His head hung low, the pain finally knocking him out. I took a deep breath, trying to keep my head straight. 

“Come here,” She brought Allison closer to Derek. Kate grabbed his chin. 

“Get your hands off of him!” I tried to shout around the gag, but it all came out as gibberish. Kate ignored me regardless and forced Derek’s lips open to show his teeth. 

“There are canines. Also known as fangs. Made for tearing and rendering flesh. Not something you find on those cute little leaf eating herbivores, is it?”

Allison shook her head, “Is this a joke to you?”

Kate’s hands dropped from Derek’s face, “Sweetie, there are werewolves running around the world. Everything’s a joke to me. How else do you think I stay sane?” Sanity train left ages ago. 

"So was it him at the high school? And all the other animal attacks?” Allison asked. 

“There’s actually three of them. Another younger one like him,” She motioned to Derek, “Called a beta. And then there’s the alpha. Alpha is the pack leader. Bigger, stronger, nastier. Those are the real ugly motherfu-. ” As she was speaking, I kicked a nearby rock towards her leg 

“Why did you take her if she’s not one of them?” Allison looked at me. Kate nodded and walked over to me, pulling a vial out of her pocket. 

“A very extraordinary thing occurred that I have never actually seen before. You see, she comes from a family of werewolves but is not a werewolf. But somehow they were able to form a mating connection, because as you know animals like him mate for life. He feels her pain, she feels his.” She opened the vial and let a drop fall down onto my pants. The liquid seeped through the fabric onto my leg, causing a red hot burning sensation. I bit down hard on the gag, breathing hard to ignore the pain.  She put the cork back on the vial, walking her and Allison back out of the cellar. 

-

Later on in the day, not sure how many hours went by but Kate was back, rummaging through Derek’s jacket.

“Come on, Derek, he killed your sister.” She pulled out his wallet and took the money that was inside, “Ya know, maybe you’re not telling me because you wanna kill him yourself or for some reason, you’re protecting him.” She dropped the wallet and grabbed his chin so he faced her, she put what looked like his driver’s license up to his face. 

“Awww, look at that sour face.” She pouted and let go of his face, “I bet you’re used to people coming up to you and saying: Smile, Derek. Why don’t you smile more? Don’t you wanna just kick those people in the face?” Derek glanced at me before looking back at Kate. 

“I can think of one.”

“Promise?” She smiled, an amused look on her face, “Cause if I thought you’d be that much fun, I’d let you go.” She continued to rifle through his wallet, “Nothing, nothing, nothing. God, I hate this detective crap.”

“Are you gonna torture me or are you just gonna bore me to death, huh?” He was getting more and more irritated. 

“Oh sweetie. I don’t wanna torture you.” She said sweetly, “I just wanna catch up. Remember all the fun we had together?" 

“Or the time you burned my family alive?” He growled, “Working with another set of psychos to do the same to another family?”

"Ya know? I was thinking more about the hot, crazy sex we had. But the fire thing, that was fun too.” She played with his emotions, the same way she had done before. Derek jerked forward towards her. She didn’t flinch.

“I love how much you hate me. Remember how this felt?” Kate bent down to the hem of Derek’s pants. I struggled against the chair, agitating the burn on my leg, but I needed to help him. Kate’s tongue snaked out and ran over Derek’s abdomen. Derek roared at her, his fangs sharp. 

“Sweetheart, I really don’t want to torture you.” Kate said as the door opened again, revealing a bald man, “But he does.” Kate looked at me, watching me continue to struggle against my restraints. 

“Ooh, she’s a fighter, Derek.” She laughed, “Reminds me a lot of myself at her age.” She looked at her henchman, “Don’t be shy, give her some too.”

-

After getting nothing from either of us, the man left. The guy seemed to enjoy punching Derek in his stomach and watching me double over. His experiments ranged and there were a few new cuts on my body that weren’t there earlier today. Kate walked in, listening to someone on her phone. 

“Unfortunately, Derek, if you’re not gonna talk I’m gonna have to kill you.” She walked back over to the electrical box. I screamed through the gag, lunging my body forward, making the chair jump forward. I tried again but lost balance, the chair fell sideways. My arm slammed into the concrete floor. Derek winced at the impact. Kate chuckled, reaching for the knob to close the circuit. 

“Say hi to your sister for me.” She paused, “You didn’t tell her about me did you? The truth about the fire?“ Derek’s guilt showed on his face, now too tired and beaten to hide it. 

"Or did you?” She asked, “Oh, sweetie, that’s a lot of guilt to keep buried. It’s not all your fault. You got tricked by a pretty face. It happens. Handsome young werewolf mistakenly falls in love with a super hot girl who comes from a family that kills werewolves.“ Derek’s emotions ranged from anger to guilt and sadness. 

"Is that ironic? Is it? Ironic, that you were unknowingly helping me track down the rest of the pack. Again. We’re just a little bit of history repeating.” She paused for a minute, thinking about what she said, "History repeating..“ She muttered. 

"It’s not Jackson is it? Oh no no no, he’s got a little scratch on the back of his neck. But he’s not in love with Allison. Not like Scott.” It didn’t take torture to find out who the other beta was, so that just meant Kate Argent was more of a monster than I originally thought. The new danger was to Scott and that translated to Stiles, and I wasn’t there to keep him safe.

----------------------

Read part 9 here!

I’m reading the transcript of the episode as I’m writing so let’s say the similarities between what (Y/N) says and what Kate says are intentional. 

Likes, Comments, and reblogs are appreciated! Again I want to thank everyone who has been reading, it’s bring back my Teen Wolf nostalgia. 

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YSM Tag:

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[jingabitch]

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ch.2

Summary: When you were ten, Taehyung adopted you and gave you a home. Now that you’re eighteen, the sudden change in your scent perplexes and confounds him.

Pairing: wolf hybrid!tae x human!reader (all bts members are hybrids)

Warnings: smut | talk of ownership (reader is tae’s pet human) | (eventual) daddy long legs syndrome | masturbation (m) | tae goes into heat | dubcon because of the heat | somewhat (?) unhealthy relationship

Word count: 10.7k

A/N: Did this girl bang out 3000-odd words in one night so that she could post it before Chinese New Year so that she could reach 888 followers by CNY? Yes. Yes she did. I hope you guys enjoy this, and please share and follow for more if you liked it!!

Also, I don’t do tag lists, so please don’t ask. This story is cross-posted on ao3 (link to account on my blog) so you can subscribe there.

Series index

You’d learned years ago what Taehyung was like in the weeks leading up to his heat. Overly moody, grumpy, and most of all, hungry. It was probably his body trying to load up on calories before five or so days where there was intense physical exertion without much opportunity to eat.

 It had never been an awkward thing for you – after all, werewolf heat was a basic part of their biology, so no one made a big deal out of it. And since they never said anything about your own cycle, you afforded them the same courtesy, just taking it in your stride and doing your best to make it easier on them.

 So it wasn’t surprising to you when one day in the middle of winter, Taehyung wolfed down (ha) his breakfast at twice his usual speed and then started looking furtively over at your plate. Sighing, you just pushed it towards him and went to make yourself something else. You made a mental note to make more food tomorrow, and braced yourself for the coming few weeks, where he would be alternately clingy and grumpy – or, interestingly enough, both at the same time.

 His heats were never a big deal for you – if he had a heat partner, you mostly stayed out of his way, and stayed with the other boys instead. They were always more than happy to spend a whole week spoiling you and getting cute cuddles. If he didn’t, you usually ended up being the one to take care of him since the others had their own schedules and were out of the house most days. It wasn’t anything much – you just checked in on him once in a while, made sure he was eating and drinking water, and maybe wiped him down if he was too sweaty.

 You didn’t expect that anything would change this year, although obviously you’d missed his last two heats, which he’d spent in the military facility. In preparation for his heat, you went to the supermarket and stocked up on food that would be easy for him to eat, like fruit and granola bars, making sure to pick his favourite brand which was, obviously, an extremely fancy and overpriced one.

 While you continued your preparations for his heat, blissfully unaware of his inner turmoil, Taehyung was an absolute mess. Ever since his preheat started, he’d been racking his brains for a solution to the problem that wouldn’t arouse your suspicion, and coming up empty. There was no way he could get rid of you for a week without you figuring out something was up, since you knew he didn’t have a heat partner and it had never been a thing before for you to leave.

 Everything was, of course, made more complicated by the fact that the closer he got to his heat, the more he didn’t want you to leave. He would wake up in the middle of the night wrapped around you, his face tucked into your neck and his hands gripping your waist possessively, and he would be burning up, panting for you.

 You, of course, didn’t suspect a thing, and it truly was a testament to how comfortable you were with him that you weren’t noticing anything amiss. It really was remarkable how much could go over your head if you weren’t looking for it. If nothing else, the fact that he’d taken good enough care of you over the years that you were so complacent and comfortable around him was slight comfort. He knew your time at the shelter hadn’t been the best, and he was pleased that he’d managed to earn your trust, even if it did increase his guilt at taking advantage of it now.

 His last hope, that he was clinging on to by a thread, was that since his heat was intended for the purpose of breeding, maybe he wouldn’t fixate on you. After all, you were human – you should be incompatible with him in that way. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had to go on.

 Although really, anyone could have told him that that was a stupid plan. But since he’d refused to let anyone know what was going on, there was no one around to shake some sense into him.

  His heat hit while he was at the studio. It had been a bad idea to go to work today, he knew it when he took three bites of the giant breakfast you’d cooked and turned his nose up at the rest of it, but they were starting to record their new song and he’d wanted to be there.

 Unfortunately, his enthusiasm meant that when his heat hit in the afternoon, he was in the studio instead of comfortably waiting at home. The bright lights and sheer number of scents overwhelmed his senses, and he ended up curled in a corner of the room, desperately closing his eyes and trying to shut the world out, his head between his knees. His ears flicked repeatedly, before laying flat against his head in distress.

 “Shit… we need to get him home,” Yoongi said, watching him groan pitifully, but when they tried to coax him to move, he refused, completely non-functional by this point and so uncomfortable that he couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Jimin tried to sit with him, hoping that his familiar scent would block out some of the harsher scents in the room, like the floor cleaner, but Taehyung just groaned and turned his face away, burying it in his shoulder. The rest of them looked on worriedly – his heat symptoms had never been this bad before.

 Left without any other option, Namjoon called you, hoping that the familiar scent of home would soothe Taehyung enough to stop being a moaning mess on the floor of their studio long enough to go home and ride out the heat.

 You’d never gotten anywhere so fast in your life. Hearing that Taehyung was in trouble spurred you to all but fly out of your house, speeding all the way to the studio in his extra car that he never let you drive. It was lucky that you’d learned how to drive in Geochang, you thought as you zipped into the parking lot at the BigHit building and raced up to the studio.

 You burst into the room dramatically, panting from your exertion, and immediately zeroed in on Taehyung, who seemed to be feeling a little better than what you’d been led to believe, if the way he’d sat up and was looking at you was any indicator. His ears perked up too, indicating that he was no longer as distressed as he’d been just a minute ago.

 “Hey,” you said softly as you approached slowly, not wanting to freak him out since his animal instincts were closer to the surface than usual. And, if you were being honest, the way his gaze fixated on you was almost predatory, triggering your flight instincts. Reassuring yourself that Taehyung would never hurt you, you continued to inch closer to him.

 “How you doing, Tae-oppa?” you asked softly, getting on your knees next to him and pushing his sweaty bangs off his forehead. He closed his eyes and shuddered at the touch, and you wondered at his over-the-top reaction. Just how deep was he into his heat?

 You made to pull your hand back, not wanting to cause him any more discomfort than necessary, but his hand shot up and grabbed your wrist. “Y/n…” he shuddered as he breathed your name. “You came,” he continued, looking up at you far more intensely than you thought the situation warranted, his long fingers stroking your wrist gently.

 Hesitantly, you replied, “Uhh, yeah, Namjoon-oppa called me to come get you. Come on, let’s get you home,” you urged, trying to pull your hand away, but he tightened his grip around your wrist and made that impossible. You raised your brow at him, wondering why he insisted on staying in that corner instead of going home where he had pajamas, nice soft sheets on his bed, and could draw the curtains so the light didn’t hurt his eyes, but he stood up quite easily without letting go of you and started tugging you out of the room.

 “Uh, okay then,” you mumbled, utterly confused now. When Namjoon had called you, he’d been almost panicked, describing what bad shape Taehyung was in and getting you all worried, but the man in front of you seemed completely fine. A little off-kilter, maybe, but that was only to be expected since he was going through heat, after all.

 “Bye, oppas!” you said, waving at them as Taehyung pulled on your wrist, leading you down the hall and towards the elevator.

 “Well, you look pretty good for someone in heat,” you told him as you waited for it to arrive, looking him up and down assessingly. “When Namjoon-oppa called me he was so panicked, and I freaked out too, but he must have been exaggerating,” you chattered on to fill the silence. You understood that Taehyung wasn’t really in the mood to make conversation right now, but somehow his intense gaze made the quiet feel a little uncomfortable.

 The elevator doors opened with a ding, and your attention was momentarily taken away from Taehyung, so you didn’t see the way he shuddered. It wasn’t that he was feeling better, it was that his heat had found a target, and all that shaky, general horniness and misery had turned into laser focus on you. You walked into the elevator with that little bounce in your step, and he followed after you, almost stalking you with how predatory his gait and gaze were.

 You stopped and turned around in the middle of the lift, your eyes lifting habitually to the display on top of the doors, but Taehyung didn’t stop walking, bumping against you and causing you to drop your gaze to him. You gasped at the hungry expression on his face, but it didn’t deter him from backing you up against the wall. You squeaked in surprise as your back hit the wall, knocking the air out of your lungs, and in the second that it took you to get your bearings back, he’d moved his hands from the wall on either side of your shoulders to your waist, pulling you tightly to him as he buried his nose in your neck.

 You just about jumped out of your skin when you felt his erection pressing against you, and your mind immediately leapt to work rationalizing it away. He was in heat, it was normal for him to have a boner, and it definitely had nothing to do with you, you tried to convince yourself. He was scenting you because you smelled familiar, like home, and it was comforting for him.

 Trying not to squirm away in discomfort so you could help him, you stroked his hair in what you thought was a soothing gesture. “Tae-oppa, you okay?” you asked softly.

 He groaned in response. “You smell so good,” he said, sniffing you aggressively as he pressed you into the wall. You gulped and looked up at the numbers flashing on the screen, indicating that you were close to the basement now. The moment the elevator door opened, you pulled away under the guise of leaving the elevator, and hurried to the car.

 Taehyung insisted that he wanted to take the car he’d driven here back home, as it was more comfortable, but then refused to hand you the keys so you could drive, instead forcing you to fish them out of his front pocket. He’d boxed you in with his body against the car while you’d done it, too, staring at you so intently that it made your face heat as you averted your gaze, trying to grab his keys without any accidents.

 When the keys were finally in your hands, you slipped into the driver’s seat, trying to avoid staring at Taehyung as he went around to the other side of the car and slid gracefully into the passenger seat. You didn’t know what was going on, but you weren’t prepared for any of this, and it was making you slightly uncomfortable, especially because you couldn’t be sure that you didn’t like it. As inappropriate and wrong as all of this was, as much as you knew that this was just because of his heat and to entertain any fantasies would be taking advantage of him in this vulnerable state, there was a part of you that felt a sliver of interest. That, under all the fear and discomfort, had thrilled at having

 As you started the car, you studiously ignored Taehyung. He huffed and undid the top few buttons on his shirt, then fiddled with the seat so that he was in a more comfortable reclining position. Your mind raced as you drove home – he’d never acted like this with you before, and you wondered if he was okay. The heat seemed to be worse than in previous years, and he must be really out of it by now. Was it even possible for him to get through this heat without a partner?

 At a red light, you snuck a glance over at him, relieved to see that his eyes were closed and he seemed to have fallen into a light doze. That was good, you thought, your heart warming at seeing his cute sleeping face. He should get some rest while he could, because it seemed like this heat would be hard on him. Your heart squeezed – it seemed unfair that hybrids had to go through this, and you wondered why on earth your ancestors had created hybrids this way.

 After parking the car, you looked over at him and bit your lip. You didn’t really want to wake him up now that he seemed to be sleeping rather comfortably, but unfortunately there was no way that you would be able to carry a fully grown hybrid back to his apartment, so reluctantly, you reached over to shake him awake.

 “Tae-oppa?” you called quietly. “We’re home.”

 He stirred and looked at you with half-closed eyes, before nodding listlessly, and you felt like the scum of the earth for even entertaining the thought that his earlier actions were an advance, and especially for that tiny bit of arousal that you’d experienced feeling his erection dig into your belly earlier. He was clearly in a vulnerable position, and here you were, misinterpreting his actions and taking advantage of him by enjoying what his hormones were making him do.

 It would do you well to remember that it was your ancestors who had made him like this. In a way, it was kind of your fault that he had to go through it, and you promised him silently that you would do whatever it took to help him through this.

 You slid out of the car, then hurried over to the other side to help him out. He seemed a little woozy and weaker than normal, but otherwise fine, and even managed to get himself back to the apartment without any difficulty. A light sheen of sweat coated him by the time you’d reached the apartment, though, and he made to go straight to the bedroom, but you managed to coax him to take a shower first since it wasn’t likely that he would get another one before his heat ended.

 “Tae-oppa?” you called as he was headed into the bathroom, already stripping his shirt off.

 He grunted in acknowledgement, but didn’t turn around or stop.

 “Do you want me to call someone to help you with your heat? Maybe Minhee-unnie, or Haeun-unnie?” you suggested some of his previous heat partners, girls he’d hooked up with regularly in the past. There were also services that provided heat partners, but you didn’t know if anyone would be available on such short notice.

 Taehyung thought about it. It would probably be smart to find a partner to ride this heat out – it was hitting far stronger than he’d anticipated and he could scarcely think straight, especially now that he was in the apartment where your scent was so incredibly intense and mixed so thoroughly in with the smell of home – but the thought of having a heat partner strangely made him feel almost sick.

 “No, it’s okay,” he responded brusquely, too out of it to temper his tone, and closed the door behind him in the bathroom.

 Shivering, he stripped out of the rest of his clothes and stepped into the shower, turning the handle to the coldest setting possible. He hissed and growled in displeasure as the ice cold water hit his skin, but he knew it was necessary. He was burning up, way too hot for a usual heat, and even in his compromised state of mind, he knew that this could be dangerous if he didn’t cool down, and quickly.

 The cold shower didn’t do much for the desire raging through him, though, and he rested his forehead against the cool tile of the shower stall and groaned. He was completely losing it, he could tell, and probably terrorizing you. He felt like an awful owner. You were so innocent and good, coming to get him from the studio, and he’d responded by basically assaulting you in the elevator earlier.

 “Fuck!” he growled, slamming his fist into the wall. Even knowing that he was garbage wasn’t enough to stop him from recalling how amazing you’d smelled, how soft you’d felt under his hands, the way you’d melted against the press of his body in the elevator. You always smelled good to him, especially since he’d been discharged from the military, but today it seemed different. Better. The scent emanating from you was just slightly warmer, sweeter, spicier than the residual scent you’d left all over the apartment, including in the bathroom. In his heat-addled state, he couldn’t figure out why, but it was messing with his ability to keep his head on straight in a big way.

 With another growl of frustration, he wrapped his hand around his cock, knowing that there was no way he could go back out into the apartment in the state he was in. It was fast and rough, and his orgasm was unsatisfying, barely enough to take the edge off the all-consuming hunger that bordered on pain, but he felt his mind clear just enough that he remembered all the reasons why bending his pet human over was a bad idea.

 He got out of the shower and dried himself off perfunctorily, wrapping the towel around his waist because he hadn’t brought in fresh clothes. He was collecting his dirty clothes to drop into the laundry basket when, as he stood up, he caught sight of the box of tampons you’d left on top of the toilet. He rolled his eyes and huffed in annoyance – you were always forgetting to put them back under the sink after your period was over. It was one of his biggest pet peeves, the way you would just leave things lying around and causing clutter.

 Wait a minute. He frowned again at the box. You’d had your last period a week ago, which meant…

 Fuck.

 All the pieces fell into place in his mind then, and it took massive amounts of restraint to avoid sending his fist clear through the wall. You were ovulating, which is why you smelled so good. All his hopes of not fixating on you during this heat were dashed. In previous cycles, he’d noted your ovulation because your scent had shifted, but it had never affected him much before. Now, though, that he was in heat, the scent that indicated your fertility was overwhelming, stripping all restraint from him. The mere thought of cumming into you and getting you pregnant had his wolf instincts rising, the hair on the back of his neck prickling as his erection ached and his balls drew up, desperate to fulfil their purpose.

 This isn’t right, the part of him that was still in control screamed, but that voice was quickly being drowned out by his hormones. This was bad, he needed to lock himself in his room before he did something he couldn’t take back.

 With that thought in his mind, he wrenched the bathroom door open, and the cool air from outside the bathroom felt nice and calming on his overheated skin, helping him to maintain some sanity. Thankfully, you’d gone into your room and shut the door, and he made a beeline for his own room, thinking that as long as he didn’t see or smell you, everything would be fine.

 Unfortunately, thinking that you were being helpful, you’d gone into his room while he was in the bathroom to leave some water and snacks. He could see a few bottles neatly lined up on the bedside table, and the rest of the carton was sitting on the floor in a corner of the room. You’d also arranged the energy bars and fruit on the table, within easy reach of the bed. His heart clenched at how thoughtful you were, but even the short amount of time you’d spent in his room was enough to leave traces of your scent in his room.

 Groaning, he shut the door behind him and threw himself on the bed, facedown. He landed with his face in your pillow and growled, biting down on it as he impatiently stripped the towel off and threw it into a corner. His hands clenched into fists as he swiveled his hips, pressing his painful erection into the sheets.

 In the state he was in, thoughts about how wrong it was to get himself off to your scent flew right out the window as he took deep huffs of the pillow that had become saturated with your scent from months of you sleeping on it every night. As he worked himself closer to orgasm, he imagined that instead of the residual scent you’d left in his bed, it was you, warm and soft and pliant, letting him fuck you, use your body as he needed. You’d be so sweet to him, he thought, cooing at him as you wrapped your arms and legs around him, stroking the back of his neck and letting him mark you up as he plowed into you. Even in his fantasy, he wasn’t able to be gentle with you, holding the pillow between his teeth as he imagined the tender skin of your neck and collarbone in its place. His wolf instincts running high, he shuddered as he found his release to the picture of you he held in his mind, letting him fuck a whole litter of pups into you.

 “Y/n, shit, fuck,” he groaned as he came, holding that sweet fantasy close as he rode out his orgasm. Floating high in its wake for a moment, he rolled onto his back and shut his eyes, enjoying the small aftershocks running through his body. He wished he could just stay in this moment for the rest of his heat, where the consuming need had abated somewhat, but before the clarity of mind orgasm gave him made all his guilt come flooding back.

 He was a terrible, shitty hybrid and he was definitely going to hell. The thought made his ears droop sadly, but at least you weren’t here to witness his descent into madness. You were too good to him, such a sweet pet, he mused as he grabbed one of the bottles of water you’d so kindly put within easy reach and gulping it down. He wished he at least knew why this was happening all of a sudden. He’d never heard of or read about hybrid-human relationships, even though he knew that technically he was part human as well. It was all very confusing and scary, made worse by the fact that he had to hide what he was feeling from everyone, especially you, for fear that you would see him differently. He’d worked so hard to make sure that you felt safe in his home, and all of that would go down the drain immediately if you found out how alluring he found your scent now, and how difficult a time he was having keeping his hands off you.

 In the midst of his heat, even the thought of you finding out that he was unabashedly using your scent to get off didn’t fill him with horror and shame as it should have. Instead, his mind started to conjure up fantasies of you biting your lip, cooing his name when you found what a state he’d worked himself into. Imaginary you stroked his fevered brow softly, pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, then slid your hand down his body to grasp his erection as real Taehyung did the same thing.

 He’d already cum twice, so he could take his time a little more, stretch out the teasing and immerse himself in his fantasy. Sinking his teeth into his bottom lip in an effort to muffle the whine he could feel building in his throat, he exhaled shakily. You’d be so sweet to him, stripping out of your clothes without him asking, leaning over him to kiss him sweetly. Your soft, gentle kisses would contrast against how confidently and tightly you were gripping his cock as you jerked him off, letting him moan and whimper into your mouth.

 He wouldn’t be pliant for long – no, even in his fantasy he was needy, burning up, and you were the only thing that could save him from certain death. It would barely be a minute of you hovering over him, your hand on his cock, before he wouldn’t be able to take any more teasing. He’d grab you and flip the both of you over, so you landed on your back with him between your legs. He shuddered at the thought, turning onto his belly with his face back in your pillow, stacking his fists under him so they made a nice, deep hole for his cock to drill into.

 You’d be wet and creamy already, letting him slide through your folds without any resistance. He thought about how soft and tight you’d be as he ran his fingers down your slit, stretching you out for his cock. Even in the state he was in, he would be careful not to hurt you, to prep you well so that when he finally took his rightful place deep inside you, there would be nothing but pleasure. Biting his lip, he slowly fucked into his fists, mimicking the way he would enter you for the first time.

 Fantasy you arched into him and moaned helplessly, your walls tightening around him rhythmically as you adjusted to his length within you, and liquid heat pooled in his lower belly as he thought about the cute, breathy sounds you would make for him. Would you beg him for more, or tell him it was too much? He rather liked the idea of being too much for you, he found, enough to ruin you for any human man or hybrid who came after him. If he had his way, you’d always be his.

 He groaned and huffed as he picked up his pace, rutting into his fists as the head of his cock brushed against the sheets. Thousand thread count sheets and yet the fabric dragged almost unpleasantly against the oversensitive flesh, far rougher than he was sure your silken heat would be.

 As he jerked himself off relentlessly, he imagined that it was you he was plowing into, biting savagely into the pillow as he imagined that it was your neck he was marking up. His climax was close now, he could feel it, and he panted heavily as he strained for it. “Please,” he grunted, his voice muffled by the pillow. “Please, I need it.”

 Like a wish granted, his orgasm washed over him, and he shuddered all over as he came to your scent again. “Y/n,” he groaned, your name like a prayer on his lips as copious amounts of cum landed in a pool on the sheets. “Fuck,” he breathed, right before he collapsed into a heat nap.

  Almost two hours had passed since you’d gone into your room. You’d spent it comfortably enough, curled into your oversized armchair reading, but it was almost dark out now and you were getting hungry.

 Putting your book down and removing the noise-cancelling headphones that ensured you’d be able to look Taehyung in the eye once his heat ended, you opened your bedroom door and poked your head out slightly hesitantly. Once, when you were thirteen, you’d been careless and just waltzed right out of Yoongi’s room and run into a very naked Taehyung gulping down water in the kitchen, and it had scared the crap out of the both of you. Needless to say, ever since then you’d checked to make sure the coast was clear before going anywhere in the apartment whenever any of them had their heats.

 When all you saw was Taehyung’s closed bedroom door further down the corridor, you slipped out of your room and into the kitchen, tying your hair back into a ponytail as you gathered up ingredients. You didn’t know if Taehyung was up to have a full meal, but if he was, a nice, soothing soybean stew ought to hit the spot. Already licking your lips in anticipation, you put the earthenware port on the stove and turned it on, humming to yourself as you prepared the food.

 When it was done, you left it on the stove and went to get Taehyung. Sometimes even during his heat he would be capable of coming to eat a meal with you, and you figured it was worth a shot. If not, you could always eat alone and leave the stew for him to reheat when he felt hungry enough.

 “Tae-oppa?” you said softly, knocking on his door.

 For a second, there was no noise from inside and you assumed he was asleep, but as you were about to walk away you heard a rustle, and then he said, in a slightly slurred tone, “Come in.”

 You opened the door, and were immediately assaulted by the smell in the room, but you tried not to wrinkle your nose as you stepped in, knowing that Taehyung would be able to see it even in the dark. “Oppa, I made dinner, do you want to come join me?”

 Your eyes were still adjusting to the darkness of the room, and you were hardly able to see anything, but you heard Taehyung moving and assumed he was coming to join you for dinner. Starting to turn around to exit the room, you were caught off guard when he instead pushed you up against the door, which in turn slammed shut. The air was knocked from your lungs and you saw stars for a moment, standing still in his grasp as you tried to figure out what just happened.

 Taehyung, however, immediately took advantage of your confusion to crowd you against the door with his body. Your frame was completely dwarfed by his, one of his hands on your hip while the other was pressed to the wood beside your ear. “You smell so goddamn good,” he groaned as he bent to press his nose to your neck.

 Now you were confused for a whole different reason, because his words, his proximity, the bare erection he was pressing into your belly, all of those things confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt what you’d earlier tried to deny to yourself. For some reason, your owner wanted you, and you didn’t know what to do.

 “Tae-oppa –” you said timidly, trying to extricate yourself from this situation, but as he dragged his tongue up the length of your neck, right to your ear, your words cut off in a choked gasp. You shuddered involuntarily, hating yourself for reacting when you knew how wrong this all was.

 “Y/n-ah, you smell so good, so ripe,” he said against your ear as he started to swivel his hips, thrusting against you. Against your will, your core clenched, and you cringed as you felt a rush of wetness escape you. Your vain hopes that he didn’t know how wet you’d become, even with his heightened hybrid senses, were dashed when he groaned again, this time a long, low sound full of agony, and pressed his lips to yours.

 You were stock still for a moment, your mind blanking out, unable to comprehend what was going on. Every instinct was screaming at you to get out of there, that this was wrong, bad, sick, but your hands wouldn’t cooperate, half stretched out but not touching him, just hovering over his body.

 “Y/n, it hurts,” he groaned, resting his head against your forehead and panting heavily. It sounded like there wasn’t enough air in the room for him, and you could empathize – the uncomfortably warm and humid atmosphere wasn’t comfortable for you, let alone a hybrid going through heat at the moment.

 “What’s wrong, oppa?” you asked, stroking your hands down his side in a bid to bring him comfort, your initial reluctance to touch him or do anything that might give him the wrong idea forgotten in your haste to do anything that might make him feel better. Even touching his bare sides confirmed to you that he was burning up, and he usually ran warmer than you did as it was. Frowning, you tried to touch his face, to see whether he was feverish enough for it to be dangerous. If there was something wrong this time – and based on his strange behavior, you were already inclined to think there was – you had to call someone to come help him immediately.

 A sob ripped through him as your hand landed on his face, and he nuzzled aggressively into your palm. “You feel okay,” you murmured, stroking his cheek with your thumb. He was warmer than usual, but not so hot that you were alarmed.

 Instead of responding to your comment, he begged again, “Please help me, Y/n-ah.” The abject misery in his tone tugged at your heartstrings, and in that moment you knew you would do anything if it prevented him from suffering any more.

 “What do you need, Tae-oppa?” you asked quietly, steeling yourself for what was pretty sure would be the reply. By this point, you weren’t even thinking about whether or not you personally wanted to do this – and you were fairly ambivalent about the whole thing, if you were being honest – and your entire paradigm shifted, with Taehyung in the center of it.

 Instead of answering with words, he bent down slightly and hoisted you up with his hands on the back of your thighs, slotting himself between them neatly as he pressed you into the door. In this position, his prominent erection rubbed against your core, like a fiery brand burning through your shorts and panties.

 You whimpered. You didn’t know which way was up – it had been so long since you’d broken up with your ex back in Geochang, and you hadn’t had any action since, and the way he was moving against you triggered every carnal instinct you possessed. At the same time, your rational mind knew that this was wrong, that he was a hybrid and you were a human. You were different species, for God’s sake, and you’d never seen him in any light other than as your owner and guardian. Somehow, though, none of that mattered when he made another pained noise.

 Hesitantly, you slipped your arms around his neck and started kissing him back. Your tentative overtures were nothing like the way he greedily devoured your mouth as a precursor to the way he wanted to eat you alive, but his reaction was dramatic enough that it didn’t seem he minded too much. Pressing you back more firmly against the door, he slipped one hand from your thigh up your camisole, his long fingers stretching up your ribcage.

 You shivered at his touch, although you weren’t sure whether it was in arousal or revulsion. Nevertheless, you steeled yourself and let him grope you, kiss you, do whatever he wanted. You were quickly realizing that you would do anything to help Taehyung, even give up your own body. After all, he was the person who had saved you all those years ago. It was the least you could do for him, no matter what your personal thoughts on the matter were.

 Still, there was something about how enthusiastically he was kissing and touching you that was incredibly persuasive, stirring something deep within you that wanted to respond in kind. Slowly, your kisses became bolder, and when you tentatively swiped your tongue against his bottom lip, his whole body shuddered in a way that made you feel powerful.

 “Fuck,” he growled, and still holding on to you, he turned and strode over to the bed, dropping you unceremoniously down on it. You’d barely landed when his hands were at work again, hooking his fingers in your waistband and pulling down your shorts and panties at the same time.

 “Fuck,” he repeated more softly this time as he dropped the discarded clothing carelessly. He levelled his body over yours, an elbow planted into the bed beside you to help balance himself as he slid his other hand down your soft belly to your pussy. You widened your legs accommodatingly to his touch, biting your lip to stay quiet when his hand slid over you, just a little too hard to be pleasurable over the sensitive flesh.

 “Shit, this heat is going to be the death of me,” he huffed, sounding more lucid now that you were under him than he had at any point before. He settled between your legs and bent his head back down to rub his nose against your neck again, but that one throwaway comment stuck in your mind, causing you to stiffen under him uncomfortably. Your stomach twisted unpleasantly in panic as you realized what you’d almost done. He was in heat, unable to think straight, and instead of protecting him from making a hormone-fueled decision that he would definitely have regretted as soon as his heat passed, you’d been about to enable it.

 Whatever arousal you might have been feeling evaporated in an instant, shame and horror filling you instead. Taehyung was so out of it that he didn’t notice the chance in your body language, but he sure as hell noticed when you tried to scramble away from him, though you weren’t very successful since his entire weight was pressing down on you, pinning you in place.

 Still, you made a little headway squirming away from him before his eyes opened wide again and he frowned down at you, pressing his hips more firmly down into you to pin you down. “Stop,” he protested. “What are you doing?”

 “Oppa, we can’t do this,” you cried out, distressed, as you continued to struggle away from him. But he was bigger and stronger than you were, and pinned you down easily.

 “Why not,” he whined, his breath ruffling the hair by your temple. He was still panting heavily as you squirmed under him, and you stopped, realizing that your movement was making the situation worse. In your despair, tears began to prick at your eyes, and the scent of your distress, cutting sharply through the intoxicating aroma of your arousal, gave him pause.

 “Baby, are you okay?” he asked with some concern, lifting himself off you slightly so that he could peer down at your face. The moment you felt his weight leave you, you used your newfound leverage to push him so hard he lost his balance, falling to the mattress next to you. You wouldn’t have been able to do it if he’d been expecting it and bracing against it, you knew, because he was just so much stronger than you naturally.

 In a flash, you were up and running for your life, sprinting for his bedroom door. You didn’t bother grabbing the rest of your clothes, knowing there was no time. Even with the head start you’d gotten on Taehyung, you knew that it would be close when he snarled and pushed himself off the bed, chasing after you.

 Shit, you swore to yourself as you ran for your bedroom. It loomed ahead of you, seeming to get further away as your vision narrowed in your panic. You could hear Taehyung thundering down the hallway after you, and with his longer stride and superior hybrid strength, he was gaining on you at an alarming pace. Even though you knew this was probably nothing for him, he was panting loudly enough for you to hear it, and you cringed as you remembered how alluring the chase was to wolves. Did Taehyung have that in common with them? You were starting to realise that despite being with him for so long, there were enormous gaps in your knowledge about him. Of course, you’d never expected that you would need to know such intimate details about him, but here you were.

 You ducked into your room and slammed the door shut just in time, wincing as you heard Taehyung crash into the solid oak with a furious snarl. You flipped the lock into place right before he started abusing the door handle, banging loudly and pulling way too hard on the handle as he yelled for you. “Y/n-ie? Baby, please unlock the door. Just talk to me, baby, I just wanna talk, I won’t do anything else, please.” He continued to beg and wheedle, his voice turning into a whine.

 Oh, God. You had no clue how to handle this, and it was turning into a nightmare. You backed away from the door, trying to give yourself as much distance as possible to think. You had to call for reinforcements, you knew. There was no way in hell you were going out there, and Taehyung was out of his mind right now.

 Running your hands through your hair in stress, you picked up the phone that you’d thankfully left on your bedside table instead of on the kitchen counter. There was only one person who could help you, you knew. Namjoon.

  You sat on the floor with your back against the door the entire time you waited for him to arrive, trying to offer Taehyung comfort and companionship without actually opening the door, which you knew would lead to something you couldn’t take back given the state he was in. He’d given up on yelling and trying to break into your room, since the door was sturdy enough to withstand his efforts to knock it down. In utter despair and misery now, he was on the floor whimpering and whining, and your heart broke with every sad, pathetic noise he made. It took everything in you not to open the door and give him what he so desperately wanted, and it was only the knowledge that he would hate himself, and you, once the heat passed that gave you the strength to resist.

 Thankfully, Namjoon had a key to the apartment, because you didn’t know how you would have gotten all the way to the front door to let him in with Taehyung still camped outside your bedroom. You knew when he arrived because Taehyung’s sad, soft whines transformed into angry growls. He was infuriated at another hybrid encroaching on what he considered to be his territory during his heat, with his bitch in the vicinity, and you were terrified that he would actually attack the older man, yet another thing that he would hate himself for when he was back in his right frame of mind.

 Grateful that you’d thought to dress yourself once you were back in your room, you opened the door, distracting Taehyung from Namjoon as he immediately attached himself to you. Patting his back while trying to keep his hands from straying to inappropriate places, it took you a moment to realize that Namjoon had brought Yoongi with him, and you squinted in confusion at the snow leopard hybrid.

 “You should stay with Yoongi until Tae’s heat passes,” Namjoon explained. “I’ll keep an eye on Taehyung.”

 That sounded like a good idea in theory, but how poorly Taehyung had reacted to having them in his apartment during his heat made you skeptical of how it would play out. Even now, Taehyung’s distraction was fading away, and he was standing protectively in front of you as he growled threateningly at the intruders.

 “His instincts are amped up because of you, for some reason. If you aren’t here anymore, he should calm down.”

 You chewed on your lip indecisively. The doubt in Namjoon’s voice made you want to protest, to reject his proposal. How could you endanger both Taehyung and Namjoon on a hunch?

 Really, though, what was the alternative? You couldn’t possibly give in to Taehyung; he would be filled with regret and self-loathing once he returned to normal, and you needed to protect him from that.

 “Okay,” you acquiesced finally. You tried to step around Taehyung to go to Yoongi, but he whipped around, alarmed.

 “Baby, what are you doing?” he asked, panicked, his arms wrapping around you immediately.

 “Oppa, let me go, please?” you begged softly, hoping futilely that Namjoon and Yoongi wouldn’t hear your conversation with him. Somehow, this felt too intimate for anyone else to witness.

 Taehyung brushed his thumb along your cheekbone, wiping away the stray tear in what had to be the most tender gesture he’d made towards you since his heat started. “Don’t cry, baby,” he whispered, his forehead resting against yours. “I’ll give you everything you need.”

 “Tae-oppa, I’ll see you after your heat, okay?” you managed, forcing the words out past the lump in your throat. “Be nice to Namjoon-oppa. I love you.” You’d said it to him so many times before, but it carried a different weight this time that you didn’t want to examine too closely.

 “Y/n-ie…” He didn’t let you go, but his grip loosened ever so slightly, and you took the opportunity to twist yourself out of his embrace, and hurried over to Yoongi. He gave you a small smile as he held his hand out to you.

 As you left the apartment with Yoongi, you heard Taehyung give a heart-rending roar, and almost said to hell with it and ran back to him. As if sensing your internal conflict, Yoongi’s hand tightened on yours, making it impossible for you to leave his side.

 You sobbed in the car all the way to Yoongi’s apartment, the reality of everything setting into you only after you’d left the situation, and the adrenaline that had kept you going left your system. You didn’t understand what was going on, but the pure misery you’d heard in Taehyung’s voice as he called out for you stayed with you. It was your fault somehow, you knew. Taehyung was suffering because of you, because of your ancestors, cruel people who’d made him the way he was for their own selfish purposes. Everything was your fault.

  For the next four days, you barely left Yoongi's guest bedroom. He gave up trying to coax you to watch Netflix with him or come to the studio to interact with the other members. Instead, he left you alone for the most part, only coming to get you when it was meal time or when he had an update from Namjoon.

 Apparently, after you'd left he'd barricaded himself in his own bedroom and hadn't left. Namjoon was trying to get him to eat a proper meal, but it was tough - thankfully, there was still the stew you'd cooked and hadn't gotten a chance to eat on the stove, because it wasn't like Namjoon was capable of cooking a nutritious homemade meal from scratch. After several attempts, Taehyung had finally allowed Namjoon to hand him the meal on a tray, which he ate in his room and left the empty dishes outside the door after.

 Apart from that, you didn't know much because he wasn't interacting with Namjoon, so your secondhand information was limited at best. It didn't really help your anxiety about the whole situation, but at least you knew he was alive, and you'd really left enough food and water in his bedroom for several heats, so there wasn't a problem on that front.

 You used the time, instead, to think about what had happened during the first day of Taehyung's heat. For the entire four days you were at Yoongi's, you basically thought about nothing else. He'd wanted you. Now that you were thinking about it in that light, a lot of the other strange things he'd been doing made a lot more sense. He wasn't just reacting to your familiar scent, or pack bond, or whatever bullshit it was that he'd been feeding you. You realised with a start that he'd been attracted to you.

 That realisation didn't make you feel better - in fact, you had more questions than before. How long had this been going on? How could this happen? Was this normal? Was he normal? And, most importantly, how did you feel about it all?

 With so much time on your hands all of a sudden, you thought about it obsessively, and cycled through almost every possible emotion.

 First came the knee-jerk reaction of disgust and horror, of course. How could this happen? How could you let this happen? You sobbed as you thought about how wrong all of this was, how weird, how inappropriate it was that Taehyung was attracted to you, a human and his pet, for God's sake. And he'd fucking lied about it too, feeding you that bullshit about his pack bond and lulling you into a false sense of security so you'd continue to stay with him, when he should have told you what was happening and let you move away as soon as he started feeling this way.

 But then - and almost against your will, because you did not want to start empathizing with him and trying to justify the shitty things he'd done to you in your mind - you started to see things his way. If it was so wrong to you, it must have been a million times worse for him, the one who'd been caught so off-guard by these new, entirely unexpected emotions. He must have been blindsided, felt so lost and scared, when he realised what was going on. Your traitorous heart felt a pang of sympathy for him. Of course he hadn't wanted to tell you; he'd probably not even been ready to admit it to himself.

 Lying on your back and staring up at the ceiling, you tried to sort out your thoughts. Whether you liked it or not, you were programmed to want to please your owner, and that included understanding them. Your psyche had done its job and let you understand, with very little information and no help, Taehyung's motivations and frame of mind.

 What it wouldn't help with, however, was understanding how you felt about all of this. You sighed and rolled onto your belly, burying your face in the pillows, stifling the urge to scream in frustration.

 You knew you cared about Taehyung. Despite everything else, that hadn't changed. You couldn't forget the way he'd taken you in, given you a loving home and everything a human could possibly ask for, and asked for nothing in return. He'd even done his best to hide his growing desire from you when - let's be real - he could have acted on it whenever he wanted. It's not like anyone would believe you over him. You loved him, and you were so grateful to him for taking you in when nobody else would, and saving you from a miserable childhood in the shelter. Everything you had - everything you were - was because of him.

 Still, you couldn't quite shake the feeling that this was wrong, that it was immoral and inappropriate and sick to be in a human-hybrid relationship. Not after everything that had happened between the two species. Not when you were literally different species.

 With a groan of despair that was muffled by the pillows, you flailed a little in frustration. What were you to do? You were still no closer to an answer than you'd been when you'd first started thinking about all of this literal days ago.

  Namjoon didn't know - and, God willing, would never know - that Taehyung had found your discarded shorts and underwear on his bedroom floor after you'd left, and had been using that to help him get off ever since. In the state he was in, he wasn't even capable of feeling shame or remorse at what he was doing, and was just ecstatic that he finally had something better than your residual scent on his sheets to get off to.

 He sniffed at the crotch of your panties - buried his face in them, really - licked and sucked at the stains that your arousal had left in them, and tried to memorise the scent as he masturbated furiously throughout the entire four days of his heat. By the end of it, there was barely any trace of you left on the scrap of fabric, something he bemoaned as he worked himself to the final unsatisfying orgasm of his heat.

 His whole room was a mess - it stank of sex and debauchery, and there was cum all over the place - the floor, the pillows from when he'd rutted them, all over the sheets. As he fell into a deep sleep, he wondered if you'd be able to smell it, even with your weak human nose, when you came back.

 He kind of hoped you would. His heat-addled mind wanted you to know what he'd done for you.

  When Taehyung woke up, finally lucid after running through his heat, the first thing he did was remove your panties from his mouth. He grimaced in disgust - how had he literally fallen asleep with them there? God, he was truly awful - and tossed them aside, grabbing a half-finished bottle of water from between the pillows and downing it. He was parched, and the the water in the bottle wasn't enough for him.

 As he got up on shaky legs to grab another bottle from the corner, he recognized for the first time how ravenous he was, and after picking up his water, brought it with him while he left his bedroom for the first time in days to find some food.

 Thinking that he was alone, he didn't bother getting dressed, so when he reached the end of the hallway and entered the common area of the apartment, he screamed like a little girl and ran all the way back to his room in embarrassment when Namjoon, sitting on the couch with his Kindle, turned around to see him in his full naked glory. It was nothing the older man hadn't seen before, of course - you see all sorts of things when you live together for as long as they had - but it was still embarrassing, especially after so long being apart.

 By the time he re-emerged sheepishly, fully dressed, Namjoon was waiting for him with a smirk. "You didn't need to react like that, you know," he teased.

 "Yeah, yeah," Taehyung grumped. "I'm starving, is there anything to eat?"

 Namjoon rolled his eyes. "What do you think this is, Masterchef?" he quipped. "I just called for delivery, it should be here soon," he continued.

 Taehyung, on hearing that, gave his leader his best boxy smile. "Thanks, hyung! You're the best!" he cheered, going to sit on the other end of the couch to wait.

 Namjoon, figuring that he would leave the questions till after the other man had eaten, went back to his Kindle. Taehyung, though, seemed to have other ideas.

 "Hyung, have you been here all this while?" he asked curiously.

 "Uh, yeah," Namjoon replied. "Somebody had to take care of you."

 "Where's Y/n?" came the next question.

 Namjoon hesitated then. "How much do you remember?" he asked cautiously, not wanting to say anything that might startle or upset Taehyung.

 "Uhh..." Taehyung frowned, thinking hard. "I remember Y/n smelling real good," he said, shivering at just the memory of it. "Then she was in my room, under me... then..." he trailed off, his eyes widening in horror as he started remembering in detail what had happened.

 "Oh, my God," he groaned, burying his head in his hands. "I'm awful," he said, beginning to sob.

 "Hey, don't say that about yourself," Namjoon said, alarmed, drawing closer as he patted the younger man on the back comfortingly. "You're not awful, you were just caught up in your heat, that's all."

 "No, you don't understand!" Taehyung cried out, obviously distressed. "I'm the worst; I'm a disgusting hybrid and pet owner, and I should be put behind bars for Y/n's safety, and probably the rest of society, too," he finished miserably, his ears drooping.

 Namjoon tried to calm Taehyung down to explain what he meant by that, but before he succeeded, the food arrived, and with that distraction readily available, the younger man clammed up as he stuffed his face full of japchae and kimchi stew to avoid talking.

 Eventually, when everything had been finished - even the weird sweetcorn banchan that no one ever finished - Taehyung couldn't put it off any longer.

 "You'll hate me," he protested dejectedly when Namjoon tried again to coax him to spill the beans.

 "Bro, if I didn't hate you after you threw up all over me when you had food poisoning, how could anything make me hate you now?" Namjoon countered reasonably.

 That made sense, so with a heavy sigh, Taehyung told Namjoon the entire sordid tale. The words came out stiltedly at first, then started pouring out, as Taehyung started speaking faster and faster, until it sounded like he was the rapper in the group. The more he spilled, the lighter the weight on his shoulders became, as if by telling someone else, he was transferring the burden. Namjoon, to his credit, listened quietly, his expression remaining open and neutral as he took in Taehyung's story, interjecting only to ask clarifying questions but never to pass any judgement.

 When Taehyung was finally done - he left out the bit about him using your dirty underwear to get him through his heat, because hyung or not, there were some things that should be kept to himself - he leaned back against the couch cushions with a heavy sigh. This was it, he knew. No matter how accepting his hyung was, there were some things that were just too much, and this was one of those. As he'd been telling the story from the beginning, starting from the day you'd come to pick him up from his army base, how awful it all was hit him again, amplified by revising the entirety of how he'd abused you and your trust.

 "So you see," he concluded his story with a small sigh, "I'm a disgusting pervert who should probably die for the sake of society."

 To his shock, Namjoon leaned in and squeezed his knee. "Don't say that about yourself," he castigated. "I'll do some reading and see if I can find out more about this, but you shouldn't panic, okay? I'm sure I'll be able to find an explanation and solution for you. Trust your hyung."

 The way he said that, so sure and steady, made Taehyung relax, almost against his will. Namjoon had been there for him for almost half of his life now, and he knew, from the determined set of his jaw, that he would come through for him again.

 "Okay."

  After their conversation, Namjoon texted Yoongi to let him know that the coast was clear and quickly made himself scarce, not wanting to get in the way of whatever emotional reunion you were going to have, knowing Taehyung.

 Yoongi, for his part, tried his best to get you back home as quickly as possible, and you didn't have the heart to tell him that you would actually have appreciated a little more time away from Taehyung. You felt bad, but you were still so unsure about everything that was happening, and you were, if you were being completely honest, a little afraid to go home and face him.

 Which led to you, standing outside your front door like an idiot, your fist raised to knock, but unable to actually do it. There would be no going back from this, you knew. Nothing would ever be the same again, one way or another. Was it so wrong of you to want to keep things the way they were, just for a second?

 With a heavy sigh, you dropped your fist against the solid wood of the door, wincing at the loud sound it made. Almost too quickly, you heard the patter of footsteps as Taehyung raced to the door and opened it.

 "Hi," you breathed awkwardly, standing like an idiot with no clue of what to say or do all of a sudden.

 Taehyung, it seemed, had no such problems as he pulled you into a hug and kicked the door shut with his foot. "Y/n, you came back," he breathed into your hair as he squeezed the life out of you.

 Even though you'd been so nervous just a second earlier, being in his warm, familiar embrace made it feel like everything would be okay again, and you couldn't help but melt into his embrace. "Of course I came back, oppa," you said quietly into his chest.

 "I thought... I thought..." Taehyung choked up and he couldn't continue as he dissolved into sobs. "I'm so sorry!" he cried instead, over and over again as you soothed him, telling him that everything would be okay, that you would always be here for him, that you were never going to leave him no matter what, as you stroked his ears comfortingly, the way you knew he liked.

 "Hey, it's okay," you repeated as you patted his back, leaning up on tiptoe to press kisses to as much of his face as you could reach. And it was. Just being with Taehyung, in that moment, gave you a clarity that you hadn't been able to find after days of agonizing over it. Taehyung had saved you, and you loved him. It was as simple as that. And listening to him blubber about how sorry he was, how he'd work on it, he promised, how he'd never do anything like that again if you would just forgive him, you knew that whatever Taehyung wanted, you'd give to him, no matter how you felt about it.

 "It's okay," you said one last time as his sobs petered out. "Whatever you want, it's okay."

 Taehyung didn't fully register at the time how much you meant what you'd said to him that day, but he would soon.

  It was weeks later that Namjoon finally made a breakthrough on his research. Weeks of obsessively searching, trawling through endless pages on the dark web and the dregs of reddit, before he finally found something. It was an old research paper, hundreds of years old, published by a now-defunct, of course, company that had manufactured hybrids. The paper was titled "Research advancements in imprinting technology in hybrids".

 "Oh my God," Namjoon breathed in shock and horror as he skimmed the paper. This was way more serious than either he or Taehyung had initially thought.