You laugh a final time at that, wildly, almost crying— as if you're going to fucking decline, now, like this— and it breaks into a hitching, gasping whimper as you spend yourself in his brilliant grip. You muffle ensuing shaky cries in his shoulder, via the extremely clever method of biting him hard, and shudder through the gorgeous aftershocks he wrings out of you. "God," you mumble, after you're out— empty?— and you lick the raw red crescent of toothmarks dazedly. "God... fuck. Tha's nice. You're. You're very nice. Good job. Mmf." You nuzzle the side of his face with your own. "Gimme'a minute," you tell him. "I'll, I'll get you. Just. Fuck."
"A whole minute?" you complain breathlessly, trying not to hump his leg too awkwardly. "That was so hot, you're so hot, please." You're all roaming hands and nibbles, desperate.
"Ha, look at you, impatient," you say, but you're actually very flattered. You take a final deep breath and collect yourself, push him on to his back, slide down his body. Squeeze his sweat-slick thighs. His cock sticks up like a fucking— streetlight, or something, a stop-sign, big and red and a little absurd. You give it a friendly, exploratory lick. "Augh, ppffgbleh," you sputter. "What'd you do, stuff the whole damn thing into a shampoo bottle!? Fuck." But the noise he makes is piteous, so you lick it again, get as much of it in your mouth as you can and don't complain further about the harsh, synthetic reek. It'll be better after you've run him around some proper woods for awhile, you're sure. Sweat all those chemicals out of him. When his hands go and grab your hair you hum encouragement, pat his hip, let him know it's alright to set the pace as he likes.
Encouraged by his lack of self-editing, you kiss dignity goodbye and let yourself go. Babbling, begging, writhing, twitching -- you try with some success not to thrust at first, but he actually encourages you to fuck his face, which sends you into orbit. You see stars. Your ears are ringing as you come down. You grab a water bottle off the bedside cabinet as he scoots back up, and cover the side of his neck with grateful kisses while he drinks. "Wow," you explain. "Like. Goddamn."
You laugh again, significantly more hoarsely than before, and finish the rest of the water greedily. You drop the empty bottle over the side of the bed and flop over, curling comfortably around your friend. Personal space is an entirely different thing in human skin. Like this, you crave a sort of clinging, puppyish full-body contact. Can't get enough. You nuzzle his sweaty hair and huff satisfaction. "Let's do this again sometime," you offer sleepily. "It went, mmm. Went well. Went really fucking well."
"Yeah," you agree with a dopey smile. Realizing that doesn't quite convey the strength of your agreement, you revise: "Hell yes." He's a cuddler. He's into the post-coital cuddlenap. Awesome. And when you tentatively start dragging your fingers through his hair, he seems to like that too. It's got such a nice, springy texture.
"Mmmfngh," you agree, yawning, and attempt to show some reciprocation by grabbing a fistful of his hair. You fall asleep like that.
You doze for a bit, but once you start to dream the dreams get ugly fast; that happens when you aren't tired enough to go directly to the dreamless. Part of the reason you've been doing so much camping. You're not the twitchy screamer type, fortunately, you just wake with your heart racing and your eyes straining into the not-very-dark corners of the room. Once your muscles unlock, you slip gently out of Erskin's embrace. Go have a piss, wash your face and hands. Get your lightweight wool blanket and your tablet out of your luggage, lie back down, spread the former over yourself and Erskin, and open a mystery novel on the latter.
You half-wake, at Kadros's obvious nightmares, and get comfortable while he fusses around. More fur, less sweaty chill. He spreads the blanket over you regardless, and you poke the tip of your nose out from under to huff at him.
You'd been halfway considering waking him for round two, so you're a bit disappointed he's gone furry -- although not in the least surprised -- but hey, more warm furry space heater, less bony elbow in sternum. You read until the hotel room looks more like Bridgeport than Kabul, then turn the tablet off and try to get some more sleep. Around six-fifteen, having drifted in and out without achieving any real sleep, but also without any further nightmares, you decide you're more restless than tired. Good enough; you did go to bed directly after dinner. The sky is starting to get light, and a few birds are making morning noise despite the late season. You pat at the blanket-lump curled at the foot of the bed. "Hey. Erskin. Hey."
You startle, then twist and snap your teeth shut on the fingers, but the blanket muffles most of the bite and finding a wad of fabric in your mouth instead of fur or skin wakes you up. You let go, then stand up and shake clear. Yes, what? You want to know, regarding your new friend.
"Wanna go for a run before breakfast? I'll run wolfy if you'll breakfast human." You shake out your nipped hand theatrically. "Which is different from breakfasting on human, ouch."
You loll your tongue at him in an exaggerated ha ha as you hop off the bed. Leaving him to do his own sort of thing, you investigate his belongings again: you haven't had a good collar or bandanna to go about in in awhile, and if you're to go running around with a great big black nightmare-looking beastie you might as well look extra domestic. You find a very nice blue and grey wool scarf, and paw it on over your neck. Then you trot back over to where he's fussing with himself in the bathroom and present the ends of the scarf to him to tie up neatly. Hmm. You bet Bel would still fit in one of his sweaters. There's very little that's more reassuring to people than a big waggy dog in argyle. Once Bel's done up your scarf, you go back to his suitcase and drag the sweater out for him.
You look at the sweater. You look at him. You look at the sweater. You give him a judging scowl. "If this is a bucket of prop wash," you warn him, "I will piss in your eye." But you take it, and hold the door for him. Undressing in the same secluded spot -- a less pleasant proposition before dawn with a breeze coming off the river -- you stow your jogging kit and put the sweater on, feeling absolutely ridiculous. When you shift, your forelegs will be in the armholes, is the idea -- and it essentially works, except that your forelegs in wolf form are significantly shorter than your human arms. You hold up one sweater-shrouded paw and glare at Erskin. "Explain this absurdity."
You laugh at him, and come forward to nip the side of the sleeve. "Here, teeth and a paw— it's not so hard to roll it up once you've got the hang of it. Well, and a friend along. "No, no, like—" he's making an unhappy hash of it, trying to do too much of the work with individual toes. You struggle back to human form. It's easier than the last time, but not by very much. "Phew. Alright. Here." You do it up properly, nice crisp doublings that take the sleeves up nearly to his chest, then ruffle him between the ears. "Handsome, eh? And so much less likely to get shot by animal control for being, you know, a gigantic bloody wolf." You check the ends of your scarf and then fall gladly back on to four feet. Give a twist and a sideways jump. There you are. "And anyway, lost dogs don't wear clean clothes," you point out. "I don't know about you but I like for no one to try to shoot me or stuff me in a van."
"Huh," you say slowly. "That possibility honestly never occurred to me." You shake yourself, prance a bit, check that the sweater's not too much in the way. It's surprisingly comfortable. "Thought you might be pranking me, but this works okay, doesn't it? At least in cold weather. Right, let's see where this trail goes!" You launch like a F-16 off a carrier deck, leaving him behind -- not to be a dick, just because the morning air smells fantastic and you are full of gogogo.
You bark, once, startled and pleased, then race off after him. He's fit, even over distance: any number of new pups think that their four-footed bodies will somehow pick up all the slack of a lifetime spent planted in front of computer screens. Or, worse, they'll think that being able to jog around a city block means it has, and they're now the supreme alpha hardass of the century. But Bel is, of course, recent military, and manages two straight miles of jogging trail without turning an ear. You keep pace, nearly galloping to keep up with his steady lope, enjoying yourself immensely. Running is always particularly joyous with someone else along.
The trail eventually ends in the kind of town park with picnic benches and fire pits, a duck pond, and a swingset. Except this must be a pretty affluent neighborhood, because instead of a mere swingset, this park has some towering madhouse obstacle course of heavy-duty plastic towers and bridges and a curly slide oh my god. You have to try it. Ordinarily, you wouldn't feel free to scramble around on playground equipment built for human-shaped children in either form. Hell, you didn't feel very free to have fun on playgrounds most of the time even when you were a child. Erskin is either a terrible influence, or some kind of guru. Anyway, the sun's barely peeking over the horizon, and you're wearing a nonthreatening sweater.
"Curly slides!" you bark, delighted, and outpace Bel in a wild scramble to scale the tower first. There's a few vertical ladders that need to be negotiated around, but you can mostly jump them. It's far too early for children, so that's one less obstacle. You make it to the top of the slide, pitch yourself down on your furry back— claws only slow you down on this sort of new chewy plastic— and tumble in an undignified, yipping heap all the way down to the bottom. You have to scramble off to the side fast when you hear Bel thundering down after you, and you trip on your unraveling scarf. He lands right on top. "Fuck," you wheeze, thrashing feebly under his bulk. One of his gigantic sickle-clawed boulder paws has taken your ear clean off, it feels like. This is how you die.
Laughing and apologizing at the same time, you finally manage to get off him. "Oh no, you're bleeding," you remorse-giggle, and attempt to lick it all better.
