All's Fair (in Love & Werewolves) [2/3]
Title: All's Fair (in Love & Werewolves) - 2/3
Pairing: catboy!Arthur/werewolf!Eames
Words: ~6200
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: Knotting, rimming, attempted dub/noncon.
Author's Note: Same verse as Pavlov's Bell I and II. lulz, I wrote this about five different times and kept scrapping it and starting over. :'( My inspiration has been crap lately. This is the version I'm most satisfied with, and I just need to STOP FIDDLING WITH IT AND POST ALREADY, even though it ended more cliffhangery than I wanted, agh. Part one is here.
Arthur will never forgive Eames for bringing him here.
He's got nothing against Alaska. He really doesn't. But Eames failed to mention, when he brought up this trip, that it rains about three hundred days out of the year in this particular location.
Ketchikan, Alaska. Where the houses are built on stilts and the local football field is made of concrete because it's safer to play on pavement than mud.
After two weeks of solid rain, Arthur is just about out of his mind.
“I like it here,” Eames protests. Tourist season is over, but they're dining where the locals eat anyway, because it's more out of the way (of what? Arthur had demanded, knowing the answer full well, but Eames just scowled).
“You hate it as much as I do.” Flies buzz around their heads, dipping down to investigate the food. Arthur waves them away with a hand irritably. “This place is miserable.”
“It's beautiful,” Eames argues.
“When you can see through the mist, sure,” Arthur allows. More flies descend around them, and Arthur snaps. “Fuck! Why hasn't the cold killed these things yet?”
A waitress behind the counter glowers at him. As far as the town is concerned, Arthur and Eames are just a pair of tourists who should've left on the last cruise ship. They've plainly outstayed their welcome. (In fairness, Arthur knows it's mostly him. He complains about the quality of the food, the flies, the weather, Sarah Palin, etc. every time he comes in here.)
Eames hums and tactfully says nothing, gamely making his way through yet another meal of fish and chips. Arthur tries, but gives up when a fly lands on his food.
“Look,” Eames says quietly, once they've left, pulling their hoods up against the frigid drizzle automatically. “This is a good place for us, for awhile at least. It's cut off from everything, it's remote enough that no one would think of it. And the full moon's coming up. I can finally stretch my legs in this wilderness without being seen, and any damage would be chalked up to a rogue grizzly.”
“It's fine for you,” Arthur hisses. “What about me, Eames? I miss the sun. And it wasn't my choice to come out here, I have no problem meeting your family-”
“Because you don't know what they'll do to you!” Eames hisses back.
“In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly helpless!”
Eames just shakes his head, scattering droplets, frustrated.
When they get back to their motel room, they both shed their jackets. Arthur feels damp all over. He turns up the heater and strips down to his boxers and a clean, dry t-shirt. His tail is fluffed out with displeasure. He glares at Eames.
“I want to go somewhere sunny.”
“We will,” Eames promises. “We will. We'll spend the winter here and then in spring-”
“Winter?” Arthur sits on the bed, arms folded. “You're out of your mind if you think I'm spending the entire winter here. I'll stay as long as the full moon, Eames, but then I'm leaving. With or without you,” he adds.
He's shown his hand. Eames winces. He'll go anywhere with Arthur, anywhere, and for Arthur to use Eames' feelings for him as leverage is low. Even he knows that.
Rather than say anything right away, Eames joins him on the bed. He pushes Arthur down gently and envelops him with his arms, pulling their bodies together.
“I want you to be safe,” he murmurs into Arthur's hair.
“I'll be safe.”
“You're safe here.”
“But I'm not happy here.”
Eames draws his head back suddenly, his voice going sharp. “I hate this just as much as you do, you know. Of course I'd rather be in Mombasa, or working a job. Not hiding out like this. You know I hate spinning my wheels. But you're safe, and we have each other. That's enough to keep me in one place for a lifetime.”
His tone crackles with impatience, but in the silence that follows, he slips a hand down Arthur's back and squeezes his tail, stroking it softly. Arthur squirms against him in token protest before lying still again.
“Eames, it's been two months. We can't run from your family forever.”
Immediately Eames pulls him closer, burying his face under Arthur's jaw.
“I'm not ready,” he mumbles. “I'm not ready yet. What if I lose you?”
He's fatalistic every time he talks about Arthur meeting his pack, and that confounds Arthur. For goodness' sake, they're Eames' family, and Arthur's his mate. Surely they can find some common ground. He squirms again, so he can breathe.
“We're leaving,” he says. “After the full moon. And we're going to Miami,” he adds decisively. He's sick of rain. Arthur needs palm trees and sun.
Eames squeezes his tail again, and it seems to Arthur to be a clinging gesture.
“Okay,” he murmurs after a minute. “Alright. After the full moon.”
Arthur cannot help but think that Eames is going to play him, because Eames is a con man and Arthur is paranoid and old habits die hard all around. And he knows Eames doesn't trust him, either; that night when they go to bed he can sense Eames coming instantly awake and alert every time Arthur so much as shifts his weight on the mattress. The tension between them is palpable.
And he could leave. He could slip down to the marina, catch a boat to the tiny island where Ketchikan's airport is located, find an aircraft sophisticated enough to get him back to civilization. He could make for Miami on his own and even, if he were feeling really spiteful, make it outrageously difficult (failing impossible) for Eames to find him.
But he doesn't.
Sometimes Arthur scarcely recognizes himself these days.
+Arthur has had exactly three failed romances in his life, spread out between all the one-night stands that were fuelled by nothing more than loneliness or frustration or heat:
The first was in high school. She was red-haired, but not in an off-putting way; her hair was long and straight and shone beautifully in the light, and that's what Arthur remembers best about her. That and the way her hair smelled. He still thinks of her when he catches a whiff of that particular brand of shampoo.
He was a teenager, not yet come into his heat cycles but as hormone-riddled as everyone else his age, and at this time he'd been fighting a lot with his mom-whom he loves, truly, and always has, but he was a teenager and he was different and she didn't understand why it was so hard for him to simply be content with who he was, because to her there was nothing strange about him at all. But Arthur was in high school, where the laws of popularity were governed by a different faction, and he hid who he was desperately. Track pants instead of gym shorts. Baggy jeans and long t-shirts to disguise the sudden movements of his tail that he hadn't yet learned to suppress.
He loved her-Jessica-as best as a teenager ruled by its hormones can love. When he turned sixteen she proposed that they lose their virginities to one another. As a birthday present. He wanted her so badly he didn't even think about saying no.
The second was in the army. His name was Jack. He was dashing and competent and he made Arthur's heart stir in ways it hadn't known for years. He was gay. Arthur could smell the flush of interest that overcame him at telling moments. They kissed once, drunk and far from home, behind a tent where there was nobody to see or report them.
The third was a woman Arthur had seen semi-seriously for awhile in Montreal, between jobs. Her name was Eda and she was refreshingly normal, so far removed from the world of mind-crime and extraction that she didn't even know what Arthur's job was. She baked pastries for a living and her eyes creased at the edges in a smile every time Arthur came into her shop.
Of course, Jessica in high school only wanted to be able to claim something that nobody who hadn't gone to elementary school with Arthur could: that she had seen his tail and yes, it was real and yes, it was completely freaky. They didn't have sex, but she and her friends giggled helplessly every time they saw Arthur in the hallways after that, burning him with humiliation.
After the army, Arthur had gone looking for Jack and been gently laughed off, and told that he was about as appealing as fucking a refrigerator, no offense-“too sterile” were the man's exact words, sterile and just cold; but they could fuck if Arthur wasn't looking for a relationship, so how about it? No, thank you, Arthur had replied, and left, and never did he consider a relationship with another man again. (Until-well.)
And Eda, she invited Arthur up to her apartment one day, blushing and smiling enchantingly. In a panic, she nearly broke his tail trying to pull it off him when he showed her. She'd cried, thinking it a cruel joke of some kind, and told him to get out.
In short: Arthur has been so fucking lonely his whole life.
He can sense Eames pulling away from him now, growing more reserved with the impending threat of his pack looming over them. It's not a surprise. Everybody who knows Arthur begins to withdraw eventually. Arthur braces himself and thinks grimly: Here it comes.
+Before now, Eames has always left a few days before the full moon.
Here in Ketchikan, that isn't an option.
He paces up and down their room with a face like thunder, brooding internally. There are moments when he seems to stare at Arthur with literal hunger on his face. His voice is huskier, even deeper than it is normally. Every word is a delicious gravelly rasp down Arthur's spine, vibrating through his whole body. How has he never noticed before just how fucking arousing Eames' voice is? Each dark little chuckle is a purr; every grunt of concession a soft growl.
Arthur can't be blamed if, when Eames comes in from an hours-long walk in the rain, he grabs him immediately and starts pulling at his clothes.
Eames shoves him up against the wall faster than he can blink. Arthur's breath catches in his throat.
“What d'you want?” Eames asks, his voice deceptively soft. “Hm, kitten?”
With anyone else Arthur would scowl and fight off the person who'd dared to take such liberties with him. But Eames' scent rolls over him, and it's so much stronger this week, sharp like electricity. Most of this week, while Eames was out, Arthur had been scoping out jobs on his laptop, not caring if they're tracked down. Today, however, the entire time Eames was out walking, Arthur was in their bed, jerking off to the smell of him but not letting himself come. He feels like a warm bottle of champagne, ready to pop.
“I want you to fuck me,” he pants.
Eames' canines flash in a grin. “Well then, sweetheart,” he husks softly; and scooping Arthur effortlessly, he dumps him on the bed. Arthur pulls off his clothes rapidly while Eames peels off each layer at a more leisurely pace; raincoat, sweater, undershirt, trousers. Arthur waits impatiently on the bed, gripping the sheets.
Before taking off his boxers, Eames walks over to the bedside table and picks up the lube.
“Here,” he says, tossing it at Arthur. His eyes are dark and hooded. “Touch yourself.”
Again, in the back of his mind Arthur knows this is something he should take offense to; but he seems to blink and his back is arched off the bed, thighs spread, and his fingers are slicked and pressing up inside himself. He hisses softly, closing his eyes, and his tail thumps the bed once.
“I know, pet.” Eames' voice is coming from the foot of the bed again. “It's a tight fit. Fuck yourself open for me and I'll give you what you want.”
“Fuck you,” Arthur hisses, working himself open as quickly as he can. His eyes water. The mattress creaks and dips under Eames' weight. Arthur opens one eye to see that Eames has shed his underpants and is kneeling between Arthur's spread legs, jerking himself leisurely with the lube and watching. Eames' predatory smile widens marginally.
“That's enough,” he says after a minute. Arthur stops, withdrawing his fingers gingerly, ready to argue if Eames isn't going to fuck him right now.
Eames grabs him by the waist and rolls, dragging Arthur over him.
“I want you to fuck yourself on my cock,” he says quietly. His eyes are still so dark.
Arthur only takes a second to think about it. They haven't done this before. It's always Eames taking control, and Arthur is fine with that, really. But this sounds good too. It keeps his tail out of the way, anyway. Reaching down, he grips Eames' slick length and lowers himself unsteadily. He feels Eames' cockhead at his hole, and has to force himself to sink down onto it-and Christ, this is much easier when Eames is doing it, pushing in so fast Arthur doesn't have time to think about it.
He pushes down a little further, breath gusting out of his chest. The head squeezes in a fraction deeper, barely. His eyes smart and water and his tail is stiff behind him. He knows it's like ripping off a band-aid, that the faster Eames is seated inside him the less it will hurt, but it's so hard to force himself open like this. Eames is so big, splitting him so wide.
He has to stop.
“I can't,” he croaks.
“You can,” Eames croons persuasively.
But it hurts. He's too big and Arthur's too tight. He shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut again. His tail lashes the air helplessly and he knows, all of a sudden, that no matter how relaxed he is, nothing will get Eames in there right now. They'd fucked fast and rough in the night and he's too sore.
“I can't,” he repeats raggedly.
Eames pulls out suddenly. Before Arthur can react, Eames has grabbed him and rolled them over again, caging Arthur against the bed with his body. His breath is hot against Arthur's face.
“You started this, love. You'll finish it.”
Suddenly-maybe because of the pain, or maybe he just doesn't like that rough, demanding edge in Eames' rasping growl-Arthur no longer wants to do this. He throws an elbow into Eames' ribs without warning and relishes his grunt and recoil. Arthur starts to scramble upright, but Eames recovers and with a snarl he lunges. He's got one hand around Arthur's throat in an instant, pinning him flat to the bed again and crushing the breath out of him.
And then, just as suddenly, he's gone.
Arthur rises on one elbow, rubbing at his throat warily. He takes a few deep, steadying breaths before he looks down the bed at where Eames is perched on the edge of the mattress.
The forger's voice cracks. “I am so sorry.”
“Forget it,” Arthur growls.
“I shouldn't have come back here today. And I knew it, but when I smell you, I just-”
“I said forget it,” Arthur snaps. Eames stares up at him desolately, and Arthur says, bitter, “I know what it's like not to be in control of your urges, alright? So drop it.”
“I should leave,” Eames says, after a pause.
“And go where?”
“The forest.”
“In this weather?” Arthur says doubtfully. Eames is nodding, though, serious.
“It won't bother me once I change. The full moon's tomorrow. I'll spend a couple days out there and then come back.”
Arthur drops the hand from his throat, surprised somehow and momentarily distracted from the resentment that's still bleeding through him in spite of his words. “You can do that? Force a change?”
“Of course,” says Eames simply.
“Why don't you ever do that, then? Change for me, I mean?”
“I already told you that isn't going to happen.” Eames' voice is hard. “It's a total crapshoot when it comes to how much control you have over yourself, when you change like that. I could be completely feral. I'd never risk you in that way.”
Arthur just frowns.
“I'm leaving now,” Eames says, getting up. That ragged edge is still in his voice, and Arthur notices that Eames is careful not to look directly at him now. He's still hard. “I'll ... I'll be nearby, alright? You won't be alone. I'll keep you safe.”
“You don't have to go.” Because Arthur knows, in his bones, implicitly, that Eames will never hurt him, no matter what he thinks of himself. There is no doubt in his mind that if he'd said “no”, just now, Eames would have stopped before he did. But Eames just shakes his head unhappily, and pulls on a pair of slacks.
“See you, Arthur,” he says at the door, still bare-chested. He doesn't say Please don't leave, but it hangs in the air between them anyway.
Then he slips back out into the rain, and Arthur is alone. It's the night before the full moon.
+Before leaving for Alaska, Arthur had spoken to Cobb on the phone. They speak a few times a month now, but Arthur didn't realize he hadn't explicitly told Cobb about Eames until Cobb cleared his throat, obviously discomfited, and said, “So I heard about ... I heard that you're ... you and Eames, huh?”
“Oh,” Arthur said. “Yeah.”
For a minute they both waited awkwardly for the other to speak. Cobb broke first.
“Do you trust him?”
Arthur had glanced through the glass door of their balcony in Barcelona to where Eames was standing and smoking. “Yeah,” he said, surprising himself. “Mostly.”
“Arthur ...” Cobb's voice was edging into its weighty dad-tone. Arthur heard him exhale into the phone. “Be careful, okay?”
“I'm not a kid, Dom,” said Arthur.
“I know that. I know you're a grown-up, and that ... well, you probably know more about this stuff than I do. But I want you to be careful, anyway.”
“It's just Eames,” said Arthur scornfully. On the balcony, Eames tipped his head slightly, squinting out at the city.
“I know it is. That's why I'm worried.”
“He won't hurt me.”
“Yeah. Well,” said Cobb. “Make sure he doesn't.”
Arthur hung up. As soon as he did, Eames turned and glanced at him through the door, his expression unreadable.
Suddenly, Arthur had the uncomfortable feeling that Eames' keen ears had picked up every word.
Eames had simply finished his cigarette and come back inside to help pack. Neither of them said anything about it.
+“God,” Eames is murmuring reverently, “you have no idea what a filthy mess you are.”
Arthur gives a strained grunt and a breathless laugh in reply. “I can guess.”
Eames nuzzles the ridges of his spine, panting wetly between his shoulderblades, beyond coherence. He snaps his hips fast and hard, cramming himself as deep inside Arthur as he can get on every thrust. He's already come four times, pulling out halfway so that he can come inside Arthur without tying with him. Lube and come leak down Arthur's thighs, stream out of him every time Eames pulls out to realign himself, and he shouldn't like how it feels, but-it feels so good to be so wet and filthy, to be drowning in the smell of Eames' musk. He rolls his hips, working Eames' cock as best he can when he's already so exhausted.
“God, Arthur, you-” And Eames pulls out altogether, lifts Arthur's hips off the bed, ducks down and swipes his tongue over his hole. Arthur wails, burrowing into the pillow, his tail arching out of the way so that Eames can lap up the mess of fluids running down to Arthur's balls, then lick his way back up until he can shove his tongue into Arthur's quivering asshole. Arthur moans again and again, frenzied, unable to get a single word out.
“So hot,” Eames growls, pressing in with fingers and tongue to Arthur's most vulnerable spot, his whole body scorching to the touch. After a minute, groaning and bucking up onto Eames' tongue, Arthur realizes Eames is mumbling something else, breathily, into the soft pucker of Arthur's hole. Mine, mine, mine ...
“In me,” Arthur gradually hears himself grating out, over and over. He clears his throat; his voice cracks pathetically. “In me, get in me, I want your cock ...”
Eames groans and he's covering Arthur's back again, lapping away the sweat on the back of his neck as he lifts Arthur's tail and pushes back in, slowly. He pauses when he's buried balls-deep, just to feel the tight, clenching heat of Arthur; then he starts to move again, barely pulling back before he thrusts back in. He has to grip onto the headboard; Arthur is wrapped around his pillow, clinging on like he's about to fly apart. His skin itches and burns.
“So tight,” Eames pants against his neck. He shifts, rolling his hips deep, pressing his balls right up to Arthur's hole. “You're so full. I wonder-”
He doesn't get the thought out, but his hand slides to Arthur's navel, where his stomach muscles are clenching and flexing with every thrust, and presses down with his fingers like he wants to feel himself inside of Arthur. At once a throb of pure heat surges up to the base of Arthur's stomach, and he comes blindingly hard on a strangled cry, all over himself and Eames' hand and the covers. The aftershocks tremble all the way down to his fingertips and toes. Every time Eames thrusts up against his prostate, a thin trickle seeps out onto his hand, even though Arthur feels completely emptied of everything but Eames, wrung out like a sponge.
Eames pulls out and flips him swiftly onto his back just seconds before he comes for the fifth and final time, sinking in to the root just as his knot starts to swell. Arthur's spine arches off the mattress and his breath hitches; Eames grabs one of his hands, limp against the covers, and twines their fingers together, letting Arthur squeeze through it.
Then his features tighten, and he snarls his way softly through orgasm, spurting deep inside Arthur to add to the mess that's already there; that he hasn't already eaten out.
“There,” Eames breathes finally, panting. His voice is a rasp. He sinks onto his elbows, pressing their bodies stickily together. “There. Is that what you needed?”
“Yeah,” Arthur says hoarsely. He's sore, used-up, filthy, and he's never felt so content. “Yeah ...”
Eames presses their faces together silently, nosing and mouthing without quite kissing, like he's too exhausted even for that.
“I love you,” he murmurs. “I love doing this with you. I love that you let me do this.”
Even a short chuckle hurts Arthur's stomach muscles. “Eames ...”
“What?”
All of a sudden Eames' face is shuttered, serious, and Arthur thinks maybe he expects to hear something else; but all Arthur can say is, “I like it, too.”
Eames blinks. Embarrassed, Arthur lets his tail curl until the tip of it flicks Eames' back.
Then Eames smiles, dipping his head for a nuzzle again. “You,” he growls softly, affectionately, and Arthur-
Arthur wakes up on the bed in their motel room, curled up in a ball with one hand clamped between his thighs, drunk on the scent of Eames' pillow. The TV is still playing in the corner; he'd fallen asleep with his clothes on.
It takes him a minute to get his bearings. He has to take out his die, roll it on the surface of the bedside table just to be certain he's in reality. There's no PASIV anywhere nearby, no pinprick mark of an IV line; the vision had been half a string of memories, half fantasy, and entirely a chemical-free, organic dream.
Arthur doesn't dream naturally anymore. The only few times he's dreamt naturally, over the past few years, were all when-
His heart sinks. It's early, by two or three weeks at least, but it can't mean anything else; not with a dream like that, not when his sense of smell already feels sharper.
He is going to go into heat soon.
He groans, dragging the pillow over his head. This cannot be happening, not another early, unscheduled heat cycle. He's starting to sense a pattern, here, and maybe it has something to do with his proximity to Eames... And that's one comfort, at least. It won't hit for at least a few days. Eames will be back to normal by then.
His spine prickles suddenly. That's the only warning he gets before the door is kicked in.
Instantly Arthur grabs the knife he keeps under his own pillow and rolls off the bed, muscles tensed for a fight.
He does not expect to see Alizé standing in the doorframe, with another male werewolf behind him.
“Arthur,” Alizé greets him, leveling what looks like a paintball gun at him. Then he shoots.
+++
It doesn't technically rain, in Ketchikan, all the time. Instead, mostly, the precipitation seems to hang in the air like a fine veil. A miserable grey drizzle to smother all scents.
In the damp woods, the hunter is alone. It's a surprise when he meets one brown bear shambling along, and both stop short when they see each other. They are both still for a moment. Then the bear grunts, a little coughing sound, and ambles on its way. The hunter slides past it, shrewdly eyeing it up, measuring it as a competitor in his territory. The bristling fur on his nape relaxes somewhat when the bear flumps down and starts grubbing for roots.
It's been raining half the night, but the hunter had found shelter in a scoop created by the vast roots of a tree. Now, in the early hours of the morning, with the rain slacking and his stomach cramping, he stalks the forest for prey. He knows there are humans nearby, even with all the scents of the forest muffled by the damp, but there is easier prey to be found. He surprises a little owl eating a mouse on the ground, and gains two snacks, gulping the owl down feathers and all.
He knows there is a pressing, primal need pounding in the back of his skull, and can't pinpoint it. He leaves marks, staking a territory for himself, but that isn't it. He flexes his paws, digging his nails into the soft loam, and lifts his nose to scent the air. Something is-off.
He marks a tree and starts picking his way down a muddy slope towards the town. The next time he inhales, the blood quickens in his veins.
A female werewolf.
He bounds down the slope, pads skidding for traction. She meets him among the trees, her tail tucked low and head cocked to lick at the underside of his muzzle when he stalks up to her, his ears pinned forward and tail curled over his back as a flag of rank. She doesn't challenge him. He towers stiffly over her, almost twice her size. When he doesn't relax right away, she crouches low and laps at his jaw, crying out her helplessness with her body language.
He sniffs her all over, circling while she crouches there. He doesn't mount her. He knows this slim-framed black she-wolf. He knows her, but she isn't his mate.
He spurns her, disappointed, but doesn't chase her off. Now he knows what he needs. He wants to find his mate. He sniffs the air again, hopeful, but the rain seems to drown everything. The urge to mate chews at him like tiny teeth, crawling through his fur from his sheath to his belly. He wants his mate.
He starts determinedly into the trees, but the she-wolf bounds in front of him. He stops. She lets her tongue loll out slowly, a mischievous look.
He steps to the right. So does she.
He growls at her, laying his ears back, but doesn't strike at her. She's a female. She grins at him like she knows he won't attack her, and when he steps to the left, so does she.
He feints. She's there to block him at once. Her tail waves slowly, playfully, and the hunter lets his shoulders relax and joins her game for a moment. He shoulders up against her, mouthing her ear, and barrels her back a few paces quite by accident with his weight alone. She wheels away, loping around the trees, and he gives chase.
After a few minutes she surprises him when he rounds the base of a vast trunk and finds that she's doubled back to meet him. He stops, and she pushes against him, licking at his jaw again as if to reward him for his playfulness. He lets his tongue rasp several times over her forehead, instead, distracted for the moment. He could crush her skull in his jaws, but she isn't afraid.
She brushes against his chest deliberately, her scent invading his nostrils and blocking out all else, and the smell of her excites his blood again. He wants to mate!
He shunts her aside with his shoulder and picks up a ground-eating lope, hoping to catch some faint trace of his mate's scent. He knows it like he knows the smell of his own mother; it's ingrained in him, exciting him. His claws churn up dirt as he gallops through the wood.
The she-wolf is a slinking black shadow, sliding into his path. He pulls up short and lets her know he has no more time for her games with a curled lip, showing off the full length of his serrated second canine. She sidles toward him, coy and furtive.
Distracted again, the hunter doesn't immediately catch the new scent on the breeze. When he does, his mane bristles all the way down his spine, his head snapping up and a growl bubbling in his chest.
There are male werewolves in his territory.
He takes off again, bulling the she-wolf out of his way. She flies past him again, but not to stop him this time; her retreating hindquarters vanish into the dark. He follows her, furious that any male would intrude without asking his leave.
When he gets nearer to the human buildings, another scent mingles with the others, making the blood pound so furiously in his veins that a pink mist rises behind his eyes. The other males have been this way, and they're tracking his mate.
He pauses only briefly when he finds the point where their paths intersect, sniffing at the gravel outside the building where his mate was supposed to be safe. He smells blood. A drop or two of it is his mate's, and that makes his mane stand on end with fury; but most of it belongs to one of the werewolves. The scent's human enough, though; the other werewolves are not changed, even though the moon is almost a full circle in the sky. Good. Their soft flesh will be all the easier to tear.
He's tracking all of them, now, pounding through the dark empty streets-the werewolves, the she-wolf, his mate, they're all together-and then he hears a faint sound at the end of the street that makes his ears lift. A rumbling, coughing engine.
The wolf brain doesn't know engines, but he does know where his path is taking him. He can smell the salt water. Leaping a fence in one flowing bound, he hits the jetty with a four-beat thud of paws and keeps going.
A second werewolf comes tearing out of the darkness without warning. It's one of the males, a sleek chocolate brown, heavier than him. That doesn't stop the hunter from meeting him with a snarl and a snap of teeth. The brown responds in kind, and they grapple shoulder-to-shoulder for a few seconds, trying to close their teeth on each other's mane or face.
The hunter knows this wolf, grew up with this wolf. He is a subordinate. The fact that he's challenging the hunter on his own territory, his tail raised aggressively, enrages the hunter. He lays open a wound on the other's shoulder and, falling back, he bares his teeth and swings his head. His canine tooth deals the brown a cracking blow to the side of the head.
But rather than acknowledge the hunter's dominance, the brown shakes it off and lunges again. The hunter smacks him in the face with a vast paw, spinning aside, but the brown automatically rears and grabs him around the neck. The hunter does the same, trying to shove him off with one shoulder. He's growing angrier now. This fight should have ended before it could escalate into them potentially killing one another. Now there is too much at stake: the land, his mate. The brown bears down on him with all his weight, and in one neat twist, the hunter's feet are knocked out from under him.
He lands on his side with a grunt and knows at once that he's made a potentially fatal mistake: he's lost his footing. The brown's eyes gleam hungrily. He pounces. With an effort, the hunter twists onto his back and curls up to meet his attack, jaws open. Their teeth clash, making his head ring. He feels soft flesh and clamps down hard. His teeth are locked around the other's upper jaw.
The brown's teeth dig into him. Its eyes are wild with fury. Its tongue lolls out and it wrenches its head mightily, shaking him as it would its prey. The hunter hangs grimly on. He can feel the other panting into his mouth. He lets the brown pull him to his feet, pads splaying against the dock for purchase when the brown tries to drag him.
The other werewolf's breathing becomes more and more of a rasp, its efforts to get free growing weaker and weaker. When it tries to claw him, he bites down harder and yanks it off balance. His canines chafe and slice the sides of the brown's muzzle and blood runs into his mouth.
Finally, exhausted, the brown goes limp. His tail hangs and he laps awkwardly at the hunter's lower jaw. The hunter releases him, swiping a tongue over his own nose and watching as the brown gets to his belly, the whites of his eyes flashing in submission.
My mate, the hunter thinks, satisfied. He moves to step past his opponent.
The brown surges up underneath him like a tidal wave. With sheer force, he sends the hunter tumbling off the dock and into the water.
Enraged, the hunter flounders and fights to get his snout above the water. It takes him several efforts to haul himself, dripping, back onto the dock, and by then the brown wolf is gone. There's a boat rumbling at the end of the jetty. The hunter looks just in time to see the brown gallop down the dock and leap in.
The boat begins to drift away. Furious, the hunter doesn't falter for a second. He hurtles down the dock and leaps straight back into the frigid black water, but-the boat is already farther away, and it's going faster. He churns rapidly into the wake it leaves behind, snuffling for breath. The water soaks his thick coat, and the air trapped in his fur helps to buoy him. His strokes are powerful and he carries himself quickly through the water, but the waves batter him and clog his sensitive nose. He has to keep blinking, gulping air and water alternately, and the boat is going away. It's going away too fast for him to keep up.
They're taking away his mate.
He swims for what feels like forever, until his limbs are heavy and tired and he's choking on water because he can hardly keep his nose up. He keeps swimming until long after the boat has disappeared and he can't even hear or smell it anymore, until land is almost out of sight. Only when his survival instinct kicks feebly in and tells him that he'll drown if he keeps struggling on like this does he at last turn, exhausted, back toward the shore. He's carried himself so far that it isn't Ketchikan he lands at but an island in the strait. He hauls himself weakly onto the pebbled strand.
Dawn light glows faintly on the horizon. His mate is gone.
A new surge of energy fights its way through the hunter's body. He gets to his feet and lets all the helpless rage and fury boil over in him, tearing up his throat. He screams, railing against the unheeding sky for allowing his mate to be taken from him. All the birds in the trees nearby wake and scatter in alarm. The hunter screams, rages, howls until he can't draw breath to do so anymore, and then he sinks to the sand. He lies there, curled in on himself in a tight ball, and moans until he falls asleep.
next part
Pairing: catboy!Arthur/werewolf!Eames
Words: ~6200
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: Knotting, rimming, attempted dub/noncon.
Author's Note: Same verse as Pavlov's Bell I and II. lulz, I wrote this about five different times and kept scrapping it and starting over. :'( My inspiration has been crap lately. This is the version I'm most satisfied with, and I just need to STOP FIDDLING WITH IT AND POST ALREADY, even though it ended more cliffhangery than I wanted, agh. Part one is here.
Arthur will never forgive Eames for bringing him here.
He's got nothing against Alaska. He really doesn't. But Eames failed to mention, when he brought up this trip, that it rains about three hundred days out of the year in this particular location.
Ketchikan, Alaska. Where the houses are built on stilts and the local football field is made of concrete because it's safer to play on pavement than mud.
After two weeks of solid rain, Arthur is just about out of his mind.
“I like it here,” Eames protests. Tourist season is over, but they're dining where the locals eat anyway, because it's more out of the way (of what? Arthur had demanded, knowing the answer full well, but Eames just scowled).
“You hate it as much as I do.” Flies buzz around their heads, dipping down to investigate the food. Arthur waves them away with a hand irritably. “This place is miserable.”
“It's beautiful,” Eames argues.
“When you can see through the mist, sure,” Arthur allows. More flies descend around them, and Arthur snaps. “Fuck! Why hasn't the cold killed these things yet?”
A waitress behind the counter glowers at him. As far as the town is concerned, Arthur and Eames are just a pair of tourists who should've left on the last cruise ship. They've plainly outstayed their welcome. (In fairness, Arthur knows it's mostly him. He complains about the quality of the food, the flies, the weather, Sarah Palin, etc. every time he comes in here.)
Eames hums and tactfully says nothing, gamely making his way through yet another meal of fish and chips. Arthur tries, but gives up when a fly lands on his food.
“Look,” Eames says quietly, once they've left, pulling their hoods up against the frigid drizzle automatically. “This is a good place for us, for awhile at least. It's cut off from everything, it's remote enough that no one would think of it. And the full moon's coming up. I can finally stretch my legs in this wilderness without being seen, and any damage would be chalked up to a rogue grizzly.”
“It's fine for you,” Arthur hisses. “What about me, Eames? I miss the sun. And it wasn't my choice to come out here, I have no problem meeting your family-”
“Because you don't know what they'll do to you!” Eames hisses back.
“In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly helpless!”
Eames just shakes his head, scattering droplets, frustrated.
When they get back to their motel room, they both shed their jackets. Arthur feels damp all over. He turns up the heater and strips down to his boxers and a clean, dry t-shirt. His tail is fluffed out with displeasure. He glares at Eames.
“I want to go somewhere sunny.”
“We will,” Eames promises. “We will. We'll spend the winter here and then in spring-”
“Winter?” Arthur sits on the bed, arms folded. “You're out of your mind if you think I'm spending the entire winter here. I'll stay as long as the full moon, Eames, but then I'm leaving. With or without you,” he adds.
He's shown his hand. Eames winces. He'll go anywhere with Arthur, anywhere, and for Arthur to use Eames' feelings for him as leverage is low. Even he knows that.
Rather than say anything right away, Eames joins him on the bed. He pushes Arthur down gently and envelops him with his arms, pulling their bodies together.
“I want you to be safe,” he murmurs into Arthur's hair.
“I'll be safe.”
“You're safe here.”
“But I'm not happy here.”
Eames draws his head back suddenly, his voice going sharp. “I hate this just as much as you do, you know. Of course I'd rather be in Mombasa, or working a job. Not hiding out like this. You know I hate spinning my wheels. But you're safe, and we have each other. That's enough to keep me in one place for a lifetime.”
His tone crackles with impatience, but in the silence that follows, he slips a hand down Arthur's back and squeezes his tail, stroking it softly. Arthur squirms against him in token protest before lying still again.
“Eames, it's been two months. We can't run from your family forever.”
Immediately Eames pulls him closer, burying his face under Arthur's jaw.
“I'm not ready,” he mumbles. “I'm not ready yet. What if I lose you?”
He's fatalistic every time he talks about Arthur meeting his pack, and that confounds Arthur. For goodness' sake, they're Eames' family, and Arthur's his mate. Surely they can find some common ground. He squirms again, so he can breathe.
“We're leaving,” he says. “After the full moon. And we're going to Miami,” he adds decisively. He's sick of rain. Arthur needs palm trees and sun.
Eames squeezes his tail again, and it seems to Arthur to be a clinging gesture.
“Okay,” he murmurs after a minute. “Alright. After the full moon.”
Arthur cannot help but think that Eames is going to play him, because Eames is a con man and Arthur is paranoid and old habits die hard all around. And he knows Eames doesn't trust him, either; that night when they go to bed he can sense Eames coming instantly awake and alert every time Arthur so much as shifts his weight on the mattress. The tension between them is palpable.
And he could leave. He could slip down to the marina, catch a boat to the tiny island where Ketchikan's airport is located, find an aircraft sophisticated enough to get him back to civilization. He could make for Miami on his own and even, if he were feeling really spiteful, make it outrageously difficult (failing impossible) for Eames to find him.
But he doesn't.
Sometimes Arthur scarcely recognizes himself these days.
+Arthur has had exactly three failed romances in his life, spread out between all the one-night stands that were fuelled by nothing more than loneliness or frustration or heat:
The first was in high school. She was red-haired, but not in an off-putting way; her hair was long and straight and shone beautifully in the light, and that's what Arthur remembers best about her. That and the way her hair smelled. He still thinks of her when he catches a whiff of that particular brand of shampoo.
He was a teenager, not yet come into his heat cycles but as hormone-riddled as everyone else his age, and at this time he'd been fighting a lot with his mom-whom he loves, truly, and always has, but he was a teenager and he was different and she didn't understand why it was so hard for him to simply be content with who he was, because to her there was nothing strange about him at all. But Arthur was in high school, where the laws of popularity were governed by a different faction, and he hid who he was desperately. Track pants instead of gym shorts. Baggy jeans and long t-shirts to disguise the sudden movements of his tail that he hadn't yet learned to suppress.
He loved her-Jessica-as best as a teenager ruled by its hormones can love. When he turned sixteen she proposed that they lose their virginities to one another. As a birthday present. He wanted her so badly he didn't even think about saying no.
The second was in the army. His name was Jack. He was dashing and competent and he made Arthur's heart stir in ways it hadn't known for years. He was gay. Arthur could smell the flush of interest that overcame him at telling moments. They kissed once, drunk and far from home, behind a tent where there was nobody to see or report them.
The third was a woman Arthur had seen semi-seriously for awhile in Montreal, between jobs. Her name was Eda and she was refreshingly normal, so far removed from the world of mind-crime and extraction that she didn't even know what Arthur's job was. She baked pastries for a living and her eyes creased at the edges in a smile every time Arthur came into her shop.
Of course, Jessica in high school only wanted to be able to claim something that nobody who hadn't gone to elementary school with Arthur could: that she had seen his tail and yes, it was real and yes, it was completely freaky. They didn't have sex, but she and her friends giggled helplessly every time they saw Arthur in the hallways after that, burning him with humiliation.
After the army, Arthur had gone looking for Jack and been gently laughed off, and told that he was about as appealing as fucking a refrigerator, no offense-“too sterile” were the man's exact words, sterile and just cold; but they could fuck if Arthur wasn't looking for a relationship, so how about it? No, thank you, Arthur had replied, and left, and never did he consider a relationship with another man again. (Until-well.)
And Eda, she invited Arthur up to her apartment one day, blushing and smiling enchantingly. In a panic, she nearly broke his tail trying to pull it off him when he showed her. She'd cried, thinking it a cruel joke of some kind, and told him to get out.
In short: Arthur has been so fucking lonely his whole life.
He can sense Eames pulling away from him now, growing more reserved with the impending threat of his pack looming over them. It's not a surprise. Everybody who knows Arthur begins to withdraw eventually. Arthur braces himself and thinks grimly: Here it comes.
+Before now, Eames has always left a few days before the full moon.
Here in Ketchikan, that isn't an option.
He paces up and down their room with a face like thunder, brooding internally. There are moments when he seems to stare at Arthur with literal hunger on his face. His voice is huskier, even deeper than it is normally. Every word is a delicious gravelly rasp down Arthur's spine, vibrating through his whole body. How has he never noticed before just how fucking arousing Eames' voice is? Each dark little chuckle is a purr; every grunt of concession a soft growl.
Arthur can't be blamed if, when Eames comes in from an hours-long walk in the rain, he grabs him immediately and starts pulling at his clothes.
Eames shoves him up against the wall faster than he can blink. Arthur's breath catches in his throat.
“What d'you want?” Eames asks, his voice deceptively soft. “Hm, kitten?”
With anyone else Arthur would scowl and fight off the person who'd dared to take such liberties with him. But Eames' scent rolls over him, and it's so much stronger this week, sharp like electricity. Most of this week, while Eames was out, Arthur had been scoping out jobs on his laptop, not caring if they're tracked down. Today, however, the entire time Eames was out walking, Arthur was in their bed, jerking off to the smell of him but not letting himself come. He feels like a warm bottle of champagne, ready to pop.
“I want you to fuck me,” he pants.
Eames' canines flash in a grin. “Well then, sweetheart,” he husks softly; and scooping Arthur effortlessly, he dumps him on the bed. Arthur pulls off his clothes rapidly while Eames peels off each layer at a more leisurely pace; raincoat, sweater, undershirt, trousers. Arthur waits impatiently on the bed, gripping the sheets.
Before taking off his boxers, Eames walks over to the bedside table and picks up the lube.
“Here,” he says, tossing it at Arthur. His eyes are dark and hooded. “Touch yourself.”
Again, in the back of his mind Arthur knows this is something he should take offense to; but he seems to blink and his back is arched off the bed, thighs spread, and his fingers are slicked and pressing up inside himself. He hisses softly, closing his eyes, and his tail thumps the bed once.
“I know, pet.” Eames' voice is coming from the foot of the bed again. “It's a tight fit. Fuck yourself open for me and I'll give you what you want.”
“Fuck you,” Arthur hisses, working himself open as quickly as he can. His eyes water. The mattress creaks and dips under Eames' weight. Arthur opens one eye to see that Eames has shed his underpants and is kneeling between Arthur's spread legs, jerking himself leisurely with the lube and watching. Eames' predatory smile widens marginally.
“That's enough,” he says after a minute. Arthur stops, withdrawing his fingers gingerly, ready to argue if Eames isn't going to fuck him right now.
Eames grabs him by the waist and rolls, dragging Arthur over him.
“I want you to fuck yourself on my cock,” he says quietly. His eyes are still so dark.
Arthur only takes a second to think about it. They haven't done this before. It's always Eames taking control, and Arthur is fine with that, really. But this sounds good too. It keeps his tail out of the way, anyway. Reaching down, he grips Eames' slick length and lowers himself unsteadily. He feels Eames' cockhead at his hole, and has to force himself to sink down onto it-and Christ, this is much easier when Eames is doing it, pushing in so fast Arthur doesn't have time to think about it.
He pushes down a little further, breath gusting out of his chest. The head squeezes in a fraction deeper, barely. His eyes smart and water and his tail is stiff behind him. He knows it's like ripping off a band-aid, that the faster Eames is seated inside him the less it will hurt, but it's so hard to force himself open like this. Eames is so big, splitting him so wide.
He has to stop.
“I can't,” he croaks.
“You can,” Eames croons persuasively.
But it hurts. He's too big and Arthur's too tight. He shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut again. His tail lashes the air helplessly and he knows, all of a sudden, that no matter how relaxed he is, nothing will get Eames in there right now. They'd fucked fast and rough in the night and he's too sore.
“I can't,” he repeats raggedly.
Eames pulls out suddenly. Before Arthur can react, Eames has grabbed him and rolled them over again, caging Arthur against the bed with his body. His breath is hot against Arthur's face.
“You started this, love. You'll finish it.”
Suddenly-maybe because of the pain, or maybe he just doesn't like that rough, demanding edge in Eames' rasping growl-Arthur no longer wants to do this. He throws an elbow into Eames' ribs without warning and relishes his grunt and recoil. Arthur starts to scramble upright, but Eames recovers and with a snarl he lunges. He's got one hand around Arthur's throat in an instant, pinning him flat to the bed again and crushing the breath out of him.
And then, just as suddenly, he's gone.
Arthur rises on one elbow, rubbing at his throat warily. He takes a few deep, steadying breaths before he looks down the bed at where Eames is perched on the edge of the mattress.
The forger's voice cracks. “I am so sorry.”
“Forget it,” Arthur growls.
“I shouldn't have come back here today. And I knew it, but when I smell you, I just-”
“I said forget it,” Arthur snaps. Eames stares up at him desolately, and Arthur says, bitter, “I know what it's like not to be in control of your urges, alright? So drop it.”
“I should leave,” Eames says, after a pause.
“And go where?”
“The forest.”
“In this weather?” Arthur says doubtfully. Eames is nodding, though, serious.
“It won't bother me once I change. The full moon's tomorrow. I'll spend a couple days out there and then come back.”
Arthur drops the hand from his throat, surprised somehow and momentarily distracted from the resentment that's still bleeding through him in spite of his words. “You can do that? Force a change?”
“Of course,” says Eames simply.
“Why don't you ever do that, then? Change for me, I mean?”
“I already told you that isn't going to happen.” Eames' voice is hard. “It's a total crapshoot when it comes to how much control you have over yourself, when you change like that. I could be completely feral. I'd never risk you in that way.”
Arthur just frowns.
“I'm leaving now,” Eames says, getting up. That ragged edge is still in his voice, and Arthur notices that Eames is careful not to look directly at him now. He's still hard. “I'll ... I'll be nearby, alright? You won't be alone. I'll keep you safe.”
“You don't have to go.” Because Arthur knows, in his bones, implicitly, that Eames will never hurt him, no matter what he thinks of himself. There is no doubt in his mind that if he'd said “no”, just now, Eames would have stopped before he did. But Eames just shakes his head unhappily, and pulls on a pair of slacks.
“See you, Arthur,” he says at the door, still bare-chested. He doesn't say Please don't leave, but it hangs in the air between them anyway.
Then he slips back out into the rain, and Arthur is alone. It's the night before the full moon.
+Before leaving for Alaska, Arthur had spoken to Cobb on the phone. They speak a few times a month now, but Arthur didn't realize he hadn't explicitly told Cobb about Eames until Cobb cleared his throat, obviously discomfited, and said, “So I heard about ... I heard that you're ... you and Eames, huh?”
“Oh,” Arthur said. “Yeah.”
For a minute they both waited awkwardly for the other to speak. Cobb broke first.
“Do you trust him?”
Arthur had glanced through the glass door of their balcony in Barcelona to where Eames was standing and smoking. “Yeah,” he said, surprising himself. “Mostly.”
“Arthur ...” Cobb's voice was edging into its weighty dad-tone. Arthur heard him exhale into the phone. “Be careful, okay?”
“I'm not a kid, Dom,” said Arthur.
“I know that. I know you're a grown-up, and that ... well, you probably know more about this stuff than I do. But I want you to be careful, anyway.”
“It's just Eames,” said Arthur scornfully. On the balcony, Eames tipped his head slightly, squinting out at the city.
“I know it is. That's why I'm worried.”
“He won't hurt me.”
“Yeah. Well,” said Cobb. “Make sure he doesn't.”
Arthur hung up. As soon as he did, Eames turned and glanced at him through the door, his expression unreadable.
Suddenly, Arthur had the uncomfortable feeling that Eames' keen ears had picked up every word.
Eames had simply finished his cigarette and come back inside to help pack. Neither of them said anything about it.
+“God,” Eames is murmuring reverently, “you have no idea what a filthy mess you are.”
Arthur gives a strained grunt and a breathless laugh in reply. “I can guess.”
Eames nuzzles the ridges of his spine, panting wetly between his shoulderblades, beyond coherence. He snaps his hips fast and hard, cramming himself as deep inside Arthur as he can get on every thrust. He's already come four times, pulling out halfway so that he can come inside Arthur without tying with him. Lube and come leak down Arthur's thighs, stream out of him every time Eames pulls out to realign himself, and he shouldn't like how it feels, but-it feels so good to be so wet and filthy, to be drowning in the smell of Eames' musk. He rolls his hips, working Eames' cock as best he can when he's already so exhausted.
“God, Arthur, you-” And Eames pulls out altogether, lifts Arthur's hips off the bed, ducks down and swipes his tongue over his hole. Arthur wails, burrowing into the pillow, his tail arching out of the way so that Eames can lap up the mess of fluids running down to Arthur's balls, then lick his way back up until he can shove his tongue into Arthur's quivering asshole. Arthur moans again and again, frenzied, unable to get a single word out.
“So hot,” Eames growls, pressing in with fingers and tongue to Arthur's most vulnerable spot, his whole body scorching to the touch. After a minute, groaning and bucking up onto Eames' tongue, Arthur realizes Eames is mumbling something else, breathily, into the soft pucker of Arthur's hole. Mine, mine, mine ...
“In me,” Arthur gradually hears himself grating out, over and over. He clears his throat; his voice cracks pathetically. “In me, get in me, I want your cock ...”
Eames groans and he's covering Arthur's back again, lapping away the sweat on the back of his neck as he lifts Arthur's tail and pushes back in, slowly. He pauses when he's buried balls-deep, just to feel the tight, clenching heat of Arthur; then he starts to move again, barely pulling back before he thrusts back in. He has to grip onto the headboard; Arthur is wrapped around his pillow, clinging on like he's about to fly apart. His skin itches and burns.
“So tight,” Eames pants against his neck. He shifts, rolling his hips deep, pressing his balls right up to Arthur's hole. “You're so full. I wonder-”
He doesn't get the thought out, but his hand slides to Arthur's navel, where his stomach muscles are clenching and flexing with every thrust, and presses down with his fingers like he wants to feel himself inside of Arthur. At once a throb of pure heat surges up to the base of Arthur's stomach, and he comes blindingly hard on a strangled cry, all over himself and Eames' hand and the covers. The aftershocks tremble all the way down to his fingertips and toes. Every time Eames thrusts up against his prostate, a thin trickle seeps out onto his hand, even though Arthur feels completely emptied of everything but Eames, wrung out like a sponge.
Eames pulls out and flips him swiftly onto his back just seconds before he comes for the fifth and final time, sinking in to the root just as his knot starts to swell. Arthur's spine arches off the mattress and his breath hitches; Eames grabs one of his hands, limp against the covers, and twines their fingers together, letting Arthur squeeze through it.
Then his features tighten, and he snarls his way softly through orgasm, spurting deep inside Arthur to add to the mess that's already there; that he hasn't already eaten out.
“There,” Eames breathes finally, panting. His voice is a rasp. He sinks onto his elbows, pressing their bodies stickily together. “There. Is that what you needed?”
“Yeah,” Arthur says hoarsely. He's sore, used-up, filthy, and he's never felt so content. “Yeah ...”
Eames presses their faces together silently, nosing and mouthing without quite kissing, like he's too exhausted even for that.
“I love you,” he murmurs. “I love doing this with you. I love that you let me do this.”
Even a short chuckle hurts Arthur's stomach muscles. “Eames ...”
“What?”
All of a sudden Eames' face is shuttered, serious, and Arthur thinks maybe he expects to hear something else; but all Arthur can say is, “I like it, too.”
Eames blinks. Embarrassed, Arthur lets his tail curl until the tip of it flicks Eames' back.
Then Eames smiles, dipping his head for a nuzzle again. “You,” he growls softly, affectionately, and Arthur-
Arthur wakes up on the bed in their motel room, curled up in a ball with one hand clamped between his thighs, drunk on the scent of Eames' pillow. The TV is still playing in the corner; he'd fallen asleep with his clothes on.
It takes him a minute to get his bearings. He has to take out his die, roll it on the surface of the bedside table just to be certain he's in reality. There's no PASIV anywhere nearby, no pinprick mark of an IV line; the vision had been half a string of memories, half fantasy, and entirely a chemical-free, organic dream.
Arthur doesn't dream naturally anymore. The only few times he's dreamt naturally, over the past few years, were all when-
His heart sinks. It's early, by two or three weeks at least, but it can't mean anything else; not with a dream like that, not when his sense of smell already feels sharper.
He is going to go into heat soon.
He groans, dragging the pillow over his head. This cannot be happening, not another early, unscheduled heat cycle. He's starting to sense a pattern, here, and maybe it has something to do with his proximity to Eames... And that's one comfort, at least. It won't hit for at least a few days. Eames will be back to normal by then.
His spine prickles suddenly. That's the only warning he gets before the door is kicked in.
Instantly Arthur grabs the knife he keeps under his own pillow and rolls off the bed, muscles tensed for a fight.
He does not expect to see Alizé standing in the doorframe, with another male werewolf behind him.
“Arthur,” Alizé greets him, leveling what looks like a paintball gun at him. Then he shoots.
+++
It doesn't technically rain, in Ketchikan, all the time. Instead, mostly, the precipitation seems to hang in the air like a fine veil. A miserable grey drizzle to smother all scents.
In the damp woods, the hunter is alone. It's a surprise when he meets one brown bear shambling along, and both stop short when they see each other. They are both still for a moment. Then the bear grunts, a little coughing sound, and ambles on its way. The hunter slides past it, shrewdly eyeing it up, measuring it as a competitor in his territory. The bristling fur on his nape relaxes somewhat when the bear flumps down and starts grubbing for roots.
It's been raining half the night, but the hunter had found shelter in a scoop created by the vast roots of a tree. Now, in the early hours of the morning, with the rain slacking and his stomach cramping, he stalks the forest for prey. He knows there are humans nearby, even with all the scents of the forest muffled by the damp, but there is easier prey to be found. He surprises a little owl eating a mouse on the ground, and gains two snacks, gulping the owl down feathers and all.
He knows there is a pressing, primal need pounding in the back of his skull, and can't pinpoint it. He leaves marks, staking a territory for himself, but that isn't it. He flexes his paws, digging his nails into the soft loam, and lifts his nose to scent the air. Something is-off.
He marks a tree and starts picking his way down a muddy slope towards the town. The next time he inhales, the blood quickens in his veins.
A female werewolf.
He bounds down the slope, pads skidding for traction. She meets him among the trees, her tail tucked low and head cocked to lick at the underside of his muzzle when he stalks up to her, his ears pinned forward and tail curled over his back as a flag of rank. She doesn't challenge him. He towers stiffly over her, almost twice her size. When he doesn't relax right away, she crouches low and laps at his jaw, crying out her helplessness with her body language.
He sniffs her all over, circling while she crouches there. He doesn't mount her. He knows this slim-framed black she-wolf. He knows her, but she isn't his mate.
He spurns her, disappointed, but doesn't chase her off. Now he knows what he needs. He wants to find his mate. He sniffs the air again, hopeful, but the rain seems to drown everything. The urge to mate chews at him like tiny teeth, crawling through his fur from his sheath to his belly. He wants his mate.
He starts determinedly into the trees, but the she-wolf bounds in front of him. He stops. She lets her tongue loll out slowly, a mischievous look.
He steps to the right. So does she.
He growls at her, laying his ears back, but doesn't strike at her. She's a female. She grins at him like she knows he won't attack her, and when he steps to the left, so does she.
He feints. She's there to block him at once. Her tail waves slowly, playfully, and the hunter lets his shoulders relax and joins her game for a moment. He shoulders up against her, mouthing her ear, and barrels her back a few paces quite by accident with his weight alone. She wheels away, loping around the trees, and he gives chase.
After a few minutes she surprises him when he rounds the base of a vast trunk and finds that she's doubled back to meet him. He stops, and she pushes against him, licking at his jaw again as if to reward him for his playfulness. He lets his tongue rasp several times over her forehead, instead, distracted for the moment. He could crush her skull in his jaws, but she isn't afraid.
She brushes against his chest deliberately, her scent invading his nostrils and blocking out all else, and the smell of her excites his blood again. He wants to mate!
He shunts her aside with his shoulder and picks up a ground-eating lope, hoping to catch some faint trace of his mate's scent. He knows it like he knows the smell of his own mother; it's ingrained in him, exciting him. His claws churn up dirt as he gallops through the wood.
The she-wolf is a slinking black shadow, sliding into his path. He pulls up short and lets her know he has no more time for her games with a curled lip, showing off the full length of his serrated second canine. She sidles toward him, coy and furtive.
Distracted again, the hunter doesn't immediately catch the new scent on the breeze. When he does, his mane bristles all the way down his spine, his head snapping up and a growl bubbling in his chest.
There are male werewolves in his territory.
He takes off again, bulling the she-wolf out of his way. She flies past him again, but not to stop him this time; her retreating hindquarters vanish into the dark. He follows her, furious that any male would intrude without asking his leave.
When he gets nearer to the human buildings, another scent mingles with the others, making the blood pound so furiously in his veins that a pink mist rises behind his eyes. The other males have been this way, and they're tracking his mate.
He pauses only briefly when he finds the point where their paths intersect, sniffing at the gravel outside the building where his mate was supposed to be safe. He smells blood. A drop or two of it is his mate's, and that makes his mane stand on end with fury; but most of it belongs to one of the werewolves. The scent's human enough, though; the other werewolves are not changed, even though the moon is almost a full circle in the sky. Good. Their soft flesh will be all the easier to tear.
He's tracking all of them, now, pounding through the dark empty streets-the werewolves, the she-wolf, his mate, they're all together-and then he hears a faint sound at the end of the street that makes his ears lift. A rumbling, coughing engine.
The wolf brain doesn't know engines, but he does know where his path is taking him. He can smell the salt water. Leaping a fence in one flowing bound, he hits the jetty with a four-beat thud of paws and keeps going.
A second werewolf comes tearing out of the darkness without warning. It's one of the males, a sleek chocolate brown, heavier than him. That doesn't stop the hunter from meeting him with a snarl and a snap of teeth. The brown responds in kind, and they grapple shoulder-to-shoulder for a few seconds, trying to close their teeth on each other's mane or face.
The hunter knows this wolf, grew up with this wolf. He is a subordinate. The fact that he's challenging the hunter on his own territory, his tail raised aggressively, enrages the hunter. He lays open a wound on the other's shoulder and, falling back, he bares his teeth and swings his head. His canine tooth deals the brown a cracking blow to the side of the head.
But rather than acknowledge the hunter's dominance, the brown shakes it off and lunges again. The hunter smacks him in the face with a vast paw, spinning aside, but the brown automatically rears and grabs him around the neck. The hunter does the same, trying to shove him off with one shoulder. He's growing angrier now. This fight should have ended before it could escalate into them potentially killing one another. Now there is too much at stake: the land, his mate. The brown bears down on him with all his weight, and in one neat twist, the hunter's feet are knocked out from under him.
He lands on his side with a grunt and knows at once that he's made a potentially fatal mistake: he's lost his footing. The brown's eyes gleam hungrily. He pounces. With an effort, the hunter twists onto his back and curls up to meet his attack, jaws open. Their teeth clash, making his head ring. He feels soft flesh and clamps down hard. His teeth are locked around the other's upper jaw.
The brown's teeth dig into him. Its eyes are wild with fury. Its tongue lolls out and it wrenches its head mightily, shaking him as it would its prey. The hunter hangs grimly on. He can feel the other panting into his mouth. He lets the brown pull him to his feet, pads splaying against the dock for purchase when the brown tries to drag him.
The other werewolf's breathing becomes more and more of a rasp, its efforts to get free growing weaker and weaker. When it tries to claw him, he bites down harder and yanks it off balance. His canines chafe and slice the sides of the brown's muzzle and blood runs into his mouth.
Finally, exhausted, the brown goes limp. His tail hangs and he laps awkwardly at the hunter's lower jaw. The hunter releases him, swiping a tongue over his own nose and watching as the brown gets to his belly, the whites of his eyes flashing in submission.
My mate, the hunter thinks, satisfied. He moves to step past his opponent.
The brown surges up underneath him like a tidal wave. With sheer force, he sends the hunter tumbling off the dock and into the water.
Enraged, the hunter flounders and fights to get his snout above the water. It takes him several efforts to haul himself, dripping, back onto the dock, and by then the brown wolf is gone. There's a boat rumbling at the end of the jetty. The hunter looks just in time to see the brown gallop down the dock and leap in.
The boat begins to drift away. Furious, the hunter doesn't falter for a second. He hurtles down the dock and leaps straight back into the frigid black water, but-the boat is already farther away, and it's going faster. He churns rapidly into the wake it leaves behind, snuffling for breath. The water soaks his thick coat, and the air trapped in his fur helps to buoy him. His strokes are powerful and he carries himself quickly through the water, but the waves batter him and clog his sensitive nose. He has to keep blinking, gulping air and water alternately, and the boat is going away. It's going away too fast for him to keep up.
They're taking away his mate.
He swims for what feels like forever, until his limbs are heavy and tired and he's choking on water because he can hardly keep his nose up. He keeps swimming until long after the boat has disappeared and he can't even hear or smell it anymore, until land is almost out of sight. Only when his survival instinct kicks feebly in and tells him that he'll drown if he keeps struggling on like this does he at last turn, exhausted, back toward the shore. He's carried himself so far that it isn't Ketchikan he lands at but an island in the strait. He hauls himself weakly onto the pebbled strand.
Dawn light glows faintly on the horizon. His mate is gone.
A new surge of energy fights its way through the hunter's body. He gets to his feet and lets all the helpless rage and fury boil over in him, tearing up his throat. He screams, railing against the unheeding sky for allowing his mate to be taken from him. All the birds in the trees nearby wake and scatter in alarm. The hunter screams, rages, howls until he can't draw breath to do so anymore, and then he sinks to the sand. He lies there, curled in on himself in a tight ball, and moans until he falls asleep.
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