Drawn to You: Chapter 17: Josh

A/N: This is my favourite chapter so far...

Afterwards, he could be sorry. Or maybe he wouldn’t be. Not when Ray was by his side, giving chase to a great red deer—the kind the pack left alone except during full moons. Even then, they didn’t always succeed in bringing them down. It was hard work; wolves had plenty of stamina, of course, but this particular deer came from a long line of others who’d managed to somehow have just a little more.

Josh’s wolf was salivating, muscles burning, violently madly joyful.

He was alive.

It was all that mattered, the next breath, the next movement propelling him forward, and his best friend’s body close by his side, naturally.

No wolf could ever survive alone, they were made for pack, they lived for pack.

Humans went in circles about loyalty and love, but the animal part of him didn’t need words or definitions—it loved as purely as it killed. It was love, just as it was death, his teeth sinking into a flailing hind leg as someone got the deer on the ground at last.

They ate, and they jostled without truly fighting, marking boundaries with teeth bared and growled warnings, but stepping back after a couple mouthfuls to let someone else take their place close to the feast nature had provided.

And once full, he and Ray wandered off until they hit the edge of the water. They drank their fill, water staining pink with the blood still on their faces and then fading as the river pulled it away. There was no clean-up necessary, of course. Not here in their true forms—no clothes to hide behind, no doors to open or close.

They killed, they ate, and they lived.

And one day, of course, they’d die.

It wasn’t that the wolves were unaware of it, like humans assumed. Wolves knew, and so did deer, beetles and flowers.

The difference was that it’d never occur to any living thing without human hubris and stupidity to try and fight it.

They’d run from danger, or grow spikes to deter predators, but they’d never trap themselves in metal cages to try and keep life away.

Only humans imagined they could change the rules of the game.

And as they twisted in the trap they’d got themselves entangled in—their ideas of right and wrong that were supposed to somehow supersede what actually was—it was so easy to lose sight of what really mattered.

Of why you really lived at all.

Josh nudged Ray’s flank, rubbing his cheek against the soft fur there. And Ray turned to him at once, nuzzling at Josh’s ear. Their scents intermingling, reminding them and the universe where they belonged.

Stupidly, he’d been dreading this conversation. But there had never been any need to speak.

***

They’d slept in a tangle of tails, and they’d run some more, jumping in the water and splashing each other and anyone who got close.

No one stayed long, but that was just the way of the pack. Wolves didn’t care for convention or obligation; they’d go where they felt like going. And the others could probably sense how close Ray and Josh were tonight, how perfectly in sync.

It would have made no sense for anyone else to hang out with them.

Unfortunately, the goddess receded to make room for the king of morning, and Josh woke up sleepy and a little chilled where he was lying in the grass, naked.

Shifting in his sleep wasn’t a given. After all, Josh was no more human than he was a wolf. A couple steps away, Ray still had a tail. He was awake, but he hadn’t left.

The Moon always knew better than Josh, didn’t she?

“Hey,” he whispered, clearing his throat and swallowing. “Can I... Can I tell you something?”

It was harder to read a wolf’s mood when he was human and his sense of smell was diminished, but he thought Ray looked wary.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Josh added quickly. “You can just...” He pointed at where Ray was curled up. “Stay. Just stay. And... and let me apologise.”

Ray lowered his head and rested it on his paws in response. He looked like a puppy, if one was stupid enough to forget the fangs that could tear a man’s arm out barely out of sight.

But Josh didn’t have to worry about that. It was he who’d done the hurting, with his very human mouth. He gulped down, pretending his heart wasn’t battering at his chest and lowering his eyes. It didn’t matter if he met Ray’s eyes, that would have just been a sign of defiance for a wolf, not sincerity.

There could be nothing more open and vulnerable than his own body, loud and chaotic, an echo of his equally messy mind, which Ray could perceive in technicolour quality with his sharpened senses.

“What I said... About Iesu wanting—” His face was burning and his throat clicked audibly as he forced the next words out, “you. That was messed up. Like, maybe he does.” He stopped because the adverb made the whole thing a lie.

Specially after he’d have to shove the guy off Ray (and he wasn’t apologising for that).

But the truth he could do, and if Ray could tell how much the truth bothered him... Well, then he could. This was Josh showing his metaphorical throat, he wasn’t going to be a coward about it.

“No, he does, but that’s his business. And yours.”

He stopped, giving himself a moment to find the thread back to what he actually wanted to say. “And I... I had seen the pictures, so I knew. I don’t believe that human bullshit that guys shouldn’t...” He waved instead of finishing the sentence. “Be gay, or whatever. There’s nothing wrong with being gay,” he added, exhaling in relief when it came out easy and true. He believed it, obviously, or so he’d thought all along, but he’d also flipped out, hadn’t he? “I’m sorry I was shitty about it, and I’m sorry... I’m just sorry, Ray.”

He looked up at last. Ray had raised his head, his dark eyes full of very human intelligence.

Josh licked his lips and rubbed at his thighs, suddenly very aware that he was naked now that he had nothing left to say.

Yays welcome, concrit welcome too :)