"You're right, you weren't fucking thinking!" Blue snapped back, unable to temper the fury that filled him at Eivind's thoughtlessness. Somewhere among the rage, a tiny voice whispered that Eivind hadn't meant it. There was no possible way for him to predict Blue's reaction to what was a common thing for men to do. Shaving wasn't unusual. It was just hair. It was<i>just hair</i>. But Blue had found safety in the familiarity of Eivind's face and his touch and the feel of the wolf's whiskers against his skin.<i>It was just hair</i>, so why was Blue still trembling?<br/><br/>"Right for my family?" Blue hissed, finally turning back to Eivind so that he could look at him with fiery, intense eyes. "If you didn't look right, I would have told you! Why do you think we got you all those fucking clothes?!" He was being harsh to Eivind, and he knew it. It was an honest mistake. He was trying to do something he thought would appease Blue's parents, a sweet gesture, but Blue was finding it difficult to offer the wolf forgiveness. His limbs shook as he raised his hands to wipe once again at his eyes. His head was pounding. The drugs the doctor had given him would help. Surprisingly, he didn't feel too much discomfort in his side, but even if he had he wouldn't have been concerned about it.<br/><br/>"You want to know what my senses are like?" Blue shook his head, throwing his hands down in frustration. "Being a human is existing as a stifled, dull creature compared to being a wolf, Eivind! It's like having all your senses dumbed down. I can't smell you unless I'm close to you. I can smell you in your clothes. I can smell you when I press myself against your skin, but I have to make an active effort, it doesn't just<i>happen</i>easily like it does with you. The only things I can trust are my eyes and ears. If I see you, or hear you, then I know definitively it's you. But when you sneak up behind me and take away one of your most defining traits it jumbles my brain. I get confused. If you're behind me and I can't confirm it's you then it makes me panic, okay? Because I can't see you. I have to know. I have to know it's you."<br/><br/>His breathing had become shaky again, so he halted his words, but only for a short moment. "Why do you want to change your face? I loved your face just the way it was." The boy sighed, biting his lip to hold back more tears. He stared hard at Eivind, analyzing the new shape his visage took now that it wasn't filled out with facial hair. His jawline was strong and very sharp, his chin narrower than Blue would have expected. He was still painfully handsome even without the beard, and he looked younger, fresher faced. But even though he was still Eivind, he didn't look like<i>his</i>Eivind, and Blue turned away again. He would get used to the new look with time. The only option available to him was to simply accept it and hope that Eivind's hair grew back quickly. And to tell Eivind to never shave again.<br/><br/>Blue was taken aback by Eivind's strange movements, and it took him a few long seconds to realize what he was doing. Blue was still learning how to speak wolf, but he had seen similar behavior once before with Sig. Eivind was low, purposefully making himself smaller, exposing his neck to his suspicious mate. Sig had done something resembling this when Eivind had attacked him upon their first encounter, showing off his vulnerable area and keeping his body loose and unassuming. Eivind didn't reach for Blue, he simply knelt there in front of him, eyes pointed down as he apologized for the hundredth time. He was trying to appease Blue, like Sig had done, showing he was no threat. It was an incredibly lupine way of trying to connect with Blue, but the human didn't seem to find it as strange as he probably should have, and a small part of him reacted naturally to the submissive behavior.<br/><br/>"I see you," Blue said slowly, gazing down at the wolf, his mouth a hard line and his thick brows knitted together. "Maybe... maybe we should have a signal, or something. I don't know. But you can't do that again, not like that. Do you understand me, Eivind? I don't need to be reminded of all this shit. Of how fucking scared I am that you won't be there one day. And I won't be able to stop them again because I'm too weak." Blue didn't specify who "them" was, but it should have been clear enough by the way his voice rattled in his throat.<br/><br/>"Get up." Blue didn't wait for Eivind to stand before moving away from him and rushing to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him and shutting himself away. He turned on the faucet and rinsed off his face, making sure the water was as cold as possible to shock him into some feeling of normalcy. It wasn't Eivind's fault. He kept reminded himself of this as he stared into the mirror. It wasn't Eivind's fault. It was a genuine mistake, and the wolf seemed to have felt terrible about how Blue had reacted. As his nerves began to calm, he realized he didn't like Eivind feeling badly, even though just minutes before he had been yelling at the wolf, forcing guilt onto him. Guilt he didn't deserve.<br/><br/>Blue sighed. The tears had dried, and although his eyes were bright red, the rest of his face looked relatively okay. He opened the bathroom door and leaned against the door frame, taking a few deep breaths.<br/><br/>"You hungry?"