by Apollo Surge
Sawyer attempted to squirm away too late as Elliot's fingers found his ribs, tickling him mercilessly until one of his flailing knees bumped the table and upset the syrup onto Serena's star charts.
***
Elliot was always a boost to Sawyer's spirits, but it only lasted until breakfast ended and Elliot headed outside to take care of chores. Sawyer, his worries returning, helped Mateo clear up the breakfast mess (Jacob cooked almost every meal they ate, with his only caveat being that someone else cleaned up after) then went to find Alicia.
She was in the craft room as usual, which was rapidly becoming her office. The large windows faced the front yard and let in plenty of light, illuminating the half-finished project on the old fashioned wooden loom and the piles of angora yarn and knitting in various stages of completion. A desk and work table that had once held patterns and craft supplies was now also crowded with reference texts and notes from Alicia's research.
She was sitting at the desk now, squinting at something on her laptop. She had a knitting project in her hands, working quickly without looking.
"Are you busy?" Sawyer asked, tapping on the door frame in lieu of knocking, as the sliding doors were already open.
"No," Alicia replied, not looking away from her computer. "Just trying to catch up on some of this knitting. I really need to teach some of you guys how to do textile work. Without Mom and Penny I can't keep up."
She paused her work as Sawyer stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.
"You play guitar, right?" she said, eyeing his hands. "You'd probably be good on the loom. Dexterous fingers."
"Uh, I could give it a shot?" Sawyer said doubtfully.
"We'll worry about it later," Alicia said, shrugging. "What did you need?"
"Just something for a stomach ache," Sawyer lied, shuffling awkwardly in place as she put down her knitting. "I ate something I shouldn't have last night."
It was a complete lie. He had been feeling slightly nauseous the past few days. Now he knew why.
"Ah, I've been there," Alicia said with a nod. "Hang on."
She slipped out of the room, returning a moment later with a familiar pink bottle.
"This is safe for us in small doses," she explained, pouring a carefully measured amount into the cap for him. "Don't shift for twenty four hours though, just to be safe."
"Thanks," Sawyer said, slightly amused, as he took the cap from her and drained it. "I never think about the weird medical stuff until I have a problem. And googling 'can wolves take ibuprofen' doesn't usually get me reliable answers."
"I think about it all the time," Alicia said, sounding slightly exhausted. "And the answer is no, you can't give a wolf ibuprofen. Or any other over the counter anti-inflammatory medicine."
She took the cap for the stomach medicine back and turned away to put it on the desk.
"We can't take Tylenol for headaches," she said, looking out the window at where Mateo and Jacob were loading up the family truck with inventory for the general store. "No aspirin regimens for heart conditions. No Advil to reduce fevers. Going to the doctor for anything is a risk because of our canine complications. But we can't rely entirely on veterinary medicine either because we also aren't actually dogs. Which is why our ability to heal by shifting is so important. But there are conditions that shifting doesn't heal, and injuries that make shifting impossible or unsafe. And treating those becomes a nightmare of possible sensitivities and unexpected reactions."
She gestured at the laptop, eyes far away.
"I was actually just reading an article on new canine-safe surgical anesthetics to see if it would translate for us."
"I guess that's why your mom started teaching you traditional shifter healing," Sawyer said, a little overwhelmed. "It sounds like modern medicine is kind of a mine field."
"It is," Alicia agreed with an emphatic look, eyes wide. "But a necessary one. Our traditional methods are good for getting someone through a bad shift, treating injuries from improper shifting, assisting in childbirth, but when it comes to the more complicated stuff there's nothing. Everyone just assumes they can shift and it will go away."
Sawyer's ears pricked at the mention of childbirth.
"So, you know what to do about one of us getting pregnant, though?"
Alicia shrugged and made a so-so gesture.
"More or less," she said. "Although, frankly it's not something we have to deal with much."
"Because of the miscarriage thing," Sawyer assumed, a shiver of distress running through him.
"Most pregnancies can't survive one shift from wolf to human," Alicia confirmed. "Let alone the eight or nine that would have to happen over the course of a pregnancy. Most women lose it in the first or second month, before they even know it's there. So unexpected pregnancies aren't really a thing for us. When my mom decided she wanted kids, all three times, they had to plan it incredibly carefully so that she could stay in wolf shape through the entire development. It's the only way to avoid losing it during the involuntary shifts on the full moon."
Sawyer pulled up a chair, grimly interested.
"So, did she stay a wolf during the, uh, the actual birth, too?" Sawyer asked, struggling around the slightly awkward topic. "Does it take as long when you're a wolf?"
"Yeah, Mom always did it as a wolf," Alicia confirmed, not seeming bothered by the subject, settling back into her own chair. "From what I understand that's normal. Childbirth is way easier for wolves than humans. Humans are shockingly bad at giving birth. At some point in human evolution we started being born with heads that are too large to actually fit through the pelvis. Which nature gets around by just not finishing the baby's skull so the bone plates can overlap and it can squeeze through like play dough-"
"Ew."
"As well as making the actual pelvic bones of the mother shift and separate to accommodate."
"That sounds like something out of a horror movie," Sawyer said, shuddering.
"It basically is. Human biology is a train wreck."
"But it's easier as a wolf?"
"Definitely," Alicia nodded. "Or so Mom said anyway. As for the second question, natural wolves only gestate for about two and a half months. Unfortunately, shifters lean more toward our human halves in this instance. I guess being magic needs more time to develop. It's usually eight months, sometimes the full nine."
Sawyer, full of fresh new reasons to not want to have children, stared down at his hands and tried to ignore his still rolling stomach.
"Are there any other differences?" he asked.
"Why are you so interested?" Alicia asked, raising an eyebrow, then squinting suspiciously. "You're not pregnant are you? I put condoms in that cabin for a reason-"
"No," Sawyer lied quickly, face turning scarlet. "No, I'm not. Just, you know, it might happen someday. I want to be prepared."
Alicia made a doubtful noise, eyeing him, then let it go.
"Well, you're an omega so you wouldn't have to worry about the miscarriage problem," she said, picking up her knitting again. "That's part of what makes omegas so special. They never miscarry from shifting. So make sure you use protection, especially around your heat when you're more fertile than usual. Other than that, it's mostly standard. We tend to have less complications, luckily. Or at least, my mom and the other wolf-mothers she talked to didn't. But they also spent the whole time as wolves, so who knows how it'll work for you. As usual, no one knows anything about omegas."
Alicia threw her hands up in mild annoyance. She'd been more annoyed by the lack of relevant medical information about omegas than even Sawyer. She'd scoured her mother's notes and any other source she could find back when Sawyer first found out, and hadn't been able to tell him much more than stories about their hyper fertility and how they had to bond to an alpha. The notes hadn't even mentioned an omega's ability to influence alphas.
"So, when are you planning to start having kids?" Alicia asked, and Sawyer went red again.
"I'm not," he said i
mmediately. "I don't want kids. I never have. This was just... morbid curiosity. Just in case."
"Have you talked about that with Elliot?" Alicia asked. "I know he used to really want a family."
"We talked about it a little," Sawyer said, fudging the truth a bit. That had been before their relationship was really serious. Sawyer had made it clear then that he never wanted kids. "Don't mention this to him. At all, please."
"Doctor/patient confidentially doesn't really apply to unlicensed traditional healers, you know," Alicia said with a small grin.
"Please," Sawyer repeated. "I'll learn how to knit or whatever. Just don't let him think I'm considering this, okay? Not until I'm... more sure I'm considering it."
"All right, all right," Alicia said, leaning back and holding up her hands in surrender. "I'll keep my mouth shut. But if you do decide to do this, I need you to promise you'll tell me ahead of time. There's a lot of research and prep work I'd need to do to make sure everything went safely. I'd have to get ultrasound equipment, find safe pre-natal supplements, study up on possible birth complications in wolves and humans. It's a lot of work and I'd like ample time to prepare, you know?"
"Right," Sawyer lied, guilt stabbing at him. "I'll tell you as soon as I know."
Chapter Three
Sawyer kept himself busy for the rest of the day. There was an odd fervor around the house, different from the usual mood after a full moon. Usually, the day after was a rest day. Only the most urgent of chores were attended to while everyone slept in and recovered from a night of carousing in wolf shape. But no one seemed keen on relaxing today. A hopeful, productive energy had seized them and no one wanted to stop long enough to question it and possibly let it slip through their fingers.
Perhaps it was having so narrowly escaped disaster with the Erlking and a kind of giddy relief at returning to a relatively normal life, more or less unscathed.
Or perhaps it was the opposite. They were very aware of what they had lost, and what they had come close to losing, and just didn't want to let their minds idle long enough to consider it.
Sawyer watched Elliot and Mateo, laughing as they prepared the garden for Spring, and Alicia, constantly immersing herself in two or more tasks at once so that she was never less than completely focused on what she was doing, and thought it was probably a bit of both.
Either way, it made it easy for him to avoid his own thoughts, and Elliot. Part of him wanted to crawl into the other man's arms and not leave for a year. But seeing Elliot smile at him, touch him, trusting and happy, made that guilt writhe in Sawyer's stomach.
He kept thinking back to when he'd discovered he was an omega. The moment he'd found out, Elliot had panicked and run away. He'd apologized, explained why he'd been afraid. He hadn't been ready to jump into a serious relationship and start a family and the thought that he would be expected to do that just because of what omegas were known for had spooked him. And he hadn't been an alpha then, just a beta, who couldn't bond with an omega in the traditional way. And imagining Sawyer bonding and having children with someone else had stung so badly he'd decided the only way to avoid getting hurt was to distance himself immediately. With time he got over it and Sawyer forgave him and they'd agreed that neither one of them was ready to bond or to have kids yet. There was no need to rush into it. They were happy as they were.
And now Sawyer was about to ruin it again by telling Elliot that, yet again, something was happening that they weren't ready for. All he could imagine was watching Elliot run again, the look on his face, the bitter apologies as he built a wall between them because he wasn't ready for this kind of commitment, this kind of responsibility. And who could blame him? Sawyer didn't want it either. But neither could he seem to commit to the idea of ending it.
So, he tried to learn knitting, and that ate a few hours and kept him away from the garden where Elliot was working. And then he fussed around in the greenhouse for a while, and acted like he was helping Jacob with dinner, though his help amounted to fetching utensils and setting the table.
Dinner was cheerful despite him and he did his best to act like he was in as good a mood as everyone else. But when it was over and Elliot walked with him through the yard in the early evening, the other man stopped and caught his hand.
For a minute they just stood in silence, in the yard between the main house and the cabin they shared. It was around seven, the sun already set, the moon waning but still near full. It was too early in the year for crickets, but the wind in the trees was a soothing rush, and somewhere distant an owl made soft, curious noises. Elliot held his hand loosely, fingers laced and warm in the chilly air.
"Are you all right?" Elliot asked, quiet, not pushing. "It's not just a stomach ache, is it?"
"Sorry," Sawyer said, half reflex.
"Don't be," Elliot said at once. "After what happened on the mountain- shit, it was only a month ago- anyone would be a little off. Last night's full moon just felt like it was finally over, you know? Really done. Now we can finally start moving on."
Sawyer nodded in understanding, wishing he felt the same. He had, for about five minutes last night before he'd found out he was pregnant.
"It's okay if you're not over it yet," Elliot said, squeezing Sawyer's hand. "I can't even imagine what happened with you and the Erlking. You take as long as you need. I'll be here."
Sawyer smiled to himself, wondering what he'd done to deserve someone like Elliot. He leaned into the other man's side, breathing deep his familiar scent. The warmth against his side, solid and safe, was all he'd ever wanted in the world. Elliot put an arm around his shoulder and held him close.
"I'm glad you're here," Sawyer said, soft and honest. "I... really need you in my life. I don't say it enough but I don't know where I'd be without you. Not just the pack, but you, and everything you've done, and how you managed to make me want to stay when I didn't even know how and I'm not sure I know how to function without you anymore and maybe that's not healthy but if I ever screw this up, if I ever mess up so badly that you really leave, I-"
His voice accelerated, his nerves catching up with him, sending him stumbling.
Elliot cut him off with a kiss, warm and insistent, and Sawyer forgot what else he'd been trying to say. Elliot had a way of kissing with his full attention, fully focused and intent. One hand caught Sawyer's waist, pressing against the small of his back to hold him close. The other cradled the back of Sawyer's neck, fingers in his hair. He kissed hard one moment, and then pulled back, following intense kisses with soft, barely there brushes of his lips, like he was trying to hold himself back, trying to be gentle. Sawyer chased him in these moments, pulled him back in again, giving him permission to be careless, to be rough if he had to. Sawyer wanted it all. Elliot's thumb rubbed circles at the small of Sawyer's back and Sawyer's teeth caught Elliot's bottom lip, like a signal, the kiss turning more heated almost at once. Elliot's fist tightened in the back of Sawyer's shirt and Sawyer gasped as it pulled up, exposing his skin to the cold night air.
"I love you," he said, pulling away from the kiss. "But can we do this inside? It's cold as hell out here."
Elliot laughed and picked Sawyer up by way of reply, carrying him the rest of the way home.
It was a mother-in-law cottage sort of design, really only comfortable for a single person, but they'd made it cozy for two. The combined kitchen and living room wasn't big enough for a table so they ate on the sofa. The bedroom just fit a queen size and a nightstand, and they didn't need much else. They kept it clean and bought curtains that looked nice with the sofa and Sawyer's guitar sat in the corner, where he played it most nights. It wasn't much but it was more than Sawyer had ever owned. It was stable and an investment in reliability and that was as soothing as it was terrifying.
Elliot couldn't wait the two steps to the bedroom and dropped Sawyer on the couch to claim his mouth again, hands already fumbling at his waist and the button of his jeans. Sawyer laughed against Elliot's lips and lifted his hips to slide h
is pants off without unbuttoning them, tossing them carelessly off toward the TV. Elliot's tongue against Sawyer's lips, Sawyer's hands in Elliot's shirt, dragging it up over his head and neither of them caring that it would be stretched out tomorrow. Elliot's mouth found Sawyer's throat, a weakness that had become debilitating once he'd become an omega, and Sawyer tangled his fingers in Elliot's hair. Elliot's teeth grazed his throat and Sawyer's bit off a moan, hips rolling upwards to grind against Elliot's thigh. During his heat just the slightest pressure of teeth there had been enough to leave him begging. It still had more effect on him than he thought it had any right to. Some sort of reinforcement to encourage him to bond maybe. He didn't care as long as Elliot kept doing it, following every gentle bite with a kiss and a hot sweep of his tongue.
He whispered Elliot's name, breathless, as the other man squeezed his chest, fingers grazing the white scar on his sternum, the lasting mark the Erlking had given Sawyer for his part in sealing him again. It was weirdly sensitive, with anything more than the most delicate touch becoming almost painful.
His hand slipped from Elliot's hair to his shoulder, nails digging just slightly into skin, inviting Elliot to be rougher.
Sawyer loved that Elliot treated him like something precious, but he didn't want to be cherished right now. He wanted a little bit of sting, that moment when your senses are so on fire you can't tell pleasure from pain, to be overwhelmed until everything felt good. Elliot's teeth answered for him, pressing harder near Sawyer's collar bone, just enough to leave a mark. His hands found Sawyer's hips and grabbed them hard, pulling them up to grind against him. Sawyer swore in appreciation, hanging on tight and throwing his own weight into it.
Suddenly, Elliot's hold on his hips shifted, twisting, and Sawyer let himself be flipped onto his stomach. Elliot, kneeling on the couch behind him, used one hand to pull Sawyer's hips up high against his own and the other to push Sawyer's head down into the cushions.
"Was this what you were after?" he whispered in Sawyer's ear, voice rough, and Sawyer shuddered, skin tingling at the sudden spike in arousal. Elliot was a sucker for dirty talk and Sawyer had caught his little kink by association.
