Disclaimer- Do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.
Sorry for the major gaps, guys. I have been struggling with depression and other various nasty things like that, so I haven't felt too motivated to post.
I'm sorry this is short.
Shit starts hitting the fan next chapter, and that will be the start of the fic's climax.
Please RxR, tis always appreciated!
o.o.o.o
Chapter Length: 1,581 words
o.o.o.o
A month passed.
The relationship that blossomed between Wally and Artemis came so naturally it was almost overwhelming.
Nothing really changed between them, except their previously subdued flirting whilst in the lab increased tenfold. Everything they'd had together as friends before their decision to take it to the next level was just somehow magnified, more clear. Crisper confrontations that ended in stolen kisses and warm cheeks and thudding hearts.
Everything made so much more sense when they weren't holding back the feelings that had been festering just underneath the surface of their friendship.
Artemis was decidedly smitten with the whole arrangement. It made her giddy to think about it, yet also filled her with a lingering sense of trepidation.
Since the blonde was a werewolf, that meant she was susceptible to being sniffed out by other members of her kind. Wally's smell had already clung to her just from so much time spent at his apartment, but now that they were closer, touching one another in a more intimate fashion, it reignited her old worries about the pack smelling him on her and going after him.
Cameron and the Twins had not bothered her since their confrontation some months ago, just like Lawrence had said, but Artemis Crock was not prone to taking her giant of a father's words to be truthful.
She wouldn't be surprised at all to find herself suddenly being followed again; the only thing keeping it from happening was the fact that the gangsters still held every ounce of the alpha's attention.
Once that imminent threat was gone, though... then what would be protecting Wally?
Artemis couldn't expect the silent "war" to rage forever. Sooner or later, one or the other would give out, and then Artemis would be back on the radar of whomever Lawrence saw fit to put on her case.
And so would Wally's incriminating chemical and laundry detergent scent.
As it were, just because Artemis didn't see eye to eye with her clan didn't mean she had simply been able to cut off all contact with them this whole time.
There were werewolf-hunting gangsters challenging them at every corner, after all, and she still had to help patrol sections of the slums at night to guard the territory and help fight. It made her sick to help harass even the scummiest of Gotham's gang members, but she had to keep letting her father think she had stopped interfering with werewolf business.
That meant partaking in it to ensure that Lawrence forgot all about the Garfield incident and didn't get suspicious about the origins of the GCPD's ever-increasing patrols. Luckily, Dick Grayson was smarter than the average wolf and had slowly staggered in the upsurge of units to the area over the months rather than all at once. This move ensured wolves did not clue-in to that fact that they had been betrayed from within.
Artemis still needed to send him a bouquet of roses for staying on top of the game.
Regardless of subletities, though, Lawrence had gotten furious when Ojo had gotten himself killed a month ago by the cops of Gotham. That had issued a pack meeting that had consisted of a good chewing out, warning the pack to never, ever attempt direct fraternizing with cops.
"You'll set back everything we've worked for!" Lawrence had snarled at the entire pack, all crammed into the old abandoned auditorium where they held their important impromptu meetings. "Ojo got what he deserved. Our lives depend on keeping the humans in the area subdued! We can't do that with cops breathing down our neck! You see a cop car, you better fucking haul ass out of the situation. Do I make myself clear you bunch of mangy, flea-bitten dogs?!"
A howl had been set up in response, one that Artemis had joined in too lest she be reprimanded for it; she was, after all, forced to sit up front as she was the alpha's daughter.
Needless to say, the blonde had taken to scrubbing in the shower quite vigorously every time she returned home from Wally's, in an increased precaution to ensure attention stayed off of her.
She could only hope to Fenrir that it, along with her father's obvious full plate of ordeals bigger than her getting too cozy with a human outside the slums, would be enough.
So far it had done just the trick.
o.o.o.o
"Girl, you're doing it again."
Artemis immediately stopped shaking her crossed legs up and down, sending her friend a look of sincere apology.
"Ugh, sorry, Zee. I don't even realize I'm doing it."
"What is the deal? Is there something going on with you and Wally? Oh my god, are you pregnant?" Zatanna gasped, sitting forward slightly on her knees.
The two of them were once again spending time combing through all the werewolf books the modern day seer owned, searching for anything and everything that could be of general interest.
"No!" Artemis growled out, rolling her eyes. "Fenrir, no, we haven't even—" She saw the look of intense interest flicker across Zatanna's face at the almost sex life divulgence, so Artemis very quickly backtracked, shaking her head vigorously. "No, damnit. It's the full moon. I always get really fidgety a few days before."
"Oh, I see, that time of the month, huh?" Zee asked lightly. Artemis gave her a look at the joke. "Yeah, well, that'll do it, though. So you aren't forced into the change right? Not like most stories?"
"No," Artemis said, her knee already beginning it's jarring up and down against the floor. She didn't try to stop it this time and Zatanna didn't say anything, just listened to the blonde's explanation. "It's really hard to explain, but I guess it's sort of like drinking too much coffee. Something about the moon makes us want to change; it makes our muscles uncomfortable, like being stabbed with lots of little needles. Prickly, that's it. It's basically one giant muscle spasm that will only stop if we change. It's so easy to slip into it, then we just kind of spend the whole night running and playing and hunting until we give out. It actually leaves us all very vulnerable for the next twenty four hours."
"Hmm," Zee hummed, tapping at her chin, blue eyes narrowed in thought. "That's very interesting… you know, Artemis, I think you and I ought to write our own book on werewolves."
The blonde's eyebrows rose. She had never thought about such a thing, and yet… it wasn't a terrible idea.
They could write their own mythos, as it were, based off how things actually were for her and her pack, and no one that read it would ever need know it was written by an actual werewolf and her seer friend.
They could use fake names as authors were prone to doing, that way the pack nor her father would ever catch wind of it.
Not that most of them seemed very prone to reading to start with, but still.
Even better, they could use the whole thing for a home field advantage in Gotham City's half aware fight with werewolves. There was a huge chance it would accomplish nothing, what with the way most people shrugged werewolves off as a reality.
But in the right hands, like the police force, where Artemis knew that Dick had just about every officer on his side thanks to Ojo's reckless attack, it could start to really turn things in the city's favour. In time, of course.
Nothing would please Artemis more than to see her kind either driven out of the city, or cured of their transformation. She doubted the latter could ever be achieved short of suppressing it short term, so the former was the best option for right now.
"I like the way you think, Zee," Artemis said, helping the brunette get to her feet. Zatanna smiled triumphantly, sweeping her top hat off with a flourishing bow like she had just finished her master magician's act to roaring applause. Artemis shook her head, smiling.
"This could be super fun," Zatanna said, rubbing her hands together deviously. "All we need is some paper, or maybe just a laptop. Have you ever written an essay before?"
"Uh… sort of. Are self taught essays good enough?"
"Absolutely! As long as we sound remotely confident in what we're saying, we can just leave all the finer crap to the editor!"
Artemis followed the eccentric woman around as she collected some supplies, her mouth running ninety miles a minute with idea after idea. All the while Artemis thought to herself about how lucky she was to have found friends that were so cool with her secret.
Perhaps... Perhaps it was friends outside the pack that could lead to the demise of her pack's iron rule in the slums.
She had Wally and his knowledge of drugs, she had Zee in her supernatural know how, she had Dick and his police squad right at her back.
And maybe this book could help set a few things in motion, too.
"Hey, Zee, think we can power write this thing in like two months?" Artemis wondered out loud, laughing at the thought. Zatanna, however, seemed to think it was highly reasonable.
"Hell yeah! I know exactly what you're thinking and it shall be done. Let's out some jackass werewolves and get them out of our city!"
Taking on the town, just like they'd said they would.