Things You Learn As A Werewolf (That Will Come In Handy Later)

1. How to do your own first aid, because hospital isn’t an option, even outside of full moons. 

Web tutorials are a godsend for this kind of thing, and while courses are available, I know a few friends and family members who opted to teach themselves. Supplies are easy to come by, too. Mama used to go on about how, in her day, they had to make do with whatever they could find, from dental floss to superglue, but these days, entire kits go for cheap online. 

I’m not as active as other werewolves, but I still keep a kit on hand, always wanting to prepare for worst case scenarios. So, when Artie quietly tells me he doesn’t want to go to the hospital that night, I’m already prepared. I sit him down on the bed, gently peel off the patch on his arm, clean him up, and then run through some breathing exercises as I stitch up the large gash in his shoulder. Everything else after that is much simpler: bandages for the cuts, an ice pack for the black eye, and a gentle kiss to the head. 

As he sits there on the bed, cradling the pack against his face, I bite my tongue hard, and a metallic taste fills my mouth.

2. How to get dried blood out of your clothes.

It’s baking soda and water. Pretty easy stuff. Not exactly some deep secret.

Before I wash anything, I ask him what he wants to keep. I find him standing in the mirror completely naked, staring at himself, arms wrapped around his chest. He jolts as I ask if he’s okay, like he was expecting someone else to be behind him.

When I ask him about the clothes, he murmurs that I should just throw away whatever’s past saving before heading to the closet to grab a fresh sports bra, turning it inside out. He also grabs one of my shirts instead of one of his own.

I check over the pile he’s left on the bed. The slacks, tie and bra are fine, along with the bunny socks he always wears. They are spattered with dry blood, but that will come out eventually. 

Artie’s blood, something inside of me growls. 

His shirt is an unsalvageable wreck. At first, I think I’ll just fix up the hole on the right shoulder, but upon inspection, the buttons were ripped off and there’s an even bigger rip down the other sleeve.

A dark idea begins to take shape in my mind as I stare down at the fabric, recalling what Artie had told me. He’d had his keys in his pocket, and when they cornered him, he managed to get one of them in the arm. 

Would that blood be on his shirt? It would definitely be on the keys—

 3. Sometimes, people are just monsters in a less literal sense.

Mama taught me this one when I was young. I still remember her sitting me down and explaining everything, and what she told me after I innocently asked if I could tell my friends that I was a super cool monster with big claws.

“People are very cruel to the things they don’t understand, angel,” she’d sighed.

“Not Freddy,” I’d yapped. “Freddy would find it super-duper cool. Cooler than Max’s monster trading cards.”

She’d smiled sadly. “I don’t think Freddy’s mama and papa would find it cool.”

“I’m not going to report it,” Artie tells me.

“I know,” I reply. I knew when he came home, bruised and bloody with that dead look in his eyes.

Artie looks at the carpet. “Nothing would come of it,” he continues, pulling his knees to his chest.

I wish he was wrong. God above, I wish he was wrong. But he isn’t.

Even if they do find out who jumped him, the pigs will do everything they can to label it as just a mindless attack and not a hate crime.  Reporters will flock to the trial after learning about Artie, insisting his deadname is ‘crucial information’ in their articles, and some of the worst human beings currently existing will be all over social media going on about how my husband is mentally ill.

Screw that.

I set the bloody shirt and ring of keys on the coffee table in front of Artie.

“Some of this is theirs, right?” I ask. “And it’s on your keys, too?”

Artie nods.

“The next full moon is in a few weeks.”

I expect him to react with horror, to tell me to let it go, to make me promise that I won’t do anything stupid. 

He doesn’t do that. 

Instead, he picks the keys up off the table and presses them into my hand, eyes full of conviction.

“I won’t stop you,” he tells me.

That’s all the permission I need.

4. If you’re good at what you do, the police will write it off as a wild animal attack.

But you don’t need me to explain that part, do you?

© 2025 Morgan Wilson

About the Author

Morgan Wilson is,  as he types this bio, trying to figure out how to word exactly what he is. The best he can come up with is that he’s an autistic trans man from the UK who enjoys writing, horror, and a whole bunch of other stuff he won’t bore you with in this little space. He attended Anglia Ruskin University, where studied film and writing, and the fact he was able to attend at all is all the proof you need that he is, in fact, human, and not seven rabbits in a trenchcoat. He can be found in a whole variety of places: at his (kind of new) writing sideblog on tumblr, @writesinrabbit, on Instagram under the same name, and (reluctantly) on X/Twitter at @dolltyperabbit (But he’s bunnyhouse.bsky.social on Bluesky if that’s preferable, though he’s a bit less active there.)