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"Sam! Sam!"
Ben wasn't sure why Adam was yelling for Sam, but he wasn't too sure of most things at the moment. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton and like he was inside of a bell and he wasn't ready to take stock of the rest of his body, but he did register pain.
"Oh Ben, wake up. Ben, Ben, Ben."
Ben could hear the panic in Adam’s voice as Ben's name sounded like a cry from his lips. Ben figured it probably had something to do with fuzzy, ringing feeling he felt with all his senses at once somehow.
"Sam! You've gotta save him! I know you can!"
There's a groaning, snapping sound then, or maybe before. Time is weird.
"Fuck, what happened?" Sam's voice now, sounding panicked too.
"There's no phone service Sam, please."
"I'll run, I can get into range."
"There's no time Sam! He won't make it! Turn him!"
"No, no I can't. I'll call 911, they'll-"
"No! He won't make it, now Sam!"
"I, I -"
"Do it! If he dies in my arms, I'll fucking kill you!"
"Adam, I-"
"Please Sam."
There's that groaning, creaking sound again and then a new pain, a hot, searing pain instead of the cold, draining, fuzzy pain.
----
Adam waits. It's probably the most excruciating wait of his life. It's also the worst day of his life.
Ben is still not awake. When Sam had first bitten him, Ben had screamed, a sound quite unlike the gasp of surprise he'd made when he'd fallen, and thrashed in Adam’s arms. Then he'd fallen still and the wounds had started to heal with a speed that was supernatural but still slow enough that Adam worried it wouldn't be soon enough.
Sam had Adam help him carry Ben at that point, having transformed back to human basically the moment his teeth let go of Ben's neck. It was a slog to carry Ben up and out of the ravine, through the snow, and all the way back to the car. By the time they made it, Adam was drenched in sweat despite the cold. Somehow, no one else was on the trail or in the parking lot to see them.
In the car, the jitters hit Adam; he was glad he wasn't the one driving. He was shaking so hard he couldn't have done it. He wasn't sure how Sam was managing to drive relatively safely, though his knuckles were white on the wheel.
Ben was still motionless as Sam and Adam carried him into Sam's house.
Sam had set Ben down on the sofa, had Adam help him undress Ben and wrap him in blankets and towels, and then left, telling Adam to yell if Ben woke up or started to change. For the first minutes, Adam had heard occasional noises from the rest of the house, now it is eerily quiet.
Adam paces back and forth across the room, then he sits down next to Ben and checks his breathing and the healing wounds that have now stopped bleeding and are scabbed over and surrounded by bruise. Then Adam gets up and repeats the process. He doesn't know how long it's been; he didn't think to check the time until the pattern had been going for quite awhile.
Adam keeps debating calling for Sam, but can't bring himself to do so. Maybe Sam is doing something very important for Ben, maybe Sam hates Adam for putting him in this position. Adam needs to handle this by himself.
Adam completes the pattern again, and starts to pace back and forth across the silent living room.
He hears a sound from the sofa and immediately swings around. Ben is transforming, much more slowly than the times Adam has seen Sam transform, but with the same disturbing sounds of shifting flesh and bone. Hair is growing from all parts of his body Adam can see, the hair on his head is changing texture like melting plastic, his face is bulging out into a wolf snout like clay being formed. The blankets are moving as the rest of him transforms too.
It probably takes more than a minute for the change to be complete. After a moment of stillness, the wolf's eyes blink open. Like with Sam as a wolf, Ben's eyes are still blue, the main sign that he's no normal wolf.
"Ben, buddy," Adam says softly. He feels tears well up in his eyes, he's just so relieved that it worked and that Ben is awake. Ben stands, shakes off the blankets, and looks around the room with wide eyes and perked ears.
"Buddy, you're okay, you're gonna be fine," Adam says mostly to himself as he approaches Ben.
Ben looks more different from Sam than Adam had somehow expected. While Sam in wolf form is sleek furred and mostly a whitish cream color with a bit gray down the spine, Ben is fluffier and with a mix of brown, gray, and white fur all over. His fur also sticks up weirdly in the areas that Adam knows are where his wounds are.
"Hey Ben, I know this is weird, but it's okay." Adam sits down on the sofa next to Ben. Ben towers over him.
Ben looks at him, then leaps off the sofa, left foreleg buckling under his weight briefly (Adam had thought that arm looked broken) before he recovers and zooms around the room.
Right, Adam was supposed to call for Sam.
"Sam!" He yells.
Once Ben has run a few rapid circuits of the living room he leaps back on the sofa, knocking Adam over. He stands over Adam, staring down at him.
It's intense to have a wolf pinning him down, but not so scary than it could have been because he knows it's Ben - the eyes looking at him are Ben's eyes.
"Buddy, it's alright, it's alright."
Ben whimpers and brings his face down to Adams, sniffing his face and neck. Adam can feel the deep huffing breaths against his throat.
"Ben, you're okay," Adam says softly and brings his hands up slowly and sinks them into Ben's thick, coarse fur. "It's okay," he whispers. He hopes this will calm Ben down; he needs to calm Ben down. Adam knows he'd freak out about this situation in Ben's position, and at least he knew werewolves were real already, unlike Ben.
Adam hears the door open at that point but keeps his eyes on Ben.
"Shit," Adam hears Sam say quietly, then more loudly: "Ben, look at me."
Ben turns to look, and Adam follows his gaze. Sam transforms, hair shrinking into his scalp and lightening to white while fur sprouts on his face and his limbs bend and reform.
When he's in wolf form, he walks towards the sofa. Adam thinks they're communicating - he hears quiet vocalizations from them both and feels a shift in body language from Ben. When Sam is next to them, Ben flops down onto his side on top of Adam, causing Adam to let out all the air in his lungs, and whines his most piteous whine yet.
Ben reaches his head out and licks at Sam's chin. Adam smiles while he tries to breath in while being squished under a large, heavy wolf. Sam takes it for a moment before growling softly, giving Ben one lick on the face, and stepping back.
Clearly there is more communication happening between them. Ben turns back to Adam briefly to lick his chin too before turning back to Sam.
After a minute, Ben starts to transform. His transformation back to human is slow as well. Finally the transformation is complete and Adam is so happy to have an alive, whole, human Ben in his lap, even if the fact that he's naked would normally be very awkward and the sort of thing that Adam actively avoids imagining for his own sanity.
"What the fuck," Ben says, turning his face into Adam's chest. "What the fuck."
Adam hugs him tightly. He does start crying for real at this point.
There is more crying from all of them, and a panic attack from Ben in the process of explaining the situation regarding Ben's fall (he doesn't remember what happened,) werewolves, Sam being a werewolf, and Ben now being a werewolf. It's a lot for Ben to take in. He did get dressed early on in that process, in too-large spare clothes of Sam's mostly, though Sam had washed what of Ben's clothes could be saved from the blood and weren't too ripped.
It's well into night, and they've ordered and eaten a take out dinner, by the time the explanations are complete. Ben's looking at lot better by the end, both in the sense that he doesn't look like he's going to have another panic attack and that his wounds now look like fresh scars instead of the mortal injuries they were early this afternoon.
Sam doesn't want Ben to leave, not even to his own place for the night, apparently there is a lot of werewolf things he needs to learn. Sam is clearly very nervous about the situation, but Adam's sure he saw a bit of a real smile (along with the nerves) when Adam had pointed out that Sam does have a pack now. Ben takes the guest room and Adam takes the sofa, except about 45 minutes after they've all headed to bed, Ben pads out into the living room.
Adam is, naturally, still awake considering the adrenaline from the day he's had, and also Sam's sofa is not that comfortable.
"Adam, are you awake?"
"Yeah, can't sleep?" Adam is not too surprised, though he's sure almost dying and then turning into a werewolf is probably an exhausting process.
"No," Ben says. He shifts awkwardly from foot to foot for a moment.
"I know this sounds stupid, but your scent really calmed me down earlier, would you share the bed with me? More comfy than the sofa too." Ben says.
"Sure buddy," Adam says, hoping he doesn't sound too eager. After all this, he wants to be close to Ben, even more than usual.
Adam gets up and follows Ben to the room and they settle into bed.
"Thanks," Ben says softly after a minute.
"Of course." Adam turns and finds Ben looking at him.
Ben smiles and closes his eyes, and Adam watches him until his eyes fall shut too. Before he drifts off to sleep, Adam feels Ben snuggle closer to him and Adam reaches out to hold him.