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He’s sure there was a time before he sought Divus Crewel’s gaze, a time before he anxiously awaited for those eyes to scan the room and lock onto his own, but he can no longer remember that time before. He’s sure there was that time when the professor he most sought the admiration of was Vargas, all muscles and sweat and self-assurance, but it had only taken a passing moment for that to change. One passing moment in their second alchemy class, when Professor Divus Crewel had looked him in the eyes and said “Good boy,” in response to his meticulous attempts at note-taking, and any thoughts of admiration for any other teacher had flown from his mind.
It had come to the point now where before each class a strange, mild wave of nausea would overcome him, and he’d squirm in his cafeteria chair, unable to swallow down the beating of his heart and feverish uptick of his pulse.
“Good boy.”
More and more with each passing week, those words didn’t just become a reason to study, a reason to excel, but the very reason alchemy had suddenly become even more fascinating than the idea of learning to rocket a broom to the moon and back.
“If you understand Alchemy,” Crewel had said in his introductory lecture to the first years, so many weeks ago, “you understand the foundation of the universe. Alchemy is everything. Magical tools cannot be synthesised without the use of precious minerals and stones. Such precious materials, if unsuitable, can be converted with alchemy. Even Blot, weariness, a wearing out of the very soul from which one’s magic comes cannot be corrected without knowledge of the minerals required by the body of each species, of things like iron and salt.” He had then struck the board forcefully with his pointer, as if to emphasize his own words, and leered down at them with a stare both cold and alluring. “So if you feel I am too harsh on you, puppies, remember that there is a reason this course is required for all the years you attend this school, and I do not pass any runts of the litter on pity.”
Even now, thinking back to that initial moment, he shivers as he pulls on his labcoat and goggles. The nausea is worse today than usual, settling strangley in the corners of his jaw and at the base of his throat when he swallows, and there’s a strange fog at the edges of his thoughts. His body feels strangely sluggish, but he forces himself onward, and arrives with five minutes to spare.
Crewel is already at the head of the class, sitting on the edge of his desk, with a crispness to his posture that only someone so strict can do so naturally.
“Boys,” he says, rising from the desk as soon as the bell to signal the start of class tolls, “today is simple, though once thought by earlier generations to be too complex to be possible: lead to gold. Partner up. Anyone I see not using gloves to handle lead,” he says, with a sharp click of the tongue, “will fail this lesson instantaneously. Even if you are immune to lead poisoning, your human classmates are not. I will not tolerate cross contamination. Begin.”
He lights the burner under the cauldron while Epel, muttering under his breath something about spinning straw into gold seems more possible than this, goes to the front of the class to pick up their block of lead.
“So,” he says in his soft voice, setting the heavy block down rather forcefully on the desk next to the cauldron. “What do we…do?”
“It says here we have to copy the transmutation circle from the book as shown exactly onto the metal…can you draw?”
“I can carve,” Epel says thoughtfully. “Fruit, not metals. I mean, I haven’t tried metals. But lead is soft, so I suppose if I think of the relative hardness compared to that of an apple, I can achieve similar detail, maybe…” he mumbles, and gradually his line of thought turns into him mumbling under his own breath once again.
Normally, with his ears attuned, even picking up a small whisper is no matter, but today Epel’s mumbling seem fuzzy and out of focus, like trying to listen to someone from the ground while too high in the clouds. He can barely make out the word “knife” before he realizes Epel is asking to be handed one, and a wave of dizziness washes over him so strongly he has to grip the edge of the cauldron to keep himself upright.
“Puppy!” comes a harsh bark from the other side of the room. “Have you forgotten the basic tenants of handling on-fire cauldrons, or do I need to whip it into you?”
Divius Crewel looks down at him with a harsh, narrowed gaze, one full of disappointment. The wave of nausea he’s begun to feel grows strong with each passing second under his lidded gaze, until he feels himself collapse to his knees. His head spins, and he feels a strange tugging at his fingers that he realizes is Epel’s worried, shaky hands prying his own steel grip off the rim of the hot cauldron.
“Can you stand, Jack?” Epel is saying, and Jack’s sure he’s saying it full volume, because the rest of the class is staring with rapt attention and seems to have heard him clear as a bell, but it still sounds as though Epel is speaking to him through a bad mirror connection, voice distorted and fuzzy. His head won’t connect the words to his own thoughts, and his muscles feel as though they’re not his own. Normally full with endless energy, he suddenly feels as though he’s a pup again, too weak to do anything but feebly crawl. Epel gently pulls the goggles off his face and mops at the edge of his brow with a handkerchief he’s pulled from his labcoat pocket. “You’re covered in sweat. Are you sick?”
“I don’t—I’m fine,” he says, trying to find strength in his legs. Something within him feels like it’s trembling, and as he finally gains enough of his bearings to stand, he holds himself steady, but his muscles feel as though they can barely hold the heaviness of his frame.
“Sit,” Crewel says forcefully, and with a hand placed firmly on his shoulder, he forces him back to his knees. “Felmier, please go behind my desk, retrieve the medical kit from my third drawer, black box. You,” he barks at one of the other students, “help Howl remove his lab coat.”
He’s suddenly stripped and Crewel’s rolling up his right sleeve and shuffling through the small, neat box Epel’s holding in his white-knuckled grip, looking uncertain of the situation.
“Today, pups, you are getting a lesson in immediate medical attention,” Crewel says with a grand gesture, no longer trying to act as though this incident hasn’t disrupted the class entirely. “It’s important, first and foremost, to make sure your patient is alert and stays concious.”
There’s the distinct snap of a glass ampoule opening, and a strange, oily scent hits his nose.
“Eyes on me, puppy,” Crewel says in a soft, sharp tone. He glances up and his eyes meet Jack’s own. The rest of his vision seems to blur, the classroom around them goes into soft focus, and only Crewel’s face is sharply real and focused in front of him. He’s so close that the distinct scent of his cologne wafts up, tendrils that dance in the air and feel nearly visible in the strength of their presence. The next command falls from the professor’s lips, “Stay,” and he shivers as a gloved hand tightly grips his bicep. “A slight pinch. Yes. I’m injecting. Yes, good. We’re done. Good boy. Felmier, a bandage.”
Good boy.
Leather-covered fingers smooth the small, round bandage into place, and he’s so aware of each movement, each circle Crewel’s thumb makes as he adheres it, that it feels like the moment lingers on a second too long. It’s too much, the sudden prickle of heat that rises from the depths of him and takes him over, that lingers even when that hand leaves his arm. He shivers violently, so much so that it seems noticeable to everyone, and Epel makes a small noise like a frightened rabbit.
“Now, now,” Crewel says loudly, snapping his pointer against the ground. “Back to your cauldrons. You may continue. I will be taking Howl to lie down. Felmier, assist me, will you? Not much, he can support his own weight, just help him stand straight, that’s it,” he says, and Jack finds his body being lifted, and his legs are still tired, but it’s easier to stand with the support.
Crewel’s office is neatly organized, a red velvet sofa in the center across from a large mahogany desk, tall arched windows and wall-to-wall high shelves. The shelves are stacked to the brim with rows of books and cabinets of strangely shimmering potions of all colors, which seem to provide an eerie light to the room even though the heavy velvet curtains are tightly drawn.
“Thank you, Felmier. You’re been a good pup. If you run out of time to complete the transmutation, I will give you a chance to write me a short essay on theory to make up for the practical part. You may go.”
“Yes, sir,” Epel says, eagerly, and he heelturns quickly, as though in spite of being praised, he would prefer nothing more than to already be out of the line of Crewel’s gaze.
“Lay down,” Crewel orders, and in a sweeping motion he removes his coat, and lays it over Jack’s feverish body. “Take a rest. I’ll wake you when class is over.”
“Professor,” he breathes, trying to maintain a stream of thought, “Professor, please…let me do the essay too…I’m sorry.”
“Oh, puppy,” Crewel says, an edge of mirth to his voice, “worry about that once you’ve rested. I’ll come back soon.”
The door closes behind him with a click, and he’s left to rest on his own, the heaviness of Crewel’s furs draped over him, and the slight ache in his bicep where Crewel had injected whatever medication into him. His fingers linger over the rough fabric of the bandage, and the warmth of Crewel’s hand through the leather of the glove. He’d never said, he’d realized, what precisely it was, or even what it was supposed to do. Anti-emetic, maybe, he’d heard Vil use that word once, and it sounded like the type of word Crewel would use too.
He tries to rest, but in spite of his fatigue something in him won’t stop fluttering, and his ears can’t stop picking up the nearby sounds of the class long enough to allow him a moment to slip into sleep. His whole body feels so restless, blood thrumming and the core of him seems to ache, a heavy longing that spreads through him like hunger, but hunger for something he can’t quite describe. An emptiness without a name.
There’s a pleasant, slightly familiar scent that tickles his nose, and he realizes it’s the coat, soaked with Crewel’s cologne and his scent from being worn so often. The neck of the coat, where the scent is strongest, lays across his chest, and he pulls it up a little further, and then a little more. Gradually, he begins to bury his face in it, and the more he can’t stop himself from inhaling, the more he feels his body shiver pleasantly from breathing in the scent of Crewel’s nape, the more he feels his fever return. The ache in his belly grows, and he feels a soreness between his legs, a heaviness pressing against the tight seam of his uniform pants.
“Next week, boys!” he hears from the adjacent room, and then in a minute the door clicks open, letting in a thin beam of light across the carpet from the bright classroom.
“Has the suppressant taken effect?” Crewel asks, shutting the door behind him with a sound click and the sliding of the bolt lock. “My apologies for not being more thorough earlier, but I felt it would be best to be discreet.”
He blinks, and his brain, foggy with fever, tries to draw meaning out of the words. “Fever suppressant?”
Even in his foggy state, he can’t miss the slight confusion on Crewel’s face, the way his brow knits together and his thin lips press in a tight line.
“You’re in heat,” he says shortly. “even you have to have known that. Next time, I would appreciate if you managed it better before my class. I understand at your age, it’s unstable, but the College would prefer if you carried a suppressant on your person.”
He blinks slowly. Heat.
“Pup,” Crewel says again, “I’m trying not to be too harsh on your this time."
He’s an Alpha. His parents are Alphas. His siblings are Alphas. His body is large, strong, hunting prowess endless.
“I’m an Alpha?” he replies, but even Crewel cannot miss it’s still a question, and not an answer.
“I’ve been this school’s nurse impromptu for seven years,” Crewel says, and his expression falls to something slightly less frustrated, something a little more sympathetic. “The suppressant I administered you was for an Omega.”
Omega.
The word drops like a coin and sits there, spinning between them, unable to fall. His head is full of mist, and the penny won’t drop. He hasn’t thought about his second gender in years, something long considered fairly archaic for their family, which has been Alphas as far back as they can count. He is an Alpha. His family is Alphas. His body is tall and strong, weathered by the freezing winters of Pyroxene, and infused into his DNA are the lines of his ancestors, and their ancestors, who all weathered the same. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s even considered the possibility of a rut or a heat, something so rare, even in a dorm like Savanaclaw. Cross-species triggers are rare, and wolves even rarer.
“Have you not had your gender examined?”
“It was determined to be an Alpha…when I was a kid…” He sits up and the coat slides down his chest. The thickness of Crewel’s scent dissipates slightly, making his head a bit clearer so he can breathe. “My family never thought I needed another test. It’s obvious when you look at me…isn’t it?”
Crewel’s lips purse, as though there’s a remark he wants to reply with, but he saving it for a time when the air is less fragile. “It’s quite late for a first heat,” Crewel says. “We’ll schedule a blood test. I’ll get you some suppressants for the timebeing. But for now, it seems you have calmed down, haven’t you?”
“It’s enough,” he says breathlessly, trying to ignore the tightness of his pants beneath the coat, the way each syllabyl Crewel speaks seems to vibrate in his bones and make the heat beneath his skin flare hotter. “I can get back to my room.”
“Then, as unlike me as this may sound,” Crewel says, “this evening, you are to rest. Go to bed. Tell your dorm leader you’re ill and ask for your food to be delivered. No studying, you’re not in the condition. A first heat at your age is heavy. Just be a good puppy.”
His throat goes dry at that last part, and he can’t contain it, another shiver comes, just as strong as it had in the classroom, and with it a wave of something so painfully aching and strong he nearly feels sick to his stomach.
“Howl?”
“Professor,” he says, trying with all his dignity to hold himself together, “I’ll…I’ll do that.”
“I think the suppressant’s worn off, Howl. I underestimated the doseage, perhaps. I’ll get a new ampoule. Stay.”
“No.” He reaches out, and finally manages to find enough strength in his legs to stand, gripping Crewel’s slim wrist in his hand. “Professor, please. Say it again.”
“I told you to stay, puppy.”
“Please.”
“You’re straining yourself. Sit.”
“Professor.”
He can feel it now, the organs he’d never before been aware of within him, now taking up their space in his body, hot and slick. There’s a wetness drooling from him, pooling in his underwear, sliding down his thighs. The whole room seems to bloom with a hot, wet smell, thick and salty and it sticks in his lungs, each breath numbing, as though he’s breathing in humid air from the banks of the sea. The more Crewel eyes him with that narrow stare, evaluating, apprasing, the more he feels the leaking between his thighs. His tail holds itself tight against his backside, and as Crewel’s apprasing gaze narrows and changes to something slightly softer there’s a deep shame from within him, a break in his pride. Shame, shame but also something thrilling about being looked at by such a gaze, standing in front of the Professor he admires, tail between his legs to disguise just how badly he wants to be praised, petted, held by those hands.
“Sit for me puppy. Be a good boy.”
His body loses all sense of strength. An unearthly noise breaks free from within him, something he cannot control, a half-howl, and he sinks to his knees, tail still between his legs. His body burns, and he can feel how uncomfortably tight all his clothes are, his t-shirt sticking to his skin, and he wants nothing more than to be laid bare by those beautiful, gloved hands that are before him, one of which comes down upon his shoulder, more gentle than he thought it could.
Any lingering thoughts in his mind about being an Alpha, about this being anything besides a so-called heat, are wiped from him. He can feel it, he can feel this body opening up to him, the truth of it.
This is a body that wants to be held by a single person, that has been slowly coming to crave it, and now he is knelt before that very man, soaked through with fever.
The only thought in his mind is to be held.
“I think perhaps I misunderstood,” Crewel says slowly. There seems to be a bit of a realization coming upon him, because he seems to be talking more to himself, half-mumbling, eyes focused somewhere far away and not at all gazing at the present room. “I thought it was an erratic heat. But it seems I did not have enough judgement to—“
“Professor,” he breathes, and that gaze sharply comes back to this room, to look at him, and only him. His hand finds its way to cup the nape of Crewel’s neck, and he pulls it to him, pulls Crewel down to him and presses his face in deep to where the scent is stronger, stronger than it was on the coat. The fresh scent of that designer cologne and sweat and shampoo. Human. It’s such a different scent than the musk of wolves or werecats, the scent of bare skin that does not know the curse of the moon or the bite of the savannah sun. “Professor,” he breathes again into Crewel’s neck, “I’m…forgive me. I can’t stop. I don’t know how.”
“Puppy,” Crewel murmurs, and he pulls Jack’s face from the crook of his shoulder.
One of those hands, gloved in cherry-red leather, comes up to stroke his cheek, but he seizes that wrist too, and with the only mannerism he can, brings it to his mouth, and undoes the snap with his teeth. Carefully, slowly, he pulls it off with his fangs, finger by finger, stopping to kiss the base of Crewel’s wrist, the milk-white skin with such fragile blue veins marbled beneath the surface, white like the snow of his country. He slips the glove off completely, and holds it in his mouth before gently letting it drop between them onto the carpet.
“Careful,” Crewel says, but there’s an edge to it that makes it seem like he’s intensely amused. “Those are designer.”
His hand comes up to gently stroke Jack’s cheek, and for a moment they kneel there like that, suspended in time, until he reaches down for a kiss, and for a moment Crewel hesitates. Their faces hover a fraction from each other, lips barely touching, but so close he can feel Crewel’s breath in his mouth as if it were his own. He drops his hand from Crewel’s wrist, and thinks for a moment he will be pushed back, until that still-gloved hand comes down to rub gently at the front of his pants, and the moment Crewel gives one gentle stroke to him over the cloth, he feels as though his body might give out once more.
“Professor.”
“This time, sit like I told you, puppy,” Crewel murmurs, and his hand trails down from Jack’s cheek to ghost over his chest through the tight, sweat-dampened fabric of his t-shirt. “Sit. On the couch.”
He obeys this time, lets his shaking legs rest, and Crewel makes his way to one of the shelves, fingers flicking quickly through numerous bottles until he pulls out a small crystal phial, barely bigger than his thumb.
“I’m not sure if I can be what you need,” he says, loosening the knot on his tie, “I’m human, after all. I have no second gender. But in this day and age…alchemy is a boon.” He raises the phial to his tongue and swallows three fat, viscious drops of something blood-red. Even across the room, the scent of it is potent, heady and sweet. His head swims, unable to place such a fragrance, but somehow his body knows it, his body responds with a deep, throbbing ache between his slick thighs and a shiver in his core.
“Through my own design several years back, I created a synthetic Alpha hormone but never tested it. Though please don’t mistake me,” Crewel says, gradually undoing the buttons down his vest and placing it on the chair behind his desk, “it’s not as though I was laying in wait for some sort of test subject to come begging me.”
“So…it makes you an Alpha?”
“No, nothing of the sort,” he says, undoing the rest of his tie and folding it neatly. “It mimics the hormone temporarily and secretes it in the ejaculate fluids. A synthetic way to satiate the primal need.”
It seems as though he’s specifically trying to speak in such a veiled way, as though to obscure the lewdness of his own design. The only word that sticks within Jack’s head is satiate, which vibrates in him, because his body understands what that word means, the layers imbued into it. There is only one way to truly satiate a heat.
He swallows thickly and watches Crewel remove his piercings from either ear and neatly place them on the desk.
“The foundation of the universe,” he says, the words looping over and over in his brain, echoing in the same voice as that of the man in front of him.
“You paid attention.”
Crewel arrives at the couch, sits down so closely that the heady scent of the potion on his breath makes him dizzy. He laces his single gloved hand in Jack’s own, and he can feel the skin at the base of his spine prickle, and slowly he leans over again to press his face back into the nape of Crewel’s neck, to place a kiss at the top of his spine, and as Crewel slowly undoes the buttons on his dresshirt, slowly his lips continue to slide down, down, kissing each notch, one by one, and feeling Crewel shiver under the heat of his lips.
He pulls off his own t-shirt, and as Crewel removes his second glove and casts it onto the carpet next to the first, his blurry head begins to focus. That pale, slim hand comes down over the crotch of his trousers again, and there’s a release in him. He had been holding back something from unleashing with nothing but his willpower to stay focused, and now as Crewel’s fingers unzip his fly and massage the hot, heavy and aching erection between his legs, he lets out another moan into the crook of Crewel’s neck.
“Professor, please,” he breathes, “it’s already enough, please…”
“Come once first, puppy, to clear your head,” Crewel murmurs, slowly circling the tip of his erection with his thumb. “You’ll feel better.”
“Say it again,” he murmurs, “call me it more.”
“You like my names for you?”
“When you say it, it feels like you’re saying it only for me,” he says. “Call me it again.”
“Puppy,” Crewel purrs. “Kiss me.”
His hot lips come down on Crewel’s own, and he feels the silken touch of Crewel’s mouth, the way it gives to him. He can taste the fragrance of the potion now, something unnameable, but something so sweet, rich and mellow. More, more, more he pushes his mouth tightly against Crewel’s own, trying to consume, trying to drink in that taste, that strange synthetic flavor his body has somehow been taught to crave without ever knowing it.
Crewel’s tongue quickly slips against him, and he parts his mouth clumsily, uncertain, but he can feel Crewel’s tongue stroke against the outline of his fangs, the roof of his mouth, and skillfully he strokes at the satin inside of Jack’s cheek, drawing another deep moan out of him, a moan that Crewel swallows down whole. He leans into it before Crewel draws back, biting at his lip, then trails his tongue down to suck at the base of his throat and before he knows it his breath quickens and he can feel Crewel everywhere at once as his whole body shivers. He’s come before he’s even realized it, it’s not enough, barely a flicker of the flame of his desire.
“So much,” Crewel murmurs, slicking up his fingers with the seed. “And so fast.” He pushes Jack back on the couch, lays him down and tugs at his trousers.
He wasn’t aware just how slick and wet his thighs were until he’d been rid of his pants, of the sopping wetness pooling in his underwear. As he raises his waist to tug those off, too, he feels so exposed he can’t help but hold his tail between his legs, though he desires nothing more than to open them and be filled. He aches, aches to be filled, and finally he has a name for this hunger he has been so long unable to place.
Crewel goes to undo his own zipper, but he stops Crewel’s hand with his own, and then slowly undoes the zipper himself, to watch the unfolding of this before him. Crewel’s own display is nowhere near as wet or aching, but his curiosity, his seriousness bubbles up and his traces his hand over the outline of Crewel’s erection, just the way Crewel had done to his own, and watches as a sly smile of satisfaction crosses that furrowed brow.
“You’re quite gentle despite the heat,” Crewel says. “Can this be the first time you’ve mated, puppy?”
“That was my first kiss.”
“Hard to believe, but forgive me, then, for stealing so many firsts from you in these circumstances.”
“You’re not stealing,” he huffs. “If it was anyone else, I—“
“You?”
His face burns even redder and hotter than he had thought it could, and he has to avert his eyes from Crewel’s own, which seem to see right through him, moreso than the eyes of any other hunter he’s known.
“It’s nothing.”
“Then let us continue, puppy,” Crewel says, lacing his hand over Jack’s own, and bringing it to the waistband of his own underwear. Down, down they pull together, until Crewel’s desire is bare before them. “Do you want me to fill you?”
“Please,” he breathes. “Professor, breed me.”
He wants nothing more than to be filled to the brim, to have this aching pulse in his body sated, to have his whole body belong to this man and this man alone, inside and out, soaked in his scent. It’s all he wants, until Crewel’s hand gently moves to brush his tail out of the way, to open him up. Some instinct within him tells him to be ashamed, to keep his tail tight, not to open himself so willingly, but then Crewel’s voice comes to him, and so does his touch, gentle as promised.
“You’re so wet,” Crewel murmurs, stroking his fingers gently along the inside of his thigh. Slowly, he strokes closer, and he can feel the anticipation, the ache until Crewel finally slips one slender finger inside him, and he lets out a keening noise, already ready to open his body to more of this, to be filled to the brim, until it spills over.
“Breathe, puppy,” Crewel’s saying as he slowly enters a second finger. “Breathe. Look at me. Look at me. Only at me.”
“Professor —“
“Yes?”
“I’m ready. Please,” he breathes, and the air tastes heavy and heady in his lungs. “Fill me.”
Crewel slips in so easily it’s like his body has always had this space for him to mould in his image, a space where they’re meant to be joined like this, as Crewel slowly starts to move and his own body responds in turn. Crewel uses one hand to steady himself, and the other he laces in Jack’s own.
He begins to pick up speed, faster, and there’s a high, alien keening noise he realizes is coming from himself, a half-howling moan. He rakes his free hand and nails against the back of Crewel’s shoulder, wraps his thick, muscular legs tight around that slender waist and tries with each thrust to meet it with his own, to force him deeper, deeper into a spot within him that aches to be stroked and kneaded.
“I’m close,” Crewel murmurs, and he unlaces their hands, places both of Jack’s hands tightly around his neck. “Hold me tightly, puppy. Good boy. Good boy.”
He burns up at that, the shiver in him travels down his spine, to that aching part of him, and he digs his nails tighter into Crewel’s back, pins his waist with his thighs as he feels himself release, bigger than before, and Crewel bows his head low, hair tickling the curve of Jack’s shoulder.
“I’m going to claim you now, pup,” he breathes, and then there’s the tension of teeth against the crook of his neck, the soft pop and give of flesh.
His back arches high, and he holds Crewel’s body tightly, so tightly, and his nails dig deeper, deeper until he hears Crewel moan into him, hot breath tickling his skin with a noise he’d never dreamed of hearing those lips making reverberating against his neck. He comes, so hard and fast, with a high, howling keen, an animalistic noise that his body seems to have been holding somewhere deep within it. Crewel’s silken tongue lavishes the bite and it stings in a way that draws another, softer wave that washes over him and settles, and when Crewel pulls back he has blood on his mouth and Jack’s come all over his stomach. He can feel how full he is, and releases Crewel’s shoulders from his iron grip, the tips of his fingers painted red like Crewel’s bloodstained lips.
“I don’t have a knot for you,” Crewel says, untangling himself from Jack’s legs, “and I have no ability to form a pair, so that bite mark will not stay.” He points to the side of Jack’s neck, where a neat imprint of his teeth now lays. “This is only temporary.”
He places a hand to the side of his neck, where the bloodflow is already clotting, Crewel being without the fangs to bite hard and deep like any wolf would. Crewel is already dressing, and he lays still, relishing the shaking of his body, the aftershocks that still cause his muscles to twitch. Crewel hands him his t-shirt, and he slides it back on before standing up. He can still feel the shape of Crewel within him when he walks, the strange fullness it leaves, a space made just for them to join. In time, just like the bite, it too will fade, he is certain.
He’s just not certain if he wants it to.
While he dresses, Crewel flits around the room, gathering a set of various bottles and injections and neatly assembling them into a box. “Suppressants for you,” he says, handing them over. “For emergencies. Manage yourself better next time.”
Next time.
The coin of that word is still spinning, and now it finally drops flat, and sinks down his throat to his stomach, where it sits like a stone. In the span of a single afternoon, he has a new body. The body he knew, the self he knew when he awoke this morning is now an artefact of time. This new body knows lust, knows the touch of those hands without their cage of cherry-red leather. His mouth still has the lingering flavor of that heady hormone, and the scent of Crewel’s cologne still lingers so strongly on his skin he can taste it on his tongue.
Divus Crewel has remade him at his request.
Crewel pulls a bottle of antiseptic and package of bandages from the drawer of the desk and seals up the bite wound, but not before he presses a chaste, gentle kiss to the center of it. Sealed over with a coat of white gauze, it looks like any other bruise he’s gotten from roughhousing. A secret between the two of them, something left to heal and vanish into thin air.
“Be good,” Crewel says before picking up his gloves and coat and heading for the door. “I have a meeting to attend now, lock the door behind you when you leave. I’ll expect your essay on transmutation by next week. Five-hundred words minimum.”
“I’ll be sure to do so,” he says, gathering up his labcoat and goggles, along with his schoolbag. “I’ll…I’ll take better care of myself. I won’t bother you again.”
“It’s no bother, puppy,” Crewel says with a sly smile before the door shuts behind him, “I know what a good boy you are. My office…is always open to those in need.”
With a click of the lock, he’s gone, the clack of his heels on the cold floor slowly echoing in the distance, and Jack listens, able to follow the sound of those footsteps far longer than any human ever could.
He glances down at his feet, where a single glove still lays crumpled, the one with his fang marks lightly imprinted in the leather. Along with the box of suppressants, he grabs it, too, and stuffs it into the bottom of his schoolbag before leaving the office, and locking the door behind him. He’ll return it, he supposes, eventually, once the bite mark has faded, and not a moment before that.
There is not always time to be a good boy.