by Zakarrie C
“Your last observation suggests you can’t see straight, let alone—”
“I can…even though it’s dark, so there. You’re too distracting to do bothering to read the spines of books. I feel most oddsome…sort of shivery. In my bones, but my blood’s doing boiling. Blimey, I’m hot,” Phin did huffing to fuff his fringe away from his forehead, which was stuck to it with sweat.
“Phin—”
“Fuck!” A flare of flame did shooting up Phin’s spine, snatching his breath away. It wasn’t a fun feeling—like one of those weird neck cricks—but all over. His skin was more uncomfy, far too tight and too hot, so he felt sort of shrink-wrapped inside it. As if Phin was too much for his very own self.
“Phin…I’m sorry…” Jake’s eyes blazed full beam bright, iridescent with fear and suppressed fury…something else too. Longing? He smelled heavenly, his sultry sunshine scent as thick and heady as opium fumes.
“No sorries…I’m okay it’s just, Jake, I need—” Phin’s words were snaffled when a scorching spasm did zipping through his system, twanging his tendons taut to make his muscles do clenching.
“Phin…” Jake’s low, rumbly purr did tugging the coiled centre of heat in the pit of Phin’s belly; it needed him too. So much so, it started to do…unfurling in a silent shimmer, suffusing every fibre of his being. Filling Phin up with all-consuming rightness when it did flooding his body.
“I…Jake, I feel too right but all wrong…” Phin was aflame with too much excessive to contain. He ached to do letting it go but was tangled in twisty knots; too tight and ratcheting tighter still, binding him in barbed wire snarls, trapping him inside himself.
“I’m scared…what if I do excessive? What if I turn out Too Much? Jake…I can’t bear to do hurting you.”
“Phin I could kill whoever drilled that into your head. No More Too Much. I’ll heal, f’chrissakes.” Springing to his feet, Jake did yanking at the belt of his robe before shrugging it off to do puddling at his feet in a soft sigh of fabric. Then stood, naked; glimmering gold, backlit by the moonbeams beckoning Phin into the night. Light and shadow stroking his skin, caressing its hard lines and sinuous curves…he was magnificent. Mine.
Jake did diving atop Phin before he could blink, engulfing him in a headrush of lush scent and lean, sinewy strength. Covering him—as if to do protecting him from a bomb blast—when surely Phin was the bomb about to blow? A fear he forgot to do fretting about when Jake crushed his mouth down to lay waste to Phin’s lips with a blitzkrieg of kisses. So hot, hungry, Jake must have done holding back so much more than he’d ached to take; needed with a ferocity that made such restraint astounding. The need driving Phin was an immense press too insistent to do denying. It would have been impossible; he was too punch drunk on lust to resist the irresistible. Phin tangled his fingers into tousled waves, revelling in the rasps of sound that did spilling from Jake’s lips. Anchored, adrift in a torrent of never, ever, too much.
“Phin….please,” Jake did lifting his head, ensnaring Phin with the laser luminosity of blue brilliance. “Let go…it will hurt more if you don’t…we need you. I-Jack…love you, both—no—all of you. Jack wants—oh crap, must I? He’s ‘doing waiting for you’…”
The last words did ripping from Jake’s lips as if…he mightn’t allow them to leave otherwise. Jack. My Jack. Wanting…waiting… Phin could do sensing him so strongly he seemed to hear him—inside his head—as if he were holding a seashell to his ear with words whispering from it, filling him up. Seeping into every fibre of his being; heart, body, soul. Mate.
“Jaaack!” Phin howled when his spine did a sudden spasm so violent it surged off the bed in an arc that sent Jake flying off his body—unless he’d done flipping himself off—Phin knew not. “Jake!”
“I’m okay…” He was beside the bed in a flash, all frantic eyes and sinews straining to hold himself still…despite the fact Phin could feel the fury that wanted to do razing the world to the ground. For him…them? No—that sounded as daft as it felt. For Phin.
Scrunching his eyes tight shut, Phin did focusing on the strong, sure, pounding of Jake’s heart and the skittering of his own as it scampered to do catching up. Then did concentrating on the very thing he’d spent forever trying to suppress…um, mostly, unless he forgot to do remembering. Flinging wide the floodgates, Phin did throwing himself headfirst into the flames of too much to let loose.
“Jack…” Phin sighed when his muscles did rippling in a free-flowing stretch, filling him with an agony of bliss. His entire self did shrieking as it shattered on the rocks of excruciating ecstasy, engulfing Phin in the light-shot lustre of never, ever, enough…
65. Jake
“I could kill whoever drilled that into your head.” Fury blistered through Jake’s body, propelling him to his feet with a snarl. “No More Too Much. I’ll heal, f’chrissakes.”
Unable to stand stifling human niceties a second longer, Jake shrugged off their last shroud and sprang forwards, fuelled by pure instinct. The skin beneath Jake’s was an extravagance of seething heat—hotter than their own—aflame with steel- trap constraint. Even Phin’s lips were comparatively cool when Jake captured them, but the tongue that darted between his teeth was febrile fire, as feverish as his kisses. That had to count as justification for Jake’s assuredly lost plot…which starred a Phin tethered too tight to shift. Wilfully so.
Why the fuck is he holding out? Resisting the very thing he’d claimed to want? Jake sure as shit hadn’t wanted him to suffer this fate. Fears that had been rebuffed by Phin with nary a care for consequences. Mr Neil had never had a hope in hell.
The jackal wasn’t straining for freedom despite—against—Phin’s wishes. His scent alone made that an indubitable fact. Phin had not done changing his mind. Just as Jack had promised.
Still sure?
Twice as.
“Phin….” Jake pleaded, after dragging himself from the kiss.
Jack…Help Me. Jake felt his irises flare and saw blue flame reflected back in bottomless brown. Now flecked with amber fire…in readiness.
“Let go…it will hurt more if you don’t…we need you. I-Jack…love you, both—no—all of you. Jack wants—oh crap, must I?” You’ll pay for this, you mangy mutt. “He’s ‘doing waiting for you’…”
Au contraire…we’re about to reap our rewards, so suck it up.
Jake threw himself backwards to land sure-footed on the floor a split-second before “Jaaack!” clawed the walls when Phin threw back his head with a howl and an abrupt spasm seized his body. “Jake!” His name, full of fear, for him. Phin didn’t seem afraid of the jackal self whose scent would soon overshadow his own. Jake could sense its presence as keenly as a jackal in the room.
He is? Well, I can’t see him, can I?
None so blind as those who will not see…just sayin’.
Smartarse.
“I’m okay.” Jake assured him, stroking the sweat-soaked strands of hair from his brow. Phin’s kiss-swollen lips curved in a breath-taking smile as gold flecked brown glittered with relief. Then his eyelids slammed shut.
“Jack…” Phin sighed. A sound Jack heard as ‘I’m coming…’ Somehow. A soft whimper slipped free, but the jackal remained still, alert—doing guarding his mate—rather than riding roughshod over Jake to snatch back the reins.
The shudders vibrating through that beloved body made Jake feel murderous as he stood, primed to pounce: heal, save, whatever it took…
He felt every agonising second as if they shared the same body. Inhabited every teeth-gritting grind of bone on bone. Flinched when Phin’s joints popped with a god-awful squelch and twang of tendons. Winced in pain when endless limbs dislocated under duress. Wept silent tears as he stood sentry. It took scant minutes, it felt like a forever of staccato heartbeats. When a torrent of pain and pleasure consumed Jake’s senses, he was staggered, astounded. Excruciating ecstasy, so soon…? Jake could only recall a steel-jaw grip of terror too intense for fuck all else from that
first shift.
The flow of Phin’s fur was breath-snatching; shades of desert sand-gold-grey, dusted with black and stippled with white. The relief was euphoric…for an eternal second or so, Jake’s brain went blank. Utter white-out. Even Jack was stunned into silence.
Time stood still in the heart-stuttering hush of the aftermath. Even the air seemed tranquil, languid, in the calm after the storm, as if it was too glutted to bestir itself.
Jake felt…giddy with relief. Suck it up, party pooper—be ‘light-headed’, if y’must. We know different…
Holding his breath, Jake approached the body curled in the carnage wreaked upon the bed. His Phin. Jake could still feel him, he realised. He hadn’t expected to, having feared losing him somehow; that the essence of the man he loved would be stolen by the creature who’d snatched him away. Their Phin-jackal…so, so, beautiful. Jake’s fingers were tingling with a longing to touch silky soft fur as he sank to his haunches and reached out a hesitant hand.
“Phin…” he murmured.
His fluffy head snapped up and those eyes—his eyes—midnight dark and sprinkled with starlight…and full, full of all Jake had been terrified would be lost. Brimming with wonder, love, longing… The magic and mischief that so entranced them with one whiff on the wind.
A strangely tentative snuffle of Jake’s hand was succeeded by a nose butt…then Phin-jackal let his tongue loll out in a daft grin. A very deliberate wink, mirroring Jake’s from a lifetime ago made him grin. Like a loon. Then, the miscreant inclined his head, blinding Jake with puppy eyes. About a snicker before swiping a slurpy lick, as lavish as it was gleeful, across Jake’s face.
66. Phin
“Phin…”
Ooh, that velvet voice; richer, smoother, more Bailey’s-Irish-Creamy than ever before. Resonant with warmth, worry and…wonderment? Phin did dragging in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sumptuous scent his whole self craved. Jake. His Jake. Waiting; heart heavy with regret…even as it did soaring skywards. As contrary as ever. Mine.
Blimey…why hadn’t Jake told him it would do feeling like that? Phin had sort of expected to experience something along the lines of a scene from Alien, with a bit less blood ’n’ guts, and lots more fur. Instead, it had felt like doing too much excessive coming; ablaze with an agony of bliss as his every fibre of his being did exploding.
Phin’s eyes flicked open, before he’d done cobbling together the wherewithal to do so. Hmm…Jake. Gleaming gold, hair a hundred hues of umber, bedazzling blues luminous with topaz intensity. Fingers proffered his way—not flinching from Phin as he’d feared—despite there being no trace of revulsion in the whiskied warmth of Jake’s scent. Phin wanted to do licking his skin, taste the mellifluous flavours in that symphony of smells. Do snuffling at him, everywhere.
It was most odd to do staring down his own nose, as wet and shiny as rubber in the rain. When Phin’s snoot brushed skin, it was all but blitzed with taser sensations that did snatching his breath away. Jake. Mine. Mate. Moonlight lapping the proud bone structure of his noble face, a single rogue tendril of hair falling over one eye, quivering like a liquorice lace.
The skin snuffle made Jake’s heady scent do transferring to Phin’s nose; a wondrous thing when the whiff would linger there to do licking later. A thought that made Phin’s tongue do lolling out in a laugh like Jack’s. He couldn’t resist returning the wink that had confirmed Jake’s presence, despite the fact he’d looked a very lot like ‘Jack’.
Phin hadn’t done realising just how true those suspicions had been. With every passing second, it felt clearer that he hadn’t done changing a jot. Inside. Having scarce known his new self for five minutes, there was much to do discovering, but Phin did feel uncannily akin to a furrier Phineas Finley. That, was his mum’s fault, she had a bit of a thing for certain Irish Members, so the minx had made the most of her new surname to do tinkering with Trollope. Crikey, Phin’s marbles were scattered all over the shop, sending random snippets skittering hither ‘n’ thither.
His dangling tongue made Jake’s lips do twerking with recognition, an expression so scrumptious, Phin couldn’t resist a little lap. Blimey’n’bejeezus…his taste buds almost did detonating. He seemed to have a helluva lot of them. On a veerry lot of tongue. It made Jake splutter a snort and swipe a palm across his face, which was a tad soggy with slurp, but he didn’t seem to do minding overmuch. Phin had a very lot of everything, in truth. Fur, teeth, legs. He did, in fact, have six of those—but not all at once, obviously—that would be excessive. The legs Phin was wearing couldn’t p’raps claim to be ‘moderate’ either. He hadn’t done standing up yet, but surely Jack’s legs didn’t look like that.
Jack. Phin could feel him. Doing Waiting. Just as Jake had promised when Phin was afraid to do changing. Afraid that the too muchness might injure Jake. That might have been daft when Jake would o’course do healing…but that didn’t make the fear of hurting him any less horrific.
“Fuck, look at you…” That seemed to fall from Jake’s lips unbidden, as if had done slipping out to air itself, without asking first.
Nevertheless, Phin gave himself a quick glance over, perchance he’d misread matters, and something had gone amiss. All seemed to be present and correct, so he returned his gaze to Jake’s face and did tilting his head in an enquiring sort of way, hoping Jake might elaborate a bit.
How Phin wished he knew what Jake was thinking. Feelings were another fish of kettles; he could do scenting many, many, things…too much to identify so soon. One niff was elevated beyond all others—in the nose of the beholder anyhoo—the floaty whiff of relief. Sort of similar to ‘fresh linen’ Febreze…rather than sour with repulsion, as Phin had feared. It was more…complex than simple relief; entwined with another, like strands in a skein of embroidery silk. A scent as heady as a balmy sea breeze…Exhilaration?
Phin mustn’t do letting himself get too giddy on it (even if his supersnoot spoke true) or do making mountains from molehills. That was one of Phin’s very best things…even before being handed a superpowered spade. ‘Acceptance’ was a wonderful thing, but it was far, far from…forever. He was terrified to let himself do skywriting pipedreams about, even in his head.
“I…feared…I might resent you, but I don’t…” Jake mused, at last; Phin had a tangled bag of knitting that needed sorting. “I didn’t expect you to still seem so…Phin. But I do, which is weird, when I don’t feel…well, I’ve always considered Jack in me. Not me…and yet, your eyes, they’re his. I can see Phin…you. Fuck.”
Jake’s words had done confirming some of Phin’s suspicions (he was a mannerly jackal and that sounded po-liter than confirmed stuff he knew damn well). Somehow. He could feel Jack’s presence too; sort of separate but the same, which was weird, when Phin sure didn’t feel like a passenger. Whereas Jake made Jack do sitting in a sidecar like Gromit while he was driving…did they switch places when it was Jack’s turn to do steering? Jake: decked out in a crash-helmet and goggles and sporting a flappaway scarf was an image so irresistible it made Phin’s tongue do lolling in a laugh again.
“What are you yukking it up about?” Jake chuckled, reaching out to ruffle Phin’s ears.
Oooooh…it was more luscious than the shiversome feel of fingertips trailing across the skin at Phin’s nape. He couldn’t do stopping the snuff that flitted free alongside a little whimper. He wanted…he wasn’t actually sure; toomuch to untangle. It was a gnarly knot of need, one he couldn’t be bothered to do unpicking, when it made far more sense to follow his nose.
Phin did want one thing above all else. His entire body ached; yearning for Jake to do wrapping his arms around his furry self and say it was okay…he still wanted Phin. He had lots more longings; to run with the wind, to feel the earth and grass beneath his paws…the rippling glide of muscle over bone. To breathe the salty clean scent of seaside air…and scamper across the moors with Jack. He was hungry, too. Ravenous, for everything; to taste, touch, smell, see, hear…feel… Do experie
ncing the world through his new eyes. Phin had sprung to his paws before he’d finished thinking that.
Jake’s instincts made him do jumping back a bit…but he was a tad too naked to have made pouncing seem a splendid plan. Particularly when Phin couldn’t be sure which way his legs might do skittering. Swiping Jake with an unwieldy paw or claw and despoiling his skin would be unbearable, even for the seconds it would take to heal. It was gleaming burnished gold in the dusky light of darkness…far too beautiful to believe the delirious things insisted by his hazy rememberings.
“Strewth…” Jake looked a smidge startled and did blinking a bit. Daftie, when he’d sure as strewth seen a jackal before. Phin did tilting his head again and donned a befuddled face. “Your bloody legs…” Jake was gesticulating at said limbs as if Phin had got carrots, or sausages instead of four furry appendages. “Christ, if they were any longer, I’d be able to ride you.”
Phin’s eyeballs almost did plopping on the bed. Blimey, now there was a thought worth savouring, in any way, shape, or form. The rush of fizzy anticipation that did zipping through Phin’s system made him do…sort of staggering to the floor. Whoa…a wee bit wibbly. It was not a jot like one of Jack’s limber leaps…more akin to tottering about in his mum’s high heels. When Phin was five…or um, thereabouts. He appeared to have a lot more legs than four suggested, flailing off on a whim.
