The growl is echoed by thunder for real this time, louder and more insistent, and a flash of lightning illuminates them briefly. Sam wonders if he's going to get hit by lightning while coaxing whatever the fuck this is out of a tree.
"I got pants," he offers, just in case it is something like the Hulk. Everyone wants a nice pair of pants, right? "I'll even get them all warm and toasty in the dryer first if you want." His life has officially crossed the line into being ridiculous.
"Or meat that isn't mine," he adds. "I'm too stringy anyway, you don't want to take a bite of me."
A nice pair of pants is not exactly high-ranking on Steve's hierarchy of needs. Up at the top is his need for Sam to be safe, and right now Sam is stupidly risking both mauling, should Steve somehow lose control of himself, and the common cold, standing outside in this weather.
Steve climbs down from the tree, a clumsy endeavor involving many snapped twigs and broken branches. Once back on the ground, he hesitates, glancing at the tattered remains of his clothes. It won't be long before Sam puts two and two together, and then he'll never convince Sam to leave him alone.
One last attempt can't hurt. Steve takes in a deep breath, rises to his newly towering height and lifts his paws and claws up menacingly. He roars with everything in him, the force of it flapping his gums around razor-sharp fangs.
Okay, that's definitely a really big werewolf standing in front of him, and Sam can't deny that his heart starts beating a little faster, especially when it roars in his face. But he manages to take away two things from this: one, that it could be attacking him and it isn't, and two, that means it's probably sentient, or at least aware enough to try and scare him away instead of mauling him.
"Yeah, I get it, you're scary and you smell like wet dog." And one werewolf isn't as terrifying as facing down an entire damn alien army (though Sam's voice does, admittedly, quaver a little bit). "And you aren't very good at climbing down trees." He glances at the branches and leaves on the ground, then takes another look at the clothes. This time, the increase in his heart rate has nothing to do with the creature in front of him.
Taking another step closer to the pile of shredded clothes, he shines the beam of his flashlight down on them, then back over to the werewolf. "Steve?" he asks quietly.
The frustrated growl that escapes Steve then is loud enough to rival thunder. Damn it.
Add that to the list of things Sam is too much of for his own good: too kind, too trusting, and too damn smart. (Leave it to Sam Wilson to have his list of cons made up entirely of pros.)
Now that Sam has caught on, Steve has to reconsider running off into the woods, if only to keep Sam from chasing him into the night. As Steve falls back down to four legs, he makes his best effort to blow a raspberry, a tricky feat with his newly shaped jaw. Somewhere a dog whimpers, except that somewhere is here, and that dog is... oh Jesus, it's coming from Steve.
Resigned, he nods his giant, furry head to answer Sam's question.
Now that he's not trying to be scary, Steve just looks kind of pathetic, or at least as pathetic as a giant fucking werewolf can be. Sam panics for a moment until he remembers one key thing about werewolves.
"Okay, but once the sun comes up, you'll be back to normal, right?" That doesn't solve the problem of what'll happen when the full moon rolls around again (is the moon full right now? Sam doesn't even know), but that's why they have people like Doctor Strange around. It also doesn't explain what happened in the first place - although the logical answer is probably "Steve was bitten by a werewolf" (how? where? what the fuck?).
Sam resists the urge to pet Steve's head (although it's hard when he hears that whine). "So let's get you inside for the rest of the night, and then we'll find some clothes in the morning." It probably won't be that easy - it rarely is - but he can hope.
Steve finds that he can still make that reluctant, frustrated noise in the back of his throat, so he does— and he lets it carry for a good five or ten seconds. He has to hope that's enough, combined with the evident discomfort in his body language, to get the message across to Sam. He may be in full control now but it could be gambling with Sam's safety to assume that will remain true.
That's not to say he can't go inside. Just that he can't go inside without precautions.
After mentally cursing the communication barrier, Steve pounds his chest and roars in imitation of the Hulk. Anything they've used to secure Banner should be enough to handle a werewolf for the night.
"Oh, sure, I'll just get my Hulkbuster out of the basement," Sam drawls sarcastically. About the best he can manage in terms of restraints is rope, and Steve could probably shred that on a normal day. "I keep it right next to the wooden stakes and holy water."
And speaking of water, Sam's almost as wet as Steve is by now, and he's starting to lose his patience with the whole thing. "Look, the rope's inside. Come in and I'll rig you up like a damn sailboat." Which is, in fact, where Sam learned nearly all his knots. "Though I wouldn't usually do it to someone who can't use a safe word."
Because this night isn't enough of a cosmic joke on Steve Rogers, now there's Sam cracking sex jokes when Steve can't even respond. Not that he necessarily knows how he would respond, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise, even if it feels like a missed opportunity.
Fortunately it's still pouring, the wind is chilling, and he doesn't have to find out how a werewolf's body reacts to the mental image of getting rigged up like a sailboat. Jesus. Steve doesn't know whether to be grateful or mortified that this is a unique skill set of Sam's.
He answers Sam with a huff and drops down to four paws, ready to follow him indoors.
Sam hurries his steps back to the house and ushers Steve inside. He eyes the way Steve's dripping on the kitchen floor, but sighs and gives it up as a lost cause. At least it can take the abuse.
"Give me a minute," Sam tells Steve, and disappears upstairs before he can make another one of those sad whines in protest. At least Sam can get out of his wet clothes - which he does promptly, slipping into a dry sweatshirt and pants. He returns to the kitchen with his arms full of towels.
"Need to get you dry first," Sam explains, throwing one towel over Steve's head playfully before he sets the others on the table. "If knots get wet, they're harder to untie later, and I don't wanna cut a perfectly good rope if I don't have to."
And if Steve gets distracted from his goal of being hogtied, well, that's just a benefit as far as Sam's concerned.
Steve has a sudden, barely controllable urge to shake the water out. The only thing that stops him is that Sam has already changed and the amount of water in Steve's fur could easily soak him again. He'd probably hate having to dry off the kitchen too. Despite knowing all of these things, it truly takes everything in him to hold it back.
So when Sam tosses the towel on his head, Steve considers, if just for a second, turning the entire kitchen into a splash zone. But then he looks at Sam and his pile of towels that Steve would never have asked for despite the very real discomfort of cold, wet fur, and all he feels is warmth.
The lets out a loud sigh and drops his head, resigned to the towel down.
Sam's never had a pet dog, but he still knows enough about their behavior to eye Steve with suspicion for a long moment. He wouldn't kick Steve back out into the rain if he shook his coat out, but the garage? Maybe. That fur's enough to keep him warm through the night.
But the tension ebbs away, and Sam grabs the first towel and starts rubbing Steve down. "Bucky and I've been doing some work together," he mentions, just talking to fill the silence. Everything he tells Steve while he dries him off is just inconsequential stuff, minor stories of mishaps (mostly Bucky's, although Sam's not afraid to mention his own) and his attempts to get Bucky to socialize like a normal human being ("which means he thinks he can hit on my sister," Sam adds darkly). He talks about working on the boat sometime halfway through the second or third towel, how they're trying to get it back in shape to rent it out and bring in income from tourists. What he wants to know is what happened to Steve, where he's been and why he's like this. But obviously he's in no shape to discuss that at the moment.
Sam, thankfully, can keep up one side of a conversation all by himself for hours (it's an art perfected by spending time with Bucky), so he doesn't even have to resort to singing Marvin Gaye songs while he works.
"There." Sam steps back and throws the last towel on the pile. "All dry. You wanna head up to the guest room?"
Not since his mother passed has Steve let anyone fuss over him like this. If it weren't for his current predicament, he most likely wouldn't be allowing it now. But he has no choice, he's hungry and tired and lost, and giving in is too strong a temptation. It has been too long since Steve felt he had anything approximating a home, but being in Sam's presence is like finding something he feared was long lost, a sense of peace that only comes with knowing you are safe and cared for.
Sam, of course, is incapable of making Steve feel ashamed for accepting help. He takes it upon himself to keep up a one-sided conversation, and the sound of his voice lulls Steve's animal brain into a restful state. At some point, he relaxes enough to settle into a curled position next to where Sam is seated, leaning his spine back against the warmth of Sam's thigh.
By the time that Sam is finished, Steve has gotten so comfortable that the sudden shift in atmosphere leaves him disoriented. Perhaps that's why the most pathetic sounding whimper escapes him when Sam suggests the guest room. He feels like a slave to his urges as he bumps his head against Sam, pushing and nudging to make room so he can curl up in Sam's lap (as much of him as can fit, anyway), but he isn't ready for this closeness between them to end.
Sam finds that he's getting pretty comfortable, too, between the rhythm of rubbing Steve dry and the warmth of his body. By the end, he's not really sure what he's saying anymore, but he's lulled himself into a relaxed and nearly dozing state. He doesn't protest when Steve worms his way onto his lap - it makes him think of a Great Dane pretending to be a Chihuahua, and it's actually pretty cute. Instead, he just tips his head back against the couch and runs his fingers through the fur around Steve's ears.
They stay like that for a good fifteen minutes, and Sam's nearly asleep when something in his neck twinges and reminds him that he can't sleep sitting up anymore unless he wants to regret it for a week. (Steve, he suspects, could sleep folded up like a pretzel and be just fine the next day.)
"Can we at least move this to my room?" he murmurs sleepily. Doesn't think twice about it - it's not like they haven't had to squeeze into whatever's been available before. If Steve wants to cuddle, that's fine by him. The sound of the storm outside just makes the thought more appealing, now that he's dry.
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"I got pants," he offers, just in case it is something like the Hulk. Everyone wants a nice pair of pants, right? "I'll even get them all warm and toasty in the dryer first if you want." His life has officially crossed the line into being ridiculous.
"Or meat that isn't mine," he adds. "I'm too stringy anyway, you don't want to take a bite of me."
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Steve climbs down from the tree, a clumsy endeavor involving many snapped twigs and broken branches. Once back on the ground, he hesitates, glancing at the tattered remains of his clothes. It won't be long before Sam puts two and two together, and then he'll never convince Sam to leave him alone.
One last attempt can't hurt. Steve takes in a deep breath, rises to his newly towering height and lifts his paws and claws up menacingly. He roars with everything in him, the force of it flapping his gums around razor-sharp fangs.
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"Yeah, I get it, you're scary and you smell like wet dog." And one werewolf isn't as terrifying as facing down an entire damn alien army (though Sam's voice does, admittedly, quaver a little bit). "And you aren't very good at climbing down trees." He glances at the branches and leaves on the ground, then takes another look at the clothes. This time, the increase in his heart rate has nothing to do with the creature in front of him.
Taking another step closer to the pile of shredded clothes, he shines the beam of his flashlight down on them, then back over to the werewolf. "Steve?" he asks quietly.
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Add that to the list of things Sam is too much of for his own good: too kind, too trusting, and too damn smart. (Leave it to Sam Wilson to have his list of cons made up entirely of pros.)
Now that Sam has caught on, Steve has to reconsider running off into the woods, if only to keep Sam from chasing him into the night. As Steve falls back down to four legs, he makes his best effort to blow a raspberry, a tricky feat with his newly shaped jaw. Somewhere a dog whimpers, except that somewhere is here, and that dog is... oh Jesus, it's coming from Steve.
Resigned, he nods his giant, furry head to answer Sam's question.
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"Okay, but once the sun comes up, you'll be back to normal, right?" That doesn't solve the problem of what'll happen when the full moon rolls around again (is the moon full right now? Sam doesn't even know), but that's why they have people like Doctor Strange around. It also doesn't explain what happened in the first place - although the logical answer is probably "Steve was bitten by a werewolf" (how? where? what the fuck?).
Sam resists the urge to pet Steve's head (although it's hard when he hears that whine). "So let's get you inside for the rest of the night, and then we'll find some clothes in the morning." It probably won't be that easy - it rarely is - but he can hope.
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That's not to say he can't go inside. Just that he can't go inside without precautions.
After mentally cursing the communication barrier, Steve pounds his chest and roars in imitation of the Hulk. Anything they've used to secure Banner should be enough to handle a werewolf for the night.
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And speaking of water, Sam's almost as wet as Steve is by now, and he's starting to lose his patience with the whole thing. "Look, the rope's inside. Come in and I'll rig you up like a damn sailboat." Which is, in fact, where Sam learned nearly all his knots. "Though I wouldn't usually do it to someone who can't use a safe word."
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Fortunately it's still pouring, the wind is chilling, and he doesn't have to find out how a werewolf's body reacts to the mental image of getting rigged up like a sailboat. Jesus. Steve doesn't know whether to be grateful or mortified that this is a unique skill set of Sam's.
He answers Sam with a huff and drops down to four paws, ready to follow him indoors.
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"Give me a minute," Sam tells Steve, and disappears upstairs before he can make another one of those sad whines in protest. At least Sam can get out of his wet clothes - which he does promptly, slipping into a dry sweatshirt and pants. He returns to the kitchen with his arms full of towels.
"Need to get you dry first," Sam explains, throwing one towel over Steve's head playfully before he sets the others on the table. "If knots get wet, they're harder to untie later, and I don't wanna cut a perfectly good rope if I don't have to."
And if Steve gets distracted from his goal of being hogtied, well, that's just a benefit as far as Sam's concerned.
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So when Sam tosses the towel on his head, Steve considers, if just for a second, turning the entire kitchen into a splash zone. But then he looks at Sam and his pile of towels that Steve would never have asked for despite the very real discomfort of cold, wet fur, and all he feels is warmth.
The lets out a loud sigh and drops his head, resigned to the towel down.
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But the tension ebbs away, and Sam grabs the first towel and starts rubbing Steve down. "Bucky and I've been doing some work together," he mentions, just talking to fill the silence. Everything he tells Steve while he dries him off is just inconsequential stuff, minor stories of mishaps (mostly Bucky's, although Sam's not afraid to mention his own) and his attempts to get Bucky to socialize like a normal human being ("which means he thinks he can hit on my sister," Sam adds darkly). He talks about working on the boat sometime halfway through the second or third towel, how they're trying to get it back in shape to rent it out and bring in income from tourists. What he wants to know is what happened to Steve, where he's been and why he's like this. But obviously he's in no shape to discuss that at the moment.
Sam, thankfully, can keep up one side of a conversation all by himself for hours (it's an art perfected by spending time with Bucky), so he doesn't even have to resort to singing Marvin Gaye songs while he works.
"There." Sam steps back and throws the last towel on the pile. "All dry. You wanna head up to the guest room?"
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Sam, of course, is incapable of making Steve feel ashamed for accepting help. He takes it upon himself to keep up a one-sided conversation, and the sound of his voice lulls Steve's animal brain into a restful state. At some point, he relaxes enough to settle into a curled position next to where Sam is seated, leaning his spine back against the warmth of Sam's thigh.
By the time that Sam is finished, Steve has gotten so comfortable that the sudden shift in atmosphere leaves him disoriented. Perhaps that's why the most pathetic sounding whimper escapes him when Sam suggests the guest room. He feels like a slave to his urges as he bumps his head against Sam, pushing and nudging to make room so he can curl up in Sam's lap (as much of him as can fit, anyway), but he isn't ready for this closeness between them to end.
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They stay like that for a good fifteen minutes, and Sam's nearly asleep when something in his neck twinges and reminds him that he can't sleep sitting up anymore unless he wants to regret it for a week. (Steve, he suspects, could sleep folded up like a pretzel and be just fine the next day.)
"Can we at least move this to my room?" he murmurs sleepily. Doesn't think twice about it - it's not like they haven't had to squeeze into whatever's been available before. If Steve wants to cuddle, that's fine by him. The sound of the storm outside just makes the thought more appealing, now that he's dry.