All's Fair in Love & Werewolves
So remember how I said my laptop was all better? HAHA DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS. Now I have a new laptop (RIP for real this time, lappy ;_;) and I haven't got Word or OpenOffice yet so I'm writing on ghetto WordPad like a hobo. And new laptop isn't helping the Leverage situation. BUT I'M SURE NOBODY MINDS MORE GRATUITOUS CATBOY/WEREWOLF PR0N.
Title: All's Fair in Love & Werewolves [Pavlov's Bell verse]
Pairing: catboy!Arthur/werewolf!Eames
Words: ~4600
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Arthur is lucky to have Eames. Somebody just as different, someone who understands when he wakes up in the middle of the night feeling like he's all alone in the universe. Eames makes that feeling go away.
Eames, however, is not alone.
Warnings: Catboys and werewolves getting it on, heat, knotting, etc.
Author's Note: Same verse as Pavlov's Bell I and II. Trying for something resembling more of a main story arc now. I loved hearing everyone's ideas, btw! Suggestions are always welcome. :)
Title taken shamelessly from one of b_huer's comments. ;3
There are some things Arthur has learned about canines since dating Eames that he could happily have gone the rest of his life without knowing. Like how large their penises are when their knot glands are fully swollen. Or that their semen is a hotter temperature than humans'.
He picks up these interesting tidbits without meaning to, without wanting to; but the one thing he really wants to know, Eames denies him.
"You can't," he says bluntly, when Arthur asks him.
"Why not?"
Eames' wolfishness tells in only a few marked ways during most of the month. In the few days leading up to the full moon, however, he starts to change. His moods grow darker, his temper frayed; even his scent changes, sharp as ozone like the air before a thunderstorm. He's more sexual, rougher when he fucks and leaving marks on Arthur's throat like a badge of ownership.
Then he leaves.
And he doesn't come back until he's returned to normal.
Arthur doesn't see this as very fair.
"You see me as I am all the time," he argues. "Stupid tail and all. Maybe I want to see all of you, too."
"Maybe you don't know what you're asking for," Eames says darkly.
Arthur touches his face, stubble scratching under the pads of his fingertips. "Maybe you're afraid I won't like you if I know what you really look like."
Eames just looks at him, his expression unreadable.
"I'm not going to let you see me change, Arthur," he says, his tone flat.
Arthur looks at illustrations in textbooks. They're old, though, and drawings are never as good as the real thing. He knows enough that he could identify a werewolf if he ran into one on a full moon -- the powerful neck and jaw muscles, the mane in males, the serrated second canine sticking out past the lower lip, the broad, catlike gripping paws -- but he's never seen Eames. His own boyfriend (mate, his brain supplies).
This strikes him as wrong.
"I would see you as prey," Eames snaps, when Arthur pushes it. "Or worse."
"What's worse than a werewolf seeing you as its lunch?" Arthur asks.
Eames doesn't say anything.
+They take a break between jobs and hole up in Eames' flat in Mombasa.
They spent the last month apart, working different jobs on different continents. It's not fair and Arthur knows it. He's new at this relationship deal, not yet used to being somebody's boyfriend; but Eames has been pining after him for years. And Eames is not by any stretch of the imagination a weak man, but he does have a weakness in Arthur. He's bound by his heart to Arthur, and any moment not spent touching him is a moment wasted. When Arthur leaves, it's nothing but a reminder to Eames that he can't yet match Eames' feelings, that he's capable of being separated from Eames and not pining, that he could at any moment cut his losses and leave for good without any emotional repercussion. Arthur assures him that won't happen, and Eames never asks him to stay, sometimes even takes jobs independently, but Arthur can see the barely-masked hurt in his face.
It's just overwhelming, that's all. Arthur's never let anybody get so close to him, and everyone who's tried has only let him down (Cobb, namely). So sometimes he needs space. And Eames doesn't ask him to stay, but when Arthur returns, his delight is boundless.
The days are hot and sticky, and most of the time, Arthur and Eames are equally so. Arthur wonders if he'll ever get enough of this, lying naked with somebody who sees him and not only loves him but positively worships him. Arthur does a few freelance research jobs from home, but Eames often goes out during the day, meeting acquaintances, gambling and God-knows-what else. He always comes home to Arthur, though, laying around the house with a laptop, in his underwear because it's too hot for much else. And Eames always sweeps him up and takes him to bed.
Eames is the one who gets word of a job not far from them, in Cape Town. It's an extraction job in need of a point. He shows the email to Arthur.
"Impressive pay-off," Arthur says, noncommittal.
"I think you should go," says Eames.
Arthur shakes his head. Eames looks at him in surprise.
"They want you, Arthur," he says. "They requested you."
"Well, they can't have me," says Arthur. His tail is bristling under his leg, and it rankles him to realize that it's common knowledge now that he and Eames have shacked up, or at least are close enough that this team knew an email to Eames would reach Arthur. "Whoever takes point has to be the subject for the first layer, and I can't do it."
"Why not?" Eames asks, baffled. "I've seen you do it a dozen times. And I'll be gone for half the time anyway for that job in Auckland, so it's not like you'll have much to do."
Arthur grits his teeth. "I can't do it because I'll be in heat that week," he says.
"Oh," says Eames. Then his eyes widen. "Oh."
He cancels the Auckland job.
+The heat rolls over Arthur like a hurricane.
It happens to him roughly four times a year, once each season. And it hasn't happened since that time with Eames in the middle of a job. That time, Eames had caught him at the approaching tail end of the heat cycle, and he'd rallied enough willpower to leave after one mating, out of respect for Arthur. This time he'll be around for the whole thing, right at the peak of Arthur's need.
That's how they end up in bed for fourteen solid hours. Arthur's knees ache where they're sunk into the mattress. He exhausts himself every time his body finds some reserve of energy enough for another orgasm, and he falls, panting for breath, pushing Eames away angrily. Then, ten minutes later, the fever hits him again, and his nerves itch and he aches to be touched, and his tail thrashes and he wants to howl and then Eames is there again, a reassuring bulk at Arthur's back, sliding in again to quench the wildfire burn.
Arthur hates this. He hates not being in control of his own body. He hates being driven to Eames after every single mating, even though his body aches and cries for no more. He hates that the only way to satisfy this is to let himself be fucked like a whore, each orgasm wrung out of him brutally just when he thinks he can't possibly muster up the strength for one more. He hates how the scent of Eames drives him crazy, turns him slutty for his cock, spreading his knees and curving his tail out of the way. He hates the oscillating fan in the corner and how it does nothing to cool him off. He hates Kenya for being so hot. He hates everything.
Eames soothes him between matings, kisses and strokes him and tells him it'll be over soon. Then the fever returns, and he's even less capable of coherency than Arthur is.
It shouldn't be possible for anyone to come as much as Eames does that day. Arthur reminds himself that werewolves are built for this, to scent when their mate is receptive and mount them over and over until impregnation happens (or, apparently, one dies of exhaustion). But Arthur's not a werewolf -- he's not strong like a werewolf, loath though he is to admit it -- and though he's had Eames fuck him five or six times in a row before, they've never done anything like this. It doesn't stop. Eames can't stop. Half the time he pulls out before he can tie with Arthur when he comes, just so that he can plunge straight back into him again. There's something frantic and animal in the way he mounts Arthur, and even Arthur knows that his human side isn't all there right now.
Another time, it might be a turn-on. Now, he's sore and tired and he wants to stop. His body can't take anymore.
"Eames," he manages to croak, his face buried in a pillow, rationality trying to claw its way through the fever-haze.
Eames growls softly, his teeth grazing the back of Arthur's neck, his nails leaving scratches around Arthur's waist and belly. He ruts like it's the only thing he knows how to do.
"Eames," Arthur tries again, voice cracking with exhaustion. "Stop."
Eames buries his nose in the nape of Arthur's neck. He's molded himself to the shape of Arthur's back, and their sweaty skin sticks together with every thrust. Arthur's so full of come he feels disgusting, it's leaking down the inside of his thighs even as Eames works inside him now, and he hates the wet sound of Eames screwing into him. It's on his back from when Eames has pulled out, on his cock and stomach, on the sheets around them. He needs a shower desperately.
"Stop," he repeats, trying to move away.
Eames snarls and tightens his grip around Arthur's waist, teeth scraping the back of his neck in warning. Then he starts to slow down, gradually. He rocks his hips uncertainly two or three times, little shallow thrusts.
"Stop, Eames," Arthur says again, and this time Eames does stop.
For a minute their harsh breathing and the rotating fan are the only sounds to be heard. Then, slowly, Eames peels himself off of Arthur's back and pulls out. He jerks himself off quickly, with a hoarse moan, and Arthur feels a few more hot spurts land on his back to add to the mess of sweat and come already there. Finally, Eames collapses at Arthur's side. Arthur lands on his belly, gasping.
"Sorry," Eames says, his voice little more than a hoarse rasp. Arthur focuses on catching his breath.
"Drink some more water," he says after a minute.
Eames gropes in the vicinity of the bedside table and finds one of the water bottles he hasn't already emptied. He downs half of it in a few swift gulps, then presses it into Arthur's hand, wiping his mouth off briskly with the back of his hand. Arthur drains the rest of the bottle while Eames fetches another one for himself.
"I need to shower," Arthur says.
Eames whines. "No."
"Yes." Arthur gets out of bed shakily. His legs almost buckle under him. He reaches for the wall to support himself.
"I'll come with you," says Eames, even though he looks like he can barely move, let alone follow Arthur to the shower.
"No, Eames," Arthur says sharply. The fever's finally starting to leave him, and if he can refuse, he will.
Eames stares at him plaintively, repeatedly bunching up fistfuls of the covers in his hands and then unclenching them. His eyes are wild.
"Stay," Arthur orders firmly. He slips out of the room and heads to the bathroom naked, his tail hanging limply.
The first spray of lukewarm water between his shoulderblades feels amazing. He groans, relaxing, and letting the water wash away all the sweat and bodily fluids of the past fourteen hours. He only now realizes how hungry he is. When he's stood in the shower for fifteen minutes and scrubbed away all the filth, he slips out and pads over to the kitchen to grab an apple.
Eames meets him on his way back to the room. Impossibly, he's still hard. The thick jut of his cock between his legs is obscene. It shouldn't be legal to be -- well, Eames.
"Go take a shower," Arthur says, when Eames reaches for him. "A cold one. I'm going to throw those sheets in the washing machine. Or burn them. I haven't taken a good look yet."
"I can't help it, Arthur," Eames says brokenly. "I just have to be touching you. Every time I smell you--"
"Everything in this flat smells like me," says Arthur. "Go shower, and then take a long walk. A long one. It'll take me a week to recover from this, I swear."
Eames is plainly conflicted before he forces himself to turn and trudge into the bathroom. Arthur hears the shower start up. With a sigh, he heads into the bedroom and finds a clean pair of boxers, one with a little slit cut under the elastic waistband, so that his tail can hang out. Eames had presented a number of these boxers to him proudly, obviously having taken a pair of scissors to them. Arthur found the boxers comfortable and the gesture touching, however simplistic in design it may be.
With his nudity taken care of, he takes stock of the damage done to the sheets and finds that they're salvageable. He strips them all off the bed, pillowcases included, and carries the bundle to their washing machine, where he loads it up with bleach that prickles his sensitive nose but will hopefully mask any remnants of his heat-scent from Eames.
He spends some time pawing through the kitchen cupboards, looking for crackers or anything that might sate Eames' appetite when he cools off and remembers that he's starving. He stays out of the bedroom until he's heard the shower stop running and the bedroom door shut. A minute later Eames emerges, fully clothed. He leaves quickly.
Arthur considers the fact that he now has a partner who can suffer through the heat with him -- and, evidently, cure it in one brutal sexathon. It's the shortest heat cycle of Arthur's life. Eames has literally fucked it out of him. And it was exhausting and painful and Arthur seriously will need recovery time, but this might just be worth it.
He's settling gingerly on their couch when Eames bursts back into the flat.
"Arthur?" he shouts.
"Right here," Arthur says, getting up quickly. His tail lashes when Eames appears, agitation rolling off him. "What is it?"
"We're made. Get dressed and grab your bag."
Arthur obeys at once. He drops everything and hastens to the bedroom, where he throws on the closest clothing at hand -- loose jeans and a t-shirt of Eames' -- and grabs both their go-bags, designed for situations just such as this, from under the bed. He returns to find Eames watching the door, hands wrapped defensively around a gun.
Arthur tosses him his bag when he looks round. Eames snatches it deftly out of the air and they're gone.
Arthur doesn't ask. Slowing down to ask questions gets people shot. He just follows Eames, trusting him, not knowing what he saw that tipped him off or who he suspects of tailing them. Surely it's some past mark out for revenge, or one of the clients they've let down, or even -- he bristles -- some of Cobol's goons. He knew it was a mistake to stay here, in Mombasa of all places--
They leave the building swiftly and that's when it hits Arthur, something like and yet unlike anything he's ever smelled. Something wild and unique, except to the creature pacing beside him. It's--
Werewolf-scent. Right outside their home.
"I have a place in Toronto," says Arthur.
+There are a few people Arthur would like to meet in his lifetime.
His mother. His birth mother, that is; not his real mother, the one who'd adopted him, that strong-willed single woman who'd been waiting and waiting and finally been contacted by the hospital and adoption agency and asked if she wanted this baby, this freak, and all the media attention and social stigmas and difficulties that would come with him; and she'd cut them off -- rolling her eyes, she said -- and told them, "Would you just give me my son already?"
No, he wants to meet that woman who gave birth to him. He wants to know about his father. Did they know each other, his biological parents? Did he advise her against going to the hospital to give birth? Did he help her do it, wrap Arthur up in a bloodstained towel, all of three hours old, and leave him outside a hospital in the dead of winter? Or was she alone -- did she even know she was pregnant? Because maybe, Arthur wonders, deep down, maybe his father had not found it so easy to harness his feral side, as Arthur did, and maybe he'd hit a heat cycle and needed just to rut, whether his partner was willing or not. When Arthur thinks of this, knowing how easily that wild felid nature can tip into violence, he feels for his mother. He wants to tell her he doesn't blame her.
And then he wants to cut one of her ears off, and ask her how she likes it.
More than his birth mother, Arthur wants to meet his father. Or -- anyone. Anyone who is like him, part feline. He desperately wants that. He wants to know how they do it, how they cope, how they ever form relationships, shunned and secluded by society. He knows in his bones he can't be the last one; but, equally strongly, he feels in his gut an aching loneliness that tells him that even if there are others, he could go his whole life searching and never find one.
In that regard, he's lucky to have Eames. Somebody just as different, someone who understands when he wakes up in the middle of the night feeling like he's all alone in the universe. Eames makes that feeling go away.
Eames, however, is not alone.
Arthur wants to meet all of him -- but also, Arthur wants to meet other werewolves. He wants to meet Eames' family. He wants to know if they're all like Eames, he wants to know about their culture. He's a point man, and this isn't something he can just Google. He wants to meet a werewolf.
He smells one outside their building, and he runs. He doesn't know why he runs. He just does. Eames takes the lead.
+They're on the plane when the heat washes over Arthur once more.
There's nothing he can do about it. The one small mercy is that it was a last-minute flight and they're in separate rows, because he doesn't think they could handle it if they were sitting together. The scent of every passenger batters his nose. Every tiny motion jumps to the forefront of his vision. He clamps his eyes shut and slumps in his seat, sweating it out. It's the longest and most uncomfortable flight of his life.
He expects Eames to pounce him as soon as they get off the plane. Eames' protective instincts, however, are still roused, and the instinct to protect his mate apparently supercedes the instinct to mate.
Just barely.
He hauls Arthur to a cab and tells the driver to hurry.
"Are you alright?" he asks Arthur.
"Yeah, yeah," Arthur says, hunched over with his head in his hands, because absolutely everything is an assault on his senses and his head is splitting. His tail prickles in his pant leg and even though his ass aches, he needs to feel Eames filling that space inside him right now. "I just need--"
"I know," says Eames quietly. His frayed tone tells Arthur just how badly he's suffering too. "We'll be there soon."
Arthur's place is in one of the older neighbourhoods of Toronto, just adjacent to the downtown core. It's an old brownstone, and one of his preferred hideouts. Once they get inside Eames locks the door and hurries off to make sure the whole house is secure while Arthur heads straight to the bedroom, sheds all his clothes and drops onto the bed, rolling and arching to try and relieve the unbearable itch. He strokes himself with one hand, and it's such a relief to finally be able to touch himself, to let his tail thump the bed and lash wildly.
"You're a sight," Eames growls from somewhere near the doorway.
Arthur arches his back off the bed without opening his eyes, gasping raggedly. "Eames."
"Arthur." Eames sounds almost as pained as him. "Someone nearly got the jump on us because I was too distracted by you to be paying attention."
"We got away, Eames, no one knows we're here. Eames, I need you to fuck me," Arthur begs, starting to panic that he might not.
Eames curses softly. Arthur hears him enter the room, and then the rustle of clothing being cast aside. He rolls onto his stomach, stretching himself out with his knees under him, and almost at once Eames is on him with a growl, yanking his tail out of the way and shoving all the way in like he never left. Arthur gives a harsh sob at the immediate pain, and Eames falters.
"Don't you dare stop," Arthur grits out.
Eames ties with him three times before Arthur is finally able to sleep. He feels like he's been turned inside-out, his insides scraped raw. He drifts off to the image of Eames, watching protectively over him.
+One time, he managed to trick Eames. Only the once.
He didn't think about it at first. They were supposed to be extracting a secret their young mark had learned on a Halloween two years ago. Arthur's job was to recreate the night and Eames' to forge his best friend, a stout nine-year-old in a Scream mask.
Halloween. A full moon was part and parcel, wasn't it?
He didn't think it would have an effect on Eames. Not until he was distracted from his building by a low wail, and turned to find Eames no longer disguised but himself, on his knees, arms folded over his face as if the light of the moon was scalding him.
"Kick me out, Arthur," he begged.
Arthur didn't. He knew full well what he was doing when he knelt down and said comfortingly, "It's okay, Eames, you'll be okay."
"No," Eames cried, flinching from his touch, scrunching away from the moon. He was quaking. "Shoot me out, Arthur, please."
"It's just a dream," Arthur told him repeatedly, trying to calm him, remind him that there were no repercussions here. Eames shuddered and peered up at him, as if coming back to himself.
"Arthur," he said softly, reaching out to cup Arthur's face in his hands. His eyes flashed green-gold in the dim light, just for an instant.
Then he snapped Arthur's neck.
Arthur made sure it was a quarter moon when they went down with the mark. But he wouldn't forget that reflective flicker in Eames' eyes, a reminder that there's something animal in Eames, just as there is in Arthur. Not that it's that easy to forget.
+It does take Arthur a week to recover. He leaves his basement bedroom only to lounge in the sunlight flooding in through the bay window in the front room, stretching himself out on the couch in a way that makes Eames eye him hungrily. He has a bookshelf here, and wiles away the time reading. He lets his tail out and it drapes over the edge of the couch, the very tip of it lazily curling and uncurling over and over. When Eames sits on the floor with his back against the couch to watch TV, Arthur's tail slides around his neck of its own volition, distracting Arthur from his book when it makes Eames laugh. He snatches his tail away in embarrassment, but Eames catches it and strokes it. Arthur deigns to allow this, because he hates admitting that it feels good.
Times like this are when Arthur thinks he could be happy never leaving Eames at all, when he could almost admit that his space now includes Eames and that's that. It helps that Eames doesn't infringe unduly, isn't constantly in Arthur's face. He's happy enough to take long walks around the neighbourhood, venture into the downtown core now and then. (He says he's familiarizing himself with the city, but Arthur happens to know Eames has been to Toronto many times before, and is pretty sure he's patrolling.)
When he feels up for it, Eames takes him to bed eagerly. The first push in is a burn, stretching him, but it always is. Arthur grits his teeth and bears it, and soon the rough slide of Eames' cock has turned into the delicious friction Arthur loves, playing his nerve endings like an instrument and waking a symphony inside him. He braces himself against the headboard and shoves back into Eames as hard as he can, tail lashing whenever Eames lets it go.
"You feel so fucking good," Eames growls out, muffled against Arthur's spine. "So fucking hot for me." Every thrust rattles all the bones in Arthur's body. "You want me to come inside you, little kitten? Stop you up with my cock and leave you full of my come?"
"Yes, yes, please," Arthur babbles breathlessly, spreading his knees apart as wide as he can. "Fuck, Eames, do it."
He's always unspeakably desperate for it and when it actually happens, when Eames suddenly crushes himself inside Arthur as deep as he possibly can and holds him down, the base of his cock swelling in Arthur's hole, Arthur always forgets why. He always has the same jolt of panic that he's sure Eames can smell, the fear that Eames won't stop before he tears Arthur open. It's always just at the very limits of Arthur's capacity that it stops, and then he's coming, seated deep, deep inside Arthur, burning and wet, and all the breath is squeezed out of Arthur's lungs from the fullness of Eames inside him. When he comes, he cries at his muscles trying and failing to clench down around Eames' cock.
Then his body begins to adjust. He remembers how to pull air into his lungs. Eames licks and kisses him, and they slowly come back down to earth, and there's something immensely comforting about being tied with Eames that makes Arthur feel wanted and whole.
Very gently, Eames pulls him down onto his side, pressed against Arthur's back. He buries his nose in Arthur's hair and takes deep, slow breaths. They could be tied for anywhere from three to thirty minutes, and it wouldn't be the first time they've fallen asleep like this. But with Eames' scent all over him, Arthur suddenly has another thought.
"Did you know him?" he asks sleepily. "The werewolf, in Mombasa? Did you recognize the scent?"
Eames' breaths continue to come as slow, steady warm puffs of air against the back of Arthur's neck, and Arthur is just starting to wonder if he's already asleep when Eames answers:
"There were two I smelled. They were from my pack."
"You have a pack?" Because he's wondered, before. All werewolves are supposed to have packs. Eames shifts.
"Mine cast me out when I left to join the military."
"Oh," says Arthur.
"They make checks on me every few years."
"Why did we run from them, then?" Arthur asks, tired enough to forget the agitation that had struck him when he smelled the werewolf scent. "If they were from your pack."
"Because I don't know what they want," Eames murmurs, but his arms tighten enough around Arthur's middle to reveal this as half a lie. "And that frightens me."
Sated and sleepy, with Eames a comforting weight all around him, it somehow fails to frighten Arthur.
+Arthur knows something's wrong as soon as he wakes up.
Eames is gone. The clock flashes 4:27 at him. Arthur slips noiselessly out of bed and pulls some clothes on, reaching into the decorative vase on the nightstand and pulling out a handgun.
He hears a floorboard creak above him. Warily, he starts to make his way out of the bedroom and up the stairs.
The house is pitch dark, but for any person with a tapetum lucidum there's more than enough light to see by. He nearly scares the life out of Eames on the landing by coming up behind him. Eames whirls and grabs him, clamping a hand over his mouth. Then he relaxes.
"It's okay," he breathes next to Arthur's ear. There's another creaking floorboard in the next room. "It's them."
He moves forward into the front hallway, and flicks the light on. Both the people standing there flinch away from the light while Arthur hurriedly tucks the gun into the waistband of his pants, under his shirt.
"Hello, Faye," Eames says loudly. "Alizé."
Arthur doesn't think he's imagining the surprise on their faces. Evidently, they didn't expect Eames. There are two of them, male and female. There's nothing to distinguish them from humans except for the scent, rich and earthy like Eames' but without the familiarity. It's the female who makes the first move, stepping forward and smiling. She's strikingly pretty, with long black hair, almond-shaped eyes and high cheekbones.
"Eames!" she says. "It's so good to see you."
"What are you doing here?" Eames demands.
"We were in the neighbourhood," the male says gruffly. He's staring at Arthur as he says this.
"Really," says Eames. "Because you were in Kenya all of a week ago."
"I know you," Arthur blurts out before they can reply to this. He's looking at the female. "You're in dreamshare."
She flashes a pretty smile at him. "I'm a chemist. And you're a point. You're the point, as I hear it."
Eames scrubs a hand over his stubble, then says tiredly, "Arthur, this is Faye and my cousin, Alizé. You two, this is Arthur."
Alizé keeps his distance, but Faye happily extends a hand for Arthur to shake. He does, sizing her up, gauging her strength by her grip, but she gives nothing away. She could be nothing more than a petite human girl, except for her scent and the way it makes Arthur's tail prickle unpleasantly. He nods tersely at her, wondering at the strangeness of shaking hands with a person who's just broken into his house in the middle of the night.
"He's pretty, Eames," she purrs. Eames doesn't blink or react, poker-faced. She adds, "But he smells."
"I'm slightly feline," says Arthur. There's no point in lying to somebody whose sense of smell rivals his own; Eames taught him that. "And you're a werewolf."
Alizé comes forward, sniffing curiously, while Faye says, "You're very astute."
"That's why I'm the best," says Arthur simply.
She smiles again, as if she genuinely likes him.
"I heard the rumours," she says. "About you two. I didn't expect to find you here, though," she says to Eames. "I thought you were supposed to be in Auckland by now."
"You were supposed to be in Cape Town last week," Eames says sharply, at once. His tone becomes belligerant. "Did you drop out when Arthur turned you down? You know that as soon as I heard you were on that team I'd have told him not to go."
"I just wanted to meet him," she says.
"Stop bullshitting me." Eames' voice drops to a growl. He moves very close to her. "Tell me why you're stalking my partner across the globe."
Faye fidgets under his hot stare. At last, she starts to say, "Your parents ..."
Arthur isn't watching Alizé anymore, and doesn't see the look of hunger that crosses over his face right away. Eames is no longer standing between them. He moves faster than Arthur can anticipate, and all of a sudden he's forcing Arthur against the wall, gripping a fistful of his shirt and sniffing over the pulse point in his neck.
At once Arthur draws the gun he'd tucked into the waistband of his pants and shoves the barrel into the werewolf's abdomen, but that's all he has time to do before Eames rounds on the offending male with a sound no human could utter, halfway between a snarl and a roar. Alizé is ripped off Arthur and flung to the floor in an instant.
Standing over him, Eames bites out, "If you ever touch him again I will rip your hand off and make you eat it, Alizé, I swear to Christ."
Alizé tips his chin back as if in defiance, but when Eames' shoulders relax slightly Arthur realizes he's showing his throat. Eames steps back, a look of inhuman fury twisting his expression.
Arthur isn't sure whether to be touched or annoyed by Eames' protectiveness. He opts for the latter, shoving the gun back into his pants self-consciously. "I can take care of myself, Eames."
"He reeks of you," Alizé rasps distastefully, as if Arthur isn't even there. He picks himself up slowly. "He smells like a bitch in heat. No wonder you like him."
Arthur can feel all the fur on his tail suddenly flatten in consternation. He's not in heat anymore. How can he still smell like that?
"You shut up." Eames turns back to Faye. "You, keep talking."
"Your parents just want to know what you're up to, how you're doing ..." Faye trails off under his intense stare.
"And what you're doing," Alizé growls, still staring at Arthur. Arthur stares back, watching his shoulders tense, silently challenging him, but Alizé doesn't move. He's taken Eames' warning to heart.
"You can tell them I'm fine and I haven't forgotten the conditions of my return, as always," Eames says coolly to Faye.
"Well," says Faye, shifting her weight uneasily. "They want you -- to return."
Eames stares. "But I haven't--" he starts, then snaps his jaws shut and turns his head to look at Arthur.
"I wasn't the one who told them," Faye says hurriedly.
"Told them what?" Arthur interjects, irritated at being left out of this conversation. Eames glances at him again, expression softening for an instant, and his fingers twitch like he wants to reach for Arthur's hand.
"I'm not allowed to go back to my pack until I take a mate," he says, after a pause.
Arthur's mind flies over the possibilities there. Do Eames' parents know about him, then? Are they displeased? Or do they mean to force him to return, now that he's got Arthur? Before last night, Eames had never talked about his pack before; Arthur has no idea what kind of feelings he has one way or the other about them. He frowns, and addresses Faye.
"You came here looking for me, not Eames. You didn't know he'd be with me."
"They want to meet you too, kitten," says Alizé. The word sounds so much more vulgar coming from him than from Eames. He adds dryly, "So we can nip this in the bud, as it were."
"Don't you get sick of this?" Eames asks Faye, ignoring Alizé altogether. "Being a tool for them? Following me around, dangling yourself in front of me on their orders, year after year?"
"I like seeing you," Faye says, lifting her head. "You've changed. You used to be happy to see me, too."
At these words, for no discernible reason, jealousy rips through Arthur like a bolt of lighting. He scowls, and Eames shakes his head. "Go out and get yourself a mate already, Faye."
"Like you did?" Alizé interjects, with a pointed look at Arthur.
The hallway falls silent. Eames says nothing, but the air around him suddenly seems to crackle. There's a new scent coming off him and Arthur surreptitiously presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth to taste it. It's sharp, like the smell of him before a full moon, like ozone and charged ions. His silent anger seems to fill the hall like a tangible presence. Faye drops her head and Alizé, too, eventually lowers his gaze to the floor.
"Get out of this house," Eames orders quietly. "Now."
To Arthur's surprise, they do. Alizé casts a last hungry look at Arthur when he goes, his nostrils flaring for a last lungful of his scent, making Arthur narrow his eyes and Eames growl sharply. Faye hesitates on the doorstep.
"They expect you before the end of the month," she says.
"They have no right," Eames says, but he sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than her.
She glances at Arthur again, and says quietly, "It's not legitimate, Eames. They have every right."
Then she's gone back into the night.
Eames slams the door shut behind her, then leans against it, his forehead resting against the glass window. His fingers dig into the wood like he wants to claw through it, and he slams a palm against the door in frustration.
Arthur comes up behind him and touches his shoulder cautiously. Almost at once, Eames turns and pulls him into a tight embrace.
"I won't let them take you," he says fiercely, his voice muffled in Arthur's shoulder. "I won't let them take you from me, Arthur. I won't. I swear. I swear."
Thinking about the possessive feral power that had emanated off him just moments before, Arthur wonders who would try.
next
Title: All's Fair in Love & Werewolves [Pavlov's Bell verse]
Pairing: catboy!Arthur/werewolf!Eames
Words: ~4600
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Arthur is lucky to have Eames. Somebody just as different, someone who understands when he wakes up in the middle of the night feeling like he's all alone in the universe. Eames makes that feeling go away.
Eames, however, is not alone.
Warnings: Catboys and werewolves getting it on, heat, knotting, etc.
Author's Note: Same verse as Pavlov's Bell I and II. Trying for something resembling more of a main story arc now. I loved hearing everyone's ideas, btw! Suggestions are always welcome. :)
Title taken shamelessly from one of b_huer's comments. ;3
There are some things Arthur has learned about canines since dating Eames that he could happily have gone the rest of his life without knowing. Like how large their penises are when their knot glands are fully swollen. Or that their semen is a hotter temperature than humans'.
He picks up these interesting tidbits without meaning to, without wanting to; but the one thing he really wants to know, Eames denies him.
"You can't," he says bluntly, when Arthur asks him.
"Why not?"
Eames' wolfishness tells in only a few marked ways during most of the month. In the few days leading up to the full moon, however, he starts to change. His moods grow darker, his temper frayed; even his scent changes, sharp as ozone like the air before a thunderstorm. He's more sexual, rougher when he fucks and leaving marks on Arthur's throat like a badge of ownership.
Then he leaves.
And he doesn't come back until he's returned to normal.
Arthur doesn't see this as very fair.
"You see me as I am all the time," he argues. "Stupid tail and all. Maybe I want to see all of you, too."
"Maybe you don't know what you're asking for," Eames says darkly.
Arthur touches his face, stubble scratching under the pads of his fingertips. "Maybe you're afraid I won't like you if I know what you really look like."
Eames just looks at him, his expression unreadable.
"I'm not going to let you see me change, Arthur," he says, his tone flat.
Arthur looks at illustrations in textbooks. They're old, though, and drawings are never as good as the real thing. He knows enough that he could identify a werewolf if he ran into one on a full moon -- the powerful neck and jaw muscles, the mane in males, the serrated second canine sticking out past the lower lip, the broad, catlike gripping paws -- but he's never seen Eames. His own boyfriend (mate, his brain supplies).
This strikes him as wrong.
"I would see you as prey," Eames snaps, when Arthur pushes it. "Or worse."
"What's worse than a werewolf seeing you as its lunch?" Arthur asks.
Eames doesn't say anything.
+They take a break between jobs and hole up in Eames' flat in Mombasa.
They spent the last month apart, working different jobs on different continents. It's not fair and Arthur knows it. He's new at this relationship deal, not yet used to being somebody's boyfriend; but Eames has been pining after him for years. And Eames is not by any stretch of the imagination a weak man, but he does have a weakness in Arthur. He's bound by his heart to Arthur, and any moment not spent touching him is a moment wasted. When Arthur leaves, it's nothing but a reminder to Eames that he can't yet match Eames' feelings, that he's capable of being separated from Eames and not pining, that he could at any moment cut his losses and leave for good without any emotional repercussion. Arthur assures him that won't happen, and Eames never asks him to stay, sometimes even takes jobs independently, but Arthur can see the barely-masked hurt in his face.
It's just overwhelming, that's all. Arthur's never let anybody get so close to him, and everyone who's tried has only let him down (Cobb, namely). So sometimes he needs space. And Eames doesn't ask him to stay, but when Arthur returns, his delight is boundless.
The days are hot and sticky, and most of the time, Arthur and Eames are equally so. Arthur wonders if he'll ever get enough of this, lying naked with somebody who sees him and not only loves him but positively worships him. Arthur does a few freelance research jobs from home, but Eames often goes out during the day, meeting acquaintances, gambling and God-knows-what else. He always comes home to Arthur, though, laying around the house with a laptop, in his underwear because it's too hot for much else. And Eames always sweeps him up and takes him to bed.
Eames is the one who gets word of a job not far from them, in Cape Town. It's an extraction job in need of a point. He shows the email to Arthur.
"Impressive pay-off," Arthur says, noncommittal.
"I think you should go," says Eames.
Arthur shakes his head. Eames looks at him in surprise.
"They want you, Arthur," he says. "They requested you."
"Well, they can't have me," says Arthur. His tail is bristling under his leg, and it rankles him to realize that it's common knowledge now that he and Eames have shacked up, or at least are close enough that this team knew an email to Eames would reach Arthur. "Whoever takes point has to be the subject for the first layer, and I can't do it."
"Why not?" Eames asks, baffled. "I've seen you do it a dozen times. And I'll be gone for half the time anyway for that job in Auckland, so it's not like you'll have much to do."
Arthur grits his teeth. "I can't do it because I'll be in heat that week," he says.
"Oh," says Eames. Then his eyes widen. "Oh."
He cancels the Auckland job.
+The heat rolls over Arthur like a hurricane.
It happens to him roughly four times a year, once each season. And it hasn't happened since that time with Eames in the middle of a job. That time, Eames had caught him at the approaching tail end of the heat cycle, and he'd rallied enough willpower to leave after one mating, out of respect for Arthur. This time he'll be around for the whole thing, right at the peak of Arthur's need.
That's how they end up in bed for fourteen solid hours. Arthur's knees ache where they're sunk into the mattress. He exhausts himself every time his body finds some reserve of energy enough for another orgasm, and he falls, panting for breath, pushing Eames away angrily. Then, ten minutes later, the fever hits him again, and his nerves itch and he aches to be touched, and his tail thrashes and he wants to howl and then Eames is there again, a reassuring bulk at Arthur's back, sliding in again to quench the wildfire burn.
Arthur hates this. He hates not being in control of his own body. He hates being driven to Eames after every single mating, even though his body aches and cries for no more. He hates that the only way to satisfy this is to let himself be fucked like a whore, each orgasm wrung out of him brutally just when he thinks he can't possibly muster up the strength for one more. He hates how the scent of Eames drives him crazy, turns him slutty for his cock, spreading his knees and curving his tail out of the way. He hates the oscillating fan in the corner and how it does nothing to cool him off. He hates Kenya for being so hot. He hates everything.
Eames soothes him between matings, kisses and strokes him and tells him it'll be over soon. Then the fever returns, and he's even less capable of coherency than Arthur is.
It shouldn't be possible for anyone to come as much as Eames does that day. Arthur reminds himself that werewolves are built for this, to scent when their mate is receptive and mount them over and over until impregnation happens (or, apparently, one dies of exhaustion). But Arthur's not a werewolf -- he's not strong like a werewolf, loath though he is to admit it -- and though he's had Eames fuck him five or six times in a row before, they've never done anything like this. It doesn't stop. Eames can't stop. Half the time he pulls out before he can tie with Arthur when he comes, just so that he can plunge straight back into him again. There's something frantic and animal in the way he mounts Arthur, and even Arthur knows that his human side isn't all there right now.
Another time, it might be a turn-on. Now, he's sore and tired and he wants to stop. His body can't take anymore.
"Eames," he manages to croak, his face buried in a pillow, rationality trying to claw its way through the fever-haze.
Eames growls softly, his teeth grazing the back of Arthur's neck, his nails leaving scratches around Arthur's waist and belly. He ruts like it's the only thing he knows how to do.
"Eames," Arthur tries again, voice cracking with exhaustion. "Stop."
Eames buries his nose in the nape of Arthur's neck. He's molded himself to the shape of Arthur's back, and their sweaty skin sticks together with every thrust. Arthur's so full of come he feels disgusting, it's leaking down the inside of his thighs even as Eames works inside him now, and he hates the wet sound of Eames screwing into him. It's on his back from when Eames has pulled out, on his cock and stomach, on the sheets around them. He needs a shower desperately.
"Stop," he repeats, trying to move away.
Eames snarls and tightens his grip around Arthur's waist, teeth scraping the back of his neck in warning. Then he starts to slow down, gradually. He rocks his hips uncertainly two or three times, little shallow thrusts.
"Stop, Eames," Arthur says again, and this time Eames does stop.
For a minute their harsh breathing and the rotating fan are the only sounds to be heard. Then, slowly, Eames peels himself off of Arthur's back and pulls out. He jerks himself off quickly, with a hoarse moan, and Arthur feels a few more hot spurts land on his back to add to the mess of sweat and come already there. Finally, Eames collapses at Arthur's side. Arthur lands on his belly, gasping.
"Sorry," Eames says, his voice little more than a hoarse rasp. Arthur focuses on catching his breath.
"Drink some more water," he says after a minute.
Eames gropes in the vicinity of the bedside table and finds one of the water bottles he hasn't already emptied. He downs half of it in a few swift gulps, then presses it into Arthur's hand, wiping his mouth off briskly with the back of his hand. Arthur drains the rest of the bottle while Eames fetches another one for himself.
"I need to shower," Arthur says.
Eames whines. "No."
"Yes." Arthur gets out of bed shakily. His legs almost buckle under him. He reaches for the wall to support himself.
"I'll come with you," says Eames, even though he looks like he can barely move, let alone follow Arthur to the shower.
"No, Eames," Arthur says sharply. The fever's finally starting to leave him, and if he can refuse, he will.
Eames stares at him plaintively, repeatedly bunching up fistfuls of the covers in his hands and then unclenching them. His eyes are wild.
"Stay," Arthur orders firmly. He slips out of the room and heads to the bathroom naked, his tail hanging limply.
The first spray of lukewarm water between his shoulderblades feels amazing. He groans, relaxing, and letting the water wash away all the sweat and bodily fluids of the past fourteen hours. He only now realizes how hungry he is. When he's stood in the shower for fifteen minutes and scrubbed away all the filth, he slips out and pads over to the kitchen to grab an apple.
Eames meets him on his way back to the room. Impossibly, he's still hard. The thick jut of his cock between his legs is obscene. It shouldn't be legal to be -- well, Eames.
"Go take a shower," Arthur says, when Eames reaches for him. "A cold one. I'm going to throw those sheets in the washing machine. Or burn them. I haven't taken a good look yet."
"I can't help it, Arthur," Eames says brokenly. "I just have to be touching you. Every time I smell you--"
"Everything in this flat smells like me," says Arthur. "Go shower, and then take a long walk. A long one. It'll take me a week to recover from this, I swear."
Eames is plainly conflicted before he forces himself to turn and trudge into the bathroom. Arthur hears the shower start up. With a sigh, he heads into the bedroom and finds a clean pair of boxers, one with a little slit cut under the elastic waistband, so that his tail can hang out. Eames had presented a number of these boxers to him proudly, obviously having taken a pair of scissors to them. Arthur found the boxers comfortable and the gesture touching, however simplistic in design it may be.
With his nudity taken care of, he takes stock of the damage done to the sheets and finds that they're salvageable. He strips them all off the bed, pillowcases included, and carries the bundle to their washing machine, where he loads it up with bleach that prickles his sensitive nose but will hopefully mask any remnants of his heat-scent from Eames.
He spends some time pawing through the kitchen cupboards, looking for crackers or anything that might sate Eames' appetite when he cools off and remembers that he's starving. He stays out of the bedroom until he's heard the shower stop running and the bedroom door shut. A minute later Eames emerges, fully clothed. He leaves quickly.
Arthur considers the fact that he now has a partner who can suffer through the heat with him -- and, evidently, cure it in one brutal sexathon. It's the shortest heat cycle of Arthur's life. Eames has literally fucked it out of him. And it was exhausting and painful and Arthur seriously will need recovery time, but this might just be worth it.
He's settling gingerly on their couch when Eames bursts back into the flat.
"Arthur?" he shouts.
"Right here," Arthur says, getting up quickly. His tail lashes when Eames appears, agitation rolling off him. "What is it?"
"We're made. Get dressed and grab your bag."
Arthur obeys at once. He drops everything and hastens to the bedroom, where he throws on the closest clothing at hand -- loose jeans and a t-shirt of Eames' -- and grabs both their go-bags, designed for situations just such as this, from under the bed. He returns to find Eames watching the door, hands wrapped defensively around a gun.
Arthur tosses him his bag when he looks round. Eames snatches it deftly out of the air and they're gone.
Arthur doesn't ask. Slowing down to ask questions gets people shot. He just follows Eames, trusting him, not knowing what he saw that tipped him off or who he suspects of tailing them. Surely it's some past mark out for revenge, or one of the clients they've let down, or even -- he bristles -- some of Cobol's goons. He knew it was a mistake to stay here, in Mombasa of all places--
They leave the building swiftly and that's when it hits Arthur, something like and yet unlike anything he's ever smelled. Something wild and unique, except to the creature pacing beside him. It's--
Werewolf-scent. Right outside their home.
"I have a place in Toronto," says Arthur.
+There are a few people Arthur would like to meet in his lifetime.
His mother. His birth mother, that is; not his real mother, the one who'd adopted him, that strong-willed single woman who'd been waiting and waiting and finally been contacted by the hospital and adoption agency and asked if she wanted this baby, this freak, and all the media attention and social stigmas and difficulties that would come with him; and she'd cut them off -- rolling her eyes, she said -- and told them, "Would you just give me my son already?"
No, he wants to meet that woman who gave birth to him. He wants to know about his father. Did they know each other, his biological parents? Did he advise her against going to the hospital to give birth? Did he help her do it, wrap Arthur up in a bloodstained towel, all of three hours old, and leave him outside a hospital in the dead of winter? Or was she alone -- did she even know she was pregnant? Because maybe, Arthur wonders, deep down, maybe his father had not found it so easy to harness his feral side, as Arthur did, and maybe he'd hit a heat cycle and needed just to rut, whether his partner was willing or not. When Arthur thinks of this, knowing how easily that wild felid nature can tip into violence, he feels for his mother. He wants to tell her he doesn't blame her.
And then he wants to cut one of her ears off, and ask her how she likes it.
More than his birth mother, Arthur wants to meet his father. Or -- anyone. Anyone who is like him, part feline. He desperately wants that. He wants to know how they do it, how they cope, how they ever form relationships, shunned and secluded by society. He knows in his bones he can't be the last one; but, equally strongly, he feels in his gut an aching loneliness that tells him that even if there are others, he could go his whole life searching and never find one.
In that regard, he's lucky to have Eames. Somebody just as different, someone who understands when he wakes up in the middle of the night feeling like he's all alone in the universe. Eames makes that feeling go away.
Eames, however, is not alone.
Arthur wants to meet all of him -- but also, Arthur wants to meet other werewolves. He wants to meet Eames' family. He wants to know if they're all like Eames, he wants to know about their culture. He's a point man, and this isn't something he can just Google. He wants to meet a werewolf.
He smells one outside their building, and he runs. He doesn't know why he runs. He just does. Eames takes the lead.
+They're on the plane when the heat washes over Arthur once more.
There's nothing he can do about it. The one small mercy is that it was a last-minute flight and they're in separate rows, because he doesn't think they could handle it if they were sitting together. The scent of every passenger batters his nose. Every tiny motion jumps to the forefront of his vision. He clamps his eyes shut and slumps in his seat, sweating it out. It's the longest and most uncomfortable flight of his life.
He expects Eames to pounce him as soon as they get off the plane. Eames' protective instincts, however, are still roused, and the instinct to protect his mate apparently supercedes the instinct to mate.
Just barely.
He hauls Arthur to a cab and tells the driver to hurry.
"Are you alright?" he asks Arthur.
"Yeah, yeah," Arthur says, hunched over with his head in his hands, because absolutely everything is an assault on his senses and his head is splitting. His tail prickles in his pant leg and even though his ass aches, he needs to feel Eames filling that space inside him right now. "I just need--"
"I know," says Eames quietly. His frayed tone tells Arthur just how badly he's suffering too. "We'll be there soon."
Arthur's place is in one of the older neighbourhoods of Toronto, just adjacent to the downtown core. It's an old brownstone, and one of his preferred hideouts. Once they get inside Eames locks the door and hurries off to make sure the whole house is secure while Arthur heads straight to the bedroom, sheds all his clothes and drops onto the bed, rolling and arching to try and relieve the unbearable itch. He strokes himself with one hand, and it's such a relief to finally be able to touch himself, to let his tail thump the bed and lash wildly.
"You're a sight," Eames growls from somewhere near the doorway.
Arthur arches his back off the bed without opening his eyes, gasping raggedly. "Eames."
"Arthur." Eames sounds almost as pained as him. "Someone nearly got the jump on us because I was too distracted by you to be paying attention."
"We got away, Eames, no one knows we're here. Eames, I need you to fuck me," Arthur begs, starting to panic that he might not.
Eames curses softly. Arthur hears him enter the room, and then the rustle of clothing being cast aside. He rolls onto his stomach, stretching himself out with his knees under him, and almost at once Eames is on him with a growl, yanking his tail out of the way and shoving all the way in like he never left. Arthur gives a harsh sob at the immediate pain, and Eames falters.
"Don't you dare stop," Arthur grits out.
Eames ties with him three times before Arthur is finally able to sleep. He feels like he's been turned inside-out, his insides scraped raw. He drifts off to the image of Eames, watching protectively over him.
+One time, he managed to trick Eames. Only the once.
He didn't think about it at first. They were supposed to be extracting a secret their young mark had learned on a Halloween two years ago. Arthur's job was to recreate the night and Eames' to forge his best friend, a stout nine-year-old in a Scream mask.
Halloween. A full moon was part and parcel, wasn't it?
He didn't think it would have an effect on Eames. Not until he was distracted from his building by a low wail, and turned to find Eames no longer disguised but himself, on his knees, arms folded over his face as if the light of the moon was scalding him.
"Kick me out, Arthur," he begged.
Arthur didn't. He knew full well what he was doing when he knelt down and said comfortingly, "It's okay, Eames, you'll be okay."
"No," Eames cried, flinching from his touch, scrunching away from the moon. He was quaking. "Shoot me out, Arthur, please."
"It's just a dream," Arthur told him repeatedly, trying to calm him, remind him that there were no repercussions here. Eames shuddered and peered up at him, as if coming back to himself.
"Arthur," he said softly, reaching out to cup Arthur's face in his hands. His eyes flashed green-gold in the dim light, just for an instant.
Then he snapped Arthur's neck.
Arthur made sure it was a quarter moon when they went down with the mark. But he wouldn't forget that reflective flicker in Eames' eyes, a reminder that there's something animal in Eames, just as there is in Arthur. Not that it's that easy to forget.
+It does take Arthur a week to recover. He leaves his basement bedroom only to lounge in the sunlight flooding in through the bay window in the front room, stretching himself out on the couch in a way that makes Eames eye him hungrily. He has a bookshelf here, and wiles away the time reading. He lets his tail out and it drapes over the edge of the couch, the very tip of it lazily curling and uncurling over and over. When Eames sits on the floor with his back against the couch to watch TV, Arthur's tail slides around his neck of its own volition, distracting Arthur from his book when it makes Eames laugh. He snatches his tail away in embarrassment, but Eames catches it and strokes it. Arthur deigns to allow this, because he hates admitting that it feels good.
Times like this are when Arthur thinks he could be happy never leaving Eames at all, when he could almost admit that his space now includes Eames and that's that. It helps that Eames doesn't infringe unduly, isn't constantly in Arthur's face. He's happy enough to take long walks around the neighbourhood, venture into the downtown core now and then. (He says he's familiarizing himself with the city, but Arthur happens to know Eames has been to Toronto many times before, and is pretty sure he's patrolling.)
When he feels up for it, Eames takes him to bed eagerly. The first push in is a burn, stretching him, but it always is. Arthur grits his teeth and bears it, and soon the rough slide of Eames' cock has turned into the delicious friction Arthur loves, playing his nerve endings like an instrument and waking a symphony inside him. He braces himself against the headboard and shoves back into Eames as hard as he can, tail lashing whenever Eames lets it go.
"You feel so fucking good," Eames growls out, muffled against Arthur's spine. "So fucking hot for me." Every thrust rattles all the bones in Arthur's body. "You want me to come inside you, little kitten? Stop you up with my cock and leave you full of my come?"
"Yes, yes, please," Arthur babbles breathlessly, spreading his knees apart as wide as he can. "Fuck, Eames, do it."
He's always unspeakably desperate for it and when it actually happens, when Eames suddenly crushes himself inside Arthur as deep as he possibly can and holds him down, the base of his cock swelling in Arthur's hole, Arthur always forgets why. He always has the same jolt of panic that he's sure Eames can smell, the fear that Eames won't stop before he tears Arthur open. It's always just at the very limits of Arthur's capacity that it stops, and then he's coming, seated deep, deep inside Arthur, burning and wet, and all the breath is squeezed out of Arthur's lungs from the fullness of Eames inside him. When he comes, he cries at his muscles trying and failing to clench down around Eames' cock.
Then his body begins to adjust. He remembers how to pull air into his lungs. Eames licks and kisses him, and they slowly come back down to earth, and there's something immensely comforting about being tied with Eames that makes Arthur feel wanted and whole.
Very gently, Eames pulls him down onto his side, pressed against Arthur's back. He buries his nose in Arthur's hair and takes deep, slow breaths. They could be tied for anywhere from three to thirty minutes, and it wouldn't be the first time they've fallen asleep like this. But with Eames' scent all over him, Arthur suddenly has another thought.
"Did you know him?" he asks sleepily. "The werewolf, in Mombasa? Did you recognize the scent?"
Eames' breaths continue to come as slow, steady warm puffs of air against the back of Arthur's neck, and Arthur is just starting to wonder if he's already asleep when Eames answers:
"There were two I smelled. They were from my pack."
"You have a pack?" Because he's wondered, before. All werewolves are supposed to have packs. Eames shifts.
"Mine cast me out when I left to join the military."
"Oh," says Arthur.
"They make checks on me every few years."
"Why did we run from them, then?" Arthur asks, tired enough to forget the agitation that had struck him when he smelled the werewolf scent. "If they were from your pack."
"Because I don't know what they want," Eames murmurs, but his arms tighten enough around Arthur's middle to reveal this as half a lie. "And that frightens me."
Sated and sleepy, with Eames a comforting weight all around him, it somehow fails to frighten Arthur.
+Arthur knows something's wrong as soon as he wakes up.
Eames is gone. The clock flashes 4:27 at him. Arthur slips noiselessly out of bed and pulls some clothes on, reaching into the decorative vase on the nightstand and pulling out a handgun.
He hears a floorboard creak above him. Warily, he starts to make his way out of the bedroom and up the stairs.
The house is pitch dark, but for any person with a tapetum lucidum there's more than enough light to see by. He nearly scares the life out of Eames on the landing by coming up behind him. Eames whirls and grabs him, clamping a hand over his mouth. Then he relaxes.
"It's okay," he breathes next to Arthur's ear. There's another creaking floorboard in the next room. "It's them."
He moves forward into the front hallway, and flicks the light on. Both the people standing there flinch away from the light while Arthur hurriedly tucks the gun into the waistband of his pants, under his shirt.
"Hello, Faye," Eames says loudly. "Alizé."
Arthur doesn't think he's imagining the surprise on their faces. Evidently, they didn't expect Eames. There are two of them, male and female. There's nothing to distinguish them from humans except for the scent, rich and earthy like Eames' but without the familiarity. It's the female who makes the first move, stepping forward and smiling. She's strikingly pretty, with long black hair, almond-shaped eyes and high cheekbones.
"Eames!" she says. "It's so good to see you."
"What are you doing here?" Eames demands.
"We were in the neighbourhood," the male says gruffly. He's staring at Arthur as he says this.
"Really," says Eames. "Because you were in Kenya all of a week ago."
"I know you," Arthur blurts out before they can reply to this. He's looking at the female. "You're in dreamshare."
She flashes a pretty smile at him. "I'm a chemist. And you're a point. You're the point, as I hear it."
Eames scrubs a hand over his stubble, then says tiredly, "Arthur, this is Faye and my cousin, Alizé. You two, this is Arthur."
Alizé keeps his distance, but Faye happily extends a hand for Arthur to shake. He does, sizing her up, gauging her strength by her grip, but she gives nothing away. She could be nothing more than a petite human girl, except for her scent and the way it makes Arthur's tail prickle unpleasantly. He nods tersely at her, wondering at the strangeness of shaking hands with a person who's just broken into his house in the middle of the night.
"He's pretty, Eames," she purrs. Eames doesn't blink or react, poker-faced. She adds, "But he smells."
"I'm slightly feline," says Arthur. There's no point in lying to somebody whose sense of smell rivals his own; Eames taught him that. "And you're a werewolf."
Alizé comes forward, sniffing curiously, while Faye says, "You're very astute."
"That's why I'm the best," says Arthur simply.
She smiles again, as if she genuinely likes him.
"I heard the rumours," she says. "About you two. I didn't expect to find you here, though," she says to Eames. "I thought you were supposed to be in Auckland by now."
"You were supposed to be in Cape Town last week," Eames says sharply, at once. His tone becomes belligerant. "Did you drop out when Arthur turned you down? You know that as soon as I heard you were on that team I'd have told him not to go."
"I just wanted to meet him," she says.
"Stop bullshitting me." Eames' voice drops to a growl. He moves very close to her. "Tell me why you're stalking my partner across the globe."
Faye fidgets under his hot stare. At last, she starts to say, "Your parents ..."
Arthur isn't watching Alizé anymore, and doesn't see the look of hunger that crosses over his face right away. Eames is no longer standing between them. He moves faster than Arthur can anticipate, and all of a sudden he's forcing Arthur against the wall, gripping a fistful of his shirt and sniffing over the pulse point in his neck.
At once Arthur draws the gun he'd tucked into the waistband of his pants and shoves the barrel into the werewolf's abdomen, but that's all he has time to do before Eames rounds on the offending male with a sound no human could utter, halfway between a snarl and a roar. Alizé is ripped off Arthur and flung to the floor in an instant.
Standing over him, Eames bites out, "If you ever touch him again I will rip your hand off and make you eat it, Alizé, I swear to Christ."
Alizé tips his chin back as if in defiance, but when Eames' shoulders relax slightly Arthur realizes he's showing his throat. Eames steps back, a look of inhuman fury twisting his expression.
Arthur isn't sure whether to be touched or annoyed by Eames' protectiveness. He opts for the latter, shoving the gun back into his pants self-consciously. "I can take care of myself, Eames."
"He reeks of you," Alizé rasps distastefully, as if Arthur isn't even there. He picks himself up slowly. "He smells like a bitch in heat. No wonder you like him."
Arthur can feel all the fur on his tail suddenly flatten in consternation. He's not in heat anymore. How can he still smell like that?
"You shut up." Eames turns back to Faye. "You, keep talking."
"Your parents just want to know what you're up to, how you're doing ..." Faye trails off under his intense stare.
"And what you're doing," Alizé growls, still staring at Arthur. Arthur stares back, watching his shoulders tense, silently challenging him, but Alizé doesn't move. He's taken Eames' warning to heart.
"You can tell them I'm fine and I haven't forgotten the conditions of my return, as always," Eames says coolly to Faye.
"Well," says Faye, shifting her weight uneasily. "They want you -- to return."
Eames stares. "But I haven't--" he starts, then snaps his jaws shut and turns his head to look at Arthur.
"I wasn't the one who told them," Faye says hurriedly.
"Told them what?" Arthur interjects, irritated at being left out of this conversation. Eames glances at him again, expression softening for an instant, and his fingers twitch like he wants to reach for Arthur's hand.
"I'm not allowed to go back to my pack until I take a mate," he says, after a pause.
Arthur's mind flies over the possibilities there. Do Eames' parents know about him, then? Are they displeased? Or do they mean to force him to return, now that he's got Arthur? Before last night, Eames had never talked about his pack before; Arthur has no idea what kind of feelings he has one way or the other about them. He frowns, and addresses Faye.
"You came here looking for me, not Eames. You didn't know he'd be with me."
"They want to meet you too, kitten," says Alizé. The word sounds so much more vulgar coming from him than from Eames. He adds dryly, "So we can nip this in the bud, as it were."
"Don't you get sick of this?" Eames asks Faye, ignoring Alizé altogether. "Being a tool for them? Following me around, dangling yourself in front of me on their orders, year after year?"
"I like seeing you," Faye says, lifting her head. "You've changed. You used to be happy to see me, too."
At these words, for no discernible reason, jealousy rips through Arthur like a bolt of lighting. He scowls, and Eames shakes his head. "Go out and get yourself a mate already, Faye."
"Like you did?" Alizé interjects, with a pointed look at Arthur.
The hallway falls silent. Eames says nothing, but the air around him suddenly seems to crackle. There's a new scent coming off him and Arthur surreptitiously presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth to taste it. It's sharp, like the smell of him before a full moon, like ozone and charged ions. His silent anger seems to fill the hall like a tangible presence. Faye drops her head and Alizé, too, eventually lowers his gaze to the floor.
"Get out of this house," Eames orders quietly. "Now."
To Arthur's surprise, they do. Alizé casts a last hungry look at Arthur when he goes, his nostrils flaring for a last lungful of his scent, making Arthur narrow his eyes and Eames growl sharply. Faye hesitates on the doorstep.
"They expect you before the end of the month," she says.
"They have no right," Eames says, but he sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than her.
She glances at Arthur again, and says quietly, "It's not legitimate, Eames. They have every right."
Then she's gone back into the night.
Eames slams the door shut behind her, then leans against it, his forehead resting against the glass window. His fingers dig into the wood like he wants to claw through it, and he slams a palm against the door in frustration.
Arthur comes up behind him and touches his shoulder cautiously. Almost at once, Eames turns and pulls him into a tight embrace.
"I won't let them take you," he says fiercely, his voice muffled in Arthur's shoulder. "I won't let them take you from me, Arthur. I won't. I swear. I swear."
Thinking about the possessive feral power that had emanated off him just moments before, Arthur wonders who would try.
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