Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

“Alright, you know what you’re going to do today?” Spencer had stopped Brendon at the door to the building right before they said their goodbyes to head off to school- Spencer would be going left, to the bus stop and then to the local community college. Brendon would be going right and walking several blocks to the high school. He’d walked to the high school every day for the past month and a half, so he wasn’t going to get lost (the way he did on his first day…. and his second and third…).

"Spencer, oh my God,” he groaned, trying to pull away, but Spencer was relentless.

“You’re going to say hi to someone, and you’re going to make a friend, right?”

Brendon rolled his eyes hard. “Yes, mother, sure. Make a friend. Got it.”

“Brendon.”

“Okay, okay!” Brendon ducked out of Spencer’s grasp and took off down the crumbly sidewalk. He turned to stick his tongue out at Spencer, who was standing there shaking his head, and then pulled his hood up and stuffed his hands in his hoodie pockets. School. Yippee. Brendon had been a sophomore for a month and a half, and really, it was just freshman year all over again, but worse, somehow. The year before, he’d gone to school on the other side of town (where all of his older siblings and cousins had gone before him). There blending-in was the easiest thing in the world, even though he was a Mormon freak with lame clothes and stupid glasses and a big mouth. He had a few friends and his cousins, and they were all basically under the radar. It didn’t matter how weird he was.

At his new school he didn’t have any a squad of geeky acquaintances or big scary relatives to protect him. It was just him-- just Brendon and his weirdness.

He hadn’t told Spencer that he didn’t have any friends; Spencer had just kind of… figured it out. It wasn’t that he wasn’t trying, it just… He was the new kid, and the school was small enough that everyone knew he hadn't gone to junior high there with the rest of them and kept their distance. Making friends was harder than he’d thought it would be, but then again, the only real friend (the geeks from his class hung out with him because he didn't really give them any other choice, not because they wanted to) he’d ever actually made before was Spencer, and then Jon, by default.

“Come on, get to class!” the biology/chemistry/anatomy teacher had an impressively loud voice, and Brendon almost went deaf when the woman shouted right in his ear. It was an accident, at least, he was pretty sure it was. “No, honey, you’re going the wrong way. Freshman classes are that way,” she said, catching him by the arm. Brendon sighed.

“I’m a sophomore, actually, so,” he said, always awkward and fidgeting with the strap on his bag. The teacher looked him over and pursed her lips. He was seriously waiting for his growth spurt, or like, puberty or whatever. That would be nice.

“Oh. Alright, get to class,”

Brendon ran off, hearing the shout of ‘no running in the halls!’ follow him.

His first class was Spanish 2, held in a too-bright classroom that was covered in generic school decorations. A bright sign by the door read “BIENVENDIDOS” and inside the room, the entire place was covered in cartoon chile peppers with smiley faces on them. They were creepy (not creepy like the organisms floating in jars in the science room, which were both interesting and terrifying and reeked of formaldehyde, but creepy like slowed children’s music in horror movies or evil circus clowns or puppets). To make matters worse, the Spanish teacher believed in sanitation, and she washed the desktops nightly with clorox wipes. Werewolf senses equal death, and Brendon would rather smell anything else- even formaldehyde.

Whatever. He had to spend the next forty-five minutes in there anyways, so he might as well make the best of it. Brendon took a steadying breath before walking into the room and over to his table, which he shared with some unfriendly junior named Kyle. He remembered what Spencer told him and thought ‘why the hell not?’

“Hello!” He chirped as he set his orange binder down and sat at his table. Someone had drawn a penis on it when he hadn’t been paying attention, and Brendon had scribbled it out as best as he could with sharpie. If he had to guess who’d done it, he’d probably guess Kyle. He seemed like the kind of guy to get off on poorly drawn genitalia. Clorox floated up from the desk and clogged up his nose. There was a little name tag that read ‘don Brendon~’ sitting at his desk. “What’s up, man?”

Kyle turned and looked Brendon over, an amused expression on his face with a raised eyebrow. He chuckled and shook his head before standing up and walking away.

And that seemed to happen every time Brendon tried. It was slightly disheartening.

“Alright, alright, everybody please settle down. Silenciosa, ninos, por favor,”

Everyone in the room kept chattering, but seeing as Brendon had no one to chatter with, he just slouched in his chair and let his leg bounce up and down. Up down up down up down, while the teacher’s expression grew more and more distressed with each chatter-filled moment. Brendon spaced off while staring at the penis shaped scribble on his binder.

“Today!” senorita decided to just talk over everybody. Brendon could feel himself getting a headache. “We’re going to be moving seats, so everybody please pick up your books and stand up,”

Half the room groaned in protest and half the room cheered. Brendon actually smiled, bouncing a bit as he stood up and gathered his books back together. It was probably rude to look so happy, but Kyle didn’t like him anyways, so what did it matter? He stood near the back of the room, bouncing and waiting and ignoring the looks he was getting from a group of mean-looking girls a few feet away. They were just jealous, or something… That’s what Brendon’s mom used to say.

“...Brendon, Michael, Carlos, Allison...” Brendon perked up and headed over to where senorita had pointed and set his books down. There was a girl sitting at the table already, a pretty girl, messing with her pens and writing something on her hand. When Brendon sat down, she glanced up, and then she smiled.

Here goes nothing, Brendon smiled back. “Hey,” He stuck his hand out, realized that was an incredibly dumb thing to do, normal kids didn’t shake hands with other kids, almost pulled it back, but then left it out there so he wouldn’t look any stupider. “I’m Brendon,”

The girl, at least, looked amused, and not in a mean way. She shook his hand. “I’m Sarah,”

...
Things were looking up, actually. Because Sarah was nice, and it wasn’t in an uneasy way which meant she was just being nice because she thought he was weird or because she felt sorry for him. It was a genuine nice that suggested maybe, just maybe they could be friends. That would be pretty cool.

If nothing else, it was a significant improvement from sitting next to Kyle, who never actually said a word to Brendon (only raised his eyebrows occasionally and rolled his eyes a lot and probably drawn a penis on his binder). Brendon practically floated out of Spanish class.

The rest of the day went fine, absolutely fine until the passing period before his last class. He was outside, headed across the quad (it was an outside courtyard between the two buildings, with a few beaten up picnic tables and what used to be a fountain until some seniors apparently filled it with jello for their senior prank) to the athletic’s building for health class, when someone shoved him.

“Move it, fucktard!”

Brendon, being the way that he is, tripped over an uneven piece of concrete and went down, skinning his elbow in the process and making an incredibly stupid squawking noise that he really wasn’t proud of.

“What a pussy!” the guy who had shoved him laughed and kept going. Brendon frowned and waited for the guy to walk past him before picking himself up, dusting off his pants, and straightening his wire-rimmed glasses. He took a moment to look over his busted elbow and frowned. It stung, but it’d be fine probably before class was over. Speaking of which- the bell rang and Brendon groaned. Late. Across the quad , he saw a boy staring at him, and his first thought was ‘oh, he’s cute.’ Then he blushed and considered throwing himself back on the ground and dying.

Instead (that’s not practical anyways. what is he even thinking?) he smiled wide and waved at the kid. The kid was dressed in all black clothing and even wearing eyeliner, which was pretty cool and Brendon was just a little jealous. His hair was hanging in his eyes like it was supposed to be doing that. It fell perfectly over one eye, which Brendon thought was the coolest thing ever, considering his fell over both eyes and just looked stupid because it was too long. This kid had a whole lot more going for him, in the looks department.

But considering the clothes and the deep frown on the kid’s face, Brendon shouldn’t have been surprised when the kid flipped him off and walked away. The kid was wearing black nail polish, and Brendon was too impressed by that to even care how mean the kid was. He floated happily off to class and didn’t even care when he got yelled at for being late.

…
“Someone came in today, and ordered a tall coffee, and then they were mad at me because they thought tall was the largest size,” Jon rolled his eyes and viciously stabbed at his meatloaf. “I mean, honest mistake, whatever. But she was demanding that I give her the venti coffee for the same price as the tall one, and like, excuse me, that’s not how it works,” he sighed and dropped his head on the table next to his plate.

“There there,” Zack patted him on the back of the head. “How was everyone else’s day, then?”

“I don’t understand why I need to take basic college arithmetic. I learned all of this in fifth grade. I could sleep through the class and guess on half the test and I’d still pass,” Spencer said, then glanced at Brendon. “I’ll pay you to do my math homework for me,”

Brendon considered. “I’ll trade you Algebra 2 for college math,”

Spencer nodded slowly before shaking Brendon’s hand. “Deal,”

“How is he supposed to pass the tests if you’re doing his homework?” Zack asked, breaking up their handshake. “No deal,” They both groaned in protest.

“How was school today, B?” Jon asked, having gotten over his mood about customers and gone back to peacefully eating his meatloaf. It wasn’t the meatloaf’s fault that Starbucks customers suck.

Brendon shrugged and poked at his green beans, which he tried to get out of eating every single time Zack served them for dinner. He never succeeded. It was kind of funny. “I made a friend today,” he said.

Spencer made a sound like he was choking on his meatloaf. “You did!?”

Brendon narrowed his eyes. “Yes…”

“Awesome!”

Jon raised an eyebrow and glanced between them. Weirdos. Spencer was kind of adorable when he was excited, though, so Jon could live with it.

“Who’s your friend, B?” he asked.

Brendon tried to nonchalantly push his plate away from him, and Zack casually nudged it back, because there were still green beans on it. It was a never ending war.

“Her name is Sarah and she’s in my Spanish class,” Brendon said proudly, grinning and trying to push the beans away again.

“What’s Sarah like?” Spencer asked before shoving potatoes in his mouth.

“She’s nice,” Brendon responded. “And pretty,” The kid may or may not have fluttered his eyelashes, but Spencer snorted a laugh, so there had probably been fluttering.

“Yeah?” Zack asked, grinning. “What’d you guys talk about?”

Brendon shrugged. “She just said hi, and said her name was Sarah, after I said hi and said my name was Brendon and that’s it, but we’re totally going to be friends,” Spencer looked at Jon and raised an eyebrow, and Jon just shrugged. “There was also this kid with really cool hair and black clothes and he flipped me off, but he was really cool so it’s okay,”

Jon made another face at Spencer, who rolled his eyes and then ruffled Brendon’s hair. “I’m glad you’re making friends, B. Proud of you.” ‘Friends’ Jon thought, ‘right.’ The only thing was that Brendon should probably have more than one conversation with a person before considering them a friend, but… hey. He was trying.

Later, when Zack wasn’t paying attention, Jon reached over and snagged the green beans off of Brendon’s plate. Brendon smiled and mouthed ‘thank you,’ and Jon winked. Spencer frowned at them both like he was disapproving, but he didn’t say anything, and Jon just winked at him too. Spencer may or may not have looked slightly flustered after that. Maybe Jon was imagining it.

…
“Hey, welcome to Starbucks, what can I get you?” Jon said, quickly taking apart his cup pyramid and stacking the cups back they way they were supposed to be. He swore to God, in any other city Starbucks was the most popular place, but where he lived it was practically empty. There was the before work morning crowd, a tiny lunch crowd, and usually some after school high school kids that would wander in. There would be random college kids and elderly people popping in throughout the day, but compared to the shop a few blocks from his parent’s apartment in Chicago, this Starbucks was a ghost town.

It just about drove Jon crazy sometimes.

“Hmmm,” there was an attractive young man leaning against the counter and looking Jon in the eyes, smiling. Jon couldn’t help himself from smiling back. “What would you suggest?”

Jon grinned and looked up at the menu. “Well, I like mochas. And don’t tell my friends, but I’m totally into the pumpkin spice lattes,”

The guy gave Jon a smile that made him feel like they were in on some kind of joke together. “I thought they only served that in the fall?”

Jon smirked, “Well, technically yes, but I have all the ingredients. So if you’d like...,”

“Oh my God, you are the best!” the guy said, smiling wide. “Could I please get a grande pumpkin spice latte?”

“Of course,” Jon picked out a cup. “What’s your name?”

“James,” the guy said, smirking, or at least, Jon was pretty sure he was smirking. Jon would be a bit embarrassed if James wasn’t flirting the way he thought he was, but when James slid his money across the counter with a small slip of paper mixed in, that had a phone number written on it, Jon knew he hadn’t made a mistake. He quickly scribbled his number down on the cup with a smiley face next to it before making the drink.

When he handed the finished drink across the counter to James, he half hoped that James wouldn’t see his number, wouldn’t know what Jon had done and that the two could go on their separate ways. He was a bit nervous, after all. He hadn’t been on a date since high school. He thought he’d gotten lucky for a moment, when James took the drink and turned away. After a second though, he turned back to the counter and grinned.

“Would you.. would you maybe want to go out sometime?” James asked, leaning against the counter and grinning again. Jon couldn’t help but smile back and feel bashful. He glanced behind him, to see if his shift manager was paying attention, but she wasn’t.

“Yeah,” he said to James. “Yeah, I would like to go out sometime. My name is Jon, by the way,”

James smiled. “So Jon, how about I pick you up at your place around eight on Friday?”

Jon nodded. “That’d be great. I’ll text you the address,”

“Alright cutie,” James winked, then turned and walked out of the Starbucks. Jon watched him leave, and just like that, he had a date. He made sure to slip the piece of paper with a phone number into his jeans pocket so he wouldn’t lose it, and he ended up patting the his pocket for the rest of his shift to make sure it was still there.

…
The extraordinary thing was that Sarah remembered Brendon’s name in Spanish class. The even more extraordinary thing was that she remembered it every day, which was the first time Brendon ever had a friend who talked to him every day in school that wasn’t a cousin or a church member. Things couldn’t get any more extraordinary, in his opinion, but then…

“Hey! Brendon!” Sarah called his name from across the cafeteria, and Brendon jumped. Nobody talked to him in the cafeteria. He’d tried sitting with the kids in his orchestra class once, but they’d spent all lunch side-eying the shit out of him and not laughing at his jokes, and let’s just say he wasn’t eager to repeat that.

“Dude, hey, where are you going?” She asked when he’d walked over. She was sitting next to another kid who looked too old to be a high schooler, beard and everything, and they both grinned up at him.

“Uhm,” Brendon was going to the library, actually, but he wasn’t sure how to tell her that without sounding lame.

“Sit by us!” She insisted, and well, if you insist…

Brendon sat down. The beard kid was still grinning at him, and Brendon took a moment to notice that he had pretty brown eyes.

“I never see you at lunch,” she said, dipping a tator tot in ketchup and then popping it in her mouth. Brendon watched her hands. “Where do you usually sit?”

“Uhm,” he didn’t like lying, but he also didn’t want her to think he was a loser. “With the orchestra kids,” he gestured with a nod of his head. “Sometimes…” It wasn’t technically a lie. Well, not really… Sarah nodded.

“That’s rad,”

“Uhm, yeah,” Brendon felt jittery, like he was going to fidget out of his skin, so he took a minute to try and pry open his milk carton. It wasn’t cooperating.

“Is this the Spanish kid?” the beard kid asked, eying Brendon up and down.

“Mhm,”

Suddenly the kid slammed both hands down on the table and shouted “Hola Senor!” with no trace of a Spanish accent whatsoever. Still, it was really loud.

Brendon flinched back hard enough that he managed to rip open his milk carton, but he also managed to accidentally throw it on his lap, soaking his entire shirt and lap in milk. He gaped down at himself while the kid sitting across from him tried really hard not to laugh. Brendon had to give him credit for the effort.

“Oh,” Sarah was laughing a little bit. “Sweetie, look at you, oh my God,” she sounded awfully damn amused. She grabbed the napkin off of her friend’s tray and tried dabbing at Brendon’s shirt with it, but he actually didn’t need any help, thank you. Brendon stood up and darted out of the cafeteria, ignoring the few people who laughed and catcalled after him. His eyes were stinging. He didn’t breathe until he made it safely to the bathroom, where he thought he was alone, but then…

Brendon glanced up and saw a kid there, sitting cross-legged up on the sink with a sandwich halfway to his mouth, frozen. They stared at each other for a tense second, and Brendon recognized him.

“Hey!” he said. “You’re the guy!” and then he wanted to kick himself in the face, because that wasn’t the greatest introduction ever.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” the kid asked, dropping his sandwich into his brown paper bag and glaring. Brendon may have been close to tears a second prior, but now he refused to be deterred and kept a wide smile on his face. The kid would break eventually, he just knew it. He seemed like the kind of guy who would have a really great smile if he would let it out.

Even so, he’d asked a legit question. “From the courtyard,” he said. “I saw you the other day. You flipped me off,” He was still smiling, and he couldn’t help but bounce on his toes a little. Before this kid had been the beautiful and mean, yet mysteriously sad kid at school, and now he was still beautiful and mean and sad, but he was also talking to Brendon.

“Did you throw up on yourself?” the kid asked, staring hard at Brendon’s shirt, and then probably his crotch. Brendon squirmed.

“No,” he said, smile wavering. “It’s milk..”

“Brendon!” both Brendon and the bathroom sandwich kid jumped out of their skin when Sarah slammed into the bathroom. “I am so sorry about that. You looked so upset. Are you alright? I punched Shane in the arm. He knows you’re not actually mexican, he was just playing around. Are you okay? Man, let me help you get cleaned up,”

“Uhm,” the kid sitting on the sink was frowning even more than he had been. “This is the boys’ restroom,” he said.

Sarah shrugged, obviously unconcerned, and pulled Brendon over to the sink, where she began pulling out paper towels to help clean him up or something. Bathroom sandwich kid edged away from them uncomfortably, squinting his eyes and looking awfully confused and intruded upon as he clutched his bag in his hand and slid off the sink.

“Here, God this is a mess,” Sarah practically pressed Brendon up against the wall and went at his shirt, scrubbing it with the rough brown paper towel and trying to do… something. Brendon wasn’t sure what she was trying to do. Really, it was just making a mess. If she tried to clean off his pants that way, he just might stop breathing and die.

Sandwich kid huffed a dramatic sigh and glared at them both before leaving the bathroom. Brendon wondered what that kid’s problem was anyways.

“This isn’t working, is it?” Sarah sighed after a while, looking him over with a frown and throwing out the paper towel.

“Uhm,” Brendon was having problem being vocal today, possibly from the shock of having a maybe-possibly-new-friend. Usually he couldn’t shut up, but today he was just extra jittery and a little bit sweaty. “I mean you tried, and you’re not the one who spilled milk on me, I mean, I spilled milk on me, so it’s nice of you to help and like you’re not even supposed to be in here anyways, but here you are, in the boys’ bathroom helping even thought you could get in trouble, and that’s really nice of you, so-” He snapped his mouth closed to get himself to stop talking. Sarah was looking him over with an amused expression, and Brendon felt pretty embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he said.

“You’re cute,”

Brendon wrinkled his nose up a little, he couldn’t help it, and Sarah laughed. Then the bell rang. Brendon really didn’t want to go to class covered in milk…

“Here,” Sarah dropped to her knees and pulled her backpack over to her, rooting around in it. Brendon’s interest was sparked. He watched as she tugged out a light purple hoodie, bringing with it several crumpled papers and a few candy wrappers, which she grabbed and stuffed back inside. “This’ll fit you. Take your shirt off, it’s all gross,”

His shirt was pretty gross, actually. Brendon didn’t waste any time tugging the thing over his head and then putting on the hoodie she handed him, zipping it up almost all the way and then checking himself out in the mirror. It looked a bit silly, and really purple, tighter than he normally wore his clothes… But Spencer wore his shirts really tight, so maybe it was okay for guys to wear tight clothes. Brendon was kind of skinny though, so maybe he looked stupid…

“You look good,” she said, grinning over his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get out of here, we have class,”

Sarah and Brendon had their next class together, so they walked next to each other. They didn’t sit by each other, but Brendon didn’t mind. He knew he’d probably say something really stupid if he was given too much time to speak. He spent the whole class period playing with the sleeves of the hoodie. It wasn’t baggy the way boys’ clothes always were, but it also wasn’t skin tight, and the sleeves were a bit too long.

After the bell rang, Sarah cornered him and insisted that he come and sit with them (she said “Shane and I” which Brendon had to imagine meant the beard kid) the next day too. He tried to turn her down politely. He didn’t want her to think she had to sit with him because they had the same class, or that she was forced to be friends with him or anything. He didn’t want to take advantage of her friendliness, and he tried to tell her that.

“No, no, really, that’s okay, I-”

“What, you got somewhere better to be, handsome?” she smirked and smacked him on the ass before walking out of the classroom, and Brendon just watched her go, totally bemused until someone shoved him out of the way.

“Nice hoodie, faggot,” they said.

Oh well. He had a friend, apparently, and that was pretty… well… rad.

…
“Why are we doing this again?” Spencer asked, for probably the tenth time, as he drove down the street with a pained expression on his face. Brendon sat in the passenger seat and bounced a bit. It was irritating.

“Because,” he said, as if that explained everything. “They’re super expensive in sport stores and I don’t want to get a cheap Walmart one cause she’ll laugh at me, and they always have them at garage sales! Always! This is Garage Sale Saturday, Spencer, we can’t miss it,”

“Right,” Spencer said, holding in a sigh as he pulled up carefully to the curb at yet another garage sale. Brendon had come home a few days ago talking nonstop about how his new friends knew how to skateboard and how he was going to learn how to skateboard too, so they’d think he was cool, and then he’d announced that he needed a buddy for Garage Sale Saturday. Jon had to work, and Zack had just started chuckling and shook his head ‘no,’ which left Spencer. He was kind of regretting getting his driver’s license at this point.

“You don’t even know how to skateboard,” Spencer reminded Brendon as he followed him up a stranger’s driveway. Brendon was bouncing a bit, and he wondered how many sodas the kid had that day, if maybe they should try and cut him down a bit. Getting Brendon hooked on caffeine had been hilarious before, but now he had to live with the guy, and seriously. It just might drive him crazy.

“That’s the whole point,” Brendon insisted, looking around carefully. “I need a skateboard if I’m going to learn how to skateboard, duh. How else do I learn? Besides, I learn super fast, and I have special wolf powers that have probably given me great balance! I’ll have it mastered in no time,”

‘No time’ ended up being a lot longer than Brendon had planned, but Spencer wasn’t incredibly surprised. They’d gone to a total of nine garage sales before Brendon found the perfect skateboard, and he’d set to work practicing as soon as they’d gotten home. That following Saturday afternoon, Brendon was still going at it. Spencer hadn’t known Brendon could be that determined, or that he could focus on one thing for that long.

It was kind of funny to watch though. Brendon was out back on the concrete patio behind the apartment building, and he’d been going back and forth since late that morning. He kept falling off, or running into things, or screaming. Spencer had been watching for a while, and Jon joined him as soon as he got home from his morning shift at Starbucks.

He smelled strongly of coffee and slightly like toothpaste and cheap shampoo, and he yawned as he sidled up next to Spencer on the balcony, leaning his elbows on the railing and squinting down at Brendon.

“How long has he been doing this?” Jon asked. The dark circles under his eyes suggested he was tired, but his relaxed posture and lazy grin suggested that he was just fine. Spencer sniffed him, and Jon smelled content. All was well.

“A few hours now,” Spencer said. “It’s sad really. Entertaining and inspiring, but sad,”

Jon nodded. Below them, Brendon windmilled and tried to keep his balance. He was almost successful. They watched as he kicked off again, heading back in the other direction. He was doing better this time, but then his wheel hit a bump in the uneven pavement and sent him flying. He stumbled into a trashcan and then fell down, knocking someone’s trash all over the place and making papers flutter around like grafitti. He laid there for a moment, seeming stunned, and Spencer couldn’t help but laugh. Jon either, apparently.

“Fuck you!” Brendon was glaring up at them. He shoved his glasses up his nose and sat up, then raised a middle finger towards them. “I bet you’re not so coordinated either, Spencer Smith!”

“Skateboard master, huh?” Spencer asked instead of dignifying that statement with a response. Yeah, he would probably be shitty at skateboarding, but he wasn’t dumb enough to try and learn how.

“Oh hush!”

“Hey,” Jon was still grinning and he pressed it into Spencer’s shoulder as he nuzzled close. Spencer grinned. Jon wasn’t as touchy-feely as Brendon was, but he had his moments. It was comfortable. They were buds. “I’m tired. You wanna leave Brendon to injuring himself and come watch a movie with me?”

Spencer glanced at him and smiled. He was kind of tired, and he could probably nap. “Yeah, sure,” Jon was his favorite person to cuddle up on the couch with, because Jon was all kinds of warm and comfy. They spent the first ten minutes of the movie laying there, Spencer leaning into Jon’s side and letting the older boy card his fingers through his hair. Brendon’s crashing and yelling and laughing could be heard just barely through the walls of the building, and it made Spencer smile. Jon was asleep within fifteen minutes, and when Spencer noticed, he nudged Jon onto his side and covered him up with a blanket, letting him use Spencer’s lap as a pillow. Jon only made tiny, quiet noises in his sleep when Spencer shifted him, and Spencer thought to himself that Jon was pretty fucking adorable when he was sleeping.

…
Zack got a phone call at the same time that someone started knocking. Trying to decide what his best option was at the moment, he picked up his cellphone while walking to the door. He checked the screen- Brendon’s school- and then checked the peep hole- Brendon. Wait. What?

“Hello?” he held his phone up to his ear while also opening the door. He held his finger up to Brendon to say, hold up a second, but the kid just mumbled something about forgetting his key before ducking past Zack and slinking down the hallway to his room. Brendon hadn’t been wearing his glasses, and the secretary on the phone sounded slightly frantic. So many things were weird about this situation that Zack barely knew where to start.

“Yes, he’s here with me, actually he just got home. Why, is he in trouble?” Zack said into his phone and then listened as the secretary turned from worried to angry. Brendon moved from his bedroom into the bathroom, shuffling around with his head down, and Zack was concerned. He was used to knowing what was going on and being able to manage it. This. This he didn’t understand. What the hell was going on?

While Zack got forwarded to Brendon’s principal and took the time to talk the angry man down from his thundercloud, Brendon snuck back into his bedroom and shut the door behind him. Zack sighed to himself and reassured the man on the phone that yes, he would handle it (whatever the hell that meant). Yes, Brendon was fine. Yes, he would talk to him. Yes, he understood. Yes, thank you, okay, bye.

Taking a minute to frown at his phone, Zack eventually set it down and went to the door to Brendon’s room. He knocked gently. ‘Handle it’ he’d said. Right. Yeah. What? “Brendon?”

“Go away,” came the reply from inside, and yeah, uh, no.

“Brendon,” he opened the door anyways and stepped inside. Brendon was sprawled out face first on his bed with his head hidden under a pillow.

“Please go away?” he tried, and Zack just shook his head.

“Your school just called,” Zack said, walking over and sitting on the edge of the bed. Brendon shied away from him. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“No thank you,”

Zack hadn’t actually meant it to be a request, and that caught him off guard a bit. He really hated being off guard. He was an alpha. It was his job to not be off guard. “So you’re just going to disappear from class at nine thirty in the morning, freak out your school, come hide in your bedroom, and then not explain what’s going on?”

Brendon didn’t respond. He just clutched his pillow tighter to his head and made a whimpering noise. Zack would have been pissed, except for the fact that Brendon smelled really, incredibly sad. Yelling would just make the kid clam up more, and then Zack would be nowhere close to figuring out what the hell was going on. Fuck.

“Hey,” he nudged Brendon’s leg gently with his hand, and Brendon made a tiny noise.

“I’m sorry,”

Zack ignored that. Brendon was always apologizing for something or other, which Zack was also trying to understand and then deal with. He really wasn’t prepared for this ‘teenager’ thing…

“Where are your glasses?” he decided to start there- easy enough question, he thought- since he’d noticed Brendon hadn’t had them on when he’d snuck in. Brendon lost his glasses a lot, but it was more misplacement around the apartment than actually losing them.

Brendon reached his hand into his pocket and then thrust it out towards Zack with a muffled, “Here.” Zack took them only to find that one of the arms was bent horribly, they were cracked in the middle, and one of the lenses was shattered. Oh. Well, brilliant. It looked like somebody stepped on them.

“How’d this happen, B?”

“Fell off my skateboard,”

Well, at least that was believable enough, even if it was a total lie. Zack had only been listening to Brendon’s attempts at skateboarding for two weeks now, and they ranged from cringe-worthy to down-right-hilarious. One time he’d had to go down there and intervene when one of their extremely irritated neighbors started threatening Brendon because the kid had dented one of their trash cans. It had been an eventful two weeks, but considering Brendon’s recent history, Zack would have be willing to believe that the glasses were part of a skateboarding casualty.

He nudged Brendon again, and this time the kid sighed heavily at him but sat up, trapping his hands under his thighs and letting his legs dangle off the bed, head down and not making eye contact.

“You’re bleeding,” Zack mentioned. He could smell it, and he figured that offering observations and letting Brendon explain them was the only way he was going to figure this situation out at all.

Brendon fidgeted next to him, the way he always did if he was nervous or lying (Zack had figured that out pretty fast after meeting him). “I skinned my knee,”

Right. Sure. He frowned. “Let me see it,”

“No,” Brendon shifted away from him and drew his legs up to his chest. “It’s fine. I took care of it,”

“It could get infected,”

“It’ll be healed in half an hour,” Brendon argued, hugging his legs tighter and setting his chin on his knees, which Zack figured would hurt if Brendon had actually skinned his knees, but he decided not to bring it up.

“What am I supposed to tell your principal, Brendon?” Zack asked, sighing. He was in over his head. “I told him that I’d deal with this,”

Brendon actually physically flinched next to Zack, which freaked him out, but he finally looked up. “How are you going to do that?” he asked, fidgeting all over the place. Zack frowned and squinted. What?

“I’m talking to you…” he said slowly. “Brendon, what are you talking about?” The thing was, Zack wasn’t a moron. He knew some of what had happened just from watching the way Brendon reacted to things, but he also wasn’t a fucking mind reader. It would be nice if Brendon would let him in on the secret (or Spencer, since Spencer seemed to know what had happened too) so that maybe he could have some kind of context to work with (Every time Zack brought it up, Brendon looked like a kicked puppy, and Spencer got this pissy look on his face and said ‘Don’t worry about it, Zack. Jesus.’ Zack was going to strangle that boy and his attitude one of these days). Even so, no matter how many times Zack gave Brendon the ‘I swear I’m not going to hurt you, okay?’ talk, nothing seemed to change. At least the kid had stopped calling him ‘sir.’ That had been weird.

There was lots of head shaking and Brendon wouldn’t look at him again. Zack sighed again, heavily.

“Did something happen at school, Bden?” Zack asked, since he had a pretty good idea that something certainly had happened at school. Just another thing that Zack didn’t know how to deal with. Because really, if someone was messing with Brendon, Brendon would only have to flip into wolf mode to fight back and win by a landslide, even if he was just a skinny little kid and a puppy. But Brendon was also pretty clumsy, and he probably didn’t know how to focus his strength enough to win in a fight. And sure, his extra strength could help fight off one bully, but outnumbered he probably wouldn’t stand a chance... Zack wasn’t ready to deal with this kind of thing.

In response to his question, Brendon shook his head and hugged his legs tighter. Zack noticed that the kid’s eyes were starting to get shiny.

“I fell off my skateboard,” he insisted.

“Brendon…”

“I just don’t feel good,” he finally said, voice coming out kind of choked and really quiet. His eyes were full on watering now, and he bit down on his bottom lip. It had been trembling.

“You don’t feel good?” Zack felt Brendon’s forehead with the back of his hand. “You don’t have a fever… Are you sick?”

Brendon shook his head again and buried his face in his knees. “I just don’t feel good,” he said again. “Can I please just stay home from school today? Please?”

Zack had a feeling that he really shouldn’t reward truant behavior by letting Brendon stay home. He tried to think of what the Walker parents would do in this situation, or hell, what his own parents would have done. He’d never been an emotional kid, so he wasn’t sure his mom would have known how to deal with this, but he also couldn’t imagine Jon’s mother forcing one of her sons to go back if they’d looked this upset.

“Yeah,” he said eventually. “Yeah, alright. You can stay home,”

Brendon sniffled. Zack really had no idea what to do…

“I just… can I just be alone for a minute please?” Brendon asked in a tiny voice, and well, Zack didn’t know what to do anyways.

“Yeah, okay,” he stood up and ruffled Brendon’s hair gently. “We’ll go out and get new glasses later, okay?”

“Okay,”

“We can take Spencer and Jon with us,”

Brendon shrugged.

After Zack had left the room, he still felt like he had no idea what was going on or what he was supposed to do. He called Brendon’s principal back and assured him that he’d dealt with it and it wouldn’t happen again, but Brendon wouldn’t be coming back to school that day. He was slightly paranoid that the principal could tell Zack had no idea what he was doing, that he wasn’t trained enough for this ‘taking care of teenagers’ thing. To be honest, he wasn’t even sure whether it would or would not happen again, since he didn’t have a solid idea what inspired Brendon to play hooky in the first place, but… he’d deal with that. Yeah. He’d just move on, and if it happened again, so be it, he’d manage. That’s what he did.

…
Dinner was awkward and tense. There was something wrong with Brendon- something that was making him fidget and keep his head down and not talk (the not talking was the weirdest part. Also, he wasn’t wearing his glasses, but Jon just figured he misplaced them again). As a result of Brendon acting all sad, Spencer spent the entire meal side-eying Brendon and trying to get his attention, but Brendon was having none of it. Seeing the two of them go back and forth was like an olympic event. Olympic pingpong or something.

Meanwhile, Zack was practically radiating tension, and Jon was left feeling like the air was heavier than it was supposed to be. The whole apartment felt negative and sad and tense and just weird, and nobody was talking about what was going on. Well, Jon wasn’t going to be the one that pushed. They would talk whenever they were ready. He decided to let Spencer do all the pushing; Jon would just sit back and be the only person in the apartment acting normally.

Brendon always ate super fast, so he was practically done with his dinner when everyone else was only halfway through. The only thing left on his plate was green beans. Jon prepared himself to watch another round of World War Bean, but he was caught off guard when Brendon slowly pushed his plate away and Zack didn’t push it back. He left it there. Jon was momentarily confused.

Someone knocked on the door.

“I got it,” Spencer was on his feet and across the room before anyone else had the chance to react. Just another sign that things were tense- when things got tense, Spencer started doing anything he could to keep himself occupied. Usually he micromanaged things (sorted papers, organized homework, made lists, cleaned, etc.) but there wasn’t a whole lot to micromanage at the dinner table (he’d sorted all of his food into careful piles before eating it). Jon stabbed the green beans off Brendon’s plate and ate them, like always, but this time Zack was watching and he didn’t make a move to stop him. Weird.

“Hey… Zack, come here…” Spencer said from the doorway. Zack got up and went over, frowning, and Jon followed him, curious. Brendon didn’t move from his seat. Jon was curious about that too.

At the door was a kid. Jon recognized him from the woods last moon night. He was short with spiky blonde hair and tattered clothes, coated in a layer of dirt that made Jon question when the kid had last taken a shower. He stood there, a scowl and dark circles under his eyes decorating his face, and he was clutching his arm to his chest.

“You said I could come back if I needed anything,” the kid said, chin up and voice demanding, as if he were daring them to take it back. After a brief moment of scowling, he dropped his gaze down and scuffed his dirty sneaker on the hallway floor. “I need some help..”

Zack ushered him inside, and it didn’t escape Jon how the kid evaded their touch at all cost. Spencer went and got the first aid kit out from under the sink, and Brendon seemed to have snapped out of his sulk. He was now sitting up straight in his seat and watching them with wide, interested eyes. Well, Jon thought. That’s good, at least.

“What happened?” Zack asked.

The kid shrugged. “I… there’s another town an hour south of here… I ran into someone, and they got a little territorial,” He was obviously trying to act tough (and doing a decent job of it) but the way he was gingerly holding his arm close to him was telling the truth.

“A wolf?” Zack asked. He had pulled a chair up directly in front of the kid and sat close, leaning forward. The kid gave him a wary look before surrendering over his arm.

He nodded. “Alpha. I was on their turf,” his expression said ‘I don’t care’ but Jon had a feeling he did. “I think it’s broken,”

Zack looked it over, being very gentle and careful, before nodding. “Spence, get my phone out of my room and call Pete. Jon, get some tylenol out of the cabinet. We’ll need five. You know how weak mortal drugs are,” Jon nodded and went to the bathroom to get that. The cabinet above the sink was kind of messy (obviously Spencer’s nervous organizing habits hadn’t reached it yet) and it took him a little while to find the tylenol bottle amongst the tooth paste and deodorants and outdated orange prescription bottles. He found it though, eventually, and just as soon as he went back into the main room there was a puff of smoke.

“Another one, Zack? Jesus Christ, is this place an orphanage now or something?” There was Pete, standing right there with his arms crossed and a bemused expression on his face. “How old is this one, twelve?”

“I’m sixteen,” the kid snapped, practically growling. He was kind of vicious. “Almost seventeen,”

Zack ignored that entire conversation. “His arm is broken, we think. He needs some help. He’s been wandering around and he can’t survive out there like this, and we can’t take him to the hospital. They’ll ask too many questions,”

“You know, Zack,” Pete sidled up to the other man, which was kind of funny. Zack totally dwarfed Pete when they stood close to each other like that. Zack had a habit of dwarfing all of them- even Spencer, who was currently going through some awkward growth spurt. He’d once been the same height as Jon, but now he was inching closer and closer to six foot.

Pete grinned like a cheshire cat, yellow canary feathers sticking out between pointy teeth, “I’ve been doing you a whole lot of favors for you lately. Usually I ask for payment, and y’know,” Pete glanced over Jon and then Spencer, where he stopped. “That one is pretty cute. You could pay me with him,”

Jon growled, deep in his throat, without meaning to. Pete’s gaze flitted over to him and he smirked. Zack glanced at him and frowned. Spencer wasn’t even paying attention.

“I’m just playing,” Pete said, then went over to the kid sitting at their kitchen table, which hadn’t been cleared from dinner. Everything was still laid out as if they were just a normal family having a normal meal.

“Show me your arm, kiddo,”

The kid scowled, but he held his arm out. The entire time, he didn’t let his glare drop from Pete’s face. He was watching him carefully, as if he didn’t trust him, which he probably didn’t. Jon didn’t really blame him.

Pete put both hands on the arm, and the kid hissed in a breath between his teeth. Then Pete slid his hands over the swollen area and breathed a purple breath out through puffed up cheeks, and just like that, the swelling was gone. A slight amount of tension drained from the boy’s face.

“It’s healed, but it’ll still be tender,” Pete said, straightening up and stepping away. He pointed a finger at Zack. “No more strays. Brainwashing and changing government documents is hard work, you know! Peace,” and just like that, with another puff of smoke that sent Spencer into a coughing fit and made Brendon sneeze, Pete was gone. Jon stifled a sneeze and rubbed his sleeve against his nose.

“Here,” he held the tylenol bottle out to the kid, who eyed him carefully before taking it. Maybe giving a full bottle of tylenol to an angry, homeless teenage boy who probably had emotional issues wasn’t a good idea, but Jon had a feeling the kid wouldn’t take them if they’d come from Jon’s hand.

“I have to get to work,” Zack said, straightening up the first aid bag and putting it back. “Bden, you’re in charge of dishes tonight-” Brendon didn’t protest at all. It was weird. He did mumble ‘yes sir,’ and Zack got that slightly confused look on his face the way he always did. “-Jon, help him clean up, okay? Spence, you and Jon are in charge of taking care of our guest,”

The kid scowled up at Zack as if trying to tell him telepathically that he was not a guest and fuck you, but hey, Jon wasn’t a mind reader. Maybe that scowl meant thank you.

Zack addressed the scowling kid this time. “Feel free to eat, clean up, sleep over, anything you need. These guys will help you out, alright?”

The kid didn’t respond. Zack didn’t seem phased.

“Brendon, I expect you in bed before I get home. Preferably before eleven,” they all knew how twitchy Brendon got when he didn’t sleep. Brendon got twitchy, Spencer got bitchy, and Jon just yawned a lot and fell asleep on his feet. They should probably all be in bed by eleven…

After five minutes, Zack was out of the apartment and on his way to work. Spencer took over before Jon could.

“You want something to eat?” he asked.

The kid looked up at Spencer and glared, but then he looked at all the food on the table and eventually shrugged, then nodded. He ended up eating four plates of food (when was the last time this poor kid had eaten? Werewolf metabolisms were nothing to play around with) all while Brendon “sneakily” watched him with wide eyes. Jon was slightly worried that Brendon was going to creep this kid out, or just piss him off.

He went up behind Brendon’s chair and wrapped his arm around Brendon’s neck like a headlock. “Come on, Bden. Let’s get a start on the dishes,” Brendon went easily, grinning a bit, and Jon was proud of the fact that he could touch Brendon without him flinching. It hadn’t been that way when they’d first met.

As soon as dishes were done, Brendon shuffled off to bed- just another sign that the kid was acting weird. Usually he’d be up bouncing around until midnight, whining whenever anyone tried to make him go to sleep and cuddling anyone who would hold still long enough. He only went to bed early when there was something wrong. Jon wanted to worry about it more, but there was someone else there who needed his attention. He’d get to Brendon later.

The stranger didn’t really need a whole lot of attention though.. Jon kept pushing, trying to get the kid to tell them his name, but he was obviously determined to keep his mouth shut. Jon, eventually, had to give up. The kid did agree to take a shower though, only after glaring warily at Jon and Spencer and making sure the bathroom door locked. The kid was probably just nervous to be around strangers.

He was even more reluctant to take clean clothes. He was taller than Jon (thus also taller than Brendon), but no where near as tall as Zack. He was also skinny as fuck, like someone who hadn’t been eating well. Jon figured it out though. He took a clean pair of boxers from Brendon (he needed something that wouldn’t fall off the kid’s hips) and some jeans from Spencer, which were going to be too big around no matter what they did, so he gave him a belt too, and one of his old t-shirts. The kid glared at the clothes that were presented and insisted that his own were fine, thank you. Jon reasoned that the kid’s clothes were filthy. He offered to clean them and have them ready to go by the morning, and it took a while, but finally the younger wolf agreed to that and borrowed a pair of Spencer’s sweat pants and one of Jon’s t-shirts to sleep in. Jon put Spencer in charge of washing the clothes, even though he groaned and rolled his eyes at having to walk all the way down stairs to the creepy laundry room. Jon teased him until he agreed.

It was around midnight when they’d all settled down to go to sleep, the strange kid grumpily settled on the couch in the living room, Spencer and Jon in their room. Spencer had meticulously folded the kid’s clothes and laid them out on the other couch for him in the morning, clean and dry. Jon had set one of Spencer’s hoodies on top of the pile, because no one should be running around Colorado in October in just a t-shirt, they’d freeze to death, werewolf or not. It was Spencer’s because the kid was a bit too tall to fit into one of Jon’s. His arms would be too long.

In the dark of their room, blankets pulled up to his chin, Jon stared at the ceiling and watched his thoughts swim around him in the dark. He tried talking to Spencer (about the new kid in their apartment and what Spencer thought about it, about why Brendon was acting so weird or why Zack hadn’t forced anyone to actually eat the green beans. Hell, he’d even talk to Spencer about the cute guy he’d met at work and gone on a coffee date with), but every time he tried, Spencer pretended to be asleep and didn’t answer him. After a few failed attempts, Jon resigned himself to silence and stared up at the ceiling. He drifted off eventually, a short while before Zack got home from work, and didn’t dream about anything.

…
Brendon must have slept through his alarm, because he woke up to Spencer. Spencer was grumpy in the mornings and not to be messed with, but Brendon could be grumpy too, so Spencer would just have to deal with him.

“Wake the fuck up,” Spencer complained. “You’re going to be late for school, and you’re going to make me late for class,”

“Go away,” Brendon was too exhausted to think of a better retort. He could barely hold his eyes open, and he felt like shit. Today was not a good day to get out of bed.

“Brendon, for the love of God,” Spencer complained some more, and Brendon felt something solid yet soft thump against his back. He figured it was a pillow and burrowed deeper under his blankets.

“Fuck off!”

“No!”

“Spencerrrrrrr,” Brendon resorted to whining. “I don’t want to go to school today. Leave me alone,”

“Yeah, after skipping school yesterday, I’m not sure missing school today too is going to look so good,” Spencer sounded bitchy. He was probably tired. Spencer wasn’t a morning person. “Get. Up,” He started hitting Brendon with the pillow again. Brendon wasn’t in the mood to put up with Spencer.

“Fuck off,” he repeated, kicking and hoping to hit Spencer in the leg. Instead he felt hands grab his ankle, and before he knew what was happening, Spencer yanked on him and Brendon ended up falling out of bed and onto a painful heap on the floor.

“Ow,” he whined, kicking at Spencer’s ankle. Sencer had his arms crossed and was scowling down at him. Brendon stuck his tongue out. “You suck,”

“Get ready for school, dumb ass,” and then Spencer was gone. Brendon growled at his back, just because. He wasn’t really mad at Spencer. Normally, it would have been totally funny to fall out of bed like that, but Brendon was in a bad mood, and just thinking about going to school made him want to cry and throw up. Thinking about doing anything made him feel that way, actually. He wanted to go back to sleep forever.

Even so, Brendon knew that wasn’t an option. If he tried, Spencer would just come back in there and pour water on him. Or Jon would come and try tickling him until he woke up. Or Zack would give him that disappointed face until Brendon felt guilty enough to die and had to leave the apartment for his own well-being. Obviously Brendon didn’t have a lot of options.

It wasn’t that Brendon hated school. Sure, a lot of people were mean to him, and someone had literally stomped on his glasses and dumped his backpack out on top of his head yesterday, but he could handle that kind of stuff. He could handle bad stuff happening; he just wished that this overwhelming sadness building up in his throat would go away already.

He reminded himself that he didn’t have a right to be sad. He had friends, and he had a replacement family who, while unconventional, were still kind of amazing and cared about him. Things were good. Brendon didn’t have a right to be sad. The homeless kid sleeping on their couch had a right to be sad. Brendon had to just get over whatever this horrible mood was, and he reminded himself of that while he pushed his new glasses onto his face and bounced (if he acted happy, maybe he’d trick himself) into the kitchen.

Speaking of the strange kid, though… he wasn’t there. His clothes were gone and he was gone. Brendon frowned.

“Where did he go?” he asked. Jon was at the coffee maker, holding a cup in his hands and looking too tired to function. Spencer had a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth while he stood at the stove frying bacon. Another good thing about living with other werewolves is they understood the importance of breakfast. Eating bacon in the morning might just be the only reason Brendon was able to pull himself out of bed anymore.

Jon shrugged. “He just left last night some time, I guess. He didn’t leave a note or anything,”

“I didn’t expect him to stay,” Spencer said around his piece of toast. It was kind of hard to understand him. “I mean, he obviously doesn’t trust us,”

“Well,” Jon said, “He’s a scared kid and we’re a bunch of strangers,”

“At least you didn’t make this one take his shirt off,” Spencer mumbled around his toast, making a joke about the first time Spencer and Jon had met, the night Spencer had been changed. Jon had found him and brought him back to the apartment to get cleaned up. Just-barely-seventeen year old Spencer had been mildly concerned about being in a strange apartment with strange men, up until the point that he blacked out. Brendon had heard the story from everyone’s point of view, and it was pretty fucking hilarious, no matter how you looked at it.

“Oh my God, you are going to have to get over that eventually,” Jon rolled his eyes and whipped a nearby dishtowel at Spencer’s ass. Spencer jumped and turned to smack him or something, but then his toast broke off and fell to the floor.

Everyone looked down at it forlornly. “Oh damn,” Spencer said.

“Five second rule!” Brendon declared, scooping it off the floor and taking a bite, just to hear Spencer groan.

“Oh my God, that is disgusting! I am making food right now! Can’t you wait?”

Brendon just grinned smugly at Spencer and finished off the toast. If he kept up the normal shenanigans, Jon would stop looking at him with that concerned expression and Brendon would stop feeling like he was going to burst into tears.

He decided that he officially needed some coffee if he was going to make it through the day without Jon and teachers and Sarah asking him if he was okay. He probably couldn’t handle that at this point. He nudged Jon outta the way and ignored Jon’s protests while he poured himself some coffee and put as much sugar in it as possible. It didn’t taste very good, but oh well. Brendon just hoped it would work.

…
Coffee had been a really, really, really bad idea. Brendon couldn’t sit still. His leg was bouncingbouncingbouncing by it’s own accord and his hands were literally trembling. He felt bouncy and jittery. If he held still he was going to vibrate out of his skin. He was probably going to vibrate out of his skin anyways. Also, he was nauseous, and he was still really fucking sad.

Today was a bad day.

“Dude, are you okay?” Sarah asked him during lunch, after Brendon had spent the entire hour before squirming all over the place and not paying any attention at all to his Spanish teacher.

“Uh huh, I’m super!” Brendon exclaimed, because he didn’t have incredible amounts of control over his mouth at the moment. He immediately started giggling, so hard that he doubled over and had to drop his head on the sticky dark red lunch table. He could feel himself shaking.

“Dude, is he drunk?” that must have been Shane, who was reaching over and poking his shoulder.

“Brendon,” Sarah’s voice was gentle, like she was worried he was sick or self destructing or something. It made him giggle again. “Brendon, did you take anything this morning? Like… drugs? Or have you been drinking?”

Brendon didn’t know what kind of drugs would have this effect on him. He remembered taking ritalin once upon a time when he was like, nine, or something. But they’d made him feel awful and cloudy, and he’d begged his mom to let him stop taking them. His parents hadn’t liked the idea of him taking behavioral medication very much in the first place (some kind of contradiction with the church) and had immediately thrown the pills out. Brendon hadn’t had any drug besides cold medicine and ibuprophen (and weed, twice) since then. Maybe he should look into drugs. Maybe those would make him feel happy or something. Less like dying, at least.

“I drank coffee this morning,” Brendon said, and for some reason that was hilarious. He burst out laughing again.

“Oh for the love of-” he heard Sarah say. She sounded both like she was annoyed with him but also like she wanted to laugh. Brendon hoped she started laughing. He didn’t like when people were annoyed with him. “Shane, what are we going to do with him?”

“Not my fault,” Shane said, and Brendon looked up in time to see Sarah punch him in the shoulder.

“Here, sweetie, eat these chicken nuggets, okay?” Sarah’s hand pushed her lunch tray across the table to him. Maybe he should feel bad that she was giving him her lunch. She should eat her lunch. He let himself look at her hand, chewed fingernails on slender hands connected to wrists and arms, all pale skin. Girls were so weird… so soft and not pointy like guys were. Even so, she had pretty hands.

“Pretty hands?” she asked, looking confused. Brendon blushed. He must have said it outloud.

“Sorry,”

"I like your glasses,"

"They're new," Brendon explained.

She sighed and grinned at him, “Yeah. Eat the chicken,”

“Okay,” Brendon acquiesced, shoving a chicken nugget in his mouth. His leg was bouncing up and down again, shaking the bench he was sitting on. Someone down the table a little way glared at him, but Brendon couldn’t exactly stop. He felt like throwing up again.

Sarah reached across under the table and patted him on the knee. Oh, Brendon thought. Huh. Okay. He ate another chicken nugget.

...
When Zack came home from the store there was one extra teenager in his apartment, which made him curious. It was a girl too. Curiouser. Sitting on the living room couch was a girl with dark hair and bright eyes, wearing ratty jeans and a hoodie, and cradling Brendon's head in her lap. Brendon looked nearly asleep, heavy lidded and peaceful while the girl continued to run her fingers through the boy’s hair, a relaxing pattern. Brendon was also wearing some ridiculous purple hoodie. He looked bizarre. The girl looked up at Zack and smiled.

"Hey. I'm Sarah," she said with an easy grin on her face. She stopped petting Brendon for a moment, and he let out a whiny noise. When she started up again, he closed his eyes. "You must be Brendon's father?"

It was a question that Zack didn't know how to answer, didn't know he would have to worry about answering. He didn't know exactly what Pete put down when he changed all the documents, so Zack decided to just go with the vague truth.

"Something like that," he said, and the girl looked curious but didn't push, which Zack appreciated. "Is Brendon alright?"

She nodded and looked down at the boy on her lap. "He drank like four cups of coffee today," she explained. "He was freaking insane until, like, sixth hour. Then he crashed. Shane had to help me practically carry him to his classes. I brought him home because I wasn't sure he could make it by himself without falling over,"

Zack probably should have thanked her- he was an adult. He understood social protocol- but instead he said, "Who the fuck let him drink coffee?" He knew it was Jon. He'd have to talk to him later. He'd also have to talk to Brendon, give him the 'don't do things that you know are going to end badly' speech. Zack had come to realize that watching kids came with lots of todo lists. Maybe he should start getting up before they go to school so he could keep an eye on them.

"Is it okay that I'm hanging out here? I could go-"

"It's fine," Zack said, grinning to let the kid know he was sincere. "Stay as long as you want. Just shout if you need something," Zack went into the too small kitchen and finally put the grocery bags down. There were three, and they weren't heavy or anything, just bulky. There was a box of cereal digging into his stomach. After making sure that anything that could spoil was in the fridge, he left everything else on the counter and headed down the hall. He needed a shower. Spencer would probably put it away before he got back to it.

…
Sarah came over a lot after that event. Jon could tell it freaked Spencer out a bit, having a mortal in the apartment. Spencer had talked to Jon about it first, all frowns and worried eyebrows. Jon had told him to chill, but Spencer never listened to it. He heard Spencer talking to Brendon about it only a day later.

“B, you can’t just… she can’t find out we’re werewolves. You know that. This is dangerous,” Spencer had sat Brendon down in his and Jon’s room on Spencer’s bed to talk to him. Brendon, in response, had grinned and shrugged.

“You worry too much, Spin, geeze,” he’d said. It made Spencer frown.

“Brendon. I’m serious, you-”

“Spencer,” Brendon said, suddenly serious and catching Jon’s attention from the hallway. “This is the first friend I’ve made in… a long time. Just let me have this, okay?” Something sad wavered in his voice, making him look like he was about to cry. Spencer opened his mouth to say something else, and Jon decided to stop this before he made Brendon cry or something.

“Hey,” Jon bounced into the room and tackled Spencer back onto the bed, making the younger boy squeak. Spencer growled and squirmed, trying to shove him off. Jon laughed and kept Spencer pinned down. “Stop being so serious, Smith. I’ll lick your face. Don’t think I won’t,”

“Ew. Ew get off, fucker,” Spencer could be vicious when he wanted to be, growling and struggling. Brendon giggled and launched himself at them, which probably wasn’t the best thing that could have happened. It hurt when they tumbled off of the bed and crashed onto the floor, Spencer complaining loudly and kicking, so Jon started tickling him. In the end, Jon got kicked between the legs and Spencer got pissy, but Brendon got to keep his friend, so it wasn’t all that bad.

…
Brendon sat around the apartment and watched Spencer be grumpy. It was only entertaining for a short period of time, and after that it became irritating. It was raining outside, and the October air was chilly and thin so close to the mountains, light dustings of snow beginning to fall at nights but not sticking yet. Brendon would have been outside practicing skateboarding, but Zack had said absolutely not, there were enough accidents when everything wasn’t slippery. Brendon couldn’t exactly be upset about that. It was good reasoning, and someone ought to be responsible.

Anyways, he was stuck inside the apartment with Spencer who was sighing dramatically more than he was actually focusing on his schoolwork. Brendon frowned at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked the obvious question, looking over Spencer’s slumped posture, frowning face, tense jaw, hand slightly-too-tight on his pencil.

“Nothing,” Spencer snapped, and well… Brendon didn’t want to get yelled at. He didn’t push it.

He noticed how Spencer checked his cellphone every few minutes, as if willing it to start ringing. Brendon wondered who he was hoping would call. Probably not his parents, or at least not his mom. Spencer was really weird when it came to his mom, but he didn’t like to talk about it. Brendon didn’t blame him. There were things he didn’t want to talk about either.

Brendon figured that Spencer was probably waiting for Jon to text him. Jon had a shift at Starbucks that day from ten until four. Usually when Jon had that shift, he and Spencer would go hang out someplace after work. They always came back smiling like weirdos and smelling like really wonderful and disgusting pizza. They looked so happy that Brendon wasn’t even sore about not being invited.

As time progressed, Spencer looked and smelled grumpier. It was unnerving, really. How was Brendon supposed to focus on conjugating irregular spanish verbs and foiling (whatever the hell that meant) functions when Spencer was periodically sighing and growling at nothing? Zack noticed that something was up too, because he kept throwing them cautious glances. Brendon just caught his eye and shrugged. Zack rolled his eyes.

It wasn’t until five-thirty when Jon finally came home, an hour and fifteen minutes late and half-an-hour from when they usually started dinner. He was practically walking on air, grinning a bit to himself (a special grin, because Jon Walker was almost always grinning, but this one was special some how). He had remembered to take off his apron and his visor at least, and his hair was combed (a strange thing to see. it was usually messy). As a finishing touch, he smelled different. He smelled like coffee and mango shampoo and Jon as always, but also like somebody that Brendon didn’t recognize, and like food.

“Hey puppies,” he approached the table, where he kissed Spencer on the head and ruffled Brendon’s hair. He was acting funny, and Spencer was obviously trying not to growl at him.

“Someone looks happy,” Zack commented from his spot in the doorway. “Make a new friend?”

Jon honest-to-God smirked, and Brendon almost giggled, but he didn’t. “I had a date tonight,” Jon declared, chin up and sounding pretty proud of himself. Brendon smiled for him, but it faltered when he looked at Spencer and saw his friend’s expression. Spencer looked kind of like he was going to throw up.

Spencer said, “A date? With who?” while Zack said, “Go get ‘em tiger!” Jon was practically glowing, and he laughed.

“His name is James. I met him a week or so ago at the shop and we exchanged phone numbers, and we had a quick dinner date tonight after my shift was over,” Jon explained, and Brendon felt like his blood had frozen in his veins for a second.

“Wait,” he said. “He?”

Jon turned towards Brendon and frowned, a curious expression playing on his face through furrowed eyebrows. “Yeah Bren, uhm… James is a guy,” Brendon sniffed at him, trying hard not to be obvious, and Jon smelled suddenly afraid. Oh.

“Oh,”

“I’m gay,” he said, jaw set a certain way that would have made Brendon want to cower if he hadn’t known Jon was scared. “Is that a problem?”

Brendon would have been the world’s biggest hypocrite if it was a problem. “No,” he said sincerely. He was working on sounding sincere and grown-up. “No, of course not. I just… didn’t know,” he smiled to be reassuring or something. “That’s awesome!”

The fear seemed to wash away as quickly as it had flooded in and Jon grinned again, ruffling Brendon’s hair and tugging playfully on one of his ears, making Brendon whine in his throat and tilt his head. “You’re a weirdo,” Jon said.

Brendon didn’t notice until then that Spencer had left the room. He frowned after him and thought, huh… what’s his problem?

…
Jon hadn’t thought too much about it when Spencer stormed away from the table. Spencer got into moods; they all knew that. It was best to just let him be cranky by himself until he went back to normal (Jon had tried strangle-hugging him into smiling once, since that worked on Brendon 75% of the time, but Spencer had just growled at him). So Jon hadn’t really thought about it. He’d just sat down at the table next to Brendon and told him all about his date, probably sounding like a school girl, but he didn’t think Brendon would judge. He’d meant to leave out the part about making out in James’ care in front of the apartment building for ten minutes, but Brendon had started waggling his eyebrows at him. Zack said that if he wanted them to believe him, he shouldn’t have come in smelling like hormones and sweat, and yeah. Zack had a point. There was no use denying it.

Anyways, Jon was certain that Spencer would be better by the time they went to bed that night. On the contrary, Spencer had still been sulking and had hardly said a word to Jon, which was freaking him out. Jon had been in the middle of changing clothes when Spencer had huffed and turned the lights out, leaving Jon half-naked in the dark and really confused
.
“What the fuck?” he had asked, but Spencer was pretending to be asleep. Fine, whatever. He figured he would just wait the brat out and find out what was wrong in the morning. Until then, he had time to dream about a pretty rad makeout session and feel like a high schooler again. That would keep him preoccupied enough.

The problem arose the next morning, however, when Spencer shoved past him on his way out of the bathroom and later disappeared onto the balcony with his coffee instead of hanging out in the living room. Jon frowned after him and looked at a sleepy-eyed Brendon for help, but Brendon had just shrugged and poured himself a cup of coffee (he got in one sip before Zack entered the room and said absolutely not. Brendon didn’t look terribly devastated when his coffee got poured down the kitchen sink, but he did curl up on the couch and pass out again).

“What’s wrong with Spencer?” Zack asked him, frowning at the balcony and sipping at his own cup of coffee. Jon may have been pouting slightly as he shrugged.

“He’s acting weird…”

“Have you talked to him about it?” Zack asked, and he made it sound a bit too easy. Talking to Spencer made sense. Jon should have thought of that. But it also sounded kind of hard…

“I’ll do it later,” he decided, going over to the couch and curling up next to Brendon. He turned on South Park, causing the younger wolf next to him to grin sleepily and open his eyes to watch.

Half an hour later, all of Jon’s coffee was gone along with all feeling in his left arm (Brendon had curled up half-on-top of him and Jon’s arm had gotten crushed somewhere underneath. He didn’t mind, really, but it was kind of tingly). He only half-listened while Brendon explained what Kenny was really saying in the opening song (something about vaginas… Jon googled it once), because he was actually listening to the balcony door slide open as Spencer came back inside. Jon sniffed the air cautiously, but all he could pick up on was coffee and eggs and a sleepy yet content Brendon. At least Brendon was happy this morning. The kid had been carrying a raincloud around with him for a while, and Jon had been kind of worried.

He untangled himself from Brendon and went into the kitchen with the pretense of putting his cup in the sink, when really he wanted to talk to Spencer. Spencer frowned and purposefully did not look up from the newspaper crossword that he wasn’t actually doing, and it made Jon frown some more.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, doing the dishes so that he had something to do with his hands. Spencer didn’t answer him. He just shrugged.

“Seriously, Spence. What’s with the silent treatment?” Jon insisted. It may have been driving him a little crazy. Spencer was his buddy; Jon thought the kid walked on air. Jon may or may not have been in love with him. He couldn’t stand this cold-shoulder business. It was going to kill him.

“Absolutely nothing,” Spencer drawled, and Jon could tell without looking that he had rolled his eyes hard, meaning that it was absolutely something. He turned off the faucet and turned around.

“Funny. I don’t believe you,” he said. Spencer glared at him.

“Fuck off, would you?” Spencer snarled. Jon couldn’t help but feeling guilty. What the hell had he done to piss Spencer off? He decided to just roll off of it, see if being casual would make Spencer stop being such a pissbaby.

“So I was wondering if you wanted to go to the mall today? You don’t have class, I don’t have work. We could get pizza,” he offered, leaning against the table near where Spencer was. Spencer dropped his crossword on the table and crossed his arms, glaring up at Jon in a way that could only be described as ‘defiant.’ Jon was really confused.

“Won’t your boyfriend be jealous?” he asked. His eyes had changed over and everything. Jon frowned.

“Boyfriend?” he asked. “Spin, James isn’t my boyfriend… we’ve only been on one date,” One date and a makeout session didn’t mean boyfriends. They hadn’t even talked about that. James didn’t even have the right to be jealous at this point… and why did Spencer care anyways?

“Yeah, whatever,” Spencer snapped, standing up and stalking out of the kitchen. Jon followed him.

“Puppy, come on,” he called after him. “James isn’t my boyfriend, I swear. What are you talking about?”

Spencer stopped when they reached their bedroom door and spun around to face Jon, eyes narrowed and canines showing under his lips. “I don’t want to be around you and your stupid face. Leave me the fuck alone,” And with that, Spencer stormed away and slammed the bedroom door behind him. Jon was left in the hallway, feeling really fucking confused. Sometimes Jon remembered that there was a bit of an age gap between eighteen and twenty, that while he himself wasn’t the icon for maturity, Spencer was still slightly less so, and that sometimes he was going to tell Jon his face was stupid and lock him out of his own fucking bedroom, and there really wasn’t anything Jon could do about it. Right. Well.

He sighed and noticed Brendon over his shoulder at the mouth of the hallway. “What B?” he asked.

Brendon fidgeted. “Could you give me a ride to Sarah’s house? It’s okay, if not. I mean. I can walk. It’s only two miles, not that far. I’d skateboard there, but I’m still not that great and she lives in the mountains and skateboarding up a mountain is really difficult cause I fell down the last time I tried and she laughed at me and-”

“Okay,” if Jon didn’t cut him off, he was pretty sure Brendon would keep talking forever. “Okay, yeah, go get dressed,” He was also sure that if he didn’t get out of this apartment, Spencer’s bizarre mopey-cloud was going to drive him crazy. It took Brendon exactly two minutes to scramble into his bedroom and throw on clothes, and Jon used that time to beg Zack to please seriously talk to Spencer he’s absolutely insane fix him Zack please. Zack had given him that look, the ‘I didn’t sign up for this’ look, but he didn’t say no, so he’d probably do it.

…
“Well, I talked to him,” was the first thing that Zack said when Jon reentered the apartment, yawning and kicking his flip flops off at the door. It was getting too late in the fall to wear flip flops and basketball shorts outside, and his legs were freezing. He flopped down bonelessly on the couch, and Zack didn’t shove him away when he leaned into the older man’s shoulder.

“And?”

“He told me my face is stupid…” Zack sounded pretty perturbed by that, and Jon had to chuckle.

“He’s being such a brat,” Jon sighed.

“I told him to go outside and play, and he looked at me like I’m insane. I think he went for a walk somewhere. Seriously though, he’s in a major mood. I think he’s jealous,”

“Jealous?” Jon asked, slouching farther down the couch and trying to crack his back. “Jealous of what?”

“Well, you have a boyfriend now,” Zack offered, and Jon groaned.

“He’s not my fucking boyfriend,” he said. “Since when does one date make people boyfriends?”

Zack didn’t bother answering Jon’s question. “I told him that what he’s feeling is natural, that you two are close because you’re bonded. I mean, you’ve been practically living in each other’s pockets. So I told him that he probably just feels uncomfortable sharing you and that he’ll have to learn to get over it,”

Jon was quiet for a moment while he digested that. It made a lot of sense, and it’s funny that Jon hadn’t been able to think of it himself. But then again, Zack kind of knew everything. It shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise that he figured it out.

“You think that’s what’s going on?” he asked. Zack shrugged.

“That, or he’s just being a bitch,” A startled laugh made it’s way out of Jon’s throat, and Zack grinned. “Yeah, I think that’s what’s going on. You just need to let him get over it, okay?”

Jon was still grinning as he nodded. “Yeah. Alright. Thanks,”

Spencer came back into the apartment shortly after that and glared at both of them before locking himself in his room again. Jon frowned, and Zack just patted him on the shoulder before standing up and going off somewhere. Jon couldn’t decide whether he should try talking to Spencer again or just wait for him to get over himself, since Jon hadn’t done anything wrong and didn’t have anything to apologize for anyways.

A text came in from James reading ‘last nite was cool. again sumtime?’ and Jon told himself that he didn’t have any reason to feel guilty when he grinned down at the message. He felt guilty anyways. He texted back ‘anytime.’

…
Brendon was flabberghasted, absolutely flabberghasted, by a lot of things about Sarah’s house. For one thing, it was huge. His parents’ house could have easily fit inside of it, probably stacked in with the apartment too, and there would still be a bit of space to crawl around near the ceiling. Brendon’s old house had been half the size and housed eight people, but Sarah’s house only had three- herself, her brother, and her dad.

“What happened to your mom?” he asked, chattering aimlessly and not thinking until too late that Sarah might not want to talk about it, that it might be sensitive, that it wasn’t his place to ask and Sarah was going to get upset and ask him to leave or start crying or something and Brendon was totally an asshole and-

“Divorce,” she shrugged like it was meaningless and trotted up the stairs. Brendon followed her. “They’ve been divorced since I was small, so I don’t even remember them being together. Mom has a boyfriend in Arizona, and I visit her on the holidays,”

Brendon kind of loved how Sarah never got upset about things. She just told it how it was with a shrug or a grin and then kept on going with her life. Brendon wanted to be more like Sarah.

Another amazing thing about Sarah’s house was that he was allowed upstairs, in her room, with the door closed. Nobody came knocking or yelling or inquiring what they were doing up there. They weren’t doing anything besides looking at comic books anyways, but still. That would have never flown at Brendon’s parents’ house, and maybe not even at the apartment. Zack would give them a look, and Jon would make inappropriate faces and hand gestures at them, and Spencer would sit him down later and talk to him about responsible sex, and…. yeah. The freedom at Sarah’s house was nice.

“This one’s my favorite,” she said, waving a comic book in Brendon’s face. She had every x-men book that was ever made, practically, and Brendon wished that he could appreciate it more. He wished that he hadn’t just watched the movies, but actually read the books too.

“Yeah?” he flipped through it and looked at the pictures. The blue guy- Brendon couldn’t remember his name- looked pretty pissed off, but Brendon couldn’t actually take him seriously, because he was blue. And also a cartoon. Like a smurf.

Maybe he didn’t have enough of an attention span for comic book reading….

“So hey,” Sarah was sitting on a purple rolly computer chair in front of her desk, turning back and forth slowly and kicking her sneakers against the hardwood floor. “I was wondering…”

Brendon looked up from her shoes to her face, and she was biting her lip. She sure was pretty. He thought to himself for a moment that maybe there was a chance, that if he tried hard enough, he could have married a girl and been happy. He could have done the do a few times and made grandchildren for his parents and made them proud. Even though the thought of doing anything like that with a girl made him feel like cringing, and he was pretty sure that spending his adult life that way would make him miserable… maybe it would have been worth it to try.

He snapped himself out of his head when Sarah frowned at him. “Well?” she asked, sounding a bit impatient. Oh shit. She must have asked him a question.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I got lost in my head for a second. What’d you ask me?” He had a really bad habit of getting lost in his head. It was the reason he’d gotten a C in freshman history. It was something that used to piss his dad off to no end. It was the reason that he was always forgetting things or getting left behind or missing important scenes in movies. His brain was like a labyrinth. He’d just learned that word in English. They were studying greek mythology.

“I said that there’s a dance at our school,” Sarah said. She was grinning. She didn’t get frustrated when Brendon was being stupid, and that was really nice of her. “On halloween. I was wondering if you’d like to go with me,”

Brendon blinked and tilted his head to the side. “Like a date?” He’d never been to a dance before, let alone a high school dance with a girl. Sure, his daydreams usually included Shia Labuff leaning against his locker with a flower and a prom invitation, but going to a dance with Sarah was practically the next best thing. Practically. Kind of.

“Yeah,” he smiled as he said it. “Yeah, that’d be totally awesome,”

She grinned the way she always did, kind of smug like she knew a secret and wasn’t telling. “Rad,”

Brendon grinned. “Rad,”

Chapter 2

Brendon was out on the balcony when Spencer found him. His elbows were kind of sore from the way he was propped up on them, and his tummy was cold from the cool concrete below him. He shivered. If he hadn’t been too lazy and too invested in what he was watching, he would have gone inside and gotten a hoodie- one that he’d stolen from Spencer, brown and thick and super comfy, a tad too big on him, but that made it even better, instead of the purple one that he hadn’t bothered giving back to Sarah yet.  There were more important things than preserving body temperature though. At the moment, Brendon had binoculars pressed to his eyes and a clear view of a car in the parking lot.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, and he sounded like he was frowning. Brendon didn’t bother looking up at him.

“Spying on Jon,” he said. With the way Spencer had been acting lately, he expected him to huff and storm away. It was slightly surprising when a warm presence plopped itself down next to Brendon on a balcony and snatched the binoculars out of his hands.

“What’s Jon doing?” he asked. Spencer was warm, so Brendon pressed close into his side. He was going to start shivering soon.

He let Spencer fiddle with the binoculars (which he’d bought at a garage sale for fifty cents while searching for his skateboard) before answering, “Having sex.”

Spencer nearly dropped the binoculars, and Brendon would have been super bummed if he’d dropped them off the balcony. Brendon snatched them back from clumsy Spencer. He was enjoying the show.

“Excuse me?”

“Now I’m not an expert,” Brendon said, peering through his gadget again and twisting them until the picture came into focus. “But either they’re making out, or Jon’s trying to fit himself into James’s mouth.”

“You’re a freak.” Spencer scowled and stole the binoculars back. “Let me see. I can’t believe you’re watching them do this.” Brendon smirked a little bit, because now Spencer was watching them do this too, so.

“Whoa, that’s James?” Spencer inquired.

Brendon rolled his eyes. “Well, if it isn’t, James is going to be awfully bummed to find out.”

Brendon yelped when Spencer smacked him upside the head, and then he shoved him in retaliation. Spencer shoved back, and they did that back and forth for a while until Spencer smooshed Brendon’s face into the floor of the balcony and Brendon gave up.

“Loser,” Spencer said fondly. Brendon pouted at him. “I didn’t know that James was black.”

Brendon lowered the binoculars in order to show Spencer how he was raising his eyebrows at him. “Whoa. Does that matter?”

“What? No. Dude, duh, no of course not. I’m just surprised,” Spencer snapped.

“That Jon has a thing for black guys?” Brendon sneered, and Spencer smacked his head again.

“Stop being a dick, B,” Spencer said. Brendon crossed his arms and frowned.

“Not my fault you’re being moody,” he retorted poutily. He stared Spencer down with his best puppy dog face until Spencer sighed and looked away. Brendon took it as an apology and returned to his spying.

“Holy shit, I think James is giving Jon a blow-”

“Alright!” Spencer interrupted. “That’s enough of that.”

It actually wasn’t. Brendon was curious; he’d never seen two guys making out before, or doing…. other things… for that matter. It was kind of gross since it was Jon, but at this point, he’d take whatever he could get. Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to get to watch anymore, because Spencer grabbed him around the middle and hauled him to his feet. Brendon squirmed, and Spencer tossed him inside the apartment and closed the door behind him.

“Awwwww, Spence c’mon,” Brendon whined while Spencer’s hand in the middle of his back propelled him forward.

“You’re a sicko,” Spencer argued. “Don’t you have a date to get ready for?”

"Oh right!" Brendon chirped. "It's a Halloween dance. Wanna help me with my vampire costume?"

Spencer raised his eyes. "Vampire? Really, B?"

"It's security!" Brendon insisted. "No one will suspect I'm a wolf if I go out dressed like a vampire?"

Spencer rolled his eyes hard and then sighed, sounding like an ill-treated older brother. Brendon had heard that tone a lot in his life.  He was pretty familiar with it. "Fine. Fine, okay, let's go make you pretty."

Brendon smiled and ran down the hall.

…
The air was crisp against his cheeks, and it would have been nice if it weren’t so windy. It was biting a bit, and Brendon bounced from foot to foot in a sad attempt to get blood flowing and warm himself up. Another gust of wind coming straight down off the mountains made him shiver and close his eyes. He wished Sarah would show up already.

Brendon could have already been inside the school, sure, but upon arriving he’d noticed a problem. You see, Brendon had been under the impression that since it was a halloween dance, the day before halloween, and halloween was the day of costumes, candy, and mischief, that it would be a costume party. That was why he’d spent half an hour in the bathroom with Spencer trying to paint his face white and make his eyes look sunken in. That was why he was sporting a pair of plastic vampire fangs from 7-11 and a navy blue sheet tied around his neck like a cape. That was why he felt like an absolute idiot because not a single other person who had shown up for the dance thus far had been in costume, and they had all given Brendon bemused looks and occasional snickers.

He looked like an absolute moron, and he was probably going to get shoved into a wall or a trashcan or something, so he decided to wait around outside until Sarah showed up. He’d have the courage to go in so long as he wasn’t doing it alone. Besides, nobody messed with Sarah.

When she did show up, it was with Shane in the driver’s seat, and he laughed so loud that Brendon swore they could see him blushing through the inch of white makeup caked onto his face. Sarah punched Shane in the arm, and then draped her arm around Brendon’s shoulders.

“Oh sweetie,” she said, the way she did a lot around him. He didn’t understand it exactly, but it was nice. “You look awesome, don’t listen to him.”

Shane was still laughing pretty hard when Sarah and Brendon followed him into the gym with the rest of the students. Brendon mentioned going to the bathroom to try and clean the gunk off his face, but Sarah said not to bother. She said he looked good.

He ended up sweating most of it off anyways. The thing was, Brendon was a very passionate dancer. He could dance to practically anything, even when Shane had grabbed Brendon’s hips and started grinding against him. Brendon laughed hysterically and went with it. He decided that school dances were the most amazing things ever.

They were off to the side, sitting up against the bleachers. Brendon was rolling a luke warm can of coke between his hands while Shane chugged a water bottle. There was some hip hop song playing which none of them were familiar with, so they took a break while Sarah went over to talk to her other friends.

“Sarah looks hot tonight,” Shane said offhandedly. “I mean, I know she’s our bro, but damn.”

Brendon frowned. “What? Really?” He hadn’t exactly taken notice. He was too busy wondering what Shane was doing over here with Brendon and not with his cool senior friends across the gym.  Maybe they all had dates or something.  Maybe his friends were too cool for dances, and Shane was only there to humor Sarah.  And sure, Sarah looked pretty, but she always looked pretty.

“That dress is cleavage central.” Shane was staring across the gym pretty obviously, and Brendon felt embarrassed for him as he blushed and ducked his head.

“I didn’t notice.”

“Dude, are you fucking blind?” Shane laughed and ruffled Brendon’s hair. Brendon frowned and raked his fingers through it to push it back. He looked somewhat like vampire Elvis, but he kind of liked it and wanted to keep it that way.

“Hey guys.” Sarah came skipping over as the song changed, this one slow and sweet. Some kind of love song. “Bren, come dance with me.”

“What?” Brendon had to stand up when her hand latched onto his and pulled. He tripped after her as she made her way onto the dance floor. “But this is a slow song,” he said.

“Uh huh.” She went further, towards the back corner.

“But this is for couples,” he argued.

“Not necessarily. Here, give me your hands.” He didn’t actually have to give her his hands; she just took them and put them where she pleased, on her hips. He’d never touched a girl’s hips before. Actually, he’d never touched anyone’s hips before while actually thinking about what he was doing. She looped her arms around his neck, which was easy since they were just about the same height. Brendon felt all slimey, and kind of awkward with her standing this close in front of him.

“But I’m sweaty,” he said, in a last ditch attempt. She rolled her eyes and put her hand over his mouth.

“Shut up and dance.”

He couldn’t exactly call what they were doing dancing. They were just kind of swaying while slowly turning in circles, trying not to trip over each other’s feet or lose their balance. Sarah laughed whenever Brendon almost fell over, and he laughed when some of her hair fell in front of her eyes and she tried to blow it back out of the way.

They stopped turning when Sarah brought her hand down to push her hair back. Brendon wasn’t sure why, and he was even more confused when she placed her hand on the side of his face. He was all sweaty and covered in makeup; why would she want to touch that? He was about to ask, but then suddenly she was right there, and her mouth was on his, and Brendon was pretty sure that they were kissing.

Kissing. Huh. Brendon had never kissed anyone before.

He’d heard about all the special things it was supposed to be; about fireworks and butterflies and the world stopping and the stars lining up. In reality, it was kind of awkward, just their lips pressed together, and he tried not to breathe because he was embarrassed about her being able to feel it. He wasn’t sure why. When she pulled back from the kiss, however, she was smiling pretty big at him. He, in his confusion, smiled back.

“What?” he asked, and she smirked at him.

“Oh nothing.”

The dance was over pretty quickly after that.

…
When they asked Brendon to come hang out with them afterwards he said yes, even though Spencer had told him to call once the dance was over so that he could come and pick him up. Brendon figured that Spencer didn’t really want to be bothered with him anyways. Outside the dance, he and Sarah kissed a bit bashfully while leaning against Shane’s car, waiting for him to finish talking to his friends, who were apparently actually at the dance, so they could go. She would lean in and peck his lips and then giggle, and Brendon could help but giggling back nervously. He’d do the same, lean in for a kiss, because he was pretty sure that’s what she wanted him to do, what he was supposed to want to do. He kind of felt like he was just going through the motions.

He sat in the backseat on the drive to her house, and Sarah held his hand between the seat and the door.

…
“Where the hell is he?” Spencer demanded angrily, pacing in the kitchen with his hands on his hips. “He said he would call me to come get him, and he hasn’t called, and he’s not answering his phone.”

“Zack says-” Zack had gone to work, but it was apparently slow enough that he could be on his phone, so Jon was talking to him. “-that you’re getting a taste of your own medicine, and maybe now you’ll think twice before disappearing.”

“Well Zack can go fuck himself,” Spencer growled. Jon raised an eyebrow at Spencer from his position lounging at the kitchen table, feet kicked up and ankle’s crossed. He held the phone defensively to his chest.

“For your own well-being, I’m not going to tell him you said that,” Jon said. He listened in the phone for a moment. “Maybe he’s out with friends,” he reiterated. “Calm the hell down.”

Spencer growled again, and Jon rolled his eyes hard. “Yeah Zack, thanks, I’ll let you know when we find him.”

He understood why Spencer was freaking out to a point. Brendon was a little guy; he was clumsy; he hadn’t worn his glasses; and to be completely honest, the kid was a little bit of a ditz. There was lots of trouble that a kid like Brendon could get himself into at night. At the same time though, it was Brendon, who was probably too innocent to get himself into any real trouble. Jon wasn’t too worried.

“That’s it,” he declared, standing up and wrapping his arm around Spencer’s neck. “You need to chill.” He trapped Spencer in a headlock and dragged him over to the couch, where he eventually managed to wrestle Spencer into a horizontal position and sprawl out on top of him, despite Spencer’s loud complaining and growling and flailing.

“We’re going to lay here and watch Paranormal Activity and wait for Brendon to call, and if he hasn’t called by the time the movie is over, by midnight, then we’ll worry, okay?”

Spencer didn’t acquiesce, just made a grumpy noise, but he stopped trying to get free, so Jon shifted until he was spooned up behind him and turned on the movie. In retrospect, if he had known that Spencer didn’t like horror movies, he would have just turned on South Park, but at least the puppy was hiding behind a pillow instead of ripping it in half. Jon counted it as a win.

…
The mountain roads were a bit treacherous, and they took slightly more focus than Zack was usually willing to put into driving at one in the morning, but he’d rather contribute the extra energy than have his fifteen year old spazz ball walking several miles home in the dark. Surprisingly enough, the spazz ball was relatively calm when he climbed into the passenger side of the car and buckled up.

“Hey,” Zack greeted him. “Everything okay?”

What had once been pretty cool vampire makeup was now smudged and indecipherable. His hair was sticking out in all directions, and he looked exhausted.

“Uh huh,” Brendon nodded, then he yawned and rubbed at his eyes. Zack started the drive home.

“How was the dance?” he asked.

“Good,” Brendon said. “Lots of fun, except I smell really gross now. And I have a girlfriend.”

Zack frowned and looked at him. “Really?” he asked. He was surprised. He was almost certain that… well damn. He’d just lost a bet with Pete Wentz. He had to stop gambling with fairies.

“Uh huh,” Brendon said again. “Sarah kissed me when we were dancing, and then we kissed some more, and now she’s my girlfriend.”

“Huh…” Zack said. He wasn’t sure what he was expected to say to that.

“It’s wrong to kiss before marriage though…” Brendon was frowning, and Zack sighed.

“It’s not wrong, Brendon,” he said. “Kissing isn’t as complicated as other things. It’s fine.”

Brendon shrugged before grinning. “Well that’s good then... My parents sure would have been happy to know I have a girlfriend now.”

Zack wasn’t sure how to respond to any part of this conversation, really, but by the time he thought of something to say, Brendon was curled up in a ball and fast asleep, cheek smushed against the passenger door. The kid was the heaviest sleeper Zack had ever met, and he didn’t stir at all when they got to the apartment and Zack tried to wake him up. After a minute of failed attempts, he sighed and picked him up to carry him inside. Brendon was little anyways and didn’t weigh anything. He tucked Brendon into bed, figuring that he could just shower in the morning rather than risk falling asleep in the process now, and Brendon was snoring before Zack even got out of the room.

…
Jon woke up early, to which Spencer griped at him that he was insane, words muffled into a pillow.

“It’s our day off,” the younger wolf had practically whined when Jon leapt onto him as a 7 am wake up call. Against his better judgment, Jon tried to tickle Spencer out of bed, resulting in lots of complaining and a fiery wrestling match. They fell off the bed with a solid thump, and Jon got punched in the jaw. He swore, holding the sore area, but at least Spencer smelled sorry under the grumpy it’s-too-early-for-this-shit scowl.

The floor jumped when something, probably a broom handle, knocked against the ceiling of the apartment below. “Shut up! Shut up!”

Good mood faltering none, Jon grinned as he stood and ruffled Spencer’s hair. “Chop chop, puppy,” he said. “Daylight’s a’waistin.”

“You’re insane,” Spencer repeated as he slowly picked himself off the floor, as if her were an old man and not young and limber. He kept his arms crossed defensively over his chest as if he were afraid Jon was going to try to tickle him again. Jon didn’t plan on it. His jaw was aching from that fly-away fist, and he rather liked talking and eating solid foods.

Jon wasn’t as insane as Spencer accused, just a morning person when given the right prompting. If he roused early enough to see the beginnings of a beautiful sunset out his window, he’d often head out immediately with his camera and a pair of flip flops, still in his pajamas. Sometimes he just got the urge to grab a silent cup of coffee and hang out in the peace of the still-dozing apartment. But this morning wasn’t caused by a whim or a toe tingling sunrise. This was better.

Spencer had been a royal pain in the ass for a while now, and while Jon had a great deal of patience most of the time, he had trouble following Zack’s advice to just 'wait it out.'  He was tired of biting comments and tense energy, so when, on the third time that he’d asked Spencer to hang out with him, the puppy said yes instead of coming up with a lame excuse, Jon was overjoyed. He’d missed hanging out with Spencer.

Half an hour found both boys in the kitchen, still damp and slightly drippy from showers, but fully dressed. Spencer was in a better mood at least, stretched out at the mail-cluttered kitchen table with a cup of coffee in his hand, grinning and shrugging thoughtfully when Jon asked what he wanted to do. They settled on the mall eventually. The coffee added to Jon’s hype, and instead of his normally calm composure, he found himself almost bouncing, fingers tapping against the side of his coffee cup, over the faded green picture of a pine tree and the words “Northwest Lumber.” Jon had no idea where the cup had come from. Probably Goodwill.

“Geez, calm down, Brendon,” Spencer teased, smirking lips pressed to his coffee cup. Jon laughed and felt his stomach flip. He refused to believe that it was butterflies. He wasn’t a total girl, thank you very much.

Speak of the devil- “What?” Brendon asked as he came shuffling into the kitchen, somewhat greasy hair jutting out from his head in all directions, eyes squinty from sleep and ringed with shadows. He didn’t smell that great, but Jon decided not to mention it. Spencer on the other hand…

“Dude, B. Deodorant is your friend. Or like, bathing,” he chided. “I know we’re half dog, but we’re not actually supposed to want to smell like it.”

Jon expected Brendon to snipe back or growl or even look embarrassed, but he just shrugged and shuffled over to the coffee maker. Jon frowned.

“What are you doing today, Bren?” he asked, earning another shrug.

“Sarah wants me to hang out with her and Shane and some dudes at the school today, practice skate stuff or something by the stairs.” On a normal day Brendon lived for that stuff, but at that moment he sounded bored and put upon, burdened even.  “I’m not super up for it,” he explained. “Just kind of want to sleep forever, but I promised, so.”

Spencer was frowning now too, which made sense. Spencer had this sort of soft spot for their youngest pack member, always checking up on him and trying to comfort him when he was upset and stuff. Jon didn’t entirely understand their dynamic- Spencer wasn’t an alpha or anything- but just figured Spencer was the kind of person that liked taking care of others and left it at that.

“You know you don’t have to go out if you don’t feel like it,” Spencer said seriously. He had that face on, the ‘something is wrong and I’m going to fix it’ face.

Brendon wasn’t looking at Spencer’s face. Instead he was putting all of his focus into adding sugar into the cup of coffee he’d claimed. Jon decided to not mention that either, let Zack deal with it.

“I promised,” Brendon repeated.

“B….”

“I’m fine, Spencer,” the kid snapped, catching both of the older boys off guard. Brendon looked as surprised as they were. He deflated, and his voice softened. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, Spence.” He ruffled Spencer’s hair and kicked him in the ankle when he sat at the table next to him.

Spencer looked about to argue, but Jon really didn’t want it to become that kind of day. He tugged Spencer up from the table with his hand around his upper arm and said, “If you say so. Can you tell Zack we took the car?”

Brendon nodded and that was all Jon needed before pressing a kiss to the top of the puppy’s head and pulling Spencer towards the door. It took them a moment to get their shoes on (or, it took Spencer a moment. Jon just slid into flip flops, icy early-November weather be damned. He wanted to wear them as much as he could before the snow came, and at least it wasn’t as cold in Colorado as it was in his hometown Chicago).

Just as they were closing the door behind them Jon heard Zack’s voice saying, “That had better be the first and last cup of coffee. One cup limit. I’m serious, Brendon.”

Spencer laughed, and Jon’s stomach flopped again (It was just from coffee on an empty stomach. Really. That’s all). He bumped his and Spencer’s shoulders together as he twirled his car keys around his finger, and the two of them headed for the car.

It was snowing outside, almost enough to be a white out. Jon let Spencer drive since he was making that face again. He was pretty sure it would kill Spencer to have to sit in the passenger seat while Jon drove, since Jon tended to drive a bit hectically despite the weather outside. So he lounged in the passenger seat, using his willpower to not shiver, because there was no way he was admitting that he shouldn’t have worn flip flops that day. Anyone who said otherwise could suck it.

With Spencer driving carefully, it took them half an hour to get to the mall when it usually took Jon twenty minutes. He didn’t mind though. When Spencer pulled into a parking space, Jon pulled the collar of his shirt up around his ears and just about ran inside. It was fucking cold. Spencer laughed and trotted after him.

“You wouldn’t be so cold if you wore real shoes,” Spencer said once they’d made it inside, where they took a moment to shake snowflakes from their hair.

“Suck it,” Jon growled at him, always a man of his word. Spencer just smiled and wandered away, meaning that Jon had to jog to catch up with him.

After two hours of browsing (Spencer spent an impressive amount of time in a shoe store, and he probably would have stayed longer, but he’d submitted and let Jon drag him away when he said his friend started to 'look crazy in the eyes' whatever the hell that meant) which involved a shoe store, the cd store, lids (the place with all the hats), Spencer’s (for irony, of course), and Claire’s (just for kicks), they realized that they were both hungry from having not eaten breakfast and wandered in the direction of their favorite pizza place, just to see if it was open. By some strange accident, it was. Spencer wondered aloud why any italian restaurant would be open at ten in the morning, but Jon just nudged him and told him not to look gift horses in the mouth.

“You sound like my mom.” Spencer rolled his eyes and went up to the counter to order their food. Same as always, two slices of awful, greasy pizza and one can of coke. It made Jon smile, for sentimental reasons or something stupid like that. He’d stop it if he could.

He didn’t stop smiling the entire time they ate, which didn’t take very long; they were starving wolf boys, after all. Spencer didn’t stop smiling either, in fact, until they exited the pizza place and wandered back towards the center of the mall. Noise of other patrons picked up, and Spencer was laughing loud over the din over some stupid joke Jon just told, and that’s when Jon heard someone calling his name.

“Jon! Hey, Walker!” He turned and looked, just in time to see James fall into step with them, arm slipping around Jon’s shoulders because he’s the taller one. James kissed his cheek, saying an easy, “Hey babe,” and for some reason, Jon was embarrassed. He didn’t know why. It probably had something to do with the way Spencer fell silent next to him, stony expression replacing what had just been a smile.

“This is your roommate, right?” James asked, looking over Jon’s head at Spencer. Jon felt incredibly uncomfortable standing between two guys who were tall enough to look over his head. It made him want to squirm.

“Yeah, this is Spencer. Spin, this is James,” Jon said.

James held his hand out to Spencer, who didn’t give any indication that he was going to shake it. They had stopped walking. “Nice to meet you,” James said, and after too long of a moment, when Spencer still hadn’t shaken his hand, James let it fall to his side, something like anxiety seeping through his skin. If James were a wolf, Jon would have nuzzled him to make him feel better.

“Hm,” Spencer said, grumpily.

“Spence,” Jon hissed quietly, trying to portray ‘stop being an asshole,’ but Spencer seemed to be ignoring the message.

“Y’know, Jon hasn’t told me too much about you,” James said, and that was a lie. Jon was pretty sure he’d told James everything about Spencer. Or at least, he’d been meaning too. They’d had a few dates which had been more than making out. Plenty of time to talk.

Spencer’s eyes turned fiery. “Well I’ve had the pleasure of hearing all about you.” The sarcasm in the kid’s voice was sharp enough that Jon felt it stab him right in the gut. This was awful. It was like he was watching a building detonate in slow motion.

“That’s sweet,” James decided to ignore the sarcasm, which could have been a good or a bad thing. It turned bad when he ducked his head and kissed the corner of Jon’s mouth, saying “Thanks babe,” because it sent Spencer off.

“Oh my God!” Spencer said, balling his hands into fists at his sides.

“Spencer,” Jon repeated, a bit sterner to try and get him to shut the fuck up. “Knock it off.”

His eyes widened, like he couldn’t believe Jon or something, when really Jon was the one in disbelief. “Fine,” Spencer snapped, obviously trying not to growl. “Hope you have a wonderfully gay time on your fucking date. Don’t forget to use a condom when you’re having car sex,” and then Spencer was storming away. Jon wanted to run after him, but James’ arm was strong around his shoulders, somewhat holding him there while he gaped after Spencer.

“What the hell is his problem?” James asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jon grumbled.

“Seriously, he’s such a whiny little kid. I don’t know why you put up with him.”

Jon quickly found himself getting angry, and he didn’t want to be angry. Spencer’s negative energy was affecting him or something. He shrugged James’ arm off of him.

“Whatever,”

“Whoa…” his boyfriend was watching him carefully with narrowed eyes now. “Sorry…?” And Jon hated when people felt like that, upset or unsure because of something he had said or done. He couldn’t help Spencer throwing a hissy fit because he hadn’t done anything. But he couldn’t take it out on James. That was something he could control.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Things have been weird.”

“Yeah… I can tell… You want to walk around for a while?”

Jon sighed and nodded, letting his hand slip into James’ larger one, warm and dry. It was a nice fit, but not perfect. Jon had trouble imagining this fling turning into a forever type arrangement; too many things were slightly off kilter. For now, though, that wasn’t important. He could just let James distract him from the migraine forming behind his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”

…
Brendon was moping at the kitchen table, tying his shoes very slowly and looking sullenly at the ground, which Zack didn’t understand, since he couldn’t get the kid to talk about it. It was infuriating, really, but he was learning to hold his temper with Brendon. He didn’t like the way the kid flinched and hid when Zack snapped or started yelling. Besides, this was nothing to yell over. Maggie (that was Jon’s mother in Chicago, who had been Zack’s alpha for a long time. Zack had been there as Maggie raised all three Walker boys and plenty of other young strays who wandered into her home) would have given him that look, as if he were one of her kids and not a mature grown up, and told him to cut the boy some slack, teenagers went through moods, let him come to you first, and all sorts of other advice she was licensed to give when it came to raising children. Still, it would be really nice if Brendon would just talk to him).

Insistent knocking broke Zack out of his thinking spell. He glanced up from the club paperwork he had displayed on his laptop, to the door and then to Brendon who hadn’t moved a single muscle, before sighing

“I got it,” he said, pushing himself up. Brendon still didn’t say anything. What the hell.  A glance through the peephole revealed someone short, dirty, and blonde. Zack knew who it was immediately, but the only question was how the hell he got in, considering the buzzer had never gone off.

“Hey,” he said, opening the door and stepping aside to let the boy in. The kid glanced around quickly, eyes shifting and shoulders stiff near his ears, before shuffling into the apartment. “What’s up?”

Brown eyes darted around the apartment, from Brendon at the kitchen table, to Zack, to the wall, to Zack, to the floor, and back to Zack once again.

“I…” the kid started, squirming a bit under his skin and dropping his head again. “I need something to eat. Can you help?”

“Sure,” he answered immediately, going to the kitchen. The kid didn’t make any move to follow him, but Zack figured he would come when he was ready to. The boy smelled awful, like unwashed teenager and dirt and somewhat like blood. Like a dumpster too, sort of. But when Zack looked past all of that, all he could smell was a child who was scared out of his wits and probably hadn’t slept in a week.

“What would you like to eat?” he asked.

The reply came, “Anything,” and then closer, as the kid crept cautiously into the kitchen and sat in the chair closest to the exit. “Anything. It doesn’t have to be much. I don’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about that,” Zack said, looking through the fridge for anything that he could feed a starving kid. He found four boxes of leftover chinese food, rice and chicken and shrimp, the whole nine yards. He decided to start with that, dumping it all into a big bowl and popping it into the microwave. “Do you want to take a shower?”

There was a moment of hesitation before quick nodding. “Yeah. Yeah sure. I know where the towels and stuff are from last time.”

“Alright,” Zack said. “Just yell if you need something.”

The boy darted out of the room, and it was only then that Brendon stood up and tugged a hooded sweatshirt on. “I’m going to hang out with Sarah and them,” he said, but his voice sounded flat and off, the same as his posture looked and the rest of him smelled.

“Are you okay?” Zack asked.

Brendon nodded.

“Do we need to talk about anything, Bren?” he tried again. It was obvious that something wasn’t okay, but it was impossible to get Brendon to talk about it, whatever it was. He didn’t know any details about what Brendon’s home life had been like before, but he had a feeling that the kid thought he was supposed to suppress his emotions or something. Zack had no idea how to convince him otherwise, or how to breach any of the delicate conversations he knew they were eventually going to have.  He was a guy, like... a manly guy.  He didn't know how to have these kinds of conversations.

All he knew at the moment was that Brendon was acting weird, the way he did sometimes which always made Zack worry, and that the apartment had smelled faintly like blood the night before, which Zack still didn’t understand and wasn’t sure he wanted to. He didn’t know how to take care of all these messed up little kids. He kind of wished that Maggie was there to tell him what to do.

“I’m okay,” Brendon said, “Promise. I’ll be back before dinner,” and with that he pulled on a hat, grabbed his skateboard, and walked slowly out the door. Zack frowned after him until the microwave started beeping, and he set the too-hot bowl on the kitchen table. A minute later the blonde haired kid came back into the kitchen, smiling shyly as he sat down in front of the giant steaming bowl of food.

“Thanks.”

“What’s your name?” Zack asked. “I'm Zack.”

The boy talked around large mouth fulls of food. “Zack’s a cool name.”

“What’s yours?” Zack prompted, but the boy just shrugged. “You don’t have a name?” Of course the kid had a name, but it was just prompting. If they were going to be seeing so much of each other, they might as well know how to refer to each other.

“It’s not important,” the boy said. “Not yet.”

Not yet. Zack only wished he could figure out what the kid meant like that, but he just nodded and let the kid finish his food in peace. Before he could ask if he needed anything else, the boy shook his head and ran out the door. There was really no telling when he’d be back.

…
They walked around for a while longer, but Jon couldn’t stop feeling tense and on edge. James might not have had wolf senses, but he wasn’t an idiot. He could totally tell that something was wrong, and Jon felt like an asshole for ruining his day.

“Hey,” James said, hand gentle and barely there on Jon’s arm, making him feel like he was going to burst out of his skin. What the hell was wrong with him? Why did he feel so mean?  “Let’s go get coffee, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jon said, and he followed James to the coffee place (a different one than where he worked. There was probably a company policy against this. Starbucks would kill him for tyranny when he went in for his next shift) even though he had a feeling that caffeine wasn’t going to help him feel less jittery.

The coffee shop was small and dark. It smelled different than he was used to, slightly more bitter or slightly less so, he couldn’t tell. He lagged behind a bit while James went to the counter and ordered for both of them. He didn’t really mind James ordering for him, even though he might want tea instead of coffee, or even water, but it was too late now.

There was a cork board on the wall where the sugar and napkins and such were held, much like at Starbucks. Jon stared at a chip in the pain for a moment, light yellow peeking out from under dark brown, before scanning the board. There were the typical items- flyers for music events, a few about a film festival (Jon took one of those), some other stuff that didn’t catch his attention at all, a notice about global warming, and lastly, a small sticker secured to the corner of the board with the edge barely peeling up from being picked at. The sticker showed an emblem that Jon hadn’t seen anywhere off the internet since he left Chicago: a grey full moon with a black peace sign scrawled on top of it. Words below the picture read “Wolf Rally ‘13 NYC” and Jon smiled at it. He’d been to a wolf rally once when he was a teenager in Chicago. His mom had said no, absolutely not, but Jon and his brother snuck out and went anyways. The rally didn’t last very long, and it wasn’t much of a success. Hunters had shown up, and then cops had shown up, and he and his brother had narrowly escaped getting arrested. Their parents hadn’t been very happy with them that night….

“Hey.” James’ shoulder bumped gently against Jon’s when he came over and set their coffees down on the small counter. “What are you looking at?”

Jon couldn’t tell James about wolf things, so it wouldn’t make sense that he was staring at a grungy sticker with such nostalgia. Nonetheless, he picked up his coffee and took a sip (more bitter, definitely more bitter) and then motioned to the sticker with his coffee.

“Wolf rally thing. Pretty cool.” Just because he couldn’t come out didn’t mean he couldn’t pretend to be a mortal bemused by wolf things. Plenty of mortals were interested in wolf things. There were packs of dumb mortal kids running around at night and harassing wolves to bite them so they’d change over. It was a fad (at least Jon hoped it was), and it would probably fade soon.

James, to Jon’s total surprise, put on a sour expression and rolled his eyes hard. “It’s selfish, really,” he said.

Jon frowned, looking at him. “What is?” Sure, it was a bit rude for someone to stick that thing to the board, since it took up a few inches of board space and wouldn’t be coming off without a bit of damage, but it really wasn’t a big deal.

“All I’m saying is that gays were here first. We’re so close to getting marriage in all fifty states, and then these hairy weirdos waltz in and steal the whole spotlight. I mean… they could have waited, right? They’ve been hiding for the past thousand years. Let them hide a bit more.”

Jon felt a sickening twist in his gut. It was the same one he felt when he first heard a gay slur in high school. The same one he’d felt when his mother told him about hunters, or when he’d heard older kids in the house telling stories about how their parents had reacted to them being changed. He was so filled with the question ‘how can anyone be that ignorant?’

He raised an eyebrow at James. “You know that’s the same shit people say about gays, right? ‘Why’d they have to come out of the closet?’ ‘They were already hiding. Why don’t they stay there?’ ‘They just want the attention.’ It’s all bullshit.”

“Dude,” James said, and Jon had the overwhelming urge to growl at him but didn’t. “What the hell? They’re disadvantaging us.  You get that, right? Think we’ll get anymore equality in this state with those freaks running around?”

Jon shook his head back and forth slowly. “Whatever.”

They both dropped silent, standing close but not looking at each other, neither touching their coffee. The air around them was tense, and the scent made the hairs on the back of Jon’s neck bristle. It wasn’t fur, at least, just human hair. He had plenty of practice controlling his wolf side.

After a long, painful minute, James finally sighed. “I’m sorry, okay?” he asked. “Didn’t know you were an advocate. Are we cool?”

Jon didn’t look at him but nodded. Cool? Yeah, not really. He had already figured this relationship wouldn’t be much more than a short fling, but now any chance of a future was shattered. Jon was half wolf. He’d grown up with the wolf culture. He wanted a pack, and puppies, and meat in every meal, and most of all he wanted his significant other to know about his wolf side. He couldn’t have any of that with James. Why lead the guy on?

“It’s cool,” he said.

“Hey, you want to go see that movie next Friday? The new horror movie with the woman that bleeds out her eyes and stuff?” James asked, arm finding its way around Jon’s shoulders.

Jon actually wanted to see that movie pretty badly. “No, uhm.. I think I’m busy.”  He shrugged James’ arm off of him and walked slowly out of the coffee shop. James followed.

“Oh.. okay,” James said. “Saturday?”

“Busy,” Jon said simply. James nodded.

“I’m going to head home then.... I have a lot of stuff to get done, yknow?” James said, and Jon felt kind of relieved that he was leaving. He should probably head out and try to find Spencer anyways, cause God knows the moron didn’t have his cell phone turned on.

“See ya.” They exchanged a quick kiss, and as soon as James started walking away, Jon turned and headed in the opposite direction instead of watching him go. He dumped his coffee in the trash and found his way to the mall entrance that he’d come in. It was practically a blizzard outside. Awesome.

Jon made a mad dash to his car, getting snow everywhere and freezing his ass off.

…
The apartment was pleasantly quiet. No one was arguing or bickering or yelling or squealing or wrestling or accidentally setting off the fire alarm or playing video games too loud or… well, the apartment was pleasantly quiet due to the fact that it was entirely devoid of puppies. Good, Zack thought, grinning to himself. He deserved to have some alone time once in a while.

To celebrate said alone time he vacuumed, just because there was no one currently running around and stirring dust up everywhere. It was nice. He turned up the Smashing Pumpkins on with his stereo (last time he’d done that, Brendon had called it ‘old people music’ and no. Zack was thirty-nine. He wasn’t old, and he didn’t need any teenagers telling him that he was) and went to town.

With the floor finally clean (everything else was tidy.  Spencer had been upset lately, and he seemed to have a nervous cleaning habit. Zack wasn’t going to complain, though. It made the place look nice) he poured himself a rum and coke and relaxed. He was just about to take a sip and turn on Duck Dynasty when Jon burst through the front door.

Well, so much for that. Jon was frowning to himself, which was Jon’s tell that he was upset. He never really exploded when he was upset, didn’t start crying or throw a fit or start sulking. He just frowned. This was concerning, because Jon was generally easy going. He didn’t get upset a lot.

“What’s wrong, jwalk?” Zack asked before taking a sip of his coke. He’d need a bit of booze to get through whatever drama was heading at him.

Jon was just opening his mouth when there was a loud cracking noise, a yelp, and a puff of smoke. Zack wasn’t phased, and Jon just looked curiously. Both of them had stopped being phased by fairies a long time ago.

“Hey Pete,” Zack said, taking another sip of his drink. Yup, peace gone.

“Dude,” Pete said. He had his hand curled around Brendon’s upper arm while the kid swayed on his feet, looking disoriented. “A hunter almost grabbed your puppy.”

Well shit. Zack set his drink down and stood up hastily. He went over to the fairy and put his hand on Brendon’s shoulder. Pete let go.

“B, hey, you okay?” he asked, pushing Brendon’s hair off his forehead and looking at him. His hair was wet and had melting snow clinging to it. It stuck to Brendon’s forehead, and the kid squirmed and pulled back.

“I’m fine,” he said, ducking out of Zack’s grasp and rolling his eyes. Fucking teenagers.

“I was just about to call you when I spotted them,” Pete said, kicked back in the air and floating a few feet above the floor, a distant look clouding his face and telling Zack that the fairy was only partially with them at the moment. “He was heading down the mountain and they were stalking him in the woods, the fucking creeps. They looked pretty fucking confused when he vanished.” Pete was smirking, proud of himself.

Brendon was still standing near him, a bundle of nervous energy that was going to give Zack a headache if he kept focusing on it. The kid was also shivering though, so..

“Go take a hot shower. Why the hell weren’t you wearing a coat?” Zack frowned at the kid, whose eyes immediately dropped to the carpet. Zack sighed. He had to figure out how to stop scaring the kid off.

“Left it at my parent’s house,” Brendon said. “I’m sorry.”

Ah, right. Zack mentally penciled in ‘winter coat’ on his to-do list. “Go shower,” he said, ruffling Brendon’s hair. “And put some sweats on. Jesus. You’re freezing.”

Brendon nodded and ducked away. The bathroom door shut after him with a loud creak. Zack added ‘grease door hinges’ to his list as well. It was pretty extensive. But for now the number one item was ‘deal with hunters.’

“Wait,” Jon said suddenly, and Zack’s attention snapped to him. Pete, who’d had his eyes closed, cracked one open to glance at Jon. “Where’s Spencer?”

Fuck. “I thought he was with you,” Zack said.

“No, he stormed out of the mall hours ago. I thought he came home!” Jon said, voice sounding frantic, which was a big deal when it came to Jon. Jon didn’t do frantic. He did concerned, but he usually never peaked giddy when it came to excitement.

Zack already had his phone out and was calling him. If they’d found Brendon, they’d be able to find Spencer. There weren’t a whole lot of werewolves in town, a dozen at most. Pete had probably warned everyone already, so the only one dumb enough to be wandering around town was- “God damn it, Spencer, answer your phone,” Zack growled out, punching the ‘end call’ button and redialing.

“I’m looking for him,” Pete said, legs folded underneath him where he hovered and fingers pressed to his temples.

After four rings there was finally an answer. Spencer’s voice came over the speaker, and the background was loud. “What?”

“Where are you?” Zack asked. He heard a sigh.

“I’m out,” Spencer responded. “What do you want?”

“Tell me where you are; I’m coming to get you,” he said. “There’s hunters in town and you need to get home.”

“I can get myself home,” Spencer snapped, and Zack ground his teeth. This damned kid.

“Spencer. Tell me where you are. Pete can come get you, even. It’s not safe out there.”

“Fuck you,” Spencer growled out, rumbling deep in his throat, and if he’d been in person and not on the phone, Zack wasn’t sure he would have been able to keep himself from strangling him. As it was, his phone was going to break if he squeezed it any harder. He made himself take a deep breath and count to ten in his head. Jon was watching him with giant eyes, so Zack frowned at him and waved him off. Jon just raised an eyebrow. Fucking disobedient puppies… Zack was going to kill all of them.

“Are you in town?” Zack asked.

“No.”

Somewhere in the background, Zack heard a voice yelling ‘That vamp is so wasted!’ followed by loud cheering. Well, that cleared up a thing or two. Leave it to vampires to take advantage of the cloudy day just to get drunk at 2 p.m.

“You’re at Alex’s,” Zack accused, and he was seriously going to kill Spencer as soon as he got his hands on him. Not only was Spencer out when hunters were stalking around, but he was out and refusing to cooperate and in a place filled with supernatural activity. A hot spot. Alex had better shut down for the night before he had every hunter in town pounding on his door.

It took Spencer a second too long to respond, “No,” and it entirely gave him away.

“Stay where you are.” Zack hung up and shoved his phone into his pocket, grabbed his coat at the door, shoved his feet into shoes. He had to go get Spencer, and he was safe to drive. He’d had two sips of rum and coke, but he was a big guy. It would take a hell of a lot more to intoxicate him. “Don’t let anyone in, you got me?” he said to Jon, who nodded silently, and then he was out the door. In the car. Driving down the road. It was going by in a rush, eyes scanning and adrenalin making his blood pound in his ears, because as much as Spencer was an annoying little shit, he was only annoying because Zack cared about him. If he got taken…

That wasn’t going to happen. Zack swerved into the parking lot behind Alex’s place and slammed the car into park. He barely noticed the freezing wind as he marched to the front door. No one suspicious was in sight, and he didn’t smell any garlic, but Pete had said they were in town, and the town wasn’t very large. It wouldn’t take them long.  He went inside, pushing past a spirit who was leering at him. He made a beeline to the bar where Alex was standing there, hip cocked, towel swirling inside a glass that he was cleaning. He didn’t waste any time with formalities.

“Hunters are in town,” Zack said, causing Alex’s eyes to widen. He set the glass down with shaking hands. “You’ll want to close up. Have you seen Spencer?”

Alex nodded and pointed with his towel. “In that corner. Before you get pissed, I didn’t give him that beer, the girl he’s talking with did, and she’s legal. I don’t have any authority if he doesn’t buy it himself.  I don't mess with wolves, man.”

Right. “Thanks,” Zack snapped and then headed over. Spencer was sitting at a table in the corner, and there was a girl leaning in close to him, hand on the back of his chair. She was obviously older than him, twenty-five at least, if Zack had to guess, with a tank top hanging too low for decency. She must have been freezing.

Spencer had a beer bottle to his lips, but Zack knew the exact moment Spencer saw him because the kid’s eyes grew wide as saucers and he sputtered, spitting beer back into the bottle and almost dropping it, as if he couldn’t believe Zack was there, as if Zack hadn’t just talked on the phone with him.

“Beer, huh?” Zack said, frowning at him. “Say goodbye to your friend, we’re leaving.”

Spencer went from shocked to blushing to pissed off in three seconds flat, glaring at Zack hard and crossing his arms. His body language screamed ‘I’m not listening to you.’

“No,” Spencer said. “I’m staying here.”

“I didn’t realize I gave you an option,” Zack said, whatever reserve of patience he had quickly dwindling away. “There are hunters outside, Brendon and Jon are back at the apartment, and Alex is about to close this place down. We’re leaving.”

“You’re leaving,” Spencer growled back. “I’ll go home when I’m ready. Fuck off.”

“That had better be the beer talking.” Zack felt his teeth shifting and tried to repress it, which got increasingly harder when Spencer scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“That is it.” He reached around the young lady and pulled Spencer’s chair back himself, jerking the kid a bit as he tried to keep his balance. “Last chance.”

“That won’t fucking work on me,” Spencer said, crossing his arms tight over his chest and glaring. “You can’t boss me around. I’m an adult!”

“I don’t care if you’re eighteen years old or eighty years old.”

Next to him, the girl bristled, mouth falling open. “You’re only eighteen!?” she demanded. “You told me you lost your wallet! Oh my God!” She turned and stomped away, taking the beer bottle with her. How could she have even thought Spencer was twenty-one, with a face like that? No sort of fake ID would fool anyone.

“Thanks a fucking lot,” Spencer growled. “I’m not leaving, and you can’t make me.” Maybe it was his tone of voice, maybe it was the cocky little smirk on his face, or maybe Zack had just run out of patience, but Zack found his hand fisted in the front of Spencer’s jacket and yanking him out of his chair.

“You aren’t even old enough to be in here, let alone to be drinking. Your parents left you in my care, and I am your alpha, so you will fucking listen when I tell you to fucking do something. Do you understand me?”

It was only the tense silence afterwards that made Zack realize he’d been yelling. The entire bar was holding their breath, eyes on him and Spencer. Spencer was holding his breath too, heart pounding out of his chest, frozen. They stayed like that for a tense second until Spencer started squirming, and that’s when Zack realized he’d lifted the kid off the ground slightly, had him up on his tip toes. He let him back down gently so that he wouldn’t fall over, and Spencer smoothed down his clothes as soon as he was free and went back to looking pissed off. Still, Zack could smell a pulse of panic alongside the anger. For a second he wondered if Spencer was going to take a swing at him but nothing happened. Finally, after a breath and a moment to calm himself down, he said, “We’re leaving.”

This time Spencer nodded. He shoved his hands in his pockets and scowled at the floor as he headed for the front door. Zack followed him, ignoring all the eyes boring into the back of his neck. He tried not to feel guilty, telling himself that yelling at the kid wasn’t going to kill him and Spencer deserved it. After a few moments of tense silence on the car ride home, Zack’s attention still darting around while he looked for hunters, Spencer spoke.

“Sorry,” he said, mumbling.

Zack glanced over at him before refocusing on the road. “It’s my job to keep you safe.”

“I know.”

“So when I say you need to come home, you need to come the fuck home. I’m not going to order you around for no reason.”

“I know.”

“Your parents never would have let you speak to them that way-”

“Jesus! I know, okay? Just stop!” Spencer snapped, crossing his arms hard and kicking at the floor of the car. Zack pulled into a parking space and eyed Spencer for a moment.

“Give me your phone,” he said.

“What?” Spencer’s head snapped up. “Why?”

“You’re grounded.”  He was taking a page out of Maggie Walker’s book. “You want to go somewhere? You come and ask me first, because you know you’re not allowed to leave the house without your phone. For the next two weeks you’re going to class and that’s it, you understand me? Now give me your phone.”

Spencer stared at him, mouth hanging open in disbelief before he clenched his jaw and snarled, “Fine.” He wrestled his phone out of his pocket and smacked it down into Zack’s hand, then got out of the car, slammed the door behind him, and stormed into the apartment building. Zack watched him go and gave himself a minute to calm down before going inside. Fucking teenagers. Fucking puppies. He had no idea what he was doing.

Zack remembered the hunters and got out of the car, going upstairs to make sure everyone was accounted for. God forbid he was leaving them alone when there were hunters prowling around, because as much as they pissed him off, he was going to do everything in his power to keep them safe.

Chapter 3

If you've seen one truck stop, you've seen them all. Ryan had seen every truck stop in America practically. Enough that he could really be considered a master on the subject. The Midwest for the most part was all about big and shiny. Illinois, Indiana, Ohio: they all had these stops that stretched over the interstate, filled with a McDonald's, a Starbucks, a Walgreens, and hundreds of irritable families on vacations. Go some place like northern Wisconsin or the Dakotas and truck stops are reduced to three room shacks on the side of some small highway that shows up only when the interstates are too far to reach. He never really liked those much. They creeped him out, and once in South Dakota an aging biker lady in all skin tight leather had grabbed his ass.

He was partial to the south, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, where the showers could almost be considered clean and every truck stop came with a diner and a sweet mom-like lady calling him sweetheart or honey, and telling him he needed to eat more. My heavens child! Those ladies.

Montana might have two dollar grease feasts, but Mississippi had a temporary cure for the homesickness.

Ryan was only okay with being patronized if it was in a southern accent.

It was smart, really, what he was doing. Everyone back home was looking for William, but William didn't exist anymore. His birth certificate read William Ryan Key Jr., but that was at home in his mother's safe under the stairs. The fake I.D. in his pocket, however, said Ryan Key the third. He wasn't himself, and he wasn't his father. He was new, reborn. His mother had believed in rebirth through baptism, but Ryan's had happened when he'd been covered in blood.

Long story.

His mother probably thought he was dead. It was for the best. She didn't need another man failing her. So long as she stayed home and safe, she could keep her normal life and her church groups and Jesus. She had always told him that Jesus would never fail him.

Ryan really loved his mother's obsession with her everlasting soul. In his humble opinion, the people who fraternized in truck stops should really look into adopting a religion. Ryan didn't care how many days they let him hitch a ride in their cab, he wasn't sticking any god damned crusty old cocks in his mouth. He may have been a homo, but he had standards despite what his mother thought about the matter. He hoped that man whose balls he bit turned into a werewolf. He was ready a disgusting monster. He deserved it.

Ryan was the mind of person who prayed when no one was paying attention. He wasn't into the bravado and the traditions and the early Sunday mornings, not the way his mother was. He still kind of missed it though.

He got like this when he got tired. He'd get all family and just say anything. In the homeless camp he'd been a part of for two weeks in New Orleans (just mortals, no wolves. He may have been one but he didn't want to associate with people who actually accepted the sick condition) there was a tranny named Jared. Jared always got kind of pissed off when Ryan stayed up too late talking to the stars.

The place he found to squat at in Colorado was a lot like the camp in Louisiana, just colder and lonelier. He'd stolen a quilt from someone's clothes line in their back hard and set it down on the floor of someone's abandoned hunting shack. He had his own personal nest, close enough to a small town that he could sneak in and steal/buy (it depended, really) food when he needed to. A case of canned soup from the back of a delivery truck could last him a week.

The thing was, Ryan didn't even know why he was still hanging out in the fucking mountains. He'd ended up there on accident. He'd been in a truck with a man named Ted and his cat, hoping to hitch a ride all the way to Vegas. Why Vegas? Why the hell not? He'd never been there before.

He probably would have made it to Vegas too (Ted was a really good guy, no sick tricks or anything, and he bought Ryan food two days in a row); however, the calendar was not his friend.

He'd been itchy all day long, and when the sun had started to set, his insides has started to burn. He'd been through it enough to recognize what was happening.

"Stop the truck!" He'd practically screamed, causing Johnny B (the cat) to screech and throw herself off Ryan's lap, where she'd been sleeping. She scattered to the back of the cab to hide.

Ted quickly stopped, and Ryan threw himself out of the cab, sneaker slipping on the metal steps and making him hit the asphalt hard. He banged himself up pretty bad, especially since he was already sore from the ass kicking he'd taken in Nebraska. That's where Ted had found him, blood seeping into the dirt parking lot at a Nebraska truck stop. He really owed Ted a better good bye..

Oh well. It's not like he'd had time. He'd had just enough time to peel himself up off the ground and scramble into the nearby woods. He'd barely had the time to drop his backpack and get his pants to his knees when he switched over, inevitably turning into a monster. A werewolf. Same thing.

Either way, taking your clothes off is a whole lot harder when you don't have thumbs, and he'd spent a good ten minutes wiggling and thrashing in the dirt until finally slithering out of his clothes.

That was the night he'd met those freaks. It wasn't like he couldn't sense them wen he came into town. He always could. It usually didn't catch him off guard any more, and he hardly payed any attention to it most of the time. This time he's been surprised from how strong it had been in a town that looked so small as they viewed it from the top of the mountain. He should have known better than to change over with the moon in a place crawling with other wolves. He should have known that while wolves in the cities couldn't afford to be picky about who claimed what, the ones in secluded towns surrounded by woods probably could. But it's not like he could have held it in the way you hold back a piss while waiting for a New Mexico rest stop.

Something about them (the pack, that is) rubbed him the wrong way. They were too nice to him, and it threw him off guard, because when you're a homeless seventeen year hitchhiker there aren't so many people willing to be nice to you.

Except the friendly southern diner ladies.

Except the old truckers willing to pick him up off the parking lot and clean him up.

Except for, apparently, werewolves who found him naked in the woods and decided he needed rescuing.

But Ryan didn't need anyone to take care of him. If he had, he wouldn't have ever run off. He wouldn't have lasted the four months he already had.

Four months.

Damn.

He wondered if his mother missed him.

She probably did, and Ryan felt really bad about that, but there were some decisions you couldn't go back on.

There were some decisions you just couldn't go back on. That's why when Ryan found himself sitting at their kitchen table eating a home cooked meal... He hadn't been in anyone's house since he left home.

He knew himself, and he knew as soon as he accepted the shower and stolen the hoodie before running away that he was going to go back there. Even though they were monsters; evil; the scum of the earth. There was something human about them that he'd never expected to see in these creatures.

That was why he ended up back at that stupid apartment when some pretentious asshole wolf caught him in the wrong place at the wrong time and snapped his arm like a twig. That was why, once the store owners has gotten too close to catching him one too many times and he was starving, he ended up there again begging for a meal.

He really needed to skip town, move someplace else, because apparently Colorado started fucking snowing in fucking November. He needed to go someplace warm like California. Fuck, he at least needed to make it to Las Vegas the way he'd been meaning to in the first place. He needed to get out of there before he got attached. Twenty days was way too long.

It had been almost five months since he left home.

Five months.

Damn.

But Ryan knew himself. He knew there was still some stupidly childish piece of himself that was dreaming of a place to settle down, consistent meals, a bed, maybe someone to help keep him safe.

That was stupid. He didn't need someone to keep him safe. He was fine all on his own.

If he really wanted that then he could go back to his mother's house, his friends, his school, his life. Except that he couldn't. He was dangerous. His mother had told him all about werewolves and the things they did to people. He couldn't let his selfishness get in the way of her safety.

If he'd had the kind of father who warned his family before disappearing, Ryan probably would have heard the 'you're the man of the house now' speech. Even though Ryan had never heard it he intended to live by it. He'd be damned if he let anything hurt his mother, especially himself.

He was protecting her, and if he was mature enough to do that, then he was mature enough to protect himself too.

So while he lay in his nest, shivering while wrapped in two hoodies, a stolen quilt, and an impossible dream that maybe he could have a family again, he also knew that it was a bad idea. Just a stupid thing to think about while he tried to fall asleep at night. Just a stupid childish part of his psyche that he humored when it didn't matter, like telling kids about the Easter bunny.

If the wolf pack he'd found asked him to stay, he'd say yes.

They weren't going to ask him, and that was perfectly okay. He wasn't dumb enough to be upset over something like that.

He hoped they would ask.

He needed to get out of this damn state. It was making him delirious.

"Vegas," he told himself out loud, alone in the woods. He grinned at the situation like a mad man, obviously losing his sense. "Tomorrow we leave for Vegas,"

But he knew himself just as well as he knew truck stops across America, and he knew that he would probably stick around for a while. He tried to dream of neon lights while he fell asleep that night, but his head ended up filled with thoughts of a hot meal, a hotter shower, and the temptation to go knocking on the apartment door as soon as the sun broke over the mountains in the morning.

Chapter 4

The club was nearly empty, and Zack hated nights like that, when there weren’t enough people in the club to make the constant ‘thud thud thud’ of the bass over the speakers feel worth it. Without the people packing themselves onto the dance floor like sardines, swarming around the bar, trying to get at the center like suckling piglets, leaning against walls by the bathroom and eying each other across the the low lit room… It was just weird when empty. It felt like a ghost town.

There was a group of five girls sitting at the table nearest the dancefloor, sipping at incredibly fruity drinks and looking a bit dismayed that there weren’t more guys there to look at. A lone man was sitting at the corner of the bar nursing a beer and glancing at the club’s door every thirty seconds or so. He’d been doing that for an hour, and Zack was starting to feel bad for the guy.

Three boys who couldn’t have been older than Spencer (that is to say, eighteen at most) had gathered near the hall to the bathroom. They were glancing around nervously, obviously waiting to be kicked out or carded. Zack and Trevor had decided they’d let the teenagers hang out a while and would only kick them out when they tried to get their hands on booze, which they were going to. Kids always did.

They’d only gotten in because it was Tuesday, and Tuesday was always slow. Zack didn’t even know why the club stayed open in the middle of the week. They made enough from the weekends to shut down for the rest, but he wasn’t going to complain about the extra money tacked onto his paycheck at the end of the week.

Even so, Tuesdays left the club like a graveyard to the point that they didn't bother scheduling Ted (the bouncer who watched the door, a little guy who's biggest tool for the security business was a loud voice and a take-no-shit attitude), which is why Tuesday was their unofficial underage day. Fucking teenagers.

Around ten p.m. enough people had come in that it wasn't eerie. The teenagers had inched closer to the bar and were staring with wide eyes whenever they thought Zack wasn't looking.  There was a small group on the dance floor. Zack, who was still on edge from the hunters even though Pete had assured him they were out of town, was watching the room with a hawk's gaze. He was pretty sure he smelled a werewolf somewhere in the building, but in the mix of alcohol, sweat, and day old disinfectant, it was too subtle to make out.

"So hey-" A young man who was sporting slicked back hair, a crooked baseball hat, and a tank top leaned on the bar in front of Zack. Defined shoulders and arms, tan skin, and hickey the size of an apple on his neck all screamed 'frat boy.' "So hey, dude, uh. My friend got sick. Kinda like everywhere? In the back, dude. It's fucking sick."

Zack held back a sigh and spoke loudly over the noise of the club. "Does he need an ambulance?"

"Nah man, just like, a mop or something? Puke everywhere."

"Right." College kids were the worst, really. How could someone be this irresponsible and still be considered an adult? Shouldn't they have someone telling them not to do stupid shit, such as get drunk on a Tuesday night and paint the back room in vomit? Where the hell were their brains, or their parents to make up for the lack of sense at least?

"Puke everywhere," the kid repeated.

 "Policy says that you have to leave if someone becomes ill," Zack said, even though that policy didn't exist. This kid wasn't the type to look into it, let alone call the owner to complain or file some kind of lawsuit.

"Bummer, bruh.  Okay." 

Zack took in how the young man was swaying a bit, sweaty and reeking of vodka and redbull.  "Did you drive here?"

"Yeah man."

"Take the bus. Don't drive home like this," Zack told him, and the boy just nodded, nodded, nodded, eyes a bit blank and absent. Tipsy kids were easier to deal with than smashed ones, and most kids were easier to deal with than the adults. This one seemed super cooperative. "Go get your friend. I'll call you a cab. You have twenty dollars?"

"Yeah man."

 "Go get your friend."

The cab was there fifteen minutes later, and Zack watched for a moment out the door while two dizzy young men wrestled a drunk-to-the-point-of-crying friend into the back of a cab. After seeing them go off safely, he went into the back to mop up the mess. Gross.

If there was one smell that Zack hated above all else, it was the smell of vomit. The way it hung heavy and sour in the air and seemed to overwhelm everything. Well, perhaps not everything. Zack still caught the scent when someone came wandering into the back. He'd found the werewolf at least.
"Sorry ma'am, the bathroom is out of order for a few moments," he said, not looking up from the mop and the mess.

"Good thing I'm not here for the bathroom, then," a female voice replied. Zack frowned and looked up at her.

"Excuse me?" It was a woman, tall standing at 5'9" at least. She had light hair hanging just past her shoulders, loose, and tucked behind one ear to reveal four earrings on the shell of her ear. She was wearing light blue jean overalls over a striped t-shirt, as if she'd been out in the garden and just happened to stumble into a nightclub. Her heavy eye makeup gave her away, though. She was beautiful.

"I've come to find that knights in shining armor hide in the strangest places," she said casually, leaning against the wall.

That was flirting for sure, and Zack wasn't steady on his feet when he came to these kinds of things. The last woman he'd loved had married his best friend. Those things tend to sit with a guy.  "Uhm."

"Thirty-nine year old male werewolf," she said, stepping towards him. It was obviously his turn to be evaluated. "Alpha, obviously. You radiate it. You live in a pack... A young pack? Interesting. You had a few hamburgers for dinner, and you're currently in the back room of a tiny Colorado nightclub mopping up puke." She had stepped closer to him with each word, carefully stepping over the puddle on the floor, and ended up right in his personal space, the only thing keeping her at bay being the mop he held in front of him.

"Nice to meet you too," he said. She grinned. If he hadn't been able to smell the same details on her, he would have been creeped the fuck out. But since he knew she was a wolf he doubted she was a stalker or a hunter.

"How do you feel about coffee?" She asked.

"How do you feel about Friday?" He returned.

She shrugged and stepped out of his space. "I'm busy until next," she said. "But I have the club's number. I'll call you." She smiled at him and then left the back room. Zack stood there for a moment, grinning slightly, before getting back to work. Vomit didn't clean itself.

...
Hands trailed his sides, fingers digging into his hips when they settled there. A mouth on his kissed and licked and bit. Someone's soft hair brushed his cheeks and he put his hands on the small of their back, slipping under their shirt to touch the warm skin of their lower back.

They were just kissing, but then Spencer's brain thought 'more more more,' and there was more. He felt someone pushing down against him, himself thrusting up desperately, writhing, kissing, a hand coming down and cupping him between the legs.

The girl's other hand left his hip and was now pinning both of his wrists above his head and to the bed. He'd never had that happen during sex before (granted, he'd only had sex three times and all with the same person), but it was having an amazing effect on the heat pooling in his lower belly.

When he was close to coming, sososo close to coming, the person kissing him pulled back. Spencer wanted to protest, say no stop please I need this, but then... It wasn't a girl who was smiling down at him. It was Jon, and Spencer was so startled that he woke himself up.  Spencer didn't mean to gasp, but he did, loud. He sat there straight as a rod in bed and tried to blink the dream out of his eyes. He'd woken Jon up with the noise, and Jon was laying in his own bed, looking half asleep but still raising an eyebrow at spencer.

"Y'kay?" Jon mumbled, and Spencer nodded. Fine fine he was totally fine. Just a dream. Nightmare. Something.

Jon squinted at him and propped himself up on one elbow. He sniffed, leaning forward.

"You smell funny," Jon said.

Spencer blushed. Oh God. "Shut up, dick head."

Jon sniffed at him again, and Spencer balled the blanket up on his lap to hide. It didn't work well enough. Jon's face broke into a shit eating grin.

"Dude, you're hard!" Jon said. "Dirty dreams?" He winked.

 Spencer was kind of on the forefront of a nervous breakdown. "I am not."

"You totally are!" Jon laughed. "Who you dreaming about?"

"Nobody," he growled. "Shut up, seriously."

"Do I know her?" Jon teased. Spencer was going to literally die. He got up and stormed off to the bathroom, lobbing his lumpy pillow at Jon's face in the process, and then locked the door behind him.

"Fuck," he said, leaning back heavily against the bathroom door and looking up at the ceiling. The bright light burned his eyes. "Fuck fuck fuck."

After expressing that sentiment a dozen times more, Spencer ran his fingers through his hair and made himself breathe. Okay, so he'd had a wet dream about Jon. That shit happens. Spencer was just sexually frustrated, that was it. He hadn't gotten any since Haley and he had broken up, and while they hadn't exactly been busy, he still missed the sex. He was a guy. A guy with needs.

Okay. So that was fine. You can't control your dreams unless you use intense amounts of focus or whatever. Having a sex dream about Jon didn't mean anything. He was just as straight as he'd always been. He was fine.

Not that there was a problem with being gay. No, no of course not. Jon was gay, Brendon was gay, lots of awesome people were gay. It was fine to be gay, it just... It wasn't fine for Spencer to be gay. But he was fine. He wasn't gay. Oh my god.

Spencer looked in the mirror for a moment and examined himself. In pajama pants and a tshirt he looked fine, just as straight as he'd always looked. He should get a new haircut though. It was growing to long and curling to the side on his forehead. It looked like a girl's, peeking out from around his neck and under his jaw. Maybe if he got it short... That would be cool. Spencer stared at himself until his heartbeat had calmed down and he felt reassured. He had been overreacting.

Even so, he still had a throbbing problem in his pants that he didn't know how to deal with, because each time he considered jerking off in the shower, his brain flashed him back to the dream, but it wasn't as good as he remembered. Jon's hands on his hips. Jon's mouth. Jon laying on top of him. Jon pinning him to the bed. Jon Jon Jon and he could not jerk off to that. No. No way. Not even when his stomach flipped every time he thought about it. Him. Fuck.

No. Just... No.

He opted for a cold shower, spending a lot of time standing there and shivering and not actually showering, but at least his erection weaned and faded. On the verge of hypothermia, he turned the water as hot as he could stand it. The drastic change between cold and hot water made it sting like a mother fucker, but he gritted his teeth and washed his hair until the water felt comfortable again.

"Spencer!!!" Brendon's voice jerked Spencer out of a half asleep state. Brendon was pounding heavily on the door, making far too much noise for however early in the morning was. "I'm going to be late for school if you don't hurry up! Come on! I have to pee!"

"Gimme a minute!" Spencer yelled back, switching off the water and wrapping a towel around his waist. He shook his hair out like a dog and ruffled it until it was just a little drippy.  Spencer spread toothpaste on his toothbrush and stuck that in his mouth while unlocking the bathroom door. As soon as he did, Brendon bolted inside and immediately unzipped his pants.

"Ew, Brendon, what the fuck?" Spencer protested around teeth brushing, so it came out like 'eh bennen ah eh fuh?' but Brendon knew what he was trying to say. 

"I have to pee, Spencer! This is an emergency!" Brendon insisted, doing just that. Spencer rolled his eyes and faced the opposite wall while brushing his teeth.

"Ya tho fuhhen weh," Spencer told him, expressing how fucking weird Brendon was with a mouthful of toothpaste.

 "You love it," Brendon chirped over a toilet flush. He went to the sink to wash his hands.  Spencer pushed Brendon out of the way so he could spit out the toothpaste and rinse out his mouth. Brendon flicked water at him in protest, but he'd just showered, so it wasn't like that was effective.

"Yeah, no."

Brendon pouted at him, giant eyes and pushed out bottom lip. Spencer didn't want there to be any genuine sadness behind that pout, and he feared that there might be, the way Brendon had been acting lately. Just another thing to worry about. Spencer sighed, "yeah, love you, b," and tugged on the kid's ear until his face broke out in a smile. He grinned back and went to go get dressed, dream half forgotten until Jon smirked at him again in their bedroom.

"Go away," Spencer snapped, glaring at him while he crossed to the dresser. Jon's smirk faltered and fell away completely.

"You're still upset that I teased you? Dude, don't be so sensitive," Jon said, frowning at him with that wounded expression that Spencer really couldn't stand. Not from Brendon, but especially not from Jon. He'd have to work on developing thicker skin.

"I'm not," Spencer said curtly. "I have to get ready for class."

"You don't have class on Thursdays," Jon pointed out, crossing his arms. He was right.  Damn. 

"Well, I'm going out anyways then," he decided, pulling on boxers and then dropping his towel. 

"Uh huh, except that you're grounded," Jon said, leaning against the door jam. Of course he was right about that too. Spencer really just wanted to hit something.

"Don't you have to get ready for work?" He asked, getting desperate.

"I don't go in until four," he said, then in a softer tone, looking at Spencer with those stupid eyes again, "Did I do something wrong?"

Spencer balled his fists. "No."

"Well, I'm sorry anyways?" Jon asked, staring at Spencer earnestly. Spencer didn't feel like being earnest right then. "Look, I've had a really awful week, and I'm sorry if I've been taking it out on you, if that's what I've been doing or what you're upset about. I really am sorry, just... Tell me why you're treating me like shit."

Well, now Spencer felt like a major jerk. He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair again. It was slightly tangled from the shower and hurt when he jerked his hand through.

"It’s nothing, Jon, really. I'm... I woke up on the wrong side of the bed or something, okay? I'm just in a bad mood," he explained, riddled half truths but that's all he could give.

Jon gave Spencer a small smile and walked over to him. Spencer would really rather not be touched, not then, but he wasn't going to shove Jon off when he hugged him. He made himself hug Jon back and breathed a bit easier. This was his and Jon's relationship- hugs and stupid hassling and making faces at each other over coffee in the morning. Dream Jon wasn't even the real Jon, and it might not have even been Jon. But it didn't matter. It was just a dream, even if spencer still felt sick in the pit of his stomach. The dream was just a dream; he and Jon would never be like that. Spencer needed to try dating again maybe. Get a girlfriend. Get his head back on straight. Correctly. Whatever.

...
It was a slight bummer that no one stared at them when they held hands in the hallways. Not that Brendon necessarily wanted people staring at him, but he wouldn't mind it either. Not if they were staring at him and seeing that he had a girlfriend. He kind of wanted that jerk who'd called him a faggot to see just so Brendon could say 'ha!' really loud at him. Even though he still was a faggot... but... he had a girlfriend, and she didn't need to know about him and his deficiencies..

"I bought you a cookie," Sarah said, coming and sitting next to him at the lunch table instead of across from him as usual. Shane didn't seem to mind.

"Thanks!" Brendon said. He kissed her on the cheek because it seemed like something a boyfriend would do for a girlfriend if she bought him a cookie. He should have thought to buy her a cookie first, though. He had to focus on this more. 

"So, you crazy kids have sex yet?" Shane asked. Sarah kicked him under the table, judging by the shift, the thump, and the surprised yelp. Brendon totally wasn't blushing.

"Buzz off, Valdez." Sarah was smiling. Sarah was always smiling. It was nice because it looked real.

"I need to keep your daddy informed, little lady," he said. "This one looks like trouble."

Sarah smirked at him.  "We're keeping our parents in the loop now, are we? Oh won't yours be excited to hear what you've been up to."

"Nuh uh, hold up. I, in my infinite wisdom as an adult-"

"You're a senior, not a senior citizen!"

"-have the maturity to handle myself. You, on the other hand, are a delicate little flower."

"I'm going to seriously hurt you," she said, and then stole his coke off his tray to make some kind of point. She chugged half of it before Shane was able to snag it out of her hands.

"Ha!" 

"Shit head!"

Sarah belched, and Brendon went into a laughing fit. If he had to have a girlfriend, he was pretty happy that he had this one.

Lunch was over too quickly, and it left Brendon feeling spacey and twitchy. Sitting still for two and half more hours was going to be really hard.  Sarah took his hand and held it while they followed Shane and a crowd of other teenagers out of the cafeteria. Brendon couldn't exactly help looking, since it was right there in front of him, and Shane had a really nice ass. He didn't wear skinny jeans the way a few boys in school did and Brendon wished he could, but his normal Levi's were form fitting in just the right places and just-

"That's a nice ass," Sarah commented, and Brendon felt himself flush bright red. She'd totally just caught him, and Brendon tried to think of a way to explain himself when Sarah reached forward and smacked it.

Shane jumped, then turned and glared at them with a smile playing on his lips. He reached forward and flicked her in the forehead, and he sent Brendon a wink when Sarah started talking about how all humans were beautiful and it was important to admire the human form. Brendon's palms had started sweating.  Shane dropped back in the crowd to walk next to them. He ducked down close to Brendon's ear and whispered, "Carry her books, dumb ass," and then he was gone, bobbing through the mass towards the senior hallway.

Books, right, that's a boyfriend thing.

"Can I-" he asked, accidentally interrupting her. She gave him her attention patiently. "Books? Carry yours? Can I carry your books?"

Shoot him dead right there.

Her lips, which were pink today, unnaturally with lipstick but absolutely gorgeous, curled into a tiny smile. She nodded and handed the books over to him. It took him a moment to figure out how to balance her books in her arms without dropping his backpack, which was sliding down his shoulder, but he smiled wide when he got it. Sarah just gave him a curious look and pecked him on the lips, then headed off for class. He followed her. 

On the way there he saw the bathroom sink boy hanging out by the drinking fountain. He didn't have a hand free to wave, so he decided to try and look cool like Shane. He caught the boy's gaze and winked. The boy just made a face at him. Oh well. Brendon was going to practice winking in the mirror.

"Did you just wink at that kid?" Sarah asked him, and Brendon blushed again. He wasn't getting away with anything today.

"Uhm... We're friends?"

Sarah laughed and kissed his cheek. "Awesome, babe."  'Babe.' Huh. He'd have to write that down so he'd remember he was allowed to use it.

He did write it down, in his notebook during his next class. When the girl next to him leaned over and asked why he was writing 'babe' in his notebook repeatedly, Brendon just swallowed hard and said he was really passionate about the pig movie. She nodded like that made sense, but Brendon was pretty sure it just sounded stupid.

...
"You haven't gone out with James recently," Zack pointed out over dinner. Jon glanced up, gaze skittering over everyone at the table, and then shrugged. 

"I think we're broken up," Jon said. Brendon's fork fell onto his plate with a clatter and he stared at Jon with his mouth gaping. Jon appreciated his enthusiasm, especially when Spencer just rolled his eyes. 

"What!?" Brendon burst out. "What happened?"

Even Zack looked curious, but Jon didn't really have anything to say about it. "Uhm, we just weren't connecting that well, I guess."

"You were connecting pretty well in his car the other day," Spencer muttered bitterly. Brendon frowned and elbowed Spencer in the ribs. That was sweet of him.

"It wasn't a long term thing," Jon explained. "And we, uhm.. We had an argument, and we haven't talked since. I think it's over."

Zack was frowning at him when he said, "It would he mature of you to talk to him, whether you're breaking up or not."

 Jon shrugged. "I'll talk when he contacts me."

"Jon." 

Jon rolled his eyes, not in the mood to be bossed around.  Especially about this.  He was an adult, damn it.  He didn't need relationship advice.  This wasn't senior prom.  "It'll be fine. I can take care of myself, okay?"

Zack nodded and went back to his dinner, but he didn’t look entirely satisfied. Spencer was chewing on his grilled cheese with an amount of vehemence that Jon wasn't sure a sandwich deserved. Brendon was still frowning at him with that face, the face with the giant eyes that broke Jon's heart. Jon reached his ankle under the table and crossed it with Brendon's.

"It happens, B. Not everything is forever," he tried to explain. Brendon nodded and gave him a grin. Jon wasn't sure if it was real or not.

"Kay," Brendon said. Jon just sighed.

It wasn't until three days later that Jon's phone started ringing, showing the name James:). He hesitated for just a moment before clicking the green button and holding it up to his ear.

"Jwalk," he said, cause that's what he always said, caller id's be damned. It was a habit.

"Hey, it's James."

Jon bit his lip. "I know."

There was a long pause. Jon left Brendon to his Halo game and went to his room. He laid down on his bed and reached towards the ceiling, just because. Spencer was shooting him curious looks. He'd been hanging out in his room a whole lot more since Zack had yelled at him. He was starting to look extremely bored.

Eventually James sighed on the other end.

"We broke up, right?" James asked, and Jon felt both a gushing relief and a twinge of sadness. He wasn't sure where the second one had come from.

"Yeah," he breathed out. "Yeah, I think so... Did we?" 

There was another sigh. "Yeah,"

"It was good while it lasted?" Jon asked.

"But I don't think either of us were really serious about it."

Jon frowned for a moment, slightly hurt, before making himself think about it. He'd already admitted it to himself, he'd never really considered him and James to be a long term thing. He'd admitted it at dinner, for God's sake. The only person he hadn't told yet was James. Well, shit.

"I'm going to be honest, okay?" Jon asked. He glanced over at Spencer on the other bed and got up. "Just hold on a second." He closed the door behind him and then went out into the hall, the one outside of their entire apartment and then down to the stairwell. He'd rather not have eavesdroppers.

"Okay," Jon said.

"Okay?"

"So, I like you, but there's someone else who's kind of stuck in my head," Jon admitted, plopping down to sit on the cold stairs. "And I had fun with you, but... I can't be as into this relationship as I need to be for it to work, I guess."

"I'm not good at being tied down," James responded. "I just... It won't work."

"Cool," Jon rubbed his hand over his face. "So... We weren't really friends before we started all of this, should we just...?"

"Skip the 'let's be friends' and just 'have a nice life'?" James offered.  Jon grinned despite himself. At least this breakup was going easily.

"I can do that," he said. 

"Okay," James said, and it sounded like he was smiling. "Let me be honest one more time. I called because there's a boy I want to take home tonight, and I really didn't want to cheat on you."

Well, Jon thought. At least he was being considerate.

"Have fun then," he said.

James laughed. "Yeah, see ya," and then he hung up. Jon stayed there in the stairwell for a while, staring at the wall. He tried to connect to wifi so he could bum around on the internet or something for a while before going back inside, but the service was awful. He found himself flipping through the contacts, and when he got to James' he hesitated before tapping 'delete.' With a dejected sigh, Jon heaved himself up onto his feet and went back to the apartment.

...
Brendon was in a bad mood, which was what got him into this mess. He knew better, that was the problem. He was stupid, so freaking stupid. He'd been at his locker after first hour Spanish, digging his math book out of the bottom. He’d had a metal shelf hanging in there, but it decided to collapse, leaving all of his books and papers and binders in an disorderly heap at the bottom of his locker.

It took a lot of tugging, but eventually he was able to rip his math binder free from the wreckage. Unfortunately, the force sent him staggering back a bit, and he knocked right into someone’s legs as he tumbled backwards.

“Dude, watch it,” the guy snapped. The toe of the boy’s cowboy boot (cowboy boots. how stupid was that?) hit Brendon hard in the ribs and he winced. That was fine though, or it would have been, if Brendon had kept his giant mouth shut and told himself that it was an accident. The boy would have rolled his eyes and gone off to whatever upper level senior class he had next, and Brendon would have frowned and rubbed his side and scrambled off to Geometry, and it would have been fine.

Unfortunately, Brendon was an idiot who decided to let his bad day run away with his mouth.

He jumped to his feet and shoved the guy’s shoulder as he was passing. “You watch it, asshole,” he spat. As the taller boy spun towards Brendon, the bell for second hour rang above their heads. Everyone else left in the hallway quickly scattered off to various classrooms. The teachers went off too, leaving the hallway empty in a matter of seconds. Well. Crap.

The guy turned on heel shoved Brendon back, hard, before walking away. 

Brendon was a generally dizzy person, and the shove sent him flying. He was a little guy. He tripped over his own feet and smacked his face on the nearby water fountain. There was once a time when he had thought having a water fountain near his locker was amazing, but as blood dripped out of his split lip and into his cupped hand, it didn’t seem as cool.

“Ow,” he said, because it wasn’t like there was anyone there to listen to him. He picked himself off the floor and shoved his books into his bag with one hand, trying to keep blood from getting all over his shirt and the hallway floor. When he glanced up, there was a kid standing down the hallway, hesitant look on his face and one of Brendon's notebooks, which must have gotten kicked down the hallway, in his hand.  Black skinny jeans, dark painted nails, eyeliner, cool hair.

“Oh,” Brendon said, looking at him. “Bathroom kid,” he grimaced, because he really shouldn’t have said that out loud. “Thank you.”

He said the words as best as he could with his lip swelling up, but they still sounded dumb. Stupid water fountain. Stupid cowboy boots. He threw his things in his locker and slammed it shut before going down the hall towards the kid, who faltered and stepped away, back hitting the wall of lockers behind him.

“Thanks,” he said again, trying to smile, but it made his face feel like it was going to rip in half. He went for a small grin.

The boy practically threw the notebook at Brendon before running down the hall in the other direction. Right, of course. Bathroom kid didn’t want to talk to a loser like Brendon. He probably had really cool friends to talk to. Friends who wore cool jeans and eyeliner and had good hair. Whatever.

Brendon let his bag drag on the floor while he hurried to the bathroom, where he balled up some paper towel and pressed it to his bleeding lip. Ow. That hurt like a bitch. He let himself whimper, because a quick listen told him that he was the only one in the bathroom. He waited a while for his lip to stop bleeding, checking it periodically and wincing every time the paper stuck to the cut. It eventually slowed down enough that he could wash the blood off his face and his hands and then frown at himself in the bathroom mirror.

He didn’t want to go back to class. He couldn’t, not with the way today was going. It would probably literally kill him. He just wanted to go home. It was cold outside though, had started raining right after he’d gotten to school, and he hadn’t brought anything heavier than a hoodie with him. The last thing he needed was to walk home in the freezing rain and catch bronchitis. He could always switch over and run home through the woods, but he couldn’t carry his backpack and clothes in wolf form. Would he still have a split lip as a wolf? He wasn’t sure how those things worked out.

After several moments of hesitation, Brendon pulled out his cellphone and called Jon. He couldn't call Spencer, who was in class, or Zack, who wouldn't approve of this, and there was no way he was going back to class. Jon was the best option. Jon was nice and wouldn't ask too many questions, and most importantly, he could drive.

"Hey B, how's the learning process?" Jon greeted Brendon after only two rings. Brendon chewed on the inside of his cheek, feeling guilty about this already. He was bothering Jon. He hadn't thought about that before.

"Earth to Brendon? Did you butt dial me?"

"N-no," Brendon stuttered out, cursing himself silently and slouching against the wall. "Jon? Uhm.... Could you come get me?"

"Is everything okay?" Brendon could pick out the slight tone of worry in Jon's voice even though it was tinny through the small cell phone speaker.  He was making Jon worry about him.  He shouldn't have done this.  He felt so guilty.

"Everything's fine. Kind of. I just... Please? I need to come home..."  Jon was quiet on the other end for a long moment, long enough for Brendon to repeat the words 'stupid' and 'I hate you' to himself a dozen times in his head, but then there was a sigh.  Before Jon could say no, Brendon spoke up, “Please?" He hated how desperate he sounded, but he felt like he was drowning. There was no way he could sit through the rest of the day like this.

"Alright kiddo," Jon said, voice slightly strained as if he were sitting up and stretching. "I'll be there in ten."

"I'll be waiting outside."

After ending the call and sliding his phone into his pocket, Brendon loitered around the bathroom for five more minutes. He then went to his locker, shoved everything he might need for homework into his backpack, and snuck off down the hallway. The main office had an all-glass wall looking out on the hallway, but Brendon was smart enough to wait for the secretary to turn her back before darting past the windows and out front door of the school. He loped down the stairs and sat on the curb at the edge of the road, poking his split lip with his pointer finger under Jon's slightly beat up car pulled into view.

"Dude," Jon said when Brendon slid in the passenger seat. "Bren. What happened?"

Brendon shrugged. "It'll be healed in two hours," he said. Split lips took longer to heal than other cuts, like on his arms or legs; he knew that from experience. The skin was fragile, and head injuries always bled more than other ones.

"How’d it happen?" Jon insisted.

Brendon drew in a shaky breath. "I tripped," technically not a lie. "Really, I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

Jon sighed and pulled the car away from the curb. "I worry about you anyways, kid."

That made Brendon feel like he was going to throw up. He was such a nuisance. If he were any good he wouldn't make other people worry about him.  He should have known how to take care of himself.  He shouldn't have asked Jon for help.  He didn't need help.  He was fine.

"I'm sorry," he choked out.

Jon reached over and patted his knee. "You wanna waste some time before going back? Avoid Zack's questions about the fat lip?"

Brendon really, really loved Jon. He nodded vigorously, and Jon just gave him one of those warm Jon smiles before pulling onto a road, headed in the opposite direction of the apartment.

...
"I promise I'll pay you back," Brendon said for probably the twelfth time, but he couldn't keep track or stop himself from saying it anyways. He felt guilty. He didn't want to be taking advantage of Jon being nice to him.

"Seriously, Bren, it's fine. A two dollar milkshake isn't anything to kill yourself over." Jon ruffled Brendon's hair before heading for the apartment door. Brendon couldn't help but make a whiny noise in his throat like a puppy because Jon just wasn't listening to him.

"Thank you," he said instead. "I really appreciate it."

"Mhm." Jon stuck his key in the lock and wrenched the door open. Brendon followed him inside, where they were greeted with a view of Zack standing in the living room, stormy expression on his face and cell phone pressed to his ear. He frowned at them when they came in.

"He just came in now, actually," Zack said into the phone. "Yeah, I found him."

Brendon wanted to chew on his lip but didn't. It was still a bit sore from earlier, even if the cut had closed up. He glanced at Zack and leaned back against the wall near the door.

"Yes, I know this is the second time this has happened..." Zack was still talking into the cell phone. If Brendon focused his senses he could hear his principal talking on the other end. He didn't want to focus on that. "Entirely unacceptable, I know.... Yes, I'll take care of it.... I understand.... Thank you."

He flipped his phone closed and turned to Brendon. "Any idea who I was just talking to?" He asked.

Brendon swallowed hard and ducked his head instead of answering.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" He was pissed. Brendon knew he deserved whatever was coming to him. He braced himself. "You’re supposed to be in class right now, but instead you’re running around playing hookie. You know that they can fail you, right? They can kick you out if you miss too much. Hell, the principal threatened to suspend you! Is that what you want?”

Brendon shook his head, eyes on the floor. “No.”

“Do you at least have an explanation this time? Because I would really appreciate it. Your principal thinks you’re some kind of problem child. He told me to get control of you before you end up dropping out. I know you aren’t a bad kid, but I would really appreciate knowing what’s going on here.”

“I’m sorry,” was all he could come up with to say. How was he supposed to tell Zack that his head was all fucked up and he couldn’t control being unbearably sad, and that there were assholes pushing him around at school that made it worse. He couldn’t tell him that. Not after Zack had taken him in and let him live there. He’d sound so ungrateful. And Zack was a big guy. He’d probably never had anyone push him around. He wouldn’t get it.

Zack rubbed his hand over his face and let out a long breath that sounded kind of like a growl. “Well since you’re already here, you might as well get a start on your homework. Go.”  He pointed at the kitchen table, and Brendon went, skirting around Zack just out of reach. He knew what Spencer had told him before, but it was just in case.

“Yes sir.”

“You scare the hell out of your school when you disappear like this. It’s their job to keep track of you, and it’ll look pretty damn bad if they lose a kid,” the older wolf continued.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“You do realize that they keep attendance, right? You can't just go running off whenever you feel like it. You're supposed to sign out before you leave. Do you think the rules don't apply to you or something?"

Brendon murmured a "no sir" and didn’t bother trying to explain that signing out wasn’t an option. They didn’t just let you leave. You had to go to the nurse and prove that you were physically unfit to stay. You had to produce a high fever or a bucket of vomit or a broken bone. If Brendon had gone in there, he’d have gotten an ice pack and too many questions he didn’t want to answer. A bunch of adults would have questioned him about if he was being bullied or something. They would have called Zack. Brendon didn’t want to cause that much of a ruckus over nothing. But he couldn’t explain all of that, so he kept his mouth shut. He kind of wished that the school would understand, sometimes it wasn’t your body that’s too messed up to stay at school. Sometimes it’s your head.

Jon chose that moment to speak up, voice calm as always. "He didn't just run off. I went and picked him up."

"Stay out of this, Jonathan," Zack said, prompting Jon to huff and flop onto the couch. "Aren't you supposed to be at work right now?"

"I called off," Jon said, then looked at Zack with a pointed expression on his face and said, "Sometimes you just need to call off."

The two stared each other down for a moment, having some kind of silent conversation before Zack let out a long, tired breath.  “You want to go out and get something to eat, B?” Zack asked, tone a lot softer than before. Brendon glanced at him hesitantly. “It’s about lunch time. You’re probably hungry.”

Brendon was pretty hungry. He’d forgotten to eat breakfast that morning, and a milkshake wasn’t nearly enough to fill him up anymore. But going out for food meant Zack would want to ‘talk about it.’ But food… Hmm.

“Yes please,” he said. Zack nodded.

“Alright then, go get your jacket. You coming Jon?”

Brendon got up from the table and hurried down the hall to his room, where he pulled on his new winter jacket. He felt guilty about that too. He’d have to find a way to pay Zack back for it. Maybe he should get a job. Then he wouldn’t be around the apartment enough to bother everyone.

“C’mon Bren!” Jon’s voice called out, and Brendon ran to join them.

…
Sarah and Shane were waiting for him as he sat down at the lunch table. “Well hey there, Houdini. Where the hell did you vanish to yesterday?” Sarah asked him, and the words could have been mean, but her tone was light and she was already throwing her arm around his shoulders, so he figured she wasn’t mad.

“I went home early,” he said simply. He was feeling good today, and Sarah didn’t need to know all about how stupid Brendon and his mood swings were.

“I texted you last night, but you never answered. I was kind of worried you were dead or something.”

“Yeah, sorry. Zack took my phone away last night cause I skipped school.” That was a lie. Brendon had seen every text message come in but chose to ignore them, eventually just turning off his cellphone and putting it in his backpack. He didn’t know why he had ignored Sarah all night. He just hadn’t had the energy to respond.

“Wait, you ditched?” Shane asked, smiling and then throwing his arm in the air. Brendon flinched without meaning to, but then Shane said, “Way to go, dude,” and Brendon realized he wanted a high five. He hesitated for just a moment before smacking Shane’s hand and grinning. Shane thought he was cool. Something happy fluttered around in Brendon’s chest.

“You should come hang out at my place after school,” Sarah said with a dazzling smile. Of course on a day that Brendon actually feels up for something, he can’t. He sighed heavily and dropped his elbows on the table on either side of his tray, which has far too few chicken nuggets and far too many green beans. The world was unfair.

“I can’t,” Brendon lamented, pouting a bit. “I’m grounded.”

Shane did something like snort, rolling his eyes along with it, and Brendon’s stomach sank. He wasn’t very hungry anymore. He felt his cheeks burn and looked at Sarah instead. She was squinting a bit, looking like she was up to something.

Eventually she said, “On what terms?”

“Excuse me?”

“Grounded how?” she elaborated, “What did he say?”

At least this part wasn’t a lie, so he didn’t have to make anything up. Still, it was humiliating to talk about this in front of Shane, who was almost eighteen and cool and didn’t ever get grounded or whatever probably. He probably thought Brendon was a stupid little kid.

“I have to go home straight after school for the rest of the week, and I’m not allowed to leave school early anymore unless I’m near death,” he sighed and poked lazily at his green beans.

Sarah nodded thoughtfully. “Did he say anything about anyone coming home with you?”

Brendon blinked and pursed his lips. “I don’t think so….”

“So you just have to be home right after school?”

Brendon nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Zack didn’t mention anything else really.” Just the expected ‘you should talk to me about this’ and ‘I’m worried about you’ and ‘are you sure there’s nothing going on?’ But no other rules that Brendon could recall.

“Then I’ll come to your place after school instead. Problem solved.” Sarah looked pretty proud of herself, and her scent was happy. Brendon didn’t have it in him to say no.

“Okay.”

“You kids have fun at your play date,” Shane said, lounging back in his chair with long, muscular arms folded behind his head, a smirk on his face along with impressive stubble that had been slowly growing over the last two days. “I have a date with a bottle of tequila.”

After Shane pushed himself up to go talk to his other friends across the cafeteria (Brendon hadn’t understood why he even hung out with them in the first place, until Sarah explained that they’d been family friends since their diaper days and were just accustomed to sticking together), Sarah grinned and rolled her eyes.

“He’s not nearly as cool as you think he is, sweet cheeks,” she told him, patting his cheek gently. He didn’t have cool stubble like Shane did. His face was unfortunately smooth as a baby’s butt. On the bright side, Spencer didn’t have to shave more than once a week, so he wasn’t entirely alone in his hairlessness.

Besides all of that, Brendon didn’t want Sarah to think that Brendon thought anything special about Shane. Not beyond ‘yeah he’s pretty chill he’s my buddy’ type thoughts. Certainly not crush-like thoughts. Nope, those needed to be quelled. Sadly, by the time Brendon thought of something to say to defend himself, Sarah was across the cafeteria dumping her tray. Brendon scarfed down his chicken nuggets and dry cafeteria brownie in the few minutes before the bell would ring, and spent the rest of his time staring forlornly at the offending green beans on his plate. Shane and Sarah were both elsewhere talking to their other friends, and Brendon tried not to be pouty or jealous. They were amazing. They deserved to have more than two friends. He glanced around the cafeteria, trying to find the cool kid with the hair and the makeup and the skinny jeans, but he couldn’t find him in the five hundred student population crowded into the cafeteria.

That’s okay. The kid wouldn’t want to talk to Brendon, even if Brendon could somehow find the guts to start an actual conversation with him.

…
Things were all kinds of weird when Zack returned from the grocery store. For one thing, Spencer was sulking around in the hallway growling quietly and muttering to himself under his breath. Zack didn’t ask, because with Spencer it was easier to just let him be grouchy on his own for a little while. When he made his way past the pouting werewolf and into the apartment, Jon was lounging on one couch accompanied by a pungent smell of marijuana. Zack was pretty sure he’d have been able to smell it even without his enhanced senses. At least the drug had been declared legal in Colorado, but he knew Maggie Walker wouldn’t be pleased if she found out.

Brendon and his friend, Sarah, were on the other couch playing an exciting game of Guitar Hero, with lots of jumping and elbowing each other, and lots of singing on Brendon’s part. The young werewolf, at least, had the sense to stop singing and look at Zack with a startled, slightly guilty expression when he came in. Zack considered that perhaps he should have been more clear with what being grounded meant.

Jon shifted like he was going to get up, but Zack waved a hand at him. “Stay,” Jon collapsed back against the couch and looked grateful, obviously still clouded over from his earlier activities. Zack felt like he was doing the worst possible job as a guardian.  He should pick up a parenting book from the library.  'Help: My Apartment Is Filled With Emotionally Damaged Teenagers and I'm The One In Charge,' or 'How To Be A Good Alpha For Dummy's!'  Something like that would help. 

“Brendon, can you come help put the groceries away?” he asked, dropping the five paper grocery bags on the kitchen table. Brendon immediately leapt up and dropped the video game controller on the couch. Zack knew that there was some not good stuff about the way Brendon had been raised, but it was sweet how helpful the kid was whenever he was asked.

“So you know you’re grounded, right?” he asked while Brendon was kneeling up on the counter, stacking canned goods in the cabinet. Zack closed the fridge, and Brendon hopped down, glancing at Zack bashfully.

“You… uhm… you said I had to come straight home, but you didn’t say I couldn’t bring someone with me...?” Whenever Brendon got nervous all of his sentences turned into questions. Zack huffed out a breath and scowled, because damn, the kid was right.

“Fine,” he said. “For today, fine. But the rest of the week just you, got it?”  Brendon nodded, mumbling ‘sorry’ so quiet that Zack almost thought he’d imagined it.

“Go play, I can finish up," he said, ruffling Brendon’s hair as he sent him away. Brendon flinched before his face tinged pink and he skittered out of the room. Zack sighed again. He seriously needed to ask for some advice on these fucking kids.

...
The woods, Ryan decided after one particularly awful afternoon, were vile. He was huddled in the tiny piece of the forest he’d claimed about a quarter mile away from a campground that was closed in the off-season. None of the nature loving mortals were dumb enough to face the elements in November. The campground was convenient though, with the bath house where Ryan could freshen up once in a while. He’d taken refuge in there once or twice during some bad storms that had settled in. There was also a shack for the rangers who manned the front gate during the warm weather. After pulling the wires on the security cameras, Ryan climbed up on the power box and popped the back window. He shimmied through, and inside he found a vending machine and a couch, which was like his own personal land of milk and honey, honestly.  He would have crashed there permanently for the winter (or at least as long as the vending machine snacks held out), but he’d almost gotten caught when a ranger came in to check on the place, and he liked to avoid close calls.

That was why he set up camp where he did. A quarter mile from the campground, a little more than a mile from town. Close enough either way to get what he wanted and retreat from any trouble he happened to get into.

He was only safe from human trouble, unfortunately. Black bears weren’t scared off by the woods, and Ryan had a nasty gash struggling to heal on his bicep from earlier that afternoon. It was snowing again, and he wanted to morph over to keep himself warm for the night, but he was scared to try switching bodies with the injury on his arm. He wasn’t sure how that stuff worked. Switching back after fighting off the bear had caused a bright hot pain to sear through all of his upper body, like a million arrows. After laying on the forest floor for a while, trembling from exertion, he decided it was time to give up. His chest still felt achy, and the scrape on his arm was throbbing and burning awfully. Obviously not his best idea.

His tiny fire wasn’t warm enough, and if the snow got any heavier it would probably kill the flames. If Ryan got any closer to it, he’d end up setting himself on fire. His clothes now had gaping holes from the bear fiasco and were crusty with blood in a few places. He’d fallen into a creek in his escape, and his icy shoes hadn’t dried yet. Put simply, he was miserable.

There were raccoons creeping in closer to his campsite, probably coming for what was left of his food. “Fuck off,” he growled at them. “I’ll eat you.”

He really wouldn’t, but he hoped that growling was animal enough to discourage them from coming closer. They creeped him out, to be honest, with their gross little faces and tiny black hands. His two hoodies and stolen quilt weren’t enough shelter against them.

Even though he couldn’t go into wolf form to keep warm, he could at least let hair grow thick on the tops of his hands and the back of his neck. He could even grow some on his face if he focused hard enough on it. It wasn’t enough to grow a beard, but it was something at least. Like insulation.

A cutting wind blew through and chilled Ryan right down to his bones. The quilt wasn’t any protection against the strong winds flying down the mountain, and he desperately missed his old tarp tent, which he’d accidentally set ablaze with an overenthusiastic campfire. It didn’t matter if he could cut a few camera chords or steal food cases off the back of trucks or hitchhike his way across the country. Even with all that, it was painfully obvious that he didn’t know what he was doing.

Another wind came and sliced through him. He hissed in a pained breath when the air made contact with the wound on his arm. He wished it would heal already. He wished he could figure out how to fix it faster, or at least have something to bind it up until it healed itself.

The area around him got a bit lighter, and he squinted up against the snow to spy the moon through a patch of trees. It was almost full, so close that Ryan could feel it pulsing in his veins, tingling in his sinuses, aching in his joints, itching somewhere in his muscles and he wanted to stalk around and growl at something or howl. It had to be full the next night, and if his arm wasn’t healed by then he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He couldn’t switch over, but he couldn’t get through the full moon without switching over. He was stuck.

Really, he had two options. He made his mind up quickly.

“Hey!” he suddenly bellowed, shattering the silence and sending his raccoon stalkers scrambling. Good. “Hey you sparkly asshole! I know you can hear me!”

Ryan wondered briefly when he’d stopped talking to God and started talking to fairies, and then there was a loud pop and a burst of smoke followed immediately by a voice. “You know, I prefer ‘your highness’ or ‘beloved prince,’ but ‘sparkly asshole’ is certainly one of the more creative ones I’ve heard. Most people just call me Pete.”

Ryan pulled his legs up close to him and growled from behind them, letting his teeth shift to make room for his canines and feeling the familiar rumbling in his throat. Pete might be a prince, but this was Ryan’s territory damn it, and if he had to ask for help, he’d rather not be made fun of while he did it.

“Oh come off it, wolfboy,” Pete rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. Instantly the fire flared up, and Ryan scrambled back frantically before he could catch. His hand slipped, and he landed hard on his shoulder, crying out from the pain in his already injured arm.

“Smart werewolves don’t wrestle with bears,” Pete said, appearing at Ryan’s side and crouching next to him. “At least not until they’re able to control themselves, which you’re not. You should really think about finding an alpha to teach you.”

“I don’t need anyone to teach me shit,” Ryan spat out between clenched teeth, reluctantly sitting up and offering his arm to Pete.

“Ah, yes. Your ‘refusal to associate with monsters’ complex,” Pete said, sounding smug and Ryan wanted to punch him in his ugly little face, but he didn’t. He hated Pete, but the fairy freak was also kind of becoming a friend.

“I’m not like them,” he protested.

“Of course not. Brace yourself,” the fairy spoke quickly, and Ryan didn’t have anytime to brace himself before Pete squeezed, causing bright hot pain to flare through Ryan’s entire arm as it healed. He screamed. He hated magic.

Pete leaned in a blew gently, causing a cool, ice-like feeling to settle over and numb the area. “You’ll live,” he said, patting Ryan’s shoulder and standing. Ryan held in another growl.

“Don’t patronize me,” he said.

“Of course not, little one,” Pete winked, and Ryan let himself really growl this time. There was a quiet moment of Pete standing with his arms crossed and his head tipped up to stare at the sky. Ryan caught his breath, but unfortunately when he did that, his heart beat slowed down to normal and his protective layer of hair retreated, leaving him uninsulated and shivering.

He pretended he wasn’t while he scooted closer to the fire Pete had made and croaked out a “Thank you.”

“I’d be bored without you hairy little weirdos needing me to take care of you all the time,” he responded. “It’s fun. Full moon tomorrow.”

Ryan nodded, “Yeah.” He tucked his hands in under his armpits, seeking warmth. He was running out of body heat, but at least the magic induced fire didn’t threaten to flicker out when harsh winds blew through. Not like Ryan’s handmade fires always did.

“Going out with a pack, or risking getting your ass kicked again?” Pete asked. “They’re not bad guys, you know. I know how hard it can be to accept yourself, especially when it comes to these things. But there’s a lot you don’t know, and it could be a lot easier for you if you just gave them a chance.”

Ryan scowled at the forest floor, shadows dancing across it in the fire light. The raccoons weren’t trying to approach again the way he’d thought they would. Maybe Pete had something to do with that too.

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

“Yeah,” Pete sighed. “Maybe not. But it’s less lonely, when you let them.”

The short man disappeared with another loud pop and Ryan rubbed at his nose, something like cinnamon tickling at it. The winds kicked up again, and he tugged his two hoods tighter around his face, wrapped his ratty quilt tight, and willed the night to pass quickly.

…
It was just a lucky coincidence that the full moon fell on a Sunday night, because there was no way the younger wolves would have been able to survive the day in public if they had too. Brendon was practically manic, bouncing off the walls and talking constantly. He was bugging the hell out of all of them, but that was okay. The moon hardly ever made Jon testy or restless. It mostly made him feel lazy. He could handle the tiny wolf bouncing around the apartment all day with his mind all sleepy and cloudy.

Spencer was irritable and restless enough for both of them, however. He spent the entire day stalking around the apartment, hot waves of irritation pouring off of him. Jon was pretty sure he had his canines out the whole time.

Zack got pretty grumpy on the day before the moon too, and the two went around and around all day. Zack eventually snapped some time around noon, canines coming out and eyes changing over, an honest to God growl thundering out of his throat, which was weird because Zack had astonishing amounts of self control. Spencer knew his place at least, and he took to slinking around the apartment instead, doing simple things to keep himself busy and grumbling quietly to himself.

Jon was watching though, and he could see the way Spencer’s shoulders tensed up whenever Brendon got a little too loud or a little too close. When Spencer looked like he was about to snap, Jon quickly grabbed Brendon and pulled him onto the couch. He sat on Brendon, making him protest and whine and flail around, but it also got Spencer to laugh and Zack to crack one of those tiny half grins that meant he was amused. When Brendon eventually gave up, Jon let him go and flopped down next to him. Brendon decided to get revenge or something through forced cuddling, because he curled up practically in Jon’s lap and tucked his head into Jon’s shoulder. Jon was actually a major fan of cuddling most of the time anyways, so he didn’t mind. Besides, the little guy was warm and soft. He couldn’t say no to that, especially after Brendon had figured out that yes, actually, deodorant was a really good idea.

Half a movie later (Jon wasn’t paying enough attention to know what movie it was), Zack flopped onto the couch next to them, and Brendon crawled across Jon’s lap and sprawled out on both of them. Zack just rolled his eyes and pet Brendon’s hair. It was sweet, and Jon would have taken a picture if his camera had been with him and not far, far away on the dresser in his bedroom.

Spencer shot them hesitant looks for a while, but it wasn’t ten minutes later that Spencer was crawling onto the couch next to them and curling up against Jon’s side. Jon buried his nose in Spencer’s hair and breathed in deep, catching the younger boy’s scent and a lot less irritation than had been there earlier. It made him feel happy.

“I love pack cuddling,” he announced to no one in particular. Zack ruffled his hair in response, and Brendon curled up the other way, legs curled up in Zack’s lap, so he could gnaw at Jon’s knee. Jon thought absently that humans would probably think that was really weird, but Jon knew what it meant. He leaned down and kissed the top of Brendon’s head, and that wasn’t weird either. Anyone who thought otherwise didn’t have a nice, happy pack, and Jon felt bad for them.

Jon was halfway to asleep when someone knocked on their apartment door, and everyone but Zack jumped. Spencer blinked at the door sleepily before shrugging and nuzzling his way back against the crook of Jon’s neck, which Jon wasn’t complaining about what so ever. Zack dumped Brendon off of his lap to go answer the door, and the younger wolf whined, sitting up to pout and look rumpled. His hair was sticking up funny where he’d been sleeping on it.

On the other side of the door was that kid, the one they found in the woods who stopped in from time to time and nobody knew his name. He seemed to look worse every time he showed up, and this time was no exception. His clothes were more ripped than before and even dirtier, and the circles under his eyes suggested he hadn’t been sleeping. Still, he raised his chin to look Zack in the eye and clenched his fists at his sides, as if this were all totally normal and he wasn’t a starving, beat up teenage boy showing up at a stranger’s house for the fourth or fifth time.

“I need to come out with you guys tonight,” he said solidly, not breaking eye contact. Zack mostly looked confused. “I have a hard time keeping control of myself with the full moon, and I don’t want anything to happen. I tried to attack that kid before-” He gestured to Brendon who cocked his head to the side as if he were confused, “-and next time it might be someone who can’t stop me.”

Zack was still giving him a curious look, but he moved out of the way to let the kid in through the door. “You’re with us tonight then,” he said. “We’re heading out in half an hour.”

The kid shrugged and beelined towards the bathroom. Seconds later, the sound of running water from the shower could be heard.

“Well,” Spencer said. “Nice to see he’s making himself feel at home.”

Jon elbowed him in the ribs.

…
“Hey,” Eric elbowed Zack in the side and motioned to the phone hooked up to the wall. It was a flashback to the nineties, really, made out of yellow plastic with a long twisty cord. Zack nodded, popping off the cap and sliding a beer to someone. He put their five dollars in the cash register before taking the phone and slipping into the freezer, which was cold but helped dull the violent thud thud thud of the club.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Hey there handsome,” a female voice said, and Zack took a moment to remember where he knew it. “So I was thinking we could go to dinner tomorrow night.”

“What day is it again?” Zack asked. He was always a bit disoriented after the moon, even if he liked to pretend he wasn’t. The moon had been Sunday night, and he knew because he’d argued about Brendon the next morning about whether or not he had to go to school before agreeing that yes, it was fair to let him stay home after staying out all night. Was it still Monday? It might have been Tuesday. Either way, the night she was suggesting was in the middle of the week.

“It’s Wednesday,” she said, “So tomorrow is Thursday, which is an entirely reasonable night for dinner, isn’t it?”

Wednesday, damn. He’d lost a day. The lady chuckled through the line, and Zack found himself smiling.

“The moon messes me up a little bit too,” she said. “So tomorrow? I promise to have you home by midnight.”

He laughed. “Yeah, okay, Wednesday is good.”

“Thursday.”

“Shit."  He rubbed his hand over his face. He’d shaved that morning, but with the moon still so large it was in vain. His wolf side said no, no way, and the beard grew back immediately. It’d calm down in a few days, and he looked good with a beard. But did he look good enough for a date? Whatever, he was already making a fool of himself.

“You’re cute,” she said. “If I give you my address, will you pick me up at seven?”

He smiled again. This girl was spunky. “Only if you give me your name too.”

“Jennifer,” she said, and he hoped she was smiling too. She gave him the address and then hung up. Zack left the freezer and put the phone back on it’s cradle.

“I’m calling off tomorrow,” he said, and Eric smirked and winked at him. Zack rolled his eyes and sprayed him with the sink sprayer.

Chapter 5

Unlike all the other times they’d been graced with his presence, the homeless werewolf kid didn’t vanish within twelve hours. In fact he remained in the apartment on Thursday night, even though the full moon had been days ago on Sunday. By that point his presence was so casual that he fit right into the conversations and horsing around. Similar to the other times he’d been there, however, he remained obdurate in his mission to keep his name a secret. Zack didn’t even mind at this point. If they needed his attention they’d just tap him or say ‘hey you’ or something. It wasn’t much of a hassle, even though Zack would have really rather known the kid’s name.

What Zack did mind, though, was the way his entire pack was acting like morons. He was seriously regretting ever mentioning his plans for the evening.

“You should wear this one,” Brendon was sprawled out on his back, somehow taking up almost all of Zack’s king sized bed, pardon a corner that Spencer had claimed for himself. The youngest wolf waved a blue dress shirt around manically. The shirt would have fit Brendon like a dress, and it looked like a giant, stupid flag as he waved it around. Whatever. Zack was a big guy. He could admit that. “It’ll bring out your eyes,”

“My eyes are grey,” Zack said, taking the shirt away from him before he poked someone’s eye out with the hanger it was on. “And I don’t need your help to get ready. Go away,”

“You always need me,” Brendon said. Zack groaned, and Spencer got that look on that face, that stupid look that meant he was plotting something.

“I can fix this,” Spencer said after a moment. “Brendon give me your phone,”

Zack rolled his eyes and went into the bathroom to shower, deciding to take as long as he pleased because they were all driving him crazy. He turned the water up hot and pretended he couldn’t hear them bickering over the sound of the spray. When he finally got out half an hour later and got dressed, his room was pleasantly void of puppies. There was a strange scent in the apartment though. It turned out to be Sarah, Brendon’s little friend (or, “girlfriend” apparently, but Zack wasn’t sure he believed that yet), snuggling up with Brendon on the couch. It was kind of adorable.

“You really should iron your pants,” Spencer came out from wherever he’d been hiding and crossed his arms.

“Go away, Spence,”

“Here, put this on,” Jon sprayed some kind of cologne at Zack’s neck, and Zack swatted at him.

“Jon! For the love of- No! Knock it off,” he rubbed in vain at the now wet spot on his neck. Gross. He smelled like a cosmo magazine sample. Jon dove away from him and tossed himself over the back of the couch, landing haphazardly on top of no-name, who yelped, and then scowled and tried to shove him off.

Jon landed hard on the floor, and no-name smirked up at Zack. “Make sure you wear a condom,”

“Oh my God,” Zack groaned, rubbing at his temples. “That is it. I’m leaving,”

He watched as no-name got smacked with a pillow, courtesy of Jon Walker, while the boy shouted “We don’t want to take you to planned parenthood!” and Spencer giggled. At least Spencer had been right in his promise to ‘fix this.’ He invited Sarah over, and Zack hadn’t heard a peep out of Brendon the entire time. The kid was content to nuzzle his head against Sarah’s shoulder and mumble things about whatever movie they were watching on the TV.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t laughing a bit as he got into the car. His pack was full of idiots, but they were his idiots, and they were pretty cute. Despite being tormented by puppies, Zack was in a good mood all the way to Jennifer’s house. He even hummed along to the radio.

…
Brendon clutched four sweaty five dollar bills in his fist and hung back while Shane’s car pulled out of the student parking lot. He didn’t wave; he was working on being cool. He’d earned the money when Shane and a few of his senior friends had dared him to do a handstand on his skateboard (Sarah had smacked his arm and said “Hell no, you’ll break your face” and he’d said “Hell nah, watch me”). He’d done it and held it for a solid fifteen seconds before his wrists started to ache and he’d lost his balance. His winter coat had kept him from getting scraped up, and he didn’t break his face. Plus he’d gotten twenty bucks, so it was worth it.

Then Shane had cursed and said he had to get to work, so anyone hitching a ride best get in the car. They all left, and Brendon figured it was time to head home too. He wasn’t grounded anymore, but he was still being careful.

It was snowing gently as he made his way down the sidewalk along the side of the school, heading in the direction of home. He liked when the air as cold and clear like this because he could smell literally everything. It was one of his favorite werewolf things. There was a chimney puffing smoke a ways away, and a squirrel hanging out at the edge of the pine tree scented woods that lined the back of the school, and a restaurant a few blocks away cooking bacon and eggs, and a few people around the corner of the school building, and…. anger. Huh. That was weird. Brendon still wasn’t entirely used to being able to pick up emotions with his nose, but it helped. Usually he felt a bit clueless because he had a hard time figuring out if people were mad at him or if they were just joking. It was nice that his nose could help him out now.

Anyways, there was anger close by, and voices if he focused. Brendon picked up the pace and ran down the rest of the sidewalk, backpack solidly thumping against his back and skateboard occasionally knocking into his hip from it’s position under his arm. Even with his enhanced hearing, as he rounded the corner he heard something so quiet that he wasn’t even sure it had been uttered.

“Leave me alone,” came a quiet murmur hidden under the jeers and laughs of some boys, both taller and wider than the boy they had backed against the brick exterior of the school building. That boy, it just so happened, was the bathroom kid. Brendon wondered why he was always running into this boy, but shrugged it off and hurried over.

“Hey,” Brendon said. The boys were sophomores too; Brendon recognized them from a few of his classes. They liked to laugh at him a lot, and not in the good way. “Hey, that’s not nice. Leave him alone,”

They turned to look at him, confused and amused, yet somehow also irritated expressions adorning their faces. One of them had his hand pressed hard into the bathroom kid’s shoulder, holding him back against the wall, and the other’s hand was threaded through the kid’s hair, messing it up and holding his head back.

“Fuck off. We’re his friends, ain’t that right?” the first one said. Brendon couldn’t remember their names for the life of him. It didn’t matter, because he knew they were lying. He’d been on the other end of this enough to know what was going on. When they turned away from him, Brendon stepped forward and shoved the first guy in the center of his back, making him stagger forwards a bit. Brendon could push pretty strong when he wanted to. The bathroom kid hissed in a breath from getting smashed against the wall, and Brendon regretted his action for a moment. It wasn’t his best idea maybe.

He really regretted it when the second guy yanked Brendon’s skateboard out of his hands and threw it into the street, banging it up awful and making a lot of clatter.

“Go fetch,” he snarled, or at least snarled in a human way, but it made Brendon’s heart stop in his chest for a moment, blood turning cold. Some tiny, paranoid part of him screamed ‘oh my god, they know,’ but he quickly realized they didn’t. He’d be dead if they did, probably.

Two strong hands shoved him back, and his hip slammed into the bike rack. The backs of his knees knocked against it next, and he toppled backwards, banging up his elbows when he landed on them. They shoved the bathroom kid down too, two strong hands throwing him down by his shoulders until the kid crumpled, and then the second kid kicked him in the stomach. Bathroom kid groaned quietly, but he didn’t make as much noise as Brendon was expecting him to.

The other kid kicked Brendon too and then snatched the money out of his hand and sneered “Aww, thanks loser.”
They took the kid’s bag with them while they ran away, dumping it in a nearby trash can at the edge of the walk before sprinting off across the sports field. Brendon glared and growled low in his throat, not loud enough to be heard. It was going to be a pain to get that bag out of the tall, rank dumpster.

The kid was still laying on the ground, so Brendon hauled himself up and walked over to him.

“Hey,” he said, tilting his head and offering his hand down. “Come on, I’ll help you up,”

This was met with a ferocious glare from the boy on the ground, which almost made him flinch a little. He was trying to be nice. Why was this kid mad at him? After a moment the boy nodded and sat up, then took Brendon’s hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. His hands must have gotten skinned in the fall, because when they pulled away, Brendon’s own palm had a smear of blood across it. Oh well.

“Let’s get your bag,” Brendon said, walking over to the dumpster and lifting the lid to look inside. Luckily it was pretty full, so the bag was sitting up near the top. He still wasn't tall enough to reach, though. He had to jump and balance on the edge on his stomach, and then he could reach over and grab the black messenger bag from the mess of thrown out school lunches and bathroom tissue. Gross gross gross. If that smell ever vacated his nose, it would be a miracle.

“Here,” he said, tossing the bag over to bathroom kid, who had wandered over some time while Brendon had his ass in the air and head stuck in a dumpster. Great. Whatever.

Just as Brendon hopped down, a large truck came rumbling down the street. Brendon watched in horror as it’s left front wheel ran right over his upright skateboard, crunching it. Two of the wheels actually popped off, and the deck cracked right down the middle.

“Oh my God,” he said, horrified. “My life is a nightmare,”

He glanced at the kid in front of him, who promptly scowled and punched Brendon right in the stomach, hard. Brendon made some pathetic ‘oof’ sound and doubled over. He watched the kid sprint down the road on long, skinny legs and wondered ‘what the hell’ and thought ‘my life is a nightmare.’

…
Brendon was still moping a bit when he got home. He’d taken his destroyed skateboard and shoved the pieces into his backpack. It seemed like a longer trip when he had to walk it, especially with the icy air stinging his cheeks and nose, but it also gave him plenty of time to brood. He was more angry than upset really. For one, those jack-offs stole his twenty dollars! They’d also broken his skateboard and humiliated him. And that kid. That stupid bathroom kid. Brendon had almost gotten his ass kicked, had gotten his skateboard broken and his money stolen, had climbed into a smelly horrible dumpster, and was probably on some list of victims to beat up now. He hadn’t even gotten a thank you or a smile. He’d gotten punched in the gut.

Well screw that kid.

Yeah, Brendon was still moping when he got back to the apartment. He was steaming. He was furious. He’d had a great day going, no fucked up head nonsense ruining his life for once, and then that had to go and happen. Brendon didn’t have the patience to deal with everyone in the apartment.

The strange wolf kid, who Brendon had taken to calling Frank for all intents and purposes in his mind until he found out the kid’s real name, sneered at him, “You reek,” and then went off to another room.

Well excuse him for having a shitty day. Frank didn’t even have to go to school (which was totally unfair, cause he was totally young enough to have to) so he shouldn’t be allowed to make any comments.

Next there was Zack, sniffing at him and making his concerned face. Brendon shrugged him off and headed to his room, but he bumped into Spencer along the way.

“Hey Spence,” he sighed, really trying to sound happy but somehow all the energy just drained from his voice. Besides, Spencer was making that concerned face at him too. Brendon was so sick of people being concerned for him. Spencer’s expression changed suddenly though. When he blinked and opened his eyes they weren’t human anymore. Wolf eyes. Uhm.

Brendon found himself crowded back against the wall. Spencer was sniffing him, which wasn’t necessarily weird, but it usually wasn’t this random or, uhm, forceful. Spencer pressed his face tight into Brendon’s neck, and Brendon squirmed. He knew he smelled gross like garbage and sweat and probably a little like anger, and he didn’t want Spencer that close when Brendon was that disgusting. Also, even though this was Spencer and practically his brother almost, something about having this larger, older boy pressing him against a wall and nuzzling his neck was waking something up that Brendon definitely didn’t want Spencer to catch scent of.

Dying of embarrassment, Brendon tried to pull away, but Spencer crowded him back tighter and growled low. Brendon froze, even though his skateboard was digging into his shoulder blade and his heart was a jackhammer in his chest, because those were totally Spencer’s canines scraping his throat.

“Spence…” he choked out, swallowing hard.

Spencer removed his face from Brendon’s neck and traveled down his arm. He pulled Brendon’s sleeve up enough to sniff at the pulse point on Brendon’s wrist, and Brendon tugged harder to get away. There were scars just a little farther up that he didn’t want Spencer to see. Apparently there were a lot of things that Brendon had to hide when people got too close to him. He hadn’t really thought of it before.

Spencer, apparently, didn’t want Brendon to move. His hand clasped around Brendon’s forearm tight enough that it felt like it might snap. It would definitely bruise.

“Spencer what are you doing?” Brendon asked wishing his voice would stop shaking. Spencer had dropped to his knees and had his nose buried in the palm of Brendon’s hand, which was disgusting, because Brendon couldn’t remember the last time he’d washed his hands, and he’d been touching a dumpster earlier that day. Now Spencer was… licking… his hand..? Which was even worse, and Brendon was pretty sure that was the hand that had blood on it from the stupid bathroom kid. Ew. Ew. Seriously ew.

“Spencer!”

Spencer growled again, but this time Brendon growled back and shoved him. Spencer toppled back onto his ass and smacked his head against the wall. That’s when Zack appeared in the mouth of the hall. Zack could definitely hear Brendon’s heart hammering in his chest, and that wasn’t even an exaggeration.

“What the hell are you doing?” Zack asked, not looking angry but more like confused.

Neither answered. Brendon didn’t actually know what had just happened, and Spencer didn’t seem to be talking. They just stared up at Zack, frozen with wide eyes, until the elder huffed and walked away.

Brendon turned back to Spencer, who had gotten to his feet and was rubbing the back of his head. He’d gotten taller and was kind of intimidating now, with the anger Brendon could smell pulsing through him.

“What the hell?” he asked anyways.

Spencer huffed and shoved past him, muttering “I thought I smelled something.”

....
The clock on his bedside table bled the time (6 a.m.) all over the room, which was still dark in those uneasy moments before the sunrise. He blinked to try and figure out why he was awake so early (he’d only gone to bed five hours before), but then he heard screaming, and it all kind of snapped together.

It took Zack all of three seconds to throw himself out of bed, pull on a shirt to go with the sweat pants he’d worn to bed, and dart towards the source of panic in his apartment. In that short amount of time, the screaming had turned into arguing.

“What the hell-”

“-was not trying to eat you-”

“-naked!”

“Oh shut up!”

“You shut up, you-”

Zack opened the door just in time to catch Spencer as he lunged at the other kid, both of them starting to wolf out with their lips pulled back to show canines and their eyes switched over. Spencer had his claws jutting out of his hands, and Zack couldn’t see whether the other boy did or not, since he was pretty well cowering under the blankets. Also, Spencer was entirely naked.

Zack caught him around the middle before they made contact and threw him down on the other bed. When Spencer thrashed around and tried to bite him, Zack pressed him down with a forearm in his throat and growled. This wasn’t normal kid Spencer that Zack could just yell at when he acted up. This was an out of control Spencer who was going to hurt someone and needed his alpha to snap him out of it.

It worked the way Zack knew it would. Spencer visibly shrunk under him, eyes fading to normal but growing huge, showing someone young and frightened and definitely more human than a moment before. Good. His claws retracted from where they’d been digging into Zack’s forearm, and Zack instantly felt the cuts start to heal themselves.

“Breathe,” he murmured to him. Spencer nodded, swallowed hard, and took a deep, shaky breath as Zack slowly let him go. He stepped back to allow Spencer to sit up, and now that the chaos was over and Spencer was entirely himself again, the kid looked embarrassed. He pulled a pillow onto his lap for modesty, propped his elbows on his knees, and dropped his face into his hands. His long hair fell down like curtains to help him hide.

That was when Zack noticed the torn up clothes all over Spencer’s bed, but before he could think about it-

“What the hell was that!?” the boy on the other bed exploded. Zack snapped his attention back to him.

“Calm down, kid,”

“No! He tried to eat me!”

“No I didn’t!” Spencer yelled back.

“You’re such a creep! You attacked me!”

“It was an accident!”

“Enough!” Zack cut them both off, his voice loud enough that he’d probably get a complaint from their neighbors. They were going to wake up the entire building at this rate. He could worry about that later.

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” Zack told the kid. “Sometimes we lose control of ourselves, but he wasn’t trying to hurt you-”

“What’s going on?” Zack sighed and turned around to find Brendon in the doorway, eyes half the size of his face. Jon appeared as a head propped up on Brendon’s shoulder, looking as awake as he ever did at this hour in the morning (which, for the record, was not awake at all).

“Everything’s fine,” Zack reassured them.

“Fine!?” no name practically growled, which was interesting. The kid acted so entirely human most of the time that Zack wouldn’t believe he was a wolf without having seen him change over. He usually didn’t growl or do anything like that. “He attacked me!”

“No I didn’t…” Spencer muttered from behind his hands.

“Okay, put the canines away!” Zack said, stepping between them.

“I’m not the one who-”

“ENOUGH!” he yelled again, louder this time with a growl at the end that made every person in the room flinch. “We’re all going to relax and talk about this like rational people,”

“Yeah, no,” no name threw back the covers and jumped to his feet. “You guys seem normal enough, but you’re freaks! You’re monsters! She was right, and I should have known better than to think I could trust you,”

The kid grabbed his bag off the floor and slammed his way out of the apartment before Zack could stop him. It was probably convenient for him that he’d never unpacked his bag. He’d probably been waiting to run the entire time, Zack realized.

“Uhm…” Brendon said.

“We’re talking about this,” Zack directed that to Spencer, unsure of what had really happened… what to do about no name… what to do about any of this…

“Whatever,” Spencer got up and shoved past Brendon and Jon in the doorway. He slammed the bathroom door behind him. Zack heard the lock click into place, but he’d been woken up before the sun, damn it. He wasn’t giving in that easy.

He went into the hall and sighed at the cracked door frame before pounding his fist on the door. He didn’t use enough force to hurt the wood anymore than it already was.

“Spencer. We’re going to talk about this.”

“Fuck off!”

Zack growled. “Spencer James Smith!”

“No!”

He was moments away from ripping the door off its hinges, but then Jon’s hand curled around his arm and the calming energy hit him hard. Jon was good at that; it was something he’d learned from his father, who’d always been the caregiver of the pack while Jon’s mother was the alpha. Zack took a deep breath and stepped back.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. It’s Saturday, and it’s early. Go back to bed guys,”

Jon squeezed gently before turning to Brendon and wrapping his arm around the boy’s shoulders.

“Come on, B,” Jon said, pulling him back to Brendon’s room, which the two had been sharing since no-name temporarily moved in. Zack watched them go and then returned to his own room. Maybe he could get some more rest before dealing with any of this. Before he had to figure out whether or not to track down the kid, before he had to force Spencer to talk to him, before he had to figure out what was going on. As soon as he closed his eyes, though, his phone started ringing. He growled at it, but the caller I.D. read “Maggie Walker,” and she was probably the only person in the world that he wanted to talk to. She’d raised tons of puppies. She’d have advice, if not answers.

Zack sat up and held the phone to his ear, “Hey.”

…
Spencer disappeared while everyone else was still asleep under the pretense of going to study. He took his backpack with him, but he ended up wandering town on foot instead. He made his way to Starbucks after forty-five minutes or so, and he knew it was too early for Jon to be at work, so he sighed and pushed his way inside. Maybe coffee would clear his mind. After that morning, he could really do with some clarity. He’d actually blacked out. One minute he’d been startled awake by the homeless kid’s screaming, and the next Zack had him pinned down and was telling him to breathe.

He had probably lunged at the kid, but he couldn’t remember it. Just like earlier that week with Brendon. He didn’t know what happened, but suddenly he had Brendon shoved against a wall. It was like his body was moving without his consent. He felt a dozen kinds of messed up at the moment.

It didn’t help either that the sky was a thick blanket of clouds above them and had been for at least three weeks straight. The last full moon had barely been visible, and he liked to think that was the reason he’d felt off kilter and overly-wolfy lately. He hadn’t fully exhausted himself on the last full moon, and now the extra energy was bubbling out in dreams and growls and irrational boners, just like puberty again.

Even just then, standing there listening to his classmates from World Civ (who’d just so happened to be in Starbucks that morning too) talk about how Yearly’s older cousin was twenty-one as of a week ago and could totally hook them up for the party (Spencer had thought things would change more in college, but nothing really had), Spencer felt like something was crawling under his skin. It itched.

Maybe a party was exactly what he needed, Spencer thought, just as Anna was saying goodbye and Yearly mentioned going to dick around in the library until office hours opened up for one of his math classes. Maybe he needed to go out with friends for a night, get away from his pack and out of that tiny damned apartment. He could get drunk, get laid, and get the itch curling under his skin to tone down.

“Hey wait,” he caught Yearly’s arm as gently as he could manage, since humans were fragile. He stopped and looked at Spencer, raising a blond eyebrow and looking back at Spencer. “What’s the address for the party again?” he asked. Yearly beamed.

After a few more hours he was totally bored of wandering around with his thoughts and his fingers were starting to go numb from the cold. He decided that he needed to go home and talk to Zack about the weird stuff that was happening and also help track down the kid who’d run off.

When he finally made it (one long, cold bus ride later) the apartment was entirely void of anyone that he was looking for. The kid was still gone, and Zack was gone, and even Brendon was gone. The only one there was Jon, who must have had a quick on-call shift during the lunch rush or something, and had just gotten home. He was sitting on the couch in his work uniform, including a Starbuck’s visor decorated with a few stupid pins and nestled into his messy brown hair, and he smelled like a coffee bean. Jon’s thumbs were tapping away at his phone, but he glanced up and smiled when Spencer walked in. Spencer raised his hand in greeting and decided to sniff around the apartment, just to be sure, even though it felt like his senses were somehow even stronger and he was pretty certain that Zack wasn’t in the apartment.

He wasn’t, as Spencer had originally guessed. Spencer felt even more guilty at that, somehow. What if Zack was out there trying to fix the mess Spencer had created? After dumping his bag full of assignments on his bedroom floor, Spencer went back to the living room and collapsed on the couch next to Jon.

“What’s up?” he asked, and he blocked out the tiny part of his brain that was panicking over the dreams and just enjoyed the comfortable feeling Jon’s presence pumped into his veins.

“The kid left,” Jon said, “But he might come back. So I’m not sure if my bed is actually my bed right now, or if I’m still bunking it with Brendon, so… I almost just said screw it and took a nap on your bed, but I ended up here instead,” He yawned, and Spencer put his arm across the back of the couch, not quite resting around Jon’s shoulders, but almost.

There was a comfortable quiet in which Jon stared down at his cellphone, which buzzed on occasion. Spencer sat there next to him, not entirely awake but not asleep either. He mostly just stared blankly at the wall and let his thoughts wander away with him.

It was quite a while later when he said, voice kind of rough, “I didn’t mean to,”

Jon set his phone down, screen down, and pressed the silence button with his thumb. He was the kind of guy who gave his full attention whether people needed it or not. Spencer wasn’t sure what he needed.

“I know,” Jon said after a moment of studying Spencer, which Spencer spent staring down and to the left and definitely not looking at Jon. “You wanna talk about it?”

No, not really, Spencer realized. He shook his head.

“You’ve been acting weird, yknow,” Jon offered, still looking at Spencer, Spencer still not looking back.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he answered. Jon sighed.

“Okay, puppy,” Jon nudged Spencer’s arm out of the way and pulled him into a one armed hug. Spencer let himself be pulled close to the older boy’s side. He relaxed for a moment and closed his eyes, letting himself relax and feeling a headache melting away behind his eyes. He let his head fall onto Jon’s shoulder and felt Jon’s warmth radiating through the hooded sweatshirt he was wearing. Spencer breathed deeply, and he was confused when his vision went a little red and a growl rose up in his throat. The word ‘mine’ flashed through his mind, and he had the sudden urge to set his teeth against Jon’s throat to tell him that, but.

Oh God. Oh no, not this again. Spencer practically threw himself off of the couch in an attempt to get as far away from Jon and his own messed up wolf thoughts as possible. His vision was still off, too sharp, meaning his eyes had changed over. His hands were shaking.

Jon was staring at him, obviously surprised, and Spencer couldn’t blame him.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer said. He considered sitting back down, this time with space left between them, but thought better of it. He needed to go somewhere that Jon’s scent wasn’t filling up his nose and making his haunches rise up. This reaction was so weird. It was like he was allergic to him (to everyone, really…) lately. This was the same damned thing that had happened to Brendon, and maybe the same thing that had happened with that kid earlier. Spencer didn’t want to think about why.

“Whoa…” Jon said slowly, cautiously. His brow was furrowed with worry. “What did I do…?”

“Nothing. It’s not you. I have a paper to write. I’m going to start on that,” Spencer said and went off to their bedroom. He might as well get a start on his assignments anyways. He wanted to hang out with Jon, but it didn’t seem like his wolf side was going to let that happen tonight.

“Dude, you sound like Brendon,” Jon’s voice called after him. Then there were footsteps, and Spencer heard him as he entered the room. “And he’s a shitty liar too,” Jon sat down on Spencer’s bed, a bit too close to Spencer, and Spencer really wished he wouldn’t. “I’m worried about you,”

“I’m fine,” Spencer said. His voice was stiff.

“You’re acting really weird,” Jon responded.

“I’m just stressed out. I have finals coming up, and that weird kid keeps lurking around, and he shouldn’t be out there on his own, Zack’s in a mood, and everything sucks,” It was all true, but not necessarily the whole truth. Spencer felt slightly guilty even though it felt good to get that stuff off his chest.

“Zack is only in a mood because you’re in a mood,” Jon told him, totally unhelpful. “Can I help?”

Spencer sighed and shook his head. Some disillusioned part of him was hoping Jon would have magical advice to make everything better. But even though Jon was really helpful at times, and magic did exist, there were limits to the universe and Spencer had to remember that. Besides, in his current condition, letting his happiness rely on Jon Walker wouldn’t be the wisest decision. Those weird dreams were still happening periodically, and that (on top of everything else) was freaking him out.

“I need to get freaking laid,” he groaned, mostly to himself. He only realized that it sounded like he was answering Jon’s question when he head a startled snort-laugh from his friend.

“Well I’m more than happy to oblige-” Jon started. He sounded like he was joking, but Spencer vividly remembered the awkward kiss that had happened on his birthday, and… yeah. He didn’t want to talk about this.

“Fuck off,” He said instead, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “I’m going to call my mom about Thanksgiving, and then I’m going to study for my finals, so I’m going to be totally lame and boring. Go bother someone else,”

Jon hadn’t stopped smirking, and Spencer vaguely wanted to smack it off of him. Spencer nearly growled without realizing it when Jon ruffled his hair, but the older boy seemed oblivious.

“Don’t party too hard, puppy,” he said, and then he was gone. Thank God. Good riddance. Spencer heaved a pained sigh and clicked his mom’s contact, then he listened to his phone ring and ring and ring…

…
There had been a time when it made sense for Sarah’s dad to trust them alone in her bedroom, when all they did was read comics and watch movies and throw darts at the wall, but from his current position Brendon didn’t think that he should trust them as much anymore. Brendon was pretty sure that other teenagers were getting up to much worse things than they were right at that moment, but that didn’t stop the Mormon-raised part of his brain from chanting things like ‘sin sin sin’ and ‘hell hell hell’ and ‘celibacy celibacy celibacy’ (honestly, his brain was having a bit of trouble rhythmically chanting that last one, but the point remains).

Another small part of his brain kind of hoped that his Mormon-part of his brain was what was keeping him from enjoying their current festivities. Maybe he was just too distracted to really enjoy Sarah laying on top of him on the bed, their lips moving together, their hips shifting against each other (or her hips, mostly. he was just kind of laying there). Her hand was in his hair, for God’s sake, and he’d read enough advice articles on the internet to know that he should be really enjoying this.

He really wasn’t enjoying it though. Well, sure, the kissing was nice. But he was kind of distracted with his Mormon brain chanting disapproval at him. There were also boobs pressed into his chest (cloth covered boobs, but still), and the more he tried to forget that there were boobs, the more he thought about them. The boys in the porn he’d watched on Jon’s computer that one time didn’t have boobs, and Brendon was trying to focus on that. No boobs, he told himself. No boobs, no boobs, no boobs.

The problem was that as certain as Brendon was about his sexuality (99.9% sure, like those clorox commercials) he still kind of hoped that he was wrong.

“Are you okay?” Sarah pulled back and rested the tip of her nose against Brendon’s cheek. Brendon swallowed hard and tried not to think about how his mouth didn’t taste like his mouth. How she smelled fruity and amazing and like a girl. How this was kind of definitely confirming that he was gay.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “Yeah, this is awesome,” He really hoped that she believed him. She made a quiet humming noise before nodding and going back to kissing him. He did his best to act like he knew what he was doing and kiss back properly, but that was just another worry on his mind. He had no idea if he was doing this right.

They’d never kissed like this before. It was always simple kisses exchanged at their lockers or at Shane’s car or on the couch when Zack wasn’t paying attention to them. This was the first time in the few weeks they’d been dating that they’d done what could actually be considered making out. On Sarah’s bed. Laying down.

“You can move your hands if you wanna,” Sarah whispered to him, taking his hand and guiding it up to cup her breast through her shirt.

“O-oh,” he said quietly, because he really didn’t wanna move his hands, thank you very much. They’d been comfortable resting lifelessly at his sides. “Okay…”

She laughed and pecked his lips. “You don’t have to be nervous,”

“Okay,”

“You’re so cute,” They were kissing again, just like that. Brendon tried really hard to imagine that he was kissing a guy (that he was kissing Shane, actually) but between ADHD and his handful of boob, he couldn’t focus enough to get into it. He was so screwed.

Brendon didn’t really want to keep his hand in it’s current position, so he took Sarah’s advice and moved them. He let them slide up to her shoulders and then down her back. He stopped right at her lower back, but then she shifted, and… oh. Brendon totally accidentally grabbed her ass.

She laughed against his mouth and kissed him again, and he tried to keep up. Then she rolled her hips down into his, and Brendon just happened to catch her scent, and she was totally turned on. Oh shit. Her heart was hammering and the sound filled Brendon’s ears. Boomboomboomboomboom. It gave him a headache.

He broke away under the guise of catching his breath, and she let her face rest against his neck. His wolf brain perked up and said, ‘nah man, too close’ and he felt panicky. Necks weren’t as important to humans as they were to wolves, but Brendon had no idea how to tell his brain that (that she wasn’t going to bite him or claim him or whatever his instincts were freaking out about), so instead he squirmed quickly out from under Sarah and plopped down onto the floor next to the bed.

“Uhm…” she said. When Brendon glanced up at her, she was frowning at him. She smelled confused and kind of pissed off, and still turned on too.

He forced a nervous laugh and focused on the TV that was playing across the room. “I love this show…” he said in what he hoped was a convincing tone. An old rerun of George Lopez was playing.

“Uh huh…” she said slowly.

“Yup,” Brendon said.

They spent the next half hour watching George Lopez on her bedroom floor, Brendon trying to act like he was intently focused and interested in what was going on in the show (which he'd never actually watched before then), and Sarah sitting next to him all confused and squinting at Brendon occasionally with an expression he couldn’t figure out.

…
The weird kid never came back to the apartment that night, and Jon had shrugged and slept in his own bed again. Spencer was tired, but he couldn’t seem to actually fall asleep. He just kind of laid there for what felt like a long time, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the noise of the town around him.

Brendon wasn’t asleep either, and Spencer considered getting up and talking to him. He kept making tiny, shuffly noises in his room across the hall. But Spencer kind of wanted to vent, and Brendon smelled all upset. Spencer didn’t know how to feel with Brendon’s upsettedness on top of his own, and he didn’t want to make anything worse.

He was too tired to move anyways. He stayed where he was.

He was worried about where the wolf kid had run off to, but he was trying not to think about it too much. Spencer remembered sleepwalking when he was younger, (when he was upset about starting school, when his grandma had died, when his dad had gotten laid off his job for a while) and he was worried that if he thought about it too much, he’d wake up naked in the woods somewhere, because he’d decided to go looking for the kid himself in wolf form.

There was a snuffling noise next to him and Jon groaned before flipping over.

“You’re still awake?” he asked into the darkness. Spencer could see him just fine, as if the lights were on. Jon looked sleepy and disoriented. He smelled distressed, like he’d been having a bad dream. Spencer wondered if it was late enough for the dream part of his sleep cycle, and then he realized it was almost three am.

“Yeah,” Spencer whispered back. “You okay?”

Jon made an affirmative noise from between pressed lips. He rubbed at his eyes and sat up. Spencer could hear his heartbeat hammering a bit too fast, a bit too hard.

“Want to share?” Jon asked suddenly, voice quiet but not quite a whisper, and it felt too loud. “Pack togetherness can help with sleep and stuff. You need some rest,”

Spencer blinked and sat up on his elbows. “Are you asking to cuddle?” he asked. “You’re much more coherent when you’re awake,”

Jon was pouting at him now; he even made a whiny noise in his throat. Spencer rolled his eyes and scooted over in the bed.

“C’mon then. Pack togetherness, and all that,”

Jon grinned kind of sheepishly before rolling to his feet and crawling into Spencer’s bed next to him. Spencer was pretty tired, and maybe Jon was right about pack cuddling helping to induce sleep. He curled close against the older boy’s side and let his eyes fall shut. They were both asleep within minutes.

…
“We need to talk,”

The thing was, as much as Spencer agreed that they probably needed to talk about what was going on, and that it might be nice to have someone tell him he wasn’t crazy, the idea of actually talking about it was kind of unnerving. Kind of exhausting. Spencer couldn’t just open his mouth and say, “Yeah, so, I googled my symptoms, and I’m either schizophrenic or turning into some sort of mega wolf creature, like spider man.” Zack was going to think he was insane. Spencer was already pretty sure he was insane. He didn’t want to talk about it, but everyone else had locked themselves away for the afternoon, and Spencer was cornered there in the living room. He didn’t really have a choice.

“C’mon, sit,” Zack said, settling himself down on the couch slowly. It reminded Spencer a lot of his dad, how he used to move around a bit slower than usual when he had to put in more hours at work and his back was sore or something. Zack had been working a lot. That made sense. Spencer sat on the couch next to him and picked at a ball of fuzz that was eradicating itself from the cushion.

“It’s pretty obvious that something’s going on with you,” Zack said all matter-of-factly. “And I think it would be beneficial to hear what’s going on from you rather than just trying to guess,”

There was that phenomenon where when someone asked what your favorite movie was, you’d automatically forget every movie you’d ever seen. That was kind of what happened to Spencer in that moment, because while he’d spent a lot of time thinking about what was going on, he suddenly couldn’t think of a single way to verbalize it.

“I… I don’t really know…” he said, because that was the truth. At least he had a concept of the fact that he didn’t know what was going on.

“Alright,” Zack sighed a bit. He sounded tired. “Is this a wolf thing? Or is this a teenager thing?”

Spencer rolled his eyes, not really on purpose. It was just a reflex. He felt stupid for some reason, and suddenly irritated.

“I’m just stressed out about a lot of stuff, but. I don’t know. Whenever I get upset, it’s like I lose control of myself and it kind of just comes out… yknow?” He risked a sideways glance at Zack, who looked thoughtful.

“So it’s both,” he noted, and Spencer nodded.

“Kind of,”

“Well, that’s something, at least,” Zack said. “What happened with… that kid, the other day. What was that?”

Spencer groaned internally and felt the random need to kick the coffee table in front of them. He didn’t, but he did slouch in his seat a bit. “I don’t know. I was having this weird dream, and then when I woke up he was screaming and I was in the wrong body, but I don’t remember how it happened. And uhm…”

“You’ve gotten bigger,” Zack mentioned. Spencer wasn’t sure whether Zack was referring to his human self or his wolf self, but both had experienced a bit of a growth spurt, so he just nodded. He held his arms out in front of him and looked at how his long sleeves ended before his wrists now. He’d gotten taller, too. Just a bit.

“It’s happened a few times,” he felt kind of sheepish talking about it, even though that didn’t make any sense, and Spencer couldn’t believe that he’d actually just thought the word “sheepish” in reference to himself. “If I wake up in wolf form, my clothes are all ripped up. Normally I’d just wake up squeezed into them, but… I guess I’m too big for that now…?”

“You’re only a year old,” Zack said. “You shouldn’t have grown that much yet. It usually takes years,”

Spencer shrugged. “I’m going to run out of clothes at this rate,”

“You’re already outgrowing them anyways, kid,” Zack grinned a bit and shook his head. “I’m going to talk to Maggie about this. She might have a better idea about what’s going on,”

Spencer searched his memory for the name. “Jon’s mom?” he came up with after a few moments.

Zack nodded. “She practically turned her home into a wolf shelter. If anyone knows how to handle puppies, it’s her,”

Sighing and slouching farther down, Spencer said, “I can’t believe I’m hitting a growth spurt at eighteen…”

Zack just laughed and ruffled his hair as he stood. “Late bloomer,”

…
There was a strong, warm breeze and a cluster of leaves where Ryan was expecting a loud ‘pop’ and cloud of purple smoke, but the air still carried the scent of cinnamon, so Ryan knew that a fey visitor was on his way. He frowned when a small person materialized next to him on the abandoned two a.m. sidewalk. Nothing stayed open past nine p.m. in this town except for the bars, which only stayed open until eleven. There was a mall halfway between this town and the next that stayed open late enough, but it wasn’t close enough to offer company to the empty small town main street (appropriately named ‘main street.’ this town was adorable). The only thing keeping Ryan and the snowy roads company were orange pools of light from ancient street lamps and a strange man that he didn’t recognize.

“You’re not Pete,” Ryan said, squinting at the man next to him.

The man was short and kind of pudgy. There was orange hair peeking out from under a flappy hat that had to be keeping him warm. Ryan envied that and the man’s red flannel jacket. He hadn’t stolen any better clothes from the apartment in his hasty escape, so he was stuck with dirty, ripped up, too thin clothing. He shivered.

“Pete has bad days,” the guy said with a small shrug. “That’s why I’m here,”

“So if he’s the fairy prince or whatever, who are you?” Ryan kicked at a chunk of ice, and it went skittering down the sidewalk. It hopped into the road and then fell into the gutter. Ryan frowned at it.

“Royal advisor,” the guy said, grinning wide as if he were proud of himself or something. Ryan rolled his eyes. “Appointed by the Queen herself,”

“Uh huh…” Ryan said, getting quickly bored with the conversation. He’d wanted to talk to Pete; he liked Pete. But this guy just wasn’t going to work. “Well, you can poof off to wherever you came from. I’m fine,”

The guy shrugged and pulled his hat back down by the flaps when a harsh wind threatened to blow it away. Ryan wrapped his hoodie tighter around himself and shivered.

“Let’s go get hot chocolate,” the guy said with a deciding nod. “Hot chocolate makes everything better. My name’s Patrick, by the way. Come on,”

Before Ryan knew what was happening, Patrick grabbed him by the arm and snapped his fingers. Just like that they were gone, swept away with the wind and a bundle of leaves, everything smelling like cinnamon.

…
“Mom, hey,” Spencer said, grinning too wide and feeling like an idiot. He’d been trying to reach his family for a while though, and this was the first time he’d gotten through. He was excited.

“Spence,” she answered. “Hi sweetie, how are you?” They talked for a while, exchanging formalities. She asked about his health and about college and if he had a girlfriend and if he was eating. He asked about his sisters and his dad and his grandfather, and how was Indiana and what did their winter look like. Was it snowing.

An irrational part of his mind thought that he could catch the scent of her emotions all the way across the country, or through the phone, or something. After a moment he realized that no, he wasn’t that much of a super wolf freak, it was just her tone that was off. With his other senses being more heightened lately, it was hard to remember simple human things like that. Tone of voice, short answers, a sense of disinterest.

Spencer shook his head and told himself that he was imagining it.

“So I was thinking about flying there for Thanksgiving,” Spencer said after a good amount of time asking questions to keep the conversation going. He was kind of afraid to stop. While he talked, he paced the kitchen idly and put away small things that had been left around. Cereal boxes go in the cupboard. Spoons go in the drawer. Dirty bowls go in the sink, and he started the hot water just as a head start. He might as well. He’d finished all of his assignments that morning, and he didn’t have to start panicking about finals until after the holiday. He had a few days to breathe.

Thanksgiving was four days away. Spencer had the date circled in the calendar on the fridge, and he had a list of possible flights for the occasion sitting on the desk in his and Jon’s room. He hadn’t mentioned it to Zack yet, but this was his family. He was sure Zack would understand.

“I’m not sure that would be a good idea, Spencer,” his mom said, voice slightly tinny through the cellphone speaker. Spencer’s hand stilled on the magnet it was messing with.
“Oh… really?” he asked.

“The situation is… complicated,” she said. “You know that,”

Oh. Right. Complicated. He wanted to ask what she was talking about. He wanted to say, ‘no, I don’t know that.’ But he didn’t, because if things got worse, he didn’t want to be responsible. There was a tense, awkward moment, before his mom continued.

“Your father is working a lot. He’s tired. And your grandfather is having trouble with his memory again,”

Spencer wondered if his grandfather would remember him. Maybe, but maybe not.

“And the girls are still working on adjusting to their new life here,”

‘Their new life without you,’ is what Spencer heard. But… no. He scowled shook his head and told himself to knock it off. They hadn’t moved to the Midwest because Spencer had turned into a werewolf. That was a coincidence. They hadn’t moved to get away from them. He was the one who’d wanted to stay behind, and he had to remember that. He did this to himself.

“Maybe Christmas,” Spencer said. His mom made a noncommittal humming noise, and he chose to ignore it. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been this. He’d call his dad’s phone next time and hope for the best.

“Okay well,” he looked around the clean apartment and eyed the two bowls in the sink forlornly. “I have a lot to get done. I’ll talk to you later,”

“Sure thing, Spence,”

“Okay. Bye mom, I love you,” He held his breath and waited, feeling the tight lump in his throat trying to suffocate him. His skin itched. There was a beep and then a dial tone. She’d just hung up, just like that.

The itch under his skin turned into a burning that rushed down both of his arms and into his chest. He looked down to see his cell phone, clutched so tight in his fist that the metal had broken and the glass had shattered.

“Fuck,” he muttered angrily at himself. His claws were protruding from his hands and after he blinked, his vision tinged red and turned sharper. Too sharp. Too much.

“Fuck!” he yelled, throwing his phone hard because if he didn’t move he was going to burst out of his skin. It wasn’t enough though, even as his cell shattered against the kitchen wall. He didn’t know why he was overreacting like this, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He was shaking. He couldn’t breathe. He-

“Spencer…” and then Jon was right there, under his hands, and Spencer had him shoved back against the wall. His hands were on Jon’s throat. Jon’s eyes were wide and his scent was scared. When he opened his mouth to speak, Spencer saw his canines.

He didn’t know how they’d gotten there, where Jon had even come from. He’d only blinked, and then… he must have blacked out again. A growl ripped its way up through his throat, and Jon’s heartbeat hammered heavier in his chest.

Spencer blinked again, and then they’d moved a bit. Jon’s hand was on his throat, his thumb rubbing the side of his neck. He seemed to be in the middle of a sentence, and Spencer caught the end. “-with me. Stay with me, puppy. It’s okay, Spence. Breathe,”

Breathe. Right. He could do that. He stepped back, away from Jon, and took a deep breath. It felt shaky in his lungs. He felt shaky on his legs. His hands were trembling.

“Again,” Jon said, stepping forward and getting too close. Closecloseclose. Too much. Everything was too much.

“Hey,” Jon’s voice called him back as his vision started tunneling out. “Breathe. It’s okay. Don’t wolf out on me, Spence, you’re wearing my favorite shirt. Come on,”

Jon’s voice was light, and it managed to startle a laugh out of Spencer. Something seemed a bit more right after that, as if Spencer’s head had been screwed on the right way again. He took another deep breath and rubbed his hands over his face.

“Oh my God. I just… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I don’t even know how-,”

“Hey,” there was Jon again, pushing his way into Spencer’s personal space and pulling him close. Spencer didn’t mind. Jon’s hug giving complex was kind of sweet, and the tight feel of his arms around Spencer’s shoulders made breathing come easier. “It’s okay. You’re okay, puppy. Just breathe,”

Breathing. Right. Spencer could do that. It didn’t matter that he’d just blacked out and pinned Jon to a wall, like some kind of out of control beast. Rogue. Zack had used the word rogue a long time ago, when he was talking about wolves who lost control. Wolves who ended up killing people. Oh my God, Spencer was going rogue.

“Shhh,” Jon said, hand running over Spencer’s hair, and Spencer realized that he’d been whining. God. He was such a mess. At least he wasn’t so tall that Jon couldn’t hug him properly. It was lame, and he was embarrassed for himself, but it was working. He didn’t have to admit anything out loud.

“You want to talk about it?” Jon asked.

Hell no. Spencer shook his head, and Jon squeezed him gently.

“Alright. Just breathe then,”

Breathing. Right. Spencer could do that.

…
They were leaning against the bike racks, and Brendon was hosting a battle inside his brain again. He was leaning with the backs of his thighs against the too cold metal. Sarah was standing between his legs, one hand curled around his shoulder and the other slipped into the back pocket of his jeans. She smelled good, like peppermint gum and her shampoo and just Sarah. It was warm out, for November, and even though the metal he was leaning on was biting him through his jeans, the air around them wasn’t uncomfortable with their winter coats and shared body heat. It was the last day of school before Thanksgiving break, too. They were free for a whole week. Things should have been great.

Things weren’t that great. His brain was all kinds of messed up. It had been a bad day anyways, the kind where he didn’t want to get out of bed, he didn’t have any energy, he didn’t talk a whole lot, he didn’t eat. He didn’t want to do anything. He was getting so used to these days that he’d stopped wondering ‘why’ and just rolled with it. Sarah had noticed though, and making out was supposed to be cheering him up, he was pretty sure. He appreciated the thought at least, but he kind of missed the point in their relationship where all they did was talk about lame superhero movies and throw things at each other.

Well, part of him did. Another part was shouting at him, yelling ‘SIN SIN SIN’ even louder than last time, and another part seemed to be glaring at him and saying ‘if you weren’t a gay loser you’d be enjoying this. What the hell is wrong with you?’ Another part of him was freaking out that they were making out on school property (yes, it was after the school day was over, but he was pretty sure the rules still applied, and he’d rather not get another call to home, thank you very much. even if Zack was cooler about it than his parents would be. he was trying not to push).

“You know you’re supposed to kiss back, right?” Sarah asked after a moment, pulling away enough to talk.

“I am,” Brendon said. His hands were starting to ache where they were settled on the bike rack to keep them both steady.

“Not really,” she said. She sounded kind of mad. Sarah didn’t get mad often.

“Sorry,”

“Are you even into this?” she asked him.

“Yeah, totally,”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she didn’t respond after that, just stood there and frowned at him. He felt squeamish under the surveillance. “Sorry,”

She shook her head and leaned back in. They were kissing again, and this time Brendon made an effort to kiss back. It wasn’t awful. It just wasn’t… magical… or anything. It was fine.

After a few minutes of Brendon trying to move his mouth against hers the right way, she suddenly pulled back from the kiss, reached down, and squeezed him between his legs. Brendon yelped and jumped back, because what the hell? What? That was his- She’d just- What the hell? She was glaring at him, as if it was he who had just accosted her in the school parking lot.

“I knew it!” she said. “You’re not even into this,”

“Yeah I am, I just-,”

“Save it,” she snapped. “Brendon, if you didn’t want to make out with me, all you had to do was tell me. What the hell? This is embarrassing! You weren’t hard the last time we did this either,”

Brendon felt his face heat up. He was probably blushing. His tongue felt too heavy in his mouth too. “I-,” he started. Sarah raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest, as if she were waiting for an explanation. Brendon didn’t actually have one. ‘Nothing against your lips or anything, but it’s hard to get into this with boobs pressed into my chest.’ He couldn’t say that. He also couldn’t say, ‘Guess what! I’m gay!’ Nope. Definitely not. He couldn’t risk her hating him.

But she was still waiting for an explanation that he didn’t have. “I’m sorry,” is what he said in the end.

“I don’t get it,”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes.

“Whatever,” she said. “Whatever, Brendon. I’m going home. When you’re ready to tell me what’s actually going on, give me a call,” She smelled furious as she turned and stormed down the sidewalk.

Brendon felt even worse than he had the rest of the day. He’d totally ruined this, totally ruined everything. Sarah hated him now, all because he couldn’t get into making out with her like any normal guy would and he couldn’t get his head to shut up and he was just a stupid faggot who couldn’t do anything right and-

He was just going to walk home and go to bed. Today was officially over, and if he didn’t crawl back into bed and hide from the world for the rest of it, he was probably going to die. Or do something stupid. Because he was an idiot.

Brendon pinched his wrist hard between his fingernails the entire walk home. It helped, at least a bit. Not enough.

…
“That’s strange… let me talk to Clyde about it. I’ll ask around. I’ve heard of this happening… but he’s so young. It shouldn’t..”

“Yeah, I know. And trust me, he’s just as confused as we are,”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Zack, you know what I mean,”

“Yeah. Yeah he’s… it’s like he doesn’t know how to handle himself. We talked about it, and he said that he doesn’t even know what he’s doing but suddenly he’s attacking someone,”

“Attacking someone?”

“He hasn’t hurt anyone. And it’s only the boys in the pack. It’s like a sudden burst of violence, and then he’ll come back to himself and go human again and look really confused, like he doesn’t know what just happened,”

“This really doesn’t sound good…”

“Why do you think I called you?”

“Alright. Jon bought his plane ticket already, right? You know how he is, and flights to Chicago are so expensive last minute,”

“Yeah, he got it a week ago or so. He’s insisting on driving himself to the airport and everything,”

“My puppy is all grown up,”

“Yeah. You might not even recognize him. He has a beard now,”

“Oh Lord. What is it with these pups and facial hair?”

“Who the hell knows, Maggie,”

“He’s been behaving?”

“As much as the rest of them. More so, actually. Jon isn’t a problem. He’s always been easy,”

“Yeah, compared to his brothers… you’re having trouble with the other ones?”

“Kind of… I just. There’s stuff going on with them, I know there is. But I can’t get them to talk to me about it,”

“They trust you, otherwise they wouldn’t be there…”

“I’m pretty sure they do. The pack is tight. Except for the one…”

“Just remember, Hall. You don’t get kids to obey you through fear. You get them to respect you through love,”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?”

“You’d better believe it, pup. Now, tell me about this girl of yours,”

“Oh my God,”

Chapter 6

Lastly, while this story is based in Colorado, that was an executive decision made during the RP with these characters quite a while ago. I actually live in Indiana (with Spencer's parents! huehue) and don't know a whole lot about Colorado. I visited there twice, once when I was two and once when I was six, so most of my narrative regarding weather and snow and wind coming down the mountains and shit is all made up. If ya'll know something I don't about that ominous state, drop me a line and help a sister out (also if you catch any embarrassing typos or errors or something, yell at me. I'll find them eventually when rereading, but I'd rather know before a ton of people see it and judge my lack of editing. kthanx).

After bidding Jon goodbye as he headed off to the airport, Spencer joined Brendon on the couch. There was a rerun of South Park on TV, the episode where Paris Hilton shoves a pineapple up her vagina to prove she’s the biggest whore ever or something. Spencer laughed at a crude joke from the TV, but Brendon just sighed and tossed his phone onto the other couch.

Spencer had to remember to go get a new phone. His was absolutely destroyed, and it kind of sucked. Phones were expensive. Ugh.

Brendon sighed again and kicked restlessly at the coffee table. Spencer frowned at him.

“What’s up with you?” he asked.

“Sarah won’t text me back,” Brendon grumbled, kicking the table again. And again. Spencer put his hand on Brendon’s knee to settle him. “She’s mad at me,”

“What’d you do?” Spencer asked. Brendon glared at the floor hard and balled his hands into fists. He shoved Spencer away from him as he got to his feet and stormed out of the room. Spencer stared after him, bewildered, as Brendon’s bedroom door slammed shut.

“What the hell?” Spencer yelled after him, but he didn’t get a response. He wasn’t expecting too.

“What’s going on?” Zack asked, coming out of his room where he’d been doing some kind of work on his computer. Spencer looked up at him just as the leather-bear-gay character in South Park shoved Paris Hilton up his butt to prove that no, he was the bigger whore.

“Brendon’s having girl problems,” Spencer answered. Zack glanced between him, the TV, Brendon’s doorway, and back at Spencer.

“Uh huh,” he said, nodding. He turned and went back to his room. Spencer shrugged and settled into the next episode of South Park.

…

“Jenny is coming over for Thanksgiving tomorrow,” Zack said at the dinner table that night. He and Spencer had gone on a walk to get KFC from the restaurant about a mile down the road. Brendon would have gone by himself, but his skateboard was still ruined and walking was too slow and he didn’t want to be by himself that long, so he’d bugged Spencer into coming with him. Talking to Spencer got him out of his head, even though Spencer seemed stuck in his head too. Spencer had asked about Brendon’s skateboard, and Brendon had just shrugged and started talking about the new Jurassic Park movie that was coming out.

“Okay,” Spencer grinned over the drumstick he was holding up. Brendon poked at his mashed potatoes and nodded.

“Cool,” he said. He wondered what his family was doing for Thanksgiving. Would everyone go over to his parents house or to Uncle Al’s? Would all the cousins come over too, even the ones old enough to have their own families? Was Matthew still on Mission? Was his mom going to make that disgusting cranberry stuff? And what was she going to do without Brendon there to poke at it and make alien slime jokes?

Brendon tuned back into the conversation to find Spencer trying to talk his way into going to a party some time after Thanksgiving. A party. With friends. Brendon was kind of jealous. He wondered if he could get Spencer to take him along to the party, but… no. This was Spencer’s thing with Spencer’s cool college friends. Brendon didn’t want to ruin that.

He excused himself before getting up and putting his plate in the sink. He went to hide out in his bedroom for a while, where he could listen to music and stare at the wall and try to get Sarah to stop being angry with him.

After half an hour or so, Spencer poked his head into the room. He might have knocked, but Brendon hadn’t heard it over the sound coming from his headphones. Spencer leaned against the doorframe and grinned at Brendon, who plucked the wires out of his ears and sighed.

“Yeah?”

“Wanna come play Minecraft?”

“No,”

There was a pause. Brendon stared at the wall and ignored Spencer staring at him. Eventually Spencer shrugged and closed Brendon’s door behind him as he went back to the living room. Brendon scowled and kicked out at the wall. He probably should have said yes. He was kind of ruining everything.

…

“Spencer,” He woke up from a dream about an earthquake to find Brendon shaking his shoulder. “Spencer, wake up, come on, please,”

He groaned and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and squinting at the clock on the desk across the room. 12:25 a.m.

“Brendon, what the hell?” he grumbled, kind of pissed. He’d been sleeping.

Brendon was standing at the edge of his bed, eyes wide and shiny, clutching his forearm in the grip of his other hand and trembling seemingly all over. That didn’t make sense. Spencer sniffed the air and it was rank with blood. That didn’t make sense either.

“What’s wrong?” Spencer asked, rubbing his hand over his face and holding back a yawn.

“I fucked up Spence it won’t stop bleeding and I didn’t mean to that bad but now it won’t stop and it won’t heal itself and Spencer I don’t know what to do!” Brendon exclaimed all in one breath. Spencer blinked and woke up pretty quickly.

“Wait, what?” he asked. “Slower, Brendon. Talk slower. Geeze,”

“It won’t stop!” Brendon yelled. There were tears streaking down his face now, and Brendon held his arm out. Spencer saw something bright red between Brendon’s fingers. What the hell was going on?

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Spencer got up out of bed and dragged Brendon to the bathroom with him. They’d relocated the first aid kit from under the kitchen sink (which didn’t make any sense in the first place), to under the bathroom sink. He pushed Brendon to sit down on the edge of the bathtub and pulled the bag out.

“You’re going to have to let go of your arm, dude,” Spencer said, knee walking over to the younger boy with a mass of balled up toilet paper in one hand to catch the blood. Brendon ducked his head and inched his arm out slowly towards Spencer. He let go of it, and Spencer quickly pressed the paper in his hand to the wound to catch the blood.

“Jesus…” he swore under his breath. “How the hell did this happen, B?” Brendon kept his eyes down and kept shaking his head, back and forth, slowly. “Come on, B. You can’t just wake me up for this kind of thing and then not talk to me,” He kept his voice gentle and even, because obviously Brendon was already pretty upset, and he didn’t want to freak him out any worse. He wasn’t even mad, actually. Just really confused. And kind of scared. There was a lot of blood.

Once the blood stopped flowing so heavily, Spencer bit his lip and pulled the paper away. He threw the soiled tissues in the trash can and looked at Brendon’s arm. There were four straight cuts down the fleshy part, about three inches down from his elbow. The last one had been cut deeper than the other three, and they were too uniform to be accidental. There was a litany of similar scars in the area as well. Spencer looked up at Brendon in shock, but Brendon still wasn’t looking at him.

Spencer sighed and shook his head while he got up to get a wet cloth. He needed to clean all the dried blood up before he bandaged it. Brendon was right. The area wasn’t healing itself as fast as would be expected.

He got down on his knees and curled one hand around Brendon’s wrist to hold him still while he ran the wet towel over the hurt part. Brendon hissed in a breath (“Coldcoldcoldcold!”), and Spencer rolled his eyes. His arm was still bleeding; they were going to have to throw the washcloth away.

“We have to tell Zack about this…” Spencer murmured.

Brendon jerked away from him, but Spencer kept his grip on Brendon’s arm and pulled him back. “What!? Spencer! No! No, please, you can’t!”

“What?” Spencer snapped back. “Can’t tell Zack that you’re slashing your wrists open like some kind of basket case!?” He chose that moment to press the rag soaked in alcohol onto Brendon’s cuts. Brendon yelped and cursed and tried to tug away, but Spencer just held onto him tight and waited for Brendon to chill before taking the rag away.

“You don’t understand…” Brendon grumbled after catching his breath.

“You’re right, I don’t,” He took a piece of gauze (they didn’t have any bandaids big enough to cover this) and taped it on tight. “Explain it to me,”

Brendon pulled his arm back to himself and clutched it to his chest. Spencer sat back on his heels and waited. He was not waking up at midnight for this nonsense without an explanation.

“I ruin everything-,” Brendon started, and he glared when Spencer opened his mouth to object. “You asked, asshole, so let me finish,” Right, right. Spencer snapped his mouth closed.

“I ruin everything,” he started again. “And I can’t help it. People are always getting mad at me, and I’m always mad at me. I don’t like it, okay? I’m all messed up. And Sarah is, like, my only friend, but now she hates me because she wanted to make out and I couldn’t get a boner and now she won’t talk to me and I totally ruined it,”

“You…” Spencer blinked. “What?”

“That’s not it though, okay? It’s not just that. I’m just messed up. My head is messed up. Do you know what it’s like to feel like you’re losing control of yourself?”

Oh… “Yeah… I do…”

Brendon nodded and ducked his head again. “Please don’t tell Zack,” he said quietly. “Please. I… It’s not this bad, really. I’m okay. I just… this helps,”

“It’s not good,” Spencer said, but he already knew that he probably wasn’t going to tell. If Brendon was feeling desperate and this was the only way to help, then damn. Spencer couldn’t take that away from him. “You shouldn’t be hurting yourself,”

“I know,”

“I won’t tell,”

Brendon glanced up through his eyelashes and his mouth quirked in a half grin. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Thanks,”

“C’mon, back to bed,” Spencer said as he heaved himself off the bathroom floor and tossed the first aid bag back under the bathroom sink. He didn’t protest when Brendon trailed him back to his room and curled up in Spencer’s bed with him. He didn’t mind. Maybe Jon was right about the pack cuddling thing. It was nice. It didn’t take long for Brendon to fall asleep curled up close next to Spencer, but Spencer was still awake an hour later when Zack came home from work. He couldn’t get his brain to shut off, so he closed his eyes and feigned sleep when Zack peeked into the room to check on them before going to bed.

…

“The boys are sweet,” Jenny said. They were standing downstairs in the small lobby area of the apartment building. There was a washing machine humming along down the hall in the laundry room. Zack wondered what kind of person did laundry on a holiday anyways.

“Thanks,” he said. “They seemed to like you,” Brendon and Spencer were upstairs doing the dishes. Brendon had volunteered to do them initially, and then Spencer had decided to help because ‘You never do it right, Brendon, you’re going to give us diseases.’ Zack had only been slightly embarrassed.

“That’s good,” she laughed nervously and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. Zack smiled at her. Their holiday dinner had been an informal affair. They’d all just worn jeans and sweatshirts, but Jenny still managed to look stunning in a faded blue hoodie with the word ‘DENVER’ across the front in block letters. God, Zack was so taken.

“I’ll see you later, alright?” she asked, moving in and standing up on tiptoes to kiss him. Zack kissed back briefly, feeling like a dumb teenager again. Man, he’d missed that fluttery feeling in his chest. It was nice. This woman was amazing.

“See you later,” he agreed. She winked before tugging her coat on and sauntering out the door. Zack stood there dumbly for a moment after watching her go, then he shook himself and headed back upstairs to the apartment.

…
“I think we should talk about it,” Spencer said. He rinsed off a plate and handed it to Brendon to dry without looking up. Brendon didn’t take it though, and after a moment Spencer was forced to raise his eyes and find the younger wolf scowling at him with his arms crossed.

“I think we shouldn’t,” Brendon said. “If I knew you were going to bother me about this so much I wouldn’t have told you,” He snatched the plate away and set it on the counter with the others, not very gently either, and Spencer was surprised it didn’t crack.

“Hey. Chill, dude,”

“You’re telling me to chill?” Brendon guffawed. “That’s hilarious,”

“Why are you being such a dick?” Spencer snapped, dropping the sponge into the sink with a ‘plop.’

“Why are you trying to talk about this?” Brendon countered. “I don’t want to talk about this. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You shouldn’t be hurting yourself,”

“You said last night that you understood!”

“Look, I’m going through a lot of confusing shit right now, but you don’t see me cutting myself like some kind of ambient!”

“Whoa ho! Nice SAT word. Learn that at community college?” Brendon sneered. “Look I’m sorry I came to you about this last night, okay? I get it. I’ll leave you out of it. You don’t care, whatever. Finish the dishes by yourself, asshole,”

Brendon threw his towel on the kitchen floor and stormed out of the room, smacking the wall as he went and mumbling under his breath. Spencer gifted himself a moment of hairpulling and muttering before he turned off the sink faucet and followed after him.

“Brendon, wait,” he called. Brendon was still in the hallway to their bedrooms, and he froze right there with his fists clenched tight and his wolf eyes flashing dangerously.

“What!?” he snapped out. Spencer wished that Jon was there, cause Jon always knew what to do when someone was all upset like this. He stared at Brendon for a few seconds, at a loss, before it hit him. He knew what Jon would do to fix this, at least for a little while. He stepped in and hugged Brendon tight before the kid could protest and shove him away.

“I’m just worried about you,” Spencer said. He’d always been bigger than Brendon, but with the added height he’d recently acquired, he could fully envelope Brendon in a hug and hold him there. Brendon wasn’t fighting it too much; he relaxed after a moment and buried his face against Spencer’s chest.

“I’m sorry,”

“It’s okay,” Spencer soothed.

“I’m such a fuck up,”

“No you’re not,”

“I don’t want you to be worried about me,”

“Yeah, well…”

“Spence, I just don’t know what to do,” his voice was hinging on the edge of desperation, so Spencer hugged him as tight as he could without hurting him. Brendon sniffled. Zack walked quietly into the hallway and gave Spencer a quizzical expression over Brendon’s head. And while Zack definitely deserved an explanation, Brendon would probably never talk to him again if Spencer broke his promise and told Zack about what had happened. What had been happening. God. He gave a small grin and shook his head, and Zack sighed, as if he hadn’t expected anything else, and nodded before walking back into the other room.

“I’m sorry,” Brendon said quietly again, pulling back and rubbing his fists over his eyes. “I’ll try to stop,”

“Please do,”

“I’m sorry,”

“It’s okay,”

Brendon sighed and hung his head. He stepped back away from Spencer, and his body language automatically switched to ‘don’t touch me don’t touch me don’t touch me.’ It was a weird vibe, coming from Brendon, but Spencer respected it.

“If you need to talk, you know you can talk to me, okay?” Spencer asked.

Brendon nodded. “Thanks… I’m gonna go to bed…” he shuffled into his room and closed the door gently behind him.

Zack was waiting for Spencer in the living room. The TV was on with some video game Spencer didn’t recognize immediately playing out on the screen. He accepted the controller Zack offered him and sat down.

“What was that about?” Zack asked.

“Oh, yknow,” Enemy characters in the game opened fire, and Spencer made his character dive behind a barrel and switched his rifle out for a sniper. “Teenagers and their mood swings. Whatcha gonna do?”

He laughed when Zack leaned over and flicked him hard in the ear. To avenge himself, he turned his character around and shot Zack in the back, killing him. He cheered in triumph, even as the older wolf grabbed a pillow and proceeded to grind Spencer’s head into the cushions with it.

…
Brendon was sitting on his bed strumming along at his guitar and following some chords that he’d printed out from a library computer before break had started. He still wasn’t so great at bar chords, and this song had an irritating Bm that kept rearing its hideous head. Brendon had tried substituting every other chord he could think of, but to no avail. He was trapped with this demon of a Bm chord, and he had no choice but to learn how to play it. Maybe he’d finally get good. It’d be pretty cool to be good at something like this. He could be that guy at parties who whips out his guitar and breaks into renditions of classic rock songs. Yeah. Yeah Brendon could totally be that guy. He just had to practice.

On one particularly good Bm chord, which went ringing through his bedroom with a beautiful clang, his phone started ringing. It was on the floor a few feet away, and Brendon squinted at it suspiciously before going into some kind of ninja maneuver, leaning off the bed almost entirely, trying not to drop the guitar or himself and still grab the phone, which was screaming ABBA’s “How Deep Is Your Love” at him at full volume. It was a good thing everyone else was already awake. They were waiting for Jon to get home, he was pretty sure.

“Hullo?” Brendon asked, holding the phone up to his ear and trying to throw himself back up onto the bed. He succeeded, narrowly escaping falling to his death and smacking his face on the floor. He was a little bit proud of that.

“Hey,” it was Sarah. Brendon kind of paused for a minute, and when he got himself back together, he felt a little like he was in slow motion.

“Oh,” he said, cradling the guitar in his lap and hugging it a bit. For moral support. “Hi,”
“So I’ve been thinking…”

Brendon didn’t like the sound of that. “Yeah?”

“Come meet me at the skate park, okay?”

Brendon wrinkled his nose up and plucked at the low E chord. It seemed appropriate.

“Uhm… it’s covered in ice?” he said, plucking quickly yet quietly with his thumb and listening to the gentle hum-hum-humming of the string. It sounded nice.

“Yeah, duh. That way no one else will be there,” Sarah said. She had probably rolled her eyes. She was pretty when she rolled her eyes. Maybe Brendon could make himself be straight for Sarah, if that would make her happy. He could probably get better at pretending. She was pretty, after all. And she was so nice. She deserved to be happy.

“Yeah, okay. Uhm… twenty minutes?”

“Twenty minutes,” she confirmed. “See you there,”

“Yeah,”

“Bye,”

Brendon hung up his phone and plucked at his E string for a few more moments. He felt rather unsure of himself about this whole thing. He’d spent the last three days feeling guilty and then miserable and then guilty again when Spencer found out his secret and the so angry he could punch something and then just a bit numb. His grey cloud had kind of settled in to stay, and maybe he was getting used to it. Now Sarah wanted to talk. That would either make the grey cloud better or worse. Brendon wasn’t sure how he felt about that. What did she want to talk about? If she tried to grab his dick again Brendon was probably going to die. If she wanted to actually skate, he’d have to reveal that his skateboard had been broken by bullies, and then she would laugh at him, and then he would probably die.

“Damn,” he muttered to himself, but he got off the bed anyways and rustled around in his drawers for a bit to find clothes. Black jeans, black t-shirt, Spencer’s dark brown hoodie: yes, that seemed appropriate. Today was a dark day.

He went into the main part of the apartment and found Zack at the kitchen table. “May I go out for a little while?” he asked.

Zack nodded. “Be back by dinner. And put a hat and coat on, Bren, it’s freezing out there,”

Brendon nodded and went to do that. His coat was blue, which kind of went against his color scheme, but his hat and gloves were both black, so that worked. He could always just take the coat off when he got there, if he had to express his inner darkness or something. Yeah.
Sarah was sitting up on the big ramp when he got there, dangling her legs over the edge and kicking her heels against it. The gate creaked on its hinges when he walked it, and Sarah looked up at him and waved.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Brendon took the ramp at a running start, scaling up the slope rather than taking the stairs because he wasn’t a noob. He slipped on a patch of ice the first time and slid back down, but the second time he totally nailed it and was able to hoist himself up on the ledge next to Sarah. She grinned at him when he settled next to her, and it didn’t reach her eyes exactly, but it was still nice to see.

“Hey,” he said again. He was suddenly nervous and had to take his gloves off to rub his hands on his jeans. They were all sweaty. He was kind of sweaty under his coat too, so he shimmied out of that as well and laid it down behind them. Sarah was smirking at him when he finished.

“Comfy now?” she asked, teasing. Brendon nodded. “So I have a question,” she said.

Brendon nodded again, “Okay,”

“You have to promise not to get offended, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, kind of scared of where this was going.

“Are you gay?” she asked, and while Brendon was sure he should have expected such an accusation, he still wasn’t prepared for that. He hadn’t had anyone actually ask him that before. He wasn’t sure how he wanted to respond.

He let himself have a moment to think about it. Telling her the truth sure would save him a lot of hassle, but it might also hurt her feelings, and Brendon wasn’t sure he wanted to risk that. Also, she would probably think he was totally disgusting or pathetic and never want to talk to him again, and since Brendon only had two friends, and Shane was more of Sarah’s friend than Brendon’s, that decision could cause Brendon to loose both his friends, which also happened to be his girlfriend (maybe) and his crush. Damn. But at the same time, if he said no, she’d probably be really offended that he didn’t want to make out with her. But she knew that he used to be Mormon, so maybe he could lie and tell her it was a weird Mormon thing. His dick didn’t work because of his religion. Hell, maybe he could tell her that he was a girl, which would explain the lack of boner and also make it seem normal that he wanted to be with guys! But… wait no… he was dating Sarah though, so that would actually make him a lesbian, which would make him gay, which would make Sarah hate him. God damn it.

“Hey, hey it’s okay,” she was saying suddenly, scooting over to him and putting her arm around his shoulders. “Come on, don’t do that,”

He realized just then that his eyes were welling up with tears and he blinked them away quickly. He was slightly scared to cry outside during the winter, because what if the tears froze to his eyeballs and got stuck. That would be the worst thing ever, Brendon was pretty sure. That would-

“Where is your head today, man?” she asked, running her fingers through his hair. It felt really good, so he leaned into it. “Look, you don’t have to answer that, it was dumb-,”

“Yes,” he said quickly before he could stop himself.

Sarah paused for a moment, and then slowly retracted her hand from his hair. “Yes what…?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m gay,” he said out loud. The words felt weird on his tongue. “Can I… can I tell you something?”

Sarah leaned back on her hands and nodded. Brendon nodded too. He puffed his cheeks up full of air and blew it out. He was suddenly cold again, so he pulled his hands back into his hoodie sleeves and clutched the fabric in his fists. He chewed on his lip.

“Okay so… You know how I live with Zack, right?” he asked.

“Uh huh,”

“He’s not my dad,” he said.

“Yeah, I kind of figured,”

“I accidentally came out to my parents, like… a year and a half ago I think..” he said. “And it was this huge thing that blew up, and they totally weren’t okay with it. And things were really, really bad for a while, and then I got in this huge fight with my dad, and at the end of it he decided that he’d had enough and he kicked me out. Zack took me in, but I never really explained about the gay thing. I don’t know if he knows… Spencer knows, but. Oh yeah, he’s not my real brother either. He’s just my friend, who also lives with Zack, cause Zack is really cool like that and helps people out when they need it, but I actually have three other brothers and two sisters, well I did, but I guess I don’t anymore-,”

“Brendon, breathe,” Sarah’s hand was warm where it settled on his knee. He realized he’d been rambling and felt embarrassed. He was probably blushing, but he could just lie and say it was from the cold.

“So yeah… I’m… I’m gay, and I totally get if you hate me now, it’s okay,”

Sarah studied him for a moment before laying her head down on his shoulder and taking his hand in hers. She threaded their fingers together.

“Just because your family sucked,” she said, “doesn’t mean that everyone is going to,”

That comment made Brendon feel really small for some reason. He squeezed her hand. “But they might,”

“If they do, they aren’t worth your time, Bren,”

“I’m not supposed to be like this, though,” he said sadly. “I’m not supposed to be into guys. It’s weird. It’s wrong. Why can’t I just be normal?”

“Normal is overrated,” Sarah told him, squeezing his hand back. “And what’s wrong? There’s nothing wrong about being gay, Brendon. It’s not a choice, but even if it were it wouldn’t matter. The only choice you’re making is whether you’re going to be happy with who you are, or if you’re going to let other people make you miserable and hide in the closet forever. There’s nothing wrong with you. You probably couldn’t be straight, even if you tried,”

Brendon pouted a little bit, “I did try,”

“And where did that get us?” She asked. “Freezing our asses off and sorting through your mental break down in an abandoned skate park on the day after Thanksgiving,”

Brendon frowned and picked his coat up so he could drape it around Sarah’s shoulders. She was a human, so she ran on a lower heat register than he did. He wondered momentarily if he would ever come out to her as a werewolf too. Well, not at that moment. Not yet. He had enough to think about for the time being.

“I’m honestly a bit relieved,” she said. “I was worried I was really bad at kissing or something,”

“You’re good at kissing,” he said. He squeezed her hand again. “It’s just… yknow. Boobs. And you smell like fruit. And stuff,”

“You’re a fruit,” she countered, and then added, “I’m teasing, by the way. If you’re not okay with me teasing you about it, I won’t,”

He shook his head. “It’s okay. Just not… like… around anyone else? I’m still kind of, uhm… in the closet, I guess,”

“Honey, you are so in the closet, you’re like a winter jacket in a Florida suburb,”

Brendon laughed. “Dude, what the hell?”

“Metaphors are beautiful,” she said solemnly. He rolled his eyes.

“That was a simile,” at least, he was pretty sure. Sarah shrugged.

“Whatever. Let’s go get slushies at the seven eleven,” she pulled away from Brendon and slid down the ramp like it was a slide in a children’s park. Brendon grabbed his gloves and slid down after her.

“Sarah, it’s like fifteen degrees out!” He said, laughing.

“Slushies!” she demanded, so Brendon just rolled his eyes and skipped after her out of the skate park. His grey cloud was still there, but it was a little less threatening. He felt better, at least a little bit.

“You really don’t think I’m disgusting?” he asked as they walked down the sidewalk. He worked on getting his hands stuffed into gloves and making sure his fingers all went in the right sleeves. Were they called sleeves? Finger sleeves?

“I think,” she said. “That you are the sweetest boy I’ve ever met,” she leaned in and smacked a kiss onto his cheek. “And you were my friend before you were my boyfriend, anyways. Let’s keep it like that, okay?”

Brendon grinned and nodded. “Okay,”

“BFFs?” she asked. She was probably being ironic about it, but the meaning was still there. It made Brendon laugh.

“I’ll make you a friendship bracelet,” he responded.

“Oh, I am holding you too that, buddy,” she said, squeezing his side where he was ticklish and causing him to let out an embarrassing shrieking noise while she darted off down the sidewalk.

“Hey!” he yelled after her. “Wait up!”

…
It had been freezing in Chicago, the way it was always freezing in Chicago in November, and Jon had been totally prepared to return to Colorado for even more freezing temperatures. Less wind, sure, but still damn cold. When he walked out the door of the airport, duffle bag thrown bodily over his shoulder, he was surprised to find that it was actually really nice out. Sure, it wasn’t warm out, parse, but it was at least fifty degrees. It was also raining heavily, but Jon took small miracles where he could get them.

The drive from Aspens to BFE (he’d learned the phrase ‘butt fuck Egypt’ for describing small towns when he was seventeen from one of his friends in art class. he’d made the mistake of saying it later that day within ear of the vice principal and had gotten himself sentenced to lunch detention for a week. his parents hadn’t been very happy about that, but his father had snickered a bit at the phrase, so he hadn’t gotten in too much trouble) only took about an hour, and Jon went the whole drive with his windows down and his music blasting. He was in a punk rock mood, and there was only one appropriate volume for listening to this kind of music: loud.

The heat wave lasted all the way to the apartment, and he was glad for that, but the rain only got heavier as he made his way down to the valley. When it started raining sideways, he was forced to roll his windows up and hide from the moisture like a normal person, even though his left arm was entirely soaked from the drive there.

He pulled up to the building and parked his car in the side lot. He would have gone straight inside, but a figure in the back caught his eye instead. He ended up leaving his bag in the backseat and going around to the patio. There was Spencer, leaning against the wall with rain coming down all around him, absolutely soaked and sulking down at the shimmering cement.

“Hey,” Jon said, sidling up next to him. He pushed his wet bangs out of his eyes and squinted up through the rain. “What are you doing out here?”

“Thinking,” Spencer shrugged. Jon nodded.

“You’re going to give yourself pneumonia,”

“Advanced immune system,” Spencer countered. His voice was flat. Jon wondered what was up.

“Yeah, advanced, but not invincible,” he said. “What’s on your mind, puppy?”

Spencer sighed heavily and rubbed the rain off his face with his palm. “What isn’t on my mind?”

“Hmm,” Jon thought for a moment and scuffed his sneaker against the cement. The fabric of his shoes was absolutely drenched. He felt all sloshy. “The bourgeois, probably,”

A tiny smile cracked across Spencer’s face, and Jon high fived himself in his head. “Wrong,” Spencer said. “I think about that constantly. It is my greatest foe,”

“Viva le revolution,” Jon said deadpan. “Down with the capitalistic pigs,”

“Amen,”

“Seriously though, Spin. What are you thinking about? What’s got you so bothered that you’re standing out here in the rain risking your health?”

Spencer rolled his eyes, as if Jon was being the dramatic one. And sure, he was being dramatic, but it was all in play. Also, Jon wasn’t the one sulking in the rain. So ha.

“I called my mom before, and she said not to come home for Thanksgiving because everything was too busy. She made it seem like they wouldn’t even be celebrating. But I called home again today, and Jackie answered. She said that Aunt Jill flew up from Arizona. Arizona, Jon. They let her come all that way, and they had a huge meal with the whole family, but my own mother didn’t want me there,”

Jon frowned and pulled his mouth to one side, thinking. That was pretty cold, actually. If Jon’s own family did that to him, he’d be really upset. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just put his arm around Spencer’s shoulders (Spencer had gotten taller, but not too tall for this to work), and focused on sending good vibes his way. He’d never been taught how to do it; he’d just picked it up naturally when he was little. Sometimes it was the only thing he could think of to help.

“That’s not going to fix anything, Jon,” Spencer sighed, but he didn’t pull away, so Jon stayed vigilant.

“Yeah, but it might make it feel better,”

They stood there for a while, sopping wet and blinking rain drops off of their eyelashes. Eventually (Jon had lost any concept of time, for a while. how long had they been out there? minutes? hours?) Jon shivered, and Spencer snapped out of whatever trance he’d been in to look at him.

“C’mon, let’s get inside,” he said. They walked together to Jon’s car, and Spencer insisted on carrying his bag inside for him. Jon wasn’t going to fight it. He was exhausted from trying to transfer energy and jetlagged from the flight home, not to forget lazy from the amount of food he’d eaten two days prior. He was going to feel fat forever, but he liked it.

“Thanks,” Spencer said when they stopped to unlock the apartment door. Jon grinned and bumped his shoulder against Spencer’s.

“No problem, puppy,”

…
He wasn’t sure what time it was, but whatever the hour may be, it was too damn early for Zack to be ripping the blinds open and letting all that damned sunlight into the room. Spencer made some kind of groaning noise and flailed his arms about trying to grab the blanket and pull it up over his head. Jon, likewise, had taken his pillow and was clutching it tight over his face.

“Oh calm the hell down, you guys aren’t vampires,” Zack said.

Spencer gave up flailing and instead sat up and squinted/glared at the man in front of him. “What are you doing?”

“Maggie and I came up with a plan to fix your weird wolf pubescent mood swings. Chop chop, get up, get dressed, let’s go,” Zack said, clapping his hands. It was too early for loud noises. Spencer groaned and flopped back onto the pillows.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Jon let out a verbal yawn and sat up, scrubbing his hand through his hair and not bothering to open his eyes yet.

“Out,”

“Zaaaack,”

“You have five minutes, Spencer Smith, before I come back in here and drag you out by your ear,” Zack said before leaving the room. Spencer groaned and covered his face with his pillow. “I mean it!” he heard Zack shout from the hallway, and he huffed before rolling out of bed and shuffling his way to the bathroom.

…
“Where are we going?” Spencer couldn’t quite hide the whiny tone to his voice as he trailed Zack down the sidewalk. He wasn’t as tired as he had been, but he was still pretty grumpy about being woken up early, hours before he had to go to class, for whatever was going on. He wasn’t paying much attention, and he ran straight into the older man’s back when Zack stopped at a door. The door was pulled open, and Zack herded Spencer inside with a hand on his back. Spencer huffed but went.

“Hey Tommy,” Zack raised his hand in greeting to a man lounging behind a desk in the corner of the large room. Spencer blinked and looked around. The space was crowded with workout equipment. Oh. Great.

“Why are we at a gym?” Spencer asked.

“To work out, duh,” Zack told him, digging around in the backpack he’d had slung over his shoulder. “Maggie and I came up with a plan for you,”

“Working out? In the morning?” Spencer protested, whining again, but he really didn’t care enough to stop at this point.

“Go get changed,” Zack said, tossing him a bundle of clothes that Spencer caught easily.

“Zaaaaaack,” he whined again, because working out? Seriously? He did not want to do this.
“Go,” Zack spun him around and swatted him on the ass. Spencer jumped away quickly, sending an offended look over his shoulder at the older wolf, but Zack just rolled his eyes and waved him in the direction of the locker room. Spencer huffed again, just for good measure, and went.

“So Maggie thinks part of the problem is that you have too much energy. You’re not getting it all out, and so it’s kind of overflowing. Which would be why you keep snapping,” Zack said, after Spencer had changed and rejoined him on the floor.

“Uh huh,” Spencer said. He tried to sound bored, but that actually made a bit of sense.

“The growth spurts… that’s a whole other thing. But we want to focus on your excess energy for now,”

“Uh huh,” Spencer repeated.

“If what we’re thinking is correct, then we’ll prove it pretty quickly through this,”

Spencer heaved a weary sigh and crossed his arms, “Can we get started already, then?” he asked. Zack kind of chuckled at him.

“Alright then. Stretch first, I’m going to go find Tommy,” he instructed.

“What? Why?”

“Stretch,”

Spencer narrowed his eyes but obeyed, going through the gym class routine of touching his toes and stretching out his shoulders. He was stiff. He’d never really been into the ‘working out’ thing.

Zack and Tommy came back after a few minutes, and this time Tommy wasn’t in ratty jeans and a sleeveless hoodie. He was in sports shorts, a form fitting t-shirt, and had thinly padded gloves covering the backs of his hands and his fingers. Spencer eyed them carefully and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Do you know anything about grappling, Spence?” Zack asked. Grappling? That was like wrestling, right? He’d wrestled with Ryan, and with Jon and Brendon, but it was always for fun and never a serious thing. He wouldn’t call himself an expert, but the weight difference had always been significant enough to help him win, most of the time at least. Jon had a few tricks up his sleeve, but Spencer guessed that came with having two older brothers at home.

“Uhm… Sort of?”

“Well, you’d best catch on quick,” Zack said with a nod, and before Spencer knew what was happening, his legs were knocked out from under him and he was pinned to the mat spread out on the gym floor. His arm was wrenched behind him and he couldn’t move. He spat out a curse.

“Lesson one, never turn your back to your opponent,” the man holding him down, Tommy, said to him. He let go of Spencer and jumped back up to his feet. Spencer scowled before standing as well.

“What the hell?” he asked.

“Tommy is level one, for you,” Zack told him. “When you learn to beat him easy enough, then we’ll move on, but for now I want you to focus on fighting him without wolfing out. Fight back and win, but control yourself. He’s trained in martial arts, but he’s still just a human,”

That last bit made Spencer nervous. If Tommy was a human, than he wasn’t going to be as strong as Spencer was naturally. And if Tommy got hurt, it would take a while for him to heal. What if Spencer accidentally snapped his arm or something. What if-

Spencer still wasn’t expecting his legs to get knocked out from under him this time, but he was slightly more prepared to fight back. He tumbled with the older man for a bit, squirming out of his hold and trying to replicate that weird arm hold thing Tommy had done to him before. His hands slipped off, though, and he ended up pinned to the mat in a headlock.

“Better,” Tommy said to him, and this time he offered his hand down to Spencer after he hopped up. Spencer didn’t scowl this time. He grinned and took the hand.

They tumbled around like that for a while until Spencer was panting and exhausted, and they were both covered in a sheen of sweat. Through the windows of the gym, Spencer could see that a blizzard had kicked in, but it was an oven inside the building.

“Take a break,” Zack said, helping Spencer to his feet and pushing him in the direction of the water fountain.

Spencer drank greedily and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Why can’t I win against him?” he asked, kind of perturbed. He’d just gotten his ass kicked by a human. Again. And again. And again. It was kind of disheartening.

“I know technique; you only know power,” Tommy said, perching himself on his desk and chugging from a purple Gatorade bottle.

“Well can’t you teach me the technique?” Spencer demanded.

“Nope,” Zack answered for him. “You’ll pick it up on your own. You’re clever, and it’s part of your survival instincts. You’re going to practice this until you figure out how to win,”

“And then what?” Spencer asked. That sounded like a lot of hard work. He wasn’t sure if he was up for that.

“And then you fight me,”

Oh.

“Come on, then. Let’s build some of those muscles up. You never use them; they probably feel all neglected,” Spencer rolled his eyes but let Zack drag him around the gym to all the different machines. By the time they finished, Spencer was exhausted and all of his limbs felt like jell-o, but he also felt a little bit awesome. Even his stomach muscles were mad at him for just being upright, but he’d done more push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and a plethora of other exercises than he’d even thought he was capable of. Zack had beat him in a push-up competition, though, which had been surprising. Zack was a big guy, and Spencer had always assumed that he was made up of more fat than muscle. He was apparently wrong.

“How often do we have to do this?” Spencer asked, tugging on his jacket and following Zack out onto the snowy sidewalk. He was pretty sure that his sweat froze where it was rolling down his neck. He scratched at it.

“We come back tomorrow. It’ll be best to get you into some kind of routine, at first, until you build yourself up better. After that, it’s up to you. Whenever you feel like you’re going to snap, it might be a good idea to come visit Tommy and get that aggression out of you,”

Spencer wasn’t happy to hear about the routine, but the rest made sense. He nodded.

“Am I going rogue?” he asked. He hadn’t meant to, but it was bothering him. He didn’t want to end up hurting anybody.

Zack chuckled and shook his head. He coughed Spencer on the back of the neck gently and shook him a bit.

“No, not quite, kid,” Zack said. “But you might be turning into an alpha,”

Spencer stopped in his tracks right there, but Zack kept going. Spencer had to jog to catch up to him by the time he snapped himself out of his trance, and his exhausted muscles screamed at him all the way.

…
“I have an announcement,” Brendon proclaimed the moment they all sat down for dinner (left over thanksgiving turkey and other similar food stuffs). Zack raised his eyebrow at him, and the other two just looked curious. Brendon suddenly felt shy, but then he remembered what Sarah had told him. Anyone who had a problem with it didn’t matter. Right. He could do this.

“Sarah and I broke up,” he said, “because I’m gay. That’s the announcement,” he stabbed at a piece of turkey and stuffed it in his mouth before he was tempted to start rambling. That’s what happened when he got nervous. His knee was already bouncing under the table.

Spencer actually snorted into his glass of water and then spent a moment cringing and squeezing the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Spencer was a dork, and he’d already known, so Brendon didn’t pay any attention to him.

“Yeah, I kind of figured,” Zack said. “About the gay thing, not about the Sarah thing,”

“Wait,” Brendon’s voice squeaked, but that wasn’t important. “You knew!?”

“I guessed, kind of,”

“You’re a little bit obvious, B,” Jon said, reaching over the table to pat him on the head. Brendon felt absolutely vindicated. He stared open mouthed at his pack. What the hell.

“You knew!?” he repeated.

“It’s not a big deal, Bren,” Zack said. “Gay. Not gay. Whatever, kiddo. You’re our puppy. So long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters,”

Brendon wasn’t actually happy, most of the time, but he didn’t bring that up. It wasn’t their fault he was all messed up. They were amazing to him. And they didn’t care that he was gay, apparently. They already freaking knew. What the hell.

“Welcome to the club, man,” Jon held his hand up, and Brendon high fived it absent mindedly.

“When you bring a boy home, we’ll totally give him the talk,” Spencer said.

“I’ll bring out my shot gun and polish it on the kitchen table,” Jon warned.

“Just don’t let those sweet talking boys get you pregnant,” Zack added.

Brendon felt his face heat up, probably flushing red and he dropped his head onto the table with a solid thunk, right next to his place setting. “I hate you guys,” he said.

“We love you too, pup,” Zack responded, and okay. That got Brendon to smile a little.