"Speaking of candy," Pam said loudly, producing two Reese's cups from her pockets. It was bribery, plain and simple. "I started Spooky Buddies. Better hurry, or you’ll miss the beginning."
In that moment, Jim wished he was the artist. If he had been, maybe he could have captured the look in her eyes… replicated it for future generations to admire.
She closed the bedroom door as the kids whooped their way down to the living room. Phillip wanted a puppy. Cece wanted six puppies, but having a werewolf for a dad was the next best thing. Sunrise, sunset.
Taking Jim's hand, Pam slipped the fingers of her other into the shaggy hair at the nape of his neck. It was growing longer by the minute.
"Sorry," she murmured against his forehead.
"Not your fault," he reassured her. “They’re excited.” Of course they were excited. It was the motherlode of all holidays for chocolate fiends worldwide.
It was also an incredibly rare event for Jim to leave the house while transformed. On an average night, he would've been out of it by now. The pain medication wouldn't have worn off until well after the kids’ bedtime. By the time they woke up the following morning, he would have been back to normal.
Totally boring.
Fortunately, Cece and Phillip were old enough by now to entertain themselves for brief windows of time. Jim wanted… no, needed Pam all to himself for this part. Skipping the pain meds would have been unthinkable without her.
Even with them, it still hurt like a bitch. Tonight, it was going to hurt like a bitch and a motherfucking half, and that didn’t even begin to cover it.
"What are you up to?" she intoned, forking over a bite of uncooked rabbit meat.
"Nine," he gritted out. It was motherfucking awful, but not as bad as it would get. On the ten scale, Jim estimated the pain of becoming a werewolf peaked around twenty-three. Pain relievers knocked it down to twelve or so.
Pam didn't fuss. She didn’t ask Jim if he'd taken his ibuprofen and tylenol. She didn’t say he didn’t have to do this if he didn’t want to. She didn’t always say the right things–neither of them were perfect people–but she always seemed to know when not to say anything at all.
Jim appreciated that, now more than ever.
When the plate was empty, he lay down on his side with a grunting sort of gasp. The movement hurt severely, but nothing didn’t by now. The food wasn’t necessary by any means, it was simply a tasty distraction.
Pam's idea, and a fucking great one. The raw, bloody meat would have disgusted him half an hour ago, and would again come morning.
She curled up spoon-wise behind him. While he still could, Jim entwined their fingers. For sure, paws didn't have shit on hands. He shivered, feeling like his bones were breaking and re-forming his skeleton from the inside out.
Because they were.
He squirmed uncomfortably, feeling like his internal organs were shrinking and reshaping themselves and shuffling around one another.
Because they were.
He opened his mouth wide, feeling like his teeth were clacking against one another, lengthening and sharpening.
Because they fucking were.
Somehow, Jim managed to keep his agonized cries down to a dull roar. He really… really didn’t want to alarm Cece or Phillip. The instinct not to terrify them overrode the instinct to scream at the top of his fucking lungs, only just.
He wept throughout, sure that the pain would kill him this time. It was the same thing he thought every time, even though it hadn’t killed him yet.
Smartly, Pam had cranked the volume on the television far louder than usual. It helped.
Pam held him loosely, patting here, stroking there, crying right along with him, saying words that Jim hardly heard. The words themselves didn't matter a tenth so much as the comforting tone in which she said them. A net benefit, absolutely.
As they’d previously established, it wasn't any more painful for Jim to be touched than not to be touched right now. And it was comforting, even if it didn’t help physiologically (because nothing but fentanyl or morphine had the faintest goddamn hope of touching that).
