Archive of Our Own

They run into each other at the blood bank. Ray thinks they should be vampires – it would be more fitting, or something – but no, it's just the familiar shock that always runs through him when he meets another werewolf, and then the more familiar aggression that always follows.

They can't exactly circle each other, like real wolves might do if they were in the wild; instead they exchange curt nods and steadily avoid eye contact afterwards.

It helps that Ray's coming and the other wolf is going; they're not together for long, but Ray still breathes a sigh of relief when the doors shut and the other man is gone.

-

Ray wakes up the morning after the next full moon smelling like that other wolf – a mixture of Old Spice and soap and animal, and it should be unpleasant but it's not, exactly – and he thinks, shit.

He takes a long, hot shower and scrubs until he can no longer smell the stranger on his skin, then phones Brad, because Brad knows about this shit.

"The new guy's name is Walt," Brad says, voice crackly over the phone, "and you are just going to talk to him."

"Sure," Ray tells him, and he hangs up before he can hear Brad caution him again.

"Hey, motherfucker," he says when Walt opens the door, and then he has to stop because he didn't really think this far. Confrontations that would work in wolf don't really translate to human, and it would be so much easier to growl than say, so I woke up smelling like you.

Luckily, Walt doesn't seem too surprised to see him, and also appears to be more in command of his conversational abilities than Ray is.

"Do you want a beer?" Walt says, and Ray nods and goes inside.

They sit on Walt's back porch and drink Walt's beer and decide never to see each other again. Ray gets the territory to the east, they decide, and Walt to the west, and they stick to those.

Problem solved.

Except it isn't.

-

Over the next six months Ray wakes up smelling like Walt every full moon – twice he wakes up in Walt's bed, and that should be way more awkward than it is. By the second time he's pretty much used to it, though, and so he just helps himself to some of Walt's cereal and leaves before Walt wakes up.

In the seventh month Ray wakes up with his face mashed into Walt's pillow and Walt half on top of him; he pushes Walt over and off and shakes him awake.

"This is getting retarded," Ray says. "Tonight we're socialising like normal people."

"Whnnn areee nnnml pee-el," Walt mumbles into the pillow, which is probably meant to mean something like since when are we normal people. Ray chooses to interpret this as a yes.

"Great," he says, "I'll meet you at seven."

It turns out he and Walt have way more in common than he would have thought - besides the werewolf thing, that is. They're both ex-military, both raised by their mothers, have the same taste in beer, television, music.

"We should. You know. Stick together," Walt slurs at him when the night is winding down. "Seems to be happening anyway."

"Sure," Ray says, "but only as long as I get to be alpha male."

"We're not a pack, you fucktard," Walt tells him, and Ray chooses to interpret this as a yes, too.

-

On the eve of the next full moon they decide to leave town for a while. They tell their friends it's a holiday, tell their families not to worry, pack their shit into Walt's car and go.

The air is cold and crisp like the snow; the wolf in Ray likes this, though the human part of him isn't so sure. He shrugs deeper into his coat as the car climbs around a turn, bringing the cabin they've rented into view.

"Dude, it looks like somewhere a serial killer would bury his victims," Ray says, causing Walt to shoot him a look. This is ignored, and Ray, despite the cold and the apparent serial killer vibe of the cabin, bounds from the car and into the snow.

The first snowball hits Walt in the face as he exits the car. This is not a surprise, and Walt has one ready to fire back as soon as he can wipe his eyes. Ray lets out a yelp when it hits him and promptly scrabbles madly at his clothes as some snow slides down inside his collar.

Walt just watches him for a moment, then goes to get their bags.

-

That night is the full moon; they move swiftly across the snow, fur-covered paws much more suited to the weather than shoe-clad feet. They frolic like puppies, dashing together and then apart, nipping playfully and mock wrestling until the moon starts to wane.

The next morning Ray wakes up covered in fading bite marks.

He debates getting up in search of breakfast but curls around Walt's back instead, burying his nose in the nape of Walt's neck and just breathing him in.

It isn't as sharp as it is for the wolf, but Walt still smells like Walt, comforting and familiar.

Ray goes back to sleep.

They do it again the next night, and the next, Walt a pale streak moving across the snow and Ray a dark one next to him, and Ray doesn't know when he's felt so at peace.

-

"You know you smell like Skittles?" Walt says.

They're in the car on the way back, Walt at the wheel. Ray pauses with one of the little candies almost at his mouth.

"Well, yeah," he says. "That would be because I'm eating them."

"No," says Walt, "you smell like them even as a wolf."

"Oh," Ray says. He grins. "Dude, are you saying I smell sweet? Is this your way of saying you like me like me? You could've just passed a note."

"No. Shut up," Walt says, but his cheeks turn pink and he determinedly does not look at Ray. "I'm saying you eat too many Skittles."

Ray eats another Skittle. "Aww," he says, "I think you're sweet too."

-

The next morning Ray finds a note pinned to his fridge with a magnet.

I like you. Do you like me? Check yes or no it reads, and Ray never realised before how hard it was to eat when you were grinning hard enough to almost split your face in two.

Walt's still asleep when Ray returns, and so Ray places his filled-out note on the pillow beside Walt's nose so it'll be the first thing he sees when he wakes up.

Then he climbs back into bed and Walt makes a snuffling noise and rolls over so he can tuck his head under Ray's chin; it means he won't see the note, but Ray can't bring himself to mind. Walt probably knows, anyway.