historically inaccurate but well-meaning t-rex (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scriveyner) wrote2018-09-08 09:31 pm
scriveyner) wrote2018-09-08 09:31 pm
Voltron Legendary Defender (Nightbreed) - Sure Thing Falling [4] [Shance]
Title: sure thing falling - 4 - reunion
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
AU: Nightbreed
Characters/Pairing: Shiro/Lance, Keith
Rating: NSFW/E
Length: 4829
Summary: He looked up when he felt Shiro's eyes on him. "We'll get him back, Shiro. I promise."
"I know," Shiro said, and stared out at the highway ahead of them.
"I missed the funeral," Shiro said. Rain streaked the passenger side window, a constant, steady patter, and he watched it with a silent disinterest. The first words he'd spoken in hours, perhaps all day, but Keith still took his time responding, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of them.
"Yeah," Keith said finally, a strange heaviness to his voice. Shiro didn't look over at him, watching the water on the window instead, forced into horizontal lines by their speed.
Had it rained, that day? Or was it a beautiful blue sky, the autumn air crisp?
"Did you go?"
He heard Keith swallow, but still didn't move his head, listless. "No."
Shiro put his head against the cool glass, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried not to think of brown hair, matted with dried blood.
Keith was waiting for him outside the cabin. He found pants, somewhere, but that was all he wore, crouched low to the ground and head tilted slightly as he paid more attention to the voice on his phone than his surroundings. He raised his eyes to Shiro's when he heard the door click closed, but did not immediately end the call. "Yeah, that's perfect. Send the coordinates to my phone, I'll text you when we arrive."
He didn't ask who Keith was speaking with and Keith wasn't forthcoming. He slid the phone into the pocket of his jeans as he stood. "You okay?" Keith asked, giving him a once over, and Shiro swallowed around the feeling in his throat. He hadn't needed to come back to the cabin and yet he was drawn here, felt like he needed to touch Lance's sealskin again - as if it could tell him that Lance was alright, somehow. He ended up tucking the jacket into his go bag, and kept one hand flat atop the matte black military duffel.
"No," Shiro said finally, truthful to a fault. Keith exhaled and gave him a scrutinizing look, but didn't take that thought deeper. He didn't have to, and they both knew it.
"There's a network that traffics in selkies that operates out of the northwest," Keith said as they walked the muddy trail toward the road. He had been gathering intel, always on the move, and Shiro appreciated his focus more than anything. "They seem to be a fairly popular export, but as a whole selkies are pretty damn difficult to catch. They can usually be controlled by possession of their sealskin, so they'll be coming after his next." Keith kept his eyes ahead of them. "Is it safe?"
"Yes," Shiro said.
Keith's ride looked worse off than the last time Shiro had seen it, although it looked like it sat on a new suspension. New tires, at least - although there were plenty of new dents and scrapes in the hand-done paint job ... and what looked like dried blood splashed across the passenger side wheel well. The rear bench seat was permanently folded down, as Keith slept in the back. Shiro slung his duffel over the passenger seat and into the back as he climbed in, and Keith pulled on a shirt and some shoes, at least pretending to be somewhat presentable.
"What do people want with selkies?" Shiro asked, finally, when they were on the road.
"You got me," Keith said. "I know they have to obey whoever holds their skin, it's a fae covenant from the Old Country." He shot Shiro a sidelong glance. "You made a contract with one and didn't know the rules?"
"It was just sex," Shiro said.
"With you it's never just sex," Keith said, with an undercurrent of amusement in his voice. He glanced at his phone when it lit up in the phone holder on his dash, and tapped a few directions into it, inputting GPS coordinates. He looked up when he felt Shiro's eyes on him. "We'll get him back, Shiro. I promise."
"I know," Shiro said, and stared out at the highway ahead of them.
#
It was dark by the time they stopped, pulling off into a highway rest stop that was mostly deserted. Shiro sat on a picnic table and smoked as Keith bought dinner from a vending machine. He watched the smoke disappear into the humid evening air while Keith sat down on the bench and tore a jerky package open with his teeth. "Thought you quit."
"I did," Shiro said and took another drag, exhaling slowly. After a long moment of silence, he sighed and scratched his hand back through his hair. "What do you have?"
"Acxa tracked them to a warehouse just outside the city," Keith said, and popped the tab on his drink. "It's not a large operation, but it's big enough to be trouble." He grew silent, and the lazy chirp of hidden crickets filled the twilight air. "They aren't hunters, this lot."
There was something unfinished to his thought, something that Shiro was going to let hang in the air. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked at the weeds poking through the untended concrete. "Hunters don't traffic in living creatures," he said. "They'd rather see us dead."
"If you kill these people there'll be more trouble." It wasn't an admonishment, but a warning.
"I'm counting on it," Shiro said, and stubbed his cigarette out.
#
The world smelled wrong.
It stank of stale cigarette smoke and metal, and that same metal tang was on his tongue and in his teeth. He rolled upright, palm pressed to his eye and the bed sheets heavy and tacky to the touch. His head felt like it was splitting open, and Shiro groped blindly for the other person in his bed; but paused when his hand encountered cold, and hard, and... wet.
No.
Shiro raised his hand to his face, eyes barely focused on the shine of red slick. His head turned on a swivel, but his eyes refused to cooperate, refused to focus, refused to resolve the horrific image into something coherent, something reasonable. Ribs, cracked and split through skin. Eyes sightless, turned to the ceiling. Blood, so much blood, too much to already be dried, on his hands and face and in his mouth and on his breath - Shiro wrenched himself from the bed, stumbled over the shoes arranged neatly and slammed into the bedside table. The glasses balanced precariously on its edge tumbled to the floor and crunched noisily beneath his heel as Shiro backed away, turning wildly and seeing red everywhere he looked.
He fell to his knees and retched, the metal taste filling his mouth, the memory of it too new. Outside the window there was birdsong, and daylight, as the sun rose anew in the late summer sky.
#
Shiro opened his eyes to a gray morning; the cloud cover only matched by the smog belched into the air by the factories that lined the waterfront. He sat up, pushing up on one elbow, the passenger seat still reclined but Keith was no longer in the driver's seat. He wasn't sure when he'd finally drifted off, they'd been parked for a while, sitting in companionable silence and watching the boats in the harbor. When he glanced in the back he could see a black wolf curled into a tight ball and sleeping soundly, one ear occasionally flickering, on alert for anything abnormal.
Shiro gripped the driver's seat with his left arm and pulled himself fully upright, looking out over the water.
He'd had the dream again.
He took care not to slam the vehicle's door, closing it gently so as to not wake Keith. There was only a quarter of a pack of cigarettes left and he chose to smoke another, sitting on the edge of the dock and listening to the seabirds wheel above him. The ocean looked different here, butted up against civilization the waters looked angry and dark, the waves choppy and uneven.
It made sense for the sealers to run their operation so near to international shipping lanes - if they really were trafficking caught selkies like exotic pets there would be a lot less scrutiny here. The thought made the anger curl in his gut like a living thing, dark and violent in a way he hadn't felt in a long time.
There wasn't much to choose from for breakfast on this side of town. They ate what Keith picked because if Shiro had his way he wouldn't have eaten at all, busting down doors until he found the right one. He barely ate one of the breakfast sandwiches Keith had returned with, his eyes on the waking city. Lance was here, somewhere; and he felt the tug in his chest. If they had hurt him....
"You should sleep," Keith said, sitting back in the driver's seat and watching the entire row of buildings with a practiced eye.
"I slept," Shiro said, and Keith gave him a Look.
He meant to argue but it seemed pointless, so Shiro appeased him by climbing into the back. The nest of sheets smelled strongly of Keith, familiar to the point of painful, and he settled in on floorboards covered by thin, well-worn blankets. After a moment of trying to get comfortable he sat up and grabbed his duffel, and pulled Lance's jacket from its depths. Keith glanced in the rear-view mirror and watched him. "Can't sleep without your security blanket?"
"Asshole," Shiro said, holding Lance's jacket to his chest as he settled back down, out of sight.
He was asleep in minutes.
#
The world was hazy, murky, but he could still see - following a trail of bubbles ahead of him. He laughed and bubbles escaped his own mouth, he twirled in the water, twitching his tail enough to send him spiraling through the lazy forest of kelp. He was chasing or being chased, he couldn't tell and didn't care, diving deep and watching the pups try to keep up.
He hit a wall suddenly, white and antiseptic, unyielding. It wasn't white, though, not antiseptic, old concrete, his fingers scrabbling against its surface as he sank to the floor, curling in tight, arms around his knees. He made himself small, as small as he could and Shiro was on the outside now, reaching for him but unable to touch. He couldn't get his name across the distance between them and Lance wouldn't lift his head. Shiro could form his mouth in the shape of his name but his lungs were filled with water, he couldn't, he was sinking to fast to be seen, to be heard.
Lance lifted his head finally and it was wrong. His hair was matted black with blood and his eyes were sightless milky orbs - his skin was sloughing loose on his skeleton, pulling away and revealing where his throat was torn open, empty of blood.
Water bubbled from Shiro's mouth as he screamed but there was still no sound, and he couldn't kick himself free as he sank deeper into the abyss.
You can't save me, he said, and his voice wasn't Lance's.
#
"Remember when you took me to get a rabies shot?" Keith said out of left field and halfway through a sack of cheap, greasy cheeseburgers.
Shiro lifted his head from his hand. "Which time?" he asked dryly, and Keith snorted, inhaling the last few bites in one go.
"Asshole. The first time."
"Yeah. You tried to bite the vet, and the vet tech. And me, but turns out stuffing my prosthetic into your mouth was a good way to get you to stop trying to take a chunk out of everything that moved." Shiro narrowed his eyes. "That was back when I still thought you were just a way-too-intelligent mutt."
Keith had a fond look on his face. "I'm still a mutt, if you ask Kolivan. Anyway, I ran into that vet tech a few months back." He crumpled his wrapper and tossed it into the bag. "She knew, you know. The whole time."
" What. "
"I know, right?" Keith laughed. "She was waiting to see what I was up to, apparently."
"She - I took a full-blown werewolf into a vet without realizing it and she was just waiting to see what would happen? Did she have a bet going on if the headline would be 'local college student mauled in own home' or something?"
"I wouldn't have mauled you," Keith said, insulted. "You let me sleep in your bed."
"Keith, I thought you were a dog. "
"Eh." He shrugged. "You fed me good shit and looked after me. It was a good deal. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if you didn't catch me making a sandwich that one night. Anyway, she says hi, that's the point of the story. She's a witch."
Shiro let out a long, exaggerated sigh, and shook his head, finally reaching into the brown sack for a cheeseburger himself. "She knew. "
They ate in companionable silence, the tension that had stretched throughout the afternoon finally broken. They were pointed at a specific warehouse now, staking it out and watching for the best opening to take.
Shiro wrinkled his nose suddenly, the small bit of good humor he'd found evaporating as he recognized a heavy scent now permeating the air. Keith lowered his burger, nose wrinkling as well. "Blood," he said, and Shiro was already out of the truck, half-eaten burger hitting the pavement behind him. " Shiro! "
His nose was keener in his other form and he wore it already, the loss of his clothing barely an afterthought. The scent originated from a dingy white service van, backed up to one of the entrances. There was a man holding the door open wearing waders over a camo outfit, he had only started to look in the direction that Shiro was coming from when Shiro was on him.
There was a heartbeat of pure terror in the man's eyes before Shiro's jaws closed on his throat.
He fell backward, into the open service door and his body prevented the door from slamming itself shut and locking them out. Shiro hit the ground on all fours, the man's blood splashed across his muzzle, and Keith ran up behind him, still on two feet and carrying an empty duffel bag over his shoulder.
"You know, we talked about this," Keith said, an edge to his voice as he yanked on the door to the back of the service van. The blood-smell was thickest there, and Shiro's heart thudded against his ribs in terror.
The van was empty. There were half a dozen different sealskins stretched out, still fresh. These were actual skins, not selkie skins, marked with unfamiliar patterns and the scent of death clung heavily to them. Keith exhaled and leaned against the van's door. "Okay," he said. "We're going to take this slow , Shiro, and clear the place - don't go charging off without me..." he half-turned as Shiro bowled into the door and it bounced off the concrete wall behind it, taken off one hinge by the force of the blow. The bang of it hitting the solid concrete mostly disguised the crunching noise of Shiro's back paws caving in the dead man's chest cavity. Keith sighed as Shiro's hindquarters and tail disappeared into the warehouse.
"And I'm the reckless one," Keith muttered, stepping carefully over the body and into the warehouse behind him.
#
Lance's scent was ingrained into his very bones. Shiro kept his head down, not that it helped much - he was very large, in passing, and there was an alarm going off already, people shouting and running about. A man attempted to shoot him with a shotgun, but he went down as easily as the first, the scatter of buckshot grazing his shoulder and embedding in the wall behind him. Shiro didn't notice the sting of the scrapes or the tracks of red through his white fur, the only thing on his mind was Lance.
The place was low tech and labyrinthine; temporary walls and temporary doors, all made to be moved in a hurry. It wasn't anything like his nightmares, gleaming walls white walls that reflected, dark tables and magenta-hued lights, and that kept him moving, kept his nose to the ground, trying to pick out Lance's scent the myriad of smells that assaulted his senses.
Several people saw him coming and immediately barricaded themselves behind doors, dropping whatever they were carrying. Shiro ignored them; Keith was behind him, Keith would deal with them. He caught a whiff of salt and spun, barreling past a man in a lab coat who dropped his clipboard and screamed, high-pitched and panicked.
He found the holding area past the man in the coat, a row of cells divided by concrete walls and chain-link to keep them in and for the first time since he barreled into the building he hesitated, the memories nearly overwhelming him. It wasn't the same and yet it was; there were others in these cells, unfamiliar faces with that same hauntingly familiar, haggard expression. Shiro nosed at the chain-link boxing in the first cell and the girl in the cage shrunk back against the wall, shaking, folded in on herself and watching him, terrified. Shiro realized she was scared of him and drew back, head low, and along the corridor, toward where Lance's scent was the strongest.
He was three cells down. Not unlike the girl in the first cell he was huddled back against the wall; his eyes grew wide when he saw Shiro standing outside the chain link. Shiro's tail lifted, he pawed at the floor for a moment and Lance got to his feet unsteadily. It had only been two days, but Shiro's heart sang when he saw Lance unfurl, uninjured - although he didn't step any closer to the chain link that fenced him in.
They stared at each other, across the distance. Then Lance wet his lips and nodded to the door that was padlocked shut. "The door," Lance said, his voice hoarse. "It'll be the weakest point."
Shiro snuffled at the lock for a moment, and then tried biting through the thick, protected chain. When that proved futile he threw his entire body against the frail metal, rattling the entire wall of chain link. The door warped slightly but didn't break and Shiro rammed into it again and this time, hear someone scream from farther down the row - there was a faint drill of gunfire in the distance that he ignored.
The third time that he threw himself against it the door buckled inward, enough so that Shiro was able to squeeze between the warped door and its frame, popping into the cell and shaking himself off once. Lance flattened himself against the wall, watching Shiro warily as Shiro let out a small whuff and cocked his head.
They stared at each other in silence, eye to eye, until Lance's shoulders relaxed and he let out a small sigh. "You're covered in blood," he said, not as an admonishment, and Shiro rose from four feet to two, taking a hesitant step forward and prepared for Lance to shrunk back farther. He didn't, he stepped into Shiro's arms and kissed him, wincing only slightly when Shiro's hand cradled the curve of his head. The pad of Shiro's thumb ran rough over where his skin was torn, half-healed and matted with dried blood.
"They hurt you," Shiro said, his voice raw.
"It'll heal," Lance said, and smiled. "How many of them did you kill?"
"Not enough," Shiro said, and turned his head as they both listened to more gunfire. "I have to help Keith. You stay here, rescue your friends."
"Mm," Lance put his hand on Shiro's face and turned it back to him. "Want to see a neat trick?"
Shiro raised an eyebrow, and Lance kissed him again, gentle and slow as if they had all the time in the world to do this here. He swayed, slightly, and Shiro swayed with him, hands on Lance's hips. He keened slightly when Lance drew back, eyes glittering strangely under the light - no, they weren't glittering at all.
They were glowing.
Shiro smiled and kissed Lance's forehead before Lance slipped out of Shiro's arms completely. "You might want to get back," Lance murmured, and his voice echoed strangely. Shiro did not back away but instead moved to the side, his paws hitting the ground firmly, his head at Lance's chest. Lance smiled as he closed his glowing eyes, and he curled his fingers into the white fur on the back of Shiro's neck as the entire building started to vibrate.
#
By the time Keith found them, all of the chain link had been torn down. Shiro hung back a little because the others were afraid of him, but one of the youngest selkies was barely more than a child and sat happily between his front paws, hugging one warm leg and watching Lance check on each person individually. That warmed his presence to some of the others, but they still kept their distance; and they gave Keith startled looks of distrust when he joined them, too.
Keith was still clothed, his skin freckled with blood and there was a significant tear in the sleeve of his favorite leather jacket. He was carrying his dagger in one hand and a sawed-off in the other. Shiro flicked his ears at Keith's arrival, and Keith gave him - and his newest friend - a look, before turning to Lance.
"Is this all of them?"
"That I know of," Lance said, exhaustion tinging his voice. Shiro stood carefully and moved to Lance's side, letting Lance lean against him for support. Lance ran his fingers through Shiro's fur without looking over to him. "It took a lot of out me," he murmured. "My magic."
"I knew that was too centralized to be an earthquake," Keith said. "I thought selkies didn't have magic, out of the water."
"Know everything about selkies, do you?" Lance said, and then sighed when Shiro butted his head under Lance's arm. "We have to find their sealskins, so that they can go home," he said.
Keith tilted his head. "That won't be a problem," he said, and crouched, placing the shotgun on the ground before sliding the strap of his duffel bag over his head. He unzipped the military bag and looked up at Lance, before stepping back.
There was an array of unfamiliar clothing in the bag that Shiro had never seen before - and some of it was speckled with the same blood that was on Shiro's skin. He had clearly been busy while Shiro had been tearing through the facility looking for Lance. One of the selkies who had been keeping back let out a soft cry and scooped up a sweater that was in the top of the bag, another crouched down and began rooting through the clothing as the others clustered with her.
Outside, they watched as one by one the selkies took their true form, vanishing into the water outside the warehouse. The little one had ridden on Shiro's back outside, and kissed the fur between his ears before she was bundled up by her mother, wrapped in a blanket and thrown into the water.
"Thank you, my prince," she said, curtsying to Lance before diving off the pier.
Shiro and Keith both looked at Lance, who ignored them both, watching as the seals surfaced and played in the open water before disappearing into the distance. "We aren't done here," he said, finally, and Shiro nodded, looking back at the warehouse.
"I've disabled the cameras," Keith said. "We don't have any hostages. Do you want to torch it, or should I?"
"This isn't the entire operation," Lance said. "Just a hub. There's so many of them out there." His eyes glittered again, dangerously. "I will destroy them all."
"Right now?" Shiro asked, and Lance leaned back against him as Shiro slid his arm across Lance's shoulders. Lance sighed and closed his eyes.
"Maybe after a nap."
#
"No funny business," Keith warned, as Shiro settled down next to Lance in the back of Keith's truck. "I mean it."
"No funny business," Shiro agreed, his arms around Lance's already-sleeping form. The firelight reflected through the tinted windows, casting a molten shadow over him, and Shiro smiled, brushing his fingers over Lance's cheek.
He didn't sleep, as Keith drove. His eyes were on Lance the entire time, the rise and fall of his chest, the soot and the blood on his skin, the way his face softened when Shiro leaned in and kissed the tip of his nose.
They washed off under the stars, Keith's truck backed up the water in a secluded spot, the city lights barely a gleam in the distance. "How long have you known?" Shiro asked, sitting with his legs hanging out the back of the Jeep, watching Lance stand in the shallows and stare at the sky. Lance turned and looked back at him, head cocked; with the moon behind him it was impossible to read his expression.
"Since the first time I saw you," he said, and hiked himself up to sit next to Shiro on the blanket. Shiro frowned at him, and Lance leaned against him, their bare shoulders touching. "Does that bother you?"
Shiro didn't respond to that, staring at the moonlight reflected on the water. "A prince, huh?" he said instead, and Lance sighed exaggeratedly, shoulders slumping as he slid down, going from leaning against Shiro to laying dramatically across his lap.
"It's not what it sounds like," he said, flopped over.
"Oh?" Shiro said, eyebrows raised. "Sounds to me like I married into royalty."
Lance barked out a laugh that startled clearly startled himself, and he covered his mouth with one hand. Shiro laughed at him, and Lance smacked his chest with the back of his hand. "It's not funny," he complained, and Shiro gave him a flat look that he managed to hold for maybe two seconds before they both sputtered into honest laughter.
"You're both ridiculous," Keith said, walking dripping out of the water, and that just set them both off again.
#
"You're sure you'll be fine?" Shiro said, elbow hooked out the driver's side window. Keith wore a duffel and sunglasses, and he gave Shiro a familiar smirk.
"You act like I've never hitched a ride up the coast before," he said, and at the alarmed expression on Shiro's face he shook his head in disappointment. "Krolia's meeting me," he said. "Don't look at me like that. Take care of Red, I'll be back to pick her up in a few weeks."
" Red? " Lance said, from the passenger seat, his bare feet on the dash. He leaned forward just a little. "The paint job on this hunk of junk is red? "
"Take care of yourself, Keith," Shiro said, and managed to ruffle Keith's hair before he could duck out of range. He flipped Shiro off, who honked and waved, as they drove off.
#
"You've got that look on your face again," Keith said as he sat opposite Shiro on the quad. He wasn't supposed to be there, but Keith excelled in turning up in places where he wasn't supposed to be. "Who is it this time?"
"It's none of your concern," Shiro said, and pulled his tray of food close but wasn't quick enough to stop Keith from helping himself to Shiro's fries.
"It'll be plenty of my concern whenever he starts sleeping over," Keith said. He jabbed at Shiro with his fry, before popping it into his mouth. "Besides, what's he gonna think about me, hm?"
"He'll think I have a very friendly dog ," Shiro hissed back. "Don't ruin my chances with this guy, all right? I like him, a lot. And I think he likes me, too."
"Fine," Keith said. "But you owe me one, and I know exactly how I want it repaid already. Deal?"
"Yeah, yeah," Shiro said, and looked back down at his book.
#
"How long have you been a werewolf?" Lance asked Shiro as they laid in the back of the Jeep, listening to the distant sound of the highway. He flattened his hand on Shiro's chest, fingers tracing a faint, textured scar. "As long as Keith?"
"Keith was born a wolf," Shiro said drowsily, still coming down of his high. He cupped Lance's cheek, then brushed his fingers through his short hair, looking for the head wound and finding what little remained. Lance was a fast healer. "I'm not like Keith."
"You're not tied to the moon, though," Lance was curious.
"No."
"You weren't born a wolf," Lance said, "and you're not tied to the lunar cycle. What are you, Shiro?"
"Mm," Shiro said, and yawned, already drifting off. "Your husband."
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
AU: Nightbreed
Characters/Pairing: Shiro/Lance, Keith
Rating: NSFW/E
Length: 4829
Summary: He looked up when he felt Shiro's eyes on him. "We'll get him back, Shiro. I promise."
"I know," Shiro said, and stared out at the highway ahead of them.
"I missed the funeral," Shiro said. Rain streaked the passenger side window, a constant, steady patter, and he watched it with a silent disinterest. The first words he'd spoken in hours, perhaps all day, but Keith still took his time responding, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of them.
"Yeah," Keith said finally, a strange heaviness to his voice. Shiro didn't look over at him, watching the water on the window instead, forced into horizontal lines by their speed.
Had it rained, that day? Or was it a beautiful blue sky, the autumn air crisp?
"Did you go?"
He heard Keith swallow, but still didn't move his head, listless. "No."
Shiro put his head against the cool glass, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried not to think of brown hair, matted with dried blood.
Keith was waiting for him outside the cabin. He found pants, somewhere, but that was all he wore, crouched low to the ground and head tilted slightly as he paid more attention to the voice on his phone than his surroundings. He raised his eyes to Shiro's when he heard the door click closed, but did not immediately end the call. "Yeah, that's perfect. Send the coordinates to my phone, I'll text you when we arrive."
He didn't ask who Keith was speaking with and Keith wasn't forthcoming. He slid the phone into the pocket of his jeans as he stood. "You okay?" Keith asked, giving him a once over, and Shiro swallowed around the feeling in his throat. He hadn't needed to come back to the cabin and yet he was drawn here, felt like he needed to touch Lance's sealskin again - as if it could tell him that Lance was alright, somehow. He ended up tucking the jacket into his go bag, and kept one hand flat atop the matte black military duffel.
"No," Shiro said finally, truthful to a fault. Keith exhaled and gave him a scrutinizing look, but didn't take that thought deeper. He didn't have to, and they both knew it.
"There's a network that traffics in selkies that operates out of the northwest," Keith said as they walked the muddy trail toward the road. He had been gathering intel, always on the move, and Shiro appreciated his focus more than anything. "They seem to be a fairly popular export, but as a whole selkies are pretty damn difficult to catch. They can usually be controlled by possession of their sealskin, so they'll be coming after his next." Keith kept his eyes ahead of them. "Is it safe?"
"Yes," Shiro said.
Keith's ride looked worse off than the last time Shiro had seen it, although it looked like it sat on a new suspension. New tires, at least - although there were plenty of new dents and scrapes in the hand-done paint job ... and what looked like dried blood splashed across the passenger side wheel well. The rear bench seat was permanently folded down, as Keith slept in the back. Shiro slung his duffel over the passenger seat and into the back as he climbed in, and Keith pulled on a shirt and some shoes, at least pretending to be somewhat presentable.
"What do people want with selkies?" Shiro asked, finally, when they were on the road.
"You got me," Keith said. "I know they have to obey whoever holds their skin, it's a fae covenant from the Old Country." He shot Shiro a sidelong glance. "You made a contract with one and didn't know the rules?"
"It was just sex," Shiro said.
"With you it's never just sex," Keith said, with an undercurrent of amusement in his voice. He glanced at his phone when it lit up in the phone holder on his dash, and tapped a few directions into it, inputting GPS coordinates. He looked up when he felt Shiro's eyes on him. "We'll get him back, Shiro. I promise."
"I know," Shiro said, and stared out at the highway ahead of them.
It was dark by the time they stopped, pulling off into a highway rest stop that was mostly deserted. Shiro sat on a picnic table and smoked as Keith bought dinner from a vending machine. He watched the smoke disappear into the humid evening air while Keith sat down on the bench and tore a jerky package open with his teeth. "Thought you quit."
"I did," Shiro said and took another drag, exhaling slowly. After a long moment of silence, he sighed and scratched his hand back through his hair. "What do you have?"
"Acxa tracked them to a warehouse just outside the city," Keith said, and popped the tab on his drink. "It's not a large operation, but it's big enough to be trouble." He grew silent, and the lazy chirp of hidden crickets filled the twilight air. "They aren't hunters, this lot."
There was something unfinished to his thought, something that Shiro was going to let hang in the air. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked at the weeds poking through the untended concrete. "Hunters don't traffic in living creatures," he said. "They'd rather see us dead."
"If you kill these people there'll be more trouble." It wasn't an admonishment, but a warning.
"I'm counting on it," Shiro said, and stubbed his cigarette out.
The world smelled wrong.
It stank of stale cigarette smoke and metal, and that same metal tang was on his tongue and in his teeth. He rolled upright, palm pressed to his eye and the bed sheets heavy and tacky to the touch. His head felt like it was splitting open, and Shiro groped blindly for the other person in his bed; but paused when his hand encountered cold, and hard, and... wet.
No.
Shiro raised his hand to his face, eyes barely focused on the shine of red slick. His head turned on a swivel, but his eyes refused to cooperate, refused to focus, refused to resolve the horrific image into something coherent, something reasonable. Ribs, cracked and split through skin. Eyes sightless, turned to the ceiling. Blood, so much blood, too much to already be dried, on his hands and face and in his mouth and on his breath - Shiro wrenched himself from the bed, stumbled over the shoes arranged neatly and slammed into the bedside table. The glasses balanced precariously on its edge tumbled to the floor and crunched noisily beneath his heel as Shiro backed away, turning wildly and seeing red everywhere he looked.
He fell to his knees and retched, the metal taste filling his mouth, the memory of it too new. Outside the window there was birdsong, and daylight, as the sun rose anew in the late summer sky.
Shiro opened his eyes to a gray morning; the cloud cover only matched by the smog belched into the air by the factories that lined the waterfront. He sat up, pushing up on one elbow, the passenger seat still reclined but Keith was no longer in the driver's seat. He wasn't sure when he'd finally drifted off, they'd been parked for a while, sitting in companionable silence and watching the boats in the harbor. When he glanced in the back he could see a black wolf curled into a tight ball and sleeping soundly, one ear occasionally flickering, on alert for anything abnormal.
Shiro gripped the driver's seat with his left arm and pulled himself fully upright, looking out over the water.
He'd had the dream again.
He took care not to slam the vehicle's door, closing it gently so as to not wake Keith. There was only a quarter of a pack of cigarettes left and he chose to smoke another, sitting on the edge of the dock and listening to the seabirds wheel above him. The ocean looked different here, butted up against civilization the waters looked angry and dark, the waves choppy and uneven.
It made sense for the sealers to run their operation so near to international shipping lanes - if they really were trafficking caught selkies like exotic pets there would be a lot less scrutiny here. The thought made the anger curl in his gut like a living thing, dark and violent in a way he hadn't felt in a long time.
There wasn't much to choose from for breakfast on this side of town. They ate what Keith picked because if Shiro had his way he wouldn't have eaten at all, busting down doors until he found the right one. He barely ate one of the breakfast sandwiches Keith had returned with, his eyes on the waking city. Lance was here, somewhere; and he felt the tug in his chest. If they had hurt him....
"You should sleep," Keith said, sitting back in the driver's seat and watching the entire row of buildings with a practiced eye.
"I slept," Shiro said, and Keith gave him a Look.
He meant to argue but it seemed pointless, so Shiro appeased him by climbing into the back. The nest of sheets smelled strongly of Keith, familiar to the point of painful, and he settled in on floorboards covered by thin, well-worn blankets. After a moment of trying to get comfortable he sat up and grabbed his duffel, and pulled Lance's jacket from its depths. Keith glanced in the rear-view mirror and watched him. "Can't sleep without your security blanket?"
"Asshole," Shiro said, holding Lance's jacket to his chest as he settled back down, out of sight.
He was asleep in minutes.
The world was hazy, murky, but he could still see - following a trail of bubbles ahead of him. He laughed and bubbles escaped his own mouth, he twirled in the water, twitching his tail enough to send him spiraling through the lazy forest of kelp. He was chasing or being chased, he couldn't tell and didn't care, diving deep and watching the pups try to keep up.
He hit a wall suddenly, white and antiseptic, unyielding. It wasn't white, though, not antiseptic, old concrete, his fingers scrabbling against its surface as he sank to the floor, curling in tight, arms around his knees. He made himself small, as small as he could and Shiro was on the outside now, reaching for him but unable to touch. He couldn't get his name across the distance between them and Lance wouldn't lift his head. Shiro could form his mouth in the shape of his name but his lungs were filled with water, he couldn't, he was sinking to fast to be seen, to be heard.
Lance lifted his head finally and it was wrong. His hair was matted black with blood and his eyes were sightless milky orbs - his skin was sloughing loose on his skeleton, pulling away and revealing where his throat was torn open, empty of blood.
Water bubbled from Shiro's mouth as he screamed but there was still no sound, and he couldn't kick himself free as he sank deeper into the abyss.
You can't save me, he said, and his voice wasn't Lance's.
"Remember when you took me to get a rabies shot?" Keith said out of left field and halfway through a sack of cheap, greasy cheeseburgers.
Shiro lifted his head from his hand. "Which time?" he asked dryly, and Keith snorted, inhaling the last few bites in one go.
"Asshole. The first time."
"Yeah. You tried to bite the vet, and the vet tech. And me, but turns out stuffing my prosthetic into your mouth was a good way to get you to stop trying to take a chunk out of everything that moved." Shiro narrowed his eyes. "That was back when I still thought you were just a way-too-intelligent mutt."
Keith had a fond look on his face. "I'm still a mutt, if you ask Kolivan. Anyway, I ran into that vet tech a few months back." He crumpled his wrapper and tossed it into the bag. "She knew, you know. The whole time."
" What. "
"I know, right?" Keith laughed. "She was waiting to see what I was up to, apparently."
"She - I took a full-blown werewolf into a vet without realizing it and she was just waiting to see what would happen? Did she have a bet going on if the headline would be 'local college student mauled in own home' or something?"
"I wouldn't have mauled you," Keith said, insulted. "You let me sleep in your bed."
"Keith, I thought you were a dog. "
"Eh." He shrugged. "You fed me good shit and looked after me. It was a good deal. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if you didn't catch me making a sandwich that one night. Anyway, she says hi, that's the point of the story. She's a witch."
Shiro let out a long, exaggerated sigh, and shook his head, finally reaching into the brown sack for a cheeseburger himself. "She knew. "
They ate in companionable silence, the tension that had stretched throughout the afternoon finally broken. They were pointed at a specific warehouse now, staking it out and watching for the best opening to take.
Shiro wrinkled his nose suddenly, the small bit of good humor he'd found evaporating as he recognized a heavy scent now permeating the air. Keith lowered his burger, nose wrinkling as well. "Blood," he said, and Shiro was already out of the truck, half-eaten burger hitting the pavement behind him. " Shiro! "
His nose was keener in his other form and he wore it already, the loss of his clothing barely an afterthought. The scent originated from a dingy white service van, backed up to one of the entrances. There was a man holding the door open wearing waders over a camo outfit, he had only started to look in the direction that Shiro was coming from when Shiro was on him.
There was a heartbeat of pure terror in the man's eyes before Shiro's jaws closed on his throat.
He fell backward, into the open service door and his body prevented the door from slamming itself shut and locking them out. Shiro hit the ground on all fours, the man's blood splashed across his muzzle, and Keith ran up behind him, still on two feet and carrying an empty duffel bag over his shoulder.
"You know, we talked about this," Keith said, an edge to his voice as he yanked on the door to the back of the service van. The blood-smell was thickest there, and Shiro's heart thudded against his ribs in terror.
The van was empty. There were half a dozen different sealskins stretched out, still fresh. These were actual skins, not selkie skins, marked with unfamiliar patterns and the scent of death clung heavily to them. Keith exhaled and leaned against the van's door. "Okay," he said. "We're going to take this slow , Shiro, and clear the place - don't go charging off without me..." he half-turned as Shiro bowled into the door and it bounced off the concrete wall behind it, taken off one hinge by the force of the blow. The bang of it hitting the solid concrete mostly disguised the crunching noise of Shiro's back paws caving in the dead man's chest cavity. Keith sighed as Shiro's hindquarters and tail disappeared into the warehouse.
"And I'm the reckless one," Keith muttered, stepping carefully over the body and into the warehouse behind him.
Lance's scent was ingrained into his very bones. Shiro kept his head down, not that it helped much - he was very large, in passing, and there was an alarm going off already, people shouting and running about. A man attempted to shoot him with a shotgun, but he went down as easily as the first, the scatter of buckshot grazing his shoulder and embedding in the wall behind him. Shiro didn't notice the sting of the scrapes or the tracks of red through his white fur, the only thing on his mind was Lance.
The place was low tech and labyrinthine; temporary walls and temporary doors, all made to be moved in a hurry. It wasn't anything like his nightmares, gleaming walls white walls that reflected, dark tables and magenta-hued lights, and that kept him moving, kept his nose to the ground, trying to pick out Lance's scent the myriad of smells that assaulted his senses.
Several people saw him coming and immediately barricaded themselves behind doors, dropping whatever they were carrying. Shiro ignored them; Keith was behind him, Keith would deal with them. He caught a whiff of salt and spun, barreling past a man in a lab coat who dropped his clipboard and screamed, high-pitched and panicked.
He found the holding area past the man in the coat, a row of cells divided by concrete walls and chain-link to keep them in and for the first time since he barreled into the building he hesitated, the memories nearly overwhelming him. It wasn't the same and yet it was; there were others in these cells, unfamiliar faces with that same hauntingly familiar, haggard expression. Shiro nosed at the chain-link boxing in the first cell and the girl in the cage shrunk back against the wall, shaking, folded in on herself and watching him, terrified. Shiro realized she was scared of him and drew back, head low, and along the corridor, toward where Lance's scent was the strongest.
He was three cells down. Not unlike the girl in the first cell he was huddled back against the wall; his eyes grew wide when he saw Shiro standing outside the chain link. Shiro's tail lifted, he pawed at the floor for a moment and Lance got to his feet unsteadily. It had only been two days, but Shiro's heart sang when he saw Lance unfurl, uninjured - although he didn't step any closer to the chain link that fenced him in.
They stared at each other, across the distance. Then Lance wet his lips and nodded to the door that was padlocked shut. "The door," Lance said, his voice hoarse. "It'll be the weakest point."
Shiro snuffled at the lock for a moment, and then tried biting through the thick, protected chain. When that proved futile he threw his entire body against the frail metal, rattling the entire wall of chain link. The door warped slightly but didn't break and Shiro rammed into it again and this time, hear someone scream from farther down the row - there was a faint drill of gunfire in the distance that he ignored.
The third time that he threw himself against it the door buckled inward, enough so that Shiro was able to squeeze between the warped door and its frame, popping into the cell and shaking himself off once. Lance flattened himself against the wall, watching Shiro warily as Shiro let out a small whuff and cocked his head.
They stared at each other in silence, eye to eye, until Lance's shoulders relaxed and he let out a small sigh. "You're covered in blood," he said, not as an admonishment, and Shiro rose from four feet to two, taking a hesitant step forward and prepared for Lance to shrunk back farther. He didn't, he stepped into Shiro's arms and kissed him, wincing only slightly when Shiro's hand cradled the curve of his head. The pad of Shiro's thumb ran rough over where his skin was torn, half-healed and matted with dried blood.
"They hurt you," Shiro said, his voice raw.
"It'll heal," Lance said, and smiled. "How many of them did you kill?"
"Not enough," Shiro said, and turned his head as they both listened to more gunfire. "I have to help Keith. You stay here, rescue your friends."
"Mm," Lance put his hand on Shiro's face and turned it back to him. "Want to see a neat trick?"
Shiro raised an eyebrow, and Lance kissed him again, gentle and slow as if they had all the time in the world to do this here. He swayed, slightly, and Shiro swayed with him, hands on Lance's hips. He keened slightly when Lance drew back, eyes glittering strangely under the light - no, they weren't glittering at all.
They were glowing.
Shiro smiled and kissed Lance's forehead before Lance slipped out of Shiro's arms completely. "You might want to get back," Lance murmured, and his voice echoed strangely. Shiro did not back away but instead moved to the side, his paws hitting the ground firmly, his head at Lance's chest. Lance smiled as he closed his glowing eyes, and he curled his fingers into the white fur on the back of Shiro's neck as the entire building started to vibrate.
By the time Keith found them, all of the chain link had been torn down. Shiro hung back a little because the others were afraid of him, but one of the youngest selkies was barely more than a child and sat happily between his front paws, hugging one warm leg and watching Lance check on each person individually. That warmed his presence to some of the others, but they still kept their distance; and they gave Keith startled looks of distrust when he joined them, too.
Keith was still clothed, his skin freckled with blood and there was a significant tear in the sleeve of his favorite leather jacket. He was carrying his dagger in one hand and a sawed-off in the other. Shiro flicked his ears at Keith's arrival, and Keith gave him - and his newest friend - a look, before turning to Lance.
"Is this all of them?"
"That I know of," Lance said, exhaustion tinging his voice. Shiro stood carefully and moved to Lance's side, letting Lance lean against him for support. Lance ran his fingers through Shiro's fur without looking over to him. "It took a lot of out me," he murmured. "My magic."
"I knew that was too centralized to be an earthquake," Keith said. "I thought selkies didn't have magic, out of the water."
"Know everything about selkies, do you?" Lance said, and then sighed when Shiro butted his head under Lance's arm. "We have to find their sealskins, so that they can go home," he said.
Keith tilted his head. "That won't be a problem," he said, and crouched, placing the shotgun on the ground before sliding the strap of his duffel bag over his head. He unzipped the military bag and looked up at Lance, before stepping back.
There was an array of unfamiliar clothing in the bag that Shiro had never seen before - and some of it was speckled with the same blood that was on Shiro's skin. He had clearly been busy while Shiro had been tearing through the facility looking for Lance. One of the selkies who had been keeping back let out a soft cry and scooped up a sweater that was in the top of the bag, another crouched down and began rooting through the clothing as the others clustered with her.
Outside, they watched as one by one the selkies took their true form, vanishing into the water outside the warehouse. The little one had ridden on Shiro's back outside, and kissed the fur between his ears before she was bundled up by her mother, wrapped in a blanket and thrown into the water.
"Thank you, my prince," she said, curtsying to Lance before diving off the pier.
Shiro and Keith both looked at Lance, who ignored them both, watching as the seals surfaced and played in the open water before disappearing into the distance. "We aren't done here," he said, finally, and Shiro nodded, looking back at the warehouse.
"I've disabled the cameras," Keith said. "We don't have any hostages. Do you want to torch it, or should I?"
"This isn't the entire operation," Lance said. "Just a hub. There's so many of them out there." His eyes glittered again, dangerously. "I will destroy them all."
"Right now?" Shiro asked, and Lance leaned back against him as Shiro slid his arm across Lance's shoulders. Lance sighed and closed his eyes.
"Maybe after a nap."
"No funny business," Keith warned, as Shiro settled down next to Lance in the back of Keith's truck. "I mean it."
"No funny business," Shiro agreed, his arms around Lance's already-sleeping form. The firelight reflected through the tinted windows, casting a molten shadow over him, and Shiro smiled, brushing his fingers over Lance's cheek.
He didn't sleep, as Keith drove. His eyes were on Lance the entire time, the rise and fall of his chest, the soot and the blood on his skin, the way his face softened when Shiro leaned in and kissed the tip of his nose.
They washed off under the stars, Keith's truck backed up the water in a secluded spot, the city lights barely a gleam in the distance. "How long have you known?" Shiro asked, sitting with his legs hanging out the back of the Jeep, watching Lance stand in the shallows and stare at the sky. Lance turned and looked back at him, head cocked; with the moon behind him it was impossible to read his expression.
"Since the first time I saw you," he said, and hiked himself up to sit next to Shiro on the blanket. Shiro frowned at him, and Lance leaned against him, their bare shoulders touching. "Does that bother you?"
Shiro didn't respond to that, staring at the moonlight reflected on the water. "A prince, huh?" he said instead, and Lance sighed exaggeratedly, shoulders slumping as he slid down, going from leaning against Shiro to laying dramatically across his lap.
"It's not what it sounds like," he said, flopped over.
"Oh?" Shiro said, eyebrows raised. "Sounds to me like I married into royalty."
Lance barked out a laugh that startled clearly startled himself, and he covered his mouth with one hand. Shiro laughed at him, and Lance smacked his chest with the back of his hand. "It's not funny," he complained, and Shiro gave him a flat look that he managed to hold for maybe two seconds before they both sputtered into honest laughter.
"You're both ridiculous," Keith said, walking dripping out of the water, and that just set them both off again.
"You're sure you'll be fine?" Shiro said, elbow hooked out the driver's side window. Keith wore a duffel and sunglasses, and he gave Shiro a familiar smirk.
"You act like I've never hitched a ride up the coast before," he said, and at the alarmed expression on Shiro's face he shook his head in disappointment. "Krolia's meeting me," he said. "Don't look at me like that. Take care of Red, I'll be back to pick her up in a few weeks."
" Red? " Lance said, from the passenger seat, his bare feet on the dash. He leaned forward just a little. "The paint job on this hunk of junk is red? "
"Take care of yourself, Keith," Shiro said, and managed to ruffle Keith's hair before he could duck out of range. He flipped Shiro off, who honked and waved, as they drove off.
"You've got that look on your face again," Keith said as he sat opposite Shiro on the quad. He wasn't supposed to be there, but Keith excelled in turning up in places where he wasn't supposed to be. "Who is it this time?"
"It's none of your concern," Shiro said, and pulled his tray of food close but wasn't quick enough to stop Keith from helping himself to Shiro's fries.
"It'll be plenty of my concern whenever he starts sleeping over," Keith said. He jabbed at Shiro with his fry, before popping it into his mouth. "Besides, what's he gonna think about me, hm?"
"He'll think I have a very friendly dog ," Shiro hissed back. "Don't ruin my chances with this guy, all right? I like him, a lot. And I think he likes me, too."
"Fine," Keith said. "But you owe me one, and I know exactly how I want it repaid already. Deal?"
"Yeah, yeah," Shiro said, and looked back down at his book.
"How long have you been a werewolf?" Lance asked Shiro as they laid in the back of the Jeep, listening to the distant sound of the highway. He flattened his hand on Shiro's chest, fingers tracing a faint, textured scar. "As long as Keith?"
"Keith was born a wolf," Shiro said drowsily, still coming down of his high. He cupped Lance's cheek, then brushed his fingers through his short hair, looking for the head wound and finding what little remained. Lance was a fast healer. "I'm not like Keith."
"You're not tied to the moon, though," Lance was curious.
"No."
"You weren't born a wolf," Lance said, "and you're not tied to the lunar cycle. What are you, Shiro?"
"Mm," Shiro said, and yawned, already drifting off. "Your husband."