fic: The Wolf Prince (Pete/Patrick, AU, 1/3)
This is a story. I wrote it. It’s just over 20,000 words, which means it’s longer than the faerie AU. Not by a lot, but still.
It’s a fairy tale. It’s not traditional, because A) I wrote it, and B) it features two dudes. Pete is a werewolf prince; Patrick…is not, so much.
I really, really like this one.
The Wolf Prince
by Gale
SUMMARY: Handsome prince, check; young person bearing up alone under circumstances, check; man and woman -- waaaaaaait a minute.
Part I
There was a young man who lived by himself at the edge of a village, in a land far away from this one. The village was small and prosperous enough, all things considered: it had a church, and its own priest instead of one that had to travel from village to village. The people who lived there were mostly farmers, and if you could read more than the mark you had to make to sign your name on a legal document -- which were drawn up in other, far more prosperous villages, with people who could do such things -- it was considered a sign of great learning, or perhaps that you had airs far above your station.
The young man -- whose name was Patrick -- had lived by himself for several years, since his mother had passed on; his father had left them when he was scarcely more than a child, and Patrick did not miss him overmuch. He missed his mother sometimes, quietly, but in an abstract way. He was an only child, and had always been; his mother had had another child, a boy, but he had died before Patrick was born.
He had never been overburdened with friends, as much because he could read and write as because of how far his house was from those of the other children. He was polite when he came to town -- mostly to trade and buy supplies, on festival days -- and others were polite in return, but no more. A few of the men in town whispered to themselves that he was strange, that there was something wrong with him, but their wives -- or sisters, or mothers -- slapped their arms with dishtowels and told them to stop that nonsense; and wondered, idly, when Patrick would take a wife. Not that they could have suggested such a woman, had anyone asked, except in the vague sense of "someone...nice."
So there was Patrick, polite, nice, gentle -- well-learned, as far as such things can be measured in tiny villages in far-away lands. And perhaps a little lonely, though if you had mentioned this to him, he would have blinked at you for a moment before asking what you meant; he had never known anything else, and thus had no basis for comparison.
That is all backstory, however, leading up to one single moment:
At the end of the autumn of his nineteenth year, Patrick found an injured wolf in the woods near his house.
*
Patrick lived by himself in the woods. He went to town periodically to get things he needed, like clothes and supplies, but for the most part he kept to himself. He ate no meat, and so kept no livestock; there was a well behind his house for when he wanted drinking water, and a decent-sized stream he gathered his bathing water in. There was plenty of firewood, and he kept a small garden that more than suited his needs.
He was on his way back from an infrequent trip to town -- new boots in the pack slung over his shoulder, and several new books, more than enough to keep him for several weeks -- when he spotted the wolf.
It was jet-black from tail to ears, and its coat a little ragged, but not too bad. It growled when Patrick approached it, but softly, and made no move to strike. It could not, Patrick saw when he came a little closer: one of its paws was caught in a trap. The men put them around the edge of the village near winter, to keep away animals that would come in and try to harm the livestock. He had not thought they had done it this early in the year -- usually, they waited for the first snowfall -- but then, he was not in a position to hear such things, living all the way out here.
The wolf looked at him for a long time, and howled once. It was a low, wretched sound, almost human.
Patrick looked at the wolf for a long time. He put his pack down.
Finally, he said, feeling very foolish for talking to a wild animal, "If I set you free, do you promise not to bite me?"
The wolf looked at him and howled again, very softly. Patrick took it as assent, though he could not have said why.
"All right," he said, and looked around for a moment before finding a thick fallen branch. He wedged it into the end of the trap and pried it open, then eased the wolf's paw out before pulling the branch away. The trap closed with a snap.
"There," he said, "you're free."
The wolf looked at him.
"You're free," he said again. "Go. Go on, hurry." He made a shooing motion with his hands. "If they've got traps out they'll be coming by to check them, and you don't want to be here for that, trust me."
The wolf looked at him.
Patrick shook his head, disgusted with himself. "Talking to a wolf," he muttered, slinging his pack over his shoulder once more. "I've spent too long in that house by myself."
The wolf looked at him.
Patrick looked at the wolf, then sighed.
"If you kill me in my sleep," he muttered, carefully lifting the animal into his arms, "it's no less than I deserve."
And so, carrying the wolf, he started off toward his house.
*
The first thing Patrick did was clean out the wolf's wound. It made low noises several times, and occasionally whimpered, but it made no move to hurt him, and it held very still. When he was finished, he taped up the paw and checked the animal over.
Except for the wound, it -- he, as it turned out -- seemed to be in very good health. He was very weak, limping over to the bowl of food Patrick put out, but he ate well enough. Afterwards, he walked over to the door and stood there for a while, then looked at Patrick, as if waiting for something.
Patrick, who was putting away the things he'd used to clean the wound, looked back at him.
The wolf walked in a circle and pointed his nose at the door, then let out a low noise.
"What are you--" He blinked. "Oh," he said, and got up, walked across the room to open the door.
The wolf sprinted outside. Patrick stood in the doorway, waiting for him. It felt a little ridiculous, like he was waiting for a child to come in from the cold, but it wasn't like he could expect the animal to open the door when he was finished.
The wolf returned a moment later, still limping but less anxious. Patrick waited 'til they were both inside, then shut and locked the door. "You could have barked or something," he said. "I don't mind being interrupted."
The wolf looked at him. Patrick couldn't be sure, but he'd seen that expression before, usually on his mother's face when he'd done something stupid: that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Which -- of course it was. Wolves didn't bark.
Patrick closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against them. "I should start going to town more often," he said faintly.
The wolf, settling in near the fire, made a noise of agreement.
*
There was a man kissing him.
Kissing him on the mouth, no less, and as passionately as any kiss between a man and a woman Patrick had ever seen -- which, admittedly, was not many. His hands were sure where they were braced against Patrick's neck, and he was a little taller, perhaps an inch.
His clothes were finely made, nothing Patrick had ever seen in town, and his arms were ringed with ink not unlike Patrick had seen the traders wear when they came through the village three times a year. The man's mouth was soft, where it was pressed against his own.
He was very lovely. Even in dreams, Patrick's face flamed at the thought.
"You thought I would bite you," the man said. His voice was smooth enough -- perhaps a little raspy, though that could just have been the dream. "I have to admit, I've thought of it, but not in the way you meant." His teeth were very white against his skin.
"What--" Patrick said, dazed, and shook his head. "No, that's ridiculous. This is a dream, nothing more."
"Really?" The man ran his thumb over Patrick's lower lip. "Can you feel this?"
He turned his head away. "I do not -- this is wrong."
"Wrong?"
"Yes, wrong, and unseemly besides. I am -- we are both men. It is not done." He took a step back, let his hair fall to hang over his face. He had had dreams like this once or twice before, but in his youth, when he was too young to know any better.
"Not done here, perhaps." The man kissed him again: his eyelids, his cheekbones, the corners of his mouth, feather-soft all three. "But other places, other lands see nothing wrong with this. There is a world beyond this village." His voice was gently chiding.
"Other lands go to war," Patrick said, struggling with himself not to lean into the touch. "Does that mean my village should as well?"
The man laughed. "You're saying dying in a war is the same as two men embracing?"
Patrick flushed. "Go away," he said faintly.
The man took a step back. "I will," he said, and Patrick let out a long, relaxed breath. "--but not forever," he added, fingers brushing Patrick's face. His touch was tender, and loving--
--and Patrick woke up in his bed, covered by the single blanket he slept beneath, breath coming fast. He glanced under the blanket and cursed.
For most of his life, Patrick had known that he preferred men to women; he liked the slim lines of their hips, the breadth of their chests, the strong curve of their jawlines. Women were beautiful, he could admit it plainly, but they did not quicken his heartbeat or make his stomach twist in anticipation. But such things were not spoken of, in the village, and certainly not acted upon. Patrick did not mind; it was his nature to be a loner. He would have sooner died than speak of his feelings to anyone, man or woman. Mostly he kept it to the back of his mind and thought about it only occasionally, when he was tending his garden, or walking back home after going to town.
The dream had been uncomfortable, though, reminding him of things he tried not to think on too long. Patrick sighed and squirmed a bit, staring up at the ceiling. His arousal would pass with time, as long as he did nothing to act on it.
"Strange men in my dreams," he said softly, snorting. "Of *course*." He rolled over onto his side, and blinked when he found the wolf staring at him from its place by the fire.
"Did you do this?" Patrick asked, and immediately felt ridiculous. "--no, of course not." He snorted and rolled onto his back, closed his eyes.
And because he was asleep within moments, he did not notice the wolf's amber eyes staring at him even after his breathing had evened out.
*
The wolf stayed.
Patrick had figured that when its paw was healed -- in a few days, perhaps a week -- it would be able, even eager, to travel. That was the way of animals, after all, to rage and strain against being caged. But no: the wolf stayed inside. It went outside when it needed to, limping pitifully, but that was all. It made no move to leave.
It was no hardship, Patrick soon realized. The wolf did not bay or make noises at all hours of the night; it was quiet, unless it was hungry, and then it made the barest of eager noises, most of those involuntary, when it was fed. It whined a bit when it needed to go outside, or come back in, but that was all. Most of its time was spent sleeping or otherwise curled by the fire, though it usually went along when Patrick went for firewood -- as if accompanying a friend, or perhaps a member of its pack.
"Not much like a wolf, are you?" Patrick said one day, loading cut wood onto the sled he used to bring things too heavy for him to carry on his own. "You don't seem eager to eat me, for a start."
The wolf whuffled at him and gnawed at the knotted piece of rope he'd found in the garden shed. If it had served any purpose, Patrick had long since forgotten what it was, so he had given it to the wolf. It was something to do.
"Not that I'm complaining about that," Patrick added. "Not being dead, I mean. I just find it strange, is all."
The wolf growled at the rope and held it between its paws, digging in with its teeth.
"Your paw's much better. You could have left days ago, if you wanted." Patrick slowed his steps, thinking. "There's sensible reasons for it, of course. If you had a pack, they would have left you long ago, or tried to attack me when I approached you in the woods, so you're probably on your own. And it's much warmer in the house, even with all that fur..."
Rope clenched in its jaws, the wolf looked at him. It cocked its head.
"And I'm still talking to a wolf," Patrick muttered, and started walking faster again.
*
The only problem was, the dreams had remained, too.
As dreams went, they were innocent enough: kissing, mostly, though several times Patrick had woken to discover that he could remember hands at his waist, or the stranger's hands were pressed against his chest -- his bare chest, no less, which was scandalous enough to make him wake in a sweat. Once or twice the stranger had been safely tucked under sheets, and something about the way he was sprawled made Patrick think he had been naked in the dream -- or that they had both been naked, which made him flush to think of it -- but he could remember seeing nothing untoward when he woke, for which he was stupidly, blindly grateful.
It was maddening. Every free moment he had -- when he was working in the garden, when he was doing small repairs around the house, gathering water or wood -- Patrick was scouring his memories, trying to remember if he had ever seen the man in his dreams before. He did not think so, though; no man in the village had eyes that dark, and the few times he had seen men with ink, it was just their arms, and mere glimpses with their sleeves rolled up; Patrick had always been careful to keep his eyes to himself when he had occasion to bathe with others, mostly in town in his childhood.
"It could just be a figment of my imagination, of course," he told the wolf that night, from the front stoop.
The wolf cocked its head towards him to show it was listening, but kept ripping at the small animal. In recent days, it had taken to hunting near the property: squirrels, mostly, but rabbits once or twice. The first couple of times it had dragged its kill home and presented it to Patrick as if offering to share; but he had shaken his head and said no thank you, the same as he would if he was a guest at a neighbor's table, and eventually it stopped. But it still ate outside and wiped the blood from its muzzle on the snow, as if it was a napkin. Patrick told himself it was silly to be charmed, but he was anyway.
"I read books," Patrick went on. "My imagination is vivid; it has to be, growing up with only a mother and no friends closer than half a day's walk away. It's probably nothing."
He drew his knees up to his chest, hooked his chin over them. "Still, it's strange. I hardly ever remember my dreams, and certainly not in such detail." He shook his head. "It's nothing. It will pass."
The words would have had more conviction if he had not said them, or something very like, at least once a day for almost a month now. Even the wolf, most of the way through its squirrel, stopped and stared at him.
Patrick sighed. "Come inside when you're done," he told the wolf, and left the door ajar when he went inside.
*
The dream that night was -- different.
He and the stranger were in bed, the same as half the dreams he had had; but the stranger was pressed against him, in such a way that Patrick knew they were both naked beneath the sheet, and eager. Even in the dream, his face flamed.
"Still so shy," the stranger laughed against his throat. Patrick could feel sharp white teeth against his throat, but the fear was lessened this time. Maybe it was his time with the wolf, he thought. "We'll burn that out of you yet, love."
Patrick struggled against him, or tried to; his hands were the only part of him cooperating, and them only just. "I don't want to burn," he protested. "I want to be left alone--"
"No you don't," the man said calmly, as if he had made this argument a thousand times. "You think it's easier to be left alone, and it's all you've ever known, so you're not wrong about that. But it is painful and lonely, and you deserve neither." His hands slipped down, curling around Patrick's waist. "You want to know things. You used to dream about leaving your village and seeing the world beyond, and deep in your heart, you still do."
"What the hell do you know about my heart?" Patrick snapped, suddenly furious.
"I know the greatest joy in your world was when your mother sat you down and taught you your letters," the stranger said. One hand slipped down and stroked the inside of Patrick's thigh; the whimper that tore from him was too loud, even inside his own head. "I know that the one time your father took you to church as a child, it was the music that made you weep and not the Word. And I know that you have never in your life looked on a woman's breast with the same longing you have the span of a man's back."
Patrick gasped. "Stop," he begged, "stop saying such things--"
"I cannot," the stranger said. He looked apologetic, but he made no move to stop speaking. "You lie to yourself, if you will, but I have sworn no such oaths." He bent down and kissed Patrick's mouth, soft and sweet. "I love you," he said softly, and slid his hand down to Patrick's knee, and further up, fingers curling around his--
*
Patrick let out a long breath and stared up at the ceiling. The first rays of light were peeking through the window; another night, another dream. He wiped the sweat from his brow and sat up, reaching for his glasses on the bedside table. He would go into town, he decided; he needed candles, and flour, and wool if there was any to be had for a good price.
"Perhaps I'll knit some socks," Patrick mused out loud, and slipped his glasses on. "It's not as if I've anything better to--"
There was a young man sitting on his bed. His hand was inexpertly wrapped, and he looked about as exhausted as Patrick felt, but he was smiling. And wearing a pair of Patrick's trousers, no less, the pair he'd left at the foot of the bed. He'd meant to wash them today, or maybe tomorrow.
Patrick recognized him immediately. It would've been hard not to; it was the same man who'd been in his dreams every night for almost a month now.
The man squinted at him a moment, then said, "I thought you'd be taller."
Part II
Patrick looked at the man.
His name was Peter ("--named for my father," he had said when Patrick asked, "as he was named for his father. But if you call me that I'll go looking around for him, so it would probably be for the best if you called me Pete"), and he was a prince.
"A prince," Patrick said skeptically.
Pete nodded. "Of the garou," he said, as if that was all the explanation necessary.
Patrick snorted. "There is no such thing," he said. "They're a fable, told to scare children."
Everyone knew what garou were, of course: monstrous creatures born of the unholy union between man and wolf, cursed to live in both forms for abandoning God. Patrick had heard about them since he was a child, mostly from the goodwives who minded the village's children while their parents were at church. The men kidnapped women to impregnate them; the women whelped litters of babies and always died in childbirth, which explained why the men had to go around continuing to kidnap women. They were vicious monsters, to a one, but no one had ever actually seen one.
Until now. And he was in Patrick's small house, wearing Patrick's trousers and eating dried pieces of apple.
"The story is told to frighten children," Pete agreed, "but it is no fable. I live across the mountains, to the west."
"Nothing lives across the mountains," Patrick said flatly. "They are covered in ice and snow. On their other side is the edge of the world."
Pete burst out laughing. "Is that what you think?" he said, when he could speak again. "What do they teach children in this village?"
Patrick bristled at that. "Nothing," he said flatly, climbing out of bed. He steadfastly did not look at Pete as he put on trousers, or slipped on his coat. The water would not get itself. "So it would be in your best interests to leave as soon as possible."
"I can't," Pete sighed, looking legitimately forlorn. "I still have business here."
"You had business here in the first place?" Patrick muttered. "I could have sworn you wandered into a wolf trap and got your paw -- excuse me, your hand -- caught."
"No," Pete said, "that was an accident. I wasn't paying attention, and stepped wrong." He shook his head. "That part was an accident, yes, but not coming here."
"Really?" Patrick tightened the laces on his boots and reached for the water jugs. "And why, if I might ask, were you coming here?"
"I needed to find my mate," Pete said. From his mouth, it sounded frighteningly reasonable. "And I have." He met Patrick's eyes. "You."
Patrick looked at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing.
*
"You know," Pete said a few minutes later, watching Patrick giggle, "it's really not all that funny."
*
"Of course it is," Patrick said, when he could speak again. He was sitting on the ground, wiping tears from his face. He hadn't laughed like that since -- since he was a child, actually. It felt nice. "You're the prince of the garou--"
"A prince," Pete corrected. "Of one specific sub-kingdom. The world is larger than you think, and we have a great deal of territory.”
"Excuse me," Patrick said. "You're a prince of the garou, a mythical creature that can turn from man to wolf and back again, and you've been camped out in front of my fire for the last month because you needed to find your mate. Whom you've apparently decided is me. Despite the fact that I am, first, not of your kind, and second, a man."
Pete was quiet for a long minute.
"Yes," he finally said, nodding. "That sounds about right."
Patrick didn't stop smiling as he leaned closer. "Then I should have checked you for a head wound when I cleaned out your paw, because you were cracked over the skull at some point. Either that, or you are mad, and possibly rabid."
"I'm neither," Pete said. Patrick wished he would put a shirt on, or maybe a coat; all that skin was disconcerting, especially in winter. "If I had had some kind of a wound, it would have gotten infected by now, and a head wound would have killed me. And if I were rabid, I would have shown signs of it before now."
"Really?" Patrick said dryly. "Such as?"
"Well, for starters," Pete said calmly, "I would have ripped out your throat."
Patrick looked at him. "That doesn't exactly make me want to let you stay."
"It doesn't make it any less true." He ate a piece of apple. "My people know magic, obviously. It's magic in our blood that lets us change shape. That same magic flows through us while we sleep. Sometimes, we have dreams. How many children we'll have, the outcome of a great battle." He looked at Patrick. "Who we'll marry."
"We're not getting married," Patrick said flatly.
"Really? I'm sitting at your table, wearing your trousers and eating your food. There's more than one place where this could be considered a wedding feast." Pete looked amused.
Patrick flushed. "It is no such thing."
"Fair enough." Pete ate another piece of apple. "I never lied to you, Patrick."
"Yes you did! You let me think you were just a wolf--"
"Really? Do you know a lot of wolves that sleep indoors and look like they're listening when you speak to them?"
Patrick opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was a fair point. "I thought the wolf was part-dog," he said, a bit lamely. "Or a dog that was part-wolf. It can happen."
"It can," Pete agreed. He nodded at the jugs, still empty at Patrick's feet. "Did you want to get some more water? I'll still be here when you get back." His teeth flashed in a smile. "I'm not going anywhere."
Patrick picked them up and scowled. "Wonderful," he said darkly, and stomped outside.
*
He'd half-hoped Pete would be gone when he returned, but no: he was still sitting at the table, not wearing a stitch more clothing than he had been when Patrick left. There was also a stack of books on the table.
"They're not bad," Pete said, idly paging through one. "Not the best binding I've ever seen, but this is a small village."
Patrick stalked over and snatched it out of his hands. "You look like you're well enough to travel," he said tightly. "So when can I presume you'll be leaving?"
"I told you," Pete said. "When you've agreed to come back with me."
"That's ridiculous," Patrick snapped.
"It's that or I settle down here, which strikes me as the more ridiculous of the two options." Pete shrugged.
Patrick rubbed at his forehead. "Your Highness--"
"Oh, stop that." Pete looked irritated. "I'm not royalty here. I'm a guest at best, a monster at worst. Your idea," he said when Patrick went to correct him, "not mine. If you start calling me 'Your Highness', I'm going to start calling you 'innkeeper' and paying you. And expecting my own bed."
Patrick flushed. "I. That's not." He looked at Pete's face and flushed again. "Fine," he muttered, and shoved a cloak and shirt into Pete's hands. "Then you can go out and get us some firewood."
Pete looked at him for a long minute. "As you like," he said simply, and reached for the shirt.
*
Patrick busied himself with making breakfast. He boiled water and, after a great deal of pacing, set out a second place for Pete at the table. It would've been rude to do otherwise, he told himself, and tried not to think too much about how the only other place setting he had was the one his mother had used.
Just as he was adding meal and stirring the water, Pete opened the door. "Um," he said. "Can you take a look? I think this is enough."
Patrick wiped his hands on a towel and let himself be smug inside. Pete had been out an hour at most, and in winter, even early winter, an hour was nothing. He'd probably cut four logs, five if he was very lucky, and expected praise for it.
"Fine," he started, "let's see what you've--"
Stacked neatly next to the door were perhaps twenty logs, cut into forty fireplace-sized pieces. It would have taken the better part of an afternoon to do that many.
He stared at Pete, frankly amazed.
"Is that enough?" Pete asked. He actually sounded nervous. "If it's not, I can--"
"No!" Patrick yelped. "No, that's. That's good." He nodded, looked at the pile and nodded again. "Come inside. Breakfast is ready."
*
"You can't be a wolf," Patrick said later, pushing away the remains of the meal. He'd made them both mostly-tasteless porridge, one of the few things he'd outright mastered from his mother. Wonderful woman; horrible cook.
"Why not?" Pete asked. He'd supplemented *his* porridge with some kind of meat while he was log-cutting; Patrick hadn't been brave enough to ask what.
"Well, for starters, you're a man--"
"And a wolf," Pete said. "I'm a garou. By our nature, we're more than one thing."
"For all I know, you came in, scared off the wolf, and took his place." Patrick let himself look a little smug at that. "You have tattoos like sailors, and criminals. You're probably one yourself."
"You're land-locked," Pete said. "When have you ever seen a sailor?"
Patrick just looked at him, arms crossed over his chest.
"Oh, for--" Pete sighed. "If I prove that I'm a wolf, will you stop being such an ass?"
Patrick shrugged. "Fair enough.” And when Pete said he *couldn't*, he told himself, he'd feel no guilt about kicking him out into the cold. All right, maybe not *into* the cold, but back as far as the village, certainl--
--and then, easy as anything, easy as breathing, Pete turned into a wolf.
There was no painful transformation, no shifting of skin and bone and muscle; one moment he was a man, the next he was a wolf.
Patrick screamed and threw the bowl at his head.
*
"I *said* I was sorry," Patrick muttered, irritated. He daubed at Pete's forehead with a cloth. "Look, the cut's not even that big."
"You threw a bowl at my head," Pete said, wounded, and winced when Patrick touched him again.
"You turned into a wolf," Patrick said, helplessly.
"You told me to!"
"I didn't really think you would!" He patted the wound again, reached for the bandages. "For that, I owe you an apology. I'm sorry I doubted your word."
Pete sniffed. "Yes, well." He looked hopeful. "In my lands, it's customary to apologize by offering some kind of boon."
"You scared me," Patrick said slowly, "so now I owe you some kind of boon."
"Exactly!" Pete beamed.
Patrick just looked at him.
"Or," Pete said, sighing, "you could continue glowering at me."
Patrick would never entirely know what made him do it, but there it was: he sighed a little, feeling strangely guilty, and leaned over to plant a quick, chaste kiss on Pete's cheek.
Except Pete turned his head at the last moment, because in addition to sometimes being a wolf he was apparently psychic, and got Patrick's mouth instead.
Patrick tried to rear back, but Pete held him fast. He tasted like meat, which made Patrick's stomach recoil, and man, which did not. His mouth was very soft.
Patrick made a noise and leaned into it, sighing.
As soon as he did, though, Pete stepped back. "There," he said, false-bright. "It was a very nice boon. Your callous treatment of me with the bowl is thus forgiven."
Patrick boggled for a moment, then nodded. "Fine," he said, all icy politeness again. Pete cringed. "So we're done with it, then."
"Patrick--"
"So we're done with it, then," Patrick said again, and went to work in the garden for a while.
*
The next few days were uneventful enough, all things considered. Patrick caught up on his gardening, sorted out his few tradeworthy goods to bring to market next month, darned three pairs of socks, trudged out to get more firewood at least twice a day, read a fair bit, cleaned and redressed the wound in Pete's hand, and thought long and hard about drowning himself.
That last one was mostly because of Pete.
He was always -- there. He woke before Patrick and went out hunting (and blessedly left the scraps outside), came back before Patrick could get out of bed. He was no better a cook, but he went about it so grimly determined, it would have been funny if Patrick didn't get the sense that Pete was doing it to prove he'd be a good -- husband? Partner? Whatever the proper term was among garou.
If Pete was awake and not a wolf, he was probably talking. He talked about the dreams he'd had -- "they were very disturbing for a boy not yet fifteen summers, but once I realized you were a real person I was fine. I just had to come and find you" -- and how far he'd had to come. He had no opinion of the people in Patrick's village because he'd never met them, though he understandably wasn't fond of hunters.
"They take too much," he said darkly, the one time Patrick asked. "And they don't use everything they do take. It's wasteful."
That, Patrick couldn't really argue with, mostly because he didn't eat meat. His one good cloak was lined with fox hide, but his mother had bought that for him when he was a baby. "A gift for you, when you become a man," she'd said. He'd taken it as his own after she died.
More rarely, Pete talked about his own people. Those were the stories Patrick preferred.
"Long ago, Mother Moon came down and taught a group of men and a group of wolves the secret of changing their shapes," he said one night, sitting next to Patrick at the small table. Patrick darned socks while he listened. "She told them that they must always keep it a secret, or else those unworthy would learn it and overrun the world. Most of the humans went to the north; most of the wolves, to the south. And we've stayed there, and kept to ourselves, ever since."
"You can't have always," Patrick said, frowning. "I've heard stories about the garou since I was a child."
Pete was quiet for a long time. "There are...very rarely, one of us will go mad and lash out. We try to take him out before he can do any damage to your people, but we're not always successful." He dropped his gaze. "My uncle, when I was still small. My father did it quick."
Patrick's gaze softened. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"'s not your fault. It happens, sometimes. Like when children get sick for no reason, or die in the cradle." Pete shrugged. "The ones who get out, the ones we can't stop -- those are what you know as garou. We don't go around slaughtering children or raping women to breed another generation." He rested his head on his arms.
Patrick winced. "I -- I apologize for that, too."
Pete's smile was small. "I should ask you for another boon, you know."
Patrick felt his face flush. He didn't let himself think about it, just put the socks down on the table and leaned over, his mouth brushing Pete's. Intentionally, this time.
The kiss was softer, sweeter. Patrick started to move away, but Pete's mouth did -- something, and then his lips were parting, and so were Patrick's, and oh, that was. That was Pete's tongue in his mouth.
Patrick felt himself shiver and made a soft noise, then brushed his own tongue into Pete's mouth. It seemed only natural.
It was Pete who pulled away this time, pupils large and dark. "What," he started, and cleared his throat. "What are you doing, Patrick?"
Patrick sat back in his chair and picked up his socks, his needles and thread. "Darning socks," he said calmly. His heart was beating a hundred miles an hour; he was sure Pete could hear it. He wasn't sure he cared. "Tell me more."
*
Pete wanted to sleep in Patrick's bed. Patrick disagreed.
"Oh, come on!" Pete said. "I'll even wear a shirt, I promise."
Patrick looked at him. "And pants?"
"Why would I want to wear pants?" Pete said blandly. "I'd have a shirt on."
Patrick glared at him.
"You're no fun," Pete grumbled, and stumbled off to make up the pallet he slept on in front of the fire.
*
The really miserable thing was, Patrick was still having the dreams.
Except now he know who Pete was, which just made the whole thing worse. Or better. It was all confused inside his head. He could go to sleep, completely sure and confident that Pete was just someone he knew; on their better days, Patrick thought he could, perhaps, one day be a friend. But in his dreams, Pete was all shadows and slim lines, planes and angles brushing against his skin -- making him sweat, making him twist and writhe. He woke up hard and ready more often than not, now.
So far, Patrick had done all right at blocking it out during his waking hours. It was only a few slip-ups here and there: hearing Pete breathe in his sleep and flashing on how different it was when he was panting in Patrick's ear, or watching his fingers fumble at peeling potatoes and remembering how steady they'd been as they pressed down on his hips. Things like that.
Patrick took deep breaths and told himself they were just dreams.
*
One morning, as Patrick was harvesting the last of the vegetables before winter frost settled in, Pete looked up at him and said, "You don't have to abstain on my account, you know."
Patrick frowned and tossed another carrot into the bin. "Abstain from what?"
"Sex."
Patrick spluttered and looked at him. "What?"
Pete just looked at him. "Patrick. You know damn well I have a better sense of smell than you do, even like this." He gestured to himself, in a pair of Patrick's trousers and no shirt. It seemed to be what he preferred wearing; if he'd brought any of his own clothes, Patrick had never seen them. "You think I can't smell you when you wake up?"
"I--" Patrick realized what he meant and flushed dark red. He ducked his head.
He heard Pete sigh and get up, walk over to him. "Patrick."
"Go away," he said tightly, fingers tugging on another carrot. He felt warm all over, and not in a pleasant way, "I have to finish these, then get the last of the squash in. I've left them too long already."
Pete didn't go away; if anything, he stepped closer. His hand squeezed Patrick's shoulder. "What are you so frightened of?" he said softly. "I'm no danger to you. Surely you know that by now. So why--"
"Please go!" Patrick twisted away, face still flushed. "It would be better if you left now, Your Highness."
Patrick still wasn't looking directly at Pete, but he could see the moment Pete's jaw clenched. "If that's what you want, Innkeeper."
Patrick got to his feet. "It's what I've wanted from the beginning," he shouted hoarsely, "you--"
And then he was flushed all over, and the world felt faint and wavery, like he'd been out working too long in the summer heat; and he was trying to walk, but his legs wouldn't work, and neither would his mouth when he tried to speak. He was aware that Pete was yelling and trying to catch him, but it was too hot and his skin felt too tight, and--
*
It was always the same, though he wouldn't realize it 'til later:
Patrick would wake every few hours and stir, groggily. Pete would make him eat something, either water or weak tea or broth ("--and yes, it's made from beef stock, so just shut up and drink it, you can berate me later"). Patrick would sleep again. Every two or three repetitions of this, Pete made him get up long enough to change the sheets, then let him back into bed so he could sleep.
The same pattern, over and over again, with no variation.
They did that for two weeks.
*
One morning, Patrick opened his eyes and said, in a very weak voice, "I'm not dead."
"No," Pete snapped, "though it was close." He was sitting next to the bed, glaring at Patrick with eyes that seemed suspiciously red. "Idiot."
Patrick struggled to sit up. "What happened?"
Pete helped him. "You were sick," he said simply. "I didn't -- I don't know why. You passed out in the garden. I carried you inside and put you in bed." His expression was terrified. "I even went to town and tried to find what passes for a doctor in this place, but he was off across some river tending to some cases of the scratching pox. I came back and did all I could remember. I kept you warm, I gave you liquids. Your fever was high -- very high -- but it broke a couple of days ago. You've slept soundly since, until now."
"I remember," Patrick rasped. He coughed; it sounded harsh and wet. "Can I--"
Pete handed him a glass of water. "Here," he said. "Drink it slowly. If you take it too fast, you'll throw it right back up."
"Thank you," Patrick said. "I have had heat sickness before." But he sipped it slowly, and stopped for a moment when his stomach quailed. "You stayed with me."
"I wasn't about to leave an invalid," Pete muttered, but his eyes were gentle. "How do you feel?"
"Tired," Patrick said. His voice was faint. "The garden--"
"I finished harvesting," Pete said. "I'm fairly sure it's not as good of a job as you would have done, but it's done." He brushed hair out of Patrick's eyes. "I changed your sheets. I even cleaned up after you." He looked a little embarrassed. "It wasn't. You didn't have a bedpan, so--"
Patrick flushed. "Oh, God," he said quietly. He thought he'd felt humiliated that day in the garden, but this was so much worse. "I'm--"
"It's all right," Pete said. "It's. It happens, with sick people. My mother could hardly get out of bed after she had my sister. My father had to take care of her." He laid his hand against Patrick's cheek. "There's no shame in it."
"There's a little shame in it," Patrick said. Pete's hand felt good against his cheek; he could admit that, if only to himself. "Like a child."
"Like someone who was sick," Pete corrected. "Another day, maybe two, and you'll be fine." He paused with his fingers over the glass. "Do you want some more?"
Patrick thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I want to sleep," he said, snuggling back beneath the covers. "That seems stupid, doesn't it? It's all I've been doing for weeks, and I want to do it some more. That's madness."
"That's being sick." Pete took the glass away and stood, tugging the blanket up to Patrick's chin. "Sleep," he said softly. "I'll be here when you wake up."
"All righ'," Patrick murmured, already closing his eyes. He thought for a moment that Pete had brushed a kiss over his still-sweaty forehead, but that could have just been a dream.
*
Part Two
It’s a fairy tale. It’s not traditional, because A) I wrote it, and B) it features two dudes. Pete is a werewolf prince; Patrick…is not, so much.
I really, really like this one.
The Wolf Prince
by Gale
SUMMARY: Handsome prince, check; young person bearing up alone under circumstances, check; man and woman -- waaaaaaait a minute.
Part I
There was a young man who lived by himself at the edge of a village, in a land far away from this one. The village was small and prosperous enough, all things considered: it had a church, and its own priest instead of one that had to travel from village to village. The people who lived there were mostly farmers, and if you could read more than the mark you had to make to sign your name on a legal document -- which were drawn up in other, far more prosperous villages, with people who could do such things -- it was considered a sign of great learning, or perhaps that you had airs far above your station.
The young man -- whose name was Patrick -- had lived by himself for several years, since his mother had passed on; his father had left them when he was scarcely more than a child, and Patrick did not miss him overmuch. He missed his mother sometimes, quietly, but in an abstract way. He was an only child, and had always been; his mother had had another child, a boy, but he had died before Patrick was born.
He had never been overburdened with friends, as much because he could read and write as because of how far his house was from those of the other children. He was polite when he came to town -- mostly to trade and buy supplies, on festival days -- and others were polite in return, but no more. A few of the men in town whispered to themselves that he was strange, that there was something wrong with him, but their wives -- or sisters, or mothers -- slapped their arms with dishtowels and told them to stop that nonsense; and wondered, idly, when Patrick would take a wife. Not that they could have suggested such a woman, had anyone asked, except in the vague sense of "someone...nice."
So there was Patrick, polite, nice, gentle -- well-learned, as far as such things can be measured in tiny villages in far-away lands. And perhaps a little lonely, though if you had mentioned this to him, he would have blinked at you for a moment before asking what you meant; he had never known anything else, and thus had no basis for comparison.
That is all backstory, however, leading up to one single moment:
At the end of the autumn of his nineteenth year, Patrick found an injured wolf in the woods near his house.
*
Patrick lived by himself in the woods. He went to town periodically to get things he needed, like clothes and supplies, but for the most part he kept to himself. He ate no meat, and so kept no livestock; there was a well behind his house for when he wanted drinking water, and a decent-sized stream he gathered his bathing water in. There was plenty of firewood, and he kept a small garden that more than suited his needs.
He was on his way back from an infrequent trip to town -- new boots in the pack slung over his shoulder, and several new books, more than enough to keep him for several weeks -- when he spotted the wolf.
It was jet-black from tail to ears, and its coat a little ragged, but not too bad. It growled when Patrick approached it, but softly, and made no move to strike. It could not, Patrick saw when he came a little closer: one of its paws was caught in a trap. The men put them around the edge of the village near winter, to keep away animals that would come in and try to harm the livestock. He had not thought they had done it this early in the year -- usually, they waited for the first snowfall -- but then, he was not in a position to hear such things, living all the way out here.
The wolf looked at him for a long time, and howled once. It was a low, wretched sound, almost human.
Patrick looked at the wolf for a long time. He put his pack down.
Finally, he said, feeling very foolish for talking to a wild animal, "If I set you free, do you promise not to bite me?"
The wolf looked at him and howled again, very softly. Patrick took it as assent, though he could not have said why.
"All right," he said, and looked around for a moment before finding a thick fallen branch. He wedged it into the end of the trap and pried it open, then eased the wolf's paw out before pulling the branch away. The trap closed with a snap.
"There," he said, "you're free."
The wolf looked at him.
"You're free," he said again. "Go. Go on, hurry." He made a shooing motion with his hands. "If they've got traps out they'll be coming by to check them, and you don't want to be here for that, trust me."
The wolf looked at him.
Patrick shook his head, disgusted with himself. "Talking to a wolf," he muttered, slinging his pack over his shoulder once more. "I've spent too long in that house by myself."
The wolf looked at him.
Patrick looked at the wolf, then sighed.
"If you kill me in my sleep," he muttered, carefully lifting the animal into his arms, "it's no less than I deserve."
And so, carrying the wolf, he started off toward his house.
*
The first thing Patrick did was clean out the wolf's wound. It made low noises several times, and occasionally whimpered, but it made no move to hurt him, and it held very still. When he was finished, he taped up the paw and checked the animal over.
Except for the wound, it -- he, as it turned out -- seemed to be in very good health. He was very weak, limping over to the bowl of food Patrick put out, but he ate well enough. Afterwards, he walked over to the door and stood there for a while, then looked at Patrick, as if waiting for something.
Patrick, who was putting away the things he'd used to clean the wound, looked back at him.
The wolf walked in a circle and pointed his nose at the door, then let out a low noise.
"What are you--" He blinked. "Oh," he said, and got up, walked across the room to open the door.
The wolf sprinted outside. Patrick stood in the doorway, waiting for him. It felt a little ridiculous, like he was waiting for a child to come in from the cold, but it wasn't like he could expect the animal to open the door when he was finished.
The wolf returned a moment later, still limping but less anxious. Patrick waited 'til they were both inside, then shut and locked the door. "You could have barked or something," he said. "I don't mind being interrupted."
The wolf looked at him. Patrick couldn't be sure, but he'd seen that expression before, usually on his mother's face when he'd done something stupid: that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Which -- of course it was. Wolves didn't bark.
Patrick closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against them. "I should start going to town more often," he said faintly.
The wolf, settling in near the fire, made a noise of agreement.
*
There was a man kissing him.
Kissing him on the mouth, no less, and as passionately as any kiss between a man and a woman Patrick had ever seen -- which, admittedly, was not many. His hands were sure where they were braced against Patrick's neck, and he was a little taller, perhaps an inch.
His clothes were finely made, nothing Patrick had ever seen in town, and his arms were ringed with ink not unlike Patrick had seen the traders wear when they came through the village three times a year. The man's mouth was soft, where it was pressed against his own.
He was very lovely. Even in dreams, Patrick's face flamed at the thought.
"You thought I would bite you," the man said. His voice was smooth enough -- perhaps a little raspy, though that could just have been the dream. "I have to admit, I've thought of it, but not in the way you meant." His teeth were very white against his skin.
"What--" Patrick said, dazed, and shook his head. "No, that's ridiculous. This is a dream, nothing more."
"Really?" The man ran his thumb over Patrick's lower lip. "Can you feel this?"
He turned his head away. "I do not -- this is wrong."
"Wrong?"
"Yes, wrong, and unseemly besides. I am -- we are both men. It is not done." He took a step back, let his hair fall to hang over his face. He had had dreams like this once or twice before, but in his youth, when he was too young to know any better.
"Not done here, perhaps." The man kissed him again: his eyelids, his cheekbones, the corners of his mouth, feather-soft all three. "But other places, other lands see nothing wrong with this. There is a world beyond this village." His voice was gently chiding.
"Other lands go to war," Patrick said, struggling with himself not to lean into the touch. "Does that mean my village should as well?"
The man laughed. "You're saying dying in a war is the same as two men embracing?"
Patrick flushed. "Go away," he said faintly.
The man took a step back. "I will," he said, and Patrick let out a long, relaxed breath. "--but not forever," he added, fingers brushing Patrick's face. His touch was tender, and loving--
--and Patrick woke up in his bed, covered by the single blanket he slept beneath, breath coming fast. He glanced under the blanket and cursed.
For most of his life, Patrick had known that he preferred men to women; he liked the slim lines of their hips, the breadth of their chests, the strong curve of their jawlines. Women were beautiful, he could admit it plainly, but they did not quicken his heartbeat or make his stomach twist in anticipation. But such things were not spoken of, in the village, and certainly not acted upon. Patrick did not mind; it was his nature to be a loner. He would have sooner died than speak of his feelings to anyone, man or woman. Mostly he kept it to the back of his mind and thought about it only occasionally, when he was tending his garden, or walking back home after going to town.
The dream had been uncomfortable, though, reminding him of things he tried not to think on too long. Patrick sighed and squirmed a bit, staring up at the ceiling. His arousal would pass with time, as long as he did nothing to act on it.
"Strange men in my dreams," he said softly, snorting. "Of *course*." He rolled over onto his side, and blinked when he found the wolf staring at him from its place by the fire.
"Did you do this?" Patrick asked, and immediately felt ridiculous. "--no, of course not." He snorted and rolled onto his back, closed his eyes.
And because he was asleep within moments, he did not notice the wolf's amber eyes staring at him even after his breathing had evened out.
*
The wolf stayed.
Patrick had figured that when its paw was healed -- in a few days, perhaps a week -- it would be able, even eager, to travel. That was the way of animals, after all, to rage and strain against being caged. But no: the wolf stayed inside. It went outside when it needed to, limping pitifully, but that was all. It made no move to leave.
It was no hardship, Patrick soon realized. The wolf did not bay or make noises at all hours of the night; it was quiet, unless it was hungry, and then it made the barest of eager noises, most of those involuntary, when it was fed. It whined a bit when it needed to go outside, or come back in, but that was all. Most of its time was spent sleeping or otherwise curled by the fire, though it usually went along when Patrick went for firewood -- as if accompanying a friend, or perhaps a member of its pack.
"Not much like a wolf, are you?" Patrick said one day, loading cut wood onto the sled he used to bring things too heavy for him to carry on his own. "You don't seem eager to eat me, for a start."
The wolf whuffled at him and gnawed at the knotted piece of rope he'd found in the garden shed. If it had served any purpose, Patrick had long since forgotten what it was, so he had given it to the wolf. It was something to do.
"Not that I'm complaining about that," Patrick added. "Not being dead, I mean. I just find it strange, is all."
The wolf growled at the rope and held it between its paws, digging in with its teeth.
"Your paw's much better. You could have left days ago, if you wanted." Patrick slowed his steps, thinking. "There's sensible reasons for it, of course. If you had a pack, they would have left you long ago, or tried to attack me when I approached you in the woods, so you're probably on your own. And it's much warmer in the house, even with all that fur..."
Rope clenched in its jaws, the wolf looked at him. It cocked its head.
"And I'm still talking to a wolf," Patrick muttered, and started walking faster again.
*
The only problem was, the dreams had remained, too.
As dreams went, they were innocent enough: kissing, mostly, though several times Patrick had woken to discover that he could remember hands at his waist, or the stranger's hands were pressed against his chest -- his bare chest, no less, which was scandalous enough to make him wake in a sweat. Once or twice the stranger had been safely tucked under sheets, and something about the way he was sprawled made Patrick think he had been naked in the dream -- or that they had both been naked, which made him flush to think of it -- but he could remember seeing nothing untoward when he woke, for which he was stupidly, blindly grateful.
It was maddening. Every free moment he had -- when he was working in the garden, when he was doing small repairs around the house, gathering water or wood -- Patrick was scouring his memories, trying to remember if he had ever seen the man in his dreams before. He did not think so, though; no man in the village had eyes that dark, and the few times he had seen men with ink, it was just their arms, and mere glimpses with their sleeves rolled up; Patrick had always been careful to keep his eyes to himself when he had occasion to bathe with others, mostly in town in his childhood.
"It could just be a figment of my imagination, of course," he told the wolf that night, from the front stoop.
The wolf cocked its head towards him to show it was listening, but kept ripping at the small animal. In recent days, it had taken to hunting near the property: squirrels, mostly, but rabbits once or twice. The first couple of times it had dragged its kill home and presented it to Patrick as if offering to share; but he had shaken his head and said no thank you, the same as he would if he was a guest at a neighbor's table, and eventually it stopped. But it still ate outside and wiped the blood from its muzzle on the snow, as if it was a napkin. Patrick told himself it was silly to be charmed, but he was anyway.
"I read books," Patrick went on. "My imagination is vivid; it has to be, growing up with only a mother and no friends closer than half a day's walk away. It's probably nothing."
He drew his knees up to his chest, hooked his chin over them. "Still, it's strange. I hardly ever remember my dreams, and certainly not in such detail." He shook his head. "It's nothing. It will pass."
The words would have had more conviction if he had not said them, or something very like, at least once a day for almost a month now. Even the wolf, most of the way through its squirrel, stopped and stared at him.
Patrick sighed. "Come inside when you're done," he told the wolf, and left the door ajar when he went inside.
*
The dream that night was -- different.
He and the stranger were in bed, the same as half the dreams he had had; but the stranger was pressed against him, in such a way that Patrick knew they were both naked beneath the sheet, and eager. Even in the dream, his face flamed.
"Still so shy," the stranger laughed against his throat. Patrick could feel sharp white teeth against his throat, but the fear was lessened this time. Maybe it was his time with the wolf, he thought. "We'll burn that out of you yet, love."
Patrick struggled against him, or tried to; his hands were the only part of him cooperating, and them only just. "I don't want to burn," he protested. "I want to be left alone--"
"No you don't," the man said calmly, as if he had made this argument a thousand times. "You think it's easier to be left alone, and it's all you've ever known, so you're not wrong about that. But it is painful and lonely, and you deserve neither." His hands slipped down, curling around Patrick's waist. "You want to know things. You used to dream about leaving your village and seeing the world beyond, and deep in your heart, you still do."
"What the hell do you know about my heart?" Patrick snapped, suddenly furious.
"I know the greatest joy in your world was when your mother sat you down and taught you your letters," the stranger said. One hand slipped down and stroked the inside of Patrick's thigh; the whimper that tore from him was too loud, even inside his own head. "I know that the one time your father took you to church as a child, it was the music that made you weep and not the Word. And I know that you have never in your life looked on a woman's breast with the same longing you have the span of a man's back."
Patrick gasped. "Stop," he begged, "stop saying such things--"
"I cannot," the stranger said. He looked apologetic, but he made no move to stop speaking. "You lie to yourself, if you will, but I have sworn no such oaths." He bent down and kissed Patrick's mouth, soft and sweet. "I love you," he said softly, and slid his hand down to Patrick's knee, and further up, fingers curling around his--
*
Patrick let out a long breath and stared up at the ceiling. The first rays of light were peeking through the window; another night, another dream. He wiped the sweat from his brow and sat up, reaching for his glasses on the bedside table. He would go into town, he decided; he needed candles, and flour, and wool if there was any to be had for a good price.
"Perhaps I'll knit some socks," Patrick mused out loud, and slipped his glasses on. "It's not as if I've anything better to--"
There was a young man sitting on his bed. His hand was inexpertly wrapped, and he looked about as exhausted as Patrick felt, but he was smiling. And wearing a pair of Patrick's trousers, no less, the pair he'd left at the foot of the bed. He'd meant to wash them today, or maybe tomorrow.
Patrick recognized him immediately. It would've been hard not to; it was the same man who'd been in his dreams every night for almost a month now.
The man squinted at him a moment, then said, "I thought you'd be taller."
Part II
Patrick looked at the man.
His name was Peter ("--named for my father," he had said when Patrick asked, "as he was named for his father. But if you call me that I'll go looking around for him, so it would probably be for the best if you called me Pete"), and he was a prince.
"A prince," Patrick said skeptically.
Pete nodded. "Of the garou," he said, as if that was all the explanation necessary.
Patrick snorted. "There is no such thing," he said. "They're a fable, told to scare children."
Everyone knew what garou were, of course: monstrous creatures born of the unholy union between man and wolf, cursed to live in both forms for abandoning God. Patrick had heard about them since he was a child, mostly from the goodwives who minded the village's children while their parents were at church. The men kidnapped women to impregnate them; the women whelped litters of babies and always died in childbirth, which explained why the men had to go around continuing to kidnap women. They were vicious monsters, to a one, but no one had ever actually seen one.
Until now. And he was in Patrick's small house, wearing Patrick's trousers and eating dried pieces of apple.
"The story is told to frighten children," Pete agreed, "but it is no fable. I live across the mountains, to the west."
"Nothing lives across the mountains," Patrick said flatly. "They are covered in ice and snow. On their other side is the edge of the world."
Pete burst out laughing. "Is that what you think?" he said, when he could speak again. "What do they teach children in this village?"
Patrick bristled at that. "Nothing," he said flatly, climbing out of bed. He steadfastly did not look at Pete as he put on trousers, or slipped on his coat. The water would not get itself. "So it would be in your best interests to leave as soon as possible."
"I can't," Pete sighed, looking legitimately forlorn. "I still have business here."
"You had business here in the first place?" Patrick muttered. "I could have sworn you wandered into a wolf trap and got your paw -- excuse me, your hand -- caught."
"No," Pete said, "that was an accident. I wasn't paying attention, and stepped wrong." He shook his head. "That part was an accident, yes, but not coming here."
"Really?" Patrick tightened the laces on his boots and reached for the water jugs. "And why, if I might ask, were you coming here?"
"I needed to find my mate," Pete said. From his mouth, it sounded frighteningly reasonable. "And I have." He met Patrick's eyes. "You."
Patrick looked at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing.
*
"You know," Pete said a few minutes later, watching Patrick giggle, "it's really not all that funny."
*
"Of course it is," Patrick said, when he could speak again. He was sitting on the ground, wiping tears from his face. He hadn't laughed like that since -- since he was a child, actually. It felt nice. "You're the prince of the garou--"
"A prince," Pete corrected. "Of one specific sub-kingdom. The world is larger than you think, and we have a great deal of territory.”
"Excuse me," Patrick said. "You're a prince of the garou, a mythical creature that can turn from man to wolf and back again, and you've been camped out in front of my fire for the last month because you needed to find your mate. Whom you've apparently decided is me. Despite the fact that I am, first, not of your kind, and second, a man."
Pete was quiet for a long minute.
"Yes," he finally said, nodding. "That sounds about right."
Patrick didn't stop smiling as he leaned closer. "Then I should have checked you for a head wound when I cleaned out your paw, because you were cracked over the skull at some point. Either that, or you are mad, and possibly rabid."
"I'm neither," Pete said. Patrick wished he would put a shirt on, or maybe a coat; all that skin was disconcerting, especially in winter. "If I had had some kind of a wound, it would have gotten infected by now, and a head wound would have killed me. And if I were rabid, I would have shown signs of it before now."
"Really?" Patrick said dryly. "Such as?"
"Well, for starters," Pete said calmly, "I would have ripped out your throat."
Patrick looked at him. "That doesn't exactly make me want to let you stay."
"It doesn't make it any less true." He ate a piece of apple. "My people know magic, obviously. It's magic in our blood that lets us change shape. That same magic flows through us while we sleep. Sometimes, we have dreams. How many children we'll have, the outcome of a great battle." He looked at Patrick. "Who we'll marry."
"We're not getting married," Patrick said flatly.
"Really? I'm sitting at your table, wearing your trousers and eating your food. There's more than one place where this could be considered a wedding feast." Pete looked amused.
Patrick flushed. "It is no such thing."
"Fair enough." Pete ate another piece of apple. "I never lied to you, Patrick."
"Yes you did! You let me think you were just a wolf--"
"Really? Do you know a lot of wolves that sleep indoors and look like they're listening when you speak to them?"
Patrick opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was a fair point. "I thought the wolf was part-dog," he said, a bit lamely. "Or a dog that was part-wolf. It can happen."
"It can," Pete agreed. He nodded at the jugs, still empty at Patrick's feet. "Did you want to get some more water? I'll still be here when you get back." His teeth flashed in a smile. "I'm not going anywhere."
Patrick picked them up and scowled. "Wonderful," he said darkly, and stomped outside.
*
He'd half-hoped Pete would be gone when he returned, but no: he was still sitting at the table, not wearing a stitch more clothing than he had been when Patrick left. There was also a stack of books on the table.
"They're not bad," Pete said, idly paging through one. "Not the best binding I've ever seen, but this is a small village."
Patrick stalked over and snatched it out of his hands. "You look like you're well enough to travel," he said tightly. "So when can I presume you'll be leaving?"
"I told you," Pete said. "When you've agreed to come back with me."
"That's ridiculous," Patrick snapped.
"It's that or I settle down here, which strikes me as the more ridiculous of the two options." Pete shrugged.
Patrick rubbed at his forehead. "Your Highness--"
"Oh, stop that." Pete looked irritated. "I'm not royalty here. I'm a guest at best, a monster at worst. Your idea," he said when Patrick went to correct him, "not mine. If you start calling me 'Your Highness', I'm going to start calling you 'innkeeper' and paying you. And expecting my own bed."
Patrick flushed. "I. That's not." He looked at Pete's face and flushed again. "Fine," he muttered, and shoved a cloak and shirt into Pete's hands. "Then you can go out and get us some firewood."
Pete looked at him for a long minute. "As you like," he said simply, and reached for the shirt.
*
Patrick busied himself with making breakfast. He boiled water and, after a great deal of pacing, set out a second place for Pete at the table. It would've been rude to do otherwise, he told himself, and tried not to think too much about how the only other place setting he had was the one his mother had used.
Just as he was adding meal and stirring the water, Pete opened the door. "Um," he said. "Can you take a look? I think this is enough."
Patrick wiped his hands on a towel and let himself be smug inside. Pete had been out an hour at most, and in winter, even early winter, an hour was nothing. He'd probably cut four logs, five if he was very lucky, and expected praise for it.
"Fine," he started, "let's see what you've--"
Stacked neatly next to the door were perhaps twenty logs, cut into forty fireplace-sized pieces. It would have taken the better part of an afternoon to do that many.
He stared at Pete, frankly amazed.
"Is that enough?" Pete asked. He actually sounded nervous. "If it's not, I can--"
"No!" Patrick yelped. "No, that's. That's good." He nodded, looked at the pile and nodded again. "Come inside. Breakfast is ready."
*
"You can't be a wolf," Patrick said later, pushing away the remains of the meal. He'd made them both mostly-tasteless porridge, one of the few things he'd outright mastered from his mother. Wonderful woman; horrible cook.
"Why not?" Pete asked. He'd supplemented *his* porridge with some kind of meat while he was log-cutting; Patrick hadn't been brave enough to ask what.
"Well, for starters, you're a man--"
"And a wolf," Pete said. "I'm a garou. By our nature, we're more than one thing."
"For all I know, you came in, scared off the wolf, and took his place." Patrick let himself look a little smug at that. "You have tattoos like sailors, and criminals. You're probably one yourself."
"You're land-locked," Pete said. "When have you ever seen a sailor?"
Patrick just looked at him, arms crossed over his chest.
"Oh, for--" Pete sighed. "If I prove that I'm a wolf, will you stop being such an ass?"
Patrick shrugged. "Fair enough.” And when Pete said he *couldn't*, he told himself, he'd feel no guilt about kicking him out into the cold. All right, maybe not *into* the cold, but back as far as the village, certainl--
--and then, easy as anything, easy as breathing, Pete turned into a wolf.
There was no painful transformation, no shifting of skin and bone and muscle; one moment he was a man, the next he was a wolf.
Patrick screamed and threw the bowl at his head.
*
"I *said* I was sorry," Patrick muttered, irritated. He daubed at Pete's forehead with a cloth. "Look, the cut's not even that big."
"You threw a bowl at my head," Pete said, wounded, and winced when Patrick touched him again.
"You turned into a wolf," Patrick said, helplessly.
"You told me to!"
"I didn't really think you would!" He patted the wound again, reached for the bandages. "For that, I owe you an apology. I'm sorry I doubted your word."
Pete sniffed. "Yes, well." He looked hopeful. "In my lands, it's customary to apologize by offering some kind of boon."
"You scared me," Patrick said slowly, "so now I owe you some kind of boon."
"Exactly!" Pete beamed.
Patrick just looked at him.
"Or," Pete said, sighing, "you could continue glowering at me."
Patrick would never entirely know what made him do it, but there it was: he sighed a little, feeling strangely guilty, and leaned over to plant a quick, chaste kiss on Pete's cheek.
Except Pete turned his head at the last moment, because in addition to sometimes being a wolf he was apparently psychic, and got Patrick's mouth instead.
Patrick tried to rear back, but Pete held him fast. He tasted like meat, which made Patrick's stomach recoil, and man, which did not. His mouth was very soft.
Patrick made a noise and leaned into it, sighing.
As soon as he did, though, Pete stepped back. "There," he said, false-bright. "It was a very nice boon. Your callous treatment of me with the bowl is thus forgiven."
Patrick boggled for a moment, then nodded. "Fine," he said, all icy politeness again. Pete cringed. "So we're done with it, then."
"Patrick--"
"So we're done with it, then," Patrick said again, and went to work in the garden for a while.
*
The next few days were uneventful enough, all things considered. Patrick caught up on his gardening, sorted out his few tradeworthy goods to bring to market next month, darned three pairs of socks, trudged out to get more firewood at least twice a day, read a fair bit, cleaned and redressed the wound in Pete's hand, and thought long and hard about drowning himself.
That last one was mostly because of Pete.
He was always -- there. He woke before Patrick and went out hunting (and blessedly left the scraps outside), came back before Patrick could get out of bed. He was no better a cook, but he went about it so grimly determined, it would have been funny if Patrick didn't get the sense that Pete was doing it to prove he'd be a good -- husband? Partner? Whatever the proper term was among garou.
If Pete was awake and not a wolf, he was probably talking. He talked about the dreams he'd had -- "they were very disturbing for a boy not yet fifteen summers, but once I realized you were a real person I was fine. I just had to come and find you" -- and how far he'd had to come. He had no opinion of the people in Patrick's village because he'd never met them, though he understandably wasn't fond of hunters.
"They take too much," he said darkly, the one time Patrick asked. "And they don't use everything they do take. It's wasteful."
That, Patrick couldn't really argue with, mostly because he didn't eat meat. His one good cloak was lined with fox hide, but his mother had bought that for him when he was a baby. "A gift for you, when you become a man," she'd said. He'd taken it as his own after she died.
More rarely, Pete talked about his own people. Those were the stories Patrick preferred.
"Long ago, Mother Moon came down and taught a group of men and a group of wolves the secret of changing their shapes," he said one night, sitting next to Patrick at the small table. Patrick darned socks while he listened. "She told them that they must always keep it a secret, or else those unworthy would learn it and overrun the world. Most of the humans went to the north; most of the wolves, to the south. And we've stayed there, and kept to ourselves, ever since."
"You can't have always," Patrick said, frowning. "I've heard stories about the garou since I was a child."
Pete was quiet for a long time. "There are...very rarely, one of us will go mad and lash out. We try to take him out before he can do any damage to your people, but we're not always successful." He dropped his gaze. "My uncle, when I was still small. My father did it quick."
Patrick's gaze softened. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"'s not your fault. It happens, sometimes. Like when children get sick for no reason, or die in the cradle." Pete shrugged. "The ones who get out, the ones we can't stop -- those are what you know as garou. We don't go around slaughtering children or raping women to breed another generation." He rested his head on his arms.
Patrick winced. "I -- I apologize for that, too."
Pete's smile was small. "I should ask you for another boon, you know."
Patrick felt his face flush. He didn't let himself think about it, just put the socks down on the table and leaned over, his mouth brushing Pete's. Intentionally, this time.
The kiss was softer, sweeter. Patrick started to move away, but Pete's mouth did -- something, and then his lips were parting, and so were Patrick's, and oh, that was. That was Pete's tongue in his mouth.
Patrick felt himself shiver and made a soft noise, then brushed his own tongue into Pete's mouth. It seemed only natural.
It was Pete who pulled away this time, pupils large and dark. "What," he started, and cleared his throat. "What are you doing, Patrick?"
Patrick sat back in his chair and picked up his socks, his needles and thread. "Darning socks," he said calmly. His heart was beating a hundred miles an hour; he was sure Pete could hear it. He wasn't sure he cared. "Tell me more."
*
Pete wanted to sleep in Patrick's bed. Patrick disagreed.
"Oh, come on!" Pete said. "I'll even wear a shirt, I promise."
Patrick looked at him. "And pants?"
"Why would I want to wear pants?" Pete said blandly. "I'd have a shirt on."
Patrick glared at him.
"You're no fun," Pete grumbled, and stumbled off to make up the pallet he slept on in front of the fire.
*
The really miserable thing was, Patrick was still having the dreams.
Except now he know who Pete was, which just made the whole thing worse. Or better. It was all confused inside his head. He could go to sleep, completely sure and confident that Pete was just someone he knew; on their better days, Patrick thought he could, perhaps, one day be a friend. But in his dreams, Pete was all shadows and slim lines, planes and angles brushing against his skin -- making him sweat, making him twist and writhe. He woke up hard and ready more often than not, now.
So far, Patrick had done all right at blocking it out during his waking hours. It was only a few slip-ups here and there: hearing Pete breathe in his sleep and flashing on how different it was when he was panting in Patrick's ear, or watching his fingers fumble at peeling potatoes and remembering how steady they'd been as they pressed down on his hips. Things like that.
Patrick took deep breaths and told himself they were just dreams.
*
One morning, as Patrick was harvesting the last of the vegetables before winter frost settled in, Pete looked up at him and said, "You don't have to abstain on my account, you know."
Patrick frowned and tossed another carrot into the bin. "Abstain from what?"
"Sex."
Patrick spluttered and looked at him. "What?"
Pete just looked at him. "Patrick. You know damn well I have a better sense of smell than you do, even like this." He gestured to himself, in a pair of Patrick's trousers and no shirt. It seemed to be what he preferred wearing; if he'd brought any of his own clothes, Patrick had never seen them. "You think I can't smell you when you wake up?"
"I--" Patrick realized what he meant and flushed dark red. He ducked his head.
He heard Pete sigh and get up, walk over to him. "Patrick."
"Go away," he said tightly, fingers tugging on another carrot. He felt warm all over, and not in a pleasant way, "I have to finish these, then get the last of the squash in. I've left them too long already."
Pete didn't go away; if anything, he stepped closer. His hand squeezed Patrick's shoulder. "What are you so frightened of?" he said softly. "I'm no danger to you. Surely you know that by now. So why--"
"Please go!" Patrick twisted away, face still flushed. "It would be better if you left now, Your Highness."
Patrick still wasn't looking directly at Pete, but he could see the moment Pete's jaw clenched. "If that's what you want, Innkeeper."
Patrick got to his feet. "It's what I've wanted from the beginning," he shouted hoarsely, "you--"
And then he was flushed all over, and the world felt faint and wavery, like he'd been out working too long in the summer heat; and he was trying to walk, but his legs wouldn't work, and neither would his mouth when he tried to speak. He was aware that Pete was yelling and trying to catch him, but it was too hot and his skin felt too tight, and--
*
It was always the same, though he wouldn't realize it 'til later:
Patrick would wake every few hours and stir, groggily. Pete would make him eat something, either water or weak tea or broth ("--and yes, it's made from beef stock, so just shut up and drink it, you can berate me later"). Patrick would sleep again. Every two or three repetitions of this, Pete made him get up long enough to change the sheets, then let him back into bed so he could sleep.
The same pattern, over and over again, with no variation.
They did that for two weeks.
*
One morning, Patrick opened his eyes and said, in a very weak voice, "I'm not dead."
"No," Pete snapped, "though it was close." He was sitting next to the bed, glaring at Patrick with eyes that seemed suspiciously red. "Idiot."
Patrick struggled to sit up. "What happened?"
Pete helped him. "You were sick," he said simply. "I didn't -- I don't know why. You passed out in the garden. I carried you inside and put you in bed." His expression was terrified. "I even went to town and tried to find what passes for a doctor in this place, but he was off across some river tending to some cases of the scratching pox. I came back and did all I could remember. I kept you warm, I gave you liquids. Your fever was high -- very high -- but it broke a couple of days ago. You've slept soundly since, until now."
"I remember," Patrick rasped. He coughed; it sounded harsh and wet. "Can I--"
Pete handed him a glass of water. "Here," he said. "Drink it slowly. If you take it too fast, you'll throw it right back up."
"Thank you," Patrick said. "I have had heat sickness before." But he sipped it slowly, and stopped for a moment when his stomach quailed. "You stayed with me."
"I wasn't about to leave an invalid," Pete muttered, but his eyes were gentle. "How do you feel?"
"Tired," Patrick said. His voice was faint. "The garden--"
"I finished harvesting," Pete said. "I'm fairly sure it's not as good of a job as you would have done, but it's done." He brushed hair out of Patrick's eyes. "I changed your sheets. I even cleaned up after you." He looked a little embarrassed. "It wasn't. You didn't have a bedpan, so--"
Patrick flushed. "Oh, God," he said quietly. He thought he'd felt humiliated that day in the garden, but this was so much worse. "I'm--"
"It's all right," Pete said. "It's. It happens, with sick people. My mother could hardly get out of bed after she had my sister. My father had to take care of her." He laid his hand against Patrick's cheek. "There's no shame in it."
"There's a little shame in it," Patrick said. Pete's hand felt good against his cheek; he could admit that, if only to himself. "Like a child."
"Like someone who was sick," Pete corrected. "Another day, maybe two, and you'll be fine." He paused with his fingers over the glass. "Do you want some more?"
Patrick thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I want to sleep," he said, snuggling back beneath the covers. "That seems stupid, doesn't it? It's all I've been doing for weeks, and I want to do it some more. That's madness."
"That's being sick." Pete took the glass away and stood, tugging the blanket up to Patrick's chin. "Sleep," he said softly. "I'll be here when you wake up."
"All righ'," Patrick murmured, already closing his eyes. He thought for a moment that Pete had brushed a kiss over his still-sweaty forehead, but that could have just been a dream.
*
Part Two