by Amy Lane
The smile he turned towards her was so ghastly it actually made her stomach churn. “I’m fine, field mouse. Don’t worry about me.”
“Don’t worry? Don’t worry about you? Well, pappi, you want us not to worry about you, then you better start yelling or something, because right now, you’re scaring the living shit out of us!” She reached out for his clothes and Teague jerked them back, clutching them to his chest.
“I’m fine,” he repeated, holding his running gear close, “I’m just…” deep breath, “just going for a little run… you know… sort of…” his whole body quivered with the effort of keeping his emotions in check, “sort of gear down after the job.”
“Teague,” Jack muttered, and the look he sent Katy was panicked and worried. It felt like once Teague left this room, he’d never come back. Katy had a very clear vision of him just running, running off into the night until his heart burst like a rabbit’s, until he fell into the earth and died under the weight of all the things he didn’t scream. “Teague, keeping me home like a child isn’t going to make this any better…”
Teague’s shoulders jerked like he’d been shot. His face was so pale that his faint freckles stood out in stark relief, and Katy turned around and smacked Jacky’s shoulder one more time.
“Stop talking about that!” she cried, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Don’t you see what it’s doing to him?”
“I’m fine,” Teague muttered, and Katy and Jack both shouted, “The fuck you are!” in tandem.
Teague tried another one of those nobody-home smiles. “I’m fine. You two… I’m fine. I just need to…” another deep breath. “I just need to…” he dropped the clothes and started pulling at the buttons of his flannel shirt. “Maybe I’ll go running like a wolf…”
“No.” Katy said, and she didn’t think she’d been as afraid for another person in her life as she was in that exact moment. “No. You’re not going running.”
“Jack… Jacky was… he can’t come with me on runs Katy,” Teague was still trying to sound reasonable, but his shirt buttons went flying over the room as he ripped them off with an impatient jerk. “You… he was lying there… I need to go.”
“Teague, it won’t happen again…”
“Jacky stop it!” Katy snapped, and Teague chest was pumping in and out like he’d just run a thousand miles.
“I need to go…” he panted.
“Katy—it’s not going to happen again, I’ll listen to everything he says!” Jack was almost in tears, like a little kid.
“I need to go…” Teague had managed to get his over-shirt off and his hands were hauling mindlessly at the neck of his T-shirt. “I’ve just… he was lying there. Katy—he was… he wasn’t moving. I… need to…”
Katy grabbed his hands, started smoothing his shoulders, patting his arms doing anything she could to calm that terrible shivering that had taken over Teague’s body, seemed to be stuttering through his anguished mind.
“You stay here, pappi… you hear me? You stay here with us. Just stay here…”
“Teague, I’ll be fine, just don’t tell me I can’t come with you…”
“I need to go…” Teague made an effort to rip free and Katy felt like a field mouse trying to cage a wolf.
“Goddammit, Jacky—you grab him and help me! Grab him…”
Teague looked up at her, his face as naked and as raw as any expression she ever wanted to see. That careful façade of ‘all right’ was lying in bloody shreds at his feet and he was trying to run away before she could bandage what was left and help him heal.
“I need to go,” he all but begged. He took another step towards the door, his eyes haunted and lost and his body shaking with emotion he was trying not to let out.
“Katy, that’s not fair!” Jack protested, and as abruptly as that, Katy was all wolf.
“FUCK fair! Goddammit, Jacky, you tell him what he gots to hear! You tell him anything, you hear me, you say whatever you got to, but just don’t let him go off running! Not like this! PLEASE Jacky… don’t let him leave us… not like this! PLEASE!”
Teague looked at her, almost like he was waking up from a dream. “Katy… I’ve got to…you didn’t see him… he looked… Oh God… he looked… he can’t come with me… he… I thought he was…”
“I won’t,” Jack said, tears in his voice—he was giving in. He was giving this up. Katy heard it. It hurt him, but Teague… he’d do anything for Teague. “I’ll stay here. You’ll never have to think I was dead…”
“Dead.” Teague looked up suddenly, and they could almost hear the ocean of reality crashing on him. “I thought you were dead… I thought you were….oh Christ… oh…God… Jacky…” he looked up and Jack wrapped his arms around Teague and Katy tightened her grasp and Jack met his eyes, nodding, trying to bring him back to the here, the now, where they really were all right, when it was clear Teague had never let himself live the awful moment, the terrifying pain of…
“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!”
The next sound that broke his throat wasn’t human, wasn’t even wolf. It was sheer, raw anguish, and he screamed it again and again and again while Katy pressed him into Jack’s embrace, both of them murmuring soft things into his ears, reassurances, kindnesses, apologies… whatever words their mouths could shape when their hearts were breaking for their beloved.
Teague fell to his knees, howling, sobbing, weeping, and his lovers held him and wept with him, telling him with everything they had in their hearts that he was going to be okay.
Cory
Fast Changes
“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!”
My knees buckled as Teague’s anguished scream echoed through the doorway, and Green and Bracken caught me before I could fall.
There was never any privacy at Green’s Hill. Everyone knew that. But we’d seen Teague—we’d watch him struggle, in these past weeks, to learn to trust the world, to trust his lovers, to reach for things when Goddess knows the lessons he learned about not reaching for jack-fucking-shit.
He hadn’t looked good in the car. My people weren’t good with psychobabblebullshit, but if I had to put my finger on it, I’d call it a full-on-grand-mal-class-ten meltdown. I’d never seen anyone with a whole skin fight so hard to breathe in my life. It was like he was denying himself oxygen because he was afraid that even breathing would hurt.
Oh Goddess—I remember a time when breathing did hurt. When being alive felt like a violation of all that was holy. A year ago… fuck, a year ago on this day, some fuckhead gave me the opportunity to not breathe for the rest of my life, and I almost took him up on it.
Just like now, here, listening to a friend have a-fist-of-God-through-Hoover-dam breakthrough, Green and Bracken caught me before I could fall.
Green whispered against my temple. “He’ll be okay, luv. He’ll be fine. He’s like you—he’s tougher than he looks.”
Category-six sobs were echoing through the corridor. He had to be tougher than he looked in order to lay himself naked, to bare that much pain to the world.
I took a deep breath, tried to hold myself together. I let it out shakily. Okay, so far so good.
Bracken was on my other side, so embarrassed he could hardly look at me, and I almost quailed with the unfairness of it all. I could tell him “I love you. Come back safe,” before he left, but now that he was here, whole and well, I couldn’t tell him how happy I was… how truly full-hearted and grateful I was, that all he’d needed was Lambent’s touch on his shoulder and a bail out? I would have bailed out any one of us, and just been glad they were whole and well. I couldn’t do the same thing for Bracken?
Well shit… Teague had just followed me through life and death… I had to be as tough as he was, didn’t I?
Unlike Teague, I’d had an emotion-fueled hormone-dump sometime after my birth and before the present time. I hadn’t had a howl trapped in my chest for over thirty years. I didn’t need primal scream therapy.
I looked at Brac
ken miserably, and the hand not helping to support my chunky ass came up to my wet cheek. He skated his thumb softly over my cheekbone and I reached out and stroked his clean shirt and whole shoulder, and tried a wobbly smile.
“I’m…” Shit. Try again. “I’m so, so glad you’re… you’re… okaaaaaaayyyyy…”
Green relinquished his hold on me and let Bracken carry me down the hall, weeping on his chest as we went. I could smell the sweat on him, the stone-and-sunlight strength that was peculiar to him, and feel his big hands under my body, holding me like he hadn’t just been wounded, and like I was no big thing.
“I’m sorry we left you behind,” he murmured. “We’ll never leave you behind again.”
“’Kay,” I sniffled. “Good. That’s good.”
Bracken kept murmuring things into my hair, as he took us down the hall into Green’s room. We showered, the three of us (Bracken’s second of the night) and then I lay between them as they whispered sweet words that infused the rest of the night with the same message. Green got up for a short time, and came back, holding me even as I told myself it was stupid to be cold for him. Near dawn, an exhausted Nicky crawled in next to Green to add his quiet tenor.
Teague and I weren’t so different—when all was said and done, when our lovers had soothed all our pain, all we wanted to hear was that we wouldn’t be left behind.
Teague
Shifting Skin
Teague didn’t sleep late. Essentially he and Jacky made their own hours, but he never allowed himself to sleep late. Sleeping late was a chance to get caught. Trapped. Beaten.
When he woke up, stripped to his boxers and sandwiched between Jack and Katy, he didn’t remember where he was. Late November sunshine was streaming in through the skylight window, and it was nearly ten in the morning.
“Fuck!” He sat up, his heart beating in his throat, his eyes rolling wildly around the room, and tried to scramble out of the bed.
He was blocked by a long, rangy body that practically pinned him to the mattress.
“Jesus, Jacky, get the fuck off me!”
“No going out today. No running. Green’s orders!”
Teague glared up at Jack, squinting through sandy eyes. “Green’s orders? What the hell does that mean?”
Jack sat back on his heels and glared right back. “It means that Green heard you screaming at three in the fucking morning, came in, touched your head and dicked around in there to keep you from having another goddamned nightmare. Then he told us that you weren’t allowed outside until tomorrow. They’re having movies in the common room at three—we’re invited. You don’t get out of bed until then.”
Teague’s upper lip curled and he tried to be unimpressed. “I’ve got to piss like a fucking dragon, Jacky. You maybe wanna get of my bladder?”
Jack’s nose wrinkled like he knew exactly why Teague needed to get out of bed, but he shifted his weight anyway. Teague looked to his side and saw that Katy was watching him skeptically. He gave a snort of disgust as he was clambering out of bed and sallied with, “How many werewolves does it take to drain a lizard, anyway?”
“You’re a fuckin’ smartass, you know that pappi? You go drain that lizard—you can even wash him, it don’t bother me none. I’m gonna go get you some food, so you take your time.”
Teague did take his time. He stayed there, alone in his cocoon of steam and white-frosted glass, while the two of them came in to do their business and brush their teeth. He stayed there for what seemed like forever after that. In a lesser place, he would have run the hot water cold, but it didn’t here at the hill. He finally came out of the shower, queasy and pruny, and figured maybe breakfast didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
He was unprepared for the repast waiting for him on top of the long, low dresser he shared with Jack.
Katy and Jacky were sitting down with little trays, halfway through what looked like Belgian waffles and half a Christmas pig. Katy quickly swallowed what was in her mouth and gestured with her fork. “Eat, baby. It’s not going anywhere.”
Stunned, Teague did what she asked, but before he could turn around from the buffet, Jack was over his shoulders, adding more shit to his plate.
“Jacky…”
“Chocolate-chip waffles, Teague. If God made a food named after you, these would be it. Homemade whipped cream? Sausage? You got all this and you put toast on your plate…”
“I can serve my own food!”
“Not today.”
Teague took the plate from him and growled, then sat in the stuffed chair to eat anyway. He was unprepared for a tray to be moved for him and a glass of orange juice to appear at his elbow. He scowled at both of them.
“I’m fine! Now stop hovering! What—you think I’m going to turn into a little girl again before your eyes!” In spite of himself a replay of the night before flashed through his head. He’d dissolved, come apart, sobbed his heart out on the two of them until he couldn’t move from exhaustion.
Oh God. Goddess. Whoever. How was he supposed to take care of them when they saw that? How were they supposed to depend on him when he was a stable as a cotton-candy boat-dock?
“Eat your food, dammit,” Jack muttered, trying to eat his.
“I’m not a…”
“What—you think you need us once in a fucking while, and we’re going to stop loving you?” Jack growled at him. “Now for once… dammit, just once, would you stop worrying about us and eat your goddamned food? It’s good. I think Grace made it just for you—now eat. We can have this out, fight, fuck, fume, whatever, but first, for the love of crap, just shut up and fucking eat?”
Teague shoved half a waffle in his mouth and chewed. “’r ‘oo ‘appy ‘ow?” he asked petulantly, and was rewarded by Jack’s unwilling smirk.
“Ecstatic. Do you want another one?”
Well, actually, he did, but he wasn’t going to say anything. He glanced sideways but stayed silent, and Jack stood up and came back with more. He scraped it on to Teague’s plate and added syrup.
“Thanks,” Teague grunted, but he couldn’t look Jack in the eyes. Breakfast was finished in silence—mostly because it turned out he was starving and plowing through what was on his plate seemed easier than talking.
He finished up and Katy stood up and took away his plate. He sighed and shook his head. “Katy—you don’t have to…”
“Jesus, Teague… just let me take care of you…”
He sighed and flopped back into the chair and wondered what to do now. He didn’t have to wait long—all Katy and Jack had to do was stack dishes on the dresser and they ping! disappeared, and then Katy was suddenly sitting at his feet, leaning her head on his thighs. Absently he stroked her hair, and then Jacky was behind him, kneading his shoulders, hard, and he grunted in spite of himself.
“I’m not fragile,” he muttered, although he was enjoying the moment very much.
“We know you’re not, pappi.”
“I can take care of you…” Oh God, but that was a lie, wasn’t it, because Jacky had gone out and… and gotten himself hurt, and Teague had no one to blame but himself and…
“You always have,” Jack murmured, right in his ear. Teague turned his head and Jack kissed him, leaning over the chair, and Teague… oh God… Teague couldn’t get enough of his taste. He groaned, and pushed against Jack, not wanting to dislodge Katy, but she was…
Teague broke away long enough to gasp, because Katy was on her knees in front of him, pulling determinedly at the waistband of his sweats. “Katy…”
“Shut up and move your hips!” she demanded, and he did what she said so she could slide his sweats and tighty-whiteys right down. She was done and Jack captured his mouth again, and she… oh Goddess… Katy was…
He broke the kiss again, grunting, “Katy… oh God… Darlin’, you’re gonna make me…”
“What… come?” Her little fist was wrapped around his erection, and it was delicate and firm, and then her pink tongue came out and stroked it, from base t
o tip, and Teague groaned again. “
“Can we…” he tried to ask, but then she did that licking thing again, and then she took him all the way into her mouth and pulled, hard, with her fist and her suction, until he felt his crown hit the back of her throat.
He couldn’t get away from her. He tried to back away, to bend and grab her shoulders, but Jacky kept kissing him, kept blocking his every move, kept touching his chest, kept nibbling on his neck, kept making him crazy.
“Dammit, you guys, let me…”
Katy let him out of her mouth and touched the little harp string on the underside of the head delicately with her tongue. He shuddered and pushed his head against the chair.
“Let you come?” she repeated wickedly, and his hips thrust of their own volition.
“Let me touch you…” he begged, knowing that’s not what he wanted to say. What he wanted to say was, Let me love you, but even now, when Katy was holding him so firmly, and tickling the underside of his testicles with a slender finger, he couldn’t plead that way.
Jack knelt next to him and started placing tender kisses on his chest, then sucked a nipple into his mouth and nibbled just as Katy thrust her head down until he was in the back of her throat again, and he wanted them so bad… wanted to touch them, to worship them, to prove to them that he was worth it, that he would take care of them, make them happy, if only they would let him…
“Goddess, let me love you!” he said raggedly, and Katy gave his cock one last slurp and stood up, stripping off her clothes efficiently revealing wide, appealing hips and soft, pillowy breasts. Teague stood up and was stopped by Jack, who stripped off Teague’s flannel shirt and his long-sleeved T-shirt and then… then while Katy scrambled up on the bed, Jack dropped to his knees and took Teague into his mouth too.
“Jacky…” Teague’s hands pulled in Jack’s hair, and Jack didn’t budge—except to hold Teague closer and pull him in deeper. “God…” Because Jack had learned a few tricks in the last weeks. He’d learned to use his tongue when he pulled his head back, he’d learned to cup Teague’s balls in his hands and gently rub right behind them, and he’d learned to use his other hand to wrap around Teague’s base and squeeze in rhythm.