Coconut Grove i'm in a b-boy stance, i'm not dancing

AW! pack formation thread -- tristan marks borders

here we go! along these kinda-half marked borders! woo! pack life was much harder with only 5 wolfs than it was with... well, like 50. the redhawks were big people, especially combined with the blackthorns. but tristan was neither anymore, no, they were margaritas. and they needed to act like margaritas. or... something, last name pending. 

anyway, he stopped every so often to mark a rock or a palm, ears flicking. as he went, he was doing less marking and more whiff, since he was pretty low on pee by the end of it. did it still release scent stuff? idk ? maybe? either way, tristan didn't seem bothered when only a few drops were marking trees and whatnot. he just kept padding, ears flicking as he idly kept a lookout for anything weird.

She didn't know what she'd done—maybe slept funny—but Bat's hips felt really achy this morning. She tried to stretch and warm her muscles with a stroll along the beach, her ankles dipping in the waves, and it helped some. But by the time she left the sands to roam the grove, her posterior still felt strangely sore.

Bat wasn't looking for Tristan, though odds were always good she'd gravitate to him eventually, and so she did today. "Hey," she called while his leg was hiked in the air, only a few droplets escaping him like juice squeezed from an orange. She laughed. "I've come with a full bladder, ready to be put to work, if you want some company?"

ruh roh.

bat looked fine to the surface to tristan, who was mostly oblivious to shit anyway. well, sometimes. he certainly wasn't stupid. anyway, as bat approached, tristan's smile widened and he called out a friendly hey pup! in return. he dipped to give her a quick nudge to the cheek, which actually came off a little more affectionate than he'd meant it -- but subconsciously... whatever, he played it off by not acknowledging it. she imagined it, if she noticed anything. 

yeah please -- this still does shit, right? i'm like rubbing up against trees and stuff but god damn i didn't drink enough water or something, he said with a quick shake of his head, i don't see how tow-- uh, others do this all day everyday. ah, yes, smooth recovery there in the middle. he sometimes forgot that he had silently made himself mortal enemies with the red hawk clan. except for bat, though. my dick hurts, he chuffedd.

She chortled under her breath at his complaints, the place on her cheek where he'd nudged her still warm. Only when he made a comment about his dick did Bat look at him oddly. Normally, such a comment wouldn't phase her, just like walking up on Tristan with his leg in the air and his goodies on display didn't make her bat an eyelash. But it made a thought skitter through her brain and she found herself blasting a quip.

"Yeah? My whole ass end hurts. Did we drink too much tequila"—whatever that was; Jimmy had mentioned the name and the side effects of imbibing, mostly in passing—"and blackout bang?" She punctuated the jape with a playful snort and a wiggle of her tail, then began waggling her eyebrows for good measure.

But, of course, his junk hurt because he'd been doing some heavy duty marking and who knew why Bat's hindquarters felt like they'd been run over with a truck? Fortunately, she wasn't in so much pain that she couldn't contribute, which she proved by dropping a squat and sprinkling a tinkle on a rogue coconut shell that happened to be lying there.

unfortunately! though tristan's own comment was pretty casual and not at all sexually skewed, bat took it upon herself to run him over with a truck. luckily, he knew what he had done the night before, and was wildly confident they did not blackout bang. but now that the thought was firm and prevalent in his head, he found himself entirely winded for proper conversation.

you w-wish, he quipped in return, though a little shaky. shit! why was he fuckin losing his cool right now? he watched as she went to take a squat, finding himself a little too incapacitated to keep patrolling -- oh dear. tristan sat down, paws neatly pressed together in front of him. you know, he said, rather casually, it's nice that we have so much shade in the grove. the sun is pretty gnarly this close to the beach. unfortunately, tristan did not press her about why her ass was hurting.

Bat clucked her tongue at his expected sarcastic rejoinder, straightening up and giving her butt a little wiggle to shake off any drops. Instinct commanded her to scratch her paw pads against the earth near the small puddle, to really drive in the message: This belongs to me! Well... us.

She cocked her head at Tristan's next comment, then huffed a laugh. "Yeah, the shade's nice... but so's the water. If you get hot, just jump in the ocean." She chuckled again, then shrugged and resumed walking, already scoping out the next best place to drop a squat.

oooooh GOOoooddd tristan was really struggling. and it was kind of getting bad at this point! he was so good at holding himself together usually, he didn't know what it was about this conversation that was driving him nuts. he felt red hot, for one, and the more she stretched and shook he was growing pretty confident she was teasing him. and, okay, look, we know that there had been some feelings growing on tristan, but he'd never looked at bat like that before. in fact, he couldn't recall a time he'd noticed how gah damn thicc she was. 

his nose lifted to the sky, and he stared at the palms rather innocently.  oh yeah i guess, but look at the leaves, he played off, not watching as bat began to pad away from him. he only heard her paw steps, which left him to look back straight at that wagon. fuck dammit what the fuck. honestly! this wouldn't even be that big a deal any other day, but now that all the other thoughts were there he was having trouble getting them out. 

he stayed put.

She finished her second marking and rose once more, glancing at Tristan over her shoulder. Her brow furrowed when she saw he hadn't moved. He was sitting primly, telling her to look at the leaves. She did as he asked, then looked back at him, the furrow deepening. She padded back toward her friend and, apropos of nothing, pressed her nose to his forehead.

"You don't feel feverish," Bat muttered, more to herself than to him. "Do you feel okay?" she asked louder, stepping back. "Why are you being a weirdo?" she added bluntly.

bat turned to give him a look, to which tristan wildly didn't appreciate. just freaking go patrol without him oh em geeee clearly we're having some issues. but instead she padding right up to him and TOUCHED him for christs sake. we're losing this battle. he ducked his head from her, still sitting firmly. i'm not being weird, he corrected, you're being weird. oh my god but he was being so weird, and he literally could not fix himself. 

just enjoying the shade, ya know, he said, still attempting to play anything smoothly -- failing miserably.

Granted, Tristan was always a little weird, though his insistent reply made Bat squint at him. He was being extra weird... peculiar, even. Bat frankly wasn't sure what to do with it, with him.

Raising and dropping her shoulders, she spun on a heel to continue along the borderline, fully prepared to keep marking. As she walked away, she dropped on him, "Do you like staring at the trees here 'cause the coconuts totally resemble balls?" Bat looked over her shoulder, fixing him with a mischievous look. "Do you like balls, Tristan? Do they fascinate you?"

his teeth gritted in a really weird smile as bat squinted at him, moving the leave. he stopped himself from releasing a huge ass breathe, and instead reluctantly stood to follow after, tail low but trying to seem inconspicuous. it was kinda working. by kinda i mean not at all. good god he was bugging out. 

then she started about BALLS. like oh my god. FINE. clearly she knows. tristan shot her a dirty look. i'm SORRY okay, i can't HELP it sometimes it just HAPPENS, he cried, rather embarrassed and exasperated, take it as a compliment, okay, jesus christ. ah.

His outburst startled her so badly that Bat actually jumped (and peed) a little. She whipped around to face him, mouth falling ajar. Was Tristan admitting to being gay? She had been kidding, so this was... incredibly unexpected. She would support him, of course, but boy did that shatter a schema!

Then his latter comment registered and her entire face screwed up in confusion. "I don't have balls?" she said and why did that come out as a question?

what?! 

omg NO that’s literally the opposite of the point he’d been trying to get across. his face went red hot that she even implied that with her comment about balls. shit. what the fuck did he even say now? he realized pretty abruptly that she totally didn’t realize what he was talking about. but he couldn’t back out now.

weakly, in a rare moment of actual embarrassment, tristan muttered. i gotta boner, okay.

He seemed as perplexed by her remark (or question, rather) and shot back an irritable sounding, "What?!" that made Bat stop short and pull up her head with a little snort. What the hell was going on—?!

Tristan's frank admission did little to clear up the confusion. "From the coconuts?!" she practically shouted in bewildered disbelief. Then, as what she'd just yelled really hit her ("coconuts"), Bat barked a laugh, which quickly became bellyaching, weak-in-the-knees, writhing-on-the-ground and hooting convulsions.

his embarrassment slowly faded into humiliation, feeling entirely mortified(look at all those synonyms!). and as bat began to buckle down laughing, tristan realized a few things -- the first thing was that being laughed at actually made this situation better... all the blood was going other places. but also that bat either didn't realize why or was blatantly ignoring his comment. he hoped it was the first, because the second one left a real bad stinging in his... heart. oh, barf. moving past that. 

not because of the coconuts, tristan said with a scowl, pushing past her so his expression was hidden. but he left it at that, trying to push down some of the bitterness and embarrassment he was feeling. she could press if she wanted to.

The effect of his quiet remark wasn't instantaneous, though Bat's laughter slowly subsided and she rolled onto her belly, gazing up at him, as the paralytic byproduct of her giggling fit ceased. Her lips twisted in a confused and questioning moue before it hit her like a ton of bricks. Bat literally felt her breath catch in her chest, as if someone had knocked the wind out of her. It was a good thing she was already on the ground, 'cause her limbs turned to jelly as her heart began to gallop, knocking against her breastbone.

Her lips parted and she almost spit out a few words of disbelief ("I gave you a boner?!") but then she pressed them together, refusing to let something dumb fall out of her mouth right now. Tristan was clearly awkward and embarrassed, hence his strange behavior, and though she wouldn't normally let this stop her from teasing him, their entire history seemed to unfold in front of her. On slightly shaky legs, she pushed herself upward, into a sit.

For long enough to make him uncomfortable, Bat just looked at Tristan, thumbing through the thousand things she could say at this moment. Okay, it was tempting to joke at his expense, after all, though she chewed on her lip, unable to bring herself to make light of this revelation... not after she'd been in love with him practically her whole life and been hiding that fact from him nearly that entire time and, more recently, from herself.

At last, she let out a breath, then said, "Well, what do you wanna do about it?" and abruptly unleashed her best smoldering bedroom eyes upon him.

luckily, all this staring was not making him uncomfortable as tristan was facing the OTHER DIRECTION. mostly because he could literally not look at her. he felt like he was burning up inside his skin, in fact, he had to double check to make sure he wasn't actually on fire. holy fucking shit -- he had never felt like this a day in his life before. it was actually, effectively, the worst feeling he'd ever felt. tristan was quite confident and showboaty, typically, but today he was seemingly crumbling under pressure. his performance was... lacking, to say the least. 

but it got quiet behind him, maybe bat realized what he was talking about or maybe she just was still so confused that she had gone silent. either way, as he turned to look at her (to make sure she was still breathing) he watched as the worst pair of bedroom eyes he'd ever seen landed upon him. he knew what she was trying to do, given the context clues, but she actually came across rather crazy-eyed. he had to stop himself from laughing... after all, he ventured to say she'd never done this before. 

without thinking, tristan had taken two steps forward to close the distance. it was second nature. never mind that he had only banged out one (1) bitch in his lifetime, it was just bred into him to be a total ladykiller. this motion felt like it was made for him -- subconsciously he had just begun through those motions... until he realized who he was staring at. bat. he paused, his tail still waved low at his hocks as he pondered the beneficial parts of this.. ahem, coupling... but a bigger -- less mature (arguably) -- part of him stopped him. sure, he had pretty much come to terms with the fact that he liked bat more than a friend. he'd had a few dreams about living a long happy life with her, raising kids and what not. but that's all they were -- dreams. and, at the end of the day, he wasn't capable of loving her like a normal wolf might. he'd developed way too much shit over the course of his short life to grow attached to her like she might to him. and so, with this shot at happiness (and a good nut) tristan, somehow, couldn't make himself close the deal. 

i can't give you the things you want from me, he told her, realizing his heart was literally pounding in his chest. what a shitass response -- and he knew it too. fuck! half of him was on fire, screaming every emotion he had into his head. and the other half had suddenly gone cold, distant. they met in the middle as one thing:

a douchebag.

He moved nearer and Bat's heart skipped a beat—several, really. Was this actually happening? Had she really turned him on, somehow, unwittingly? Had she really just given him the look? Did Tristan feel the same way about her as she did about him? Were they about to make all of her deepest, most secretive dreams come true?

"I can't give you the things you want from me," he told her and Bat's stomach clenched at having her hopes built up so rapidly (and unexpectedly!) and then dashed just as hard and fast. She sucked in a noisy breath even as she felt a lump forming in her throat. She should've known better because, well, she knew Tristan.

Retreating a few steps, the yearling licked her lips. She found she couldn't speak right away, thought that was probably good. It gave her a moment to think about what to say, rather than shooting from the hip, and eventually she couldn't hold back the most pertinent question: "What things do you think I want from you?"

ope, she stepped back. probably a good move because tristan was being a pretty huge dick right now. she asked a question that tristan probably didn't expect. mostly because... like... i don't  know -- why do girls ask so many fucking questions? ugh. his tail flicked, ears mirroring that as they cupped forwards towards her. despite his words, his body language was saying quite the opposite, leaning forwards and intently looking her over. 

you want a boyfriend, he said rather dumbly, gaze on her steady -- i won't say the word hungry because he isn't being weird rn but think of something kind of similar to that. something secure, i can't promise that.

He leaned into her space and Bat didn't know how to feel about that, nor the words he said. She wrinkled her nose at him, a little put off by the assumption, though she knew better than to get up in arms about it. She shook her head and laughed at him, her heart still skittering in her chest like a flighty bird even as she somehow managed to gather her wits about her.

"Says who?" Bat replied. "Maybe I only want you for your body. Maybe I just want a good dicking," she shot at him, silver eyes flaring, challenging and playful all at once. That wasn't what she wanted but how could she resist calling him out for thinking he knew what she desired?

oof. that comment was gonna get them both in a lot of trouble -- specifically bat, in this current point in time, because i think i recall her backend being fucked up and also because (regarding context clues) it looks like she's most definitely lying about not wanting more. also, historically, i'm calling bullshit. and nevermind the few sinking feelings tristan felt when bat said that wasn't what she wanted. did he just turn her down? yes. did he just tell her he didn't want a relationship? yes. but we've established that tristan is the world's biggest dumbass, so we're not surprised. come on, keep up. so its a big load of bullshit, and i'm entirely exhausted from these two. tristan did, though, deserve to be called out for being a dick.

anyway. tristan gave a low grow, less menacing and more calling out her challenge. fine? she wanted play like this -- he was more than capable of compartmentalizing some emotions and getting something physically beneficial out of it. emotionally he was quite stunted, but physically he was capable. 

and so he prowled towards her (haha ew words), gaze intense upon her as his last few steps brought him right to her side. part of him felt entirely jittery. like, FUCK, what was actually happening right now? it felt so entirely wrong -- but maybe that's why it felt right? is that corny or what? and so as he moved his muzzle to the base of his ear, he murmured lowly, then c'mere, and swiped his nose down and across the hard line of her jaw... before taking a few bounding steps away, flashing a smile her way. if she claimed all she wanted was this dick... ha! he could give her that.

She could hardly wait to see how Tristan would react to her words. He didn't make her wait more than a beat before he growled and prowled toward her. There was something else Bat meant to add to her prior words, though she swallowed thickly and found herself struck a little dumb by his seductive movements. It was tempting to keep running with her own joke, simply because she really did find him almost irresistibly hot in that moment.

But Bat wasn't just wary of having her heart broken, she was even more concerned about their friendship. Even if they were both into a friends with benefits arrangement (which she patently wasn't, despite her bluff), Bat knew there was too much at risk to chance it. So as much as it pained her, she casually lifted a paw, planted it on her friend's face and gently shoved him back.

"Although there's no dick more qualified," Bat said, mustering up her resolve, "and I love you with, like, my whole ass..." Because she couldn't help it; and she didn't want it to get ugly. "Because of that, actually, I don't think it's a good idea. And for the record, I love you as a fr—" Weirdly, the fib lodged in her throat.

She sucked in a breath, sighed hugely and admitted, "You know what? You're right. You can't give me the things I'd want from you and I do want those things. But we both already knew that, didn't we? And we've still managed, so let's just get back to our regularly scheduled shenanigans, shall we?" Shit, she really hoped that was possible. This time, she unleashed her best puppy eyes on him.

ope ! but it looked like the shit show wouldn't come to fruition, as bat quickly backtracked with whatever fib she was telling, leaving tristan to turn and face her fully, no longer holding the expression her previously was. he looked a little frustrated again. his brow furrowed, and though he maintained some serious eye contact, it wasn't in the same way. at first, he was growing wildly concerned with where this was going.

and then -- he was kind of confused by whatever shenanigans they were talking about. like -- fuckin? or just being menaces? he decided she was still trying to be laid out. 

then... no -- we can't, he said, as firmly as he could. i care about you -- believe it or not, and as much as i'd love to run down the line of all my own bullshit i'd rather not take you down in the crossfire. his teeth gritted as his softer side begged him to admit his own feeling for her, but he had a feeling it would only make this all the more complicated... i mean, what's the point in honesty, anyway. this makes it different. you wouldn't know -- but it does. not that tristan would either, since poe was in and out of his life in a matter of seconds, but he'd talked to colt, he knew. 

if you've got feelings involved in this i'm not gonna follow through. FUCK, what was he doing? just fucking tell her how you feel you absolute moron. they almost slipped out, but he just couldn't make them. just not yet.

He didn't seem to get upset. Actually, he didn't seem to quite follow her meaning, though she found this endearing rather than frustrating as he reiterated that he didn't want to hurt or or do anything she'd regret. Bat did have feelings and wasn't planning on sleeping with him at this point, though perhaps she hadn't been crystal clear.

Smiling lopsidedly, Bat tapped into a well of courage she didn't know she possessed as she repeated, "Tristan, I've had a crush on you, like, my entire life." She even managed to look him in the eye as she smiled sadly and said, "Let's just keep things how they are, yeah?" And to punctuate that, she playfully punched his shoulder. "There, is the boner gone?"

there was a sense of both relief as well as sadness as bat responded. he felt good he didn't have to commit to a relationship with her... but it seemed he'd lost another opportunity to share his own feelings with her. dumbass, it was his own fault. WHY he didn't say something the last 5 minutes is beyond me, i literally begged him to say something and all he did was be a fucking wiener. god. i oughta just kick him out of the game. 

he returned her sad smile, his ears now pressing to his head. no -- now my heart has a boner, he said in an attempt to play off her humor, but he was feeling pretty miserable on the inside. what the fuck was he afraid of? her saying no? HA? she literally just -- whatever. dumbass. as she punched him playfully, seemingly some route of self-deprecation, tristan felt a round of vomit pile into his mouth. 

i do like you too, pup, he spilled out -- oh fuck, i thought he wasn't gonna say that -- what the fuck? did this moment really feel right?? jesus christ. it seemed he just felt really bad, or something. which, he should, but that's not the point. i just.. don't think i'm ready to be to be in a relationship right now. god?! dick. what a dick.