Fic | GK | MAD (mutually assured destruction)
Generation Kill | Brad/Nate | R
"The Strength of the Pack is the Wolf."
Probably they knew, with their hi-tech super computers and insane, brilliant analysts; had diagrams and projections that saw it coming and made contingency plans to save the powers that be, leaders and politicians and the businessmen who had the Midas touch, like there was no way anything that came after was going to deviate from the norm of societies being built on money and deception.
Nothing of it trickled down to the people, not a word, not even the most well-connected media corporations got the memo until it was already too late. They reported it nonetheless. Breaking news, near-exclusive: It is here.
Maybe they should have seen it coming, all of them, but by then all the calamities and the statistics had become such a routine part of the nightly broadcasts, you tended to look away and even if you didn't, it simply didn't register anymore, washing over you like so much white noise.
Floods in Europe during the coldest months of the year, snowstorms in the south that shut down schools and police stations, tornados and tsunamis that were just that much more frequent, that little bit stronger. (Differentiating levels of destruction, like counting water spilled on sand.)
Accidents and crashes that nudged the numbers up daily, that nobody could be sure of, whether they were ever even a part of it at all.
For the people it began with mild discomfort, a niggling doubt in that sleepy part at the back of the brain that evolution had all but deadened. Old, old instincts twitching to life-in a little while, they would be screaming in alarm.
But that was the late part, the nothing-to-be-done part: duck and cover, dig in, don't go mad. Don't go mad.
Animals, most of them, had wisened up and fled. Humans took their place. Those with natural gifts, who had managed to slip the Government's net-and those pale, skinny survivors who finally gave in, grinned bloody teeth and struck.
I
After the world ends it seems easier to shift and just-stay that way.
You don't feel the cold so much. You don't feel the hunger so much. Whenever it gets to the point that you think you are going to go crazy, static and numb in whatever hole you've found, you can take off and just run, back roads and dark alleys and tracks where the trains don't run anymore. Your sense of smell expands around you, automatically gathering information, like reading from a number of radar screens inside your head: you're able to smell anything living or moving in a four-mile radius, so you can always choose another route, avoid everyone, everything.
Nothing outlasts a loping wolf.
The thing is, there's nowhere to go in particular anymore.
::
The first time he runs into another were merely strengthens his conviction of staying on his own.
The sorry-looking beast links their minds without any sort of warning, cheerfully disrespectful of all the usual boundaries. Brad bristles at the intrusion, a harsh growl ripping from his throat.
whoa, whoa! peace, homes! here I am, trying to be nice and say, like, hi-
unnecessary. move on.
really, is that any way to treat your fucking kin, homes?
Christ. Brad centers himself, and shifts back, his form flowing upwards like water. The ground is cool under his bare feet, tiny rocks pricking skin not used to exposure.
The other wolf looks him up and down, whining in distress, its dark eyes wide.
Brad quirks an expectant eyebrow.
Letting out a final frustrated growl, the other were follows suit. Brad finds himself facing a short, skinny brunette with more tattoos than limbs.
"Well, isn't this just fucking wonderful," the man bitches, hopping from one foot to the other and holding his hands protectively in front of his crotch. "Fuck, man. You might be some sort of freaky Viking descendant with ice water flowing in your veins, and a monster dick you don't mind airing in front of god and country, but it's almost fucking winter, homes. Also, the end of the world. Why couldn't we have had this conversation inside our nice warm furs and on our quick little paws?"
Brad snorts. "I don't like having strangers in my head. And in case it escaped your notice, I didn't want a conversation in the first place."
"Dude, seriously, what's with the freezing out a brother? Unclench your asshole a little, would you?" The guy makes a show of looking around. "Where's your pack?"
Brad shrugs a shoulder. "No pack."
It makes the guy rake his fingers through his dark hair in exasperation, forgetting for a moment to worry about covering his junk.
"Right, I get it. Lone wolf, is that it? Christ on a cross, you're a piece of work." He shakes his head, extends a hand. "I'm Ray."
Brad looks at the hand with suspicion, considering where it's just been.
The Ray character glares at him. "Manners, homes. I'm sure you've heard of the concept. At least, this way, you didn't have to sniff my ass, yeah?"
Brad hides his smile and finally takes the offered hand, even divulges his name. Ray's easy, offhand admission of submission to another's Alpha wolf status surprises Brad, because that's the sort of thing you can ignore or skate over while in human form. Most do: most will do anything to preserve an illusion.
Brad revises his initial assessment of Ray upward a notch.
He still declines the invitation to come with Ray and meet "my boys, we've got this seriously nice FOB, homes, used to be a kebab place before they shelled the shit out of it." Cautious trust isn't enough to rewrite months of everything turning shitside up, making every choice a risky move in a hazardous fucking game.
But they are connected now, and if one of them needs to they can call out to each other. Ray doesn't offer a farewell as he bounds away, like he knows their paths will cross again anyhow, is sure of it. Brad stares after him for a beat-wondering at the spazzy fucking way Ray moves, like he can't really decide between being a wolf or a possum-and thinks stay frosty after him, only half ironic.
::
The next weeks are a downward spiral of the world getting colder and darker, echoing with the sounds of splintering wood and crumbling stone, night and day, constant. Some of it is the weak architecture of empty cities giving way, reverting microcosms of short-lived excess back into the nothings they sprang from. A paradise lost, not that it was much of one to begin with.
A lot of it is deliberate destruction, wreaked by human hands, bored or crazed, it all boils down to the same thing, disappoinment and bitter fury.
Brad moves a lot and sleeps little, always as a wolf these days, senses stretched out so thin and far that he feels and hears things filtering in even through hazy, wolf-brain dreams.
The next were he encounters is nothing like the first.
Brad smells him coming in the pre-dawn, the first morning the snow has stuck, and with the clouds dark and low overhead. Brad's muscles tighten, growing anger and something like nerves, so much on edge that he feels everything from the air pressure down to the individual flakes of snow under his paws.
The other wolf stops some distance away.
Brad's hackles rise, a growl emitting from his throat. This won't be pretty. The other is as much an Alpha as Brad is, obvious in his stance. Brad's wolf form is bigger, but the stranger's reddish-gold coat shines with the luster of the well-fed, his eyes are bright and clear, and Brad is tired after weeks of scrounging, running, and only superficial rest.
Then Brad is surprised yet again.
The wolf sits on its haunches, then smoothly rolls down to lie on its side, a paw twitching in the air.
Brad stays still. No fucking way.
The stranger barks at him, once, and it sounds like a laugh.
Brad comes forward cautiously, stops next to the prone form. Christ, the stranger's tail is actually waving a bit, like they are just two pups fucking playing together.
The encounter isn't going anything like it should, doesn't make any sense, but some laws of nature are impossible to resist, especially in this form. Brad feels a hot tug in his gut, the wolf side of him demanding him to establish dominance when it's freely offered.
Brad gives in, noses between the wolf's legs, and hears a low whine, maybe made in deference to the show. Brad feels embarrassed, annoyed-at himself, and at the stranger. They both know it-in their respective conditions, Brad should've been the one to roll over.
The other doesn't seem to mind. After Brad backs up a step, he gets easily back up on his feet and pushes his face against Brad's, rubbing their cheeks together, something like a question, tough guy act over now?
Then he licks Brad's muzzle.
Brad startles. The wolf barks at him again, his tongue lolling out in a wolfish grin. Next instant, he turns and lopes away, footprints in the snow the only thing left behind.
What the fuck.
No, seriously-what the fucking fuck.
Brad shakes his head. The afterimage of exceptionally green eyes stays with him.
The end of the world just got a whole lot more interesting
II
Some mornings he finds the frozen beach, shifts back and stands naked in the wind, the pathetically sparse hair of his human body no buffer against the icy water droplets scraped off of the top layer of the ocean and carried back on violent gusts. He shivers, feels his cock shrinking and his muscles tightening up, and strains to see any kind of movement, any variation to the bleakness at all.
The time might as well have stopped.
Some mornings in the beach are a dream he wakes up from. Settling into the pulsing grey animal mind and running until he feels warm again is a dream that he falls into, exhausted. These days, everything is a blinding white, air crystallizes in his lungs and makes it hard to breath
Sometimes, he dreams of green eyes and gold fur and wakes up wanting and tense, frustrated and expectant. Fucked up or not, the casual, friendly lick by the other shifter makes up the grand total of warmth he has felt since the year's first snowflakes fell.
There hasn't been rhyme or reason to his movements. For some reason, he hasn't once ended up further than a day's journey from what used to be home. Straight as the crow flies, he could have been five states away by now. There's been nothing keeping him, nothing except scent memories.
And now, Brad realizes, he isn't really even thinking about taking off anymore.
Time might have stopped, but it feels like a clock waiting to be rewound, a system in need of a shock to reboot it.
It feels like there is a change coming. Brad tries to tell himself he doesn't recognize any quarter it could be coming from, but his constant revisiting of clear technicolor memories says otherwise.
::
The day he finds the message left for him he's got a belly full of food for the first time in ages and a restless, reckless feeling tickling his veins. Brad laughs, barking high and careless for once.
The morning began in a fucking spectacular fashion, with a chance discovery of a stash of military surplus rations. The chow is probably years old but it has more protein than Brad has digested in weeks, and he didn't have to track and run the meal packages to the ground first.
Alright, so it doesn't taste like much, and the heating mechanism has obviously given up the ghost. Still. Luke-warm meat patties, end of the world, you make do.
On the way back to the shack he's found for the time being he crosses a familiar scent, realizes he's come across a trail left by Ray at the same instant he sees the message stamped on the snow.
Ray could've followed him if he wanted to, Brad's scent is everywhere here, but he's still letting him come to them. The message is obviously meant as an added incentive, and why Brad hadn't thought about this possibility before this, he really doesn't fucking know. His recon skills are slipping. It's not like there are multiple shifter communities in the area, given the laws of probability.
Brad shakes his head, confusedly alternating between amused and pissed off, and takes off again, before it gets dark, making sure to trample right through the snowy lettering.
HEARD YOU MET NATE
::
He might have been coming around to seeking out Ray and his pack (no-Nate and his pack, because any other supposition is just plain fucking laughable) but in the end, it's not his decision at all.
In the snow and the perpetual hush, the snip of the steel trap snapping shut around his front paw is deceptively unobtrusive.
The pain isn't.
The shock of it runs in a freezing jolt down his spine, makes him arch and tense before falling flat on the ground, his legs trembling and liquefied, all of them, not just the one impaled by the teeth of the trap.
Fuck-up, it runs through Brad's mind over and over, more stunned than anything else, what a fuck up, what a stupid, fucking pup mistake to make-
There is not a speck of rust on the trap, despite the wet snow: it shines dully, all matte grey gleam and unscratched. Without the rot of age, there's nothing to smell. A brand-new trap, scavenged from any of the supply caches left hidden in the skeletons of buildings that used to brim with activity, and only just set outside. Brad's mind shies away from wondering who the trap belongs to, and how much time he has got.
The heat is spreading outwards from the wound, from small bones smashed into shards. Brad tries testing the hold the trap has on his paw, and can't suppress the yelp that escapes when the slightest shift sends lighting strikes of hot-cold pain brimming through his body.
It's not his decision-hell, it's not even deliberate. He grits his teeth together, but the burning agony of the laceration forces his jaws open wide, gasping in cold air before the howl breaks free from deep in his throat.
::
"Brad?"
He hasn't lost consciousness, per se, but his mind has pretty much shut down. It's easier to ignore the flames leaping up and down his leg if he bites his teeth hard together and thinks stubbornly about nothing at all.
"Brad, come on."
The smell registers first. His mind is losing its tight grip on the darkness, but the scent of the hand hovering close over him is distantly familiar, and a knot of tension in Brad's back lets up, just a little. A human hand. It doesn't make sense, but he's not really in any shape to figure it out just yet.
Relaxing his hold on the pain has brought all his other controls down, too. Brad lets out a whine, can't stop it.
"I know. Just a second."
There's more movement around them, in front of them, and when Brad focuses his slitted eyes he sees Ray and a young, serious-looking blond examining the trap. Ray is cursing up a storm, but he's doing it quietly, almost absent-minded, most of his attention on the task at hand.
Someone's long fingers burrow into the fur at the back of Brad's neck. The fingers are warm. Brad whines again, but it's only half in pain this time. The skin masks some of the core of scent, but this close it's unmistakable.
Even before he turns his head, he knows he'll see green eyes above him.
This is Nate. And he's beautiful in this form, too.
"They'll get the trap open," Nate says, voice outwardly calm, although there's controlled fury underneath. Brad can smell it. "But you shouldn't shift back yet. We brought a wolf-sized litter, easier to carry you. Ray tells me you're quite tall."
And he smiles a little, worry and anger both wrestled into submission behind the encouraging tone.
Brad lets his eyes close for a bit, then turns his head, and licks Nate's wrist.
III
The pack is the most uneven collection of strays Brad has ever seen. The morning after his arrival, back in human form and his forearm tightly bound, he'd woken to a fucking racket and made his way to the large empty area the noises where coming from. His introduction to the rest of the pack had been seeing a scrappy, light-colored wolf tussling with a shifter three times its size.
("That's Stafford and Manimal," Nate had said, appearing next to him. His voice was unruffled, like all of this was completely normal, but Brad couldn't help shaking his head.
"Doesn't look fair."
"Don't underestimate Evan. He has-" There was a loud yowl, and the huge dark wolf scrambled back. "-Tricks," Nate finished. He looked sideways at Brad. "When you're better, you can see for yourself."
Brad answered the look, blank-faced. Nate was saying it like a foregone conclusion, but his eyes weren't as certain as the words.
It was still in Brad's hands. If he wanted to leave, they would let him go. No obligations, no debts.
There was no use pretending. Brad couldn't wait to heal, because he couldn't wait to see Nate as wolf again. Run with him. Pay back for all the obsessing he had done.
Brad nodded, slow and deliberate. "Sure.")
In a way it makes sense, drawing together despite your differences, but he doesn't know how they manage not to kill each other in the meantime.
Brad says this out loud to Walt, who grins at him, even as his eyes are on the dressing he's changing. "It might look like we got nothing in common, but we work well together. All the fighting is just a great way to burn energy." He bites his lip, chances a glance at Brad. "Besides, we all follow Nate."
Brad says nothing. He doesn't need to.
The door swings open and Ray walks in, and behind him-
Brad's throat goes dry and his heart speeds up. The sad thing is, it's nothing more than a routine reaction these days.
Nate gives him a small smile but he talks to Walt first. "How's the break?"
"Healing well. Another couple of days and he'll be able to move normally on four legs again."
Ray snorts. "Something good coming from our creepy mutant genes, right?"
"The only mutant genes here are the ones you got from your white trash mother, Ray," Brad gripes, and Ray gives him an exaggeratedly injured look, already opening his mouth, ready to talk them all into a coma. Walt finishes with the bandages and addresses Nate quickly, loudly. "So did you kill whoever it was that set the trap?"
Brad can't be sure, but it looks like Nate is flushing. "No, Walt, we-we tracked them, observed for a while."
"What our esteemed leader means, Hasser, is that we sat watch outside their hovel and made noise like motherfuckers. And then Lilley set the place on fire."
Walt is howling with laughter. Nate's face is solemn. "The warning would have been sufficient. They would have left."
"Yeah, but you can't deny burning up their hooch was even more effective, sir."
Yes, Nate's face is solemn, until you look harder and see the tremor in the corner of his mouth, where he's fighting like hell to keep the grin off his face.
Brad catches his eyes, and doesn't battle his own smirk at all.
::
It's Tim who makes the final assessment. "Yeah," he says after a while, fingers competent as they feel out the bones under skin. "You can shift."
"Fucking finally," Ray taunts. "You can start pulling your weight around here." Brad would take a swing at him, but he figures he'll just run Ray over when he least expects it. Possibly right over an edge of a small cliff. "Let's go," he says, a challenge and a warning in the twist of his mouth.
It's a fucking relief, alright, even though it's fucking painful after a week of resting and letting his muscles seize up. As soon as his paws hit the ground he almost zones out, overwhelmed with the expansion of his senses after days of limited everything.
Someone pads closer, nudges him in the side, and Brad concentrates on the one strong, familiar scent, pushes the press of the world aside.
Nate doesn't need to get into his head to speak, the wide grin he gives is words enough, and they take off together, racing down the stairs and outside.
Brad doesn't know whether it's just his imagination, but the air carries a hint of something different.
He glances at Nate, running beside him, to see if he's noticing it. Nate's ears twitch, a question, and Brad knows this is another thing that's in his power, although in any other pack he would have no right to make such a choice, no right to deny his Alpha anything.
(If he wanted to, he could refute it-he could still say he's just a visitor, an independent addition. But there's no use lying to himself when he feels more balanced in Nate's company, when he's finding out he willingly looks to Nate first.
He doesn't know when he started wanting to give Nate everything he never asks for, and why it doesn't make him more nervous.)
Nate's mind offers no resistance when Brad initiates the contact, and he would feel uncomfortable about intruding if Nate didn't instantly shift to make room for him, their thoughts settling parallel to each other, easier than any link Brad has ever experienced.
the air- Brad doesn't get any further, he feels Nate's agreement, his cautious optimism. it's starting, Nate says. somewhere, it's starting.
It has been 273 days of grey frozen earth, and now the earth itself is fighting back. It's not over yet. There also is no such thing as a sure win. This is a war to which they are nothing but bystanders, and the only thing they can do is watch and wait and survive.
::
Physics becomes an issue after Evan drags home another stray (Ray is making bets about the kid going out of his way to run into someone in need just so he wouldn't be the youngest in the pack) and then Nate finds a whole family, Tony and Gina and their little girls.
Meaning, there hasn't been free space for some time.
When Brad finds the room he's been using cleared out and the first person he runs into is Walt, who just says, "It's, we thought, you can bunk with Nate?" he can't even get mad. Because nobody can yell at Walt and not feel like shit afterwards, even though they all know he uses the blue eyes and the innocent corn-fed appearance as a sneaky motherfucking camouflage shield.
So Brad wrestles down the irritation as well as the inkling of worry. "Anyone clear this with Nate himself?"
Walt just stares at him, then says, "I think it's fine, Brad."
Brad wants to be stubborn and demand to know whether that's an affirmation or not, but then Ray gallops past them, both of the tiny Esperas screaming and giggling on his back, and Walt chooses the distraction to slip away.
Sneaky, just like Brad said.
::
He toys with the idea of trying to find somewhere else to sleep, but Nate finds him just as it's getting dark, inclines his head at the general direction of his room.
He waits for Brad's nod before turning to go, expecting Brad to follow, and it's another anomaly, another privilege-because, in truth, Brad could have shared a space with any of the others; because Alphas don't have to do this.
Oh.
As far as epiphanies go, it is so obvious in retrospect he can't find the shock to go with it. He's been consciously looking away from facts that are staring him in the face, because as long as there is plausible deniability there is a chance of him getting out safe and whole when the time comes that things go to shit.
He's been a fucking idiot.
Nate senses the tension behind him and stops in the middle of the stairs, turns back to Brad. The corners of his mouth curve down.
"I-you don't-"
"No," Brad says, completely calm at last. "I do."
IV
Nate is heat.
His body temperature is incredible, whether he's in wolf form or human. During the last month of sleeping with him, Brad has got used to it-more than used to, grateful for it after so much time of being constantly cold.
He's got used to the heat, but he is never not conscious of Nate's body, the sparking of it against Brad's own, and as soon as he comes up from a foggy dream of running endlessly under a dead grey sky, he can feel Nate behind him on the wide mattress. He's not quite close enough for Brad to feel his breath on the back of his neck, but Brad's skin is rising on goose bumps anyway.
It's enough to know Nate is near. Brad's stomach twists with arousal. He starts to turn.
"Stop," Nate says. Brad freezes. Nate's voice is low, rasping, and doesn't sound like him at all.
"What," he tries. The rest of the words are gone. His throat is dry. Nate slithers closer to him, fits his chest to Brad's back, mouths Brad's shoulder. Nate's dick is hard, a burning, silky weight nestled tight into the swell of Brad's ass.
Nate gives off wolf heat, and a dark, musky smell.
Brad is still tensed to the point of snapping. "Nate?"
Nate doesn't answer, except for a hoarse hum deep in his throat.
"What the fuck," he starts, aiming for annoyed and coming out uncertain and frustrated instead.
Without warning, Nate leaps-bowls Brad over onto his stomach and settles on top of him, straddling his thighs.
Brad freezes. A part of his brain is shouting warnings, telling him it's dangerous to be in this position, wrong, unprecedented. He wants to get the fuck away.
Another part, something more liquid and alien inside him urges him to wait-wait until Nate melts against him, wait until Nate comes back into himself.
He wants to know what the fuck's happened, what's brought Nate's wolf so close and so blind to the surface.
Nate's long fingers creep up and tilt his head forward, baring the back of his neck, careful but insistent. And Brad is finally getting really fucking angry, ready to throw Nate off. He's flexing his muscles, gathering momentum-
Nate bends close and bites hard below Brad's fade.
The resistance floods out of him, replaced by a visceral, animal response. Brad's mind lurches, flashing into a black and white space, wolf sight, snow and cloudy mornings, trying to become invisible with the sound of your heartbeat loud as explosions in your ears. He's alone, until he isn't any more. The new presence resonates in the still air.
He'd lift his tail and lie down, but all he has is naked skin and he's already more vulnerable than he's used to being. He longs for fur and thick bones, something that would serve as a buffer against the bite of ownership in the scruff of his neck.
And then all of a sudden, Nate lets off. He gasps, the single tremor running through him absorbed by Brad's body, and rests his head between Brad's shoulder blades. Brad's breathing is fast and shallow. Nate is heavy above him, close and so fucking hot.
"Nate," Brad says again. And this time, Nate relaxes a little.
"Give me a moment." Nate speaks the words against his back, lips brushing skin. His voice is rough but there's reason in it again. Brad shivers. He knows Nate is fighting against it. It doesn't even matter what brought it on, a nightmare, a flashback, someone passing too close to the building and their unfamiliar scent intruding under the fuzzy blanket of sleep. Nate is stronger than that. He'll be fine.
The thing is, though-the thing is, Nate is his Alpha. Unvoiced, but unequivocal. Nate has the right. They've never gone through the whole routine, never as anything more than play-acting, the most serious show the fucking farce of their first meeting. You would have died trying to prove yourself, Nate had said when Brad had awkwardly brought up the subject. So stubborn, Brad.
Nate hasn't demanded it, but he's earned it a thousand times over.
Brad becomes aware of the weight between his legs, the fullness of his cock trapped against the mattress.
He swallows. "Back in the building?"
Nate's forehead brushes the skin of his back. He's nodding. "Sorry," he says. He sounds so fucking tired. Sometimes, it manages to surprise Brad, the realization that Nate is susceptible to the same exhaustion that is there, muscle-deep, in all of them.
"What was it?"
He's expecting Nate to echo any of the things he's been through himself, countless times-bad memories, bad dreams-things that crop up now and then, old terrors and ghosts never quite gone that nudge the animal inside awake-prowling, protecting. Always conscious of the grainy world outside being so much a war zone, still a stasis of dilapidation. In waiting for something to come to a close, they've all reverted to a limbo between instincts and routine. If any growth is happening, it's slow as tectonic plates.
If there is any hope, it's as tired as the soles of their feet.
To his surprise, he feels Nate tense again. "It was-nothing," Nate grinds out. "Fuck, just. Nothing."
Brad finds himself resting his chin on a forearm; settling more comfortably into place, covered by Nate's body. He refrains from analyzing the concession further. It's Nate.
It's Nate.
"Had to be something," he prods. "You were practically communicating in howls."
He is willing to bet Nate is blushing.
"Fuck you," Nate says mildly. He isn't moving anywhere, either, though, except to shift a fraction, the soft skin of his inner thigh brushing against Brad. Brad's dick twitches.
"Nate," he says, again. It's unlike Nate to keep anything from him. And this is, it is something.
Nate sighs, shaky. "Just," he says. "Fuck. It was-" He stops, shakes his head again. Brad feels the movement of cool air over his suddenly sensitive skin.
"You. Just you. Smelling you." Nate laughs, short and strangled. "My dreams were full of it. I woke up, half out of my mind. And you were barking in your sleep. And."
Brad has stopped breathing sometime during the last thirty seconds.
Nate says, "Fuck, I want you."
It's not asking for anything. Here and now, for Nate, it's almost an admission of weakness, that his wolf can so violently bring out the part of himself that Nate tries so hard to control.
Ray had told Brad early on, casual and off-hand, that Nate was the best thing that ever happened to any of them. Nate's pack follows him because his leadership is unmistakable, in any form, and they're all one way or another better off for it.
(First time I met Nate, Ray says. Hadn't eaten in four days, you know? It was just after-just afterwards, you know, and I, fuck, I smelled Nate first, and I was so fucking fed up, tired like a mother, I thought, fuck no, not today, homes.
Yeah? Brad asks. Thinking back, remembering, already knowing what Ray's story will be.
Yeah. Ray grins. All set to scrap it out, go out in a blaze of glory, homes, you know how it goes-and Nate just keeps coming closer, not stopping until he's right in front of me, and he's like, rolling his eyes at me like he's telling me to stop being a shithead. Then he fucking bites my ear and when I get into his head to call him an asshole, he just says to me, he has chow, let's go.
And that was that, Brad says.
And that was that, Ray confirms, perfectly content.)
They trust him. Brad has never once seen Nate shy away from the responsibility, but sometimes he catches Nate just watching the guys and Brad can tell he's wondering who they are actually following, whether they were ever free to make the decision at all.
If Nate is scared of over-exerting his influence, Brad will just have to set him straight.
Deliberately, in what feels like the most daring thing he's done in as long as he can remember, Brad drags his right knee up, opens himself up to Nate's eyes and Nate's touch, and says, "Fuck me."
Nate's heat spikes. Brad holds still, waits, waits, waits, until Nate reaches up, drags his teeth down the side of Brad's throat, bites down on the juncture of shoulder, and that's it, they're fucking go. Nate doesn't ask if Brad's sure. He doesn't have to. The fucking air surrounding them is thick with pheromones, and Brad's heart is beating double time, echoing through them both.
Brad has a hard time keeping up with everything that happens next. Nate's body over him is suddenly as much a shelter as a claim, a claim that is insistently echoed by Nate's teeth and tongue playing on his neck and shoulder, leaving behind small reddening bruises. Nate's strong, clever hands trail down Brad's sides and up his hitched-up knee, gripping Brad's thigh and keeping him tightly in place, spreading him just that much more open.
Brad speaks in short, gulping pants, come on, come on Nate, and he means, get on with it, this is yours, I'm ready.
Nate responds with his name, Brad, fuck, raspy like it's torn out of his throat, and moves back on the bed, sliding down Brad's body.
His lips trail to a stop on Brad's tailbone, blowing warmly on the skin, and Brad's dick pulses, his balls are heavy and tight against his body, and Nate is just fucking starting.
"Nate-" he starts, not even knowing what he's going to say, and Nate cuts him off by the stiff tip of his tongue dragging down the cleft until he's fucking Brad's hole with it.
Brad pushes his forehead hard into the ratty pillow, squeezes shut his eyes and bites his lower lip but the sound still fights its way free, a rough cry the kind of which Brad didn't believe himself capable of making. Nate's left thumb plays on the rim of his asshole, stretching him so he can reach a little deeper, laving him with saliva, alternating between short, jabbing thrusts of his tongue and slow, hard licks that leave Brad shaking and leaking into the sheets.
The fingers of Brad's left hand are fisted to the corner of the pillow, but his free hand steals between his legs, squished under his own body, because, fuck, if he just gets his hand around himself, he won't need anything more-but Nate snarls, stops fucking Brad with his mouth just long enough to say, "My rules, Brad," and twists Brad's arm away, traps his wrist against the mattress.
Brad's hole clenches. "I can't-Nate-"
The flat of Nate's tongue is back on him, starting at his balls and trekking up in a slow, hypnotic lick, repeated once, and once more, before Nate exhales into the wet skin. "You can," he says, and it's not quite a command, but it aches like truth. "You can, because I want you to, okay?"
Brad groans, rocks against the bed, back against Nate's mouth. He feels Nate's smile against his damp skin. "Yeah, just like that."
Then Nate's both hands are on his ass, both thumbs dipping into his hole, opening him up, and he thought Nate was tonguefucking him before, now he realizes Nate was easing him into it.
Brad's mind whites out.
He is aware of the noises he is making, but it's a while before the rush of blood in his ears lets him separate actual words-repeating Nate's name is the least embarrassing of them all, but he can't stop. When Nate pushes in two fingers at once, Brad's lower body spasms on the bed, bucking up into Nate's hold on him, but Nate rides it easily, whispering, so good, Brad, and, soon.
"I'm good," Brad forces out between his teeth. He's terrified Nate will draw this out more. "I'm good, I'm good, you can-"
Nate draws his fingers out and Brad hears him spitting into his cupped calm. "I know you are," he groans, and his voice is finally showing signs of strain, too, going wrecked and low. "You should see yourself."
Brad shudders at that, and then shudders again when Nate's palm settles on his hip, and he feels the head of Nate's dick pressing against him. It feels huge, but Brad isn't just oversensitive and desperate, he's sure of this, and, apparently, that is enough.
His body relaxes, and Nate sinks into him.
Nothing has ever felt better than Nate's slow, powerful thrusts, glancing off his prostate-nothing, until Nate comes inside him, locked in place for long moments as his orgasm goes on, spreading hot and wet inside Brad, and against that, his own climax is almost an afterthought.
It's a while before Nate is able to move, but when he does, he scoots back down, hands on Brad's thighs keeping him open as he licks at Brad's loose, swollen hole, sucking at him and swallowing down the come slipping out.
::
The earth hasn't resolved its crisis, and they are all at a watershed of meaning, but some things bring sense into chaos, belief into desolation.
Nate's skin is sweaty and hot when Brad trails his nose over his throat, doing his own claiming, committing this to memory.
Minutes and hours tick by, and somewhere, a clock is rewound to life, and the stumbling new beginning is marked by a long, indrawn breath, unconscious and inevitable.
"We feel like we’re alive only through the painful excitation of our seventh sense, the sense of loss."
"The Strength of the Pack is the Wolf."
Probably they knew, with their hi-tech super computers and insane, brilliant analysts; had diagrams and projections that saw it coming and made contingency plans to save the powers that be, leaders and politicians and the businessmen who had the Midas touch, like there was no way anything that came after was going to deviate from the norm of societies being built on money and deception.
Nothing of it trickled down to the people, not a word, not even the most well-connected media corporations got the memo until it was already too late. They reported it nonetheless. Breaking news, near-exclusive: It is here.
Maybe they should have seen it coming, all of them, but by then all the calamities and the statistics had become such a routine part of the nightly broadcasts, you tended to look away and even if you didn't, it simply didn't register anymore, washing over you like so much white noise.
Floods in Europe during the coldest months of the year, snowstorms in the south that shut down schools and police stations, tornados and tsunamis that were just that much more frequent, that little bit stronger. (Differentiating levels of destruction, like counting water spilled on sand.)
Accidents and crashes that nudged the numbers up daily, that nobody could be sure of, whether they were ever even a part of it at all.
For the people it began with mild discomfort, a niggling doubt in that sleepy part at the back of the brain that evolution had all but deadened. Old, old instincts twitching to life-in a little while, they would be screaming in alarm.
But that was the late part, the nothing-to-be-done part: duck and cover, dig in, don't go mad. Don't go mad.
Animals, most of them, had wisened up and fled. Humans took their place. Those with natural gifts, who had managed to slip the Government's net-and those pale, skinny survivors who finally gave in, grinned bloody teeth and struck.
I
After the world ends it seems easier to shift and just-stay that way.
You don't feel the cold so much. You don't feel the hunger so much. Whenever it gets to the point that you think you are going to go crazy, static and numb in whatever hole you've found, you can take off and just run, back roads and dark alleys and tracks where the trains don't run anymore. Your sense of smell expands around you, automatically gathering information, like reading from a number of radar screens inside your head: you're able to smell anything living or moving in a four-mile radius, so you can always choose another route, avoid everyone, everything.
Nothing outlasts a loping wolf.
The thing is, there's nowhere to go in particular anymore.
::
The first time he runs into another were merely strengthens his conviction of staying on his own.
The sorry-looking beast links their minds without any sort of warning, cheerfully disrespectful of all the usual boundaries. Brad bristles at the intrusion, a harsh growl ripping from his throat.
whoa, whoa! peace, homes! here I am, trying to be nice and say, like, hi-
unnecessary. move on.
really, is that any way to treat your fucking kin, homes?
Christ. Brad centers himself, and shifts back, his form flowing upwards like water. The ground is cool under his bare feet, tiny rocks pricking skin not used to exposure.
The other wolf looks him up and down, whining in distress, its dark eyes wide.
Brad quirks an expectant eyebrow.
Letting out a final frustrated growl, the other were follows suit. Brad finds himself facing a short, skinny brunette with more tattoos than limbs.
"Well, isn't this just fucking wonderful," the man bitches, hopping from one foot to the other and holding his hands protectively in front of his crotch. "Fuck, man. You might be some sort of freaky Viking descendant with ice water flowing in your veins, and a monster dick you don't mind airing in front of god and country, but it's almost fucking winter, homes. Also, the end of the world. Why couldn't we have had this conversation inside our nice warm furs and on our quick little paws?"
Brad snorts. "I don't like having strangers in my head. And in case it escaped your notice, I didn't want a conversation in the first place."
"Dude, seriously, what's with the freezing out a brother? Unclench your asshole a little, would you?" The guy makes a show of looking around. "Where's your pack?"
Brad shrugs a shoulder. "No pack."
It makes the guy rake his fingers through his dark hair in exasperation, forgetting for a moment to worry about covering his junk.
"Right, I get it. Lone wolf, is that it? Christ on a cross, you're a piece of work." He shakes his head, extends a hand. "I'm Ray."
Brad looks at the hand with suspicion, considering where it's just been.
The Ray character glares at him. "Manners, homes. I'm sure you've heard of the concept. At least, this way, you didn't have to sniff my ass, yeah?"
Brad hides his smile and finally takes the offered hand, even divulges his name. Ray's easy, offhand admission of submission to another's Alpha wolf status surprises Brad, because that's the sort of thing you can ignore or skate over while in human form. Most do: most will do anything to preserve an illusion.
Brad revises his initial assessment of Ray upward a notch.
He still declines the invitation to come with Ray and meet "my boys, we've got this seriously nice FOB, homes, used to be a kebab place before they shelled the shit out of it." Cautious trust isn't enough to rewrite months of everything turning shitside up, making every choice a risky move in a hazardous fucking game.
But they are connected now, and if one of them needs to they can call out to each other. Ray doesn't offer a farewell as he bounds away, like he knows their paths will cross again anyhow, is sure of it. Brad stares after him for a beat-wondering at the spazzy fucking way Ray moves, like he can't really decide between being a wolf or a possum-and thinks stay frosty after him, only half ironic.
::
The next weeks are a downward spiral of the world getting colder and darker, echoing with the sounds of splintering wood and crumbling stone, night and day, constant. Some of it is the weak architecture of empty cities giving way, reverting microcosms of short-lived excess back into the nothings they sprang from. A paradise lost, not that it was much of one to begin with.
A lot of it is deliberate destruction, wreaked by human hands, bored or crazed, it all boils down to the same thing, disappoinment and bitter fury.
Brad moves a lot and sleeps little, always as a wolf these days, senses stretched out so thin and far that he feels and hears things filtering in even through hazy, wolf-brain dreams.
The next were he encounters is nothing like the first.
Brad smells him coming in the pre-dawn, the first morning the snow has stuck, and with the clouds dark and low overhead. Brad's muscles tighten, growing anger and something like nerves, so much on edge that he feels everything from the air pressure down to the individual flakes of snow under his paws.
The other wolf stops some distance away.
Brad's hackles rise, a growl emitting from his throat. This won't be pretty. The other is as much an Alpha as Brad is, obvious in his stance. Brad's wolf form is bigger, but the stranger's reddish-gold coat shines with the luster of the well-fed, his eyes are bright and clear, and Brad is tired after weeks of scrounging, running, and only superficial rest.
Then Brad is surprised yet again.
The wolf sits on its haunches, then smoothly rolls down to lie on its side, a paw twitching in the air.
Brad stays still. No fucking way.
The stranger barks at him, once, and it sounds like a laugh.
Brad comes forward cautiously, stops next to the prone form. Christ, the stranger's tail is actually waving a bit, like they are just two pups fucking playing together.
The encounter isn't going anything like it should, doesn't make any sense, but some laws of nature are impossible to resist, especially in this form. Brad feels a hot tug in his gut, the wolf side of him demanding him to establish dominance when it's freely offered.
Brad gives in, noses between the wolf's legs, and hears a low whine, maybe made in deference to the show. Brad feels embarrassed, annoyed-at himself, and at the stranger. They both know it-in their respective conditions, Brad should've been the one to roll over.
The other doesn't seem to mind. After Brad backs up a step, he gets easily back up on his feet and pushes his face against Brad's, rubbing their cheeks together, something like a question, tough guy act over now?
Then he licks Brad's muzzle.
Brad startles. The wolf barks at him again, his tongue lolling out in a wolfish grin. Next instant, he turns and lopes away, footprints in the snow the only thing left behind.
What the fuck.
No, seriously-what the fucking fuck.
Brad shakes his head. The afterimage of exceptionally green eyes stays with him.
The end of the world just got a whole lot more interesting
II
Some mornings he finds the frozen beach, shifts back and stands naked in the wind, the pathetically sparse hair of his human body no buffer against the icy water droplets scraped off of the top layer of the ocean and carried back on violent gusts. He shivers, feels his cock shrinking and his muscles tightening up, and strains to see any kind of movement, any variation to the bleakness at all.
The time might as well have stopped.
Some mornings in the beach are a dream he wakes up from. Settling into the pulsing grey animal mind and running until he feels warm again is a dream that he falls into, exhausted. These days, everything is a blinding white, air crystallizes in his lungs and makes it hard to breath
Sometimes, he dreams of green eyes and gold fur and wakes up wanting and tense, frustrated and expectant. Fucked up or not, the casual, friendly lick by the other shifter makes up the grand total of warmth he has felt since the year's first snowflakes fell.
There hasn't been rhyme or reason to his movements. For some reason, he hasn't once ended up further than a day's journey from what used to be home. Straight as the crow flies, he could have been five states away by now. There's been nothing keeping him, nothing except scent memories.
And now, Brad realizes, he isn't really even thinking about taking off anymore.
Time might have stopped, but it feels like a clock waiting to be rewound, a system in need of a shock to reboot it.
It feels like there is a change coming. Brad tries to tell himself he doesn't recognize any quarter it could be coming from, but his constant revisiting of clear technicolor memories says otherwise.
::
The day he finds the message left for him he's got a belly full of food for the first time in ages and a restless, reckless feeling tickling his veins. Brad laughs, barking high and careless for once.
The morning began in a fucking spectacular fashion, with a chance discovery of a stash of military surplus rations. The chow is probably years old but it has more protein than Brad has digested in weeks, and he didn't have to track and run the meal packages to the ground first.
Alright, so it doesn't taste like much, and the heating mechanism has obviously given up the ghost. Still. Luke-warm meat patties, end of the world, you make do.
On the way back to the shack he's found for the time being he crosses a familiar scent, realizes he's come across a trail left by Ray at the same instant he sees the message stamped on the snow.
Ray could've followed him if he wanted to, Brad's scent is everywhere here, but he's still letting him come to them. The message is obviously meant as an added incentive, and why Brad hadn't thought about this possibility before this, he really doesn't fucking know. His recon skills are slipping. It's not like there are multiple shifter communities in the area, given the laws of probability.
Brad shakes his head, confusedly alternating between amused and pissed off, and takes off again, before it gets dark, making sure to trample right through the snowy lettering.
HEARD YOU MET NATE
::
He might have been coming around to seeking out Ray and his pack (no-Nate and his pack, because any other supposition is just plain fucking laughable) but in the end, it's not his decision at all.
In the snow and the perpetual hush, the snip of the steel trap snapping shut around his front paw is deceptively unobtrusive.
The pain isn't.
The shock of it runs in a freezing jolt down his spine, makes him arch and tense before falling flat on the ground, his legs trembling and liquefied, all of them, not just the one impaled by the teeth of the trap.
Fuck-up, it runs through Brad's mind over and over, more stunned than anything else, what a fuck up, what a stupid, fucking pup mistake to make-
There is not a speck of rust on the trap, despite the wet snow: it shines dully, all matte grey gleam and unscratched. Without the rot of age, there's nothing to smell. A brand-new trap, scavenged from any of the supply caches left hidden in the skeletons of buildings that used to brim with activity, and only just set outside. Brad's mind shies away from wondering who the trap belongs to, and how much time he has got.
The heat is spreading outwards from the wound, from small bones smashed into shards. Brad tries testing the hold the trap has on his paw, and can't suppress the yelp that escapes when the slightest shift sends lighting strikes of hot-cold pain brimming through his body.
It's not his decision-hell, it's not even deliberate. He grits his teeth together, but the burning agony of the laceration forces his jaws open wide, gasping in cold air before the howl breaks free from deep in his throat.
::
"Brad?"
He hasn't lost consciousness, per se, but his mind has pretty much shut down. It's easier to ignore the flames leaping up and down his leg if he bites his teeth hard together and thinks stubbornly about nothing at all.
"Brad, come on."
The smell registers first. His mind is losing its tight grip on the darkness, but the scent of the hand hovering close over him is distantly familiar, and a knot of tension in Brad's back lets up, just a little. A human hand. It doesn't make sense, but he's not really in any shape to figure it out just yet.
Relaxing his hold on the pain has brought all his other controls down, too. Brad lets out a whine, can't stop it.
"I know. Just a second."
There's more movement around them, in front of them, and when Brad focuses his slitted eyes he sees Ray and a young, serious-looking blond examining the trap. Ray is cursing up a storm, but he's doing it quietly, almost absent-minded, most of his attention on the task at hand.
Someone's long fingers burrow into the fur at the back of Brad's neck. The fingers are warm. Brad whines again, but it's only half in pain this time. The skin masks some of the core of scent, but this close it's unmistakable.
Even before he turns his head, he knows he'll see green eyes above him.
This is Nate. And he's beautiful in this form, too.
"They'll get the trap open," Nate says, voice outwardly calm, although there's controlled fury underneath. Brad can smell it. "But you shouldn't shift back yet. We brought a wolf-sized litter, easier to carry you. Ray tells me you're quite tall."
And he smiles a little, worry and anger both wrestled into submission behind the encouraging tone.
Brad lets his eyes close for a bit, then turns his head, and licks Nate's wrist.
III
The pack is the most uneven collection of strays Brad has ever seen. The morning after his arrival, back in human form and his forearm tightly bound, he'd woken to a fucking racket and made his way to the large empty area the noises where coming from. His introduction to the rest of the pack had been seeing a scrappy, light-colored wolf tussling with a shifter three times its size.
("That's Stafford and Manimal," Nate had said, appearing next to him. His voice was unruffled, like all of this was completely normal, but Brad couldn't help shaking his head.
"Doesn't look fair."
"Don't underestimate Evan. He has-" There was a loud yowl, and the huge dark wolf scrambled back. "-Tricks," Nate finished. He looked sideways at Brad. "When you're better, you can see for yourself."
Brad answered the look, blank-faced. Nate was saying it like a foregone conclusion, but his eyes weren't as certain as the words.
It was still in Brad's hands. If he wanted to leave, they would let him go. No obligations, no debts.
There was no use pretending. Brad couldn't wait to heal, because he couldn't wait to see Nate as wolf again. Run with him. Pay back for all the obsessing he had done.
Brad nodded, slow and deliberate. "Sure.")
In a way it makes sense, drawing together despite your differences, but he doesn't know how they manage not to kill each other in the meantime.
Brad says this out loud to Walt, who grins at him, even as his eyes are on the dressing he's changing. "It might look like we got nothing in common, but we work well together. All the fighting is just a great way to burn energy." He bites his lip, chances a glance at Brad. "Besides, we all follow Nate."
Brad says nothing. He doesn't need to.
The door swings open and Ray walks in, and behind him-
Brad's throat goes dry and his heart speeds up. The sad thing is, it's nothing more than a routine reaction these days.
Nate gives him a small smile but he talks to Walt first. "How's the break?"
"Healing well. Another couple of days and he'll be able to move normally on four legs again."
Ray snorts. "Something good coming from our creepy mutant genes, right?"
"The only mutant genes here are the ones you got from your white trash mother, Ray," Brad gripes, and Ray gives him an exaggeratedly injured look, already opening his mouth, ready to talk them all into a coma. Walt finishes with the bandages and addresses Nate quickly, loudly. "So did you kill whoever it was that set the trap?"
Brad can't be sure, but it looks like Nate is flushing. "No, Walt, we-we tracked them, observed for a while."
"What our esteemed leader means, Hasser, is that we sat watch outside their hovel and made noise like motherfuckers. And then Lilley set the place on fire."
Walt is howling with laughter. Nate's face is solemn. "The warning would have been sufficient. They would have left."
"Yeah, but you can't deny burning up their hooch was even more effective, sir."
Yes, Nate's face is solemn, until you look harder and see the tremor in the corner of his mouth, where he's fighting like hell to keep the grin off his face.
Brad catches his eyes, and doesn't battle his own smirk at all.
::
It's Tim who makes the final assessment. "Yeah," he says after a while, fingers competent as they feel out the bones under skin. "You can shift."
"Fucking finally," Ray taunts. "You can start pulling your weight around here." Brad would take a swing at him, but he figures he'll just run Ray over when he least expects it. Possibly right over an edge of a small cliff. "Let's go," he says, a challenge and a warning in the twist of his mouth.
It's a fucking relief, alright, even though it's fucking painful after a week of resting and letting his muscles seize up. As soon as his paws hit the ground he almost zones out, overwhelmed with the expansion of his senses after days of limited everything.
Someone pads closer, nudges him in the side, and Brad concentrates on the one strong, familiar scent, pushes the press of the world aside.
Nate doesn't need to get into his head to speak, the wide grin he gives is words enough, and they take off together, racing down the stairs and outside.
Brad doesn't know whether it's just his imagination, but the air carries a hint of something different.
He glances at Nate, running beside him, to see if he's noticing it. Nate's ears twitch, a question, and Brad knows this is another thing that's in his power, although in any other pack he would have no right to make such a choice, no right to deny his Alpha anything.
(If he wanted to, he could refute it-he could still say he's just a visitor, an independent addition. But there's no use lying to himself when he feels more balanced in Nate's company, when he's finding out he willingly looks to Nate first.
He doesn't know when he started wanting to give Nate everything he never asks for, and why it doesn't make him more nervous.)
Nate's mind offers no resistance when Brad initiates the contact, and he would feel uncomfortable about intruding if Nate didn't instantly shift to make room for him, their thoughts settling parallel to each other, easier than any link Brad has ever experienced.
the air- Brad doesn't get any further, he feels Nate's agreement, his cautious optimism. it's starting, Nate says. somewhere, it's starting.
It has been 273 days of grey frozen earth, and now the earth itself is fighting back. It's not over yet. There also is no such thing as a sure win. This is a war to which they are nothing but bystanders, and the only thing they can do is watch and wait and survive.
::
Physics becomes an issue after Evan drags home another stray (Ray is making bets about the kid going out of his way to run into someone in need just so he wouldn't be the youngest in the pack) and then Nate finds a whole family, Tony and Gina and their little girls.
Meaning, there hasn't been free space for some time.
When Brad finds the room he's been using cleared out and the first person he runs into is Walt, who just says, "It's, we thought, you can bunk with Nate?" he can't even get mad. Because nobody can yell at Walt and not feel like shit afterwards, even though they all know he uses the blue eyes and the innocent corn-fed appearance as a sneaky motherfucking camouflage shield.
So Brad wrestles down the irritation as well as the inkling of worry. "Anyone clear this with Nate himself?"
Walt just stares at him, then says, "I think it's fine, Brad."
Brad wants to be stubborn and demand to know whether that's an affirmation or not, but then Ray gallops past them, both of the tiny Esperas screaming and giggling on his back, and Walt chooses the distraction to slip away.
Sneaky, just like Brad said.
::
He toys with the idea of trying to find somewhere else to sleep, but Nate finds him just as it's getting dark, inclines his head at the general direction of his room.
He waits for Brad's nod before turning to go, expecting Brad to follow, and it's another anomaly, another privilege-because, in truth, Brad could have shared a space with any of the others; because Alphas don't have to do this.
Oh.
As far as epiphanies go, it is so obvious in retrospect he can't find the shock to go with it. He's been consciously looking away from facts that are staring him in the face, because as long as there is plausible deniability there is a chance of him getting out safe and whole when the time comes that things go to shit.
He's been a fucking idiot.
Nate senses the tension behind him and stops in the middle of the stairs, turns back to Brad. The corners of his mouth curve down.
"I-you don't-"
"No," Brad says, completely calm at last. "I do."
IV
Nate is heat.
His body temperature is incredible, whether he's in wolf form or human. During the last month of sleeping with him, Brad has got used to it-more than used to, grateful for it after so much time of being constantly cold.
He's got used to the heat, but he is never not conscious of Nate's body, the sparking of it against Brad's own, and as soon as he comes up from a foggy dream of running endlessly under a dead grey sky, he can feel Nate behind him on the wide mattress. He's not quite close enough for Brad to feel his breath on the back of his neck, but Brad's skin is rising on goose bumps anyway.
It's enough to know Nate is near. Brad's stomach twists with arousal. He starts to turn.
"Stop," Nate says. Brad freezes. Nate's voice is low, rasping, and doesn't sound like him at all.
"What," he tries. The rest of the words are gone. His throat is dry. Nate slithers closer to him, fits his chest to Brad's back, mouths Brad's shoulder. Nate's dick is hard, a burning, silky weight nestled tight into the swell of Brad's ass.
Nate gives off wolf heat, and a dark, musky smell.
Brad is still tensed to the point of snapping. "Nate?"
Nate doesn't answer, except for a hoarse hum deep in his throat.
"What the fuck," he starts, aiming for annoyed and coming out uncertain and frustrated instead.
Without warning, Nate leaps-bowls Brad over onto his stomach and settles on top of him, straddling his thighs.
Brad freezes. A part of his brain is shouting warnings, telling him it's dangerous to be in this position, wrong, unprecedented. He wants to get the fuck away.
Another part, something more liquid and alien inside him urges him to wait-wait until Nate melts against him, wait until Nate comes back into himself.
He wants to know what the fuck's happened, what's brought Nate's wolf so close and so blind to the surface.
Nate's long fingers creep up and tilt his head forward, baring the back of his neck, careful but insistent. And Brad is finally getting really fucking angry, ready to throw Nate off. He's flexing his muscles, gathering momentum-
Nate bends close and bites hard below Brad's fade.
The resistance floods out of him, replaced by a visceral, animal response. Brad's mind lurches, flashing into a black and white space, wolf sight, snow and cloudy mornings, trying to become invisible with the sound of your heartbeat loud as explosions in your ears. He's alone, until he isn't any more. The new presence resonates in the still air.
He'd lift his tail and lie down, but all he has is naked skin and he's already more vulnerable than he's used to being. He longs for fur and thick bones, something that would serve as a buffer against the bite of ownership in the scruff of his neck.
And then all of a sudden, Nate lets off. He gasps, the single tremor running through him absorbed by Brad's body, and rests his head between Brad's shoulder blades. Brad's breathing is fast and shallow. Nate is heavy above him, close and so fucking hot.
"Nate," Brad says again. And this time, Nate relaxes a little.
"Give me a moment." Nate speaks the words against his back, lips brushing skin. His voice is rough but there's reason in it again. Brad shivers. He knows Nate is fighting against it. It doesn't even matter what brought it on, a nightmare, a flashback, someone passing too close to the building and their unfamiliar scent intruding under the fuzzy blanket of sleep. Nate is stronger than that. He'll be fine.
The thing is, though-the thing is, Nate is his Alpha. Unvoiced, but unequivocal. Nate has the right. They've never gone through the whole routine, never as anything more than play-acting, the most serious show the fucking farce of their first meeting. You would have died trying to prove yourself, Nate had said when Brad had awkwardly brought up the subject. So stubborn, Brad.
Nate hasn't demanded it, but he's earned it a thousand times over.
Brad becomes aware of the weight between his legs, the fullness of his cock trapped against the mattress.
He swallows. "Back in the building?"
Nate's forehead brushes the skin of his back. He's nodding. "Sorry," he says. He sounds so fucking tired. Sometimes, it manages to surprise Brad, the realization that Nate is susceptible to the same exhaustion that is there, muscle-deep, in all of them.
"What was it?"
He's expecting Nate to echo any of the things he's been through himself, countless times-bad memories, bad dreams-things that crop up now and then, old terrors and ghosts never quite gone that nudge the animal inside awake-prowling, protecting. Always conscious of the grainy world outside being so much a war zone, still a stasis of dilapidation. In waiting for something to come to a close, they've all reverted to a limbo between instincts and routine. If any growth is happening, it's slow as tectonic plates.
If there is any hope, it's as tired as the soles of their feet.
To his surprise, he feels Nate tense again. "It was-nothing," Nate grinds out. "Fuck, just. Nothing."
Brad finds himself resting his chin on a forearm; settling more comfortably into place, covered by Nate's body. He refrains from analyzing the concession further. It's Nate.
It's Nate.
"Had to be something," he prods. "You were practically communicating in howls."
He is willing to bet Nate is blushing.
"Fuck you," Nate says mildly. He isn't moving anywhere, either, though, except to shift a fraction, the soft skin of his inner thigh brushing against Brad. Brad's dick twitches.
"Nate," he says, again. It's unlike Nate to keep anything from him. And this is, it is something.
Nate sighs, shaky. "Just," he says. "Fuck. It was-" He stops, shakes his head again. Brad feels the movement of cool air over his suddenly sensitive skin.
"You. Just you. Smelling you." Nate laughs, short and strangled. "My dreams were full of it. I woke up, half out of my mind. And you were barking in your sleep. And."
Brad has stopped breathing sometime during the last thirty seconds.
Nate says, "Fuck, I want you."
It's not asking for anything. Here and now, for Nate, it's almost an admission of weakness, that his wolf can so violently bring out the part of himself that Nate tries so hard to control.
Ray had told Brad early on, casual and off-hand, that Nate was the best thing that ever happened to any of them. Nate's pack follows him because his leadership is unmistakable, in any form, and they're all one way or another better off for it.
(First time I met Nate, Ray says. Hadn't eaten in four days, you know? It was just after-just afterwards, you know, and I, fuck, I smelled Nate first, and I was so fucking fed up, tired like a mother, I thought, fuck no, not today, homes.
Yeah? Brad asks. Thinking back, remembering, already knowing what Ray's story will be.
Yeah. Ray grins. All set to scrap it out, go out in a blaze of glory, homes, you know how it goes-and Nate just keeps coming closer, not stopping until he's right in front of me, and he's like, rolling his eyes at me like he's telling me to stop being a shithead. Then he fucking bites my ear and when I get into his head to call him an asshole, he just says to me, he has chow, let's go.
And that was that, Brad says.
And that was that, Ray confirms, perfectly content.)
They trust him. Brad has never once seen Nate shy away from the responsibility, but sometimes he catches Nate just watching the guys and Brad can tell he's wondering who they are actually following, whether they were ever free to make the decision at all.
If Nate is scared of over-exerting his influence, Brad will just have to set him straight.
Deliberately, in what feels like the most daring thing he's done in as long as he can remember, Brad drags his right knee up, opens himself up to Nate's eyes and Nate's touch, and says, "Fuck me."
Nate's heat spikes. Brad holds still, waits, waits, waits, until Nate reaches up, drags his teeth down the side of Brad's throat, bites down on the juncture of shoulder, and that's it, they're fucking go. Nate doesn't ask if Brad's sure. He doesn't have to. The fucking air surrounding them is thick with pheromones, and Brad's heart is beating double time, echoing through them both.
Brad has a hard time keeping up with everything that happens next. Nate's body over him is suddenly as much a shelter as a claim, a claim that is insistently echoed by Nate's teeth and tongue playing on his neck and shoulder, leaving behind small reddening bruises. Nate's strong, clever hands trail down Brad's sides and up his hitched-up knee, gripping Brad's thigh and keeping him tightly in place, spreading him just that much more open.
Brad speaks in short, gulping pants, come on, come on Nate, and he means, get on with it, this is yours, I'm ready.
Nate responds with his name, Brad, fuck, raspy like it's torn out of his throat, and moves back on the bed, sliding down Brad's body.
His lips trail to a stop on Brad's tailbone, blowing warmly on the skin, and Brad's dick pulses, his balls are heavy and tight against his body, and Nate is just fucking starting.
"Nate-" he starts, not even knowing what he's going to say, and Nate cuts him off by the stiff tip of his tongue dragging down the cleft until he's fucking Brad's hole with it.
Brad pushes his forehead hard into the ratty pillow, squeezes shut his eyes and bites his lower lip but the sound still fights its way free, a rough cry the kind of which Brad didn't believe himself capable of making. Nate's left thumb plays on the rim of his asshole, stretching him so he can reach a little deeper, laving him with saliva, alternating between short, jabbing thrusts of his tongue and slow, hard licks that leave Brad shaking and leaking into the sheets.
The fingers of Brad's left hand are fisted to the corner of the pillow, but his free hand steals between his legs, squished under his own body, because, fuck, if he just gets his hand around himself, he won't need anything more-but Nate snarls, stops fucking Brad with his mouth just long enough to say, "My rules, Brad," and twists Brad's arm away, traps his wrist against the mattress.
Brad's hole clenches. "I can't-Nate-"
The flat of Nate's tongue is back on him, starting at his balls and trekking up in a slow, hypnotic lick, repeated once, and once more, before Nate exhales into the wet skin. "You can," he says, and it's not quite a command, but it aches like truth. "You can, because I want you to, okay?"
Brad groans, rocks against the bed, back against Nate's mouth. He feels Nate's smile against his damp skin. "Yeah, just like that."
Then Nate's both hands are on his ass, both thumbs dipping into his hole, opening him up, and he thought Nate was tonguefucking him before, now he realizes Nate was easing him into it.
Brad's mind whites out.
He is aware of the noises he is making, but it's a while before the rush of blood in his ears lets him separate actual words-repeating Nate's name is the least embarrassing of them all, but he can't stop. When Nate pushes in two fingers at once, Brad's lower body spasms on the bed, bucking up into Nate's hold on him, but Nate rides it easily, whispering, so good, Brad, and, soon.
"I'm good," Brad forces out between his teeth. He's terrified Nate will draw this out more. "I'm good, I'm good, you can-"
Nate draws his fingers out and Brad hears him spitting into his cupped calm. "I know you are," he groans, and his voice is finally showing signs of strain, too, going wrecked and low. "You should see yourself."
Brad shudders at that, and then shudders again when Nate's palm settles on his hip, and he feels the head of Nate's dick pressing against him. It feels huge, but Brad isn't just oversensitive and desperate, he's sure of this, and, apparently, that is enough.
His body relaxes, and Nate sinks into him.
Nothing has ever felt better than Nate's slow, powerful thrusts, glancing off his prostate-nothing, until Nate comes inside him, locked in place for long moments as his orgasm goes on, spreading hot and wet inside Brad, and against that, his own climax is almost an afterthought.
It's a while before Nate is able to move, but when he does, he scoots back down, hands on Brad's thighs keeping him open as he licks at Brad's loose, swollen hole, sucking at him and swallowing down the come slipping out.
::
The earth hasn't resolved its crisis, and they are all at a watershed of meaning, but some things bring sense into chaos, belief into desolation.
Nate's skin is sweaty and hot when Brad trails his nose over his throat, doing his own claiming, committing this to memory.
Minutes and hours tick by, and somewhere, a clock is rewound to life, and the stumbling new beginning is marked by a long, indrawn breath, unconscious and inevitable.
"We feel like we’re alive only through the painful excitation of our seventh sense, the sense of loss."