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songoftrillium · 9 months

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Werewolf: the Apocalypse 5th Edition and the Anti-Indigeneity in the Gaming Industry

reosted with permission from J.F. Sambrano

Dagot’ee!

Shii J.F. Sambrano gonsēē. My nations are Chiricahua Apache (Ndeh) through my maternal grandmother and Cora Indian (Náayarite) through my maternal grandfather. I am a mixed race Indigenous person, and through my father my heritage is English and Scottish. I am currently residing and doing work in my community on the lands of Lummi Nation. I use both gender non-binary and masculine pronouns, but prefer the former. I have several published works in the TTRPG industry, and am probably most known for my contributions to Mage: the Ascension 20th Edition, Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Edition, and the Transformers Roleplaying Game, as well as being part of the Essence 20 development team. Further, I also work in higher education at an Indian college, both advising and teaching Indigenous students across the United States. My passion is education, and I believe that we all learn through play, and that TTRPGs are a valuable source of learning, especially on personal, cultural, and social levels. This has always been what has drawn me to TTRPGs since I started playing M.E.R.P. with my brother in 1996 (and before that HeroQuest), through to my “graduation” into more story-driven games such as those presented in the Storyteller System, until now, where I author and produce my own roleplaying games.

I was also part of the First Team (in-joke intentional) hired by White Wolf Studios/Paradox Interactive via Hunters Entertainment to develop and author Werewolf: the Apocalypse 5th Edition. After several months of work, Paradox Interactive chose to go in another direction in early 2021 (I believe it was either March or April) and in fall of that year, it was announced that Werewolf would instead be taken in house, with Justin Achilli as the Brand Creative Lead and primary author of the book. Going forward I will be describing my experience while I worked with Paradox Interactive, primarily through Karim Muammar, White Wolf’s Brand Editor, as well as the developmental editor for Werewolf. Although I worked in a team, both with hired authors and in-house representatives at Hunters Entertainment, I will not be speaking for the experience of others, except when specifically noting unanimous consensuses, and specific interactions (which will go unnamed) that are particularly relevant. My hope is that by highlighting some of the anti-Indigenous attitudes that are central to the foundational members and leaders of the White Wolf brand, that I can provide opportunities for growth and healing within the World of Darkness TTRPG community, but also in the broader gaming community, where these behaviors and attitudes are rampant. I also want the community to have a better understanding of what this experience is like internally, and the challenges that Indigenous creators, as well as other marginalized creators, are met with when they try to make positive change within nerd and geek communities clinging to inherited white supremacist values, even if they don’t realize they are doing so.

What I do not want to be doing in this article is creating fuel for edition wars. I believe that both legacy and Werewolf 5th are rife with anti-Indigenous attitudes, and appalling amounts of appropriation. Both versions deserve criticism, I am not defending one over the other, I am only sharing what my experience was like working on the 5th edition of the book. Further, please understand that I was originally going to wait until I had read the final copy of the book, because I wanted to know how much of my work was used (based on previews I already know some was, just not the extent) and whether or not they decided to credit me for that work, and how I was going to be credited. My belief is that I likely will not be, but I am genuinely uncertain. Knowing how they handled that would have reframed how I addressed this. But more importantly, I want it to be very clear that even before Paradox ultimately pulled the plug on the Hunters team, I was preparing to exit working on the project based on the experience I will describe below. Not only did I find it frustrating, and personally disparaging, but I ultimately decided I was uncomfortable with my name being attached to the product based on the direction they wanted to go. So while I wanted to know whether or not I would be credited, because it would teach me something about their internal practices, I do not want or need the credit.

Finally, the reason that I decided to speak about this now instead of after having a chance to inspect the final product, was because my personal experience dealing with anti-Indigeneity coming from Paradox was just that: personal. But since then I have witnessed a throughline of hateful and xenophobic attitudes wielded against Indigenous people across the globe, and we do not deserve this treatment. I was outraged over the events that led to the segregation of the Latin American fanbase, which culminated from bottom-up criticism about how poorly their people and countries were being defined through World of Darkness products, and ended up with the firing of their Latin American Brand Ambassador, Alessa Torres, because she chose to stand with her community in those criticisms. I was further appalled when the likeness of Tāme Wairere Iti was shoehorned into the Werewolf book, a blatant example of cultural theft: not only in stealing the literal physical identity of an Indigenous person, but also his sacred tā moko. When Paradox Interactive issued an apology for this, it felt incredibly hollow to me in the wake of these events, the hateful attitudes I had personally witnessed coming from the top.

Whether from North America, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, or Peru, or across the globe in New Zealand, not only do Indigenous people deserve better treatment from such a major company, but their Indigenous and Latino fanbases, who have twisted and worked themselves through difficult representation for decades at this point, deserve better. Apologies are not enough, especially when they come with next to no real change.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse in Context

At the time that White Wolf Publishing began to produce its World of Darkness line, the TTRPG industry was dominated by white men, both as producers, developers, and authors, as well as the main characters in their settings. White Wolf's World of Darkness made an impact at the time, by defying these Eurocentric, patriarchal presentations, first by defaulting to feminine pronouns throughout Vampire: the Masquerade, and then by focusing on Indigenous representation and values in Werewolf: the Apocalypse, and as a young Indigenous nerd, it had a positive impact on me, as I know it has on some other Indigenous people who became fans of the World of Darkness at the time. This was because before opening the pages of Werewolf: the Apocalypse, I had never seen heroes that I could play who looked like me and my culture. It was off, and often offensive, but it was my first experience in which I could directly play a hero who shared my heritage--and I also had more than one option through two different Tribes to do so. This might sound a little like I was cheering for table scraps, but again, at the time, table scraps was more than I had ever seen before.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse 1st Edition was originally published in 1992 via then White Wolf Publishing (not to be confused with Paradox Interactive's White Wolf). From its inception, the premise was interwoven with what its then-authors believed to be Indigenous praxis and representation. Like many pop-culture presentations of Indigeneity from this time period (see Fern Gully, Dances With Wolves, Disney’s Pocahontas, or in TTRPGs, the NAN from Shadowrun) it was rife with problematic and even offensive stereotyping. The most obvious examples thereof are within the two "Pure Tribes" Uktena, and W****** who I will henceforth refer to as Older and Younger Brother. However, Indigenous inspiration was at the core of the game's spiritual premise as well, where animism and "Totems" are central to the setting and gameplay. The way these concepts are presented is trivializing and dehumanizing, but it is important to acknowledge that the appropriation present in Werewolf: the Apocalypse goes a lot deeper than the two Brother Tribes (even the term "Tribe" was meant to invoke a vision of Indigeneity compared to the previous setting in the line's use of "Clan"). Additionally, there is art throughout every generation of these gaming books that represents humans, wolves, and human-wolf hybrid forms wearing Indigenous regalia, including sacred items such as headdresses, or engaged in sacred rituals such as the Sun Dance. The list of problematic representations goes deep, and my examples only scratch the surface, but it is also important for me to note the positive impact that this had, particularly in the 90's.

Even though the primary contributors to these narratives were non-Indigenous authors, or in one case, a Pretendian, and another, a culturally disconnected author, by the time the Revised (or Third Edition) era of the books came around, White Wolf Publishing was actively engaged in cultural consultation. While I do not believe cultural consultation makes a big difference on its own, it matters that the attempt was made, to a degree: while these efforts fall short of what needs to be seen in cultural representation, this was still ahead of most other gaming companies at this time.

Hired by Hunters Entertainment

In February of 2020 I was approached by one of the co-owners of Hunters Entertainment to be one of the primary authors for Werewolf: 5th Edition due to my work on other World of Darkness projects, and let's be honest, because I was capable of bringing a much needed Indigenous perspective to a gameline that was rooted in Indigeneity and rotting with appropriation and racist stereotypes. I was overall receptive to the invitation, largely because I was very passionate about the World of Darkness setting overall, and Werewolf in particular, due to the impact that 90's representation had on me when I was a younger gamer. I also felt hopeful that with a really hard rewrite of Indigenous aspects of the game that I could shift a lot of really painful aspects of the game into something that was a net positive for Indigenous representation. I will tell you now, more than anything, I was excited to rewrite the Younger Brother Tribe, because when separated from racist authors, their message is very empowering and real to my lived experience.

That said, I did not agree to join the project without first asking for reassurances. I said that I was not willing to write negative Native stereotypes. I would not use appropriative language, or generally engage in appropriative writing (which meant at minimum that the names of the Pure Tribes would need to change), and most importantly, that I would not not engage in writing that contributed to erasure. While the person who recruited me to work on the project was eager to work with me, he acknowledged that he was not sure he could get everything I wanted to see approved, but also promised to fight for everything I suggested as hard as he could. Additionally, he shared with me that the original setting pitch for W5 involved all of Younger Brother being slaughtered en masse in a massacre. I made it clear that this was exactly the kind of thing that I would not write. I cannot remember if this was something he suggested to be changed before or after I was invited onto the project, but with some pushback it was changed. However, I point this out because I want you, the reader, to understand how eager Paradox Interactive was to start with mass genocide and erasure as a foundation to the setting. All that said, I cannot stress enough that I have had nothing but positive experiences with Hunters Entertainment, and none of the following concerns fall upon them.

The Sword of Heimdall

The first encounter the Hunters Entertainment team as a whole had with problematic guidelines for the W5 draft was the direction that Paradox Interactive wanted to go with the Sword of Heimdall. At the time, the suggestions from Paradox and Karim Muammar were that the Sword of Heimdall was going to represent the new major villain of the Werewolf setting, and that they were to also represent the far-right, fascist direction that Werewolf society so often turned toward. They were meant to be representative of how far the new concept of Hauglosk could take entire communities. However, the Sword of Heimdall was discussed interchangeably with the Get of Fenris as a whole, and more than once Muammar seemed to suggest that every member of this Tribe was guilty of the same attitudes espoused in previous editions from the Sword of Heimdall. Now let's not beat around the bush: the Sword of Heimdall are literal Nazis. They believe directly in white supremacy and don't shy from it. They wanted to cleanse impure elements from the Get of Fenris, including BIPOC people, other non-white ethnicities, women, neurodivergent Garou, and other disabled Garou.

The writing team found this approach problematic for several reasons. The first, and most obvious, was that the direction seemed to want to turn one of the most popular Tribes into a horrific stereotype of its most abhorrent faction. Whether or not Muammar’s goal was to turn them into villains, we could not imagine a world where fans of previous editions would get their hands on this book, and not look for a way to play one of their previous favorite groups, thus creating the issue of making a guide to playing Nazi. Even beyond that, it’s not as if historically there were not players who used the tools of the setting to play Black Spiral Dancers, why wouldn’t this draw people who actually wanted to role-play through these toxic, harmful politics? Further, and while this is less important, it left a bad taste in my mouth, the justification for this major shift in Werewolf lore seemed to change over each pass. At first, Muammar suggested that all Fenrir were Nazis/SoH. Then, when he was provided with evidence that it was a small faction that was eliminated in the early 2000’s, he started to shift toward the idea that we should not follow the lore. Finally, when every single member of the writer’s team flatly refused to provide what would essentially be “a player’s guide to being a Nazi werewolf” the writing was on the wall about the end of our involvement with this product. More than once, he suggested that we were cowardly social justice warriors for being unwilling to work with this concept, even though there were several attempts to write a heroic version of the Fenrir that were focused on undoing these ills of the past.

Indigenous Erasure in Werewolf: 5th Edition

While the entire Hunters Entertainment writing team was handling the major, glaring issue of Paradox’s fervor to include a major Nazi element in Werewolf, I was personally dealing with the problematic approach to the Indigenous issues in the setting. The largest problem, for me, was in addressing Younger Brother’s issues, the history of non-Indigenous writers creating horrifically racist stereotypes, and what was valuable in the Tribal identity that should be saved and recentered. However, my attempts to do so were thwarted with every approach. I rewrote this Tribe four times, and offered three different versions of it to try to earn approval for a final write-up, but each time there was a lot of negativity directed towards my attempts and all them boiled down to this: Muammar felt that having two Tribes (both Younger and Older Brother) representing the “Indigenous population” was too many, and wanted them to only be focused on Older Brother, and that Younger Brother’s connection to a central, Indigenous identity, was undesirable because “other sources wrote them as having Siberian and European connections” and that future writing on this Tribe would require a lot of sensitivity…suggesting that one, Muammar wasn’t interested in doing the work to handle that level of sensitivity, and further, that he wasn’t interested in including me in future work, since I was involved with doing that at the time.

I want to take a moment to remind you that the work that was put into recovering Younger Brother started with “Let’s Kill Them Off” and at this point, through a combination of convincing and pleading, had been walked back to “They can live, but now they’re not connected to being Indigenous anymore” which is just representative genocide of a different variety. “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” It was also explicitly something I said I would not write about going into this project. Ultimately, my efforts did not get much further than this, with some specific exceptions I will cite below.

Karim Muammar’s Anti-Indigenous Positions

Muammar consistently and repeatedly communicated to the team in ways that were condescending and dismissive of our collective accomplishments and capabilities, but from my perspective, no one suffered as much significant derision as I did while discussing the changes I wanted to make to Younger and Older Brother in order to make their representation empowering and exciting.

In the pulled quote from the previous paragraph, I want to point out to you that Muammar, who had the title of Lead Editor on this project, refused to capitalize Native American. Further, he would often redline my work with edits to decapitalize my own uses of Native American, as well as the word Indigenous when referring to Indigenous peoples. While there are plenty of people who might want to argue about this, I will point out that both the AP style guide as well as the Chicago style guide (the one which I am most familiar with in my academic historical work) both call for Indigenous to be capitalized when referring to a people. Further, I challenge anyone to defend the consistent decapitalization of Native American. More importantly, the reason that these are standards in respected style guides, is because the English language has been used historically to oppress and erase ethnic identities, including Indigenous identities. By transforming adjectives into proper nouns, we are declaring that Indigenous and Native aren’t descriptors that can be applied to animals, plants, and soil, but real lived identities and culture groups.

When I was explaining to the Paradox team (which was mostly just Muammar) why it was important to change the names of these two Tribes from the appropriative (and offensive) ones used in the past, Muammar pushed back by defending the previously used Younger Brother name, even after reading my extensive research and explanation about how this would harm Indigenous communities and fans.

While doing so, he also decided that it was appropriate to refer to this entirely Native American tribe by the word “savages” a slur that has been specifically used to dehumanize Native Americans, and then mocked my rewrite that focused on presenting them as stewards of the land using Indigenous methodologies and praxes, instead of the “savage” racist stereotypes they were presented as in previous editions. Further, as in the above quote, even after it was communicated that the use of this term was problematic, he kept doubling-down to use it to refer to the Tribe.

Even though I worked hard to redefine Younger Brother through Indigenous theory, such as place-based theory, relational theory, and communal theory, Muammar either refused to recognize this work, dismissing it as simple, or else simply could not understand the importance of these changes. Either way, the choice is that he didn’t want them to change, or couldn’t comprehend why the change was important because of how entrenched in white supremacist thinking he is. Further, after the massive effort that I put forward to attempt to educate him and the rest of the Paradox team on these issues, the insistence on using offensive terms and belittling my work felt intentional. So let’s talk about the work I did that was above and beyond my job description: free cultural consulting work.

“Sensitivity” and Consultation

I have seen several misunderstandings of my role working on this project going around, so I want to make something very clear. I was hired to work on this project as an author, and nothing else. I was not ever hired to be a cultural consultant. I do not do cultural consulting work. While I feel that there are many creators and companies who hire cultural consultants with the best intentions in mind, their responses often fall short of what is needed, as no one is ever obligated to actually follow the advice of cultural consultants. Further, I think there are also many companies who choose to hire cultural consultants only to say “we did this minimal step, and that is enough” in order to ward off naysayers.

However, anyone who hires me gets some level of cultural consulting for free, because it comes out in my writing–in both what I won’t write and what I choose to center my writing around. In the case of Werewolf 5th Edition, however, it was far more involved than this. I came with a plethora of “I will not write X” because I knew the setting was so problematic. A short list of my demands besides not being willing to write Indigenous erasure, was that we needed to change the names of the Pure Tribes (and the term Pure Tribe itself), we needed to change the word Totem to Patron, and also the Patrons of the Pure Tribes. We needed to move away from the term Metis for obvious reasons, and we needed to move away from the term Skin Dancers. I also specifically noted that there was a lot of cultural theft happening from the beginning of Werewolf until now that I wanted to address. The only way these issues were going to be addressed was to convince Paradox they were actual issues on the level of PR concerns, because nothing else was likely going to be considered. So in order to achieve this, I put in weeks worth of research, writing, and meetings with top level administrators with Hunters Entertainment so that they could bring this information to Paradox. I never documented my hours, but I would guess that I did approximately 80-100 hours of what I could only describe as cultural consultation work for free that was outside the contract work I was hired for. Let’s be clear: I did this willingly because I was passionate about the positive changes I wanted to see in this product, because I believed that Werewolf’s historic ills could be turned toward non-toxic representation.

Besides my actual words, such as naming the Ghost Council, and arguably the name Gale Stalkers came from a combination of names I pitched to Paradox after Winter’s Teeth was denied, and several sentences and paragraphs that I have seen so far that appear so close to what I originally wrote that you could imagine they were just edited versions, my largest contribution toward the final version of Werewolf: 5th Edition was this work. The only reason the offensive, appropriated names were changed were because of hours of my work to convince them it needed to happen. The reason that the Gale Stalkers aren’t just dead and gone: again, I pushed against this. The reason that Skin Dancers, Totem, and Metis will not appear as canonical titles? I pushed against their unwillingness to alter these things (see Karim’s defense of Wen**** Tribe name above).

Further, and this is the biggest reason I decided to write this article before seeing the final version of the book, I want to mention that I was also included in discussions with Hunters Entertainment to potentially be part of the art direction team, especially to oversee depictions of Indigenous characters, regalia, and art, to ensure that it would be represented either respectfully or not at all. I decided I needed to speak as soon as possible after the artistic portrayal of Tāme Iti appeared in the Glass Walkers preview without his permission. There are many arguments surrounding this issue and I am not going to address everything, but ultimately, I can tell you that had I remained as part of the art direction team, and saw that, I would have questioned it immediately. Even if I didn’t recognize Tāme Iti immediately, I would have asked what the source was on the depiction of moko in that piece, because I am aware that this is a sacred form of art–and I had already discussed wanting to make sure things like Crinos in headdresses didn’t appear in the book (as had often happened in previous editions, particularly on a certain white-skinned character whose name rhymes with Steals-the-Past).

As time working on this project went on, and I went through rounds and rounds of trying to convince Muammar and Paradox that it was important to not steal Indigenous identities, art, and stories, and that a greater effort needed to be put in powerful and empowering Indigenous representation, and I constantly ran into refusals and criticisms that were clearly hateful toward Indigenous identities and peoples, not to mention the push to represent Nazism as a major part of the game setting, I grew increasingly frustrated and restless with feeling like I was trying to work on a challenging project while also defending my right to exist as the person I am at every turn. Eventually I turned to another Indigenous TTRPG and game creator to ask for advice, and after a long and difficult discussion, I came to the conclusion that I was going to talk to the Hunters administration team and tell them that if Muammar kept using slurs and other anti-Indigenous language and attitudes, I was going to need to step off of this project, because it was harmful to me on a personal level. In furtherance of this point, I have been avoiding doing any contract work at all where I can tell that I am wanted for my specific cultural perspective ever since, because this situation was so harrowing for me.

Unfortunately, before I could have this conversation, after one final draft of Younger Brother and Bone Gnawers (which had its own issues, but that is not the point of this discussion), before we received any other specific feedback, the Hunters Entertainment administrators announced to the writing team that Paradox had decided to take the book in-house, and would no longer need our services.

The main point I would like to leave you with, besides these few specific quotes (out of dozens and dozens) that Muammar made that were anti-Indigenous, is that there is often a big call to have more BIPOC voices in various entertainment industries, so that both our stories, perspectives, and unique views on how the universe and life works, can be included; so that an industry that is historically, harmfully Eurocentric, might turn toward new, healthier, and inclusive directions. And I agree with this call for change, but I implore you to consider the conditions that BIPOC creators often have to work under: doing cultural/identity work and consultation for free as part of being present, being subject to vicious refusals of our experiences and perspectives, and straight-up having slurs lodged against our work. I want to see these changes in the industries we love, including the gaming industry, but currently the people who are in charge, who have the most power, are severely hostile to our work and our perspectives. This is why, for example, works like Coyote & Crow were done with an almost entirely Indigenous group of creators, and led by Indigenous creators, because trying to work for and with this ugly, hateful, and xenophobic group of people is so often exhausting, both mentally and spiritually, and because no good changes end up being made.

I am glad the harmful, appropriative terms were removed from the setting. I am glad I was part of the fight to make that real. I am not so glad that I was treated with hostility and racism by Muammar for the effort and love I put into this work, and I am not so glad that I will certainly be reviled by one of the two communities I did this work for–the gaming community, and certainly the people in power in this industry–and I am also not so glad that I didn’t have the opportunity to properly acknowledge how much of Werewolf’s base themes and setting are twisted and tied-up in Indigenous appropriation without giving the proper acknowledgments.

More than anything, I hope that this story will help you, the fans, realize that there is a lot of darkness in these communities, and they won’t change unless you hold their feet to the fire.

Ánaagodzįįhł

J.F. Sambrano

#decolonization #ttrpg #werewolves #writing #world of darkness #werewolf: the apocalypse #werewolf the apocalypse #mage: the ascension #vampire: the masquerade #changeling: the dreaming

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callisteios · 6 months

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hello. I've made another uquiz! it tells you what kind of supernatural creature you are give it a go :)

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bucketsofmonsters · 2 years

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In the Name of Science

cw: voyeurism, mutual masturbation, vaginal penetration, non human genitalia, knotting, size difference, fainting, chronic illness, implied animal death, medical abuse of the monsters

male werewolf x afab reader

word count: 9k

“Have you lost it? Absolutely not!” You snapped at the three scientists in front of you, the anger evident in your voice.

“You will have complete privacy and it’s not like we’re asking you to sleep with him…”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. “Yeah, I certainly hope not! This is so absurd, I cannot believe you’re asking me this.”

You went to storm out of the room when one of the scientists who had sat you down to very gently talk to you grabbed your arm. “Listen, you are the only one he responds to. We wouldn’t ask you this if there was any other way to do it, if we want to study his reproductive system...”

“No! It’s invasive and weird and I’m not doing it! You put him through enough as it is.”

That seemed to spark their interest. “Hold on, are you saying no for his comfort or yours?”

That was a question you weren’t prepared to get into, at least not with three scientists. “It doesn’t matter. Anyways, I have shit to do, can I go now?”

They didn’t want to drop the matter but you were clearly not changing your mind so they let you storm out and go about your day.

You weren’t a scientist. Your job leaned closer to zoo keeper. Someone had to take care of all the monsters that were being studied here and the scientists certainly weren’t doing it.

They weren’t entirely wrong. Most of the creatures here responded better to you than anyone else but in all fairness, you were the one who was feeding them and talking to them, everyone else they saw on a regular basis spent most of their time poking at them and doing tests on them, of course they liked you the most.

With many of your monsters you were friends. You had developed truces of varying strengths with most of them and at the very least, you attempted to understand them. That’s more than most of the people who worked here could say.

They were all sentient, most to human levels, they deserved more respect than just being experiments and you seemed the only one inclined to give them that level of dignity.

Sometimes subjects would mysteriously drop off of your roster, nowhere to be seen. A few weeks later their room would be filled once more. You always prayed they couldn't sense that they weren't the first to live there, that creatures here didn't tend to have particularly long shelf lives. They were going through enough without that fear in them. The most you could do was give them all the dignity and companionship you could. You tried not to think about it too much but it haunted you all the same.

You had a favorite. Everyone knew it, him included. All he had was a number, subject 251. You would never call him that, call any of the subjects by their numbers. You opted instead for pet names and terms of endearment, which none of them seemed to mind.

This one in particular, subject 251, had taken a clear interest in you. That was how they saw it, a sudden and unexplainable attachment to you. You could have told them otherwise if they ever bothered to ask. But that was most of the problem you supposed, they never did.

He’d been an issue when you’d first arrived, the one monster you were warned about over and over again. ‘Be careful with 251.’ The idea of letting anyone get near him was so far from anyone’s minds. You were the newbie so you were given him on your roster.

You understood it. You too would be difficult if you were imprisoned and studied.

You’d given him what you could in terms of privacy and respect. You never tried to push, gave him as much autonomy as you were able to, despite him being a prisoner here. You spoke to him like a person, not an inconvenience or a rabid animal.

Most importantly, when he got angry or lashed out, none of that changed. Human decency was never something he had to earn, no matter how many times he threatened to slash your throat open.

Eventually, he started to talk back. At first you just thought it was because he was lonely, of course he would be when he was stuck in a room by himself, day in and day out. But after a while, it became clear that it wasn’t conversation just for the sake of it.

When more newbies came you refused to give him up, making as much space for him in your day as you could. You knew that he noticed the way you were staying longer and longer but he never called you on it. In fact, one day he asked you to stay.

After that you were inseparable. His attitude hadn’t shifted with anyone else but with you he was perfect. That became a bargaining chip, both of you swearing he’d behave better if you were allowed to give him his food in person, if you were allowed to stay longer, if he could have some little things to make his life easier.

The two of you had formed an alliance and more importantly, a friendship.

A few months ago you’d taken a vacation for a week and had been immediately called back because he’d become unmanageable. From what you’d heard, he almost ripped his temporary handler in half and managed to get halfway out of the facility before they were able to neutralize him.

When you came back you tried to explain to him that he couldn’t be doing this, that sometimes you might leave for a while and he needed to not massacre the staff. He was virulently against it, telling you he needed to keep his eye on you, to make sure you were okay.

No amount of reassurance stopped this instinct and just like that, you became vital personel. In his frenzy to get you back he gave you something else, job security.

That was why you could tell those scientist in no unclear terms to go fuck themseleves. But then again, your relationship with him was the reason they asked you about it at all.

You shook your head, trying to forget your discussion with them. You were glad you were there to shut them down, to be able to provide even a modicum of privacy to at least one of your creatures.

As you pushed the interaction out of your mind in favor of starting your day, you noticed someone you’d never seen before. She was a new keeper, one like yourself. You’d asked to be able to vet new employees but you’d been denied. Despite becoming vital personel, they still didn’t take you seriously.

She seemed nervous but in all fairness to her, it was probably her first day. Most people were a little on edge on the first day on any job, let alone one where you were caring for restless, angry creatures that could kill you in a heartbeat.

You gave her a wave before you picked up the big, metal box off the table, shifting it towards the metal door it was destined for.

“Hiya, what’s your name?” you called as you heaved the box over. Surely there was a less heavy mechanism you could use to deliver dinner, you’d have to pester the scientists about that when you got the chance. Everything in solid metal seemed like a great idea when you were planning but they didn’t have the carry the things.

“Sam,” she said, hurrying over to help you carry the box the last couple of feet before you both dropped it on the floor.

The second it touched the ground, something from inside rammed into the door, sending a crash echoing through the hall. As soon as Sam heard the noise she screamed and went running.

She wouldn’t last a week. The easily spooked ones never did.

This was why you wanted to help with finding new keepers. They never prepared them right, never asked the right questions. People got in with promises that they loved animals and that they were ever so caring as if that was in any way relevant.

What you really needed was to be good with people, really weird nonhuman people, and be very good at conflict resolution. You weren’t caring for lions and zebras, these were intelligent, terrifying creatures. It was hard to know exactly what kind of person would thrive here but it was easy to tell who wouldn’t be able to last.

You banged back on the door as you turned from the hallway Sam had gone running down. “Behave or you're not getting lunch,” you called through the wall and you hoped they’d understand.

You slid the metal box right up to the hatch at the bottom of the door, hooking them together so the room was still airtight, and slid the door of the trap upwards.

The faint sound of a bunny hopping across metal floors hit your ears and you shut both panels, unhooking the box and carrying it away as the creature was left to hunt.

That was mainly what you did, feed them with no contact allowed. They wouldn’t let you inside most of their rooms, you had to fight for the few that you did get to see. For most, you were lucky if you got to see them through a window.

Your favorite part of the day came last. It didn't previously but you’d had to push it to the end of the day lately because you were never sure when you’d be able to leave. He always tried to convince you to stay just a little longer and you rarely had the heart to shut him down, at least not the first time he asked.

Eventually you did always have to leave. You couldn’t stay in the sterile, white room lined with metal forever.

Before the decontamination chamber, there was a big observation room you had to pass through with a window facing into his cell and you could never quite help the massive smile that plastered itself across your face every day when you first laid eyes on him through the glass.

All of the blankets and pillows they’d given him were scrunched up in the corner, a little pile he was often laying on when you came in. Not today though. Today he was waiting by the door and as soon as he spotted you through that window his tail began to wag furiously.

You couldn’t help but giggle, eagerly running through the decontamination room so you could see him.

When you first laid eyes on him on your very first shift, you’d thought he was a werewolf. Most of the creatures here were hard to understand but a few were familiar concepts, things you’d seen the likes of before in movies.

The scientists had scoffed at you, told you he was nothing like a werewolf, he didn’t even have a human form. You still thought the comparison was apt.

He was undeniably wolf-like, covered in silver fur, with pointy ears and a muzzle and a big fluffy tail. There was something undeniably human about him too. He stood on two legs and spoke like a person and there was something in his eyes that felt so familiar.

“Hey buddy, how’re you doing?” you asked as you entered the room and were finally able to properly set eyes on that familiar face.

He couldn’t get too close. You both knew he couldn't or, despite the massive fit he would inevitably throw, they wouldn’t let you come back. You could see him holding himself back every time you came near him, clearly wanting to smother you in affection.

He responded quickly, eager to check in with you. “I’m fine. How are you feeling? Are you alright?”

No matter how many times you told him that you were fine he was always worried.

You brushed him off with a gentle, “I’m alright, like I always am,” while carrying his dinner in.

He mostly ate meat, although he was alright with not eating live animals, unlike many of the other creatures here. That was why you’d been allowed in here at all. No matter how well they got along with you, you were never allowed in the room with any of the active hunters.

It was probably for the best. At least that way they wouldn’t bond with you the way this one had.

You dropped the tray of raw steaks near his pile of blankets, his eyes tracking you as you moved. His head lifted and he sniffed the air.

“Still gotta take care of the others, bud,” you said, preempting the inevitable comment you knew he was going to make about your scent.

He grumbled. You knew he didn’t like it, them getting near you, the way he could smell the others on you, but there wasn’t much you could do about it. No matter how many times you decontaminated yourself, he always seemed to be able to smell it.

He dropped the issue, though you could tell he didn’t want to. Instead, his head fell to the side and he asked, “Are you upset about something?”

You were never sure how he managed to read you so well. He kept telling you it was because you were bonded but you weren’t certain what that meant. He didn’t seem capable of explaining it to you. The concept was just second nature to him and you couldn’t ask any of the scientists about it. Perhaps more accurately, you wouldn’t ask the scientists about it. You weren’t sure if they knew themselves and you’d die before giving them any more information than they already had.

“Did my scent tell you that?” you asked with a smile, trying to brush past it.

He was undeterred. “Did they do something to you?”

You waved off his concerns. “No, don’t worry about it, they just wanted me to do something weird and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“What?”

You had no clue how to explain it to him.

You attempted to put it as tactfully as you possibly could. “They wanted me to… stimulate you. Just visually, I think, from the observation room. They want to study your reproductive system and they think that’s the best way to go about it for whatever reason. It’s super weird, I obviously said no so you don’t need to worry about it.”

“Stimulate me?”

“Like, touch myself or something. I don’t know, I didn’t give them the time of day so I’m a little foggy on the details. Not that it matters, it’s creepy either way.”

“They made you uncomfortable?” You could see him getting angrier.

“No! I meant creepy towards you! It’s invasive. I wouldn’t mind but I’m not the one being observed and documented.” That came out wrong. “Not that I wouldn’t mind!” you quickly added defensively. “That’s not what I meant! Just that I’m not the one who should be made uncomfortable by all this, you know?”

He seemed confused by your words, trying to parse their meaning. You couldn’t blame him, you’d turned into a bit of a mess for a while there. After a long deliberation he finally responded, “I don’t mind either.”

“What?”

“I’m observed either way, this way I get to see you.”

He’d always been direct but this was a bit much, even for him. “Are you saying you want me to do it?”

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“Not really.” Feeling a little shy right now, maybe, but you certainly weren’t uncomfortable.

“Then I want you to do it.”

You weren’t sure what to make of that. You had his permission now, so it was all on you. If you did do it, you certainly wouldn’t be doing it to help out the scientists. So why would you be doing it? Because he wanted you to? Or maybe you felt a tug towards saying yes for more selfish reasons.

“Your face is getting hot,” he noted, ever so helpful.

“Yup, that it is. Well, this has been a fun meeting, I will see you tomorrow bud.”

Now he was upset. “You just got here.”

“I’ll stay extra long tomorrow,” you promised. “I just got a headache and I need to go lie down for a while, I’ll see you later.”

You hadn’t completely been lying. You did have a headache, although that was more the norm these days.

You’d started to feel sick more and more frequently. You were convinced it was this place, with all the creatures and substances here that you knew little to nothing about. Being here so often couldn’t be good for you. You had no other explanation for why you felt so woozy all the time, why you couldn’t quite shake these headaches, why your legs sometimes just gave out on you.

Before you headed home and took a well earned painkiller, you stopped by one of the control rooms that always had a scientist or two milling around inside.

You poked your head in the door and just said, “I’ll do it,” not staying to witness the aftermath.

The next day you were a bundle of nerves. You probably looked like Sam had the day before. You felt like you were floating through your duties, thinking about the end of the day. That morning you’d been pulled aside by the same three scientists and told that today you’d have to slide subject 251’s meal under the door and then you were to stimulate him as best you could from behind the glass.

They’d reassured you dozens of times that there would be no record of your activities. Subject 251 got no such reassurances.

He lit up as he usually did the second he saw you but instead of decontaminating yourself and stepping inside, you slid the plate under the door.

“I can’t come in today,” you said as you walked up to the window, cursing the upset written all over his face.

“Why?” He searched your face, trying to understand. It didn’t take long before it clicked. “Oh. I won’t get near you, I know I’m not allowed to. Or hurt you, if that’s what they’re worried about.”

“I know you won’t, they just don’t trust you when your hormone levels are high. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“So you decided to do it?”

“As long as you're alright with it, I couldn’t see why not.”

You probably should have. Somewhere in you you were aware that most people would see why not, that this would be an insane decision. But the only barrier in your way had been his comfort and he seemed more than comfortable with the idea.

As much as you knew he was the one being investigated, you could help but feel like you were being studied under his unblinking gaze. His eyes refused to move anywhere else, content to just stare at you through the glass as you tried to figure out how to proceed.

You were the one to break the silence. “I’m not really sure how to do this, there isn’t exactly a manual for this sort of thing.”

“What do they want your goal to be?” he prompted you.

“To arouse you.” Those three words were the gist of it, despite the lengthy, boring mission statements you’d been given that morning.

“And what is your goal?”

That one was harder to answer. Maybe you should start writing mission statements for yourself as well. “I’m not sure.”

“But you’re here.”

And so you were.

“What do you want me to do?” Your chest felt tight as you asked, like you couldn’t quite manage to get enough oxygen. You’d meant the question genuinely but it felt like it came out sounding suggestive.

“Can I see you?”

You understood what he meant but you paused anyways. You didn’t know what you were waiting for, you’d made your decision the second you said you’d be here and yet, you still hesitated.

You checked the room for cameras again, making sure there were none. You knew there weren’t any and it honestly felt like you were stalling, trying to give yourself more time to think. Not that you could think properly right now.

He didn’t have the same luxury of knowing that he wasn’t being watched. The cameras pointed away from the window, positioned tactically so they didn’t look through but he was being fully captured, no matter where he stood.

Once you’d taken your moment and given yourself time to think that you hadn’t used, there was nothing left to do. As you started to get undressed, you rushed to take your clothes off. Anything slower felt like teasing and that was the last thing you wanted. You looked back to him when you’d finished pulling them off, not sure what for. You know exactly what he wanted to see next but you wanted to hear him say it.

His eyes roamed over you, they couldn’t seem to get enough, darting across your body.

You felt incredibly warm, despite your lack of clothes and the cold environment.

He was much closer to the glass now, practically pressed against it. You could tell exactly how slow and belabored his breathing was as it fogged the glass in front of you. You couldn’t help but let out a little laugh at the sight, him peering through the newly frosted glass.

His head cocked to the side at the sound. “Are you having fun torturing me?” he asked, his tone playful.

“I’m not torturing you,” you insisted. “You’re the one who wanted me to do this.”

“I said I want to see you.”

You hopped up on a chair, spreading your legs for him as you did. You knew he could see exactly how wet you were.

It was almost embarrassing, all you'd done was strip for him and you were already soaking.

Your onlooker didn’t seem to agree with that assessment, instead pressing up even closer to the glass, pawing at it.

You’d believed him when he said that if you were in there with him he wouldn’t touch you but you didn’t appreciate until now just how hard that probably would have been for him. Maybe the window separating you was a small mercy, although it certainly didn’t feel like that as you dipped your hand slowly down, becoming more comfortable with putting on a show for him, until you reached your center and pressed your fingers inside yourself.

You could see his nostrils flaring, wanting to be able to smell you but unable to.

The tip of his cock poked through his fur. That’s what they’d wanted to see, you supposed the scientists would be pleased.

You couldn’t take your eyes off of it, couldn’t stop imagining it inside you, how strong he was, how effortlessly he could pick you up and thrust inside you, how he’d fill you up so completely. You couldn’t even see the whole thing, much of it hidden within his thick fur, but you could tell it was big.

He wasn’t even touching himself, just staring at you, watching how your lips fell open and your forehead creased when you rubbed over your clit, listening to the little noises you let out despite your attempts to be quiet. You wanted nothing more than to go to him.

“I need to touch you,” he whined, sharing your sentiment.

“We can't, this is all we get.”

He huffed as he fell back, bucking forwards into the air against nothing, his desperation clear. You should be in there, helping him, but instead you were getting off watching him rutt into nothing

“This was a bad idea,” you said, your motions slowing as guilt washed over you.

“Don’t leave,” he pleaded. “Need you, just stay.”

His hand wrapped around his dick and you sped up your motions, set on at least putting on a good show for him.

He was rutting desperately into his hand, his eyes never leaving you. You thrust three fingers inside of yourself and still it didn’t feel like enough.

You were sure he felt much the same way and yet you could see him getting closer to his release.

You watched, entranced, as he came. Thick ropes of cum shot out of him all over the wall and the glass in front of him, his hand still tight around his cock.

As soon as he came you stopped, your fingers pulling out, refusing to come, like some sort of self inflicted punishment. He pushed up against the glass once more as you stopped but there was nothing he could do.

With no better options, you wiped your fingers as best you could on your clothes as you pulled them back on, promising yourself you’d wash them as soon as you left.

You rushed out before you had the chance to talk and regretted the decision the whole night. It had seemed like the easier option at the time, to not have to talk about it when all your conflicting feelings were swirling but now you just wished you’d gotten the chance to confirm that you hadn’t messed anything up.

The end of the day couldn’t come fast enough. You did your best to not rush through your duties, knowing exactly how costly a mistake could be in this place.

Finally, the time arrived and you were back in that observation room again. This time you mercifully were able to enter, no longer stuck behind that damn window.

He seemed as composed as ever and you got the feeling that he hadn’t been worrying the way you had. The thumping of his tail behind him gave away his excitement, as it always did, but you detected no signs of nervousness.

He studied you as you came in. “Something’s wrong,” he noted.

He always understood how you were feeling, he had some sort of sixth sense about it, but this time you were fairly certain that you weren’t difficult to read. You were sure you looked as worried as you felt. “Was it weird?” you asked, needing an answer as quickly as possible. “Please tell me I didn’t mess anything up between us.”

His head fell to the side. “Why would it be weird?”

“I don’t know, I think I feel like I helped them observe you.”

“They’re already observing me, why would it ruin our bond? Did you not want to?”

“No, just wanted to make sure I didn’t break anything.”

“You’re fine, we’re still intact.” He said it so plainly, like he was stating a fact.

It all seemed to come so easily to him, his biggest problem was being locked up in this place. Much of what he did seemed like it was based on instinct. There was less thinking required that way, it seemed nice.

He did, however, seem concerned about something. “You didn’t finish.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden change in topic. “That wasn’t really the point.”

“That’s always the point, making each other feel good. That’s what mates do.”

You mulled the word over in your head. Mates. Is that what he meant when he talked about your bond? Is that what you were? It didn’t feel right, like it couldn’t be a title that belonged to you. Surely you hadn’t earned that as you kept him here, trapped against his will.

“What does that mean to you? Being mates?” you asked.

You were afraid of giving intel to the scientists running this place but you wanted so badly to understand what that word meant to him, what you meant to him.

As he spoke you started to feel woozy and your ever-present headache worsened. You leaned on the wall beside you as you tried to focus on his words. He reached out his arm to help you before quickly withdrawing it, remembering that he wasn't allowed to touch you or he could lose you.

The dizziness got worse, despite your attempt to take some of the strain on your legs and you went to sit on the floor. You went down faster than you’d intended, your legs giving way underneath you as the headache overtook you and you hit the floor hard.

When you woke up, your back was pressed to the wall and you were sitting on top of some blankets. The pile of blankets in the corner of the room, to be more specific. You were fairly sure you’d passed out across the room and you couldn’t help but wonder how you’d gotten over here.

As you cracked your eyes open, you saw subject 251 standing over you defensively. The food you’d brought him was still sitting at the end of the makeshift bed, completely untouched. That was odd, he normally ate it right after you left. Although, you supposed, you hadn’t quite managed to leave yet. Nonetheless, it did feel like a significant chunk of time had passed.

“Hey,” you said, your voice low and wavering from your bout of unconsciousness. “You keeping me safe, big guy?”

A rumble came from deep in his throat as he continued to stand over you protectively.

“What time is it,” you asked, trying to gather your bearings.

“You’ve been out for a few hours,” he informed you. “They’ve been trying to get to you.”

Shit. Of course they had. You’d passed out next to what they considered to be one of their most dangerous creatures, of course they’d been trying to get to you, to get you out of there.

As you tried to get up with a groan, he settled down next to you, pulling you back towards the blankets. You didn't try to fight him, knowing you didn’t have the strength to get up right now. You needed rest more than anything.

You quickly realized as you felt his warm fur next to you that this was the first time the two of you had ever touched one another.

He’d always been good at following your rules, even if he wasn’t particularly fond of the scientists, and thus he’s always kept his distance, just as you’d informed him he had to.

But now, after you’d collapsed, vulnerable, in front of him, you appeared to have found his limit in regards to following the rules.

The beep of the intercom sounded and you heard a monotone voice fill the room. “We understand this is a delicate situation and we trust your instincts on the matter, if you need any kind of aid we have teams ready to go. Our first priority is your safety, do you have a way out of the enclosure?”

Your safety? After a moment it hit you what they were implying.

“Don’t worry about me,” you called out. “I’m fine. If anything's going to kill me it’s whatever this damn lab has done to me, not this guy.”

The intercom beeped off but you knew they were still listening.

His gaze immediately turned to you, his face questioning. “What did you say? Is being here killing you?” he asked, his voice soft and measured.

You’d avoided mentioning it for so long, not wanting to worry him, but now you didn’t really have a choice. “I don’t think this place is good for me bud. To be honest if it weren’t for you I probably would have left ages ago but I just can’t stomach the idea of leaving you here alone.”

His head cocked to the side. “It’s… hurting you?”

A wry chuckle escaped you. “Well, something certainly is. People don’t typically faint for no reason.”

“Why are you here if it hurts you?”

“I can’t leave you behind, it’d break my heart.”

“You’re hurt because of me.”

“No!” you immediately replied, refusing to let him blame himself. “That’s not it, I want to stay.”

“But it hurts?”

“But it hurts,” you conceded.

You couldn’t stand to look at those sad eyes, opting instead to shut yours and snuggle into his warm side. “Listen, we can talk about this some other time, okay? Right now I’m just going to enjoy this.”

He nuzzled right back into you, immediately giving in to your actions. “Little mate.” he purred, curling around you protectively.

You didn’t have the heart to correct him. And maybe it wasn’t just for his sake. Maybe now, curled up, feeling safe and warm, you wanted to pretend you really were his little mate too.

You woke up to the sound of the intercom going off once again.

“He called you his mate,” it stated. “This isn’t an ideal scenario but we don’t know much about mates and you’re already in there and anything you might do would be extremely advantageous to our research.”

You groaned in annoyance as you leaned back into your warm, living blanket. His ears perked up as he tried to understand what they were saying. He looked to you for clarification. You were often the translator between them, the scientists always speaking in stilted language and hidden meanings that many of your creatures had a hard time parsing.

“They want me to have sex with you,” you clarified and immediately he hunched further over you.

“I won't let them see my little mate like that, no. Absolutely not, no no no.” The mere idea immediately worked him into a little frenzy, leaving him muttering to himself as he tried to shield you from the cameras.

Your hand rose to caress his face and he leaned into your touch, calming down again. It didn’t take long before he fell back into place, curling around you once more.

Being able to touch you seemed to bring out a whole other side to him. You’d never seen him this affectionate or possessive, something seemed to have been set off in him that hadn’t been before.

Something had changed within you as well. The idea of having to return to the way things were before made you feel sick, you wanted to be able to hold him and comfort him like this all the time. Now you knew what you were missing as you stood away from each other, unable to get close.

Even breaking the rules as you were, it couldn’t last forever. Eventually you could no longer ignore your growling stomach and you convinced him that you needed to leave, that you’d be back tomorrow.

He told you not to come.

Your heartbreak barely had the chance to set in before he was quickly elaborating, telling you again and again that he didn’t want you to stay if it was hurting you.

You brushed him off, at least that time.

A few weeks later, it was your last day of work you’d ever attend. Ever since that day when you’d fainted and subject 251 had stood guard over you, he’d been insistent upon you leaving. It was quite a change from the norm, he went from being the reason you were guaranteed a job here, why you didn’t want to leave and go home in the evenings, to being the thing pushing you out. You could tell it was eating him alive, the thought that you staying was hurting you. He was obsessively insistent that you leave and get yourself to safety.

You’d never been good at saying no to that face.

So, after agonizing over the decision, awash with guilt, you turned in your two weeks notice.

You were selfish about it. You didn’t tell him for a while, wanting to pretend that everything was fine for just a bit longer.

You let it go on longer than you should have.

It was your last day here, the last time you’d ever see him, and he had no idea.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t cry, for his sake more than yours, but you kept finding yourself tearing up no matter how hard you tried.

As you opened the door to the observation room and headed through decontamination, your stomach dropped.

He wasn’t excited this time.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked down at you, not asking if something was wrong as you’d become so accustomed to him doing. He didn’t have to

You didn’t speak for fear of immediately bursting into tears and eventually he spoke for the both of you.

“You aren’t coming back.”

You buried your face in your hands, trying to make sure he didn’t see you like this. You wanted his last memory of you to be better than this, to give him something more solid to hold onto.

The best you could manage was poorly stifled tears.

All you wanted was to hug him. To lurch forwards and wrap your arms around him and never let go.

But you couldn’t. If you did, you weren’t the one who would be punished. You couldn’t do that to him.

You spent the rest of the day just sitting there, existing in one another’s presence. Trying to soak one another in before it was too late.

You didn’t speak. There was little to say that wasn’t understood between you. You finally got it, that last day. You felt the pull of his grief on the other end of your bond, something connecting you.

You weren’t sure if it was something undefinable and otherworldly or just complete understanding of one another but either way, it was real.

As you stood up to leave you searched for something, anything you could say to make all of this right.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” you asked. It was the most important thing in the world to you right now, you just needed to make sure.

“Of course I do.”

And then you left your mate behind.

Nothing felt real after that. You knew you couldn't stay there but the idea of there being an after hadn’t really occurred to you.

What were you supposed to do now? Just live knowing he was out there, alone? You couldn’t make sense of anything, the whole world seemed muted and suffocating.

An alarm blared suddenly overhead, making you jump. It wasn’t an uncommon experience. Most of the creatures here were difficult to hold, whether it was because of inhuman strength or an unusual viscosity or any other number of oddities they held. It wasn’t your problem anymore, you thought as you gathered your things, trying to get near an exit so as soon as the lockdown cut out you’d be able to leave.

You wanted to get home and wallow, to mourn the loss of this place, of your friend.

You were more careless than you should have been. Normally you were tactful and moved with intention but not this time, this time you just wanted to get out. That was your mistake.

Something massive and vaguely reptilian came smashing around the corner, immediately setting its sights on you. You could tell it was in a frenzy, that it was out for blood after breaking out of its hellscape of a prison.

You couldn’t blame it, even as it came barreling towards you to rip it in two. It wasn’t the creature's fault, you wouldn’t blame it.

It never made it all the way down the hallway. Instead its scaly feet came to a screeching halt as a wall of fur blocked its path, growling at the creature. It clearly didn’t want to test its luck and went barrelling down the hallway in the other direction, looking for easier prey to take out its wrath on.

Subject 251 turned and made eye contact with you, looking uncertain. He used to break out frequently, he’d taken out plenty of humans when he had, but since you’d formed your little truce he’d stayed put for you.

You wondered if his breakout this time had been because he could somehow sense you were in danger or because you were leaving and he no longer had anything to keep him where he was.

It didn’t matter. At the end of the day there he was, in front of you. You had a decision to make. One look at that big, eager face and you instantly knew it wouldn’t be a hard one.

You reached out towards him and he instantly came to you.

As many times as there were breakouts, the creatures rarely made it outside the facility but then again, they also rarely had the facility’s star employee at their side with nothing to lose.

“I think I can get you out, do you want to go?” Your words were frantic. You needed to move quickly if you wanted to have any chance to get out of there.

He didn’t even have to think about his response, nodding eagerly and trailing behind you the second you took off.

The alarms were still blaring overhead, screeching and causing your ears to ring. You knew exactly which doors would have the least guarding, especially in the middle of a breakout.

You knew all the override codes and quickly ushered him through doors that otherwise would have been deadlocked.

As you headed out the last doorway you ran straight into a scientist, one you’d seen in passing before.

He was clearly already panicked from the breakout, the sight of a massive werewolf standing behind you was probably not helping matters.

“You’re going to want to let us through,” you informed him.

Behind you, the monster that they’d kept imprisoned for so many years snarled and the man looked like he might drop dead from fear, quickly sidling up to the wall and getting as far out of your way as possible.

You’d never been so grateful that you lived a short walk from the lab. You had no idea how you would have gotten the two of you home if you’d needed to drive. Eventually it would prove to be a problem, when they inevitably came for him, but that was an issue for another day.

He ducked his head to get inside, taking in your home before quickly moving towards your bed and stripping it of all its blankets, instead opting to make a little nest out of them on your floor.

You couldn’t bring yourself to stop him. You could give up your bed for a little while, he’d more than earned some comfort after everything he’d been put through.

Before you even realized what was happening, you were being pulled into the small pile of pillows and blankets beside him.

The warm comfort of him by your side was more than welcome. You’d been dreading the idea of coming home to a cold, lonely house all day, knowing you’d lost your best friend. Your mate.

Having him here was all you could ever ask for.

“They’re going to come after you, you know,” you informed him, the thought endlessly circling your mind, refusing to die down.

He seemed to misunderstand your concern for him as worry for your own safety as he pulled you into his side protectively. “I won’t let them get you.”

You quickly succumbed to the closeness, cuddling into him in the little nest. “As long as you don’t let them get you either.”

You felt a rumble run through his chest and you couldn’t tell if it was in acknowledgement of your words or if he was amused that you thought you even had to ask.

He started rearranging the blankets around you, making sure you were comfortable before fully setting in, manhandling you around as he sorted things out. Finally, as he settled, you ended up basically in his lap.

Then you felt his tongue lap over your shoulder, him readjusting you to best be able to lick you.

“What’re you doing?” you asked with a giggle, partly at the situation and partly because he was tickling you.

“Grooming you,” he said before getting back to work, his tongue slowly lapping over your arm.

You let him carry on with his work, trying your best not to focus on it. He was just trying to clean you, it wasn’t a big deal.

Still, the endless sensation of his tongue roving your body sent sparks of arousal through you.

You heard him sniff the air and your face immediately warmed, knowing you’d been caught.

“Couldn’t smell it through the glass,” he said, nose burying itself in your hair, as if he couldn’t get close enough to you and your scent.

“Couldn’t feel you through the glass either,” you murmured, pushing back into him.

He started slowly pulling your clothes off but the grooming didn’t cease. He needed more skin to skin contact, removing the inconvenient barriers in his way. He worked slowly, drawing this out as long as possible. You could only guess he was attempting to torture you. His tongue was pressed against your bare skin, roving leisurely across your newly exposed chest and stomach. You could feel his hardening dick start to poke into you but he just kept licking.

Eventually you grew impatient, your hand wandering down to grab his cock. It was hot and bigger than you thought it would be, its size disguised by his thick fur. He thrusted into your hand, a whine escaping him.

Your impatience proved to be a success as he wrapped his hands around your waist and lifted you. His hands almost completely encircled your midsection as he moved you effortlessly over his dick.

His claws were digging into your sides as he positioned you, looking to you for permission.

You nodded and you felt the tip of his dick press against you as he pushed you down onto it. He moved slowly, giving you time to adjust as he pressed into you, stretching you open.

Finally, you felt your thighs meet his fur, straddling his waist with his hands still wrapped around you.

He was everything your fingers could never be. You’d never felt so full and beautifully stretched in your life.

You attempted to ride him, lifting up as best you could, but he was too big, it was too difficult to do. It didn’t take long for him to pull you back down anyways, his hands never straying from your sides.

“It's my turn this time. And I promise you, this time you will come.”

He lifted you once more, thrusting you swiftly back down. You could see the bump it caused in your lower stomach when he thrusted all the way in. You barely had time to look at it before you were being lifted once more.

“Touch yourself,” he said, his movements never faltering.

You shifted to rub your clit as best you could as he pumped you up and down his shaft, using you like a toy. You had no control over the pace, being moved at his whim.

The loss of control was exhilarating. The sharp movements inside you touched places you hadn’t even known existed, places you’d never be able to reach on your own.

He was dead focused on you, intent on keeping his promise. Every time he did anything that drew a pleasured cry from you he’d chase after it, finding everything that made you tick.

“Let go for me, please,” he said, thrusting incessantly into you at the perfect angle, everything rapidly becoming overwhelming. Part of you wanted to stop touching yourself to lessen some of the all consuming stimulus but more of you wanted to be good for him, to do everything he asked.

You were too far gone to respond to his plea, your head thrown back as all the pent up energy that you’d been ignoring for so long was released. He pumped you up and down his shaft as you touched yourself, guiding you through your orgasm.

As you came down from your high, your eyes opened to meet his watching your face intently.

“Can you keep going?” he asked, holding you up so only the tip of his throbbing dick was inside you.

“Please, I need you, want you to come,” you begged.

He mercilessly thrusted you down again, now only concerned with his own pleasure. He chased his orgasm and you completely surrendered control, letting him move you as he pleased, do whatever he needed to in order to come.

“You’re so soft, so tight, so perfect.” He started rambling, sounding like he barely knew he was speaking. “Wanted this for so long, to touch you. Dreamed about this.”

“Me too,” you gasped out, his pace still relentless. “I wanted you so badly.”

His breaths were coming faster and faster and he quickly asked, “Where should I…”

You didn’t even let him finish. “Inside”

He buried himself fully inside and you could feel the base of it swelling just inside your entrance, holding you two together as he filled you. He whined and grunted and held you as close as he could as the sticky fluid flooded your insides

“You’re going to be stuck like this for a while,” he said as he came down, still cradling you close to him and almost sounding sheepish.

“Good, I like how you fill me up.”

The words pulled a soft, instinctual thrust from him and you both whined at how sensitive you were.

“Stop flirting,” he hissed into your hair, hands resting on your hips, keeping the both of you from moving.

“For now,” you conceded.

“Thank you,” he said, his hands roving over your form, claws lightly being drawn over your skin, raising goosebumps in their wake.

“For what?”

“For everything. For saving me.”

“The breakout was mostly you bud, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

His grip on you tightened, like he was afraid you’d slip through his fingers despite the fact that you were tied together and you couldn’t go anywhere even if you wanted to.

But of course you didn’t want to. If you had anything to say about it, you wouldn’t be leaving him for a long long time.

You didn’t know how you were going to move forwards, where you’d take him, how any of this would play out. Maybe they wouldn’t want to chase him down, it being a hazard to try and catch a creature that had been such an issue even when they were holding him in their specialized facility. Maybe it’d take years for them to give up. Maybe they’d never stop chasing him and you’d have to keep running and fighting for the rest of your lives. Maybe they’d catch you and all this work would have been for nothing.

But it wasn’t nothing, you thought, wrapped up in his arms in the little nest of blankets he’d built for you on your floor, no looming goodbyes or rules against touching, no more being alone. Whatever happened, it was already worth it.

#terato #terato writing #monster x reader #werewolf x reader #monster bf #monster boyfriend #monster x human #werewolf x human #werewolf boyfriend #werewolf bf #I almost made this angsty but I didn't have the heart for it #my writing is guaranteed happy endings bc I'm a big sap #I keep writing werewolves that are just like perma werewolves with no human form #and I always feel weird calling them werewolves but idk what else to call them lol #werewolf-adjacent monster

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lewiscarrolatemybrain · 9 months

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The fact that werewolves are the absolute perfect allegory for feminine rage and being queer and trans and disabled but every goddamn werewolf movie is somehow the blandest cis straight white dude grimdark angst mcmanpain bullshit ever should be classified as some kind of hate crime

#writing #writeblr #werewolves #ginger snaps was good if you don't mind B Movies #but like. That's it #teenwolf was okay for the first couple seasons #but it wasn't revolutionary or anything #I literally can't think of a single other piece of werewolf media #that I actually enjoyed or resonated with #this post is actually a distress signal I think please rec me your best werewolf stuff

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theres-a-body-here · 4 months

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You, barging through the front door: "Babe, you're gonna flip when you hear what happened today"

Your dumbass werewolf boyfriend before you can even say anything else:

#werewolves #werewolves x reader #werewolf #werewolf x reader #monsterfucker #terato writing #teratophillia #monster x reader #monster x human #werewolf boyfriend #monster boyfriend

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running-with-kn1ves · 26 days

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cw: borderline nsfw, werewolf tings, tit sucking

Im thinking... sinfully perverted thoughts. Sucking on your werewolf boyfriend's big ol' tits. It started out simple-- he was just a moving pillow, chest so soft and pliable with a curved body that could practically envelop you with its warmth and softness.

When you laid on him at the end of each tough day, buried your face in between his pecks to avoid the sun's wrath in the morning, watching him stroll around with bedhead and no shirt as a tooth brush hangs from his mouth-- they all lead up to your depraved obsession. You joked with him at first, grabbing his chest from behind and using him as a stressball, saying you'd have to start buying bras for him to cover those D-cups. But a heavy makeout session can make you do things without a forethought.

Such as, leaving a trail of love bites below his collar bone, hickieing below his right nipple, latching on as if it was the most natural continuation. A slight "ah-" leaves his bitten lips. But you continue like nothing, letting him put a clawed hand against the back of your head, trying to pull you back to his lips. It was his fault for being fresh out the shower, shirtless and wet hair calling you to run your hands through. You had kissed your way up to his other peck before you were dragged into a mouth of sharp, throat-cutting teeth.

"Such a weirdo," he mumbled, massaging the hickie you left on his sensitive bud. But it wasn't long before you found you way back to the untouched left peck, straddling his waist after a dry hump session he initiated into you from below. It was only a few more weeks until rut season, you were treading dangerous waters getting him worked up like this with no release.

But like an addict you ran to his free nipple, ignoring the werewolf's desperate attempts to shimmy off his sweatpants. The once wet strands sticking to his forehead from the shower, now sheened with sweat. Tongue circling, small rubs just below his belly button, you were creating a mess of drool and embarrassment below you.

"Why you keep doin' that.. feels weird.." He gruffs, almost bucking into your palm when your hand reaches his upper thigh. "Can't you suck a little lower." He laughs with a short palming of his crotch, wishing the stiffness below his lazy cotton sweatpants was what you were obsessed with keeping your mouth on.

But your boyfriend realizes you won't let up, not when his tanned, enlargened chest muscle popped in your mouth like a sweet treat. Shiny eyes looking up at him with mischief, watching him pant with an open mouth and a wince everytime you pinched his free nipple. He might've not enjoyed it as much as you did, but the slowly inching fingers below grey fabric and his boxer-less hips was more than enough to make up for your teasing.

You relished in his groans, bulged biceps curling to grab a pillow to shove over his face. He practically bounced into your hand, squeaking when your teeth bit at his nipple, bite marks on the side of his breast. It was freeing, having the ability to pay him back for all the wolfy slobbering and harsh teeth sinking he did when the full moon rose. And you didn't feel bad one bit-- in fact, you should've taken up this tit obsession sooner.

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wil-dearest · 6 months

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Anonymous asked: HeyI wwas wondering if you could do a Wolf! Wilbur x fem!reader? Like Wilbur gets into heat and begs reader to let him fuck them, humping at their leg until reader let's them and then Wilbur fucks Reader endless and then eventually knots them?

yeah why not. here.

trigger warning: dubcon because its a heat and not previously discussed. oblivious reader is left in the dark about wilbur's wolfishness and heats and shit. so. yeah. 18+

(Room)Mates

It's always a simple thing, come home, greet your roommate with lots of hugs and promises of conversations and things would go as smooth as butter. You didn't mind the arrangement, especially with the way he explained it. (Growing up, he had probably the most loving, physically affectionate family in the area. And you didn't mind a pretty boy asking for physical contact all the time. You're probably touch-starved but we won't delve too deep into it.) So this particular night, you had been out a little later, distracted by the dogs outside of your work, they wouldn't move even if you had extra treats in your bag. Not even for your cold lunch.

You admire the dedication but it still set your schedule back by an hour, not to mention, this would be the first time in a week you'd see Wilbur. He had called it a family emergency but his car hasn't let and you could hear noises in his room. Banging on the walls and heavy stuff dropping onto the floor. You'd be concerned if it continued when you were home. It was only ever when you were close to sleeping.

So, as the touch-starved human you are, you were excited to see your roommate, excited to see his fluffy brown hair fall into his eyes and excited to him laugh at your day. He was going to love this cheesy joke you overheard, you bite down on your smile, fishing for your keys in your bag.

Sliding the key into the door and jiggling it within the metal, you push your weight into it with your shoulder. It opens with a creak of resistance, swinging only a little bit as you stumble.

His car had been in the same spot as it had been but you could see that bedroom door was open. "Ah, sorry I'm late Wilbur, you should've seen it, the strays at work are getting bad again. And they're stubborn, wouldn't even move for the wrap I had. And you know where I get my wraps, from that little place next door so you know they were feeling spiteful from last spring." You speak in rambles, setting down your things by the coffee table and cracking your spine as you relax. You talk into the air, as if you weren't about to talk to him for the first time in a week. You hear padded footsteps and you can feel the heat radiating off of him as he gets closer and closer to you in the kitchen. You paid him no mind, already aware of how clingy he can get but when you reach into the cabinet above your head, you feel his body slide against yours, his crotch grounding against your ass as you lean onto your heels. It's an entire body reaction— from the curse words that fall from your mouth, you pushing him away and him whining.

"Fucking hell, what the fuck is going on, Wilbur?" The words fall from your mouth faster than you can think and he's just too much— too warm, too close, and too sweaty, what the fuck— the lower part of your back meets the counter and he slots his leg in between yours, rocking his hips and- fuck, he's so hard, he's fucking hard and he's fucking humping your leg. Clearing your head of the panic, you can hear him babbling, see the drool falling from the corners of his lips. "Need- need you so bad, heart, need t'be inside you, s'hot right now, you're so hot." And of course, he kept repeating about how he needed to knot you, how he just needed to breed you and make you so full of his pups. "Smell- you smell so good-" he moans into the air as he digs his nose into your hair.

How is this shit— whatever the fuck is going on with Wilbur, how is it so hot?

"Wilbur, look at me." You say, pinching his cheeks together where his lips purse and the drool spills onto your wrist, you can't even hold back the grimace, "what's going on with you?"

"S'sooooo warm, need- hah, need to fuck you full with my pups, please I'll be so good for you," his hips start rocking against your leg again and you can only shudder as his words slip under your skin and warm your insides. "Please let me fuck you, please please, just the tip, just the tip and I'll leave you alone, please baby, please, I need you- need you so bad, fuck you're so so-fffttttttt, fuck, please-" you slap a hand onto his mouth, your face burning except it doesn't do much, his moan vibrates through your hand and he starts to lick the salt off of your palm and in between the crevices in your fingers.

"God, Wilbur, you're a fucking- mess." You say as you push his head away and it just rolls on his neck, tears bubbling in his eyes as his mouth is still dropped open. He sinks to his knees, still grinding his crotch against your leg and it's so different to the Wilbur you know. (Well, he's still clingy and touchy as ever but he's so fucking horny right now, like- shit.) You wonder if somebody did something, like poison him with a sex thing or if he's sick or if he just... really missed you. Yeah, hard pass on the last bit.

His head leans against your thigh, inhaling so deeply and you realize a little too late that his nose is close to where your own pelvis is, close to your crotch. And before you can stop him, he starts licking at your cunt through your pants. Your mouth drops open into a gasp, sparks of pleasure running through your spine as you accidentally widen your stance, his hands coming to grip your sides, your thighs and squeezing, feeling your skin as he pushes your top up. His touch burns hot.

His tongue is all you can focus on for the next minute as he continues to lick, your hands burying themselves in his hair. And when you clench a chunk of hair in your fists, your hips twitching as they rock against his mouth, you can only let out a sharp whine yourself, his own moans vibrating against the fabric. The pants get so wet, you're almost concerned if he hadn't already started pulling them down. Your thighs are hit with the apartment's air conditioner breeze and you push his face back, even as he whimpers, pressing his cheek to your naked leg. ("Soft.. so fucking soft." You can barely hear him mutter.)

"Wilbur," you say, and he looks up at you with those big eyes, his mouth dropped open with his tongue dragging itself up your thigh, coating your skin with a wet warmth. "Wilbur, promise me this won't change anything." His fingers tighten themselves over your skin and he nods fast, words dripping from his lips with promises to be good, good for you and to you.

"Love you so much, god, you're so perfect, you're so warm. So, so warm." He repeats himself, hips rocking again.

You swallow the dread and you tell yourself, things will be okay. Things will go back to normal. Things will be simple again. Wilbur will go back to being your overly affectionate roommate and none of this will mean anything.

Which means you definitely can't fuck him in your bed.

"C'mon then. Your room." He stands up so quick, pulling on your hands and guiding you to the room at the end of the apartment. Even when you start tripping from the pants still around your knees, though he just pulls them down so you can step out of them... where he picks you up with strength you don't know where the fuck it came from just how he presses you against the wall next to the door and moans into your mouth, kissing you and licking your teeth and pressing himself closer and closer.

It's a blur of wet and burning and hot and fuck- but you know the second he's inside you, you feel the stars in your blood, you feel something that's much bigger than you or him, bigger than this apartment or the complex. Maybe that's just how sex is. (How sex is when your bed-mate is someone completely, insanely hot and probably has the sex version of rabies.) He covers your skin in marks, biting them and pistoning his cock inside of your cunt, listening to your needs. Moving as fast as you needed him and and as slow as you needed.

Time continued, and you had to estimate it'd been an hour or so after you let him first test the waters; let him stroke the tip of his cock between your lips and watching as he cried into your hands, kissing his tears away, you did. Because he's a big sap and you're nothing but a good for nothing roommate (-that's in love with him.)

He's not any softer than before, he's still so- so hard. Despite coming twice on your stomach twice (and cleaning his mess every time) he's still so fucking hard it makes it hard to think with how far his cock sinks inside of you.

You know at some point, after it hits the second hour and he's still brutally pounding your cunt to shreds, you feel something twitch the base of his dick. You can hardly speak though, with how you screamed his name into his pillow... soaking the pillowcase with your own spit and gripping it hard as he fucks you again and again. You notice the twitch and it's only when he picks the pace up again, moaning into your shoulder and biting so hard you think the skin breaks, you can feel a stretch happening, something big itching to bury itself into your cunt. You gasp, the sound a scratchy thing as it pops inside, tears falling fast down your cheeks as he is locked inside of you, with his chest against your back and he's mumbling sweet things, promises to fill you up and promises to make you feel good again, promises and more promises.

You can hardly focus as it quickly became too much, your sobbing buries itself into his hand as you lean into his touch, trying to count down from any number but nothing is fucking working.

"Wilbur- what- what the fuck is happening, Wilbur?"

Something between a sob and a moan escapes his own mouth as he leans closer to your ear, "I just- fuck. I just knotted you. It'll- it'll go down in a second. Try not to ah, ah- move." His hand pins your hip down, despite being the only one trying to move. "So, so beautiful." He murmurs and you just let it soak, let the attention and the harsh fucking sink into your skin. There is so much to process. So much to sift through.

That's a tomorrow's problem... and you should probably call in tomorrow.

#spencer writes #wilbur soot smut #dark content #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur soot x y/n #wilbur soot x you #werewolves #tw knotting #tw dubcon #tw dark content

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whereserpentswalk · 7 months

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#poll #196 #fantasy #urban fantasy #writing #werewolves #werewolf #vampires #vampire #dragon #dragons #fey #faries #quest #wizard #robot #cyborg #alien

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the-likeable-wizard-mack · 10 months

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trumpkinhotboy · 9 months

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“I’ll keep an eye on you”

Pairing: Jacob Black x Reader

Type: Not requested

Genre: A bit spooky, but mostly fluffy and comforting vibes

Warnings: Mention of blood and being chased after (but nothing too intense)

Rating: g

Word count: ~ 2K

Requests: Open! For Twilight wolfpack, Narnia and Harry Potter

A/n: Honestly, I’m really excited about this fic. I think it’s very sweet and comforting :3 My brain is bubbling with so many ideas lately so expect new pieces from me in the close future hehe. Also if you have any requests feel free to message me!!

I recommend listening to a Twilight Comfort playlist while reading this. Hope you enjoyy <33

*gif is not mine!!

Summary: After the reader survives an encounter with a vampire, they are still haunted by the memories of it. Luckily, they have a caring and protective friend who is always ready to ensure they feel safe and cared for, even in the middle of the night.

Wrong place, wrong time.

You squeeze your eyes shut, hoping to erase the terrible images invading your brain. For a week now, they have been omnipresent, taking up all the space in your mind. They are the center and focal point of your thoughts for days on end. As you open them again, your vision adjusts to the darkness just enough for your gaze to fall on a strange form crouched in the corner of your bedroom. You could swear it’s alive. Swear it’s stalking you.

You jump out of your bed to turn your nightlamp on. Your heart feels like it might spring out of your chest of its own accord. Your breath is short, and for a moment, you think you’ll never be able to take one that will actually get air in your system.

The menacing form in the corner turned out to be a pile of dirty clothes, but you knew that. Since that day, you feel irrational and paranoid. Everything feels like a threat, and you are now constantly looking over your shoulder, paying close attention to any suspicious sound or absence of it. You’ve talked about it with Harry Clearwater when you unexpectedly met at the Reservation one day. You did not hear him coming, and he had set his heavy hand on your shoulder to get your attention. Which resulted in a glass shattering scream for you and a bad fright for the poor man. As he invited you in for a calming cup of tea, you unloaded the weight on your shoulder to him. It felt good to talk about it, knowing you could never do so with your dad and your friends. He assured you that it unfortunately was a very normal reaction from your nervous system. You had faced the world's most dangerous predator and had survived it without a single scratch. Of course it would take some time for your traumatized brain to go back to normal. You could never take credit for the fact that you even had a chance to go back to normal, and would never attempt to do so. Knowing very well that without Paul, Jared, and Embry’s arrival, you would not have lived to talk about this encounter.

When you focus and let your mind drift off, you can live the event again, as if you were back in time. The paralyzing fear, the blood in your veins feeling like icy water. There was nothing to be done against a creature like that. You remember the horror you felt as everything became silent around you. You were headed to Emily's cabin, a simple, straightforward walk through the woods. The birds suddenly stopped singing, even the soft wind had died down. The forest knew it was in the presence of something truly horrible and had seemed to hold its breath, along with every creature. The color of its eyes was like in every legend you had been told; crimson red, like fresh blood. Not one ounce of humanity in those orbs, just a bottomless pit of cruelty and hunger. The worst thing was the pull you remember feeling for a split second toward that monster. You knew it was its sole purpose, but felt embarrassed you had fallen for it. Shivers crawled down your spine as you recalled its ethereal and hypnotizing appearance. It’s like you can hear again the faint swooshing sound it made as it sprang towards you. You remember sending out a quick prayer to literally any entity who would be listening right now, but the blow never came. Next thing you knew, three giant beasts tackled it to the ground, gnarling and dismembering it in a matter of seconds.

You open your eyes and shake your head to try and physically get those horrible memories outside of your skull. You lay back in bed, anxiously watching every corner of your room for some sign of danger. You left the light open, you knew there was no chance you could fall asleep without it. You tucked yourself back in bed and tried to calm your breathing. You tried every technique you knew, hoping sleep would grace you with its embrace, but nothing worked.

You look back at the clock after a while. 1:15 am. It was too late for you to get out of bed, and morning was still so far away. You had school the next day and knew that if you spent one more night without sleeping, you wouldn’t be able to explain to your teachers why you dozed off again in their class without them calling your father.

In a last effort, you tried thinking about reassuring and comforting things. Curiously enough, one kept coming back to mind. A giant wolf, its fur a multitude of shades of brown and red. Its eyes were sweet and reassuring, containing a particular warmth. You looked at your phone, hesitating, but remembered his voice: “If there’s absolutely anything, call me okay?”

And so you did.

Twenty minutes later, you got a text. You quietly walked to your window, glad to see Jacob’s familiar shape outside your house. He was standing next to a tree, representing for once a friendly and reassuring shadow in the night.

He spoke quietly. “Having trouble sleeping?”

You nodded, a bit ashamed to admit such an infantile fear. Although, deep inside, you knew there was nothing childish about being afraid of the monster you had been warned about as a child, once you had come face to face with it.

“Are you sure you want to do this? I'd totally understand if you'd rather not stay. I mean it's late and you need to sleep. I don't know what I was thinking…”

“Don't be ridiculous." he cut you off. "I’m already here. And once you’ve been asleep for a long time, I’ll go home and catch up on my beauty sleep, okay?”

You knew it wouldn’t take much convincing from him, there was no point in lying. You needed him. You needed the reassurance and sense of security he always brought you.

"If you're sure then… but Jake. You won't leave too soon uh?"

You heard his low chuckle in the distance.

“I promise.”

You slowly and quietly closed your window. The last thing you would want is for your father to wake up and see Jacob standing below your window. You looked back outside, only to see a giant russet wolf had replaced your tall friend. He was standing under the covers of the woods. Forks was a tranquil little city, but you could never be too careful. He gave you a quick nod, encouraging you to go back to bed. You sent him a little thumbs up before heading to your fort of blankets and pillows.

As stupid as it might have seemed, you did feel a thousand times better knowing that Jacob was right outside, watching over you like a guardian angel. To your surprise, sleep quickly came to you, and you fell into its black hole without any resistance.

You’re in a dark forest, running and running and running. You can’t breathe, your hands are bloody, everything hurts. All you can hear is an echoing, cold, cruel laugh. You trip over a root and fall. Something is rushing through the dark woods, coming at you. You get back up and run in the opposite direction, but it feels like you’re not getting any further, like you're running in place. You scream for help, calling out for Jacob, Paul, Embry, Jared, ANYONE, HELP ME. But no one answers, you’re alone, and you’re about to die a horrible death. You trip once more, your leg hurts like hell, there’s no point trying to get up again. You turn around to try and decipher who, what, is running after you. Suddenly, in the dark void of the night, all you can see is that horrifying pair of bloodthirsty eyes. You let out one last scream as it sinks its teeth into your skin. //

“Y/n, y/n, wake up! It’s okay I’m here, Y/n!”

You try to run out of bed but feel a strong pair of arms holding you back. The embrace is warm and smells familiar, but you’re not controlling your limbs anymore. Your whole body is in flight mode. Luckily, the thing (person?) holding you back is strong enough to withstand it, and even though you try as hard as you can to run away, your feet aren't even touching the ground anymore.

“Y/nn, Y/n, shhh. It’s okay, I’m here, it’s me. It’s Jacob.”

You focus on the reassuring tone of the voice and try to convince yourself you're not in the woods anymore. You can see your surroundings poorly illuminated by your little mushroom night light. You're in your room, you’re safe, you’re okay.

Your breathing is still fast and shallow. You blink a few times. Sometimes, the vision surrounding you is one of the cold woods. On other, it's the familiar vision of your room. You slowly turn to face your friend’s face. His brows are furrowed, and his traits have worry written on them in bold letters. He scans you, not quite letting go of your body. Too scared you might start screaming and running again.

“Jake?” “Yes, hi. Welcome back. You really scared me there Y/n.” “What- what are you doing in here? What happened?” Your tone is feeble, and you feel exhausted. You look around once more, afraid this might be some other kind of twisted and terrifying nightmare.

“Am I still dreaming?” You dare to ask. “No, you are awake. We’re in your room. You asked me to come to keep an eye on you, remember?”

You nod, still unsure. What if this was a dream inside a dream? What if the warm limbs of your friend suddenly turned ice cold? What if you looked at him and his eyes turned red, fangs slightly poking his lips?

He can see doubt dancing in your eyes. You don't trust him, or yourself. He holds up his palms towards you, trusting you won't bolt and run.

“See for yourself. I’m real, you can touch me.”

You reach a hesitating finger, carefully poking his own. Seems real enough, feels real. It's warm, the skin is wonderfully tanned, familiar. You’ve seen those hands at work a thousand times. You know them by heart. You poke his cheek, and he gives you a tender smile.

“Convinced?”

You nod once more, letting out a sigh you didn’t know you were holding, as your legs start to shake. That's the thing about dreams, isn’t it? Even if it’s only happening inside your head, your body reacts to it as if it were actually living it. You look at your hands, feeling reminiscent of the pain as if you did scorch them in the woods.

He interrupts your thoughts with a low and soft voice. “Come back in bed. I’ll tuck you in.”

He wraps your hands with his huge ones. They’re warm and feel incredibly good. You let him guide you back to your toasty blankets, but instead of leaving, he takes a spot next to you, shielding you from the window.

“What are you doing?” You ask with a timid voice. “I’m keeping an eye on you, dummy.” Your feet are poking from under the covers. You move to offer him a bit of coverage, but he declines. He is already hot enough as he is, although he can’t deny that his heart seemed to grow a size or two at the kind gesture.

You wait a minute before asking how he ended up in your room. You're not sure you want to know, but curiosity wins over embarrassment.

His expression darkens for a second before he starts talking. “I was just keeping guard outside when I heard a noise. You were calling for me… I didn’t even think, I just got in. You were twitching in your bed. I tried to calm you down, I didn't want it to wake up Charlie, but nothing would do. I was about to forcefully wake you, but you ran out of bed and woke up by yourself.”

“Oh.” You finally let after a few seconds of silence.

“Yup.”

Unconsciously, you're not sure, he took ahold of your hand and lightly played with your fingers. He finally lifted his gaze from your joined hands to look at you, all caring and reassuring. You slide in closer to him. All you want is to feel his comforting warmth and maybe offer him as much as you can too. You feel so bad for worrying him so much. He opens up his arms and cradles you in a bear hug. He won't say it out loud, but he's also in dire need of comfort.

You match your breathing to him, and for the first time in a little while, you’re not scared, not even a little bit. If only you could stay like this forever.

After a few minutes of silence, in which you almost fell asleep, you hear him whisper.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I should have been there. I should have protected you. I’m so sorry, you don't even know.”

“It’s not your fault Jake.” You mumble, and realize you're telling the truth. These are more than empty words. Never has it crossed your mind that this might have been his fault.

“It partially is, if I didn’t drag you into all this you might have been far away. Safe, away from monsters most people don't even know exist."

“I chose to follow you into this Jake. I would be lying if I said this wasn't one of the most horrifying experiences of my life, but it was not your fault. Please get that idea out of your head, okay? I’ll get over it. I guess I just need some time, as Harry said.”

You feel almost fully awake again. He nods, but you know you haven't convinced him. The look on his face is one of guilt, one you've come to know more and more since you learned about his secret. He mindlessly played with a feather poking out of your duvet, avoiding your gaze. Once again, you realized how mature he looked, while still being so young. Too young to carry such heavy burdens. You wanted to hammer the idea out of his thick skull, but you knew there was nothing to do about it tonight. Jacob felt responsible for what happened to you, and convincing him of the opposite would take some time.

Your eyes focused on his tanned skin, and you suddenly became hyper-aware that he was in your bed while only wearing his jeans short.

You inched away of him. “Uhm, want a shirt? I’m sorry, I didn't even think that, since you were in your wolf form, you uh… wouldn’t have one?” You let out an awkward laugh. You were used to seeing him like this, but it was different when you were both lying in bed together in a space that felt so intimate.

“That's nice of you Y/n, but I don't think I'd actually fit into one of your shirts.” He snickers as you get up. You're still wrapped in a blanket as you forage in the pile of clothes next to your bed. You get out of it with a dark cotton t-shirt in hand. It's humongous for you, but you know it will fit Jake like a glove. Probably because it is one of his own.

“There, dummy.” You hand him the t-shirt before jumping back in bed to wrap yourself properly, like a human burrito.

He looks at the piece of clothing and then at you for a good 10 seconds. “You still have this?”

He genuinely looks surprised, but his expression seems mixed with a hint of… satisfaction?

You nod, your nose and eyes being the only part of your anatomy still out of the blankets. You still remember the day he lent you that shirt when you had been caught in the rain at La Push. You never returned it to him, loving the way the gigantic piece of clothing felt on you.

He didn't add anything else before putting the shirt on. “It smells a lot like you.” He adds, a slight tremor in his voice.

“That might be because I wear it a lot to sleep.” You shamefully admit. Your words are nothing more than a whisper, but you know he didn’t have any trouble hearing them. You pull the covers even higher, trying to hide the blush creeping on your cheeks.

“Is that so?” He's smugly smirking. No doubt anymore that he is satisfied with that new piece of information, which makes you want to crawl even further under the covers.

You mutter a quick 'dumbass' before turning away from him. He chuckled before grabbing and pulling you on his broad chest like you weighted nothing more than a feather. You and Jake have always been comfortable with physical touch, but you feel like this is special. You have never done this before. Fine the circumstances were a bit peculiar, but that did not keep you from relishing in the warmth he diffused in waves. You didn't even bother to fake protest. This, is all you need, and you will not be foolish enough to ruin the moment. He wiggles even closer, and you can feel his chest come flush with your back through the layers of blankets. He rests his chin on the crown of your head before lightly stroking the side of his full cheek on your hair.

“Little human burrito.” He mutters. His voice is barely a whisper. Its husky tone makes you shiver. “I’ll watch over you, now go back to sleep.”

—

Here is part.2 🌟

#ilya writes #jacob black #jacob black fic #jacob black blurb #jacob black x reader #jacob black x y/n #twilight #twilight au #twilight saga #twilight renaissance #jacob black fluff #fluff #fluffy #werewolves #shapeshifters #twilight wolfpack

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