"Don't say a word, Bodie."

I wasn't going to say anything. I was too busy trying not to laugh to say anything.

It's not easy finding out your partner's in love with you. It's even harder realizing you're in love with him. And once all the champagne bubbles clear and all the wedding guests leave, it's even harder yet living with said love without killing him. But I once thought that finding out said love was a werewolf was the hardest thing of all. I was wrong.

Trying to keep a straight face when you see said love turn into said werewolf was damn near close to impossible.

Let me explain a few things. First of all, Doyle wasn't born this way. Many years ago, when Doyle had still been on the drug squad (*snore*), he'd been attacked and bitten by a werewolf one night. How a "Hound of Hell" expected to keep a low profile prowling the streets of London is beyond me. I'll leave that sort of thing to Anne Rice to explain--once she gets around to lycanthropy.

You see, only those born werewolves actually turn into the creatures completely. Those who are bitten only become a bit more...fluffy. It's almost like an allergic reaction--or maybe malaria, since it's a recurring condition.

Doyle'd explained all of this to me the night we had gotten "married," a little less than a month ago. I just wish he'd bothered to explain all this a month before we'd gone into that warehouse during the full moon.

We'd been called in off stand-by that night to trail a suspect in an IRA bombing case. We'd followed the bloke to a warehouse where he seemed to be just moving things around, making sure his group had enough food and water for their "troops," talking about snooker with his friends as they worked, just like the good little Irish terrorist he was. Doyle had seemed particularly on edge that night, looking around a lot, shifting in his seat, snapping at me whatever chance he got. I figured he was probably just narked because he'd had a hot date and had had to leave her to come sit with me on a stakeout. Not like it was a rare occurrence, and I can't pretend I was upset he got pulled away from his latest bird. By that time I'd admitted my feelings for him to myself, even if I hadn't quite gotten around to letting him in on it.

Anyway, everything seemed fairly SOP up until the point we heard the sound of shots come across the bug we'd set on our friend a few hours before. Both of us jumped out of the car and ran towards the warehouse. Once we got there, we split up.

There were still shouts and gunshots coming from one of the aisles of crates. The men inside had started arguing about who was in charge and had decided to settle it outright. All I knew was that the guy we had been set to trail wasn't going to be the leader since I had to step over his body to get through one of the aisles. There were two more terrorists left.

I managed to weave through the aisles without getting shot and sneaked up on one of them. He surrendered fairly easily, having evidently decided that he didn't really want to be leader that badly and, all in all, he'd rather take his chances with us than with his own people. A wise choice, if you ask me.

I was beginning to wonder where Doyle was when I heard what sounded like a growl, and then a scream and some more gunshots. Then there was this great, pain-filled wolf howl and silence.

"Doyle!" I called, still having a firm grip on my prisoner. I managed to get both of us around to the other side of the warehouse and stopped when I finally found my partner.

"What the bloody hell...?" the Irishman I was holding managed to say. I had to agree with him, too.

Doyle lay on the ground with bullet holes in his right leg and arm. He was barely conscious, but he was alive. What had prompted the terrorist's shocked question was the body of his friend. It looked like it had been mauled by a lion and was covered in blood. And the look on the dead terrorist's face was of extreme horror. The fact that Ray had more blood on his hands and body than could be explained by his wounds also added to the strangeness of the scene.

I didn't dwell on all of the details at the time. I was too busy trying to call an ambulance for Doyle and some backup to take our single prisoner back to CI5. It was only later, in the ambulance on the way to hospital that I started to wonder about what had happened.

Ray's gun had been found two aisles away from where he and the dead man were. How did he get so far from his gun? But more importantly, where had the marks on the dead man's throat come from? The wolf howl might have explained that.

A wolf? In a warehouse in the middle of London? The whole thing didn't make sense to me. And the more I sat there looking at my friend's sedated face and thinking about it, the less sense it made.

The final report that I gave Cowley was incomplete because by that time I still didn't know what had happened to my partner. His wounds hadn't been serious and he was able to go home the next day, but he wasn't talking all that much. Surprisingly, though, Cowley didn't seem that phased by the whole thing. They both gave me some sketchy story about how a mad dog had come in and attacked the IRA man and the guy had tried to kill the dog, hit Doyle instead, but managed to scare the dog away. To me that still left a lot unexplained, one thing being why the dog attacked the terrorist but not Doyle.

I have to admit for a while after that I wasn't too warm to Doyle. I don't like mysteries when it comes to the person who's supposed to be guarding my back. It also hurt me a little that I had the feeling Doyle was lying to me.

It all became clearer a few weeks later when Doyle finally broke down and told me what was going on. We had just had sex for the first time, so at that point I was willing to believe almost anything the golli told me, although I have to admit that I didn't take him all that seriously. But the way he said it did explain a lot about that night.

There had been a full moon that night, a time of the month during which, once I thought about it, Doyle never worked at night. Cowley evidently knew about the situation (of course, Cowley knew. Cowley knows everything) and worked around him. Whatever we were working on, I remember Doyle always seemed to manage to be somewhere else. I had always put it down to Doyle's ability to avoid stakeouts, but once I knew the truth, I saw the correlation.

The only reason he hadn't changed before we got into the warehouse was because of how cloudy it was. Apparently, he needs direct moonlight for the change to occur. It had been scheduled to rain that night, in fact, and evidently Cowley had thought it safe to send Doyle out. During the chase of the suspects, the moon had come out and Doyle, caught in its glow through a window high in the warehouse wall, had transformed. Gave the terrorist quite a shock, I'm sure. When the other man had shot Ray as a last reflex, it had shocked his body back to its normal state.

As I said before, at the time Ray explained all this, with us in bed and all, I had been willing to believe anything. Well, listen to anything, at any rate. But when Doyle told me that tonight was the full moon and he would change again, I thought he was just taking a silly joke a little too far. And then the moon came out and I stopped laughing.

For about five minutes.

You see, the initially frightening thing, seeing my mate change into a half-wolf while I was rapidly going over all the things that had led up to this point, suddenly seemed more amusing than terrifying. Instead of this great growling beast, Doyle looked almost silly. And that brought out my sense of humour. Which is usually more dangerous to me than anything else where Doyle's concerned.

So here I was, standing in the middle of our living room, trying to figure out whether or not I could get away with telling him to stay off the furniture. I didn't have to think long.

"Okay, Doyle, why don't we sit down and relax," I said.

"You relax," he snarled back. "You can go ahead and be as relaxed as you want. You're not the one who's shedding."

He's not the one living with Lon Chaney, either. Now, to be fair, he really didn't look that bad. He was covered head to toe in a fur that was only slightly thicker than the hair that normally grew on his chest. He had small, pointed wolf ears that, in a way, looked kind of cute. But those sharper-looking-than-normal teeth combined with Ray's usual homicidal look put me a bit on alert.

But when has common sense ever stopped my mouth from yapping where angels fear to whisper?

"No need to get bitchy, sunshine."--Shut up, Bodie.--"I'm just glad you took a bath this morning."--Shut up, Bodie!--"I don't relish the thought of giving you one since it's obviously been a long time since you had your distemper--"

I ducked fast; the picture barely missed my head.

"Careful, sunshine," I said as I bent to pick up the frame with its shattered glass. "That was nearly my head. And this was one of my favourite pictures."

"I told you, Bodie," Ray started, obviously trying not to punch me out--or worse, "I'm not in the best of moods during my--this thing."

I could hear the unsaid "time of the month" and thought briefly of saying it for him, but quickly discarded the idea. I may not be the brightest person, but I would like to live a bit longer. He didn't seem as inclined to hit me right now, though.

"All right, Ray, I'm sorry," I said. Mood swings were also part of the change. He'd gone from being pissed off to pouty in seconds. Even Doyle's normal moodiness wasn't this bad. And I can't stand to see a pouty werewolf. "I didn't mean it, you know that."

"Yeah, I know." He looked at me with hound dog eyes and sniffed. "It's just that I get so uptight when the moon is full--" There was another sudden change in his expression "--and the stars are out--" There was also a very distinct gleam in his eye "--and someone I care for is near."

I was suddenly swept up over his shoulder. This was something else that Doyle had explained to me. It seems that on these nights when he changes, he takes on some slightly altered, but characteristic, traits of the animal.

Mating instincts, for example.

As my furry lover hauled me towards the bedroom, I thought to myself that there were some things I could definitely learn to live with. I just hoped he wouldn't bite like he normally did.

-- THE END --

Originally published in Holiday Shrieks!, Whatever You Do, Don't Press! (Agent with Style), 1993