Redhawk Caldera I thought I'd have it worked out and I'd be making plenty

Fall was coming. A part of Fennec was delighted, but another felt the chill of the season with a bit of apprehension. It made it harder and harder to ignore the space in the den, especially whenever Killdeer was absent. It felt a bit like a punishment, and while reason said otherwise, she hadn't worked up the courage to ask.

Which wasn't fair to either of them. And resolving to change that, she'd planned to ask that night. She'd also tried to find something fresh to eat for the occasion, but her flock was nowhere to be found. It happened sometimes but never failed to make her anxious - perhaps this time was the one they'd decided she'd served her use. She'd find out when (and if) they returned.

Leftovers, then, from a hunt she wasn't asked to help with. Another check in her growing marks against Ruenna, not that it mattered if the decisions were actually hers. Or if the logic was sound. She'd likely never learn to accept being overlooked by default and, as usual, required someone to blame it on. Her previous rank-share, now co-Soverign, was an easy and satisfying target.

She picked at it some, but found she wasn't hungry after all. Setting it aside, she settled into her usual spot to wait as the sky darkened to night. When (if?) @Bronco returned, she'd bring it up. And no yelling. God, that was such a fucked thing to have to repeat to herself, right?! But she did, resolved to try something new. Who knew if it would actually happen, though.

as usual, only if you want and have time <3

With the days getting shorter, he did what he could to cash in on the waning daytime hours and spend his energy so he might sleep better at night. Time served as a soothing agent and his restlessness had almost ceased. Routine served him well, settled him back into the bones and foundation of his family, both old and new. 

He yawned as he finished his patrol of the lake's edge- a menial task that kept him far from the pack'a actual borders but allowed him to keep an eye on the prey that visited to drink- and in the dwindling light saw Fennec resting in her usual spot, calm as a daisy. No doubt her mind would be as busy as a beehive, as per usual, but it was nice to see her, his wife, so tame from time to time. It reassured him that things could be fine. 

A rumbling note purled past his lips as he approached, the way water would spill over the edge of a fountain after a day of rain. Affectionate and quiet, nuanced. A sound only he would utter, a sound he would only utter for her. The dry matter of leaves and dirt crumpled as he slid to the ground near her, the tips of his guard hairs brushing gently against hers.

It didn't take long for him to come, not nearly long enough for her mind to quiet into drowsiness. She turned her head towards him as he entered and smiled as the sound of his greeting hit her ears. She had that, and if that had to be enough, she was trying to make her peace with that. As he settled in, she felt that now familiar space between them... barely there, but always present.

Hey. She should have worked out what to ask but she hadn't. And the affection in his voice was clear, but it didn't do much to get rid of the fear of finally hearing an answer. What if she was right?

She had to work to keep her voice casual, but she tried. Until she had an answer, she didn't want to let on that the question meant much to her. I've been wanting to ask you something. Is there... something wrong? You didn't used to need space like this.

For Fennec, what might seem like a small thing was a pretty big deal. She was constantly checking herself from casually reaching out, sliding over, letting her steps drift sideways as they walked. She still had his voice, but she'd lost so much of him. She didn't know what she hated more, the fact that it was so hard or the idea that it might get easier as she got used to it.

And like an acorn tumbling from the trembling branch of an oak, the question dropped and hit the ground, but with the weight of steel hitting concrete. He'd convinced himself that if she hadn't pressed hin for details by this point, that maybe they were past the point where she would ask. He'd given her what she wanted - a stable relationship, a promise he would stay, a father for her son- but now she fished for more. And to be fair, she had a right as a wife to yearn for more from her husband than mere presence. 

The fur along his nape lifted and he froze, his breath seizing in his chest the moment she mentioned his need for space. She was asking him why he wouldn't touch her, and why her touch- any touch, for that matter- made him recoil. 

Perhaps if she'd been able to see his scars, she might not have asked. After all, her frame of reference for his current state ws likely centered around how he'd felt when she'd dragged him out of the lake, and even then he'd been soaking wet. He hadn't given her the chance to see him through touch, either, because he couldn't stand it. 

His head felt light- he remembered to breathe, and tried to keep himself from gasping, spreading his breaths apart a bit. The truth caught in his throat, causing him to press his tongue fiercely against the roof of his mouth and grit his teeth together so hard he heard a low thrumming from the muscles in his temple. He coughed, to force a bit of air out so he might sip a bit back in. 

The truth choked him. And he wanted to hold his breath until this whole situation went away, maybe turn back time so he could have started a conversation first and avoided this question altogether. He couldn't bolt- there was nowhere to run. She likely sensed it, but she'd struck a nerve. 

"It's...It's nothing you've done. It's not you at all," He said, his words slightly rushed, hoping that at least that might reassure her that he wasn't avoiding her in particular.  "But it's...I can't..." The soft click of teeth working together, dry lips that wouldn't meet and the hushed whisper of vocal chords that refused to sing. He shrugged sensely, several times, unable to beckon another excuse. His cheeks flushed warm, and with this spotlight now aimed directly at his trauma, he tensed, and pulled away from her, into a shuddering crouch, prepared to flinch and pull away more if necessary. For the time being, he stared at the ground, hard, hoping she'd drop it and leave him be.

He answered her fears clearly enough, but if she'd hoped to find any kind of satisfying answer, she was mistaken. She wasn't reassured and felt that familiar frustration, something she was quick to put a lid on. Not fucking this time.

Fennec moved, shifting herself closer to the opposite wall and further away from him. Turning, she sat down. Whatever. It isn't a big deal. That was an absolute, bald-faced lie, and probably one of the most blatant ones she'd ever thrown at him. But hopefully it was also what he wanted to hear. She should have known better than to fucking ask.

Abruptly her frustration fizzled out. Instead she felt an uncomfortable, empty melancholy replace it. The longer she went not understanding, the harder it was to fit Bronco with the friend she'd had before all of this mess began. He was here, but he was also gone in a way he had never been before... and she couldn't talk to him. Not about shit like this, or anything she needed to, without this sort of thing happening.

Nevermind.

Her spiteful reply wounded him, and made him feel even more ashamed of himself for everything that had happened. Fennec was not easily pleased- but failing to meet her expectations? As simple as breathing. He could hear the disappointment in her voice, when he'd been hoping for a bit of empathy. Maybe, he'd thought, she might assume what had happened...And show some sort of remorse. Or anger, even, toward the ones who had violated him so badly. But 
instead, being incapable of lending his voice to tell that lead-heavy truth was more of a slight than it was a sign that he needed help. 

She resented him, he thought, and as the people-pleaser he was, he wanted to fix it. So he tried again to say it but the words wound his throat into a knot, cutting off his breath until he found himself nearly wheezing. 

He slipped into the child's pose that Towhee had taught him- how fitting the title seemed now, that he was like a little child incapable of explaining his feelings once again. He pressed the ridge of his brow against the ground and tried to just picture it, so that he might get the words out. 

And it was the wrong thing to do. 

Disturbed past the ability to summon words, his body reminded him of the feeling, making him tuck his tail and hunch his scarred shoulders. Images he couldn't get out of his mind, the sound of raucous laughter and grunts and whoops and growls a sick symphony- the sound that woke him up at night. And it was all inside his head. 

Whatever. 

Her dismissal caused something to snap. But for lack of any other way to deal with being so overwhelmed, he gently began to press his temple against the ground in a regular, rhythmic pattern. But with every rocking motion, he bobbed his head against the ground a bit more, until his rocking motions began prompting him to not just tap his head against the ground, but slam it. A low whine escaped him- the strangled sound of a beast kept in a cage too long. Be was only a few breaths away from having a complete panic attack- and somehow, beating his head against the ground seemed to help him keep the snarling, laughing, gruff voices at bay.

Unable to understand, and this time unwilling to chew his ass out for it, Fennec did the only other thing that came naturally to her - she tried to let it go. There wasn't any spite in the reply, but since that was her typical MO, he couldn't be blamed for hearing it behind her dismissal. She was completely out of her depths, and torn between pushing him by asking if she could help and just stopping, she chose to stop. She couldn't listen to the panic.

It was the wrong choice.

What was happening didn't immediately dawn on her, but as he began to whine, she turned. Bronco. BRONCO! Fuck, that sound.... no. No.

Unfortunately, especially in a crisis, Fennec wasn't a wolf of words. So without even really thinking about it, Fennec lunged for him, her goal to knock him off his feet and pin him down to stop him from hurting himself further.

Her voice sounded like a garbled, underwater reply, distant and obscured by the voices he heard taunting him from inside his own head. So when she slammed against him, he emitted a sharp, high-pitched series of barks and screams as he tumbled over sideways. A submissive sound- and at a volume so loud he'd hoped it both shocked her a d made it clear he wanted no fight. 

Force had been what he feared- and now here was his mate, standing over him with her finger on the trigger. He wasn't just projecting his trauma anymore, it was happening to him again though, he supposed, the worst of things was something a female couldn't do to him. But to be knocked over and pinned? It made him want to go straight to the lake and wade back in again to sleep among the lake scum. 

But for the time being he yowled plaintively, legs curled tight against his exposed underside, doing his best to avoid eye contact with her as a stream of urine wetted his belly. He thought his heart might beat its way out of his chest, if only his ribs weren't so strong.

She wasn't going to let him up until she was sure he wasn't going to hurt himself. If that meant taking a few bites then she'd do it, gladly, but she didn't want to hurt him. He was bigger than she was, so if he wanted to overpower her, she didn't think she could hold him down long. She braced herself for it, but he didn't fight her in the way she was expecting.

It was one thing to know that Bronco didn't like to fight, it was another to pin him down and have him respond like this. If she were the one pinned she'd have taken her fucking nose off by now, but instead Bronco withdrew in absolute panicked fear. She could feel it, and hear it, plainly in both the sounds he was making and the way his entire body reacted. He'd even wet himself. This wasn't anything remotely normal.

It's okay. You're okay, but I can't let you up. Not until I know you aren't going to hurt yourself. Her ears were back but her voice was level. Despite the clenched emotion in her gut, she was speaking as a healer right now, not as his mate. And as much as she hated the fear she had inspired, it was better than the alternative.

I'm not going to hurt you. But I need to know you aren't going to keep doing that. Maybe, eventually, he'd calm down. Maybe, eventually, something she said would make its way through.

His plaintive yowling quieted when she began to talk, but he hadn't absorbed much of what she'd said. Her tone was calm, flat- but he was pinned, still. He was still being held down. With each breath he exhaled with a whine that became slightly more quiet, breath by breath- but in his throat the note began to curdle. 

All he'd learned was that he had to run. But like this, pinned against the ground, he couldn't flee. And she wasn't letting him up to do so, so there was only one alternative. 

His yowls turnes into high pitched growls and he snapped at the air between them hoping to shock her for just a second- just long enough for him to writhe like a pinned snake, using his shoulder, elbows, and angular bulk to toss her off of him. Bucking, snapping and lunging, he became very much like his namesake, wild-eyed in an attempt to rid itself of the predator that held it down.

The snap of teeth was so abruptly unexpected that Fennec did instinctually flinch, interrupted likely just as she was beginning to say something more. None of it was making it through. Bronco just kept getting more and more panicked.

She couldn't let him go. She didn't understand a bit of what was going on inside his head, but clearly he was beyond his own self interest. If she let him get away, she didn't know what he would do or where he would go.

She tried to keep her hold, but she wasn't willing to use her fangs to accomplish it. Despite her attempts, he managed to throw her aside. She staggered, then desperately lunged. Her goal wasn't Bronco this time.

If she made it, she'd plant herself directly between him and the den's exit, closing off his escape.

As soon as he felt her weight fall off of him, he scrambled to get to his feet, claws raking lines in the earth and sending small pebbles scattering. His clumsiness cost him time and by the time he gathered himself to bound away, he found his exit blocked. 

Silhouetted against the gloaming, the blind medic barricaded the opening of the den allowing him only a glimpse of the dusk over her shoulders and underneath her belly. But burning more brightly than the fierce crimson of the fading horizon was the stark silver of her gaze. Her fixed, gilded pupils directed in an endless, sightless gaze that pierced straight through him. 

Not one of the hunters had been blind. And seeing Fennec's eyes now was just the snap he needed to break himself out of his frenzy. 

Still- he was cornered, and he shuddered. Paranoia hissed at him; she could be an agent of theirs. Betrayal coaxed a growl from him as he backed up, until his rump was pressed firmly against the back wall of the den. This was a place where he couldn't fight back. He had tried, before- but it had never worked. The only thing that had saved him was running and them staying quiet and calm when he'd been trapped in a den, waiting for his turn to become the prey. 

He lowered his head and flattened his ears in submission, uttering a quiet, shaky moan.

She braced herself and listened, waiting for him to make a break for it. Her legs were trembling. She was so out of her depths here.

The silence went unbroken except for the sound of his paws shuffling back, away. Then, a whine. She could picture him but not in the way one would imagine. His fear was clearly drawn in her mind, and she could easily interpret that sound to have been a plea. Maybe she should let him go. Eljay would know what to do. She stayed where she was.

I'm not going to hurt you. No one here is. You're safe now. She tried to keep that same, calm, professional demeanor. But it began to slip towards desperation and she had to rein it in. I don't know how to prove it. Maybe I can't. Maybe I can't do a damn thing to help you. But I can tear apart anything that tries. With pleasure. She wanted nothing more, because even if she never actually found out what had happened to make him this way, it didn't matter.

I swear.

She didn't expect this to make much more of a difference than the other words, but she was prepared to stay here until he realized that nothing in this den was going to hurt him.

He battled with his wits and instincts as he remained where he was, staring at the figure at the mouth of the den. This had been her attempt to stop him from hurting himself- the ache in the top of his skull began to manifest, though whether it was from being thumped against the ground or from clenching his jaw or from stress, there was no way to know. But in the end, being touched- and forced to the ground- simply reiterated his need for space. Physical correction and reinforcement only served to bitter him more. 

So the idea that there was nobody there that could hurt him fell flat. He felt his hackles raise; she'd just pinned him to the ground. How was he supposed to believe she wouldn't hurt him too? Not a moment after stating that he couldn't handle being touched, she'd flattened him. It made him feel that his needs would be disregarded in this fashion. And that wasn't love. 

How she couldn't see that was beyond him- but maybe he shouldn't have expected as much. She didn't apologize for the damage done, either. True, she couldn't read his mind to know what he'd been through, and how her actions had only served to estrange him further, but compassion was something he felt she was lacking. And patience. 

And he was too short-sighted to see that she'd just been trying to stop him from hurting himself. 

Like an anxious horse, he hung his head and weaved a bit from side to side, shifting his weight from one forepaw to the other. He wanted to pace but he didn't want to take one step closer to her.  He felt....Feral. And it was unsettling. He uttered a quiet growl- the only intelligible declaration of his anxiety she'd get, for now. He remained pressed against the back wall of the den and slowly slid his haunches to the ground. It felt like a standoff- and possibly, it was one. But as long as she had him cornered, he'd go nowhere, do nothing, but shudder as he sat with his haunches still moist, watching her with a wary, pinpointed gaze.

He didn't respond except to growl, and there was absolutely nothing friendly about the sound. She was trying so fucking hard here. So despite her knee-jerk reaction to go on the defensive, Fennec froze and forced herself to just stop. She needed to take a breath.

Clearly, anything she did right now was going to make things worse. It didn't matter that she was trying because she had no fucking clue what his problem was, how to deal with it, or how to navigate around him. He needed something, but clearly that something... it couldn't be her. She'd kind of known that, hadn't she? But it still fuckin hurt. She'd done nothing but upset him from the moment he came home.

If he was going to do something stupid, her forcing him to stay here wasn't going to stop him. And if he couldn't even communicate with her, there was no chance for her to ever be in a good place with this... or with him. She couldn't read his mind. She couldn't guess what he was feeling, or how he was going to react, when something she thought was giving in would set him into a complete episode like this.

Okay. When you want to talk, I'll be at mom's. Until then, I think I need to let you deal with this. I want to help you, Bronco, but I can't. I'm sorry. Fuck, she was going to cry. When she opened her mouth, she'd meant to just say they both needed space. But that wasn't true. She'd felt like a failure of a mate for months... unable to understand why he was afraid, why he was so broken up, why he was so fucking different.

Forcing him to stay here had been a mistake. Without another word, Fennec ducked out of the den and began to walk towards where @Towhee stayed without looking back. By the time she got to her mom she'd no doubt be a sobbing mess. He'd never made a sound remotely like that at her before. And she wouldn't go back to that den until he asked her to.

He glowered at her from the darkness and saw something akin to regret in her features. It wasn't often that Fennec retreated without doing so in anger. Stomping off or even running away was one thing- but resignation? Fennec was not one to surrender, and yet she had admitted defeat. 

He had no idea how to interpret what she meant. There had been an until which implied that there might be an after- but for now, she wasn't going to try anymore. She was going to Towhee's, which disappointed him and made him feel as though he was being isolated. Towhee might've been the one other wolf he could have spoken to. Now, anything he said to her would definitely get to Fennec. 

When she turned and left, he felt a pressure lift. He licked his lips and worked his jaw, relieving some of the tension that had built up there. While it felt wrong to be occupying a den that should have belonged to both of them...He was at least thankful that he had a place to stay while he dealt with the aftermath. And while he knew he should feel guilty that she'd left, he couldn't help but feel a flood of relief. 

For the first time since his return, he'd sleep the whole night without nightmares.