Shaped to Be Yours (Monster Match season two)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

JASON

G lowing eyes in the dark.

In the trees.

Teeth.

Pain.

So much pain.

Bones cracking.

Body twisting.

Teeth and claws and fur, only it was mine now. All of it was mine. This was me.

What the fuck was I ?

A bump from the train jarred me awake. I couldn’t say I minded. I’d been dreaming about those eyes again. Those teeth. The pain and fear and uncertainty, until I was the thing with teeth. With teeth like… like something. But what?

I’d thought I was a werewolf.

Apparently, I wasn’t.

My urge to hyperventilate was thankfully disrupted by Ricky’s head falling onto my shoulder. Ricky Ruas. My best friend. My… boyfriend? We hadn't been on a real date yet. We’d kissed a couple of times, agreed we wanted to be together, but graduation had suddenly just been here, and everything changed, while we were only at the beginning of trying to be an us.

Ricky was still asleep, dozing in the seat next to me. He smelled so good. I couldn’t complain about some of what not being human meant. Enhanced senses were nice. Other than when someone puked or pissed outside our dorm. But we didn’t live in a dorm anymore. We had officially graduated. We were adults, on the train to start our real lives.

Ricky was anyway. He’d been a Physics major with a concentration in Astronomy. He wanted to be a cosmologist to study the makeup of the universe, particularly our connection to the monster realm. All tester towns, where monsters with visas were permitted to live among humans, had various studies going on at any time. Like in Edgewind, where we’d gone to college. It just so happened that my hometown had become another one.

Elder Ridge, home, was where I’d been attacked last summer and thought I’d gotten turned into a werewolf. Edgewind was where I’d found out I was wrong.

EARLIER THAT WEEK

“Mr. Bosco, please answer the question.”

“Huh?” I looked up, blinking through the haze of wrong that surrounded me, sitting in a cold, sterile, white room, like I was in Men in Black or something, caught as an alien in disguise without a passport, and they were going to ship me back to my home planet. Only there was some truth to that, given I was a monster.

“Can you please state your full name for the record?”

“You know my name. You literally just called me Mr. Bosco.”

The man from the base fixed me with an unimpressed stare. I wasn’t sure if he was military. He wasn’t wearing a uniform. Very Men in Black in a black suit and tie, and as intimidating as anyone who could make you disappear.

“Whatever. Jason Oliver Bosco.”

“Thank you. And, for the record again, how did you become a werewolf?” He asked it as if he didn’t believe me.

“I’ve told you the same story, like, five times already.” I shifted in my seat, which I knew was uncomfortable on purpose. They wanted me to feel cornered, isolated, and a little bit freaked—or a lot freaked—so I’d trip up somehow and… what? Admit I lied? I hadn’t! None of it was a lie. Not as far as I knew.

“We are aware, Mr. Bosco, but we need to hear your story one more time, because this isn’t only about your visa. You are transferring from one protected town to another. Different people need this information. They need assurances that you are safe to be walking freely in the human realm.”

“I’m human!” I defended. “Or I was. I’m from the human world. I was born here. I’ve told you.”

“So, tell me again. One more time.”

I hunched in my chair, staring at the metal tabletop. I hated remembering that night, but these were the people who decided whether I got to go home or was sent away forever. “Fine. Okay. I was in the woods behind my house…”

THE PREVIOUS SUMMER

“So, um, Ricky, would you maybe wanna grab a burger sometime not as friends? No, that’s dumb. I gotta lead up to it more.

“Hey, Ricky! This is probably going to totally blindside you, but I, like, like , like you, and I was hoping… urg! There has got to be a way to do this without sounding pathetic!”

My phone buzzed. It was probably my mom, wondering where I’d gone. I wasn’t far from the house—or so I thought. But when I looked around at wherever I’d paced myself deeper into the woods… crap. Did I remember these trees? Every part of the woods was at least a little familiar to me, but I didn’t think I’d seen this particular clearing in years.

“And what were you doing in the woods that night, Mr. Bosco?”

“I, um, needed air, that’s all. I hiked in those woods all the time. Nothing weird.”

“I see. Continue.”

I checked my phone. Yep, Mom, calling me in for dinner. I texted back that I had just gone out for a walk and would be back soon. I certainly wasn’t going to admit over text or in person that I was practicing how to confess my love to my best friend. Who I’d been pining after for three years now. We were about to be college seniors. If I didn’t confess this year, I never would.

I pulled up Facebook, habitually checking for any updates from Ricky. He was home in Nevada with his family. His huge family. He had an older brother, two younger sisters, ridiculously in love parents, and his grandparents lived in the same town. There had been constant photos all summer of cookouts and camping trips and game nights, more family togetherness than I’d ever known.

It had always only been me and my mom. And the family cat, Minnie, who passed away a couple years ago. My dad went missing when I was so young, I barely remembered him. My first strong memories were of finding Mom crying in every room of the house. Most people had figured he ditched because he wasn’t ready to be a father, but she’d always insisted something must have happened to him. He loved her. Loved me.

And all I knew about him was his name.

Bo. Boris Bosco.

“I do find it strange that you would regularly hike through the same woods where your father was last seen over twenty years ago.”

“Why? Gonna try to blame his disappearance on me as a baby?”

“This is serious, Mr. Bosco.”

“And you’re asking not serious questions. They’re the woods behind my house. I wasn’t going to live in fear of them. I felt… comfortable there. I don’t know. Maybe because it was the last place my father was ever seen, it felt like one of the few places where I was still connected to him.”

“I appreciate your honesty. Go on.”

There was a new picture on Ricky’s wall of him between his father and brother, arms up around their shoulders, all of them laughing. If Ricky aged half as well as his dad, he would be gorgeous for life. His brother was good looking too, but Ricky was just… damn. He made my heart clench even in still life, frozen in a photo. It hadn’t been like that right away. It was halfway through Freshman year before it hit me.

We weren’t roommates but in the same dorm, same hallway, just two doors down from each other. Our actual roommates were friends from high school, so we’d ended up in each other’s rooms all the time. We’d also had Weight Training, Econ, and Chemistry together. Then, during our Chem final that first semester, his hand on mine, stopping me from adding the wrong ingredient to an experiment that easily could have blown up in our faces, I felt a tingle. When I looked at Ricky’s brown eyes behind his goggles, and through his glasses beneath those, the way he smiled and shook his head at me caused another tingle.

“Dude, slow down! We’re not on that step yet. Add this right now, and the reaction might set my curls on fire.”

His coily, floofy curls that would be a fro if he didn’t comb them tight to his head and bind the longer parts in a bun. I’d laughed so hard the first time I saw him with it wild. He’d called me a jackass in that affectionate way only friends can. I’d asked if he’d been hit by lightning recently, and he’d told me I could stick my dick in an outlet if I wanted to test that theory. And that had been it. The moment we became best friends.

But in Chemistry, hearing Ricky laugh, seeing his soft, affectionate smile, curls bound up, and brown eyes dancing in the Bunsen burner light, the real chemistry hit me.

“Shit.”

“Nah, I got you,” Ricky had said.

I’d known immediately then that I was screwed.

“So, despite your mother’s message, you lingered in the woods for a while afterward?”

“Uh, yeah. I was thinking! Preoccupied.”

“With?”

“Life stuff. You know, being a senior, having to face the future, not yet knowing what I wanted to do with my life, and everything that comes with it. It’s a lot. In case you’ve forgotten what it was like to be twenty-two.”

“I remember enough. What happened next?”

That was the real problem. What came next? How did one ask out a friend? When I’d first realized I liked Ricky, I hadn’t even known if he was gay. Bi? An option at all? Could he possibly like me the way I liked him? Would it ruin our friendship to ask? Was I good enough for him? Me, a C-average student better at outdoor things or throwing a football or Frisbee around than studying, who didn’t even know his major yet? Not midway through Freshman year anyway.

Now, about to be a senior, I was finishing my Bachelor of Science in Forest and Natural Resource Management, part of the track focused on parks. Whatever I ended up doing with that, at least I could be outside.

I just wasn’t the brains kind of guy. I was all brawn. I still giggled about how both Ricky and I were going to have college degrees called BS . The answer to whether or not I was good enough for him was always, probably not, loser , and like the idiot I was, instead of figuring out the answers to any of those other questions, I’d just amped up my bro side and probably came off like an asshole half the time. I didn’t even know why he was friends with me.

I’d eventually found out that Ricky was gay, but only because he started dating a guy near the end of Freshman year. Then he was single for a while, but I’d chickened out just long enough for him to end up with someone else, and the cycle repeated.

Well, he was single again now, and lucky for me, Ricky had never thought it was weird that I didn’t date. No, I was the playboy who slept with guys I barely knew after too many drinks at a party, and a different guy each time, so Ricky probably thought I was a slut. I mean, I was a little, but I didn’t want to be that forever! I wanted more. I wanted real. I wanted to be in love with my best friend and have him love me back, so we could be idiots together, and then make out afterward.

That was the dream, right? If I could figure out how to freaking tell him.

My doom-scrolling on Facebook was interrupted by yet another ad for that Monster Match dating app. Google it one time and you’re marked for life. Not that I wasn’t a little curious, but if I started being a slut for monsters instead of just drunk and horny strangers at parties, I would have zero chance with Ricky. No more drunk and horny strangers either! I had to focus on him.

“I can do this,” I said, shoving my phone into my pocket and taking a glance around to pick a direction.

A drop of rain landed on my head, and I realized how overcast the sky had become. Even more reason to get out of the woods quickly.

“So, you were looking at the Monster Match app right before the attack?”

“Not looking at it directly or through profiles or anything. I hadn’t downloaded it yet. I just saw an ad.”

“But it was on your mind? You had been thinking about monsters?”

“I guess. So?”

“Finish your story, Mr. Bosco.”

I couldn’t really get lost out here. One way would eventually bring me to the lake, two ways would lead to a road, and the last led home. If I reached one of the first three instead of home, I’d still know where I was. So, I chose a direction and made it about two steps.

Before I heard growling.

I froze. It was getting dark. The sun was minutes from being fully down, and peeking through the gathering clouds as more rain started to sprinkle, I could see the full moon already risen behind me. Behind me , where I’d heard the growling. Where, when I looked, first up at the moon, then down between the trees, I saw two glowing eyes and the gleam of teeth.

I bolted in the other direction. Stupid. So stupid. You never run from a wild animal! I knew that. But my adrenaline was so high, all my body could do was choose flight .

More growls followed and the snapping of teeth, the bounding of paws like something very heavy and fast giving chase. I couldn’t look back. I couldn’t. I didn’t dare. But no matter how much of a lead I’d had or how fast I was sprinting, the creature was faster than me.

I was struck, tackled, pinned to the ground by something at least twice my weight. I screamed as teeth bit into my shoulder through my T-shirt. I screamed because a great pain wracked through me upon contact, not only from the bite but everywhere, instantly, and my body began to shift and crack and change.

What was happening ?

The creature released me with a whimper and bolted away into the woods. I barely caught a glimpse of its retreating gray fur before I was writhing on the ground, rolling over, but also curling in on myself as the pain grew worse. It was emanating from the bite, but it was everywhere. I would have been grateful that the beast left me alone if it didn’t feel like my blood was boiling.

The cracking was my bones, some snapping into new shapes, others elongating. It hurt like the worst of growing pains as a kid. But I was so shocked, so horrified when fur began to grow where only blond hair should be, I couldn’t scream again. I could only pant and moan and growl.

Until the change stopped, leaving my clothing in tatters because of my increase in size, with my eyesight sharpened, and my blood still boiling. I leapt up onto my new claw-like, paw -like feet, and howled at the full moon just as the rain erupted into a downpour.

“I’ve been a werewolf ever since.”

“Mr. Bosco—”

“And I panicked, okay? I’ve admitted that. I hid what I became, because I was afraid of being sent away, when I do not belong in the monster realm. I was born here .”

“Your birth certificate confirms that, which is why we are not sending you anywhere.”

“You’re not?” I looked up from staring at the tabletop. “Then why are we having this conversation? Can’t I just go home?”

“We are having this conversation, Mr. Bosco, because they did not find a werewolf that night.” The man from the base slapped a file folder onto the table between us, one I hadn’t noticed him holding. He opened it to the news article that had been my hint at what attacked me, though I’d already guessed after transforming beneath a full moon.

The article was of a man-like monster with very obvious wolf features and gray fur. He was being arrested because he’d been caught without a visa and, even worse, was in a non-tester town—at least it hadn’t been one at the time. “I don’t understand. That’s the guy. That’s the werewolf who bit me. Isn’t it?”

He flipped the printed article to show another piece of paper, one showing something like a mugshot of the same man, only he was entirely human looking. Then he flipped to another page, and the man had goatlike features instead of a wolf’s. Then another, where he looked more like a bunny or something. “The man caught that night and sent back to the monster realm was a púca. There are monsters like him that might seem like werewolves, able to transform into animals and half-animal combinations, but nothing that could turn someone else into a monster like them. Real monsters don’t work that way, not any we have cataloged, and as far as we know, we have all species cataloged that have ever crossed over from their realm to ours.”

“What are you saying?”

“If this púca bit you, Mr. Bosco, all you would have been left with is teeth marks. You may have been born here, and you may have only first transformed after being attacked by something that night, but you are not a werewolf. Werewolves don’t exist. We don’t know what you are.”

It felt like the floor had opened up to swallow me. All the hair was standing up on my arms, and I felt cold. Scared. We don’t know what you are ? Who the fuck says that? “I don’t understand. I’m not lying about what happened to me.”

“We don’t think you’re lying. You were attacked by something. You transformed. You are a monster now, whether you were before or not.”

“Whether I—”

“And with the vouching of the eldritch monster, Cael, who works for this base, we have no intention of revoking your visa to stay here or preventing you from moving back to Elder Ridge.”

Cael. I wouldn’t even have a visa if not for him. He was the first monster I ever talked to. Although, hearing his voice originally had made me pass out. Being eldritch, or a Tall Man, meant he was from the Void, whatever that meant, before… well, everything. Before the human and monster realms were separate places. He was like the proto monster. Maybe proto human too. Ageless. Kind of creepy. All black with multiple eyes and razor looking teeth. Also, weirdly hot with how he used his tentacles. He was like if Slender Man was real and made a porno.

Not that Cael made a porno! Only he sort of did? He filmed a spicy ad for the Monster Match app with his boyfriend, who he met through the app, and I witnessed some of the filming. It was this fantasy fulfilment thing on a train, and the app wanted it for a promo. I’d watched that ad way too many times, remembering what it was like seeing some of it in person.

Not that I was into Cael! Or his artist boyfriend, Miles. Cael wasn’t into me either. He let me watch them as, like, some punishment for overhearing me being a dick about monsters and the app and everything. He could turn invisible, which was totally cheating, and I was only being a dick that night—well, most nights—because I didn’t think Ricky could want a monster like me and, I don’t know, I needed to prove it to myself. I needed to know if Ricky could still like me if he knew I wasn’t human, and mocking other monsters was the stupid way I’d tried.

Turned out Ricky could still like me. But I never would have found out if Cael hadn’t learned I was a monster in hiding and made me come clean, both about that and about my feelings for Ricky. Cael worked for the base in Edgewind as a sort of surveillance agent, since monsters and humans living together in our realm had only been a thing for the past few years. There were still protests about it. Everywhere.

“Be aware, Mr. Bosco,” the man from the base continued, “that if Elder Ridge had not become another tester town, the situation might be different. There is a mystery about you, and we don’t like mysteries. Mysteries are how good people end up dead, even if those at fault didn’t mean any harm.”

“I have never attacked or hurt anyone,” I snarled. I could feel my claws wanting to unleash as a surge of anger rushed through me, and I clenched my fists beneath the table to stop it. I could control myself, damn it.

“We know you haven’t hurt anyone, Mr. Bosco, but we need to be sure you never will.” He closed the file folder, even though I could tell there were several more pages to it. “You have two options before you can walk out that door. Submit to regular testing at the facility in Elder Ridge, and you can go about your daily life completely unhindered, like any monster with a visa.”

“You want me to be a science experiment?”

“We want to solve your mystery. But we won’t force you. Your alternative is to have an officer assigned to you, who will check in periodically, often at random, to ensure you truly aren’t a danger to anyone, including yourself.”

“So, my choices are science experiment or house arrest?”

“If you prefer to think of it that way.”

“For how long?”

“Until we are satisfied you are not a threat.”

A threat. A few weeks ago, I was just a college senior about to start my life.

A few months ago, I was human.

How did it all go wrong so fast?

And what the fuck was I? I wanted to know, to be sure, but no way would I let them poke and prod me to find out. No fucking way.

“Then I guess I’m on parole, because I am not submitting to any tests. And I’m not going to change my mind about that. I’m still human.”

“Mr. Bosco—”

“I’m still human to me . I don’t care about the rest.” Even if I did.

What was I?

What was I ?

“Can I go now?”

“If you do change your mind, you can check in at the research facility or with your assigned officer any time.”

“Fine. Whatever. Who’s my officer?”

“Me.” He stood from the table. He was more Idris Elba than Will Smith. So, hot . Bigger than me. And with an air of authority and confidence that said, if you fight me, kid, you’ll lose .

If I was in my, well, apparently not werewolf form, I could take him, but then I’d just be proving him right.

“I’ll be seeing you again soon,” he said and showed me to the door.

Agent Whitmore. My new handler.

PRESENT DAY

I wondered if Whitmore was on the train, stalking me. Watching me. It was bad enough always wondering if the people around me knew . If they didn’t, would they find out? What would they do if they found out? Did everyone back home already know and were waiting with pitchforks?

I looked human most of the time, and I didn’t need to wear a badge or anything— Beware of Monster —but Elder Ridge was as small of a town as Edgewind. Not hundreds small, but thousands small. Without a college campus like Edgewind to ramp up population most of the year, word was going to spread.

Ricky was one of the few people who knew I was a monster that looked like a werewolf, but that I was somehow something else, something “uncategorized.”

It was nice not needing to think too hard, at least for a while, just watching Ricky sleep. He’d gotten an internship with the research facility in Elder Ridge, working with some fish monster scientists so he could come home with me. Him choosing to join me, even if it was connected to something he wanted for himself, felt so serious, like real commitment, when we hadn’t even seen each other naked yet.

I mean, outside of me being a serious perv a couple of times in the locker room, but they were only cursory glances when we had Weight Training and never while his underwear was off! I’d only pretended to be a complete douchebag. I had standards. Mostly.

Why had I pretended to be a dick like that for so long? It was hard to break the habit, the snide remarks, puffing out my chest, acting bigger than I felt. How could a sweet, smart, wonderful guy like Ricky even want to give an asshole like me a chance?

He was so cute too, the way his lips were just slightly parted while he slept. I wanted to slip my tongue between them and kiss him awake like the prince from Sleeping Beauty . That was pretty pervy too. That whole story was all kinds of no with lacking consent.

Ricky’s lips looked really kissable though. I should not have been thinking about seeing him naked. It was causing a bit of a problem. Or a lot of a problem. Maybe it was being on the train again, since the last time we’d been on a train together, I’d gotten an eyeful of tentacle fucking.

I should not be thinking about that either. About big, long, phallic appendages moving in and out of a stretched hole and straining mouth, dripping saliva and precome and…

Okay, I really needed to stop, because I had to reach down to adjust my junk.

“Hm?” Ricky lifted his head and blinked blearily at me.

Think unsexy thoughts! Think unsexy thoughts!

“Oh. Right. Train. Sorry. I didn’t think I’d sleep so hard.”

Why did he have to say hard ? “H-hey,” I managed.

“Hey.” Ricky smiled.

Damn, he was cute.

“What?” His dark cheeks were turning darker. He was blushing. At me .

“I was just thinking about wanting to kiss you,” I admitted.

Ricky laughed and ducked his head, long lashes fluttering when he looked up at me again through his glasses, which only made me want to kiss him more. “You can , you know. We are dating. Aren’t we?”

“Are we?”

“You’re bringing me home to meet your mother.”

“You’ve met my mom, like, five times already.”

“You know what I mean.”

Ricky was going to be staying with us. The research team would have given him housing, a room at the facility, an apartment or long-term hotel stay, something, but he’d chosen to stay with me and Mom. That definitely felt like a boyfriend thing to do.

The train wasn’t very full, but even if it had been packed, I wouldn’t have cared if anyone saw me reach for Ricky’s smooth cheek and pull his lips to mine. He tasted like honey-walnut cream cheese from the bagels we’d grabbed that morning. I could taste that and the underlying rawness of him .

Praise be to enhanced senses.

Ricky smelled like sweat from sleeping on the train, but clean sweat, mixed with a hint of musk and earthy cologne. The slide of his tongue felt rougher than how I remembered it felt to kiss someone before I became a monster. In a good way! Like I could tell the difference between our taste buds colliding. The warmth of his mouth made me shiver, and I moved my hand to his thigh.

“Ah!” Ricky snapped away from me.

“Are you okay?” I looked first at him sucking his bottom lip, but I didn’t need to see the drop of blood to smell it. Then I looked down, and my hand on his thigh had claws, with a bit of fur sprouting, and the points of my nails were digging into his jeans.

I yanked my hand away and shook it until it turned human again. I tongued my teeth, feeling the fangs that I had to will to be blunt. Be normal .

“Sorry,” I said, when I was no longer at threat of revealing myself to the whole train.

I hadn’t been with anyone since my species changed. Kissing Ricky didn’t always trigger my not wolf to come out, but the more aroused I was, the more often it happened. Which fucking sucked! We’d never get past first base if I couldn’t control myself. I had to control myself!

Ricky’s hand reached for mine and placed it back on his thigh.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“It’s really not. But I’m working on it. I promise. I even have that promise prepared.”

Ricky blinked at me, watching as I pulled out the slip of paper from my pocket that I’d been waiting for the right moment to give him. I passed it to him, and the moment he opened it, he laughed. “Oh my god! You actually did it?”

The night I’d confessed my feelings to him in the woods in Edgewind, we’d eventually gone somewhere less spooky to talk. I’d asked him to tell me if there was anything I could do to prove I wasn’t the asshole I’d been acting like so much of the time, and he’d joked:

“Maybe write ‘I will not be a dick’ a hundred times, and I’ll believe it.” He’d taken my hand as he said that though, like he was saying he already knew I was more than that.

“Although, maybe I should change ‘dick’ to ‘prick’ since I keep pricking you, huh?” I joked. “Also, that’s only twenty-five times. A hundred is a lot to fit on one page. But I’ll work my way up to it.”

Ricky clutched the note like a love letter, which was the point. I could be romantic, even if in a silly way.

All I wanted then was to steal another kiss, but I felt the stir of wanting to transform and had to tamp the urge down. Ricky must have noticed me cringe, because he ran his thumb along the back of my hand, almost causing me to sprout fur just from that.

“Jason, it is okay. You’re still new to being, um…”

“Whatever I am?”

“Yeah. You know—”

“The train will be arriving in Elder Ridge in five minutes,” a voice interrupted over the intercom. “If this is your final destination, please gather your belongings and prepare to disembark. I repeat: the train…”

We were almost there, and I turned my head to look out the window at the familiar landscape of Midwestern farmland interspersed with trees, not too different from outside Edgewind. “Home sweet home,” I said.

Ricky patted my hand, bringing my attention back to him. At least my boner had gone away, but the little squeeze he offered, with my hand on his thigh, made my cock twitch again and my chest ache with want to kiss him, to touch him, to hold him.

Without drawing blood.

The blood was already gone when I looked, sucked away by Ricky’s tongue, but I leaned forward to lick the scratch anyway, tasting its tang. I guess not being a werewolf was a good thing, given that wasn’t the first time I’d broken his skin. At least it was never more than a prick, but I worried sometimes, no matter how forgiving he was, that my monster side would go too far.

Ricky chased my tongue for another kiss. I tried to enjoy it—I did enjoy it—but I also had to concentrate on quelling the beast.

This time, I succeeded.

“We just need practice. Right?” Ricky grinned, and then stood to tuck the note away and started gathering our bags from the rack above us.

Yeah. Practice. We had all summer to figure out things between us. And, if all went well, a lot longer after summer too.

Besides that, I had a different problem to solve. A different mystery to answer.

If I wasn’t a werewolf…

What was I?