Redhawk Caldera So let me hold you tight and share a killer, diller, chiller, thriller here tonight

She stuck her tongue out at him, knowing that he was only joking around (... right???), and grinned when he insisted that he was down to bump uglies again. "Bajinga, bajinga, bajinga!" she sing-songed back to him as he mounted her. She had no qualms with their quick and dirty sessions. In fact, she couldn't remember a time when she hadn't enjoyed boning Peregrine, even though she was almost certain that had happened at one point or another.

It was over just as quickly as it had begun, and Fox grunted a relieved sigh when he shifted his weight off of her once again. She didn't bother to turn around to look at him just yet, seeing as she knew what he looked like and this part would never not be a little bit awkward. "I like what you do to my bajinga, sweetie-pie," she said, cackling like a loon at her repeated mispronunciation of the word.

"You're insufferable," Peregrine said to his mate, oblivious to the state of his pupils, though he felt like he could suddenly see a lot better (out of his single sighted eye, anyway). He rotated his head, testing out his inexplicably upgraded night vision, only to freeze and hiss through his teeth at a sudden and intense stiffness in his neck.

"Ah, fuck," he muttered, gritting his teeth. "Muscle cramp," he explained to his mate, in case she was wondering why he was swearing under his breath. And just like that, the pain ceased and he was given full range of motion. His vision seemed to have returned to normal too. Peregrine wondered if he should be concerned about any of that... but he felt fine.

In fact, he felt good. A little overly stuffed still... but good. And he was ready for yet another round of lovemaking. He hadn't strayed far from Fox's backside, so he just scooted forward a few inches and mashed his chest up against her buttocks, which he sank his teeth into.

Fox gave him her cheesiest smile, knowing just how insufferable she could be if she really wanted to. His next muttering through gritted teeth caused her an ounce of alarm, but that was quickly washed away by his explanation. With all this fuckin' they were doing, muscle cramps were bound to come and go. He relaxed, and Fox figured the feeling had passed for him. Briefly, she nibbled on his neck, but he was ready to get right back to business with a—

"Ye-owch!" she yelped, "What was that for?!" Her normally passive, dead grey eyes took on a rather malicious expression, and she snapped at his muzzle. "Was that supposed to be sexy?" she scoffed, grumbling insults under her breath.

He didn't expect her aggressive reaction, nor the way it turned him on like crazy. Fuckin' hormones! (Literally.) Peregrine's own jade eyes sparkled as his lips wrinkled back from his teeth. "Them's fightin' words," he rumbled at her. He looked quite serious, though anyone who knew him—and Fox knew him best of all—would see right through the bluff.

"You know what's even sexier, though? Watchin' you get all riled up," Peregrine teased in a deadly serious voice, right before he lunged to snack on her ass s'more (ew).

His rumbling jest (as far as she could tell), caused her to clench her jaw tighter, ready to pummel him to death if he kept up the smartassery. But that was right, he did like watching her get riled up. Whenever she chased off strays from their border, he got an insta-boner on the spot and usually jumped her bones right then and there. She liked to think it was because he knew he could wrestle her (and win) if he really wanted to.

"Ugh!" she scoffed, though she couldn't deny him the pleasure of seeing her like this. He launched at her haunches again, and she whipped around with her jaws open, hoping to clip his muzzle and draw at least a little bit of blood. Things were getting rather kinky...

His hit never landed. Fox whirled, a red blur, and snapped her own fangs in the general direction of his face. He felt sharp teeth cutting into the soft flesh between his lip and cheek. Peregrine's eyes widened in surprise as he instinctively leaped backward. He planted three of his feet and brought up the last one to swipe at the blood trickling from the cut. He stared at it for a moment before his eyes lifted to his mate, his expression going from slightly surprised to a Cheshire leer.

"You made me bleed my own blood," he rumbled, then launched at her. His teeth were bared again as he aimed a strike at the side of her neck. He hoped to draw blood too. Peregrine wasn't usually into sadomasochism but it was hitting all his buttons at the moment. In fact, he was tempted to just grab her by the scruff, digging his teeth in so hard that she bled, and have his wild way with her. But for now he wanted to tango a bit before they did the, well, horizontal tango.

Sadism, masochism... which one was which? Fox didn't have time to analyze that question before or after she nicked her lover's face. The taste of blood was sweet upon her tongue, and he lunged at her with all of his might. Lacking the proper amount of time to avoid his attack, she tried to at least avoid getting her throat ripped out. His teeth hit her shoulder–hard–and she gnashed her teeth at him.

Ripping free from his grip (and probably causing more damage by doing so), she took a few steps back and lowered her head. Her shoulder stung, but it would heal. Fox shook her coat, sending drops of blood flying in every direction imaginable. "You didn't think I'd be that easy, did you?" she teased, blood still on her tongue.

The impact took him a little by surprise. Peregrine reeled back, a slight look of panic crossing his face, eyelids fluttering. But Fox didn't appear fazed in the least. She ripped free, then taunted him playfully. For a split second, he bit his lip as he eyed the wound. It looked sorta serious. He hadn't meant to do that. But his unflappable Fox was driving him crazy in the best of ways, especially when she flippantly shook her coat and sent blood spraying onto the cold, brittle grass at their feet.

"I know you're not easy," he drawled, lowering his head and bracing himself. "I did you. Now you do me," he invited in a sultry voice, baring his throat to her.

If ever either of them looked back on this, they were probably going to wonder what the hell they were thinking. Hell, the whole pack was going to wonder why their alphas had ripped each other up. He invited her to do the same, and Fox's expression went from surprised to delighted to devilish. Without a thought to what she was doing, the Redhawk matriarch lunged forward, jaws wide open.

She knocked him on his side, grasping his windpipe in her jowls. Fox, of course, had no intention of breaking the skin, but she pressed down hard on his throat, a fiery glint in her eye. Feeling his breath move in and out of his throat was pleasant, in a way.

Every muscle in his body tensed when Fox lunged at him. Just like it had felt a little wrong (but oh so right...) to attack his mate, it went against his nature to expose himself like this and not attempt to deflect the attack. But this was an exercise in love, faith and trust. Fox might hurt him—and he wanted that—but she would innately understand and respect his limits. Right?

Right?

Right?

Right?

He opened his mouth—man, they should've discussed a safe word or something—but he couldn't make a sound. And by the time his trust in her ran out, he was already too oxygen-starved to throw her off. As his vision dimmed and Peregrine slowly perished, all he could think was...



and

She couldn't say exactly how long she stood there clenching her jaws around his throat, but at some point, she released him. He continued to lay limp on the ground, and she giggled. "Oh Peregrine, stop being so dramatic, would you?" she jested, batting a paw at him. She could have sworn she saw him flinch, but the longer he remained eerily still, the faster her heart began to beat.

"Perry? Peregrine? Sweetie-pie?" Fox's voice became more frantic and the pitch higher the more she attempted to rouse him from "faking" his unconsciousness. "Perry, stop it!" she demanded, fear turning into anger. "Wake up, dammit!" Fox grabbed ahold of his tail and shook it around as a last resort. Surely that would wake him up. Her stomach was starting to roll, and she had a feeling all that pork was going to come bubbling up soon if her lover didn't open his goddamn eyes.

As the breath left his lungs, his heartbeat slowed and Peregrine slipped into unconsciousness, all his worries and hurts—not just from tonight but from the whole of his crazy life—faded from him. He felt unburdened. He felt like he was floating. He was at peace.

And then they started to appear. First there was Atticus, grinning at him. Then he saw Crete at his shoulder, also smiling. Peregrine swore he saw burns on his mute brother's face and neck but they flickered from view. Behind his brothers, he saw Lasher and Pantaleimon. Peregrine's heart felt so full as he gazed upon his closest loved ones (well, the dead ones). He even saw little "Derp" sitting between Atticus's forepaws. And Peter Pan stood beaming beside his namesake.

There were others too, beyond them. He recognized his older brothers and sisters. Although it made him a little sad to see that the likes of Athena, Perseus and Echo were dead—their figures looking burnt like Crete, only to repair themselves and become whole again right in front of his eyes—Peregrine was still happy to see them. He saw Ray waving at him from his spot between Aether and March Owl and felt a flicker in his chest.

And then he saw him. Peregrine felt cold all of a sudden. His throat felt tight. He returned Tyrannus's stare. For what felt like a small eternity, they just looked at one another. Then Tyrannus's face broke into a tentative smile, which Peregrine could only call sheepish. He blinked. And then, after a long pause, he returned it as a way of saying, I forgive you. And he did.

But there was someone else behind Tyrannus, mostly obscured from view. Only slowly did she move forward. Everything about her body language betrayed her fear and sadness. She would not look him in the eye, even when Peregrine's bored into her face. His gaze dropped to her forelegs. Her wounds did not magically heal like the others'. They remained, hideous. Peregrine's eyes lifted back to her face. He saw that tears were sliding down her muzzle to wet the ground at her feet.

Could he forgive Junior, after what she'd done? Everyone seemed to be holding their collective breath as they waited. Peregrine kept staring at her, even when he felt "Derp" and Peter bump gently against him. Peregrine thought of that day when she'd attacked Wildfire and they'd killed her. He felt none of the wrath or fear or pain of that day. It just played like a movie in his mind.

After another small eternity, Peregrine's mouth opened. "Fffuuuccckkk," he moaned, eyes watering as he squinted up at the screaming Fox.

It felt like an eternity before Peregrine's eyes fluttered open and he croaked out a sound. "Damn, dude. I thought for sure I'd murderated you. Maybe we should... lay off that stuff, eh?" Fox suggested with a guilty look. She bent down to lick his watery eyes, smoothing the gray hairs to the side. Maybe if they'd both been younger it would have been less dangerous. Why were they only now trying out the whacky shit? Fox blamed it on being more comfortable around each other.

Once she was convinced he wasn't going to die, she crawled underneath his foreleg so the top of her head was pressed against his chin. "We're gonna have so many wonderful babies, Peregrine. I want this whole place teeming with them," she waxed on, "I know Ferret turned out rotten, but Whip and Gannet seem to be doing okay now. That trip to see Wildfire really did them both some good."

He recollected nothing of his vision. The last vestiges of painless peace were rudely demolished as the agony in his throat caused him to start coughing, gagging and choking. Although Fox attempted to wend in between his legs and lay beside him, Peregrine unceremoniously sent her flopping for the second time that night as he struggled to sit upright. He spluttered loudly, attempting to draw air through his bruised windpipe into his lungs, which were burning. It was the longest three minutes of his life before he finally felt like he could breathe somewhat normally again.

"Agreed," he wheezed belatedly. He was never going to try that again, more like it. He smiled weakly at the thought of filling the caldera with their babies, a bittersweet look on his face when she pinpointed the secret fears he'd been harboring these last few weeks. Peregrine just hoped Fox was right in her implication and that none of their next brood turned out to be as fucked up as some of his previous kids.

"As soon as I'm sure I won't die mid-fuck," he rasped, "we're gonna put more babies in you," he said in way of agreement.

He shoved her away, to which she gave him a dirty look, but Fox's featured quickly softened to something more like guilt when she realized he was trying to clear his windpipe. Another sheepish look crossed her face when he mentioned dying "mid-fuck" as he put it. "You're not allowed to die," she replied with a sense of finality. "Who else would bring me food while I'm pregnant?" Fox couldn't think of a single soul she would want to bring her food. In fact, in the later stages of pregnancy, she usually refused to see anybody besides Peregrine.

"And who would help me wrangle the little bastards?" she added, remembering how the four boys had been so much more of a handful than their first batch. "Can you imagine if we had another litter full of boys?" she groaned, not wanting to even consider that as a possibility. Surely the odds would be in their favor. Maybe they'd get all girls this time. Fox had always been closer to Wildfire than any of her other children, although Peter and Gannet were a close second. Not that she was ranking them or anything, GOSH.

Peregrine made a pbbbbbt noise. "I'm not gonna die," he assured as if it were the most absurd notion ever. "Like... ever, I mean," he quipped. He paused, then amended, "Not for a while, anyway. Even if we have a big litter, we still need to make one or two more to catch up to my parents. And I swore to Osprey that I would do that, so..." Yeah, he needed to live and procreate for another few years if he wanted to achieve that goal. He was suddenly glad he had overcome his hesitations because beating Aether and March Owl in the baby-making Olympics was suddenly top priority.

And he was suddenly raring to go yet again, despite the state of his battered throat. Even though Fox's heady scent was enough to burn his lungs all over again, he clambered to his feet as he prepared to maneuver both of them into position. But then he winced and paused to collect himself. Maybe he should give it another few minutes. He was pretty sure Fox had very nearly choked him to death. It was funny in hindsight but his respiratory system certainly wasn't laughing at the moment.

"I don't care what they are," he thought out loud, "as long as they're nothing like Ferret. Or Junior." Why did he feel a very strange sense of déjà vu when he said her name? It made Peregrine shudder. There was a reason he had barely spoken it since the day of her death. "It'd be great if more turned out like Wildfire. Or even Nightjar. Gannet's shaping up to be pretty rad too..."

She gave him an affirmative nod, glad that he had no plans of dying soon. Fox planned on wringing him dry of whatever procreation he had left. And then what? Well, she could figure that out later. She had another few years to figure that out, and she was in no mood to think of a time when she would have to toss him aside because he couldn't give her children anymore. Fox had no idea how many kids her own parents had by now, nor did she really want to know. Did her dad's bastards count? Was she still the only one who knew about them. The thought left an ugly taste in her mouth, and she licked her lips and derailed that train of thought.

Junior's name caused her to flinch (and possibly curl her lip to some degree), but the mention of Wildfire, Nightjar, and Gannet's names were enough to put a smile back on her face. "See? I think we have a pretty good record. And that one bitch doesn't count, because she wasn't even mine," Fox assured him. Her rotten core was one hundred percent her mother's fault, or so the Redhawk believed.

"Let's hold off, at least for a few more minutes. I want to make sure you're in tip-top shape for the next round," Fox suggested, concern coloring her voice.

He laughed humorlessly and it hurt. Fox wasn't wrong, though. Junior had been one crazy bitch. It had been a year or more since that day and he still hadn't brought himself to forgive her. He didn't think he ever could. Everyone else who had crossed him in his life—hell, even Tyrannus—he could see himself absolving. After all, his elder brother's tyranny had brought him here to the Teekon Wilds. His life here was far more exciting and wonderful (and occasionally heartbreaking and shitty) than anything he would have experienced in the Seahawk Valley.

That thought, as well as the conversation in general, made him gaze fondly at Fox. Their love story was as romantic as it was crazy. He had nearly killed her the first time they'd met. They'd been "frenemies" for a long time afterward. And only the oddest twist of fate had brought them together in the end. He could hardly remember Hawkeye, to be honest, and knew he had never loved her, not like he loved Fox. Despite the tragedies they'd weathered together over the years and how she occasionally wanted to kick him to the curb and/or murderate him (such as five minutes ago), Peregrine knew he was one lucky dude.

"I'm one lucky dude," he said as much, now heavily eyeballing her sweet ass. "I love you so much, it'd kill me if I wasn't indestructible," Peregrine said with a lusty chortle that made his head hurt and chest ache. But he was recovering with every passing minute. And as his joke implied, he had lived through much worse, many times, over the years. He could manage a quick bang-bang even with a partially crushed windpipe, no problem!

There was that L-word again, and Fox repeated it back without so much as a hint that she ever doubted herself. "I love you so much it might kill me," she swooned, batting her eyelashes at her one true beau. Maybe Peregrine was indestructible, just like he said, but Fox had always been acutely aware of her mortality, even if she had run around like an idiot in her youth pretending she would never die. Actually, she ran around in adulthood doing the exact same thing. Which reminded her of her ripped-up shoulder all of the sudden, which stung like a biatch.

"Oh shit, how bad is my shoulder?" she asked, suddenly aware of how the blood was starting to dry up and make her fur matted and gross. She hadn't lost that much blood, and she had no doubts that she would heal in due time. "You took a good chunk out of it. Y'know... with my help." It wasn't like she hadn't been the one to rip free from his grasp, after all. They would definitely have to lay off the riskier kinks.

He immediately felt bad when Fox drew attention to her shoulder. He had forgotten all about it, considering his own near death experience. Peregrine promptly moved closer, gently inspecting the wound. It was neither large, nor deep. It would probably heal quickly and without complication. Still, he found himself wishing Raven had stuck around. She had been sort of a recluse most of the time, but she'd had a promising career in medicine. He knew Fox didn't care much for doctors but surely she would have let their daughter treat her injury to prevent infection, at the very least.

It was all kind of moot. "Here, let me clean it for you," he said before tenderly swiping his tongue over the torn, angry flesh. Peregrine felt a little guilty for inflicting these slashes, although she'd asked for them. She was going to be carrying his babies soon, so she needed her strength and her health. And would what would their pack mates think when they saw her? What would their sons think? Would they think the Alphas had had some sort of domestic dispute?

"We should tell them you were attacked by a rabid werebunny," the Alpha male thought aloud, sort of apropos of nothing. He leaned back once he was done and added, "One who couldn't hop high enough to get at your throat..." Wait, that was vampires. How dumb was he?

She winced at his touch, but soon enough, Fox relaxed as his tongue swept at her wound. Peregrine suggested that they make up some silly story about a rabid werebunny that attacked her. "Would that be more or less believable than telling them the truth?" she asked with a grin. Fox had a feeling that nobody in the pack would believe them if she said she'd allowed Peregrine to rip open her shoulder. Would they believe Peregrine if he told the pack his mate had nearly choked him to death? :thinking_face:

Leaning into him, Fox let out a content sigh. Maybe they were a little bit fucked up (ok, more like a lot bit fucked up), but they were happy together. And maybe she would never really know if she loved him, but she sure as hell couldn't imagine what her life would be like without him. The Redhawks were legendary, and she had him to thank for that.

Dismissing his own stupidity, Peregrine thought Fox's question over for a moment. "Do you think they're onto us yet?" he quipped dryly. "That we're fuckin' psychopaths, I mean?" Peregrine laughed, the last of the burning sensation in his lungs sort of petering away now. The skin of his throat still felt tender and he was sure that if he bumped it, it would hurt like a son of a bitch. But at least he could breathe.

"All right, y'ready for round... whatever?" he asked, rolling onto all fours. "I'll be careful with your shoulder, boo," Peregrine promised before he planted his hind feet about six inches behind hers and rose up to hug her middle. He began to make love to her slowly and sweetly, murmuring quiet endearments into her ears. He would take his time, then after they were done this round, he would insist they catch some z's for at least a couple of hours.

Because they had the rest of the night, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next week... and soon Fox would be peeing every hour on the hour; her nips would start dragging on the ground; and she would get fat as fuck. With his pups. And he would find her as goddamn gorgeous as always as they added another flowering branch to their magnificent family tree.

"If they aren't already, they're in for one hell of a surprise," Fox teased back, and before long they were making sweet, sweet love again. Another wave of ecstasy washed over her, followed by the sensation of being inexplicably drowsy. Her body was calling it quits for the time being, and as soon as they were able, the two slumped down and she was snoring in a matter of seconds. He had more or less fucked her to sleep.

A few hours passed, and Fox rolled on top of Peregrine, which of course roused her from her sleep. All at once, a rush of not-so-distant memories of earlier in the night came flooding to the forefront of her mind, and her eyes fluttered open to find Peregrine sleeping soundly next to her. Under normal circumstances, she would have let him sleep in, but these were not normal circumstances. She only had a week to make sure she was good and pregnant, and Fox would be damned if she failed in that mission.

Shoving him (gently) with her front paws, Fox mumbled quietly at him. "Wake up, Peregrine," she said softly. He didn't get up right away, so she attempted a different method. She scooted her bajinga right in front of his face and fanned her tail on his nose. Surely that smell would wake him up.

The two of them tumbled into a sleepy, sated pile and began snoring, drooling and farting up a symphony within minutes. Peregrine slept so soundly that he didn't dream. He didn't move, either. When Fox roused, he grumbled in his sleep, eyelids fluttering. "Five more minutes," he complained in a gritty voice, curling into a ball like an overgrown kitten. But the instant Fox waved her hoo-ha in his face, his eyes popped open and he was on her like white on rice, ignoring the twitching of his blind eye and the horrible stiffness of his entire body (except the most important part... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)).

He set a frantic pace, groaning and growling as he humped away. He was so into it that he began drooling all over Fox's scruff. It felt so good he could have sworn his face was melting right off his skull. Enjoying every minute of it, he let his eyelids droop shut for a moment. He buried his face between her shoulders and breathed in her smell, which made him delightfully dizzy. When he looked upward again, he thought he saw Liffey and Lagan staring at them from behind a bush and snickered to himself.

A few seconds later, Peregrine felt himself tipping over that wonderful edge. "I'M COMI—!" he felt the need to shout into the dark air, though he never got the whole word out. Something inside his brain went pop. He didn't feel a thing. He didn't even realize it was happening. He had no idea he was coming and going at the same time. One second, he was so fuckin' alive, man... and the next, he was dead as fuck before he even hit the ground—which he did, dragging Fox down with him by the dong.

I'm gonna miss him. :'(

The sex might have been to die for from Peregrine's perspective, but Fox found it lacking. It was like he was fumbling all over the place, and she wondered if she shouldn't have let him sleep a few more hours before asking him to go at it again. Nevertheless, he seemed to be enjoying it, and so long as he was putting babies in her, Fox couldn't care less about how pleasurable it really was for her. They could work on that later.

However, when it came (haha) to an abrupt halt, Peregrine dragged her down by the bajinga. "Dude, what the fuck?!" she yowled. Her first instinct was to pull away, and she tried that, but they were tied. Peregrine made no response. In fact, he seemed to have passed out again. That was totally from her choking him earlier, she assumed. Fox rolled her eyes, reminding herself that they would not be doing that again. As the minutes went by, and she was able to free herself, she stood up and shook her coat, wincing as her shoulder reminded her that it was pretty fucked up.

She shoved Peregrine's shoulder, attempting to rouse him. "Not this again," she thought. But as one minute turned into five... turned into ten... and Peregrine's body began to cool down to non-living... a decidedly sinking feeling washed over her. Did he just...? "Are you fucking kidding me?" she croaked out. But nobody was kidding her.

Peregrine was dead, and now she had to figure out what to do. She had never been one to bury the dead, but she had always known that Peregrine had. Is that what he would want? Goddammit, this would be so much easier if she could ask him. Was anger the first step in the grieving process? Because that was all she was feeling right now. Nevertheless, she'd need to get to work if she wanted it done. Exhausted, emotional, injured, and hormonal, Fox began digging her mate's grave. He would be buried in the home they had built for their family.