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ferryboatpeak · 7 years

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late late werewolf

I chewed on @wickershire‘s ask for a werewolf carpool karaoke timestamp for weeks, and then tumblr fuckin’ ate it, but here’s the outcome anyway. It’s mostly inspired by this photo and this video, and also here’s some Azoff den house porn and Jamesy baby’s place in Malibu.

Los Angeles is thicker with wolves than London is. James hadn’t realized that when he made the move. He’d only known that the boys were in and out of LA as much as London anymore, and hoped that would be enough to keep him from getting lonely. So it was a surprise to discover that LA has a disproportionately influential network of werewolves, and a bigger surprise to find himself welcomed into it.

James isn’t easily dazzled by superstars. It’s hard to be, when you’ve hoovered One Direction’s fur off your sofa. But he still can’t quite believe that he and Justin Timberlake get together every couple of months to chase coyotes in Griffith Park.

All the same, there’s nothing like seeing the boys. Any of them. So he’s only half-joking when Harry mentions doing the show during album promo, and James suggests that he stay for a week. move into the studio, you can sleep under my desk, he texts.

i’ll wee on your rug, comes the response. They trade increasingly terrible jokes about overnight guests and Harry earning his keep, and then James heads into a meeting and puts it out of his mind. He won’t need to remind Ben to get Harry scheduled as a musical guest when the time comes. Maybe they can even get a skit out of him.

The next day, Jeff Azoff calls. “Harry said he’s been talking to you about doing a week on the show?”

It takes James a moment to remember the text chain from the day before. Following through on vague ideas about getting together isn’t usually Harry’s thing. Their friendship is more of an endless series of joking texts and unfulfilled promises to make plans, right up until the point when Harry needs a sympathetic ear and someone to scratch his. That’s when he turns upon James’s doorstep.

He’s not sure whether Jeff’s interested in the idea, or calling to chew him out about presuming there’s a place for the Late Late Show in Harry’s well-oiled highly calculated promo plans. “Yeah,” James says, hoping for the best. “Yeah, we’d mentioned that.”

“Harry likes the idea,” Jeff says. “We all do. Let’s get it scheduled.”

Jeff starts talking about timing and strategy, moving other commitments to free up a whole week, and James checks out. Ben can handle that part. Ben’s not a wolf, and therefore Ben can have pleasant uncomplicated professional interactions with Jeff. Every conversation that James has with Jeff is shaped by crosscurrents of hierarchy and power that flow well beyond the two of them. Especially when the conversation’s about Harry.

James wants to believe that this residency is Harry following through, for once. This is Harry wanting to have some fun together. But he can’t help the uncomfortable suspicion that Jeff’s driving this somehow, and, inevitably, behind Jeff is his father.

Irving Azoff is the most powerful alpha in Los Angeles, and James doesn’t want to owe him any favors.

***

Late one night the week before the show, James’s phone rings with What Makes You Beautiful, and Harry’s photo pops up. James still uses an old picture from London, Harry wrapped up in a blanket burrito on James’s couch, managing to look disgruntled even as he naps. It’s a surprise; he hadn’t expected to hear from Harry until rehearsal later in the week. James swipes to answer the call, wondering what’s going on. “Harold!”

“Hellooooo,” Harry croons.

James remembers all over again how a direct hit of Harry’s voice is both soothing and disorienting. “You in town?”

“Not yet, flying tomorrow.” That explains the late phone call; Harry’s just waking up bright and early in London.

“Looking forward to next week,” James says, flipping the lock on the sliding door and starting up the stairs toward his bedroom.

“Sure, it’ll be fun.”

“Rehearsal Wednesday, right?”

“Yeah, Wednesday.” Harry pauses.

James waits him out for a moment before reaching for a prompt. “Where are you staying?” James realizes he hadn’t even offered, although Harry ought to know he’s always welcome.

“My place is going on the market.” James had forgotten Harry even had a house in LA. He still seems to prefer staying with somebody else when he’s in town, Ben and Meri or Jeff and Glynne or Cindy and Rande. Sometimes James, but James had assumed that moving out to Malibu last year would take him out of the rotation.

Harry’s still talking, rambling around to some kind of a point. “The art’s going into storage, and they’re going to like, fill in the nail holes, or paint or something, or maybe it’s something happening to the floors, I don’t remember. I think they took the rugs out too. So I’m staying with Jeff, but on Thursday we’ll all be up at his family place for the full moon, and do you want to come with?”

A loaded invitation. “Are you sure that’s all right?”

“Sure,” Harry says, broadly. “Irv actually said I should invite you.”

Which doesn’t do anything to allay James’s trepidation. But he’s not going to pass up a rare full moon with Harry, even if the rest of the company’s not ideal. “All right,” James says, like it’s easy as can be. “Tell Irving thanks for the invite.”

James wonders uncomfortably if Harry would still be going up to the Azoffs if Louis and Niall were in town. There’s no point asking him, though. In addition to it being an entirely academic question, James knows he’d only get a vague nonanswer about how Harry loves the pack and would never regret being part of it. He hasn’t left, not officially. Not like Zayn did, bloody and unmistakeable, the other four smelling of scorch and fever as they tried to rebuild the pack’s toppled scaffolding.

James doesn’t wish that on Louis again. But at least it was definitive. Not like the vague drift away that James worries Harry’s trying to accomplish, or Liam’s taciturn withdrawal into domesticity. Niall’s the only one left to bear the fierce weight of Louis’s love.

***

They film a sketch on the day before the full moon. Afterwards, Harry rides with James from the studio up to Holmby Hills. The ornate streetlights are just coming on, and the sharp scent of the towering box hedges is shot through with the fragrance of spring jasmine. The gate at the Azoffs’ opens when they pull up to it, which only serves to make James wonder how his Range Rover’s been recognized. Harry points him toward an appropriately deferential parking spot in the tree-lined circle drive.

There’s a wolf curled up in the middle of the terraced walkway to the house, sharp eyes watching them as they approach. “Chelsea!” Harry calls, and bends down to give her a vigorous backscratch. She snorts and headbutts him. James refrains, assuming he’d get a sharper reaction if he tried scratching Chelsea Handler’s back.

The front door’s standing open, and Shelli Azoff glides down the wide entrance hall to greet them as they approach. “Harry!” She kisses him on each cheek, Harry preening at the motherly attention. “Jeff and Glynne are out back.”

Harry tips a salute to James and saunters off down the high-ceilinged hallway toward the dining room. Shelli turns to James. “So glad you could join us tonight.”

“It’s my pleasure,” James says. Without Harry, he feels a bit like he’s been thrown to the wolves, literally. “Thank you for having me.”

Shelli tucks her arm through his and steers him deeper into the house. “Let’s get you a drink.”

The sprawling villa is made for a pack, with wide-open passages that won’t spook a wolf and French doors open to the exterior in every room. As they pass through an internal courtyard, a black-clad server appears at Shelli’s elbow and a gin and tonic smoothly makes its way into James’s hand.

The Azoff pack is large, and James recognizes most of the faces circulating through the house and down the terrace around the pool. It’s an even mix of artists -- the big names Irving’s represented over the years -- and others from the business side. James realizes that unless the Gerber kids are running around somewhere, Harry’s the youngest one here by close to a decade. No wonder Harry’s comfortable with the Azoff crowd, James reflects. He’s always happy when he’s surrounded by people competing to parent him.

Kris Jenner joins James and Shelli on the terrace. As the women greet each other, James looks past them to an elaborate spread of capaccio arranged on carved ice blocks. The small square plates and tray of cornichons and mustard suggest it’s offered for humans, but the sheer volume of raw meat means wolves will be finishing it off later.

To James’s relief, Kris stays to talk to him after Shelli melts away to ensnare someone else. It’s no trick to sustain a conversation with Kris. The only tricky part is to extract yourself before you hear more than you ever wanted to.

“Kim and Kendall here tonight?” he asks. They’re the only wolves among Kris’s brood. It’s never certain that the gene will pass down, when only one parent’s a wolf. James admires that Kris doesn’t seem to let it bother her. He’s never seen her show any favoritism between her daughters who are pack and the others who aren’t.

“No, Kendall’s with her friends,” Kris says, gesturing into the distance with her glass of white wine. “Kim and Kanye mostly do their own thing.”

Kanye West, all the cunning and power of an alpha but too volatile to convince anyone to follow him. Marrying into the Azoff pack didn’t help matters; of all the rumblings James has heard around who might succeed Irving someday, Kanye’s name is never in the mix. He asks Kris about her grandchildren instead, filling up the space until Irving Azoff steps out of a French door behind James and straight into their conversation.

“James! Glad you could make it.” Irving gives him an LA handshake and James feels disoriented by the disconnect between his appearance and his scent. A short man with an unapologetically receding hairline, Irving looks like the odd one out at this cocktail party full of famous artists and the expensively maintained team behind them. Breathe in, though, and his scent says not just that Irving’s willing to break a few eggs to make an omelet, but that he’s about to upend the entire henhouse and feast on the chickens.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” James says. “You’ve got a lovely property here.”

Irving scoffs. “Temporary. Thought we’d be back in our place by the end of last year. Architect’s fucking incompetent.” He rants to James about the renovation gone wrong on his Beverly Hills mansion, and James relaxes into the conversational safe harbor.

When he steps to the side to set his glass down on a patio table, it’s almost immediately whisked away by an efficient server with a low ponytail and a tray of empties. She glides silently toward the kitchen, and doesn’t even flinch when Chelsea brushes past her, tail catching on the edge of the tray.

James wonders how Irving and Shelli find staff they can trust, what it must cost them. James is careful to schedule his own house manager for a day off the morning after a full moon, and wipe up any pawprints himself so his cleaners have no reason to ask questions. His chef only knows that James likes a high-protein diet and steak cooked rare.

He snaps back to attention when he hears Harry’s name. “Glad to hear he’s doing a week with you,” Irving says.

“Well, we’re happy to have him.” James concentrates on breathing steady and slow, willing his scent not to give off any trace of nerves.

“You’ve always been a good friend to Harry.” Irving shifts his highball glass from one hand to the other. “He looks up to you.”

“That’s hard to believe,” James says. Hard to remember Harry as a sixteen-year-old kid who needed anything from James. Somewhere along the way, the whole world started giving Harry whatever he needs, abundantly and enthusiastically.

“He’s doing well,” Irving agrees, as if he’s thinking the same thing. James tries to stifle a flare of irrational possessiveness. He doesn’t need Irving to tell him how Harry’s doing.

Maybe something comes through in his scent, because Irving changes the subject. “You have a pack in LA?”

“No,” James answers quickly, reaching for the lighthearted emigre persona he relies on to dodge whatever ulterior motive is behind questions like this. “Still holding onto that last tie to Buckinghamshire.”

Irving doesn’t oblige him with a laugh or a joke about how you can’t go home again or a comment about the superiority of Los Angeles weather. He just looks at James, silently, and even though James knows it’s meant to unnerve him, it works anyway.

“Door’s always open here,” Irving says, after a pause.

“Thanks,” James says, shoulders down and chin tipped forward just a little, deferential. “I appreciate that.”

“We’d like to consolidate Harry’s supporters.” James didn’t see Irving move, but all of a sudden he seems uncomfortably close. “The next few months are going to be critical. It’ll help to have a good pack behind him.”

James has to stop himself from baring his teeth. Harry has a pack, and it’s not this one. Or maybe there’s something Harry hasn’t told him, or something on the horizon. Irving has a way of making the world conform to his vision.

The moon’s not up yet, but James’s body aches to shift. “Thanks,” he says, again. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“You do that.” Irving tips his glass at someone over James’s shoulder. As he starts to move in that direction, he looks back at James. “LA’s a tough place to be a lone wolf.”

James goes in search of another drink, feeling that he’s more than earned it. While he waits for the bartender to mix him a double, he notices a handful of party guests slipping down a hall that leads away from the central part of the villa. A few minutes later, they reemerge as wolves, padding through the lounge and out the broad sliding doors to the terrace.

Shifting seems like an even better idea than more gin. James explores the hallway and finds a series of spare bedrooms. Each has an assortment of clothing neatly folded on the bed or hanging in the closet, ready for the owners to reclaim when they shift back. How civilized, James thinks. He undresses and leaves his shirt and trousers in a tidy pile on the bed, thinking nostalgically about the boys’ hoodies and high-tops scattered all over his garden back in London. Even with moonrise not quite here, the shift comes easily, as if his body understands that it’s much less complicated to be a wolf than a human in this place.

James slips out the bedroom’s French doors to the side of the house and circles back around to the yard. He emerges just in time to see Harry tossing his skinny jeans and flowered shirt on a lounge by the pool and shifting in full view of the remaining humans. Either Harry hasn’t bothered to pay attention to the pack’s customs, or he’s just well aware that nobody at this party’s going to mind an eyeful of his lean body and lesser-seen tattoos.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Harry’s grown up into a striking wolf. His chest and shoulders have finally caught up with his long limbs and outsized paws, and his puppy fluff has resolved itself into a sleek dark coat. James bounds toward him and Harry yaps and darts off to the edge of the property, waiting for James to follow. They run through the trees and down an empty lot, emerging onto a golf course dotted with wolves. James has heard it before, but never quite believed it: Holmby Hills has enough wolves that they can afford to be a bit brazen about it on a full moon night.

The rolling fairways and the even scent of mown grass are a different experience than the Santa Monica Mountains, where James usually spends his shifts. He runs full tilt down the well-manicured course, overtaking Harry, who stays on his heels as they leave the coalescing pack behind. They weave through scattered stands of trees and leap across flat teeing grounds. James finally pulls up short and tackles Harry into a bunker. They roll over and over together in the sand like a pair of idiots, like six years never went by at all.

***

James leaves Harry at the Azoffs the next morning, heading home in the early dawn hours for a shower and a few hours of sleep. He sees him again at the studio that day, and all the next week, but there’s no chance to really talk there, surrounded by PAs and camera crew and Jeff ever-present in the background. Harry’s residency ends all too quickly, with a transcendent spark-shooting finale that has James half wondering the next morning if he dreamed the entire week.

Then, Harry’s gone. They see each other briefly in London a few weeks later, but it’s more of the same, always surrounded by the band, the crew, a theater full of people. Seeing Harry in person isn’t much different than their text message chain: sporadic outbursts of jokes that make only the two of them laugh, interspersed by long periods of nothing.

After the London show, James doesn’t hear from Harry again until his phone rings at the end of July, right as Dunkirk promo is winding down.

“I’m coming to LA for a bit before tour starts,” Harry says. “Could I stay at yours for a few days?”

“’Course you can, you know you’re always welcome.” As if James would ever tell him no. “You sure you want to be out in Malibu?”

“Yes,” Harry says, with certainty. “Want to get away a little, you know? Sit by the sea, nobody bothering me.”

He arrives at nearly midnight, the lingering traces of London in his scent almost overpowered by the stale coffee smell of air travel. James makes him a mug of tea and – when he almost falls asleep with his face in it – points him toward a guest bedroom.

Upstairs in his own room, James considers for a moment and then leaves the bedroom door slightly ajar. He doesn’t exactly expect Harry to come bounding up onto his bed like old times, but he’s not going to rule it out.

Then, instead of the clicking toenails of a wolf nosing its way through the cracked door, James hears soft knocking against the frame. Just a couple of quick and tentative raps, only loud enough for wolf ears.

“Harry?” James calls from bed. “It’s open.”

There’s just enough light to see that Harry’s shirtless and barefoot, in joggers. The black blotches of his tattoos look like absences in the dark room, like something’s chewed holes in him.

He gestures at the far side of James’s bed. “All right?”

“Sure, yeah,” James says, tugging the covers back for him. Harry takes up less space as a human, but he still radiates warmth as he settles in, turning himself over and back again, the human echo of his wolf tromping a circle into the duvet. He squirms his head down into his pillow, and then scoots closer to push his forehead into the side of James’s shoulder.

James freezes. He doesn’t know what to do with the gesture, somewhere halfway between human and wolf. After a moment he responds in kind, reaching his other hand over to scratch Harry’s head. Harry hums as if he’s pleased.

He’s silent for a few minutes after James finishes a lengthy head-scratch, but his breathing doesn’t slow into sleep. Finally, quietly, he asks, “How are they?”

“You’re not in touch?” James tries not to sound surprised or concerned.

Harry’s voice is half muffled by the pillow and the top of James’s arm. “There’s emails or texts or whatever, but.”

James understands. It’s easy to hide in plain sight in a text message chain. No way for the others to scent the truth, the way you can when your pack is nearby. “They’re good,” he says. “Truly, good. Niall’s coming into his own.”

“Louis?”

“Fatherhood suits him,” James says. “You know Freddie’s a wolf, do you?” Louis hadn’t told James, just brought tiny newborn Freddie over for a visit and let James sniff it out for himself. He’d never seen Louis so proud or so happy.

“Yeah.” James can feel Harry smile against his arm.

“And you’ll have Liam’s boy in the pack as well,” James adds. He knows that much, at least; there’s no doubt with two wolves for parents.

Harry’s quiet. After a moment, James says, softly, “They miss you.”

“Do they?” The question’s more skeptical than hopeful.

“Of course they do.” James has to ask, and there won’t be any better time than right now, with Harry in his bed seeking comfort or reassurance or something James hasn’t figured out yet. “Do you miss them?”

Harry makes an ambivalent kind of a noise. “Yes,” he answers hesitantly, drawing out the word. “I miss them. But I can’t have them around and do what I want to do right now.”

James knows. It’s hard to believe he ever advised the boys to tone it down in public, when flaunting their pack bond turned out to be integral to their success. Of course, now that makes it all the harder for Harry to establish himself as anything other than part of the pack. James aches in sympathy, knowing what it’s like to put pack at a remove to accomplish one’s own goals. It’s been so long since he’s felt that way, though. For years he’s had the boys, and now all the other wolves he’s connected with in LA.

“Would you ever…” – James can’t even bring himself to actually say it – “…the Azoffs?”

“No,” Harry says, emphatically. “I don’t miss a pack. I miss my pack.”

“I didn’t know.” James realizes for the first time how much the possibility had worried him. “Irving tried to recruit me. Gave me some line about supporting you.

Harry blows out a frustrated breath, hot against James’s arm. “You aren’t going to, are you?”

“No.” James relaxes down to his toes with the relief of not having to consider it anymore. “I mean, it’s not appealing. But if you did… I’d think about it, I guess.”

“Whatever line he fed you is bullshit,” Harry says. “He wants you as bait. Thinks if you pack up, I will too.”

“How flattering.” Not liking that line of thought, James changes the subject. “You don’t shift at night anymore?”

“Doesn’t feel right, on my own.” Of course, James thinks. Loneliness is easier as a human, with any number of distractions that aren’t available in a wolf’s body.

“Have you shifted since the last full moon?”

Harry thinks for a moment. “Maybe not.”

“Go to sleep,” James says, scratching his head one more time. “We’ll go out early in the morning, run a little ways down the beach.”

“All right.” Harry yawns into the words. He stretches away from James and swings his legs out of bed. James sees a flash of pale skin as Harry sheds his joggers, and then jumps back onto the bed as a wolf. He’s asleep a moment later, sprawled halfway across James’s chest.

#unbeta'd #so concrit willingly accepted before i upload to ao3 #turns out i could write in this verse forever #i had to make myself hard stop at 4K #you should see the stuff i cut out #fic #werewolf carpool karaoke #late late werewolf

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ferryboatpeak · 7 years

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clap for the wolfman

author: ferryboatpeak wordcount: ~24K pairing: ot5 + james corden summary: "My boy Louis is in London as well,” Johannah says. “He’s got some friends, wolves too... They could use someone to look after them.”

or: after the x factor, a pack of half-grown wolves shows up on james corden’s doorstep.

posted for wolvesfest. read it on ao3.

#the wip formerly known as #werewolf carpool karaoke #posting at a dead hour because i'm gonna reblog the shit out of this anyway

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ferryboatpeak · 7 years

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for the no excuses meme: pov for carpool karaoke wolfpack

ok, here’s some louis pov from the first couple of scenes…

–

The phone call is short, just their usual check-in, but it feels like it’s building to something. His mum gives him the latest news about the girls, and Louis tells her the latest about the boys, and finally after a pause she says, “I’ve asked James Corden to get in touch with you.”

Louis rolls his eyes, grateful she can’t see his reaction from the other end of the line. “Mum.”

“You ought to know the other wolves in the territory.”

“I don’t care about any other wolves.”

“Louis, for my sake,” she says patiently, asking a favor now. “It would make me feel better to know you’ve got someone to turn to, if you need anything.”

It’s a better strategy, piercing Louis right in the soft underbelly of his guilt about being away, his willingness to do just about anything if it’ll help his mum out. Still, he resists on principle. “We’re doing fine.”

“Just meet him. You can do that much. For me.”

“Fine.”

“And behave yourself. You’ll be lucky if you’re ever allowed back in Cheshire. Don’t push your luck in London.”

Louis doesn’t dignify that with a response. He’d done what he had to do in Cheshire, to make a point. To show them that Harry’s his now. They all are, all four of them. And he’s going to protect them and take care of them and knit them together and be the kind of alpha they deserve. If that means paying polite calls on the other werewolves of London, well, that’s what he’ll do.

***

As they climb the front stairs to James’s house, Louis is mentally calculating how long it’ll take for lunch and a polite interval of chit-chat. He’s got more pressing issues to deal with, like figuring out some place for them to go for a run after dark. There’s been no good time, no safe place, practically since the last full moon. They’re all on edge with the need to shift, Niall especially.

As Zayn presses the doorbell, Louis nudges Niall with his shoulder, just checking, and Niall leans into him with a smirk. The other three crowd in around them and Louis feels their energy, the power the five of them have when they’re all locked in just right. My pack, he thinks, looking James in the eye, proud and defiant, ready to snap his teeth at any sign of condescension. Look at my pack.

James smells like wolf, but like the city, too, like London rain and buckthorn and coffee and shepherd’s pie, and some emotion that’s too complicated for Louis to parse. Louis moves further into the house to let the others in behind him, sniffing deeply. The house smells like wolf, too, the only place they’ve been in London that really truly does. Their own flats at Princess Park are too new, still all jumbled up with the scents of previous tenants and the rest of the estate. Even their X Factor rooms, saturated with all their dizzying emotions of the last few months, held layers and layers of previous tenants. But this place is wolf through and through. Safe. Like a home.

All Louis has to do is glance sideways at Liam, and then Liam’s shucking off his hoodie as Louis kicks out of his Toms. They let the shift hit them like springtime, all of their bones bursting into bloom at once, and Louis feels the others behind him, in perfect tune.

#werewolf carpool karaoke #well this was fun #fic

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ferryboatpeak · 7 years

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When you see this post an excerpt from a WIP

I can’t decide if I do or don’t like it when this directive comes across my dash. @wickershire and @bigbrotherlouis are the culprits tonight so here’s some more werewolf carpool karaoke.

Over the meal, they tell him more about the record contract they’ve just signed and the X Factor experience that led to it.

“Is there a wolf behind the scenes there?” James asks. It’s hard to believe that these five wound up a band by coincidence; more likely, someone with some influence was aware of their commonality. James has never gotten close enough to scent Cheryl Cole, but he’s had his suspicions.

The boys look nervously at each other before Louis finally answers. “Not our secret to tell.”

James doesn’t push the issue. Instead, the pack tells him about catching the scent of other wolves in the crowd at auditions, trying to figure out which of the thousands of other bodies in the queue it belonged to. About getting cut and then put together as a group, gritting their teeth and wordlessly coaching each other not to let the wild swing of emotions tip them into a shift. About spending their first full moon together at Harry’s stepdad’s bungalow, sitting on their haunches around the fire and howling, affections born of giddiness and good fortune and shared ambition effortlessly tightening into a pack bond.

#werewolf carpool karaoke

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ferryboatpeak · 7 years

Video

youtube

#look jamesy baby and the boys needed a carpool karaoke song #and what better track for a performative singalong than this one #and catching up with bsb is a good reminder #that ot5 are the unchallenged kings of selling a cheesy music video #no other boyband will ever ever come even close #werewolf carpool karaoke

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ferryboatpeak · 7 years

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In celebration of the day werewolf!liam became canon, here’s another excerpt from werewolf carpool karaoke for @wickershire. Thanks for wolfing out with me today! (you too @moondoggiestyle).

[genesis here, another installment here]

After the full moon, the pack starts to show up at James’s house more often. Harry texts him wolf emojis and bad jokes. Niall fits steaks on the grill like puzzle pieces. Liam, the human, leaves a tennis ball in the garden; Liam, the wolf, noses the damp ball into James’s hand and looks up at him expectantly until James throws it for Liam to fetch over and over again.

James invites them over, encourages them to stay, worries about them penned in by the high-ceilinged hallways of Princess Park. The pack spends afternoons in the garden and evenings on the couch. Garishly colored boxes of snacks colonize the pantry and video game controllers trail around the living room like tentacles.

At first, James enjoys having their energy in the house. The kitchen bin gets tipped over a few times, and the morning paper is a casualty every day that James doesn’t wake up early to snatch it off the front porch, but James had expected those inevitabilities of puppyhood. He’s getting used to all the physicality, too, the pack constantly bumping shoulders and scenting necks and jumping on top of each other, whether in wolf or human form. He doesn’t remember his own packmates seeking contact quite this much, but he can’t say for sure; after all, it’s been a while.

So he chalks it up to pack dynamic when Liam wraps his arms around Niall from behind and covers the top of his head with kisses. He assumes it’s an alpha thing when he sees Liam stretched out on his stomach watching television with Louis draped all along his back, toes digging into the base of Liam’s calves and teeth biting at the back of Liam’s neck. He even manages to shrug and go about his day when he looks out the back window and sees Zayn and Harry slouched into one patio chair, Harry licking at Zayn’s collarbone.

It’s harder to ignore when he rounds the corner at the top of the stairs and finds Zayn straddling Niall on the hallway floor, kissing him with more tongue than James thinks is warranted on a Tuesday morning. Or when he comes looking for the kitchen scissors and finds Louis perched on the granite countertop like an ornament, forehead to forehead with Harry and one hand buried in his curls, while Harry’s hands disappear up Louis’s Leeds Festival shirt.

“Don’t mind me,” James says sarcastically, fumbling in the junk drawer for the scissors.

“We don’t,” Louis responds absently. Whatever it is that Harry’s hands are doing, it appears to be remarkably effective. James grabs the scissors and hastily retreats, feeling like an intruder in his own kitchen.

That night, when the whole pack’s tangled up on the couch, James makes up his mind to say something.

“Do you do this in public?” James asks, trying his hardest to make it a question and not an incredulous shriek.

“Do what?” Louis asks lazily.

“This.” James flaps his hands at them, at Zayn with his arms around Harry and Louis, Harry nuzzling Zayn’s neck, Louis’s legs across Liam’s and Niall’s laps.

The boys exchange shifty-eyed glances. “Not exactly,” Niall says. He nudges closer and hooks his chin over Liam’s shoulder.

“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

“Well, the couches are always too small,” Liam explains, as if that makes any sense.

“Every time we do an interview it’s like they can’t remember there’s five of us,” Louis adds. “There’s always only one couch, and it’s never big enough.”

“So we pretty much have to sit on top of each other,” Harry finishes. His voice is a bit muffled by Zayn’s neck. “But it’s not like we’re snogging each other on camera.”

Louis snorts and reaches over to pinch Harry’s leg.

Harry bats his hand away. “Not usually, at least,” he amends.

James gestures toward the lengthy expanse of the sectional couch between him and the pack. “There’s plenty of space here.”

Nobody makes a move out of the werewolf pile. “We’ve kind of got used to it, to be honest,” says Liam, settling his forearms more definitively across Louis’s legs.

“Nobody seems to mind,” Louis adds, tilting his head back to rub against Zayn’s cheek.

“You can’t just behave like a bloody pile of puppies and expect people to take you seriously,” James says, aghast.

Louis raises his eyebrows. “Once again, nobody seems to mind.” Zayn scratches him behind his ear. Louis’s eyes drift half-closed.

“What are they supposed to do, break you apart with a stick? You just, you can’t…” James cuts himself off, frustrated. Every shift he’s ever suppressed, every scent he’s ignored, every production he’s ever turned down because a show conflicted with the full moon, everything he’s done to succeed in this city against all his instincts, and this lot just shows up with their noses in each other’s necks like they can barely be bothered to act human.

“Jamesy baby, do you need a cuddle?” Louis croons, smirking at him.

“No,” James snaps. “No, I do not need a cuddle.”

Without discussion or warning, the pack explodes off the other side of the couch and launches itself at James. Knuckles scrub at the top of his head, sharp knees dig into his thigh, his nose is smashed into in somebody’s flank. Someone’s licking his ear (presumably Harry).

James flails his arms ineffectually and struggles to stand up. It’s token resistance at best.

#i will never be over canon wolf liam #so excited for his pup's first shift #he's gonna teach baby payno how to howl #fic #werewolf carpool karaoke #still hoping someone will offer to britpick #maybe this shouldn't be 17K but too late it is

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ferryboatpeak · 7 years

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The kiss cam though, that time he offered to hold harrys dick, the 1d member he would most want to have a baby with... james is pretty far from the solely parent side i think

OK OK OK FINE YOU ARE RIGHT. I’m 20K into writing a James who falls more on the parental end of the spectrum and it’s easy to forget.

BUT ALSO when Jamesy baby says that kind of stuff you get such a joking vibe from it, rather than the undercurrent of angst that IN MY MIND is present in every single reference to Harry that Nick makes. Or the SHADY and DIRTY vibe that I PERSONALLY FEEL rolls off Ben Winston’s Rolling Stone quotes in absolute waves.

#werewolf carpool karaoke #jamesy baby #gryles #winstyles

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ferryboatpeak · 7 years

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I needed something cozy and self-indulgent after today’s sadness, so here’s some more werewolf carpool karaoke. (If anybody wants to britpick this verse or school me on late 2010 canon, plz get in touch.) thanks @bigbrotherlouis for your encouraging tags and @wickershire for your alpha thoughts.

Even though he’s expecting them, James still looks through the peephole when the doorbell rings. The five faces more than fill the lens. James is no stranger to crowds of werewolves, and yet he’s never seen so much hair hanging in so many faces at once.

He tugs open the door wanting to hustle them inside like contraband. Surely his neighbors are going to notice a porch full of such obvious wolves, even if they’re in human form and thoroughly plastered with Abercrombie and Jack Wills logos.

The boys are pressed in with their arms draped over each other, a formation, with the one who must be Johanna’s boy at the point of it. It concentrates their scent so that James can’t pick them out individually. All he gets is a collective lungful of adolescent werewolf, nervy and hormonal and ready to take on the world. They’re too close together, too much altogether.

For a man on his own front porch, James feels oddly unsettled. Five pups hadn’t sounded like very many on the phone, not even enough to fill his couch, but this pack seems to take up more room than most.

“You must be Louis.” James stretches out a hand and the one in front separates from the formation. A handshake is an awkward and inadequate way to greet another wolf, but this lot is going to have to get used to shaking hands in the industry, aren’t they.

“Louis Tomlinson.” He looks James straight in the eye, his grasp firm and unintimidated. “Thanks for having us.”

“Come on inside, I’ve got some lunch ready.” James steps backward out of the doorway and the boys file in one by one, introducing themselves. And, more importantly, giving James the opportunity to scent them.

James had watched some of the X Factor videos after Johanna called, and learned to pick out Harry, Niall, and Zayn. He kept getting Louis and Liam confused, but he won’t have that problem again. In person, Louis reeks of alpha.

Liam, the next one through the door, decidedly does not. He smells oddly domesticated, more Great Dane than wolf. “Thank you for having us,” he echoes Louis, smiling and slightly nervous as he shakes James’s hand.

Niall’s next up, with a scent like grass and sunshine. Then Zayn, and James can’t quite put his finger on what Zayn’s scent reminds him of. Something warm, like gingerbread, or maybe that’s the color of his eyes.

James doesn’t even bother trying to figure out what Harry’s scent is. He just takes a few breaths too many before he realizes he’s probably been gripping Harry’s hand for a few beats too long. Whatever he smells like, it’s compelling.

Harry doesn’t seem fazed. “M’Harry,” he says, grinning and leaning just a bit in toward James before he drops his hand.

James turns to close the door and shakes his head to clear their scents from his sinuses. By the time he flips the deadbolt and turns back to the boys, they’re already shifting, melting into it easy as butter. They leave a mess of hoodies and scarves and unlaced boots behind them as they scamper towards the kitchen, the wolves just as leggy and half-grown as the boys. They’re moving too fast and close for James to tell who’s who.

One of them (shaggy and dark, maybe Harry?) takes the turn too fast and goes sprawling past the kitchen doorway with his paws pointed four different directions. The two behind him fling themselves on the floor to slide into him, yapping and nipping at each other’s necks.

After they sort themselves out of the pile-up and follow the rest of the pack into the kitchen, claws clattering on the hardwood, James picks his way after them through the discarded clothing. Maybe that’s why Johanna sent them here, so James could teach them some manners. He sighs. Louis doesn’t seem the type to take direction well, for himself or for his pack.

The pups are milling around the kitchen. Liam, the tallest, has his paws up on the counter in the vicinity of the breadbasket. Louis is trying to climb him. James makes a sharp noise and Liam drops to the ground with a chastened expression, dislodging Louis, who does not look chastened in the least.

“All right.” James claps his hands. The wolves settle down on the floor in front of the sink, orienting themselves toward him. “I’ve got a pot of soup on, if you’d like to shift. Or if you’d rather stay like this I can give you hamburger.”

Louis steps forward a couple of deliberate paces and sits down almost on top of James’s feet, never breaking eye contact. He barks once, short and demanding.

James nods and opens the refrigerator. The hamburger was intended for meatloaf tonight, but he supposes the soup will do just as well later. He separates the stack of bowls on the counter and portions the meat out between them.

The pack is surprisingly polite when James starts to line the bowls up on the floor, waiting until all five are down before they surge forward. James remembers, too late, that his dishes aren’t ideal for this. With no traction, the bowls slide along the floor as the wolves bury their snouts in them. Zayn neatly secures his under the lip of the counter, but Niall chases his bowl all the way across the room before he manages to pin it between his paws. Harry and Louis, eyes on their escaping food, collide with each other and spring back with yelps of surprise.

James stifles a laugh and makes a mental note to get some dog dishes. He revises his opinion about manners slightly when the entire pack follows Louis’s lead and nudges their empty bowls toward the sink.

Then Louis darts toward the back door, pawing at it in an obvious demand to be let outside. James winces at the scratches in the paint and hurries to open the door before Louis can do any more damage.

The garden is the reason James bought the house. It’s surrounded by a high brick wall, safe from the eyes of the neighbors, and has a back gate to the greenbelt that runs behind the neighborhood. He’s put in a water feature, a low oblong basin that’s just the right height for a long drink when he comes home on the morning after a full moon. It’s his only wolf indulgence.

Louis’s got Liam backed up on the edge of the basin, nipping and batting at Liam’s paws until he loses his balance and topples in with a splash. With obvious satisfaction, he watches Liam struggle out of the water. Liam vigorously shakes himself off all over Louis, both of their tails wagging with delight.

James ladles himself a bowl of soup and settles into a patio chair to watch the pups wear themselves out. They’re running from one end of the garden to another, colliding and pouncing on top of each other. Harry keeps getting distracted chasing his own tail. Louis sets his paws on the gate to the greenbelt and looks back at James, an inquiry. James slowly and deliberately shakes his head back and forth, a firm no.

For about a half a second, James considers joining them. The realization that he feels better equipped to keep this strange pack in line as a human than as a wolf is disappointing. His wolf is 45 kilos of muscle and teeth – how can his flabby human form feel more powerful than that?

He thinks back to the boys shifting without hesitation in the front hall. James remembers it being that easy when he was a teenager, bones pliant as candlewax and skin stretching and snapping back without resistance. Lately his shifts feel more like ice in a blender. Some of it’s age, but mostly it’s his own fault. He’s let the wolf fade from a habit into a monthly appointment. His body’s lost the ease of shifting without the moon to compel him.

James’s uncomfortable moment of introspection is interrupted by Liam, who wanders over and flops down at his feet. Louis follows to sit on Liam’s head and Harry drapes himself over Liam’s hindquarters. Liam’s eyes close happily. Zayn and Niall collapse against the pile, Niall gnawing gently at Zayn’s ear.

James reaches down with both hands, scratching behind ears and under chins. It’s oddly soothing. Harry’s the first to roll over for a belly rub, and the others follow. Except for Louis, who sits back and keeps a watchful eye on James.

“If you wouldn’t mind shifting, it would be nice to talk,” James proposes diplomatically. Although the request is for the whole pack, he directs it to Louis. Louis inclines his chin toward James and starts toward the house, the rest of the pack on his heels.

James opens the door and the wolves pad toward the front hall. He puts the soup bowls in the dishwasher as the sounds of laughter and scuffling start to trickle back toward the kitchen.

Louis is the first to appear, now in jeans and a striped shirt, hair just as artfully mussed as it was before he shifted. “Sorry if that was rude. We can’t shift where we’re staying, and we’re all a little desperate for it.”

James is stabbed by the memory of his first London flat, three roommates and not an ounce of privacy, not a tree within a kilometer. He remembers full moon nights in the park, bundling up a packet of clothes to leave under a tree and hoping it would still be there in the morning. Remembers wanting to shift as easily and frequently as he had between moons at home, curling up under his covers and tamping the urge down tight while his roommates clinked bottles in the kitchen. “It’s all right. Just, maybe a little warning next time, yeah?”

Louis grins, looking far more wolfish than his human form has a right to. “How about that soup, Jamesy baby?”

James's hand is reaching to flick on the burner before he consciously acquiesces.

#yeah that was a werewolf lilo waterfight #werewolf carpool karaoke #ot5 #fic

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