"Like I've said before, big cats tend to move alone or in pairs and they make themselves rather scarce." Shanks began with a sigh.

His leg was bouncing non-stop and you reached over to place a hand on his knee in hopes of calming his nerves. Mihawk was pacing back and forth in your living room, having been called over by Shanks since it was well past sundown and you both agreed you could use another opinion.

"You'd think with the higher population, shifters would be easier to find in the city but they tend to prefer more rural environments. They make each full moon a little easier I suppose with having more accessable hunting grounds." He sighed once again, frustrated with the turn of events. "It was hard to find a cat experienced enough to willingly guide you (Y/n) and I thought the one I found was safe."

He'd waited to fill you in on any further details other than claiming it was his fault you were already suspected of being an unregistered supernatural, deciding it was best to talk about it when Mihawk was here.

"It's rare," The vampire said slowly as he stroked his beard. "but occasionally the government likes to hire willing supernaturals and give them sting jobs. It's safe to assume Lucci was one of those sting agents. He did the job to keep you in order, and then reported what he'd found."

"So why haven't I been arrested for not going through the legal process or whatever?" Now it was your turn to be antsy. Your fingers drummed along Shanks' knee nervously as you thought about the possibility of the men that were at your door earlier coming back to take you in.

"Because it'd be our word against his in court." Mihawk stopped pacing and watched you with keen eyes. "Even if me being inhuman is enough to raise suspcion and there are questionable circumstances for Shanks, they'd have to accept they have no real proof to work with."

"So what then? They stalk us until they find evidence?"

"Probably."

"Then what am I supposed to do? They'd do more than give me a fine for keeping this a secret."

"They'd consider it purposeful, irresponsible endangerment of others on top of who knows how many other charges they could think up." Shanks leaned his head back and closed his eyes as he thought. "As for solutions......this may take some thought."

"Okay." You nibbled at your lower lip and glanced out your front window.

There wasn't much you could see from the couch but you could barely make out the car parked in front of your apartment complex. It'd been there since the men came by and you assumed it'd stay put unless you moved. You could now understand why Shanks went through such lengths to avoid these people.

"So my next shift is about a couple weeks away. I'm assuming they're hoping to catch me in the act, it'd be all the proof they need to take me to jail."

"When exactly is the next full moon?"

Mihawk went to the window, not caring about the men watching below as he looked through the blinds to the moon hanging high in the pitch black sky. "I'd say about ten days."

You weren't going to bother figuring out he could guess that so well with just a quick glance and chalked it up to being supernatural long enough. Even those who weren't affected by the moon's pull seemed to pay close attention to it's cycles.

"So we have up until then to come up with a way to either convince them that you're human or go through your shift without them knowing."

"What about future shifts?" You asked. "They're not going to be happy with just being proven wrong once, and that is if we can even do that. They're going to want to get their evidence."

"There's laws keeping them from bothering people too much." Now it was Shanks' turn to pat your knee comfortingly. "They'll have until the full moon to get what they need and if they can't get that, they have to leave you alone. It involves a few different laws put in place to protect the peace of the regular folks. Keeps people from feeling like they're being stalked."

"We are being stalked." You huffed.

"Temporarily. I've dealt with this enough times to know the drill. The hard part is dealing with your shift."

"And I can't just not go furry?"

"No." Both men answered in unison sharply.

"You can try," Mihawk stood in front of you and Shanks, arms crossed like a disappointed parent. "but it'll only push it back by a few hours at most. And by denying it, the change will be more violent. I believe it's safe to assume you're becoming more in touch with your jaguar side, you know better than anyone else how it will react to being contained on it's one guaranteed night of the month."

You pursed your lips together in a fine line. He was right, the longer you were what you were, the more you could feel the big cat lurking in the shadows of your mind. It was never truly aggressive nor benign, but always neutral. That was until provoked. It reacted to your emotions, that much you figured out easily enough, but there were also times when it seemed to act by itself, reversing things to make you react how it would. Once again, you were reminded that though it was a part of you, technically you, it didn't always feel like that. Sometimes it was like there was something else in the backseat of your mind, a quiet passenger for the most part, but always there.

And as if thinking of it was enough, you could feel your cat in your head, like you'd woken it up. Even with you, it was like a true predator, neutral. There was no love, not for you, but maybe curiosity. If you could feel it, react to it, and vice versa, maybe you could communicate with it. You decided to give it a shot.

The men were quiet as a wild energy emanated from you, they could tell you were up to something. You closed your eyes and adjusted yourself in the couch, leaning a little more into Shanks. Your cat perked up when you came into contact with your lover. Right, it had more affection for him that you. That was nice to know.

You didn't know what you were doing but you assumed if it was a part of you, just thinking alone should do the trick. Certain thoughts had gotten a rise of emotion from it before so why not now?

So you asked yourself the simple question; could you go one full moon without a shift?

In your minds eye, you could see burning golden eyes and a flash of fangs. The jaguar in you let out a furious scream and you could feel it writhing in anger at the suggestion. You winced at its reaction and your eyes shot open.

"It's not often that you see new blood attempt to commune with their beast." Mihawk remarked. "Did you get anything?"

"Yeah." A headache was quickly beginning to form, you wouldn't be doing that for a while. "I think it gave me the cat version of a "fuck you," it's not interested in skipping a shift."

"They usually aren't. Animals can't be reasoned with, though it is good knowing you can sense yours well enough to talk with it." Shanks added.

"I wouldn't say we talked, I just understood it." You began nibbling at your thumbnail thoughtfully. "So any ideas?"

"Let's start with what we know." Mihawk motioned for Shanks to speak. He was the most knowledgeable about these kinds of situations.

The redhead nodded. "We can forget about getting them off your trail before the full moon, it won't happen. That's their prime time to gain their evidence, especially since they can assume at this point that you are a shifter. Our goal needs to be to have you shift without their knowledge so I'd say we'll need to move you the night of, get you out of their sight but have them think you're still here. The hard part is they're going to have someone keeping watch on the building 24/7 until then. If you go somewhere, they're probably going to split into groups to watch you and the home in case anyone else of note comes and goes."

"So we distract them?"

"That's my thought but it'll have to be something subtle. Anything obvious is going to raise the alarm."

"Any distraction will do that." Mihawk growled.

He was understandably frustrated, though you weren't sure why he even agreed to come in the first place. It technically wasn't his problem and he didn't seem like the kind of guy to help more than he thought necessary. Maybe it was because he was a vampire and thought differently after being alive for who knew how many years but you'd never really understand him.

"Well we can't just waltz her out the front door."

"No, but what if we had a decoy?"

"Are you suggesting have someone stand in for me? That doesn't fix the problem of getting me out." And you were getting more and more stressed as you all discussed the possibilities. There weren't really many.

"It actually might." Mihawk nodded to himself. "Do you know what a kitsune is?"

"Some kind of fox?"

"They're foxlike creatures able to take on the appearances of other people but women are their speciality."

"So you want to sneak a fox into my apartment?"

"I see where this is going." Shanks chuckled as he smiled. The tension left his body and he slung his arm over the back of the couch and behind your head.

"I don't." You frowned.

"There's one kitsune that lives in this city and she's got a strong dislike of the government nosing into supernatural business. But she's also not one to take much action against them either."

"We can convince her to lend her abilites to us." Mihawk didn't waiver. "We can find a way for her to meet up with you the day of the full moon, smuggle her in to your home, and sneak you out. We will need a small distraction of sorts to ensure they don't see you leave, which will be suspicious, but if this kitsune is good at her transformations, they won't be able to tell she's not you when they come around to check that you're still here."

"Okay....." You nodded slowly. If you three could work out the fine details, this could actually work. "So how do we get a hold of her? They're still tailing Shanks too so he can't meet up with her."

"If there's only one in town, I can find her." Mihawk answered confidently. "In the mean time, you two will need to figure out your escape and reentry. It also wouldn't hurt to find some way to hid yourself during the process of your shift in case this falls through somewhere, consider it a safety net."

"That'll be easy." Shanks seemed to be much more relaxed now that you had something coming together. You were still unsure about it yourself but then again, this wasn't his first rodeo. You had to trust he'd be able to help you through this.

"Just promise me every full moon won't be this crazy." You rubbed your eyes, tired with the events from the day. "It was bad enough that I'd have to make excuses for going missing every once in a while to my friends. This is just getting rediculous now."

"You're a special case."

"I don't feel special."

For the first time, you heard Mihawk let out a small, amused chuckle. "You better get used to it if you're planning on staying with Shanks. Those around him always find themselves in interesting situations."

"How did you....." You blushed as you trailed off. Of course he could tell you were together.

You hadn't said anything but you two had gotten rather cozy with each other. And that was ignoring the fact that Mihawk could probably tell in the same ways you could tell when other people were together.

"You're going to have to get used to people figuring you out." Shanks pat your thigh. "There's no such thing as secrets among the supernatural."

"Apparently." You sighed. You could worry about that after getting through these next few days.