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I hope you all enjoy reading this. By all means, please comment and critique; I love feedback. Nick is bisexual, and the story has some homosexual content. Don't read if that bothers you etc. Thanks!

• Xi

All's Fair - Part 16

Cold.

It was always so cold at his house during the winter. No matter what he did, how many rotted blankets he wrapped around himself, it bit straight through them, making his fragile bones ache with it, his teeth chatter with it. His fur didn't help; it hung lank and dull off his tiny, thin frame, doing nothing against the cold. He got sick, sometimes, and even the raging fever couldn't keep him from freezing, as his sweat and breath steamed in the air.

I watched with a curious mix of dispassion and dread as the little pup stumbled into the bathroom, panting in confusion and terror as he fumbled and clawed at a filthy cabinet door under the calcium-encrusted sink, trying to make it open. There was no sound, though I should have heard his ragged breath and scraping claws. It was like there was a glass wall between us. I couldn't understand why my stomach was knotted with tension, why the tears streaming from his icy blue eyes made me hurt so much. I didn't make any move to help him.

At last he managed to wrench the flimsy wood open, one finger bleeding from a splinter lodged into it. He scrambled inside, heedless of the patch of mildew in back and of the cockroaches that skittered away from his tiny paws. But before he could shut the door behind him I caught motion in the doorway, and a dark figure staggered in, flicking a switch so that a single, bare electric bulb sputtered feebly to life overhead. It just managed to show her grimy black-and white fur, display a little more of the gunk coating everything in the room; it could not dispel the gloom or the fear in the air. My breath hitched in a silent moan of despair as she saw the open cabinet before he could close it, as she staggered over and dragged out the kicking little husky by the wrist. I could tell he was screaming by his wide-open muzzle, tell he was sobbing at the same time by his heaving chest. The tears had not stopped, only intensified.

She backhanded his face brutally; only her equally brutal grip on his wrist kept his skull from slamming into the corner of the counter. Her lips were shouting furiously, while he cowered back and tried frantically to escape.

Finally, I moved to help; yet before I could do more than open my muzzle to shout a challenge a large paw reached around and clamped it shut again, hard. The claws dug into my skin hard enough to draw blood, and a savage voice ripped into my ear, breaking the silence.

"You will watch this!" Jake growled.

No! Panic built in my chest as I struggled futilely against him, while his cruel laugh echoed in my ears. On the other side of the glass, she hit the puppy again, and again, knocking him to the ground and kneeling down on top of him, knees to either side as she ripped his shirt off, popping several buttons off.

Finally I wrenched away from his arms and fell through the window, filling my ears with the sounds of shattering glass.

Then she was on top of me, and I screamed and cried in the frigid air, writhing on the dirty tile as she snarled down at me. Her weight on my belly was slowly forcing the air from my lungs, while the fumes from her breath crashed painfully into my nostrils.

"How dare you?!" she shouted, slurring the words. Her thick accent could have been beautiful, had she not used it thus. "Talk back t'me, fuckin' pup?! I'll -"

"Mommy, please!" I shrieked, my high-pitched voice wheezing as I fought for air under her. She responded by slamming a fisted paw against my temple, making me yelp loudly while lights flashed in my eyes.

Still whimpering and crying, I feebly tried to push her off of me, but she just snarled and violently forced my paws down. In a single instant my elbow struck the tile, and the delicate bones snapped. I screamed as agony lanced through me. The world flashed red, then black.

I fell through emptiness, unable to see, able to feel only the cold, to hear only the fading echoes of my scream. I couldn't feel my arm; couldn't feel any of my body now; just ice.

Voices started sounding around me, running over each other so that none were understandable. One by one they slipped back into the emptiness, until only two were left.

"How could you do that?" The memory of Jake's voice was brimming with all the misery that it had held that night. My heart wrenched.

"Jake, I -"

"I loved her, Nick!" His voice interrupted, breaking over an attempt to shout. "I did! We had everything, our whole lives, and you destroyed it!"

The memory of my voice whimpered, and I echoed it. "P-please, just -"

His voice had said nothing, but I knew what he'd done. He'd wrapped his arms around himself and ducked his head, lowering his beautiful, desolate eyes, and turned away.

"No. Just - just leave me alone, Nick."

I'd mewled as he walked away. "Jake, please come back." But he'd left, left me to fall into the darkness, a million light years from heat, with only the distant, cruel light of stars to remind me of how warm he'd been.

"Nick? Nick, wake up." My thrashing stopped as soon as I realized I had been, though my ragged breathing persisted. For one second hope blossomed that the voice waking me, the paw on my shoulder were his. I opened my eyes, vulnerable and begging for a one single second.

Aislyn knelt next to me, some emotion flickering for once in her dark blue eyes. I might actually have recognized it had I been paying attention.

I wasn't. I was trying to get through the tide of disappointment crashing down on me.

We were on the balcony outside his door. It was only barely hinting at getting light out. Just like that some of the disappointment flashed to anger. I'd fallen asleep there again. And I still hadn't worked up the guts to just knock.

"Nick, may I speak with you?"

And damn it, what was she doing waking me up anyway? Sure, now she wanted to talk. Because we'd been on such good terms since I got here. Had she decided to gloat that I'd managed to fuck things up so thoroughly, or what?

I knew my darkening face gave her a pretty good idea what I was thinking, so I didn't even bother saying it. Without a word, I got up, climbed over the rail, and lowered myself to the first floor. Of course, my sleepy body couldn't even manage that properly, and my ankle twisted painfully on impact. I bit back a curse and marched out the front door, ignoring the sharp ache. I'd had worse.

The anger got me clear to the end of the driveway and left me there. Joy. Now I got to either sit on one of the stone fence posts and brood or keep walking and brood. At least I still had clothes on from yesterday.

I went for option A; I was getting out of shape and I knew it, but I didn't care. I was coming down with a cold, too; goodie. I hadn't gotten sick in forever, unless you count that deal last semester, but now I was.

The sky slowly went from black to light grey as the sun rose behind the thick clouds. I was shivering by then, but I didn't want to go back inside. I didn't want to have to deal with anyone. It was a Sunday, so at least I wasn't going to be crammed into room after packed, claustrophobic classroom, but the weekend also meant I had to interact with the family. Tradeoffs. Eventually, though, cold won out over trepidation and I got up stiffly and meandered inside to shower, trying to prepare myself for the day.

"Come on, you have to eat something."

" 'M not hungry," I mumbled despondently. I poked at the waffle on my plate with my fork. It was homemade, cooked to a perfect golden brown, slathered with butter, and topped off with fresh sliced strawberries - how they'd gotten those when it wasn't quite March yet I had no idea. It tasted like coal.

"But you need to eat. You're losing weight, kiddo. Just one waffle, okay?"

I felt tears welling up behind my eyes and my throat clogged slightly. "I don't want it. What if I want to lose weight?" He'd showered before me, brushed past and left without a word. The stall and towel had smelled like him, even through the soap-scent.

Dan shifted in his chair a couple feet away. Halo had taken Michael out somewhere. The wolf uncertainly placed a paw on my shoulder, but pulled it back when I flinched and whimpered softly. "Come on, we both know you're thin enough already. Please, Nick?"

My lip quivered, and I clenched my jaws so hard they ached, determined not to make a sound. When I finally had myself under control, I gave the tiniest of nods and slowly cut a bite out of the waffle. Stuck it into my muzzle. Chewed.

Chewed.

Swallowed.

Then I slowly cut out another while Dan nodded and smiled encouragingly.

About halfway through I couldn't do it anymore, no matter how much Dan coaxed. He sighed softly and patted my back before covering the plate and putting it in the fridge. I sniffed as quietly as I could and wiped the tears off my muzzle, still fighting for silence. Then I slunk back upstairs.

Aislyn's door was open, and she looked up from her desk as I walked down. "Nick?" she said quietly.

I don't know if it was because I didn't want to deal with her harassing me all day, or if I simply didn't want to walk past the glass doors to the deck, but I stopped. I didn't say anything; just looked in through her doorway.

"Come in, please," she invited. So I did. I couldn't say what I was feeling. Confusion, antipathy, curiosity, foreboding. I think I'll settle for simple exhaustion. It was still two hours shy of noon and I was ready for the day to end.

Aislyn nudged the door mostly shut with her foot, then looked at me expressionlessly. For once I could match her gaze. Her room was almost Spartan; black bed covers, a desk and chair, a significant collection of books. There was a large mirror on the wall behind her desk, and a standing drawer with fur care products. She didn't have any posters or anything on the walls except one small, framed picture of her family.

Eventually she spoke. "You really have Mum and Dad worried, you know. And Michael."

I didn't say anything.

"I know they've spoken with you about what happened. They've spoken with Jake, too."

I shut my eyes in pain when she said his name, my face twisting.

She bit her lip. "I know they've asked you to just talk it out, but you haven't. Why? You're just making it worse on yourself like this."

"What do you care?" I asked tonelessly, finally finding my voice. I wondered if Dan and Halo had recruited her. Unlikely; Aislyn didn't seem much of a mercenary.

The wolf's eyes chilled briefly, but then she took a deep breath and spoke calmly - maybe even with a faint hint of apology. From her, it was like Hell freezing over. I probably should have been astonished and curious about what was going on. "No, you're right. That wasn't what I wanted to say." She paused, looking straight at me before going on. "I - haven't exactly welcomed you with open arms." She stopped, as though waiting for a sarcastic comment. On another day, I probably would have obliged. Today I just looked at her. "I argued against bringing you here when Jake raised the subject." I flinched again, but she determinedly went on. "I don't mean to offend, but you don't have the greatest resume, and I didn't want you in my family. When you got here you were always either moping around or acting like you owned the place, and three weeks later you were sleeping with my brother."

She stopped again, and I slowly roused myself enough to make a reply. "So? You don't like me. That's nice. What's the point?"

Unfortunately, getting mad at her is an exercise in futility; she just took it with no noticeable change. Instead, she gave a tiny growl and shook her head at herself. In a lesser mortal, it would have been like groaning and pulling at fur, and I found myself pulling out of my funk a little.

"It - the point is I'm sorry, Nick." She said it a little fast, but otherwise rock-steady, meeting my startled gaze without flinching. "I still don't like some of the things you did, but thank you for coming out into the open with Jake. I did not like to see him lying, and I know it was tearing him apart, too."

God, did she have to bring that up? The one thing I'd spent the last eighteen days and eleven hours trying - and failing - to not remember, and she just casually threw it out there. Even Dan and Halo didn't do that anymore.

Aislyn waited, probably fully aware of what I was thinking. Slowly my mind started working again, and I realized that this explained why she'd been mad at him.

"Oh," was about the best I could manage.

Then we went through a long, exceedingly awkward pause, before she broke the silence once more. "He's hurting too, you know. Mum and Dad have tried to get him to talk about it also, with the same results. But you have to know it's not going away until you do something."

Well. This was certainly a new experience. Now Aislyn was even trying to be nice, or at least helpful. Maybe I was still dreaming.

Still, there was only one viable solution, of course. "Yeah. Here's something: how about you get the fuck out of my business, 'kay? I'll deal with this my way, and that doesn't involve giving a damn if he's 'hurting'." I put on a mock-sympathetic expression for emphasis, though my eyes watered - with fury - and my lips twisted. Then I spun and ran out, slamming her door behind me. At least that had served one purpose; I could focus on Aislyn long enough to get past the deck and his room on my way to mine.

I fell onto my bed, still unmade from three days ago when I'd last slept there, and bit the pillow, hard. The fabric was starting to shred, all around the edges. "I don't care," I half-sobbed, my voice muffled to the point of unintelligibility. I slowly drifted into a fitful doze, but barely an hour later I was pacing the cramped, messy space restlessly. Suddenly I opened the closet and got out a couple changes of clothes, my wallet, ran to the bathroom for my brush. I had enough money to buy food for a little while. Assuming I wanted it. I planned it all out in my mind: I'd take the north road out of town, along the rocky coast. The mountains hugged closer and closer to shore as you went; I could slip into them easily enough if I saw anyone I knew coming. It was only a day or two's walk to the next town, if I remembered the maps correctly. I was fuzzier on what I'd do then, but I'd figure that out when I got there.

It would be so easy. The only things standing in the way were a couple wolves, a couple deer, a lion, and a bear-fox. And him.

Damn it.

So, once again, I unpacked everything and put it back, letting the bitter tears flow.

Dinner found me in a relatively lucid mood - that is, I could steal glances at him without falling completely to pieces. I even swallowed the bile in my throat and took a reasonable helping of the potatoes and asparagus, though I left the fried chicken alone. Bad, bad idea to try to eat finger foods when your paws are shaking, and at least as bad to eat anything greasy when your stomach lurches painfully and you have to hurriedly look down every time he glances your way.

I couldn't seem to get Aislyn's words out of my head. They highlighted the listless way he ate, the hollowness in his eyes. His fur had dulled almost as much as mine had, yet it was still gorgeous. Several times I tried to open my muzzle and say something, but nothing came out.

Dan and Halo made a little bit of forced conversation; Aislyn joined in almost naturally, while he made a stilted, hoarse-voiced attempt to do the same. Only Michael and I remained silent. The little deer's ears were pressed flat against his head - probably a habit picked up from the wolves in his family - and he ate quickly, staring at his plate.

What was even more awkward than eating, than sitting there with them while they pretended to talk, was standing at the end of the meal and knowing I should stay and help clean up, or at least keep them company, or even just say something, one little sentence to try to pay them back for the meal, for the misery and concern; but instead trudging back to my room and locking the door.

I didn't really last long, despite my best efforts; a bare two hours later I poked my nose out again, whimpering to myself. I crept up to his door and raised my paw to knock, but didn't. I just stood there, torn almost physically in two between the overwhelming desire to knock, to fling the door open and beg him to take me back, to kiss me one last time, or even to look into my eyes for one single second before throwing me out, and the equally overwhelming desire to run back into my room and hide under the covers and never see anyone ever again.

I don't really know how long I stood there, shivering and biting my tongue; maybe an hour. Eventually I lowered my paw and crossed my arms, hunching over and clenching my jaw to stay quiet.

There was a small sound from the other side of the door. The sound of a latch turning.

My heart stopped.

He opened it so, so slowly. Time enough for me to watch as it revealed his dark form, bit by bit, illuminated only by the almost-full moon through the windows. Yet, at the same time, it all happened so fast that I couldn't move a muscle, couldn't take so much as a single step forward or back before it was open completely and we were staring at each other, face to face and only three feet apart in the night.

It should have been easy; I had wanted to talk to him, and his opening the door maybe meant that he wanted to talk to me as well. Those simple actions revealed how much the past days had cost us both; they weren't an apology, but they were a start.

But neither of us had been prepared for it to happen. He'd never opened his door at night before, and so he couldn't have known that I'd be right there any more than I could have known he'd open it tonight. So, after a single eternal moment of terror, he swiftly shut his door again and I fled back to my room. I don't know if he opened it to peek out later; I know I spent hours starting to open mine before I lost my nerve and shut it again. I know he never knocked, and wasn't there on the occasions I opened it enough to look out. Finally, in the early hours of the morning, I surrendered and went to bed for a few fitful hours of sleep before I had to get up for school.

"So what's up?" Claire asked, laying her paw over mine on the desk to keep me from bolting. It was nearing the end of Composition; we'd taken a test today, so everyone else had already finished and left. I knew I'd failed it; I could barely even remember the previous classes, and I hadn't been able to focus on the questions at all. After I'd handed my paper in, though, Claire had slipped me a note asking me to stick around so she could talk to me. She'd taken her time, making sure she was the last to finish, and Professor Roderick had discreetly locked the door to keep inquisitive students out for the remainder of the period. He was seated at the front of the room now because it was against the rules for him to leave us alone, reading a novel and doing a very good job of being invisible.

I gave a nondescript mumble in reply, studying a small, graphite-lined gouge in the wood in front of me. I knew I should've left despite her note.

"C'mon, Nick, talk to me," the bear-fox pressed. You've listened to me enough times; the least I can do is listen to you."

"Nothing," I mumbled. She didn't say anything, just gave me a patient look without an ounce of leeway in it. "Really. I just - I'm having a bad day?" I looked at her to see if that worked; she didn't even twitch. I tugged experimentally at my paw; she tightened her grip a little. I fidgeted.

Eventually I gave up on getting out of this without giving her at least a little bit. I'd been evading her questions for a while, and it got harder all the time. "It's the - the guy I'm living with," I mumbled even less distinctly than before. Frankly I'm surprised she understood me.

"Jake?" she asked. I winced, but nodded. Her voice sharpened a little. "What about him, Nick? Is he hurting you?"

Well, in a manner of speaking... "No, it - we - um -" I fell silent again, and Claire gave my paw an encouraging squeeze. I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to be as clinical about it as possible. "We were kind of together, only he was with Amy. Then she - we kissed in front of her, and they broke up, and we broke up, and - and - yeah." I ended it on a small whine; so much for being dispassionate. "So that's where we stand."

"Oh," Claire said softly, looking at me with sorrow in her eyes. She quickly repressed it and moved to the edge of her seat so she could lay her arm across my shoulders. I shivered and tried unsuccessfully to squirm out of it, but stilled when she continued. "Oh, Nick, I'm sorry." I sniffed quietly, and she stopped talking for a moment to pull me a little closer. "I never even - I mean, weren't you hunting that lion?"

"Ivan?" I asked, my throat clogged. "I - yeah, this just kind of... happened." I gave a watery chuckle. No kidding.

She gave a tiny chuckle of her own. "You never take the easy road, do you?" she half-whispered. "Why couldn't you at least go for someone who's single?"

"Yeah, I just..." I sniffed and trailed off, not wanting to go into how we'd gotten started.

We were silent for a few minutes while I fell apart a little and pulled myself together again in her half-embrace. Finally Claire gave herself a small shake. "So do you still want him?" she asked. I didn't say anything, but my tiny whimper made my answer plain. She trembled briefly, then went on. "Then you need to talk to him."

"How?" I whispered, fighting tears again. The fluorescent-lit classroom was replaced in my eyes by a vision of his face that night. How could I say anything, after that? "He doesn't want to talk with me - he doesn't even want to look at me, Claire!"

"But you have to try," she replied, sympathetic tears evident in her voice as well. "Just - see if you can get him alone, and talk. Tell him how you feel, tell him how you've been, how you'd like to be - talk about the weather if you have to, but talk."

I whimpered again... but finally nodded. "I'll try," I whispered, wondering if I really would. I sniffed again, slowly coming back to the world. "So what about you? How've you been?"

"Oh, I've been okay," Claire replied, but her voice hitched.

"Liar," I said softly.

She flinched. "Well... same as always." My lips twisted in a grimace.

Suddenly, the bell rang to end the class. Both of us jumped clear out of our skins, then laughed at ourselves, releasing some pent-up tension. We stood, and Claire grabbed my paw again. "Tell you what," she offered, "you see if you can talk to Jake tonight and we'll compare notes again tomorrow, after school?" I nodded with a grateful smile, and we gathered up our things.

On the way out, the Royal Marine gave us a friendly nod. "Take care of yourselves," he said - from his tone it might have been a simple farewell, but considering the circumstances it wasn't. My ears flushed pink as I hurried into the cacophony of the hallway.

I tried. The whole afternoon I rehearsed ways to get him alone, from just knocking at his door to slipping a note under it to asking him to step outside during dinner to just trying to talk to him at the table to faking a heart attack and hoping he'd drive me to the hospital... but as the minutes ticked by I realized that the chance to plan was ending and that I was letting my shots at doing slip through my paws.

By dinner my heart was pounding its way so far up my throat that I could barely swallow, and I wasn't hungry anyway. The only reason I made the attempt was to hopefully keep Dan and Halo from butting in and ruining what little chance I had of actually doing it.

My breathing was rapidly becoming a series of sporadic pants, and it seemed like every time I glanced at him he looked up too, and we'd both jerk our eyes away and blush and fidget. It sounds almost funny in retrospect; at the time it was agonizing.

I had to do this; I was running on the end of my leash and I knew it. Muscles tensed to the point where it was painful to move, I took a shuddering breath and opened my muzzle.

"I need to talk to you, mutt," he said abruptly, his voice strained as he stared at his plate. I squeaked and let the breath out with a huff. The wolf shoved his chair back and walked into the living room, then outside onto the patio. He didn't look at me or wait for confirmation, for which I was grateful; it gave me a moment to steady myself before I followed him.

Halo caught my paw as I rose shakily to my feet. "Take it easy," she said softly. "Good luck." She, Dan, and Aislyn - Aislyn! - gave me small, encouraging smiles that would likely have made me blush had I been able to spare more than a fragment of my attention from thinking about him.

Equal parts dread and longing filled me to the brim as I slowly made my way around the pool towards the trees surrounding the flagstone, just at the edge of the pool of light from the house. They left virtually no room for coherent thought, and I wasted what little I had by reliving that night, again and again, until I nearly had to stop and throw up right in front of him.

But it all turned out to be unnecessary, because once I finally stopped a few feet away I saw him watching me, looking into my eyes for the first time in eighteen days and twenty hours, and my world went quite blank. I think I could have spent the rest of my life just standing there, completely oblivious to the cool night air, willing to ignore everything that had come before or that might have come after, as long as I could still see his eyes.

"So," he said about a thousand years later. Somehow he kept his voice calm, albeit hoarse.

I moved my lips to respond, but nothing came out. His face fell slightly, taking my heart with it. God, I wanted to see him smile. "Nick, I -" he trailed off, his voice slightly less steady.

I was starting to panic as my voice refused to operate. Suddenly Claire's advice blossomed in what was left of my mind: talk about the weather if you have to. Nothing else was working. "It-it's a nice n-night." Even that was almost more than I could manage; by the end of it I was hyperventilating so badly I could barely finish the sentence.

"It - yeah, I guess?" The wolf looked a little startled; then his expression switched to concern and he took a half-step forward. "Nick, are you -"

"I'm fine!" I shouted, backing swiftly away from his outstretched paw and into a tree. The branches scratched at my face and left me smelling like pine sap, but I barely noticed. "What do you want?" I whispered, breathing even faster. Everything started to waver around the edges of my vision; the only stable thing was his face, so I watched it even more desperately.

But a second later that, too, started to fade, and I staggered, feeling pine needles scratching and breaking off around me. The motion made it worse, and my ears filled with a rushing sound as I blacked out for a second.

When I came to he was kneeling on the cold ground, supporting my back and head and looking scared. "Don't do that, mutt," he whispered, pulling me up to his body and burying his nose in my fur. His heart was doing its best to pound a hole in his chest, and as I slowly returned to full consciousness I thought I heard him whimper.

In the space of a bare few seconds my mood flashed from confused through euphoric through content through terrified, landing at last on furious. "How dare you be fri - I'm fine, now get your paws off me, you bastard!" I sobbed into his shirt, trying to hit him but unable to muster any force because of the angle.

He hung on to me tighter. "Shh, shh, Nick. I'm so sorry for getting mad at you, for putting you through this, I never wanted you to - please, Nick, calm down..." He kept up a constant stream of murmured reassurances, never once loosening his hold while I wore myself out. Only after I'd stopped trying to get out of his grasp did he cautiously shift his position, settling back into a more comfortable seat and pulling me away from the tree branches, into his lap. I was too spent to protest, but I trembled at the additional contact. I wasn't anywhere near ready for this.

Eventually he cleared his throat awkwardly, caressing my neck and ears. "So... can we talk?"

Curled up against him once again, breathing the scent that was so uniquely him, I wished we didn't have to. Figures; I'd spent all day trying to get ready and now that it came to it I just wanted to be there. I wasn't sure how much more I could take tonight.

I nodded.

"Um." The wolf paused and thought for a moment, then took a breath. "Amy and I..." my throat tightened painfully "- we're not getting back together." I let out my pent-up breath, midway between a sigh and a sob. I'd done this. "I - tried to, for a few days. But... I just kept thinking about you, mutt. I should have done this two weeks ago; I'm sorry. It hurt so -"

I snapped my head up and bit the underside of his jaw, hard enough that my fangs dug into his perfect skin and drew blood before I released him. "Don't even think about telling me how much you went through," I snarled, feeling tears welling up in my eyes all over again. I tried to push myself away, but he tightened his arms around me. "Just don't even start, when I spent more nights in front of your door than in my bed! I fucking begged you to stop, to come back, and you wouldn't. You wouldn't!" I fell apart again, crying against his chest for the things we'd done. "God, why?"

When I had used all my tears once more, for the moment, I drew a shuddering breath. "I don't think I can do it again," I whispered.

His breath caught sharply, and his arms tightened before he forced them to relax. "O-okay. We don't have to do anything you don't want to." I almost laughed, bitterly. It wasn't what I wanted that was at issue; it was what I thought I could survive losing once more. "But... c-could we try, Nick? I won't push you any more, but... please?"

I squeezed my eyes shut, spent and suddenly wishing I had a few more tears to give. Then I nodded again, knowing I was going to far and unable to stop myself. It was like signing a suicide pact; I didn't know when, or how, but if he ever pulled back I'd invested too much now to recover. I ran one paw up his arm to his shoulder, traced under it to his back, and just held him, falling gently into his fragrant, comforting warmth. "Okay, J-J -" deep breath "- Jake."

I hung on to his paw as we stepped back into the living room, my gaze fastened onto him like a drowning man looks at a raft. I hadn't realized we'd been outside together so long; Michael was already in bed, and the lights were dimmed. Dan and Halo sat together on the couch, obviously waiting for us. They both looked up as soon as the latch turned, and Halo smiled at all the places we were touching: paws, shoulders, sometimes thighs and feet. Dan was more reserved, and kept his expression neutral as we wordlessly sat down facing them. I wasn't quite in Jake's lap this time, though it wasn't for lack of trying; he had to gently guide my rump onto the cushions right next to him instead. I didn't complain, though; nestled against his side, with one of his arms around my back and just touching my belly and hips and the other still holding my paw, I could look at his parents without losing sight of his face, his eyes.

"Well, this looks like a good sign," Dan said, waving a paw at our position. His voice didn't pitch up at the end enough to make it a question, but too much for a simple statement. The net result was that Jake nodded while I just shivered and lowered my eyes.

Both adults shifted their gaze to me specifically. "Nick?" Halo asked.

I gathered some energy and made myself look at them. I think I even managed a small smile. "I'm okay," I lied in a somewhat rusty voice.

I guess it kind of worked. Dan and Halo sat back anyway.

Or not. Very carefully, Halo continued. "And... for tonight, do you two think you'll make it through all right?"

"No," I whispered before I could stop myself. I immediately clamped my muzzle shut again, but the damage was done.

One pregnant pause later, Dan leaned forward and reached out to just brush my knee with one paw. "If you think it would be better to stay in separate rooms ton -"

"No!" I whined, squirming violently. I didn't care if I could handle it, there was no way I wouldn't -

"Mutt." Jake gently pulled my chin up to look at me, searching my face for - something. I didn't know what, but I stared pleadingly back at him, hoping he'd find it.

After a long wait, the wolf slowly smiled, releasing my muzzle and squeezing his arm tighter around me. "Okay," he murmured - tentatively, but I'd take what I could get.

Gathering myself again, I looked back at Dan and Halo. Both looked badly concerned, and I tried for another smile. "I'll be all right," I whispered.

The wolf and deer both searched my face in a way very like their son had, and both relaxed somewhat. They stood, and Halo nodded to us. "All right. Take care, both of you. We'll be right here if you need us."

Jake stood, pulling me with him. He hugged them both, which de facto made me hug them too because I tightened my grip almost painfully on his paw as soon as he started to pull away. Not that I was unhappy with that, per se, though I was approximately as pliant as seasoned oak. They bid us good night and retreated to their room while Jake and I went upstairs. I actually grinned at Aislyn's closed door; suddenly it was just that, a door, and not a silent message of reproach.

We stopped outside his room, and I felt my heart rate starting to pick up again. Jake pulled me into a hug, letting me feel his steady breathing rumble against me. I still wished I could keep mine under control like that. "I - it's okay if you don't want to do this again so soon," he whispered. "I don't -"

He stopped as I growled and squeezed his midsection. "I swear if you try to leave I'll never speak to you again," I said fiercely.

He buried his nose in the fur on top of my head, shivering once. "Thank you, mutt," he whispered. "Thank you so much." Carefully the wolf pulled me in, shut the door, and laid me on the bed. I slid my paws under his shirt, slowly pulling it off and whining as he did the same for me, feeling his paws rubbing my belly and sides. We did the same with each other's pants; I lifted my hips while he pulled them down and tossed them into a corner. He smiled, leaned down, and nuzzled my cheek affectionately. Then he lay down to one side and pulled me in. We both released a sigh at the same time, letting a little more of the pain flow away on our breath. Not enough, but a small favor nonetheless.

I waited until I knew he was asleep before I softly licked at the bit of dried blood under his muzzle. "Thank you, too, Jake," I murmured to my sleeping wolf.

***

Well, I can't decide if I think this part is really good or really bad. Substatively, my main worry is that Nick, once again, is shifting moods too quickly for me to write believably. Technically, I think my brain was stuck on a loop; I keep seeing variations on the same scene popping up everywhere. But on the other hand, I got my happy ending! :)

In any case, let me know what you think. Thank you all for reading/commenting.