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runawaycatwalker · 10 months

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Part 21. Close Shaves and Slipups

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After entering the main hallway of Rolland Dupain’s residence, Adrien’s legs give out from under him as Plagg is ejected from his ring.

Adrien: Claws in.

Plagg: Whew, am I glad that's all over!

Adrien: Yeah.

Plagg: I don't know about you, but I'm ready to find a comfy spot on that couch, eat some bedtime camembert, and snooze for a very long—

Plagg looks through the glass door to Rolland’s living room with a worried expression.

Plagg: —uh oh.

Adrien: Plagg? Plagg, what's wrong?

Plagg: Looks like Rolland's got company.

Cut to Tom Dupain holding a cardboard box labelled “Tom child baking stuff.”

Tom: It's good to see you, Dad.

Rolland: Didn't you say over the phone that my granddaughter was coming over?

Tom: I was going to ask Marinette to bring this by, but she's barely been home since her classmate is Adrien Agreste.

Rolland: ...Am I supposed to know who that is?

Tom raises his hands and Rolland gestures behind him with his thumb.

Tom: You haven't heard about Adrien being kidnapped? It's all over the news!

Rolland: I don't watch the news. If it's important, I'll find out when I look out the window.

Tom: Well, Adrien's very important to Marinette. Hang on, I've got a flyer Marinette made from one of the photos she used to keep on her wall...

Tom places a flyer in Rolland’s hands, on the back of which is written “Call Marinette if you see Adrien Agreste +33 653257.” A closeup of the front of the flyer depicts the advertisement of Adrien in white jumping through a bright sky, with the words “Lost” and “Please help!” scrawled in red.

Tom: Here, take a look at this.

Rolland: I see the problem: Marinette's boy became an angel and ascended to heaven.

Tom: No, Dad, he's just a normal boy, I promise.

Rolland: He's glowing and flying! That is not what I would call 'normal boy'!

Tom: The photo was edited, he isn't actually like that.

Rolland: If he doesn't look like his photo, how is anyone supposed to recognize him?

Tom: Never mind. Just call Marinette if you happen to find any missing blond boys.

Rolland, from behind the glass door, spots Adrien on the other side and gives a wave.

Rolland: Apprentice? There you are! Done stretching your legs?

Tom (offscreen): Your new apprentice? I'd love to meet him!

Rolland: Come and say hello to my son!

Adrien bolts away, using a hand to cover his face, and tries to distort his voice to be less recognizable.

Adrien: SoRrY! i NeEd tO UsE tHe BaThRoOm!

Rolland: Okay, but—

Adrien: DoN't WaIt FoR mE!

In Rolland’s bathroom, Adrien grabs both sides of the sink and tries to catch his breath. Plagg floats above him, looking down.

Adrien: I can't stay here. As soon as the coast is clear, we're grabbing your cheese and running.

Plagg: What? Why?

Adrien: Marinette's looking for me. She's going to find me here sooner or later if I stay.

Plagg: Would Pigtails knowing where you are really be such a bad thing?

Plagg moves above the sink (on which a pair of scissors and a collapsed straight razor are visible) near Adrien’s hand, which holds the lucky charm bracelet Marinette gave him.

Plagg: She's worried about you. And you might not be able to tell her you're Catwalker, but there's no harm in letting her know you're alive, right?

Adrien: Mayura knew too many personal details about Marinette and her connection to me. I don't even know what the 'misattributed present' was about, but that sounds like something Marinette would do. I think... Marinette and Mayura have to be the same person.

Plagg raises his arms in fierce denial. There is also the image of Marinette dressed in Mayura’s outfit, holding a feather above her hand with an evil expression.

Plagg: No way! Pigtails is the least evil person you know! Peacock Lady probably threw suspicion on her so we couldn't find out who she really is.

Adrien brushes his fingers against the bruise on his neck.

Adrien: I don't want to believe it either, but we can't rule her out. And either way, it doesn't change the fact that Mayura is a close friend.

Adrien takes off his Chat Noir beanie and looks at it, spiraling with sadness and regret.

Adrien: Can I even trust anyone anymore?

Plagg: You can trust Ladybug.

Adrien: Who now hates me. I only became Catwalker because I didn't want to lose her. And now I'm losing her anyway.

Plagg hovers over Adrien’s shoulder. Adrien just stares at his reflection in the mirror in tired dejection.

Plagg: Ladybug will come around. She wanted you before, she'll want you again.

Adrien: That was before I messed everything up. Before I thoughtlessly let myself get caught. Before I abandoned my life and everyone in it. Before I kept quiet for the mere possibility I could be Chat Noir again if I just didn't reveal myself to anyone else.

Adrien looks down at his hands in front of him, on top of which Plagg kicks out his feet angrily.

Adrien: Maybe I should just go home. Mayura's looking for Adrien, so if I acted as bait, I might find out who she—

Plagg: Absolutely not!

Adrien: But if she was telling the truth about caring about me...

Plagg: I don't care what Mayura said! I'm not letting her ambush you again!

Plagg touches his paws against Adrien’s nose and looks him straight in the eye.

Plagg: I know you want to rush in and attack your problems head-on, but that won't help. You're a newly formed cheese that needs to wait for some mold to grow a strong rind and mature it. Don't let yourself be eaten before you're ready.

Plagg looks up consolingly.

Adrien: When will I be ready?

Plagg: I don't know. But we'll figure it out together. And when the time is right, I'll be right here with you when you go back to being the recklessly brave Chat Noir you were always meant to be.

Adrien starts to smile as Plagg hugs his face, raising his hands to embrace the kwami.

Adrien: Thanks, Plagg. Any ideas on what this 'newly formed cheese' should do next?

Plagg: Staying right where we are! No one ever thinks to check under their own nose! Rolland didn't even recognize you when your picture was right in front of him!

Adrien brushes his hand through the back of his hair and looks in the mirror with inspiration. Plagg floats above him.

Adrien: About that... Changing my hair won't affect how I look when transformed, right?

Plagg: Catwalker's hair is longer than yours and green. So no. What kind of change are you thinking?

Cut to Rolland working in his kitchen, with Adrien poking his head out from behind the living room door in the background.

Rolland: There you are. My son had to leave. It's a shame you couldn't meet him.

Adrien: Sorry, but I'd... rather not meet anyone else right now.

Rolland: You don't want to be introduced to my son? That is completely understandable!

Adrien: Wait, really?

Rolland pats the head of one of the mice he works with.

Rolland: You're looking at a man who only spoke to mice and the delivery boys for two decades! You don't need to talk to anyone you don't want to! Who needs pleasantries when you've got bread?

Adrien gives a friendly wave and removes the beanie from his head, revealing that he is now completely bald.

Adrien: I know I didn't introduce myself properly earlier, but out of curiosity... Based on how I look, who do you think I am?

Rolland beams as he pulls Adrien down to his height to give his head a friendly rub. Adrien smiles in relief.

Rolland: I didn't realize you had even less hair than me! You're definitely a 'Baldy'!

Adrien: 'Baldy'... I think I can live with that.

Below is the same image as above, only without text:

#runaway catwalker #adrien agreste #plagg #rolland dupain #tom dupain #baldrien #i decided it was time to replace the old banner and profile pic with something that gives a better feel for what the comic is like #also unrelated this tumblr account now has 100 subscribers #thank you everyone for supporting this comic #we aren't even halfway done yet #i previously cut the baldrien subplot to save on time #but it found its way back in #the original version of this scene had marinette visiting her grandpa #but since shes busy freaking out right now #that job has been delegated to her dad

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cartoonsaint · 8 months

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back in 2020 i wrote a werewolf!David fic for Camp Camp and then got through about a quarter of its sequel before getting distracted. at this point it's unlikely i'm ever going to finish it but it sounds like there's at least one person out there who wants to read it, which makes this a good advertisement for leaving comments on seemingly abandoned works, doesn't it? anyways this is 7.8k, probably rated T, and i do not have the wherewithal (werewithal? hohoha) to reread rn so i can't offer any content warnings or fix any weird grammar or anything, but. here's it.

my semi-jokey working title for it was THERE'S ONLY ONE BED AND ALSO ONE OF US IS A WEREWOLF

CHAPTER ONE

Gwen wakes up.

She’s not sure what does it, because usually it takes the blaring of her alarm — as well as a few judicious smacks to the snooze button — for her to admit that the day is starting whether she wants it to or not and she had better drag herself out of bed if she doesn’t want the camp to burn down around her ears.

She’s long since come to terms with the fact that while she can effortlessly stay up late into the night reading fanfiction or binging television, even with a full eight hours under her belt the first thing she’s gonna want to do in the mornings is take a nap. Gwen just really, really isn’t a morning person.

By the grey light filtering through the windows, Gwen bets the sun hasn’t even properly risen yet. She’s not due to muddle her way through her morning routine for at least another hour, and in fact it’s so early that David’s still probably asleep.

That catches at something in her sleep-foggy brain. Had she had another dream about him, maybe? Something about… monsters? Statistically, and given the subject, it was probably a sex dream, but what…?

On a whim she turns over, intending to send her sleeping coworker a baleful glare for daring to have a presence in the confusing subconscious arena of her dreams — it’s not the first time, sure, but she uhhh.

Wolf.

That, uh… wolf.

Gwen stares at the sleeping beast in the room with her, suddenly wide awake, and does her best to regulate her breathing as she simultaneously curses David to hell. This is somehow his fault, she just knows it — leave it to Mr. Nurse-Back-to-Health-the-Wolf-That-Tried-to-Kill-Me to bring a wild animal into the cabin without telling her. Now she’s probably going to get eaten and leave behind all her unedited work and become famous for her talent posthumously instead of midhumously, or whatever, which is how she’d really, really prefer it.

Can wolves smell fear? She’s pretty sure they can, so she thinks happy, not-scared thoughts, like how happy she’ll feel when she throttles David for this. The animal is huge, taking up a sizable portion of her co-counselor’s bed, even though it’s curled up sleeping at the moment. The bed’s wool blanket and sheet are half-covering it, almost like it tried to burrow itself underneath them, and it has David’s stupid plush log between its front paws. It breathes in and out with great, calm gusts of breath, and Gwen thinks about how often wolves need to eat, how fetid its breath probably is, and the fact that she has virtually nothing with which to defend herself besides some trashy magazine she could maybe roll up and use to bonk its nose, like a poorly behaved mutt.

I’m freaking out a little, Gwen realizes, watching the tendrils of first light reach across the room. Knowing her luck, they’ll wake it up. Oh well. I had a good run. Well, an alright run. Well, I definitely had a run, anyway.

She practically holds her breath as the sun creeps in through the windows, sure that any moment might wake the beast and spell her doom. Maybe she’ll be able to miraculously pull David’s guitar out of nowhere and defend herself — but no, too quickly, the barest hint of sunlight touches the thing’s paw, and it gives a great twitch that has Gwen flinching — and then the wolf changes.

She’s not sure what she’s seeing at first. Its muzzle wrinkles as though in a snarl but then shrinks. The pointed ears on its head flatten back and disappear into its dark red fur, which itself seems to be absorbed back into its skin, leaving pale, pinkish flesh behind. Its paws stretch and lengthen into long, calloused, human fingers, and the whimper that comes out of its throat morphs mid-syllable into a distinct, familiar, and absolutely absurd “ouchie.” The figure left half-blanketed on the bed opens ocean green eyes over an upturned pink nose and effortlessly smiles at the new day.

The figure looks an awful lot like David sporting a week’s worth of facial hair.

The figure is David.

“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Gwen croaks, and David blinks his big green eyes over at Gwen, looking faintly puzzled.

“Gwen? What are you doing awake?” he whispers (only sounding a little raspy, the bastard).

Gwen’s mind is racing, frantically calling up memories from the past two days, belatedly recalling that last night she’d learned without a shadow of a doubt that David — bouncy, clumsy, sunshine-y David, her coworker of too many years and the least brood-over-his-loss-of-humanity guy she’s ever known, that David — was a bonafide werewolf.

He’s still looking at her, apparently wide-awake and ready to be properly concerned about his “CBFL!” despite the fact that no sane person should be awake at this hour. She tries to say something, something intelligent, so that he knows she’s fine and can stop turning the force of his way-too-bright eyes on her.

“Wurwuf,” her stupid mouth manages.

He looks confused, briefly, before a metaphorical lightbulb goes off so obviously that Gwen practically has to squint at its brightness. “Oh yeah! I change back when the sunlight hits me — it hurts, but I hope I wasn’t too loud. Did I wake you up?”

He looks so intensely unhappy at the possibility that Gwen finds herself shaking her head before she can properly process what he said, and he smiles warmly at her. Fortunately it’s not one of his overwhelming ones but instead the softer kind, the kind he wears when he’s had a long day or a camper pleasantly surprises him.

“I’m glad,” he says with one hundred percent honesty, and he sits straight up in bed like it’s easy to get his muscles to work in the morning. “I was a little worried! You should go back to sleep, Gwen. I know how hard you’ve been working, and I dumped a lot on you last night. I’ll take breakfast duty, okay?”

“Mm,” she says, and he gives her another smile — jesus it’s too fucking early for this — and daintily wraps a sheet around his body, heading to the bathroom. She watches him go, humming like it’s any other day, until he closes and latches the door behind him with a snk.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, Gwen mentally screams, and bites her fist hard. David’s a werewolf. David is a werewolf. It’s a brand new day and her coworker (and, fine, friend) David is a WEREWOLF who literally transformed in front of her very eyes into a huge, potentially terrifying beast.

She’s going to have so much to write about.

Speaking of, she scrambles out of bed for her notebook and pen. She’d been limited by David’s inability to talk as a wolf, but through yes and no questions and some dubiously successful attempts at charades she’d ended up with a decent number of pages written out about his new condition. It’s a solid start on figuring out what they can expect and how this whole thing works.

Of course, like every normal person, Gwen herself went through a Weird Wolf Girl phase. Though it’s been considerably more than a decade since then, she’s sure she hasn’t forgotten that much about them — and besides, with all the supernatural shapeshifter romances she’s read in the years since then, she’s pretty confident she can fill in any gaps in her knowledge.

She starts drafting questions, both for David and the Quartermaster (who of course has a hook in this, that guy is so freaky). Like: David turns into a four-legged wolf every time moonlight touches him, but is there a way to control when the change happens? Could he stop the change partway through? Is his werewolfism unique, or is there a pack out there somewhere? And are there any single werewolves her age? If so, how would Gwen go about meeting them?

Quietly, Gwen lets out a high-pitched squeal — werewolves are real, and she knows one. It’s too bad it’s David, since that precludes any hot paranormal action on her end, and has precluded any action between them since their first week working together. But maybe he’ll meet some other, more masculine werewolves and he could introduce her?

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Gwen,” she whispers. “Reel it in.”

She spends a brief moment in deep breathing, trying to meditate… and then shrugs it off to bounce excitedly on her bed. Even if this isn’t quite the way she’d imagined it, werewolves! This could be a major change in her life, the kind she’d hoped Graggle would be, the kind she’s been waiting for as long as she can remember.

And who knows — he might still be David, but being a werewolf might make him more interesting, too. She grabs her pillow and muffles a disbelieving, embarrassingly girly squee into it, grinning. She can’t wait to see how things change.

***

In retrospect, maybe Gwen should have expected to be disappointed.

The activity for that day is Rube Goldberg Machines (“Max really enjoyed this one last year, Gwen!!”) and even though, as always, Gwen had told him during last week’s activity-planning session that it was going to be a disaster (“David, it’s going to be a disaster.”), the day is just… regular.

Which isn’t to say it’s not a disaster, but it is a pretty regular one. Harrison and Preston team up against Erid and Nerris to create competing death machines, which results in David stepping into the middle of their feud and getting the crap beaten out of him by mechanically-operated cardboard. Max and his friends are suspiciously quiet in a way that Gwen would be more concerned about if she wasn’t so busy trying to prevent Nurf from incorporating Dolph and Space Kid as living pieces of his machine. Mr. Campbell shows up at some point with an intriguing but useless story about his time in a Russian ballet school and then disappears pretty much as soon as she asks him to help. The Quartermaster is there.

Gwen waits all day, anticipation thrumming through her veins, for David to do something different. Just… one thing that would indicate that he’s secretly a paranormal, shapeshifting, not-quite-human creature. Maybe some supernatural speed, or a snarl at being bashed over the head by their terrible campers. Hell, she’d accept a mysterious, darkly longing look towards the woods. Anything.

But David spends the whole day totally normal, with his usual mix of peppiness, anxiety, and the occasional oh-so-human shriek of pain.

It’s not like Gwen really believed (much less had her heart set on) all those books about the super capable, brooding werewolf leads, but… It’s not easy to reconcile the rugged, snarling, coverboy antiheroes with a twiggy, delicate David who’s too busy trying to put a positive spin on marble-powered rocket launchers to realize his bandana is on fire.

Needless to say, Gwen’s exhausted by the end of the day, and for all his talk David hurries the kids along to bed as well. She leans against a tree, watching him interact with the torturous little shits with near-endless patience even in the light of the rising moon. It’s impressive, given that David wears his heart on his sleeve (along with every other organ he has in his body), but right now his impression of not being twitchy as hell is nearly passable. Even if some of the kids notice, they won’t worry; besides the Problem Trio, none will suspect it’s anything to do with the supernatural.

Also, of course Max, Neil, and Nikki found out about it; Gwen is going to grill Max about that as soon as she gets the chance, and then she’s going to kill David for letting it slip so quickly.

...then again, it’s admittedly something of a miracle that the whole camp doesn’t already know; she might have to let this slide. You should still know better! she thinks loudly, glaring at the back of David’s head as he suffers Nikki using him as a climbing post. He glances back at the same moment, catches her look, and hurriedly starts trying to disentangle the wild kid from his hair.

Gwen winces, then sighs in frustration — she hadn’t actually meant for him to catch that. Great going, Gwen.

Despite the revelations of the past few days, David really does seem just the same: goofy muppet-long limbs, pointy elbows, big smiles papered over a mess of anxiety, enthusiasm, and bad ideas. He’s not even more muscular or anything — though to be fair, he’s always been stronger than he looks. With his wiry muscles, he’s capable of lifting way more than Gwen expects — but the fact remains that he’s always looked delicate.

He’s not, of course — though he cries more easily than most people, it’s usually an emotional rather than physical response. He bounces back from just about any injury, leaping into the next activity with all the grace of a newborn deer. Gwen can admit that it’s somewhat compelling; she can’t help admiring his determination to keep moving forward.

Finally disengaged from Nikki, David puts his hands on his hips, tilting them in the opposite direction of his head. The move puts him on an appealing slant that emphasizes how long and slim he is, the slope of his neck leading into the sharp cut of his shoulders, hidden slightly by his dumb bandana. He fiddles with it now, throwing an uncertain glance her way.

He’d said the freaky magic necklace wasn’t comfortable to wear, and she wonders exactly how: does it intensify things? Is it like holding in a sneeze? After working so closely with him for so long, she’s intimately familiar with his energy levels; it’s not been the kind of day that usually ends in mania or an anxiety attack, but he’s twitchier than usual anyway. Is that related?

Finally taking pity, Gwen steps in. She manages to convince Harrison that the woods aren’t going to come alive while he sleeps (a weird, newly emerged fear she’s keeping a close eye on) and bundles Space Kid in his favorite rocket blanket so that David can devote his attention to Nerris’s pleas to stay up later so they can fight the dark elves together (which honestly seems like the kind of bullshit she should read up on, because that doesn’t sound like the sort of thing an impressionable kid should be absorbing). Together, they get the kids down only twenty minutes past the scheduled time.

David is unmistakably anxious on the way to the Counselors Cabin. When he hesitantly asks, “Am I in trouble?” Gwen can’t help but sigh.

“No, David. I’m just thinking,” she admits. “We need to make sure none of the rest of the kids find out that you’re a werg— a, a werewolf.” She silently curses herself for stumbling over the word again. What’s wrong with her? “Why did you have to let Max know? You must have realized he’d find a way to take advantage of this.”

“We-e-ell…” David starts, avoiding eye contact in a way that compounds Gwen’s fatigue.

“David.”

“I didn’t mean to!! He was just there and the moon was out and he broke the necklace and obviously if I had known I wouldn’t have put him in that situation, but the Quartermaster was being very coy about my being a werewolf so I had no idea what was coming —“

“Wait wait wait,” Gwen interrupts; David shrinks guiltily. “You didn’t know? You mean Max was there the first time you —?” She cuts herself off, brain whirring through his behavior since he got back from his disastrous trip in the woods a few weeks ago. She doesn’t like the conclusion she comes to.

Dreading his answer, she asks, “When was this?”

“Um.” David counts briefly on his fingers, lips pursed in thought. “A-about a week ago?”

“A week?!”

“A, a little less, actually,” he admits, cringing.

Gwen stops walking. “It’s been less than a week.”

Cautiously, he nods, his red hair flopping, and Gwen stares at him. It occurs to her suddenly that David has, hilariously, really been thrown to the wolves here: he doesn’t actually know anything about being a werewolf. His life has just changed, majorly and possibly permanently, and his only guide is the laconic and decidedly unhelpful Quartermaster… and Gwen herself.

“Right,” Gwen manages, and starts walking again. David follows, chattering nervously, but she barely hears him, thinking about what he’d said to her yesterday morning (practically forever ago): that he hadn't wanted to be a burden, but he needed her help.

Where is she even supposed to start?

She watches him throw his arms up to emphasize a point she hasn’t heard and catches sight of how long and delicate his fingers are, even with his summer camp callouses. They’re the same as ever, but somehow that makes Gwen feel like he’s even more fragile than usual, like if she even touched his shoulder he might shatter or maybe even bolt. But if she wants to figure this out properly, she needs more information… so she’s extra careful when she puts forth her next question.

“So you gonna let me watch tonight?” she asks, and then bites her tongue hard because that did not come out like she wanted it to, Gwen what is wrong with you.

Fortunately, the look David sends her is one of innocent surprise, rather than one assuming that she just propositioned him.

“Um, sure!!” he says, voice edging just past bubbly and into manic; he tugs at his bandana, revealing a flash of silver chain. Then, to her horror, a very noticeable flush starts to crawl up the back of his neck — shit, does he think she just propositioned him? “I-it’s just… well, I can’t really afford to ruin any more camp uniforms, s-so, um, I’d have to be —“

“Spit it out, David,” she advises, not completely dickishly.

“—naked, I’d have to be naked,” he blurts out, and pulls his bandana up around his cheeks to hide his embarrassment.

Gwen has to blink at him for a few seconds. Is he seriously that embarrassed about her catching an eyeful when they’ve lived in close quarters this long? And when he’s going to turn into a giant, fuckoff werewolf??

“David. I promise not to look at your dick,” she says, which to her amusement makes him squeak and turn as red as his hair. He flutters a nervous hand at her, glancing around like a camper could appear anywhere — which, to be fair, they could: Gwen has learned not to underestimate the little bastards.

She bumps her shoulder into his, because she’s too awkward to offer comfort in a normal way. “Are you seriously more freaked out about the naked thing than the werewolf thing?”

“It’s not… appropriate,” he hisses, still flushed and harried-looking. “You shouldn’t have to —“

“I don’t have to; I want to. To see you transform, I mean,” she corrects. “Into a wolf. Not to — yeah. But I do want to see the transforming shit again because it was seriously the coolest thing I have ever seen.”

As per usual, David opens the door to the Counselors Cabin and lets Gwen through first, which is why she sees the set-up, recognizes the intended purpose, and is already exhausted and dismayed by its outcome by the time David cheerfully flicks on the lightswitch.

“Oh,” he says, pleasantly surprised, as his action triggers the set of three marbles to start rolling down the halved cardboard tubes that have been taped together into an impressively complicated contraption. The blue marble hits and tips over a precariously balanced jug of water, the yellow one continues to pick up speed as its path steepens, and the mint-green one just barely nudges a piece of cheese into the grubby little hands-reach of a caged squirrel. “Wow,” David says, delighted, while Gwen traces the future paths of the machine and reaches the signs neatly taped to the wall above David’s bed.

“GWEN DON’T INTERFERE. I PROMISED I WOULDN’T SET A FIRE BUT NEIL DIDN’T. MAX.”

“Ooo, great use of weighted pullies,” David says appreciatively, while a baby headache is born right behind Gwen’s eyes.

Next to Max’s note is one with Neil’s precise handwriting. “Sorry for getting carried away but I needed to test my abilities. Neil.”

The squirrel has tugged up the string tied to the key to its cage and is furiously trying to unlock its prison; another domino falls just as the scale overbalances. Gwen’s headache has learned to walk and is joyfully crashing into the walls of her brain.

Nikki’s note (which, for some reason, is dripping with an unknown reddish liquid) says, “it seemed like the best use of our time. also the squirrel needed to know who was boss.”

“That’s such a creative use of a windchime!” David says, proud as anything, as Gwen recognizes an open container of lighter fluid, realizes that the last note is written in Campbell’s chunky scrawl, and her headache throws a screaming teenage tantrum about how unfair its life is.

“IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD CAMP ACTIVITY FOR THE CHILDREN! ALSO THEY BRIBED ME. SORRY! CAMERON C. CAMPBELL.”

“Gwen, look at how they combined their machines here! Oh, I’m so proud, this is such great teamwork,” David coos and then the lighter fluid tips over, the bedspread catches fire, the squirrel frees itself to launch its horrible little rodent body across the room, and Gwen’s headache graduates summa cum laude with a full degree in Fuck You Gwenology.

Even if she hasn’t been through this exact scenario before, Gwen knows how this goes. David’s mattress will be reduced to kindling (an inevitability each summer; honestly, she’s a little proud of how long it lasted this year), David will shriek as the squirrel makes claw-contact with his face, and Gwen will calmly murder every person responsible for ensuring she has more work to do before she can goddamn relax. She’s already heading towards the fire extinguisher when David surprises her.

Instead of getting a faceful of furious-slash-terrified squirrel and screeching his fool head off, David whips a hand out faster than Gwen can follow and snags the thing out of the air. She hardly notices, though, distracted as she is by the sudden, ferocious snarl that transforms David’s face, revealing a set of gleaming, razor-sharp fangs that make him look a whole lot more… monstrous.

Oh, fuck, Gwen thinks, frozen to the spot.

The squirrel squeals, panicked, and David’s growling cuts off abruptly with a sharp little gasp. He loosens his grip enough that the animal can scramble out of his hands and out the swinging screen door, not even bothering to scold them on the way out. David automatically tracks its movements, his green eyes flashing and shoulders tense.

Thwack, goes the cabin door. Gwen stares at David, who himself stares at where the squirrel had disappeared, before a full-body shudder goes through him and he wraps his arms around his middle.

“S-sorry,” he says, voice small. Gwen blinks at that, still a bit dazed, but he keeps his eyes down. “I didn’t mean — I mean, I just —“ He hunches into himself, making himself even smaller.

Realization sparks in Gwen — he feels shitty about this, I should do something — and then David takes a sudden, deep breath, filling his lungs and straightening to his full height. His shoulders are still tense but he’s forced them down, like he’s relaxed, and when he smiles at her it’s practically normal.

But Gwen knows David, and she knows his smiles, and this one is bad: her eyes rove over his face, cataloguing the tension in his brow, the slight tremble of his upper lip, how few teeth he’s actually showing. “David,” she starts, uncertain what she’s going to say.

“It’s okay!” he assures her, voice bright and tight, flapping an insistent hand in dismissal. “I was just — that, um, startled me, is all. I didn’t mean to — to… is something burning?”

Gwen turns so fast she gives herself whiplash. “Oh fuck, the bed!!”

“O-oh — !”

These days she’s old hat at putting out fires, but the lighter fluid and the relatively extended burn time mean that even after Gwen empties a full fire extinguisher, it’s quite clear that the mattress isn’t the only thing sacrificed to the blaze.

“My bed,” David says weakly. The headboard has collapsed into the slats of the bed frame, which are themselves burned through, and its legs are heavily charred; it looks like it might fall apart in a stiff breeze, leaving behind just a pile of ashes. “W-well, we could —“

“The extra camper cots won’t hold an adult’s weight,” Gwen points out numbly. Do they still have — ?

“And Mr. Campbell took the last bedframe from storage when he moved in,” David notes, and Gwen adds another thing to her mental “Reasons to Kill Cameron Campbell” list. “Good thing I —“

“No, Max traded your sleeping bag to the Wood Scouts to get them to take Jermy back,” Gwen reminds him, pinching the bridge of her nose. Quartermaster probably has more supplies, but he’s left for the night to do… Quartermaster things, and Gwen doesn’t actually know how to contact him until the morning.

“Right,” David sighs. “But the hammock — ?”

“Could you even use it when you’ve got —“ she claws at the air, giving him a faux snarl, which immediately makes her feel like a huge, stupid asshole, but she perseveres — “you know, four legs?”

With each back and forth, David sinks down a little more — but at that last one he perks up a bit. “Oh! Gwen, I’ll be a wolf. I don't need a bed, I’ll just sleep outside!”

“David,” Gwen begins, already prepared to try to make him see reason, but then she actually catches sight of his expression and pauses, considering.

Because David isn’t looking at her. His eyes dart from the remains of his bed to her desk to the bathroom door to the open window, whereupon he flinches and looks anywhere else til he’s inevitably drawn back to it. His hands are clasped in front of him like he’s pleased, but Gwen can see them trembling. “Plus, I feel like — I think there’s something different in the air, and I just want to check it out, make sure everything’s okay. And Harrison was so nervous at bedtime — I should probably check on him. And the Quartermaster probably needs help setting things up, so…”

He wants to get away, Gwen realizes. His reaction to the squirrel was different than he’s used to and it scared him. He needs to process it alone.

“Fine,” Gwen blurts out, and David shuts his mouth, eyebrows dipping in confusion.

“Huh?”

“Go. We don’t have to — You can show me the transformation another night. I’ll take care of the bed and any kids who come calling. If you need — some time, or some space, David, then go get it.” She has to mentally scream at herself to do it, but she raises a pretty convincingly casual hand to pat his shoulder. “I’ll take care of things here. You go do what you need, okay?”

He looks uncertain, but he does lean into her touch. Gwen fights to keep her face normal. “Gwen, are you sure? I don’t want to leave you alone with everything again…”

“It’s fine, David,” she says, and finds that she means it. He asked her for her help, and if this is what it takes, well. “Go. Run around, burn off some energy, do what you need. I’ll cover you.”

He bites his lip, incidentally flashing those sharp teeth. Gwen determinedly keeps her eyes on his. “If you’re sure it’s okay…”

“I am. Go do your thing, David.”

The tense worry on his face melts away, and when he smiles at her it’s easy. “Thanks, Gwen,” he says, and before she can react he wraps his arms around her in a firm hug.

Gwen tries not to freeze up or anything, but she’s so awkward — she ends up patting his shoulder again (like an idiot) until he finally loosens his warm grip and steps away to open the cabin door. He aims one last grateful smile at her; it practically lights up the whole room.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Gwen. Thanks again.”

“Yee-up,” she says, and gives him a thumbs-up until the screendoor thwacks shut behind him.

She stands there for a long moment, listening to his footsteps fade away. Then, when she’s sure he’s gone, she numbly reaches for her pillow. She presses her face into it and takes a couple deep breaths.

Then she screams, because she has to clean up the remains of the burned bed and figure out how this werewolf thing works for David and make sure the camp keeps running and now she’s going to have to do all that with the awareness that David might be hot now.

He’s not allowed to be. Their whole thing works because he’s not her type. They have to work so closely together to make this damn place run, reading each others’ intentions and patching each other up and practically working on top of and underneath each other; Gwen can’t do that if she has to worry about her hormones acting up just because her stupid coworker actually has some monster-y traits to go with the fact that technically, now he’s a monster.“Fuck,” she says, and it scrapes at her throat but it feels good anyways, so she says it again as she tries not to think about sharp teeth in an innocent smile. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

CHAPTER TWO

Gwen wakes up.

She keeps her eyes shut for a few moments. Sleep waits for her, solemn and warm, but something in the outside world is just off enough that she doesn’t surrender to it quite yet. Sluggishly, consciousness comes online.

She has a body. Her body is wrapped in a warm blanket. She’s still cold. She scrunches her nose and pulls her limbs in tighter, which helps a little, but not as much as the sudden cut-off of cold air that accompanies the screendoor’s muffled thwack.

Is David seriously coming in and out of the cabin at this hour? That deserves a squinted glare at the very least. Gwen rolls over to offer the stink-eye to her erstwhile coworker for his early morning volume, only —

The windows show only dark grey outside. Rain splatters half-heartedly against the panes. The digital clock on David’s night table illuminates the digits 7:08, more than twenty minutes before her first phone alarm is due to go off. Though the light inside the cabin is limited, it’s enough for Gwen to make out the rough outline of an enormous animal standing just in the doorway. It looks directly at her; its reflective eyes are brilliant and strange.

Her heart skips a beat. Then its pace increases, along with her breathing, because what the fuck, it’s gonna eat her —

A quiet, pitiful whine escapes the beast. It sounds pathetically sad, like Missy when Gwen’s dad won’t share his hamburger, but besides that universal doggy plea, something else about it seems... familiar.

She switches on her lamp before she can doubt herself.

The scant golden light reveals an unnaturally large wolf, its four paws placed carefully on the doormat. It is covered in thick red fur, Gwen knows, but not one hair of that is visible beneath its coat of caked, dripping mud. Its big green eyes are pleading.

“Christ, David,” she says hoarsely, and stumbles to her feet, already reaching for the box of garbage bags left out last night after she cleaned up the charred remains of his bed. She can cut one open and lay it down like a tarp; it’ll catch any mud he drips on the way to the bathroom so it won’t spread to the rest of the cabin. Where are her scissors?

She lurches about the cabin, trying to prep it for a muddy werewolf. Her brain is working, technically, running through where the spare towels are and what she’ll need, but it’s still too early for things to quite make sense. Werewolf? Sure, that’s logical, she can handle that. But shouldn't David have turned back by now?

“C’mon,” she says to him once she has a line of slit open trashbags laid out. David steps carefully along her path, his tail and ears down, and hops immediately into the tub without the need for her to explain. Pulling her hair back in a loose ponytail, Gwen locates an old, refillable slurpee cup, then squats on the bathmat and turns the water on.

It’s cold, as it always is first thing in the morning, but David doesn’t even react; his fur must be super thick. Still, she waits until it hits a reasonable temperature before plugging the bath and filling the mega slurpee cup. “Stay still, okay?” Placing a hand on his furry brow to prevent the water from getting in his eyes, she pours it over his head… which makes hardly any difference to the mud stuck fast to his fur.

Gwen rocks back onto her heels, frowning. “Think we’re gonna need more than water,” she tells David, who woofs so very softly in reply that even in her sleep-muzzy state she can’t help smirking a little. “Is that a yes?” His tail starts to wag, disturbing the already-clouded water filling the tub. “Yeah? You want some soap or shampoo or some shit, David?”

To her amusement, his tail wags even harder — he’s always so delighted by her solutions, even when they’re obvious, but somehow the tail-wagging hits different than his normal bouncy enthuthiasm. She idly wonders how far she can take this as she stands to examine their toiletries.

There’s not much left in his shampoo bottle, so Gwen grabs her body wash as well — it’s cheap and she has tons of it, so it’ll have to do. She kneels back down and softens her voice a little more, like she’s talking to a toddler or something, as she squeezes some shampoo into her palm. “You wanna get clean, David? Huh? Get all this crap off of you?”

He gives her a happy whine that is so very David, despite the species, that she can’t help the giggle that escapes her.

His tail stills for a moment and he stares at her, ears pricked high, the expression on his muzzle so close to human surprise that she starts to feel self conscious. Then he starts wagging his tail so furiously that Gwen has to quickly splat her shampooed hand on his head. “Shut up,” she tells him, and starts to rub it into a lather.

Gwen doesn’t really touch people. Growing up she’d been used to living in cramped spaces — Dad’s tour bus chief among them — which meant that being able to spread out was always such a luxury. She quit touring once she hit high school, but by that time the damage had already been done: after so many years of enforced closeness, Gwen never really figured out how to initiate physical contact when she wanted it, without a lack of room causing the press of bodies on all sides.

So she’s not good at touching people. David, on the other hand, is bad at not touching people. When Gwen awkwardly offered her hand to him during their first meeting, David went right in for an extended hug. He hasn’t gotten much better since; it’s taken years for her to train him to let go of her, dammit, and she’s given up on ever getting through a day without his hands fluttering around her shoulders, arms, back, casually and constantly touching her.

And though Gwen pretends not to notice or care, on the relatively rare occasions that she initiates contact, David always, always relaxes into her touch. It makes her feel… well, stupid, yes, but also warm and — damn him — kind of fond. Right now, it’s somehow even easier to slip into that feeling: he leans obviously into her hands as she works the shampoo and then body wash through his thick fur, the mud coming away under her fingers and slowly revealing more and more red fur.

It should be stranger, not least because he’s currently in the form of a predator that has terrified man for years. But Gwen keeps at it, soaping and scrubbing and rinsing, til her friend stands there on four paws, clean as can be.

...and, once she takes a step back to get a good view of him, looking a bit like an enormous drowned rat.

“Holy shit, you’re so skinny,” Gwen exclaims, leaning against the sink. She crosses her arms as she gets a good look at the wolf doing his best to pout in their tub. “All that fur almost made you look intimidating, but you’re all elbows, huh?”

David’s furry brow creases. He seems to think hard for a moment; feeling generous, Gwen waits him out. Finally, he sticks the very tip of his tongue out in an impressively snooty blep.

She snorts, snagging some ratty old towels, and drops back into the voice she uses for dogs and babies. “Well, does David wanna get dry now? Huh? Does Davey wanna let Gwen towel him off so he can be a big, scary fluffball again?”

When she turns back, his muzzle has contorted into one of offended realization. She can hear his voice so clearly in his scandalized expression: Wait, have you been making fun of me? That, plus the fact that his tongue is still out in a petite blep, has her pressing the towels to her face to muffle a laugh.

“David,” she starts, once she feels capable of facing him without making a fool of herself -- and then she startles at the spray of cool water against her skin, soaking into her pajamas, and the pafwappafwappafwap sound of a dog shaking itself dry. “David!” she snaps, horrified, and backs away, but the bathroom door is closed — she’s stuck — she holds up the towels, as if that will protect her. She’s going to kill him.

He woofs, sounding terribly pleased with himself, and Gwen blindly chucks the towels at him. By her ear, they splat against the tub -- she wipes at the water in her eyes, cursing. “I’m going to kill you,” she announces to the bathroom, fuming, and feels the rasp of something warm and wet on her free hand. She jerks away, blinking rapidly to clear her vision.

David stands beside her, fluffy and damp and way too smug, his green eyes sparkling in amusement. He’s big enough that his head hits her waist; if he stood on his back feet, he’d be tall enough to crowd her in, look down on her. As it is, he looks up at her, a distinctly… David look of affection on his face.

Gwen’s stomach swoops, but just a little, and that’s kind of embarrassing so she glowers at him. “Dick,” she mutters, yanking open the bathroom door and storming half-heartedly to her “dresser” (a shitty filing cabinet, because Campbell’s too cheap for real furniture). She can hear the click of his nails on the hardwood as she pulls out a camp shirt and a relatively clean sports bra. Her pajama shirt is soaked thanks to David’s sense of humor so she tugs it off and flings it into her laundry basket. “Shouldn’t you have changed back by now anyway?” she asks him. “It’s way past sun-up.”

She just buys whatever fits from the sales rack, so her sports bras are always wacky colors; this one is fuschia with vivid teal piping. She yanks it on over her head and makes sure her tits are facing the right way before realizing that David has gone totally silent.

She glances over her shoulder to find him staring at her with wide eyes, his tail frozen straight out in shock. When they make eye contact, his ears flatten against his skull and he seems at such a panicky loss for what to do that he actually yelps, which startles them both so much that they spend another precious second staring at each other in mutual what-the-fuck-do-we-do-ness before Gwem gets her shit together and throws her camp shirt at his face.

“I —! You were a dog! I forgot!” she snaps, face burning. Stupid. “Stay there!”

It takes Gwen seconds to get another shirt on, but her inner voice is shouting rapidly the whole time. He’s a wolf but he’s a werewolf so he’s a person so you can’t change in front of him dumbass! Unless you’re trying to get it on in which case why would you think unsexily shoving your boobs into a sports bra would be the way to do it?! Plus even if he is a werewolf he’s still David who isn’t supposed to be hot! ...But maybe he is now?? Even if that is the case you know you can’t handle a fling with a coworker so quit thinking about it, especially cuz right now he’s still in the form of a dog!!

In her mind, Gwen shouts inarticulately back at the voices and smashes their heads in with David’s guitar. In real life, she zips up her shorts and hesitantly lifts the spare shirt off David’s face. He keeps his eyes screwed shut, his ears back and head down, everything about his posture saying I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.

Gwen huffs out a breath — he gets so apologetic for the stupidest shit — and taps his forehead to get his attention. “David, it’s fine, it was my fault anyway. You can open your eyes.”

A fine tremble goes through him, but he peeks one eye open and, seeing that she’s telling the truth, opens both eyes to focus entirely on her. Gwen feels like squirming — even in this form, his focus makes her a little nervous. “Well?” she blurts out. “Why aren’t you human again?”

He flicks an ear in mild irritation (is he conscious of that, she wonders) and pads over to the cabin door, pointing his muzzle towards the outside. Gwen follows, looking out: the camp is muddy and full of puddles, rain drizzling down from pale grey clouds that take up the whole sky. Her stomach sinks.

“You need sunlight to change back?” she asks; he confirms with a prim little nod. Gwen tugs her phone over by its cord (it’ll probably break at some point, but what the fuck ever) and checks the weather app for the hourly forecast in Sleepy Peak. She can’t help hissing at what she sees.

“It’s supposed to be cloudy for the next twenty-four hours,” she says, feeling a little numb. David’s ears sink in clear dismay that matches her own. “What the fuck are we going to do?”

***

It turns out David doesn’t even need to speak for them to reach a decision.

He suggests (through a series of wolf-sounds and some poor pantomime) that he stay inside all day, but Gwen knows that he couldn’t even make it an hour being cooped up inside with no camp activities to run. So as long as he can avoid the mud, she’s sentencing him to spend the rest of the day outdoors on the off-chance that any sunlight makes it through the thick cloud cover.

Which means that she’s basically going to be running the camp alone today. Great.

Gwen rolls up a pair of his shorts and pins them onto a long-sleeve camp shirt so at least he’ll have clothing if he happens to change back. Obedient, David sits very still as she ties the bundle around his neck like a bandana. He looks up at her attentively when she smooths down the tree insignia so it lays flat against his red fur.

Despite the fact that he’s an enormous wolf, and despite the fact that he’s David, her brain says dog! and she has to resist the urge to pat his head. He almost looks cute.

“Okay,” she says, shrugging on her raincoat and opening the front door. “Quartermaster needs to get into storage to get you a new bed anyway, so I’ll do blanket forts for a bit and see how it goes. You — don’t get seen, don’t get too muddy, and come back as soon as you’re human again. Got it?”

David’s eyes turn determined. He lifts a paw to his nose in what Gwen assumes is his best “campe diem!!” and this time she really can’t help it — before she can stop herself, she’s running a hand down his fluffy head and scratching behind his ears. David leans into it, tail wagging, and by the time Gwen realizes what she’s done he’s already hopped out the door and trotted off into the woods.

Gwen is too awkward, too nervous, too weird — even after years of patching him up, she hardly ever touches David on purpose, but… that had been easy. His fur had been warm, his green eyes bright.

She stands there for a minute, blinking at her own hand, imagining she can still feel fur, dense and fine against her fingers. Then she shakes her head and gets going.

#camp camp #campcamp #writing this in 2020 was a weird period for me... but also like. aren't they all #what can i say. in times of trouble what i want most is to write about my favorite characters dealing w werewolf shenanigans >:3 #saint writes #just checked and my unpublished hlvrai werewolf fic is almost exactly as long as these drafts :o that one's more than halfway done tho #so hopefully i'll get to finish it and actually post it eventually #werewolves #oh we didn't even actually GET to the bed-sharing bit in this yet did we. lmao #cc

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