by Apollo Surge
"You keep tightening up when I say his name though," Elliot continued, grinning as he tortured Sawyer, delivering a series of short, hard thrusts followed by a long, hard grind that had his knot half in before he stopped, making Sawyer choke on a desperate moan of longing. "Have you been imagining Jacob's big dick the whole time we were apart? Well, I haven't seen it, but I can bet one thing."
Another quick, punishing burst of hard thrusts followed by a hard press that pushed Sawyer's face into the mattress, conveniently muffling the cry of startled pleasure he felt as Elliot's knot finally popped in.
"I bet his knot isn't half the size of mine."
Sawyer could only respond with half formed curses, his cock leaking and his nerves firing wildly as he tried to adjust to the massive knot spreading him open. It felt completely different from when they'd done this while he was in heat, and his signals were still too scrambled to tell if it was worse or better. It was intense, that was for certain. He'd never taken anything else that big. It was a hot, thick weight that opened him up so much he was half afraid that he'd break. It added something like two inches to the length of Elliot's cock, which now pressed so deeply inside him that for a minute even he was worried about the baby. He shook, more overwhelmed than he had been even the first time he'd taken anything.
And then Elliot started to move, his knot pulling against Sawyer's entrance but not slipping out, a sensation that made Sawyer start babbling curses again as Elliot set up a hard pace of short, intense thrusts. Every pull back stretched Sawyer again, and every thrust in pushed the knot up against Sawyer's core. He wasn't sure if he was cumming or just short circuiting, his cock leaking in a steady stream as Elliot leaned forward to grab his shoulders and pull Sawyer back into his thrusts. Sawyer could hear him whispering, groaning Sawyer's name, and knew for all his teasing that Elliot was close as well.
Sawyer fumbled for his own cock, stroking himself recklessly fast as Elliot sped up again, bending over Sawyer to wrap his arms around the other man and hold him close. He felt Elliot's hot, shallow breath against his neck, and then the press of teeth on his skin.
Sawyer came hard, shuddering and gasping, the barest edge of those teeth enough to tip him over.
"Do it," he said, breathless, stars still in his vision. "I want it."
Elliot bit down.
Pain blossomed in Sawyer's shoulder, an odd twin to the still radiating pleasure of orgasm and the overstimulated, too-intense sensation of Elliot's knot, buried deep inside him and swelling further as Elliot came. The pain didn't last, fading quickly into a fuzzy kind of heat, almost numb.
Elliot kissed the wound, clumsy and loving, then slowly, carefully moved back down onto his side on the bed again without pulling out. He couldn't pull out, and wouldn't be able to for another twenty minutes at least. Sawyer moved carefully with him, and lay pressed against his sweaty, heaving chest as they both recovered.
"Are you all right?" Elliot asked softly after a few moments.
"Yeah," Sawyer confirmed, feeling beyond all right, lightheaded and spacey and tingling all over. "Yeah I'm great. Probably going to suck later, but I'll live."
"I'll carry you to Canada if I have to," Elliot promised, kissing Sawyer's shoulder.
"My hero," Sawyer muttered, smiling.
After another few quiet minutes, by which time having the knot still inside was starting to be slightly uncomfortable, Sawyer spoke up again.
"You don't really think I want to fuck Jacob, do you?"
Elliot shrugged.
"Do you?" he asked.
"I mean, I thought about it when I was in heat," Sawyer admitted. "Hell, I dreamed about it. But once I was in my right mind again? Not really. Not the way I want to be with you."
Sawyer felt Elliot smile against the back of his neck.
"I mean, I wouldn't kick him out of bed," Sawyer said, teasing.
Elliot pinched him, and Sawyer laughed.
As another quiet moment passed, Elliot traced the still raw edges of the bite wound and Sawyer hissed at a flare of pain.
"Sorry," Elliot said quickly, moving back too fast, which made his knot pull against Sawyer again, who cursed, then groaned into the sheets. "Sorry! Jesus I'm on a roll today."
"You're fine," Sawyer muttered hoarsely, trying to ignore the way his sore, spent dick had twitched with interest. "I'm fine. I'll shift and get rid of it as soon as we're not, you know."
"Does that mean we're properly bonded now?" Elliot asked, running a hand up and down Sawyer's stomach.
"If it's not we can try again," Sawyer said, tilting his head back to smile at Elliot. "We can keep trying until it takes or the world ends."
"Sounds good to me," Elliot agreed, smiling.
He kissed Sawyer, and they talked a while longer as they waited for Elliot's knot to go down. Unfortunately, by the time Elliot could pull out, Sawyer had recovered enough that every small movement, every deep breath, that pulled the knot against his walls, had made him very, very hard again, which Elliot observed with an amused, slightly sadistic laugh.
"We're going to miss that bus."
Chapter Twenty-Three
They missed the bus. And the one after it. But eventually they made it over the border a little past midnight. They slept in more hotels, and as wolves among the trees. And finally Sawyer, for what he promised himself would be the last time, used his Influence to secure them a rental cabin somewhere north of Lake Huron. They surrounded it with wards that would have put Serena's to shame and by the first of June they were settled, ready to live comfortably for the last twenty-one days left in the world.
Elliot found a part time job in town, if only to keep Sawyer from needing to use his Influence ever again. Combined with what Sawyer still had in savings from before buying the trailers, they had enough to see them comfortably through the rest of the month. If the world still existed after that, Sawyer would consider online work and Elliot would look for something full time. But for now, what was most important to both of them was spending as much time with each other as possible.
Despite the impending doom that haunted their every step, Sawyer had never been happier. He kind of hated how easily and comfortably he slipped into domesticity. It made him feel like some kind of lovesick dope to get so happy saying "welcome home" to Elliot every day, or how over the moon he was every time Elliot was happy with his faltering and frequently failed attempts at cooking. He'd learned a lot from Jacob but he was still terrible.
They found a peaceful, easy rhythm to life very quickly, and the reliable routine of it fulfilled Sawyer in a way he'd never expected. He didn't think he would have been able to stand this not that long ago. He would have been a nervous wreck, the repetition torturous rather than soothing, waiting for everything to come crashing down, wanting it all to come crashing down just so that he could stop waiting for it. But ever since that last night on the mountain, it was easier to tell his real feelings from the Hart. And while his real feelings were still anxious and insecure and often afraid, they were a hell of a lot easier to manage than the panic that belonged to the Hart.
By the seventeenth of June, their third week in the cabin, Sawyer had almost forgotten that they were waiting out the end of the world.
"What about Noah?"
"Too hipster."
"Toby?"
"Toby sounds like a little kid. How do you call a grown man Toby?"
"Hmm. George."
"Opposite problem. Permanent old man syndrome."
It was a lazy Sunday. Sawyer was lying on the bed, his stomach enormous, Elliot beside him, talking baby names. The summer sunlight through the window painted the tiny bedroom in gold, scattering like coins over the colorful quilt which one of Elliot's coworkers had given him when Elliot mentioned his 'pregnant wife.'
Elliot had made a handful of friends in town. Sawyer avoided going out, not wanting to answer uncomfortable questions about his condition, which over the last three weeks had become very obvious. Much more so than Sawyer had been
expecting, based on his many worried internet searches. Not to mention his Influence.
"Maybe it'll be a girl," Sawyer suggested. "What about... Penny."
"I don't mind that," Elliot agreed, smiling. "Penny is pretty nice."
He lay back again, closing his eyes.
"Maybe we'll name the next one Noah," he said. "When the fad has died down."
"You want to have more than one?" Sawyer asked.
"I mean, only if you want to," Elliot said quickly. "I just think a big family would be nice."
"I think we'd need a bigger place," Sawyer said, looking around at the tiny vacation cabin. Elliot grinned, but Sawyer watched it turn slowly wistful. "What's wrong?"
Elliot shook his head.
"Just remembering the farm," he said finally. "It would have been so nice to raise kids there."
"Yeah," Sawyer admitted, looking toward the window. The little reminder of what they'd run away from stung. Though they'd come closer together than ever since coming here, that guilt still hung between them.
"How's your neck?" Elliot asked, changing the subject.
Sawyer pulled his shirt away from his collar bone to reveal clear, unscarred skin.
"Sorry," he said. "Maybe it'll work next time."
Elliot shrugged, but traced a line down Sawyer's chest, brushing the place where the white antler scar rested.
"Do you think maybe-" Elliot started to say, then cut himself off. "No, that's stupid."
"Tell me," Sawyer insisted. "I love your stupid ideas."
"Do you think maybe I can't bond with you because you're already bonded?" Elliot asked, tracing the antler scar through Sawyer's shirt.
"What?" Sawyer said, a strange, cold rush running down his spine.
"When you told me about meeting the Erlking," Elliot said. "Back at New Year's, during the ritual. You told me how intimate it was, how much it hurt. And now you have this connection, right? You still dream about him."
Sawyer frowned. He hadn't been hiding his continued dreams about the King from Elliot, but he had hoped the other man hadn't noticed how often he still had them.
"What if it's because you're bonded?" Elliot continued. "Or he's bonded to the Hart, anyway, and that's close enough?"
Sawyer licked his lips, feeling something click into place in the back of his mind. Before he could say anymore, there was a knock on the door.
"Oh, shit, I think that's Dr. Ferrox," Elliot said, jumping to his feet. "Stay there, I'll let her in."
Elliot had met Dr. Ferrox when he called the vet practice where she worked asking about whether it was safe to give dogs anti-emetics. Sawyer had been having a really nasty spell of morning sickness right after they arrived, probably triggered by the travel and bad gas station food, and Elliot had panicked. The various employees of the vet clinic had passed the phone around in confusion, trying to figure out what Elliot was after with his weird descriptions and cagey answers, until it was finally handed over to veteran Ferrox. Luckily, Ferrox was also a shifter. She'd had a hunch about the specific nature of Elliot's questions and asked him to come pick up some canine safe medicine in person. As soon as she'd shaken his hand they both knew the other was a shifter, and Elliot had explained, with as little detail as possible, Sawyer's unique condition. She'd been up once a week since to check on him.
"Afternoon," the stout blond woman said as she bustled past Elliot, carrying her usual heavy brown bag in one hand and a small black hard plastic case in the other. She was heavy set, with a mid-western accent and a no nonsense attitude. She kept her long hair in a braid, but pieces of it tended to stick out stiffly behind her like quills. She'd never confirmed, but Sawyer had a suspicion that she was some variety of echidna. She went straight to the bedroom were Sawyer was still lying down.
"Afternoon, doctor," Sawyer said, a little embarrassed, as always, to be seen this way. "Thanks for coming."
Dr. Ferrox whistled, staring at his stomach.
"I swear you're twice the size you were last time I was here," she said. "Are you sure you're only six months along?"
"Very sure," Sawyer said, nodding. "I knew pretty much immediately."
"Well, good news," the doctor said, hefting the plastic case and setting it on the bedside table. "I finally managed to sneak out with the portable ultrasound so we can find out what exactly is going on in there."
"Great," Sawyer said, relieved. "Alicia never managed to get the one at the farm working and I've been worried all this time. It could have two heads and I wouldn't know."
"Will we get to see it?" Elliot asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Absolutely," the doctor answered, opening the brown bag first to check Sawyer's blood pressure and other vitals. "I should even be able to tell you the gender, if you're interested. At six months it should be looking like a proper baby and everything, not just a weird alien."
Elliot and Sawyer exchanged an excited look.
"Do you want to know?" Elliot asked.
"Do you?"
"It's your decision, I'm just the cheerleader here."
Sawyer laughed and shook his head.
"I guess it would be nice to know," he said. "For names and stuff. I just don't want to be one of those parents that start picking their favorite color and what hobbies they're going to have just based on their genitals."
Dr. Ferrox snorted.
"No offense," she said. "But I doubt an overabundance of gender conformity is going to be a problem for you two."
Sawyer and Elliot glanced at one another, taking in the absurdity of the situation again, and couldn't help but laugh.
Finally, the doctor opened the plastic case and began setting up the ultrasound. Sawyer grimaced as she spread the cold conductive gel over his stomach, half excited and half afraid of what they'd see. This was a far from normal pregnancy, and he hadn't taken great care of himself for most of it. What if there was something wrong with the baby? What if it had some kind of horrible birth defect because he was such a shitty parent? What if-
"Oh my," Dr. Ferrox murmured as she moved the wand over Sawyer's stomach, her eyes on the hand held screen.
"What is it?" Sawyer asked, his outlandish fears suddenly seeming way closer to the realm of possibility.
"Is the baby all right?" Elliot asked, pale as a ghost.
"Everything is fine," Dr. Ferrox said without looking up. "Just give me a moment."
Sawyer and Elliot sat in tense silence, waiting, as Dr. Ferrox worked.
"Well, there's good news and, well, I wouldn't really call it good news," Dr. Ferrox said. "Not bad news either, frankly. There's news, and there's news."
"What is it?" Sawyer asked, feeling nauseous with worry.
"First of all, nothing is wrong," Dr. Ferrox reassured him. "Everyone's healthy and happy and there's no immediate danger I can see."
"But...?" Elliot added, urging her on.
"Well, you're a lot more than six months along," Ferrox said, taking a deep breath. "I'm not calling you a liar. But shifter pregnancies are always a crapshoot when it comes to length. Sometimes they lean more toward the human average, sometimes more toward the animal side of things. Yours seems to have gone for the middle ground. You are very, very close, sir. A matter of days I'd say. A week at a stretch."
"Holy shit," Sawyer said, feeling strangely numb. He'd thought he had another three months, assuming the world didn't end. That it was suddenly happening so soon (a matter of days!) was more than he could process.
"Hold on to your seats, I'm not done yet," Ferrox said, looking at the screen as she adjusted the wand into just the right spot and told Elliot to hold it there. Finally, she flipped the screen around and Sawyer's heart stopped in his chest.
"Congratulations," she said. "It's twins."
***
Even an hour later when Ferrox was gone, Sawyer still hadn't completely returned to his senses. Elliot saw the doctor off, closed the door behind her, then came to sit next to Sawyer again.
"So, she says she'
ll be back in a few days for the birth," Elliot said. "But if we think it's starting we're supposed to call her immediately, any time. Sawyer?"
"Yeah?" Sawyer said, blinking.
"Did you hear any of that?" Elliot asked, and Sawyer shook his head. Elliot took his hand, squeezing reassuringly. "So things are happening a little faster than we expected. It's no reason to panic. We'll figure it out."
"They're going to be born before Midsummer," Sawyer said, a strange ringing in his ears. "I never thought..."
The thought of the world ending before his children were ever born had been bad enough. But somehow the thought of it happening after - of seeing their faces, holding them, only for the world to burst into flames a moment later - somehow that was even worse. Elliot was trying to stay positive about it, but Sawyer could see that it bothered him too.
Midsummer was in only four days.
"I know we decided not to talk about it," Elliot said quietly. "But maybe it's time."
"Thank you for running away with me," Sawyer said, holding Elliot's hand tightly. "I don't regret it. These have been the best three weeks of my life."
"Mine too," Elliot said softly, his smile bittersweet.
Sawyer took a deep breath, soaking up as much of the peace and love that he'd felt during their brief time here as he could. He released it slowly, resolve settling on his heart.
"I think we should go back."
Elliot squeezed his hand.
"Are you sure?" he asked, near whisper.
Sawyer nodded.
"I've been thinking about it for the past few days," he admitted. "But this makes me sure. It's time to go back."
"I've been thinking about it too," Elliot admitted, but he still looked tense with worry. "You're not just planning to die there instead of here, are you?"
Sawyer looked away, reluctant to admit it. But they'd made a decision to be honest with each other, and Sawyer wasn't ready to go back on that yet.
"I think I know what I need to do," Sawyer said. "And if the babies are born before Midsummer, then I'll be sure."
"You don't have to," Elliot said, and Sawyer couldn't look at him, at the pain in his eyes. "It's not your responsibility. It never was."
