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kathierif_ficTitle: Skin and Bones. (4/5)
Author: Kathie
Fandom: Hockey/NHL (Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres)
Current Word Count: 19,383
Rating: FRAO
Disclaimer: This is absolutely not true. The names of real people have been used, but this is just my imagination and done with lots of adoration and love for the guys and my mind isn’t affiliated with them anyways. The chapters are named after songs that don’t belong to me either.
Pairings: Henrik Zetterberg/Ryan Miller, Steve Yzerman/Tomas Holmstrom/Nick Lidstrom/Chris Osgood/Brendan Shanahan and Henrik Zetterberg/Pavel Datsyuk in the background
Warnings: slash, supernatural things, real people
Summary: Adulthood, mates, packs, the life of a werewolf is never boring
Author’s Notes: My neverending thank you goes to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nerfgunqueen and mer5, who checked this over for me, and especially Ginny, who held my hand while helping me getting this thing in order, including the summary. Also to chosenfire28 for the artwork, thank you so much!
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
IV. Chapter 4: Closer
“Are you okay, Millsy?” Paul Gaustad asked hesitantly as he came to a stop next to the net. “You’re acting…weird.”
“Fine,” Ryan growled before sighing and pushing his mask up his forehead and running a hand over his sweaty face. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” Goose muttered and skated off, toward the locker room, and Ryan took a deep breath before following him.
“You don’t really seem fine,” Andrew Peters said from behind him before squeezing past Ryan and sitting down in his locker. “You’re awfully tense.”
“Yes,” Ryan snapped and shook off catcher and blocker. He took a deep breath before setting his mask down on the shelf. “I am fine.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Andrew said, unfazed by the small outburst.
“Guys…” Ryan sighed in defeat. “It’s almost a full moon,” he muttered after a long moment of silence.
“So?” Goose asked from his stall. He’d already stripped off his jersey and padding and he was busy peeling tape off his socks right now. “What’s the problem with that? Since when do you believe that the moon is responsible for mood swings?”
Ryan looked up with a disbelieving frown. Was Paul seriously asking that question? Ryan took a careful breath through his nose, nostrils flaring, but even with his stronger werewolf senses he could detect nothing but honesty and more than a hint of amusement from the other man.
“The full moon always influences a werewolf,” he explained slowly.
A frown appeared on Goose’s face. “So what?” he asked, puzzled by Ryan’s words.
Ryan’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at his teammate’s density and the fact that obviously, Goose hadn’t known that Ryan was, in fact, a werewolf. There were no other werewolves on the team or in the front office, and Ryan had decided against affiliating with one of the local packs, deciding to stay on his own and a member of his father’s pack.
“Paul,” he said, as gently as he could. “I’m a werewolf.”
Silence greeted his statement.
“You?” Andrew finally asked, having regained his composure before Paul did. “Since when are you a werewolf?”
Ryan’s frown deepened into a light scowl. “I’ve been a werewolf all my life!”
“But…you don’t act like a werewolf!” Paul exclaimed loudly, pulling the attention of the whole room toward their conversation.
Ryan blushed.
“Who’s a werewolf?” Danny Briere finally asked.
“Millsy.” Andrew nodded toward the goalie.
“No way,” Thomas Vanek said.
Ryan leaned back in his locker and started to take off his padding. “I’ve been a werewolf all my life,” he said, struggling to remain calm and relaxed while taking off piece after piece of equipment. He’d never had to out himself like this before, and it gave him a weird feeling at the bottom of his stomach. He needed to do something with his hands, and getting off his pads was the first and best thing he could do.
“You don’t act like a werewolf,” Goose replied with a frown. “Come on, Millsy. You’re not the type to howl at the moon.”
“No self-respecting werewolf howls at the moon,” Ryan protested. “We’re not a group of drooling lunatics! Seriously, guys, we’re not eating babies, either!” He shook his head. “Didn’t you learn anything at all about werewolves? In school, or whatever?”
“He has a point,” Jochen Hecht cut in gently, “Werewolves always react strongly to the moon, and you never did before.”
Ryan sighed. “Adult werewolves do,” he explained patiently. “Adolescent werewolves don’t. They’re not that different from humans. I think they cover that in biology classes in every school.”
Andrew was, again, the first to process Ryan’s words and make sense of them. A slow, teasing grin started to form on his face.
“So…if you claim to be a werewolf, and you don’t act like a grown-up werewolf…does that mean you’re still a baby werewolf?”
Ryan growled darkly, but it only caused Andrew’s grin to widen until it looked almost as if it was painful.
“You’re a puppy.”
A few of their teammates started to chuckle at the absurdity of the idea.
“I’m an adult werewolf,” Ryan finally growled. Slamming his skate, which had rested by his feet while he’d taken off the rest of his stuff, onto the hook in his locker, he stood and stalked out of the room, the laughter of his teammates following him into the showers.
Hot water, almost too hot to stand, pounded down on him, and Ryan closed his eyes with a sigh.
Here he was, he thought darkly, finally an adult, something he’d yearned for since he had started college, and his teammates thought he was just joking. Or worse, they didn’t take him seriously. They thought he was a human.
He growled again and clenched his fingers against the cool tiles.
He was a werewolf.
They’d better believe it.
Angrily, he shook water out of his hair. When he’d come home that one morning, almost four weeks ago, he’d been a changed man. Hank had told him, in a sleepy voice, that his parents would most likely be worried about him and had volunteered to go with him, but Ryan had refused. This was his family, his pack, and he would be able to deal with them, he’d told the other man before rolling out of bed, pulling on his clothes, and leaving, intent on not looking back to the whole experience with any form of regret.
However, when he’d arrived at his parents’ house, he’d been greeted with grave faces, worry and the smell of fear clinging to every room of the house, and, to his great annoyance, the urge to submit to Drew still hadn’t gone away. He’d remembered Hank’s teasing words about his apparently submissive tendencies, and he’d realized that the other man had been right – he wasn’t an alpha, and he never would be. It also meant that he wasn’t acting like an alpha werewolf.
He’d had four weeks to get used to the changes he’d gone through, and he thought he’d used the time well. Of course, getting outed as a werewolf to his entire team hadn’t been on his agenda originally, he thought, a small smile playing around his lips, but at least none of them had tried to shoot him with silver bullets.
Yet.
He shook his head again. Apparently, he needed to sit down with a few of the guys and let them ask him whatever questions they could think of, to show them that he wasn’t a danger to them or the team, and to clear up some of the prejudices about werewolves they had. Ryan had never tried to hide that he was a werewolf – his parents had raised him and his siblings to be proud of their heritage. It made the fact that his teammates hadn’t known about it even worse. Ryan couldn’t help but wonder what his father would say if he knew what had just happened – would it seem as if Ryan was ashamed of being a werewolf? His father would be disappointed, Ryan knew. He needed to fix this.
However, that could wait until the full moon was over. Right now, he had more important things to worry about.
~*+*~
When he returned from his shower, his hair dripping wet and sticking up in wild curls, his teammates were all engrossed in their equipment and ostentatiously not looking at him.
Ryan sighed and shook his head as he started to dress. They obviously had realized that something about being a werewolf was a touchy subject for him and that it was best to leave him alone for a bit, and not risk the wrath of the goaltender.
Or the werewolf.
It only made him angry at himself and the way he’d overreacted to their teasing. They all hadn’t meant to anger him, he knew that. He knew them all well enough to realize that; besides, the full moon was almost upon them and his senses were getting almost painfully keen. Their smell would have given them away if they’d felt anything else but confusion and teasing friendliness.
The impending full moon unfortunately also meant that the Itch would be coming back, Ryan realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach – and he had no idea what he could do to suppress it or to deal with it, besides running until he broke down from exhaustion. The last time, he’d been with Hank, and somehow, getting fucked through the mattress by the other werewolf had silenced the throb that had filled his conscience so completely.
However, he thought as he buttoned his jeans, that was hardly an option this time. He couldn’t go out and try to find someone to fuck him every full moon. It seemed impractical, besides, Ryan didn’t want his hormones and his nature to destroy the reputation he’d carefully built.
He would have to be extremely careful, he thought, and he really didn’t know where he could find someone who would be able to fuck him senseless, and keep quiet about it.
“Ryan?”
The voice as soft, but in the eerie silence of the locker room, it was as if Andrew had shouted at him.
Ryan finished with his jeans. “Yeah?”
“Listen man…I’m sorry for…you know. What I said. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Ryan’s lips twitched slightly, and he reached over to pat Andrew’s shoulder while pretending not to notice the sigh of relief that went through the entire team. “It’s okay, Petey.”
“Good.” Andrew took a deep breath before chuckling softly. “Just making sure you’re not gonna bite me or something.”
He still smelled nervous, Ryan thought, but that didn’t stop the shiver from running down his back at the thought of biting someone and turning them into a werewolf. His thoughts flashed back to the morning after his first full moon, and the terrified expression on the face of his mother when she’d thought he could’ve done something like that.
“No,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Absolutely not.”
“Charming,” Andrew muttered.
Ryan took another shuddery breath. “Turning a human is an offense that gets punished with death, Petey…it’s kind of rape, only much, much worse,” he reminded the other man. “If you get attacked by a werewolf, it’s your duty to report it. You know that.”
“Even if it’s you?”
Ryan chuckled weakly. “Especially if it’s me,” he said. “You know…” He took a deep breath. “I am a young guy. It’s possible that I don’t have the control that’s required to live with humans.”
And that, he thought, was another flaw in his tentative plan to get through the full moon. He couldn’t go to a human during the full moon nights, when his control was even shakier than usual. The risk of injuring his partner was way too high. If he wanted to get fucked into blissful oblivion for full moon, he needed to find a trustworthy werewolf.
Someone like Hank.
The memory f the other werewolf sent a hot flush of blood through Ryan’s entire body, tingling in his fingers and toes and pulsing hotly deep in his stomach.
Andrew shook his head. Obviously, he hadn’t noticed what direction Ryan’s thoughts had been drifting off to, and Ryan was very grateful for that.
“You know, Ryan…”he said, his voice pitched low and serious, “you’re not the kind of guy to attack people, werewolf or not.”
Confusedly, Ryan stared at him for a long moment. He wasn’t sure what Andrew wanted to tell him with that, but he was too tired and too worried about the full moon to ask the other man to clarify it.
“Thanks, I think,” he simply mumbled and reached for his shirt.
His hands were trembling, he noticed absent-mindedly. The moon was already influencing him too much.
He needed to figure something out.
Preferably within the next forty-eight hours.
Before the full moon.
Chapter 5.
Author: Kathie
Fandom: Hockey/NHL (Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres)
Current Word Count: 19,383
Rating: FRAO
Disclaimer: This is absolutely not true. The names of real people have been used, but this is just my imagination and done with lots of adoration and love for the guys and my mind isn’t affiliated with them anyways. The chapters are named after songs that don’t belong to me either.
Pairings: Henrik Zetterberg/Ryan Miller, Steve Yzerman/Tomas Holmstrom/Nick Lidstrom/Chris Osgood/Brendan Shanahan and Henrik Zetterberg/Pavel Datsyuk in the background
Warnings: slash, supernatural things, real people
Summary: Adulthood, mates, packs, the life of a werewolf is never boring
Author’s Notes: My neverending thank you goes to
nerfgunqueen and mer5, who checked this over for me, and especially Ginny, who held my hand while helping me getting this thing in order, including the summary. Also to chosenfire28 for the artwork, thank you so much!Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
IV. Chapter 4: Closer
“Are you okay, Millsy?” Paul Gaustad asked hesitantly as he came to a stop next to the net. “You’re acting…weird.”
“Fine,” Ryan growled before sighing and pushing his mask up his forehead and running a hand over his sweaty face. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” Goose muttered and skated off, toward the locker room, and Ryan took a deep breath before following him.
“You don’t really seem fine,” Andrew Peters said from behind him before squeezing past Ryan and sitting down in his locker. “You’re awfully tense.”
“Yes,” Ryan snapped and shook off catcher and blocker. He took a deep breath before setting his mask down on the shelf. “I am fine.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Andrew said, unfazed by the small outburst.
“Guys…” Ryan sighed in defeat. “It’s almost a full moon,” he muttered after a long moment of silence.
“So?” Goose asked from his stall. He’d already stripped off his jersey and padding and he was busy peeling tape off his socks right now. “What’s the problem with that? Since when do you believe that the moon is responsible for mood swings?”
Ryan looked up with a disbelieving frown. Was Paul seriously asking that question? Ryan took a careful breath through his nose, nostrils flaring, but even with his stronger werewolf senses he could detect nothing but honesty and more than a hint of amusement from the other man.
“The full moon always influences a werewolf,” he explained slowly.
A frown appeared on Goose’s face. “So what?” he asked, puzzled by Ryan’s words.
Ryan’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at his teammate’s density and the fact that obviously, Goose hadn’t known that Ryan was, in fact, a werewolf. There were no other werewolves on the team or in the front office, and Ryan had decided against affiliating with one of the local packs, deciding to stay on his own and a member of his father’s pack.
“Paul,” he said, as gently as he could. “I’m a werewolf.”
Silence greeted his statement.
“You?” Andrew finally asked, having regained his composure before Paul did. “Since when are you a werewolf?”
Ryan’s frown deepened into a light scowl. “I’ve been a werewolf all my life!”
“But…you don’t act like a werewolf!” Paul exclaimed loudly, pulling the attention of the whole room toward their conversation.
Ryan blushed.
“Who’s a werewolf?” Danny Briere finally asked.
“Millsy.” Andrew nodded toward the goalie.
“No way,” Thomas Vanek said.
Ryan leaned back in his locker and started to take off his padding. “I’ve been a werewolf all my life,” he said, struggling to remain calm and relaxed while taking off piece after piece of equipment. He’d never had to out himself like this before, and it gave him a weird feeling at the bottom of his stomach. He needed to do something with his hands, and getting off his pads was the first and best thing he could do.
“You don’t act like a werewolf,” Goose replied with a frown. “Come on, Millsy. You’re not the type to howl at the moon.”
“No self-respecting werewolf howls at the moon,” Ryan protested. “We’re not a group of drooling lunatics! Seriously, guys, we’re not eating babies, either!” He shook his head. “Didn’t you learn anything at all about werewolves? In school, or whatever?”
“He has a point,” Jochen Hecht cut in gently, “Werewolves always react strongly to the moon, and you never did before.”
Ryan sighed. “Adult werewolves do,” he explained patiently. “Adolescent werewolves don’t. They’re not that different from humans. I think they cover that in biology classes in every school.”
Andrew was, again, the first to process Ryan’s words and make sense of them. A slow, teasing grin started to form on his face.
“So…if you claim to be a werewolf, and you don’t act like a grown-up werewolf…does that mean you’re still a baby werewolf?”
Ryan growled darkly, but it only caused Andrew’s grin to widen until it looked almost as if it was painful.
“You’re a puppy.”
A few of their teammates started to chuckle at the absurdity of the idea.
“I’m an adult werewolf,” Ryan finally growled. Slamming his skate, which had rested by his feet while he’d taken off the rest of his stuff, onto the hook in his locker, he stood and stalked out of the room, the laughter of his teammates following him into the showers.
Hot water, almost too hot to stand, pounded down on him, and Ryan closed his eyes with a sigh.
Here he was, he thought darkly, finally an adult, something he’d yearned for since he had started college, and his teammates thought he was just joking. Or worse, they didn’t take him seriously. They thought he was a human.
He growled again and clenched his fingers against the cool tiles.
He was a werewolf.
They’d better believe it.
Angrily, he shook water out of his hair. When he’d come home that one morning, almost four weeks ago, he’d been a changed man. Hank had told him, in a sleepy voice, that his parents would most likely be worried about him and had volunteered to go with him, but Ryan had refused. This was his family, his pack, and he would be able to deal with them, he’d told the other man before rolling out of bed, pulling on his clothes, and leaving, intent on not looking back to the whole experience with any form of regret.
However, when he’d arrived at his parents’ house, he’d been greeted with grave faces, worry and the smell of fear clinging to every room of the house, and, to his great annoyance, the urge to submit to Drew still hadn’t gone away. He’d remembered Hank’s teasing words about his apparently submissive tendencies, and he’d realized that the other man had been right – he wasn’t an alpha, and he never would be. It also meant that he wasn’t acting like an alpha werewolf.
He’d had four weeks to get used to the changes he’d gone through, and he thought he’d used the time well. Of course, getting outed as a werewolf to his entire team hadn’t been on his agenda originally, he thought, a small smile playing around his lips, but at least none of them had tried to shoot him with silver bullets.
Yet.
He shook his head again. Apparently, he needed to sit down with a few of the guys and let them ask him whatever questions they could think of, to show them that he wasn’t a danger to them or the team, and to clear up some of the prejudices about werewolves they had. Ryan had never tried to hide that he was a werewolf – his parents had raised him and his siblings to be proud of their heritage. It made the fact that his teammates hadn’t known about it even worse. Ryan couldn’t help but wonder what his father would say if he knew what had just happened – would it seem as if Ryan was ashamed of being a werewolf? His father would be disappointed, Ryan knew. He needed to fix this.
However, that could wait until the full moon was over. Right now, he had more important things to worry about.
~*+*~
When he returned from his shower, his hair dripping wet and sticking up in wild curls, his teammates were all engrossed in their equipment and ostentatiously not looking at him.
Ryan sighed and shook his head as he started to dress. They obviously had realized that something about being a werewolf was a touchy subject for him and that it was best to leave him alone for a bit, and not risk the wrath of the goaltender.
Or the werewolf.
It only made him angry at himself and the way he’d overreacted to their teasing. They all hadn’t meant to anger him, he knew that. He knew them all well enough to realize that; besides, the full moon was almost upon them and his senses were getting almost painfully keen. Their smell would have given them away if they’d felt anything else but confusion and teasing friendliness.
The impending full moon unfortunately also meant that the Itch would be coming back, Ryan realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach – and he had no idea what he could do to suppress it or to deal with it, besides running until he broke down from exhaustion. The last time, he’d been with Hank, and somehow, getting fucked through the mattress by the other werewolf had silenced the throb that had filled his conscience so completely.
However, he thought as he buttoned his jeans, that was hardly an option this time. He couldn’t go out and try to find someone to fuck him every full moon. It seemed impractical, besides, Ryan didn’t want his hormones and his nature to destroy the reputation he’d carefully built.
He would have to be extremely careful, he thought, and he really didn’t know where he could find someone who would be able to fuck him senseless, and keep quiet about it.
“Ryan?”
The voice as soft, but in the eerie silence of the locker room, it was as if Andrew had shouted at him.
Ryan finished with his jeans. “Yeah?”
“Listen man…I’m sorry for…you know. What I said. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Ryan’s lips twitched slightly, and he reached over to pat Andrew’s shoulder while pretending not to notice the sigh of relief that went through the entire team. “It’s okay, Petey.”
“Good.” Andrew took a deep breath before chuckling softly. “Just making sure you’re not gonna bite me or something.”
He still smelled nervous, Ryan thought, but that didn’t stop the shiver from running down his back at the thought of biting someone and turning them into a werewolf. His thoughts flashed back to the morning after his first full moon, and the terrified expression on the face of his mother when she’d thought he could’ve done something like that.
“No,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Absolutely not.”
“Charming,” Andrew muttered.
Ryan took another shuddery breath. “Turning a human is an offense that gets punished with death, Petey…it’s kind of rape, only much, much worse,” he reminded the other man. “If you get attacked by a werewolf, it’s your duty to report it. You know that.”
“Even if it’s you?”
Ryan chuckled weakly. “Especially if it’s me,” he said. “You know…” He took a deep breath. “I am a young guy. It’s possible that I don’t have the control that’s required to live with humans.”
And that, he thought, was another flaw in his tentative plan to get through the full moon. He couldn’t go to a human during the full moon nights, when his control was even shakier than usual. The risk of injuring his partner was way too high. If he wanted to get fucked into blissful oblivion for full moon, he needed to find a trustworthy werewolf.
Someone like Hank.
The memory f the other werewolf sent a hot flush of blood through Ryan’s entire body, tingling in his fingers and toes and pulsing hotly deep in his stomach.
Andrew shook his head. Obviously, he hadn’t noticed what direction Ryan’s thoughts had been drifting off to, and Ryan was very grateful for that.
“You know, Ryan…”he said, his voice pitched low and serious, “you’re not the kind of guy to attack people, werewolf or not.”
Confusedly, Ryan stared at him for a long moment. He wasn’t sure what Andrew wanted to tell him with that, but he was too tired and too worried about the full moon to ask the other man to clarify it.
“Thanks, I think,” he simply mumbled and reached for his shirt.
His hands were trembling, he noticed absent-mindedly. The moon was already influencing him too much.
He needed to figure something out.
Preferably within the next forty-eight hours.
Before the full moon.
Chapter 5.