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“Moon’s up. You should probably go”
It was dark in Joel’s room. Too dark to see anything but blurs of movement in the smeary blue moonlight, seeping in around the blinds. They were close, together, latched in one another's embrace. Tangled in a mess of limbs and warmth and soft breath, as they had been for the past forever.
Joel breathed in a sudden fistful of air, like he was waking from a deep sleep. He drew his palm from where it rested on Jim’s back to his sternum, which made him shiver involuntarily. Jim’s eyes flickered open, but it was too dark to make sense of anything. He felt himself move backwards as Joel pushed on his ribcage, separating them.
Jim instinctively clasped him tighter, resisting the distance and the tingly, icy air that rushed to fill the empty pocket between them. No way he was going to let him slip through his fingers again. Not when they were so close.
“Nah” Jim breathed, pulling him back, trying to intertwine their legs again. The pressure on his sternum didn’t let up.
“You sure? You might get hurt. I don’t-“
He swallowed, leaving the rest of the words dangling in the air.
“You won’t hurt me” Jim let himself trace his hand down Joel’s chest, resting at his collarbone. Feeling his pulse through his fingers, a gentle thrumming that quickened at his touch, “right?”
Joel didn’t reply. Jim could feel him flexing his other hand, squished under his body, slowly clenching it in, and out. Thinking. The tendons pressed against his neck.
“I want to be with you” He held the arm that separated them, trying to ease it into bending by pressing two fingers into the soft of his elbow.
Joel let out a short, stunted laugh and looked away, though it was too dark to see his face. “It won’t be me, Jim”
“Are you sure?” Jim leant in closer, feeling a bit drunk with the edge of sleep and the promise of something that had been hidden for so long.
Joel took some time to respond, still tense, keeping a small distance between them with his arm. Slowly he drifted it to a new position, past his waist, then up his back as he closed the gap between them once more.
“It might be nice” Joel whispered, burying his nose into the crook of Jim’s neck
Jim took a similar action, tracing circles with his hand over Joel’s shoulders, trying to release the tension in his muscles, wound tight like ship's rigging.
They stayed like that, for a bit, just like they had been before. Enjoying the closeness. Except this time one of them wasn’t allowed to rest.
Joel’s breathing was slow, at first. Jim could tell by the way he was shaking that he was trying to keep it that way.
It felt as if his lungs were trying to drag the whole room inwards, pressing against his own set like bellows. It was a well practised ‘in for 4’ and ‘out for 5’ that kept them from overworking, muttered under his breath. His muscles tensed against his will, compelling Jim to sit up so Joel lean against his body, arms draped over his back and head against his ribs. His limbs were at right angles, his hands like claws. He shook like an earthquake.
Jim stayed constant. Pushing worry further back in his mind than was probably sensible. Consumed by the feeling that this time he could help. Breathing warmth down his impossibly hot body.
“I’m here”
“Really? You haven’t left yet?” sarcasm dripping through his clenched teeth, his volume breaking the peace so gently laid in their last exchange.
The sudden change in tone startled Jim. He was about to reciprocate, maybe with an apology, when Joel interrupted not a second after his last statement.
“Sorry I’m- so sorry. It’s just painful. Just a bit. I’ve done this- hundreds of times, Jim, it’s fine.”
The words came out like stuttering waterfall, the words all bunching up around each other. It seemed difficult for him to talk, his focus clearly on something more internal.
Jim held him gentler, closing his eyes and trying to accept the sensations travelling through his fingertips. The way that skin gave way and parted to let fur come through, like beard stubble and then soft, short grass. The sound of bones cracking and complaining under ropey muscles that redefined and reshaped.
If Jim was struggling to hold himself up under the weight of new, significantly heavier arms then he would just shift his position. This was natural. This was normal.
It was still Joel when claws dug into his back, right?
“Do you need me to hold your hand?”
The claws weren’t in his back necessarily, nowhere near to drawing blood, just.. spasming dangerous circles over his shoulder blades. Threatening to part his skin open at one wrong twitch.
“No - fuck - I don’t want to-“
He caught his breath before it spiralled into a fit, clenching his fists and jaw to gain control of his speech.
“I don’t want to break your arm” he stammered
“Oh. Right.”
Break his arm? He became keenly aware of how dauntingly small his body felt next to the half-wolf. Still he remained firm; relaxed.
“Don’t do that then” he laughed softly, nervously
The expected reciprocal chuckle from Joel didn’t come, just grunts of pain and sounds that should not be coming from a normal human body. Joel squirmed in his grip, but held him all the while. Still close.
“You- need to- leave” Joel bit between gasps of breath
Jim said nothing. He ignored the sound of claws ripping the bedsheet as they scraped against the mattress. Just tried to soothe Joel’s anxiously warping figure. Humming into his bones like it would hush their changing. Twisting a length of fur in his fingers and wondering would it would feel like. Shifting as was necessary, accommodating a torso in his grip, then half of it, then only one vast head. Worrying over the growling, the slight whine to it, and waiting for Joel’s body to calm.
“You alright?”
The only sound that emitted from the wolf was a deep, low rumble that seemed more fitting for a landslide than a wolf. It seemed to radiate from inside his bones rather than Joel, making his marrow jiggle inside his ribs. The wolf’s giant neck pressed against his body, just near of suffocating him against the headboard. He could barely fit his arms around him.
“Right. Right. Of course.”
He buried his face in a swathe of fur, just recognising Joel’s scent. It was stranger, though – heavier – like one of his shirts had been left in the sun for a few days. He pressed his cheek close to his warm skin, felt the air funnelling in and out of huge lungs. The sounds of stress and strain on warping anatomy began to cease. His heart rate slowed to match Jim’s, then kept falling. It came to rest at a drowsy, rhythmic thump.
It was over as gradually as it had started. The huge, heavy head of the beast that was once Joel swayed in Jim’s lap, breaths like small weather events over the bedsheets.
Jim didn’t think he had been this close. Joel hadn’t let him.
He’d really only seen it from a distance. It was rare for him to catch Joel on a full moon, let alone be with him like this. It was.. nice. Comfortable.
“You feel better?” Jim queried, not sure what he was expecting for an answer.
“Hrmph” the creature replied, eyes laid firmly shut, too heavy to lift after such exertion of energy.
Jim was too busy playing the wolf’s fur in his fingers to notice the rows of teeth like knives, scythe-like claws dragging across the bed.
Those same claws drew him gently into an embrace, huddling him within the larger creature like a cat to its kitten. The creature stretched its new limbs, rubbing it’s face against the pillow before settling into a position it deemed satisfactory.
The wolf let out a low, contented growl, shaking the walls.
Jim caught his breath a little, brushing away the hint of worry that he could be handled like that. He was safe.
“Are you just gonna take a nap now?” he queried again.
The creature managed to huff out a final, sleepy
“Hmff”
Jim took that as an affirmative.
“Cool”
He hadn’t slept with a werewolf before.
That was a lie. He had been sleeping with a werewolf for the past 3 months.
What had made him so special? He wondered, trying to see Joel's face in the night, what had led him to stay, and be allowed to.
The darkness didn't reply. It simply concealed everything except the warmth of the being surrounding him. Jim relaxed into it, trying to match his breathing with the beast’s impossibly slow in…
…
and out….
…
and in…
…
and out…
Lifting him up and down in such a lethargic rhythm, he let himself drift away. Sleep came over him before he could recognise it.