Showing Wolf

Showing wolf • werewolf slang

The term for when a werewolf’s lupus ears and tail are sprouting just before the full moon transformation. This state is often painful and prickly for older werewolves, but the changes are merely aesthetic for youths.

“It’s been almost half a year,” Jericho said softly. “And you still act like your ears and tail are so weird.”

“Because they are,” Charlie replied, and immediately returned to pulling on the furred appendage attached to his spine. Jericho watched and waited, but once he realized that Charlie wouldn’t elaborate, he nodded silently and looked up towards the sky. 

The treetops were thick over here, but beautiful blue shone through the few gaps in the massive green canopy overhead and left cute, dappled blots of sunlight on the ground and on Charlie’s head. Jericho’s own tail was curled around his bare feet as an added layer of warmth, even though the massive boulder he sat upon was a comfortable temperature on its own. His pointed wolf ears, a slightly grayer color than that of his navy-blue hair, were perked upright and drinking in the sounds of the wild and Charlie’s soft growls.

“Rrgh,” Charlie rumbled somewhere on the forest floor. “I jus’ wanna pop this thing off.”

Jericho’s emerald green eyes lowered until they met with the top of Charlie’s sunlit blond head. His friend (acquaintance? Packmate-he-was-extremely-protective-of, more like…) was on his grass-stained knees in a pair of light-blue denim shorts and a white T-shirt with a tiger on it. Clenched tightly in his pale fists was his tail, an identical blond color to his choppy hair, and it had clearly been twisted and yanked on non-stop since it’d appeared. “Well, you can’t,” Jericho said smoothly. “It doesn’t even hurt. Why d’you keep pulling on it?”

“I’m not like you,” Charlie snapped irritably from the side of his mouth. “Maybe you werewolves are used t’ havin’ tails, but I used t’ be a human. It’s weird, and itchy.”

Jericho paused. Before Charlie had come into the pack, he wasn’t used to anyone talking to him like that, and an uncharacteristic flare of indignation sparked in his chest at Charlie’s tone. Another soft growl like that of a pack puppy sounded from Charlie, and Jericho suddenly felt the urge to put his hands on him.

“What’s so bad about being a wolf, huh? Would you really rather be a human?” Jericho asked, very purposefully ignoring the agonizing act of werewolf transformation inherent to their curse. His tail uncurled from around his ankles and he stretched his legs, allowing the claws on his toes to flex at their full, dangerous length. He pushed off the boulder and plummeted to the forest floor, then landed with a heavy thump on his feet mere inches away from Charlie’s stooped figure. “Humans are weak, aren’t they? They break easy, and die easy. Just like you almost did.” He straightened up just in time for Charlie to fix his silent stare on him, eyes flashing with anger while his blond tail was stuffed in his mouth. “‘Til you became a werewolf. Now you’re stronger, aren’t you? You’re faster, too, I bet.”

Charlie spat his tail out without breaking eye contact and it dropped limply to the ground. “How would you know?” he asked, his voice low and rumbling from all of the growling he’d done that morning. “You live outside. You’ve never even been around humans, have you? Unless it’s t’ bite ‘em, like a monster?”

Jericho sauntered up to Charlie, who rose to his feet in response. “I don’t bite people,” Jericho said, a coy smile on his face. They stared each other down for a moment before Jericho continued. “But I’ll bite you. Maybe you’ll go from half-human to full wolf if I do, and you’ll get used to your tail and can stop giving yourself nasty little bald spots.”

Charlie’s eyes lit up at his words, but he didn’t speak. Both of their tails were stiff and motionless, and Jericho sensed a fight coming on as they openly challenged one another with their eyes. Not one to wait to be jumped, Jericho pounced first.

Jericho immediately learned that unlike the other boys, Charlie was quite unused to his werewolf reflexes, and he took the tackle near defenselessly. They hit the ground with a dull thud, and Jericho heard Charlie wheeze as all of his weight landed on the other boy’s chest. It didn’t wind him for long though, and Jericho was surprised when Charlie’s pale fingers wrapped around his forearms and dug their claws in.

“Ouch!” Jericho hissed, and Charlie immediately let go.

“‘Ouch?’” Charlie said breathlessly beneath Jericho. “That hurt? I thought you said wolves are strong.”

“They are,” Jericho snapped as he rose to his feet. “That means you are, too. When you do stuff like that, it hurts!”

A few minutes later, Jericho and Charlie sat side-by-side while Jericho licked the small pinpricks in his forearms. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Charlie plucked at his blond tail, though with a lot less ferocity than before, and he wondered why he seemed so somber all of a sudden.

“Can you really turn me into a full-werewolf by bitin’ me?” Charlie suddenly asked, making the reason behind his abrupt mood swing clear. 

Jericho pulled his tongue back into his mouth and turned his head to look at him, but Charlie’s distant brown stare was fixed on the ground. “You think th’ pack would be nicer t’ me if I was a normal wolf?” he continued, still looking down.

Jericho shook his head. “That’s got nothing to do with it,” he admitted sadly. “Your sister’s the same as you, but she’s um…more obedient, I think. You can be a handful sometimes.” He parroted that last half of his statement that he'd heard from some of the pack adults. Personally, Jericho didn't think Charlie was much more rowdy than some of the other boys he'd grown up with, but sometimes he wondered if he was labeled as troublesome because the pack was expecting someone with a human background to be more submissive.

Charlie’s brows furrowed in a deep frown. “A handful? So what? I didn’t ask t’ be here.”

Jericho, somewhat baffled by Charlie’s constantly changing and contradictory views towards their pack’s attitude toward him, simply nodded in agreement. “I know you didn’t,” he said. “‘Sides, I don’t know how to turn humans to werewolves anyway. I think it’s a certain way you have to do it, but since you already got bitten, you have the werewolf’s curse. I don’t think you can get any uh…wolfy-er.”

Charlie grimaced. The hand that was tightly gripping his tail raised to lay on the massive bite scar Jericho knew was beneath his shirt, and he shuddered involuntarily at the thought of inflicting another horrific wound like that on another person, let alone Charlie. “I’m sorry I said I’d bite you,” he blurted out, suddenly feeling bashful. “I…I wouldn’t do it. It seems like it hurt really bad, and I…don’t wanna hurt you.”

Charlie finally looked up from the ground, and Jericho’s entire body stilled as their gazes met once again. “I know you wouldn’t. You’re always protectin’ me from the other boys, so I figured you only said that t’ be tough.”

The plain, fully assured confidence in Charlie's voice Jericho’s face flush a hot red. “Don’t say that, or I’ll really mess you up next time,” Jericho growled.

Another look from those chocolate brown abysses. “Do it, then,” Charlie said quietly. “Hurt me real bad.”

Jericho inhaled a little bit of saliva and turned away to choke quietly. He hadn’t expected Charlie to call his bluff so calmly, especially since he knew full well he couldn’t follow through on that threat. Eventually, he swallowed the traitorous drool and they both fell silent, surrounded by the ambience of wind-blown leaves and distant bird calls.

Tammie was right, Jericho thought with a sneaky slide glance towards Charlie. This boy is so weird. As if he’d heard his thoughts, Charlie suddenly growled softly again and reached for his tail. But, I guess he’s right. I’ll probably never hurt him. He's weird and people treat him weird, so I wanna protect him. Or else, who will? 

With that in mind, Jericho gently reached forward and pried Charlie’s hand away from his tail. They looked one another in the eyes again, though neither boy spoke. 

Charlie didn’t touch his tail again for the rest of the day.