#shifter cod

you refused to be the next bobby.

selfishly and perhaps a bit meanly you were hoping that gloria would be the next bobby. it was the only thought that was going to get you through another double. daydreaming about gloria getting caught with different married men in town. you knew she was fucking at least one married man, him and his wife were toxic as fuck and you had gone to school with both of them. you were fairly certain gloria wasn't the first to get entangled with them.

you didn't get to daydream tonight because the bell over the door rang just as you finished unloading the dishwasher, running your fingers under the tap because the glasses were too hot and you were too impatient. you didn't need to look up to know who it was.

it was like you were attuned to him. some kind of cosmic bullshit that tied you to him in this annoying way that let you know when he was the one at the door, when he was leaning forward at the bar looking for you attention, when he was leaning back on his barstool to very obviously adjust the heavy piece of meat tucked away in his jeans.

you forced a smile as he approached the bar. you were a professional after all and he hadn't done anything to deserve your ire, he just existed and that seemed to be enough.

"what's it going to be, john?" you asked when he slipped into his spot.

and it was his spot. no one else would sit there anymore, the spot at the end of the bar, tucked into the corner so that the wall was behind him and the rest of the bar in his view. left empty even on the busiest of nights, as if even the tourists knew not to sit there.

you had heard the rumors. retired military, records that were redacted to the moon and back, and a kill count that had all the men hot and bothered. it didn't take much to impress men in a backwoods town like this and john price was the complete package. brawny, bearded and broad.

the women thought he was the complete package as well but so far the man was a mystery. had made it more than clear that he wanted to be left alone to sip his whiskey, scrolling his phone, cracking a very rare smile at something he saw on it.

"whiskey, neat, don't bother putting the bottle away."

you gave him a cheeky two fingered salute before grabbing a glass and pouring him the first of what you were sure would be one of many drinks that night.

you weren't wrong because by the end of the night the man had drank nearly the whole bottle. you felt a bit bad letting it get that bad but your head had been in another place as a group of unruly fucks had wandered in sometime after dinner looking for a good time. this wasn't the kind of place for a good time, but they played pool, tossed darts and kept your attention for most of the night.

in between slinging bottles of beer and pouring rows of shots you had made sure that price's glass, along with the smattering of other regulars, was topped off.

by the time you were shooing people out the front door and flipping on the harsh overhead lights, the giant of a man was leaning heavily against the wall, eyes glazed over in that way you had seen many times before and tried your hardest to avoid.

it was a real bummer to see the fathers of kids you went to school with wasting away at the bar. and you wouldn't be the reason they saw an early grave.

but price was at least ten years younger than most of them, even if he often walked around town like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"hey john, you need a hand?"

he looks up but there are no thoughts behind those eyes.

"got someone we can call for ya?"

"wot?"

"got a friend or wife or someone else i can call to get ya?"

he lumbers off the stool, listing heavily towards the bar, phone in one hand, the screen brightness turned all the way up. he looks down at it, as if considering your question before he's shoving it away in his pocket.

"gotta pay up," he slurred.

"already taken care of, big guy, why don't we get you outta here."

typically john can drink anyone under the table, but tonight must not have been his night.

you're quick to loop an arm around his waist, his weight heavy as he leans into you as you guide him towards his truck. you eye your own car wistfully, the two door beater had been some assholes wet dream sports car that he drove into the ground before replacing it with a newer, shinier model. perfect for you and any other normal person, but John was tall, broad and built like a brick shithouse.

he would make your car look like a clown car.

maybe it's a quirk of this being a small town, but driving john home in his own truck doesn't seem that strange. the problem is that you aren't entirely sure where he lives and the direction the man mumbles to you seems to be taking you in circles.

when you finally get to his house you realize just how far out you are because you recognize the cabin. It's been cleaned up, the roof redone, the yard no longer overgrown brambles. You hadn't been too far from here when you saw the bear.

and even though you knew you were safe from the bear, just knowing how close you had been before had your heart racing. the pounding ramping up as you stopped the truck in the drive, by now john was leaned heavily against the passenger door, snoring gently.

he didn't wake until you were trying to manhandle him out of the car and towards the house.

"buy a man a drink 'fore ya try an get in 'is pants, love," he slurred,

"think i've given you plenty to drink tonight, you menace."

he shifts his weight, just enough so that he's no longer crushing you, his arm looped over your shoulder, his hand coming to a rest right on your chest, his fingers flexing enough to send sparks of arousal down your spine as they graze over your nipple.

he doesn't say anything about it, doesn't move his fingers again, but the weight of his hand there is enough to leave you dizzy. you should not be lusting over a patron old enough to be retired who you let get so sloshed you had to drive him home.

john somehow manages to pull together enough brain cells to navigate the steps, the three locks on his front door and then spends an uncomfortable amount of time locking the door behind the two of you. you try to pay attention to the order because you fully plan to undo his work and leave him with a note that you have his truck and he can ring in the morning for a ride.

that was the plan.

you get him to his room, it's dark and you can't find the light switch so you stumble around with just the light from your phone. you practically drop him onto the bed before sneaking off in search of a glass of water, maybe some paracetamol.

when you return with a glass of water and no pills, john is bent over at the waist, fingers helplessly pulling at the laces of his boots.

you let out a sigh, placing the cup on his nightstand.

you dropped down to your knees in front of him. you didn't make a habit of getting on your knees for just anyone, and you tried to ignore the the implications of being knelt in front of john. it was intimate, it was sexual. but the moment you batted his fingers away he was falling back boneless against the bed. a bit dramatic, but you had enough experience with drunk men from work to know that was a best case scenario.

as you stood you saw the way he was awkwardly hanging off the bed and that just wouldn't do.

"john?"

he doesn't reply.

"john?" you repeated, leaning over and gently shaking his shoulder.

he groans, or is it a moan? in either case the sound is too near to a growl to not fuck with you. you were trying to not let this be a sexual thing.

he doesn't wake as you pull his legs up, shoving him awkwardly to get his whole body on the bed. its not graceful, the man might be retired military but he's still solid muscle beneath that layer of fat that came with his age. what you don't expect is his paw of a hand to shoot out, grabbing onto you and tugging with a strength that you would hadn't expected from a man in his state.

"oof."

the breath leaves your lungs in a whoosh, you can barely move before he's pulling you in close, tucking you into his side. you try to wiggle in his grasp, desperate to free yourself, heart pounding, face warm when you notice the hard press of him against your back. most men would have whiskey dick after the night hohn had had, but all those whiskeys didn't seem to have impeded him in any way.

it didn't seem like he had any plans to act on that though, his arms banding around you like iron clamps, holding you close, his body like a furnace. no amount of squirming or wiggling or calling john's name was enough to wake the man who held you captive.

the oddest sense of deja vu washed over you as you laid there, you could smell the pine trees, taste the raspberries on your tongue. if you had survived a bear you could survive your very drunk, very handsome patron.

in the morning you woke up alone in the bed, the smell of bacon wafting through the house. the sun was bright, too bright. how long had you been asleep?

you dragged yourself out of bed, still fully dressed, shoes included.

john was in the kitchen, shirtless, lounge pants slung low on his hips, low enough you could see the trail of hair that dipped below the waistline. his chest and back and arms all covered in a thick layer of hair. he looked more beast than man as he munched a piece of bacon, his heavy gaze falling on you as he chewed.

"made ya breakfast if ya 'ave the time."

"think you might owe me more than breakfast after last night."

"aye, think ya'd let me wine and dine ya proper? promise i'll ask nice before pullin' ya in my bed again?"

It was enough to make Kyle’s heart race, his palms shaking as he prowled around the fallen rubble. He could remember hearing John, his gruff voice tight and demanding through his headset but then there had been static and then nothing. Not silence, because all around them was the sound of the ambush, the attack that might not have had anything to do with them but affected them all the same. But his team was gone, disconnected from him in a way that felt physical.

Kyle thought that he must have been screaming for Soap, his throat felt raw as he breathed, his lungs straining for more air against what he now realized was a hood over his head, not a blindfold. The panic was set in deep, it didn’t matter that he had years of training, years of perfecting his skills, honing his abilities as a soldier and as a shifter. 

Because in the darkness of that hood, in a room he did not recognize, pulled into a position that had him kneeling on the gritty floor, his arms aching from the strain, his legs held in place by shackles, he panicked. 

“Hey man, you gotta calm down.”

A voice broke through his racing thoughts. It was quiet, barely a whisper, from somewhere across from him. Not far, but far enough he couldn’t reach them, not with these restraints. 

“Where am I?” he demanded, his voice as gruff as the captain's after a night of chain smoking cigars in his office.  

There was that shuffling again, the sound of scraping against the floor closer to him than before. He prepared for the hit, he had been captured before, he was an interrogation specialist, he knew what would happen. Wear down the captive until they had no reason to keep their information from you. 

So he was prepared for the touch, jerking away when cold fingers touched his skin, but he wasn’t prepared for the hood to be yanked off revealing a damp, dark cell and you, straining against your own chains to help him. 

You collapsed to the ground once you had the fabric over his face enough for him to shake it off. The rough fabric had muted everything, now though, he could scent more of his surroundings. The blood on his clothes, the injury on his face bleeding freely again, the hood pulling away any scab that had formed. The rot and mildew of a basement that was poorly insulated against the elements. The sound of water dripping somewhere, rhythmic and maddening. 

And then you, his cellmate who was scrambling back into your place against the wall, cowering away from him as if he could break the restraints at any time. 

He supposed some shifters could, had it been Price here the metal would have been no match for his sheer strength. Or his fire. 

But it was Kyle strung up like a puppet, there was not much he could do from this position. 

“You gotta be quiet.” 

“Why?” It hurt to whisper, the effort grating on his vocal cords. 

You looked past him, to where the door to the room must have been, closed because there was no flow of air, just the heaviness that was settled in over them. 

Kyle took you in. You weren’t strung up like him, your hands were cuffed together, a single foot shackled to the floor with a chain that gave you far more mobility than him. You must not have been a threat, or not as much of a threat as the people that got his treatment. You were dirty, clear signs that you had been here a while, maybe not in this room because it didn’t seem to be set up for long term holding, and it certainly smelled cleaner than the cells where prisoners were typically kept. 

You opened your mouth to answer, running a pink tongue over your dried lips before shutting your mouth and shaking your head, scrambling further into the corner, straining against your own restraints to create as much space as possible. 

Then Kyle heard it, the sound of footsteps, multiple people, coming down stairs, walking down a corridor, their footsteps echoing before stopping outside the room. 

You were shaking. It was subtle, almost indiscernible in the dark room but Kyle could see it. You stank of fear, it overpowered the scent of the three men who now stood outside the room. Kyle felt the shift just beneath his skin, the ears that he often kept tucked beneath ball caps were flat against his head as he prepared for whatever was on the other side of the door. 

The men didn’t speak, Kyle would have been able to easily pick up their words, but they did wait, hovering close enough that Kyle could smell the body odor of one of them, unkempt an unwashed, and the cinnamon roll that another must have eaten recently, the sticky sweetness clinging to their skin, potent even through the closed door. 

When they did finally enter the room, following whatever silent command to proceed, your heart pounded in your chest, fluttering like a caught bird, fearful and trapped. 

“What have we got here? Looks like the cats out of the bag,” one of the men sneered, the second laughing at the joke. 

The third was a scientist, his stark white lab coat a dead giveaway, the nervous way he clung to the strap of his bag. It was unclear if his discomfort was from present company or whatever was planned to happen here.

The first two were armed guards, mercs at best. Their bodies a twist of muscles that bulge against the uniforms they wear. None of the men have anything identifying about them, no name badges, no patches, no tattoos peeking out from a cuff, no jewelry.

“Is our pussycat going to behave? We have a pretty little chew toy for you,” the second says, stepping in close to Kyle, a bit closer and Kyle could have sunk his fangs in. 

“Don’t get too close, the boss said that one bites.”

“Aw, but he’s such a pretty kitty,” he reached out, running his grubby fingers over Kyle's tail. He shook in the restraints, pulling his tail in close against his body as a shiver of disgust, skating down his spine.

The man simply laughed before backing away

The scientist eyed Kyle nervously, shuffling around the larger men and approaching you. You didn’t look up, or move or make any indication that you knew he was approached. Not outwardly. But your heart continued to race, your breathing unsteady and the man knelt next to you opening the bag and pulling out a syringe. 

“You know the routine,” he spoke in a soft voice, taking your arm in his and pushing up the sleeve. 

Kyle realized you were holding your breath as the man swabbed the inside corner of your elbow, pushing down a gloved finger as he searched for a vein. The little hiss of pain was the only sound you made as the syringe stuck into your skin and he administered whatever it was. 

A meaty hand grabbed Kyle by the back of the neck, successfully scuffing him. He fought against the forced calm, the languid feeling that over took his limbs so that he was sagging against the cuffs that held him up. 

“Can’t have you biting the doctor, pussycat.” 

“What are you doing?” Kyle managed to slur out, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth. 

The doctor shuffled closer to him, using a pair of scissors to cut off his sleeve and then very awkwardly injecting him into his forearm. Immediately he felt a fire burning through his blood. Whatever was in that syringe had his heart racing, eyes dilating, his fangs ached in his jaw. 

“Don’t be too mean to your chew toy,” one of the men said before the three left the room. 

When the door shut it was followed by the heavy sound of metal slamming into place. Extra protection? Kyle wasn’t sure. 

You were gritting your teeth, breathing heavily as you pushed yourself back so that you were resting with your back against the wall, watching him warily. 

“I’m sorry,” you breath out, the words pained, “I’m so sorry.”

“Why?” still straining against the ache in his throat. 

“Its-” you start to say, then pause, pulling your knees into your chest, wrapping your arms around them. Even in the dark Kyle can make out the hollowness of your cheeks, the dark circles beneath your eyes, the shake in your fingers even as your pull them tightly together. Your clothes hang limp, the original color of the shirt and pants long marred by the filth these men have kept you in. Hair knotted against your head. It could be long, or short, longer now than it had been when you were taken, because you were most certainly a captive like him.

“Its-” you start again, frowning deeply, eyes looking everywhere but at Kyle. “It's a serum, the other shifters all died.” 

When you do finally meet his eyes there are tears cutting their way through the grim on your face. Is it pity for him? Or pain from the serum that they had injected you with? 

“How many?”

“I stopped counting.”

“How long have you been here?”

You sigh, ducking your head into the space between your knees, breathing heavily. If they fed you and kept you elsewhere you could have been here for months, maybe even longer. The 141 isn’t in the habit of keeping long term prisoners, but Kate has and they have certainly rescued people who had been missing for years before intel turns up with their whereabouts. Was there someone waiting for you? Looking for you? 

Was his pack looking for him?

“I don’t know. A while and before that I was at a clinic. They told me it was a study, for the children of shifters who never showed any physical traits, no shifts or anything like that. Something about drug testing, making sure doses were right. But it was never that, it was a cover and after I passed whatever qualifications they had they brought me here.”

You were fully crying now, shoulders shaking as you explained the testing, they way it made your skin crawl, they way they had watched you for weeks waiting for the dose to be just right. Looking for something in your genetic code that would unlock those recessive shifter genes. 

“And then they started bringing in other shifters. I don’t know where they come from, some of them were so messed up I couldn’t even tell what they were. They all die. Every time.”

“Why?” he asks, fear dripping down his spine, his tail curled in around his waist.

“I heard one of the doctors say the serum overwhelms your system and your heart stops. I don’t know if it's that. Shifter physiology is not as well understood as humans, that's what they told me at the clinic, and it's true, lots of common drugs don’t work the same way on shifters and then each shifter is different and then-”

Kyle lets out a growl, his whole body feels like it is on fire, his control slipping, a full shift just below the surface, the only thing stopping it is his inability to move.

You look up, sniffing the air and frowning. 

“I can’t break out of these, even if I was an alpha, I can’t hurt you.” 

Your head tilts to the side, eyes roving over his prone body like you are seeing him for the first time. Then you grit your teeth, whatever they had given you might not have done what they were hoping it would do, but it certainly hurt like a bitch. 

 “Are you sure?” 

“That I can’t get out?” he asks, straining against the hand holds, curling in on himself as best he could. 

Nothing.

“No, are you sure you're not an alpha? I know not all shifters have designations or follow pack hierarchies, but you smell like an alpha. At least, you smell like the other ones."

Kyle breathes deeply. 

He smells his blood, metallic and cloying, the splatters of blood from the men who he had ripped into during the failed mission, the lingering smell of smoke and dirt from the rubble, your fear, still so potent and encompassing, the lingering scent of the men, the mildew, the mustiness of being underground and then finally, something new, something different. 

His eyes go wide. 

“It worked,” you breathe out, eyes glassy, a sheen of sweat breaking out over your skin. 

“What about you?” 

“It’s never worked, but it’s also never killed me? I don’t know how it works, but,” Kyle watches the way you clench your muscles, whimpering into your knees and you curl in on yourself. 

For a few minutes the only sound in the room is off your labored breathing and the dripping of water. 

“They’ll let you go. I don’t think there is sound, but there's a camera over your shoulder. I can see the blinking light.” 

Kyle strains to turn and see the camera for himself, they had been watching this entire time, those sick fucks. And they’ve done it before, to you, to other shifters. 

“What do you mean they’ll let me go?” 

“Remote release on your shackles. One of the scientists, he's not here any more, he told me they thought a strong shifter and the right combination of chemicals in the serum would force the transition. The others, they were all dominant, maybe not alphas, but within their species they were strong, others bent to their will, the theory was it could trigger the shift in someone with recessive genes under the right circumstances.”

“I’ve heard rumors of that, mixed shifters who never presented as kids suddenly shifting late in life. It was a fairytale mothers told their subs. It's not-”

“Real?” you say with a laugh, meeting his eyes again. “When I first got here I couldn’t smell the others, I couldn’t hear the way I do now, this room was a dark abyss. Now? I almost forget that there was a time when everything was so dull, so colorless.”

“But you haven't shifted?” 

You shake your head. You’re watching his hands now, the way he clenches and unclenches his fingers, the lengthening of his claws. He’ll shred through his good boots if he doesn’t remain in control.

But he can feel the control slipping. It's like being a teen again. It's hard for predator shifters, the rush of hormones, the changes to your human side and the power and strength of the other.  The other, that is all instincts and sharp claws. He had never felt more helpless than those delicate years before he found the balance, the control. And then he had joined the military, his control had been a strength, it put him above the rest of his peers until he found his way to the 141, to his pack.

“No, but fuck it hurts like a bitch. Is it supposed to feel like this?”

“Just breathe, love. Follow me.”

Kyle took in a long shuddering breath, watching your shoulders rise as you took in an equally shaky breath. There was no way this wasn’t wreaking havoc on your body, repeatedly undergoing whatever this was. Every culture and group of shifters had their own practices and understandings of the shift, regardless of what science said. Science couldn’t describe the rush that was your entire existence being rewritten that first full shift. It couldn’t explain the deep connection most shifters felt with the earth, the way scents told stories, the feel of a forest floor beneath padded feet, the feeling of wind through fur. Science couldn’t understand the deep connection of a pack, of a mate.  

And science couldn’t understand what it was trying to force your body to do. 

You followed his breath as he fought for control. 

“I never knew if it was rude to ask, but what kind of shifter are you?” your voice was rough as you struggled for breath. 

“Jaguar.”

You hummed, teeth clenching as you fought through another wave of pain. 

He can feel the shift now, the itch beneath his skin that made him nauseous before the first shift, not able to escape the image of clumps of fur mixed in with his blood and muscles, just beneath the surface waiting to burst out. 

Another one of the things science couldn’t explain. That molecular level where shifters became more or less than their human counterparts. Fur and claws and fangs that existed where they hadn’t before. Kyle was one of the many who felt more at ease with the partial shift, the ears on his head, the tail that flicked behind him,the eyes that gave him a tactical advantage. 

Now, as the claws ripped through the leather of his boots, shredding through the material like butter he could feel the pulling in his bones, the call to give in fully. But he couldn’t do it like this, not a full shift the way his arms were held up by his head, his knees on the rough ground. 

It would be agony. He wasn’t strong enough to break through the metal binds that held him in position. 

His bones would break and shift and break and shift and he would never know peace. He could already feel the phantom touch at the very core of his being. It would be the kind of pain that haunted you in life. 

“I saw a jaguar at the zoo once, when I was a kid.” Your words were nothing more than a whisper now. They floated through his ears like smoke, the words made no sense but you kept saying them. 

“We were just kids, fighting over whether it was a cheetah or a jaguar until the guide explained the difference.”

Kyle dragged in a ragged breath. He could smell the blood now where his claws dug into his hand as he fought the shift, the mustiness of the basement, and you. His mind latched onto that scent, warm bergamot like sipping freshly brewed earl grey, a salty spray of ocean mist and the musk of the forest floor carpeted in soft moss. He could almost taste the salt on his tongue, feel the moss beneath the pads of his paws. He needed it from the source, he needed you. 

“I’m so sorry.”

You were crying now, body shaking enough to rattle the chains that kept you in place. Kyle shook his head, trying to understand the words, but the need, the desire to reach you was all consuming. He needed to be stronger, he needed to be an alpha, to make you submit to him, to make you follow him. 

He needed to break out of these restraints. 

Kyle had trained for pain, for torture, for surviving the odds that no normal person, shifter or not, could handle. He knew how to outlast interrogation. He knew how to compartmentalize, how to tune out everything around him until he could make his escape or die trying. But this wasn’t that, there was nothing that could have prepared him for the rage that now coursed through his blood, the way the power that he normally wielded controlled him instead. 

He didn’t hear your scream. He felt it. The sound ricocheting through the viscera that was his torn thoughts, instinct ripping through coherence in a way that left him more animal than man. He didn’t hear the latches come undone on his arms and his legs, but he felt the instant relief of his body bowing forward, the shift rippling across his skin like wind over a field of grass. There was a wrongness in it, something that felt unsettled and unrelenting as he stalked forward. He couldn’t pick it apart, he couldn’t put words to the feeling of unease that came with the feeling of his body finally shifting into the form that his very blood had been singing for. 

His singular focus was you. 

Eyes wide.

Heart racing.

Tear tracks on dirty cheeks. 

Every speck of your being coming into focus.

His focus. 

His unrelenting, unwavering focus. 

Earl grey, the beach, the forest. 

You whimpered as he crawled over you. The shackles around your wrists pulled against the skin until it broke, until the smell of blood washed over the room. Your mouth was moving but he couldn’t hear the words over the sound of your heart pounding in your chest. 

Kyle has never lost control, not in the field and not of the shift. The emotions, the instincts that propel him forward are new, something unknown, something he cannot control. He’s seen feral shifters, those abused and left behind by society, he’s had to put them down like rabid dogs when they’ve come across them on a mission. A feral shifter is a surefire distraction, a predator will be ruthless, but any feral shifter is dangerous, can be a killer. 

Is that what he is? Is that what these men have done to him? 

It doesn’t matter what they have done, what matters is you. And him. 

Your fear sits heavy on his tongue, his body an amalgamation of the shift, more animal than man, but painfully not fully shifted. It is instinct that pulls his body over yours, his mouth hanging open, fangs on full display as thick drool pools on his tongue and drips down onto your heaving chest. You can’t catch your breath, your heart stutters behind the protection of your ribs, and your hands are weakly pushing back against his chest, trying to create some space between you and the monster that he’s become. 

Please

The word repeats over and over in his head. Begging, crying, demanding something from him. You need him the way he needs you, needs you to submit. He is the alpha and you are his. His thoughts are muddled, like he is back in the field, frantically looking for Soap, instincts drawing him forward to find his packmate. But Soap isn’t here, just you. 

You. 

You scream when his fangs break the skin of your shoulder, your blood thick in his mouth, staining your shirt, your skin. He knows it's too deep, deeper than any claiming should be, but he can’t stop himself. He needs to consume you. He needs to take everything you are, the fear, the earl grey, the salt of your tears against his fur. 

It's all his.