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“Michael, I promise, I’m not kicking you out I just - I need a night alone. It's not about you.
“How am I supposed to take that as not about me? Just tell me what I did-” Michael stops, feeling his chest tighten around any words that might follow.
“It’s not anything you did...it’s not you.” Alex's words peter out, and Michael lifts his eyebrows in disbelief. “I promise it’s not. Please, Michael? Just give me some space. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon.”
Michael feels at a loss. Things have been going so fucking well. After everything - after the years of waiting and the piles of misunderstandings and all the time spent slowly getting themselves back on the same page, Michael has been enjoying the fruits of all his hard work. Their hard work.
It had started with the revelation of a soul bond existing between aliens and humans - a sort of electrical and microscopial link that connected them. One that needed physical closeness, a rich emotional ‘feeding’ ground to thrive and allow them access to deeper recesses of their powers. And, after a very minor, definitely not Alex-disappearing-for-a-week meltdown, they’ve found a balance that works. Finally, they’ve been happy together; partners in every sense of the word.
But right now their bond lays silent between them. It has gone dormant the last few days in a cycle of ebbing and flowing that drives Michael to madness. It’s the reason Michael is at Alex’s house at all.
Michael had been anticipating Alex’s arrival. Had planned a surprise involving a campfire he had already started in Alex’s firepit, dinner, and then some creative uses of toasted marshmallow fluff under the cloudless sky. He had hoped that they might spend the night stargazing under a full moon and reaffirming the recently unreliable soulmate bond that tied them together.
Until a frantic and disheveled Alex had burst into the house and stopped dead in the doorway at the sight of Michael in his living room. Alex’s eyes had darted around the room in distress and Michael can admit to himself that maybe breaking and entering had been the wrong move. He hadn’t exactly been invited over - and Alex doesn’t like surprises on his best days. On days like today, when he’s been all but vacant from everything, his reaction to push Michael away was almost a foregone conclusion.
Michael takes a breath to steady himself, but worry and guilt follow the air in. Knowing what they are doesn't do much to stop their effects, and the short "Fine," he manages comes out harsher than he means it to.
He grabs his hat, shoving it on and refusing to look at Alex. Won’t do him the satisfaction of seeing him crying over Alex fucking Manes again . Part of him knows he’s overreacting. Giving in to old habits so he doesn’t have to examine the fact that this is probably mostly his screw up.
Alex grabs his sleeve as he passes, but Michael still refuses to turn around.
“I promise, Michael. This isn’t about you.”
There’s a way Alex’s voice turns up at the end of a sentence that always happens when he’s at the end of his rope, emotionally, and it’s that small uptick that makes Michael turn around finally. Alex is looking directly at him. All dark brown eyes - the deep crease between his brows that always gives him away.
The appearance of those two deep lines makes Michael want to lean into Alex’s space and kiss them away. To give in himself and press their lips together until they’re both breathing the same air again. Michael sort of has the feeling that if he presses hard enough, Alex might tell him what’s going on.
But that feeling wars with the knowledge that Alex has a reason for not telling him. And that Michael owes it to him, to trust that Alex is telling the truth. So instead he takes a breath on his own and tells himself he can wait for whatever explanation Alex will give him in the daylight.
“Okay.” The weakest pulse of love flairs through the connection and Michael smiles involuntarily. Some of the tension in Alex’s body releases. “Okay,” he repeats.
And with that he leaves; not slamming the door because as worried and hurt as he is, the house doesn’t deserve that and really, neither does Alex. He does kick a very offensive pebble off the driveway once he’s a ways away and Alex isn’t likely to hear him.
He puts out the fire in the pit, burying the flaming logs with water and sand and watching with a tight chest as the embers go out. Part of him is lagging, hoping that Alex will appear in the doorway and ask him to come back in.
Even though it’s never happened before Michael likes to live in optimism. Or something.
But the door to the house remains firmly shut. Alex doesn’t so much as appear in the window and all the lights inside have gone out, too. Finally, Michael can’t pretend the logs are warm, anymore. Returning to his truck, Michael takes his phone out to play a few games of sudoku and city planner to calm his nerves.
He can’t bring himself to leave. He knows he should, but he can't. The old worries of abandonment claw at the back of his mind as he shifts blocks and fills in numbers. He can't deny that Alex’s waxing and waning participation in the bond they share has been stressing him out. More than once he’s worried it means the bond is about to break. They don’t have any information on what happens if the bond isn’t cared for, except the ten years that Michael and Alex spent apart that Michael spent nursing an Alex-sized hole in his chest. If it is possible to break the bond, he and Alex will be the ones to figure out how.
He closes out of the app and pulls up Maria’s number.
It’s convenient, he thinks, that Alex’s best friend also turned out to be the descendant of an alien race who seem inexplicably fond of forming bonds with humans. That Michael can, at least in theory, whine to her about the manifestation of a set of bonds she’s starting to feel pull at her too.
Me: Alex is a dick.
Even though Maria has been a less-than-constant in his life as she searches for her own answers Michael still talks to her often. Alex, too, makes sure to keep her abreast of the developments in their relationship and his life. Letting her know which plants Michael has moved into his sun drenched living room and live-texting her Michael’s attempts to teach him to cook. In return it isn’t uncommon for Maria to text Michael a string of emojis in response to something Alex has sent her. Or to provide sometimes-solicited advice in working out her best friend’s cryptic emotional state.
Maria doesn’t text back right away, so Michael looks out the window. The moon is shining bright and full across the desert and the light makes him feel exposed. Raw.
He has no fucking clue why Alex kicked him out. He’s worried he may have overstepped a massive boundary in their relationship by inviting himself over. The bond has gone completely silent and yeah, he acknowledges, he might be spiraling.
His phone buzzes and he looks down at Maria’s text.
Maria: Well it’s a full moon, so-
He waits to see if there’s a second text, but nothing else comes through.
Me: What’s that supposed to mean?
An even longer pause, and movement outside his window draws Michael’s gaze. He almost has a heart attack when a creature that looks something like a wolf on stilts gallops across the yard. It lifts its head and makes a sound like a cut-off roar before darting between the underbrush in Alex’s landscaping. Michael can hear the reverberation of sound as the thing makes a loop of Alex’s property and it makes his hair stand on end.
The thing is very clearly circling only Alex’s property - not looking for a way out or passing through - but Alex has never mentioned having a dog. Michael has never seen one around at any rate, even though there are some toys in a basket Alex keeps in his closet. Michael had asked once, but Alex had just shrugged off the question with an almost embarrassed ‘Wishful thinking.’ Michael never commented on the fact that some of the toys looked well used - he figures maybe Alex got them from a friend or something.
Has Alex been keeping a fucking dog from him? A weird-ass, leggy, dogzilla, dog? Eyeing the outline, it’s way too big to be a wolf or coyote that’s native to New Mexico. Maybe some weird hybrid that got loose?
Maria finally texts back, but it’s even more cryptic than her first response.
Maria: You know...stuff happens on the full moon. Give him some space.
“What the fuck, DeLuca.” He mutters. He’s keeping half an eye on the dog as it rolls and flips in the clumps of tall bluestem grass growing out of the desert sand, briefly chasing its tail before shooting off after something else.
Me: What the fuck deluca...
He repeats in the text.
Maria: Why would a full moon mean alex needs to kick me out? Is this like a psychic-power thing?
He’s surprised when she texts back almost immediately.
Maria: Please don’t ask me to tell you, Guerin. I promise he has his reasons.
And then.
Maria: He won’t let Rosa or I see him either when he’s like this. It’s not just you. He doesn’t like being around anyone.
Which. Again. Is just fucking weird. He’s known Alex for more than ten years. Loved him for just as long. And he’s never known Alex to be antisocial. He’ll push Michael away, sure. But he never turns down an opportunity to be around his friends unless he’s having a truly terrible pain day. Michael thinks briefly and with a tinge of guilt that maybe Alex’s leg is bothering him, and Michael hadn’t noticed. That maybe it really does have nothing to do with Michael himself. It doesn’t explain why Alex has been so secretive, but at least it’s an explanation he can understand. Michael runs back over the last few days, trying to remember if Alex has done anything that might have caused him injury, or if he’d seen Alex favoring his leg at all.
The dog comes back into view, closer now, and it’s then that Michael notices it’s missing part of one of it’s back legs. The right one.
He stares at the dog, Maria’s messages slotting into place.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
So, Michael is the first one to be accepting of weird bullshit. He’s an alien, after all. He slept in a pod for fifty years and he can move things with his mind. And on top of all that, he’s got some cosmic Romeo and Juliet soulmate shit that means a defining part of his character is ‘wants to play house with and/or fuck Alex Manes at all times.’
But he draws the line at werewolves.
He doesn’t even bother texting Maria and instead hits the call button. She’s working, but he figures “my boyfriend is a werewolf” is enough of a reason to interrupt.
She picks up on the second ring.
“Alex is not a fucking werewolf.”
Silence except for her drawing a breath in.
“Maria, I kind of need to hear these exact words from you like, right fucking now. Just tell me, even if it’s not true. ‘Alex Manes is not a fucking werewolf.’”
But she’s silent except for the din of the bar and he thinks, maybe, he hears her snort softly.
“Seriously?”
“You gotta know I’m not gonna out my best friend. Even to you. Talk to him tomorrow.”
“That’s bullshit,” he grumbles, but he knows she has a point. And a part of him is grateful that she’s so loyal to Alex.
“Good night, Guerin.”
“Can I come by the bar, since I’m not allowed to see Alex?”
“Good night , Guerin,” she repeats fondly, before hanging up. Michael stares at the phone, contemplating his next move. He doesn’t want to go home. The pull to Alex is just as strong as it ever is, and he truly wants nothing more than to be around him. But whatever this....werewolf shit is, he isn’t sure what Alex’s mental state is.
A loud bang against the window makes Michael jump and the truck shakes as something pelts full force into the side. The dog - Alex - is making that inhuman roar again, eyes almost glowing in the moonlight as it snarls and snaps at Michael.
Michael’s heartbeat skitters in his chest, pumping wildly as just a hint of panic sets in. He has no idea what dog body language means but he’s pretty sure whatever Alex is trying to say to him, it isn’t friendly. He thinks about some of the werewolves in pop culture he’s seen. In a brief moment of insanity he wonders if he’d be able to hurt Alex, if Alex is truly looking to harm him.
That’s stupid, he thinks. He’s felt Alex’s feelings through the bond they’ve forged. He knows that Alex loves him. Whatever this is, it isn’t a reflection of human-Alex’s feelings. And Michael puts the myths out of his head - because there have certainly been one or two movies made about his people that were nowhere near the mark. Michael repeats that to himself as he tentatively, carefully, reaches out through the bond.
When he finds the connection he’s almost surprised. But it does confirm that the dog snarling outside the window is in fact Alex. He tugs on the thread, just enough. Just enough that usually it would be enough to turn Alex’s head in his direction.
The dog goes silent, mouth snapping shut as his body language changes entirely and he looks around wildly, tail now wagging hard enough that his entire body moves. Okay, Michael confirms. Not a manifestation of Alex’s feelings. Alex is running wildly around the truck now, whining and sniffing the air with his nose.
Now that Alex is distracted from whatever murderous thoughts had possessed him to try and kill Michael through the window of his truck, Michael takes a second to actually look at him. Up close, he can tell that Alex’s fur is actually a deep red mixed with brown and gold, legs and nose and tail covered in black points like a fox. It’s almost the same combination of shades that Alex’s own hair is, a part of him realizes with possibly more fondness than he should be feeling for something that tried to eat him a few seconds ago.
Michael moves carefully to open the door. The sound draws Alex’s attention and he looks up at Michael through the window again.
To Michael’s surprise, his body language changes again, back to the tense, snarling and barking mass he’d been before Michael had reached out. Confused, Michael’s hand pauses on the handle of the door. He’s fairly certain he can stop Alex from getting to him with his powers, but he also really doesn’t want to hurt Alex by accident.
Alex jumps at the window again, muzzle punching the glass in a move that makes Michael jump back, instinctively.
He can’t feel Alex through their bond, but Alex can feel him apparently. The thought suddenly strikes him that maybe this is the reason for so much of the change in their bond.
“Okay, Alex...give me...anything.”
He tries again to reach out through the bond. As soon as Michael touches the part that feels like Alex the dog stops barking, demeanor changing again.
Michael makes a decision, opening the door swiftly when Alex is on the other side of the truck and readying himself in case he has to stop Alex-the-dog from attacking him.
But when Alex comes back into sight his demeanor doesn’t change - he stays the excited, tail wagging vision of excitement he had become when Michael had reached out, and the only bracing Michael has to do is to stop from falling over.
Alex launches himself at Michael, front paws grabbing onto Michael’s arms as a warm, wet tongue covering Michael’s face and neck. The dog slips back to the ground briefly, over correcting to the right side as the leg without a paw dips to the ground before jumping back up.
“Okay, okay, jeez, Alex, enough!”
Apparently, dog-Alex is just as good as human-Alex at following directions, because he completely ignores Michael, continuing to lick and nuzzle at Michael’s face until Michael has to lean himself against the truck to survive the onslaught.
And it’s then that Alex’s mood shifts again, a low growl forming in the furred chest that presses against Michael the only warning before the unsettling bark resumes and Michael is shoved to the side.
Which is when Michael realizes what Alex is actually barking at.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Manes,” he mutters, watching Alex viciously and valiantly trying to murder his own reflection in the window of Michael’s truck. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
In a moment of pure revenge for making him worry, Michael uses his phone to take a video. He reasons he can delete it in the morning, but there is no way in hell he’s not going to mercilessly tease Alex first. The ping of the camera catches Alex’s attention and he spins, coming to look up at Michael expectantly. Michael cocks an eyebrow.
“You are never, and I mean never living this down, you know.” The dog just cocks his head, tail still wagging furiously. “Come on, let’s go inside. I cannot in good conscience let my boyfriend chase skunks all night.” He gestures and turns to go back to the house and is only somewhat touched when Alex follows - eyes never leaving Michael’s face.
--the next morning--
It’s bright, and Alex instinctively knows that it’s the morning after a transformation before he is even fully awake by the grime that feels like it covers every inch of him. He feels groggy and his mouth is - frankly fucking disgusting.
But there’s something else that shakes his brain awake even quicker than the desire for a toothbrush, and that is the feeling of his bed rising and falling in a steady, even rhythm. It’s also where most of the warmth is coming from and Alex has one, final, second of comfort before the horror of the situation sets in.
He sits up slowly, shifting his weight to the couch first so as to disturb Michael as little as possible. Michael, for his part, is blessedly still asleep. His curls are falling messily across his forehead and his arm covers his eyes against the light streaming in through the windows. Despite the fact that embarrassment has him currently planning to drive away and never face Michael again, Alex’s heart still clenches fondly at the sight of him.
The urge to kiss Michael’s parted lips gets pushed down, and Alex is relieved to find his crutch propped against the side of the couch so that he only has to lean carefully over Michael to grab it and hoist himself off the other man. He tries to move as quietly as he can, planning to get a shower and then.... He isn’t quite sure what but he knows he absolutely does not want to face whatever questions Michael is going to have when he wakes up.
“Really, Manes? Without so much as a goodbye slobber?”
Alex winces, and he pauses before turning back around. “Listen-”
“You know I like, genuinely don’t care about you being different or a monster or whatever right.”
“What?”
“I assume that’s why you didn’t want me to know you’re - okay, I am still getting used to the word werewolf - what you are. Which, feel free to correct me, please.”
Alex stands, stunned, trying to process the words coming out of Michael’s mouth.
“Alex I’m literally an alien. Did you think I’d be afraid of you?”
Maybe Michael had only come back late last night.
“No. That’s not it. I figured if you could look past the fact that my family has been hunting yours as humans for three generations the fact we’re werewolves wouldn’t be an issue.” Alex looks around the room, at anything except Michael, who is listening intently, his head cocked like he’s waiting for the punchline of a joke he’s not sure is going to land.
“Michael...I’m really dumb as a dog. I don’t like being around people when I transform because I do some really embarrassing things. Like -” he pauses, trying to think of some of the things he knows he’s done in his canid form.
“Bark at your reflection in a truck window?”
Dread starts to surface in the pit of Alex's stomach as Michael pulls out his phone. “No...”
Michael thumbs through the device, pausing at whatever is on the screen with an absolutely wicked expression on his face.
“Drink out of the bathtub exclusively by biting the water?”
Alex has to cover his face, but Michael is grinning fondly and Alex might hate him.
“ Try to eat my underwear?”
Alex stares in horror for a second before speaking.
“I did not-”
He tries to argue, but unfortunately he knows that is exactly the type of thing he has done before, and he gives in, defeated.
Michael stands and walks over to rest a hand gently on Alex’s elbow. The smile has faded but it’s not gone completely and his expression is open and loving - which is perhaps the biggest shock. Both on his face and through the bond they share, there is nothing but love and warmth and it doesn’t compute with everything he’s ever expected when people learn about his family’s heritage. Alex had been expecting the anger and hurt from last night to resurface. For Michael to be at the very least confused and maybe disgusted at the changes Alex goes through. At the embarrassing lack of anything resembling control Alex has when he’s transformed.
The fact that Michael is - happy - is throwing him off.
“I wish you had told me but-” Michael pauses and shrugs. “I gotta say canine-Alex is a lot less shy about expressing his feelings. I did try to bring up boundaries - surprisingly I was on the ‘I need some space’ side this time - although you could take a note from canine-Alex about sitting on my face. And-” Alex tucks his head into Michael’s shoulder as they both dissolve into laughter.
Once the laughter has subsided, Alex doesn’t pull away, choosing instead to stay in the warmth of Michael’s arms for a second longer.
“So what-” Michael pauses as if he is reconsidering what he wants to ask. “Is it like two different things that live inside of you? You definitely knew me-”Alex shakes his head but doesn’t lift it off of Michael’s shoulder.
“We’re both me. He’s...I don’t know how to explain it. I have vague recollections of what happens - it’s not a total blackout but everything is much simpler. Canine-Alex is not an overthinker.” He adds a self-depreciating chuckle, and feels Michael’s arms tighten for a moment.
“Yeah I got that. So he’s like, you without inhibitions?”
Alex thinks about that for a moment. It’s true, but it almost makes him sad. It brings to mind the happy, enthusiastic kid he had been before his father had truly sunken his own teeth and claws into Alex’s flesh. That this has been the legacy his father left him is something he is still struggling with.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
Michael must sense the shift in his mood because he pulls away enough to tip Alex’s head up so their eyes lock.
“For the record, Alex-without-inhibitions is something I’m only prepared to deal with every once in a while. I like overthinker-Alex, too.”
Alex swallows the lump forming in his throat and has to look away for a moment. The look in Michael’s eyes is still too much sometimes. But he also can’t ever stay away for long, because he lives for the feeling of drowning that comes with that look.
“Thank you.” He can’t say the words he wants to say, still. It’s frustrating how hard it is for him to say ‘I love you’ when it’s practically all he thinks about. But Michael just shrugs, smirking.
“Do I officially get the point for ‘handled my boyfriend’s supernatural secret the best?’”
“I didn’t freak out that badly.” Michael just raises an eyebrow. “Okay in my defense that was also during a transformation week and I was also freaking out that you still didn’t know I change into an animal every full moon.”
Michael is looking at him and Alex feels exposed.
“I hate that I lose control of myself. That I don’t remember fully what I do.”
“Alex Manes, control freak to the end,” Michael says affectionately, and Alex rolls his eyes. “But you’re not afraid that you’ll hurt someone?”
“Michael, I went to war. Multiple times.” Not that those memories don’t still haunt him. “Compared to that, whatever I do when I’m transformed is practically community service. And my father apparently never thought I was useful enough to really bring into the family business.” He tilts his head to the side, thinking of another possibility. “Or possibly too compromised.” He shrugs. “Either way, we’re not generally any more violent than anyone else.”
“Yeah I get that.”
Michael falls silent, obviously thinking. Alex sees him staring down at his own hands - both the crippled one and the other one. Alex wonders what he’s thinking about.
Michael cocks his head.
“We?”
“Hmm?”
“You said ‘we’re not generally more violent’ - there’s more than just you who transforms?”
“My family - all the Manes men.” At that Michael laughs almost hysterically.
“Your father is a werewolf, too?”
“He doesn't call us that,” Alex says dryly, recalling the vehemence his father had denied an acknowledgement of their genetic difference. “He wouldn’t tell me why until I knew about you - when I was a kid he always used to say it was our mark as leaders - alpha men-” Michael snorts loudly and Alex rolls his eyes in acknowledgement of the irony. “But when he told me about you, he said we were specially able to smell you - that the transformation is why I thought I was attracted to you.”
Alex shakes his head.
“We’re - apparently it’s all a part of project Shepherd. How it got its name, actually. Please don’t laugh.”
Michael is already laughing.
“Sorry,” he says, but he’s not. Alex doesn’t mind. “So not wolves, part of a massive government conspiracy.”
“Not wolves,” Alex confirms. “Not dogs either - apparently the dna comes from a separate line - something about not wanting a taxonomically similar genepool to mammals who live in this area. There’s a relative, but it’s only down in South America.”
“Whatever, you’re still cute.” Alex levels a half-serious glare at Michael, who just smiles and runs a hand through Alex’s hair. Alex can’t help what he’s about to say next, half to tease Michael and half because he feels what Michael is feeling, through the bond.
He looks up at Michael through his lashes, batting them dramatically. “Apparently the relative mates for life too.” As predicted, the sickly sweet tone does the trick and Michael’s nose scrunches and they’re back into an emotion Alex can deal with.
“Gross.”
“Speaking of gross-” Alex looks down at himself and grimaces. “I do not want to know what this dirt is but I need to get it off me like yesterday.”
“Conveniently, I was also covered in an unidentified substance and need help cleaning myself off too.” Michael wiggles his eyebrows and Alex laughs again and turning towards the bathroom.
He pauses as they head to the shower, hand tugging gently on Michael’s until the other man stops and turns around.
“You really don’t care?”
Michael smiles and shakes his head. “I don’t care that you’re a werewolf, or that you’re an embarrassingly enthusiastic canine. Don’t care any more about the family alien-hunting business than I did before.”
His grin turns wicked and Alex waits in trepidation.
“I care a little bit about the underwear.” Michael pauses and winks. “But only because I much prefer your attempts to get me out of my pants when you’re human.”
