You jump, and squeal like a piglet. Then you turn around with a wicked grin, grab his waistband, and drop a handful of ice down his pants.
You howl, jump out out of your skin— out of your clothes— a thoughtless startle-reaction that has you freezing halfway through a series of frantic hops and twists, ears pricked for any screaming. It's early, isn't it? It's still very early. You slink hastily under the SUV. (he was still wearing bel's overlarge stuff, not his newest stuff, it'd probably be easy enough to shake off)
You laugh so hard you can no longer stand up, and slide down the back of the truck onto the ground. You sit on the parking lot with your legs splayed out, laughing until your stomach hurts. He jumped! Out of his clothes! Literally! And now he looks so confused and affronted, you can't handle it! You haven't laughed so hard since you came home. In fact, you hadn't done a whole lot of laughing at all before you met Erskin.
You wait for him to stop laughing. It's a long wait. You shuffle about under the car until your snout is about level with his head, then open your mouth v e r y wide. When he turns to peer at you again, still giggling and wiping tears from his eyes, you close your mouth on his face. (in this context the muzzle grab is meant as a friendly 'fuck you, buddy')
You hold him for a moment or two, just to let him know you don't have to let go, then release him and huff with satisfaction.
"Feh. You're a sore loser. I got you fair and square." Standing up, you check that nobody was watching -- nope, too early, the place is pretty much deserted -- and gather up his clothes. "That's everything squared away, let's hit the road. You riding wolf or human?"
You scramble after him into the SUV, sit in the forward passenger chair, and work your way painstakingly back to human. It's so easy to lose hold of the shape and so difficult to get it back... Finished, you slump back against the seat to catch your breath. "There," you say roughly, wave a hand at him. "Conversation. Err... enabled."
"Awesome." You plop his clothes into his lap and start the engine. "I am having a hell of a lot of fun, by the way. Thanks for coming with me."
"Welllll, I suppose you're welcome," you say, surprised and a little embarrassed by his sincerity. "You need some looking after, don't you."
"I'm not the only one, Mr. Food Pyramid," you grin. "Ok at least put your shorts on, so your dick doesn't end up on some trucker's Twitter. And wear your seatbelt, we're getting on the freeway." You turn onto the ramp and floor it. Once you've successfully merged with the total lack of traffic -- two other cars within sight, both ahead of you -- you go on, "So, outdoors human-type activities you're familiar with: any? Rock climbing? Swimming? Boats, bicycles, skis, skates?"
"Yes to the first three, no to the last," you say, considering it. "Though I haven't done, er, any of those as a human. Well. Maybe swimming? When I was very small? In, hm, in some country, in... Europe, somewhere, France? Spain? I hung around a skatepark for awhile. The boards, the skateboards, not the... blades? The speed's fun but I don't like the noise."
"Wait, you did rock climbing as a wolf?" You cock a skeptical eyebrow. ((they're just always going to have a tussle about rock climbing aren't they))
"I've crossed all the major mountain ranges in the world, Bel, so, yes," you say dryly, shuffling yourself back into the shorts, "Climbing a few rocks was definitely involved."
"Oh. I'd consider that rough-terrain hiking; I mean something a bit different by 'rock climbing'. It's something you really need fingers for. I'm not expecting you to do it. It's just, if you happened to be into it... but you're not, so. That's okay."
You cock your head at him, puzzled and unsure of whether to be insulted— how does traveling from one side of a mountain range to another not qualify as climbing rocks? that's all mountains are— but you drop it. Maybe it's something where you go to the rock, climb up it, climb down it, and are done. Maybe there's rules and points, you don't know. It's probably all very silly. "Er, well." You rummage around for some other conversational topic. "Do you... do sports?"
"Yeah, though I've never been big on team sports. Rock climbing's my favorite, but really anything where I get to explore outdoors is pretty great. I used to be really into martial arts and target shooting too, but those got less fun when they were part of my job."
"Okay," you say easily. "I think I've hit my chat limit for a little while too, so I'm just gonna put some music on and watch the scenery." It really is a hell of a pretty drive.
You watch all the red and orange go by, a few patches in every stand of trees. When you're on four legs you can't remember what red looks like— don't have the structure to visualize it, or some such thing— but it's awfully nice to look at on two legs. The way yellow doesn't shade off into that nothing-color, but into russets and golds and, and, what, crimson? scarlet? and brown. Brown's a good warm color. But eventually you get sleepy. You don't think you have it in you to go back to human again today, if you lapse, so you curl up as best as you can in your seat and doze on and off to the campsite.
