It took us far too long to get rid of them all. After having been indirectly insulted by my best friend, Randy made it his mission to make Zach suffer for it the rest of the night. Meanwhile, Elif and her dad involuntarily provided our entertainment.
But now that they're gone, the silence is just the most beautiful thing. It's just the two of us... well, three.
'You alright?' I ask my mate, wanting nothing more than just collapse together with him and calling it a day.
'Hungry.' he says and starts stalking towards our little kitchen area. I desperately want to let a 'really?' slip out, but I do my best to keep my mouth shut. He still sees the one eyebrow I can't resist raising though.
'Fuck you. Now get me food.' I blink a couple times before finally getting into gear when he gives me yet another scalding look. He watches intently over my shoulder as I make some fried egg for him and it honestly wouldn't be weird at this point for him to just drool on the food over my shoulder.
When he's finally eating five minutes later I can't help and just take in the look on his face. He just sits there, his legs crossed, gobbling down his food happy as.
'Don't stare. You'll do the same when you get pregnant. It's rude.' he complains with his mouth full of egg. I laugh.
'When? You want more? Besides, you're adorable, I'm allowed to watch you.' I justify my actions and just keep staring with a smile that probably looks more love struck than it should.
'You're the one who'll want more, you'll see. And I'm not adorable. I'm your height with too many muscles to do anyone any good anymore and I'm stuffing my face with food.' At least he knows.
'Way to toot your own horn. You should keep complimenting yourself while I get a mirror so you can look at yourself while you do so. And I'm pretty sure one will be enough.'
He only looks at me knowingly, raises his eyebrows with a smile, then shakes his head.
'You're hopeless. Also I never said those were good qualities, you just can't see anything bad in me, not my fault. I'm flawless in your eyes. And by the way, if I'm being adorable with all this' - he gestures to literally all of him - 'then so are you. You're adorable when you look at me like that.'
I can't help but smile.
'Come here.' I say and hold my hand out. He immediately sets his plate, with only a few bits left on it, to the side and crawls over to me. He's in my lap before I can even ask and his lips on mine before I can complain about the distance between us.
When he pulls away breathing hard I manage to get out: 'Your breath smells like egg.'
He rolls his eyes with a groan, but stays where he is and sinks against me, hugging me loosely.
'What do we call her?' he asks after a while.
'It's a girl, huh?' I ask after letting a few seconds pass by. He lightly swats me without any real intention and I chuckle.
'Vilma' This time he swats me properly.
'I will not name my child after a character in a TV series.' I chuckle again, then apologise.
'How about Natalie?' I offer instead. I always liked the name.
'Natalie?' he tests out the name on his tongue a few time until he finally concludes: 'I don't like it, something's missing.'
'Hmm, I don't know then.' I shrug and start swaying us from one side to the other, back and forth.
We sit there for a while, enthralled in our small movement and each other and what feels like hours but way too little time later, he opens his mouth again.
'I love you, you know.'
'I sure do.'
And that's the extend of our conversation that night.
When we wake up the next day, neither of us really wants to move, or do anything really, and so we just stay right where we are and spend our time staring at the ceiling and holding silly conversation, much like yesterday night.
We finally drag ourselves out of our house and to the pack house a little after midday, only to find Zach chasing Elif around ... well, everywhere. And I'm not as surprised as I should be that these two get along so well. Although I suppose Randy won't mind getting a bit of time with his mate to himself. And so Raph and I decided not to disturb either pair and instead volunteer to run patrol with some of the other wolves. Raph claims he has to exercise more now to keep his weight for after the birth. Yeah right, as if that guy could even gain weight if he tried. He's perfect, there's just no way. Although thinking about it, it would actually be quite cute to see him with some more curves. I chuckle to myself. Better not bring that up. I know how proud Raph is of his body and the hard work he put in.
We're almost half way through when suddenly Raph shifts mid step and falls face first into the dirt. I immediately stop and run back the few steps I went ahead of him, shifting when I get there. While I help him up I gesture for the other wolves to go ahead.
'What was that?' I question with furrowed brows while Raph shakes his hair out the get rid of some stray leaves and pats down his arms.
'I don't know. It just happened, I didn't even think about shifting.'
He's still dusting himself off when I just stand there and admire the view.
'Hey!' he eventually screams at me and 'Huh?' is the only intelligent reply I can come up with.
'I was talking to you!' he says, clearly annoyed. I blink a few times, but honestly fail to see how his annoyed ramble is worth not looking at the perfection that is him.
'You're beautiful.' I say enthralled. Honestly, this mating ceremony has screwed with my brain, but I'm not complaining, he is beautiful after all.
'Shut it. Let's just go, I'm done being ogled at. Am I staring at you like that? No.' he rambles on.
'You could though. I don't mind.' I wiggle my eyebrows, spread my arms and do a little slow twirl to get the point across. He just rolls his eyes and breaks into a sprint. I only laugh and follow suit.
We both jump and shift - only he's still human after, landing on his face yet again.
I can't help but give a little snort, or the wolf equivalent anyway, while I trot back.
'What the-' he doesn't even finish, too annoyed to even try.
I gently nudge him with my snout, refusing to shift back because I know I'll just laugh if I do. He gets the message and gets on my back immediately. We stop by at home to get us some clothes before heading back to find Randy. The whole way he keeps ranting about his inability to shift and I'm suddenly happy I'm carrying him on my back so he can't see me roll my eyes.
'Don't even think I won't notice you rolling your eyes!' or not.
You could also just stop with the ranting. It's not gonna-
I'm cut off by something heavy landing on my back and I fall immediately.
'What was that?' I ask after I roll away from under the weight and shift back. But I only have to look back to figure out what happened: Raph shifted.
'Could have given me a warning you know.' I grumble, but sit up and reach out my hand for the extra pair of joggers he brought for me. He grabs them with his teeth from where the fell behind him and hands them to me to wear.
'I suppose we'll just walk the rest of the way then.' I conclude and only get an annoyed growl in response. No talking it is then.
When we get there we enter the house and just as I'm taking the first step and hear a surprised 'Oh' behind me and hear, more than see, Raph fall on his backside. Laughing I go to help him up, but he swats my hand away and stands up on his own.
'Give me the sweats and you shift.' he commands.
'I feel like it's more sensible for me to wear them since you're probably just gonna destroy them.'
This time, he doesn't even say anything and just keep holding out his hand expectantly. I sigh, I am always the one losing arguments. And so I slip out of the sweats, hand them over and shift.
The moment we're called into Randy's study my mate just blurts out: 'I can't shift on command anymore' and sits down with an annoyed face and his arms crossed over his chest. I sit down next to him like a little obedient dog and lay my head on his lap. Funnily enough, he doesn't even complain this time.
'Are you stupid?' comes Randy's reply. It doesn't even sound as menacing as usual, he's that flabbergasted. Next to him the Alpha just starts laughing as if we just told the joke of the century.
'You're shitting me, right? They're shitting me, aren't they?' he says, turning from us to his mate. Marc only managed to shake his head before going back to his laughing fit.
'You're actually dumber than you look. Let me spell it out for you, you morons. Idiot number one here is pregnant. He can't shift on command. He shifts randomly, like a pup. Get it, like a pup?' he talks slow, as if he's talking to a child and it takes a moment until it clicks and both me and Raph look at each other at the same time. Maybe we are idiots.
It's well known that a pregnant wolf will on occasion randomly shift to accommodate the baby's development. I suppose this is one of those occasions. And right on cue, my snout is caught between the Randy's sofa my mate's wolf belly. I hear a huff of annoyance.
'It's good that you're both here though.' Marc says after calming down from yet another bout of laughter.
'Follow me.'
He leads us out of the pack house and there's a group of six wolves standing in front of us, including both Clarissa and Zach. I groan. I should have known.
The Alpha holds his little speech, having already told us that this group would lead the initial task about pack integration with our old pack. And after saying our goodbyes, they are off.
It feels weird watching my best friend run off again having only got him back yesterday after having no contact for so many years. Realistically, I know he'll probably be back by tomorrow, but it's still a weird feeling.
I sit next to Raph by the tree line surrounding the pack house, both of us in wolf form still. His head is no my shoulder and we're still facing the direction the six wolves earlier disappeared towards.
There's a calm silence between us and I'm throughly enjoying out closeness, until there's a way too loud screech in my head.
Natalia!