So I haven't done much publishing over the last couple of years. Mostly for fear that my work is still as bad as my previous stories, which at this point in my life are yawn city.

I've set this morsel somewhere in or around the third season, because that's when I started writing it. Sad, I know. It's been gathering dust for a while now, so I figured I might as well spruce it up a bit and show it off.

This is a lengthy first chapter made mostly of backstory; please don't set your expectations of me too high for future installations. I'd hate to disappoint.

Don't forget to review, sly dogs.
J Wombat

(And for the love of literature, if you see grammar/spelling mistakes, please PM me.)

Bad Moon Rising

Chapter One: Born On The Bayou

The day Alcide shifts, we meet in the woods after supper and chores, on the pretense that Alcide has something real important to tell me. It's well past dark, but there's a lingering steaminess that comes with the South, something sticky and humid that makes water bead up on my skin. He's already in our usual clearing waiting for me, pacing through the tall, sharp blades of grass with nervous excitement. I wear pants now when we come out here, despite the heat; I've got too many fine scars from the paper-thin reeds. He looks up at me, shaggy brown hair dropping into his equally brown eyes.

"There you are! I've been waitin' near forever!"

I roll my eyes at him. "Right. So what's this all about?"

He strides up to me and grips my upper arms. He's a tall, gangly thing for his age, and he towers over my petite frame. He's quiet for a while, mouth opening and closing like he doesn't quite know how to say it. I look up into his eyes for any kind of hint to his secret, but find none. I toss my arms about in a huff, shaking him off me.

"Come on, Al', spit it out already!"

"I shifted!"

It's out of his mouth in a fraction of a second, so fast it takes me a moment to realize what he's saying. My eyes go wide, and I clap a hand over my mouth. Shifted, at his age? Alcide's only in his thirteenth year, and it even took my dad until fourteen to shift, and that was young. Most boys shift at fifteen, girls around sixteen or seventeen. At eleven, I have a long time to wait before I even get the chance to shift. I feel tears beginning to well up in my eyes, and I can't help but sniffle.

Alcide's eyes soften. "Well, aren't you happy for me? 'Stelle?"

I laugh, but it comes out as a half-sob. "Of course I'm happy for you, stupid. It's just... well now that you've shifted, you're gonna be hangin' around the grown folks, learnin' the ways of the pack, and... and you'll stop hangin' out with me, stop bein' my friend, y'know."

"That's horse shit." I gasp at Alcide's swear words. "You know I won't stop bein' your friend, no matter what kinds of errands those old folks'll have me doin'. I... I might be a little busy; I probably won't have time to play around with you, but you'll always be my best friend, 'Stelle. And when you shift, we'll be able to hang out all the time!"

I rub the tears from my eyes; my little voice is still nasally, but it's filled with hope. "Promise?"

He pulls me into an embrace, and my head barely reaches his chest. His heart already beats more rapidly; he's already running hotter than normal. I nuzzle into his warmth, and he ruffles my wild hair. "Promise."

Three years later, I'm fourteen and a freshman at the local high school. I take the bus; Alcide's sixteen and already driving his dad's motorcycle to school. He always offers to take me, but Mamma would pitch a fit if she ever caught me on the back of one of those things, so instead I wait for the big yellow bus at the corner.

When I get to school, everyone's just standing around the halls before class - hangin' out, makin' out, and actin' out. I pass by Alcide and the group that clusters around him; it's mostly girls, of course. I try one time to squeeze in to say hey, but I can't seem to find an inch of free space between all the overly developed girls; Mamma would have called them hussies. I catch Alcide's eye over the coiffed, dolled up heads as I walk past, and he smiles at me over the crowd, giving me a pronounced wave. I wave back as I pass by, feeling a lone butterfly come to life inside my stomach.

He sits with me at lunch sometimes, and girls give me looks that make so nervous I could cry. Alcide doesn't notice them, and if he does, he just ignores them.

"What've you been up to, kid?" He ruffles my hair when sits down, leaving my curls a wreck.

I harrumph and try to dodge his massive hands. "Well I was up to havin' a good hair day, Al'."

He grins; I call him Al' so he knows I'm not angry with him. His smiles drops a little.

"I miss you, y'know."

I pick at the food on my tray. The tater tots are slick with cooking oil, and the meatloaf is grey and lackluster. "Yeah, I bet the pack is keepin' you pretty busy, though."

"That doesn't stop me from missin' my best friend. That pack stuff is just chores without you, 'Stelle." His smile is back now. "I can't wait for you to shift - then we'll have some real fun, gettin' into trouble, like when we were kids."

I laugh at his optimism. "Gimme a few years, pal. I'm still a kid over here."

"Yeah, well your mom shifted at sixteen right on the nose, and your dad shifted pretty early, maybe you will too."

I rest my chin on my hands, feeling the infectious brightness of Alcide's attitude rubbing off on me. One butterfly becomes two. "Maybe."

On my sixteenth birthday I'm sitting at the dining room table with Daddy, wearing a gauzy lavender dress. (I tell Daddy I'm wearing it 'cause I like the color, but really it's 'cause Alcide said it looked nice on me one day at church.) I know he's got important pack matters to attend to, but he manages to find a couple of hours to spend with his only daughter. Mamma's at her day job as a bank teller, but she'll be home soon. But Alcide, he's not here yet, and he promised. Promised to be there when I turn sixteen; promised to be there when I finally shift; promised to still be my friend.

The screen door creaks, and I'm up and running from the table before it has time to slam shut.

"Alci - oh. Hey, Mamma."

She pulls me in briefly, kissing the top of my head while murmuring birthday wishes. When she pulls back, she won't look me in the eye. "I'm sorry, sugar. I talked to Janice and... honey, he's not comin', the boys got called out to run perimeter. I'm sorry, baby."

I hear my dad grumbling about no-good dogs as I rush up the stairs. My bedroom door closes with a tight snap, and I curl up onto my bed, wrinkling my pretty dress. I choke back sobs, but the tears leak through and the shaking starts. Clutching desperately at my chest, I murmur to myself.

"Shift. Shift. C'mon, shift already!"

I flex and tighten up all my muscles until I'm sorer than when Daddy whooped me for being in his gun closet. I tense until I'm convulsing with the ache, hoping somehow it'll trigger a reaction, a shift, anything. But nothing comes.

There's a knock on my door, and I don't respond.

The door creaks open, and footsteps pad over to my bed. The bed shifts behind me, springs squeaking just a little, and a small head pokes over my shoulder.

"Why ya cryin, 'Elle?"

It's Claude, my little brother. He's nine years old and sweet as can be, with his charming smile and bright blue eyes. He looks just like Mamma; I take more after our dad.

"It's nothin', Claude. I'm fine."

"Well you sure don't look fine, your eyes are all red and puffy!" He puts on his best serious face. "Did somebody hurt you?"

I sniffle a little. "I guess so."

"Well are you gonna get Alcide to go beat 'em up?"

I laugh a little, because I don't know what to tell him. How do I tell him that Alcide, the person Claude's been looking up to since he could walk, is the one who's let me down, the one who's hurt me?

I ruffle his hair and smile at him, but something tells me it's not quite up to par.

"Somethin' like that."

Alcide has the nerve to show up at my house the next week. He's clutching a sweet bundle of wildflowers with ragged stems, tied together with a piece of twine, but the sight of him through the peephole's got me so irked, I can barely speak. But when I open the door, it's hard not to notice his transformation in our time apart.

Alcide is eighteen years old now, but that body is at least twenty-five. His black t-shirt is stretched over his chest and shoulders, and his biceps are suffocated by the sleeves. He's standing now at least six-foot-three with his short-cropped hair and five o'clock shadow; it's hard to remember to be angry with him when he's standing there looking so... delectable. I try to rein my hormones in, but it's hard to deny that I now have a full-blown crush on my best friend.

I make to open the screen door, but then I remember I'm angry, so I leave it shut. I nod toward the flowers.

"Who're those for?" I ask, feigning disinterest.

He looks at his feet for a moment, before gazing at me through the dusty screen. "They're for my best friend."

I snort rudely - and it's a good thing Mamma isn't around to hear me and chastise me for my unladylike behavior. "Funny, I ain't seen anyone by that description around these parts."

He sighs, shoulders drooping. "Look, I'm sorry –"

I fling open the screen door - almost catching him right in the nose - and march out onto the porch. "Are you shittin' me?" He looks a little alarmed at my cursing. "'I'm sorry?' That's all you got for me?"

He moves to give me the flowers, but I thrust an accusing finger into his chest, halting him.

"No! A bundle of pretty flowers ain't gonna fix this, Alcide. You were supposed to be here for me, as my best friend!"

He takes a step closer, opening his mouth to apologize again, and I smack him clear across the face. He's calm as he turns his head back to look at me, and it makes me even madder seeing him look so calm while my hand stings something fierce. Feeling audacious, I raise my hand to hit him again, and he catches me by the arm, two fingers easily circling my wrist and trapping it in a solid hold. I use my free hand to make a fist and thump him once on one of his hard pectoral muscles, and he doesn't even budge.

I start yelling at him, and I don't even know what I'm saying. I beat against his chest with all my might, and he releases my wrist and lets me; he lets me get it all out until I'm reduced to a quivering, crying mess, hands hitting him on the chest like a flower hitting a brick wall.

He finally grabs my shoulders and moves me back a mite so he can look at me. My eyes are red and puffy and my tears have done hell to my mascara. He uses the pads of his thumbs to wipe away the black trails on my cheeks; the rest of his fingers cradle my head gently like a frail baby bird. He looks me straight in the eyes and I can feel myself melting clean into the floor.

"I'm sorry, Estelle. I'd never hurt you on purpose. You've gotta believe that."

Another tear leaks out, and he pulls me close to him, arms wrapping around me tight. I sob into his chest, nose buried in his shirt, and I'm not sure whether I'm crying at his negligence or at my absent shifting. I'm ready to forgive him though, to call myself the fool and let things go back to normal.

But on each intake of breath, I can smell that God-awful perfume Debbie wears all over his shirt.

Two years later, I'm eighteen, and Alcide is helping load my things into the SUV. Things ain't really been the same over the past few years; Alcide and I've drifted apart. Debbie's got him by the balls most of the time, and why he lets her is anyone's guess. She's let him go for today, but somethin' tells me she's close by anyway.

He's here under the pretense of helping me pack up and move out, but I don't have too many things to take with me, so we're sitting on the steps of the porch, and I'm hoping he'll say something to break the silence. He doesn't disappoint.

"So you drivin' up?"

"Yep. Twenty two hours. Daddy and I'll get a hotel or somethin' on the way." I pick at the weeds that grow through the boards of the deck, ripping them into small pieces before scattering them across the gravel at our feet. It keeps my hands busy, because I don't know what I'd do with them otherwise. Probably something stupid, like tuck back that cowlick Alcide has, the one right there that always hangs down in his eyes. They were untrustworthy like that, my hands. Always trying to touch him when he was in reach, get my hands in his ever-growing hair. "Y'know, sometimes I wish I weren't goin'."

"C'mon, 'Stelle. Not everyone around here gets the chance to go to Brown. Get outta here and be someone."

He sounds convincing enough, but his eyes are big and sad. I wish I could stay, stay and be apart of the pack, but we both know the opportunity has come and gone. At eighteen I still haven't shifted. One time I try to convince myself that I'm a late bloomer, but my ample chest and rounded hips suggest otherwise. My parents try not to mention it, but it's hard when Claude is getting bigger by the minute – eleven years old and already running warm at five-foot-six. Daddy tries not to be too thrilled around me, but I can always see him grinning away, proud as punch.

Daddy walks around the house from the backyard and, to my dismay, sidles right up to us.

"Honey, you mind givin' me and Alcide a minute? Go say bye to your brother."

"Sure, Daddy."

I've already said bye to Claude six times today, hugging him and kissing his cheeks until he's as embarrassed as if that girl he likes from school were watching him. So instead, I go back into the house, wandering into the sitting room where I can see them from the window. I can tell they're talking about something important, the way Alcide's hands move around like when he's passionate about something, and the way Daddy leans in real close like when he knows we just stuffed our toys under the bed instead of putting them away. It was probably boring pack stuff. Daddy likes to give Alcide a hard time every once and a while. Says it'll give him character. I laugh at the thought. In my opinion, the only thing it's given him is a sore spot on his ass from where he says he's been kicked in it.

I wait for them to disperse. I walk back out onto the porch, and Daddy gets in the truck, leaving me and Alcide to say our goodbyes. I walk down the steps to meet him on the gravel.

"You can come visit me sometime, you know."

He laughs. A healthy, beautiful laugh. "You're bat shit crazy if you think you're gettin' me up to that cold Yankee city!"

I laugh back, and it feels good despite the circumstance. "Well you can't blame me for tryin'." I get a little more serious, and step as close to him as I dare, which isn't nearly as close as I would like. But he takes care of the rest for me, and we stand toe to toe, breathing the same air. The butterflies in my belly are flying around at full speed, and I swear he can likely hear my heart pounding in my chest. It takes me a minute to finally open my big mouth and speak, and when I do, my voice is choked.

"I'm gonna miss you, Al'."

He looks down at me, his brown eyes reflecting my own.

"I miss you already, 'Stelle."

He's so close, and there's the briefest of moment when he looks down at my lips, and I swear he's gonna kiss me. Just lean down and press his lips up against mine and kiss me breathless while his hands twine into my long hair, begging me to stay, which I gladly would if he would only ask. But then he pulls me into a warm embrace, meanwhile pressing a chaste kiss to my forehead. His arms encircle me completely, hands fisted in the sides of my shirt. I cling to him with equal fervor, and there's something about this particular hug that sends a unique warmth straight to my heart, and perhaps lower. He pulls away, and reluctantly I move back, but he catches my hands in his larger ones before I can pull away completely. He gives them a squeeze.

"You give 'em hell up there, alright? Make me proud."

I squeeze them back as hard as I can, and his smile makes my heart lighter. I blink back the threat of tears, but I know my eyes are red and glassy.

"You betcha."