A/N: As I've well learned, explicit material is way outside of my comfort zone, so this story is, and is going to stay, T rated. That said...I hope you enjoy the surprise chapter (well, it surprised me; I wasn't planning on writing more). Comments and constructive critique are always welcome and are highly motivating. If anyone else would like to take the scenario where I cannot, you're also welcome to do that.
By the time morning came, the storm had given way to a pale, watery light that promised a hot, muggy day, and Danny had half-convinced himself that he had had the world's strangest dream. He awoke in his own bed, fully clothed, and chiding himself for how easily dream logic had inserted werewolves into an otherwise ordinary, if unexpected, sex dream.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he rolled out of bed and stumbled down the hall toward the dorm's bathroom. His bladder hurt with the need to pee, his thighs and biceps hurt from the previous day's weight lifting, and the skin across his shoulder blades felt raw and itchy. The last brought him a moment's pause because he couldn't think of what he'd done to make his back itch like a skinned knee healing.
In the bathroom, he tugged off his t-shirt and craned his neck to inspect his back in one of the mirrors hung over the row of sinks. Though the position was awkward, there was no missing the rows of parallel scratches that lined his back.
Danny blinked hard and looked again; he had definitely not been dreaming the previous night.
His back was scored with long cuts, one set starting from the inside edge of his shoulder blades and dragging nearly to his armpits. Dried blood smeared from another set of gouges that looked particularly deep, and he let out a hiss between his teeth as he tried to curl his arm around to prod at the wounds. He hissed again when his fingers found them, the scabs rough beneath his touch and sensitive. The stretch of his skin as he worked his arms told him that he was going to have to be careful how he moved so that the wounds wouldn't reopen. Bloodstained shirts were not a thing he wanted to explain.
Speaking of which: A glance at the shirt wadded in his hand showed incriminating streaks of dried brown marring the back. The shirt was ruined. He thought briefly about throwing it away, then decided that the cover it provided was better than one of the other guys seeing what his skin looked like. It wouldn't take much for someone to figure out that Isaac was the cause; and, while Danny was out, he didn't know if Isaac was. More importantly, Isaac also had his supernatural secret to protect, and Danny didn't want to be responsible for that getting revealed.
He prodded at the wounds one more time before ducking into the shower to clean them as best as he could. The water stung as it hit his back. He winced in an unconscious effort to get away from the pain, a soft yelp escaping his mouth. To distract himself, he called on the memory of how he got the wounds: of Isaac's hands grabbing him in desire, of Isaac's body sprawled under his, of the hitches in Isaac's breathing as he got closer and closer to release from Danny's touches. Between the hot water and the hotter recollection, Danny soon found himself hard. With Isaac's name on his lips, he stroked himself off.
Isaac was standing at the window when Danny returned to the room, brown hair still wet from the shower and sleep clothes damp from being put back on without his body drying first. He hadn't thought to bring his towel with him.
Isaac's sleep shorts hung low on his hips, his white t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders. The sun streaming in through the rain speckled window caught the highlights in his hair and shone down the length of his body like a spotlight. In their temporary dorm room—furnished only with two metal frame beds and a pair of scratched wooden desks, and decorated with nothing except the strewn detritus of two highschool guys living out of their duffle bags and Danny's laptop—Isaac stood as a solid reminder of how good things could come when one least expected it.
Danny couldn't believe how beautiful he was. He started toward him, his feet leaving the outlines of wet footprints on the vinyl floor. Isaac turned, a cautious smile on his face, then stopped and the smile dropped away. His nostrils flared. "You're hurt," he said.
With a wet squelch, Danny came to a stop, his brow creased in confusion. He automatically glanced down at his arms and legs, searching for sign of an injury that Issac could see, and found nothing except an already-fading bruise on his left calf. "What do you mean?"
Isaac drew closer, walking in a wide arc around Danny. He quickly spotted the blood-stains on the t-shirt. His voice was strained as he asked, "What happened?"
Danny waggled his eyebrows to show exactly what he meant when he replied, "Just a few battle scars from last night. It's nothing serious."
His answer didn't have the effect he intended. If anything, Isaac grew more worried. "Did I do that? Did I hurt you?"
"No!" Danny grabbed Issac's hands in his. They were warm with long fingers and blunt, chewed fingernails. "I mean, technically, yes. You scratched me." Callouses roughened his palms and scars crisscrossed Isaac's knuckles. The callouses came from wielding a lacrosse stick, but the scars looked like nothing Danny had seen before. "But you didn't hurt me."
"Show me."
Danny hesitated for a second, then let go of one of Isaac's hands long enough to twist around and pull down the neckline of his shirt so that Isaac could get a glimpse, and only a glimpse, of the wounds. The ruse didn't work. Isaac spun him around and yanked the shirt up, exposing Danny's back fully.
"I clawed you. God." Isaac was backing away before Danny could finish the task of getting the shirt over his head. Alone in the room with nothing more to hide, he saw no reason to keep wearing it. The wet fabric had been uncomfortable brushing against the raw skin and the slight breeze the room's vents blew out felt soothing after such heaviness. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I knew that losing control was bad."
"It's OK," Danny assured him. "Isaac, it's OK."
"How can it be OK?" Isaac was keeping a careful distance from Danny again, his back pressed to the windowsill. His face had gone pale with fear and he held his shoulders hunched in like he expected to need to defend himself. "I hurt you."
"Because I enjoyed getting them," Danny answered simply, trying to keep his normal sarcasm out of his tone. He knew about Isaac's past—everyone at school had learned of it after his father had been murdered—but he'd never seen such a stunning example of how that past could haunt someone forever. "I asked you to...what's the word you used? Shift. I told you it was OK. That's what happened, right? It's not just an eyes-and-teeth thing?"
Isaac was shaking his head before Danny finished. "No, no. I could've hurt you real bad. I could've-" He closed his eyes and let out a forced exhalation. "I'll talk to Scott. He knows how to stay in control when he's worked up. I won't let it happen again. I promise." His head jerked up suddenly, blue eyes bright with worry. "Can we try again?"
While there were lots of correct and incorrect ways to deal with people who were so loaded with psychological landmines, Danny's training had come from the School of Jackson Whittemore. Jackson tried to warp reality around people through cutting remarks and mind games to keep them always off-balance so that he could manipulate them better; Danny had learned that the best way to deal was to not get dragged in. Though he sensed that Isaac wasn't trying to do the same thing, the effect pinged all of Danny's drama detectors. If he and Isaac were going to work out, Danny would have to learn how to cope with his issues. Until then, he could only draw on the skills he already had:
"Show me how you did it," he ordered, hoping to distract Isaac with a command that he'd instinctively follow rather than get mired in a pointless and circular argument. "Right now. I want to see what you look like in the daylight."
"I can't," Isaac protested.
For a second, Danny wondered if that was true. Maybe werewolves could only transform at night or only...when they were horny? The previous night hadn't been a full moon, so he knew that wasn't all that mattered—if it mattered at all. Then he flashed back on that night in The Jungle when he'd been attacked; he hadn't seen much in the strobing lights and fake fog of the club, but in hindsight, he'd definitely seen werewolf eyes. "Show me."
Isaac started to shake his head again, but then his defensive arm dropped. "You're sure?"
What Danny wanted to say was "If you're going to date someone, you should know what they look like, don't you think?" But the part of him that was good at reading people knew that he'd lose Isaac if he used that many words. So, he settled for a much more concise, "Yes."
Decision made, Isaac stepped forward and pressed his body flush to Danny's. They were nearly the same height, which put their hips in direct contact. The fit was so perfect that Danny couldn't believe that he'd gone this long without it. Lacing his fingers through Danny's hair, Isaac first touched his forehead to Danny's, then brought their mouths together for a crushing kiss. Danny had time to find Isaac's ass, to give the firm muscles there one good squeeze, before Isaac pushed him away.
The push sent Danny back two huge steps before he could stop the momentum. He started to protest the separation, but Isaac cut him off.
"Had to get my heart rate up," he sorta explained, and then his face started to change.
It happened all at once, though Danny noticed the eyes first—always the eyes—and then the shift of muscles in the jaw to allow for the row of pointed lower teeth and long canines that seemed to form from the existing ones. Isaac's brow grew heavier, subsuming his eyebrows, and wide sideburns raced down his face. His posture changed to a lower center of gravity and he looked broader, heavier, yet more lithe.
Danny's own throat went suddenly dry, his stomach dropped, his dick surged with an influx of blood. "I'm so screwed," he mumbled, voice hoarse. With the sunlight shining on him, without any shade or shadow to soften or hide the predatory features, Isaac in his werewolf form was the sexiest thing Danny had ever seen.
Then Isaac lifted his hands, fingers curled to display the sharp claws on the end of each finger. Danny swallowed once, and again. The effort did nothing to alleviate either his dry mouth or his realization that he'd been lucky only to get a few scratches rather than to be be flayed alive. "This is how," Isaac said. His speech was remarkably clear considering the new teeth he had to talk around, no more slurred than Danny's own speech sometimes got when he tried to speak too fast.
Taking in the sight of the person who had tripped sexual wires Danny didn't know he had with a transformation that should be impossible, Danny thought over all the werewolf movies he'd seen and what the creatures in them had looked like. The results didn't match up at all to the reality. He was unsure what he wanted the answer to be when he asked, "Is this...all? I thought werewolves were supposed to turn into actual wolves or eight foot tall monsters or something...furrier."
With all those teeth, Isaac's grin was not friendly, even if he meant it to be. "There's more. I can't do it yet. I don't have the power yet."
Danny felt his knees weaken and he had to slap a hand on the desk to keep his balance. "Oh." A breath later, he added, "Totally screwed."
As quickly as they'd come on, the changes to Isaac's face and body melted away. When he was back to his totally human self, he settled against the desk and dropped into his usual slouch. A kind of weariness that belied the fresh start to the day settled over his features. His heavy-lidded eyes drooped under the weight of his worry. "That's the last time," he stated. "I have to learn how to control it so I don't shift with you around anymore. I can't risk hurting you worse."
"It's just a few scratches," Danny protested.. The idea of being deprived of the werewolf features horrified him at a visceral level at the same time as his logical side reminded him the wickedness of those claws.
"Shifting isn't just 'eyes-and-teeth,'" Isaac replied, echoing Danny's earlier phrasing. "It changes how I think and what I...want." He raised his gaze to meet Danny's. There was a flicker of something dangerous in its depths. "Boyd says that the bite turned me into an asshole. He's wrong, though. The bite just made it so I didn't have to be afraid."
The list of people-who-were-also-werewolves was getting a lot longer than Danny thought was possible. He filed the new name away for future reference and paced across the small room while he processed what Isaac was telling him. It was rapidly becoming clear that mass media had done nothing to properly inform him about werewolves. On the other hand, he and Isaac had been classmates since the second grade and teammates for two years—which was kind of appalling considering much Danny had only learned about him in the last 24 hours—and glowing eyes or not, Isaac was still an absolutely beautiful guy who Danny very much wanted to get to know better. "You're in luck," he said. He parked himself on the edge of his bed to stop his nervous pacing. The bed frame squealed in protest of the increased weight that made Isaac wince and rub his ears. "I happen to have a long history of being attracted to assholes."
Isaac's mouth quirked into a brief smile. "Yeah. And I've always been attracted to bleeding hearts." As if realizing how that could be misunderstood, he added, "Um. Metaphorically." He opened his mouth like he was going to say more, then shut it again.
"Does that qualify me or disqualify me?" Danny asked. For once, he genuinely didn't know whether a personality label applied to him. By comparison to Jackson, he was definitely in. But Jackson was gone and it wouldn't be long before everyone figured out that Danny had quite the asshole streak, too. The microseconds that passed while he waited to find out Isaac's answer dragged. In them, he could feel the heat of the day winning over the sluggish efforts of the vent and the room growing ever more warm. He wiped a line of sweat from his forehead and leaned forward, anticipating.
Isaac raked his hands through his hair, kicked a foot against the desk, and sighed. "I think it means that we're both screwed." He kicked the desk again, his face working through a range of expressions. At last he said, "Just one thing. Why aren't you afraid of me?" He gestured to himself and curled a lip back to expose blunt human teeth. "Of what I am?"
Danny thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. The gesture stretched the skin on his back. The scratches twinged and started up the furious itching again, a reminder of the claws that had caused them. "I don't know." He rolled his shoulders again, this time on purpose to feel the tug and pull of the scabbing and healing skin. "I guess I find you too hot to be frightening. Werewolf kink. Who could've predicted that?"
The grin Isaac gave in response was equal parts shy and immensely self-satisfied. He cut his gaze away, fiddled with the power cord to the laptop for a second. "I heard you in the shower."
The question of "how" was formed on Danny's lips before he figured out the answer for himself. The wince at the squeaking bed frame, to an extent even the fear of the thunderstorm. He'd had a dog once—a golden retriever—who hid under the bed, quaking in terror, each time a storm rolled through. Danny had thought it was because the dog didn't understand, but his father had suggested it was because the thunder hurt the dog's ears. Later, after Danny started playing trumpet, he had to lock the dog in the basement when he practiced to save it, and himself, from the animal's anguished howling. "Oh?" he asked, instead.
Isaac licked his lips, nodded once. "I liked it."
Danny's gaze dipped to Isaac's crotch. The black shorts he was wearing now looked the same as the ones he'd gone to sleep in the previous night—the same as the ones Danny had happily removed from the previous night, as well—which didn't necessarily mean anything, but he couldn't stop himself from asking: "Did you do anything about it?"
Isaac shook his head in the negative. "Wanted to."
"So what stopped you?"
That answer became obvious, too, with the way Isaac clenched his teeth and balled his fists. He'd been afraid of shifting.
Danny pushed to his feet with a movement so fast that Isaac scuttled back along the desk. "This is stupid. I get that the whole werewolf thing is dangerous, but you don't need to worry so much about being dangerous around me." He stopped, frowned, the idea he was trying to express harder to parse out loud than it had been in his head. "You don't need to be afraid of hurting me." And that still wasn't it. He scratched his head and tried to work back through what he'd learned in the past few hours and the sense he was now able to make of what he'd witnessed in the last few months. "You don't need to be afraid of enjoying hurting me."
Isaac recoiled like he'd been punched in the gut.
"That it, isn't it?" Danny continued, his eyes widening at the truth of his own observation. He waved a hand behind his neck, gesturing toward the scratches. "You scratching me isn't the problem. The problem is how much you want to do it again."
A mask of fear had settled over Isaac's face, his body held tightly. If a raised heart rate was all that it took for a werewolf to shift, then Danny didn't see how Isaac still held his human form. In the hallway, the slamming of doors and pounding of footsteps indicated the other players arising for the day, which meant that it was almost time for breakfast. Being up and moving so much before everyone else was a fitting surprise given how unusual the day was starting out.
"In case I haven't made it clear," Danny stated, "I want you to do it again. What happened last night was incredible, and if I thought we could get away with it without Coach killing us, I'd suggest that we skip practice today and spend more time getting to know each other."
"You don't understand! My father—"
"How about we make a deal?" Danny interrupted. "I'll promise to let you know if I get to be afraid, and you promise to stop."
"What if I can't?"
Danny had to think about that, albeit quickly, because, while he had dated a lot of strange people with stranger expectations about what a relationship should be, he'd never dated a werewolf before. The only thing he knew for sure is that human rules probably weren't going to be a good fit. "I guess that's something we'll have to figure out as we go along." And then, because it seemed like Isaac was waiting for more, he added a clause that the flush of heat through his body belied him ever following through on. "And if it turns out that I decide that dating a werewolf is too dangerous, then you let me walk away."
They listened to Greenberg shouting something unintelligible as he raced down the hall, pounding on doors. Even expecting it, both the boys jumped when the trio of knocks reverberated through their room. The footsteps promptly moved on to the next room, so neither of them bothered to move to answer the door.
Isaac tipped his head to the side. "The field is flooded," he said, after listening for a minute. "Coach is trying to move practice into the fieldhouse, except the power's out there and the administration doesn't like the idea of us practicing in the dark. Coach is flipping out at the secretary right now."
Instinctively, Danny turned his head, trying to locate Coach's voice. Since he couldn't hear anything over the chaos in the hallway, he glanced out the window. A slim crescent of moon was all the marred the clear blue sky despite the continuous dripping of water from the eaves that made him think it was still raining. Branches and leaves littered the ground in between the buildings, and a nearby tree had been ripped up by the roots and now leaned precariously against its neighbor. While he watched, a crane truck arrived bearing the logo of a local tree removal service. It looked like the campus had bigger problems to deal with than acquiescing to the coach, no matter how much he screamed and threatened.
This could turn out to be the best kind of strange day, after all.
"Well?" Danny prompted when it seemed like Isaac had forgotten that he'd been asked a question.
"Sorry," Isaac said, a slight shake of his head returning him to the conversation in the room. "I've never heard such creative swearing before. Coach has been really holding back on us." Growing serious again, he bit his lip as he thought about what Danny had asked. One on hand, his claws started to form, then slipped back into being harmless fingernails. "OK," he agreed, at last.
"OK?"
Isaac hesitated, then nodded more definitively. "OK." He set an awkward hand on Danny's shoulder, like he wanted to touch but wasn't sure where he was allowed. "We should get dressed and go down to get some breakfast. I'm starving."
Danny captured the hand and used it to pull Isaac closer. "Not yet. There's something I want to try first." To emphasize his intentions, he cupped Isaac's balls. Through the thin cotton fabric of the sleep shorts, their heavy weight filled his palm.
"Not yet?" Isaac groaned. The question was hollow, waiting to be filled. His eyes flared yellow and Danny's breath knotted itself in his throat.
When he could speak again, he accused, "You did that on purpose."
Isaac's only response was a raising of his eyebrows. The implicit challenge took Danny back to to that first day of camp when he had called Isaac inhuman, a meaningless quip that had resulted in far greater repercussions than either of them could have imagined. It would be interesting to test just how inhuman he actually was.
He rucked Isaac's shirt up and over his head, further mussing his already sleep-wild curls, and began kissing his way back down his body. Isaac's body was warm and growing warmer under Danny's lips and tongue. The slight stickiness of dried sweat on his skin teased Danny's tongue with salt.
At Isaac's naval, he paused, inhaled. He smelled strongly of musk and less so of the residue of deodorant. The scent curled its way through Danny and captured him. In an instant, he couldn't imagine wanting to smell anyone else, couldn't wait to catalogue Isaac's scents from freshly showered to rank from practice.
He looked up, eager to see the expression that matched the noises that had replaced the dripping water.
Isaac's head was thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open. While Danny watched, his teeth sharpened and lengthened. The sight threatened Danny's balance; he had to still himself to reposition before he fell over. The cessation of attention drew a whimper of disappointment from Isaac, which Danny tried to make up for with a circling of his thumbs over Isaac's nipples. Isaac groaned again, mouth opening wider. In the sunlight, his fangs glinted, sharp and dangerous.
Those teeth—those teeth were going to be a problem.
As Danny resumed his journey south, following the trail of hair that roughened the texture of Isaac's skin, he decided that maybe Isaac had been right about one thing. He needed to learn not to shift when aroused. He needed to learn to stay human when his pulse rose and he couldn't think. Danny had so many things he wanted to try, so much to learn about this new body and how it would fit together with his, and they needed to know that it wouldn't be dangerous. But not all the time. Please, god, not all the time.
