[FIC] Star Trek: In Which We Change [2/2] (Kirk/Bones, PG-13)
Title: In Which We Change [2/2]
Author: salvaged_pride
Beta: sullacat
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/Bones
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: "Werewolves: Separated from the Pack" from my hurt/comfort bingo card. #2 in attempted blackout.
Summary: AU - Leonard McCoy is your ordinary, grumpy village doctor. When a young man shows up bloody and hurt on his doorstep one night, everything he knew about his world was about to change. Word Count: 14,160
<< Part 1 | Master Fanfiction List
In Which We Change [Part 2]
I was sleeping off a potential hangover by the time Jim returned in the morning, the second morning since his change that I hadn't taken care of him, and crawled into bed with me. I felt the bed move, felt Jim put his face against my shoulder, but didn't stop him. It was a sick, guilty pleasure, as small as it was, to let him. Pathetic of me to admit maybe, but it had been a long time since I had been with anyone. Years since I had left the village I'd been born in, and the wife that slept with her cousin, and the daughter I loved. The anger and guilt of it all, leaving to save her reputation at the cost of my own, had kept me from looking for someone else more than the possible damnation from the god I had been married under. So using him, knowing I wouldn't allow more, I just closed my eyes and spent the morning there in bed, lost in thoughts and half-sleep and waking dreams.
Jim got up before me, and I woke up fully when a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast was shoved under my nose. That's a damn good way of waking me up, and I'm no morning person. I think Jim learned if he shoved food in my mouth I couldn't be grumpy, specially when I saw a cup of coffee in his other hand. That's what he pushed into my hands first, and I sucked down the hot coffee until I felt human again.
Huh, never realized the irony of that statement until now.
Leaving the plate balanced on my legs, Jim left and returned with his own food. It felt like the world had gotten turned upside down while I slept, because I knew from dozens of mornings that Jim usually refused to eat until it was well past noon. Full already, he had told me the times I'd tried to get him to. I didn't want to think about that. The fact that Jim was eating made me ask what time it was. Then I had to keep from choking on a mouthful of toast when Jim informed me it was well past noon.
"Dammit, I'm supposed to be a doctor and I haven't been properly opened in days!" Started to get out of bed but Jim just pushed me back down.
"Bones, you're not going to open that office unless you've eaten something. I cleaned up in there, so you can just take the sign down and get to work." I looked at Jim for saying that, wondering if the kid had done it out of that guilt I knew he was feeling. But he held up a hand that didn't have a fork in it. "Someone came by and asked if you would be opening. Told them you were sick but feeling better so they didn't know."
It was a good enough lie to pass. It got me out of the last few days - after all, no doctor was going to see patients when he himself was sick - without getting me in trouble or having loose tongues wagging. "Thanks." Wasn't much else to say, not with the awkwardness that was in the air between us.
"I don't know a whole lot about being... what I am yet," Jim started, poking at his food without eating it, "but after this, I think maybe it has to be a full moon for a bite to be... infectious. Was a full moon the night I got attacked, and the legends..." His words were cautious, unsure, but I couldn't tell if that was because he could feel the tension or if he just wasn't sure he was right. Coming from someone that normally spoke his mind firm and clear even if he was spouting complete nonsense, I guessed it was the former.
"Makes sense," I muttered, thinking that it didn't make any sense at all. Damn magic or whatever the werewolves were, messin' with the laws of nature. His words made me think though, and I looked to him. "Jim, what happened that night? The night you got bit."
Jim rubbed the back of his neck, licking his lips in a gesture he tended to do when he was thinking. I'd noticed it long before he became a wolf, and wondered where he picked it up from. Maybe his infamous 'Teacher' had done something similar. "Don't remember too much of it, really. I caught a sign of the vampires on the move and followed them into the forest south of here. Found one of them, I can remember that. It was the one that the Master vampire had been feeding on. Still don't know if I found him, or he was luring and hunting me, but either way, before we could even get into a real fight, something hit me."
"A wolf?" I supplied.
"A wolf," Jim confirmed. "They travel in packs, you know? Another one hit the vampire hard, and they went mostly after him. They're old enemies, vampires and the werewolves. Not that they actively hunt each other," he was quick to add, "but they don't want each other in the their territory. Wolves protect their territory, and while humans aren't real liked, vampires are hated. Not really sure why, but maybe it's just because vampires are another dangerous predator."
"Guess a buncha werewolves wouldn't see humans as much threat anymore." I took a drink of the last drops of my coffee and found them already cold.
Jim nodded, agreeing with me. "Pretty much. I remember laying there, staring up at this damn big black wolf with gold eyes. That's where it all goes black."
It was a short but dramatic story. "Do they kill humans?" It slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it, and Jim gave me a look that I couldn't read before he looked down and nodded once. So, some things about the legends aren't entirely just to scare little children. Good to know, huh? "Wonder why the wolf didn't kill you, then."
"Because I'm a hunter, too, and I was strong." The words fell from Jim's lips, and I looked up again just in time to see him wince as if he regretted saying them. The way he said them made him sound like he was a hundred percent sure that was the reason.
The only way he could be that sure was, "Jim, what... did you go and ask the wolf later?" There was nothing more that could have surprised me than when he said yes. The sheer idea of it was difficult to understand, and finally all I could do was laugh. I almost asked if it was when they were human or wolf, but I realized quickly I didn't want to know. I didn't want to know who among the people I've worked with, helped, drank with, and lived with for the last years of my life were actually some pack of supernatural creatures running around after dark.
"Fine, you asked him then. Why not ask him more? Like what the hell you can do with yourself. Can you stop the transformation? Should you be somewhere alone if you're going to get bitey and infectious during the full moon?" I could think of a few dozen questions I'd like to interrogate this wolf with. Not to mention I'd like to see it suffer a little for what it did to Jim.
"He isn't exactly... he doesn't..." Jim put up both hands, as if distancing himself from something. "He's the leader of the pack, and even though he's the one that infected me, he isn't real accepting of me."
That didn't make a lot of sense. "The hell? Why not?"
"Because I run with a human pack already." Jim looked me dead in the eye, and while I understood what he was getting at, I didn't believe it.
"No you don't. The wolf's already tried to kill me once." I pointed at the bandage around my neck. "That doesn't sound like pack, it sounds more like he--"
"He's afraid of you," Jim interrupted again, keeping our eyes locked. "You're a human, but he knows he's connected to you somehow. You don't smell or look like a wolf, human through and through, so he shouldn't have any connection to you at all. I can't fully understand the way he does things, or how he thinks things, but he's way more intelligent than an animal. The leader of the pack, he is as crafty and intelligent as he is when he's human, with all a wolf's instincts. At least, the wolf in me can tell he's something more." Jim brought up a hand and slid it through hair as golden as the wolf's fur. "I know it doesn't make any sense."
Except, grudgingly, it did.
"The wolf smells like you," Jim said calmly, but quietly.
Thinking about what Jim had just said a few moments ago, I frowned. "And that means I'm it's pack, or something?"
"No, but it means... I run with someone outside of the pack. From what I can see, they're all together. Friends, family, children even. Instead, I'm with you." Jim slid his hand through his hair, and I fought to smile. I could see his nervous habits coming out during this conversation.
I watched Jim from nearby, wishing I could find better words and hating the words that left my mouth the instant I said them. "Do you wanna go be with them?" I wasn't even fully sure what I meant by those words. Jim was with them every night nowadays, running and hunting and whatever the wolves did with each other under the moonlight that ruled their lives. If Jim said yes, or no, I wasn't sure what it meant. I still said those words, some brutal part of me wanting to know the answer.
The look that crossed Jim's face was almost painful. I can't describe it, but there was almost a sense of betrayal, like I had stabbed him in the back with that question. He shook his head slowly, mouth opening and closing before letting out a breath. I could practically see the thousands of possible answers crossing in his eyes before he uttered his choice. "No." No explanation, no need for it. Yet somehow, I felt something in me relaxed. Told you I was a selfish bastard. It was the right answer, one I hadn't even known was right to begin with.
And that was that. Whatever was in the air broke with Jim's words, and I started to get up. My body was still sore from the other night, I could feel the skin pulling where the stitches were, but I ignored it. Just wanted things to be normal again. Well, as normal as it was going to get with Jim changing into a damn wolf every night.
Jim got up as well, shaking himself off. He didn't say a word, just leaving the room. I didn't even expect him to leave until I heard the door open and close, taking me entirely by surprise even though it was exactly the same thing I would have done. I would have left, to get that space that I needed. Didn't mean I wasn't somehow hurt by his leaving. Probably not much different than how Jim had felt when I had asked that question. Wasn't really meant to hurt, but it did. I'm no good with those sorts of things, and neither was he. Just two men too used to being on their own, taking care of themselves and no one else.
So, when Jim didn't come back after about an hour, I cleaned myself up and did something to take my mind off the awkward night and the even more awkward morning - I opened the office and saw patients. I didn't even have to announce that I was opened, someone saw me prop open the office door and the word spread like wildfire. Always does in a town this damn small.
Nothing major had happened in my absence, which was nice to know. The village and world had continued its daily routine. A few children were spreading around a nasty cold through the school house, and I told the mothers to let the others know that it was most likely that more and more of the children were going to get it before it vanished. I gave them packets of tea and herbs to put into morning drinks, throat soothing teas, and even more importantly stews and broths to keep up their strength. The blacksmith had gotten a nasty cut over the back of his hand, just beginning to get a hint of infection. Gave him the typical speech about how I should expect him to know how to take care of that sort of thing before he had to come see me. He's a big man, hard to miss in a crowd, but he still cowered as I put a cream on the wound to clean it up, gave it a good wrapping, and instructions how to take care of it until it finished healing up.
More people came and went, but none of them were Jim. Like I'd hoped for, it was a good distraction. People asked about my 'being sick', the lie Jim had come up with, but it was easy to just give them a gruff brush off and go about my work. Getting pity to begin with was embarrassing, but getting it for a fake illness was even worse. I knew it was necessary, only reason I put up with it.
The day vanished into afternoon, then into evening. It was a back log of things that needed to be done, including some of the animals needing dosing from medicines I had picked up from my mother. They were easy to make up, mostly because I work my ass off to make sure I have all the ingredients ready ahead of time. I kept looking at the sun and its place in the sky, knowing that soon Jim would become the wolf and be running with that pack he said he didn't want to go be with.
I wanted to believe him, but at the same time, I'm not sure I did. Wanting something badly enough didn't make it true, but for the first time in years I realized I liked having someone with me. I liked having someone in this house, even if he was a vampire-hunting werewolf. I liked...
Damn. It was in that moment, that exact moment as I sat over a bubbling kettle for some sheep with a cough they had picked up, that I realized I just liked Jim. I wanted him to stay in my life, not go running off with some damn pack of wolves that evidently didn't want him. I think I stopped thinking at that point, like the realization had come up behind me and slapped me in the back of the head.
Nearly burned the medicine I was making because of it. That would have made for some unhappy sheep.
With the sun starting to set, I warded off more patients by saying I was getting tired quickly because I was still recovering from my supposed illness. I closed up my office, cleaning up after myself, setting up things for the next day. It was a good way to keep my mind off of other things because this village keeps me a damn busy doctor, always has. I like that about this village, because it's just big enough for someone like me.
With everything set up, unfortunately, I ran out of things to do. I could think of more of course, things around the house that needed to get done, needed to set up food for the week so I could keep feeding myself, but none of it seemed to matter. I just sat on one of the large chairs in my living room and stared out the window. I was alone in a way I hadn't been since a beat up dog named Jim had shown up at my door, and that alone had hurt in a way I hadn't since I had left my wife, daughter, and home. Nothing I could do, now. What I had chosen to say, and do, was done, and I couldn't change history. Wasn't something I wasn't used to thinking about though, trying to change the history I had set up for myself with my damn, dumb mouth.
I'll be honest with you? After all these other surprises coming up from behind me over and over in the last few days, hearing the front door open up and turning to see Jim there in my doorway was the biggest of them all. I must have been staring like an idiot, because I know my mouth was hanging open. Jim gave a weak smile and held up his hands. In one was a long wrapped length of chain that went up over his shoulder, probably ten or so yards of it. In the other, I couldn't tell what it was at first, so I got up and--
"...is that a belt, Jim?" I asked, even as I stared at it and knew what it was. A thick leather belt with a heavy collar, probably one that could have been worn by the blacksmith. I just gave him a look of confusion.
"It's a collar," Jim told me, but then his smile turned into something sheepish and strange. "Well, okay it's a belt, but for tonight it's a collar. I borrowed it off Andrew," the blacksmith, score one for me, "and I figured it would keep the wolf at bay."
Wait, wait, what? My mind was trying to wrap around Jim's words, but I understood it on a deeper level. I had asked Jim to help me find a way to get the wolf used to me, but he either attacked or ran off. A collar and a chain, like a leash on a dog, would keep either of those things from happening. It was also the thing that Jim hated, because it was a cage. Cages, constriction, any loss of freedom? That would freak out any wild animal and Jim or not, the wolf was nothing else but one of those.
"Jim, are you sure?" I asked, asking that foolish question. If Jim had gone out and gotten the items to do this, he had to be okay with it on some level. The wolf inside of him had to be howling.
Jim shook his head. "Honestly? No, but you were right. If I had listened to you, you wouldn't have gotten hurt and wouldn't have had to worry at all about maybe becoming a wolf. I should have listened to you." That sheepish grin again as he threw me the belt, which I almost missed because of the sudden action. "Call this me saying you were right."
I took a look at the chain and belt and frowned. This wasn't some sort of cheap material, and borrowed my ass. This was new leather, this belt-collar, and I saw some sort of metal in it to make it stronger. Maybe something for a horse, harness, or similar because it was clearly meant to take a lot of weight without breaking. The chain was shiny and new, a lot of it, thick. Definitely not cheap. "Where'd you get the money for this, Jim?" As far as I knew, Jim was near on the edge of broke. My guess would be that his Teacher had kept him in food, clothing, weapons, and lodging while training the kid, but on his own Jim had only what he could carry on his back.
"It doesn't matter," Jim interrupted my train of thought. "It really doesn't. I only have a little while before I change, so let's make this work."
Jim had a point; thinking about all this would have to wait. I thought back on some of the plans I had come up with in the past to get the wolf to at least stop attacking me, thinking about things I had learned from farmer and farm hands about wolves, training dogs, anything about animals over the years. The idea was usually the same and very basic, as old as time itself.
"Go wait out back," I told Jim, grabbed my coat, and ran. I had to get something I needed before the sun set.
When I came back to the house, I went through the front and into my room. I passed the guest room on the way and looked out through its large window through the doorway, seeing Jim out there in the back garden, already nude. His room was pretty clean, which I had told him he needed to do even though I'm not the neatest man in the world, and all of his weapons were spread out across the table along the wall. I don't know what caught my eye, considering I didn't look directly at the array of weapons, but somehow I noticed that there was something missing. Even with time counting down towards sunset and the wolf's appearance, I took just a few seconds to figure out what it was.
The bone-handled knife was gone.
Considering its size, and not seeing it anywhere else in the room, and how Jim had been avoiding my question before I had left the house, my stomach had a sinking feeling it knew exactly what the missing knife and the newly aquired items had in common. I wanted to go out there and yell at Jim, even as my whole body felt guilt coursing through it. Those blades of his were priceless, and that collar and chain were both only a fraction of the cost of it. Damn, damn.
I grabbed what I thought I needed, including what I had run out to buy and a chair since this was bound to take a while, and went outside to face the wolf possibly one last time. Right now, he was still Jim. "...get the collar on," I told him as I came out into the back garden, grabbing the chain in the pool it was sitting in at Jim's feet. I looped it around one of the trees in the corner of the garden, even more grateful than ever for the fence that was surrounding it. I don't know why the previous owners had gone through so much effort, but their effort was my gain. The village had given me the house because of their desperate need for a doctor when I had showed up looking for a drink with my last bit of coin.
Jim saw what I was doing and came over to help me. Together, we got the chain around the tree and secured it in place. On such short notice, I just couldn't think of something else that would be secure enough to not be ripped apart under the wolf's strength and weight, and I was working on a deadline that was coming up too fast to think much beyond this. I could feel the sun set against my back, see it in Jim's hair and reflecting pink-orange in the chain. At the end of the chain, I hooked it into Jim's psuedo-collar.
Nothing else I could do, really. With a quick check and a scrap of the toe of my boot to mark how far the wolf would be able to get on the chain, I left him there looking ridiculous and sat down into the chair I had dragged out. All I could do was wait.
But Jim's voice rang out as the darkness fell with the last rays of the sun, "Bones, I want to stay. With you." Then the transformation began with me staring and getting a perfect, full view. For the first time, those words echoing in my head, I didn't look away from Jim's changing body.
In front of me was one giant wolf chained to a tree. He sat there staring at me, and I at him. Those blue eyes never left me.
Author: salvaged_pride
Beta: sullacat
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/Bones
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: "Werewolves: Separated from the Pack" from my hurt/comfort bingo card. #2 in attempted blackout.
Summary: AU - Leonard McCoy is your ordinary, grumpy village doctor. When a young man shows up bloody and hurt on his doorstep one night, everything he knew about his world was about to change. Word Count: 14,160
<< Part 1 | Master Fanfiction List
In Which We Change [Part 2]
I was sleeping off a potential hangover by the time Jim returned in the morning, the second morning since his change that I hadn't taken care of him, and crawled into bed with me. I felt the bed move, felt Jim put his face against my shoulder, but didn't stop him. It was a sick, guilty pleasure, as small as it was, to let him. Pathetic of me to admit maybe, but it had been a long time since I had been with anyone. Years since I had left the village I'd been born in, and the wife that slept with her cousin, and the daughter I loved. The anger and guilt of it all, leaving to save her reputation at the cost of my own, had kept me from looking for someone else more than the possible damnation from the god I had been married under. So using him, knowing I wouldn't allow more, I just closed my eyes and spent the morning there in bed, lost in thoughts and half-sleep and waking dreams.
Jim got up before me, and I woke up fully when a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast was shoved under my nose. That's a damn good way of waking me up, and I'm no morning person. I think Jim learned if he shoved food in my mouth I couldn't be grumpy, specially when I saw a cup of coffee in his other hand. That's what he pushed into my hands first, and I sucked down the hot coffee until I felt human again.
Huh, never realized the irony of that statement until now.
Leaving the plate balanced on my legs, Jim left and returned with his own food. It felt like the world had gotten turned upside down while I slept, because I knew from dozens of mornings that Jim usually refused to eat until it was well past noon. Full already, he had told me the times I'd tried to get him to. I didn't want to think about that. The fact that Jim was eating made me ask what time it was. Then I had to keep from choking on a mouthful of toast when Jim informed me it was well past noon.
"Dammit, I'm supposed to be a doctor and I haven't been properly opened in days!" Started to get out of bed but Jim just pushed me back down.
"Bones, you're not going to open that office unless you've eaten something. I cleaned up in there, so you can just take the sign down and get to work." I looked at Jim for saying that, wondering if the kid had done it out of that guilt I knew he was feeling. But he held up a hand that didn't have a fork in it. "Someone came by and asked if you would be opening. Told them you were sick but feeling better so they didn't know."
It was a good enough lie to pass. It got me out of the last few days - after all, no doctor was going to see patients when he himself was sick - without getting me in trouble or having loose tongues wagging. "Thanks." Wasn't much else to say, not with the awkwardness that was in the air between us.
"I don't know a whole lot about being... what I am yet," Jim started, poking at his food without eating it, "but after this, I think maybe it has to be a full moon for a bite to be... infectious. Was a full moon the night I got attacked, and the legends..." His words were cautious, unsure, but I couldn't tell if that was because he could feel the tension or if he just wasn't sure he was right. Coming from someone that normally spoke his mind firm and clear even if he was spouting complete nonsense, I guessed it was the former.
"Makes sense," I muttered, thinking that it didn't make any sense at all. Damn magic or whatever the werewolves were, messin' with the laws of nature. His words made me think though, and I looked to him. "Jim, what happened that night? The night you got bit."
Jim rubbed the back of his neck, licking his lips in a gesture he tended to do when he was thinking. I'd noticed it long before he became a wolf, and wondered where he picked it up from. Maybe his infamous 'Teacher' had done something similar. "Don't remember too much of it, really. I caught a sign of the vampires on the move and followed them into the forest south of here. Found one of them, I can remember that. It was the one that the Master vampire had been feeding on. Still don't know if I found him, or he was luring and hunting me, but either way, before we could even get into a real fight, something hit me."
"A wolf?" I supplied.
"A wolf," Jim confirmed. "They travel in packs, you know? Another one hit the vampire hard, and they went mostly after him. They're old enemies, vampires and the werewolves. Not that they actively hunt each other," he was quick to add, "but they don't want each other in the their territory. Wolves protect their territory, and while humans aren't real liked, vampires are hated. Not really sure why, but maybe it's just because vampires are another dangerous predator."
"Guess a buncha werewolves wouldn't see humans as much threat anymore." I took a drink of the last drops of my coffee and found them already cold.
Jim nodded, agreeing with me. "Pretty much. I remember laying there, staring up at this damn big black wolf with gold eyes. That's where it all goes black."
It was a short but dramatic story. "Do they kill humans?" It slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it, and Jim gave me a look that I couldn't read before he looked down and nodded once. So, some things about the legends aren't entirely just to scare little children. Good to know, huh? "Wonder why the wolf didn't kill you, then."
"Because I'm a hunter, too, and I was strong." The words fell from Jim's lips, and I looked up again just in time to see him wince as if he regretted saying them. The way he said them made him sound like he was a hundred percent sure that was the reason.
The only way he could be that sure was, "Jim, what... did you go and ask the wolf later?" There was nothing more that could have surprised me than when he said yes. The sheer idea of it was difficult to understand, and finally all I could do was laugh. I almost asked if it was when they were human or wolf, but I realized quickly I didn't want to know. I didn't want to know who among the people I've worked with, helped, drank with, and lived with for the last years of my life were actually some pack of supernatural creatures running around after dark.
"Fine, you asked him then. Why not ask him more? Like what the hell you can do with yourself. Can you stop the transformation? Should you be somewhere alone if you're going to get bitey and infectious during the full moon?" I could think of a few dozen questions I'd like to interrogate this wolf with. Not to mention I'd like to see it suffer a little for what it did to Jim.
"He isn't exactly... he doesn't..." Jim put up both hands, as if distancing himself from something. "He's the leader of the pack, and even though he's the one that infected me, he isn't real accepting of me."
That didn't make a lot of sense. "The hell? Why not?"
"Because I run with a human pack already." Jim looked me dead in the eye, and while I understood what he was getting at, I didn't believe it.
"No you don't. The wolf's already tried to kill me once." I pointed at the bandage around my neck. "That doesn't sound like pack, it sounds more like he--"
"He's afraid of you," Jim interrupted again, keeping our eyes locked. "You're a human, but he knows he's connected to you somehow. You don't smell or look like a wolf, human through and through, so he shouldn't have any connection to you at all. I can't fully understand the way he does things, or how he thinks things, but he's way more intelligent than an animal. The leader of the pack, he is as crafty and intelligent as he is when he's human, with all a wolf's instincts. At least, the wolf in me can tell he's something more." Jim brought up a hand and slid it through hair as golden as the wolf's fur. "I know it doesn't make any sense."
Except, grudgingly, it did.
"The wolf smells like you," Jim said calmly, but quietly.
Thinking about what Jim had just said a few moments ago, I frowned. "And that means I'm it's pack, or something?"
"No, but it means... I run with someone outside of the pack. From what I can see, they're all together. Friends, family, children even. Instead, I'm with you." Jim slid his hand through his hair, and I fought to smile. I could see his nervous habits coming out during this conversation.
I watched Jim from nearby, wishing I could find better words and hating the words that left my mouth the instant I said them. "Do you wanna go be with them?" I wasn't even fully sure what I meant by those words. Jim was with them every night nowadays, running and hunting and whatever the wolves did with each other under the moonlight that ruled their lives. If Jim said yes, or no, I wasn't sure what it meant. I still said those words, some brutal part of me wanting to know the answer.
The look that crossed Jim's face was almost painful. I can't describe it, but there was almost a sense of betrayal, like I had stabbed him in the back with that question. He shook his head slowly, mouth opening and closing before letting out a breath. I could practically see the thousands of possible answers crossing in his eyes before he uttered his choice. "No." No explanation, no need for it. Yet somehow, I felt something in me relaxed. Told you I was a selfish bastard. It was the right answer, one I hadn't even known was right to begin with.
And that was that. Whatever was in the air broke with Jim's words, and I started to get up. My body was still sore from the other night, I could feel the skin pulling where the stitches were, but I ignored it. Just wanted things to be normal again. Well, as normal as it was going to get with Jim changing into a damn wolf every night.
Jim got up as well, shaking himself off. He didn't say a word, just leaving the room. I didn't even expect him to leave until I heard the door open and close, taking me entirely by surprise even though it was exactly the same thing I would have done. I would have left, to get that space that I needed. Didn't mean I wasn't somehow hurt by his leaving. Probably not much different than how Jim had felt when I had asked that question. Wasn't really meant to hurt, but it did. I'm no good with those sorts of things, and neither was he. Just two men too used to being on their own, taking care of themselves and no one else.
So, when Jim didn't come back after about an hour, I cleaned myself up and did something to take my mind off the awkward night and the even more awkward morning - I opened the office and saw patients. I didn't even have to announce that I was opened, someone saw me prop open the office door and the word spread like wildfire. Always does in a town this damn small.
Nothing major had happened in my absence, which was nice to know. The village and world had continued its daily routine. A few children were spreading around a nasty cold through the school house, and I told the mothers to let the others know that it was most likely that more and more of the children were going to get it before it vanished. I gave them packets of tea and herbs to put into morning drinks, throat soothing teas, and even more importantly stews and broths to keep up their strength. The blacksmith had gotten a nasty cut over the back of his hand, just beginning to get a hint of infection. Gave him the typical speech about how I should expect him to know how to take care of that sort of thing before he had to come see me. He's a big man, hard to miss in a crowd, but he still cowered as I put a cream on the wound to clean it up, gave it a good wrapping, and instructions how to take care of it until it finished healing up.
More people came and went, but none of them were Jim. Like I'd hoped for, it was a good distraction. People asked about my 'being sick', the lie Jim had come up with, but it was easy to just give them a gruff brush off and go about my work. Getting pity to begin with was embarrassing, but getting it for a fake illness was even worse. I knew it was necessary, only reason I put up with it.
The day vanished into afternoon, then into evening. It was a back log of things that needed to be done, including some of the animals needing dosing from medicines I had picked up from my mother. They were easy to make up, mostly because I work my ass off to make sure I have all the ingredients ready ahead of time. I kept looking at the sun and its place in the sky, knowing that soon Jim would become the wolf and be running with that pack he said he didn't want to go be with.
I wanted to believe him, but at the same time, I'm not sure I did. Wanting something badly enough didn't make it true, but for the first time in years I realized I liked having someone with me. I liked having someone in this house, even if he was a vampire-hunting werewolf. I liked...
Damn. It was in that moment, that exact moment as I sat over a bubbling kettle for some sheep with a cough they had picked up, that I realized I just liked Jim. I wanted him to stay in my life, not go running off with some damn pack of wolves that evidently didn't want him. I think I stopped thinking at that point, like the realization had come up behind me and slapped me in the back of the head.
Nearly burned the medicine I was making because of it. That would have made for some unhappy sheep.
With the sun starting to set, I warded off more patients by saying I was getting tired quickly because I was still recovering from my supposed illness. I closed up my office, cleaning up after myself, setting up things for the next day. It was a good way to keep my mind off of other things because this village keeps me a damn busy doctor, always has. I like that about this village, because it's just big enough for someone like me.
With everything set up, unfortunately, I ran out of things to do. I could think of more of course, things around the house that needed to get done, needed to set up food for the week so I could keep feeding myself, but none of it seemed to matter. I just sat on one of the large chairs in my living room and stared out the window. I was alone in a way I hadn't been since a beat up dog named Jim had shown up at my door, and that alone had hurt in a way I hadn't since I had left my wife, daughter, and home. Nothing I could do, now. What I had chosen to say, and do, was done, and I couldn't change history. Wasn't something I wasn't used to thinking about though, trying to change the history I had set up for myself with my damn, dumb mouth.
I'll be honest with you? After all these other surprises coming up from behind me over and over in the last few days, hearing the front door open up and turning to see Jim there in my doorway was the biggest of them all. I must have been staring like an idiot, because I know my mouth was hanging open. Jim gave a weak smile and held up his hands. In one was a long wrapped length of chain that went up over his shoulder, probably ten or so yards of it. In the other, I couldn't tell what it was at first, so I got up and--
"...is that a belt, Jim?" I asked, even as I stared at it and knew what it was. A thick leather belt with a heavy collar, probably one that could have been worn by the blacksmith. I just gave him a look of confusion.
"It's a collar," Jim told me, but then his smile turned into something sheepish and strange. "Well, okay it's a belt, but for tonight it's a collar. I borrowed it off Andrew," the blacksmith, score one for me, "and I figured it would keep the wolf at bay."
Wait, wait, what? My mind was trying to wrap around Jim's words, but I understood it on a deeper level. I had asked Jim to help me find a way to get the wolf used to me, but he either attacked or ran off. A collar and a chain, like a leash on a dog, would keep either of those things from happening. It was also the thing that Jim hated, because it was a cage. Cages, constriction, any loss of freedom? That would freak out any wild animal and Jim or not, the wolf was nothing else but one of those.
"Jim, are you sure?" I asked, asking that foolish question. If Jim had gone out and gotten the items to do this, he had to be okay with it on some level. The wolf inside of him had to be howling.
Jim shook his head. "Honestly? No, but you were right. If I had listened to you, you wouldn't have gotten hurt and wouldn't have had to worry at all about maybe becoming a wolf. I should have listened to you." That sheepish grin again as he threw me the belt, which I almost missed because of the sudden action. "Call this me saying you were right."
I took a look at the chain and belt and frowned. This wasn't some sort of cheap material, and borrowed my ass. This was new leather, this belt-collar, and I saw some sort of metal in it to make it stronger. Maybe something for a horse, harness, or similar because it was clearly meant to take a lot of weight without breaking. The chain was shiny and new, a lot of it, thick. Definitely not cheap. "Where'd you get the money for this, Jim?" As far as I knew, Jim was near on the edge of broke. My guess would be that his Teacher had kept him in food, clothing, weapons, and lodging while training the kid, but on his own Jim had only what he could carry on his back.
"It doesn't matter," Jim interrupted my train of thought. "It really doesn't. I only have a little while before I change, so let's make this work."
Jim had a point; thinking about all this would have to wait. I thought back on some of the plans I had come up with in the past to get the wolf to at least stop attacking me, thinking about things I had learned from farmer and farm hands about wolves, training dogs, anything about animals over the years. The idea was usually the same and very basic, as old as time itself.
"Go wait out back," I told Jim, grabbed my coat, and ran. I had to get something I needed before the sun set.
When I came back to the house, I went through the front and into my room. I passed the guest room on the way and looked out through its large window through the doorway, seeing Jim out there in the back garden, already nude. His room was pretty clean, which I had told him he needed to do even though I'm not the neatest man in the world, and all of his weapons were spread out across the table along the wall. I don't know what caught my eye, considering I didn't look directly at the array of weapons, but somehow I noticed that there was something missing. Even with time counting down towards sunset and the wolf's appearance, I took just a few seconds to figure out what it was.
The bone-handled knife was gone.
Considering its size, and not seeing it anywhere else in the room, and how Jim had been avoiding my question before I had left the house, my stomach had a sinking feeling it knew exactly what the missing knife and the newly aquired items had in common. I wanted to go out there and yell at Jim, even as my whole body felt guilt coursing through it. Those blades of his were priceless, and that collar and chain were both only a fraction of the cost of it. Damn, damn.
I grabbed what I thought I needed, including what I had run out to buy and a chair since this was bound to take a while, and went outside to face the wolf possibly one last time. Right now, he was still Jim. "...get the collar on," I told him as I came out into the back garden, grabbing the chain in the pool it was sitting in at Jim's feet. I looped it around one of the trees in the corner of the garden, even more grateful than ever for the fence that was surrounding it. I don't know why the previous owners had gone through so much effort, but their effort was my gain. The village had given me the house because of their desperate need for a doctor when I had showed up looking for a drink with my last bit of coin.
Jim saw what I was doing and came over to help me. Together, we got the chain around the tree and secured it in place. On such short notice, I just couldn't think of something else that would be secure enough to not be ripped apart under the wolf's strength and weight, and I was working on a deadline that was coming up too fast to think much beyond this. I could feel the sun set against my back, see it in Jim's hair and reflecting pink-orange in the chain. At the end of the chain, I hooked it into Jim's psuedo-collar.
Nothing else I could do, really. With a quick check and a scrap of the toe of my boot to mark how far the wolf would be able to get on the chain, I left him there looking ridiculous and sat down into the chair I had dragged out. All I could do was wait.
But Jim's voice rang out as the darkness fell with the last rays of the sun, "Bones, I want to stay. With you." Then the transformation began with me staring and getting a perfect, full view. For the first time, those words echoing in my head, I didn't look away from Jim's changing body.
In front of me was one giant wolf chained to a tree. He sat there staring at me, and I at him. Those blue eyes never left me.