txt me maybe

[synchronised]

❝ R U 4 SRS ❞
A   T F L N   P O S T

Comments

[knucklebred]

SENT: 7:00 AM
North field. Now. Or I'll wake every single local and you'll have bigger problems than just me.

[canines]

SENT: 7:01 AM
You don't get to order me around.

[knucklebred]

SENT: 7:02 AM
You've read my file. Tell me if I'm joking.

[canines]

SENT: 7:03 AM
What's this about?

[knucklebred]

SENT: 7:05 AM
You worried?

[canines]

SENT: 7:06 AM
I'm not your bitch.

[knucklebred]

SENT: 7:07 AM
If you were, I'd just knock you where you are. Come out, Mako. Weather's great.

[canines]

[ She could tell him no. Could tell him to fuck off, to step off — all of that aggressive, snarling language that she knows Chuck and Raleigh use with one another. But Raleigh's a wolf, moreso than she's convinced she'll ever be. That frightens her and excites her.

Maybe if he showed her how to be a real wolf, she'd be able to get Chuck to heel. To stay with her. ]

SENT: 7:10 AM
Two minutes

[knucklebred]

[ Simple victories like this one aren't supposed to be so thrilling, but Raleigh finds a great pleasure in getting Mako to bare her teeth - it reminds him of the times he's snapped his teeth at Yancy, that memorable once that he managed to pin his brother's wolf without sinking his teeth into the meat of his sides.

Look Ma, I'm making friends. ]

SENT: 7:11 AM
Be ready.

[ That's the last text he sends; Raleigh puts his phone away and strips down, the sting of the cold and the bite of snow a welcome ache as his skin tears apart - the wolf ripping through in a spray of red against the pristine white. ]

[canines]

[ Raleigh tells Mako to be ready so she knows what to expect waiting for her out on the snow. Fur, teeth and a lot of blood, pinpricks and red wash dotting the snow, eating through the ice to the mud below. This is how wolves commune with one another and this is how wolves tear each other apart. The fact that the line between one and the other remains so blurred for Mako makes her wary, but something in her veins howls at the challenge, making her hurry down to the North Field to see Raleigh with his steaming breath and matted down fur.

Despite his request, however, she doesn't strip down to meet him, doesn't divest herself of her clothes or her girlskin. When she meets Raleigh out on the field it's with her human body, the wolf left to prickle underneath gooseflesh.

If anything it's an act of defiance. She doesn't bare her teeth on command. Not for him and not for anybody. ]

[knucklebred]

[ He's not going to hold himself back.

Raleigh respects her, for all that she's a wolf dressing up as a girl; he wants nothing more than to put his paw on her muzzle, or bite her neck the way he knows to, but this is—

He's seated on his haunches, his tail raised but not wagging, his maw open and tongue out. Breath comes out in puffs, and Raleigh paws at the snow a couple times before he canters up to her, circles her in a manner that keeps him in her line of sight. He's a pretty big dog, almost the same size that Yancy was. Yancy would have been so much bigger if the sea hadn't taken him, and the five years Raleigh had spent in the wilderness has given his back a slouch he has to retrain out of his posture.

As it is, Raleigh comes up almost to Mako's midriff.

He doesn't hesitate to lunge, teeth and fangs bared. ]

[canines]

[ He keeps Mako in his sights as he circles and Mako does the same, her weight lightly distributed between both of her feet, hands held very slightly out from both sides, ready to keep her balance should she suddenly dodge one way or the other. Even though she doesn't make a habit of wearing her wolfskin, she understands how the beast works and can the animal's body language readily. It sets off in a very particular part of Mako's brain, the part that she associates specifically with a loss of control. (—she'd outrun both of her parents when Onibaba came to Toyko, their human legs unable to keep up as she'd dashed amongst the rubble and left them behind to die, running on four paws—)

Fight or flight kicks up in her veins almost immediately, but the signal is garbled given the duality of her nature. The girl in her thinks to turn, to run, while the wolf in her tells her to open her mouth and the hiss. In the end she splits the difference, seeing the change Raleigh's posture just as he's about pounce. His muscles bunch and then stretch beneath his fur and Mako seems to understand the motion inherently, shifting her weight and rolling to one side, the snow stingingly cold on her bare knees.

That's nothing, however, compared to shedding her skin, feeling the part of her that yells fight fight fight rip free from the rest of her body. Her blood joins Raleigh's on the snow with a warm hiss as she whimpers once and then shakes the gore from her coat. ]