Last Time:

Yixing slid into his wolf skin, feeling fur burst from his skin in itchy little clumps, hearing more than feeling the grate of bones twisting and shifting and warping and changing until he was on all fours, jaw pulling forwards, sharp teeth bursting from his gums. He sniffed, wrinkling his nose at the stench of pain and fear that nearly smothered the smell of Suho, Sehun, and a hundred sleepless nights, and sneezed.

Hopping up onto the bed, he took Suho’s sweaty arm in his mouth and bit.

The world exploded into fur.

Chapter Three:

Chen ended up being something of an object lesson, which he took with the same steady calm he took everything. Even coming out of a tangle of wolf and human bodies to find his shirt torn and his shoulder weeping blood and already hot to the touch had not shaken him overmuch.

Or perhaps the breakdown was still to come, Kris reflected, seeing the pale tone of Chen’s cheeks. Snagging the newest member of their little pack by the back of the neck, he steered him into the beanbag chair that the manager-noona had occupied earlier. He grabbed a blanket that had fallen to the floor earlier and threw it around Chen’s shoulders, to keep him warm until he got back. “Stay,” he said. “I’ll be right back. Then we’ll get you into bed.”

Chen nodded, already starting to drift.

It didn’t take long for Kris to gather the scattered members; after the earlier reveal, they’d all drifted to different parts of the two apartments, taking in what they had learnt in their own ways. The managers had returned to the office to begin dealing with the fallout, and Jinki and Key had disappeared upstairs, back to the apartment SHINee kept in the SM-owned building. After collecting those still in K’s apartment, Kris went across the hall and found the others.

When everyone was somewhat settled, Kris let himself collapse beside Chen.

“Is Suho okay?” Sehun asked. He’d been curled up in front of the television in M’s dorm with Luhan, the pair talking in hushed whispers, not paying a of attention to the cooking show playing.

“Suho is fine,” Kris said. “We found a way to make his transition easier. He’s sleeping, now. Yixing is with him.” He paused, trying to find a way to say what needed to be said.

“Why do you need us, then?” Tao asked, raising an eyebrow. He was wearing a tank top and a pair of yoga pants, and he was carrying his staff. Kris had caught him in the hall, already heading for the in-building gym.

“Because I got bit,” Chen said quietly, peeking up from beneath the blanket. He looked to Kris, and then sat upright. “I don’t know who it was, but…”

As the blanket fell away, someone gasped. Chen couldn’t really blame whoever it was; he hadn’t gotten a good look at the bloody wound before Kris had been applying pressure and tissues, but even he knew that it was heart-stoppingly ugly. Neither Suho nor Yixing’s teeth were really meant for much outside of rending and tearing.

“That’s a werewolf bite,” Kris said, somewhat unnecessarily. “ChenChen’s already starting to run a fever. Sometime in the next twelve hours, he will start the Change. Any questions?”

He sounded exhausted, Chen thought. Like he was about to keel over and start snoring, right then and there. And little wonder; Kris had been running full tilt on this since last night, and Chen doubted he had had much of a chance to stop for breath, or that he would have taken one, if it existed.

“Awesome,” Kris sighed, when no one yelled out. “Sehun, do you mind sleeping over with Tao tonight? Actually, no. Sehun, if you want to room with Luhan, that would be wonderful. Yixing will stay in your room with Suho, and I’ll take over ChenChen and MinMin’s room. Minseok—”

“I’m in with Tao, got it, duizhang,” the older man said, nodding sharply. He looked around at the rest of the group. “You go get Jong-ah settled. I’ll watch over the rest of the mess.”

“Thank you,” Kris said, the words escaping him in a dragging sigh. He shoved himself to his feet, then helped Chen get to his. Re-wrapping in the blanket, he hustled him out of the room, out of K’s apartment, and away.

Minseok waited until they could no longer hear footsteps in the hall, and then turned a laser-eyed glare on the seven other men sitting around him. “No one does anything stupid for at least twenty-four hours, got it?” he hissed. “He’s worn to the bone. Baekhyunnie?”

“Yeah, hyung?”

“You’re going to be the adult in this dorm, alright? Leader-nim, at least until Suho’s feeling better. The rest of you, listen to him, alright? Think of it as having two sick members in the dorm. If there’s any problems, call me first, okay? I’ll deal with it.”

“And if you can’t?” Sehun asked.

“Then I will,” Luhan said, serene as ever, but an edge of steel in his voice. “And if I can’t, and the managers can’t, and the rest of us can’t…”

Minseok nodded. “Only then will we bother duizhang.”

---

Tao peeked around the edge of the door. “Gege?”

“Hey, TaoTao,” Minseok said, smiling up at the younger man from where he was lying on his bed. “What can I do for you? Oh, back rub?”

Hesitant, Tao nodded. “If…if it’s not a problem.”

Minseok laughed and sat up. “No problem, no problem at all. Do you have your stuff for bed?”

“Yeah—Yi-ge­ left it outside the room." Tao stepped into the room, revealing that he was holding a pillow, a blanket, and had his travel carry-on tossed over his shoulder.

“Go ahead and throw those down,” Minseok said, pointing to Chen’s bed. He’d already taken his roommate’s stuff over to the room Kris was keeping him in, so it was easy enough for Tao to put his things on the bed so that he could use it for the night. As the younger man worked to get his blanket evenly distributed, Minseok rose to his feet and started pawing through his drawers. He kept unscented lotions in his drawers for s; though it was an unofficial title, everyone knew that he was EXO’s masseuse. And he was good at it.

Tao rolled out the throw blanket that Minseok kept for this purpose, laying down on it, chin propped on his own pillow. He’d already shed his shirt.

“Nice bruise,” Minseok said, kneeling down beside him. “What hit you?”

Reaching back, Tao found the sore spot the older man had noticed. “I walked back into the door,” he said, laughing ruefully. “Wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

Minseok whistled. “I’ll be careful, then,” he said. Squeezing some lotion into his palm, he started warming them up between his hands. When it wouldn’t chill Tao, he put his hands on Tao’s shoulders and began to work the cream in.

For quite some time, neither man spoke. Minseok knelt beside his friend, working out the knots in his shoulders and arms with strong fingers and hard presses of the heels of his palms. Tao let him move him here and there, his eyes starting to slide closed. Every once in a while, he’d stiffen up and a tiny, involuntary sound would escape him. Minseok focused his attention on those knots, knowing that he needed to loosen up Tao’s shoulders before moving on to the real problem area—his lower back.

“Tao-ya,” he said, leaning in to work out an uncomfortably tight muscle. “Have you spoken to duizhang?”

“No,” Tao mumbled, face buried in his pillow. “I don’t think he wants to.”

“To talk to you?”

“Yeah.”

Minseok thought, fingers working. “You’re upset by that, I know. No, don’t tense up. Just listen to me, yeah? I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t want to talk to you, Tao. I think…I think he’s not really sure how to talk to you, you know? You’re his friend, but right now, everything’s going to hell, all at once. And you know him. He thinks he has to be all tough-guy leader-man. Can’t rely on us. Has to carry all that weight himself.”

Tao snorted. “He was avoiding me like I had the plague or something in the airport this morning.”

“Yeah,” Minseok admitted, lips tightening. “I noticed.”

“I noticed you noticing. You’re not subtle, gege.”

Minseok pinched him, gently. “Brat.” He shifted, starting to work on the middle of Tao’s back. “Possibly true, though. But I think Yifannie had a reason for that, too. This morning—none of us knew. Not about Xing-ah, not about this whole werewolf thing, right?”

“Right,” Tao grunted.

“So maybe he was talking to someone and he couldn’t risk you hearing? TaoTao, you are the only other one of us that speaks Cantonese. I don’t think it was you, at least in the sense of you being you, that he wanted to avoid. You know how he said that it wasn’t his secret to tell, earlier? Maybe he just didn’t want you to hear about Xing-ah’s secret.”

“Maybe.”

Minseok’s lips twitched. “I’m still planning on tearing him a new one, Tao-ya, don’t you worry. Honestly. That man.” He shook his head. “What, does he think we’re just here for him to ride herd on? Does he think we can’t help him out? Ugh. Save me from heroic idiots.”

Tao snorted. “Going to have to learn him to lean on us, huh?”

“Going to have to learn him, indeed,” Minseok said grimly. “Now. Relax!”

---

Suho stretched slowly, examining his forelegs carefully. His feet were white, and most of the fur on his legs were a creamy off-white. The inner fur on his hind legs was also white, and it was a bright tan color on the outside. His tail was tipped with black, and the rest of what he could see of its fluffy length was a speckled mix of grey and brown.

Yixing waited for him on his bed, curled up for rest but his head held high. If he looked anything like Yixing did, Suho knew that he had an off-white muzzle and thick tan ruff, while his facial features were rimmed in a dark grey. His back was a darker brown, with hints of grey mixed in.

Yixing’s tail thumped on the mattress. He gave Suho an expectant look.

Suho huffed, and then bounced up to his feet. He trotted forward a few steps, then leapt onto his own mattress, careful not to land on the other man—wolf. With his nose, he nudged and pushed until Yixing shifted. Then, and only then, did Suho turn once, twice, and settle down.

---

Chanyeol leaned back against Baekhyun, listening to Kyungsoo rummaging through the fridge. The other man was absentmindedly sweeping fingers through his hair, petting him like a cat while they watched a movie. They had all agreed that a quiet night was just what the doctor ordered, and had quickly stripped cushions off the couch to curl on the floor.

Kai had already fallen asleep, a messy sprawl of limbs and his favourite blanket draped across furniture, floor, and friends. Baekhyun was planning to wake him up in a bit, whenever Kyungsoo’s rummaging had born fruit, but until then… Well, there was no harm in letting him sleep, was there? He certainly couldn’t see one.

“Can you believe this is our lives?” Chanyeol asked.

Baekhyun snorted. “I can believe that something insane is our lives, yes. Can I believe the werewolf thing? That’s a bit harder.”

Chanyeol laughed quietly. “Basically, yeah. You think Xing-ah knew about the sunbae-nim?”

“Key-hyung and Jinki-hyung? No way. He was just filling in. You heard them. I don’t think they would have told him,” Baekhyun said.  He shook his head. “No. I think he was as blindsided by this as the rest of us.”

“Well, except for a certain duizhang…” Chanyeol said, arching an eyebrow. “What else do you think he’s keeping to himself?”

“Would you have believed him if he’d started talking about werewolves?” Baekhyun asked, tugging gently on his hair. “You wouldn’t have, don’t lie. You’d have tried to get him committed to the mental ward.”

“Pssht, like you would have reacted any better.”

“I’m still not one-hundred percent sure he’s not a little crazy,” Baekhyun admitted. “I mean. Well, we saw Key-­hyung and Jinki-hyung, but…werewolves?”

“ing nuts,” Chanyeol said.

“Yes, you are,” Kyungsoo agreed, coming into the room with a tray full of assorted dishes. “Looks like noona refilled the fridge for us. What are we talking about?”

“Your face,” Kai grumbled, twisting slowly as he woke up. “Food?”

“Food, Jong-bear,” Kyungsoo said, holding out a bite of rice. He waited until Kai sat up, and then fed it to him.

Kai ruffled his hands through his hair while he chewed, eyes still droopy and half-closed. Swallowing, he accepted the chopsticks Chanyeol held out to him and joined the others in rifling through the plastic containers of food.

“Someone should go offer food to Suho and Yixing,” Chanyeol said, a piece of fruit half-way to his mouth.

Kyungsoo shook his head. “Xing-ah came into the kitchen while I was in there,” he said. “He grabbed some sausage and left.”

“Did he look—human?”

“Sort of. I mean, he was standing upright, and he had, like, hands and . But his teeth were extra pointy,” he said, holding fingers up beside his own canines, “and he had, like, wicked side burns. And a pointy nose.”

“Ha!” Baekhyun laughed. “Pointy nose.”

“Did you see Suho-hyung?” Kai asked.

Kyungsoo shook his head. “I think Yixing is keeping him away from us? Just for a little bit. Until he’s used to it. Like Kris-hyung and Jongdae-ya.”

“Speaking of those two—anyone see the look on Tao-ya’s face?”

“Forget Tao-ya,” Chanyeol said, shaking his head. “Did you see Minseok’s face?”

“I thought he was going to leap up and claw out eyeballs,” Baekhyun agreed, snickering. “He’s a tad protective of his baby, isn’t he?”

Kai rolled his eyes. “They’re all protective of Tao,” he said. “Him and Luhan. Which I guess I can understand. Lu-hyung looks like a baby. Tao just actually is one.”

“He’s older than Sehun,” Kyungsoo pointed out.

“Nicer to his hyungs, though,” Chanyeol said. “Makes them a hell of a lot more protective. And Min-ah’s a mama bear, anyway.”

Baekhyun laughed. “He is, he really is. So. How long do you think it will take before he kills someone in there?”

They all laughed.

---

Even after Chen completed his Change, Kris insisted on the three new werewolves spending more time with each other than with the other members. While the other nine ran around trying to get things pulled together—supernatural emergency or no, SM had plans for EXO, and they would get them done—Chen, Suho, and Yixing focused on getting control of their new realities. Not just in the mental sense, though there was rather a lot for them to wrap their minds around. More important, or at least more stressed by Kris, was getting control of their shifts.

“Until the wolf is listening to you,” Kris explained, “every emotional upset is going to send you right back into your fur. And that can’t happen.”

He forwarded the information from Stiles to Suho, putting him in charge of getting all three of them up to snuff. In the meantime, Kris, as M’s leader, was having to serve as the leader of EXO over all. He left early in the morning and returned late at night, more often than not just falling face-first into his bed.

Not that anyone else was having a much better time of things. Suho was nearly at his wits end—as easily as Yixing slid back and forth between human and wolf, he was having a difficult time locking down on that place somewhere in between. And Chen could find the in between perfectly. He just couldn’t—or maybe wouldn’t—let go completely and drop into the fully wolfed out form. He also struggled getting back into his human shape. And Suho? He struggled with changing on purpose. Sure, in his sleep, or due to emotions, he’d slip and slide through a variety of wolf-human combinations, but doing it intentionally? That was a whole other ballgame.

Not being wolf-bit didn’t really seem to be helping anyone, either. Tao had practically disappeared into the bowels of SM’s well-appointed gym, and the wushu specialist he trained with had been in more frequently than usual. Luhan and Sehun had had a knock-down, drag-out screaming match in the hallway late one evening; Jessica and Key had had to drag them apart. Now the pair were avoiding each other like their lives depended on it. Chanyeol had locked himself into a practice room with Kai, and if they weren’t dancing, they were discussing dance, or sleeping on the benches—or beneath them. Kyungsoo and Baekhyun drifted between dancing and singing and working on god only knew what. Minseok certainly didn’t, and he was the one that the managers sought out when they wanted to find someone else.

That, more than anything, was what had Minseok swearing under his breath as he worked his way up the stairs. While he could have taken the elevator, he was frustrated enough at the moment to know that he needed to give himself a buffer of time before meeting with his leader. It wasn’t that he didn’t love, respect, and generally think well of Kris. It was just that at the moment, Kris was testing every inch of his good will and generally making an of himself where Tao was concerned, to say nothing of making Minseok’s life more difficult by not answering his phone. Hence, the stairs. Because being out of breath would probably keep him from cussing Kris out and punching him in the face first thing.

Probably.

The door to M’s apartment was locked, so Minseok let himself in. He noted that the shoes Kris had been wearing earlier, a ratty pair of tennis shoes that he really, really hoped none of the sasaengs had seen, were tucked in the shoe rack, out of the way. Kris’s bag was also hanging from one of the low hooks.

“So you are home,” Minseok muttered to himself. “er, you better have a damn good reason for not picking up your goddamn phone or I am going to end your stupid .” Toeing out of his own shoes, he slid into a pair of house shoes—Luhan’s—and headed down the hall.

Not being sure of where his leader might be, Minseok stuck his head in each of the rooms he passed. The kitchen was empty, as was the living room. There was no one in his and Chen’s room, and even though Tao had left a messy tangle of blankets on the floor in Luhan and Yixing’s, there was no one there. Nor was Kris in the room he usually shared with Tao, which they’d all been avoiding. The manager’s office—also Kris’s office, the manager’s room, and storage—also stood empty. Kris was not in the small nook that held their washing machine and their dryer.

The door to the bathroom was open, and the light was on.

Trusting that Kris would have closed the door all the way if he had needed privacy, Minseok pushed it open, already primed to give the other man a tonguelashing he would not soon forget.

“Oh, shibal,” he swore, taking in the scene.

Kris was in the bathroom, sure enough. At least, his body was. God knew where his mind was, because he was slumped against the toilet, head resting on the seat, completely out of it. His face was pale, but for bright fever spots high on his cheeks, and dark rings beneath his eyes. His mouth was open, and every breath made a horrible wheeze. He had sick on his face, in his hair, on his hands and knees.

Cringing, Minseok wrapped one hand in a nearby towel and reached for Kris. With the other, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. Thanking every higher power he could think of for speed dial, he set about calling a manager while lifting Kris out of his own sick.

“Minseok-ah? Did you find him?”

“Yeah, about that, hyung. I think we’re going to need a doctor…”