Nature's Medicine

Nature's medicine

this is my first time writing something long-form like this so if you don't like it take me out back and shoot me like ol Yeller.

werewolf!OC x gn! reader

warnings: smut, Aphrodisiacs, mentions of being sick, and poisonings, reader is gender neutral, and their parts aren't mentioned but they bottom.

word count: 4,300

summary: you've made it through the winter, the hardest part of the year for you and now the gentile, bountiful spring is here. You're an apothecary who collects plants in the wild to make medicines and tea to help soothe. Gabriel is a werewolf and a guard for a nobleman passing through the town you live. Gabriel knows two things the instant he sets his eyes on you first, he wants you, second, you spend your time in the woods gathering poison.

Spring was one of your favorite times of the year, it was always stressful to try and make it through winter when you already had so little to get by on, but with spring came opportunities. You could plant in your garden again, you could forage in the woods for edible plants and most of all it was bearable to be outside with the snow melted and the warm sun high in the sky.  You made a decent living, selling herbs and medicinal plants but that meant that you needed to save every year for the winter when the plants you sold were fewer and farther between. It was nice to have a bit more breathing room with your budget now. 

You were combing through the forest behind your house making a mental note of patches of wild greenery that looked promising when you found something truly delightful. A patch of long-stemmed helmet-shaped purple flowers. You knelt down next to the blooms and examed them closely. Wolfsbane. it was incredible to find some blooming this early in the year it usually didn’t show up until mid to late summer. You smiled and started collecting the deadly little plants. As far as most people knew, you sold medicine and spices only harmless plants. However if customers came looking for something a little more potent and had the right price, you’d been known to carry poisonous plants as well, and really there were so many more deadly plants than ones that were harmless.  

You covered the Wolfsbane with a cloth and piled chamomile flowers and sage on top and made your way down to the river that ran through the forest and started looking at the thick weeds that grew on the river bed. Nothing interesting. you didn’t think you’d see anyone in the forest but it never hurt to be careful.  You lived apart from the rest of your small town right on the edge of the woods away from the main clearing where most towns folk lived and worked. You didn’t mind the solitude, if anything you preferred it, you didn’t know if you could put up with noisy or rude neighbors. That being said, you were used to being completely alone when you were in your home or the woods that surrounded it. So when you heard the sound of men calling out to one another you froze.  You looked worriedly in the direction the voices were coming from and wondered if you should run.

Suddenly you were panicking, what if they found you collecting poisons? Oh god, what if they’d found out you were selling poisons and they were coming to arrest you? You were overcome with fear but surely if you ran you’d look all the more guilty. You saw the leaves shake on the far end of the river the choice was made for you, there would be no time to run, and you’d simply have to hold your ground. 

Two men pushed through the foliage and stopped short seeing you. One was dressed in leather armor and had a sword at his side, he was clearly a guard of some kind, big and well-muscled. The other man was slender and dressed in expensive-looking clothes, he must be the one being guarded. 

“Hello!” the nobleman called and quickly made his way over to you, you held your basket tightly but did not run. 

“Hello, do you live nearby?” He asked, enthusiastically, his guard remaining stoic.

“Yes, is there something I can help you with?” you asked cautiously. 

“My carriage broke down on the main road I was looking for help or a nearby town but My compatriot and I seemed to be lost,” he laughed. Very lost you’d say, the main road was quiet away from here. You relaxed a little. Of course, they weren’t here to arrest you, just a rich man and his guard lost on their journey. 

“I can lead you back to the main road from here,” you offered and turned to lead them but the guard spoke stopping you. 

“Wait,” he commanded and you froze looking back at him he was giving you a strange look you couldn’t place. “What's your name?” he asked. Before you could answer the first man interrupted. 

“Oh, how rude! We didn’t even introduce ourselves, I’m Count Ivan Richman and this is my knight Gabriel it's an honor to make your acquaintance my lady,” he said tripping over some roots to kiss your hand.  You introduced yourself curiously, Gabriel didn’t have any other questions for you, so you lead them back the way you’d come. It became clear to you extremely quickly that Gabriel was extremely competent, he moved easily over the uneven terrain of the forest floor without much effort and fell in step beside you. Ivan on the other hand could hardly put one foot in front of the other without tripping over himself. It took a lot longer than you were anticipating to just get back to your modest cottage. 

“Follow this trail until you hit the main town someone there should be able to help you with your carriage,” you said giving the Count a slight curtsy. 

“You've been such a help, I’ll have to find a way to repay you,” he said beaming at you.

“You really don’t have to,” you protested, 

“No, we will find a way to repay you,” Gabriel said, which surprised you, he’d been mostly silent the entire time you’d been walking. He pulled a flower out of seemingly nowhere and laid it on top of your basket before turning away from you and walking down the path you’d indicated. You watched them as they left before looking down at the flower he’d given you, a bright yellow Dafodil, a flower signifying spring. 

–

You loved spring, but it was also such a busy season for you, it felt like every second of the day there was something you ought to be doing. Drying flowers and leaves for tea, planting spinach or strawberries, mixing medicines, or digging up roots in the woods. You worked late into the night and when you finally did go to sleep, it was hard to get yourself back up in the morning to do it all over again. 

The sun streaming in brightly through your windows warmed your bedsheets, you’d already slept in too much if the sun was this high in the sky, but that just seemed all the more reason to stay in bed. Who knows how long you would have stayed in bed like that, wasting the day away, but there was a sudden knock at the door, and in a flash, you were out of bed and dressed, you don’t think that you’d ever moved that quickly in your life, but you were at the door in a respectable amount of time and opened it warmly to greet your visitor. 

It was Gabriel, you were a little surprised to see him, you’d thought he and Ivan had forgotten all about you. Looking at him now you couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit intimidated again. He towered over you and his broad frame took up almost all of the door frame, he didn’t have a sword with him but he was still in armor, you imagined that if he wanted to he could do some damage with just his hands. Despite all this, he was handsome he had dark hair that curled at the ends, and he kept having to brush it out of his face, you wondered if he had a wife or a betrothed, but you found yourself pushing the thought out of your head.

“Good morning!” you greeted cheerfully, you tried for a smile but Gabriel didn’t return it, and you stopped. “How can I help you?” you asked, Gabriel looked around whirly and leaned in 

“Is there somewhere we can speak privately?” he asked in a hush. You nodded and pulled him into your storefront. 

“Is this better?” you asked, calmly you’d seen the apprehensive look in his eyes a hundred times in other people looking for poisons. You wondered if he was planning on killing Ivan, but you knew you couldn’t ask. 

“The other day, you were gathering Wolfsbane,” he said slowly, suddenly you were less calm. You shifted uneasily from foot to foot, 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you denied. You were sure that you’d covered the flowers before the two men had stumbled upon you. It would be one thing if he’d heard whispers of an apothecary who also sold poisons, but the fact he knew what poisons you had, left you rattled.  

“I could smell it in your basket,” he said. 

That shouldn’t have been possible, you’d been collecting tea flowers and herbs, even if he did catch a whiff of what you were collecting there he was no way he could have smelled the wolfsbane, how could he identify it?

“You must be confused, I had camomile in my basket that day, I’d have no reason to collect a plant like a wolfsbane,” you doubled down. He took a step toward you and you jumped back, Gabriel froze and held his hands up placatingly to show he meant you no harm. 

“Maybe a human would be confused, but I’m a werewolf, my senses are better than yours. I can smell that you’ve kept it,  I don’t care that you’re making poisons in fact I’d like to buy one from you,” he explained. You felt your heart stop in your chest. A werewolf. Gabriel wasn’t nearly as violent as the stories had led you to believe. 

“Oh,” was all you could manage for a beat. You shook your head  “You said you wanted wolfsbane poison?” you turned your back to him and walked swiftly behind the counter, you knelt to the ground and lifted a floorboard, and selected a small vile from the hidden stash. You rose and showed him the vile

“Do you have anything smaller? I just need enough to make a person sick,” he said examining the bottle you offered him. You curled your hand around the bottle and pulled it back slightly. 

“You could have just asked for something to make you sick instead of going all out for poison,” you said, already thinking of what mix of plants you’d use, you supposed it would depend on what kind of sick he was looking for. 

“No,” he said shaking his head “werewolves are more resilient than humans, it has to be poison. If I make myself sick with Wolfsbane I won’t shift this full moon so I need just enough to make me sick, not enough to kill me,” he explained. You’d heard those werewolves took medicine to put off their lunar transformations, but you assumed it was some kind of magical concoction you were unfamiliar with, not some common position. 

“Right, just a moment,” you said, carefully you extracted a few drops of poison and put them into a separate container then added a diluent to help it go down smoother. You hesitated to give it to him. There wasn’t an antidote to wolfsbane if it was too much there would be nothing anyone could do. 

You weren’t sure why you cared so much, you’d sold poisons before, and you weren’t naive enough to think you weren’t in some way responsible for those murders committed but this felt different somehow, if he died it would be an accident and that made it different somehow. 

“You’ve done this before?” you asked cautiously. Gabriel shifted uncomfortably. No, he hadn’t.

“I know the measurements I should be fine,” he said. 

“I would feel more comfortable giving this to you if you allowed me to accompany you while you took it just so I could ease your pain while you were sick and do what I can to help,” you offered.  

“You’re braver than you look, asking to be alone with a werewolf during the full moon,” Gabriel responded, you didn’t think anyone could be that dangerous, werewolf or not if they were writing on the floor in pain. 

“I’ll make you a compromise,” he offered, “I’ll let you bring me medicine and make sure I’m alive, but you can’t stay.” you could live with that, you tilted the vile towards him and let him take it from your hands, your fingers brushing as he took it. He handed placed a small pile of gold coins on the counter, more than you usually charged but you figured you could keep the change if you were going to be making a house call. Gabriel gave you the address of where he would be staying on the night of the full moon, a remote home on the other edge of town, and promised he would open the door when you knocked. Then he left, and you got started on the rest of your busy spring day. 

–

You’d never paid much attention to the phase of the moon before, but now you were careful to check it every night, Gabriel had given you a date to look out for but his presence in your life had sparked a new curiosity in you. Aside from checking the moon, you started pulling out old apothecary books and looking for any mention of Lycanthropy. You found that werewolves would shift into a more animalistic wolf-like form on the night of the full moon unless they were sick or physically weakened, and yes Wolfsbane was a common poison used to achieve this effect. You also dug up all sorts of treatments commonly used to ease any pain left after shifting or to calm a werewolf’s potentially feral mind while they were in their wolf form. 

Over the course of the week while you were waiting for the moon to turn full you gathered a basket of things that you thought would help and medicines in small enough doses that he could treat himself. You left your home right at sunset. You knew the path well and had no trouble finding your way to the house Gabriel was staying at, Ivan had found other lodgings for tonight. 

By the time you reached the house, it was dark your path only illuminated by the full moon. It was kind of spooky, still, you’d come all this way, raised your hand to the door, and knocked. There was no response, and all at once you felt incredibly foolish, of course, he wouldn’t be able to answer the door, in the state he was in. You tried the door and it opened, so you let yourself in. 

The house was dark you blinked a few times to adjust your eyes to the lack of light. Eventually, you started walking through the house your hand on one wall to guide yourself. You called out for Gabriel once but there was no response you slowly checked each room, still cautious. You pushed a door open and there he was. 

You let yourself into the room and quickly went to his bedside, he was awake, breathing heavily in the throws of wolfsbane poisoning. You sat down on his bed and started taking in his appearance. His skin was a sickly pale shade, clammy to the touch and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked very ill, but he didn’t look like he was dying. That was good at least. 

You dampened a cloth and applied it to his forehead. “How are you feeling?” you asked softly. He reached out and grabbed your wrist and pressed your hand to his cheek. His skin felt disgustingly warm but you let him press his face into your palm. 

“I haven’t shifted, so it could be worse,” he croaked, his voice raspy. He looked up at you and his gaze softened. “You smell good,” he commented. You felt your face go hot, you didn’t know to respond to that, so instead you pretended like you hadn’t heard that. 

“Are you sore? How can I help you?” you asked lifting your basket of medicine up to the bed with your free hand. 

“You just being here feels good,” he breathed. Clearly talking to him wasn’t getting you anywhere. You studied him closely, only looking away when you realized he was looking at you just as intently. You took your hand from him and started digging through your medicines.

“Here, drink this,” you ordered handing him a vile of medicine. It should help settle his nerves and ease some of the pain. He tried to take the vile from you but it slipped out of his weak fingers, so you held it to his lips for him as he drank. It was odd, you’d been intimidated by Gabriel when you first met him, and when you’d seen him again that impression had solidified in your mind, now here he was laid out in bed unable to lift a bottle to his mouth. 

It wasn’t a completely fair comparison, you would probably be far worse in his position, if anything it was impressive that he was holding up this well. 

“Thank you,” he croaked, “I feel better already,” he assured you. 

“That shouldn’t be possible, it’ll take at least half an hour to feel the effects,” you said light-heartedly. Gabriel smiled weakly up at you, 

“Maybe it’s just you,” he said. You felt your face go hot again, you’d have to note that wolfsbane made the victim particularly flirty. The two of you fell into a peaceful silence. Gabriel drifted in and out of sleep and you stayed by his side monitoring his symptoms. It had been a while since you’d treated patients directly like this, you didn’t produce medicine strong enough to treat anything worse than a strong cold, normally your customers were concerned family members, and you kind of missed treating patients directly. 

“I know I told you, you couldn’t stay, but-” Gabriel spoke up before trailing off. He reached for you again but didn’t quite manage to take your hand again. You met him in the middle and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. 

“I’ll stay,” you promised. He was already looking better, and suddenly you weren’t sure if that was a good thing. if the point of taking Wolfsbane was to make him so sick he couldn’t shift, wouldn’t making him better make it so he could shift? But he still looked so ill, surely he wasn’t well enough to shift. besides you were a trained healer, you didn’t think you could just ignore a person in pain.

 Gabriel looked up suddenly very awake and sat up. 

“You really must be feeling better,” you laughed, he did look much better, not as sweaty or as pale. He pulled you around the waist and pulled you close, you tensed up as leaned into you, bringing his face close to your neck but he didn’t seem like he was trying to attach you, or even kiss your neck, he was just… smelling you. 

“The things I could do to you,” he murmured, again it didn’t sound like a threat it sounded more like lustful musings. 

“Gabriel?” you asked shakily as he nuzzled your shoulder. He seemed to snap back to reality and pulled away from you, but just slightly, he didn’t seem ready to let you go.  

“What was that that you gave me?” he asked, he sounded calm but his eyes were wide, you thought quickly back to what you’d given him. 

“A tea blend, green tea, crocus sativus, ginger, cinnamon-” you listed it was all just antioxidants, things that would help relieve pain, then you froze. Crocus stivus, saffron, was a natural aphrodisiac, but it was such a subtle effect it shouldn’t have affected him like this, it was such a small dose. Maybe because his immune system was already so weak things like a pinch of saffron could hit harder than you were expecting. 

“It’s an aphrodisiac,” you admitted, as you realized what had happened. “I’m sorry you said werewolves were more resilient I didn’t think you would notice let alone, well this,” you apologized profusely. 

“I wouldn’t have thought it would have hit me like this either if you had told me,” he said, and then he was looking at you again, intense and full of longing. A dark curl fell in front of his eyes, you wanted to brush it out of the way so he’d keep looking at you that way. 

“Maybe it’s just because it’s you here with me that I'm reacting this way,” he breathed, 

“What does that mean?” you asked, matching his quiet tone

“It means I’ve wanted you since the second I laid eyes on you, and I wouldn’t need an aphrodisiac to feel this pull toward you.”

Your heart pounded in your chest, you’d be lying if you said you didn’t desire him in the same way but this was just all so sudden. Still, when he asked if he could kiss you, you said yes. 

His mouth was warm but not feverish, it had been a long time since you’d been touched like this. It set your blood on fire. He pushed you backward laying you down. 

Gabriel grabbed your hips and jerked your body towards him. With a dull pang of horror, you realized that his fingers had stretched and turned into sharp claws, with thick black fur extending up his hands and arms. Before you could even gasp, he raked his claws over your chest ripping your clothes to shreds, but he somehow managed not to cut your skin. His mouth traveled down your neck to linger kisses over your now exposed chest. You couldn’t help but react to his touch, arching up to his mouth and moaning. You covered your mouth trying to quiet your own sounds of pleasure. 

“There's no one here but us, be loud I want to hear you,” Gabriel instructed pulling your hand away from your face and pinning it to the bed. You realized just how much bigger his hand was than yours, he could easily how both of your hands in one of his with room to spare. 

Heat pooled in your stomach when Gabriel's lips found the skin of your hips. He pulled off the rest of the shredded clothes and spread your legs while his tongue trailed over your loins. 

“Can I? Can I please?” he asked, begged, his eyes locked on yours. 

“Yes,” you breathed. Gabriel kissed your inner thigh before he let his lips touch the apex of your legs. You couldn’t help but thrash as his tongue tasted you. Gabriel gripped your hips so you couldn’t escape his mouth. He couldn’t seem to get enough of your sex he couldn’t seem to get enough of you. You gripped his hair holding him just as tightly as he was holding on to you. You realized his hair had turned into wiery fur, and his ears were sharp at the end. But the idea that a shifting werewolf was going down on you right now didn’t bother you nearly as much as it probably should have. Even with his grip you could squirm enough to buck your hips up into his mouth and you did so over and over again as he continued to pleasure you. 

“I’m going to cum,” you groaned, even with your warning he didn’t slow down, if anything he seemed to be edging you closer and closer to your climax like he wanted you to cum on his face. You threw your head back in pleasure as your orgasm overwhelmed you. Gabriel pulled back, his face more wolflike than when he’d first gone down on you, his tongue dripping in your cum. 

He stood up to his full height, His clothes had fallen off as his body contorted and changed. He palmed his cock in one clawed hand, bringing your attention to his arousal. Again, you felt like you should be scared or at least intimidated, but all you wanted was for him to be inside of you.

“Do you want to keep going?” you asked him. 

“More than anything,” he growled, He was so much larger than you his body easily dwarfed you, you could feel his hard cock press against your thigh as he positioned himself over you, up close you could see how his original features still showed through in his more monstrous form. His eyes were still human still kind. He pushed into and you savored the deep growl that reverberated in his chest as he felt your soft walls envelop him. He drew his hips back before slowly pushing back into you, his pace slowly increased as the two of you found a rhythm. You pulled him into a kiss, his sharp teeth threatened to cut your lips, but the slight danger only thrilled you. 

“It was like you were meant to take me,” he growled as his pelvis snapped toward yours. He pressed a clawed hand down on your stomach feeling the bulge that formed every time he thrust into you. You tried to speak to tell him that he was making you feel just as good but when you opened your mouth he pushed his tongue past your lips, muffling any attempt at speech. 

You could feel a coil of pleasure building inside of you threatening to snap for the second time tonight. You dug your nails into his back, raking your fingers through the patches of fur begging to spread over his skin. 

“I’m going to knot you going to fill you up and make you mine,” he growled you could tell he was getting close to his own release by the way his thrusts were becoming erratic and his labored breathing. You were right there with him. 

“Make me yours,” you moaned. You were close to a second orgasm, overwhelmed with the pleasure and his closeness. You came just a few moments before he gave one final thrust pushing his knot inside of you and reaching his own high. Gabriel groaned and collapsed back onto the bed, curling up beside you, holding you close. You wondered if Gabriel would stay in town long enough for you to help with the next full moon.