Eivind smacked his hand away and Blue looked at him with a shocked expression on his face. Eivind had never hit him before in any capacity, and although this had been little more than an irritated slap, Blue still found himself stepping back and furrowing his brows together. "Eivind--" he began, but his lover had turned back and was glaring at him now, fire in his eyes that relayed the fury that was bubbling deep in Eivind's gut, as if his words didn't do that enough.<br/><br/>When Eivind started screaming at him, Blue couldn't help but cower in response, pulling into himself so that Eivind appeared larger despite his shorter stature. Eivind had been angry at him before, sure, and he had spoken with irritated tones, but nothing that conveyed the passionate rage that coursed through the werewolf now. "Unfeeling?" Blue responded dumbly, nervously fondling the leftover pills that he had shoved into his pants pocket. They had dulled him. It was what he had wanted, but he had gone too far, and the pills had left him half-witted and unable to take care of himself in the way that Eivind had needed. He swallowed a large lump in his throat, his eyes darting down to where the moose corpse lay, a dark wet spot still growing in the dirt.<br/><br/>"I don't think you're stupid," Blue said gently, wringing his hands together as he tried to find words, any words to fix what he had done. But nothing he could say would pacify the wolf, and Eivind kept yelling, forcing Blue to retreat ever deeper into himself.<br/><br/>"I know it's real, I just thought that . . . " What did he think? Now that the sentence was hanging in the air, unfinished, Blue had no idea what he had planned on saying. Blue hadn't been thinking, not really. He had been wanting to entertain himself while Eivind was out hunting in an area that wasn't meant for idle wandering. He had wanted to pick pretty flowers and admire their colorful petals and sweet smells, not realizing that dangers lurked behind every tree trunk, both big and small. And in this particular case, very,<i>very</i>big. The word "lucky" echoed inside of Blue's head, over and over again, Eivind had been lucky. Blue's actions could have directly resulted in his mate's death, and this realization hit Blue like a ton of sharp rocks, cutting into his chest and making him bleed guilt and regret.<br/><br/>"I'm sorry, Eivind," he cried, but the wolf didn't seem to care, or want to hear Blue's pathetic apologies. He stomped away and Blue rushed after him, not only wishing to stay close in a desperate attempt to make things right, but as a means of safety. Blue was only alive because his mate and luck willed it so. He knew it would be a mistake to test their chances again.<br/><br/>"Please, Eivind, I'm sorry, please listen!" Blue said, jogging up and reaching for Eivind's arm a second time, turning the wolf around before he had a chance to grab the knife that rested in their pack of supplies. "I'm so sorry. You're right, I shouldn't have wandered, and I'm sorry I've been doping myself the last day. This whole process is fucking terrifying for me, okay?" He bit his lower lip and shook his head, trying his best to fight through the fog because he had to. For Eivind.<br/><br/>"I don't regret running away with you. Not for a second. But whenever I ran away from home and camped by myself, it was for a few days, at most, and there weren't werewolves or bears or fucking moose hunting me down. I keep having nightmares and every second I'm thinking about how something is going to happen to me, or worse, something is going to happen to you." He stared into Eivind's dark eyes now, his irises reminiscent of a deep, turbulent storm cloud. "You're doing all of this for me. And I just . . . I don't want you to think that I'm some scared little boy you have to coddle."<br/><br/>Eivind's body was covered with moose blood, but Blue didn't care. He tossed himself on his mate, not in an attempt to distract the wolf from what he had done, but as an act of submission and perhaps an oddly defined sense of dedication. Eivind's lips tasted wrong; they were hot and salty and burned Blue's skin, but Blue held the kiss for a lingering moment before pulling away. "I don't ever want to do that to you again," he whispered, breathing heavily against the wolf's mouth. "I promise, I won't."