Better Run Like The Devil

by Nev Longbottom

Bandom Fic Mikey is a werewolf, Gerard is not. That's kind of the problem.

A/N: This could have in no way happened without creepylicious, sesshiyuki, anoneknewmoose and possibly kisforkurama. creepylicious was the first beta and worked out the worst or the work. sesshiyuki put up with every rant, rail, and idea I came up with. anoneknewmoose stayed up with me on google chat, keeping me on track. kisforkurama dove deep into the guts of this fic and worked out all the details. Thank you guys for being AMAZING.

Prologue

It was Mikey's seventh birthday, and it happened at noon. Gerard knew it was noon because that was when guests started arriving to Mikey's birthday party and Mikey was being an obnoxious brat. Their Ma had told him specifically not to invite Ray or Otter because it was Mikey's day, so Gerard didn't even have anyone to vent with. Gerard got so mad during the first party game that he stomped out of the house and into the woods behind the house.

The woods were really thick. The trees were heavy with leaves and the trunks were wide enough that he could hide there easy peasy until everyone stopped paying attention to Mikey and someone came looking for him.

He went running in the woods. What happened among the apple trees he could only remember later as a series of impressions. He remembered the twigs beneath his feet and crunch of yellow apple leaves. There was a voice first, and then arms picked him off the ground. He whimpered and cried out, but whoever was holding him had yanked his head hard in retaliation. When he tried to squirm out of the guy's hands, the man bit down on his ear. There was a ripping noise that made everything else drop away and then he felt something dripping down his face. He couldn't breathe at first, and when he could finally draw in air, he howled until he heard his mother call his name. That was the last thing he remembered before he passed out.

That was all he remembered of the moment that ruined his life

Better Run Like The Devil

When he opened his eyes, his mother and Dr. Armstrong were looking at him with worried expressions. He was in the village doctor's examination room. He didn't remember going to the doctor, though, the last thing he remembered was - oh.

"Gerard, what happened? I called Billie Joe – Dr. Armstrong – when we found you." Ma brushed some of Gerard's hair out of his face, tucking the strands behind his ear.

Gerard scrunched his nose and tried to remember. "I went running in the woods and someone tackled me. He- He didn't smell right and when I tried to run, he bit my ear. He didn't-" Gerard sat up, wide eyed. "Mikey! He could go after Mikey." He lunged for the door only to have his mother push him right back down. There was an angry crunching noise and he let out a shriek. His body throbbed like a little heartbeat where she had touched him. He couldn't stop himself from crying, sobbing hard enough that he could barely breathe.

"I didn't mean to hurt him," he heard Ma say, panicked. He saw her start to pull at her hair in little jerks, like she wanted to touch him but wouldn't. He wished she'd stop being weird and just hug him. "I barely touched him." she said. "I've done that a million times how could-" She cut herself off and looked away.

Dr. Armstrong sat on the edge of his bed, touching the soft restraints on Gerard's ankles. "Listen to me, Gerard," he said. "You need to relax so I can set your collarbone. I disinfected the bite but I don't like the swelling around it or the way your scent is changing. You also have a fever, kiddo, you need to-"

Gerard closed his eyes. Dr. Armstrong sounded so far away.

The next time Gerard woke up, he woke up in Dr. Armstrong's long term care sick room. His mother was curled up at the end of the bed, sleeping, breathing deeply. She looked wrecked. Her shoulders were tense, even in sleep and she twitched, whimpering and snarling a little.

"Dr. Armstrong?" Gerard called softly. "Nurse Tre?" He paused and then in an uncertain tone said, "Janitor Mike?"

He pulled the straps off his wrist and hopped off the bed, walking down from the end of the hallway to the big red room at the other end. The door was unlocked and ajar. "Dr. Armstrong?" He called as he let himself in. There was no one in the room. Just a bunch of file cabinets, a desk, some sofas, and a big window that overlooked the Jersey woods curled at the feet of the hill. Outside it was night and there was a great view of the stars and the full moon.

He stared. The full moon. His ear throbbed and his head hurt, but he didn't feel anything else at all.

Gerard screamed. Stumbling out of the room, he stared at the moon in the sky and the way it looked completely wrong. He screamed and screamed until his mother came running.

She took one look at her son and howled.

He threw his arms around her, hugging her as tight as he could, and cried until he fell asleep, soothed by her soft fur and her tongue licking his cut like he was a single lick away from being whole again. Gerard knew that if his body wasn't changing forms at the prompting of the full moon, then something was terribly wrong.

He fell asleep in the hallway and woke up back in the hospital bed, Ma and Dr. Armstrong arguing at the edge of his bed.

Gerard was allowed to sit in one of Dr. Armstrong's old chairs with his chin tucked into his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs. His body felt weird, slow, clumsy. Slow and clumsy was bad enough, but it was worse knowing that his body had betrayed him in the most fundamental way possible.

"We don't have to tell the Alpha," Dr. Armstrong was saying. After Gerard's mother had told him about Gerard failing to shift, Dr. Armstrong hadn't stopped with the terrified side glances. Gerard could relate. "There are all kinds of medical reasons for why he didn't shift all the way."

His mother glared at the doctor, baring her teeth. "Gerard didn't shift. At all. I saw him looking right at the full moon and he didn't so much as grow a hair."

Dr. Armstrong took a step back, head dropping in polite submission. "Donna, don't be ridiculous, he's not-"

"Check him. Check. If I'm right, we can deal with it," She says, voice calm as anything but Gee could see his Ma's hands shaking in her lap.

His mother breathed heavily. Dr. Armstrong walked over to Gerard, gently parted the hair on his head and leaned in to take a deep whiff. Gerard shivered when Dr. Armstrong sniffed again, before raising one of Gerard's arms and investigating the scent there, too.

"You see? His scent's gone off," Ma said, sounding exhausted. "He was standing on two legs when I found him in the hallway last night. Ever since that attack a couple months ago, I've had my suspicions and last night proved them right. It's just not possible to refuse the moon's call except in the stories..." She pulled at her hair. "Just try the test. It's the one thing that stays the same in all the myths."

Dr. Armstrong stepped away from Gerard to riffle through one of the supply cabinets. He pulled out a box with a biohazard mark on it, opening it to reveal a series of long flat silver rectangles with slightly different colored handles. "It's argent. I keep it for cauterizing burns. This would be - This would be definitive."

Gerard inched away from Dr. Armstrong: he recognized that box. A long time ago he had slipped on winter ice and smashed his cheek bone open. Dr. Armstrong had opened a box full of those argent things and pressed one against the wound. The smell of burned flesh hadn't left his clothes for days and days.

"I don't want it."

Dr. Armstrong glanced at his mother. She nodded. Gerard sniffled and closed his eyes, hugging his legs to his chest as hard as he could. He felt a touch and he waited for the burning. He waited and waited and waited. "Just get it over with," he said.

Dr. Armstrong voice was shaking. "Gerard, nothing's happening."

Gerard looked up. Dr. Armstrong was holding the silver part of the little metal bar to his skin. It didn't burn. It didn't even feel particularly cold. Gerard touched the silver end with his finger just to be sure, but Dr. Armstrong was right. It felt like touching stainless steel. Then he leaned over the side of the bed and threw up.

Gerard spent the next couple months glued to Mikey's side. When Donna told Helena that he was a . . . That he wasn't . . . Helena wasted no time moving out of her little duplex at the edge of the village and into a cottage two doors away. For all that Gerard loved his grandmother, though, he chose to spend most of his time with Mikey, who didn't treat him differently. Mikey still bumped his head against Gerard's leg when he wanted attention and licked at Gerard's hand when he wanted fresh meat or water, instead of just using words like he was supposed to.

He was starting to get why everyone loved Mikey so much. It was sort of cute, the way Mikey would whine low in his throat, even in his two legger shape. When the full moon came, instead of running off to play with the grown up wolves, Mikey would start crawling on Gerard like Gerard was . . . Like he was still . . .

Whatever, Mikey was kind of Gerard's favorite - especially since his mom was totally against Gerard hanging out with the other village pups.

"I don't care how much you pout," she would say, pulling at her hair. "You are not going back to school or visiting your friends until it's safe for you do so."

That was the worst part. But sometimes, after Gerard's bedtime, he would go to get a glass of water from the kitchen and hear the sounds of his mom crying in her room.

The first few weeks after the bite were hard. It wasn't until the fever broke that Gerard could keep solid food down, but they didn't figure that out until after he tried eating something that wasn't raw meat. Now his mother had to do their grocery shopping at the next village over, at a supermarket that stocked selkie foods, before they found something Gerard could keep down.

Ma and Helena kept forgetting that they couldn't hug him or even tap him on the shoulder. At best, the bruises colored his skin within seconds. At worst, Gerard would hear his own bones crack under otherwise gentle touches. He spent the first couple months after the bite wrapped in plaster casts and trying to avoid Mikey, who was too young to understand why he couldn't play-wrestle with Gerard as usual.

Then, there were all Dr. Armstrong's tests. There were a lot more tests than he expected because it was apparently hard work figuring out what stuff from the myths was true and what wasn't. So far, the only advantages to his new condition were that Gerard could see more colors, he didn't get as angry, he could sit really still, and he could eat all kinds of weird stuff without getting sick. But he was also slower, weaker, could barely heal himself, and couldn't feel the pull of the moon. And he was lonely.

It didn't help that his Ma refused to let him anywhere near Ray or Otter. And after two months of being locked up in the house with nothing but Mikey to keep him busy, Gerard had had enough of loneliness. He waited until Ma left for work to sneak out and play. The walk to the playground was kind of tiring, but when he saw Ray and Otter on the monkey bars, he picked up the pace. He waved to Cherie and Lyn-Z on the merry go round, but he kept walking.

"Gee!" Otter said, waving a hand and swinging upside down, his voice muffled by the shirt hanging in his face.

Ray climbed down the slide as fast as he could manage and raced over. "We thought you'd died," he said in all seriousness.

Gerard stopped running as soon as Ray caught up. His chest and his legs hurt from the run. He tumbled into the sand and breathed hard. Ray looked a little scared. " Are you dying?" He asked.

Gerard shook his head and then stopped. The grown ups had told him to pretend to be sick so no one would ask too many questions about why Gerard was skipping school. "I'm sick," he said. He felt miserable lying to Ray, who had the best hair ever . And Otter was the only selkie pup in the village, so he kind of understood what it was like for Gerard, who had always been a bit of an outcast and runt of the pack.

Otter fell off the bars with an oomph. Ray made an unhappy noise - even his hair looked droopy. Gerard tried to think of the scariest sounding disease he could think of. "I got scaliosis menopause."

Otter scrambled to his feet, looking panicked. "I've heard about that one! I think my aunt's cousin's packmate caught it. That's like, where all your muscles go limp and you grow a bunch of scales all over and then your head falls off and you die, right?"

Ray gave Gerard's neck a suspicious glance.

Gerard looked at the ground. He felt like the worst friend ever. He was a lying liar from liar town. "Kinda. But my head won't fall off for years and year and years, not 'til I'm like really old. Like thirty or something. I feel okay now, except one thing that's different is that I'm not as fast as I used to be."

Otter let out a bark of laughter, "You weren't fast to begin with. Do you run in reverse now?"

He laughed until Ray punched him in the shoulder. "Shut up, Otter. How would you feel if your body parts started falling off?" Ray snapped.

That was enough to silence Otter and Gerard thought things would get better from there on, but they didn't.

Seriously this was officially turning out to be the worst day of Gee's life. He couldn't hold onto the handle bars properly or climb trees without falling down and when Ray tackled him in one of their wrestling matches, Ray did something weird that made his shoulder pop and hurt like crazy.

"You made his arm fall off!" Otter shrieked. Ray looked like he was going to piss himself when Gerard's screams brought some of the village moms running.

It took five minutes for Dr. Armstrong to reset his shoulder, but it was enough to convince Gerard that staying in the house, with Mikey, was the best idea ever.

"You're just going to keep sneaking out, aren't you?" Ma sighed as she played with Gerard's hair. At least the bruising on his shoulder wasn't anywhere near as bad as the last full moon when Mikey had tackled Gee to the ground. That had been totally humiliating.

Gerard gave her an apologetic shrug. Whenever he was alone too long he would shake and feel the ghost of teeth tearing his ear. He didn't need to get out of the house, exactly, but he couldn't be alone. He needed Ray. He needed Otter's stupid face.

"Do what you need to do," she said, ruffling his hair. Gerard tried not lean in to the touch. The first time he had done that, her fingernails had left bruises and he'd felt the ache for a week whenever he combed his hair.

Gerard sighed. It seemed like every time he breathed, he disappointed her a little more. He wished more than anything that he wasn't Human. From now on, Gee was pretty sure he'd only ever be Gerard Way: Disappointment .

Ma pulled her hands away and neatly folded them in front of her, looking at Dr. Armstrong and then back at Gerard. Her shoulders dropped as she looked away from Gerard and fiddled with her wedding ring. "Gerard, do you remember your Pop's death?"

Dr. Armstrong stopped in the middle of putting bruise balm on his shoulder. "Donna, now is not the time." Gerard twisted his head back to get a good look at Dr. Armstrong. As long as Gerard could remember, Ma and Dr. Armstrong had been best friends. He was speed dial two, after the Alpha and before Grandma Helena. Dr. Armstrong had been Pop's friend, too, before the accident.

Gerard couldn't remember much about Pop. He couldn't remember the way Pop looked outside of photographs. If he tried, Gerard could almost remember warm grey fur and a big paw holding him down for a tongue bath. What Gerard remembered most clearly about Pop was his voice reading bedtime stories. The Little Mermaid, The Magic Box, Rose Red, Lady Luck and Mr. Money, Hansel and Gretel, The Three Oranges, Little Red Riding Hood and even The Rain Woman.

The thing Gerard remembered best was the story about Pop. The one Grandma Helena told him when the Alpha brought Ma home, screaming and crying in his car. "Helena said it was a car accident." Gerard felt nausea building up inside. "Why are we talking about this?"

Ma wrapped her arms around herself, too tight for a hug "I want you to know your Pop would have loved you no matter what, Gerard. He loved folklore so much and you were the apple of his eye-" Ma cut herself off, choking on her words. Gerard reached towards her with his good hand, but Dr. Armstrong came around the exam table and hugged Ma before Gerard could do anything.

Dr. Armstrong rubbed circles on her back and made soft shushing sounds. Gerard rubbed her back where he could reach. For a moment he could hear his Pop's voice in his head, reciting Little Red Riding hood, ' ...and then the grandmother gobbled up... ' Gerard had been turned into a monster. A real, murdering monster. "Ma? Am I a monster?" Gee asked. He could remember his Pop's voice telling him about all the deaths at human hands. The burning and drowning and trickery.

Ma turned around at once and wrapped her arms around him loosely, carefully. "You're my little Gee. You'll always be my wolf pup. I'm so proud of you, even when you do crazy things." Gerard leaned into her hug as much as he could and for a moment, Ma squeezed back and he felt better for a spit second before something cracked in his ribs and all Gerard could feel was pain and a whole lot of failure.

Gerard didn't go looking for Ray or Otter after that, even though he had his mother's implied permission now. He didn't know what to say to them anymore. Everything was messed up. Ma pretended like they had never had the conversation about Pop and every time he looked at Mikey, Gerard felt a stab of terror that he might hurt his own brother.

Mikey was all Gerard had left now that Gerard was being 'homeschooled' and couldn't see his friends. He was the best little brother a guy could ask for and Gerard felt like such a monster in comparison. He couldn't even keep up tradition.

Pack tradition said that the eldest sibling in the household was required to take the next eldest on their first hunt. If Gerard had a sister Grandma Helena would take her out to hunt down her first kill, but Mikey was Gerard's responsibility. Gerard was supposed to teach him hunting, fishing, how to talk to girls . . . So much for that. If Gerard wasn't strong enough stand a few hours alone in the backyard, how could he be strong enough to teach Mikey? He couldn't even get a hug from his brother without getting a hairline fracture.

That didn't stop his Ma from putting Mikey in Gee's charge anyway - and at every opportunity. "Gee, help your brother get dressed. I have to meet with Billie Joe before the festival starts."

Gerard didn't bother to look up from his watercolors. "Yeah, Ma. On it."

Mikey's festival clothes were too small this year, but Gerard's would fit him. He would track down last year's set and try not to think about how he'd never get them replaced. How he'd never need clothes 'specially designed to fall off during a shapeshift. At least this way he'd get them out of his closet and into Mikey's, where he wouldn't have to look at them every day.

His Ma ruffled his hair and gave him what constituted for a hug now. She pressed her lips on his forehead carefully and stayed very still for a couple seconds before pulling away. Whenever she touched him like this, he remembered the way she used to smell: like snapdragons and fresh blood and hemlock bark under her nails. Now she just smelled like laundry soap and printer toner.

"Stop looking so bummed out, kiddo. It's Lupercalia!" She gave him one extra squeeze for luck and dashed out the front door. When it clicked behind her, he was left with the sounds of Helena snoring on the sofa and Mikey playing with his toys in the corner.

"Gee! Gee!" Mikey called, waving his scrawny little arms. "Boom! Boom, boom tseer!" He held up one of Gerard's old Star Wars action figures. Gerard couldn't help but smile.

"What do we say?"

Mikey toddled over to him, tiny figurine in one hand, and then sat on top of the watercolor tray. "Han shot first," Mikey looked up, clearly pleased with himself for remembering. Oh Mikey. Mikey was eight now, but he'd never really gotten the hang of talking. Not that it mattered. Gerard would let him sit in paint every day for the rest of his life, if he would just keep being adorable.

"Come on, you sat in paint again." Gerard picked up Mikey and kicked his brushes and watercolors under the bed. It took a couple minutes to stuff Mikey into nice clothes, and then he had to drag Mikey out to the living room to make sure he wouldn't sit on something else as equally stupid as paint.

Gerard loved Mikey, but damn if he wasn't jealous down to his bones. Mikey could change, smell things, play with the pack and all the other things Gerard could never do again. Once, before the bite, he asked his mother why she didn't smell like anything or anyone else. That's the way it is, kiddo. Werewolves don't smell like flowers and trees and kittens, they smell different. They smell like werewolves.

Gerard wondered if he was trackable now that he didn't smell like a wolf anymore. If the human who'd bitten him came back and kidnapped him for real, would anyone ever be able to track him? "Mikey, you ever wonder why I don't smell like anything?"

Mikey gave him a look like he was the dumbest person in existence. "You smell like me and Ma and cotton and blue paint and charcoal dust and apples from lunch and-"

Gerard rolled his eyes before interrupting, "No, my signature scent."

Mikey gave him the same look. "That is the way you smell, Gee. You smell like the world," and then, quieter Mikey added, "I wish I smelled like the world."

Before Gerard could question Mikey's crazy talk – because seriously, smelled like the world? - Mikey chimed in with "What's the Lupercalia festival like?"

"Why, its the best holiday in the whole world, Mikes," Gerard told him. "There's music and dancing and grown ups being mushy, and then everyone changes into their four legger shape and go hunting together. That's when they send the kids home. Everything that happens after that is a secret." None of the kids Gerard knew had ever been allowed to stay late at the festival grounds. The closest Gerard had gotten to uncovering the secret rites in the woods was a remark from Ray's mom, who said that was where babies came from and if he wanted to know more, to ask his mother.

Mikey considered this, face scrunched up. Gerard rolled his eyes. His brother had the stupidest expressions in the world. Finally, Mikey asked,"When we get there, what are we gonna see first?"

Gerard looked away. Fuck his life. "You and Ma are going out. I'm staying behind to keep Helena company. She's older than trees - Ma says she's too old to be partying that late at night - and I'm too sick." He thought of last year's festival: merry-go-rounds and roller coasters and devil masks and colored sands and light shows and circus stunts. He had fallen asleep on the roller coaster and been sent home early with Dr. Armstrong, who had made him Hot Jello to drink before tucking him into bed.

"If you aren't going, I won't either."Mikey said, sticking out his tongue like it made a difference. "I won't, I won't, I won't."

Gerard tried to reason with him, but Mikey just scrambled off the couch and shifted out of his clothes. Gerard went after him but every time he tried to talk through the door, Mikey would start howling.

It was to this scene his Ma came home to. She dropped her purse and her papers and asked "What happened?" She gave Gerard and the bedroom door a look of concern. Mikey's temper tantrum had progressed to point where he was scratching at the carpet. She reached out towards Gerard but she pulled her hand back right before she touched him. It felt like a slap in the face.

Gerard stepped back. "If you need me, I'll be on the roof." The climbing tree was just strong enough to hold the weight of a small kid, and the roof was too high for the average wolf to reach. It was his safe place. When life got too crazy, he would curl up on the roof, face turned away from the sun until everything in his head quieted and all that was left was the soft hooting sounds from the owls.

From his comfortable vantage point on the roof a few hours later, Gerard watched his family leave for the festival. It wasn't so bad. Okay, no, it totally sucked that he couldn't even enjoy the biggest holiday of the year just because some crazy monster in the woods had bitten him. It sucked that he couldn't go to school and that he couldn't even safely eat meat unless it'd been burnt to tasteless crisp first. In a few years, Mikey would be old enough to start learning wolf things and Gerard wouldn't be there to show him how to hunt or catch fish in the stream or any of the pack etiquette, and it was so stupid.

He looked up and bared his teeth at the waxing moon. He hated how flat his teeth were - blunt and useless like his stupidly soft nails and two legger shape. The moon changed every night and Gerard couldn't even change a lightbulb without help. "I hate you," he muttered. "I hate you so much."

"I hate you too. Menopause is turning you into a reclusive jerk. Yoda, you are not." Gerard jumped at the voice. Hadn't everyone left for the festival? Whoever this guy was he didn't sound like Dr. Armstrong.

Gerard looked down over the edge of the drainpipe. Otter waved a hand and barked a hello. He wasn't even in festival clothes, just plain blue jeans instead of cotton panels tied together with ribbons. Then again, Gerard thought, he was a selkie. Did selkies even celebrate Lupercalia?

"What are you doing here?" Gerard asked.

Otter shrugged before hopping onto Gee's climbing tree. "Well," he said as he pulled himself up. "... You haven't showed up at school or anywhere else since forever, so Ray and I made this Plan to come visit you today." He jumped out of the tree on to the roof and turned around. "This is kinda neat. Why haven't you let us up here before? Ray was going to come, too, but Ray's mom found out about the Plan and started jawing about how we needed to socialize with the village girls more, and then my mom laughed and said if Mrs. Toro thought any of us would be spending Lupercalia with girls then Mrs. Toro was crazy and now Ray's not allowed to talk to me." He scoffed, " Like that's gonna last. What's up?"

Otter never talked to anyone much unless your name happened to be Ray or Gerard. When he did talk, the words came crashing out of his mouth like a torrential downpour and Gerard sometimes wondered if he even needed to breathe like land-living people did. It was like magic -

Magic.

"I'm a moron! Otter, I need to borrow all your horror books and movies." Gerard said and made twitchy hand motions toward the climbing tree. Instead of moping all the time about his problems and stuff, he should have been focusing on the single cool thing about being Human. In all the old stories?

Humans could use magic.

Otter jumped off the roof, beating Gerard to the ground by a couple seconds. "What's with the sudden craving for Ginger Snaps? Didn't your mom buy you the entire collection for your birthday?"

Gerard looked down the road to make sure it was clear. "She got rid of almost all my vids when I first got sick. Anything with humans on the cover got trashed. She was pretty freaked."

Otter stared at him, "You didn't..."

"No!" Gerard denied quickly. "No I, uh, I have menopause."

"Liar," Otter snapped before he slapped Gerard on the back of the head, making Gerard tumble to the pavement. His face hit the sidewalk hard enough to make his lip burst open. He really should have predicted Otter would do something like this. Otter had the habit of swatting his friends whenever annoyed. His hands. He shuddered, remembering how scared he had been as a cub, with those hands drawing him closer. Those strange two-legger hands. Gerard took a second gather himself before scrambling to his feet.

"Oh fuck, Gee, I'm so sorry," Otter stammered, coming over to Gee's other side and helping him stand up. He took one look at Gerard's face and paled. Gerard licked at his cut. Even his own blood tasted weird. "Dad gave me this whole speech about how, menopause is this thing that happens to old ladies and I got so pissed about your stupid lie, and what the hell - I didn't even hit you that hard. Are you okay?"

Gerard spat some of his blood on the pavement. Otter gave the blood a guilty look before making his eyes comically wide. "Dude! Your bleedingand you smell really different. Is it cancer? Or are you like, Djinni or elvish or something." Otter had always spent most of his life jumping to ridiculous conclusions. Figures that one of his theories would turn out right. Gerard just wished he wasn't right about this .

Gerard looked at Otter. Like, really looked at him. His best friend had always been one of the outsiders. Gerard hadn't really thought about how hard it would be to live with a wolf pack if you weren't a wolf yourself. Ray and Gerard never wanted to be mean, but there were times when they'd shift during a wrestling match to beat Otter. Sometimes Ray would take Otter's stuff for a game of keep away and then lose it in the detritus. Gerard had a bad habit of nipping his friends and Otter was kind of a bleeder with a blood phobia. Even during gym, most of the village children would use pack language for two-legger games like soccer. It totally sucked to live with a wolf pack but not be a part of it. Otter wasn't just the omega, he was a selkie living like a million miles away from a body of water bigger than a pool. If anyone would know what it felt like to be on the outside looking in, it would be Otter. Kind of like how Richie Foley totally understood Static Shock 's need to keep a secret.

Gerard scanned around for witnesses before carefully pulling back his grown out hair from his bitten ear and nodded. "Yeah, that's why Ma pulled me from school. Mikey... he doesn't know the details." He didn't want to even think about what that would be like.

"So like, what kind of magic do you have?" Otter tilted his head to try and size him up. "Can you summon the power of old religion to smite your enemies? That's what Djinni do, right?"

Gerard shrugged, "We think I'm human. I don't even know if the smiting part of the legends are even true. I don't know if I even really have magic." He had to sit on his knees for a second. His face and his palms hurt more than he wanted to think about.

Otter crouched down, rolling his eyes on the way. "Ugh, that is so lame Gee. Only you could get something super cool to happen and end up lame. You know what kind of lame?" Otter asked, small smile on his lips.

Gerard braced himself for a horrible pun. "What kind?"

"You're Way lame. Get it?" Otter laughed, then pulled Gerard's hand. "Come on, the faster we get to my house, the faster we can try and figure out your magic."

Gerard stumbled a little when he got up but it felt good. It felt so fucking good to be outside with a friend, knowing his secret was safe for the moment, the people in the streets brushing by assuming that he was one of them. It was like being himself again. Almost.

They went through all of Otter's stuff and made three stacks of "Maybe," "If we're lucky," and "Probably not but it's fucking awesome anyway so let's do it." Gerard stayed until nearly eight before Otter shoved some comic books in his arms and told Gee to run home before Helena figured out he had left the still got caught but at least when Ma started yelling, she looked almost happy that Gerard had snuck out to see his friend. He didn't even get grounded and he was awake when Mikey threw up like, a gallon of cotton candy and got yelled at for sneaking sweets. It was awesome.

Otter and Gerard didn't find anything magical right away. Mostly because Otter was in school when Gerard had all his free time. Ma worked late most days since their Pop wasn't around, but Gerard had to babysit Mikey after school. On the weekends, Gee had a few hours while Ma went grocery shopping in Hoboken Village to go to Otter's and try out different lore.

They tried all kinds of stuff. They went biblical, cause like, Humans were supposed to have learned to swim the flood waters by making a deal with the Devil. Only, Gerard nearly drowned in the Pelissier family pool and Otter laughed himself sick before pulling Gee out of the shallow end.

Some stuff they had to leave alone, like voodoo because they didn't even know what half the stuff mentioned was, let alone how to use it. They tried calling on different gods but couldn't figure out if it wasn't working because Gerard's didn't believe they were real or because they were invented by Grant Morrison or Neil Gaiman. No matter what Otter said, Gerard did not have a hissy fit when he couldn't call on Dream.

They tried the stuff about humans being able to tame animals and gain familiars, which was totally awesome only, Gerard was allergic to cats, Mikey's hamster Nibbles had been used to him forever, and no one wanted to go to the Alpha's house and ask to borrow his pet dogs. "I don't think I can talk to the Alpha without pissing myself. I don't think I could even talk to his nephew Frank." Otter had protested, which Gerard agreed was totally a legit point (even though he kind of doubted that Frank Iero really existed, none of their yearmates had ever even seen Frank).

They tried to reenact the ritual from the movie "The Craft," but after Gee knocked over the jar with Mikey's hamster in it they spent the rest of their afternoon tracking it down.

"This is so stupid," Gee said while crawling under the sofa. "I'm never gonna find my magic."

"No, it's Way lame." Otter corrected from behind the fridge. "We're totally gonna figure this out and you're going to be the most bad ass human ever and we'll make all the girls look stupid. Especially Lyn-Z and her Desperadoes." Gerard couldn't figure out why Otter would be annoyed at Lyn-Z and her friends until he remembered that stupid fight from third grade.

"Are you still pissed that Kitty got a drum kit before you did?"

Otter made a strangled noise. "She was bashing rocks together! She's got like, no rhythm and she hangs out with Jimmy Urine who's like, a girl with boogers. It's totally unfair."

Ever since the Pelissier's had moved to the village, Gerard and Otter had been 100% against girls. The only things girls ever talked about were fighting (Lyn-Z), and vengeance (Kitty), and who's the strongest in the lot (Joan Jett). All that dominance was totally lame, action figures were way more mature than pummeling each other with fists until someone bled. Gerard would rather take Batman to Lupercalia any day over Jamia Nestor. Not that he'd ever say no to Jamia, because Gerard's pretty sure she would break his face if he did.

Ray, on the the hand, turned bright red if anyone so much as looked in Krista's direction. It was awesome. Gerard swore up and down that she made Ray look like his head was on fire. Reaching for his shoes, Gerard heard a rustling noise. "Oh, hey. I found Nibbles!"

"Cool," Otter wandered back from the kitchen. "Hey, you gonna have a birthday party or what? You turn thirteen in like, a week. That's like a big deal in werewolf culture, right?"

Gerard hunched over, looking at Nibbles in his shoe. He should have been planning the best party of his life. Thirteen is the blue moon year, the year when you get to run with the pack on the moons instead of staying at home with the cubs and omegas. Gerard had been planning his Thirteenth Party almost as long as Ray had been planning his wedding. He was going to have all the village kids over for a bunny hunt and they'd play all the chase games and for dessert, they'd have fresh pig and then go hang out in Otter's pool. It was going to be the best, because then he could go running with the pack and then he'd get a chance to show Lyn-Z how cool and awesome he was. That had been the plan before the bite.

He swallowed hard and looked away when he finally answered Otter. "No. No party. It's all about shifting anyway."

Otter poked him. It was Otter's new way of smacking him. He had tried pinching but...well, Gerard was a bleeder and hadn't worked out. "Guess I'll just have to give you your birthday present early, Lameface."

Gerard jerked so hard, he nearly squished the hamster. "You got me something?" He knew vaguely that selkies traded presents on birthdays instead of on Lupercalia, but Otter had never given him a birthday present before.

Otter shrugged. "You're Way lame, like, all the time. Figured it would cheer you up and make you a little less Sixteen Candles , a little more Drusilla ." He popped into his room and came out with a box, which he tossed lightly in Gerard's direction.

It was a Willow Rosenburg action figure. "Oh my god," Gee squeaked. "How did you get this? Where did you get this? It's Willow! She comes with a grimoire and a crystal ball and a yellow crayon! Holy crap. I didn't even know they made these." She was his favorite character on Drusilla the Witchfinder , and her hair looked so real and soft through the plastic window of the box.

Otter shrugged, poking Gerard lightly. "Don't be such a boy, Gee. It's not a big deal. You're like, my best friend." Gerard's eyes went wide and Otter started to stammer. "Or whatever. By best friend, I mean you're the totally lame, loser kid that I grace with my presence. Because you suck."

"I love you, too," Gerard said, smiling shyly as he hugged the cardboard box to his chest.

Otter beamed.

Once a week, Gerard got to feel totally normal, hanging out at Otter's house and watching horror movies and thinking of stuff to try. Sometimes they read comics, other times books they 'borrow' from different folks around the village, and sometimes if they could get Ray to come over, they just play video games. Ray never brought up they way Gee and Otter would talk in code around him, but after one ugly fight between Gee and Otter in private, they agreed to let Ray in on the secret.

"Gee's human." Otter told him in a vicious round of multi-player Pacman.

Ray looked at Gerard's neck suspiciously. "So his head is not going to fall off?" his voice squeaked out at a higher pitch than normal and Gee took the opportunity to take out Ray's Mrs. Pacman.

"You weren't supposed to tell," Gerard whined, blushing red but he knew that if Otter hadn't spilled the beans he would have never gotten up the nerve to say something himself. Even though Gee had totally promised to do it. He hated admitting, even for a moment, that he wasn't even a person anymore.

Ray tapped the controller with his thumb for a couple beats, looking deep in thought. "So, this is why you had to break into my room and borrow my John Constantine comics at like, five am? Research?"

Otter snorted, "That one was just for fun. Also, I stole your Mom's bra."

Ray put down his controller and threw himself at Otter, the two of them knocking a painting off the wall with their roughhousing. Gerard took out Otter's guy in the confusion - if he couldn't punch his friends in reality, he could at least kill their video game characters virtually.

The next time they had a research session, Gerard made sure to invite Ray over too. With his organizational skills, they totally made much more progress. The smiley/frowny face chart alone was awesome for keeping track of which magics and books they'd already tried.

By the time they tried like, every comic book suggestion ever , it had been three years since Gerard had bitten by a human. By then Gerard had stopped shaking when he was alone in the yard. The mood swings had lessened. He didn't freak out every time the family left for a pack event. He even stopped missing school so much.

Their family didn't talk about it directly if they could help it. Ma just referred to it as Gerard's condition whenever they tried to explain to Mikey why Gerard could eat apples. That came up when Mikey tried to eat an apple and had hurled all over the kitchen door. It was Gerard's condition that meant they had to pick up food supplements from the grocery store in the next village over. It was what they said when Mikey demanded to know why Gerard couldn't go to Lupercalia. It was why Gerard couldn't change every moon and if anyone ever asked Mikey about Gerard's disappearance, he was supposed to just say his brother was very sick.

Yeah. Like that's not suspicious in a family of werewolves. The more Gerard talked around his humanity, the worse he felt about it. Like all he could ever hope to be was a sickly liar. To make up for the lies, Gerard would hook Mikey up with Otter's horror movies and scary stories. Gerard kind of felt guilty but he also felt kind of relieved because he didn't have to hide all his research books from Mikey. Except for the fairy tales. Gerard did everything he could to make sure that Little Red Riding hood, in all its various forms, never came within a hundred feet of Mikey. Even in Gerard's sleep, he could hear Pop's voice still reciting, ' ...the woodcutter heard a noise in the forest... "

The deal he had with Mikey meant Gerard could read all the scripts from Drusilla the Witchfinder without getting in trouble with Ma so long as Mikey could get his hands on the Friday the Thirteenth movie.

On the other hand, the deal didn't mean Mikey wouldn't be annoying about it. "You know that's like, totally fiction right?" Mikey had stopped spending nearly all his time as a puppy and instead had gotten into this stage where followed Gerard around like some kind of creepy spy. He'd even caught Mikey using his vine charcoal to try and draw fruit baskets.

Gerard looked up from his seat on their bedroom floor. Mikey was sitting on the bottom bunk. Gerard's bunk as Mikey's bed and Gerard's cot had been switched out for bunk beds long ago. Gee twitched at the sight of Mikey's muddy shoes on his blankets. "Yeah, I know. Stop getting mud on my blankets."

"Stop leaving half eaten apples on my ladder," Mikey shot back. He pulled off his shoes and put them on Gerard's pillow.

Gee clenched a fist. He wished so much that he could do half the stuff the people on Drusilla could do. He wished he could be as cool and awesome a human as Willow was and mostly he just wished Mikey would stop leaving his dirty shoes on Gerard's bed. He looked down at the transcript of the show and wished that just once, the fucking magic would work. That he could banish all the stupid bullshit out to a desert, like Willow Rosenburg. " Edin na zu ," he snarled, flicked his hands at the shoes.

There was a soft pop sound and where Mikey's shoes had been, there was a pile of sand. Mikey barked and jumped onto the dresser. "Gee!"

Gerard could only stare at the pile of sand, because it had definitely been shoes before. It was a dusky red that he'd only ever seen at the sand art booth at Lupercalia, and he could see where the sneakers had left mud smears on his pillow

"Gerard Arthur Way, what just happened?" Mikey howled.

He looked down at the transcript he and Otter had scribbled out during their last brainstorming session. Otter's blocky handwriting read: Old languages. Sumerian? Egyptian? With or w/o herbs and circles? Ray spidery letters: Demands? Requests? 3 Krista3 3 Mrs. Krista Rodgers3. R + K 4 EVER Remember to plead with gods.

"Sumerian," Gerard murmured. "I can spellcast in sumerian."

"Can we talk about the part where you made my shoes disappear?" Mikey snapped, voice rising in pitch.

Gerard dropped the papers he was holding. If Sumerian worked, then maybe ancient Egyptian would, too. "Mikey, where's your World History text book?" Gerard started rummaging through the layer of crap on their floor, mixing the clean, still wearable, and dirty clothing piles to try and find anything that might have some Egyptian words he could try.

Mikey's voice came out panicked, "If you don't tell me why you can do magic, I'm telling Ma you threw away my good sneakers."

Gerard made a frustrated noise. God, Mikey could be so annoying . "I thought you figured it out ages ago - it's not a big secret, since I live in this room with you. Did you seriously '
never notice I got turned into a Human? Earth to Mikey, do you still live here?"

Mikey shook his head, sitting down on the dresser slowly. "I thought you like, had a different Dad and you turned out more selkie than werewolf. Or like, some weird disease. You never go to any pack stuff and you're always at Dr. Armstrong's clinic..."

Gerard thought about it. That made sense. Especially since Pop had died like right after Mikey was born. "Really?"

"That was before you sent my shoes to Arrakis!" Mikey snapped. He paused, scrunching his nose up like he'd done when he was a toddler, confused and learning the basics of tracking. It was still kind of adorable.

Gerard pulled back his long hair, and pointed to his scars. "Remember when I got this?" The place where his ear had been bitten off still looked angry. The man's teeth had left little gouges along the side of his head and the scar tissue was ugly - he had a jagged shred of cartilage where his ear had been. Hair wouldn't grow in the marks.

Mikey pushed his glasses up his nose. "Not really. I just figured you were a deformed freak or you pushed Ray way too far or something."

Gerard shook his head. "It was your birthday. You turned seven and I got bitten." Which was the understatement of his life , because Gerard hadn't just got bitten - he'd been screwed forever.

Mikey lit up. He hopped off the dresser and poked Gerard's scars. "Dude," he said cheerfully. "This is so cool!" He tapped one of the gouges. "My brother can do magic and stuff." He deflated a second later, though, muttering to himself, "Which means I'm never gonna get my shoes back."

Gerard made an annoyed sound and leaned away. "This is like, the first thing I've figured out how to do. Don't tell anyone, okay? The Alpha doesn't know about the human thing and he can't find out about the magic thing.."

Mikey took a step back, head dropping in submission as soon as Gerard mentioned the Alpha. Gerard would probably have done it, too, if he didn't remember more years as a human than as a pup. Except for beta wolves, like Ma or Mr. McCracken, everyone in the pack dropped into submission at the first mention or their Alpha. And, well, except Gerard. Oh, and Otter since he wasn't even wolf.

He could tell by the way Mikey quivered that he really, really didn't like the idea of keeping something secret from the Alpha. "Mikes, you gotta remember. He's the Alpha. If he finds out I'm some kinda monster he could," Gerard swallowed the words put me down like an animal . "...make me go away."

Mikey whined high in the back of his throat and shifted, wriggled his way out of his clothes and hid under Gerard's bed. There was a knock at the door, then it pushed open. He jumped a little before he remembered that Grandma Helena was keeping an eye on them 'til Ma came home. Helena came in with a concerned expression in the corner of her kind eyes. "Is everything all right? I heard yelling."

Gerard gave her a stricken look. "Mikey didn't know about me." Before Grandma Helena could figure it out, he murmured the incantation again, flicking his hands at some of the dirty laundry. The same thing happened. A soft pop sound and then a pile of shifting sand. "I also learned something new."

Helena put one hand over her mouth and after a beat gave him a stern look. "I know you did not just send your good church clothes to the desert, Gerard. You just wait until your mother comes home."

And it went to eleven.

The freaky thing about discovering he could do magic, er, incantations really, was how happy his mom was.

"Gerard, this is wonderful!" Ma yelled right before picking Mikey up and twirling him. Like, in circles.

Mikey squeaked at the motion, but didn't fuss. Gerard felt a stab of envy even though he was pretty sure she was going overboard with Mikey because Ma couldn't touch him. "Ma, cut it out. Gravity is the law. Could you please stop breaking it? I think I'm gonna throw up just watching you two."

She put Mikey down and smiled at Gerard before ruffling his hair. Then she started to groom it back in place. "Oh, Gerard," she said with a teasing tone. "For the fruit of my loins, you're kind of a wimp."

As soon as Gerard started pulling away, she reached for her purse. "You know what? We are going out to celebrate. Go put on your good clo- some clean clothes and we'll go to the Edge's restaurant."

Mikey ran straight for their room, but Gee turned the corner and waited like a good little eavesdropper. It was what humans did in all the stories and Gee knew it was a bad habit, really, but he wanted to hear. Ma only ever kicked them out of the room like that when she wanted to talk to Grandma Helena about them. About Gerard, rather. Mikey was the perfect child.

"Ma," he heard Ma say, "this is - God, this is the best thing to happen to us since that stupid - I wish I could kill him again for touching Gerard." He felt his world spin out from underneath his feet. Gerard grasped at the wall, leaning against it to hold himself up. His mom had killed the human who had bitten him?

"Donna-"

"He's got his teeth back. If anything ever happened to me, Gerard could protect himself. He's had to miss out on so many things, but now, he can magic himself stronger and faster. His father would be so proud of him. No one can ever- " Gerard couldn't hear anything else. He rushed into his room and pushed the door shut with shaking hands.

Gerard didn't wait to hear anything else. He rushed into his room and pushed the door shut with shaking hands. The thought of his Pop being proud of him made Gerard race towards the open window and throw up on the ground outside it. He couldn't imagine for a moment that the man from his memories would ever be proud of a monster.

He had to turn himself back into a werewolf, or else. Gerard rubbed his face with the sleeve of his shirt before turning around to face his brother. Mikey looked up and stilled, letting out a small whine.

Gerard sniffed hard, "Don't say anything or I'll tell mom you pushed Alicia into the lake on last week's field trip." He swiped his nose with his sleeve as hard as he could and focused on putting his clothes on, one leg at a time.

Ma started ordering books right away. Gerard spent the weekend curled up with her in front of Mrs. Pelissier's computer, arguing over which books to buy. They didn't have their own computer so they usually just went over to Otter's house when they needed one. It was almost like normal, both of them scowling in front of a computer screen and shouting at each other. Mr. Pelissier kept venturing into the library every so often and nervously asking them if everything was alright. Otter would just point at a link on the screen, and wait for Gerard and his mother to stop yelling at each other and ask Otter to actually order the book for them.

Otter's family and Gerard's family got along great. Gerard figured it was because both their parents were crazy. Otter's Dad had some weird seaweed phobia and his Ma was vegan. Ma said they were the only adults in the whole damn pack who weren't acting out a grade school drama.

Once the books were ordered, it was like school all over again, only worse because Gerard had to sit with Helena every the morning and learn grammar and syntax, before the fun business of putting the words together into spells.

After going so long without studying, it was harder than Gerard could have imagined. And even after all the hours he spent, only a fraction of his spells even worked.

Magic sucked so much. Totally sucked.

"How am I going to be able to cast spells if I can't read my homework out loud? This is so stupid." Gerard let his head flop forward into the crease of one of his language books. It smelled so old and musty that Gerard was starting to smell it in his dreams.

He could feel Grandma Helena giving him a cool look with her laser-beam Grandma eyes. "Gerard, you know very well why you aren't permitted to read aloud from your books."

"Cause I turned everyone blond when I messed up that prayer to Bastet? Or do you mean that time I made the kitchen table invisible?"

He heard a little wuff that was the sound of Helena smothering a laugh. He grinned.

"All of the above, you rapscallion." she said. She smacked him on the scruff of the neck lightly and let him be. Best Grandma ever.

He rubbed his eyes and sat back up. If he was going to try to turn himself into a real person again, he'd have to stop playing around and start learning syntax, otherwise he'd just keep messing up spells. His spells were currently iffy at best. Sure, the table had been invisible for a week, but Gerard was still platinum blond even though everyone else's hair had grown back normal. Otter couldn't use the letter T for a moonwax (two weeks!) that one time Gerard talked Ma into a sleep over. And one time Gerard had accidentally knocked out Ray with a sleeping spell that . . . didn't wear off so much as stubbornly refuse to budge until he'd found the correct counter phrase to wake him up. Ray was okay with that though. He got the highest score on Space Vaders 5000 after Gerard used the counter, and then he kept asking Gerard to recast it so he could get the highest score on the other arcade games at Edge's Restaurant.

Okay, so Gerard screwed up his incantations all the time, but he was getting better. And as soon as he found the right spells, he would change himself back to normal, one piece at a time.

He started experiments on animals, mostly Nibbles, and did dozens of small spells on Otter and Ray. Otter thought it was hilarious. He was always the first one to volunteer for some crazy incantation. Ray, on the other hand, was harder to convince. By the time he managed to successfully turn Nibbles into a hand - sized wolf, Otter had left with his family to visit his Grandparents in the Chicago territories.

Gerard waited until Mikey was asking Helena for help with his homework before running over to Ray's house, tiny werewolf Nibbles making angry chuff noises in this pocket. Ray took one look at Gerard, slammed the door in his face and then emerged five minutes later with a water pistol. Ray held the squirt gun in front of him with both hands. "No. No times a million."

Gerard rolled his eyes. "Do you have to be so over-dramatic? I straightened your hair one time . . ." Seriously, Ray was totally overreacting about the whole thing. There was no reason to pull his favourite Nerf gun on Gerard. "I just want to see if I can call your wolf side to the fore." He crossed his fingers behind his back and added earnestly, "Ancient Egyptians used to do this all the time. Look, I turned Nibbles into a wolf."

No one could do earnest like Gerard. He practiced every morning in front of the mirror when brushing his teeth. Gerard pulled Nibbles out of his pocket on focused on him while he recited the incantation. The magic wasn't the hard part at all, the hard part was figuring out how to match his will to the words.

Nibbles squeaked angrily and turned from a rodent shaped puffball into a wolf shaped puffball, still small enough to fit in Gerard's hand.

"Woah," Ray said, staring at the tiny fuzzball. His grip loosened on the squirt gun and then tightened again. "How do I know that spell's not going to shrink me?"

Gerard raised his hand in the international chill out symbol and scowled. "Dude, chill out. Do you honestly think three words can hurt you? " he said, before pointing his finger towards Ray. He closed one eye and lined his sight with Ray's mouth. "You good?"

Ray lowered the gun. "Yeah, just- lemme take my clothes off first. I got to find a good spot to them." They walked around the cottage to the wooded acre behind Ray's house. Gerard dropped Nibbles in his shift pocket - the spell wore off in an hour's time - and kicked off his shoes for fun. Ray tossed the water gun down in the roots of the trees, throwing his shirt over a branch and leaving his jeans and boxers at the tree roots.

Gerard blinked, "Oh, hey. You're starting to grow pubic hair."

Ray buried his face in his hands."Oh my god, Gerard," he moaned. "Now is not the time to have an after-school-special moment."

Gerard rolled his eyes. "You always say that," he whined before he raised his pointer finger right at Ray and thought about Ray's other body. About a shock of russet-brown hair and small brown eyes and a cold nose that never got warm no matter how many times you licked it. He thought about the scar in the fur pattern over his front left leg and the way Ray's tail fluffed out behind him like a fox. " Nesmeh. Debeh ideh ," Gerard said.

Ray screamed and fell.

Gerard raced over to where Ray had crumpled to the ground. His bones were moving and shifting under his skin - his skull bulged out then back in, like something was trying to claw its way out of his body. Skin ripped open, splattering blood all over the small clearing behind Ray's house. His hair dripped off his head in bloody clumps, and Ray's hands scrambled at the dirt so hard the tips of his fingers broke and fell to the ground. Gerard could hear himself screaming over Ray's noises - screams fading into gurgles into howls - until finally, finally , he collapsed on the grass in his four legged shape.

Ray's fur was covered in blood and sweat, but he was still breathing. Relieved, Gerard curled up next to his friend's body and waited for him to wake up.

After what felt like forever, Ray's eyes slowly blinked open, and he gave a low, pitiful whine. Gerard burst into tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he repeated over and over again, almost hysterical until Ray moved his head an inch to touch Gerard's knee. Ray cocked his ear, before shifting smoothly back into his human body. This time it was a normal shift - no screaming, no ripping flesh - just a smooth movement of bones in the blink of an eye, but the blood was still there on his skin, drying slowly.

"Help me up," Ray whispered, his voice was completely wrecked. He was still lying in the mess of his own blood and skin. Gerard scrambled to pull one of Ray's arms over his shoulder and carry him the short walk through the woods back to Ray's house. The walk was slow and difficult, Ray had hit his growth spurt before Gerard so he was almost lying on top of of Gerard as they walked back. Gerard could feel Ray's blood seeping into his shirt - he tried to adjust his grip on Ray's hip, and realized the reason it was hard to grip was because a piece of Ray's skin had stuck there.

Gerard leaned away from Ray and threw up before he could finish the walk back to Ray's house. They left the back door open, so Gerard's didn't have any problems dragging Ray into the bathroom and dropping him into one of the tubs. He pulled some fresh meat from the fridge, dicing it as small as he could before bringing it back to Ray, along with some multivitamins he found in a basket over the sink. Ray gave him a small exhausted smile in thanks.

The bathtub water was pink now, and too murky to see through. "Don't worry about anything," Gerard babbled. "I'll clean everything up and get your clothes and do - do you want me to get Dr. Armstrong? I can call Ma or -"

Ray shook his head until Gerard stopped talking. He sunk a little deeper in the tub and closed his eyes. "I'm fine," he rasped. "Just don't - don't do that again."

But it worked , Gerard wanted to say, it worked . "I'll go clean," he said instead.

He scrubbed the kitchen, scrubbed the bloody footprints off the floor. He went to fetch Ray's clothes from the clearing. There were still strips of skin lying on the ground. He couldn't force himself to bury the mess until he thought about how furious his family would be if they found out Gerard had tried a spell so ill-defined on another person. Grim, Gerard dug a shallow hole with his hands and used rocks to push the majority of the . . . leftovers in. Then, he picked up Ray's clothes so he could wash them with his own before they could be found.

When Mr. and Mrs. Toro came home, Gerard told them Ray wasn't feeling well. By then, he had helped Ray into his pajamas and bed. Gerard fell asleep curled up at the foot of Ray's bed and when he woke up, Ray was staring at him.

It was pretty unnerving, like Gerard was being judged and found faulting. It felt like shame. Ray looked away and ran his fingers through his hair. "No more magic, Gerard," Ray said, hands reaching down to grip the bed spread tightly. "Not ever, or we are through."

It went without saying that, in his life, that Gerard needed Ray the way he needed Mikey. He never stopped to consider what life would be like without Ray because it was something that was just too horrible to think about. If Ray ditched him for being a monster, then Otter would probably take off, too, and they were the only reason Gerard wasn't howling at the walls. Magic, though, magic was his only reason for waking up in the morning. Every time he had to ask Mikey to open a fucking jar because he didn't have the strength to do it himself, there was the hope one day he'd be able to magic it open. Magic was the only reason his mother didn't cry at night anymore, and if Gerard gave that up? He might as well just give up living.

Gerard nodded, slipping off the bed and looking towards the floor. The spell had worked. It fucking worked and he'd be damned if he wouldn't use it on himself.

"Promise me, Gerard Way or I report you to the Alpha," Ray ordered. Gee dropped his head automatically, shaking at the tone in Ray's voice. He meant it. Ray really fucking meant it.

"I promise," Gerard whispered. There was a lengthy silence before Ray turned away, pulled the Batman comforter over his head and told Gerard to get out.

Gee made it through his bedroom window by sunrise. Mikey was curled up on his sheets, holding Gerard's battered Willow Rosenburg action figure. He whined in his sleep when Gerard pushed him over and climbed into bed with him.

Ma was pissed enough in the morning to confiscate his books for a month. It didn't matter though, Gerard could wait a month to get his books back now that he knew he was only steps away from being a real person again.

The next time he saw Ray, they didn't talk about what happened. It became that thing they didn't talk about, even though Ray started shaking if anyone pointed in his direction. At first, Otter was confused when Gerard stopped doing magic in front of them, then pissed, then really fucking pissed, and then Kitty asked Otter out on a date so thankfully it didn't matter anymore and he sulked at Gerard and Ray about other things.

". . . And then after she goes on for like fifteen minutes about how awesome she is, and how she's got this amazing scholarship as a drummer , Kitty asks if I'd ever like to spend Lupercalia with her. Isn't that like totally insane?" Otter flailed his arms to try and emphasize the crazy. Gerard knew when Otter got carried away like this, the best he could do was nod and let Otter fuss.

"Totally," Gerard and Ray both replied automatically. Gerard tried to use his combo attack but his video game skills sucked compared to his friends'. How the hell was he supposed to compete when his friends when they had like, normal reflexes.

He caught his reflection in the glow of the TV and, making sure Ray was completely enthralled by the game, pointed to himself discretely and murmured, " Sharursu ."

He felt his ear pop and then suddenly, he know exactly how to defeat them. He may not be faster, but he didn't need speed to hit O three times, X twice, O again and then unleash special combo. Ray shrugged when he saw his character get knocked out, but Otter threw his controller at the ground. "I can't believe it. Kitty acts like a lunatic, and you can't let me win just one game."

Ray rolled his eyes and put down his own controller."You are crazy, Otter, just plain crazy. Jesus, Kitty asked you out like a week ago: she likes you. Like, she like likes you. She wasn't being a jerk, she told you about the scholarship and the music school to explain why she won't see you at the village school anymore. If she could hit you over the head with a club and drag you to her cave she would."

Otter looked at Ray like he was crazy. "Why the hell would she ask me to Lupercalia, then? She said she only wants me to go so she can show off how much better she is at all the games. And then she hit me."

That was Gerard's cue to roll his eyes. "Okay, you aren't a werewolf so you kind of have an excuse for not knowing about our biggest holiday ever, but people who go to Lupercalia together generally end up dating and/or having sex. You're fourteen and she's fifteen, so she probably just wants to get a little hot and heavy."

Otter blushed red, hyperventilating halfway through the speech. Ray glanced at Gerard. "Your turn or mine?"

"Mine," Gerard admitted woefully, and got up to pound Otter's back until he was breathing normally again. Out of the three of them, Gerard might have turned out high maintenance, but Otter was strung high as a kite. Puberty had turned Otter into a complete diva.

"I already agreed to go with her," Otter sputtered. "I was going to stand her up, but holy fucking shit. Isn't she dating Jimmy? And Steve?" He fanned his face with both hands.

Gerard nodded at Otters questions while Ray hissed, "Keep it down, my mom will be pissed if she hears you cursing."

"Most of the east coast packs practice polyandry," Gerard added. "Way fewer females than males. Why do you think everyone kept asking your mom if her mates were on vacation after you guys first moved here? Monogamy is weird."

"You guys have to teach me the festival games and like, how to not super suck at all of them. Maybe she's one of those girls who hate submissive males." Otter said, half hysterical. "Jimmy and Steve are manly, right? I can be the opposite of manly if I try."

Ray snickered, "You're not exactly dominant to begin with, Otter."

This had the hilarious effect of making Otter stop and give Ray a stern look. "I am totally dominant. I'm so masculine, I made Bebe swoon that one time in drama class."

Gerard gave Otter an incredulous look. "What happened at school?" Gerard had never taken a drama class, let alone seen Otter do anything other than act like the most passive aggressive omega of all time.

Ray rolled his eyes, "Bebe slipped on the wet floor and banged her head during a read through of Romeo and Juliet." Huh. That sounded more like it.

"She melted from the power of my manly love," Otter insisted.

Ray laughed so hard he gave himself the hiccups and Mrs. Toro sent everyone home early.

Gerard did his best to focus on the day to day, while he waited for the right moment to change himself. Otter's hot mess of a dating life was almost enough to distract him entirely - it was so entertaining - even as Mikey's rapidly burgeoning social life was starting to drive him up the wall. Every day that Mikey came home chattering about plans for his Thirteenth Birthday, Gerard felt that much more torn between helping him plan and screaming at his brother about how he still had months and months to go before he could finish growing up.

When Mikey brought up the notion of going hunting at the dinner table, again, Ma reached for the bottle of wine. She poured herself a glass as she spoke, "I think it's time I take Mikey on his first hunt."

Everything came to a halt. Gerard dropped his steelware, Mikey froze in place, and Helena choked on her venison - making her cough discreetly into a napkin.

"Donna, are you absolutely sure about this? We could ask your friend Billie Joe to do it." Helena looked only somewhat less unhappy at that prospect.

Gerard turned to look at Mikey, who clutched his knife so tightly that Gerard could see the cheap metal begin to bend. Mikey struggled to fix a neutral expression on his face, but Gerard could make out the desperate hope in his eyes.

It made Gerard furious.

"No way. It's my right as eldest male to take Mikey on his first hunt," he said. He couldn't stand the thought of giving up something as big and important and werewolf as taking his brother out on his first hunt - the thought of Mikey doing it with anyone else was more than he could take.

Mikey stabbed his knife into the table. "You haven't even been on your first hunt. I'm the only kid in my class who hasn't."

Helena quietly pulled the knife back out and placed in down on the table out of Mikey's reach.

The indignity of Mikey trying to tell Gerard what was fair made Gerard want to lunge over the table and throttle him. As it was, Gerard felt his secret tumble out before he could stop himself: "Look, I've almost got the spells figured out to turn back to normal. I just need time to refine them, but I'd do it right now if you weren't such a selfish little shit who thinks his life is so fucking hard because -"

Gerard was cut off by the sound of his mom throwing her dinner plate at the wall - he and Mikey barely had time to duck. "If you even think about using magic on yourself," she snarled "I will rip you to shreds myself. I swear, if I ever, ever catch you intentionally using magic on people, I'll burn every damn book in this house."

The rest of dinner went by in an uncomfortable silence.

When they went to bed, Mikey was silent. The closest they got to talking about it was when Mikey threw the Willow action figure at his head and yelled, "You ruin everything."

Mikey was the one who didn't fucking get it. Mikey was a werewolf and Gerard wasn't. That was what was ruining everything.

He couldn't sleep much that night. He waited until Mikey left for school and looked at himself in the mirror. Years of humanity had done its work: he was deathly pale like the creature of legend, his puppy fat had never been burned away by the moon, and there was nothing aggressive or strong about him whatsoever.

He didn't look like anything. If he ran away to the city, he could pass for vampire or selkie or anything at all really. Gerard couldn't even remember what he looked like as werewolf. All he remembered was the feel of his teeth, sharp and real in his mouth. Sometimes, he woke in a panic because he thought his canines had fallen out - but they were there, just human and dull. A mouth made for fighting with words and spells. His nightmares always played out part of Little Red Riding Hood, with Pop's voice floating through his head, ' ...came to a cottage in the woods, where the girl's grandmother came to the door... '

Gerard pushed the story out of his head before he started to picture anything else. Gerard looked into his reflection's eyes and thought of what his teeth should been. What they had been before things went wrong. " Ideh ." The sudden pain in his mouth made him cusp his hands over his mouth. He could feel something filling his jaws, forcing out his own teeth and when he spat his blood and teeth out it felt like he had cut away a part of himself. The teeth that dominated his nightmares were finally gone . Gone forever .

He counted the teeth in the washbasin and even his wisdom teeth seemed to have been forced out. It took a few moments for the pain to subside but when he smiled at his reflection, all he saw were two rows of bloody canines. Wolf-teeth.

He felt something, a feeling, rush inside, and Gerard told himself it was triumph.

He went straight to Otter's house, climbed in through the window, and waited until school let out - pacing back and forth over rubber duckies and broken game cartridges until Otter came home.

He quickly closed the door behind him and gave Gerard a mild look of surprise. "I thought you weren't due to show up until six."

Oh, right. Gerard had promised to sneak out before Lupercalia to hang out before Otter's date. "Yeah, something came up," he said and then promptly rubbed the back of his teeth with his tongue. The teeth gave him a heavy lisp he hadn't gotten used to yet.

Otter covered his face with his hand. "Don't tell me you broke something else. Dude, you need your own hamster bubble for protection."

Gerard grinned at him, and Otter's look of fear gave him an elation he hadn't expected. "I figured out how to change back into a wolf. I'm going to do the spell tonight and take Mikey out on his first hunt. I can go to school and have a future and maybe even get to go to college," he said, eyes bright with excitement. "Look, teeth! Otter, I'm going to be a person again!" Gerard beamed at Otter.

"You're already a person," Otter said quietly, looking at Gerard like he had broken his heart. "You're my favorite person."

"Really?" Gerard said, feeling anger start to swell up. "You sure it's not Ray? You guys have been getting pretty close. You spend so much time hanging out with Ray now." Gerard scowled, then flicked on the radio. "I can barely leave my room as it is. I haven't seen most of our yearmates in years."

"On the positive side," Gerard said, perking up. "I've figured out how to fix the problem." He bared his teeth, rubbing his tongue along the inside. Otter flinched, turning away from Gerard. It bothered him immensely to have seen Otter flinch."This is just a side effect thing of the first part of the spell. It's fine. Just, don't tell Ray, okay? He wouldn't get it."

Otter looked up, eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Why wouldn't Ray get it?" He crossed his arms, anger slowly edging it.

Gerard flinched at the memory of Ray screaming. "There was an accident. He wanted me to stop after that, but it worked and no one's been permanently hurt by the spell so it's going to be fine."

"Permanently," Otter repeated, incredulous. " Permanently hurt? Is this why we can't talk about magic anymore? What did you do?" He reached towards Gerard, who immediately moved out of range.

He hadn't even told Otter yet and Otter already looked horrified. The last thing in the world Gerard wanted was for Otter to look at him like the way Gerard looked at himself. He felt like he couldn't breathe.

"It was an accident," Gerard managed. "Ray's completely recovered and I'm still me."

"I don't think you are," Otter said softly.

The words hit Gerard like a blow. "I have to go," he said, fumbling for the doorknob and running. He vaguely heard Otter call out after him, but he ignored it.

Gerard took the backwoods route just to be safe, cutting through Lyn-Z's family's wood track and skirting the edges of the Uringer family bog. It was the longer path, but this way he definitely wouldn't run into Otter or Ray or anyone else. As soon as he was a safe distance away he started crying. It wasn't fair that the minute he had the world figured out, he lost his only friends. The sun glared into his eyes the entire walk back - even the heavens were against him.

Mikey was curled up on Gerard's bed with his Walkman when Gerard reached home. He still looked a little annoyed, but Gerard figured his news would fix it, or at least he could turn into a werewolf and force Mikey to stop putting dirty shoes on his bed.

"Hey," Mikey said, glaring at Gerard through his bangs.

Gerard pressed his lips into a thin line, trying hard not to smile and ruin the surprise. The harder Mikey played the sullen pre-teen act, the funnier his face looked. It was possibly the highlight of Gerard's day. "How would you like it if I told you, you were going on your first hunt tonight?"

Mikey shot up into a sitting position. "Dr. Armstrong said he'd take me?" Mikey looked overjoyed at the idea.

"No," Gerard snarled. "With me." He had been hoping Mikey would show the slightest bit of excitement at the thought of his big brother being normal for the first time in forever. Hearing him show his excitement for Dr. Armstrong was practically a slap in the face.

Mikey's happiness faded quickly. "Gerard," Mikey said softly. "Gee, you can't do that. You've never even been taken yourself."

Gerard turned around and kicked the old dresser in the corner. "I should have been," he said. "I'm supposed to take you hunting, and I won't let some stranger do it. I won't."

Mikey carefully eased himself over the side of the bunk bed and shoved his hands deep in his jean pockets. "Why are you talking funny, Gee?"

"I figured it out. It's okay. We can be a family again," Gerard told him, smiling at Mikey for the first time since the change.

Mikey gasped, yanking his hands out of his pocket to cover his mouth. The naked look of revulsion on his face was enough to make Gerard feel ill. Gee rushed to explain himself,"You don't have to be ashamed of me any more. We can both be normal. The spell's kind of gross because I haven't had time to adjust it and I'm pretty sure it's going to hurt but-"

"Gee," Mikey interrupted, bringing his hands down to wrap around himself. "I love you. I look up to you. I don't care if you're different."

Gerard looked down at his hands, and his flat, uncurling nails where there should have been claws to ground himself in the earth. "One of the last memories I have of Pop is when he told me the story of Red Riding Hood. You know how it goes, don't you? Once upon a time, there was a woodcutter in the forest. He cut wood every day and sold it in town to feed his family. One day, he saw a little girl walking down the path. She reminded him of his daughter with her little red riding hood, and he was worried for her because the woods were dangerous during the day.

"He offered to walk her home. They walked deep into the woods until they reached Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother's house. The little old lady invited him in for supper, but when he got inside he could not help but wonder where they were from since he didn't recognize them from his pack. Are you from the sea, he asked. They said no. Are you from the sky, he asked. They said no. Are you from the earth, he asked. Again, the answer was no. The woodcutter thought it was a joke, and asked if they were human in jest. The grandmother said yes, and then bit the right into his fur coat - ripping and pulling the wolf right off of him.

"The woodcutter was scared. He watched the girl and her grandmother cut up the wolf-flesh into a cooking pot. What am I now, he asked. They smiled at him and told him he was human and, when the time came and his hunger grew, he'd hunt for food himself."

Mikey took a step away from his brother and Gerard laid down his trump card, "I can't let myself hurt you, Mikey. Not ever. I have to turn myself back into a person for all of us - please Mikey, just let me cast the spell."

"No," Mikey said and he threw himself at Gerard. Gerard dodged left and sprinted for the hallway while Mikey scrambled to catch up. Mikey's growth spurt had left him clumsy enough that Gerard could out maneuver him. He only needed to find his reflection, the shifting spell only worked if he looked at his recipient object.

When Mikey tackled him down again, Gerard reached out to grab the hall mirror to pull it down with them. Before Mikey could stop him, he looked himself in the eyes and said the incantation.

They both stopped moving after a second of nothing.

"It didn't work," Mikey said with obvious relief. Gerard started to laugh, high and hysterical until the laughs turned to screams. Everything started to hurt, exponentially, and then - nothing.

When Gerard woke up, he could smell Mikey who was leaning over him. All his muscles felt weak and tired, but he could smell Mikey. For a second, it was everything he had dreamed at night and couldn't remember in the morning: a smell that said family, brother, packmate . He smelled like the moon.

He opened his eyes. Even the world looked different - the brightness was gone. The world had been repainted in dull, faded hues, but Mikey looked -

There were tear tracks on his cheeks. Gerard lifted his head to lick them away. Mikey threw his arms around his brother and squeezed. As far as Gerard could remember, Mikey hadn't hugged him after all the warnings Ma had given about hurting him.

Gerard had wanted to be hugged by Mikey for longer than he can remember. He wanted to be every bit as awesome as Mikey ever thought he could be. He wanted to howl with joy that he was finally, finally a wolf again - but he was too tired to do anything beyond than wonder why he still didn't feel good enough to be Mikey's hero.

Gee licked at the splatter on Mikey's face. He didn't want his brother to smell human when they went on their first hunt.

After another nap, this time with Mikey shifted back in his four legged form, Gerard led the way to the pack community's territory. The grass almost felt like it was pushing Gerard's feet off the ground, and Mikey could barely keep up with him. It was torture to slow down long enough to help Mikey snatch a nearby rabbit that had dared to venture out of its warren. After Mikey's first hunt was out of the way, they played nip-tag all the way through the territories, with other-pack cubs joining in - though thankfully Ray was not among them.

It was the happiest he had ever been: being able to roll around with Mikey, to pull his tail, nip his ear and be nipped back. Now Mikey could bite and scratch and pin him down without ever really hurting him. By the time they headed back for home, the two of them were exhausted. They stumbled through the kitchen door half a minute before they heard Ma come running down the stairs.

Gerard bounced up and down, yipping at the sight of her with Mikey looking wary at his heels. Ma put one hand over her heart, looking at him with happiness and disbelief in her expression.

"Is that- Gerard? Is that you? You look- You look so grown up," she reached her hand down to scratch softly at the fur under his chin. She sat down on the ground in front of them and looked back and forth between Mikey and Gerard, as if she wasn't quite sure if what she was seeing was real.

Mikey nuzzled his brother one more time before shifting back to his two legger form. "I killed a rabbit," Mikey said as he ran both hands through Gerard's fur. "Gee took me on my first hunt." Then, without really explaining, Mikey added, "We need to throw away the rug in the hallway."

Ma looked at Mikey's hands tugging at Gerard's fur and threw her arms around Gee. "It's a miracle. I can touch you again. Oh, Gerard." He could feel her hugging him tight, and marveled at how he didn't hurt even a little bit - the only thing was he couldn't touch her back, but if he could have cried, he would have at the smell of her: snapdragons and fresh blood and hemlock bark under her nails and, most importantly, wolf.

He thought about how he used to change as a little kid, to hug her back, and - he couldn't shift back. He squirmed backwards and tried to stretch out his bones. He knew how to shift back in the same way he knew how to run, walk, or jump, but his body wouldn't do it. He wriggled and pushed and tried to focus with his magic but -

He couldn't feel his magic. The place inside him that had been brimming and singing with it when he had been human was gone. In its place was aggression, need, and the pull of the moon. He moved away from Mikey and his mother to his bedroom. He dug through the piles of stuff for a book, any spellbook.

His book on ancient curses was on top of the clean-ish clothes pile. Gerard nudged it open with his nose, but no matter how hard he concentrated on the words inside, he couldn't get any of his spells to work. All the nervous happiness he felt disappeared and for a moment, the only thing he could comprehend was the sound of his heart beating. The idea that he had trapped himself in another body without the freedom to change, or even magic the word around him - it was his worst nightmare. It was worse than a nightmare, it was incomprehensible.

Gerard faintly registered that his mother and brother were trying to snap him out of whatever trance he was in, but he didn't want to snap out of it. He had already been trapped in a body for years without the ability to do more than stand back and let himself lose everything. To have to spend the rest of his life like that -

He looked down - under his paws were dirty socks and dozens of charcoal sketches. Mikey leaning at the window to watch Alicia. Otter talking with a mouthful of food. Ma practicing her throwing knives. Helena asleep with her head in one of Gerard's books.

Gerard hadn't realized how lucky he had been. When he was human, he had art, and friends, and magic. Changing into his four-legger form hadn't been worth it.

He felt his feet move before he even really knew his plan. He wouldn't - couldn't - bear the thought of living the rest of his life in a four-legger body. The only option Gerard had left was to ask the Alpha to kill him and spare his family.

He ran past his family and out the swinging door before they could stop him. He ran past Otter's house, past Ray's, and Kitty's and Mr. Z's, and the Popes. He ran until he reached the festival grounds, and then he searched.

He didn't make it very far. Eventually the adrenaline caught up with him and he fell asleep at the edge of the festival, behind the fortune teller's tent and under the soft tugging of the moon.

Gerard woke up to a hand shaking at his shoulder. He wuffed softly and took a deep sniff before he opened his eyes. It was the strongest wolf scent he'd ever smelled and it was vaguely familiar.

The hand belonged to a dark haired man with kind brown eyes, a skull cap beanie, and a pierced ear. Gerard sat up sharply and averted his eyes. He remembered this man. He was the Alpha, James Dewees.

"Gerard Arthur Way, what have you done to yourself?" the Alpha said softly. "Your mother is worried sick." The Alpha reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. "She told me everything," the Alpha said, tapping his cigarette against the pack. "I couldn't really blame her for lying to the pack for so long. She'll have to pay some crippling fines," He flicked on his lighter, "but you're lucky this isn't the old days. She'd have to walk the gauntlet for the pack crime."

Gerard whined softly and pulled his tail in. She was supposed to have been safe.

The Alpha just looked at him. "You probably would have been burned in the old days for your humanity." His tone was matter of fact, with a hint of disgust - but if the disgust was over him or over the old days, Gerard couldn't tell.

He shivered. As long as no one touched Mikey, it would be fine. The Alpha reached down and ruffled his hair. "Chill out, pup. I'm not going to burn you. I'm going to send you to school and then probably yell at Donna and Billie Joe for keeping you out of school. What the heck possessed you to cast a spell you can't undo?"

The Alpha raised his eyebrows pointedly. Gerard wuffed softly. He knew it was stupid, but he didn't regret it. "Yeah, yeah. If my nephew weren't at school right now, I'd ask him to fix this mess. I'll call his teacher. At the very least, Brian should give young Mr. Toro a look over, because if his terrified phone call was anything to go by, he could definitely use a professional examination." The Alpha gave Gerard a very pointed look before taking four steps back and sliding off the wooden bracelet around his wrist.

The Alpha gave Gerard a sheepish look. "I always forget Brian's job title. Had to make him create something stylish for me. It's a summoning thing anyone can use. Chrestomanci, Chrestomanci, Chrestomanci." The world went completely still for a moment.

The moment passed and where there had been nothing, there was now a short man in a wearing a button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up, suspenders, and a very annoyed expression that was being directed at the Alpha. "What stupid thing did Frank leave running now?" he asked.

Gerard barked in surprise. The strange man was beyond a doubt human. Even when the Alpha had said summoning charm, Gerard hadn't realized he would be summoning a human.

The Alpha gestured at Gerard and the irritated look the human stranger gave him made Gerard roll over and flash his belly. The man – Brian, Gerard supposed – palmed his face. "Jesus fuck, not another one. How the hell did your pack manage to acquire two human teenagers, James? Okay, come on." He grabbed Gerard by the neck and shook him until Gerard felt the strangest sensation - it was like Brian's movements were forcing the spell to shake off his body. Unlike turning into his four-legger shape, it didn't hurt so much as it felt like coming unstuck.

Gerard pushed the hand away and sat up. The whole thing left a sticky sensation on his skin and now he just wanted to scratch everywhere. Brian gave him an apologetic look. "Yeah, the itching is a psychosomatic side effect. Sorry about that. Gimme a second to conjure you some clothes."

Brian pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and knotted the end of it until it billowed open and changed into something new. In his hands were now a button-down shirt and slacks, tailored in the same strange fashion as Brian's own. Gerard pulled them on, staring at Brian incredulously when Brian turned around. The Alpha just rolled his eyes, "His world has issues with nudity." It made Gerard want to pat himself down and make sure he hadn't changed back with a weird growth on his thigh or something.

A couple minutes after Gerard had finished dressing, Brian turned back around and asked, "Did James talk to you before I showed up? About humans and magic?"

Gerard shook his head. He snuck a peek at the Alpha's eyes and then glanced away. He had - The Alpha knew humans? And his nephew was human? That was crazy, but he didn't care about crazy now that he was - oh. Inside himself where the moon used to be, Gerard could feel the comforting stirrings of magic. He was human again, not a werewolf. Huh. The idea of being human didn't feel as suffocating anymore. It felt . . . bearable.

Brian gave the Alpha a dirty look. "You always leave the shitty crap to me," he snapped.

The Alpha shrugged, smile edging out from the corner of his mouth. "I gotta go supervise some teenagers who are necking in the woods. Have fun, Brian!" Brian cursed under his breath when the Alpha took off.

Gerard looked at his hands. He'd never guessed how much he'd come to rely on these stupid, weak human hands of his. Now that they were back, maybe . . . Maybe his spellcasting abilities were back, too. Gerard leaned forward, under his mouth hovered over the dirt and whispered, " Shi ."

A tendril of green sprung from the earth, and within seconds, grew into a small sunflower. It was beautiful. Gerard touched one of the cooling petals and wondered if his world would ever make sense. Probably not.

"So, you know you can do magic," Brian said, snapping Gerard out of his thoughts, "And James called me, so you're in the world where humans aren't common and I'm guessing you haven't always been like this. Frank, James' nephew, told me he was a vampire. You, know. Before. He mostly writes his spells in Chinese and Olmec. You?"

Gerard looked away. "I used to be a werewolf. This is -" Then he registered what the man was getting at. "You mean there are places where humans are common?"

Brian rolled his eyes. "No shit, Sherlock. Frank has been human since some blood transfusion mix up at a clinic. He goes to school during the week at my castle with a few other powerful magic users."

How many years had it been since Gerard had gone to school? Every time Mikey left the house, he had wanted to howl with jealousy. He felt happy just to have thumbs, and now there were schools for humans? " . . Can I go to school?" he asked, in awe.

"Come on, I'll talk to your mom. You need serious educating, unless you don't mind running the risk of exploding your friends by accident. Have your teeth always been that creepy? Nevermind." Brian pulled Gerard up briskly by one arm. "Let me tell you about the time Frank turned a cat into living elastic."

Brian had barely finished telling Gerard about the cat, when Otter turned 'round the street corner and rushed at Gerard. "I am going to kill you," Otter shrieked, with a furious expression on his face. Gee froze in place.

Otter stopped about a foot away from Gerard and started kicking at the dirt in front of them. "You stupid, stupid, idiot!" he yelled. "I wish I could kick you right now without breaking your stupid face. You can't just talk a bunch of crazy and disappear! I'm giving you detention for like, ever. Three hours in my room after school until you die from old age at like, thirty five or something."

Gerard's mouth dropped open and Otter made a strangled sound of rage before grabbing Gerard by the shirt collar and dragging him down the festival path towards Gerard's house. Gee gave Brian an apologetic look, but Brian was already following the duo, nearly choking with laughter.

"And another thing. Your mom called 'cause you ran away from home? You're not allowed to run away! You do not have permission to run away, especially when you're supposed to be helping me scare off Kitty who, I remind you, won't let me touch her drum set but wants to grope me under my shirt, like I'm some kind of wanton slag. Jeez, Gerard. You are so self-centered. Make that five hours of detention for being self-centered - oh, and for making Ray's skin fall off! That is so not okay. I can't begin to describe the levels . . ."

Otter ranted for the entire walk home, only stopping long enough to make sure Brian was here with the Alpha's permission and wasn't a pedophile. When they got to the house, Otter very firmly gripped Gerard's shirt collar to push him in through the doorway. There was an angry ripping noise as the shirt finally split. Ray, Ma, Mikey, and Helena were in the living room, looking various shades of worried.

"Oh, Gerard, you're back to normal." His mother looked completely relieved as she moved to hug him.

Gerard, remembering the feeling of his bones breaking, threw his hands up and said, " Batiltu ," which froze his mother in place for all of a second. The disappointment on her face was painful to see when the spell released her.

"Brian turned me back to normal," Gerard said softly. "Expect for the teeth. He says those are going to be small and creepy and pointy forever."

"Thank you, Brian," Mikey said, before giving Gerard a small, shaky smile. Ma stepped closer to Gerard and ruffled his hair gently.

"Guess we're back to being a no hug zone, huh kiddo?" She said before putting a kiss on the crown of his head. "We are going to have a talk about your diva fits, Gerard." His mom ruffled his hair one more time and turned to Brian. "Thank you," she said before pulling him into a fierce hug.

An ugly cracking sound came from the two of them and Ma pulled away looking horrified when she heard Brian make a high pitched scream. Brian's arms had been broken where she had squeezed.

Before his mom could apologize and and fetch Dr. Armstrong, Brian's arms straightened out and healed, leaving only blood stains on his white sleeves as evidence. "Well, at least I won't have to convince you guys I'm legit," he muttered.

Helena didn't even blink. "You must be the current Chrestomanci."

Brian nodded as the rest of the room's occupants turned to stare at Helena. Gerard should have known Grandma Helena was cool enough to know everything about everything.

"My late mate was Alpha," she explained. "Every pack Alpha in this world is told that if there is any great imbalance of magic in the world, to call the Chrestomanci. It is his responsibility to keep the balance of magic and mundane through all the worlds from overpowering one another. Although," she said with a hint of amusement, "the story is always told as a folk tale and the Chrestomanci is always a hideous old vampire."

Brian winced. "Yes, well, I'm just a human guy, and I'm pretty sure I'm not hideous."

"I dunno," Otter said, eyeing him over carefully. "You've got a funny face."

Ray's eyes blew wide open and he grabbed Otter, pulling him away from Brian as fast as he could. "He means no disrespect, sir. Otter's just got an incurable case of douchebagitis. Please don't turn him into a newt." Ray looked so terrified that Gerard felt kind of guilty about laughing at Otter scowling and insisting Brian had a weird forehead.

"Looks aside," Brian said. "We have a problem. Gerard's clearly a very powerful magic user - at the very least he's an Enchanter if he can manage transfiguration spells with so little effort. He needs some kind of schooling in magic."

"The children will kill him," Ma said looking frantic. "He can't even open a pickle jar! I can't let him anywhere near those hooligans."

Brian folded his arms, looking very irritated. "I wasn't going to suggest that. Enchanters from hundreds of different worlds study at the Chrestomanci Castle. Your Alpha's nephew Frank is a human with strong, and I suspect, similar magic to Gerard. I've been successfully teaching Frankie for years, and I am fully confident that I can teach Gerard how to use his magic and be a contributing member to society."

"Please Ma?" Gerard begged. He squeezed her hand carefully and invoked all his powers of earnestness to the task. "This is what you wanted for me, right? School, friends, a normal life . . . I can be human and have all that. You know it's safe, if our Alpha sends his nephew there all the time. You wouldn't have to worry about me anymore. Please ."

She sighed, thinking quietly for a few seconds before finally saying, "I guess if James sends his kid there..."

Gerard and Mikey cheered. Ray and Otter chimed in a second behind them, though Ray's cheering was decidedly quieter after a lifetime of doing his best to keep his mother from hearing it.

"Just tell me this. Is Frank a gentle soul?" Ma asked, worry creasing her brow. "Gerard is such a sensitive boy, I'd hate to expose him to bullying."

Brian opened his mouth as if to respond, but no sound came out. After a second of silence, he said, "James can show you and Gerard the portal that takes Frank to school. I gotta go."

Once Ray was calmed down and Otter stopped bitching out Mikey for not calling him sooner, Ma kicked everyone out of the house. Even Grandma Helena, to Gerard's disappointment. As soon as Ma picked up the house phone to call Dr. Armstrong, Grandma pulled the boys aside to tell them stories about the Chrestomanci that she had learned during her time as pack Beta.

Ma closed the door behind her mother, careful not to slam anything before turning around and looking right at Gerard. She looked so frustrated for a moment before her covered her face with one hand and sighed.

"You two boys have the Way family perspective." She said, sitting on the couch right between Gerard and Mikey. She was close enough that some of her hair tickled Gerard cheek.

It startled Gerard for a second, because now that she was sitting down he could tell he was almost as tall as Ma. Some time when Gerard wasn't looking, he had grown up. If he looked closely, he could see the stress in the brow of his mother's face and the laugh lines in the corner of her eyes.

"We aren't the sanest people in the universe, boys. I know that. Hell, the fuckload of prescriptions in my bathroom make that pretty clear. I want to specify though that in the future, if one of you starts to go crazy, I expect the other one to tattle immediately, got it kids?" She put her arms around both of them, ruffling their hair.

Gerard pulled away from her hand. As much as he loved it when she played with his hair, he still felt too ashamed. "I'm really sorry. I won't do it again. I learned my lesson, I swear. I'm really, really sorry."

"And if you do it again, I'll chop you up into little pieces and hide you in the walls," his Ma said fondly.

Mikey grumbled, "You stole that from Jumanji."

Ma nodded. "Yes I did. And if you do something stupid, Mikey, I'll bake you into pies and feed you to your yearmates."

Oh, Sweeney Todd. Gerard knew that musical. "No there's no place like London," he sang softly. Mikey and Ma both smiled at him. Gerard felt some of the shame lighten up with the sight of them looking at him like he was awesome.

"I really won't," Gerard added. "Getting trapped like that again straightened my head out. I'm me and that means yeah my body's human and I can do cool things like teleport Mikey's shoes, but in my heart, I'm still a werewolf. Even if I'm different, I'm still Pack." It felt good to say the words out loud. As if now that he had said it, the truth was as real as gravity or the Ramones.

Ma smiled at him and poked him gently in the chest, right over one of the bruises Otter had left. "Ow," Gerard whined.

"You know for the fruit of my loins," Ma said, "You're kind of a dork."

Gerard smiled and carefully leaned in against her side. He could live with that.

Epilogue:Six days later

"GERARD WAY LAME, YOU AREN'T GOING HOME," Frank howled, running and throwing himself at Gerard before tackling him to the ground.

"Dude, I have to go home. Mr. Schechter said we have to give him a break before his brain explodes." Gerard tried to wriggle his way out from under Frank, but Frank was like an octopus - his limbs were clinging everywhere and Gerard wasn't completely sure, but he was pretty sure those were Frank's toes tugging at his ear.

"He just hates that we can't use Latin in our spells. That's all. He yelled at the Caesar bust when you were in the bathroom yesterday. And my mom's going to freak out if I get home too late. This is the first time she's let me out in like, forever. I need her goodwill, okay?" Gerard said. It was kind of like roughhousing with Ray only he wasn't in danger of dislocating his shoulder. Probably.

"Never! You are my slave. Yaanyan k'áat ."

Gerard could feel the spell in his bones, an urge to submit to Frank pulled at him inside, and Gerard couldn't help but roll his eyes. He could get around that spell easy-peasy. If Frank thought he could make an ex-werewolf do what he wanted with a simple submission spell, he was totally a moron.

"Batiltu." Frank froze long enough for Gerard to wriggle out and run off with a head start. When he looked back, Frank was shaking off the freeze spell.

"Cheater!"

With a vicious grin, Gerard turned around in the middle of the path. " Zi Dingir Kia Kanpa! Nabalkutusu ina harrani ."

Frank went flying off the path, sideways into the woods. " Oomph ." Gerard panicked for a moment, running over to where Frank had fallen only to see Frank bounce right up, looking gleeful.

"This is going to be so awesome," Frank said. "You can teach me your Sindarian and your Klingon -"

"Sumerian and Egyptian," Gerard corrected for like, the billionth time.

". . . and I can teach you all my awesome Mayan and Incan spells. This is going to be so cool." Frank squeaked, huge stupid smile on his face, right before throwing his arms around Gerard in a hug. "Do you know any hot chicks?"

It was nice to finally feel normal. "I'm not friends with that many girls," Gerard said finally. "You could hang with my brother Mikey? He likes horror movies and weird shit. He's even got a giant hamster as big as a pony." He looked at the ground, blushing before mumbling, "I messed up yesterday's spell homework."

"I'm going to keep you forever." Frank wrinkled his nose. "After you take a bath though. You smell gross, dude."