Just a few words.

It would only take a few words.

If… if he could just reach the door. Why was the door so far away? Why did it get further away with each step? This was such a simple thing. Just saying a few words. Then everything would be okay. It had to be okay, right? Just a-

John winced in pain as he walked face first into the door.

“Hello?” A deep, familiar voice rumbled out through the wooden panelling. A voice that filled the space with buttery ease. A voice that made every last one of John’s many hairs stand on end.

The voice of his alpha.

“It’s John, we need to talk!” is how he replied.

How he tried to reply.

How he wished he could reply.

Instead, he stood with his mouth hanging open. He must have said something, because he heard the familiar heavy footfalls of his alpha approaching the door. The scent he knew better than anything else on the planet, the sense of presence that he couldn’t describe with words. Everything about his alpha was larger than life. John’s unfocused mind wandered, wondering idly if his alpha would greet him in his human form, or his gargantuan wolf form. Not that it mattered, no matter the height, his alpha’s presence was undeniable. Irrepressible.

Absolute.

There he was. His alpha. Dominic. He didn’t even notice the door opening.

“John?” Dominic’s rumble penetrated John to his core now that there was no door to protect him, “What’s the matter, pup?”

He should say something now. His alpha explicitly invited it. All he had to do was open his mouth.

Open it and… what exactly?

John tried to shake his head and regain some focus. He couldn’t even tell if he succeeded in doing so. Dominic didn’t seem to mind the prolonged silence. He just smiled patiently at his packmate. A stray thought wandered into John’s brain, that his alpha was probably used to people being overwhelmed by his sheer presence.

Dominic’s lips moved. John didn’t even hear the words, but they must have been a suggestion to come into Dominic’s personal office, because his body was following him in.

Taking a seat.

Gratefully accepting some freshly brewed tea. Whatever flavour that tea was, John couldn’t tell, the information couldn’t reach him. There was a traffic jam in his brain. Whatever reason he had for confronting his alpha, it had failed to become an action. And now his thoughts were a mess, swerving wildly, crashing into one another and bursting into flames. What was worse was John could tell he was talking. He could just barely feel his lips moving. A dim muffled version of his voice just barely reached his sensitive canine-enhanced ears. But what he was saying he couldn’t guess, all he knew was it wasn’t what he wanted to say.

“That boyfriend of yours, Lee,” Dominic was saying, “I heard him mention a funny new human word. “Himbo” I think it was. I don’t know what exactly that means, but I think you’re being one right now.”

Dominic leaned in with an impossibly charming smirk.

“It’s kinda cute, pup.”

For once, John wasn’t hanging on his alpha’s word. He was focused on one word in particular, a word that cleared the congestion building in his mind.

Boyfriend.

Boyfriend?

Boyfriend!

“Dominic… uh… alpha… sir…” John choked out the words. He was finally doing it, he was talking! He could do this.

“Oh, is this about Lee?” Dominic asked casually, pouring himself a fresh cup of tea.

"Yes!” John almost surprised himself. Those were the clearest words he’d said this entire encounter. John felt his stomach churn as he started to finally realize what was happening. Agreeing with his alpha was easy. But he wasn’t here to agree with Dominic.

He was here to defy him.

“It’s just… it’s about…” John dove right back into fumbling all his words. It took all his effort just to stop himself from calling Dominic sir, and to keep his ears from holding backwards.

Folding backwards?

John anxiously scratched the back of his head. That confirmed it, somewhere along the way he’d transformed into his wolf form. He was really out of it. He needed to take the reins somehow. Taking a sip of his tea to keep his throat anything other than dry, and furrowing his brow in concentration, he parted his lips.

“Lee should… Lee… uh… be pack…mate…” John gasped. If he had any focus to spare he would’ve been proud of himself for what he just accomplished, saying that out loud to his alpha.

“He IS a packmate,” Dominic laughed. Then he took a close look at John’s eyes, and his sharp senses got to work parsing every bit of relevant data about his packmate, “Ohhhh, you want me to make him a werewolf.

The best John could manage was a nod.

“Naw. He’s not ready. Not by a long shot.”

"B-but-” John stammered, “I think… er… sir… alpha… I think Lee… earned it…?”

John blushed, not just from effort, but because he could hear his southern twang evolving into a full on drawl as he grew more and more flustered. At the same time, he felt something warm in his chest, thinking about his boyfriend gave him a flavour of confidence he hadn’t felt before.

“No.” Dominic said more firmly, “Lee does not have the emotional stability or maturity to endure the process of becoming a werewolf. If it were an emergency that would be one thing, but a human out of sync with himself can easily get even less stable when exposed to werewolf venom, furthermore-”

Dominic continued his lecture, and a haze started to fill John’s vision. But this was not the same haze that had plagued him before. This was not a muddling haze of confusion. This was a bloody haze of focus.

"Sir, with all due respect I am not going to sit here and let you disrespect the man I love more than anyone,” John spoke up, crystal clear, his snout just slightly tinged with a snarl, “Lee deserves to be one of us as much as I do, or Adam, or Shane. I don’t know what it is about him that makes you treat him so unfairly, but Lee can and will make an incredible werewolf, no matter what you think.”

Or at least, that’s what John wanted to say.

Instead, he simply said “Yes, alpha.” and left the office, his tail hung low.