Last Time:

“Thanks,” Tao said. He lay back down atop the sheet, listening to Minseok’s footsteps fading down the hall. He thought he could hear the soft squeak of one of the dog toys they took to keep themselves occupied and quiet in wolf form, but another bolt of pain distracted him.

Biting his lip, Tao clutched his abdomen. How much longer could he deal with this?

Chapter Seven

“Taozi still feels like day-old ,” Minseok said, whispering in Luhan’s ear. “In the morning, we’re checking on him.”

Chen, who had overheard, frowned. “Isn’t Kris looking in on him tonight?”

Luhan and Minseok both shook their heads.

“Yifan is sleeping tonight,” Luhan said. “Yunmi-jie made him take sleeping pills before we left the SM building.”

“And,” Minseok said, “Tao is, with any luck, also sleeping tonight. And you know how he is, anyway. He might be a cuddle-monkey, but he sure as hell doesn’t want an audience while he’s puking up his toenails.”

Yixing joined the huddle of Chinese-speakers. “Nah, gege? Someday, I’m going to beat it out of you who taught you some of those phrases. You can’t talk about our music but you can talk about cuddle-monkeys and toenails? I call bull.”

“Oh, really?” Minseok demanded, turning to him. “Care to wager?”

Chen rolled his eyes and pulled gently on Luhan’s shoulder. “Come on, Lu-ya,” he said. “They’re about to start wrestling, again. And then Kyungsoo will join in. Again. And then Baekhyunnie.”

“Again?” Luhan offered, smiling as he slid back towards the waiting pile of pillows. The fever raging under his skin was really starting to wear him out—he had no doubt that, even as loud as the group might get, or as hot as it might end up being under all those furry bodies, he was going to be spending the night sleeping like a rock.

“Again,” Chen agreed.

“Welcome to the pack,” Kai said, dropping an armload of pillows before ruffling Luhan’s hair. “Population, all of us.”

“Even the non-furry ones?”

“Especially the non-furry ones,” Suho interjected, dodging the tangled mess of tails and limbs that was Minseok and Yixing. “Someone’s got to look out for you lot. Well, that lot?”

“I thought that was Duizhang’s job,” Luhan said, mock-innocence in his voice.

Suho fumbled for a second, then picked up a pillow and swatted Luhan’s angel-sweet expression right off his face. “Oh, you!” he huffed. “Ugh, you are going to fit right in.”

“Solid sass,” Luhan said. Holding his captured pillow, he grinned at Suho. “What, you thought Sehun came up with it all on his own?”

“Personally,” Kai said, “I’m grateful he’s getting help from somewhere.” He mock-shuddered. “Yah, hyung, can you imagine if Sehun was that sarcastic without someone else’s help? And Lu-ya’s, at that.” He waved a hand at Luhan. “I mean, not that we don’t love you, hyung, but it’s kind of a well-known fact around here that you’re the head in charge across the hall.”

“Excuse me!” Minseok yelled, leaping out of the furry fray and tumbling into his human form. “Hello, queen right here.”

Sehun had probably thought that his muttered “Queen Something, alright,” would go unheard, and, in a normal situation, it would have. Unfortunately for him, he was walking into a room full of werewolves as he spoke. Even in their human forms, their hearing was sharper than that of a normal human, and so Minseok heard him clear as day.

 “Yah, Oh Sehun,” he said, raising a threatening finger. “You watch your step, maknae. I know where you sleep.”

Luhan laughed, watching the oncoming power play. A sharp squeeze of pain stopped his humour short, however, and his laugh became a surprised groan.

Chen quickly pulled the smaller man into his arms, wolfing just enough that his clawed hands wrapped around Luhan’s hips, protection and restraint against his own reactions. The other wolves, dropping their play, quickly came crowding over. Even Sehun dropped the act, a look of concern creasing his pretty face.

“Luhannie?” Minseok asked, gentle as a kitten.

“Hurts…!” Luhan gritted out between clenched teeth, not looking at anyone. Beads of sweat were already starting to dot his forehead. “Ai!”

There was a sharp crackle of bones resettling, and Yixing stretched up and into a nightshirt. “Alright,” he said. “I’m on translation duty tonight, I guess. Unless one of you wants to deal with hallucinating Luhan?”

Suho shook his head. “Let’s get the bedding spread out. Kai, you want to—Kyungsoo!”

Kyungsoo froze, one paw in the air.

“Oh, lord,” Chen said, summing up all their thoughts as they took in the sight before them. “There’s blood on your face. You’ve bit him.”

---

As it turned out, Kyungsoo hadn’t actually bitten Baekhyun. As Chanyeol pointed out, no matter how distracted either one of them might have been, they would have definitely noticed an actual bite. However, one of Kyungsoo’s long fangs raking across the ridge of Baekhyun’s shoulder? That had gone unnoticed—at least until their attention had been drawn to it. And once they knew of it, they couldn’t just leave things to happen slowly.

Under Minseok’s careful direction, Kyungsoo had gone ahead and given Baekhyun a little nip, just enough to break the skin, right under the scratch. As a group, they had no intentions of letting Baekhyun suffer through the long, slow, painful transition that Suho had experienced. No, as Minseok had argued, they might as well let Baekhyun change in comfort, along with Luhan.

Kyungsoo the wound carefully, urging it to heal. He had his ears folded back, his shoulders down, and his tail tucked tight between his legs. He stared up at the back of Baekhyun’s head with sad eyes, taking great care to be as gentle and soft as possible while cleaning the wound and encouraging it to heal even before the speedy healing of the werewolf kicked in.

“I don’t blame you, Kyung-ah,” Baekhyun said, stretching one arm back to awkwardly pat at his friend’s fur. “I was the one who started wrestling you.”

Kyungsoo whined and nosed at his hand. Now that the wound was clean, he started nudging Baekhyun towards where Luhan was already lying down, head pillowed on Minseok’s paws, cuddling his friend like a stuffed toy. Hoping Baekhyun would get the idea, Kyungsoo shoved again and laid down.

Thankfully, Suho stepped in. “Lie down, Baekhyunnie,” he said, fluffing a pillow for him. “We’re all going to pile on.”

Baekhyun laughed quietly. “A puppy pile?” he asked, lying down beside Minseok and Luhan. He opened his arms, waiting. When Kyungsoo didn’t come forward, he huffed and waved at him. “Come on. Or is it just Lu-hyung who gets snuggles?”

Kyungsoo edged forward, being sure to give Baekhyun plenty of time to change his mind or shove him away. He settled, at first, just at the edge of his friend’s embrace, but Baekhyun was having none of that. He wrapped his arms around Kyungsoo’s furry middle, just like they were wrestling, and hauled him over.

“C’mere,” Baekhyun said, impatient. “Not all of us have furry coats, and it’s too cold to sleep without a blanket, with the air-con on like this.” He tucked his chin against Kyungsoo’s shoulder, trusting that his point had been made.

Luhan laughed at the look on Kyungsoo’s face. The wobbling, incoherent sound seemed almost drunken, and knowing why and how he had gotten that way made it seem all the more obscene. He laughed again, more to himself than anything, his fingers twitching loosely against Minseok’s fur.

Minseok his forehead gently, halfway between concerned mother and indulgent friend. He hadn’t seen Luhan this out of it before, not even when he’d gotten drunk; it would have been more concerning than it was, maybe should have been more concerning than it was, but for the part where he knew why Luhan was so out of it. It was strange, that his friend reacted to pain and fever this way, but he was grateful. Minseok was fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to handle Luhan whimpering and crying his way through the change, nor calling out and begging for help, the way others had.

Yixing gently scratched behind Minseok’s ears, as if knowing what was running through his head. “Come on, Lu-ge,” he murmured, Mandarin a liquid flow. “Sleep, yeah?”

“Sleeeeeeeep, yeah,” Luhan giggled, burying his face in Minseok’s white chest ruff. “Everyone’s scared, ahaha, there’s so much blood it’s like coins on the floor. Coins full of all kinds of love—like a wishing well, haha.” He snuggled closer to the wolf.

Yixing exchanged a concerned look with Minseok and Chen, the only others in the room who spoke enough Mandarin to follow Luhan’s rambling. Had he…? Grimacing, Yixing slid into that half-space between wolf and man, purposely letting his nose get as wolf as he could. He breathed deeply, trying to get the best scent of the apartment that he could.

“My god,” he muttered, barely remembering to use Korean in his surprise. “He’s right. The whole place smells like blood. Blood and, ugh,” he sneezed, “concern. Fear and concern.” Sliding back into his human face, though, he frowned. “But it’s just barely there. I had to look for it, and even then…”

Minseok made an odd grumbling noise and gently tapped Luhan’s nose with his own. Ignoring the way the other man fumblingly waved a hand at him, he gave Yixing a dark look.

“You might be right,” Yixing said. “He may just have that much better a sense of smell than the rest of us. Weird that his nose went first, though.”

Suho shrugged, having been paying attention to the conversation. “We’ve all been changing differently,” he pointed out. “Maybe he’s just getting the senses first? May explain why he’s so…” He frowned, pursing his lips as he tried to think of a way to describe Luhan.

“High?” Chanyeol said, offering his leader a flannel sheet from the linen closet. “He said it smelled like love.” He shrugged. “Maybe being able to smell how everyone feels—how you all feel about him—is what’s knocking him for a loop.” He knelt down and ruffled a hand through Luhan’s hair. “Get some good sleep, LuLu. Love you.”

“Hmmm,” Luhan purred, his voice muffled against Minseok’s chest. “You doooooooooo.”

---

Chanyeol yawned, then took a long moment to stretch just as far as he could in all directions. He could feel his spine popping, and oh, but it felt wonderful. Sun was pouring in through the open window, and he felt like he’d maybe even gotten a whole six hours of sleep.

Across the room, on the other mattress, Sehun was curled into a tight little ball. At some point during the night, he had settled himself into the corner of his bed, tucked well into the corner of the room. He had a sheet hauled up to cover him, and all of him that still showed were his feet and his hair.

It was almost unfortunate that he had to wake him up—almost. Chanyeol sat up slowly, yawning again. He ran a hand through his hair, hoping to somewhat settle it into something publically acceptable, then rubbed at his eyes. Rising to his feet, he padded across the room, took a hold of the sheet, and pulled.

Sehun screeched, an inhuman sound, already lurching towards Chanyeol to rip his eyes out of his head. To Sehun’s downfall—and Chanyeol’s luck—though, the younger man was still more asleep than awake. He tripped over something—the edge of the mattress, a wrinkle in the fitted sheet, his own toes, absolutely nothing, it didn’t matter. The end result was Sehun growling wordlessly up at Chanyeol from the floor, a look as sour as any he’d ever mustered on his sleep-flushed face.

Chanyeol laughed uproariously for a bit before offering a hand to the other member. He hauled Sehun to his feet, then ran a hand through the younger man’s pale hair, shaking it out of the tangled muss it had been in. “Breakfast duty, Sehunnie.”

“I hate you,” Sehun grunted, reaching for a sweatshirt.

“Love you, too, maknae,” Chanyeol said. He waited for Sehun to get comfortably buried in the soft fabric, grabbed his wrist, and yanked him down the hall to the kitchen.

There were eight werewolves asleep in a messy tangle on the floor of the living room, still asleep. Though they had been a fairly even mix of wolf and human the night before, at some point, most of them had transformed back into their human shapes. It looked like the aftermath of a wild night, and that seemed to lift Sehun’s spirits, somewhat. He pulled his cellphone out from wherever he had secreted it earlier, flipped to the camera, and quickly started taking shots of the whole situation. Clearly, he had deemed it all blackmail-worthy.

Chanyeol peeked over his shoulder and snorted at what he saw. Having captured a few shots of the group as a whole, Sehun had turned his lens on the individuals. He was getting pictures of Minseok drooling into Luhan’s hair, Luhan snuggling against Yixing’s shin, and Kyungsoo snoring with his mouth wide open. He took a few pictures of Kai, sprawled out half on top of Chen, half beneath Baekhyun, and Suho, who looked like he might maybe have had his thumb tucked into his mouth.

(If he did have his thumb in his mouth, Chanyeol was willing to bet that Sehun already had photos. He roomed with the leader, after all, and had undoubtedly had plenty of chances to get embarrassing pictures to humiliate him with already.)

“If you’ve got enough ammunition, Sehunnie,” Chanyeol said, thumbing towards the kitchen. “Food? It doesn’t cook itself.” He didn’t wait for Sehun to respond, having already started towards the kitchen.

Sehun followed him, a look of melodramatic shock on his face as he watched Chanyeol rummage through the refrigerator. “It’s not delivered by the food fairies?”

“You are the single most spoiled maknae in the entirety of Korea,” Chanyeol told him, ing the thing of kimchi at him. “I’m making jjigae and pancakes. Want anything else?”

“Do we still have eggs? I want an omelet.”

Chanyeol snorted. “Omelet, jjigae, and pancakes. Right. Get the stuff out.” He turned to the stove, already preparing the cookware he was going to need for all of the planned food.

He started with the pancakes and omelet, putting Sehun in charge of stirring things while he set about chopping the ingredients for a lighter, breakfast kimchi stew. When those were ready, they changed places. Chanyeol dropped batter into the heated frying pan and started making pancakes while Sehun threw in the indicated ingredients at the indicated time. It wasn’t the smoothest show of cooking prowess, all things said and done, but it wasn’t a disaster, either, so Chanyeol was willing to call it a draw. He ended up making several more omelets than he had planned, as Sehun was utterly impatient and gobbled up the first one, straight out of the pan, and only waited long enough that the second wouldn’t burn his fingers before eating that, too.

“Greedy maknae,” Chanyeol scolded, waving a spoon at him.

“Grumpy hyung,” Sehun returned, sneering.

Chanyeol sneered back, only half-paying attention as he spooned up bowls of rice. “Right. Go wake up the hyungs, Sehunnie. Go. Shoo!”

Sehun sauntered out into the living room, as if it had been entirely his idea. He carried a plate of omelet, already planning on taunting the sleepers with the hot, delicious smelling food. They would wake up or they wouldn’t eat!

---

“I found Yifan!” Luhan chirped, bouncing in to the crowded room, Kris a half-step behind him. “But Zitao wasn’t answering, so I think he’s still feeling—what’s wrong?”

Kris, looking around the room, asked a more pertinent question. “Who was it this time?”

Glowering, Sehun raised a bandaged hand in the air.

“What did you—” Kris started. Stopping, he shook his head. “No, actually. Nevermind. I don’t care what you did. I just care that we’re not letting it get in the way. You’re going to practice today.”

“Until the fever hits,” Suho said. “We’ve already started that conversation.” Pasting a very obviously fake smile on his face, he turned to Luhan. “How are you feeling, LuLu?”

Luhan beamed at him. “I’m feeling great!” he said. “You didn’t tell me it was like this! I haven’t been this happy in a long time!”

“I can tell,” Chen muttered, catching Luhan as he spun past. “Come on, gege. Sit down and eat something.” He looked up at Kris. “That goes for you, too.”

Kris nodded and slid into an empty spot. He watched, bemused, as Minseok and Chen convinced Luhan to sit between them. When they started working in concert to keep him distracted but eating, he raised an eyebrow at Suho.

“I don’t really understand it,” Suho said, “but he’s been like this since about midnight. Worse, actually. This is him, settled.”

“It’s from the change?”

Suho nodded. “As far as we can tell. He keeps saying he can smell all sorts of things; love or care are the ones that are making a constant appearance. Chanyeol thought maybe he was basically overdosing on the smell of how we all feel about each other, and about him.”

Kris groaned, letting a bit of pancake fall back to his plate. “. I need to call Stiles—I think I remember something like this, but I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“No one expects you to have all the answers, Wu Yifan,” Suho said calmly. Reaching under the table, he patted Kris’s knee. “You’re doing a great job, alpha.”

“I…what? No, Suho-ya, I’m not…you…I…”

Suho grinned at his confused face. “You are our alpha, Yifan, even if you don’t realize it. All this time, you have been the one taking care of us and helping us and smoothing over the spaces.”

“But you’re the leader,” Kris said.

“And I’ll still be the leader,” Suho said. “But you, duizhang, are going to be our alpha. At least while we’re together.” He knocked shoulders with the other man. “Just think it through.”

---

Tao groaned quietly, pressing a hand against his belly as he sat up. It hurt, still! And while it no longer felt like his were being twisted off, there was the occasional sharp stab of pain from that region, to say nothing of the constant, burning ache in his guts. He was starting to think that it might just be time to it up and call a manager, let them take him to see the nurse, or even a doctor, if they thought it was actually as bad as it felt. He hated having an audience when he didn’t feel well, and given how much everyone already looked out for his emotions, he didn’t want them thinking of him as being weak. It would be dumb, however, to hide away until he was actually dead out of pride.

Well, he might as well get up and try and get a little more in his stomach before calling the manager on duty. And maybe go pee. He’d finished the bottle of Gatorade that Minseok had left fairly early in the evening, and then drunk up the whole bottle of vitamin water he had replaced it with.

The sheets stuck to his legs as he started to slide out of bed. Gross. Maybe he would take a shower, too. His thighs felt sticky, and his knees and elbows were sweat-damped and grotty. The back of his neck felt foul, too, dried and not-quite-dried sweat mixing with the natural detritus of several days of unwashed hair. Yes. A shower was definitely on the docket before calling the manager. At least a rubdown with a wet rag.

Tao turned to make the bed, more out of habit than anything. That was, quite possibly, the only reason he saw the stain that spread across his sheets.

That explains the stickiness, he thought, his head a dizzy, distant whirl. In that moment, he slipped the bonds of his body, disconnected, drifted away. Whatever had once tethered him to this world, to this reality, it had gone, and in its place, Tao found only a strange, certain numbness that spread slowly until his every centimeter was a buzzing emptiness of non-existence. It was strange. It was wonderful.

He drifted away from the bed, long-forgotten limbs striking against the short table that stood between the two beds, against the foot of the other bed, against the chest of drawers. The cheap laminate wood might as well have passed straight through him, for all he felt it. There was a clatter as something, as several somethings, fell to the floor, disturbed by his passage. Then Tao was meeting his own shimmering orange eyes in the mirror on the back of the door.

And then they were rolling back in his head.

And then Tao was falling, but he had already passed out, so he didn’t know.