aloha, pax deorum

2.  polyamorous wolfpack porn-- though I actually titled this file “erika/boyd”

Derek never fucks them, and Erica thought this was a flagrant violation of truth in advertising until the night they went on their first run together.  

Boyd wasn't with them yet, so they were a pack of three--  Erica and Isaac tearing through the woods, scenting and bringing down a deer, with Derek pulling up the rear and keeping watch. Before they'd set out from the depot, Derek had given Erica a heavy-duty shoulder bag that contained a lighter, a twenty-dollar bill, Derek's phone number, a pack of beef jerky, and a roll of condoms.  

"Uhh, what do you usually do on these runs?" Isaac had asked.  

Derek had shrugged, expression solemn.  

"Don't kill any humans or domestic pets, don't be seen or caught on camera, don't engage any other werewolves, and don't breed each other.  Other than that, you can do whatever you want."

Isaac had looked appalled, but Erika had pushed to her feet and slinked over to Derek to stare up at him from beneath her lashes.  "Are you going to breed us?"

"You say that like it sounds really sexy," Derek had said wryly.  "Let's head out."

In the end, they didn't use the condoms.  As beasts, they took down the deer and then continued running, fed but restless, a simmering not-quite-anger underneath their skins.  Erica veered suddenly, throwing her body into Isaac's and propelling him into a thicket of trees.  He rebounded and leapt at her, and they rolled in the dirt.  

"Show me your human face," Erica said, straddling Isaac, thrilling at the strangeness of the demand, at the lunacy; the shredded, nightmarish sound of her voice.  She wanted to dominate him.  She wanted to tell him, I can make you do whatever I want.

Isaac's red mouth curved into a smile.  "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

So she closed her eyes and concentrated, pulling some of it back, holding her breath low in her chest the way Derek had showed them.  She kept her eyes, kept her fangs and claws, but moved the rest of her body into that of a harmless teenaged girl, only covered in gore, jaws open.  When she opened her eyes, Isaac had shifted too, and leaned up with his strange porcelain doll face to bite her.  Suddenly it felt like they were running again, only against the ground, into the ground, rolling in a bed of rocks and trampled grass and thorns, rutting against each other.  Isaac came like that, wetting the clothes he hadn't bothered to take off, filling the earth-scented air with the smell of his sex.

With an outraged snarl, Erica shoved him onto his back-- he went over, panting hard, and for a second she loomed over him, low-growling in her throat.  

She jerked away from him and pulled off her own athletic shorts-- she hadn't bothered with the vinyl vixen get-up because it was a night for wilderness, for nakedness of many sorts.  Then she moved back onto Isaac, straddling his face, fisting a human hand in his soft hair while his shoulders curled in the dirt.  

He made a sound like a choked growl, then pushed into her, rolling them, and licked against her.  She felt the shameless trickle of saliva on her skin-- the soft pads of Isaac's fingers pushing her thighs wide; the blunt teeth of the human; the rough, distended tongue of the wolf.

and

Erica wasn't sure what it was exactly about the look of her standing next to Isaac at the depot, their predatory gazes watching him, but the first thing Boyd said to them was, "I don't do orgies."

She grinned.  "Or maybe you just haven't yet."

"Nope," Boyd said, but he let her pull him down, crowd into his space, lick into his mouth.

and

True to his word, Boyd didn't do orgies, but he and Isaac did fuck.  But it wasn't like Erica and Isaac did it, or like she and Boyd did it.  

Isaac was needy, even by their pack's standards, and for a werewolf Boyd was preternaturally calm-- so it wasn't wild or harsh between them, that Erica had ever seen.  

It was the relative gentleness that let Erica know she wasn't invited to participate, or even witness, beyond passing glimpses and sounds and smells that filled the air.  It wasn't secret, but it wasn't performative.  It was mostly Isaac sucking Boyd off in his human form while Boyd stroked a hand through Isaac's hair, or Boyd leaned over Isaac on one of the depot mattresses, both of them half-transformed, fanged jaws hanging open, Boyd jacking Isaac off, their yellow gazes locked.  

3.  Oh man, musings of a moody spin-off from the dazzling, charming Stiles/Derek AU Multidisciplinary Studies by the inimitable @devildoll.

The Hale house was so permeable-- having girlfriends and boyfriends and best friends was so acceptable in the Hale family-- because the culture of secrecy was so absolute.  

It was the one thing that was never funny, unlike the inevitable sex talk, which was uncomfortable to all involved parties, but in a rueful, self-castigating way that everyone could kind of laugh about later.  The secrecy talk had to happen in stages.

The first one wasn't so bad.  It started shortly after someone had graduated from "mama" and "no" to making full sentences; it had the same tenor as the commandment to not say bad words, even if someone else says them first.  It made it seem like being a wolf was something private, something that was special and wonderful and not at all shameful but which was only for family and maybe later for someone special, in the distant future, to whom you wanted to get married.  Don't take off your clothes at the grocery store.  Don't talk about wolf stuff to anyone outside the family.  

The next one was right before someone started school, and the whole family had to be there, so that the person receiving the talk understood that the rules were absolute, that they applied to everyone, and that everyone depended on them.  

It was terrifying, seeing your family gathered but solemn-faced, seeming kind of conflicting but silent, totally focused on you.  But even then, the message was somewhat gentled.  If someone outside the family found out, people could get killed.  It had happened before, it was explained, but there were no details.

The third and final talk was after puberty hit, and that's when the details came out.  It was back to one-on-one because god knew going through puberty was embarrassing enough, you didn't need a town hall meeting about it.  Before, it had been explained just that the Argent and Hale families used to "fight," a long time ago, and that's what the peace dinners were about-- but during the third talk it was explained why.  Past occurrences were laid out with somber but explicit detail.  People will hunt you.  People will hunt your brothers and sisters.  

Derek had been angry and terrified and quiet for weeks afterward.  Even Laura had kind of left him alone.  

After that, it was unthinkable that he would break secrecy.  He'd always been a rule-follower, but hearing the risks of rule-breaking in grim detail had sealed the deal.  

In his mind, he would meet someone that he loved enough to marry, and he'd tell that person (or harpy, or however it turned out) right before he proposed to them, and that someone would love Derek enough to not be frightened-- and Derek would explain that his father was human and that it could work fine, like with his mom and dad, and his dad's superglue, and that they could have a family together, and it would be perfect.  

Maybe Derek would test them beforehand with hypotheticals, he thought.  Would you love me if I were a dragon? he would ask with perfect seriousness.  Or maybe it would be better to start with something less supernatural.  Derek couldn't think of anything, and over the years he'd tried out some completely un-werewolf-related hypotheticals on Rebecca, and really it was no wonder she thought his family was in a cult.

By that point, though, Kurt had started dating, and no one had died, and Derek stopped obsessing over how his own pre-marital reveal would play out.  

But Derek was anxious in general, and there were still nightmares, sometimes. 

There was an alternate universe out there, maybe, where Derek did break secrecy.  Maybe he wasn't careful enough, or broke his word to his family, defied his alpha, maybe because his lover already knew some stuff about it, and seemed curious and accepting of it, or because Derek was in love and wanted that closeness so badly.  And sometimes he had dreams of his house burning down with everyone inside-- with the twins inside-- because of it.

+

A few days before Stiles was due to drive back to L.A. at the end of winter break, he and Derek had anal sex the first time.  Derek was prepared for the possibility of his eyes flashing and didn't want to just keep his eyes closed the whole time, so he touched Stiles's knee and said, breathlessly, "Can I?  Behind you?"

"Ugh, definitely," Stiles said.  His eyes darted to the outline of Derek's hard dick in his jeans, his wet mouth parted.  They'd been making out in Stiles's bedroom for half an hour.  "Absolutely yes."

Stiles fished the lube out of the nightstand, and for the next fifteen minutes Derek stared as Stiles slid his fingers into himself, panting softly, watching Derek watch him.  

Derek already felt pretty overwhelmed, like he was on another planet, where there two moons or gravity worked backwards or something.  He shifted closer where he knelt on the bedspread, putting reverent hands on the insides of Stiles's spread thighs.  He moaned when Stiles bit his bottom lip at the touch.  

Sinking inside Stiles's body felt like nothing Derek could have imagined.  As he'd lined himself up, he'd said, "Uh, tell me if--" and then trailed off, unsure, so Stiles kept up a stream of gentle instructions and encouragements.  That's amazing, wait for just a second and Oh man, oh god, you okay?  You can move now and God, fuck, you feel so good.  

Derek fucked Stiles like that-- Stiles on his knees and forearms with Derek's hands spreading him open, Derek watching his dick slide in and out of Stiles's hole-- while something built inside him.  Like the by-now familiar onrush of orgasm but with a strange edge, a grim edge.  A shard of glass knocking around inside an inflated balloon.

"Fuck, I wanna," said Stiles, and reached back and grabbed Derek's hand.  He pulled, and Derek followed without pulling out as Stiles sank against the bed, gasping, his head bending forward into the pillow.  Stiles spread his knees, and his back arched, and Derek bowed over him, his thighs covering Stiles's, shoving into him, and Stiles keened and said, "right there, right there," and it was that-- the nearly pained sound, the feel of Stiles held down beneath him, the pale curve of his neck-- that pushed him over.

He wanted-- not to bite him, but put his jaws around him, scrape his fangs along the taut tendon of Stiles bent neck and breathe against his skin.  Not hurt him, but cover him, mark him, soak him.  Before he realized what he was doing, he was bending forward, a slow wolf shift starting in his incisors. It was only the sound of the growl, low in his own throat, that brought Derek back to the moment.  

He froze, even as Stiles half-completed the thrust, though it was harder for him now, at this angle, and said, "Come on, come on, please."  

Derek looked over at the wall, at the corkboard dotted with photos and magazine clippings and scribbled reminders, and kept fucking him.  It still felt so good, even as panic went through him.  

Afterwards, Stiles looked over at him, collapsed onto his back, his chest was rising and falling, the scent of his sweat filling the air. 

"That was-- you are amazing.  You're seriously the hottest person I've ever met.  You're the hottest person I've ever seen." 

5.

Callisto was a bowed rail in black clothes, the deposed ruler of the Morlocks, walking past the line of patrons at the Waffle House in Allentown, Pennsylvania.  She slipped into a booth opposite Ororo.

"What's good here?" she asked, mouth crooked ruefully.

She picked up a menu and scanned it, letting Ororo look at her.  

There were lines around her eyes now, at home with the familiar scars that cut across her forehead and cheeks, and there was a new scar, mostly healed, pale pink, inching out beneath the collar of her black henley.  From the reports Ororo had read, it seemed that Callisto was living temperately in a one-room apartment nearby, earning money as a telemarketer, so any wounds were likely to be recreational and not professional.  She'd also lost some of the muscle mass that had filled out her frame since Ororo had seen her last.

That same old violence was there, that noise that Callisto had always aroused, but the evidence of time passed was a counterweight of stillness against it.  The proselytizing urge in Ororo was quiet. 

She resolved to not spend the time answering any insincere questions, or asking them, so she picked up her own menu.  

"You look good," Callisto said, at last, and Ororo nodded.  She had also aged, but she had a home and family, so it was different for her.  

"So do you," Ororo said, and Callisto dropped her eyes, perhaps similarly resolved.

They placed their orders when the server came, and they spent the first half of their meal in a silence that was surprisingly comfortable, passing a carafe of syrup between them: two demagogues at rest.

"I like this," Callisto said, finally.  “I killed people, and you saved people, and here we both are.”  Callisto gestured with her fork.  “Pancakes.”

After a moment, Ororo murmured, “You did not kill people.”  

Callisto shrugged a shoulder, swallowing.  “You don’t live on the Hill and not kill people.”  She glanced up with a raised eyebrow.  "Well, you did. You always could do the impossible."  She looked down at her plate to spear another triangle of pancake, shaking her head.  "Witch."  

"Goddess," Ororo corrected.  Callisto snorted.  

When the server brought the tab, they both handed him credit cards, and Ororo watched Callisto's, wondering at the life that was behind it.  How do you re-enter the world once you have left it?  A few minutes later, the server deposited their receipts on the table. 

"Oprah, Uma," he said, grinning between them.  "Uma, Oprah."

Ororo frowned.  “I beg your pardon?”

Callisto pointed at Ororo with her fork, strings of syrup dangling from the tines.  “She once stabbed me in the chest with a knife.”

6.

Callisto curled against the particle-board entertainment center, one hand pressed to the edge of the television. "Don't look surprised," she said. Her voice was muffled by her own arm. "I sell things by telephone. I can be very charismatic." "I know very well about your charisma," Ororo said. Callisto paused and looked over her shoulder at her. "You did found and lead a nation." "Which was overthrown several times." "But not with charisma," said Ororo. Callisto smiled and turned back to the surge protector, prodding carefully at the outlet. "That's true."

2.

"I'm not going to force you," said Ororo.  Her thousand internal moderations were shaking under the load of conflicting impulses, and she kept her head down, shifting expressions faced toward the floor.  

Callisto watched her from the doorway, hands in her pockets.  After a moment, she said, "I'll get my coat." 

7.

Ororo: You could tell me the true stories of your life. Cal: Only because it doesn’t matter anymore.

8. 

Callisto sat on the curb, leaning over her forearms, watching Ororo prod at the insides of the rental car.  

"This sucks," she said, but she looked oddly amused.

9.

There was a long sooty streak down the back and along the arm of Ororo's linen shirt.  When Callisto wandered back from the convenience store across the street, Ororo was standing in a corner of the motel room, shirt pulled away from her skin and shoved under a desk lamp, scratching at the dark specks with a fingernail.  

Callisto set the water bottles and box of doughnuts on the bed, watching the other woman.  She wiped some crumbs off her mouth, then murmured, "Give me that."  

Ororo turned away from the lamp, and Callisto took the hem of her shirt and pulled it up over her stomach; she waited for Ororo to hold up her arms, then pulled it the rest of the way off.  Without a word, she took the shirt into the bathroom and began running water in the sink.  

Ororo followed after a moment and sat down on the lip of the tub.  

Callisto pumped hand soap onto the grease mark and worked it in with her fingers, grinding together the folds of fabric.  From her vantage point, Ororo could see Callisto's arm working beneath the black t-shirt, the lines of black elastic across her face and the curve of her eye-patch, her hooked nose, the quiet line of her mouth, the dark hair tucked behind her ear.  

After several minutes of kneading the cloth, rinsing it, then squeezing it, Callisto threw the wet shirt sideways, and Ororo caught it against her chest.

"Thank you."

Callisto turned and sauntered back into the main room.  "Whatever."

When Ororo moved to follow her, she found Callisto standing in front of the desk, riffling through a stack of newspapers.  Her shoulders were tense.  

Ororo functioned primarily on the basis of what was needed from her and secondarily on only a vague silhouetted idea of what it was she wanted.  Beneath those, in the magma core, she was a creature of impulse.  Callisto, conversely, had committed the first half of her life to violence-- now she was tired and quiet, if not inwardly pacific, a conservative counter to Ororo's fluctuating wildness.  

Ororo's hands wound around Callisto's forearms, and Callisto twisted sharply in her grip, elbowing Ororo's body away.  

Ororo let herself be shoved back a few steps to the edge of the bed.  Callisto turned slowly to look at the other woman.  Her mouth was a wry grimace.  

"Nice," she said.

"Yes," Ororo answered.  

They were old brawlers.  The first serious punch that Ororo had thrown as an adult had been aimed at Callisto's face-- nearly a decade ago-- and Callisto had swiveled, driving her elbow into the side of Ororo's skull.  Whether they'd always wanted each other was unclear, but at least the preamble was over.  

It had all already been done.  

Ororo took a step forward again and reached behind herself to unlatch her bra.  She let it fall to the floor.  Callisto's grimace softened into a look of uneasiness. 

Ororo touched the hem of Callisto's t-shirt, and Callisto slowly lifted her arms enough for Ororo to pull it up and off.  Beneath the shirt, Callisto was slender but healthy, long strong collar bones, pale shoulders, stomach a small well.  Callisto's arms dropped to her sides, and Ororo's hands moved to the button at the waist of her jeans.

"This new passivity of yours is compelling in its own way," said Ororo, slipping the button out of its hole, pulling down the fly with a slow, alien sound.  

"You're not a dominatrix, are you?" Callisto asked, voice low.  

"At the moment--" said Ororo, reaching her hands in, around, to hold Callisto's hips beneath the fabric of her jeans, pulling the other woman toward her, "I am unemployed."

4.

“Touch my hair,” Ororo said, bending to touch her forehead to the scratchy red fabric of the motel bedspread.  

Callisto smiled indulgently and pressed her fingertips through Ororo’s hair to the scalp.  “I like it long,” she said, pulling her hand down through the short strands.

Ororo leaned into the touch.  “That does not matter.”

10.

Callisto pressed her palm against Ororo’s sternum.  "Admit that I’m your arch-nemesis," she murmured.  She slid the hem of Ororo’s shirt up and pressed her mouth to a crease of skin at her waist.

"You are not my arch-nemesis."  Muscles flexed beneath Callisto’s hand, and Ororo's dark legs spread.  "But you are very strange."

11.

There were rain clouds thirty miles west of the highway; they would swell up over the fields by mid-morning.  Ororo let them come, although the windshield wipers on their car were not working properly: a dark wet to overlay the asphalt and the buildings and the grass.

“Are we in Arkansas?”  Callisto turned around slowly, frowning at the horizon while Ororo leaned back on the hood of the car until her face pointed upwards.  “What the fuck happened?”