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Werewolves are some of the oldest creatures to roam the Earth.
It is believed that only ghosts and vampires are older than them, energies and healing being mastered as witchcraft before forests were, before there were sufficient words to curse people into wolves, but all those magics are still ancient. Some curses, and some creatures, are extremely recent, especially if compared to the lifetime of witchcraft – ghouls, for example, were born along with the industrial revolution, and only became common in the latter decades of the twentieth century. Werewolves, vampires and ghosts, however, are almost as old as witches themselves.
Which is all to say, Akaashi has gotten himself a werewolf boyfriend. A stupid, trouble-making, obnoxious, overconfident werewolf boyfriend.
Akaashi meets him when he goes into the woods to search for ingredients. Akaashi meets him when he touches his hand to the ground and, instead of feeling the locations of mushrooms, herbs, and wildflowers, he feels an ache much like the Earth splitting in half, an ache ancient and guttural like a soul in the epicentre of a supernova.
Akaashi runs, and meets him. Akaashi walks between the trees, dizzy, lost, and falls to his knees when he sees a creature hurting as much as Bokuto is.
He’s somewhere between wolf and man, not fully transformed back, like a curse gone wrong, like a spell reflected on the mirror. He’s got tufts of white-grey fur all over his body, his extremities fingered paws, his back arching and his spine showing through his greyish skin, not human, not canine. And he’s bleeding, profusely. He has scratches and marks all over his body, which is normal for werewolves, since they usually run without avoiding stones or branches, but he’s also got cuts, he’s also got bites, he’s also got his left hand-paw hanging by a thread, almost torn off.
Akaashi runs to him. Akaashi holds his face, gently, and the wolf twists his head, aggressive, defensive, trying to bite off his hand at first, gnawing at the air. Akaashi coos, spells him under his breath, and his skin starts closing up the scratch wounds. And so the wolf whimpers, cries, and Akaashi touches his forehead to his. The tips of Akaashi’s fingers glow blue on his skin, glittery light spreading throughout his face, wandering through his hair like a river coursing through woods.
“I need you to help me help you,” he whispers, and the wolf whines. “I need you to try to stand up, and walk with me. Do you think you can do that?”
The werewolf stands up, hunched over, still canine, but walking on two feet. He keeps his arms close to his chest, his paws droopy and weak, and stumbles forward more than walks, sometimes standing straighter, like a man, and sometimes falling forward, like a dog. Akaashi hates seeing him like this, because he hates seeing suffering at all, and hates that there’s nothing he can do, not right now. If only he gets home, if only he gets to his ingredients and recipe books-
Thankfully, they arrive before the werewolf bleeds out, before anything happens that Akaashi can’t help with the barest of healing spells, the only ones he can master. The wolf collapses as soon as he goes through the door, and Akaashi doesn’t mind, doesn’t think about the blood and dirt stains on his rug, doesn’t think about how it would be more comfortable for him to collapse on a bed or a couch, because he knows there’s a big chance he would very barely make it. So Akaashi sprints to the kitchen, puts his little sauce pan on the stovetop, floats ingredients out of jars and drops them into water.
(While he might not enjoy the fact that human settlements don’t circle around bodies of water anymore, Akaashi appreciates the fact that he doesn’t need to make a fire out of wood when he has to make a heat-potion. Appreciates the fact that he can simply turn on the burner, put a pan on top of it – unless it’s an ancient, cauldron-specific potion, but he doesn’t usually make those – and relax. When he was in training, and his mentor had him make fires to make potions, Akaashi always fucked it up. When he was nervous, he started sweating, and the sticks and firewood always ended up wet, Akaashi channelling up the groundwater and making puddles in the grass.)
The potion isn’t done too quickly, its strength and complexity making it take almost an hour to dissolve into magic, so Akaashi keeps leaving the kitchen to go check on the wolf, applying old, probably expired ointments he had on his shelves, reciting spells he can’t cast from his mentor’s old books, just in the hopes that one of them casts. Their effect isn’t null; Akaashi gets to speed the wolf’s coagulation, and eventually he stops bleeding, even from the biggest wounds, and he starts slowly losing his wolf form.
Akaashi pours the potion into a bamboo bowl once it’s done, because glass and plastic spoil potions immediately, and takes it to the man lying, bleeding, on his living room floor. He lifts the bowl to his lips, helps him sit up, and whispers, “This will make you all better. It won’t heal your injuries for good, but you’ll go fully human, and all the pain will go away. Okay?”
The man nods, slowly, and drinks it all up in one go. Akaashi can feel the potion sliding down his throat, the magic oozing out into his veins, eliminating his pain, recovering the small leftover scars from Akaashi’s half-assed healing of his scratches, shifting the shape of his ears, making any tufts of hair still on his skin either fade or fall off, to the ground.
He groans, and leans forward, a hand to his stomach.
“Are you okay?” Akaashi looks at his face, worried, his heart racing. He hasn’t made healing potions in maybe years, hasn’t dealt with a creature in all his life.
“What’s in this?” The man pokes out his tongue, grimaces. “Tastes awful. Like moss. Like worms.”
Akaashi sighs, stands up. “Do you want to stay, or will you be on your way?” The werewolf, the man, looks up, and he still has the bright, stark eyes of a wolf. They still glitter, big and round, like a predator, like a puppy.
“I’m sorry. I’m Bokuto.”
“Akaashi.”
“Can I stay?”
Akaashi smiles, softly. “Sure. I’ll help you with bandages.”
“Thank you, Akaashi!” Bokuto stands up, almost falls face-first to the floor, and heaves with a smile, like a dog would. Akaashi feels the need to pat him on the head, to coo good boy , but holds himself back. “I’ll help you clean up! Sorry for the mess!”
“It’s fine,” Akaashi says, taking the bowl from his hands and turning, heading for the kitchen. He hears Bokuto following him, his steps heavy, a slight limp. “At least you’re all better now.”
Bokuto stays, recovers. Bokuto follows Akaashi when he goes out to collect ingredients, to sketch plants, to study the magical properties of weeds and grasses he doesn’t have in his books, at home. Bokuto fills Akaashi’s day-to-day with smiles and stories, with words, with warmth.
Witches are isolated beings. Witches rarely live with anyone but familiars, but apprentices, because relationships with normals are difficult – especially if you’re still learning, especially if you haven’t mentored yet – and other witches are hard to find. Creatures are usually even harder, because every time a witch finds a creature, they tend to try and heal them, or send them on their merry way to find a witch that can heal them.
Akaashi tells Bokuto this as soon as his last wound heals, which is after a week of potions three times a day and enchanted bandages. Akaashi tells Bokuto, “I can’t lift your curse. I can probably help you find a forest witch, since we’re right by the woods, but I can’t help you any further.”
Bokuto frowns.
“I never said I wanted to stop being a werewolf, Akaashi.”
That surprises him, it really does. He’s never even heard of a creature that wasn’t looking to get rid of their curse.
“I like it, I don’t mind it. I still get to live a pretty normal life, I can still live in society if I want, and it’s fun to be able to see at night and smell more than anyone I know. It’s fun to be a wolf, too, to be furry and to run fast like the wind. I don’t see why I should try and lift my curse if it’s not doing me any harm.”
“But, I found you, and you were wrecked. Imagine if I wasn’t there, what would you have done?”
“Well, you’re here now, aren’t you, Akaashi? You’ll take care of me?”
Bokuto smiles, sly, not even trying to pretend to be innocent. Akaashi feels the potion in his hands swirling inside its bowl, a whirlpool in the middle of the rosy liquid, and nods, slightly. “Fine.”
Bokuto stays, and makes himself a bed in Akaashi’s living room. Bokuto snores like a dog, so Akaashi brews him this specific tea, one morning, and never has to worry about snoring again – just smiles, ingenuity’s poster boy, and slides him a cup.
In the beginning, Bokuto’s story is nothing but bits and pieces, offhand comments, mannerisms. Things Akaashi notices, but can’t quite put together. He learns that Bokuto’s curse isn’t hard on him, that he actually only goes were on the night of the full moon, that the curse wasn’t meant for him to begin with, that he would have never angered a witch on purpose, never angered anyone on purpose. He learns, when he goes to his house to pick up clothes and belongings, that he lives in the big, fancy home outside of town, the home that’s a lot like Akaashi’s, in location and energy, but that is so much bigger than his, it’s not even funny. He learns that he doesn’t have a job, that his days were usually filled with nature walks and the internet, that he’s glad (and this is a quote, these are the words he said, smiling) he has someone to spend time with, now, because life had gotten so boring.
One day, they play cards into the evening. One evening, they try a tea that had a faded out label, and would be – according to Akaashi’s books, his notes, and his journals, – either some sort of opiate or a spell against the common cold. One evening, Bokuto decides they have nothing to lose, because either they’ll get high as kites or they won’t really feel a thing. One evening, Bokuto beats him and beats him and beats him, gloats about how all that time alone made him master every game of cards, even if online, and suggests they up the stakes.
“I beat you again, and you finally draw me, okay?” (Bokuto has been asking for Akaashi to draw him ever since he learned that Akaashi can draw. Akaashi always insists he can draw plants, not people, and that there surely must be better things for Bokuto to do, but there don’t seem to be any.)
Akaashi pulls at his journal, opens on the next blank page, “It’s fine.” His words are trippy, stumbling, falling, careening down a steep, steep hill. He grabs a pencil, looks at Bokuto, and starts sketching.
Bokuto’s shaking, his face so cute and over-excited, like a puppy, like a dog wagging its tail. “Should I do a pose? Should I smile? What do I do?”
“Just sit still. You can talk to me, if you want, if you don’t want to be bored.”
“Hm? Yeah, okay. What do I talk about?”
Akaashi looks at him, feels his own eyes droopy. Observes the taut line of his neck, the softness of his lips. “You’ve never told me your story. Like, your past.”
“Oh! Hmm… Well. I’m Bokuto Koutarou. I’m 25. I’m from the city, I have a Master’s in Education. I don’t have a job. I, uh. My dad lives with my stepmom in the city, still, and my mom passed away when I was a teenager. Um… My curse! Oh, my curse. Well, so, on the holidays before my last term, me and some of my mates went camping, and I was tasked with going out for firewood, when I saw this girl…”
Akaashi watches Bokuto, watches the way he moves, hands gesturing in the air. Doesn’t complain, doesn’t want to interrupt him. Prefers this hard to freeze, hard to draw Bokuto, this organic and alive Bokuto, than one that would be stiff as a board, one that would be afraid to blink.
“... I went to help her, and she yelled at me to stay away, and then, well, I was cursed, I think? I remember not noticing anything different, but she ran up to me and started apologising, said she didn’t know what she’d done, said she was so sorry, but I wasn’t understanding anything, y’know? She gave me her number, told me to tell her if something happened- Wait, am I talking too much? Should I cut to the chase?”
“It’s fine.”
“Well, so, a week went by, I think, and I fucking turned into a wolf! In the middle of the night! I almost died, that night. It was terrible. I texted her the very next morning, and she told me she didn’t know how, but she’d turned me into a werewolf. That needed a lot of explaining, of course, but in the end I accepted it, because, like, I had lived it, you know? So, yeah. As I said, my curse doesn’t change me too much, I only turn once every four weeks, so I got my Master’s, then told my dad. Took him a while to accept it, but after he watched me turn, he suggested I come here, to have more freedom to turn, to try and live a life without the restraints of the city. So, I’ve been here for a few months, now. I think I wanna help teach at the pre-school, but I’ve been trying to get used to turning first.”
Bokuto sits silent, and Akaashi looks at him. Wonders how he’ll capture the glint in his eye. Knows he’s done with his life story, because he’s smiling, sweetly, like he’s waiting to be prodded a little further, to be asked something else. “What’s the story of the day I saved you?”
“Attacked by a pack of actual wolves,” Bokuto says. He shrugs, smiling, “I’m bigger than them, I don’t know if you could tell, so I thought I could take them, but I’m not really used to being a wolf. At least, to being a wolf in the woods. I sat there, in agony, for so long before you arrived. You really did save me, Akaashi.”
Akaashi finishes the drawing, and looks down at it. In it, Bokuto’s smiling, his eyes almost closed but looking to the side, his cheeks pushed around by his grin. He’s so pretty. Akaashi couldn’t do him justice.
“Here you go.” Akaashi slides the journal across the table, and Bokuto takes it, so enthusiastic, Akaashi can’t get the image of a puppy wagging its tail out of his head. Akaashi watches the crinkle in his eyes, the way he smiles wider than Akaashi’s ever gotten to see.
“Thank you, Akaashi,” Bokuto looks up, earnest, holding back on his smile in an attempt to sound as serious as possible. “I love this.”
Then, it’s in the little things.
Akaashi stays up late, one night, testing new brews with a specific powdered flower, writing them down when they turn into something. He sleeps in, wakes up at noon. It’s in the way that Bokuto enters his room hesitantly, with a breakfast bowl, frowning. It’s in the way he asks if Akaashi’s okay, it’s in the way he offers him the bowl and says he tried his best to discern magical things from normal things to make him that. (Fine, maybe it’s in the way Bokuto added the wrong ingredient, somewhere along the way, and Akaashi sneezes on things and turns them into flowers. Nothing a time-machine spell can’t fix.)
Bokuto turns were, and then it’s in the way he goes outside running, and Akaashi wakes up to him snoring in wolf form on the porch. It’s in the way he rolls over when Akaashi rubs his belly. He really is huge, as a wolf, bigger than any other Akaashi has ever seen. But he’s just a big puppy, just a wagging tail and attentive ears.
It’s in the way Bokuto picks out books from Akaashi’s shelves, in the way he reads them intently, his face showing confusion, and surprise, and awe. It’s in the way his expressions are so over-the-top, so clear, like he’s a cartoon character, like he’s a child, like he’s all hyperboles and alliterations.
It’s in the way he stands still when Akaashi kisses him, when they’re washing the dishes together, after breakfast. It’s in the way he thaws slowly, he reaches for Akaashi’s neck and props his face, kisses him gently, like he knows what he’s doing. Kisses him with a back and forth, with lips agape, with just the right amount of anything. Kisses him with his chin, with his jaw. Kisses him with warm breaths and exhale-through-the-nose laughter.
Akaashi has gotten himself a werewolf boyfriend. That is to say that, once a month, Akaashi’s gotten himself a puppy. As for the rest, he’s gotten himself someone made of grass flowers, made of moonlight and shooting stars. He’s gotten himself someone that he seems to never, ever get tired of.