birthdays. a car.

wolf

Girl comes out of work one night and wolf's waiting for her. Maybe she was at that occult shop on Colfax. Maybe she was reading cards at the park. Either way there he is, t-shirt and biceps, jeans, lean hips. Someone, or maybe just the rising summer heat, convinced him to have a haircut recently, and for now it's cropped close. He's leaning against a car. He has a set of keys in his hand, finger hooked through the ring, and his arms are folded across his chest.

Until he sees her. Then he straightens up. Tosses the keys at her, underhand, because he's only thirty percent an asshole these days. It's the keys to the car.

The car is not his usual. Nor is it one of those fancy beasts that live up in the mountains, one of those high-octane high-horsepower high-cost thoroughbreds his late dam bought herself because -- in her view -- she fucking deserved it by sheer dint of being a Silver Fang. It's a cute little car, actually, with some nice perks and a nice motor under a nice hood, but nothing that would stand out on a city street. Nothing that would attract undue attention.

"No idea when your birthday is," he says, which is shocking but true. "Sure I've missed it already. So, happy birthday."

witch

A while ago, Devon got a calendar at Target. It's a whiteboard. She tried to get one that looks at least a little classy and nice, because Rafael's house is classy and nice and because Devon -- though she tears holes in her stockings and wears things mostly from thrift stores -- likes classy, nice things.

On the whiteboard, she puts where she's working and when. She usually works just three or four days a week, odd hours all over the place, at multiple shops around Denver. She reads at a couple of places on Colfax and one way down on South-of-South Broadway, and one up in Sunnyside sometimes. She reads tarot mostly, sometimes tea leaves or coffee grounds. People actually schedule to sit with her.

And it did not take long for the people who run these shops to notice that Devon gets a lot of repeat customers.

So she doesn't sit in the house all day every day, though she no longer works on her feet serving coffee and muffins. She takes the bus and takes Lyft and Uber, and occasionally still she goes down to Civic Center Park and parks her ass and her deck on a bench, too. She doesn't always use her real gifts to see real futures, because it would exhaust her if she did, but sometimes she does. Some people get very, very accurate readings.

Tonight, according to the whiteboard on the fridge, Devon is working down at Isis on South Broadway. It's the largest of the places, but actually has a parking lot, and when she comes outside after reading that evening, unexpectedly:

there is Rafa. And a glossy, shining new car with a sunroof and surprisingly tricked-out wheels. She notices as she walks over to him, and then is startled when he tosses the keys to her. She catches them against her chest, then looks at him, blinking. As soon as he says he doesn't know her birthday, she realizes she doesn't know his, either. Somehow it's just never come up between them, which is weird, but... both of them are fairly weird.

And yes: if he's missed it at all, he's probably missed it two to three times by now.

She laughs. "What?"

It's just surprise, really. A year ago or so, Devon would have run for the hills if he'd shown up and tossed her the keys to a brand-new car. A shiver would have gone up her back and she would've bolted. Or picked a fight with him by being generally ungrateful and suspicious. Mooch though she is, she's never wanted to be dependent. She's never wanted to be kept, like a pet or a mistress or a collector's item.

But right now, she's just surprised. And it has been a very long time since she's felt suspicious or wary of Rafael, or what's between them. Especially given what has happened to them in the past year, she has settled more and more into the belief that he's for real. He's for good. That they have a future together isn't something she's refusing to think about, or denying, or questioning, or afraid of, or worried that he doesn't want.

"What?" she repeats, though that's usually his line. She laughs again. "You bought me a car? Babe, you could've gotten me like. A cake and some whiskey."

wolf

Says something about their mutual trust, which once seemed impossible, that he starts smiling with the first what. Grinning with the second. He comes toward her, casual-like, like it ain't no thang that he just bought her a car.

A little one. A Civic. Nothing fancy. Except it kind of is fancy, as far as Civics go: leather seats and moonroof and fancy wheels and a fast, hardy engine. Little perks like navigation and bluetooth and phone charger and all, too.

"Probably missed more than one," he reasons. "I'll get you cake and whiskey for the other one."

And then he's within reach. And reaches out, hand behind her head, reeling her in to drop a kiss on top of her hair. Squeeze her gruffly against his chest, then lets go.

"Well, go on. Drive us somewhere."

witch

Devon still has the -- her -- keys held in her hand when he steps up to her, wraps her up, kisses her head and hugs her. Other people are coming out of the shop, heading to their own cars, but they don't mind Devon and Rafael. They've seen him around. He seems dangerous, but he also always looks like he adores Devon, really and truly. Not in the scary, creepy, possessive or controlling way of some other dangerous-looking boyfriends. But just because he likes her. Seems to like her so very, very much.

She laughs again, laying her head on his chest for a moment while he holds her.

"I'm sort of excited," she confesses, laughing at herself, like it's silly to be excited about a brand new car delivered to you one night for your birthday.

He tells her to drive them somewhere and she tips her head up to look at him, grinning. "I was just going to say that," she says. "We should go for a really long drive."

Devon grins a while more, then -- briefly and in a way he's never seen her do before -- gives a little squeal. She ducks around him, going to look at the car, peering all over it, at its lines, at the roof, at the sharp wheels, then opening one of the doors to look inside.

"Oh, shit," she says, her head stuck in the car, her voice laughing. "It smells so new."

wolf

Wolf laughs -- but there's something soft in it, touched. She sounds like she's confessing something silly when there's nothing silly about her excitement at all. When he's just glad to have made her happy.

And then she ducks around him. He turns in place, but by then her head is inside, and she's reporting about the smell. Which he could try to be blase about, but truth is he hasn't owned that many new cars either. Actually, this is the first one he's bought for himself. His everyday vehicle is secondhand. Those exotics up in the mountains are hand-me-downs, in a way. And this one: this one's so new he saw them take the masking tape off the chrome.

"Other side," he prompts her, since her head's in the passenger's door. And when she straightens up, he catches her around the waist. Kisses her quick and hot, smiling.

Gets in after he lets her go. Shuts the door, adjusts the passenger-side seat.

witch

She is, in fact, sticking her head in the passenger side door. It's just where she's used to going. And he's watching her as she leans in, smelling the car and looking at all the doo-dads and thingamabobs, feeling the leather, marveling at how nice it is.

He comes closer again. Tells her to get to the other side. She pops out again, laughing -- somewhat sheepishly -- and then he kisses her. His hot, firm arm around her waist, his mouth pressing to hers. She catches her breath against it, then lifts her free hand, touching his face, holding him there a moment while she kisses him back.

This appears to have nothing to do with the car. Just kissing him. The fact that it's been at least several hours since she last kissed him.

"October twenty-fifth," she says when they part, and smiles at him. "And I'm twenty-four." A beat. "And a half."

She smiles, somewhat impish, her eyes so bright, so vividly blue. Hops up to kiss him again, then scoots around him, circling the car to the driver's side. She unstraps her bag -- the one he gave her, actually, the satchel that hums with its own strange energy -- and swings it carefully behind the front seat. Then she gets in, a bit slowly, like she's savoring it. The seat is low and really far back, from her boyfriend, and she lets it stay there a bit, both doors closed, the overhead light dimming, fading to dark. And when it does, the parking lot almost empty now, she looks over at him and smiles.

"Thanks, babe," she says soft. "This is... I don't even know. What made you think of it?"

wolf

Would have told her his birthday, but she kisses him first. He's distracted. It's forgivable. A moment later she's gone again -- a flit of excitement tonight -- slowing down as she gets in like she wants to draw out that first moment.

He smiles, watching her from the passenger's seat. Which he's adjusted so that it's far back, down low. She leaves hers where it is, so for a while they match, like they're lounging in armchairs. When she looks at him, she's smiling too.

Her wolf shrugs, glancing through the windshield at the parking lot. "Just occurred to me I didn't know your birthday. Wanted to get you something." It's almost offhand. A moment later he adds, "Something that gave you more independence, I guess. Freedom."

witch

"Took you more than two years to think about my birthday?" she retorts, but she's teasing him. Twinkle in her eye. She's never asked his, either. She's never made a big deal out of hers. Doesn't even seem to celebrate it, notice it, at least not that he's noticed.

Devon reaches across the center and lets her hand drape towards him, her palm up, her eyes still on his. She should start the car, play with all the toys, but...

there's Rafael.

"Well," she says, just as soft, "it's the nicest present anyone's ever gotten me. And it means a lot to me." She smiles at him, tender to the point that it aches for a moment, just a little bit. "You could have just gotten me an eight hundred dollar beater or something, though. This is ridiculously fancy."

Which may make him glad he got the Civic, and not the Ferrari.

wolf

His hand falls onto hers, fingers twining through. He looks at their linked hands for a moment as though to hide his smile.

"Thought about getting you like a Porsche or something," he admits. "Just didn't want you getting the wrong sort of attention." A small pause. Then, something like a confession: "Worry about you."

witch

She laughs -- a sharp, dry laugh, the sort given by a girl who wears that much eyeliner, practices witchcraft -- at the comment about the Porsche. She thinks he's kidding.

Then it becomes very clear he was not kidding, he really did think about getting her a Porsche or something else equally flashy, expensive, luxurious. This stirs another laugh -- a softer but almost overwhelmed little laugh. She squeezes his hand.

He tells her he worries about her, like it's a confession.

She isn't laughing at him. She's just holding his hand now, leaning against the leather seat supporting her, looking at him gently in the dark. She's so touched. She's so excited that half of what comes out of her mouth is laughter. She's not sure it feels real yet. It's such a big gift.

"I know you do, babe," she tells him, because it isn't really a confession. It's not even news. He's worried about her since he met her, even back when he hid it behind a gruffness and reticence that came off, sometimes, as just pure meanness and dislike. But it's always been there. Sometimes she can't figure out how he even got through those three months when she was taken from him.

Thinking of it makes her hold his hand a little tighter, for more than a moment. "Love you," she says, when she can't quite handle it anymore. It sounds heavy -- dense -- like all the things in her heart right now are pressing at the edges of her body, filling her up, straining her ability to contain it if she doesn't say something.

Then she brings his hand, linked in hers, to her mouth. Kisses his hand before she lets him go. Leans over and kisses his mouth, too, her fingertips on his cheek, her body stretched towards his like a flower leaning towards a window.

"Let's go," she finally says, and flicks on an overhead light so she can see what she's doing. There are several minutes of delighted exclamations and more laughter as she figures out how to adjust her seat and the steering wheel, links her phone to the stereo, fiddles with the lights and blinkers and wipers and seat heaters and all the doodads at her disposal now. And then, finally, Devon pulls her seatbelt over and buckles herself in, insisting that Rafael do the same because I am not getting pulled over in my new car, and then she gleefully Y-turns out of the now-empty parking lot and slides onto Broadway.

He hasn't driven with her much; she took a few shifts on their massive road trip to South America, once upon a time, but that wasn't anything like city driving. Devon is not a very practiced driver, but this does not result in her being more cautious or wary. And at the moment, she's positively gleeful. It does not make for the smoothest ride.

Luckily, South Broadway isn't known for its traffic cop population, the road is long and straight, they're far south enough that they're past the glut of hipster pedestrians, and it's late enough now that there aren't too many other people driving up and down the road.

When she slams to a stop at a red light, just a few too many inches into the actual intersection, she pauses, then grins at Rafael. You'd think she'd apologize for driving rather jerkily, a bit too fast, being too hard on the car, maybe ask for tips, but it is entirely possible she's unaware that her driving is... not... good.

Nope.

What she says is:

"This is awesome."

wolf

"Too," he says, low, like even now sometimes the depth of his love is too much to voice.

It's in his kiss, though. His hand on her cheek matching hers, but heavier; their bodies arcing together. He holds her there an extra beat or two, enough time for his lips to graze over hers one more time.

Then parting. Then buckling in. Then tearing out of the parking lot, ripping around the corner, jolting over a pothole or two on the backs of that tight, taut suspension. Up one street and down the other, and to his credit he doesn't grab the oh-shit bar or push his hand against the dash for balance. Just holds onto the doorhandle once or twice as they're swinging through a hard right. Lets the seatbelt catch him when she stops hard.

Quite possibly he's patting himself on the back for getting her a car renowned for its safety features. Also quite possibly he's counting and recounting all the airbags surrounding her. Grunts a bit at her comment, though.

"Fast," is his response. Meaning the car, or possibly just ... her driving.

witch

"It is!" she responds, quite happily and quite obliviously. And then it's green.

And she takes off. "Where do you wanna go?"

wolf

Torque pushes him back in the seat. "Don't know," he says. "Let's go east." He smirks at her, "Go fuck in a cornfield or something."

witch

That makes Devon laugh again. "There's no fucking cornfields in Colorado, silly."

She keeps driving. Past ramen shops and Walgreens, past the Gothic Theatre and down past strips of Catholic thrift shops and pawn shops and down past the Breakfast Queen, the Army surplus store, and then she gets them onto 285, heading east as directed.

Somewhere in there she opens up the moonroof, sliding it back so that the moon, waning from Scorpio's full, gleams down upon them.

Now they are driving past blocks and blocks of apartments, residential, slowing briefly for the roads around Swedish, then picking up again. Devon is mostly quiet, her music playing from Spotify to the stereo system, a song murmuring

there's a riot in the town
a wolf at the door
pressure, pressure,
poison at the core

but around the point they pass the golf course, she mentions:

"I was born under a new moon, you know. I looked it up once, after my godparents told me I was kin."

wolf

His smirk is lazy. "We'll go fuck in a prairie then, I don't know geography."

She drives. They pass storefronts, apartment blocks. At one point wolf taps his knuckle on the window, tells her that ramen shop's pretty good. Which probably just means plenty of MSG, plenty of meat. She opens the moonroof and he opens his window a crack. Wind moves through their hair. He laces his fingers through hers now that they're out of the narrower streets near downtown, away from all those parked cars and red lights and semi-blind intersections.

"A Ragabash," he muses, glancing at her. Studying her in profile. Narrow, fine features. Big eyes bright as jewels. "Fits," he decides. "I was born under a full."

Just in case she hadn't guessed. Though he might have already told her. He doesn't know, either.

witch

"You just wanna fuck me," she teases him, though this is a toothless sort of thing to say, since he's fairly open about the fact that he usually wants to fuck her, and there's certainly no doubt that Devon quite enjoys fucking Rafael, climbs into his bed most nights, climbs up on his lap plenty of days.

"My dad was a Ragabash," she says, but her eyes are forward and her tone is hard to read when she says it. Such a delicate subject. Such a wound, still tender and raw after all these years. She doesn't argue with him that it fits, but smiles at him, sidelong and brief, when he says he was born under a full moon.

"You're an Ahroun," she answers, if only to prove that she knows these things now. Or maybe always has. They don't talk about it much.

She drives. She thinks. She decides to go ahead and say what she's thinking, ask about it, because there's really no reason not to. "Would you want our kid to be like you? A wolf?"

wolf

Gives him a moment's pause, that. He thinks about it, his thumb stroking thoughtlessly along her knuckles.

"Don't know," he says finally. "Might be nice to have that in common. Be able to pass something down. Things I know. But hard, too. Can't imagine how much I'd worry, sending my kid off to war."

witch

"You worry a lot," she agrees, more thoughtful than accusatory. "Like about me. And I'm not even going off to war."

She thinks a bit, as she drives that long stretch of sort-of highway. They are still in the city, will be for a long time on 83, and there are grocery stores and coffee places and big boxes like Target, hotels... and red lights.

Devon stops at one, takes a few moments to look at him. "Would you be okay if we had a kid like me? With... the stuff I do?"

wolf

This time he looks at her. More than a glance: a regard, steady, furrow-browed.

"Yeah," he says. "Devon, of course I'd be okay with it. Thought you knew already, I don't care that you're a witch. I like it. Even if I didn't, it'd be our kid."

witch

"I know, but..."

The light turns green. She has to look away from him, drives forward, and she keeps doing the thing where she slams her foot on the gas instead of accelerating gently. It's not aggressive; it's like she doesn't know any better.

After she finds the rhythm of traffic again, she goes on:

"It's one thing to learn the craft. I can teach that. But the other stuff is sort of creepy. The fact that when I read cards or coffee grounds or whatever, sometimes I actually... see things." A long pause, then, a confession: "Sometimes I hear voices, or... I hear what's happening in the future, even if I'm not seeing it. Sometimes if I'm letting my mind wander, I see what's going to happen in the mirror when I'm doing my fucking makeup."

Devon takes a deep breath, exhales.

"And then there is the total science-fiction bullshit that is moving stuff with my mind."

She has, thus far, pretty adamantly refused to say the word 'telekinesis'. It almost seems to annoy her that it's the sort of thing found in certain pulpy literature and media.

"I know you wouldn't try to exorcise our kid or burn them at the stake or anything. I know you'd love whoever they were. But... it's sort of the same. It's hard for me. It's scary sometimes. And maybe it wouldn't be exactly like sending them off to war, but... it worries me, thinking about what could happen. What if it's even something totally different? What if we had a toddler who's a firestarter?"

wolf

"Buy a lot of fire extinguishers."

He's not trying to be funny. He's dead serious. Thoughtful, too, thinking on what she just said.

"You're getting stronger, yeah?" Wolf looks over at her. Passing streetlights etch out his face: highlighting the brow, casting the orbits into shadow. "You ever feel like... I don't know. Maybe you won't be able to control it someday?"

witch

A brief, sidelong eyeroll at him.

She's looking forward. He's looking at her. He mentions the fact -- not really even a question -- that she's been getting stronger. Her brow furrows a little. She doesn't respond for several moments, then gives a small nod.

"It took a long time to learn to control what I had, even when it wasn't much. Sometimes it still gets away from me. But now it feels like it's... growing faster than I can quite keep up with."

Another pause, not as long. "I'm not scared by it yet. In a way it's exciting, too. I like the practice of it. Still worries me to think about our kid having to deal with it. Even if it's like you said. Something we'd have in common. Something I could teach."

She smiles gently at him, brief. She's a crap driver, but at least she keeps her eyes on the road. "I was just wondering. I just think randomly about being a mom these days. For obvious reasons."

wolf

Corner of his mouth quirks up. Randomly. Then: obviously.

"You're gonna be great," he says, low and gruff with affection. "Know that."

She's a crap driver, but at least her eyes are on the road. She's a crap driver, but at least now the road is broad and straight, passing into the suburbs. He's quiet a while.

Not forever: "Think there's anyone who can teach you? About your gift. Ever hear about anyone, or something?"

witch

She wrinkles her nose at him when he says she'll be great. "I know," she retorts, though this is about ten miles from the truth. When she looks back at the road, she's smirking, but it's a warm, subtle thing.

They drive quietly for a while. Her playlist has another song going now: I'll hum the song the soldiers sing as they march outside our window.

Rafael breaks the silence this time. Devon exhales, shakes her head, shrugs, all flowing into one another. "Not really. I think if I looked I'd just find crazy people."

wolf

Short little laugh. "Probably. But they're out there, aren't they? Found them once when we were in Newbury. Might find them again if we looked.

"I'd come with you if you wanted. Maybe drive off just like this. Follow clues. I could talk to local wolves. See what we find. If you want to."

witch

"Maybe," she agrees, and for once she doesn't bristle, get defensive, tell him to drop something that is too challenging or risky for her to contemplate. Like finding others like herself. Like talking about her dad for more than two seconds.

And that could be because he mentions Newbury. The women she met there who were, for the span of a night, like sisters to her, like best friends, like... a coven. And she has missed that, missed it terribly when she first got back, was quite literally grieving for women who had died generations ago. But then she put it away. She started noticing something wrong with her body, something off, something affecting her entire future. She put it away for that reason.

And also because she fears getting lost. She got very lost indeed the last time she had to grapple with something like that. She stopped eating, she couldn't sleep at night and couldn't get out of bed during the day, she was constantly afraid and uncertain, because

she was in love with someone, and she didn't think he loved her back. Didn't want to love her back.

Devon takes a breath, and exhales, and they come to a red light. He finished speaking several seconds back. She gives herself til the light turns green to keep thinking about it, and staring forward, and not answering.

It flicks green.

She doesn't move yet. She takes a breath.

"Yeah," she whispers. "All right."

The car behind them taps their horn. Devon hits the gas, and they jerk forward again.

wolf

It's not tension that hangs in the air, per se. But it is a sort of waiting -- a held breath, a sustained silence. While she thinks. While she considers it: this challenging thing, this step outside the ordinary, this push past the comfortable and known. It's not that she's afraid of risk. He knows that. But she is afraid of rejection, and abandonment, and being alone. He knows that, too.

And that's what he's asking of her, in a way. He's asking her to reach out, not knowing if there'll be another to take her hand. He's asking her to look for others like herself, not knowing if she's the only one of her kind. He's asking her to try to connect, not knowing if she will, or even can.

No wonder, the silence. No wonder, the breath she takes before she answers.

And his hand is still in hers. He squeezes softly. The car honks, they lurch forward, he firms his grip, but not out of fear. He's just holding her hand. A point of contact. A connection.

"Okay," he replies softly.

witch

He doesn't say it aloud, but she can sense it in the way he waits, and how carefully he asked to begin with. She doesn't think it's the first time he's mentioned it: finding others, finding help. It is the first time she hasn't shut him down, though. He is patient this time, which means he understands: Devon would rather just be alone than get her hopes up, go looking, try to connect, and find out she is alone. It's an illogical, heartbroken way to see the world, but it's what she's been working with since long before he met her.

Somehow, this time she says yes. Maybe because for the first time in her life she's thinking past a few weeks, a few months. She's thinking about five-years-max, three-years-or-sooner-is-better. She's thinking about a kid who might be a werewolf or might be a witch. She's thinking about her whole life lately, and someone else's life, and then a whole new life added to that, to the world, and it makes her think:

she doesn't really want to be alone forever.

--

They drive a lot longer. It gets darker and darker, even though the world is blushing into summer and the days last so much longer. She gets on 25, then 225. But she asks him, as they whizz past other cars: "Wanna go on side streets after we get around the reservoir?"

wolf

A comfortable silence has fallen by then. While she drives, he turns the stereo up a little. Nice sound system. Rich bass, clear highs. A glance at her as she breaks the quiet:

"Yeah, sure." He looks out his window, the moon on the reservoir. "Wonder if we can get in there. Swim."

witch

She smiles; side streets it is. Up around the reservoir, then back onto Hampden.

"Probably," she says. "I heard there was an E coli outbreak or something from it, though. What we get for living in Colorado, I guess."

She's on the highway now, and slips her hand from his to control the car a bit better. The lights cut through the dark. "Keep an eye out when we get off the highway for a shopping center or something. Wanna get a blanket and some beer. Condoms."

Glances at him. "Wanna go stargazing with you. Way out there."

wolf

Wolf slants a sideways grin at her. "You're a secret romantic, Devon," he says. "Didn't figure you out for a while, but now I have."

Her hand leaves his, and he shifts in his seat, getting a little more comfortable.

"Don't have to use condoms," he adds. "If you decide you want to start. Y'know. Trying."

witch

"Only with you, weirdo," she retorts. "I hate all other stupid boys."

Which is partly true. It's more nuanced than that. That she's always loved looking at the stars in the darkness. That she enjoys solitude. That there's never been anyone who has understood how to just lie there and look at the stars, holding hands, understanding that it's not just about doing something romantic to get in someone's pants. Rafael gets it, though. Rafael understands silence. Rafael understands nature. Rafael understands her.

Also, all other boys are stupid and she hates them and only wants to go make out under the stars with this one. So there's that, too.

--

At what he says, she huffs a little laugh. "Oh, babe, I..." she pauses. They usually never used condoms before, unless she was being extra careful during what she thought were her most fertile days, or when they were, say, fucking in a gallery. She still uses birth control, but now it's just to help regulate the few periods she still has.

"I'm not thinking about that," she admits. "The chances of me getting pregnant without a lot of needles and hormone therapy and probably IVF are... not really a thing." She glances at him, just for a moment. "We probably can't, just by having sex."

Her eyes are on the road again. They also sting a bit, but only for a moment. She blinks it away and gets into the rightmost lane again so they can get off of 225 and back onto back roads. She exhales when she's composed herself again, another huff of a laugh:

"I was just thinking about...you know. The mess."

wolf

There's a certain poignancy -- of all things -- to thinking of those times she made him wear protection. They thought she'd get pregnant. They thought they didn't want that to happen, weren't ready, maybe not ever. They thought they had time; they thought they had to be careful.

Then she missed a period. And they thought they hadn't been careful enough. Then she went to the doctor. And now there's a timeline over their heads. Five years. Preferably three. And he's suggesting maybe they shouldn't be careful anymore, and she's telling him

it wouldn't even matter.

He reaches over during that little silence, before that deep breath. Her hands are on the wheel so he rubs the back of her neck instead, a thoughtless gesture of comfort.

Wry little laugh of his own, "Oh. Right. Yeah."

witch

A weird backwards blessing, that: they don't have to be careful. It would take a miracle for an accident to happen. And she has thought about it, all those times, all those little worries, and even about how they were both relieved she wasn't pregnant, until they found out she couldn't be.

He rubs her neck and she wants to lean into it, to lay her head on his shoulder, but, well: she is driving a car at the moment. So she lets her eyes fall closed for a second, exhaling, saying softly: "I'm all right." Not to resist the comfort, or dismiss it. More to let him know: it helped. It's enough.

"Yup," she says, letting herself float upwards again from that slightly painful moment, drifting towards a bright surface again. "Your cum."

Flicks her eyes at him. "Jizz."

wolf

Glances at her when she says it. Corners of his mouth twitch, but he looks away, caught somewhere between mortified and amused.

Then she comes up with a synonym. And he shifts in his seat, laughing under his breath. "Oh my god," he mutters. "What are you, a sex thesaurus?"

witch

She grins. "Spunk."

wolf

Normally when they're in a car together he'd be driving. He'd be able to pretend to be concentrating on the road, if he was. Not in this case though. Right now he's just squirming around, embarrassed and scandalized and slightly turned on.

Just slightly. Of course.

"Don't know why I'm the one turning red here."

witch

Devon laughs. "Because I'm winning. I've got three so far and you haven't even come up with one." She pauses a moment. "Actually, if you count 'mess', I've come up with four."

wolf

"I give up," he says, apparently too prudish to even attempt it. "You win. What do you want for it?"

witch

"Aww, no, play with me," she says, still quite amused but sounding as if she genuinely wants him to. "Be silly," she says, cajoling him with a grin. "Just for a second. I won't tell anyone."

wolf

He's quiet for a moment. Brooding, maybe.

Then:

"Jism."

witch

The sound she makes is one so filled with glee that she almost whirrs. It's sort of a squeal, one that makes her shoulders scrunch up. If she weren't currently driving down a long, straight, dark road, she looks like she'd clap her little hands, jangling and clattering all her many bracelets.

"Yay," she says, flushed pink with amusement. She smiles at him then. "Thanks, babe," she says, with an odd amount of sincerity. "I won't ask you to come up with any more."

A beat. "I haven't seen any stores. Can you check your phone?"

wolf

"Good," he mock-grouses, "because the next one was going to be 'semen'."

So he's not terribly creative.

Obliges, though. Leans to one side to dig his phone out, then taps and swipes for a while before leaning forward to wedge it onto a convenient part of the dash. Map's up. Navigation's on.

witch

She giggles again. "As long as it's not 'baby batter'. That one just grosses me out."

She drives. He looks through his phone, then wedges it, and she breezily says: "Sperm. Also: you should connect it on the Bluetooth in my new car and then it will give me directions through the speakers, because my car is super fancy."

wolf

Unexpectedly, he grins. "Yeah. But it makes the bun in the oven thing make sense."

Then: obliging again. Tappity-tap and then the chime through the speaker system alerting them of the pairing. Robot Google starts telling them where to go.

witch

In response, Devon makes a gagging sound, sticking her tongue out, but she's playing. He tappity-taps and her music goes off, his GPS comes on. Devon pays more attention to that for a while than to silly euphemism games or how cute her boyfriend is, turning off and driving a bit more til they come to a little strip mall and gas station at the end of what would not pass for a suburb on its best day.

She -- somewhat reluctantly -- turns off the car. "You want to get some booze, I'll get blankets and condoms and maybe some snacks?"

wolf

"Yeah," he says, popping his door open. Climbing out, "Meet at the cashier?"

witch

"Yeah," she echoes, then: "Wait up."

When he pauses, she leans over, wrapping her fingers tight in the fabric of the front of his shirt, pulling him close to her to kiss him. It's an aggressive move, and a somewhat aggressive kiss, but it seems like something that's been pent up inside her for a while. And a second or two after it's begun, her hand is unwinding, her arms wrapping around him, her body elongated to cross the divide between their seats. Her fingers bury themselves in his hair instead, shortened though it is, several moments before she can finally bring herself to stop kissing him.

Stays close, when her lips leave his. Her lips are reddened from the contact. Her eyes are as bright and vivid as they always are.

She licks her lips. "All right," she says, like that settles something, and then she's ready to get out of the car to go foraging through the truck-stop-strip-mall.

wolf

So he pauses.

So he's grabbed, and pulled close, and it's sudden and unusually aggressive and it piques his interest. Doesn't even react to that first kiss, he's so off-guard. Sure as hell reacts to the second, though, meeting her in the middle, closing his eyes, growling into it.

She softens. He wraps a big arm around her. Has his hand up under her shirt, halfway to her bra-strap, when finally they bring themselves to a stop. She licks her lips and he's watching her do it, his eyes hooded, glittering behind his lowered lashes.

"Better shop quick," he mutters, "before we make a mess right here."

witch

He popped his door open a minute ago. The dome light is on, illuminating his mouth on hers, his hand snaking up her shirt, palm hot on her lower back. Neither of them seems to be embarrassed. The light lets her see the glint of his eyes.

No wonder she licks her lips, just then. She loves the way he looks at her like that. Like he's hungry. Like he's craving.

She grins at him. Leans closer, kissing him just beneath one ear, whispering: "I can't wait to make you come." Her teeth, then, quick on his earlobe, dragging slightly. She takes a breath when she leans back, exhales as his hand slides out from under her top.

The dome light dims after they close the doors. The car beeps and its headlights fade as Devon -- gleeful again -- locks it. They head in and split up, Rafael to the little liquor store down at the far end, Devon into the short aisles of just about anything you could imagine.

At the cashier, her arms are piled with stuff. She stands on her toes, works her arms out from under the pile, and lets them all tumble as carefully as she can to the surface. She has a single roll of toilet paper, a roll of small trash bags, hand sanitizer, the closest thing to her preferred condom brand she could find, two rolled-up woven blankets, Pringles, mini Reese's cups, two liter-sized bottles of water, Black Forest gummy bears, a shot glass with the Colorado flag on it, and a bottle-opener keychain with the state seal and the motto Nil Sine Numine.

She smiles up at Rafael.

"Picnic," she says, cheerily.

wolf

"Jesus," he mutters again, that same equal blend of embarrassed and scandalized and aroused.

She nips. He draws his hand out from under her shirt. They pull apart and climb out, shutting their doors, car lights beeping as the alarm is set.

Wolf has a bit of a bowlegged walk on the way into the store. They split up and stock up, and at the cashier he puts down his card while she dumps supplies for a midnight picnic on the counter. Wolf eyes her pickings, grunting, picking up the bags one by one as the cashier fills them.

Tilt of his head toward the door when he's fully laden. "Grab my card, will you?" And they head back out to the car, where she unlocks the trunk and he loads it up. Grabs the gummy bears on his way back to the passenger's seat.

Doors shut with that satisfying new-car sound. Wolf buckles in. It's a fancy Civic he's gotten her; got a push-button ignition and all. While he stretches out in the passenger's seat, she turns the car toward the road again. He rips the gummy bears open. Offers it to her.

witch

There's a quick downward glance, from those bright eyes of hers, before she fully lets go of him. Just a fast, appreciative appraisal: of the closeness of his chest to hers, of the tension in his arms, of the curve of his cock pressing against his jeans.

And then yes: she lets him go, she takes a breath, she tries to remember the mental list she just made.

--

Devon stands there, quite lazily, while the cashier puts their stuff in a few bags, while Rafael picks up those bags. She takes his credit card and thanks the cashier as they head out, popping the trunk on her way to the driver's door, which opens simply because her key fob is nearby.

She sinks into that driver's-side seat with the same almost-vocal pleasure as before, still not entirely used to the fact that she has a car, a new car, a fancy car, and it's so nice, because Rafa wants to give her nice things. She also smiles to herself, partly from that pleasure and that surprise, but also -- to be quite honest -- with a bit of pride.

Because she didn't bolt. She didn't even want to. She didn't shrink back, wary of him and his money and his gifts and his affection for her. She didn't worry that she needed to reassure him that he doesn't need to buy her. She didn't insist to him that she shouldn't have this, that she doesn't need or want this, she doesn't deserve this. Gifts are different from just mooching, taking what she wants. They're so direct. There's no sidestepping them. But this time she didn't even try.

It feels nice, she thinks, turning the car on with the little button because who needs keys. It feels good to let him be kind to her.

--

They go on driving. They share gummy bears, without any real destination in mind. Just far: past strip malls and industry and spotty residential areas. Far enough that they can see stars, find solitude. They pass some farms. They're on the road for a long while, til they find a side-road, packed dirt, that runs alongside some abandoned paddocks with broken fences and no animals or buildings or cars in sight. Devon finds a spot to park where the car is mostly hidden from the road, turns it off, turns it dark, and points through the rear windshield at a winding creek flanked by scrub trees and brush a short walk from their spot.

Neither of them likes to be exposed. Not fully. Not entirely.

wolf

Wolf likes it that girl doesn't even attempt to help with the bags. Just like he likes it that she didn't resist the gift this time, didn't distrust it, didn't refuse it. On some stupid, primitive level, it makes him feel like a good boyfriend. A successful mate. Like he's providing, protecting, fulfilling some unspoken and ancient contract.

So he picks up all the bags and tromps after her. And she gets in her new car while he's loading up the back, and she's making that little sound of delight and he's smiling to himself while he shuts the coupe's hatch.

Comes around. Climbs in. They're off again.

--

Some time later, pulling off the road. Truth is a Civic isn't that fun going down a packed dirt road, but at least he didn't get her one of the sportier models with the stiff suspension and the thin wheels. They survive the joint-rattling trip, and the car's no worse for wear. She parks. Points. He puts his hand on the back of her seat as he turns, looking out.

"Nice," he pronounces. Getting out, he goes around back to get their supplies. Hands her the flashlight this time while he gets the rest of their things.

The night is cool. Soft breeze stirring the watergrasses, the leaves on the trees. Air smells fresh, and like foliage. Wolf was right. It's nice.

witch

Devon grabs her bag from the back, slinging it over her shoulder. She drops the keys in after beep-beeping the locks, thinking briefly how odd it is: this car that barely seems to need her input, this phone in place of flashlight, camera, calendar, computer, compass, even this satchel that hums with an energy she can just barely, barely feel... an energy not entirely different from that of the car, the phone, the city itself.

She doesn't remark on it aloud. Like Rafael, she keeps most of her thoughts to herself, most of the time. She mulls. She carries her phone, shining a brilliant swath of LED light on their path as she walks alongside her boyfriend. Good boyfriend. Good mate.

It feels so like summer now. The nights are comfortable, the breezes cool. It smells less like a city, but Rafael -- even in this form, if he focuses on it -- can tell they aren't all that far, not really. Devon can't. Mostly, she feels the breeze, hears it rustling leaves and grass, smells only water and earth and wind. She looks up as they walk, since the terrain isn't at all rough, looking at the moon, at the stars. She wants to turn off the light, but not yet.

They find a spot near the water, but not close enough to be muddy. Near the encroaching trees and tall grasses, but not close enough to disturb anything that might be living in those dark green pockets, in safe little burrows and nests. Open enough to see the sky. They unroll one blanket and lay it out. It's woven, a bit heavy, but the breeze still tries to kick up the edges, so Devon finds some rocks to hold down the corners. The second blanket, for now at least, is unrolled and unfolded and then re-rolled to make a wide sort of pillow across the top. She flops down on her knees on the blanket.

And then she turns off the light. Their eyes will adjust. They can find snacks in the dark, and their drinks. And each other.

Which she does, before she asks him to pass her a beer, before he's even fully gotten down onto the blanket with her. Her hands are on him, spreading over his chest, not going anywhere in particular but seeming to revel simply in touching him without distraction.

wolf

Almost no words pass between them as they set up camp. They don't seem necessary. They both know what to do, unfolding the new blankets and arranging them. She has to prompt him just the once when he starts unfolding the second blanket all the way, but he catches on quickly. They use it as a pillow.

Or, perhaps: he uses it as a pillow when he flops down on the blanket. Her hands are on him right away. If she'd pulled him into the bushes back in the parking lot, back when they got out of the car heated from kissing, he would've stripped off all his clothes immediately; fucked her right there. Here, though, his love for her takes on a different flavor. It's calmer, warmer. He pulls her close until she can pillow her head on his shoulder. His arm is loose around her. They are relaxed, quiet, and he doesn't fear losing her right now. He doesn't fear losing her anymore, for the most part.

"March twenty-second," he says out of the blue. "That's my birthday."

witch

There's a heated urgency to Devon when she touches him. Even though the touch is luxurious, the sensation thrilling, there's no sense that she wants to take her time getting to him. She'd be on her tiptoes to kiss him if they weren't down on the blanket.

Rafael, though: this far from parking lots and truck stops and the noise of the city, something in him slows down. Breathes deeply of the night air and feels... whatever it is he feels, that calms him the way it does. After all this time, Devon's finally realized just how different he is out in the middle of nowhere, or in his mountain house. She's always seen it, but never quite understood just how deep the seemingly subtle change is.

So he doesn't meet her with a crushing, growling kiss. He doesn't pull off all of his clothes, all of hers, lay her out and lick her like an animal. Yet, at least. He wraps his arms around her and she presses against him. He draws her closer to him, where she's all but climbed atop him. He is relaxed, quiet. She is... taking a breath, because she notices.

What he says makes her smile. A quirk, a curl of one corner of that sly mouth of hers. "Aries," she says. "That makes sense."

wolf

He lifts his head, kisses her on the corner of that smile.

"Oh yeah?" Setting his head back down again, grass flattening beneath his weight: "Why?"

witch

She kisses him back. Soft, gentle, just a small reciprocation to let him know she likes him.

As though that is ever in question anymore.

She laughs, then. "Well... Aries is the first sign in Spring, yeah? When everything's coming to life. So... vigorous. Passionate. Fierce. Determined. Maybe a little not-so-secretly idealistic." She turns her head, smirking slightly at him. "And stubborn, and sometimes jealous, and blunt. Hotheaded."

Devon leans over him and kisses his cheek. She's still half on top of him, but has settled into the cuddling now, rather than trying to get into his pants. She nuzzles him a little. "Fire sign. Ruled by Mars, obviously. And in tarot, Aries is the Emperor."

wolf

"Sounds about right," he mutters halfway through. And later, after she tells him about fire, Mars, the Emperor: "Guess the stars wanted me to be a Silver Fang Ahroun."

She settles. He does too, his hand smoothing down her spine, coming to a rest at the small of her back. Crickets are chirping all around. Cicadas whirr in the bushes. The brook babbles; the breeze blows.

"And you? What's October twenty-fifth line up to?"

witch

Her eyes drift closed as he strokes her back. The fabric over her skin is thin, as it so often is, and she can feel the warmth of his hand through to her skin. It comforts her, being held like this, being stroked like this, like she's something treasured. Rafa isn't the most expressive of boyfriends, but sometimes -- especially when they are well and truly alone, like they are now -- the small things he does make it abundantly clear how he feels for her.
She huffs a little laugh when he asks. "Scorpio," she answers, sounding amused. "Obviously." As if he knows a goddamn thing about astrology.

wolf

Wolf smirks. " 'Obviously'? Why?"

witch

Devon lifts her dark, tousled head up a bit, eyes glinting. Her arm is folded over his chest, her chin on her hand.

"Secretive. Intense. Broody." She smirks, lopsided again. "Defensive. Vengeful. Independent. Intuitive. Volatile." She leans forward over him, kissing his jawline, then his throat. "Horny," she adds, chuckling a little.

wolf

Horny.

A smirk returns hers. Spreads over his mouth loose and lazy. She's nearly atop him; his hands fold around her waist, behind her back. While she kisses his way over his neck, he lets his head fall back with a quiet breath out. He starts tugging at her shirt, taking his time. Acting like that's not even what he's at while they carry on this conversation about birthdays. Birth signs.

"Sounds like you," he mutters, a laugh under his breath. "Except maybe the vengeful part. At least with me."

witch

And of course her shirt is not a shirt. It's supposed to be a shirt, was maybe once a shirt, but she cut off the sleeves and the hem and turned it into a halter but it's also a dress, because it started out as something XXL. All the ends are ragged and it's black and soft and she has this chrome-studded belt around her hips because it certainly isn't cinching anything or holding anything up, and knee-high fishnets and black boots instead of normal person shoes.

Her bra is black and easy enough to see in the back, even along the sides where there were once sleeves. But here's what matters: he tugs and that not-a-shirt shirt-dress does indeed start rucking up, sliding easily up her thighs to her hips. That belt is doing absolutely nothing.

"S'why I said 'obviously'," she teases him, sliding her leg over his legs, for no reason whatsoever. "And I'm half Irish," she reminds him. "We're all vengeful."

wolf

"Are you?" he muses. That belt is doing absolutely nothing. It's definitely not keeping her shirt-dress-whatever-thing in place because he's pulling it up. Up her thighs, past her hips. Gathering the folds under his hands and then pushing the fabric up, onehanded now, opening his hand over her back as though to keep her warm. Or maybe just to feel her skin.

Or maybe just to take her bra off. Because that's what he's up to now, unhooking the back rather deftly. He's had practice, these past couple years.

"Thought you were all just drunk. And green."

witch

So the belt clings briefly to the dress-shirt, then gives up and drapes over her hips as he tugs it up, up, leaving her thighs bare, her waist, her skin up to her ribs. She breathes in. He's working on unhooking her bra, but it's easy enough: one, two clasps, both done easily in a single motion. Gather, pinch, a slight tug. It loosens around her.

She bites him, for that. Her mouth is so close to his throat, but she doesn't bite him there. She bites his chest instead, through his shirt, nipping at him with a bit of roughness. "I look green to you? Or drunk? You haven't even got me a beer yet."

wolf

Bitten. For that he growls, turns, flips her under him so quick and easy his strength is unmistakable. Now he's on top, tugging her dress-shirt off and tossing it aside.

"It's all right," he's all faux sympathy. "My people are all tall, blond, and dance in wooden shoes under windmills."

He slides down. Takes her loosened bra in his teeth; tugs it off.

witch

She gasps. It's a surprise, that's a given. And there is, no matter how she trusts him, how long she knows him, some measure of her that never quite forgets what he is, and there are moments when that ancestral, bone-marrow knowledge overrides conscious thought.

But it is so small, that piece of her that knows wolves as terror, as beast, as devils. It knocks the wind out of her, but she refills her lungs with a deep, deep breath. She's on her back on a blanket, on grass, and when he tugs her dress of she's left in that long necklace glinting in the starlight, that black bra, all those bracelets, those hot-pink panties edged in black lace. Those fishnet stockings. Her boots.

"Like hell they are," she manages to say on an exhale, her brain catching up briefly with the rest of her.

He digs his teeth into he bra and drags it off. Her necklace clatters against itself, then mutes against her skin between her tits, dangling down to her stomach.

"Fuck me," she says, also a sigh, like it isn't fucking obvious. Like she hasn't been wanting it since she noticed that her litany of euphemisms for his cum was making his cock start to get hard. Like she wasn't ready to go the moment they laid out the blanket.

wolf

Wolf's in a rare mood tonight. Playful. Devilish. Eyes glitter when he sees her black bra, hot pink panties. All those bracelets. Those stockings. Those boots. Gets the first of that litany off, drops it -- somewhere.

She swears, or maybe it's a request. He settles over her, rubs his face on her tits like an animal. Opens his mouth and licks her tits, sucks her nipple quickly, but rather hard. Lets it pop out of his mouth.

"Thought you wanted a beer first."

witch

His mouth is busy on her breast. Her hands get busy pulling his shirt up. It seems unthinkable to her, immoral or wrong somehow, that he should be licking her like that with his shirt on. Maybe it's just some deep sense of fairness in her. Maybe she just wants to feel his body under her palms.

So his shirt gets pulled up his arms, off, and her tit pops from his mouth, her nipple reddened and alert. She tosses his shirt aside and has a snarky response chambered and ready, but instead she's sitting up halfway, her hands on his face, her mouth on his mouth, kissing him like someone starved.

wolf

Shirt comes up almost before he's ready for it. Gets one arm up and then the other, and then she's dragging the t-shirt off, soft cotton leaving hard body. Muscles in his shoulders and chest roll. He moves over her, she grabs him, kisses him, so much for that snarky response. Brief wordplay between them dies into raw hunger. He growls into that kiss, too, snarls like he can't control the feral sounds he makes.

And pushes her back down with the force of that kiss. Leans into her, heavy and hot, while he gets his belt open one-handed, then the button and zipper. He rears up suddenly. Pulls her panties off. Bunches it up, tosses it aside.

Leaves her necklace on. And all those bracelets. And those boots; those stockings. "Wanna turn over?" he mutters, returning; covering her.

witch

The panties are a challenge. She still has boots on. So he's kneeling there, opened belt clanging against his thigh while he tugs them down of her skinny little ass, gets them down to her knees, has to take a moment to get them off her completely.

She smirks at him. He apparently wants her jewelry on. Her boots. She thinks of pointing out to him that he's filthier than he lets on, but she's fairly sure he'd just claim to be impatient or something like that.

Devon licks her lips, shakes her head.

"No," she says, her hand on his chest, smoothing up over his flesh. "I'm gonna get on top of you."

wolf

Quite possible he'd grumble some bullshit about impatience, in a hurry. Also possible he'd flat out tell her the truth, which is that he likes the way she looks in jewelry and boots and fishnet stockings,

getting fucked.

And she's smirking again. And so is he. And the two of them share that smirk like a secret, and her hand going up over his skin makes the hairs on his arms stand deliciously on end.

"Intuitive, huh," he repeats back to her. "Volatile. Horny."

Arm around her waist, then. He pulls her up against him, skin to skin, a shock of contact. Turns, world spinning around them, sky becoming earth and earth becoming sky. Now she's on top. He's sinking down in the grass, on the blanket, reaching rather shamelessly between her straddling thighs to push his boxers down and get his cock out.

witch

She quirks a brow at that. Doesn't answer.

She lifts herself up against him as his arm goes around her, though. Kisses his mouth, slow and luscious. There's nothing chaste about it. There is nothing patient, either. She doesn't kiss him like she's starving, this time. She kisses him like she's devouring. Taking what she's waited for. Taking him into herself, like loving him feeds her.

This time, she doesn't have to urge him to turn over, or indicate what she wants by pressing her hand on his shoulder or anything. He hears her intention and, not unlike a man bewitched, rolls onto his back for her. Devon straddles him, sitting atop his lap, his undone jeans, smirking a little at him while he gets his cock out. She's nearly naked. He can almost smell her on the breeze, but maybe it's his imagination, or his mind replacing the scent of water and grass and starlight with her somehow. Or maybe it's because he can feel the heat of her cunt, so close to him.

She, almost lazily now, decides to loosen and then take off her boots. Leaves everything else on, but wants them off. Tosses them over next to their bag of snacks and beer.

Her hand wraps around his cock, replacing his hand. She leans over him, the tip of his dick stroking her stomach, kissing his mouth again, wet and rich. "You're so fucking delicious," she mutters against his lower lip, working his erection a bit, kissing his neck before she kisses his chest, and his stomach, and

licks the head of his cock, slowly and sweetly, like he's something she's treating herself to.

wolf

Thought she was going to slide right down on cock but that's not what happens. She takes him in hand and he surrenders it to her. Thinks she's going to jerk him off a bit before sliding right down on his cock -- but that's not what happens, either.

She slides down, but a different way. He strokes his way up her stomach, and not with his hands. By the time he brushes past her tits he's biting his lip, chest rising and falling with quick shallow breaths.

She licks him like that. Any number of comparisons flash through his mind; lollipops, ice cream cones, popsicles. It's inane, and he feels stupid for it, but mostly he doesn't care about feeling stupid because he feels like his brain might have melted anyway. He's holding a breath without realizing it. Releases it, a rush of a sigh, when her tongue leaves him for a moment.

Then she's back. And there's a subtle answering tension in his flank. Doesn't quite thrust into her mouth but there's a hint toward that. Could lie back and enjoy it but he prefers to watch. Props himself on his elbows, watching while she blows him, his fingertips catching and pulling at the blanket when she sucks it just right.

"Don't make me come," he murmurs. "Want to see you sit on my dick."

witch

Devon answers him with a low, pleased murmur when he tenses, when he almost-not-quite thrusts against her tongue. She looks up at him when she hears the rustling of him propping himself up. She runs her hand up the coiling, tightening muscles of his abdomen, and even though it's rather hard to smile with a cock in her mouth, her eyes glint at him.

There's a pause, soft and brief, when she pulls her mouth off of him: her mouth is still so close to his cock he can feel the words stirring the air against his flesh. "I won't, babe. Just let me have it a while."

And she's there again, taking him as deeply as she can, groaning gently around him.

--

Not for much longer, though. Not til he's twitching, panting, sweating. Not that far. She just luxuriates in this a while longer, her head bobbing over his lap, her naked (and yet still: adorned) body folded over his jeans, which are still only half pushed down his thighs.

But after a few more strokes, a few long sucks, Devon can't wait any longer. She rises up, her hand still slowly jerking him off -- she wouldn't want to just stop abruptly, after all -- and licks her lips. Swallows. Climbs over him, straddling him, and lets his cock come to rest against the front of her mound, the softness of her lower abdomen. She holds him there, stroking him delicately now, almost teasingly, torturously, smiling down at him.

There's starlight behind her. An ink-blue sky.

Up higher on her knees, then, rubbing the head of his cock against her clit, sliding and slipping between her lips, til she all but starts using his cock as a toy, rubbing him on her clit, moaning aloud, gasping brightly at how soft they both are, how silky.

When she does press the head of his cock against her opening, there's almost no warning to it. Just a slight shift, a hot pressure, and then her cunt taking him, inch by inch, with long, slow rolls of her hips.

wolf

Says that like this is a favor he's doing her. A gift he's giving her. Maybe in a way it is. He rarely seems to have the patience to be pleasured like this, which is an absurdity but a truth. So often he just wants her under him. So often he just wants to be fucking her, uncreative but ever so focused, so intense. Having her on her stomach is a big step for him.

Which is hardly to say he's doing this now out of selflessness, or even curiosity. He knows what it's like to get sucked off by her. He knows she's fucking mindblowing. So she asks, and of course he obliges. Huffs a half-hearted fraction of a laugh, which falls into a sigh when she takes him in like that.

Not until he's panting, sweating, on edge. Not so far. Just a lazy, slow suck; enough that he's hard and hot in her hand, enough that his cock jumps and twitches when she stops. So she doesn't stop entirely. She keeps stroking him while she climbs up over him, and this is when he finally lies back. His hands welcome her. He helps her straddle him. He reaches down to guide himself into her, but she's still stroking him. Their fingers brush; it's a tender little greeting. Then he lets her keep control.

While she rubs against him he strokes her thighs. Tips of his fingers on the way down; palms of his hands on the way up. It's a hypnotic rhythm she sets, and he watches her because she looks so good like this. Adorned, flashing. He thinks to himself he should get her something. Real diamonds. Gemstones and jewels. Gold and platinum. She could still wear a thousand bracelets; only they'll be real. He wonders if she'd like that. Genuinely doesn't know.

Ink-blue sky. Stars. And her, her skin so fair, her eyes so blue. He's not expecting it when she shifts, just so, but he knows it. Senses it immediately. His eyes close of their own volition. He makes a sound, almost inaudible, parting his lips. His hands slide up; his palm sweeping behind her to grip her ass, his thumb finding her clit with unerring instinct.

He touches her tenderly but boldly. Rubs firm, slow little circles while she takes him in. Tempo matches. His eyes open again after a while, finding hers and holding.

witch

In a way, even though she was terribly impatient for it, Devon is glad they didn't fuck in her (new) car. Or in the alleyway near a truck stop. Or on the side of the road, bent over the hood or something. She's even sort of glad that Rafa didn't fuck her as soon as they laid the blanket out over the grass.

This is better. This is exactly what she wanted. The way he's looking at her. The way, briefly, he can't look at her at all. She lets go of him after she guides him into herself, leaning over him at first, hands braced on his chest as she works herself down on him. Her hips move in circles as she lowers herself onto him, her mouth open so she can remember to breathe, her eyes flashing. Angling like this lets her rub herself off on him, too. Makes her skin flush red with arousal. Makes her release these little noises, not quite groans, not quite whimpers.

She bites her lip as she sits up on him again, watches him as she fucks him. It's slow, at least right now, almost more of a grind. Sees how he's staring at her, doesn't know what he's thinking. But she can feel that long necklace of hers, a long chain of something cheap and sparkling that's tied in a loose knot between her breasts, dangling narrowly along her belly. It thumps against her skin. It shifts and slides between her tits. She can't help but touch herself, her hands cupping her breasts, her fingers and thumbs sliding together to gently pinch at her nipples. They're so fucking hard. Her bracelets clink and clack against one another with the movement of her hands, the rise and fall of her body on top of him.

And Rafael touches her ass; holds her there like he's going to keep her right where she is, make sure she doesn't go anywhere. Her eyes close, tight, when he starts playing with her clit. She moans: more whimper to it, this time. Her hands falter on her breasts. Her head is falling back, her body leaning back slightly. For a few moments, he can see her like that, and she can't see him. She can't even see the stars. She's just fucking him, a little more energetically now, panting as he touches her.

"Yeah," she breathes. "Oh, fuck, yeah."

wolf

Can't remember if he's ever fucked her with so many articles still on. His jeans half down, socks and shoes untouched. Her clothes stripped off, yes, but all those necklaces and bracelets. Those stockings, which change the texture of her skin without quite disguising it altogether. Usually he strips everything off, every last scrap, like he wants her as gaia made her. This is a big step for him too.

He likes it. Discovers that. Isn't surprised by it. Is surprised, maybe, by the intensity of it. His eyes are all over her. He watches the knotted necklace bounce between her tits. Watches her bracelets slide and clink, press against her skin when she -- fuck -- touches herself like that. His touch changes. Not rough, no, but: insistent. Pressing. He makes her moan and the gratification is intense. He fucking loves it. He wants her tits in his mouth, but he wants her tits in her hands, too. Wants to see her play with herself.

So much so that when she stops, when she falters, he grunts. Bucks his hips against her slow grind; first time he's done anything but let her ride. Quick, short motion. Just to get her attention.

"Don't stop," he mutters. He's not stopping either. He rubs her clit quicker now, honed in. Still gripping her like that, like he wants her right there, like he wants to know exactly where she is so he can make her feel good, make her feel this. He clarifies: "Don't stop touching yourself."

Licks his lips. Clarifies again:

"I like watching you."

witch

He's always liked the way she looks. The crazy shit she wears. He's always liked pulling it all off of her, too. The times he's left anything on her it's been because she asked -- her socks, her cold toes -- or because they were in too big of a goddamn hurry. Never has it seemed like something so deliberate as tonight, when he pulled her panties off and... stopped there. Asked her if she wanted to turn over, get fucked from behind.

What he doesn't know is that she sort of did, for a second. Because it's a rare treat, because they're outside, because some part of her likes the reminder that he is, at his heart, an animal.

Told him she wanted to ride him instead. Because of this, exactly:

she likes it when he looks at her.

--

Her head is back, her hands still on her body but cupping her breasts only, and then he fucks her hard, grinds up into her and makes her eyes flash open, makes her bring her head up, looking at him, gasping. She doesn't have a chance to ask him What?, becaue he tells her. His mutter is almost a growl, his hand insistent and eager on her body. She answers him immediately: her palms stroke over her breasts. She tugs at her nipples again, like before, as if to see his reaction this time, see if this is what he wants. What he likes.

Don't stop touching yourself.

She smiles. Her eyes first, a flash of aroused delight. Then the corner of her mouth, curling and lifting. It doesn't last, either. Her expression darkens, but only with lust: she grinds down on his cock again, takes him as deep as she can, making tight and hungry circles on top of him.

I like watching you.

In response, Devon squeezes both of her breasts, her eyes falling closed for a brief moment. She can't help it; it feels good. His cock feels good. His thumb on her clit feels good. But she forces her eyes open again, looks down at him, watches him as she runs her hands over her own body. Not just her breasts: strokes her stomach, slides her fingers to either side of his at her cunt, gets them wet.

Locks eyes with him as she traces that wetness up her body again, circles her nipple with one finger,

before putting it in her mouth, tasting herself.

wolf

That's what he wants. That's exactly what he wants, and she can tell because of the way his eyes are fixed on her. Because of the naked lust flashing across his face. He watches her cup her breast. Watches those slim fingers of hers squeeze, flick, tug. Watches those lovely hands run down that lovely body, all the way down to her cunt.

There her fingers brush his. And his fingers hook around hers. It's ever so brief. Ever so tender. Just a moment of connection, a momentary reminder that they are more than a cock, a cunt, a hot and dizzied encounter on a blanket in the wilderness. Later on they'll go home together. She's not wearing a ring and he's sworn no vows, but they're devoted to each other.

He lets go. He goes back to rubbing her clit. She wets her fingers. Her fingertips brush her cunt; shaft of his cock. That fleeting sensation draws his eyes. He watches himself fucking her. Watches her fucking him, grinding down, tight, hungry, taking him deep and rising up again. His cock is glistening. So hard. She's so wet. Brings that wetness up to her breasts. It makes him growl, makes his eyes flash, makes him fuck up into her again, involuntary and hard.

Then she's sucking her fingers. He can't take it. He grabs her necklace, tugs her down by that cheap little trinket. Might think he's going for her mouth but he's not, not yet. Puts his mouth on her breast instead, ravenous, teeth scraping sensitive flesh. Tongue soothing a moment later, and then the firm, demanding suck of his mouth. He can taste her cunt there. Licks it all up, every last bit of it, lapping at her like the beast he is.

Then he does kiss her. Lifts his head and kisses her. And kissing her, starts fucking her: driving up into her in earnest now, fast and hard, like he's suddenly hit some breaking point where he can't help but respond.

Still has that necklace wrapped around his fist, gripped in his palm.

Still has his thumb on her clit, rubbing her off while he gives it to her.

witch

It's the second time; she feels it this time, recognizes it. Even in the midst of what she's doing to him, trying to do to him (namely, torture), Devon feels his fingers touch hers like that. Hold her hand. She looks him in the eye when he does, her lips still parted, her breath still coming in pants and whimpers, but

she touches him back, squeezes his fingers with hers. It's half a second, maybe less, but it's enough. It's an anchor.

Enough of one that when he grabs her necklace, tugs her down, it doesn't cause her unease. She knows he hasn't forgotten who she is, what she means to him, that they are more together than -- yes -- a cock, a cunt. It does make her gasp, and it surprises the hell out of her, and thankfully the necklace is sturdy enough that it doesn't simply snap off. But he pulls her down, and yes, she thinks he means to kiss her,

but this is better. She groans for it when he goes at her breast like that, licking her nipple, sucking at her skin to lap up the tracery of her pussy she left there for him. She bounces slightly on his cock while he's licking her like that, the gasps she's been giving taking on a slightly needy, pleading tone. Muffled, when he lets her nipple loose from his mouth and kisses her instead. Devon groans for him, her hands on his face. She's no longer grinding on him, circling her cunt on his cock, because now he's the one fucking her, holding her there with one palm on her ass and the other wrapped around her necklace.

Devon touches that hand, though. She hooks her fingers into his, unwinds it from the glittering strand, and laces their fingers together instead. Not for long, though. Just a moment: a moment of connection, a reminder. And then she draws his hand up, pushes his fingers into her hair.

wolf

Palm to palm. Just for a moment. Just for a second where he pauses mid-stroke; where he pauses mid-kiss. His eyes meet hers.

Connection. Reminder.

Then she pushes his fingers into her hair. And his pupils open wide. And he growls again, this rough, wild sound. He grips. He isn't shy about it. Her hair is thick and lustrous; he has her by the roots, firm, pulling her head back to bite a kiss against her throat. He's fucking her again. He's fucking her hard, gripping her in his hands, pulling her mouth back to his to kiss her again.

Eyes closing. Then opening. They're not kissing, but their faces are close. His breath is on her skin. He's watching her again, holding her gaze, his brow furrowing with the building tension, sensation. His hand on her ass is urging her to move. Move against him, move in counterpoint, grind down against those powerful, forceful thrusts.

There's enough room between them that her breasts brush his chest. That her necklace sways against his skin, the knot weighing lightly against his body. There's enough room that she could reach down between them. The thought lights him up.

"Touch yourself," he whispers. Quick catch of a kiss; releasing. "Touch yourself like I was touching you."

witch

Oh, she likes this. He knows she likes it. But that's nothing like seeing how she reacts to it. It's nothing like feeling her melt against him, clench on his cock, as he tightens his fingers in her hair. It's nothing like the caught sound she makes, or the way her pulse jumps against his tongue, his teeth.

She's sweating. She's slick with it, despite the chill of the evening. Every inch of her skin is burning up against his.

When he draws their faces together, holds her there, her eyes are closed at first. He can see her, how overcome she is, how lost she is in the moment, in the motion. He can feel her breath through her open mouth, feels how it changes when her breath becomes a cry, a shiver, anything. Takes a moment for those eyes of hers to come fluttering open, meet his again. She's letting him move her, guide how she moves, following the rhythm he sets,

and letting him see what it does to her.

"Yes, baby," she whispers, with a certainty that almost seems like obedience. She kisses him though, her hands no longer on her tits or on his hands but on his chest, clutching briefly at the heavy muscles there. She gives a soft little snarl to feel him like that, but she hasn't forgotten what he asked for.

Told her to do.

The thought makes her shiver.

Even before her lips part from his, he can feel her hand sliding down his torso, snaking between their bodies, her fingers finding her clit unerringly, unhesitatingly. She moans into his mouth. Starts to move on him again, fuck him back again, while she touches herself. The kiss tatters apart, if he doesn't pull back from it first to watch her.

He likes to watch her. She thinks of that and it makes her fuck him a little harder, touch herself faster. Something inside of her has tipped over, is so far gone that she is losing the ability to talk. To think clearly. To think at all, of anything, other than orgasm. She's chasing it now, whimpering as she does:

"Baby, fuck me. Fuck me hard. I wanna come. I need it."

wolf

He knows she likes it. It can't be more obvious that she likes it. Just look at how she responds, how readily she melts, combusts.

She knows he likes it too. Still doesn't do it that often -- feels rude, feels presumptuous -- but there wasn't a beat of hesitation when she guided his hand there. He gripped. He took control. That's what this is: a tender-rough sort of control, with his hands showing her how to move, with his eyes so hungry on her every flicker of expression.

Yes, baby, she whispers, and he discovers he likes that too. He likes that ready acceptance; he likes her hand on his chest. He likes her arm between their bodies, the flicker of movement he can feel in her forearm as she rubs herself off.

He likes her rubbing herself off while he fucks her. He likes the fleeting brush of her fingertips, the back of her hand. Likes how she looks now, her eyes lost, her mouth open. Likes the sounds she's making and the way they barely form words. He kisses those words off her mouth, eyes open because he can't bear not looking at her for even a second. He nips at her lips, he growls into her mouth. She's all but begging. She is begging. His hands harden, he holds her right where she is, and he fucks her hard.

Pounds her. Rather relentlessly. Wraps his arm around her and holds her firmly, holds her still when she starts to come apart. He knows by now what she sounds like when she comes,

what she feels like, those pulsing clenches, that involuntary shuddering in her thighs. "Keep going," he mutters, meaning her hand, meaning her finger on her clit, meaning her orgasm, meaning the way she's taking his cock -- meaning all of that, none of that, because his words are really just noises at this point, too. "Keep going. Take it. That's it. That's it -- "

Almost always bites her when he comes. But not this time. This time he just: comes, watching her. Comes with his eyes locked on hers, snarling when it hits him, baring his teeth like an animal. He's still holding her right there. He's still making her take it, fucking it into her, groaning on every breath, every thrust, every uncontrolled tear of pleasure through every nerve he has.

Closes his eyes, finally, when it lets him go. Drops his head back on that blanket they laid out together. And now he's not grabbing her by the hair anymore. Now it's his hand cupping the back of her head, his fingers wound through her hair. His heart hammering in his chest, tangible beneath her palm. Electric little jolts through his body; his cock still hard inside her, the epicenter of those tensions.

witch

There's no more words from Devon, nothing really intelligible, not for a while. Her focus is entire; she can feel him, and she can feel him fucking her, and she can feel the pleasure in her body, and there is nothing else. Soon she's just rocking on him, taking it as he fucks her, her head falling forward, her arm around him, her hand clutching at his back. She's so focused she's almost silent for several seconds, so silent she hardly seems to be breathing, and then: a sudden, sharp gasp, and an outcry, another, another another another, her hand still and her pussy grinding against her fingers, against his cock.

Devon's fingernails rake against his back for a moment, she's holding onto him so hard. And he's muttering to her, keep going, keep going, take it, while she moans, as loud as she does alone in their room, as loud as she ever has. She's still coming, bearing down on him, when he follows her: drives himself into her, stares at her, finds her opening her eyes, watching him back. She bares her teeth a little, momentarily, when he snarls, like it's an echo of the sound he's making. She groans, then, because he is hitting his peak as she is tapering off, but she's still in it, it's still

so fucking good,

which is all she can say now, muttering as she rides it out on him, rides it out with him.

--

They are a sweaty, panting mess of limbs. His cum is wet in her pussy, around his cock. They completely forgot the condoms they bought. His hand is in her hair but not holding her hair, his palm warm on her scalp, his fingertips jumping with his pulse. She collapses with him, trembling slightly, half from exertion and half from the way she is starting to almost feel the air again, as it wicks the sweat right off her body. She lays her head on his chest, can feel his heart thudding against her ear. Wants to shush his heart, make it be calm, but she doesn't have the energy even for that little absurd urge. She can barely breathe.

"Oh, god," is what she does manage, low and shaken. "Oh, fucking god. What the fuck."

wolf

She's left scratches on his back.

He's left cum in her cunt.

They both left the condoms ... wherever they left them.

Neither of them have remembered them yet, though soon they might. Right now, right in this moment, they're still putting the pieces back together. She's collapsed over him, limbs loose as water. He's flat on his back, melting into the earth. His heart is pounding against her ear. She wants to shush it, but it turns out she doesn't have to.

His heartbeat begins to slow. His breathing, which was so deep and swift that the rise and fall of his chest lifted her wholesale, begins to subside. Those deep involuntary twitches of his cock, too. Everything slows. Everything calms.

Night wind feels good. Cool on his overheated skin. Long after his somatic rhythms have returned to something close to baseline he's still right there, unmoving, eyes closed. Might think him asleep except for the slow, lazy drift of his fingertips against her scalp.

--

"Could fuck you all night and all day," he murmurs some time later. His eyelids are too heavy to lift. He could fall asleep here.

Or fuck her. All night and all day. It's a tossup, really.

"Was really good," he adds: the understatement of the century.

witch

The condoms are still in their wrappers, still in their box, still in the bag from the truck stop. They're next to a can of Pringles. Neither Rafael nor Devon remembered in the moment that they were going to use one, if only for the sake of Devon's comfort, but she remembers it now, lying on top of him, listening to his heart beat. She doesn't say anything; it doesn't really matter. In a strange way she can't explain, she's glad they forgot.

Her hands rest on his ribs, when she can make her arms move again. She feels the way his lungs expand, lift, then contract again. She rises and falls with his breaths, heavy at first and slowly calming. She feels his fingertips rub at her scalp, gentle as anything, and she feels very, very loved.

Feels a little cool, too, sooner than Rafael does. She doesn't have his internal heat, even discounting the rage that fuels him. So she snuggles against him, nestling against his chest and into his arms. Not ready for a blanket yet. Not quite. For now, his arms and his warmth are enough for her.

She smiles, without answering, when he says what he does. "Mm," is her only answer, though it sounds like rousing agreement. Other than gasping about god and fuck, she doesn't have much to say: her brain is soup. Her eyes are closed. Every breath is filled with the smell of her boyfriend, who is utterly devoted to her. To whom she is utterly devoted.

"S'nice," she says, not really in answer to him. More of a descriptor of their current state. Their current environment. She strokes his sides now, idle but affectionate.

A little time goes by. They hold one another. She makes no effort, for that time, to get off his cock. For a while, they just lie there, close as two bodies can be. Not forever, but long enough that by the time Devon yawns and shifts and decides to carefully roll off of him, it doesn't feel odd. She lies next to him, in the crook of his arm, but stretches over him for one of the bags, for the roll of toilet paper and the little garbage bags to clean herself up a bit. Puts a rock on the garbage bag.

Thinks she should go pee. Thinks she wants to peel off her stockings and all the rest, take off his pants all the way, discard his shoes. But that all sounds so tiring. So she sighs instead, flopping down again next to him, resting her head on his shoulder, looking up at the stars with him.

Remembers:

"Didn't mind it," she wanted to say earlier, but she was busy fucking. "The thing with the necklace." She lets her eyes drift closed, her tone somewhat sleepy. "Chain was just digging into the back of my neck a bit."

A moment, sleepy and comfortable, her arm draped over his middle. "Didn't want you to think I didn't like it."

wolf

Actually is asleep by the time she moves. Can't blame him. All that tension released. Night wind so comfortable and cool on his skin. Girl curled in his arms, on his chest; close enough that he knows she's there. Before long his breathing is steady, just a little rougher. His hands are still.

When she does move, he wakes easily and without starting. Just another shift in his breathing. He opens his eyes as she sits up, cleans up. Has a quirk of a smile when she comes back to him.

"Sorry," he whispers. "Forgot."

He means the condoms. Maybe she figures it out. Her head pillows on his shoulder. They look at the stars.

A new awareness when she brings it up. The thing with the necklace, she calls it. A subtle tension in him, relaxing when she says she didn't mind. Didn't not-like it.

"Sorry," he says again anyway. "Wasn't thinking much. Just wanted..."

He trails off with a little laugh. They both know what he wanted. His hand strokes her back. Not accidentally, it wanders up to the back of her neck, rubs there lightly.

witch

"S'all right," she whispers back, smiling at him as she re-settles. "Forgot, too."

Her hand strokes his ribs, his chest, his side. She's still got all those bracelets and things on. Hasn't bothered to take the rest of it off. She wants him to know about the necklace thing, how it didn't bother her, that's not why she stopped him and put his hand in her hair instead. And he says he's sorry anyway. Tries to explain.

She smiles, huffs a little laugh at him. "No sorry," she says, because right now traditional grammar seems far-fetched somehow. "It was hot." Her fingertips trail slowly along the side of his abdomen, a soft stretch of skin between his ribs and his hip. He moves his hand, too, to rub at her neck, which makes her smile. "Gonna make me start picking necklaces by how they'll hold up for sex."

wolf

Tiny little shivers in his skin in the wake of her touch. Reflexive contractions of the sheets of muscle that reinforce his sides. His nipples have tightened in response. If she keeps it up he'll get hard again. It's just biology.

He laughs again. Their laughter is quiet, soft as their voices. Almost lost beneath the babbling brook, the rustling trees. "So like what. A leather collar?"

witch

This makes her prop herself up on her elbow to look him in the face. She doesn't look mad, though, or appalled, or anything like that. She's just up a bit more, head propped on her hand, her other arm still touching him. The look on her face is one of raised eyebrows and a mild smirk.

"No," she says, sounding amused. "I'm not a dog." Beat. "Or a goth."

Leans over, kissing his cheek. Then: another, softer kiss pressed against the back of his jaw, just below his ear.

"Just something that won't dig," she says vaguely, and kisses his neck. While she's there. Seems to be the thing to do. "Maybe something with ribbon," she muses, her palm smoothing down his side and over his hip, grasping at his skin for a moment, like she'd be squeezing his ass if he weren't thwarting her by lying on his back.

"You liked seeing all this stuff on me while you fucked me this time, didn't you?" she murmurs, her mouth still trailing kisses down his throat, his chest. It's a bit of a topic switch. Not much of one.

wolf

He smirks back. "No," he agrees. Sometimes he likes to state the obvious: "You're a witch."

Her hair trails over his chest when she leans over him. Starts kissing him like that, touching him like that: different from the lazy, fond way she had been touching him before. Feels purposeful. Feels provocative. And provoked, he responds -- a muscle in his flank tensing to her grasp; his throat moving with a swallow under her lips.

"You know the answer," he whispers.

witch

There's something to that: something more than a quip between them. As if a witch isn't, by nature, meant to be collared. Meant to be restrained, leashed, possessed. And they aren't; she isn't. Even Rafael, loving her so and wanting her to never go away, has to find a balance between being with her and possessing her. Devon herself has to balance it, too: wanting to be with him, wanting to be held, wanting to be kept dear to him, and never wanting to feel trapped.

Maybe all lovers have to find that balance, in the end. Maybe it's just harder, when one is a wolf and one is a witch.

She kisses him for it, in any case. He says witch without wariness, and without dismissal or derision. He says it fondly, the same way he might say her name. She recalls him saying in the car that if they had a baby who could start fires with their mind, well: they would just buy a lot of extinguishers.

Devon smiles to remember it, her lips soft on his. That kiss of hers is exploratory, as if they didn't just finish fucking each other senseless. She murmurs to him as she kisses his mouth, his body: wants to know if he liked it. They both know the answer. She smiles again, one corner of her mouth curling.

"Yeah," she whispers, her hand on his hip, trailing along the joint over his thigh. She grasps the top of his boxers, his pants, still half-on, and gives them a little shove down his legs. "Want me to leave it all on again?"

wolf

"No."

While she starts pushing his pants off. While he helps her, his wrist over hers, their arms brushing, their bodies touching. They didn't have to discuss this. There was no discussion to be had, but now he's kicking his shoes off, wiggling his toes out of his socks. Kicking his heavy jeans down off his ankles, naked now, all muscle and hot blood; his hands on her face while he kisses her, and then helping her with her jewelry.

Whispering, "This time I want you naked."

witch

"No."

While she starts pushing his pants off. While he helps her, his wrist over hers, their arms brushing, their bodies touching. They didn't have to discuss this. There was no discussion to be had, but now he's kicking his shoes off, wiggling his toes out of his socks. Kicking his heavy jeans down off his ankles, naked now, all muscle and hot blood; his hands on her face while he kisses her, and then helping her with her jewelry.

Whispering, "This time I want you naked."

witch

[DLP!!]

witch

Surprises her a little, when eh says that. It was so hot. The way he looked at her was hot. Even the way she felt, feeling all that extra sliding across her skin.

But not really: they are in the wild together. And he is a wild thing.

And so is she, deep down.

--

Devon grins as he bares himself. She kisses him, harder this time, no more teasing lightness to it at all. Her hand touches his face; it runs down his body to his shoulder, his arm, brings his hand to her ass even as she's hooking one of her legs around him. She strips off her bracelets in two wholesale motions; he peels off her thigh-highs and discards them, little scraps of black netted fabric lost in the grass. He takes off her necklace last, drawing it up over her head and leaving it in a semi-sparkly little pool by itself.

When he touches her, she's wet. When she moans, it's into his mouth. When he presses his cock against her they are on their sides, but when he enters her, she's on her back for him again, wrapping her legs and arms around him, arching her back as what's between them deepens, solidifies, warms.

--

A while later and they are back where they started: sweating, entangled on a blanket, panting for air, motionless for untold minutes. Rafael, unsurprisingly, drops off to sleep again. Devon slips from his side a minute or so later, and he stirs a bit, noticing, but she reassures him as he opens one eye that she'll be right back. Cleans herself up a bit; has a piss in the bushes, which reminds her of the many times she's found herself high or drunk in some wilderness or other, often at dawn, usually alone. Makes her smile.

She's a bit shivery when she comes back. Finds his t-shirt and pulls it on over her head with utter lack of apology. Squirts hand sanitizer into her palms and for a while, smells like alcohol and aloe. Maybe he wakes again when she's there next to him, smelling like him from the shirt and from the fucking. Maybe he only wakes when he hears a the cap come off a bottle of beer, or when she's crunching into Pringles.

"Haven't had dinner," she explains, her mouth half-full, as she wolfs down more potato chips, her long legs naked and sprawled on top of the blanket. "Wanna beer?"

wolf

Maybe he's only good for one experimental fuck a day. Second time around and she's on her back again. They're naked again, starlight and spring breeze on his back while he fucks her. She wraps herself around him. He grasps at the blanket, the grass; bites her shoulder when he comes

the way he always does.

--

Wakes when she slips off. She reassures him and he smiles a little. Closes his eyes again but when she comes back he's watching her. She puts his t-shirt on. He unrolls the blanket they've been using as a pillow, spreads it out to cover her bare legs. Feet get cold. He remembers.

She says she hasn't had dinner. He doesn't answer about the beer. He looks at her, eyebrow quirked. Then without a word he turns on his stomach, pushes up on all fours, white fur flaring down his back. Lopes off, long muzzle, thick fur, leaping across the stream and vanishing into the brush.

Silence for a while. Distantly, there's a scuffle.

Comes back a few minutes later, some poor dead rabbit in his jaws. Drops it by their supplies and is human-shaped again in an eyeblink, digging around in the bag for a lighter.

"Yeah, sure," he says. Nonchalant about it all when he was so obviously showing off. "I'll take that beer. Didn't buy firewood, did we?"

witch

Little smirk, as her covers her legs. The night is cool, almost enough to make one forget it's late spring already. She wonders where all the time went. Last year they visited Oregon. Last year the Ladies of the Wood took her.

Remembering it, at the end of this chain of random thoughts, Devon has an idea. She doesn't share it yet. She wants to mull it. She munches her Pringles, sips beer, and gives him a weird look when he quirks his brow at her like that, because she doesn't get it.

Give her this: she doesn't fall over when he shifts in the span of a heartbeat, this time. She is startled, but mostly just blinks. "Wait --" she calls at him, as he's bolting off. She frowns a little in consternation, completely baffled and a little sad that he's running off. Call it hormones maybe: all those bonding chemicals flooding her brain, making her want him near, why is he leaving?

It's so quiet for a while there. She isn't unsettled, though perhaps a part of her should be. It would be wise to be uneasy, out in the middle of nowhere alone, wearing a t-shirt and no shoes. But wiser still to be out in the middle of nowhere, close to the earth, and have a background certainty that she's safe, she belongs here, and --

there is a wolf then. A rabbit, brownish-grey, looking thin in death where it would have been fluffier in life. Moments ago, looked fluffier. Was alive. Devon stares at it, her back very tight. Its glassy, empty eyes. That is, until she can't anymore.

Rafael is doing something in the bags, and she doesn't know what he's looking for. Would tell him there's a lighter in her bag, if she knew. Doesn't. She didn't really hear his first few words.

"What?" she says. There's a strange brightness to her eyes and was, until a second ago, a loud ringing in her ears. Beer, he says, and she looks around for the other one. Firewood, he says, and she can't remember what she was looking for. She shakes her head, very evidently trying not to cry, because it's stupid, and because she doesn't want him to feel bad. He looks happy, she can figure out that he was showing off, he wanted to do something for her, and she doesn't want to cry and make him feel bad. "No," she says, looking at literally anything but the dead rabbit.

wolf

He doesn't go looking for matches. He doesn't go looking for firewood. He can tell at a glance, at the very first glance, that he has miscalculated horribly. That she is not proud of his hunter's prowess, nor glad of the meat. She's sad. She feels bad for the thing he killed.

He drops the rabbit by the supplies. Steps in front of it. Shifts there, blocking it from her view with his body. For a while he says nothing. The silence is awkward. He finds his boxers and steps into them, then comes back to the blanket.

There's something ginger about the way he sits beside her. He's quiet a little longer.

Then: "Sorry. Just wanted to get you something to eat. Didn't think you'd feel bad."

witch

Devon blinks when he moves where he does, looking up at him. She doesn't cry, which is something she actually has quite a bit of practice in. She sniffs. Truthfully, she had forgotten he was naked til he puts his boxers back on, and she briefly thinks he looks weird with them on.

She knows what he is. And sometimes it seems terribly silly that he ever wears clothes. Lives in a house. All those things.

He comes closer to her, ginger, and she feels bad that he feels bad for making her feel bad. It's circular, and she's aware of it, but that doesn't make it any less of a sore spot. She leans over, til her head thumps against his shoulder.

"S'all right," she tells him, sniffing, but in a less close-to-crying way. "Just wasn't expecting that. Hard to... look at it." She huffs a laugh, a little raw-sounding. "It's so stupid. I eat meat all the time. I just..."

She thinks of its eyes. Tears spring to hers again, and if her hands hadn't recently been washed with hand sanitizer she'd rub at them to try and stop it. "It's stupid, I'm sorry."

wolf

Her head on his shoulder: it's a bridge both tangible and not. Some of his tension leaches away. He curls that arm up and over her head, an odd little embrace.

Puts that arm around her when she starts explaining. Calls it stupid, twice, and the second time he shakes his head. Interrupts: "Hey. It's not." Carefully, he wipes her eyes for her. Catches an errant tear on his thumb. "It's not stupid. Should've asked before I ran off to bring you meat."

witch

Seeing that tear on his thumb, Devon blinks rapidly, getting rid of any strays. She takes a breath and exhales, but halfway through the exhale he speaks again, and it makes her laugh. Comes out breathy, jerky. But genuine.

"It's so sweet that you did, though. That you wanted to feed me."

She turns her head. Kisses his bicep. Looks up at him with a soft sort of smile. "Big strong wolfman," she whispers, more fond than teasing.

wolf

Grins a little at that. "That's me," he confirms. It's only half-ironic.

"Should probably still eat the rabbit," he adds a little later. "Worse not to. But you don't have to watch."

witch

Kisses him again. Right where she already has her lips, on his bare upper arm. "Yeah," she says, by way of agreeing: worse to kill the thing and just leave it. And because, like she said: it's not like she can't eat meat without crying.

Smiles up at him, her chin on his bicep. She looks a little embarrassed, but mostly just touched. "All right," she says softly. "There's a lighter in my bag. No wood, though."

wolf

"I'll go get some."

Her chin has to come off his arm before he can move. But before she does that, he leans over. Kisses her on the brow; then again on the mouth as she straightens. They share that little moment, that tender little meeting, before drawing apart.

He goes off to find wood. Or at least: burnable material. They're not exactly in a forest, but there are trees by the water; downed branches from the last storm. It takes him longer to find wood than it did to catch a rabbit, but eventually he's back, his arms laden.

"Know how to build a fire?" he asks.

witch

Devon just smiles at him. Forehead kiss. Then her lips. And that smile of hers, which could so easily be aloof if it weren't for the spark of interest in her eyes when she looks at him. It's always been there. Sometimes banked, sometimes hidden, not always as bright and open as it is right now. But she's never been able to completely keep it from her expression.

She's into him. And even before she was into him, she was interested.

So perhaps he's never seen her smile looking truly aloof, as distant and unassailable as most other people see it. Perhaps she's never been as much of an enigma to him as to anyone else who meets her.

Or maybe she baffled him and still does. Doesn't seem to matter.

He's into her.

--

She finds her panties and stands up, putting them back on under his t-shirt. She gathers up her bracelets and necklace and fishnets and all that, stuffing them in her bag where they vanish into darkness without ever making the sides bulge. She eats more Pringles, and some remaining gummy bears, drinking through a full beer while Rafael gathers sticks and brush and breaks off some branches from scrub trees.

She avoids the rabbit. She lies on her back, staring at the stars, munching on potato chips. If she were a different sort of girl, a more practiced and rough-and-tumble sort of kinfolk, maybe she'd be skinning that rabbit. Maybe she'd be doing the things that A Good Mate would do when her man brings her meat, but

this is Devon, and not only does the sight of a dead animal disturb and grieve her, but she is also quite lazy and a terrible mooch. So she does not do any of those things. She lays around like a bum until he comes back and asks her if she can build a fire.

Her eyebrows hop. "Yeah," she says, and more out of curiosity than doubt: "Don't you?"

wolf

At least wolf doesn't seem miffed that girl's just lying around like a bum when he comes back. Doesn't even seem surprised. He's pretty used to her being a mooch; good thing he's so into her. Would probably be surprised -- shocked -- if he came back and the rabbit was skinned and ready.

Especially given how she reacted, seeing the poor thing dead. Maybe he thinks she had pet bunnies as a kid. More likely he knows: she's a tender thing. Has a tender heart, beneath it all.

"Know enough," he says. Tosses her the lighter anyway, "I'm gonna get it ready. Can you do the fire?"

witch

Devon catches the lighter, clapping it between her palms. She nods, wiggling to her knees and crawling over to the pile of burnable stuff he brought back.

Turns out she is rather adept at building a random fire while wearing little more than panties. She gets her phone out and props it up with the flashlight aimed her way, uses one of the rubber bands that used to be on her wrist to tie back her hair so it doesn't catch fire, and she uses a rock to scrape out a circular space some distance from their blankets, leaving it more dirt than grass. Thinks about encircling it with other rocks, but it would take too long to find enough, so she doesn't bother.

Next time he looks at her she's stripping errant leaves from branches and sticks, and arranging larger and smaller pieces as best she can in the little dirt-circle she carved out. Uses a lighter on a longer stick to get the small bits going. Digs into her bag for a notebook and uses some squashed-up balls of paper to help it along until the larger pieces catch.

She's sweatier than she was before when the fire gets going enough to be left to itself, and her hands and fingernails are dirty, and she smells a bit like smoke from slightly too-green wood. But there she is, looking at ease with it all. Picks up her beer and finishes it off, stuffs her bare feet into her boots and tromps in them down to the creek to rinse the bulk of the dirt off her hands. He hears a whoop and she comes dashing -- stomping -- back, her hands wet and her long skinny legs sticking out from under her shirt and her ponytail falling out.

"I THINK I TOUCHED A SNAKE," she announces, partly terrified but mostly thrilled, also laughing.

wolf

Turns out girl's pretty good at starting fires with minimal supplies. Who'd have thought. It's almost like she does this sort of thing on the regular. Did, anyway. Spontaneous camping trips. Booze and binges in the great outdoors. Possibly sex, but he'd rather not think about that if it's all the same.

He turns his back to her while he gets down to business. There's no cutlery so he uses his pocketknife. And his hands. There's a lot of ripping and tearing, but she doesn't need to know that. In the end he has a rabbithide and ... well, it was a rabbit, but now it's meat. He's about ready to spit it when

there's a whoop.

Instantly he drops the rabbit. Up and turned around, three sprinted steps toward the creek when she reappears. Partly terrified. Mostly thrilled. Laughing. Also, yelling.

He relaxes. Smirks a little. His hands are bloody so he hides them behind his back. "Somewhere out there's a snake going I THINK I TOUCHED A HUMAN," he remarks, wry.

witch

Their backs are to one another for the most part, while she makes a fire and he skins an animal. Odd little tasks, their degree of primitiveness equal to the creatures performing them. She is closer to being a true homo sapiens than he is. Science doesn't even know about him, so it doesn't have a pompous Latin name for him.

She builds a fire. He prepares meat.

Devon heads off to rinse dirt off her hands, comes whooping back -- sending several other small creatures flying from nests and darting into burrows -- and finds Rafael there. She's unaware of how his attention snapped to when he heard her outcry. She'd feel bad if she knew, but right now she's just laughing,

moreso at what he says. She stomps over to her bag and uses more hand sanitizer, since creek water isn't the cleanest and she may have accidentally petted a reptile.

"We should do this more," she says. Smirks sidelong at him as she rubs that creepy Weaver stuff all over her hands. "Now that I have a car I guess I can just kidnap you sometimes."

wolf

While she sanitizes, he spits the rabbit and sets it up over the fire. Keeps the hide, thinking maybe he can use it for something. Or maybe bury it. Sets it aside, though, where she can't easily see it.

"Can't kidnap me if I'm willing," he points out, passing her. Goes down to the creek. Washes his hands. Comes back with his hands dripping, having not petted a reptile.

Drops down on the blanket. Fire's near enough that its light touches him. He looks for a beer, twists it open, drinks.

witch

She phbbts at him, and lets her hair down again, combing it with her fingers. He goes down to the creek to wash his hands. All snakes, frogs, minnows and bugs leave the immediate vicinity as the fiery wall of his rage comes down the bank.

Devon looks at the rabbit on the spit, now less looking like a dead creatures and more like meat. She thinks again, though this time not out loud, that her reaction was so stupid. She wishes her heart didn't break so easy.

He is coming back before she gets around to thinking that there's a fucking reason she's never let anyone get so fucking close.

--

Devon slips out of her boots again, crawls back onto the blanket. She drags the one that was a pillow back over, draping it over her lap and leaning against him. She has a new beer in hand. She has Pringles. She has mini Reese's cups and smooshes one between two chips to make a bizarre salty-sweet sandwich,

a bite of which she offers to her boyfriend, of course.

witch

Devon grins when he tries it. But he doesn't want more, which is good, because she isn't that good at sharing.

She snorts. "Of course you will," she says, and munches on her very messy but very delicious snackwich, sipping beer in between. She doesn't watch the meat cooking, but she sits with him, stroking his arm idly, looking up at the stars, listening to the fire -- and meat -- crackle.

Nods. "Outside. It's good."

Smiles at him, warm now, soft, the firelight revealing that yes, some of those dark strands in her dark hair may indeed have reddish undertones, no matter how Black Irish she may be. "You're good, too," she adds, gentler, a murmur.

witch

[FAK. DLP. AGAIN. I SORREE. :[[[ ]

wolf

Wolf's not too sure about this pringles-reeses sandwich she made. He tries it, though. Finds it not terrible. Still hands the rest back.

"I'll wait for meat," he says. Because of course he does.

So they pass a little time like that. Leaning together, shoulder to shoulder, blanket draped over their legs. Fire keeps them warm. Meat starts to smell good.

"We should do this more," he adds after a while, an agreement. "Nice to get away. Spend time."

witch

Devon grins when he tries it. But he doesn't want more, which is good, because she isn't that good at sharing.

She snorts. "Of course you will," she says, and munches on her very messy but very delicious snackwich, sipping beer in between. She doesn't watch the meat cooking, but she sits with him, stroking his arm idly, looking up at the stars, listening to the fire -- and meat -- crackle.

Nods. "Outside. It's good."

Smiles at him, warm now, soft, the firelight revealing that yes, some of those dark strands in her dark hair may indeed have reddish undertones, no matter how Black Irish she may be. "You're good, too," she adds, gentler, a murmur.

wolf

Wolf turns into her, his nose brushing through the hair at her temple -- ink-black in most light, but not in firelight. He nuzzles her like that, slow and tender and lazy and animalistic. Catches her ear delicately between his teeth, tugging gently without biting down.

"Yeah," he murmurs, an agreement to some of it -- all of it. "Wanna stay out here tonight?"

witch

She laughs soft, under her breath, as he nuzzles and nibbles at her. Her head tips, half pulling-away and half leaning-into that aggressive little affection. She's smiling.

"Not really," she admits, a little apologetic though not by much. "Would be nice to go camping sometime. Maybe up near your big house."

Witch looks up, says softly: "More stars there anyway."

wolf

Wolf laughs under his breath. Drops his arm around her shoulders, kissing the nearer one.

"Okay. Let's go home."

witch

She grins. "After dinner," she reminds him, though dinner is freshly-spitroasted rabbit, potato chips, and candy. And beer.

But this is what they like. This is how they like it. A little wild. Rather messy. It's who they are.