Sleeping With Giants

part two

|freshman year|

Freshman year does not start well for John. His mom is a nurse, and that’s cool most of the time. Like when he smacks his head on the shelf in his bedroom and needs ten stitches, she knows exactly what to do and how to get him to a doctor in the fastest time possible. Like when he breaks his wrist sliding head first into home plate when he’s on the little league baseball team (after his coach told him five hundred times do not slide head first ever), she keeps it elevated and calls an ambulance the second after she sees it go down. However, when it’s his first day of high school and his mom is running late coming home from a night shift at the hospital? Totally not cool at all.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart!” she says for the fifth time when she finally comes through the front door. She’s still dressed in her scrubs and her hair is tied up in a knot on top of her head and John almost feels bad about the way he spoke to her on the phone. But then the guilt passes because hello, first day of high school here!

“It’s fine, can we just go now?”

John tugs her back out the front door, not giving her much of a chance to take a breath. He hikes his backpack up on his shoulder and leaves her to lock the front door behind them. He’s already late. This is already a huge disaster. The biggest disaster. He’s ruined. He’s fourteen years old and he’s late for high school and he’s just completely ruined.

“Other people will be late, you know,” his mother says on the drive there, rolling her eyes as he fidgets and shifts in his seat, unable to keep still. He messes with the radio, changing stations even though he finds plenty of decent songs.

“I’m nervous enough as it is, considering I don’t know anyone and nobody knows me. I don’t need to be late to add on to it!”

She ignores him after that, which he doesn’t blame her for. He’d ignore him too. He tries to sit still for the remainder of the ten minute ride and by the time she pulls into the parking lot, it takes everything he has not to just open the door and hop out before the car is even fully stopped.

He’s pretty sure his mom tried to kiss him goodbye before he bolted from the car, but he’ll worry about that later because he’s late for homeroom and he has no idea where it even is and his heart is pounding way harder than it needs to be. If she had just shown up on time like they had planned last night, maybe he’d already be making friends and he could completely forget about the fact that he’s a transfer kid from Arizona and knows absolutely nobody in this entire state. Except his mom. And they’re currently having a rough patch until further notice.

Homeroom is easy enough to find, once John figures out the classrooms are even numbered on the left and odd on the right. And his mom was right - plenty of other people are late but still. It’s the point of it. His homeroom teacher seems nice enough. She hands John his schedule, tells him there aren’t very many seats left but he can pick wherever he wants. And with one glance around the classroom he realizes his options are either the very front seat in the very first row, some random seat in the middle, or an empty seat in the back row, right in front of a harmless looking kid. So he picks that last one. Because the back row is inconspicuous and that is exactly what he’s going for right now. So he walks all the way back there, not gathering any attention from anyone else. Which is nice. But also kinda lame. He’s never going to make friends at the rate he’s going.

He drops his backpack at his feet and slides into the desk to read through his schedule, but the boy behind him prevents that.

“Are you alright?” he asks, leaning forward in his seat so far that he’s almost resting his chin on John’s shoulder. “Your heart is going nuts.”

John freezes, eyes focused on the little square on the page that tells him he has Spanish third period. “Uh. No it isn’t,” he says, shrugging the guy off and hoping that maybe if he ignores him long enough he’ll just leave him alone.

“But it is, I can hear it!” the boy protests, and John sighs. Of course he would sit near a werewolf. Because that’s just how his day is going for him. No wonder nobody else was sitting near him.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Okay, if you say so,” he continues, and he leans forward and grabs the schedule out of John’s hands and all John can do is turn around to try and grab it back. But the kid is reading it through, smiling and nodding consistently. “We have all the same classes! Except study hall. I have art.”

John perks up a little at that. Someone in almost all his classes? This guy might be a freak but John will take him over nobody. "What's your name?" He finds himself asking, taking his schedule back. "I'm John."

"I'm Kennedy Brock. Wanna sit with me at lunch?"

And just like that, John has a friend and is well on his way to becoming part of a werewolf pack. He just has no idea yet.

- - -


Classes aren't awful. They're a little boring and John has trouble paying attention to the lesson, especially when he has Kennedy sitting next to him in every class. In Earth Science, they sit at lab tables and Kennedy sits pressed right up against him and his body heat is almost overwhelming. John is pretty sure all the other kids in his classes have wondered why the hell he's voluntarily hanging around a werewolf, considering they're not exactly the most accepted in society, but John has decided he doesn't care. Kennedy is nice and he actually wants to be John's friend so he'll take it.

"Sierra is a sophomore," Kennedy is saying while they're sitting at a table in the cafeteria. "Zack is a freshman but he's in all AP classes. And then Matt and Tay and Jack are juniors. I don't know them that well but Sierra says they're nice. And Martin is a senior. He's Zack's neighbor and he's really angry all the time so I don't talk to him but Zack likes him so-"

John kind of hasn't been listening. He knows Kennedy is trying to tell him about his 'pack'. John doesn't know much about werewolves other than the fact that they normally join their packs when they turn thirteen. He read once that if they're born werewolves, they normally don't join the same pack as their parents. John wonders if Kennedy falls into that category but he figured it's totally rude to ask.

"The alpha is totally cool, though," Kennedy is saying when John tunes back in, just as a pretty girl with long brown hair sits down in the seat next to him. "His names Alex-"

"And Alex probably doesn't want you scaring away your only friend on your very first day," the girl finishes for him, reaching out to pinch his cheek. "I'm Sierra. You must be the unlucky victim, John."

For the first time all day, Kennedy stops speaking. He slumps down in his seat and focuses on picking at the bagel in front of him, occasional glancing sideways at Sierra. Someone clearly has a crush.

He doesn't meet the others that Kennedy tells him about. At least, he doesn't think he does. It's only when a senior boy walks by him at his locker later that day, stops for a millisecond to give him the once over, that John realizes Kennedy's pack has been investigating him all day. The girl who cornered him in the second floor hallway and tried to convince him to join the swim team, when John knew very well the school doesn't even have a swim team. The group of boys who came into the bathroom as he was washing his hands and John thought for sure he was going to get his head flushed down a toilet or something. All Kennedy's pack. All checking him out. Making sure he's normal, or something.

Even when the school day is over and he's getting into his moms car, he feels someone watching him from across the parking lot. He tells himself not to, that he's just imagining it, but he looks up, only to find an older guy leaning against a parked car, eyes focused right on John.

John's not an idiot. The guy’s eyes flash red for the briefest second when he realizes John has noticed him. That's Kennedy's alpha. Alex, he's pretty sure his name is.

"Did your day get any better?" His mom asks, pulling his attention back to her.

He shrugs and drops his backpack between his feet as he buckles his seatbelt. "Being late wasn't the worst thing to happen to me."

---


John's mom, while obviously happy to see her son making a friend in his new school, does not take the werewolf thing very well.

"I just don't like it," she says one Saturday morning towards the end of November, "I've told you this. I don't trust werewolves. What if he bites you, John? What if-"

"He wouldn't. And that's illegal. If he bites me he would get-"

"Don't be stupid. I know it's illegal. But that doesn't mean he can't still do it. All I'm saying is-"

"Stabbing people is illegal too! Do I go around thinking someone’s gonna stab me? Kennedy is fine. And he's coming over so you might as well either accept the fact that your son is incapable of making normal human friends or keep the distrust to yourself."

She doesn't look happy about it, but at least she doesn't try and protest. Yeah, maybe John invited Kennedy over before ever checking with his mom to make sure it would be okay, but hey. He has a friend. He needs to take advantage of this.

They've known each other since September now and John knows a lot about him. He knows his parents are not werewolves. He knows he's the newest member of his pack. He doesn't know exactly how or when Kennedy was bitten but he can figure it was probably recently. He doesn't want to ask. It's probably not polite. But still. He knows enough.

He shows up on time, dropped off by Martin who looks a little bit concerned about leaving his youngest pack member somewhere he's not familiar with. But he smiles at John anyway, tells Kennedy he'll pick him up later and then he's on his way. John is a little jealous. Kennedy has told him often that having a pack is like having siblings, except a lot less fighting a lot more looking out for one another.

"The full moon is tonight. Martin thinks I'm gonna eat people," Kennedy says, as if that's totally not weird and not concerning at all. John is just glad they're in the safety of his bedroom where his mom can't hear any of this.

"Eat people?"

"Well, no. I guess he's just worried because I'm the youngest and I've never actually spent a full moon with them."

John knows the basics of what happens to a werewolf during full moon. He's seen pictures and documentaries and basically, they just turn into wolves. Like literally. "What did you do during all the other full moons then?"

"I only got bit a few months ago. I went camping with my dad. Cliché. I know. But yeah, my parents were freaked. But they asked around and eventually got in contact with Alex. I spent both full moons with just Alex, because he didn't want me to get overwhelmed by the pack. He thinks I'm ready now though. Hopefully I don't kill another squirrel."

He looks so devastated just thinking about killing a squirrel that John instantly feels bad for him. He has no idea what it's like changing at the full moon but he can imagine it probably isn't that great. "What do you even do when you shift? Do you just like...run around?"

Kennedy shrugs, moves even closer to John as he flips through one of John's comic books. "I don't really know. I've never done it with a pack."

"Oh. I hope you don't kill a squirrel either then."

Kennedy hums in agreement, spreads himself out on John's bed and rests his head in John's lap. He stays like that, no explanation at all, and keeps on flipping through the comic.

John doesn't know it yet, but full moons make werewolves extra needy.

- - -

|sophomore year|

A year later, a few months into sophomore year, John meets Alex officially. He had seen the guy multiple times since befriending Kennedy but Kennedy always said Alex was too busy or never around when John asked to meet him. John could never really figure out why, but he got the feeling Alex didn't want to meet him.

But then, right after winter break, John figured it out. He came home from Florida where he spent Christmas with his mom's family, invited Kennedy to come hang out, and ended up being spooned on his bed, Kennedy falling asleep on him after telling him he smelled 'wrong'.

Since becoming the best friend of a werewolf, John had taken it upon himself to learn everything there is to know about them. Just so he wouldn't be caught off guard or anything. But despite the fact that he had read multiple books and watched multiple videos on werewolves and scenting, the fact that Kennedy was doing it to him was a complete shock and not something he would have ever expected. Because scenting is what werewolves do to each other. Not to humans.

A couple of days later, Kennedy invited him over to the pack house. It's a huge three story house at the end of the road a few miles from town. The closest neighbor is a good ten minute walk up the road so they're pretty well isolated. John has never been there. But now he's invited and his hands are all sweaty as Kennedy bangs on the front door, whining about not being allowed to have a key yet.

Matt Flyzik finally answers, pulling the door open with an eye roll and a quick snap of "Kennedy, you don't need to knock. I can smell you from a hundred feet away."

Kennedy shrugs, turns a light shade of red as if he had totally forgotten about the fact that his pack probably heard them coming up the driveway. But Matt doesn't seem mad. At least judging by the way he reaches out and messes with Kennedy's hair and pulls him inside. He lets his hand rest briefly on John's shoulder before leaving them in the living room.

Nothing really weird happens, unless you count the way every single werewolf currently in the house comes downstairs to scent Kennedy and then John himself. It's weird at first, knowing that this group of werewolves suddenly considers you one of their own and wants you to smell like them so they know you're safe. But after a while, it's not so weird. Tay sits down next to John on the couch, curls up against him and rests her head on his shoulder while they watch TV and Kennedy lays his legs across John's lap. It's comfortable, in a weird way.

And then Alex comes home.

John has no idea what Alex does for a living. He knows he's out of school. That he's twenty-two. He thinks he might work for some family company - there is a reason he has this house after all - but he's never been confirmed on that. So he'll keep wondering. Especially when Alex wanders in through the front door wearing a casual t-shirt and jeans.

"John you need to leave by five," is the first thing Alex says when he comes into the living room, leafing through a stack of mail. "Last thing I need is your mom calling me asking me why you're hanging out with werewolves during a full moon."

"Can't he stay?" Tay asks, curling around him even more than she already was, "He finally doesn't smell like Florida!"

"No."

John untangles himself from Tay's hold and stands up, adjusting his sweater. He figures he may as well head home now. He doesn't want to overstay his welcome. He's about to say as much when there's a hand on the back of his neck, fingers gently rubbing behind his ear. He turns his head to the side to find Alex there, smiling a bit as he presses his nose into John's hair.

"She's right. You smell like us now," he says simply, and John shivers. He's not sure why but he's never heard anything better.

- - -

|junior year|

"I'm gonna head upstairs," Alex says behind him, hands moving to the small of his back. John shrugs, dumps the entire bag of popcorn into the bowl. He feels Alex press his thumbs into the space above the waistband of his boxers. "Don't get popcorn all over my living room."

"Yeah, whatever," John shrugs again, reaching for another bag of popcorn to put in the microwave. He feels Alex press up against him and he rests his head between John's shoulder blades. "Quit it," he says, shrugging Alex off of him, "I didn't shower today."

He puts the next bag in the microwave and he hears Alex leave the kitchen. He's a little bit too buzzed to even think that maybe that behavior was a little weirder than usual. But whatever. It's his job to get the popcorn because Tay wants to watch Captain America and Kennedy only agreed to it if John got up to get more popcorn. Junior year ended not even twelve hours ago and he's slightly drunk and mostly just tired. He doesn't need to worry about Alex and his weirdness right now.

But Kennedy is asleep when John gets back into the living room. He's rolled off the couch and is clutching a pillow close to him, mumbling about Sierra under his breath, telling her how beautiful she is and how he wants to marry her. John would feel embarrassed for him, but even Tay isn't paying him much attention. This must happen more often than not.

He sits down in the same spot he's been occupying almost all night, head on the arm rest of the couch and his feet in Tay's lap. She just sighs and sinks into the couch as the movie starts. He has a feeling she won't be making it past the opening scene.

He's right. She makes it four minutes in and passes out almost midsentence - something about how hot some guy in the movie is - and John suddenly finds himself the lone survivor of their movie night. Wonderful.

In the middle of eating the popcorn he went to the trouble of making and considering where he's going to end up sleeping (he's mostly considering just stealing Kennedy's bed since he is very obviously not using it) when someone wraps their arms around his shoulders from behind. He won't admit this in years to come but he almost died right there. Choking on popcorn.

"You can come sleep in my room," Alex says softly, nose pressing behind John's ear in his usual fashion. "Ken will wake up in ten minutes and go to bed and you know he kicks in his sleep."

He has very good reasoning, so John will say that that's why he scrambles from the couch in record timing to follow Alex up the stairs to his bedroom. It's not because sleeping with Alex is something he has possibly considered before. Nope.

Alex's room is dark. Which, okay, duh. It's two in the morning. But even when he turns the light on so John doesn't fall over himself while changing into the clothes Alex gives him, it's obvious that Alex doesn't like color. The walls are a dark blue and the carpet is gray. The bed frame and headboard are black and his sheets are black to match. "What are you, Dracula?" John laughs, and when he rethinks what he just said in his head, he's not even sure it made sense.

"Be quiet," is all Alex says as he pushes him down onto the bed. John does as told, lifting the heavy blankets and slipping underneath them. He's not a werewolf and he doesn't have superhuman abilities but even he can admit that the sheets smell like Alex. And he's not sure how he feels about thinking that.

John's not sure what he expected when Alex invited him into his bed. Maybe a blowjob. Or at the very least a hand job. Because he's a seventeen year old boy - not to mention a virgin - and Alex is gorgeous and hot and older and of course the only thing on his mind would be sex. But Alex just gets into bed with him and lays down, half on top of him. John wonders if maybe he's going to suffocate him in his sleep. Maybe that's Alex's plan. Kill him but make it look like a total accident.

"Just go to sleep," Alex mumbles, right in his ear. His arm tightens around John's waist and John shivers. He hopes Alex didn't notice that. But then he quickly realizes, of course he noticed. He's a God damn werewolf. He notices everything. And sometimes, John is pretty positive Alex can read minds. Because he laughs, John feels him shake against him, and says, "You think too much."

John opens his mouth to apologize, but then thinks better of it. Instead he just relaxes into Alex, tries not to think about the fact that if he wanted to, he could roll over and completely crush John and John would die and nobody would even know it because nobody is allowed in here. He thinks he passes out ten minutes later.

And then in the morning, Alex wakes up first. And John only knows that because he wakes up alone. It's not like he expected to wake up in Alex's arms and be all romantic or something. Alex gave him a place to sleep. Because he's not really pack. So he doesn't really have a place in this house. He was being hospitable. So the pile of his clothes at the end of the bed, folded and smelling like laundry detergent, is just more of Alex being hospitable.

Upon sitting up in the bed (which is huge, now that he really looks), he finds Alex across the room, sitting at a desk and typing on a laptop. He turns around when he feels John staring at him, smiles a little and tells him Kennedy is making breakfast.

He leaves Alex's bedroom without changing out of Alex's clothes, mostly because he's lazy but a little because the idea of wearing Alex's clothes is hot. He finds Kennedy in the kitchen like Alex told him he would, cooking something on the stove with his back to John.

"Alex have you seen John? He wasn't here when I woke up," Kennedy says, pulling the silverware drawer out and grabbing a fork.

"I'm right here," John says, rolls his eyes as he sits down at the island counter. The way Kennedy spins around, holding the fork out at a concerning angle, eyes wide tells John maybe something is wrong.

"Oh my God," Kennedy says, lowering the fork so it doesn't look quite so much like a defense weapon. "I thought you were Alex. Because you smell completely like Alex."

"Well I slept in his bed," John points out, "That's probably why." And he draped himself over me like a blanket. He decides he won't say that last part.

"You...did?"

"Yeah. Is that weird?"

Kennedy contemplates it for a moment. "I don't know...maybe?"

John shrugs. Whatever.

- - -

|senior year|

Okay so maybe, possibly, looking back on it...telling one of the juniors on Kennedy's baseball team that he should purposely go and get bit by a werewolf to improve his hand-eye coordination was not a smart move. But John speaks without thinking so it really should come as no surprise that he not only said that, but then refused to apologize. And then, it should come as even less of a surprise that the guy retaliated with a fist to John's face. Not surprising at all.

"It's not a big deal," John says, for what he thinks might actually be the fifteenth time since it happened. Tay pulls an ice pack from behind her back and moves to try and put it on John's eye, but he smacks her hand away from him. "Tay, stop it. I'm fine."

She isn't convinced. "Your eye is swollen shut. You are literally a Cyclops right now. And you're going to tell me you're fine?"

Okay. Maybe she has a point. It does hurt. So ice is probably his best option. He holds his hand out and she glares at him, smacking the pack into his hand with a little more force than necessary.

Tay sits down at his computer desk, looking a little bit apprehensive. Sure he's got empty soda cans, some half-full water bottles and candy wrappers on there but really. What does she expect? He's a seventeen year old boy. She's lucky he remembered to put his dirty underwear in the laundry basket.

"You don't have to stay you know," he tells her, turning the TV on as he leans back on his bed. He got sent home from school by the nurse with instructions to get his eye checked out by a doctor. He's just going to wait for his mom to get home and tell him it's fine before grounding him or something.

"Oh trust me," Tay mumbles, crossing her legs as she pulls a magazine from her bag. "Of course I do."

He watches TV while Tay plays babysitter. She's eventually replaced by Matt around noon, who has a hard time letting her leave and John is almost positive now that they're totally a thing. He just doesn't have any real evidence yet. Matt takes the bed instead of the chair, stealing the remote out of John's possession and putting on Sports Center.

"That guy has a nice punch," he observes, leaning in close to get a good look at John's eye. "Need a new ice pack?"

"I can get it myself."

Matt quickly shoots down that suggestion. "Nope. I'm on it. Want me to order pizza? I'm starving."

"Matt, I have to pee. Let me up."

Although seeming very reluctant to let him go, Matt steps back and lets John out of bed and John tries to ignore how weird everyone is being today. First Tay babysitting him, then sending Matt to take over who won't even let him out of bed unless he absolutely needs to. And Kennedy has texted him five thousand times asking him how he's feeling. It's a fucking black eye, not a stomach virus or some other much more debilitating illness!

Matt orders pizza like he said he would, but by the time it comes Matt claims he has to leave and Kennedy shows up, carrying a box of donuts.

"What the hell? Guys, I'm capable of being alone you know-"

"I just wanted to make sure you're doing okay!" Kennedy whines, stepping aside so Matt can get through the front door, pizza slice in hand. "I brought you all the notes you missed. I even brought you donuts!"

He did bring donuts, so fair enough. He lets Kennedy in and they hang out in the living room and play Xbox and Kennedy considers how to ask Sierra to go to prom with him. They get a few pretty decent ideas, one involving a goldfish which is John's personal favorite, when Kennedy gets a text message from Martin.

"Holy shit," he exclaims when he opens it, "Oh my God."

John grabs for it, "Did he accidentally send you a dick pic?"

Kennedy looks reluctant to let him see it, but he gives it over and John takes it, expecting to see something scandalizing or embarrassing for Martin, because with Kennedy's reaction, it has to be. But instead he just sees Aaron, the boy on the baseball team who used his fist to shut John up, sitting on concrete and sporting his own black eye and his hand covering his mouth. There's blood on his hand. That's...well.

"I don't get it," John says slowly. "Why...?"

"Well, as Matt always says, 'Start shit, get hit'."

"What are you talking about? Did Matt do that? He shouldn't have! He's going to get in trouble and that-"

"Matt didn't do it you idiot. Alex did!"

Oh. Wait. That's...no more acceptable than if Matt had done it. In fact, John thinks it's even less acceptable. Because Alex is the alpha and he is totally supposed to be a role model. "That's stupid, he's-"

Kennedy rolls his eyes and snatches the phone back. "He was doing what he would have done for any of us. Remember last year with Sierra? That guy had it coming. And so did Aaron!"

"I literally told Aaron he should purposely get bitten by a werewolf to improve his shitty baseball abilities."

"Well...he should have been the bigger person and not punched you. He deserved it. Alex handled it. Plus, if you thought for a second Alex wouldn't defend your honor, you're stupider than I thought."

That's ridiculous, and John lets him know it. "Alex doesn't care about my honor. You're making shit up."

Kennedy sighs dramatically, "Are you serious? He literally made sure you were never alone at any point today-"

"Like he would do for any of you guys."

"You're a bigger moron than I thought then," Kennedy decides, moving over on the couch so he's pressed right up against John. "Start the game over. I'm not going easy on you anymore."

John rolls his eyes at his best friend, but restarts the game anyway. Kennedy is ridiculous. Alex treats John just like he would any other pack member - like he does treat any other pack member. Thinking it's anything more than it is is ridiculous.
♠ ♠ ♠
Okay so now you have some background on how John got so involved haha

Next part picks up after part one left off. This part was kind of just a time stamp.

Thanks for the amazing feedback! All your comments really made me want to write this part faster to post :)