by Alex Kidwell
“That we are.” Victor sounded rueful. The normal indifferent mask he wore had softened slightly. “I doubt even my books would be particularly useful on a subject like this.”
That was who they were. They were men of research, of dusty tomes and stacks of notes, of the fervent belief that every answer was able to be found by the one who was willing to do the work to unearth it. Admitting that there was no book, no solution, that they were forging a path that was unknown, was something of a big deal. Randall should be more worried.
Instead, he was absorbed in the sensation of Victor’s fingers absently sliding along his forearm. Chalk it up to being young, but this once, Randall’s heart was shouting far louder than the logic of his head. Which was more than likely why he caught Victor’s hand, why he brought it up to press a kiss to Victor’s palm. “Then perhaps we’ll have to write our own.”
Victor stared at him like he’d never seen Randall before, like he was some new kind of fantastic creature that Victor had stumbled across a picture of once but was only just now seeing in the flesh. He looked like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing and hearing. “That is quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” Victor said slowly. Victor took Randall’s hand in a tighter grip.
There were moments. Randall knew that because he’d read the old stories, he’d grown up on fairy tales and history books. There were moments when a single action sent ripples out, cascading into a thousand more possibilities. There were moments.
And this was his.
He leaned in, heart crashing in waves, hand rising to cup Victor’s cheek. Before he could talk himself out of the action, before logic could supersede daring, Randall drew Victor in, their lips meeting in a soft exhale.
For a few seconds that felt like an eternity, Victor didn’t move, clearly too surprised to reciprocate. Victor’s response, when it came, was as tentative as the touches to Randall’s arm had been. There was no surge of passion, no swelling music or bells on any hills. It was a kiss, nice but perfunctory, as if they were passing acquaintances who happened to get their lips in the same general vicinity.
Pulling back, horrified and struggling not to show it, Randall managed, “I apologize.” Shame hit him, hard, and he began fighting with the blankets, trying to stand, to get away. “I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Listening to one’s heart had always been something his brothers excelled in, not himself. Randall should remember that his brain was the only organ which should be making decisions in the future. It would avoid all of this. Victor did not want him. That was a fact that had been made clear. Misreading some kind attention and soft touches was not going to change that.
“No, it’s….” Victor trailed off, touching his fingers to his lips.
Randall hardly had any sort of precedent for recognizing the look that came to Victor’s face, but right then, he could almost see the visions swimming in Victor’s mind, all the possibilities of the future that Victor had seen making his eyes look distant and his expression torn.
And then Randall realized what was going on. Why Victor had behaved so kindly and why the kiss had gone nowhere, they both had the same answer. Victor had seen inside his head. The memories, yes, but also the present, the possibilities of the future. He knew Randall had feelings for him. He knew what paths his future might take, in very specific detail. And he was picking and choosing from those paths for Randall.
Running hot and cold, yes, but the reason behind it was not as confusing as Randall had been assuming. “You’re orchestrating this. You’ve seen something in my head, and you’re trying to…. I don’t know, steer me away? Steer me toward?” Frowning, Randall stood, torn between anger and hurt. “Hard to tell when you’re the only one that knows the answers. One second you’re being so kind that it’s like you’re really seeing me, and the next it’s as if I don’t exist.”
“Randall—” Victor tried to protest, but Randall didn’t stop. He wasn’t going to be the polite little wolf, not now.
“If you actually felt that way, that would be one thing, but that’s not it, is it? You’re picking things from my brain and deciding which ones you want to become real.”
This time Victor waited a few seconds to make sure Randall had finished saying his piece. He drew in a deep breath and took off his glasses, fussing with them and cleaning them on his sweater. “It’s not just your future I saw,” he said, his voice tight. “The future of any one person is not an island. We affect so many other people’s lives with our decisions—”
“That’s bullshit,” Randall spat. “God, Victor…. If you’re not interested, that’s fine. I’m a grown man, not a kid with a crush. You can be honest. But every time I think we’re going somewhere, every time I think I see something in how you look at me, you put up a wall six miles high and I’m left feeling like a dumb pup. So at least give me the respect of reacting to me and not some possible maybe you found in my head—”
“I saw us getting married!” Victor blurted.
Oh.
Blinking, Randall let the words hang there for a long pause, filling the space between them. They just kept growing, those words, and Randall honestly wasn’t sure what to do with them. Married. They were going to get married? That was….
“With children,” Victor added. “Or… wolf cubs. Though I suppose it’s the same thing.”
“How would we get cubs?” Randall asked faintly, feeling as though he ought to sit down. He did so immediately, waving off the question just as fast. “Never mind. I… oh, dear.”
“Quite.” Victor’s voice was muted. He looked like he wanted to respond to the question Randall had asked, but he obviously held his tongue. “I never tell people this, Randall, but then again I have never seen myself in their futures. But yours….”
He shook his head, lifting himself off the bed to go stand at the window. The rain was finally starting to calm, and from the sound of the thunder, it was distant now, moving farther away. “About half of the possibilities had us getting married,” Victor continued. He sounded as distant as the thunder, clearly trying to remove himself from emotional attachment to what he’d seen. “And I never saw myself as the marrying type.” He laughed weakly, scrubbing his hands over his face. “But we were so happy.”
“You sound like you’re describing some horrible thing,” Randall said very softly. He studied his hands, laced together in his lap, holding on tightly, as if that simple act would keep him from melting into some puddle of useless emotion. “Like you saw a train wreck you’re desperately attempting to avoid.” Marriage, children, love—none of that sounded so terrible to him.
But perhaps that was the problem. Victor saw him, had seen him, and the mere idea that he might actually wind up with Victor was apparently very distressing. “It seems as though you’ve dodged a bullet,” Randall pointed out with a strangled little laugh. He rubbed his hands across his face, feeling a bit as if he was waking from a long dream. “By seeing the possible future, you’ve now the means to ensure you’re never trapped in something so horrific.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Victor said lowly. “Imagine you saw a future in which you never went to college. You wound up working a small office job where all you do is type budget reports every day. But you’re happy. You see yourself happy and content with every aspect of your life.” Victor looked back at Randall with a very small smile. “I imagine budget reports would be the last thing you want to do in your life.”
“Any time you want to stop comparing marrying me to an eternity stuck in a cubicle doing budget reports, that’d be great,” Randall said dryly, giving Victor a sideways glance.
“I’m getting to the point,” Victor said, scowling.
“I see. This is the scenic route. I apologize. I didn’t realize.” Despite himself, despite every other emotion pinging around in his head, Randall felt one corner of his mouth twitching up in a very faint smile. “Please, do go on. I’m very much looking forward to the momen
t when you use an endless trip to the dentist as an analogy for our possible sex life.”
“Oh no, I saw that as being very fulfilling,” Victor said. He then seemed to realize what he’d said and quickly looked out the window again.
Now Randall really was smiling. “That’s because you were with a wolf,” he intoned seriously. “But unless you’d rather switch to that topic completely, please continue.”
“Of course,” Victor said, his tone as dry as Randall’s. “As I was saying. You have seen a future which you at the present moment never wanted for yourself, but you see yourself being deliriously happy with that future. It has little to do with specifics or people—you did not want your life to be an office job.”
He finally slipped his glasses back on, turning to properly face Randall as he leaned against the window. Victor then seemed to think of better of it, frowning as he pulled away from his lean, smoothing down the wrinkles in his shirt. “But you have not seen why you are happy with it,” he continued. “You have absolutely no clue how you got to that point, and all you see is this thing, this life situation, that is the complete opposite of what you presently want. It’s… confusing, to say the least.”
Bowing his head, Randall let out a slow breath. Yes, he supposed it would be. None of that made Randall any more settled in the situation. Victor had jumped to the end in every possible way. Instead of getting to know each other, seeing if there was any chance of something more, Randall was left at the starting gate while Victor read ahead and already knew how it all ended. Whatever beginning Victor had seen them having, it was gone now. All that was left was this—and most of this, Victor decidedly didn’t want.
“So that’s it, then?” he asked, looking over at Victor. “I’m never going to know if you are attracted to me or if you hate me, because you looked in my head and saw one thing that might happen?” He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. He probably looked completely unpresentable, chest bare, hair standing out at all ends, damp and curling from the rain. “I get that it’s tough for you, Victor. I don’t want to diminish that. But you’ve changed it all now.” Randall’s lips edged upward in a grim smile. “Observation, by its very nature, changes the path of the observed object. That future was yours too, and by looking in on it, you’re already behaving differently toward me than you ever would have before. And I don’t know, maybe it still could come true. Maybe not. Maybe it never would have.” Philosophical theories of fate and destiny were always so much easier to debate in the abstract. The reality of it, something like this impacting his daily life, was not something Randall was equipped at the moment to deal with.
Maybe he should just be blunt. It had always worked for his brothers. “Look,” he started, leaning forward, arms on his knees, searching Victor’s face with an almost painful earnestness. “I’m just…. I’m just a guy who has a crush on an amazing, brilliant, handsome man. I’m not good at that anyway, Victor. I never would be smooth or polished or sure of myself. Add in the fact that I can’t tell if you want me around or you wish I’d disappear completely, and maybe it’s best if I just keep my distance. It certainly seems like it’d make you happier.”
“Of all the things I saw, of all the things I can’t picture myself being happy in, Randall, you were the one thing that actually made sense,” Victor said. He was looking at Randall with the softest expression Randall had ever seen on the man.
“So why can’t you just see what’s right in front of you?” Randall asked, very quietly. “I don’t want to get married right now either, Victor. And if you show up with a wolf cub, I’m going to check you for a brain injury. I just….”
There weren’t words for what he felt around Victor. It was like running in a full moon, it was like howling, lungs full, the sound echoing through the night air. It was deep in the bones of him, and he’d no more asked for it than he’d asked for his tail. It just was, and he didn’t know how to explain that to Victor. It was the most illogical he’d ever been, over a man who seemed to have no use for such emotions. “I don’t want your envisioned futures,” he wound up saying, voice hoarse and desperate for Victor to understand, “I just want you.”
The wolfish side of Randall, the side that longed for the woods around him, the ground under his paws, the sun on his back, it hated the words. They hung there in the air, and they didn’t encapsulate everything they should. And while Randall the wolf was a very quiet one, he was no less of a wolf for that reserve. In two steps he was across the room. In one more he was pressing Victor back, his fingers finding their way into that strawberry-blond hair that had taunted him since the first time he’d caught sight of Victor. Randall hauled him in, meeting him in a kiss that wasn’t soft or hesitant or unsure.
He kissed Victor fully, wolfishly, to try and show him what words didn’t seem to capture. And Victor responded. Still tentative, but there was palpable emotion underneath his movements, in the way he put his hands on Randall’s arms, in the way he tilted his head so they fit just right.
It wasn’t perfect. Randall didn’t believe in perfect kisses, in sweeping, grand, love at first sight romances. He believed in this, though. In good matches, in love that built, in the way Victor’s lips parted, in how their bodies pressed together. In how a shiver worked its way under his skin, heat flashing through him. Want and need and a sense of rightness he’d never experienced. When he pulled back, gently teasing a strand of Victor’s hair from his forehead, he was smiling. Victor looked dazed.
“Just because you can see the future, medusa, doesn’t mean you have to live there all alone,” Randall murmured.
The rain had turned to a soft whisper against the window. Randall saw the confusion still in Victor’s expression, the hesitance. But their lips met once more, so gently it ached through him, before Randall pulled away, wanting to cup his hands around that moment and keep it just so.
He let the blanket fall for the few moments it took him to shift back into his wolf form. As soon as Randall was on all four paws, Victor knelt down, one of his hands resting lightly on Randall’s back. “Thank you,” Victor said, so quietly even Randall barely heard it. “Just….” Victor shook his head. “Thank you.”
Nudging his head under Victor’s chin, Randall sat there for a few long seconds. They were warm, Victor smelled of tea and old books and, very faintly, like him. It was good.
But Anthony would be waking up soon, Edwin would be looking to warm up, and they both would be hungry. The real world was waiting outside. Randall had taken enough time away from it for now. So he nuzzled Victor’s chest, tail wagging faintly, before he left the man there in the cabin alone.
Perhaps he didn’t believe in perfect moments. That didn’t mean he couldn’t stumble across one now and again.
Chapter 7
Jed
SO HERE was the thing. Everyone talked about how great goddamn rain was. They sang in it, they skipped, they set fire to the damn stuff. Truth of the matter was, when you were out in it? It fucking sucked.
“Son of a bitch.” Jed flicked his last match out into the woods, watching as it made a soggy arc and practically disintegrated under the deluge.
“I don’t think that’s working,” Redford pointed out helpfully. He, like the aforementioned crazy people who enjoyed the rain, was goddamn grinning at him, wet hair plastered to his face.
“Yeah,” Jed grumbled. “No kidding.” They were about fifty miles up from the hippie wolf commune and had only gotten a mile into the hunt before the skies had opened up and dumped Noah and his goddamn fucking ark straight on their heads. They’d taken shelter under a small outcropping of rock, but the wind was making building a fire just about as hard as a cock in a glory hole. Jed’s emergency pack of flares, a grenade, and matches hadn’t been the most helpful things in the situation. Although, thank God, he did have his crisis stash of condoms, an extra tube of lube, and a chocolate bar. Just in case.
But it was clearly time for plan B. Squinting as the water poured down his face, Jed tu
rned in a circle, trying to see their surroundings. But before he could scope out much, half of his vision was obscured by Redford’s jacket being held over their heads. One of the wolves had given Redford a rainproof poncho before they’d left, and Redford had looked exceedingly proud of it for the whole drive. Now he held it above them, looking at Jed like he’d just solved the problem completely.
And yeah, okay, it was still fucking pouring and lightning was arcing across the sky, but Jed found himself grinning. It was nearly impossible for him to stay irritable too long around Redford. It was goddamn annoying, really. “Okay, we’re going to need to get to a real shelter.” The van was downhill, and the path behind them had turned to pretty much mud. Wading through that could take hours. So Jed grabbed Redford’s hand and led him to higher ground. At least Knievel was safe back at the camp. She probably would have clawed his face off for daring to bring her out in the rain.
Quickly, Jed searched the surrounding area, picking out trees, rocks, dismissing each one as not what he needed. Finally he came across two large birch trees that had grown leaning into each other. “You stay here,” he hollered above the crack of thunder, hauling Redford with him in between the trees. The whole “no trees in a thunderstorm” thing only applied to the tallest objects in the area. These birches looked plenty sturdy, but they were fairly young, sitting dwarfed by the larger growth. “I’m gonna go get us supplies.”
He had a knife on him but no rope. Somewhere, his special ops director was trying to kick his ass from halfway around the world. Okay, so he’d improvise. Now that he had a lot of experience with.