FIC: 'Parallel Motion' - Part 3a
Oct. 8th, 2011 01:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thalialunacy2Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Epilogue
“What the fuck crawled up your vagina and died?” Zach asks, flicking cigarette ashes in Chris’s general direction.
Chris grimaces. “Must you be a douche at five in the morning?” He slumps further into his sunglasses and onto the wooden railing. “I don’t even understand why we’re here.”
“Fresh air.” Zach takes another drag, then blows it out into the ocean breeze.
“Plus it’s the only time we can be on the beach without bodyguards.”
“There is that. Fucking Captain Kirk.”
“You wish.” It’s lovely and grey and pink outside, and Chris wants to murder small children.
“Nah, wouldn’t want to get in the way of your epic Kiwi romance.”
“Hey.”
Zach pats him on the hand. “Sorry. Too soon?”
Three weeks have passed since Chris woke up in an empty, sex-stale bed. So. “Would it matter if I said yes?”
Zach shrugs. “It’s early.”
“And...”
“And I kinda wanna kill the guy.”
“Zach...”
“No, listen. I understand the rules of rebound sex. And those rules are simple: Have it with someone you don’t give a shit about.”
“Maybe he did.”
Zach full on smacks him upside the head. “Christopher.”
“Well, excuse me. Call me a whiny self-indulgent ego with diva tendencies.”
“If you insist--”
“But if he gave a shit, he would’ve called.”
“Or I could just call a faggot a faggot.”
“I believe you mean spade.”
“Potayto, potahto.”
“And wait, who’s the spade here?”
Zach flicks his ash in Chris’s direction again. “He’s had a rough patch going lately. Sometimes you need to end those with a bang.”
“You know, you’re really annoyingly mercurial sometimes.”
“Oh, believe me, I know. Have you actually even called him?”
Chris licks his lips. “Texted.”
“You know he isn’t hip with that jive.”
“He’s texted me before.”
“Yeah, before his world exploded and landed in piles of divorce and gay sex.”
Even Chris had to admit: “... point.”
“Match.”
“Do you even know how to play tennis?”
“Not a clue.”
“Me neither.”
“We should have a party.”
“You should take your Ritalin.”
“I’m serious! I think it’d be just the thing. We’re in talks for Electric Bugaloo to start soon; it’s time for a class reunion.”
“So we can all get shitfaced and compare how fat we’ve gotten since high school?”
“Exactly.”
“I will kill you.”
“No, you won’t. They’d have a bitch of a time recasting Spock.”
“Yeah, nobody else can pull off that Vulcan lisp.”
“Oh, you are feisty this early in the morning.”
“I do what I can.”
---
Zach is as Zach does, however, and two weeks later finds Chris helping him set up streamers--streamers!-- across the windows of some hipster joint that specializes in mac & cheese.
Twenty dollar mac n cheese. And Chris is pretty sure the set-list is Lady Gaga, followed by more Lady Gaga, possibly interrupted by a little bit of Lady Gaga.
Okay, that’s harsh. There’ll probably be some George Michael in there, too. Zach never can resist the WHAM.
---
People trickle in, drinks get served, socializing gets done. It’s a small party, the cast and ADs and such--and the focus puller; ever since Chris heard Johnny Depp go on about the true measure of your performance being whether or not the focus puller laughs, he’s been kind of obsessed. Helps that the guy is a champion among men, too.
Said focus puller--Jason--claps Chris on the shoulder. “Pine! You ready for another round of these shenanigans?”
Chris grins at him, already a few drinks in and nicely buzzed. “Hell, yes. Especially if Kirk gets laid this time.”
“You like having to wax your chest every day for a week?”
Chris rubs his hands over his button down, somewhere in between a come-hither gesture and a post-belch one. “Chicks dig scrawny white guys, what can I say?”
Jason snorts. “Yeah, sure. Scrawny, that’s what everybody calls you.”
Chris is about to retort--Jack Skellington is somewhere in the punchline--when he hears a thud and picks up the scent of a particular brand of testosterone. He groans under his breath, then downs another shot to steel himself. “Excuse me, Jay.”
Jason just raises an eyebrow at him, then salutes. Chris backs away until he’s sure where the noise is coming from, then heads there, and sure enough, one of the betas has gotten himself backed into a corner by a pissed off key grip. The guy is burly and the beta is not, but they’re both pissed enough to not even care; the beta has his back to the wall, which clearly made the thunk Chris heard, and he looks smug as shit. The grip looks like the beta just fucked his sister and pissed in his cornflakes.
Either are a distinct possibility, at this point. Chris doesn’t have anything against him, but he’s kind of a shit-stirrer.
“Aaron,” he says sharply.
The beta’s shoulders immediately tense. “What.” It’s not a question.
“Let’s take a walk.”
“Fuck you,” Aaron retorts, and Chris isn’t sure who he’s directing it at, but the grip takes it personally and shoves Aaron back again. Aaron snarls, and advances on the guy, and Chris is so annoyed he lets them have at it for a minute.
But then Aaron shoves a little too hard, uses a little more strength than a guy his size should have, and Chris sighs and steps in.
Pulling punches, it takes five minutes to get them apart, and Chris is positively dying for a cigarette afterwards. That’s probably why he doesn’t notice until too late that there’s a new scent in the room.
Karl.
He turns immediately towards the smell. Karl’s moving into the room, shaking hands and slapping backs and smiling at everyone. Chris watches, his gut churning. Karl looks good, he notes. Of course he does, but he’s got this little extra glow about him tonight. He looks a little tired, though, and--
Chris’s eyes narrow. Karl smells different. Smells like Karl, yes, and smells pretty intoxicated already, but... there’s something else, something new, something--
Karl steps over to greet someone a few feet from Chris, and Chris takes a deep breath. Surreptitiously, of course. Yup.
He just can’t place it. It’s fucking sexy, whatever it is. As if Karl’s smell didn’t scream ‘take me now’ at Chris before.
Finally, they’re face to face. It’s fucking awkward. Chris steels himself and holds out a hand. Karl looks at it, then looks at Chris. Then his face softens, and he pulls Chris into a hug. “Hey,” he says quietly into Chris’s ear.
“Hey yourself,” Chris replies as he pulls back, going for cautious but knowing he’s failing. He’s like a fucking puppy around this guy.
Karl fidgets. It’s so unlike Karl that Chris has to refrain from reaching out to calm him. “Sorry I’ve not... been in touch.”
Chris shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It happens.”
“Yeah...”
“Life happens.”
The air is heavy. Chris wishes he were drunker.
“Yeah, it does. I’ve had to get a place, you know.” Karl gestures. “Around here.”
Chris nods. “Right. How’s that going?”
“All right, except that I came down with this stomach bug or something, chundered on and off for a few weeks.” At Chris’s raised eyebrow, he translates. “Vomited. Puked. Was generally disgusting.”
Chris’s gut twinges in sympathy. “That sucks, man.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “You need any more help? Because I could tota--”
Then, suddenly, hand on his neck, mouth open mid-word, he stills.
And it feels like the world stills with him, grinding to a halt like everyone’s being dragged through goo. He can’t think, beyond the one conclusion his mind has helpfully pieced together from the clues around him.
“Karl,” he says lowly. He takes a step forward, drawn in by the smell and the heat and the knowledge.
“What?” Karl is peering at Chris like Chris is the one in danger of vomiting. It’s not far from the truth.
“Karl...” Chris reaches out, encircles Karl’s wrist with his fingers. He’s got no other option; his instincts are screaming at him, and Karl is right fucking in front of him, and there’s a dark hallway with their names on it.
“What the hell?” Karl looks genuinely concerned now, and isn’t that fucking backwards. Chris wants to laugh but it’s stuck somewhere in his lungs.
“I need--you--to come with me right now.”
“But--”
“No. Just--” He tugs, and they’re gone, out the door and into the back hallway and then Chris just lets go. He pushes Karl into a wall and slams their lips together, unable to do anything but kiss him, touch him everywhere he can.
He drinks in this man in front of him, this man he never knew he’d been waiting for, this man who is quite probably carrying his child.
Because he can tell, now. Instinctively. Lizard brain sort of thing, or, more appropriately, wolf-brain sort of thing. He knows in his gut that through some miracle of supernatural proportions, Karl’s somehow got a tiny person growing inside him because of Chris. Well, possibly a person. Possibly a werewolf. But Chris is too drunk on alcohol and pheromones to really think that through.
Karl submits for a while, opening his mouth to Chris’s tongue and settling his stance so Chris can press in at least somewhat between his legs. And it’s fucking amazing. Chris is filled with it all, filled with alcohol and lust and the idea that this is his mate and his baby--his hand finds its way under Karl’s shirt, touching his belly reverently with soft fingers--and his fucking future.
His lips trail along Karl’s jaw while his hand makes its way under the waistband of Karl’s slacks and boxers. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t ask, just takes by giving, his hand working Karl’s length while he soaks up Karl’s pants and curses with kisses and licks. The smell coming off Karl is phenomenal, and Chris almost considers taking his time but then he’s selfish, wants to see that look on Karl’s face again, and again and again and again, to be the only one--
Oh, there it is. Karl’s eyes scrunch up and his mouth opens in a wordless noise as he spills, hot and heavy, over Chris’s hand.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” Chris breathes into Karl’s cheek, dipping down to kiss his neck, the shell of his ear, as he works Karl through it then slows his movements. “Gorgeous, and mine.”
Karl stills.
Chris leans back, but doesn’t remove his hands. His eyes find Karl’s, and he’s surprised to find Karl’s brows drawn together.
“Karl?” Chris manages, feeling dumb but he just doesn’t get how things could go wrong at this point, how any part of this could be construed as not being the best thing to come along ever--
“I’m not yours,” Karl finally says quietly.
Chris’s gut kicks. He extracts his hands, trying not to notice that they’re shaking. “But I thought--” But his mouth snaps shut, because the words, the right words, just aren’t there.
He’d thought actions would be enough.
Karl sighs while tucking in and buttoning up efficiently. “I’m no one’s, all right? Just--” He cups Chris’s cheek, the skin around his eyes tight. There’s so much heat, emotion coming off him-- Anger, sadness, loneliness, love, lust... But presiding over all of them is anger. “You’re lovely. And this is...” His lips twitch a little. “...fun.” Chris’s gut kicks again. “But I’m nobody’s.”
He kisses Chris, lightly, on the corner of the mouth mostly. And then he’s gone.
Chris stands there for a moment, wondering what the hell just happened. Then he shoves open the door to the alley, leans over, and throws up.
---
The next morning, all he can think to do, after waking up and remembering everything with painful clarity, is reach for the phone and call his mother.
“It’s early for a Sunday,” is her greeting.
“Mom.”
Her mom-dar is immediately on red-alert. “Honey, what is it?”
“I... can I come over?”
“Of course. Your father’s off at the bookstore, but--”
“I’m leaving right now.”
---
His mother is unsurprisingly--but still unpleasantly--unsympathetic.
"I don't understand, Chris. We raised you better than that."
"Oh, Mom, for God's sake. I was stoned as shit, I took a suppressant, and we used a condom. And I can't believe you even questioned that, let alone that we're talking about it. As if I don't already have a multitude of reasons for therapy."
"Everyone has a multitude of reasons for therapy," Gwynne answers automatically, but her mind is clearly somewhere else. “Has he been acting differently recently?”
“Of course he has, he just got divorced. And divorce in New Zealand, apparently, takes a hell of a long separation before it can be legalized, so he’s been kind of on a roller coaster for a while now.”
“Interesting analogy. Were there any patterns?”
“Besides always involving Jim Beam and law-breaking? Well, there was that one time, with the fountain, but--”
“How often?”
“Every few weeks, Jesus, Mom, I don’t know. I’m not his keeper.”
“You are now,” she replies sharply, “whether he likes it or not. It sounds like he had some were genes in him that were dormant until his life went to shit and his hormones went a little wacky. It honestly sounds like he was in heat, Chris.”
“There was no sex!”
“Is Karl the cheating kind?”
“No.”
“Well, then, he was channeling the urge into other, less productive behaviors. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it.”
Chris ponders this. “Cho did like to call it ‘manstruating.’”
Gwynne smirks at that, then is all business again. "Must've been latent were in him somewhere."
Chris suddenly realizes how fucking crazy this all sounds. "It can't be latent."
"Grey areas, Chris. What have we been teaching you since you were--"
"Alright, fuck, I get it--" He sees her Look. "Sorry. But I get it. I just don't get it."
She shrugs, and her nonchalance makes him even more angry. "Shit happens."
He gapes at her. "Seriously?"
She blinks at him. "What?"
"I knocked up a human. A male, straight, recently divorced, human father of two who doesn't even know I'm--" He gulps in a breath and leans over, supporting himself with his hands on his knees. "Oh god I think I'm going to puke."
"Sympathetic morning sickness."
"Mom!"
She gently but firmly grabs his shoulders and pulls him upright. "I'm sorry, Chris, but you're going to have to deal with it." Her eyes are bright. She's not as unaffected as her words say, but she soldiers on. "You are an adult. You made this choice when you had sex with someone you knew you had such a strong connection with." She cups his cheek. "You did your best, hon. And now you have to do better."
"I don't know--" His voice breaks, something that hasn't happened in like fifteen years, but if there's one person he's allowed to fall apart in front of, it's his mom, right? "I don't know how."
"Sure you do." She smiled. "We'll get more books. You like books. There are plenty of books on this, I'm sure." She stops. "Well, perhaps not on this, particularly, seeing the--uh--unusualness of the situation. But. Hell, after this, you could write one."
Chris groans. "Sure, Mom. We'll call it 'What Not to Do.'"
"Yeah, no, we’ll think of something better."
“Thanks.”
---
She sends him out the door with a mandate to come clean with Karl--before the next full moon, which, she reminds him firmly, is alarmingly soon; as if he hadn’t already known--and make it all better. And to call her more often.
Fucking mothers. He’s never loved her more.
---
He hits the fourth number on his speed-dial and listens to the faint whistle in his bluetooth. “I’m on my way over,” he says as soon as Zach picks up.
“Hello to you, too.”
“Do you have anyone you need to kick out?”
Zach tuts. “Already done, honey. You know me.”
“All right, then. Be there in a few.”
“Okay, but what’s this all about? You’re sounding like--”
“I’ll be there in a few,” Chris says, in a tone that leaves no room for argument.
“...all right, all right,” Zach acquiesces. Chris hears him add, “Pussy,” right before he disconnects the call.
---
Zach opens the door with a smirk already on his face. “You’d better be glad I know your proclivities, princess, or last night’s little little tete-a-tete would’ve been interrupted approximately eighteen times.”
Chris doesn’t even bother with the banter. He walks into the front hallway, takes a deep breath, and looks Zach square in the eye. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”
Zach squints at him, and his voice lowers in volume. “Oh, dear.”
“Yeah.”
“Is this going to require alcohol?”
Chris shakes his head, smiling ruefully. It’s really more like a grimace. “There’s been too much of it already.”
“Oh,” Zach says, like he understands, and he probably does. He grabs Chris’s wrist and leads them to the couch. Noah jumps up to cuddle in a huge bony pile on Chris’s lap, and he’s grateful.
“It’s Karl, isn’t it?” Zach says needlessly.
Chris can only nod, his hand worrying the fur behind Noah’s left ear.
“It didn’t go well last night? He did seem to disappear rather quickly.”
“No. I mean, no, it didn’t go well--well, it did, and then it didn’t--but that’s not--” He huffs out a breath. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning?”
Chris raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
“Swearsies.”
“Well. We don’t really know when it started.”
“We?”
“Werewolves.”
“Ah.”
“Our written history is about as long as yours, and even less well-preserved, because there are way fewer of us.” He runs a hand over Noah’s head. “And that’s really the issue. We...” He finally gives up. “Didn’t you ever wonder, if we’re all male, but we’re not immortal, how we survive as a species?”
“It had occurred to me, yes. But I just assumed that you occasionally fucked women and had little recessively-gened were-babies.”
“Yeah, no. I mean, occasionally. But... also occasionally... we manage it ourselves.”
“I don’t understand.”
Chris groaned. “Don’t make me say it.”
Zach stares at him for a moment. Then he looks positively gobsmacked. “Oh, no.”
“Yes.”
“You’re telling me--” He stops, a hand over his mouth.
Chris blows out a breath. “Yes.”
“Ass-babies?” Zach says, clearly horrified.
Chris reaches out with his free hand and punches Zach on the shoulder. “I hate you.”
“So that’s a yes.”
“No, that’s not a yes. That’s a... kind of.”
“You’d better fucking be ready to follow up with the details, my friend.”
Chris is, eager to get it the hell over with. “Omegas. They can... become...” Chris makes a shapey gesture. “With child.”
Zach snorts at that. “Like the Virgin Mary. Except for the virgin part.”
“And the female part.”
“So how? Since apparently it’s not a miracle from God.”
Chris shrugs. “I’ve never studied the science of it all that hard, for obvious reasons, but omegas most definitely have the plumbing for it. Dormant or whatever; we do a lot of fucking but not a lot of breeding.”
“Where’s the out-hole?”
“You are disgusting.”
“Birth is disgusting! Even the normal, human, woman kind.”
“True.”
“So?”
“It’s kind of like a natural C-section. Only out of the side. It’s all very god-like, if you think about it, springing fully formed from Zeus’s head and all that.”
“Uh, sure. Are they fully formed?”
“No. They’re babies just like I was, don’t turn for the first time until sometime in puberty. You know, if they’re boys.”
Zach looks a little pale, but otherwise he’s taking this like a champ. Then he asks the hard question. “So. What does this have to do with Karl?”
Chris fidgets, playing with Noah’s chin whiskers now. Noah just looks at him. He and Zach have the same expectant look on their faces.
“Karl’s not a were,” Zach points out helpfully after Chris stays silent.
Chris takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “He... is now. Apparently.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No.”
“You are shitting me.”
“Why the fuck would I?”
“I thought you couldn’t turn people!”
“I can’t! We can’t. I’m not fucking sure how it happened, to tell you the truth. My mother has this crazy theory about latent genes and hormones and stress levels, but who the fuck knows?”
Zach watches him for a moment. “I think you might have had something to do with it.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Chris snaps.
“Not on purpose, no. But this whole thing reeks of destiny instead of happenstance. Fate, if you will.”
“I won’t.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I don’t believe in fate.”
“Okay, Neo.” Then his eyes widen. Chris holds his breath. “Wait, so you’re telling me Karl’s not only a werewolf, but a pregnant one?”
Chris winces. Then nods.
“How do you know?”
“I just do. Call it instinct.”
“Fate, darling.”
“Plus vomiting.”
“Oh, ew.”
“Hey, that’s my mate you’re making that face about.”
“Oh, is that how it is now? What did Karl say when you told him?”
Chris... doesn’t answer.
“Christopher.”
“What.”
“Tell me you told him.”
“No.”
“Tell me you are a man, not a whiny little bitch, and actually told this poor guy you--you knocked the fuck up--and Jesus H Christ I can’t believe I’m actually saying that--what has actually happened.”
“How the hell am I supposed to?”
“No!” Zach’s voice is low and unforgiving as he stands, and Noah must be able to sense the shift because he immediately vacates Chris’s lap. “I get that you needed to tell your mom first,” Zach starts patiently. “I get that you needed to use me as a trial run.” Then his gaze turns frosty. “I get it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fucking deplorable.”
Chris stands with a curse, but Zach keeps going. “As crazy as all this shit is--And trust me, it is fucking crazy--but it’s also apparently real and apparently happening and you--” He stabs Chris in the chest with a finger. “--you have got to stop playing the Hollywood boy and start acting like a man. Like a father.”
Chris is suddenly furious. “Hey, I tried! I fucking tried, and Karl said no. What am I supposed to do? I can’t force him into anything!”
“Did he have all the facts?”
“He wouldn’t let me give them to him!”
“Did you try hard or did you just shove your hand down his pants and hope it would work?”
Chris feels a coldness explode in his chest. “Fuck you, Quinto.”
“That’s what I thought. Get the fuck out of here and fix this.”
---
The door slams behind Chris.
It’s five-thirty on a Sunday afternoon and he has no fucking idea what to do.
---
By nine-thirty, the sun has gone down, Chris’s hands have stopped shaking, and he’s finally able to press the call button on his phone.
Voicemail picks up.
“Karl...” he says into it. “Man, I need to talk to you. I know we’re supposed to start rehearsals soon, but... You should call me back. I need--” He puffs out a breath. “Yeah. Just. Call me.”
He presses the End key, stares at the phone. Breathes in. Tries not to hear the same words over and over in his head, Karl’s, then Zach’s, then Karl’s again--I’m not yours--
The phone buzzes in his hand. He gulps in a breath and picks up after the first ring. “Karl.”
“Funny,” the familiar voice answers, “that’s my name too.” Chris doesn’t have to smell him to know he’s been drinking. His heart startles into a rapid beat in his chest. Karl doesn’t know, and Karl’s drinking, and Karl may have a were’s healing powers now but the baby doesn’t yet, and Chris is suddenly terrified, suddenly overly protective toward both of them--
“Where are you?” He tries to hear clues around the speaker, but Karl’s phone is a piece of shit.
“Well, I was at McCoy’s...”
Chris looks up at the green neon sign flashing ‘McCoy’s’ above him. He’d wandered to this area for no reason about an hour ago. He should’ve fucking known. “And now...?”
“Now I’m... watching time and tide wait for no man.”
And Chris can see him, now, down the pier. The ocean breeze, more turbulent than normal this cloudy evening, has hidden the scent, whipped it around the night and out into the sea.
It’s pretty much the longest thousand feet he’s ever walked in his life.
Karl looks gorgeous, in the darkness and the wind, leaned over the railing far enough to make Chris’s heart kick up even more of a fuss: Chris’s instincts claw at him to retrieve Karl, drag him by the hand, arm, scruff of the neck until Karl is inside, safe, sober. And Chris is dead certain--noting that Karl doesn’t turn to greet him, knowing the stiffness of Karl’s shoulders is unnatural--Karl wants nothing of the sort.
Too bad, so sad. If Chris has to man up, here, then so does Karl.
When he reaches Karl, he pauses. Then he joins him at the railing. The ocean is black and roiling. Well, roiling for the southern California coast, but whatever. It feels significant. He stares at it, and tries to think of what to say.
“Come home with me,” he finally manages. “I have Jolly Ranchers.” It’s not the most brilliant opening line, but at least it’s honest.
Karl raises his head, looks at the sky instead of the sea. His voice is resigned. “Chris...”
“No, listen. I know you’re pissed at me, and I know you’re in a bad place, but I need to show you... I swear, I can--” Fuck, why must he suck so much at talking? “ Just--” He reaches out, instinctively going to cup the base of Karl’s neck but ending up at the crook of his elbow. “Please.”
Karl finally looks at him, then. His eyes are unfathomable in the low light. “Fine, but my place. That way I can kick you out when you piss me off.”
Chris smiles. It’s mostly real. “Aye, captain.”
---
It’s an old joke, one from back when they were shooting the first movie--which feels like eons ago, to Chris--and Karl had plopped in Kirk’s bridge chair during a reset. There hadn’t been fanfare; only Chris and the camera had caught him.
It may or may not be Chris's most cherished memory from filming.
---
“Coffee?” Karl asks when he’s done with the bathroom.
Chris turns from where he was watching the steady dripdripdrip. “Decaf.”
Karl snorts, but he’s moving closer to Chris, and his eyes are clear and open. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”
Chris’s eyes stray to Karl’s midsection for a brief moment. “A little.” Then he closes the few steps between them lightly, leans in far enough to kiss the corner of Karl’s mouth, just once. “Maybe I just like the taste.”
Karl doesn’t respond, and Chris is okay with it--forces himself to be okay with--but then Karl reaches in and takes Chris’s mouth in a sweet, still-slightly-drunken kiss. He presses up against Chris, not hard or rough but firm, insistent, getting them lined up, as close as they can be from nose to toes. Warmth surrounds them, tendrils of honey warmth that smell like--
Like home.
Chris lingers on Karl’s bottom lip as the kiss ends. Their hips are starting to make subtle movements together, circling, unable not to, not sexual yet but intense all the same. Chris pushes into it a little more, enjoying the slow quiet friction.
Karl makes a sad noise. “I don’t get it,” he says into Chris’s chin. “I know I shouldn’t. I know it’s not fair to-- to be with you when I’m like this, but I just can’t--can’t--” He kisses Chris again, his arms reaching around to pull Chris impossibly tighter against him. “And I don’t know why.”
And this seems to pain him most of all, which makes Chris’s heart twist in a new way.
He breathes in deeply, shoring himself and storing up Karl’s smell. “Yes, you do,” he finally says, mutters into the skin of Karl’s neck.
Karl groans, and not altogether in a good way. “Chris...”
“No, just listen to me.” He nips a spot below Karl’s ear, then soothes it with his tongue. Karl clutches at him. “How else would I know exactly where to--” He sucks at the spot again. “And how to--” He pulls at Karl’s ass with his hand, kneading gently to the place where it meets Karl’s thigh, then settling in.
“Sheer, dumb--” Karl hisses as Chris licks his way down the tendon in Karl’s neck. “--luck?”
Chris chuckles. He captures Karl’s lips in another kiss. Then he quietly says, “I also know that you’re not sleeping.”
Karl grunts, shaking his head, his lips brushing side to side against Chris’s. “I look like hell, that’s not exactly rocket science--”
Chris pulls back, but keeps their bodies firmly locked together, and looks him square in the eye.
“I know that you’ve been napping every day from one to three, schedule permitting, and then maybe from ten pm to one am. Hours vary with how nauseous you feel. I know that you’ve broken things in your house recently, because they seem to break easier and you don’t even realize you’ve done it until it’s over. I know that things are smelling ridiculously strong to you, including me right now. I know you’ve been getting tenser this week, the last few days, like you need a serious massage otherwise your muscles are going to start to cramp. And your bones kind of ache, enough that you’ve dreamt about having leukemia or something. And I know that you have no idea why.”
Karl is staring at him. “How... I don’t even...”
“I know why.”
And he takes a deep breath, and changes.
It screams through his body, the breaking and resettling of bones and tendons and muscles into different shapes, but it’s over in a blink and then his claws clack on the floor as he’s looking up at Karl, whose beautiful mouth is open, round, wet, a little slack.
“What... the...” Karl’s hand reaches out, automatically; he’s good with horses and dogs so his palm is up and Chris leans forward and nudges it once. “...fuck.”
It’s as good a time as any for swearing, Chris figures.
“You’re...”
Chris nudges his hand again, and Karl easily runs his fingers over Chris’s furry skull and starts scratching behind his ears.
“A werewolf?”
Chris pushes into Karl’s hands with an affirmative noise.
“That’s--” Karl rubs the end of Chris’s left ear, then suddenly he’s plopped down on the floor in front of Chris, a huge smile dimpling his face. “Fucking awesome.”
Chris’s heart swells to three times its wolfy size. He cocks his head at Karl, resisting the urge to jump on him, then decides to hell with it. Fuck dignity, this is his mate and he wants to cuddle. Wants to rub all over him in this form. Smell every inch of him and mark him up with his scent.
Not that Chris is territorial. Nope.
Karl laughs delightedly and envelopes Chris in that kind of pat-pat-hug-squeeze you give big dogs. Chris leans into him like big dogs do. Karl laughs some more. “This is so cool. I knew you were hiding something but I figured it was just--” He stops talking abruptly. He doesn’t stop petting, but when he stays quiet Chris untangles himself enough to put his wet nose on Karl’s jaw. Karl chuckles. His voice is quieter when he starts talking again. “Just you being in love with me.”
Chris feels an ache bloom in his chest. He doesn’t hesitate before changing back, and ends up with his ass on the kitchen floor and his legs splayed around Karl’s hips, which is a little rude--his mother would tsk--but pretty much exactly where he wanted to be, anyways.
“Of course I’m in love with you.” He grins. “Pretty much everyone who meets you is in love with you. I’m thinking of starting a club.”
Karl reaches out and pinches Chris in the side. Chris yips--totally doesn’t sound like a puppy, no sir--and grabs Karl’s hand, pulling them closer, until he’s pretty much unabashedly in Karl’s lap. He’d worry about being heavy, or bony, but Karl’s a were now, Karl can handle--
Chris’s smile fades.
“What?” Karl asks.
Chris stalls. “You don’t seem so shocked.”
Karl shrugs, but his cheeks are a little pink. “Natalie...”
Oh, duh. “She told you about her family?”
Karl looks up quickly, clearly surprised. “You knew?”
“Yeah, of course. As soon as we were in the same room, we both knew. It’s part of... It’s a thing. We-- Smelling. We’re good at it. It’s hella annoying sometimes, but it can also be...” Fascinating. Invigorating. Chris thinks of how Karl smells to him. Fucking distracting. “Useful.” Then a thought occurs to him. “Hey, Hunter or Indy could turn out to be, too, you know.”
“Nah, Nat says it’s a long way back on her side, and non-existent on my side.”
Chris knows he can’t ignore the segue, but he’s still not stoked about his next sentence. “....that’s not precisely true.”
“What?”
Chris rubs the back of his neck. “That’s why you’ve been feeling... weird lately. I mean, part of it.”
“What, because my ex-wife’s great-grandfather was a werewolf? That hardly makes any sense.”
“No. Because you’re a werewolf.”
Aaaand there’s the eyebrow.
“Seriously,” Chris insists. “You’re new, somehow, like a fucking miracle of supernatural science, but it’s the truth.”
The eyebrow doesn’t move. “Chris.” He says it the way he’d say ‘you’re fucking insane.’
Chris makes a frustrated noise. “Haven’t you wondered? The aches? The hearing? The smelling? Those are all part of being a were. And--” He tightens his grip on Karl’s hand reflexively. “Full moon is tomorrow.”
Karl’s jaw tics.
“You know I’m right, Karl.”
But Karl’s shaking his head. “You’re wrong.”
“Tell me right now you can’t hear my heartbeat.”
“I--” Karl face goes kind of scrunchy. “I just figured that was--that’s because I’m--” He shuts his mouth.
Chris’s breath catches in his throat. “You’re what?” he says lowly.
Karl sits there, still, for a moment, Chris tense in his lap, then huffs. “I’m fucked up right now, is what I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m a bloody werewolf. I think I’d know, don’t you?”
Chris searches his face. “Well, what do you know?”
Karl sighs. His hands come to rest on Chris’s ass and snugs them together further, and he leans his forehead against Chris’s. “I know I can’t seem to leave well enough alone when it comes to you.”
Chris snorts. “As if I’d let you.”
“Tenacious little sod.”
“Oo, SAT word, Mr. Urban.”
“You turned on?”
Chris feels heat start to spiral through him. “Yes,” he says easily. “You’re here, aren’t you?” He leans to the right, noses Karl’s cheek, jaw, the shell of his ear. “And you have no idea how good you smell.” His lips hover, his breath cascading over stubbled skin. “How good you taste.”
The groan that comes out of Karl sets Chris’s teeth on edge, in a good way, and he’s about to push Karl backwards and fuck him right there, cold floor be damned, when Karl suddenly wraps his arms around Chris and heaves up--Chris instinctively hooks his ankles together and tightens his thighs around Karl’s waist--and hauls himself--them both--up to a standing position.
“Holy fuck,” Chris practically whimpers. He hasn’t been with anybody as strong as himself in... ever. “That was hot as shit.” He kisses Karl hard, then pulls back. “That’s were strength, you know.”
Karl just smiles at him, nibbles at his lip. “Nah, I’m just a stud.”
Chris laughs, with teeth. “Prove it.”
Karl’s eyes twinkle and darken at the same time. Chris watches, slightly mesmerized. “Gladly.”
---
Karl holds Chris steady and strips him down methodically after lowering him to the bed. Chris recognizes it for what it is, Karl trying to regain footing when his life is a little like a gigantic waterslide, so he lets it happen.
He revels in it, in fact. He watches Karl’s hands smooth over his skin, soaks up the warmth spread in their wake. He listens to his own grunts and Karl’s whispered endearments against the skin of his stomach and thighs as Karl lowers himself to return the favor from last time, Karl’s mouth sinful hot on his cock and balls. He thrusts willingly into Karl’s mouth when Karl’s huge liquid fiery eyes request it, and he lets himself come when it’s clear Karl’s not interested in stopping.
And when Karl looms over him afterwards, so warm and now smelling like them both, Chris knows what he’s going to let happen next. It goes against his supposed nature, his supposed station, his supposed lot in life -- but, staring up at this man, he is more sure than he’s ever been of anything that this is where he’s supposed to be. In a dance of give and taken, push and pull. Equals with this amazing, beautiful, ridiculous man. Tradition and station be damned.
His mother, he has a sneaking suspicion, would be proud.
...and he should totally not be thinking of his mother right now.
“Chris, I know you’ve not--” Karl interrupts Chris’s Oedipal moment, thank fuck. It takes Chris a moment to realize that Karl, awkward, adorable Karl, is trying to work himself up to asking permission to fuck him.
Chris immediately traps Karl’s torso between his thighs. So warm. “Karl,” he tries.
But Karl doesn’t really hear him, just plows on. “But I really want to-- Can-- I promise it’ll be good-- May I?”
Chris reaches up and grabs Karl’s face with both hands. Karl finally meets his eyes. “Of course you can. May. I may not’ve been with a guy before, but this isn’t all entirely new to me, if you know what I mean.”
Karl heaves out a sigh of relief so big Chris almost laughs. He’s just so fucking adorable. Then Karl kisses him, moves his tongue in and out of Chris’s mouth like a tease of what’s to come, and reminds Chris that he’s adorable and hot, and-- “--should get on with it.”
Karl pulls back, searches Chris’s face one last time. “Okay, well, need to get--y’know--and a condom--”
Chris almost laughs, but manages to mute it into a stutter. “We, uh, don’t need one, dude.” On so many levels. “We’re werewolves. Super healing and all that.”
Karl rolls his eyes. Chris kind of wants to argue with him, but it’s twenty hours to full moon. Pretty soon, he won’t have to argue.
Come to think of it, he’s not even sure if Karl’s going to survive the full moon. Or the baby. Karl’s an anomaly, as far as Chris knows, and his abilities are all unknown.
Chris doesn’t like that thought at all.
He gives in without fanfare. “Okay, fine, go get them.”
Karl presses his lips to Chris’s once, firmly, then pushes himself off the bed. “Be right back.”
Chris grins. “I’ll be here.”
---
Chris wasn’t lying about not being completely inexperienced in the ass-play area--He’s an open-minded guy, and open-minded hot girls are persuasive--so he’s comfortable with Karl slicking up two fingers and pushing them inside him, wriggling and moving in and out gently. But that’s about as far as he’s gone in the past, and when a third finger joins them, it burns, and it hits him that he’s about to have something significantly larger shoved in there--
Then Karl’s wriggling hits somewhere--prostate, Chris recognizes dimly in the back of his mind--and pleasure jolts up Chris’s spine, and he thinks Oh. This. This is why omegas like this so much. Chris had always been taught an alpha’s prostate was non-responsive, for some even painful, and his had always seemed the former--
“Fuck, that’s good--”
Until now.
His pries his eyes open and glares down at Karl. “You’re into torture, I can tell.”
Karl laughs, low and rich. “This is torturing both of us, trust me.”
Chris bears down onto Karl’s fingers, wringing a noise from both of them. “Then fuck me, already.”
Karl moves up his body lightning-quick, his fingers still plunging in and out in tandem with Chris’s undulating hips, until his mouth is near enough to Chris’s to share humid air between them. “I will. When you’re ready.”
And then Chris feels a fourth finger in there, probably actually a thumb, and gasps into Karl’s mouth. It hurts but it’s so good and if it’s got to hurt then he’d rather it just be Karl in there-- “I’m ready, fuck, for fuck’s sake, totally ready--”
Karl doesn’t change his path, though. “I don’t want to h--”
“Karl!” Chris uses the most authoritative tone he has, and the way Karl snaps to, Chris knows it worked. “For the love of God, and the moon, and all things that are holy, put your fucking cock in me right now or I will--I will--” He thrusts again helplessly, his tone fading into pleading. “I’ll fucking cry, okay?” He looks into Karl’s eyes and tries to make his best puppy face. “Please.”
Karl smiles, dimples and all, even as his eyes are sparkling with lust. “Yes, sir.”
---
The emptiness Chris feels when Karl removes his fingers is poignant. Pointed. Startling.
But then Karl replaces them with his dick, and immediately more startling, consumingly so, is the sensation of being full. Pleasantly full. Rightly full. It’s so unnatural, so backwards from what he’s supposed to feel, supposed to want, that it takes him aback, makes him think broad thoughts about fate and destiny.
Then Karl starts moving. And he can’t think of anything at all.
---
Karl is a considerate lover. Not that Chris expected anything different, but he’s still pleasantly surprised when Karl carefully cleans the spunk and residual lube and...matter... from Chris’s skin, after holding off his own orgasm until Chris had come again (much to Chris’s surprise; he’s not nineteen anymore, afterall).
He knows Karl won’t kick him out of bed. Knows Karl will make breakfast in the morning if Chris stays, regardless of how Karl’s feeling about the whole thing.
However. As they’re splayed all over the bed in a heap of fucked out limbs, Chris manages to postpone sleep long enough to poke at Karl, literally and metaphorically. “I’m staying.”
Karl sighs, then turns and slings an arm around Chris’s middle. “I figured.”
“Through the full moon.”
Karl groans and buries his head in Chris’s neck. “Will you please stop?”
And Chris will. He’s made his point. “Just sayin,” he says quietly, his fingers skating up and down Karl’s skin. “Sleep now.”
“Definitely,” Karl mumbles.
God knows they’ll both need it.
---
part 3b
