So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee & Cholly)
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		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Bondage, D/s, S&amp;M =&gt; Bondage: Exotic Solos =&gt; Topic started by: MonkeyBee on 07-04-2015, 23:04:02</h2>
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				Title: <strong>So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>07-04-2015, 23:04:02</strong>
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				Continued from here... https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O9UL29HC3zk3vUJJvPpO1bH2qphkgx4qCEjomx8xWrU/edit?usp=sharing &nbsp;(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O9UL29HC3zk3vUJJvPpO1bH2qphkgx4qCEjomx8xWrU/edit?usp=sharing)<br><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Post by: </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font"><strong>monkeybee</strong></span></span><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It had been a long time since Drew had witnessed the solidarity of an alpha towards another pack or family,&nbsp; but as much as he'd been wary of the other wolf in his home,&nbsp; he could sense the support very strongly when Tommy acted out and it relieved him.&nbsp; Somehow he felt like he wasn't doing this all on his own,&nbsp; or rather,&nbsp; he didn't have the whole world to battle.&nbsp; Mark and Mary were there for Samuel but the pair of them were&nbsp; inextricably linked now and that meant it didn't matter which of them they were defending,&nbsp; they had someone on side. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Tommy had been humbled by the experience of two solid alphas staring him down, at least a little,&nbsp; but over the next few days Drew was very aware that that rebellion he'd shown was barely smothered.&nbsp; The boy thought he could do it all himself and now that they were letting him out of the cage under close supervision during the day, and coaching him through changing from wolf to human form under his own control but Drew was worried about how Samuel was going to handle him alone during his change. Jess had quite a way with him,&nbsp; quietly and confidently disagreeing with his inappropriate jokes or correcting a small town opinion in a way that he seemed to really listen to.&nbsp; Samuel couldn't hold the same respect, because Tommy held no love for either of them yet. Three days after forming a pack was not an ideal time for its alpha to change.</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">What worried Drew most was how Samuel was going to take it. They'd had one or two serious conversations about it in the evenings after work,&nbsp; when Jess was back from school keeping Tommy out of trouble, and side by side in Samuel's grandfather's bed when they were both exhausted from the day, but he knew there wasn't anything that could prepare the man for how it was going to be. So it was with quite a heavy heart that Drew packed himself up for his trip to the basement.</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">"Don't come down until the sun is up," he warned. "If I don't come out in the morning, you're going to have to come and get me. Okay? I need you to do that."</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">His request, as it turned out, were more premonition of the next morning than just in case. Drew had shut himself into the cold, dark box as soon as twighlight loomed and he felt the darkness come with a power he'd never experience before. His bones cracked sharply, splintering with that expected, horrible stab of pain. But the rage grew with a speed he hadn't before known, clothes shredded as the beast inside him pushed through, and a hulking, monstrous form forged new. This was the rage of an alpha, and it was the first time Drew had known it. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Deep red eyes flashed full of anger and hate and teeth glinted, dark fur seemed darker still in the darkness, and the sound... The noise he made was inhuman. Even through the cellar door, that first shriek of pain rippled through the house, and then the growling started - animal frustration and anger that he'd never known how to hold grew louder and louder, as he threw himself against the sides of this new prison, clawing at the sides, teeth fighting metal and battering himself against it, with seeming tireless energy.&nbsp; Drew's mind was gone from this beast and there was no controlling this thing that was so far from the calm, intelligent wolf that had stalked softly&nbsp; through Samuel's kitchen. The only thing this creature wanted was blood, and if it could have no one else's, it would draw its own trying to fight free to find it.&nbsp; </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It went on like that until morning. The beast threw himself relentlessly into finding a way to tear through its prison and when the dawn finally came, the change, the final splintering of bones, ripped the first human scream from Drew's newly forming throat. The man's body was a study of bruising and he was shaking with the shock of the pain in him, when he all but passed out, face down and naked in a pool of his own blood on the floor of that dark box, for just a few hours peace. And that would be how Samuel found him later, when he wrenched the door back.</span></span><br><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Post by: </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font"><strong>Cholly</strong></span></span><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">As the days passed, Samuel took his role as second, as beta, very seriously. He struggled to build a bridge between him and Tommy, to form a bond between them, while pushing himself not to tolerate the boy's sometimes blatant stupidity and accompanying homophobia. If it had been aimed at himself only, the professor would probably have put up with it, but it was dawning on him that his own behaviour reflected onto Drew more than he was sometimes comfortable with. They were a team now and Samuel had to remember that. If he tolerated Tommy's mouthing off, it insinuated that Drew would as well and Samuel had no right to make that decision for the were. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It wasn't that he was trying to brainwash the boy, or trying to correct his poor attitude like Jess was. Educate him, surely, but not forcefully change his opinions. If he thought two men loving each others was disgusting, wrong and unnatural, then so be it. He would have to learn that there was a big difference between thinking something, and saying it out loud though. Needless to say that Tommy was less than susceptible to the professor's charm, at least for now. Samuel didn't lose heart though. If he could put kids through university who by all rights shouldn't have been allowed to even graduate middle school, he could damn well become friendly with a solitaire youngster, small minded homophobe or not. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It helped that Jess seemed to be growing fond of him, fonder than she had been when he'd been her teacher where she'd considered him odd and ripe for constant ridicule at best. Now that she was forced to see him as a person instead of a one dimensional authority figure, things between them were changing fast. The air between them didn't quite scream family yet, nor did it feel the way packs probably should, but it felt like it could get there given enough time. The closer Drew's change got, the more the girl seemed to pay attention to him, which was slightly disconcerting. It made Samuel feel less and less like the adult, and more like he was the one being cared for. He'd talked about Drew's change with the were himself of course, when they went to bed too exhausted by the state of their current lives to do much more than cuddle, or when they shared dinner alone because the kids were fooling around upstairs, but he still struggled to fully understand what it would be like. Drew seemed to try and warn him with every word he said and yet somehow, despite the memory of his grandfather, Samuel couldn't imagine anything else than the beautiful wolf he'd seen on his couch that one morning. He just couldn't reconcile the man he knew, Drew's hot temper included, with the monster that the were tried to paint a picture of. Sometimes he suspected that it frustrated the other. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">As a result, Samuel hadn't managed to summon the same sense of dread as Drew when the evening of his change finally arrived. The memory of his grandfather had slipped to the back of his mind more and more with each passing day, and the were's solemn goodbye seemed needlessly melodramatic as a result. "I will come for you, Drew. Don't worry" he'd merely promised, before closing the basement door behind the other man and marching himself off to bed. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It did not take him long to wise up. Not even an hour passed before the noises started, the howls and the sounds of pain and destruction. At first he thought it was the initial change that caused it, the sensation of muscles and bones snapping and mending themselves into new shapes and positions, as they made the man a wolf. He almost suspected that it would end as soon as Drew was on four feet instead of two. But it didn't. If anything it got worse. The house was an old one, with thin wooden walls and a ventilation system ideal for helping sound travel. It felt as though the wolf was in the very room with him, sick with blood lust and fury. Drew may have been locked in the basement, restrained to the best of anyone's ability, but Samuel felt hunted none the less. He became convinced that for all the words Drew and he had shared only hours before, the thing in the basement would kill him without a second though.. and that was exactly what the were had been trying to make him understand for the past few days. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">The panic attack that followed completely blind sided him. He hadn't had one since the day they'd gone into the basement, and it'd been even longer still since he'd had to face one alone. His chest ached and his breath was stolen away, his head spun and he swore that his heart hurt. For a second, as he curled around the pillow that smelled of Drew's aftershave, he nurtured the idea that he was having a heart attack and that Drew would find him tomorrow, dead in bed. The mere thought made him feel guilty. Besides, He was being ridiculous. It wasn't his first panic attack he'd ever had and he knew how to breathe and will himself through it, but the fear lingered in the back of his mind until long after he'd brought his breathing back under control. Curiously enough it was the idea that he'd have abandoned Drew, abandoned his post as the second that the were needed, that had scared him the most. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It was a little past three in the morning when there was a knock on the door and Jess entered his bedroom, a tense Tommy in tow. The boy had his head bend and shoulders up, and what was he doing out of his cage anyway? He wasn't supposed to be let out during the night, especially not with Drew currently out of commission, and by the look on Jess' face she knew it. "We..." she began slowly before Samuel stopped her with a nod. His throat was dry and made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth as he stood, swaying on his feet, with Drew's constant howls sounding from beneath their feet, "lets have a cup of tea, shall we?". </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It was a few long hours before it quieted down in the basement, and even then Samuel stayed by the kitchen table with the kids for a good while. At least the whole experience seemed to have thoroughly humbled Tommy, who for the first time since he'd woken up after his bite didn't say more than two sentences, and both of them were 'thank you's. He even poured the tea for Samuel twice and whether it was an attempt at making amends or just plain pity because the man Samuel loved sounded like he was being tortured without the professor being able do anything about it, didn't really matter. It was a small victory and Samuel clung to it desperately to distract himself. When the sun clawed it's way up over the horizon both of the kids looked wrecked. There was a haunted look in their eyes and dark bags hung half way down their cheeks. Samuel didn't dare think about how he himself looked. He couldn't help but to wonder, had Jess ever seen another wolf change? Heard what it was like? He doubted it, judging by the way she suddenly looked weak and frail in his grandmother's old flower patterned night gown. And yet somehow she had it in her to take his hand as they stood and ask him if he needed help, despite looking like there was nothing she wanted more than put as much distance between her and the basement.</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">"Thank you dear, but I'll manage" the professor said and they all pretended they didn't hear the way his voice shook. He send both of the kids to bed, even if he probably should have send Tommy back to the cage. The kid had been good though and Samuel was willing to show some faith in him in return, even if he didn't know whether Drew would approve of his decision. Right in that moment he didn't have the energy to really care, and wasn't that a first.</span></span><br><br><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">The red morning sun crawled through the small windows just under the basement's ceiling and bathed the entire room in a red hue. The sudden silence, broken only by first the opening of the wooden door and then the stairs creaking under Samuel's hesitant footsteps, was eerie and made him think of every horror film he'd tried his best to never watch. His need to make sure that Drew was okay only barely won out over his urge to flee far far away. The metal box, already battered when Drew had entered it the day prior, now sported massive dents pointing outwards and a door that gaped alarmingly - they would have to repair it before Tommy's change. The fact that the beautiful, huge wolf that had followed him into his kitchen had been able to wreck this sort of havoc, made him... sad, oddly enough. More sad than scared. It seemed so unfair that anyone should endure this sort of thing. As he drew closer he couldn't for the life of him hear if there were any sounds coming from the box, over the hammering of his heartbeat in his own ears. He'd be surprised of the entire house couldn't hear the way his heart thundered in his chest. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It took him longer to make his way across the basement to the metal cage than he would have liked. He wasn't proud of how much he lingered and tried not to think about what a poor beta, lover, it made him. The door fought him, made all the harder to wrench back by the new dents in it, when he tried to pry it open. When he finally managed to pull the door back, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark interior of the box, and when finally they did his breath caught in his mouth. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It truly did look like something out of a horror film. If he had known no better, and for a moment he forgot that he did as he crouched down and reached out to check Drew's pulse, he would have thought a monster had been in there with his alpha, not that his alpha had been the monster himself. Blood coloured the metal a dark red, both up the sides, on the floor and somehow on the ceiling. Some of it was dried and crumbling, while some of it glistened red in the morning sun still. Drew's skin was more black and blue than it was tanned, and crusts of red covered what parts of him that wasn't bruised. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">As carefully as he could he slung Drew's arm over his shoulder. There was no way he was carrying the man up the stairs bridal style, not with how densely muscled weres were and how pathetically weak he was himself. "Drew, I need to you help me" he whispered to the unconscious man and grabbed the wrist of the hand slung over his shoulder with one hand, while wrapping his free arm around the man's waist. It was nothing but dead weight as he struggled to stand the first time and they toppled over pathetically, fresh red blood soaking into his pale sleeping trousers. For a moment he came dangerously close to hyper ventilating as he struggled not to throw up. Why on earth had Drew chosen to trust him as his second, when he was so hopelessly under qualified? He would be the death of the man, he was sure of it, and wouldn't be able to live it down. "Drew, I need you to stand with me" he tried again, groaning as he attempted to push them both to a stand once again. His knees wobbled under him and he had to lean against the side of the metal box, but eventually they were standing. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">First step accomplished. "Drew, I cannot drag you" he tried again, turning his head to mutter the words into the other man's ear, "I need you to walk, stumble even".</span></span><br><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Post by: </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font"><strong>monkeybee</strong></span></span><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">At first Drew was hardly aware of Samuel's presence.&nbsp; The light filtering into the box barely made it into his awareness and at first he wasn't conscious enough to realise the professor was trying to coax him to his feet.&nbsp; When he opened his eyes it was with a whispered and cringed hiss at both the sudden brightness and the renewed awareness of the battering his body had taken. Comprehension came slowly as Samuel somehow heaved him to his feet. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Almost all at once the were became aware that it was his beta propping him up and his grip on Samuel's slender form tightened. Drew's breathing might have been ragged with the effort of it, but he bore his weight himself, the scent of his pack mate seeming to give him strength with every inhalation. Drew all but buried his face in Samuel, shaking arms tightly wrapping the man in the strongest hug he was capable of giving. "Samuel?" he rasped through cracked lips, voice as raw as the rest of him looked. The word held relief, even in his question, and so much more than that. "M'walkin'. Shh -shut ...y'face."</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Leaning heavily on his beta, they made slow progress out of the basement, hindered by Drew's need to hold the man close, seemingly not only to support him, but also to scent him deeply enough to reassure himself that the man was still his - that he hadn't been scared off. And yes, in this state of painful exhaustion where the world was all delirium, there were more kisses buried into Samuel's hair than he might have otherwise given whilst covered in his own blood and murmuring his beta's name like he was some kind of miracle.</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">He had to grit his teeth at the bottom of the stairs, and his breathing shuddered just a little more than he'd have liked it to on that first step before he knew the level of pain to expect. He was pale with it by the time they came out into the corridor, and in the morning sun that stole through the glass of the front door, he looked even worse than he had in the red glow of the basement.&nbsp; But at least he was awake now. And after a few hours, he would feel better. He wouldn't be worrying so much about how he was going to get through the next few days of his change.&nbsp; &nbsp;</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">The first night was always the strongest, and this time had been exceptional, most likely because of his new status. Tonight would be better. It would have to be.</span></span><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">"Bed," he ground out with a slow nod towards the staircase. "Please." One thing he knew for certain - he did not want Tommy staring at him from the cage in the living room while he languished on the couch in this state.</span></span><br><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Post by: </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font"><strong>Cholly</strong></span></span><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Samuel had never in his life been quite so happy to be told to shut up. Drew could have declared his undying, Shakespearean love and Samuel would be hard pressed to appreciate it as much as he appreciated what the were said now. If the man could speak, he wasn't quite dead yet. Though the embrace he was given was weaker than he suspected a healthy Drew was capable of - the strength of weres was scary to say the least - it was firm enough to make the bones groan in the professor's body. It was just slightly on the wrong side of painful and Samuel relished it as he hugged Drew back with all of his strength. He should help the man lie down, but for now he just needed a moment to reassure himself that his pack mate was relatively okay and that no matter how terrible the night had been, Samuel wasn't losing everything he'd only just finally gotten. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">The moment passed when they'd both been reassured, but Drew's touchiness didn't go away. The were leaning heavily on him was born out of a physical need, but the way he'd press his nose and kisses into the human's hair wasn't. Samuel knew, logically, that the alpha was doing it to reassure himself, but that didn't lessen the effect it had on the professor as well. By the time they were faced with the stairs Samuel was not only calmer, but also beginning to think that this wasn't all bad. For the past days, though sleeping in the same bed, they'd not indulged in much touching. They'd been busy and exhausted, and there had been nothing like Drew's impending shift to put a damper on most things, even conversation and most definitely any resemblance of 'the mood'. The old part of Samuel, the part that had nearly prevented them from getting together to begin with, had insisted that he was losing Drew. The way the man acted now begged to differ with that assessment of the situation and Samuel was all too happy to renew his faith in the two them and their pack as an extension. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It was hard going up the stairs, but they did it. Drew looked worse for wear when he stood shaking in the hallway and Samuel almost considered declining his request to go to their bedroom - because it was theirs now. Not his grandfather's, not even Samuel's, but theirs.&nbsp; In the end he didn't though. Even now he followed orders better than he objected to them. Besides, he didn't relish Drew stumbling into the living room just to find the cage empty. No, he didn't plan to hide from Drew that Tommy was roaming around the house with nothing but Jess to keep him out of trouble, but now was hardly the time to discuss why he'd let it happen. If they were to debate his decision, to argue about it even, he wanted Drew at full health for it. </span></span><br><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">The staircase to the first floor was a short one, but none the less Samuel was more or less dragging Drew by the time they had climbed it and was starting down towards the bedroom. "That's.. here you go" the professor said softly as he helped Drew onto the bed. For a moment he stood up straight and stretched his aching back, then he grabbed the man's shoulder with a 'I'll be right back' and disappeared down out the door in search of some water and a wash cloth. He wasn't a prude, but the blood would cake and become itchy if it wasn't dealt with before they slept.</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">When he returned he washed the wolf, barely letting him lift his own arms and legs. He wasn't being thorough, in fact it was probably a pretty hap hazard job, but it'd deal with the worst of it. Despite the pretty lacklustre quality of the job, it was a slow and methodical process, one that settled Samuel's nerves for good and let him inspect the other for wounds. Aside from an alarming amount of bruises, he seemed okay. There were no gaping wounds to be found, at least. Afterwards he stripped to his underwear and crawled in, letting the man cuddle as close as he wanted. It wasn't just for Drew either. Samuel needed the were as much as the were needed him. Needed to feel grounded. When he nuzzled his nose against the spot behind Drew's ear and breathed in deep, he was doing it more for the man than himself - Samuel didn't have a wolf's ability to smell, nor it's obsession with scents.</span></span><br><br><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Post by: </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font"><strong>monkeybee</strong></span></span><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Drew's eyes were heavy with pain and exhaustion and when Samuel left him briefly to get a cloth,&nbsp; Drew let himself sag against the bed, breathing shallow and fast. In the man's absence he had the presence of mind to dry swallow a small cluster painkillers from a brown prescription bottle he'd been hiding in the nightstand drawer - far stronger than the paracetamol the man had in his own medicine cabinet and with a little extra chemical wizardry to help with the changes his condition wrought on his body, when it ripped itself apart. Sure, liver failure was an increasing problem for weres who took a few too many over their lifetime,&nbsp; but right now Drew was more focused on the fact that his human body was going into shock and his hands were shaking enough to make putting the bottle cap back on difficult to master.</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">It had been a great many months since Drew had had a pack mate to look after him the way Samuel did when he returned to the room and he was glad that this was the first time since the raw rages of his youth when his wolf was still settling in that he'd needed such care.&nbsp; He made an effort to sit up on their mattress while Samuel administered to him, but Drew was concentrating on keeping his breathing steady and had no energy left to put up any fight against the warm wash cloth Samuel was wielding.&nbsp; Besides,&nbsp; it felt good to have the man's hands on him, even if the bruises made him wince on contact,&nbsp; because it meant he was himself again,&nbsp; that he'd come through it.</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">Relaxing against the pillows, when he was finally through,&nbsp; he let Samuel lie him back and tuck him in, closing his eyes as the man curled in against him. The teacher was right,&nbsp; feeling the man scent him was more reassuring than he could have known.&nbsp; Drew didn't even stop to consider that the human was doing it for his benefit, it seemed so natural to him. His arm closed around his lover's slender body rolling him closer, even as he draped himself against him.&nbsp; One hand had come to twine into Samuel's hair and once again he breathed the man in deeply.</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">"Be better tomorrow," he murmured,&nbsp; all but slurring his words with tiredness.&nbsp; "First night's always bad."</span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">When Drew woke, hours later, the afternoon was already long and his stomach was growling with aching resonance persistently enough to make him forgo a shower before finding food. </span></span><br><br><span style="font-size: 15px;" class="bbc_size"><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="bbc_font">"Sam? I need to eat." He might have seemed a little slimmer than the day before, but the toll his change took wouldn't start to become truly evident mid way through the week. Each night the were expended far more calories than he would usually with even a hard day of labouring. He hadn't bulked up as much as he usually might have done and it was clear that his usual body weight would soon be eroded through the sheer exertions he was being put through. "Gotta start getting ready for tonight." It was fair to say that tofu bacon was not going to satisfy his need for meat this week. </span></span>
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				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>09-04-2015, 18:59:47</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Samuel woke a little past noon, bleary eyed and disorientated. Drew was a heavy weight besides him, practically in a coma, and the professor found he didn’t even have to be careful about waking him as he got out of bed. <br><br>Jess and Tommy he found in the kitchen, sitting so close the girl’d be in her boyfriend’s lap if she sat any closer. They exchanged weary looks over their tea before turning a forced smile to their host. “He’ll be okay” Samuel heard himself say, as though they’d asked, as though they’d insinuated anything else. “Of course” Jessica said, not missing a beat, while Thomas looked like he didn’t know whether he wanted his alpha to recover or not. <br><br>Both of the kids had retreated to the spare room by the time Drew came down. Food was already heating on the stove, a hearty stew packed to the brim with beef and carrots, and Samuel was dishing out a serving for his alpha before the man had even spoken. “We’ve got bread too, if you’d like some?” the professor placed the bowl on the table and tried, he really did, to not look at his lover like the man might break down any minute. He felt less nervous about the durability of his rusty old car, than he did around the wolf who looked like he’d lost a significant portion of his body weight overnight. <br><br>In the end night came far too quickly. Samuel only just had the time to nurse Drew back to a fraction of his strength, before he had to let the man descend those cursed stairs and start all over again. This time the professor didn’t bother climbing the stairs to the second floor, but instead opted to wait out the night by the kitchen table. Jessica and Tommy joined him half way through, sunken eyes and dark lines under their eyes. The three of them tried for small talk, but it died out pretty quickly. <br><br>--<br><br>The next six days went much the same. At night their basement sounded like a torture dungeon, at day Drew slept like the dead. He grew ever thinner, ever weaker, and Samuel stayed home with him. The principal had been a little too keen on giving him a leave of absence, but at the moment Samuel didn’t have it in him to look into why that might be. <br><br>Drew wasn’t the only one who changed over the week, though his change was inarguably the most visible one. Tommy too changed and Samuel thought it might be for the better. The kid seemed more demure, solemn almost, but was also less prone to open his mouth and say something profoundly stupid. There were still times where his small town breeding would betray him, but the comments grew further and further apart. On the fourth day Samuel came down to the teen cooking them dinner, on the fifth the kid hugged him. Maybe it was born out of pity, in fact it probably was, but Samuel could work with that. Now he had a place to start, a foot in the door. <br><br>In turn he showed good faith. The teenager didn’t once sleep in the cage while Drew was in the basement - something Samuel would have to talk to Drew about when he was better - and was allowed on a ‘run’ with Jessica on the sixth day. Apparently it was a big thing, because the boy returned sparkly eyed and smiling for the first time since Drew had started going to the basement. He even insisted Samuel should go with them the next time they run, ignoring the professor’s very sensible argument that he would just slow them down. <br><br>--<br><br>The previous night had been the last one with these cursed changes. Samuel had allowed himself to stay in bed, trusting the kids to deal with the cleaning and cooking. Drew’s face was sunken in and though everyone in the household had lost weight and sleep, it was nothing compared to the wolf in his bed. The professor sighed and pressed his face against the wolf’s neck, willing him to get better soon. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>09-04-2015, 20:39:03</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The week had taken more of a toll than Drew had expected. The strength of his newly anointed alpha took him by surprise and he could do little more than suffer through it as the were in him clamoured ever more fiercely to escape from the unfamiliar cage. The metal box would need some mending before the next change or the danger was it wouldn't hold him. And Drew knew more than he'd known anything else in his life, that he had to find a way to tame the beast's rage, or he wouldn't last much longer. Weres healed quickly, but if he couldn't build himself up strong enough to take this battering next time, he'd be in a steady state of decline until somewhere along the way the hurt became too much for his human body to take. <br><br><br>But last night had been the last night of his cycle and when he blinked awake, this time it was with a sense of relief. The healing he managed over the day would have a chance to settle in. He would be eating to do more than pile in as many calories as he could take and as much meat as he could handle. For a vegetarian, Samuel had done him proud, making sure he was fed heartily. As difficult as the week had been, without his new beta, Drew knew he wouldn't have made it at all. Samuel was warm against him, and Drew let out a hum of contentment at the feel of his hot breath against his neck. Already he felt less exhausted just knowing that he wouldn't have to go through the same thing all over again tonight. <br><br><br>"Don'tchu got work to go to?" he murmured, shifting just enough to sling an arm around Samuel's middle, voice a little growled because of his scratched up throat rather than his mood. That arm was quite clear that he had no desire for Samuel to leave. It was only just dawning on him now that the same had been true all week. Another time he might have scolded the man for staying home, lectured him on equal rights and the need to keep on going in because you sure as hell didn't get special treatment for something that happened one week in four if you wanted to claim that weres should be allowed into the same professions as anyone else, but right now he was very glad of the decision to stay home. Drew cleared his throat slightly, feeling more coherent than he had all week. "It ain't usually that fierce. It's 'cause the pack s'not bedded in yet. Next time'll be easier." It would have to be; he'd have to find a way to calm it. <br><br><br>"You did good," he murmured, lips against Sam's head, pressing where was easiest to reach with minimal movement.<br><br><br>Maybe there was nothing to base that on, not really, but as far as Drew was concerned he'd done amazingly. The man had heard the beast he turned into, and hadn't run away. He'd picked him up and helped him to his feet every morning when he hadn't the strength to stand on his own, and he'd pieced him back together day after day. <br><br><br><br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>10-04-2015, 13:40:16</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Samuel merely hummed when Drew finally stirred and drew him closer. The complaint was half hearted and easily ignored in favour of digging his fingers into the man's hips and holding him close. Not that the wolf made any signs that he meant to actually push him away. "Mary called" he muttered against the wolf's skin, wondering how to best phrase things to secure his alpha's cooperation. Samuel didn't understand werewolf pack dynamics, or even pack politics, but he could imagine there'd be something which got in the way of accepting the help of another alpha's wife... and help was exactly what Mary had offered. "I know you don't like witches" to be honest, Samuel wasn't all that thrilled about the idea of them either, curtsey of Hilde. He knew Mary though, and she was family first and witch second as far as he was concerned. She was the woman who'd come running to check on him the second Hilde's spell had been broken, pregnant or not. "But she wants to help. She says her kind is the type mostly affiliated with packs?" whatever that meant. Mary had tried to explain, something about her proximity to nature and the sort of magic she had running through her veins, but Samuel hadn't fully understood and nor had he wanted to. The more she said, the more he thought about what he was himself, even when he'd rather forget. "And that there's ways she can help. With everything. Including your cycle" she'd been hesitant to explain exactly what, saying she needed to talk to Drew first. Samuel figured that being the man's beta made him entitled to know what she meant to offer Drew, but Mary was acting almost as if her and his lover had a 'doctor-patient-confidentiality' thing going. It was odd and Samuel couldn't for the life of him tell if it was common. Did most packs have a pet witch at their side and did 'wisewomen' - because that was what she'd called herself, wasn't it? - function as doctors in the supernatural community? Or was Mary just special?<br><br>"She says she can make it easier. That there's teas, brews, that'll help not just with calming the wolf, but also regaining your strength afterwards" he finished, bumping the man's chin with his nose. The idea that weeks ago he'd have been reluctant to even bring it up, afraid that Drew'd think he'd made assumptions on his behalf, seemed almost ridiculous now. Instead the professor felt almost confident in the wolf's company. He felt like he had a place in their broken little pack, and a place that allowed him to make choices for the best of that pack at that. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>10-04-2015, 22:07:53</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Samuel was right in his thinking.&nbsp; Drew stiffened at mention of Mary getting in touch, suspicious to the last when it came to more external forces trying to medal in his pack's business after everything they'd gone through with Hilde. And he tensed even more when he realised Sam had likely been discussing how he'd been coping with the new position of power. Or not coping, as was more evident than he wanted to admit. A low growl rumbled, irritation coming fresh to the surface. <br><br>"Don't think tea's what I need. She's got enough in her own pack to worry over, anyhow." The wolf gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to ask what the hell the man had been playing at letting on that he needed help. That was tantamount to suggesting he wasn't alpha enough to lead his own pack and that was a dangerous thing to suggest given that Samuel's cousin was likely looking to grow ranks of his own. "What did you tell her?"<br><br>Part of him wanted to give in to the gesture of affection Sam had played - that nuzzle against his chin that made him burn to lift his head and claim his lover's lips for his own. But the low burn of betrayal made him resist.<br><br>"I've got my own witch right here,&nbsp; don't I? Don't need someone to stupid me up on spells and potions and tell me how to look out for my own. We'll be fine without more meddling wisewomen."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>11-04-2015, 09:50:01</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"<strong>I</strong> didn't tell her anything. Nor would she tell me much, because apparently it's between the two of you, not the three of us" the professor sighed, much in the same way he would sigh if some of his students were being particularly difficult. In truth he didn't fully understand the other man's apprehension. There were werewolf politics to account for most of it, no doubt, but Mary was family, if not to Drew then to his lover. That had to mean something. Anything. "I don't know what 'brews' can do for you, I'm not a wisewoman, but I'd like to remind you that the whole macho refusal of help thing is how a lot of men get themselves killed, or at least in more trouble than needed be" and Samuel knew, more than anything, that he wasn't about to let Drew do that if he could help it. He needed the man, preferably forever. Without him, Samuel would lose everything from lover to family, to himself. <br><br>"You've got yourself some scarred, fumbling professor with a past he cannot remember. Calling me a witch is the same as calling a cat a lion. It's a cute gesture, but you're way off the mark" Samuel added, grabbing Drew's chin and tilting it down so he could get the kiss he'd been denied. Where this confidence came from, he wasn't sure. He felt as though the past ten years hadn't happened, like he was himself again. If it was because of Drew, or because Hilde was gone, he couldn't tell. It just was and Samuel relished not having to stutter out every word, or battle constant waves of insecurity and fear. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>11-04-2015, 21:30:27</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Samuel, so Drew had learnt, was capable of annoying him in a way that barely anybody before him had been. And his blatent pig-headed ignorance of what it was to be a wolf seemed to have grown along with his confidence. Here he was grumbling and scowling, sending out warning signs that his beta better get in line, and Samuel had the gall to insinutate he was being led by machismo alone. Kissing him like that was out of line but the were's low growl melted despite himself.<br><br>There was feeling in that kiss. Something that reminded Drew of their blood bond, and spoke to the part of him that he knew, deep down, had already set on the professor as a full bond mate. All week, he'd been immune to the touches, the care Samuel had taken with him and the way his scarred hands had smoothed over his bruised body, cleaning away the worst of the gore, but now he felt himself harden at the thrill that chased through him. Shifting slightly, the wolf sat up, pupils darker as he loomed over Samuel, eyes drinking him in.<br><br>"You're no cat. I don't like cats." Perhaps the retort was off base, but Drew felt, somehow, as though it made all the sense in the world. "And I sure as hell don't do what they say." It wasn't quite an admission that he'd hear what Mary had to say, because that would have been far too much stepping down, but Drew did press another firmly bitten kiss to Samuel's mouth, this time very much making sure the bloodwitch knew who was in charge.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>12-04-2015, 09:47:28</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Just as Samuel was beginning to lose his nerve, Drew ended the conversation and for that the professor was grateful. "I don't like cats either" he said, "I'm more of a dog person". He didn't cower when the wolf loomed over him, though nervous butterflies fluttered through his stomach and chest. Or maybe it was excitement. The two were unsettling close. <br><br>When their mouths met the wolf pushed and Samuel relented easily. Happily. He let himself be pressed into the mattress with a hum and brought up his arms to wrap around the other's neck. Somewhere in the distance he could hear Jessica giggling and Thomas stomping his way down the stairs, hopefully with the intention to cook them dinner. <br><br>Which they could only do because Thomas was not in his cage, a discussion he'd have to have with his alpha later. For now he nibbled the man's lip. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>12-04-2015, 19:01:59</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				There was something to be said for keeping the peace with Samuel, especially if it meant that swell of enjoyment coming through when Drew pressed him to the mattress and kissed him. Much better than having to shift him out of one of his depressive rants. Perhaps he could give a little ground, if only for that.<br><br>He remembered the absurdity of negotiations right after Samuel had decided to be part of the blood bond that had secured Tommy's turning, and the miscommunication over Drew needing a solid beta more than he needed someone to share his bed. It was still true. If he had to do without for the sake of the pack, he'd rather have Samuel as a friend, but he knew now with the way that he was talking, that the professor wanted the best for their pack too. He wasn't the only one shouldering the responsibility, and given the kick his cycle had given him that was well worth knowing.<br><br>Samuel's arms around his neck, Drew pulled back a little, confusion on his face at the sound of two sets of footsteps on the stairs - one far heavier than those that accompanied Jess's giggle. The alpha frowned, head tilting to one side to hone in on the noise and he shook his head, pushing off of Samuel with a grumble and a scowl. "Tommy's out of his cage at night?" He hadn't planned on getting up just yet. Hell, he'd planned on a little bit of bonding. But that was out the window now, even if his body clearly thought it shouldn't be. Drew shook his head, the motion tight and his jaw tensed as he stalked to the wardrobe to find clothes. "You heard me, right? In the basement. How stupid are, Sam? You think some idiot teen's gonna have any more control than I do? What the hell did you think you were gonna do if he shifted? We have no idea when his cycle is! Do you even understand that?"
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>16-05-2015, 17:55:21</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Samuel didn't much appreciate being called an idiot, even when perhaps it was well deserved, and while Drew wasn't saying the word exactly, it was certainly dancing between the lines. The professor could perhaps have told himself it wasn't, hadn't it been for the last sentence 'do you even understand that?', slung out like he was an ignorant child in need of berating. <br><br>The human pushed himself up to sit on the bed, stomach tight with the familiar feeling of slight fear, of wanting to duck his head and flee, and chest tight with the slightly less familiar feeling of wanting to argue, to push back. It was unsettling how much of his childhood self was returning, and how it coensided with Hilde's disappearance. <br><br>"He is" Samuel said in a way that'd have been defiant, if it hadn't been for the way it was laced with worry at the edges. "And he's made progress. I'm not saying it was the right thing-" he genuinely hadn't considered the fact that Tommy might not feel his change coming on. Jessica had assured him she always felt it a day ahead and he'd just assumed that it'd be the same for the newly turned teen, which was the whole problem. He'd assumed. Still, he refused to be spoken to like an idiot, because how was he to know? What had drew actually told him about werewolves? "-But he's more pack than he was when your cycle began. If you keep insisting upon treating him like your enemy, he'll be so. You cannot keep him in a cage and expect him to learn control, when he's never challenged" Samuel continued, feeling unusually - or maybe 'usually', with how often it was happening these days - brave as he got out of the bed and drew nearer the other. "He's a were now, but he's a teenager too, and I know teenagers" and children. He may have commanded little respect from them, but through Jessica he was slowly learning that he'd been the object of liking for more of his students than he'd thought... And like any teenager, Tommy needed to be given the chance to earn trust and control. He needed to be included, not excluded. <br><br>"I could be wrong" the professor admitted, sounding as tired as he'd felt the last week when he sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair. The warm brown strands stood straight up when he let his hand fall back down, testifying to the fact that he was probably well overdue for a shower by now.&nbsp; "I have no idea how.. Your kind works. I can't remember. But if you keep treating him like a monster, he'll end up thinking he really is one, and that you are too. Just, he needs praise for his progress, not for you to shove him back into the cage". There was appeal in his voice as he said the last part and searched the other's eyes for understanding. He didn't expect the wolf to meekly agree with what he himself thought was a swaying argument, he'd like to think he knew Drew too well to expect that by now, but hoped he'd see something in then wolfs eyes. Something like hesitation, like consideration.. Any sign that showed his words had registered and that Drew respected him enough, trusted him enough, to take them into consideration. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>26-05-2015, 00:11:16</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Drew's head was swimming. The last thing he wanted was to storm head first into an argument with his beta, or the newest member of his pack, but Samuel wasn't giving him much choice. The man didn't even seem to understand the risk he had put himself into.<br><br>"He <em>has</em> no control," Drew countered, tugging on a t-shirt, fighting his way into a pair of jeans that were now disturbingly baggy around his rather too-sharp hips. This was difficult, because the only reason Samuel's logic fell apart was because he didn't understand the basis for Drew's fear. "I don't know what else to say to you. You don't learn it until you have to." If Sam was wolf, he'd understand. Drew had tried to tell him, so many times, but it seemed that there was a language gap. A difference between what Drew said and the reality of what happened in a change, and what Sam understood. "It <em>takes</em> you, that first time. Like nothing you've ever known and you're not yourself. It's pure wolf. Pure Were. There <em>is</em> no control Sam." He let out a short breath, grasping for some way of making the man understand, but one thing he hoped his partner noted was that he hadn't rushed from the room yet - he wasn't busting down Tommy and Jess's door. <br><br>"You think you knew what you were doing when you turned into a bloodwitch?" He reached for Sam's arm, hand tight around his wrist as he pulled his arm straight, drawing attention to the multitude of silvered over scars that were so obvious there against his pale skin. "You think you knew what you were doing to yourself when you did this?" All those cuts, all that pain he must have forced his body through. No - Sam would have been taken by a deeper instinct, just the same as this. <br><br>This wasn't about being unkind, he wasn't seeking to ostracise the boy or demonise him, he was following the way every pack he'd ever known handled a new change, handled a juvenille wolf until they settled in. "I'm not treating him like my enemy. I'm stopping him from butchering his entire pack. Listen to me, praising his progress ain't gonna do a thing. I wish it would."<br><br>Drew shook his head, fighting the urge to argue more when all he really needed was Sam on his side. "All I care about is getting him past the point where he's a risk to you. And Jess." The alpha shook his head, teeth gritted, trying to think through to the best way of dealing with this. "How the hell do you expect him to be able to feel something coming when he's never experienced it before. There ain't going to be any prior warning, Sam. It'll jus' hit him. And when his girlfriend's dead it'll be too goddam late to start worrying. I am a monster, Sam. Or I sure as hell got one in me. The sooner he accepts that he is too, the better."<br><br>Drew met his lover's eyes solidly, frown mellowing out slightly. "It doesn't have to be the cage. I'm strong enough to handle him if I need to. But he needs a locked room and he needs to be alone at night. Are you coming with me?"
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>28-05-2015, 09:22:58</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				When Drew grasped his arm and pulled it taunt, revealing his hideous scars, Samuel watched the wolf's face instead of his own skin. <em>'You think you knew what you were doing to yourself when you did this?</em>' the man asked, as though he expected Samuel to say no. The professor didn't answer, because what he had to say wasn't what Drew wanted to hear. <em>'Yes'</em>, he wanted to say, <em>'yes, I think I knew exactly what I was doing'</em>. Perhaps they were both monsters, the way Drew seemed to insinuate, but the professor was quite convinced that they were two different kinds entirely. There was only one person in Samuel's head, no one else there to take over. No one else to blame. There was no hungry beast in the back of his mind, prowling it's mental prison and waiting for the moment he lost&nbsp; control. There was just him. When Drew moved on, Samuel was relieved. <br><br>"Of course I'm coming, Drew" the professor said with a frown. He'd think it wouldn't need saying, but apparently did. "I'd be coming even if you intended to put him back in the cage" because argue as he might, he understood the importance of being united. It wasn't about being the wolf's beta before he was his lover, because even without either title Samuel would have said the same thing. He was relieved that Drew listened to him, grateful because it spared him from doing something he'd hate himself for later, but he wasn't holding his own cooperation hostage. "I'm always with you" he finished, frown fading from his face slightly to merely be replaced by tiredness. <br><br>"I was wrong" the professor rubbed his face again, straightening out imaginary wrinkles on his skin and pressing his fingertips against the small bags under his eyes. He wasn't as worn as Drew looked, but the week had done him no favours either. "Not about the cage. It's a terrible thing and maybe it works for born wolves, but not for him. But I shouldn't have let him out. I didn't know what I was doing" Samuel wasn't too proud to admit when he was wrong. He didn't feel humiliated, not if he was admitting it to Drew. A bit stupid, incompetent even, but not humiliated. "Just... We'll talk to him? Explain things. Explain the danger of spending his night with Jess, right? He's not as unreasonable as you left him and he'll understand" at least he hoped the kid would. With the way he looked at Jess, Samuel was almost sure they could convince him to go back to sleeping in the cage, if they had to. <br><br>And he hoped, if he could just made Drew slow down a bit, the man would see what Samuel saw every morning lately; Tommy reaching out in his own way. The kid would be silent, distant, but he'd no doubt be cooking Samuel breakfast and keeping the homophobic comments to a minimum. It wasn't much, but it was something. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>28-05-2015, 20:52:13</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Drew had got it wrong too. He saw that at Samuel's frown, and his almost insulted or surprised confirmation that he was indeed coming. The wolf let out a sigh, his grip loosening on his wrist and instead rising up to circle the man's shoulders and pull him in against his chest. He shouldn't have doubted him. Shouldn't have been so quick to think he was set on the other side. It was an odd thing; to realise he truly had an ally and that he believed it when Samuel said it would always be that way. "Good."<br><br>"You wanna put some clothes?" he murmured as Samuel pulled away, because it was easier to change the subject than to focus on quite how tired the man looked. Was all that stress from looking after him this week? Drew let a smile just touch his face, striving to lighten the mood. Right now he didn't mind the more obvious smell of the man than usual, the intensity of pheromones that told of his neglect of himself over the past week; it just made it easier to breathe him in. But later... later he'd make sure they remedied that together.&nbsp; "Don't think I'm gonna concentrate on talkin' to noone with you standing there like that."<br><br>Again, he found himself compromising, moderating his first instinctive approach. Wasn't that what a beta was supposed to be good at? Samuel seemed to have a natural talent when it came to steering him in the right direction, reminding him of the human side of things were if he'd ever known, he'd since forgotten in this mixed up mess of the segregation act. Could this all wait for now? Was there really benefit to pulling Tommy out of the room with Jess when outside the sun was barely turning the corner from rising to dipping in the sky?<br><br>"I dunno... Maybe we should eat lunch. Together. Like a pack." It would be the first time, wouldn't it, that he'd have shared a table with Tommy. If Samuel was right, it would mean a lot. "Then we can bring it up, all reasonable. Make sure it stays in his stupid head." Drew's jaw clenched and then released and he shook his head. "Damn it, Sam. I don't know what I'm doing." There was a burn of something sharp at the back of his throat, but he kept it locked down tight. No tears. "This week was hell. What are we&nbsp; gonna do about the kids? You know how the whole of Stillwater already looks at the two of us - they're gonna think we did something. Especially when he turns.&nbsp; But they can't stay here forever. They've got families. So how the hell d'you run a pack like that? I... I don't know if I can do it." A deep sigh came then, and another shake of his head. They were together, but they were so far apart, and all Drew and Sam had holding them together were problems to solve. It felt such a long time since he'd simply been able to be. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>22-07-2015, 12:30:35</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"And here I thought you liked the way I looked without clothes" Samuel said, following Drew into the land of half assed humour and desperate attempts to lighten the dark mood. He let himself be pressed against the wolf's chest for a few minutes, relishing being proper close again for the first time in a week, before pulling away and beginning to dress. Even to his human nose the worn brown trousers, the button up navy shirt and the beige cardigan smelled rather ripe, but these weres would just have to suck it up and suffer through it. Samuel wasn't dirtying new clothes until he'd showered. <br><br>"He should be preparing food by now" Samuel offered when Drew suggested they ate lunch together. "It's not exactly gourmet" or anything close to it really. Tommy had an uncanny talent for burning even the most simple of foods. He'd even managed to burn a banana a few days back, somehow. "He tries thought" he added, finishing the last few buttons before turning to face the wolf. The mood seemed to have dropped again by the time he turned back around. Drew looked... well, his eyes seemed a bit more glassy than they'd been before and he had that look on his face, like he didn't really think things would be alright. "I don't know what's going to happen" Samuel admitted, drawing closer until he could curl his fingers around the taller man's shoulder, "but you ain't doing it on your own. Ain't that the whole point of a pack anyway?" he muttered, accent creeping back into his voice. Sure, Drew was the alpha, he got to call all the big shots and growl at the younglings like some angry old man, but Samuel couldn't shake the feeling that an alpha needed his pack as much as his pack needed him. That maybe the way power, support and comfort flowed wasn't all one way. <br><br>"I don't think any of us know what we're doing and I know it doesn't look pretty right now, but I reckon we could have handled things a lot worse" they could have had a dead kid on their hands for one, or a Tommy who was trying to rebel instead of looking for his place in the pack. They could have been run out of town or had a crazy witch on their asses. "We'll handle whatever comes, one way or another" he promised. If he'd been a little less preoccupied with assuring Drew, maybe he'd stopped to appreciate the fact that he wasn't the one imagining the end of the world for once. "Come on, lets head downstairs" his fingers slid down the wolf's arm to his hand, closing around it as he tugged the other out the room and down the stairs. <br><br>Judging by the smell from the kitchen, someone was burning his bacon and some bread. Sure enough, Samuel found Tommy hunched over a pan of tofu bacon with a concentrated look on his face and Jess by the sink, scraping slices of toast until they looked relatively eatable. "Samuel-" the girl said, pausing when her eyes landed on Drew, "Drew.. Are you feeling okay?". Tommy didn't even turn, though Sam was pretty sure he saw the teen's shoulders tense at the mentioning of Drew's name. He didn't say anything though, no smart ass comments or challenges, which was a kind of progress. "Tommy made.. bacon? And pancakes. I think" she said, motioning to the table, "it's a bit late for breakfast but... we figured you wouldn't mind". Samuel didn't. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>24-07-2015, 19:34:23</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Slowly, Drew threaded his fingers through Samuel’s, feeling the friction of skin on skin, the roughness of his fingerprints and the callouses from working against Samuel’s that had come about through different means. The witch in him had carved evidence on his body in more places than one. Thin lines in some places, the little bruised half-moons of his nails on his palms, as usual. He let Sam lead them downstairs, steeled and strengthened to have the conversations he knew he needed to have – &nbsp;to make things good enough with Tommy and to make sure when the pair went back to their own homes, the pack they’d fumbled together still held enough of a bond.&nbsp;<br><br>The bacon – the tofu bacon – was, as Samuel had warned, not exactly free from charring. In fact, there was a fug of smoke hanging low in the kitchen, and Drew crossed the room to open the screen door before he said a thing. “I’m just fine,” he assured, trying not to let too much of a growl come into his voice. What did Jess think? That he couldn’t handle his own wolf? He noted Tommy’s shoulders flinch upwards too and part of him was glad of that motion. But he knew Samuel didn’t want that fear.&nbsp;<br><br>“Good thinking.” Drew cleared his throat, sidling up to Tommy and reaching across to take hold of the pan handle and ease it off the heat. “Easy. Good job I like it crispy, huh?” Drew tipped the bacon out of the pan onto a plate and turned the heat down low before he set it back over the flame. “Pancakes like it a bit cooler,” he advised, his hand settling onto Tommy’s shoulder for a brief and awkward pat. “Give it a minute to ease off. Gotta go slow – show ‘em a bit of love insteada tryin’ to rush at it, hu” It was odd to stand next to the boy and give him cooking advice, when he could hear his own words echoing back at him about how to handle the teen.&nbsp;<br><br>Drew set the plate of bacon down in the middle of the table, refusing to look at Samuel or Jess because he had a horrible suspicion the pair of them would be grinning at him like idiots over the small kindness. And he really didn’t want the gushing. Not when Tommy was likely going to come out with some sharp remark about him touching him. <br><br>“You puttin’ some coffee on, or am I doin’ that?” That, was a pulling of rank, with the way he pulled his chair out and sat down as he asked the question. Something about his body language held the expectation of orders being followed. Maybe another day he’d have sorted food for all of them without complaint, but right now, he didn’t have the energy reserves.&nbsp;<br><br>Reaching out to spear a couple of pieces of crispy brown tofu with his fork, Drew looked at Samuel again, meeting his eyes and shaking his head softly. “I gotta get you eating proper bacon. Our pack’s gonna be a laughing stock. Only vegetarian were wolves in the whole damn country.”&nbsp;Maybe it wasn’t technically accurate to group Samuel as one of them, but he belonged to their pack – belonged to Drew, as much as Drew belonged to the witch.<br><br>“Sam’s been keepin’ you two in order, then I see.” It was a mark of honour, or respect, in a way, for Drew to refer to him so much as one of them, when one of his worries about a non-wolf beta was that he wouldn’t manage to hold his own. “Or is it the other way around?” he grinned.&nbsp;He’d bring up the issue of the cage later. Like Sam said, he had to show a little willing first – a little appreciation for the attitude shift in the turned teen. <br><br>Right now, he could afford to enjoy the peculiarly familar feeling of pack that was forming around him just sitting here with three people who had been total strangers barely ten days ago.&nbsp;
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>26-07-2015, 14:50:08</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Samuel watched Drew try his best to be, well hell, Samuel would almost say kind of fatherly. Maybe it was just the way pack acted, though he wouldn't really know. Tommy looked tense, shoulders up and body braced for anything unpleasant incoming, though nothing ever came his way. He wasn't mouthing back at Drew either, though Samuel had little doubt that the typical teenage 'don't tell me what to do. Back off. I don't have to listen to you. Blah blah blah' internal monologue was running in the boy's head through it all. It was natural, Samuel remembered it from when he'd been a kid too, so he couldn't really fault him for it. What mattered was that the young wolf wasn't actually saying it out loud, and that he eased off the heat when he began on the pancakes. That's right, Tommy was listening. Apparently miracles did happen. <br><br>Jess shot him a glance, both brows raised like she wanted to know if Drew'd hit his head on the way down the stairs, before her face morphed into a grin. Sure she swallowed it down when Drew turned back towoards them, but for a few seconds it'd been there. Sam himself wore his own personal brand of 'unbearably smug mixed with being proud' smile, not that Drew saw it with how devoted the wolf suddenly was to not meeting his eyes. <br><br>"I'll do the coffee" Jess said, elbowing Tommy in the side as she moved past him to the coffee maker, in a way that was anything but subtle. She needn't have worried, because the male teen remained buttoned up so tight Samuel was afraid he'd end up bursting at the seams. Yes, it was better than when he'd been mouthy, but the human really would have wished the kid'd just talk to them. Perhaps in time, he would. When Jess leant her head against Tommy's shoulder, the professor averted his gaze. It'd been an innocent gesture, but somehow he felt like he was intruding on something private, just looking at them. <br><br>"Just maybe we'll be the only pack not suffering from clogged veins then. I'll wear the ridicule like a badge of honour when we all make it to 70 without a hint of heart disease" Samuel said with mock seriousness before slipping into the seat besides Drew. He pressed his thigh against the other man's before turning to the sorry mess Tommy had made of his groceries. A piece of bacon was speared and brought up for him to sniff ad cringe at, until he noticed Tommy looking at him wearily. "Mmm" he hummed, biting into the charred waste of perfectly good tofu bacon, probably reeking of well meant lies as he spoke, "crunchy. It's lovely, Tommy". It really wasn't. He was fairly sure the bottom of his shoe'd be more tasty, given the right seasoning. Still, it was made with lo- well, not-hatred, and that was kind of something. "Also" he said once he'd washed down his mouthful of bacon with half a gallon of orange juice, "I'll have you know I've been doing a splendid job at keeping these two trouble makers in line". "Yes, you're a wonderful mother hen" Jess said, filling their coffee cups and plopping a plate of scraped toast down onto the middle of the table. There was a fond smile on her face though, like maybe she didn't really mind his mother henning. Which he hadn't been doing. At all. Nope. He'd have had to leave Drew's side to do that, and he'd practically been glued to the older wolf. <br><br>"I'll start work again tomorrow though" he continued, forcibly changing the topic while buttering up a piece of toast. More precisely he'd have to go in for a meeting with the principal, but until he knew why he wasn't sharing it with Drew or the kids. There was no need to worry them, even if Samuel had a bad feeling about the whole thing. It'd been a little too easy to get the week off, and he'd been asked to attend the meeting, not his morning classes, tomorrow. If Samuel was a suspicious man by nature - which he wasn't. He was a careful man. There was definitely a difference - he'd have said the whole thing seemed fishy. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>16-08-2015, 12:38:32</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Over the past week, it seemed a kind of family had formed here, and as the kids milled about them, and Samuel pressed in close, Drew realised that this pack he'd forged out of the desperation they'd found themselves in, where the only other option was having a dead boy on their hands, felt like home. How that had snuck up on him, he didn't know, and the wolf frowned slightly even as Jess filled his mug and Samuel carried on talking. He could get lost in the man's easy cadence, whether his vowels were more controlled, or if he drifted off into the less schooled phrasing of his youth. <br><br><br>For now, he wasn't going to spoil the mood by bringing up the issue of where Tommy was sleeping. Drew speared a hunk of the tofu bacon, and crunched his way through the carbonised crust. It wasn't so bad; he'd had worse, and unlike Samuel he managed to finish his portion without complaint, though he did make heavy use of the condiments on the table.<br><br><br>"You've been off work?" Drew's question had an edge to it, his jaw tensing as he realised that. He'd been too out of it over the past week to really notice the comings and goings of his pack mate, and had only been aware that the man was always there when he needed him. But in the mess of his cycle and the havoc it had wrought on him this time, he had barely been separating out the days. It irritated him for two reasons - one, because he knew he'd needed Sam there, and two because it wouldn't have done either of them any favours at all. Sam had already taken flack from the town for rallying to force the sandwich shop to serve him, for pushing the idea that the damn fence down the middle of the school might not be the best idea. And now? Now he was all shacked up and taking time off in term time, "And... they just <em>let</em> you have the time off?" Drew let out a slow exhale, eyes closing briefly. Maybe they had the support of Samuel's family, but he knew well enough from past experience that it was not going to be that easy. If Samuel thought it would be, he was dreaming.<br><br><br>The alpha took a swig of his coffee, and ran a hand over his weary eyes. Behind him, Tommy was finishing the pancakes - marginally less burnt than the bacon had been - and Drew waited for him to take a seat before he said anything more. <br><br><br>"Okay," he paused, grouping his words, making sure he knew what he was going to say. "Pack meeting. No one died last week. I get it. But we gotta be careful about your first change Tommy. Could come any time. So. You need to be in a locked room at night. Alone. Until it shows." His eyes danced over the pair, parsing the air in their direction slightly. They'd been running together, he could tell, and it made something in his chest ache just a little. He wanted that with Sam so badly his teeth ached. "And before you start, it's different from the wolf. Your wolf is much easier to control. So, those are the ground rules. I'm not takin' the risk that you end up killin' one of us by mistake." <br><br><br>He looked back to Samuel, hoping the man approved of the way he'd set that out. "Anything else anybody wants to say?"<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>20-10-2015, 12:30:18</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Samuel's shoulder's tensed slightly when Drew latched on to his comment about going back to work. It was stupid, he shouldn't have said it, but then again he'd figured Drew would have guessed it by now. It wasn't like he'd left the wolf's side for the past week for more than ten minutes at a time. Had Drew really been so out of it that he hadn't noticed? "Yes. Well" was all the professor said, tonguing his canines while milling over ten different possible responses. He knew he probably reeked of tense nervousness, because Jess was shooting his glances from across the table with her brows arched so high they were practically crawling over the crown of her head and down her back. Even Tommy seemed to know something was up, sniffing aimlessly at the air, even if he didn't know what he was sensing with his newly acquired werewolf senses. <br><br>In the end Samuel elected not to answer the question. No matter what he said it'd be wrong and while silence wasn't exactly the ideal response either, it beat starting a discussion over some contrived disaster which hadn't happened yet and might never do so. He pushed around the remainder of his charred tofu bacon with his fork while Drew moved on. Carefully. It was nothing like the last time the older wolf had breached the subject with the kid, or even when they'd discussed it alone upstairs and turned the whole thing into a damn fight. The professor tried not to beam down at his plate, but a small smile did make his lips curl anyway. Just slightly. Drew had listened. Hell, Drew had taken his advice, proven that even if Samuel was human, there was room for his opinion, his advice, in this werewolf pack. It felt kind of like family and despite the subject matter, warmth spread in his chest. The professor pressed his leg against Drew's again, keeping their contact subtle and out of view of the kids. <br><br>The whole thing went over much better with Tommy than it had before too. Sure, the kid huffed and puffed for a few seconds, gritting his teeth and looking like he meant to argue, but at the same time Samuel saw some of that new attitude the past week had instilled in the kid too. Yes, his jaw and shoulders went tense, but he didn't argue. He didn't look like he liked it one bit, but neither did he tell Drew to piss off like he would have a week ago. Samuel would like to think it was all his doing, but in truth he suspected Jess had talked to her boyfriend on more than one occasion too. Had told him what her own first change had been like, and what the wolf was like during ones shift. That their alpha had kept them awake and terrified for the entire week didn't hurt either. <br><br>"This isn't punishment, Tommy" Samuel said eventually, reaching out to touch the kid's hand. The young wolf curled his hand into a hard fist, but at least he didn't pull out of Samuel's reach which the human counted as a win. "I know" he merely grit out and while the professor couldn't smell lies like a werewolf, he had a feeling the teen was being honest enough with him. "If he slept in the cage, could I stay in the same room with him? Out of range, of course" Jess added, eyeing Drew carefully. For once Tommy didn't complain at the mentioning of the metal contraption. <br><br>It was ridiculous, but part of Samuel wanted Drew to see how far the kids had come, and for the wolf to ascribe part of it to him. To acknowledge that he had a place here and that he was useful. To say that having a human as a beta might not be so bad after all, despite of the way they sometimes fought and, Samuel had no doubt, would continue to fight in the future. And Samuel wanted, no hoped, that Drew could give the kid this one. If Drew deemed it too dangerous to let Jess be in the same room then Samuel would support him, but he still hoped it could be done. He wanted Tommy to see that Drew wasn't this unyielding authority out to get him.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>16-12-2015, 21:35:19</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Three pairs of eyes made Drew their focus and the new alpha gritted his teeth, keeping his focus on Jess and ignoring the other two for the moment. The question was ridiculous - dramatic and in his view unnecessary. But apparently they were going to make him spell out his reasoning. He let out a rumble of irritation as he exhaled. "I don't give a shit where you sleep, Jess, as long as you don't play bait to his were, and no one ends up shredded to pieces." He stabbed at the remains of his tofu bacon and the piece snapped beneath his fork into charred pieces that refused to be speared and Drew gave up, pushing his plate away. They'd been running together - he knew that. And he was jealous. Because Samuel couldn't come with him the same way.<br><br>Being in charge of a pack was exhausting. Especially when he'd only just come through his change. Samuel's leg against his beneath the table was somehow more soothing than he'd ever thought it could be and he found himself pushing against it. "Right. Anyone got anything else to bring up other than the state of Samuel's personal hygiene?" he asked, eyes flickering playfully over the professor, lingering on his greasy hair and the clothes in need of laundering. He didn't mind the increased swell of pheromones he got every time he breathed him in, but he was probably biased there. The bloodwitch was his and he liked being able to taste that on him. <br><br>He'd cut their morning short to make sure the teenagers weren't going to put them all in danger, goaded on by Samuel's sentimentality, but now, he wanted time back with the only man he'd intended to be sharing this house with. "Shower," he stated, pushing back from the table with an intensely focused look to his beta. "Now." His eyes had a little of the wolf about them, and he certainly leaned into that side of him, letting his senses sharpen until he could hear his packmate's heart drum against his chest. If Sam wasn't going to run with him, he'd have to let his wolf at him in other ways.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>20-12-2015, 18:39:49</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Contrary to what Samuel had thought, though Drew's harsh words initially made the air tense between the four of them, it seemed to dissipate again fairly quickly. Quicker than it would have just two weeks ago, surely. The alpha joked, Samuel joined in and surprisingly, both the kids cracked smiles. Kind of. "I'll have you know that I smell positively delicious" Samuel declared with the most posh voice he could muster. Jess rolled her eyes with a soft smile and Thomas made a gagging sound, though it was obvious that there was no malice behind it. "How dare you?" the professor said with mock hurt, touching his chest with one hand while looking outraged. <br><br>When Drew pushed away from the table and stood, Samuel swore he saw a flash of wolf yellow in the man's eyes. It could have been imaginary, his brain picking up on the intensity of the look shot his way and trying to give Samuel some kind of visual hint. He honestly didn't know. Whatever it was though, it didn't scare him. Didn't even make him nervous. It sent his pulse racing to be sure, but not because he thought he was seconds away from being disembowelled. No, it made him excited. "Bossy" he said, pushing himself to stand. A great show was made of hugging Jess and patting Thomas' back before he even started towards the stairs. He even offered to help clear the table twice, but Jess drily remarked she wasn't sure she wanted to see what happened if she accepted. <br><br>There was a certain speed to his step when he climbed the stairs. They weren't hurried, but quick enough to make him slightly out of breath. It wouldn't be enough for Drew to actually have to give chase, but the sentiment was there. By the time he reached the final step, panting softly, he had to admit that he was embarrassingly out if shape. Maybe he should take up running? Yeah, maybe he should. He was fairly sure he'd done it as a kid and had loved it back then. "Well then" Samuel slowed down and eventually came to a full stop outside of the bathroom, "what will you do while I shower?". He couldn't quite hide the playful smile, nor the glint in his eyes as he said it. The professor tried for casual and self assured as he leant against the doorframe, hoping he looked half way enticing despite his current rather questionable relationship with personal hygiene. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>12-01-2016, 21:33:44</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Drew didn't say anything else. His silence spoke more than any tease in return to Samuel's words. Instead the alpha kept his eyes fixed on his beta, stalking him from across the room, around the other side of the table, eyes unwavering, until the man reconsidered playing his little games. When Sam made for the stairs, Drew was right behind him, stalking up them with a languid grace to his movements. The distance he left between them was only enough that there could be some kind of chase, and he did push faster, enjoying the race of Samuel's pulse. <br><br>He could hear it in his chest the same way he could taste the scent of him in the air. The way he leant against the bathroom door frame did not make his control of the situation any more believable. Drew just raised a slow eyebrow when Samuel asked him what he planned on doing, and kept walking with the same steady pace towards the bloodwitch. Reaching over Samuel's shoulder, he pushed the bathroom door so that it creaked open on its hinges, and he bodily moved Samuel backwards. <br><br>"Clothes off," Drew said. He stepped inside the room too, eyes never leaving his beta, his palm pushing back solidly on the door until the latch caught against the frame. He didn't bother sliding the bolt. The kids didn't have a death wish. The were's hand went to his own buttons, slowly and methodically slipping them open, his eyes continuing to graze over Samuel to ensure he did as he was told. "And get in the shower." His teeth were tender with the need to bury themselves against the man's neck. Not to bite, not really - it was just the wolf in him that wanted to hold his mate down in forced submission, so badly that his jaw ached with it.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>17-01-2016, 14:42:31</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Samuel stumbled backwards when the door was pushed open behind him and no longer supported his weight. He hip checked the sink in the tiny room as he moved further backwards, wincing and rubbing the blue mark that was no doubt already forming there. All this he did absentmindedly though, because he couldn’t quite seem to take his eyes off the wolf before him. It had to be a were thing, the way Drew seemed like a black hole that sucked in everything. His mere presence seemed to demand the attention of those around them and Samuel was all too happy to indulge him. <br><br>“Yes. Okay” was all Samuel managed to say in response to the order, fumbling with the buttons on his own rather worn shirt. It took longer than it should have, given the way he couldn’t stop watching Drew and wishing it was him who was undressing the wolf. It felt like watching someone else unwrap one of his presents on Christmas morning, and Samuel’s fingers itched with the need to slap Drew’s hands off. When at long last the professor had managed the suddenly complex task of removing his own clothes, he kicked them under the sink. Maybe he should burn them later, because he had a sneaking suspicion that no amount of laundering was ever going to get the sweat and dirt out of them. <br><br>“I’m human and get cold easily” he said when he was told to get into the shower, “so I’m going to hog the spray. Just so you know”. The human gave Drew one last look, like he wasn’t quite sure the wolf wouldn’t pounce on him the second he turned his back to him, before crawling over the edge of the old fashioned tub and shower hybrid. He rubbed his feet over the plastic mat his grandfather had put in after he’d nearly brained himself twice on the faucet when he was a kid, by slipping during a few particularly impressive shower dance sessions. His shower dances had been much safer after that, and more frequent if that had even been possible. “I hope you like it, uh, hot” he informed, turning the heat up as far as it’d go before running the water and stepping under the spray. To be fair, as ‘hot as it could go’ wasn’t much more than lukewarm, and even that had the exposed pipes over their head clanking and groaning loudly in protest. <br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>20-01-2016, 15:32:17</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<span style="font-family: arial;" class="bbc_font"><span style="font-size: small;" class="bbc_size">Drew took his time with his own clothing, peeling off his t-shirt as Samuel struggled with his buttons, baring his own chest just a little behind the human. The delay was subtle but the communication it held was primal. Sam was stripping for him, because he'd asked him to and Samuel did what he said. Drew was taking off his own clothes because he wanted to. Eyes roved over the bloodwitch's body as he turned around, but Drew held himself back. The chase from the kitchen, up the stairs, was still playing in him, and if he let himself go now, his were would be there before him. The exaggerated scent of Samuel wasn't helping that. He could already feel the soft ache of teeth wanting to change and the burn in his jaw at his wolf features wanting to appear. Samuel didn't like him four legged though. Not like that. So Drew calmed himself, letting that urge push into a rumbling growl low in his throat that really had nothing at all to do with aggression. </span></span><br><br><br>Sam was fiddling with the shower spray, and the pipes overhead were clanging and rattling, though Drew only noted them as a distraction. Light on his feet as always, he stepped purposefully into the tub behind his beta, one hand meeting the curve of his spine, the space between his shoulder blades, urging him under the water until his hair was sopping and his skin was slick with the flow. Drew's body arched around him, his interest stirring visibly as he bumped against Sam, purposeful with the contact. The water wasn't hot enough. Drew cast a look at the pipes, and reached up, knocking a solid hit against the hot flow. "I fixed this last time." His irritation was only passing, obliterated by his interest in Sam, and the way that the water flowed over him. He caged the man in with his free arm, and nodded towards the shower gel. "Soap. Professor. Now."<br><br><br>No kissing yet. He wanted Samuel clean before he started reminding his beta that if he was going to smell like anything, it damn well should be him.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>31-01-2016, 11:40:02</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				When Drew pressed the palm of his hand against Samuel’s spine, the professor pushed back against it. Not to resist the direction in which he was being pushed, but to better feel the physical connection between them. He spluttered as he was pushed under the spray, but stopped pushing back and shifted his focus to uprooting the dirt that seemed to have become a permanent part of his skin by now. The human rubbed his skin briskly, leaving angry pink yet clean flesh in it's wake. At their feet, dusty grey water pooled momentarily before it swirled and disappeared down the drain. One more reminder of the hardship they'd endured in the past week gone. <br><br>When at long last Samuel felt a little less like a walking health hazard again, he allowed himself to become aware of The wolf behind him. Of the way the man had wrapped himself around him, like a human afghan. Of the way his own body was responding to it. Samuel pressed back against Drew, rolling his hips in lazy circles that he didn't even know he had the courage to do. He felt almost high on the sheer brashness of it and blood pumped through his veins with renewed strength. Already pink skin turned a shade of darker red. And his spine tingled with the feel of not just another person behind him, but of Drew, and the way the wolf so unashamedly reacted to him. To his body. There was something incredibly flattering about knowing that the wolf found him attractive, despite his sorry state. It made him feel powerful in a way, to know he could effect the other like that without even proper trying. <br><br>The bloodwitch’s skin prickled and he felt hyper aware of the other man. He swore he could feel Drew, even the places where they weren't touching. He was caged in by strong arms on each side of him, and the wolf ordered him to grab the soap. Of course he obeyed. But Samuel turned around, soap in hand and lathered up one of the arms caging him in. It wasn't what Drew had meant, he knew that, but he was hardly the only one who could do with a wash and Samuel wanted to push back, in a way. Besides, it wasn't his fault that Drew had been so unspecific. The professor ran soft fingers over Drew’s skin from his wrist to his shoulder, digging into the muscle and massaging it as he went. And he watched the other’s face, hungry to know what might be going on behind the were’s eyes. “Go on then” Samuel eventually said as he finished the wolf’s other arm, “show me your back”. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>21-02-2016, 19:14:07</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Drew's lips twitched, hitching up at the corner into a barely perceptible smirk as Samuel did what he was bid, to the letter. To the letter, and no more. This willfulness must have been what he honed in on, even all those weeks ago on their first meeting, when he'd let Drew boss him about in his own office. Underneath that subdued, cowed exterior, there was a man who knew his own mind. Now that the gauze had been lifted and Samuel's true memories were filtering back in, he had more push to him, more spark. It gave Drew something to push against, and like chasing him up the stairs, that thrilled the wolf. <br><br>Patiently, he let Samuel have his fun, lathering bubbles over his arms, watching him with predatory eyes to see what the man was going to risk next. His slim fingers pressing into weary muscles still tender and bruised from his change felt good and the steady pressure made him grumble out a rough sound of contentment. His brow hitched up, amused, at Samuel's request for him to turn around and he pressed the witch closer in against the tiles, letting the water stream in thick rivulets through his own hair. <br><br>The kiss Drew pressed to Samuel's mouth was nothing short of possessive - raw and ragged, with little care for whether his teeth bruised skin. With a territorial growl, Drew cast another look to Samuel and slowly shifted away, turning his back on the blood witch and letting his shoulders come under the warm stream of water. There wasn't a better way he knew to show trust. With Samuel he didn't need to push his dominance. The man already let him lead him freely. So Drew closed his eyes and let the water take away some of the strains his body had tortured itself through, trying not to wince at the patter of rain against the bruising still colouring his ribs where he'd thrown himself against the sides of the metal box so repeatedly. <br><br>"Next month'll be better. It's just because the pack's so new. Next month will be fine."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>03-03-2016, 11:43:46</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The kiss took Samuel by surprise, so he probably wasn't bringing his A-game to it if he was being perfectly honest. Not that it really mattered, because Drew's approach seemed to be more along the lines of 'consume' or 'ravish', rather than equal exchange. Which was all fine by Samuel, who dug his fingertips into the wolf's hips and clung to him, like maybe the other would shatter and fall apart if he didn't. The blood witch tasted blood when his dry, scabbed lips gave under the pressure of Drew's mouth, but even the dull stab of pain didn't stop him from feeling slightly disappointed when the kiss broke and Drew pulled back. <br><br>Samuel wasn't sure exactly what he'd expected Drew to do when he'd asked him to turn around. He knew without knowing - one of many leftovers from his past life, he was sure - what a wolf showing his back would mean. The trust that it'd signal, especially when done deliberately. He also knew that Drew did trust him, or he wouldn't have named him second or have become his lover the way he had. So it wasn't that Samuel had expected Drew not to let him wash his back, it was just that... he hadn't expected that he would either. Truth be told, no matter what Drew did, the witch would likely have been surprised by it. <br><br>Water ran down the wolf's back in little rivers. The skin under the water was marbled by bruises in every colour of the rainbow, a bodily representation of the pain and torture Drew gad undergone at the hand of the moon and his own wolf. When Samuel ran his fingers down Drew's spine he felt the small bumps of bones, rising up like little mountains on a body wrecked by the stress that it had undergone. It wasn't that he hadn't noticed how thin Drew had gotten. He'd washed and tended to the man all week, he'd counted his ribs as they began to emerge and watched the man's cheeks grow more and more hollowed with each passing day. Samuel had noticed. And it wasn't that he hadn't understood, because he wasn't a child or an idiot. And it wasn't that it hadn't hit home until now either. And still, despite it all, the fact that he could feel the other's spine so easily seemed significant. <br><br>"Yeah" the professor rasped. He licked his lips, tasting the blood that was pooling forth from a small broken scrap somewhere, and reached for the soap. When he watched the not-so-large-anymore back, he dug his fingers into tired muscle again, but gentler now. It was more a caress than a massage, if he was being honest. "I know you don't like it, but I do think we should talk to Mary" he said. For a second he wasn't sure if he should bring it back up, he wanted to keep the peace, but he found that he didn't want to be cowered into holding his tongue around Drew either. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>06-03-2016, 16:51:30</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Drew could scent Samuel's blood as soon as his lip cracked and when they kissed the tang of iron touched his tongue like a memory of the blood bond they'd forged to bring their pack together. To save a life. Deep down, he felt his wolf stir, not hungry for the taste in the way the creature could so often be, but recognising the flesh of its own family. Drew could taste the magic on Samuel, mingled in with him all the way through, no matter how he might claim it was not, and once again he felt a surge of uncanniness that before the spell had lifted he hadn't noticed that at all. <br><br>Turning away to let the hot water of the shower do its work gave him time enough to push that thought back for another time. Samuel's hands drifting over him were good - stroking rather than massaging deeper, but Drew didn't care. The touches warmed him, relaxed him into a calmer state of being where he didn't have to worry over the pressures he'd had to endure. Drew let out a muted groan of enjoyment as Samuel's fingers dug in, drifting over his bruised skin. The care was coming off the man in waves and it was difficult to ignore the carefully voiced concern. <br><br>Drew looked back, but didn't say anything, reaching for the shampoo instead and lathering suds into his hair. Only when he'd rinsed off did he come back to what his lover had said. "We can talk to her," he said at last. "But she ain't poking her nose in. This is our business." He let out a breath, huffing against the spitting spray from the shower. "You want to learn from here - fine, I ain't gonna stop you doing that." He paused, turning back around to face Samuel and reaching to touch to spot of blood still welling on his lip. "I'm okay, an' you're okay. And I'm going to fix this goddamn shower, and you're going to have that damn meeting tomorrow, and I'll drink your nasty teas so you can quit looking at me like I'm going to fall over. But Mary stays on the outside. She ain't our pack. Okay?"
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>13-03-2016, 23:05:24</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote from: Cholly's PM</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Drew took his time washing his hair in silence. Samuel wasn’t entirely sure if the other was genuinely taking his time to think about his answer, or if the wolf was trying to make some kind of statement. Send some kind of wolfy signal that a man better versed in pack dynamics might have picked up on. Either way there was nothing that Samuel could do to speed up the process, so instead he set about washing himself. He scrubbed himself down quickly and meticulously – the dust gathering at their feet as he lathed himself up and rinsed off spoke volumes of how overdue this wash was – and was soaping his hair vigorously when Drew spoke again. It was equal parts reassurance that things would be better than they’d been up until now, and equal parts addressing of Samuel’s question. <br><br>“She’s going to be family. That’s not going to change” Samuel pointed out, not that he really thought the wolf was telling him to let Mark and Mary go. No wolf, the witch’s gut told him, would ever do that. Pack, which was just another kind of family, was everything after all, “but she’s not pack. She stays on the outside”. It was all rather unceremonious after that. They wrapped up, physical arousal ignored as it had been for the past two weeks, and went on with their day. Samuel went to bed a little past seven pm – like ‘a grandpa’, Jess informed him with a snort – and slept like the dead. Come morning he let Drew sleep in, grapping nothing but a cold cup of coffee brewed the day before on his way out of the door. A quick call to his cousin informed Mark that Mary was welcome at their home in a few hours. As an afterthought he warned the other that there’d still be more weres than just Drew loitering about the place. It seemed like the sort of thing you needed to be pretty clear about. The professor quickly outlined his agreement with Drew – she was to teach him, not just brew potions for his alpha. Rather than insulted, Mark seemed almost relieved that his wife’s involvement would be minimal in the long run.<br><br>When he pulled into the school parking lot half an hour later, he only just made it to the principal’s office a minute before the meeting. He could have saved himself the trouble of half running through the hallways like a lunatic though, because while no one appeared to be in the headmaster’s office, Samuel wasn’t being let in either. It really shouldn’t have surprised him that he was left waiting in the principal’s office, but somehow it still did. Like maybe things should be different now that so much had happened in his life and that he no longer felt like the same person. Simply because he now saw respect in Drew’s lovely – truly lovely. Deep and intense, soft but somehow still steely. Oh God no, he sounded like a teenager again – eyes, the rest of the world would miraculously have grown to respect him too. Quite frankly it’d been naïve, something he thought he’d left behind many, many years ago.&nbsp; <br><br>The time for his appointment came and went, and it was only after an additionally forty minutes sweating under Hillary’s – the at least 500 year old receptionist – suspicious gaze that he was waved in. The meeting lasted only twenty minutes and it was really more a briefing than a anything else. Samuel didn’t really hear the specifics, mind numbed by the entire subject matter, but he was fairly sure the cliff notes went a little something like ‘unprofessional conduct, stirring trouble, replaced by someone more qualified for the position, fraternising with the builders – which sounded curiously close to ‘fraternising with the enemy’, paid leave for the next two months - which was when his contract ran out’ oh, and of course ‘let go. Fired. Goodbye’. Thrown in for good measure was ‘I gave you a chance after the mess with my niece. I pitied you when the rest of the town would rather see you gone. I am disappointed, Samuel’, like Samuel’s decision to not be a small minded, speciest prick made him a terrible person and, more importantly, somehow made him unqualified for his position. If anything, the witch felt more qualified than ever. That argument didn’t seem to earn him much favours with the principal though. <br><br>If ever there was proof of how he’d changed since Hilde’s spell had lifted, perhaps it was now. Samuel may have parted with a few choice words not only about the man’s personal qualities, but of the school’s approach to the inclusion of weres as a whole, along with the rest of the teaching staff and – because why not when he was already at it – the rest of the town. While the former professor didn’t like to linger on what exactly had been said, he was fairly confident he shouldn’t bother looking for a job in the area any time soon. Maybe he could apply at Greenhill University, an hour north from here, come summer. <br><br>Samuel saw himself out, leaving a gaping man and his old toad of a secretary to stare after him. He’d been given a few days to clear out his office, but to be frank he didn’t fancy returning to the school again after this. The witch rushed to his dusty little retreat, threw anything of value into a small cardboard box – like his signed copy of The Blade Itself, his old picture of his grandfather and a pair of horrendously pink slippers that Mark had given him as a gag gift two years ago, and that Samuel had grown unexplainably fond of - and then proceeded to powerwalk off school property with his head held kind of high. The nervousness, the shame, the neurotic behaviour, it’d all set in any time now the professor assured himself. But instead he found, as he drove back across town and pondered how to announce to Drew that their financial position was a little less secure than it’d been just the day before, that he as more relieved than anything. He didn’t feel like the same Samuel that he’d been before meeting Drew and part of him felt that maybe, now that he was no expected to return to his old pattern, he wouldn’t have to be. <br><br>Mark and Mary were loitering outside of his house. Maybe they’d just arrived, or maybe Mark wasn’t all that eager to invade another alpha’s territory. Whatever the reason it was stupid. “Why’s your highly pregnant wife standing around outside my house, instead of sitting down in a soft chair?” Samuel barked, perhaps rendered a tad confrontational by his meeting barely half an hour earlier. The alpha raised both brows at his cousin, while Mary insisted that she was pregnant, not ‘bloody invalid’. The complaint would probably have carried more weight if she didn’t waddle as a duck, with Mark hovering over her like a mother hen, when Samuel invited them inside. Jess and Tommy hovered awkwardly at the top of the stairs when they entered the hallway. The witch couldn’t really tell whether Tommy was intimidated by the other wolf, or if he wanted to fight. Whichever it was, the young man had his fists closed and seemed to vibrate with energy. Mark on the other hand barely seemed to notice him. “I was wondering if you were still here, Tess. Good to see you’re safe” Samuel heard his cousin say to the teenage girl, like maybe he knew her and what she was, and had done so for a good while. “Yeah” was all the girl replied before taking her boyfriend and fleeing off to the room they’d pretty much made their own by now. <br><br>“So… where do you want me?” Samuel asked. He was prodded in the side until he stepped back and let Mary by. The golden skinned woman waddled to the kitchen, marched to the stove and patted the counter besides her. “Come on then. We can do this inside, it’s really a simple brew. In fact, why don’t you bring a pen and paper. We may as well start your recipe book” she said with a groan, as she reached down to pull out a pot from the under-table-cupboard.&nbsp; <br></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>03-04-2016, 22:39:35</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Drew didn't try to stop him when Samuel went off to bed so early. Jess and Tommy were vocal enough with their ribbing, and although Drew joined them for a brief jibe of his own, he watched his Beta climb the stairs with an unspoken undercurrent of concern. It seemed a lot went unsaid between them lately; Drew could see just how much the past week had taken out of the bloodwitch, who didn't have the natural recuperation rates that a were had, but he hadn't mentioned it, just like Samuel hadn't mentioned how easy it was to count his ribs. Not overtly. The disturbed nights and the evident worry he'd seen etched into the man's face had taken their toll, and now, while Drew was already looking healthier for a normal day behind him, Samuel was finally allowing himself to flag. He didn't have to hold responsibility any longer and Drew was glad to take it from him.<br><br>Still, it felt strange to be downstairs without the man bustling around, and Jess and Tommy must have felt it too. They'd formed some kind of bond with the teacher that was so far missing with Drew, and the three of them circled the living room - awkward around each other - until the kids finally scuttled up the stairs to the bedroom they had claimed for themselves. Stubborn territory marking had Drew stay down twenty minutes longer than he really wanted to, before he set about switching off the lights and making sure the doors and windows were properly bolted. When he'd finished cleaning his teeth in the bathroom, and slipped into bed next to Samuel, the man was too deeply snoring to be woken. Drew curled an arm around him all the same, and soon drifted off, breathing in the smell of his pack mate. <br><br>Come morning, Samuel was the one to slip out of bed ahead of him, and Drew blinked awake as he moved quietly about the dimly lit room, bright only from the glow of daylight coming dully through the thin curtains, but he didn't make a move to get up. He had the reassurance of another day's rest before he was needed back on site and he planned to take it. An undisturbed night had reminded him just how comfortable a bed could be, and he snuggled deeper into the blankets, wishing Samuel a good day at work before he let himself drift back to dozing.<br><br>When he woke again it was mid-morning and his stomach was making its complaints. Drew was dressed and downstairs in the living room with a mug of coffee and a half-eaten sausage sandwich when he heard the front door, and Samuel's voice in amongst two far less familiar ones. He hung back only for long enough to hear Mark greet Jess, and for Samuel to let himself be shepherded into the kitchen. <br><br>Drew appeared in the doorway with a mild frown on his face. "Thought you had work?" What exactly was that box of things on the hall table? His eyes flickered over Mary - so evidently heavily pregnant, and the irritation in him simmered down. Automatically, he'd zoned in on the pulse of her child and he could hear twin heartbeat of mother and baby, healthy and strong. It made him smile. Pack or not, these two were family - Samuel was right about that - and there was more on the way.&nbsp; So he steeled himself, tucking away the urge to let his hackles rise and warn Mark out of his - their - house and instead gave a brief nod to the man. "You want coffee? I got a pot on the brew."<br><br>It wasn't that Drew had an innate dislike for Mark - not by any means. He knew enough to realise that the man had done his part in pushing him and Samuel together. But he didn't know how they dynamics were supposed to work between them - whether Mark was still holding a claim over Samuel and the new pack they'd formed - whether they were on steady enough ground to extend social niceties, or if pack law meant they had to be more distant. Drew cleared his throat, taking a decision along with another swig from his mug and he cut his eyes to Mark. "You go with this wisewoman stuff, even after Hilde?"
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>04-04-2016, 14:55:29</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				When Samuel noticed Drew joining them with a half eaten sandwich and steaming coffee in hand, he tried to make his way to the man to greet him. Mary wrapped her steely fingers around his wrist though and demanded attention, because this wasn't 'the sort of thing you can just do half heartedly, Samuel'. God, it was like being back in middle school with Mrs. Peters all over again. It was all for the best though, because it meant he didn't have to answer that little inquiry about why he wasn't at work. The professor knew himself well enough to know that he'd say something that'd tip Drew off and it'd all go down hill from there. Drew was like a bloodhound sometimes, relentless when he wanted answers from you. Samuel would rather not dance that particular dance with his cousin and Mary there to watch them. So he let himself be herded into the kitchen instead, grabbing pots and spoons, and pulling regular household spices out of the cupboards whenever ordered to do so. Once again he was glad for his little shopping spree when Drew had first moved in, even if it meant he has considerably less savings to draw upon for the mortgage now. <br><br>The box that Mary had brought with her turned out to contain various plants that could be found simply by taking a stroll through the forest. It was all rather underwhelming, really. Where was the tears of an ogre, the feather of a phoenix, the nails of a puma cut during the moonlight? The only thing not a plant was a few pinecones, that 'you only have to make him eat if you're particularly upset with him that day'. Now Samuel couldn't see Mark's face but he could almost imagine that the man had chewed on one or two in his life. <br><br>At first there was no brewing. He was set to transcribe recipes from a mouldy old book that Mary had hidden in the bottom of the box, and was then quizzed on whether or not he understood what was writing in it. Him, a man in his twenties. A teacher. It really was like being back in school, only infinitely more <br><br>Behind him, just out of earshot, Mark had crossed his bulging arms and leant against the faded wallpaper. His eyes were on his wife, both tender and amused, though most of his attention was clearly on the other alpha in the room. Like Drew he felt the awkwardness of a situation - not just a shared room, but a shared family - that was anything but a common occurrence in their world. "Coffee'd be nice" be hummed behind his big beard, though when he accepted the mug moments later, all he did was warm his hand on it. "You go with 'tis witch stuff, even after Hilde?" Mark returned when suddenly Drew was asking questions. There was a playful light in his eyes when he dragged them off his wife though - she was correcting Samuel's spelling on some of the plants, and Samuel looked like he was considering throwing a tantrum - and fastened them on the other wolf instead. "She's different from Hilde. Ma' cuz is too" he eventually said. But where she was less dangerous by nature, Samuel was more. "'Sides, packs in these states 'av always had someone touched by magic with 'em" he added. "'Ow's.. 'Ow's he doin'? Now that 't bitch is gon'?" Mark said after a bit. His eyes had drifted back to Mary and his cousin, who had now gotten as far as heating the water. Slow. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>20-04-2016, 20:15:21</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				There was nothing natural about two Alphas coming together without some kind of fight when shared territory was in question. And that was very much the case here, but for the time being, both men seemed to be managing to tap into their more human, tolerant sides. Drew understood the concession as much as he hated it - he was weak right now; if Mark wanted to take his new pack away from him, it would be unlikely Drew could stop him. But here he was instead, with his wife in tow, teaching Samuel things to try to make them both stronger. <br>Drew bristled at Mark's quick return of virtually his own words. Sam was different. He nearly blurted that out, but managed to hold his tongue. Hilde knew what she was doing. So did Mary. That's what was worrying him about this. Or perhaps it was just that Samuel was his, just as Mary was Mark's. That was at the heart of it and although he didn't like it, he understood the reaction he'd caused. Of course Mark trusted the mother of his unborn child, his wife, his bondmate. The playful flash in the other Alpha's eyes helped to ease the friction, and Drew shook his head, his own grudging smile appearing once he took a swig of his coffee. <br>While Mark's eyes had pulled away from the pair in the kitchen, Drew's settled onto Sam, watching his flare of frustration with amusement, and the all too familiar line of irritation that wormed its way onto his forehead when he was told he'd done something wrong. It had been so muted when he first met him - his ability to stand up for himself - but Drew knew he was braver now. "He's fine. He's doing just fine." Drew looked back to Mark, his look briefly questioning, a little defensive. "Why wouldn't he be? He's strong enough."<br>Again, Drew was conscious of the obvious emptiness that hung all too obviously in the scent of their pack bond, clear for any other were to pick up on. He and Samuel hadn't run together. But Mark wasn't here to pick holes in that. Drew let his eyes close and he leant back against the wall, shaking his head to push some of his hostility away. "It was a tough Change this time. He... kept us together." Drew's eyes softened slightly, giving up some of his fight. "He's not the man I met. He's coming more into himself. I can feel it."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>21-04-2016, 10:53:37</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"Yea, he's strong alright. Jus' wasn't sure he'd remembered t'at yet" Mark agreed, still watching Drew when the other looked away from his second to look at him. Mark knew his brow was heavy, knew he had worry wrinkles all over his forehead and the corners of his eyes. He couldn't help it, because like it or not, Samuel was his last family. "This 's not wat he was, but it's closer. Used 't be a lil' shit" there was fondness in Mark's words as he spoke though, like maybe he'd liked that particular trait in Samuel. <br><br>"Has he started it yet?" Mark asked, voice warm and lips smiling somewhere under that large lumberjack beard of his. "T' runnin' I mean" he added when Drew didn't look like he knew what he was getting at. The wolf said it like it was natural, like he knew that Samuel would eventually start trekking up and down the road at six in the morning. Like he'd been here before, or somewhere like it. "Kid used t' have some legs on him. I know, don' seem like it lookin' at him now, does it? Reckon he cheated sometimes too. Still, that lil' bastard sure could run. Hell, most of us ot'r kids couldn' keep up wit' him in our human skin, and ain't that embarrassing. Lil' six year old fucker outdoin' a pack of were cubs like its nothin'. Shouldn' be possible, magic or not, but it was. Knew the lay of t' land by t' cabin better than half t' adults too. Beat my ol' man at tag once, before.." For a second the glow of happy memories faded from his eyes, flickered like a candle in the wind. <br><br>It passed though, as Mark forcefully shoved it back into whatever little box he had reserved for it in the back of his mind. "Kept runnin' for a while after too, though I don' think he knew why, y'know? Jus'... muscle memory, I guess. Habits so ingrown he couldn' help himself. Fuckin' Hilde" the wolf leaned back, head thumbing against the faded wallpaper. His voice had turned sour, shifted away from fond reminiscence to anger as ingrown as the dirt under his nails, faded but permanent. "Went off t' college and came back all soft 'round t' edges though. 'Ave seen him carry in t' groceries sometimes. It's all kinds of sad. I swear he gets out of breath just from climbin' t' stairs too. Mary says it won' last though. That whatever Hilde did is fadin'. Prolly won' all come back she said, apparently that old witch gave him t' magical equivalent of a lobotomy or whatever. But some of it will. Snippets, lil' half memories, and urges. That's what she said anyway, not that she is completely sure". <br><br><br>A small fire erupted on the stove, stemming from the pot of what was essentially just water and mint leaves so far. Glorified tea, really. The large alpha was ready to propel himself across the kitchen table to his mate, except all it took was a whispered word from Mary and the fire was gone. A finger held up in his direction, without the dark skinned woman even bothering to look his way, kept Mark from moving out of his spot by the wall. His fingers still itched with the need to take her away, to call the whole thing off and herd her back home to their shared home, their den. To keep her safe and locked up. 'Nothing will happen, Mark. It's harmless brews with more nature than magic in them. I learned these before I could read', those had been her words. Her reassurances. Apparently she'd been wrong, or maybe Samuel and what was in his blood was all kinds of dangerous.<br><br>"We're moving this outside" she simply announced, then ordered him to bring ingredients and pot along while she waddled ahead, arms locked with her cousin-in-law. By the time Mark sullenly trudged after her, arms stuffed with herbs that made him sneeze, there was already a fire going in the middle of all of Samuel's weeds. Probably magic born, judging by the way it didn't make any attempts to spread across the overgrown lawn. A "thank you, sweetheart" and a kiss to his cheek was the reward for his trouble, and then he was forgotten again as Mary bestowed her undivided attention on Samuel. Mark couldn't bring himself to go inside, but instead elected to hover on the back porch with the alpha of the house, Drew. <br><br>He watched his woman, beautiful with her swollen stomach, her bare feet and the sun playing in her hair. Gentle and attentive as she coaxed Samuel back into the brewing, despite his now obvious apprehension. "When he starts trekkin', I want you to tell me" Mark said in a return to their earlier talk about his cousin. He watched Samuel throw in a pinch of salt like it was a live grenade. Mary's whole body shook with laughter and she looked divine, bare footed and pregnant, bathed in sunlight. His, his, his. "Please" he added, as though he suddenly remembered himself. Drew wasn't someone he could just bully around and make demands off now. Samuel might be his family, might have been his pack once, but he was the other alpha's now. More than that. Mary said she saw the bond between them, the magic tying them together a deep blue rather than the normal bright green of the pack. Mark wondered if either of the two knew that it was there, that there was more between them, something deeper. "He's family. I want t' run wit' him. After you and your pack have done so of course" there was so much he wanted to remedy between them, so much wrong he wanted to right, that he didn't know how to approach. He'd changed when he met Mary, he'd tried to be in Samuel's corner, but sometimes he still felt his cuz hesitate. They needed more than words and even though Samuel was human, he'd been born into and grown up in a pack. He'd been howling at the moon by the age of five, running through the forest flanked on all sides by wolves, some as large as bears. He might not remember it, but his gut would tell him what he needed to know once they started running, would tell him what it meant. Mark was convinced of it. He had to be. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>03-05-2016, 17:01:42</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				It hurt, in a curious way like the slow pull apart of his body when he didn't force his change, to stand here and listen to Mark say things about Samuel - who he was and what he could do - that Drew had already resigned himself were not the way things were going to be. It hurt, because he hadn't let himself even hope that Samuel would run with him like that - he wanted that far too badly - but Mark thought he could and would, and Drew didn't know whether to trust that. If he was wrong... The disappointment would be so bad. It hurt because Mark wasn't supposed to know more about his beta than Drew did, and that was Hilde. Again. The damn witch had had her claws in so deep.<br><br>All in all, the look he was giving the other alpha couldn't have been anything less than suspicious but he was shocked out of his glaring by an explosion of flame from the cooker top that had him lurching forward a stalled step even as Mary quenched the flames with a single gesture. Mark's protectiveness was equally clear, hanging thick in the air, and it barely abated as his wife took Samuel in tow again, leading him firmly out of the door. <br><br>Drew might have been amused by the sight of the burly alpha following meekly behind with armfuls of herbs, had he not grabbed up the pot himself to maintain the excuse for watching the goings on.&nbsp; Fetching and carrying done, they were back to the role of observers, stood out on the porch to watch.<br><br>One brow raised at Mark's presumption and Drew shot him a solid look, folding his arms purposefully around his chest. Only Samuel's antics kept the edge off. "After that. He'll run with who he wants to run with," Drew answered finally, slightly more appeased by Mark's backtracking into politeness. Drew cleared his throat, letting his arms relax back down to his sides, still watching his beta with the same possessiveness he could feel reeling off Mark towards Mary. No, they hadn't mated, but Drew was getting steadily more aware that his wolf was busy scenting out its target. "Reckon family's important to him. Should see him swell up all proud 'bout your kid on the way."<br><br>It showed in the way Samuel was with the teenagers they'd found themselves quite suddenly responsible for in a way their own parents weren't capable of being. He looked to Mark again, letting out a short exhale and a smile that in the end wasn't all that grudging, when it surfaced. "Must be due any day now, huh? Mary allowed in the hospital, or they silly on 'half-breeds' here?" Drew scuffed at the porch with the toe of his boot, wondering vaguely whether anybody in this damn town actually knew about Mark anyway. He ran the most popular bar in town, that was for sure, but it didn't seem to stop the town folk wanting to put a wall right through the school and keep all the kids apart as well. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>07-05-2016, 14:38:45</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				"Yea?" Mark replied when Drew mentioned Samuel's anticipation of their child's arrival, face lit up and mouth split in a smile. His cousin was so awkward around him still, all weary and nervous like Mark was still an angry teenager looking for someone to blame for what had happened to him, that Mark had a hard time finding the truth behind what the man said. Sometimes he thought Samuel genuinely was happy, genuinely was looking forward to be an uncle. Other times he suspected the man was just being polite, too polite, scared even, and that it covered over a lingering resentment from their teenage years. Samuel of the past, that person he knew, but the man that his cousin was now? Well, that one he was considerably less familiar with. He spoke of the professor like he knew the future, but it all banked on Samuel returning to his old ways. <br><br>When Drew asked about where his son would be born, Mark actually looked slightly sheepish. He pondered for a minute if he could trust the other wolf, but he reckoned Drew was family now. Even if, down the line, he might be competition for territory as well. "Well" the large man eventually said, clearing his throat twice before unbuttoning the top few buttons of his flannel shirt and revealing... nothing. Or more specifically, no dog tags. "Hilde's curse didn' jus' keep me from talkin'. Made me pass t' tests too. 'M officially as human as Sammy" he said, re-buttoning his shirt while keeping his eyes locked on the other wolf's face. Because if Drew looked like he planned to talk, Mark might not want to but he sure would have to do something about it. He was proud of what he was, but if this pitchfork happy town found out, his watering-hole would be out of costumers and he'd be unable to take care of his family. And Drew might be lining up to screw his cousin silly, and Mark might want to mend bridges with Sammy, but his son and mate came first.<br><br>"Won't be in t' hospital though. 'Parently a witch givin' birth is.. well, better she goes t' her family for that, she says" Mary'd been vague, just telling him that her control would slip. Whether that meant demon summoning and explosions, or the sky shitting unicorns, Mark didn't really know. "Been meaning t' ask Sammy t' help keep t' place goin' while I'm gone" he added. It just hadn't been the right time, what with their entire world being turned upside down and what not. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>09-05-2016, 13:19:04</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Drew's eyes locked onto the bare (if hairy) skin beneath Mark's collar, marking the absence of tags before he even said anything. He felt his jaw tense against a rolling surge of things. Jealousy, for one thing. That Mark had it easy. That he'd never suffered the looks Drew had, the forced documentation at every turn - the struggle to hold onto work. He'd been able to walk down the street like he was normal, and make friends without having to convince anyone he wasn't going to tear their throat out. And he was a little angry too, that he'd taken the easy route. Lapped up the benefits of Hilde's curse where they came. But what did he expect? If he'd been offered the same thing, he'd have taken it. A chance to blend in - that's what he wanted, wasn't it? "I see." He'd said something about witches giving birth and Samuel helping out, but it had all washed over him - Mark's voice far away, much further back than that swell of irritation in him. How could he be proud of what he was and be okay with hiding?<br><br>Turning his attention back to what Samuel and Mary were doing seemed like the safest thing to do. It took him a few calm breaths to let himself settle, because he knew Samuel wouldn't let him live down an snarling match with Mark over what Hilde's curse had done. Instead he focused on watching his beta count out handfuls of herbs, following Mary's instructions with an increasingly impatient expression. It made Drew's smile flicker into life, and he privately wondered just how long his beta would manage to keep holding his tongue. That had been a marked change and curse or no, Drew liked to think his pushing and prodding and jibing had at least helped his beta to find his tongue and remember he had a right to stand up for himself. Even against him.<br><br>It was starting. Maybe it would come up fast, like the running when that got going. <br><br>At length, he looked to Mark again, swigging at his coffee and taking a perched seat against the railing that skirted the porch, angled so that he could watch both his guest and Samuel. "He was talking about his granddaddy's cabin. You know where that is? I want to see if the old man left any more caging. Ain't too keen on letting Tom have mine on a permanent basis."<br><br>He cleared his throat, wetting his lips with another sip of coffee and he looked back over to Mary, eyes on her rather than Mark as he said what he was sure the other Alpha must already have had weighing on his mind.<br><br>"They test kids early, these days." Whatever Mark wanted to for himself was one thing, but with their child there was a danger they'd be found out anyway. Of course, it depended on Mark's son taking on the Were. With a witch for a mother, it could go the other way. And even though it was unlikely, there was a chance the kid would be completely non-magic. "Longer you keep 'im out of the hospital the better.&nbsp; Just... let us know if you need anything. To get it run by right. I'm... you know. Officially the only Were in town. Jess is still secret, I believe. We gotta get Tommy on the books now too, 'fore his parents set the sheriff on us for kidnapping him, but he don't need anything else loaded on him right now and it's only gonna start a witch hunt - 'scuse the phrase - if everything gets blamed on a rogue pack of out-of-towners no one knows."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>13-05-2016, 10:10:40</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Mark seemed content to just let Drew work through his thoughts and emotions in silence. He sniffed the air twice, mostly just making sure there was no real aggression rolling off Drew, but otherwise just watched his woman talk to Samuel like he was a child learning his ABCs. Patient, gentle, as well as strict whenever the professor looked like he was considering to throw a small fit. Samuel seemed to be writing down page after page of recipes and Mark wondered if Mary was really only teaching him 'one recipe, Mark. That's all. It won't be long. Stop fretting. I'll make it short', like she'd told him. He should have known better. No one made Mary do anything but what she wanted to do. Mary reached down, picked up a pebble from the ground and breathed on it. She handed it to a dubious Samuel who, after a few seconds of prompting, repeated the process and then dumped it into the weird brew they had going. The smoke turned a sickly green for half a second and while Mary frowned, Samuel's face morphed into genuine curiosity. Like a scientist presented with a mystery. What looked like a rapid questioning followed. <br><br>"Yea.. I still go 'tere, sometimes. Still smell like 'em after all 'tese years" Mark mumbled in his beard, brows came down heavy in a frown and made his eyes look like two small pricks of black in his face. "Better for my woman, t' not hear me change" she said she didn't care, but still looked like a wreck in the morning anyway. With the baby so close, Mark didn't dare to put her through the stress, "I can take you 'tere. Ain't on no map, or on any roads either". In the end it'd not just make Sammy safer, but maybe even encourage Drew to bring him. Mark tried not to push, tried not to be too impatient, but he wanted to jog Samuel's memory so badly. To regain what little part of the past, of what he'd lost, that he could. <br><br>When the topic shifted back to wolf hood in general, and the chance of his kid turning out like him, Mark just shrugged. "Ain't gonna lie, 'tere was plenty of times I wished I could talk about it. Couldn't even tell my woman. Don't know how she guessed on her own, maybe it was 't magic. I've got a family now though. Kid on 't way. Can't afford 't lose my livelihood. Can't just think about myself any more" but even as he said it, even as he told himself that he needed to play human in a human world to make sure his child wouldn't grow up hungry, part of him almost hoped they'd find out. It was all shame, longing, regret and resignation curled up in one little ball, tangled so tightly that Mark didn't know how to feel one without the other any more. Besides, lying never did sit right with the big man and while the spell had locked his tongue before, now it was a concious choice he was making. Growing up in a wolf pack meant that everyone could always smell a lie, so eventually you just stopped tried, stopped seeing the value in lies. These days, it still didn't come easy to him. <br><br>"You don't know much about Tommy, do you? He's a foster kid, by the Lawerences. Ain't the people in it for 't mission either. Don't think they give a shit where he's at, though don't try to move him or nothing. Money they do care about. Earl, Earl Lawerence, comes 't drink at my place five nights out of seven. A real chatty drunk too, never could shut that bastard up. Could talk to him though" Mark suggested. Not tell the man where Thomas was, cause the man was unpredictable and that could lead to some drunk with a shotgun showing up at his cousin's doorstep, but just work the 'this way you ain't even gotta feed the lil' shit' angle. "Understand that it'd be for Sammy" he added, in case Drew started getting ideas. Mark had friends, he wasn't looking to add a rival alpha to that group. No, this was about Sammy and Mark's eternal quest for redemption, for things Samuel didn't even know about. Hopefully, in making that clear to Drew, it'd somehow end up being mentioned to the professor down the line. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>02-06-2016, 21:22:57</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Drew knew he could have tried a little harder to make nice with Mark, but the fact was he was still on edge about a lot of things when it came to Samuel and the urge to protect him from whatever else might blow up in their faces meant that for the moment all he really wanted was to have the man to himself. And find some space without Tommy and Jess, just until they had the kinks worked out, and sure - he was due back at the school putting the damn wall up, but right now that project was the last thing he wanted to work on. He looked across to Mark as he talked more about the cabin, the start of an idea forming. <br><br>"You give me directions I'll probably pick up your scent on the place well enough when I get close." It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the offer of Mark showing him the way. It wasn't that but he knew he was being standoffish. Grumbling at himself Drew let out a breath. "Look. Sam- he's my beta and we need to - have some pack time. Together. I figure a place out in the woods'd be good for that." Mark had to be able to read the frustration in him at not having been able to run with Sam. Deep down in the pit of his gut it sat there like a solid knot, too tight to untangle. It wasn't that he didn't care about Tommy or Jess. He did - they were part of his pack and he felt that bond, but with them, the distance felt more natural. He gritted his teeth. "We need to sort this out, the two of us. I ain't gonna start pack runs without Sam."<br><br>His eyes wandered to Mark again as he explained about Tommy and Drew's jaw tensed as the situation was explained to him. He nodded his thanks, folding his arms across his chest. "Sam's got attached. He'd thank you for it." Whether Drew would or not was yet to be seen. This morning was the first civil encounter all four of them had managed. The Alpha cleared his throat, shifting his weight and reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck. "Look. I'm not meaning to steal your territory. We need somewhere to run, otherwise, I'm fine with keeping my roam small. We should- um. Get the maps out, or something."<br><br>Again his gaze drifted over to Samuel, his nose lifting to scent the thick smoke that had started to come from the pot, and his frown pulled in. "You always drink what she makes you? Reckon it actually works?"
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>19-07-2016, 12:00:49</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Mark just crossed those lumberjack big arms of his when Drew shot down his offer to show him the cabin. If he was being perfectly honest, the offer had been more for himself than for the other wolf. The cabin was special to him and his family. It technically belonged to Sammy these days, but it had been the home away from home for the Stillwater pack for as long as anyone could remember. As far as Mark was concerned it still should be, and Drew was not the alpha of that pack, he was. At least of what was left of it. Letting Drew go there on his own felt rather like letting another man have a go at his wife. Mark didn’t like it. It probably showed too, in the scowl on his face, the hard line of his mouth and the way he squared his shoulders. It wasn’t until the other alpha started talking about needing alone time, about needing to piece together what was happening between him and Sammy. Sure, Drew said ‘beta’, but Mark heard ‘mate’. He didn’t need Mary’s ability to see the moss green bond between his cousin and the wolf to figure that out. And he understood, he sympathised, because how often had the need to run with his other half clawed at him? The difference was that Drew actually had a chance, where Mark didn’t. Mary’s magic wasn’t like that. He almost resented the other wolf for the fact that he could have what Mark couldn’t. “I get it” he eventually grunted out, body relaxing again. “Well, I don’t” he’d been the alpha of a one-wolf pack for far too long. He had a few humans in it though, even if it wasn’t the same. And where Drew’s was barely hanging together, Mark’s was fairly cemented. <br><br>“Wait here” the wolf huffed when Drew started talking about territory. He stomped back through the house, out into his car, and returned with a worn down map. It was dusted with coffee stains, little holes at the folds and smelled oddly of chicken soup, but could still be mostly read. Now was likely not the optimal time to start carving up the land, Mary would probably have his hide for it later, but Mark just wanted things settled. This uncertainty, this foreign alpha in his territory, it was fraying the edges of his wolf’s control. He was a fairly easy-going guy at the best of times, but even he had his limits and a fight was starting to look pretty good right now. “We’ll draw up lines now” he said as he returned, voice allowing for no argument. It wasn’t as much a mutual agreement, as it was Mark outlining all of his regular hunting grounds and claiming them off limits. The mountains to the north, the forest to the east, those he ran weekly. The cabin in the western mountain forest they would have to share, he huffed, because he knew he held no real claim to it if Samuel started to argue, but he needed it anyway. More than anyone else here did. When he eventually shoved the map at Drew, with it’s bright red ‘don’t go here’ circles, he felt a weight lift off his shoulders. <br><br>He followed the other wolf’s eyes to where his woman was trying to prevent Samuel from causing a metaphorical train wreck. By the looks of it, it wasn’t easily done. Still, he knew Mary and the look on her face said he was learning, even if slowly. The liquid in the pot was bobbling furiously, even though the fire had died out a bit ago and yeah, he might be married to a witch but that still looked creepy to him. “Yea. I reckon it does. Tastes like ass though. Don’t always feel good right away either, but that’s t’ thing ‘bout magic, it costs” he huffed. Needed a mortal wound healed, sure thing, but the trade-off was stomach cramps for half an hour and a bad taste in your mouth. Or the runs. “Might just be ‘cause of wat she is though. You know wat a wild witch is?” Mark wasn’t banking on it. Didn’t seem like the packs where Drew came from, had much to do with witches. Let alone wild or pack witches. Here in the south they were an essential part of any pack, though it wasn’t normal for the resident pack witch to be of the blood variety. They’d been all kinds of special in that way, and it sure had come back to bite them in the ass. <br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>MonkeyBee</strong> on <strong>28-07-2016, 20:34:47</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				It seemed Drew wasn't the only one who'd been thinking about territory. Mark's map - and the amount of red already scrawled on it - gave Drew some idea of just how long Samuel's family - Mark's family - had been prowling these lands. His jaw tightened slightly as he realised just how restrained his first rash statement was going to leave his pack. Mark seemed grudging about the cabin, even though it sounded like Samuel had more rights on it than he did. But at least he was allowing access there without a fight. <br><br>Drew spread the map on the small table set on the veranda, squinting at the fading ink and making sure he understood the annontations Mark had made before he said a word. Again his arms folded across his chest, a little ticked off with the spaces Mark had left them. But then - he had to remember, Mark had been here longer. He was the interloper. Samuel wasn't in a position to claim territory of his own. "We need a clear run up from the house to the woods on the west, and some breathing space down here by the road - you don't need to come that close. I want a buffer. These woods on the flat - back where the meadow opens out," he squinted off, pointing out to the far corner towards the east, where Mark had come from. "The stream in the woods. We get until there, and follow the line along.&nbsp; If the cabin stays neutral then we gotta timeshare or something. And you need an agreed way in - no straying off poking round my ground. No offence, but I ain't looking to join up into a clan right now." South lay the rest of the town, and Drew knew as well as Mark did that it wasn't safe space to roam in. Not for youngsters, and not for any wolf who didn't want to get caught. Mark already had them restricted, and Drew was being good about it, but the man had to know he was pushing the limits of what four - no, three - wolves needed. <br><br>As it always seemed to, talk of the witches that had become so close to them seemed to bring things back to a calmer state. Drew was still watching the bubbling cauldron sceptically, but he looked back to Mark as he asked him what he knew. "We didn't have pack witches where I came from. What's a wild witch?" Damn, it still made him uncomfortable to think that Sam was one of them. He'd felt the current of magic in him even more surely over these past days, but he also felt the wolf in him calling to his own. When Mark was gone, he was going to get Samuel out to the cabin as soon as he could - the man could protest it all he wanted. They both needed it more than Samuel could have possibly known. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: So, you go bump in the night, or what? (Monkeybee &amp; Cholly)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Cholly</strong> on <strong>09-08-2016, 04:17:50</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				There was no use pretending that Mark was happy about having Drew tell him what to do, or how to alter the plan drawn out on the map. It likely wouldn’t fool the other wolf’s nose for a second, and Mark wasn’t so good at acting that he could hide the way the frown was setting on his face. Maybe if the other alpha was being unreasonable, Mark could have let himself get actually angry, get aggressive, but the thing was that Drew was right. The city wasn’t a place for a pack, not with tension riding high the way it was these days, and they did need a way to the running grounds. Just because he knew there was no changing that, it didn’t mean he had to like it. “Fine” the man eventually huffed out behind his large beard and crossed arms. He was still tense as he nodded to his cousin and his woman, throwing what looked like more damn pebbles into the cauldron. He hoped they weren’t going to try to get Drew to eat those. <br><br>“Don’t know ‘ow you lot do up North, but we always like t’ keep track of t’ things that go bump in t’ night here down south. Well, t’ things that go bump in t’ night aside from us. Now I ain’t no expert, but from what I’ve heard there’s three or four kinds of witches out there. Ain’t all equally nice. Some magic only run in bloodlines. Like t’ nasty kind. Like blood witches. We don’t generally play nice with ‘em, and they don’t generally play nice with anyone else either. Ever had a pack member go missin’ for no good reason, chances are high one of them did it. Sammy and our grandmother, they were different, but his kind don’t tend t’ use their own blood and pain for spells”, Mark said, watching the other wolf as the words sunk in. Bloodwitches were monsters even in a world of monsters. When they killed and tortured, it wasn’t because they lost control or because there was a monster inside of them, it was because they were in control. It was because to them, the rest of the world were just tools. Means to their own ends, to be used and discarded as they saw fit. There were people who ran, defied their families with terrible prices. His grandmother had been one of them and now, well, now he and Sammy was a pack shorter. <br><br>“There’s t’ kind of witches that’s real slow about everythin’, spend months weaving spells like they’re making a damn carpet. Way I heard it, they’re t’ self-taught kind, with no real talent. Magic ain’t in their blood, but something they’re forcing into existence. Nature ain’t in a habit of listening to them, so there’s only so much they can do. We don’t mix much with ‘em, cause they ain’t much worth as far as a pack is concerned. Nah, you want yourself a nice lil’ wild witch. Like my woman” warmth seeped into the alpha’s voice, along with no small amount of pride. “They’re all nature, have it dancing t’ their tune. They weren’t made for packs – they’re fae, more or less. Or the great grandchild of one of those bastards rather, asshole blood nice and diluted with human blood. So far removed that t’ attitude of those forest dwelling pricks have been replaced with something less self-serving. Ain’t made for fighting, but for growing and healing and glamour. They need us, ‘t keep them safe from t’ things that go bump in t’ night. We need ‘em t’ patch us up every now and again. Or calm our wolves. Or help someone pull through a bite. It sounds like a business deal, ‘n I reckon maybe it is, but they’re loyal. Once they’re part of a pack, they’re every bit as true as you and I” he finished. Mark reckoned there were exceptions, but then there always were. He’d heard of a wild witch who’d left her pack to die during a pack war, but then he’d heard of wolves losing control and slaughtering it’s family too. Every type had rotten apples. <br>
			</dd>
		</dl>
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