Werewolf dom/sub 'foster' au where newly-turned wolves must be placed in the care of an alpha who either leads their own pack, was born into it, or has simply been around and stabilised for long enough that they're respected in the community.
Human Robby who's aware that Jack has put in for some time off recently because he has been assigned a new wolf by the state. He feels vaguely ashamed that he hasn't been checking in as thoroughly as he should, but he has been finding time to message and ask Jack how his latest 'cub' is between shifts.
Jack's responses have always been that everything is going fine, it's an adjustment as usual, but nothing out of the ordinary. Robby feels like there's something that he's missing, some unspoken context lurking in bright white between the words. He presses Jack, but doesn't have as much time as he'd like to hunt down the trail that Jack isn't doing a great job of covering up.
One evening, just as he's clocking out, he gets a message from Jack that takes the guesswork out of it all.
Need your help with my puppy. He's struggling and he's a fucking handful and I gotta admit I'm not doing right by him. You free to help me out?
And there's only one answer Robby will ever give to Jack.
Always.
Robby hears the issue before he's even stepped into Jack's house.
Even through the closed door, he can hear Jack's footsteps approaching, and underneath that, a constant, fractious whining sound, interspersed with the sound of rhythmically-clanging metal.
"Brother, am I fucking glad to see you."
Jack leans heavily into Robby's embrace, and even to Robby's human nose he smells like sweat, exhaustion, and the slightly wheaty-milky smell that all newly-turned wolves have.
Robby follows Jack through the house and watches him flop on the couch with a sigh. Robby notices the fabric on the corners has been torn, and the wood underneath has been chewed into damp, splintered crescents.
The whines that have been drifting through the house suddenly pick up in their intensity, and Jack's eyes grow fond even through the exhaustion.
"Dennis, buddy, I'm right here. You're okay, I'll be with you in a minute."
Robby takes a seat next to Jack, allowing the warmth of their thighs to press against each other.
"Tell me what's happening, brother."
The whining in the next room pauses, chokes and grumbles into something wary, something warning. Jack opens his mouth, but Robby cuts him off.
"Ignore him, he'll be fine. You know he'll be fine. Let him cry for a minute, it won't hurt him. Tell me."
Jack sighs, scrubs a hand down his face.
"He's a sweet kid."
"That why your furniture's all chewed up?"
"He is a sweet kid. The furniture is chewed up because he's also a brat, he's scared, he's restless, and he's in pain. I also think he's - not particularly one of the lucky ones."
Robby ducked his head, curtailing some of the comments that had been tripping off the tip of his tongue, about Jack being a soft touch and thinking that all brats were sweet kids, even when sometimes a brat is just a brat.
Dennis being...unlucky changed things, just a little.
Sometimes, particularly if a turning is violent and traumatic, it can do more than just make a wolf of a man. Sometimes, the change can knock something off-kilter in both man and beast, and in the worst cases, loved ones have reported being barely able to recognise their person, even when they're not under the influence of the transformation.
"Did you know him before? What kind of severity are we looking at here?"
Jack shook his head, cast a quick glance back at the spare room, where the sounds have quieted to the gentle, metallic shuddering sounds of teeth gnawing on a cage.
"I didn't know him before, so it's not like I can comment on his baseline. It's more that I see something in him sometimes, and I know that's probably who he was before all this."
Robby leans over to press a hand to Jack's back, sweeping it up and down in broad strokes, daring once or twice to venture to the back of Jack's neck and squeeze comfortingly.
"Severity? Nothing too bad - he's not really aggressive, he's just...incredibly rambunctious, restless to the point where even he's frustrated with it, and he swings between wanting to take a bite out of me to being so incredibly clingy that I can't take a piss in peace."
Robby quirks a smile at that.
"Cute. Sounds like just another day at the office to me, Abbot." His lips twitch at Jack's snort, and he flicks his gaze to the spare room and the gnawing sounds.
"What are we today? Clingy, or bitey?"
"Can't a man have a bit of both?"
Robby rolls his eyes, jerks his head at Jack.
"Helpful. C'mon then, bring him out here and I'll take a look."
---
Jack is gone for longer than Robby had anticipated, and he hears the low, soothing rumble of his voice followed by the clink of a crate door being unlatched, and then the whining sounds from earlier return with a vengeance.
"Oh, I know, I know. There you go, you're okay, I'm back now. Come on, we're going to go through and meet a friend of mine."
Quiet, frantic chattering that Robby can't quite make out.
"Yes, I'm sure he'll like you, and I'm sure he'll want to be your friend too. But you have to be a good boy, because Robby only likes good boys."
Robby raises his eyebrows reflexively, barely has time to school his face and wipe the slight smirk off it before Jack rounds the corner, half-dragging Dennis behind him by a firm grip on the back of his neck.
"Dennis, this is my friend, Robby. Robby, this is Dennis."
Jack has to practically drag Dennis to sit on the couch with him, pulling him tightly to his side to try to contain some of the restless wiggling and attempts to climb into Jack's lap and seemingly directly into his skin.
"Hi Dennis. I know this must all be very confusing, and I know you're struggling, and I'm here to help with that. Jack's told me a little bit about you, but would you like to tell me about yourself?"
"No." Spat petulantly into Jack's neck, where Dennis is trying to hide himself. Jack's gaze hardens a little.
"Dennis. I told you, Robby is my friend, and he's trying to be yours. You will be polite."
Dennis whines like Jack has told him he can't have his favourite treat, and Robby finds himself ticking off all the relevant boxes in his head, and writing little notes in the imaginary margins.
He tilts his head, tries to make eye contact with Dennis, who only glares at him with one baleful eye, the other hidden in Jack's clavicle.
"Dennis, I think it's going to be a lot more helpful if you look at me and answer my questions. Can you do that?"
"Fuck off."
Jack looks like he's about to snap a reprimand, but Robby simply nods at Dennis, slow and calm, as if he's made a mildly interesting observation.
"Okay." Soft and gentle, voice pitched low as if to soothe. Robby makes eye contact with Jack, asking a question that doesn't need to be spoken between them. Jack nods in return, and Robby smiles.
He's standing almost as fast as a natural-born wolf, one hand closing on Dennis' scruff and the other on his wrist with practiced ease, and he hauls him off of Jack, manhandling him while he wails and writhes in his grip.
Those newly sharp teeth snap around the air where Robby's hand was, and Dennis grunts in surprise when Robby easily nudges the back of his knees and sends him toppling to the floor, bent and kneeling beside Robby's legs.
A sharp crack snaps through the air, and Dennis' startled cry is almost comically delayed. Robby's hand stays poised by Dennis' thigh, where it has just made a hard and sudden impact.
"You do not bite." Robby's other huge hand is clamped hard around Dennis' neck, and he shakes him by the scruff briefly for emphasis, jiggling a soft whine from Dennis in the process. Robby leans down to speak into Dennis' poor, red ear as the puppy flushes in shock and humiliation. His voice is like velvet, gentle and calm and slightly unsettling if it's rubbed the wrong way. "You do not bite me, and from now on you do not bite Jack unless I'm here to supervise your playtime. I can already see you've done damage to his furniture, but that stops now. Oh, I know, that's all very cruel, isn't it?"
Robby has slowly manipulated Dennis so his head is forced to lie on his knee. He can see the poor thing's eyes darting frantically towards Jack. He taps Dennis' thigh once more in warning, clicks his tongue.
"No, I'm talking to you now. You don't need to look at Jack, he's already put up with enough from you."
A choked whine with some real distress in it, and Robby lets his voice soften just a little.
"Don't work yourself up, he's not abandoning you and you're still his very sweet little puppy that he's very fond of. But you've been misbehaving - no, we don't need to hear any whining from you, thank you - so I'm going to help you be a good boy for Jack. Because I think that's what you want, isn't it? Just to be a good, sweet boy, am I right?"
Despite the shock still clouding his eyes and making his pulse flutter frantically at his throat, Dennis' body has started to unwind from its unbearable tightness as Robby's voice washes over him, and his head grows heavy as he settles, trance-like, further into Robby's lap and his hold. He nods, once, barely perceptible.
Jack smiles and Robby coos gently down at Dennis, who is aware on some level that this big, strange man is patronising him, but he just can't bring himself to wish that he'd stop. The words, the voice, they all drag him down to a place where the aches and pains and frantic, screaming new instincts in his body are all like distant, fading echoes in a dark place. It's peaceful here.
"Oh, what a good boy. See, we can be friends now, can't we?" Robby glances up at Jack, keeps one hand locked to the back of Dennis' neck and squeezing rhythmically.
"Is he eating?"
"Inconsistently. Sometimes he acts like he's starving, other days I have to wrestle water down his throat. Nothing too out of the ordinary, given the new senses can be pretty overwhelming."
Robby nods, running his other hand up and down Dennis' back, feeling his muscles shudder and chase the sensation. He allows himself a small smirk up at Jack.
"Touch?"
"Wanted. Constantly."
Robby chortles a rusty laugh at the dryness of Jack's tone, the quirk of his eyebrow.
"But he's also incredibly restless, and his muscles and bones hurt all the time from the change. He wants to pace and play and wrestle - and bite - at all fucking hours. He won't stay still enough for anything else. He barely sleeps, which is only making everything worse."
"Okay." Robby nods thoughtfully, patting Dennis' back and feeling him twitch in response. "Well, let's start there, then. See if we can't get some of this tension out of you, hmm?"
Without any further discussion or hesitation, Robby reaches the hand that isn't clamped on Dennis' neck down to his legs, and nudges them apart.
"Okay Dennis, just let me in and give me some room - there you go, there's a good boy."
Dennis is so startled by the hand easily dipping below his waistband that he barely does anything more than grunt at the sensation of one of those big, hairy hands closing around his cock. He reflexively jerks, tries to curl around the intrusive hand, but his neck is still being squeezed, his head still pressed against Robby's knee, and even the gentle, steady pressure on his cock isn't enough to fully yank him out of that warm, comfortable low place he's sunk to. He whimpers when Robby's hand actually starts moving firmly, stroking up and down his cock in a somewhat clinical fashion.
"Mm, I know, you weren't expecting that, were you? Poor puppy. I know, it's all very personal, isn't it?" Robby's musing in the same mild way he might have been talking about the weather, and it makes something writhe in Dennis' belly as his hips start to twitch ever so slightly. "Just relax, there's a good boy. You've got all that pent up energy, and it's only getting you in trouble, isn't it? Give it to me and I'll get rid of it, there we go."
"He's responsive, that's a good sign," Robby directs casually to Jack, who has resumed swigging at his beer as he lets Dennis hold hazy eye contact with him. He smiles at his poor, befuddled boy as his cheeks start to flush and he starts to vocalise in tiny, repeated little whimpers.
"Can't say I'm surprised," Jack returns easily, "he's all over me the minute I do so much pat his hand. Hell, sometimes all I have to do is look at him and he'll come running over here like I've dangled a treat in front of him."
"Jack!" Tearful and wobbly, Dennis' part-plea part-protest almost gets swallowed by his unsteady breathing as Robby starts to twist his wrist on the upstroke.
"Ah ah, drop the attitude." Robby ceases all movement, gripping Dennis' cock tight at the base and nodding when it tears a quiet cry from Dennis' throat. His hips bob helplessly, though it does him no good to essentially be humping the air. "If you want to whine, I'll make sure you have something to whine about."
"I'm - I'm sorry. Robby, I'm sorry."
"Not to me."
"Jack - Jack, I'm sorry. Sir, I promise I'm so - I'm so sorry."
"Very pretty, such a good boy." Robby gently coos down at him, slowly resuming his stroking as Jack lowly assures Dennis.
"I know you are, Den. You're doing very well. Does that feel nice?"
Dennis nods frantically, as much as he can with Robby's hand still clamping down on his neck and keeping his head on his lap. His eyes are red-rimmed as they gaze up at Jack, whimpers falling quietly but far more freely from his lips as he alternates between holding his breath and panting in desperate, gulping breaths.
"You've been tense and hurting for a long time, haven't you Dennis?" Robby murmurs, low and quiet into his ear. A sound a lot like a sob tears its way through Dennis' throat and he nods in frantic, undone agreement. His hips are faltering in their rhythm.
"And it's all built and built inside you until it all comes pouring out," Robby glides his fingers over the head of Dennis' cock, feels his whole body twitch, "in such naughty behaviour. So we're going to make sure you have a proper outlet for that, hmm? We're going to make sure you're nice and empty down here, so that head of yours can be quiet and fuzzy and relaxed." Dennis is starting to let out urgent little sounds now, eyes glued to Jack, almost like he's making a distress call, begging Jack to answer, to give him what he needs.
"Robby-"
"He can come when he's remembered his manners."
"Please! Sir - please. Can I? I'll be good, I promise I'll be - be good."
Robby laughs at the sheer desperation, and Jack makes a lazy attempt to hide just how sweet he finds it. Robby raises his brows at Jack, shrugs at him.
"He's your puppy, not mine."
"Go ahead, Denny, let Robby get it all out of you."
The way Dennis curls violently around Robby's hand, the way he wails, open-mouthed and distraught, Jack almost thinks he's in mortal pain. He shudders and sobs and convulses in Robby's hand while the older man shushes him and gradually slows the action of the hand between his legs, while the one gripping Dennis' neck starts up a gentle palpating motion.
Jack feels compelled to reach over and stroke a hand down Dennis' narrow, shuddering back.
"Denny?"
A low, ruined sob is his only answer, and it pulls at Jack's hearstrings. He looks to Robby for approval, and a brief, fond nod is his only answer. He reaches down to haul Dennis up beneath his armpits, passing his limp, shuddering form easly over to Jack.
"Hey sweetheart." Jack rumbles into Dennis' ear, settling him against his chest, patting the muscles that still twitch. "Does it all feel a little less staticky now?"
An exhausted whine is the only sound the drifts up from the shuddering heap that is Jack's puppy, and Robby snorts fondly.
"Go put him to bed, before he does a header straight into the floor." Robby's wiping his hand off as he casts a fleeting look up at Jack. "When you come back, we can talk logistics for how this is all going to work."
