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Lemar considers settling in for the night.
It’s a stormy one, with rain pelting against the windows and roof, but it’s late enough that the noise has started to fade into the background of his home. The lights are dimmed low, the television volume lowered to somewhere close to a murmur, and Lemar is stretched along the couch with a mug of tea cooling in his hands, debating whether he ought to head to bed already. He’s tired enough for it, he thinks.
That’s when the scratching starts.
At first, Lemar thinks it’s just part of the storm. A branch dragging across the siding maybe, or debris skittering across the porch in the wind. He does live pretty close to the woods. Besides, the rain is loud enough that everything blurs together into one long rushing sound anyway, and the noise itself is faint. He shifts slightly on the couch, glancing toward the entryway with a small frown before dismissing it, attention returning to his tea.
Then it happens again.
Scratch. Scratch.
Lemar pauses mid-sip. It’s definitely coming from his front door, and sounds deliberate enough to not be the wind. As if to reaffirm, the scratching repeats, a little more insistent than before. Lemar sighs as he sets the mug down on the coffee table, already pushing himself off the couch. Curiosity is a powerful motivator, and there’s a part of him that needs to know what could possibly be out there in weather like this.
When Lemar opens the door, the rain blows in sideways.
His house lights illuminate the porch in watery gold.
There, hunched miserably before him, is a dog.
And the thing’s big.
Not in the way someone’s overweight golden retriever might be big, but genuinely huge. Long-legged and broad through the shoulders, its thick fur plastered to its body in dripping clumps. The poor thing looks half drowned, mud streaked up its legs and water streaming steadily from its coat. No collar either, and Lemar would think it was a stray if not for how well-behaved it is, sitting polite even with the open door.
The dog lets out a pitiful howl, then lifts its head.
Its eyes are a striking, almost unnatural blue.
“Well damn,” Lemar murmurs. “You’re having a night, huh?”
The dog’s tail thumps tiredly against the wooden porch.
Something about the animal tugs at him immediately.
Maybe it’s the way it’s sitting there so patiently in the rain instead of barking or scratching wildly, or maybe it’s the way those bright eyes are watching him with a strange kind of quiet attention. Either way, the sight of it shivering on his doorstep makes the decision for him.
“Alright, alright.” Lemar steps back. “C’mon in.”
The dog bolts past him immediately, trotting inside with surprising speed for something that had looked so pitiful seconds ago. The moment it clears the threshold it shakes itself violently, sending a spray of cold droplets flying in every direction.
“Hey! No!” he yelps, and shields his face. “Stop it!”
The dog finishes shaking and looks at him.
“Should’ve seen that coming,” he mutters to himself with a sigh.
Lemar shuts the front door behind him, studying the dog more closely now that it’s under the lights, taking in the sheer size of it and the strange sharpness of its features. There’s something wolfish about the long snout and heavy paws, though he can’t quite place why the impression feels so strong. Whatever the case, Lemar can’t have it roaming freely in his house overnight.
“Guest room,” he says, already stepping sideways and gesturing down the hall in a loose attempt to steer the dog in the right direction.
To his relief, it actually listens.
The animal turns where he points and pads down the hallway ahead of him without much hesitation, those oversized paws leaving dark wet prints across the floorboards as it goes. Lemar trails behind it, half ready to intervene if it decides to bolt elsewhere or shake itself again in the middle of the hallway, but it doesn’t. It moves with a strange sort of calm awareness, glancing back at him once or twice like it’s checking that it’s doing the right thing.
Definitely someone’s dog, thinks Lemar, watching the way it responds to direction. Well-trained, too.
He makes a mental note to call around the neighborhood in the morning. Somebody has to be missing a dog this size, and if the storm caught it outside there’s a decent chance it slipped a fence or darted out during the chaos. For now, though, the priority is containing the situation before his entire house ends up soaked.
Unfortunately, the dog is still dripping rainwater.
By the time they reach the guest room, Lemar can already see a trail of wet pawprints marking the route behind them. He sighs quietly under his breath again and detours into the bathroom across the hall, grabbing one of the older towels from the linen closet as he passes, then tosses the towel down near the center of the floor.
Lemar crouches beside it, patting the towel. “Here.”
Obediently, the dog pads over, nudging Lemar with a wet snout before laying itself down where directed.
“Stay,” directs Lemar, as he backs out of the room.
The dog lets out a woof that almost sounds like agreement.
It stays on the towel as Lemar shuts the door.
It takes him the better part of fifteen minutes to clean up the trail of water and mud left through the hallway and entryway, and by the time he’s done the storm outside has settled into a quieter steady rain instead of the earlier downpour. Exhaustion is creeping in around the edges of his thoughts now.
Eventually, Lemar finishes his tea, shuts off the lights, and heads to bed.
The dog remains quiet all night.
***
Morning comes quiet and gray.
The storm has mostly passed, with just a light drizzle.
Lemar groans soft to his alarm, reaching over to silence it before it can blare again, and sets about his daily routine. Stretch, sit for a second while his brain catches up with his body, then drag himself out of bed to get ready for the day. The floor is cool under his feet as he crosses the room, rubbing a hand over his face while the fog of sleep slowly lifts. As his mind starts to wake properly, the memory of the previous night drifts back into his mind.
The scratching at the door.
The dog he’d corralled into the guest room.
He should check up on it to make sure it’s still there.
Lemar makes his way down the hall, still half asleep. “Alright, buddy,” he calls as he pushes the door open. “Let’s see if you destroyed anything—”
He stops dead in the doorway.
The towel is still on the floor where he left it.
The dog is gone.
And, most notably, there’s a man standing at the cabinet.
The stranger turns the moment the door opens.
Lemar stares at him. Because the man is—
Well.
He’s hot.
There’s no polite way to say it.
Tall, broad shoulders, strong arms, striking blue eyes (that detail sticks in his head for some familiar reason), and the kind of face that would be plastered onto a recruiting poster. He’s also wearing Lemar’s clothes. Specifically, an old shirt and sweatpants Lemar had stuffed into the dresser months ago for guests who forgot to pack something to sleep in.
They do not fit the man well.
Or rather, they fit too well in some places.
The shirt is clearly a size too small across his chest and shoulders, stretched just enough to outline the solid muscle underneath. The sleeves sit a little too high on his arms, the hem riding slightly above where it should at his waist. The sweatpants fare slightly better but still cling around his thighs in a way that makes it very obvious the man wearing them is built like someone who spends a lot of time in a gym.
Lemar notices all of that immediately.
He also ignores it with extreme determination.
“What the fuck,” Lemar says flatly.
The man winces, then offers a sheepish little wave. “Hi.”
“…There was a dog in here last night.”
The man rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. I, uh.”
Lemar folds his arms slowly across his chest.
The man, whoever he is, looks deeply, profoundly embarrassed now, shoulders hunching slightly as color creeps up his neck and across his face in a spreading flush. It’s the kind of visible, helpless embarrassment that makes it painfully obvious he knows exactly how bad this situation looks. Lemar tries very hard not to notice how the red in the man’s cheeks somehow makes him look even more attractive.
“I’m really sorry,” the man says, and to his credit he does seem genuinely earnest about it. His voice is a little rough, like he hasn’t quite shaken off sleep yet, and there’s a tightness in his shoulders that suggests he’s bracing for a much worse reaction than the one he’s currently getting. “I didn’t mean to– impose. I’m just– I’m not fully aware during these kinds of nights. Full moons.”
There are implications in that sentence.
Supernatural implications that are more suited to people like the Avengers in big-city New York, not Lemar Hoskins in small-town Georgia. Especially not right out of bed, before he’d even made coffee.
“Full moons,” Lemar echoes slowly.
“Yeah.”
“Like, werewolf full moons?”
The man nods once. He offers an awkward smile.
Dimples appear in his cheeks.
Lemar notices that too. Which is not relevant.
“So you’re telling me,” Lemar says after a long moment, keeping his voice steady through this increasingly bizarre conversation, “that the soaking wet dog—”
“Wolf,” corrects the man.
Lemar talks over him, “That I let into my house last night—”
“Was me,” the man confirms. “Sorry.”
He thinks back to the dog of the night before.
Or wolf, Lemar supposes.
He remembers its unnaturally bright blue eyes.
The man is looking at him with those same blue eyes.
Lemar sighs. “And now you’re in my house. Wearing my clothes.”
The man glances down at the shirt. “I can take it off—”
“Don’t!” Lemar says, too quickly.
He is desperately willing away the mental images of what the man might look like if he did, and hopes that none of those thoughts are showing on his face. He takes a breath and tries again, more collected. “Look, it’s– it’s fine, alright?”
The man ducks his head. “Are you sure? I mean, I could…”
Lemar waves him off, and gives him a once-over that he hopes appears more observational than appraising. “It doesn’t look like you’ve got anything else to change into, besides.”
“Yeah. I mean, no. I…” The man’s face starts to redden again. “I don’t usually transform back where other people are around. There’s a cabin– it’s at the far end of the forest. I usually lock myself in there before the moon’s out. I must have missed a window, or maybe the storm knocked something loose. I can head over to change so you can get these back.”
He gestures vaguely at his current attire.
This time, it takes a considerable effort for Lemar to pull his gaze away from the way the shirt stretches snugly across broad shoulders, the hem riding up slightly with the movement, exposing– focus, damn it.
Lemar gathers up his senses enough to say, “Just keep them,” which was not what he intended it to say, but tries to play it off as casual. “They’re old anyway.”
Those blue eyes lock onto him again. “I– okay. Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Though you could’ve tracked less of a mess inside,” Lemar says. The comment draws out the same lovely flush and awkward smile out of the man. Before he can offer another apology, Lemar adds, “Just rainwater, though. Already cleaned up.”
“At least let me repay you for the night. I’m John, by the way.”
“Lemar,” he offers in turn.
“Hm, handsome name for a handsome man.”
Handsome. Heat creeps up his neck.
Lemar is sure his face is darkening with it.
“Is flattery the payment?”
“If you want it to be,” John returns, and a laugh slips out at whatever expression must be on Lemar’s face now. “I do have money, though. I– well, not on me, but I can go get it. Y’know, if flattery isn’t enough.”
“It’s more than fine. Keep your money.”
“Wow. Kind, handsome, and generous? Might have to swing by next month.”
Lemar raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”
John backtracks immediately. “I’m joking, I’m joking. Unless.”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, but the request is there.
“I think we have to be a bit more than strangers for that, but,” Lemar adds, when John’s expression starts to falter, “it’s still raining out,”—barely, and John could surely see the drizzle outside is hardly severe enough to force anyone inside—“so you may as well stay for breakfast.”
John brightens, sharp canines exposed with his returned and widening smile. “Bed and breakfast, huh?”
“Dial it back, wolfman. Otherwise you’re the one cooking.”
John shrugs. “That’s fine. I can cook.”
He steps aside to wave John out. “Get to it, then.”
John moves past him, padding down the hallway toward the kitchen.
Lemar follows at a casual pace, gaze fixed on John as he walks.
And damn, he’s a real nice sight from behind, too.