Prompt: We've had a couple of werewolf John fics, and, well, I'd like some more - maybe looking more at the way his lupine behaviours come out. Like, we've had a pack!prompt, so maybe more with territoriality (maybe him being embarrassed that he has the urge to mark his place on things?) and how restless he becomes at the full moon - how blood at crime scenes sets off urges in him - how he placates the urge to hunt and fight.
...Everybody's gotta do a Were!Watson fic at some point. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
as old and as true as the sky
John doesn't have a calendar showing the moon cycles; he doesn't need one. He can feel it by the itch under his skin where the wolf stirs, by the way he starts to pace the confines of the flat. He tries to stop himself, hold himself still, but the itch of the wolf's impatience is too much, and the walls suddenly too close.
(now)
To the wolf, the flat is their den and it doesn't appreciate being forced to stay inside as if it were a cub, when there is a hunt waiting, and territory that needs to be guarded.
At the full moon, everything is –
The wolf is intense, because most important to the wolf is now, not later. Now is the time for a hunt, now his territory needs to be marked and defended, now.
Everything is so much stronger at the full moon. Instincts John has learned to placate or accept or adapt to are suddenly overwhelming.
(this is the Law of the Jungle, and the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper)
The wolf talks a lot, in its way, but only at the full moon does John really feel like everybody is talking in a foreign language and expecting him to understand. Or maybe he's the one talking in a foreign language, and wondering why they aren't listening.
It's little things that do it. He'll meet their eyes and they'll look down and away first, but then they continue to act as if they're in charge. So he'll meet their eyes again, the wolf irritated and impatient, and again, they'll look down or away, show that they know he's stronger, put themselves beneath him in the order of things, and the wolf will back off, pleased – and they'll still be 'are you listening, I'm in charge here, you can't do that–'
John smiles close-mouthed these days, because it makes the wolf's hackles rise when it sees everyone around him showing teeth. Aggression, surrounded, not-pack, the wolf says.
Laughter, smiles, friendly gathering, close-stranger-pack, John says. It makes him tense and defensive and – "You're really not good at this social gathering thing, are you?" Lestrade will say sympathetically, buy him another drink and tell him he's been around Sherlock too long.
He tips back his head when Sherlock is angry and frustrated, shows his throat, but it doesn't soothe him the way the wolf thinks it should, doesn't make him calm down, doesn't stop him from snarling and snapping at empty air.
It's frustrating beyond belief, to suddenly be stuck speaking a language nobody else knows.
(but the Wolf that shall break it must die)
Worst of all is if they visit a crime scene. A murder. A lot of crimes are committed when the moon is high, language shows itself: lunaticus, moonstruck.
Moonstruck, John sniffs at a corpse and instead of female, healthy, in her prime, intoxicated at death, starting to rot all he can really smell is prey, carrion. It takes far longer than it should to untangle the scents, to be able to smell anything other than food.
John is well-fed; the wolf is well-fed. But sometimes it's not food in the fridge but severed heads. John is sickened by the idea of it as carrion, and the wolf doesn't like the smell of chemicals and thinks it's months too rotted to be worth eating anyway, but then they go to a crime scene, and there's meat on the ground, even if it smells like deodorant and soap and shaving cream and alcohol and sex – meat is all it is, and the wolf is always hungry on a full moon night.
John doesn't hate the wolf. It has its way of looking at things and John has his, and more often than not it's the wolf shaking its head and wrinkling its muzzle in disgust. The wolf makes him faster, stronger, lends him its senses and unique perspective. He can't afford to hate himself, and the wolf is part of him now.
But.
Full moon nights John runs, that steady loping run that swallows miles. Full moon nights John goes through his territory, carefully, methodically – and it doesn't really bear thinking about, what he'll do if he ever finds a creature in it that might be capable of challenging him.
(New Scotland Yard is not technically John's. There are wolves on the force, it's their territory – but John makes a brief circuit there anyway, just in case. For Lestrade – packmate's former/original/not-quite pack – and for Sally. Even Anderson, since he's Sally's. Even if the wolf thinks she could choose a far better mate, it's the female's choice, and she's an alpha if ever there was one.)
He sings to the moon – and gets a chorus of curses every time, it sounds beautiful, the city song – and sometimes he plays, and sometimes he hunts (and petty crime in their area has decreased somewhat worryingly for Sherlock's boredom threshold). He doesn't think, not really, he just... full moon nights he just is, and if that's wolf or man or something that's both, it doesn't matter.
When he approaches the flat near dawn, Sherlock is always waiting, even if he is pretending not to have moved since the evening before – as if John can't smell that he has.
He greets John with a quiet murmur, presses his fingers into John's ruff. John jumps on to the sofa and stretches out beside him, despite the fact that there's no space, and the heat of his body and fur must make his presence smothering on a summer night.
Mine, says the wolf, closing its eyes, comforted by Sherlock's warmth and scent and heartbeat. pack and mate and mine.
Sherlock, John says, but the meaning is the same.