Chapter Text
Seokjin is washing dishes when the call comes in. He hears the muffled ringing, the low rumble of Hobi’s voice, and then the door to the kitchen pops open and Hobi comes in, trailing the rest of their housemates behind him.
“We got everybody?” asks the person on the other end, the voice crackly but still familiar.
“Go ahead, Jackson-ssi,” Hobi says, as Seokjin turns the water off and dries his hands on his apron, taking a deep breath to steady himself. You’re ok, he thinks. You have some skills now, you’ll survive if they turn you out.
“You all still have that spare bed?” Jackson asks. He sounds tired. “‘Cause I got someone I need to put in it. Or near it. He’s not really ready for a bed yet.”
“We might,” Hobi offers, sitting down at the table. Seokjin puts the kettle on and takes six clean cups out of the cabinet. He’s pleased that his hands don’t shake. “Tell us more.”
“Animal control picked him up last week,” Jackson continues, as the others settle down around the table. “Got a call from Gwacheon about a wild animal menacing the ducks in the botanic garden in Grand Park in front of little kids. They tried talking to him and he growled at the park manager. They had to tranq him to get him out of there.” Jackson pauses and sighs heavily. “Only reason they called us was that they did a blood test before sending him to the zoo. No chip that we could find. Nothing in the missing registry. Doesn’t seem to understand any of our questions. Choi Junho just got transferred down here and you know how he is about feral hybrids. And about alphas, and predator species –”
“So you need a foster home for him,” Hobi cuts in.
Seokjin measures tea into strainers. Choi Junho had picked him up from his second foster home, after they took in a pair of swan hybrids and their alpha had decided Seokjin was too dangerous to keep on. The only thing Seokjin remembers about the journey back to Seoul is the metallic chill of the muzzle that Choi Junho had put on him before shoving him into the car.
Jackson sighs again. “Until we can find a permanent safe place for him to be, yes, we need a foster home for him. A foster home capable of – special care.”
Jackson falls silent. Seokjin studies his housemate’s faces and considers the implications of a wild alpha wolf coming to stay in their little house. A wild wolf who needs special care. He wonders, again, what Jackson told them about him, before he dropped Seokjin off.
“Is he dangerous to anyone or anything other than ducks?” Hobi asks.
“He was polite to Jieun-noona when she fed him this morning,” Jackson states. “I think he’s been in his wolf skin too long. Just needs a little love and encouragement to want to be human again.”
“Well, we’ve got plenty of room,” Yoongi muses, which gets a round of nods.
Seokjin pours hot water over the tea leaves. There is actually a full extra bedroom. The hanok backs on to a large walled garden, where Seokjin has been allowed a modest vegetable patch amid the shrubs and trees. Beyond that is the forest. There is plenty of room for a wild wolf to run.
“What happens if we say no?” Jimin asks, as Seokjin distributes the tea cups.
“We’ll keep calling around until we find an open spot,” Jackson says, mostly firm and confident, but Seokjin can hear the frayed edges to his voice.
A feral hybrid, especially an alpha wolf, is a big ask for a foster home. Wolves of any kind are a big ask for a foster home. Seokjin had been taken in from a bus station while fully human and mostly capable of conversation, and he had still gone through three placements and two caseworkers before landing with Jackson, and then with Hobi and Yoongi.
Seokjin has worked hard to be a good housemate, to be useful and obedient, as he had been trained. Hobi and Yoongi have seemed pleased with his help with cooking, and with managing the house. Seokjin had still fully expected to be moved on again when, six months after he arrived, Hobi and Yoongi asked if he would be okay if they took in three wolf cubs who had been rescued from a hoarding situation. Seokjin had agreed - who was he, the guest in their home, to object? - but the morning the cubs were set to be delivered he had been packed and waiting, so Jackson wouldn’t have to make another trip for him. He was well aware nobody would keep him around, battered and scarred as he was, if they could have puppies instead.
But then Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook arrived wide-eyed and half-starved, and some long dormant protective instinct surged up and pinned Seokjin in place. Jimin and Taehyung had remained in their crate, clinging to each other in wordless terror, but Jungkook, perhaps emboldened by wearing his wolfskin, had done a careful if wobbly circuit, sniffing all of them before collapsing gracelessly in Seokjin’s lap. The next time he looked up, Jackson was gone and his suitcase was back in his room.
Seokjin thinks of all of those arrivals and departures, the weight of the muzzle, and the bright lights of the bus station, and clears his throat. “I’m home all day, I can take care of him.”
They all turn to look at him with varying degrees of surprise. Seokjin can feel himself blushing. He forces himself to relax his hands, and not crush the edges of his apron.
“We’ll all take care of him,” Hobi corrects him, though his tone is mild. “What do we think, everyone?”
“I vote yes,” Jungkook declares, taking a cup of tea from Seokjin.
“Jiminie and I also vote yes,” Taehyung pipes up, and Yoongi does a thumbs up around his mug.
“We’ll take him,” Hobi confirms, and Jackson makes a relieved noise.
**
“We had to tranq him again to get him in the van,” Jackson explains, apologetic, as the doors swing open to reveal a brindle wolf sprawled in a kennel, gazing at them with half-lidded golden eyes. He yawns, revealing many sharp white teeth.
“We’ve been calling him Namjoon,” Jackson continues, as Jungkook and Taehyung pull the kennel out of the van.
“You really couldn’t find a chip?” Hobi asks, crossing his arms over his narrow, bony chest. Seokjin is still working on ways to get more weight on him. It seems like the least he can do.
“Scanned him twice, there’s nothing,” Jackson confirms. “No chip, no tattoo, no anything. Totally off the grid.”
Seokjin crouches by the kennel while the others unload the extra supplies from the van. Up close it’s more obvious that the wolf – that Namjoon – though large-framed and thick through the shoulders, is not fully grown. His fur is filthy and matted, and he smells like a terrible combination of a forest and a barnyard. Underneath all of that, though, he’s healthy, if a little thin. He’s not as scarred as feral hybrids usually are; he was cared for, once. Someone must be missing you, Seokjin thinks.
“Motherfucker,” Jackson mutters, his fuzzy cat ears pinned back as he frowns at his phone. “I gotta go. Ping me if you need anything, okay? I’ll call you in a couple of days.”
“Travel safely, Jackson-ssi,” Hobi yells as the van door slams shut.
They move the crate into the courtyard, and close all the gates before they open the door. Namjoon pushes himself up and takes a couple of unsteady steps out, then sits down. He looks – confused, Seokjin decides, but not angry. Seokjin crouches down in front of him and stretches out one hand, slowly, letting Namjoon sniff. Jungkook disappears into the hanok and comes back out in his wolfskin. Hobi also goes inside and comes back out with a shampoo bottle and towels.
“No filthy wolves in the house,” he says to Namjoon, while the rest of the group take their turns with letting Namjoon sniff them.
When he seems to be done, Taehyung goes and pulls the hose out from where it’s coiled by the side of the hanok, and brings it to Yoongi. Jungkook winds himself around Seokjin, stepping in and out of his lap and rubbing his face and scent all over him. Seokjin presses his face into Jungkook’s furry flank and inhales deeply, comforted by his scent, which is unusually light and clean for an alpha.
Taehyung and Jimin come over in their wolfskins, and Jungkook scents them thoroughly, too. When he’s done he flops down between them and Seokjin. Seokjin rests a hand on his shoulders and runs his hand through the thick black fur at his neck. Jungkook rolls over and shows his belly, which Seokjin obediently rubs.
Hobi and Yoongi work quickly, talking in low soothing tones while Namjoon growls and tries to stumble away from them. When they let him go he shakes vigorously, and does a big stretch. Clean, he’s magnificent, his pale fur gleaming in the sun.
Jungkook and Taehyung herd Namjoon inside while Hobi and Yoongi strip out of their wet shirts. Seokjin follows them, watching as Namjoon pads around the hanok, nose to the floor, huffing and sniffing, his tail wagging slowly.
“Don’t let him pee inside,” Hobi calls out, as he and Yoongi move the crate into the inner courtyard of the hanok. Jungkook makes a wolfy noise that might be laughter and might be agreement, Seokjin can’t tell.
Seokjin gathers up some spare pillows and blankets and puts them in the crate. Eventually Namjoon walks inside and flops down, resting his massive head on his paws, and seems to fall asleep.
**
The following morning Seokjin gets up at dawn to make breakfast, as he normally does – twenty years of habit dies hard – and finds the wolf waiting for him when he walks into the kitchen.
“Good morning, Namjoon-ssi,” Seokjin murmurs, and sketches a bow.
The wolf regards him steadily, his tufty ears tilted forward, his amber eyes much brighter and clearer than the day before.
“Would you like some breakfast?” Seokjin asks.
The wolf gets up and scratches at the door. Seokjin hesitates, briefly, then - Hobi’s injunction about peeing indoors echoing in his mind - opens the door.
Namjoon trots out, nose to the ground again, and makes a slow circuit of the garden, stopping to investigate Seokjin’s vegetables, Hobi’s roses, and the large stump towards the back of the garden that Jimin refers to as the Territory Zone. Seokjin is getting ready to call him back inside when he jumps over the garden wall and takes off into the woods.
Three hours later he is still there, refusing to come out no matter how much any of them call for him, or what kind of food Seokjin brings out to tempt him back inside.
“He’ll be alright, hyung,” Hobi offers. His voice calm though his hands are on his hips as he studies the treeline. “There’s nothing out there that can hurt him.”
Jimin and Taehyung come out of the hanok in their wolfskins and lean against Seokjin’s knees. Jimin looks at Yoongi, and Seokjin can see the should we go and get him? in his eyes.
“He’ll come back when he’s hungry,” Yoongi announces, wrapping his cardigan around himself more tightly. He’s the smallest of them, and grows cold quickly. Seokjin has heard a few stories about Yoongi and Hobi’s time on the street; he always wonders how either of them survived.
Seokjin calls Namjoon a few more times, while the little ones chase each other around the yard. Then he gives up and goes inside to try and do his actual job, which today is playing a video game in which he is a junkyard dog.
In the game, as in life, he is very bad at it. At one point he throws the controller against the wall, which is enough for Yoongi to poke his head in the door.
“Sorry,” Seokjin says, quickly. He knows better than to cause trouble. “I’m fine.”
Yoongi gives him a slow blink and retreats. A few minutes later he nudges the door open again, in his wolfskin this time, and pads over to sit on Seokjin’s feet. Seokjin freezes, mortified, but eventually he puts a hand down to scratch Yoongi between his furry black ears, aware this grace is more than he deserves.
He’s still playing when Jungkook comes home from work, and switches to his wolfskin. The noisy chaos of his arrival is enough to pull Seokjin out of his room and remind him to make dinner.
Seokjin cuts vegetables and watches as Jungkook does his usual slow circuit of the back yard, and disappears into the treeline. He comes bounding out again as Seokjin is laying out eating utensils for dinner. Jimin lets him in and he ripples back into his human skin.
“It’s ok, hyung, he’s made a den,” he reports, and the knot in Seokjin’s stomach loosens.
**
Deep in the forest, the wolf digs a hole, and climbs in it, to think.
He has a vague memory of having a human body. He had been very small, then. Being a wolf had been much more fun. Wolves were not made to take baths and nobody cared very much about their table manners. Wolves could spend as much time as they liked outside, even when it was wet, or snowy, or cold.
The man he lived with - the wolf had never known his name, and thought of him based on what he smelled like, which was the bright hot smoke of a cook-fire - had not been especially interested in small children, and so nobody had thought about forcing him back into his human body.
He and the man had lived together on the mountain for a long time. They hunted deer and rabbits and the occasional goose, and picked berries when they were in season. In the summer they swam in the river, and in winter they slept by the fire. Sometimes the man turned on a box-shaped thing and other human voices came out, but the wolf had rarely paid attention. He knew the word the man used to call him, plus a few words related to hunting, and that was all the human language he needed to know. Other humans had visited them periodically, but the man had kept the wolf hidden in the forest during those times. Wolves had visited them too, but never for long, and always on their way to somewhere else.
One morning the wolf had woken up to find the fire burned all the way down, and the man lying very still next to the hearth. The wolf had licked his face and nipped at his nose, as he usually did when the man slept too long, but this time he did not wake. The man did not swat at the wolf or throw a pillow at him.
The wolf had laid for some time next to him, sad and confused and hungry. Eventually the hunger had prodded the wolf out of the cabin and into the woods and down the mountain. He had eaten well on small game and the leavings of other humans: food left at campsites, and in trash cans. Mostly he had followed his nose, and it turned out the world beyond the mountain was full of interesting smells. The place with the lake and the birds had been particularly fascinating. The wolf had been looking forward to walking the many paths and smelling all the flowers he had never seen before.
The wolf did not like the first place the humans took him. The ground was hard and all of the animals and humans smelled angry and sad. He is glad to be in this new place, with familiar trees, where the earth smells clean. He is intrigued, also, by the house that produces water and has trees inside, and the humans that are also sometimes wolves. He wonders if any of them can hunt. He thinks perhaps he will stay for a while, and find out.
The wolf rests his nose on his paws and closes his eyes, and sleeps.
**
The next morning the wolf explores the forest. He finds five scent trails, some stronger than the others. He follows them all the way out of the trees and up to the back of the house. The wolf sits down and howls a greeting, and waits.
When he gets no response he comes closer, and howls again.
This time a door opens and three wolves come bounding out: two grey and one black. They crowd around him, sniffing and bowing, tails wagging. They’re young, and their scents are mostly light and sweet and clean, like sunlight and fresh running water and flowers in the mountain meadow. One of them, a small but solid gray wolf, smells of something bright and sharp that he doesn’t have a name for. The wolf lets himself be investigated, and chases them around a little bit. When he pulls away and sits down, they run back to the house.
The wolf howls a third time. Two more wolves come out: one small and black, with scars around one eye, the other a lean, rangy brindle. They’re older, their scents closely entwined and heavier and more complex, like campfires and deep rivers. Neither of them are a pack alpha. They sniff him thoroughly, and he follows them back to the house, pleased to have been accepted into their territory.
**
It is late afternoon. It is hot and close and still and sunset is still several hours away. Hobi and Yoongi are outside, watering plants. The little ones are, in theory, folding laundry and making their beds, but Seokjin can hear muffled laughter and shrieking that suggests they have abandoned their chores for the day.
Seokjin is alone in the kitchen, as he prefers, chopping onions for the evening meal. The steady thud thud of the knife against the cutting board is calming, an anchor to sanity amid the chaos of Seokjin’s feelings. Namjoon had bounded out into the woods again that morning, and they haven’t seen him in hours. He’s a wolf, Seokjin reminds himself. He’s got teeth, he can –
Outside, Hobi screams, and Seokjin almost cuts his fingers off.
The door to the back yard slams open, and Namjoon lumbers into the kitchen, a dead roe deer in his jaws. He drops it at Seokjin’s feet and backs up, his tail wagging slowly.
“Thank you,” Seokjin manages, very deliberately not looking down as his stomach rolls over.
“We can’t eat that,” Jimin announces from somewhere behind him. “It might have diseases!”
“Or worms,” Taehyung chimes in. “The ones on Soonja-noona’s land had worms and they were terrible and slimy.”
Seokjin swallows hard and squeezes his eyes shut against a wave of nausea and the blood roaring in his ears. He can’t think about worms or the bright coppery tang of blood or – or -
“Breathe, hyung,” Jungkook murmurs, suddenly very close. His light floral scent fills Seokjin’s lungs, and his hand is warm and steady on Seokjin’s back. “It’s ok, you’re ok. Yoongi-hyung took it outside. He’s going to clean it.”
Seokjin opens his eyes, now terrified for different reasons. He doesn’t want to eat the deer, no matter how clean it is.
“I don’t know how to cook game,” he whispers, which is a lie. His former owner used to hunt all the time. Seokjin could probably roast venison in his sleep and has memorized two different recipes for elk heart bulgogi. He also still has the scars on his hands from the last time he left a quail on the barbeque for too long.
“We’re not going to eat the deer,” Hobi announces from the doorway. He looks as rattled as Seokjin feels. “But we appreciate the gift,” he says to Namjoon, who is now lounging on the floor, tongue out, looking very pleased with himself.
“I was going to make pizza,” Seokjin gets out, resisting the urge to cling to Jungkook for stability.
Hobi flashes him a relieved grin. “Perfect, hyung.”
**
The wolf develops a daily routine: every morning as the sun rises, he walks twice around the house to make sure that all of the pack members are present, and then through the garden, to the woods. The others come with him sometimes; usually the scarred black wolf, but occasionally the largest of the young ones.
At dusk he repeats the pattern as the sun sets, though only the sharp-smelling grey wolf ever joins him. He likes the company, and being able to share new paths, and new smells.
It is still strange living with men who wear two skins, but it is growing more familiar. Many of their habits are perplexing to the wolf. None of them hunt, but they have yet to eat anything the wolf catches for them. All of their food comes out of a large white box inside their food-room. The house is much bigger than the wolf is used to, too, and full of strange, unfamiliar smells.
The biggest puzzle is the man that looks human, but smells like a wolf. He does things the old man used to do, such as make human food, and sleep in a human bed. He talks more than the old man did, but his voice is softer. Sometimes, when he and the wolf are alone, he sings. The wolf likes to sit and listen to him.
Unlike the old man, however, he hardly ever goes outside. When he does, he never ventures further than the fence around the human house. The young ones don’t play with him, as they do the other two older men. The wolf thought at first he might be ill, but he smells healthy. The rest of the pack doesn’t seem to be concerned, though, so the wolf is focusing on other problems, like the tiny rodents that are making holes all over the back yard.
**
He’s not a dog, Jin has to remind himself every time Namjoon sits down on his feet while he’s in a work meeting, or leans against his knees while he’s doing the dishes. There’s a person in there somewhere, he thinks, as Namjoon follows him around the house, his tail going thwack thwack against the furniture, and his claws clicking on the floor.
Thanks to Hobi’s near-daily raids on the Hybrid Enrichment section of the local grocery store, Namjoon has a whole box full of toys. There are four coils of rope of varying thicknesses, several things that bark or squeak, and two food-based puzzle toys that Namjoon solved in five minutes each and now refuses to look at.
Currently his favorites are a rubber pig that honks every time he bites down on it and a red Kong that Seokjin has just refilled with a gross combination of peanut butter and raw meat for the fourth time that day.
Seokjin drops to a crouch, pressing the Kong against the floor with his hand, as Namjoon does a bouncy little bow. Seokjin’s heart gives a funny squeeze, which he ignores, and his watch buzzes with a meeting alarm, which does not make him as anxious as it used to.
Seokjin feints back and forth, juggling the Kong around. Namjoon follows him, jumping and nudging and finally bowling him over and licking his face until he surrenders the toy and rolls away, laughing. When he recovers himself and sits up, he finds both Yoongi and Hobi hovering by the kitchen door, their eyes wide.
Namjoon wriggles himself under the kitchen table and gnaws loudly on the toy, rumbling contentedly. Seokjin scrambles to his feet, mumbling apologies, and hurries back into his bedroom. His manager gives him a narrow look when he turns his camera on, but mercifully doesn’t ask any questions.