Closed: Full moons and ticking clocks.

[daleysebastian]

The lunar cycle was the easiest thing in the world to predict. At one point in his life, the events that happened on the inevitable full moon were also predictable. That point wasn't actually too long ago. Where ever Sebastian had gone over the years saw him paying too much money to buy and/or convert a space where he could lock himself away,

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[daleysebastian]

"Hi." Sebastian was already looking up, even though he didn't need to. The number of people who could Apparate in was literally two.

If anything, that made his already tense muscles even tighter. He should have expected this, honestly. Reid kept showing up on accident - or to stop parties planned at the most inopportune moments - during the full moon. Sebastian could almost set his watch by it. This time, at least, he was a bit earlier.

It gave Sebastian a few extra minutes to talk him into leaving.

Every tiny shift was starting to feel sharp with effort. His muscles were already aching, joints feeling tight in ways that no amount of popping could cure. Even his teeth felt too sensitive when he closed his jaw tight to grind his teeth together.

Sebastian still forced himself to lean back against the sofa, looking up to catch Reid's dark eyes. Somehow, just seeing his face was calming. When pitted against the usual amount of pre-transformation anxiety and the additional paranoia now that anyone who bothered to read the Prophet - basically everyone - even Reid's presence couldn't make Sebastian feel settled. It went a long way to distract him and keep him from getting too trapped in his own head before he was forcibly there for the rest of the night, though.

"Full moon tonight." There was no need to say it, sure as he was that Reid had the full moon mapped out for the indeterminate future. "You shouldn't be here."

[reidinggg]

"Yeah, no kidding. Believe it or not I think I've finally figured that whole schedule out-" Reid shrugged as he hopped up to sit on the arm of the couch, kicking his shoes off (the Rules of the House growing up had always enforced taking your shoes off at the door, a habit which had stuck with him beyond the walls of his childhood home and had always encouraged his habit of sitting on furniture in ways that weren't exactly conventional) and propping his feet against the cushion, elbows leaning against his knees.

"But tough. Here I am."

He glanced across the room at the ticking grandfather clock Sebastian seemed to have been fixated on, then back to the man in question, taking note to the strained set of his jaw, the twitching clench of his hands, that particularly noticeable stiffness that had settled into his posture.

"How much time?"

He had been and still was expecting some arguing, some insistence that he shouldn't be here, words that it seemed he had heard entirely too much already on similar occasions these past months. But Reid Chambers was nothing if not stubborn, and as terrible an idea as this might be, he had made up his mind.

[daleysebastian]

"Fifteen," Sebastian shrugged. "Give or take." It would probably be less. From experience and many years filled with little more than dread and self-hate, Sebastian knew his timing was always a little off. He usually expected it later than it was.

Somehow, it still came about so slowly ad quickly all at once.

It was maddening and terrifying every month. Sebastian spared a moment wishing he could be more like his sister. Sabrina mostly welcomed the shift running toward it with an excited sort of anxiety that Sebastian found difficult to watch. At least she didn't spend her days staving off panic attacks and mental breakdowns.

"You're really doing this?" Sebastian turned, spine cracking in a mostly human way. The pre-shift pulling and preparation his body went through starting. In a decade, he probably should have gotten better at interpreting his body's signals.

When he looked up at Reid, his lips pulled into an involuntary half-smile. He could practically hear his mother in his head yelling that her furniture was not meant to be sat on so improperly. Any other day, he may have laughed about it. He settled for nudging Reid's knee with his knuckles.

"You're going to sit here and watch this happen? Again? Only on purpose?" Why anyone would elect to do that, Sebastian didn't know. It was terrible, painful, and two different levels of traumatic to go through. Even knowing what it was like and that it would end, he couldn't watch someone go through that, not even his worst enemy - of which there were many.

[reidinggg]

There was a look that Sebastian got about him in the days leading up to the full moon, a sort of barely-restrained tension that sank into him, an excess of energy that got wrangled in and tied down and turned to edgy, nervous agitation rather than the exuberant liveliness he had seen Sabrina express. Reid had noticed it before he had known what to attribute it to, months back when that strained build up had manifested itself in a particularly impressive feat that had left him with the best kind of scars and bruises.

These days, that look mostly served to stir up an agitation of his own, an uneasiness that came with knowing that no matter how much he cared or fussed, this was one thing he couldn't do anything about. The full moon would rise and the change would happen and Sebastian would be torn apart and put back together twice over in less than twelve hours, and there was nothing he could do about that.

"I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but I got it in my head that I should, so yeah," Reid offered as an explanation, shrugging again before sliding forward off the arm of the couch to land where he was actually meant to be sitting, knees tucked up against his chest.

"I just- I don't like you doing this alone. I don't think you should have to," he stated simply, quietly, though the twitching clench of his jaw and the flickering avoidance of his gaze and the way his fingers had started tapping a quick rhythm against the side of his leg most likely betrayed the lightness with which he managed to pass off the comment.

[daleysebastian]

"I've always done it alone." That didn't mean it wasn't awful, but Sebastian hated the thought of making Reid watch this again, smelling the fear he had the first time Reid had walked in on this. Granted, the shock value was gone, but seeing someone suddenly turn into a wolf - an indiscriminate killer, honestly - couldn't be any more comfortable even with knowledge on his side.

Still yet, something in his chest felt tighter for a moment before suddenly loosening up. Sebastian was always used to being alone. He wouldn't have thought to ask anyone to stay with him for this, even if he didn't think it was beyond traumatic, a horror show in first person. But Reid wanted to do this for him. He wanted to be there because he cared, and he saw things about how people connected to the world - found ways where Sebastian was needing something without knowing what that was - and slotted the pieces together.

"You know I don't like this, right?" That was the last thing he needed to say. Reid had heard Sebastian say it enough times, knew him more than well enough to get it. Considering this was Reid, Sebastian knew him well enough to know once he had his mind set on something, there was no talking him out of it.

That was a respectable quality, an attractive one. Reid didn't back down from things. Sebastian could relate to and respect that. When it was at complete odds for personal safety and Sebastian's skewed world views, it was more infuriating than anything.

"Because something could go wrong and you could - "Sebastian shook his head. He hadn't had a mistake with wolfsbane the entire time he'd been dealing with his condition. He sighed with something like resignation - exactly like it, since that's what it was - and closed the last bit of space. Tight and rigid as his entire body was, Sebastian leaned over enough to press his forehead to Reid's knees. "And it's worse now that everyone knows."

If there was one thing that was consistently constant about Sebastian, it was that he could find the most terrifying and pessimistic view of literally anything.

[reidinggg]

"Yeah, well- tough," Reid repeated, shrugging again and instinctively reaching out to thread his fingers through Sebastian's hair, lightly hooking his hand around the back of his neck as he leaned against his knees.

He had had all day to talk himself in and out of this, but if he really considered whatever arguments he had been having with himself, the decision had already been made before he had even had a chance to appeal to reason.

The shock value was, indeed, relatively gone. And as far as things going wrong went, he was fairly comfortable with claiming that trapping a houseful of ignorant guests inside while a handful of werewolves, some not nearly as controlled or friendly as others, roamed the surrounding grounds was about as 'wrong' as things could get. So between that last month's whole fiasco and the less-than-pleasant initial clue-in of the full moon before that, it was at least comforting to know that things really couldn't get all that much worse.

The bit about 'everyone knowing', however, he could have done without. Fucking Romilda - even back at school she had been all sorts of insufferable, and her having somehow found her way into some position where she was allowed to share her raving-bitch ignorant ramblings with the world was both obnoxious and incomprehensible. Sebastian hadn't been specifically and directly called out in the same way Sabrina had, but still-

It was most likely a good thing he didn't have access to the Daily Prophet's headquarters anymore (he had, once, at some point in the middle of his streak of one-month-or-less jobs, when he had been hired by and fired from the Prophet's accounting department after barely a week, for reasons which he believed most likely had to do with his being overhead referring to the accounting head as a 'closet freak with a mothering fetish whose particularly over-starched shirt collars mostly serve to hide erotic asphyxiation bruises', accusations which he still stood by (Skylar's trusted sources were hardly ever wrong), but, admittedly, might have been better off left unmentioned within the office's walls), or he would have been all too tempted to express his frustrations over that stupid, fear-mongering article by taking it out on work-related private property-

Presently, anyway, second-rate gossip wasn't quite his most pressing concern.

"Like it or not, I'm not leaving. You might want to think about getting used to it."

[daleysebastian]

"I already am." The honesty of it was something that was terrifying for Sebastian in a way that wolf packs and prejudiced wizards weren't. He knew what to expect from people like that, and he knew not to trust them enough to let his guard down.

Then Reid happened. Every defense Sebastian had ceased to exist in the face of the complete force of nature that he was. Sebastian didn't trust people out of necessity, definitely not enough to allow them to stay with him during a transformation. Even with - possibly - enough time to shove Reid out the door or into the floo before it closed off - it should have already, actually, - Reid would Apparate right back in only then he'd be full of indignant rage and hand flails.

And Sebastian would be alone, which he was stupidly starting to dislike.

He moved, shifting enough to rest his chin on Reid's knees. Hand settling on Reid's arm, Sebastian blinked at him, body aching in ways that told Sebastian he had minutes, maybe less, at this point. His fingers were rigid as they gripped at Reid's bicep, hanging on but looking at him as seriously as he could. He only had a tiny bit of time before he had to move, put as much space between them as Reid would allow - even if Sebastian suspected it wouldn't be that far.

"Promise me one thing. One, Reid." His finger clenched briefly before loosening up. "If a pack of wolves or a fucking mob or something shows up? You get out. Immediately. None of this running in to control the situation shit, okay?"

Even if he swore it, Sebastian was fairly sure Reid would do no such thing. He'd stand there and find a way to fight something - no matter how futile - until the end. Because he was half insane, too stubborn, and Sebastian was completely fucking fond of all of it.

[reidinggg]

If he hadn't been caught up in a situation (a very eminent situation, the fading light that was casting ever-lengthening shadows across the sitting room and the increasing tension he could both see and feel straining Sebastian's entire body) in which laughter wasn't the first or easiest reaction to muster up, Reid would have properly cracked up. It was only that barely-there hint of a look in Sebastian's eye that stopped him from jumping straight to indignant frustration - asking for a promise was one thing, expecting it to be kept was another, and at least Sebastian seemed aware that the latter was very unlikely to be honored.

"Right. Sure. Okay. When the torch-wielding crazed mob comes by I'll be sure to book it and leave you here to burn."

Not that he was expecting a mob (or at least, he hadn't been until this very second). But please. As if.

He had always been a worrier. As a child he had anxiously been concerned over his mother's carefully cultivated rose bushes whenever they started to wilt with the turning of the seasons, then the concern had been for his mother herself, then for his dad when his mom was no longer someone he could worry about.

It was a relatively short list of people who made the cut, but once you had been tagged as a source of concern, there was no getting away from it. He could fuss and bother like the best of them, and no amount of trying to convince him not to had ever yielded positive results.

So, no. He most definitely wasn't leaving, nor was he intending to run away should things get dicey.

Before Sebastian had time to further press the issue, he threw another look at the ticking clock and leaned in over his knees to press a quick kiss to Sebastian's lips, fingers lightly pressing against the tense knots that had formed up the back of Sebastian's neck, preemptively bracing against the physical shock it was about to endure.

[daleysebastian]

"Insufferable," Sebastian whispered against his lips, throat suddenly thick and too tight to say anything loud. It wasn't even a product of the upcoming change. It was the effect of things Sebastian hadn't known he could want, lest he be denied anything on principle of having the worst luck.

As Sebastian pressed his forehead carefully to Reid's, a brief moment of too soft contact, he felt the shift. He couldn't forget, not with how every moment of fading light and too loud tick of the grandfather clock and not with the way the way his muscles were bunching, skin starting to crawl. His bones ached, joints tight and close to popping.

It still took him slightly by surprise. This quiet little bubble of space and soft touches, sassy comments and fond expressions, couldn't save Sebastian from this. Nothing could.

Nothing would ever be able to.

"Now," he gasped, lungs tight and constricting.

He felt the first shock of pain, the one where his muscles pulled until his bones popped, skin starting to slide in an unnatural slither, pulling and twisting against itself.

Sebastian used what control he had left, the last bit of it he could fight for until the very end when the disease took over and did the bidding of an ethereal full moon. He doubted Reid was going to let him go far, but he wasn't about to change where he'd end up breaking furniture - claws from both Daleys had already made a mess of the ornate hardwood floors.

Sebastian pulled away, only managing a few feet before his knees buckled and he went down, spine twisting too far into a too deep arc. He bit back a yell, managing to contain it to short pants - for now - as he landed in the middle of the room on his abused knees.

[reidinggg]

Along with that gasp, and that particularly loud tick of the clock across the room, and the way the light suddenly seemed to noticeably fade as the sun fully dipped below the horizon, came that unavoidable flare of muffled panic, that spark of fear he had spent most of the day remembering from the way it had apparently ingrained itself in his mind after that first very unfortunate full-moon encounter that had solidified his reputation as the most ill-timed visitor.

But as soon as that fear flared, it was replaced by the much more practiced surge of gut-wrenching concern, that entirely different kind of panic that was mostly made up of intense worry and unwelcome helplessness.

Reid froze for barely a second before he slid off the couch after Sebastian (warnings and empty threats and stupid demands be damned), not quite managing to catch him before his knees rather literally shattered against the floor and he reached out with a shakily hesitant hand, fingers splaying out over Sebastian's shoulder to feel the unnerving, unnatural shifting and pull and tear of muscle beneath layers of thin cloth and skin, the violent pop and crack of joints and bones somehow echoing up his arm and crawling across his skin.

He knew what he was in for. Twice, now, he had seen it. But the first time had been drenched in shock and disbelief and confusion and mind-muddling panic. And the second had been equally panic-stricken, his focus stubbornly aimed at getting Sebastian away and out in time.

But now, for the first time, he was actually prepared, and there was nothing else to distract him from the bare, raw facts of what exactly was happening.

As painful as it was to sit back and see and secondhandedly feel the change, there was no way, he knew, that even the worst pain he could imagine could in any way compare to what Sebastian was going through. And that, despite whatever remaining fears he might had had about purposely finding himself in the very near and very present vicinity of a turned werewolf on a full moon, was what kept him where he was, kneeling in the middle of the room, his teeth clenched and his breath held and his hand firmly resting on Sebastian's shoulder-

[daleysebastian]

Everything was shifting, pulling and twisting, the way it always did. When Reid moved, Sebastian was only distantly aware of it, too consumed with the way his lungs were changing and how tight he had to hold his throat around convulsions to contain the sounds.

His ribs were snapping then twisting, bones elongating and pressing into the soft flesh of organs and the yielding elasticity of skin.

It was the touch on his shoulder, firm enough to be there but not hard enough to restrict anything and so terribly Reid, that finally sent him into a tailspin. He hadn't been alone for the past two shifts, but this was different.

This time, it wasn't an accident. This was Reid, purposefully not standing on the sidelines and waiting it out. He was making sure Sebastian didn't shut himself off the way he was so typically prone to doing. Maybe that's why, when his hands changed and arms reared back, dislocating and changing until his hands were nothing more than large paws, Sebastian didn't try to use his breath to tell Reid one last time to go.

No, not this time. This time, he let the energy shove the scream out of his chest, taking the last of his oxygen with it. Everything was happening too fast then for him to focus. The nothingness came as it always did, and somewhere between running out of breath and taking another, his shouts became howls that turned into a low whimper.

His body shook, the shock taking over through the last of it, the last bit of the change, and then -

Then it was done.

Where he had been, bowed and collapsed on the floor, was the large wolf, the one Sebastian hated so much. Instead of scurrying away, running until he could hide and howling when he feel the urge, he was slowly becoming aware of a touch against his fur.

At first it was shocking, like he couldn't remember why it would be there, where it was from. Then the shakiness and tremors cleared. His head came back to him, the familiar scent that he knew was Reid filled his head only with the absence of fear - even if there was a heavy dose of what Sebastian thought might be concern and worry - and it occurred to him how strange this way.

This was the first time, literally, ever, that anyone had touched him as a wolf.

[reidinggg]

Reid felt the muscles of Sebastian's shoulder pull and snap beneath his hand, felt his entire body lurch and cave in and crumble as it reworked itself, bones snapping then rejoining at different angles, in different places. The blood-curdling sound of helplessly pained screams turned choking gasps turned howls had his skin crawling and his stomach twisting, and those quiet whimpers did little to ease the paralyzing worry he had been feeling building.

Yet still, Reid's hand remained firmly connected to that shifting bit of flesh, even as the hunch of shoulders became the upper joint of a four-legged stance and thick hair grew and threaded out between his fingers.

Perhaps he should have been afraid. As paranoidly prepared as Sebastian was, and as stubbornly assured as he had become since spending a night uselessly locked in a room and working out his own shock issues that everything would, in fact, be fine, there was no denying the fact that things could always go wrong. Scare stories might mostly rely on exaggeration, but they were exaggerations based in truth-

But still. While his heartbeat quickened and his nerves flared and he had to force himself to take slow and steady breaths, it wasn't anything like fear that coursed through his veins as Sebastian (a very different version than the Sebastian he was used to and comfortable with, but definitely, undeniably Sebastian nonetheless) shifted against his hand, the rippling of unfamiliar muscle both awe-inspiring and so very, very strange-

Reid finally remembered to blink as he took in the entirety of the wolf's form, his fingers tentatively curling through the bristling fur as he glanced down to catch the wolf's - Sebastian's - brightly piercing gaze.

[daleysebastian]

The first few minutes as the wolf were always difficult for Sebastian. He hated this part. Entire month - moon cycles - were spent hating this part and dreading everything about it. The pain wasn't as big of a problem, it was a byproduct of a disease. After everything he'd felt, the fear of dying tied up with the failing body, during the blackout, it was almost a relief to suffer through the excruciating experience of the change.

He knew that, at least, didn't end in death.

Now he was faced with a whole new set of obstacles, a challenge he'd always been too fearful and paranoid to tackle. He was actually around a human while he so decidedly was anything but. For all Sebastian knew about lycanthropy, this was the one part he'd diligently avoided. He was too suspicious of the wolf, even if he kept his head, to allow it around someone it would potentially hurt.

Even now, Sebastian didn't trust it, didn't trust himself enough to not maul Reid in a fit of pique. The wolf's body Sebastian found himself in, the one he was so familiar with at this point in his life, felt tense and rigid. He could feel heat radiating off of Reid's body where he sat pressed close, could smell him. Strong laundry detergent, stale soap, and something that was inherently Reid. Sebastian didn't know how he knew that, how he could recognize his scent so well with this oversensitive sense when he'd only been around Reid twice.

Maybe it was because there were traces of Reid everywhere, the whole house was covered in traces of him. Sebastian spent most of his time with some sense of Reid around him in one way or another; of course the wolf that usually laid dormant would put that sensory information together in ways Sebastian's human mind and senses couldn't.

In the middle of this existential crisis, Reid's hand shifted. He didn't move, not much, but it was enough to draw Sebastian's attention from where his eyes were caught on Reid's, the way he could see so much more light play off of the irises than usual.

Very carefully, so terribly slowly, Sebastian moved. He was careful of his large paws and powerful limbs as he turned, curling more or less. Stretching his neck, eyes never leaving Reid's as if he could say things that his body was currently incapable of, he nudged his nose against Reid's knee, then his arm. Slowly, his fur came down, no longer standing on edge and alert. He sighed, as much as he could and pressed his cold nose to Reid's shoulder.

[reidinggg]

It probably spoke for just how decidedly unusual his life had become in the past few months that the reaction he had to try to muffle at this point wasn't panic, or confusion, or fear of any kind - as the bristly wolf (Sebastian, his looming, darkly colored, perfectly intimidating form all too hilariously appropriate for the man whose mind was tucked in there somewhere) nudged up against him in a way that couldn't help but remind him of the tentative cuddle of the slew of rescue and rehabilitating dogs his house had been a temporary home for throughout his childhood (from retiring police dogs to busted dog fighting rings, his father had been the type who simply couldn't bear to leave displaced pups to the shelters, all too often bringing home the ones he couldn't immediately place in willing and loving homes), Reid actually had to bite back a laugh.

Maybe he was losing it. He had been considering the idea ever since he had made the decision to willingly lock himself in with a werewolf on a full moon earlier that day-

He let his fingers loosely thread through Sebastian's fur, following the slow and deliberate shift of his body, a completely unprecedented sort of thrill rushing through him as he felt the pure power rippling beneath that fur, an unrestrained sort of force he knew could so very easily rip him to pieces should it be so inclined. And still, despite the fact that his heart was still beating a bit faster than it should have, it was with breathless amazement more so than with consternation.

"Holy shit-" he muttered under his breath, glancing down at that both strangely new and eerily familiar gaze.

[daleysebastian]

Everything always felt a little surreal when Sebastian was a wolf. Things were brighter, harsher. His center of balance was off. He felt anxious and grounded in ways he couldn't explain come morning. It was a strange feeling, exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

Going into this change, knowing Reid was going to stay there - had every intention of not going anywhere because he apparently lacked basic survival skills and his fight or flight reaction was broken - and add a level of nervousness and comfort to the whole thing, Sebastian had felt even more out of sorts.

He hadn't expected it to be like this. Long fingers twisting around his fur wasn't something Sebastian expected to be pleasant. He would have thought it would have grated on his nerves enough to send him over the edge.

Except Reid had to talk - of course he did. Sebastian kept expecting to sense fear on him. Maybe Sebastian was scared enough for both of them, though, since that wasn't anywhere - except very faintly - in the things he could hear and scent from Reid.

Huffing through his nose, Sebastian attempted to glare. He doubted it came through - he wasn't actually sure how expressions translated as the wolf - but he tried anyway. He butted the flat of the top of his head against Reid's chest.

It wasn't hard enough to knock him over, possibly just a bit off balance. It was heady, knowing he could have knocked Reid over - hurt him in the worst ways or even turned him if he took the terrible notion to - but that even as a wolf, he was more than controlled enough not to. That was probably the best news he'd had since that bloody article came out, save Reid actually wanting to make sure Sebastian didn't have to suffer through this alone. It somehow made him energetic, that frenetic energy he usually marked off as anxiety catching up with him, making the wolf's tail wag the slightest bit.

He'd probably be embarrassed about it if he wasn't currently a large woodland predator.

[reidinggg]

Without the terrifying shock of unexpected revelations, or the panicked flail of knowing there was a houseful of otherwise uninformed people sitting by, now that the actual nightmare of the transformation was wrapped up and over with, this was just - well, somehow, it was actually morbidly hilarious and strangely comforting.

A terrifying large, particularly soft, entirely too aware dog. Basically. This was it. This was what he had on his hands, if the semblance of a glare and that version of a headbutt that had him toppling back and catching himself half-sprawled on the floor and that enthusiastic tail-wag that shook through Sebastian's whole body was anything to go on.

And, yes, that lingering acknowledgement of that fact that he was inches away from being mauled to death. Whatever. Weirder things had happened.

"I'm not gonna play fetch with you or anything- just so you know-"

Nervous humor. But really, he wasn't sure how things went about being processed when Sebastian was himself but not actually himself, his knowledge of just how much of a connection the wolfsbane potion provided between a person's actual mind and their wolf counterparts really relatively vague (after all, it wasn't like the werewolf population was generally eager to out itself by publishing editorials expanding on the details of the experience).