An Ocean of Light

by Kit Fortier

  It would be reported as a robbery gone wrong. The jogger ran afoul of a knife-wielder in the dark. There was no CCTV on the beach, so there was no video to be had. The man was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, with the murderer not too far from his body, dead by a last-ditch defensive strike. Gory as the scene was, the two men had supposedly canceled each other out, and that was all the Oceanside PD cared to say.

  Back at the house, Ben put his foot down on his man. He insisted Eric clean up and get some sleep. Jake did the same with Fox, ushering him upstairs to eat a couple of slices of leftover pizza and drink water and orange juice.

  “You lost a lot of blood, baby. I don’t care that you healed yourself—can you transmute more blood? No? Then stop fighting with me, Foxy,” Jake said, sitting next to his man and watching him eat and drink what he put in front of him. Fox smiled, leaning in to kiss his man on the cheek.

  While his shirt and skin had been bloodied, Fox’s skin was unmarred. Jake stayed out of the bathroom, insisting that he would not aggravate Fox by getting him hot and bothered.

  “You’re killing me, papa bear,” Fox laughed as he got under the covers naked, and his husband lay on top of the covers dressed in a long sleeve sweatshirt and sweatpants.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t want you passing out on me. One night won’t kill you.”

  “It might kill you,” Fox murmured. He slipped from beneath the covers and crawled over to Jake, sliding a hand up his shirt as he curled into his husband.

  “What are you doing?” Jake cried.

  “I’m not sleeping without this,” Fox replied simply as he tugged at the thickest part of the forest of Jake’s chest. “I can’t. You’ve ruined me.” The redhead winked with a grin that may not have screamed mischief, but it certainly wouldn’t deny it, either.

  After what seemed like an eternity of consideration, Jake grumbled, peeling his sweatshirt off. Wordlessly, he motioned to Fox, who curled into him as he liked to do. He felt Fox’s smile on his skin as he kissed his husband’s chest. Bright green eyes on a serene, smiling face looked up at him. Jake rolled his eyes and sighed.

  “You love it,” he whispered.

  “I love you,” Jake replied and pressed a kiss to the top of his man’s head.

  “Love you too,” Fox murmured before sleep overwhelmed him.

  *** Fox

  Morning came. Fox looked out the window and saw no police, no onlookers. It was a little dreary for a summer morning, but that tended to be the case with beach communities. Maritime morning haze. Jake’s fingers raked over Fox’s scalp, eliciting what could have been a purr.

  Fox kissed his husband’s chest. “Morning, papa bear.”

  “Morning, Foxy.”

  “Think the boys are up?”

  “If they aren’t, they ought to be. It’s almost nine.”

  Fox smiled. He ran his nose gently over Jake’s chest and rooted out a nipple in the fur. As he licked it, Jake groaned.

  “Baby, I love you, but can’t you at least wait a day? I don’t want you passing out or anything!” Jake cried.

  “What if I just want to pleasure you? You don’t have to touch me,” Fox said as he continued to lave and nibble on his man’s sensitive flesh.

  “We both know I can’t do that, handsome,” Jake said as he pushed Fox’s hair from his face. “Besides, I remember when you bit my head off—well, you did other things—but you got mad at me for pleasing you without taking care of my own needs?”

  “I, uh… I don’t remember a thing,” Fox lied. A smirk crossed his face as Jake rolled his eyes and laughed at him. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” Fox grinned, biting down gently. Jake hissed as his man sucked and teethed.

  “Fuck, Fox,” Jake whimpered.

  “Okay, baby,” Fox said, kissing the flesh he had just teased and tormented. “I’ll wait until tonight. But if you’re gonna make me wait, you’re gonna be mine later,” he said as he crawled up, his face next to Jake’s. “No matter how much you beg, you’re mine how I want you, got it?”

  Jake’s silvery eyes were all but blown out. “Yours,” he breathed.

  “Good. I’m gonna get dressed and get breakfast started. Go see if the boys are playing nice,” Fox said as he padded into the walk-in closet.

  “Awww, can’t you do that, sweetheart?”

  “What? Are you afraid you’re gonna find them doing a spread eagle or in a sixty nine or—”

  Fox laughed when Jake’s warm, furry front brushed against his naked back, his strong hand over his mouth.

  “Are you trying to rile me up, baby?” Jake groaned.

  Fox pulled Jake’s hand down and turned to look at him. “I’m just saying it might happen, papa bear. When it happens, and I do mean when, what are you gonna do?”

  Jake sighed. “Not freak out, that’s for sure.”

  “Atta boy.” Fox smiled. He dressed quickly, committing the view of his husband stretched out on the bed to memory.

  ***

  Fox had omelets with red and green peppers, onions, and cheese cooked up, along with bacon and toast. As he put the finished dishes out, Jake put out orange juice and apple juice.

  “Hey dads,” Ben said as he followed Eric in.

  “Morning, boys,” Jake said. “Take a seat!”

  “Smells good, Papa Fox,” Eric said as he sat down. Jake began placing plates and silverware as Fox finished with the food.

  “It’s been a little bit since I actually cooked,” Fox smiled, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He put the pan down with a serving ladle on the counter ledge. “Serve yourselves, guys.”

  The food disappeared over conversation about last night’s events.

  “You turned into a giant fox, Eric,” Fox said.

  “Is… that a thing?” Eric asked.

  “When I saw she had hit you with something that started tying you up to the Aether, I had to do something,” Ben said. “Fox couldn’t help me shift energy, so I did it myself. Except I didn’t stop when the Aether let you go. I didn’t think about it.”

  “Somehow, Eric, you can… how to put this,” Jake began. “You can hold more light, more spark, than any human being,” Jake said. “The way I’ve seen it in altered beasts who aren’t connected to the Aether. They're usually animals who become sentient. But you’re a sentient being who can change into…”

  Jake blinked.

  “Fox, in your vision with the flower back in Malta, you said you saw a golden flower, right?”

  Fox’s eyebrows touched. “Yes.”

  “Ben, you said you saw yourself walking on a giant, glowing, golden flower, right?”

  Ben nodded. Fox saw him struggling to keep up.

  “What if Eric’s fox is a manifestation of the Consciousness, like the flower?”

  Fox shook his head. “Okay, but that doesn’t explain why the fox exists.”

  Jake wiped his mouth and crossed to the workstation. He pulled out a wireless keyboard and used the remote to turn on the TV. Soon, Fox saw his husband opening up tabs on a web browser, looking up several legendary creatures.

  “I don’t think Eric’s fox is so much a fox as he is a fox spirit,” Jake said. “There are legends about foxes all across the native American world, Japan, China… And his tails! Did you see? It had two tails!”

  “There are also unicorns,” Ben said seriously. “But we haven’t seen any of those.”

  Jake huffed. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Most things about the Consciousness don’t,” Fox agreed. Eric was a living puzzle, for certain.

  Jake turned off the monitor and replaced the keyboard.

  “What happened with you and the witch?” Fox asked Eric.

  “She said she found me using my blood,” Eric said softly. “I guess it was a spell or something. She knew you guys were involved because of the circle around the campfire. When that guy killed the runner and threw his bloody body across the circle, the protection fizzled away.”

  “Good to know,”
Jake said. “Maybe we can find a way to make them obscure, or even stronger.”

  “She told me about how she had been working on a faster kind of sero-agent. When she hit me with the dart, I was changing all over again. But unlike the first time, this definitely was faster, even more painful. She wanted me more after I was cured, because then she could start fresh with her new drug. When I was a Lycan again, she was going to kill me and take my… She didn’t care that she—” Eric couldn’t continue. Fox heard a chair scrape as Ben came in behind Eric and held him.

  Fox put two and two together. She didn’t care that she was subjecting Eric to torment. She didn’t care that she was using a living being for parts. She didn’t care that she was using his body. Not in the way that he had known at the hands of horrible, heartless monsters who raped his then tiny body, but still. These mages had a gruesome agenda, one that they thankfully stopped.

  “I’m sorry,” Fox said breathlessly. “Oh god, Eric, I’m so sorry.”

  “I knew it was too soon,” Ben murmured.

  “No,” Eric said, pushing himself away from his man’s arms. “No, B. She did those things, but this time, I fought back. You guys helped me fight back.”

  None of the men spoke. Ben pressed his lips against Eric’s head and held them there for a while. Fox heard him breathe his man in.

  “Lycan body parts are a commodity to some. The witch said she was going to use parts of me to make her Lycan drug stronger. But I feel like I’ve never even been… bit? Changed? I don’t think that’ll ever be possible now. I feel like that magic stuff has no effect on me anymore.”

  “I hope we never have to test that,” Jake said as he reached across, putting his hand on Eric’s shoulder.

  Eric nodded. He stood up and started piling dishes when Fox stopped him.

  “Hey, no, buddy,” Fox smiled, putting his hands on Eric’s shoulders. “Our floor, our chores.”

  Eric turned to Fox and smiled. It was so genuine it hurt. “Sounds good, Papa Fox. Then tonight, you guys are having dinner downstairs with us.”

  “Babe, do you know how to cook?” Ben asked with a grin.

  “No time like the present to learn,” Eric replied. He walked over and grabbed Ben by the hand. “Come on, you. You’re gonna look up recipes and I’m gonna do the cooking.”

  “Uh, okay—bye Dads!” Ben said, throwing a wave over his shoulder before his man comically dragged him down the stairs.

  Fox and Jake exchanged glances. There were laughs, but then there was a sobering moment.

  “If he has any choices, papa bear,” Fox began, “we can’t take them from him, no matter how small.”

  Jake nodded. “Right."

  13. E & B

  *** Ben

  The first month in the new home saw many days of local area exploration and of nesting. Jake and Fox went through the house, soundproofing bedrooms and bathrooms using alchemy. The how: They reshaped the insulation in the walls and added seals on all the doors.

  “I could hear you, but it was like you were far away,” Ben said.

  He shuddered when his dads shared a particularly dirty look.

  The four men took many overnight trips to Cleveland National Forest. It was the nearest park that had an actual forest to hike and wander. It wasn’t for hiking, though. Ben’s dads wanted to follow up on Eric’s newfound transformative abilities—how it worked, what triggered it. It seemed Eric could bring the fox out at will. The full moon had no effect on him, and apparently none on the fox, either. Whatever change occurred didn’t affect Eric’s body like the wolf did. One moment, he was Eric, five-foot six-inches, one hundred sixty-five pounds of lean muscle. The next, he was a gigantic, luminescent, twin-tailed golden fox. His altered self towered over the other men at nearly twenty feet. His yellow eyes glowed brightly in the dark of night. Eric absent-mindedly changed while still wearing his clothes on one of the later trips. And, much like the night on the beach, he was surprised the clothes didn’t shred and burst off of him. He simply re-appeared just the way he was before he transformed. Fully dressed.

  The men had no explanation. The spark was still a source of many questions as it was of answers. Ben overheard his dads talking about a fox named Hamish (which was strange enough). He lived near Fox’s favorite place in Wyoming. The two wanted to ask him questions, but that seemed like an event that needed better planning.

  The four struggled over what to call the phenomenon. All four agreed that he wasn’t a shifter in the traditional sense, painfully transforming, destroying any clothing they wore and shifting back, naked as the day they were born. How Eric retained what he wore—how he even changed into the golden fox in them and returned to his human form as he had been pre-change…

  Christmas came. The men visited the dealership where Jake got Ben his SUV. This time, they were in the market for a vehicle for Eric.

  Ben’s man went reluctantly. Not because he didn’t want to learn to drive—Ben had been teaching him. But because Fox and Jake insisted it was their Christmas gift to him. He went along since Ben practically carried him to his SUV and strapped him in himself, with Dads hopping into the back seat.

  Jake wanted a sedan for Eric. Ben wanted an SUV. Fox had hinted that an extra truck in the family might make lugging gold home a bigger event. Eric surprised everyone by asking for a bright red convertible sportscar. They all stared at him as if he had just sprouted an elephant trunk from his forehead.

  “Kidding,” Eric said, laughing. “I just wanted to see what you guys would do. If it helps, I wouldn’t mind a pickup!”

  In the end, Eric picked a midsized pickup. It was a metallic charcoal color. Jake insisted on all the bells and whistles, and Eric relented easily. Ben wondered if the gift was for Eric or his dad, but it looked like his man was happy.

  ***

  Christmas Eve, Ben led Eric to the roof deck.

  “B, it’s cold out! What are we doing?”

  “I wanted to give you a present to unwrap here,” Ben said. A full moon cast bright light upon the waters in the distance. He walked around the deck’s perimeter. He turned on the “firelight” LED lamps his dads installed before Halloween as he went. Eric looked magical in their golden glow. He had filled out more since that fateful night on the beach. The little guy was healthier and stronger. Fox taught him how to cook. Jake trained him with weights and calisthenics. Ben had taken to instructing all the men in his favorite martial art thus far—wing chun. With a twiddle of a key, Ben turned on the gas on the rooftop firepit. With another twiddle of his fingers, he set a small chemical reaction off that lit the gas and turned it to a steady flame.

  Ben pulled Eric in close to the pit. They stood, swaying quietly as the fire warmed them.

  “I didn’t see you bring anything up here,” Eric said, breaking the silence.

  “I did,” Ben said. He turned away from Eric, then he pulled out a black velvet box from his pocket. “Here it is,” Ben handed Eric the box.

  “What did you—” Eric’s sentence died in his mouth when Ben got to a knee.

  “Oh, Ben,” was all Eric could breathe.

  “Eric Andersson, you are everything to me, and I don’t care what I have to do to prove it to you, I will. But for now, just… for now, would you do me the honor of being my husband?”

  The smile on Eric’s face overwhelmed the tears in his eyes. But he had plenty of both when he nodded his agreement. Ben leapt to his feet and swept Eric into a hug that had his man dangling from his arms. They laughed as Ben whirled his man around beneath the full moon.

  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Samuels-Hughes to be,” Ben said as he kissed Eric softly.

  “That’s a lot of name, B,” Eric snickered. “Eric Samuels-Hughes. I like the sound of it.”

  As he kissed Ben back, the man plucked the ring from the box and slid it onto Eric’s hand.

  His Dad got the size right when he transmuted a small chunk of platinum he’d pulled from his seven year journey into the significant piece of jewelry
. It didn’t take long for his father to show him the hoard he really had been working on since they’d arrived in California.

  14. Epilogue: Three Years Later

  *** Fox

  The men were settling into the third year at the house. In a year and a half, Ben and Eric would get married—something Ben wanted to do right away, but Eric insisted he graduate first, as he didn’t want him distracted.

  The guy had a good head on his shoulders. Fox knew Eric could keep the big guy in line on the rare occasion he’d needed it.

  Early winter in North County was more wet than cold, but it was a welcome change for Fox. If there was something he missed, it was the change of seasons, from pleasant summers to cold and occasional freezing winters. Still, he’d rather have the ocean, the warmth, and the sun of the California coast any day. It had been a topic of conversation more than once between Fox and his father. The older Foster would complain about the cold times, Fox would try to get him to visit. Each time, Martin would laugh and retreat politely, not wanting to make any waves.

  But Fox was determined to make waves and get Martin Foster home with the rest of his family.

  Fox sat on a bench on the roof deck to make his call. Jake joined him, keeping him warm. As the phone rang, Fox put his phone on speaker.

  “Hey Dad!”

  “Fox? Is that you?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good to hear from you, son. I got your text. You wanted to talk to me over the phone?”

  “Yeah,” Fox replied. He hated the quaver in his voice. Jake rubbed his back slowly, offering a smile. With a little chin nudge, Fox pulled up the courage he needed and continued. “I just wanna get this out in the open, Dad—”

  “You want me to move out with you and Jake,” Martin said. Fox could practically hear his father grinning at him.