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1. Wolves are big. Werewolves are massive.
When he's wolfed up, John stands almost as tall as Fusco's shoulder and outweighs him by a factor of two. That's not a size that easily fits in a standard sedan.
Fusco glares at the wolf dripping water in little rivulets. "Can you shake that off a bit before we drive home? You've gotta be wearing ten gallons of snowmelt."
John's fur is insanely thick. Normally the damp sits on the surface but tonight he took his time dragging a guy backwards through a snow bank and he's drenched.
Fusco goes for the towels he's gotten used to carrying these days, while John pulls his goomba by the ankle towards the car. The poor man lies face down and Fusco hears faint whimpers drifting up from the mud. He's not going to make a break for it. He'll probably be having nightmares for months.
Fusco turns around with his armful of towels to find John has padded silently up behind him and lined himself up with the accuracy of a sniper, tongue lolling out.
"Don't you freaking dare!" Fusco starts, holding up the towels to protect his face as John braces his shoulders and shakes violently, spraying water like a sprinkler. Damn it.
When Fusco's wearing all the snowmelt, John sits on his haunches and lolls out his tongue, panting in what passes for laughter in this form.
"I oughta make you run home, you asshole." Fusco throws a towel over the wolf's head and gets out his cuffs for the goomba. He drags the poor guy into the front passenger seat and buckles him in. Three days a month, John doesn't fit in the front, not without his head pressed hard against the roof of the car, and Mr Gorgeous doesn't like to squash his pointy ears, does he?
Once the guy is strapped in, still safely in a fear coma, Fusco grabs the rest of the towels and scruffs John as dry as he can get that thick fur. "Don't want you getting the seats wet," he says, carefully cleaning mud from between each hairy toe. John closes his eyes with pleasure, enjoying the touch.
When Fusco's done, John sits up straight and nudges his muzzle against Fusco's neck, pressing his teeth onto the skin. Fusco takes a deep breath, feels his heart pound, feels his blood rush places that are not appropriate while they're in the field, with a suspect cuffed in the car. He knows that in this form, John can tell when Fusco's turned on. But this is not the place.
"Later, okay?" he says, and cups John's enormous head in his hands. He plants a kiss on the damp, broad skull, and opens the back door. John scrambles up, ungainly suddenly as he wriggles in and gets comfortable splayed across the seat. Fusco makes sure John's tail is safely tucked in before he closes the door and drives them home to the city.
2. The fur gets everywhere.
Fusco is relearning the art of living with someone on a twenty-eight day cycle, and that comes with its own kind of nostalgia.
John has one day on either side of the full moon when he can change at will, and one night when he's stuck in wolf form whether he wants it or not. The moon definitely has some interesting effects on John's mood. And John's libido.
Carter brushes Fusco's shoulder as she walks past and pauses, a long silver hair held between her forefinger and thumb. "Bear is going grey already? Do I need to call the ASPCA on John for elder abuse?"
"Elder abuse is about right," Fusco mutters, feeling the bruises from where he was bowled over like a skittle last night. He gets out the lint roller for the second time today and goes to town on his jacket. Full moon is tonight, and John will have it all out of his system by then. Fingers crossed Fusco doesn't break a hip.
3. So. Many. Rules.
Fusco figured silver bullets would be a problem, but he learns quickly that they use silver in lots of stuff. Antiseptic ointment for one, and the really fancy dressings for another. Fusco has old school gauze and iodine in his first aid kit these days. There's silver in rechargeable batteries, RFID chips, Christmas crackers and water filters.
He explains all of this to Shaw while they're on a stakeout. "That stuff they used to sprinkle out of airplanes? To make it rain? That was silver, too. Can you imagine? Silver raining out of the sky. Poor guy would have to stay indoors on rainy days."
Shaw is heartless enough to find this hilarious. "One time we were in a frat house and John picks up their stupid ceremonial spanking paddle to thwack a guy across the head. Only, apparently they rub this thing down regularly with polish that has silver in, and John's got some Greek shit branded onto his palm for a week."
Fusco snorts and winces. "Wait, they really had a spanking paddle?" he says.
"Yeah. Why? You boys want to borrow it?" Shaw says, then punches him in the arm really hard and steals Fusco's leftovers.
4. A werewolf can really jack up the grocery bill
The two of them went kind of backwards into being a couple: fucking first, wolf later, and friendship last of all. Fusco knows a lot more about John's body than he does about, say, his laundry sorting preference.
"You should come over for dinner one time," Fusco says.
John actually takes his eyes off the target to stare at him.
Fusco talks fast, because that stare could mean so many bad things. "It's full moon Friday night. That's gotta take a lot of energy out of you, right? I've got the day off; let me cook something. Proper food, not takeout. You know, meat and vegetables and stuff."
John doesn't say yes, and maybe that's because he's off down the alley to slap a gun out of his target's hand, but he doesn't say no, either. Fusco takes that as a positive sign.
Friday arrives, Fusco drops some cash at the deli for fresh pasta and spends the day making lasagne. He's not sure if John will show, but the lasagne is a thing of fucking beauty, and if Bozo can't get over his commitment issues, well, that's his loss.
Fusco is serving himself some salad and debating how much of this lasagne he's going to freeze for Lee's next visit when he hears the door to his apartment open.
"I'm in here," Fusco starts to say, but John pulls him close, kisses him hard and hungry.
"You smell amazing," John says against Fusco's jaw.
Fusco glances at his fingers where they're pushed into John's hair and sees they're stained with onion and garlic. Good job, Fusco. You've seasoned yourself the night you invite an apex predator to dinner. He eases himself free from John's arms very slowly. "Buddy, you need to eat, and I don't mean me."
At the kitchen table, John powers through three serves of lasagne, most of the salad and swabs his plate clean with what's left of the garlic bread in the time it takes Fusco to eat one modest plateful. The metabolism on this guy, Fusco thinks, watching him eye off the rest of the tray.
"You got time for one more?" he says, standing up and reaching for John's plate. He ducks his head low to check the light through his window: moonrise is a couple hours after twilight. When he looks back, John's seat is empty. Ah well, Fusco tells himself. Dinner was a good first step, and whatever happens in the next twelve hours Fusco knows John has a belly full of good fuel.
The morning is grey and cold when the mattress dips under a heavy weight and a great furry body crushes him flat before he can reach his gun. John makes a ridiculous whine-bark that serves as a greeting in this form. It's the first time he's snuck into Fusco's apartment like this. Fusco plunges his hands through that thick fur, enjoying the sheer hedonistic pleasure of touching him. When he next wakes, John is human again, spooned against Fusco's body.
"Hey," Fusco says, and when John keeps pretending sleep, Fusco wriggles around to poke him in the forehead. "I hope you didn't use teeth on the doorknob."
John's eyes spring open and he launches himself on Fusco. There are teeth. Fusco feels pretty fucking appreciated. He isn't even mad when he finds the lasagne tray on the kitchen floor, licked clean by a big wolf tongue.
5. Loving a werewolf is literally contagious
Turns out the CIA has done a fuckton of research into the nature of lycanthropy, which provides a wealth of terrifying information for the man starting out in a werewolf relationship. It's transmitted in wolf form via blood – John himself was deliberately infected via a bite. That's a problem for someone who bleeds as often and copiously as John does, but it's nothing that the NYPD biohazard crime scene training didn't cover. Fusco wears gloves when he's patching up the wolf, washes up real careful afterwards, doesn't kiss John on the lips three days a month. He probably shouldn't enjoy John mouthing at his neck when he's a wolf, but if there's one thing Fusco can rely on absolutely is John's control of any weapon, including his teeth.
Lycanthropy is also technically an STD, but not one Fusco has to worry about unless John's in wolf form when they fuck. Fusco likes to imagine himself a forward-thinking man, but he's pretty sure wolf fucking is not his thing. He wonders if it's a required or a taboo concept with werewolves. Maybe it's neither? Maybe it's down to personal preference.
"Is it your thing?" Fusco asks one night, in case it's something John needs in his life. Maybe the first night they actually sit and talk about relationship stuff isn't the ideal time to bring it up but now it's the elephant (wolf?) in the room and Fusco needs to know.
He's sitting on John's expensive sofa, watching water bead down John's expensive tumblers and pool on his expensive coffee table. John is silent beside him, and Fusco's heart sinks a little. He's said the wrong thing, or he's shown himself to be the gauche unworldly moron he actually is. He dabs a finger in the puddle of water. That's going to make a ring in the varnish. He wonders that there aren't coasters on the table for this. Do rich people use coasters? Twitchy with nerves, he opens a drawer in the coffee table to see what's inside. What do you know, there's a little box of felt-bottomed coasters, as well as a corkscrew and (of course) a 9mm Glock.
In the growing awkward silence, Fusco pulls out two coasters, swipes the moisture off the dark wood with his sleeve and slides one under each glass. Yeah, Lionel, that's definitely how the rich people do it, he says to himself, dying a little on the inside.
"Look," he says to John, about to apologise for being an asshole, even though he doesn't know what he's done exactly, just that John looks like someone has beaten him with sticks.
At the same time, John says, "Don't know if I have a thing?" His voice is small, rising at the end with the same uncertainty that Fusco is feeling. "There's only been one time that I was with someone for more than…"
Fusco leans over to kiss him. "It's okay, we can figure it out as we go," he says.