Intercession
Intercession
by: Artide
When Brandon hears the door slam, he knows something is wrong. He moves from his precarious perch on the couch just in time to see a pair of black paws moving up the stairs and can't seem to shake the sense of foreboding that grips him with nervous anxiety.
"Mark?" he asks, worriedly at first, before he gives up and walks up the stairs. His roommate was never this quiet or upset before, and Brandon's been worried. He's been trying to make it through with some explanation, but if Mark doesn't tell him, Brandon won't understand.
He can see how he gets weaker with each passing day, whole patches of fur gone and looking noticeably thinner and hungrier.
Lately, Mark's been shutting him out. Brandon doesn't know how to deal with this, but he keeps on forcing a smile for the wolf, in hopes that even the appearance of happiness might be enough to snap the wolf out of whatever he's been dealing with.
He found the door to Mark's room locked, and he placed a paw over the door before knocking.
He can hear the wolf's muffled response from behind the door, and knows something is wrong.
Mark's voice seemed off to him: it was the same voice you'd expect of someone who was holding back tears.
"Go away."
Brandon deflated and then paused, trying to work up a solution. "I've got cookies?" he offered hopefully.
"No. Go away."
"Chocolate chip...?"
"I said go!" The command came out as a harsh bark that Brandon had never heard from his roommate before and it's just enough to make him race down the steps.
***
What do you do when your life comes crashing down around you?
Brandon's tried asking himself that question for a while, because it seems that's where he's pretty much headed. His friendship with Mark seems to be slowly decomposing, and it upsets him that he can't deal with it in better ways. So he tries to do what he can, although nothing seems to work.
These days, Mark comes home with an air of irrefutable storm clouds that seem both dismal and permanent. Brandon wants to lie to himself that this is just a bad mood that everyone finds themselves in at one time or another, but the fox doubted people stayed in bad moods for two weeks. Mark's been cold, distant, and gone, and maybe that's what kills Brandon the most: the knowledge that the wolf was slipping away from him and there was nothing he could do.
Brandon couldn't exactly compact this into something that was done overnight, and it seemed to him that he had woken up to the slow decay; he had blinked for just a second to find the wolf had irrevocably and indefinitely slipped from his paws. It was a hurtful thing, slow and cancerous like a sore. It was a scab that Brandon knew might heal if he just stopped picking at it long enough.
But Mark was his friend, and it was obvious that something was wrong.
It was the pressure of these overwhelming feelings and thoughts that left Brandon standing outside of the bathroom door after Mark slipped in to take a shower. As a rule of thumb, they never lock the bathroom door. It's some neurosis that Brandon received from his mother after a childhood bath-time accident left him unconscious in the water, skin split and spilling red.
So, they leave the door unlocked.
Maybe this is a bit drastic, Brandon reflects, but the wolf has avoided him at every conceivable angle: mealtimes were snatched as quickly as the wolf appeared; before he either left their house for work or school, and it seemed to Brandon that Mark left just as quickly, like magic. The wolf worked a nine-to-five shift and went to school full time on top of that, so it was disconcerting to Brandon that for the few hours he saw of Mark, the wolf had been holed him in his room.
So Brandon waited a few minutes to make sure Mark was in the shower (and gracefully avoided any delicious mental imagery that might or might not get him aroused) and opened the door. The heat from the shower made his white fox fur feel humid and heavy, and the air hot and hard to breath.
Mark hears the sound of the door opening and closing and stops moving, hiding behind the ugly brown shower curtain.
"Brandon?"
The white fox looks sheepish at first, a hint of a blush dusting his cheeks before he shakes his head with renewed resolve.
"Hey...Mark," he responds.
"What the hell are you doing in here?" Mark demands from behind his barrier. Brandon sighs, and moves down to seat on the toilet next to the shower, looking thoughtful.
"Hello? Are you going to answer me?"
"I'm worried about you," the fox says simply. Mark froze behind the curtain.
"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Brandon graciously ignores the language, but presses on insistently.
"You've been really distant lately..." the fox started.
"Wait a second; you have a problem with me so you choose to wait until I'm in the shower to talk to me about it?" Mark asked, and Brandon could hear the obvious anger laced in his voice.
"I...uhm..." Brandon couldn't find the right words. "Yes?"
"Why?"
"Well..." said Brandon. Deciding to go the honest route: "You never seemed to be around and lately you've been upset and I'm just...worried."
There was silence in the bathroom for a minute, before Mark spoke up.
"Where do you get off," demanded the wolf, "on cornering me and then judging me on my behavior?"
"No!" Brandon shouted, standing up and facing the shower curtain. "That's not what I meant at all!"
"Really?" said Mark, contemptuously. "Feels that way to me."
"No, you've got it all wrong..." Brandon croaked out. He could hear the hysteria in his voice. This was all going wrong, taking a horrible detour in an area that he couldn't recover from.
"Then stop preaching to me and let me be."
And just like that, the curtains are pulled aside and, naked, Mark stomps off down the hall and slams his door.
Brandon pushes his head back against the wall and let out a cry of distress, willing the tears back.
***
Sometimes, it's not okay to bottle things up. This is where you begin to break.
When Brandon finally found Mark again, he was sitting outside on the porch. Destitute and lonely, it broke the fox's heart to see him so forlorn. The self-accusatory dredging of emotion welled a bit, and he tried to quell the thought that he could have stopped this, somehow. He loved the wolf far too much to see him endure any of this pain.
Brandon moved to sit next to the wolf, who didn't look up from his gaze. Brandon followed Mark's line of sight into the sky and the twinkling of stars.
"It's pretty," he noted, rather lamely. The wolf 'mmm'd' and said nothing else.
"Do you come out here a lot?" Brandon asked. It was awkward and uncomfortable to suddenly realize that the person you've been living with for a few months was a complete mystery to you.
"I come here to think," answered Mark. Brandon thought about that.
"How often do you come here to think?" he wondered quietly.
"More and more," the wolf admitted, heaving a heavy sigh that shook his frame.
"I'm sorry for earlier," the fox said suddenly. The wolf looked over at him and his features softened.
"It's...I forgive you."
The fox smiled, and together they watched the stars.
After a few moments the wolf shifted, and looked at the fox.
"Things have been..." and he trailed off. The fox looked at him, framed by the starlight and the darkness surrounding him, and everything he had been feeling, all of the tenseness seemed to leak out.
"I know." Even though Brandon didn't. He didn't want to lose the wolf after all of the time it had taken to him to open up, if only for a brief minute. The wolf turned over to look at Brandon with emotion so deep the fox felt he would soon slip and lose himself in the tide of feeling.
"No, you don't...things have been falling apart."
Brandon gazed back into the eyes of the wolf and couldn't find the words that would make everything okay. His paw trembled at his side and it took every ounce of self-control not to pull the wolf close, to hug him and sob and tell him everything was alright. To bury his muzzle into the soft black fur and beg anyone that was listening to make everything feel better. In his confusion, the rapid torrent of emotion, Brandon just sat there, eyeing the wolf with longing so strong he wanted to break down.
That might be for another day, so the fox stayed silent. Mark didn't want to talk, which was okay because Brandon never found the right words anyway. And maybe it was okay because they both seemed to develop an allergic reaction to anything emotional.
So they sat alone with the stars.
***
Just when Brandon thought everything was okay, he found Mark, days later, curled up with mundane finality into a pitiful ball of wolf underneath his covers.
Brandon says nothing, because he feels his heart breaking all over again.
When the words finally come, he says: you've finally run yourself into the ground?
And it's true.
Mark doesn't even have to confirm it, and forces Brandon to sit at the end of the bed, trying to stall the tears long enough to give the last of his courage to the wolf.
Says, "Why can't you let me in?"
And, "Why won't you let me help you?"
Finally, "Why won't you let me love you?"
When Mark didn't extract himself from the blankets, Brandon placed a small paw over his blanket-clad form, wracking with sobs and trembling with a sadness that the fox couldn't touch.
He wrapped his arms around him desperately, searching for some of the words to try and make everything okay.
"I'm sorry," Mark said when he found his voice.
"For what?" Brandon asked gently, leaning into the mountain of blankets and wolf.
"This, all of this. The way I've been lately. God, things are so fucked up..."
"It's gonna be okay," Brandon offered, his ears folding back. Mark appeared from beneath his covers and looked deeply offended.
"No, it's not. My work is killing me inside, my classmates and teachers pile way too much on me. I'm crashing. Hard," he said. Brandon's ears drooped lower. Mark looked up suddenly and stared at Brandon searchingly, trying to find the answers to questions Brandon didn't know.
"How do you make it stop hurting?" he whispered, eyes glazed over with a sheen of tears. Brandon let out a brokenhearted whine.
"Isn't there anything I can do?" Brandon asked.
"I just don't have the energy," the wolf sighed, and slumped down on the bed. "I'm sorry fox."
"You don't have to be strong for me," Brandon said, causing Mark to turn over and gaze at the arctic fox with a bit of wonder. Then he smiled.
"No, I guess I don't..." he chuckled. "But I hardly think I've been strong at all."
Brandon wanted to cry, wanted to take away the pain. Mark was his friend, his roommate, and maybe something more that he didn't want to think about while on the same bed. He just wanted to see the wolf smile.
"Maybe..." the fox started. "Maybe you should take a vacation, or a break, or something..."
"I can't," Mark replied. "You know that. I can't get off of work, not to mention school..."
"But I'm just saying, maybe you can try?"
"I have!" he snapped, and just like that the atmosphere of the room quickly changed; charged with a nervous energy that filled Brandon with dread.
"Mark, I'm just trying to give you some ideas. You need a break...this isn't healthy for you."
"You don't get to decide what's best for me."
Brandon was taken aback by the vehemence in the sentence, and he bit back a whine of sadness.
"Then make yourself happy!" Brandon said. Mark bit back a growl.
"It's none of your business!" he shouted back, and then the room became quiet, and Brandon could hear his heartbeat.
Silence. In which the fox looked at the wolf with a combination of forlorn confusion, of hurt too deep to form into words.
"No, I suppose not," he said and left the wolf there in his bed. It was a crippling thing, to leave him there in the dark.
This was the closest he's ever got to healing. And he had never been further away.
***
Lately, every encounter with Mark left Brandon with more questions than answers. And maybe, he thought, that was how life works.
***
So, this is where it left him:
Brandon had tried surreptitiously avoiding Mark, which wasn't hard because the wolf was never around. If he came down to eat, it was long after the fox had gone to bed. He was gone before Brandon had the chance to look up from his own life. Maybe it was for the best. When things fall apart, sometimes tape and glue won't fix them. And it was this thought that the fox was hooked on for the better part of the week after their second fight. The atmosphere of the house had never really changed from the tense moment in Mark's bedroom, and suddenly the hurt-filled eyes of the wolf made him think of other things.
"How do you make it stop hurting?"
It was something that Brandon had thought of for a long time, but try as he might, he couldn't voice an answer. He couldn't deal with his own demons, how could he possibly understand Mark's? But the longing to help the wolf was still buried deeply in him, an instinct long-forgotten and buried under the routine of a few months of a casual living relationship. They were not mates, but might as well be, even though neither one would admit so.
So why wouldn't Mark let him in?
And maybe that bothered the fox more than he cared to admit. He wanted nothing more to try and take the pain away, but the wolf wouldn't even give him a chance. Wouldn't let him try...
As he mused upon this, a sound caught his attention and he looked up from his meal to catch Mark glance on him before he turned tail and ran up the stairs.
"Mark..." Brandon whispered, before setting down his fork and getting up from the table. It was time he faced his demons. When he made it to Mark's bedroom door, he didn't even bother knocking and opened the door.
Brandon stood there, paws clutching at the fur in his arms. Slow, deliberate. Mark didn't look up from his bed.
All of the questions he wanted to ask--w_hy are you not okay, why did you push me away, why_ can't I help you?--all seemed to melt away into one perfect moment. Clarity.
"Why?"
Mark seemed to understand everything Brandon couldn't say, and sat there for a minute, looking unusually contemplative. And finally gave voice to the things Brandon didn't want to hear and Mark never wanted to say.
Says, "Because, believe it or not, I have a life away from you."
Then, "I'm not your project you can work on and ultimately smother to death."
And finally, "Because you're better off without me."
Brandon couldn't stop the tears this time, fall where they may. It took him a minute to realize he had moved from the doorway and was standing next to Mark. The wolf was still looking away, centered on anything else. When the salt-smell of Brandon's tears reached his nose, he looked up in shock.
"How can you believe that?" Brandon gasped, and kissed him.
The kiss itself was slow, languid, and at first he stood there, shell-shocked in an adorable wolfish way before he closed his eyes and responded. And maybe, in a way, this was as close as they can get to healing.
When they broke apart, Mark was panting and confused. He looked searchingly at Brandon but couldn't form the words to ask him the questions that Brandon wouldn't be able to answer. So instead of dealing with the who's and when's and_why's_, Mark pushed their muzzles together again, feeling the fox concede to him for a moment before he spun around and pushed the fox to the bed beneath him, attacking Brandon with a renewed passion.
The fox murred into the kiss, arching into the wolf's affections, the teeth that dug into his fur and made him shiver in delight; arch his toes and cry out in echoing yelps.
"Pl...please..." Brandon moaned, arching against the wolf's body. He didn't know what he was begging for, but knew he couldn't deal with the pleasure that wracked his body. It simply felt too good, too much and the fox was nearing a sensory overload. He brought his muzzle against the Mark's and pushed his lips tighter against the wolf, slipping his tongue into Mark's maw. The wolf murred and wrapped his tongue around Brandon's, the wet heat slipping and tripping over the muscles.
As they caught their breath, Brandon could see the wolf grin, tongue panting in an effort to gain his breath.
This was the closest he got to healing.
Brandon clung to Mark's fur, feeling the black fur slide in between his paws. This was feeling complete, letting everything else go, and not worrying about what might be going on in the world around them.
The fox gripped Mark's shirt and lifted it over his head, revealing more smooth black fur to his hungry gaze, trying to remember every line and curve of his body, commit it to memory so he wouldn't forget it. Maybe another day, he would have a chance to explore the body; lazy Sunday afternoons that he could trace each soft line of muscle. For now, he bypassed those with his tongue and lapped at the wolf's stomach.
Mark murred and placed his paws behind the arctic fox's ears, pushing down with a light but commanding weight as Brandon undid the wolf's pants, sliding them down his narrow hips until they rested by his knees. Brandon panted with the force of his arousal, felt it throbbing underneath his skin as he finally gazed at a part of Mark he was never able to see.
The wolf's cock was drooling and dribbling, pulsing with a heartbeat that mesmerized the fox. It was already out of its sheath, pulsing a deep cherry and glistening as copious drops of precum slid down the sides of the shaft and over the growing bulb of a knot. Wordlessly, the fox encircled his paw behind the knot, pushing upwards to rub over the sensitive bulb of flesh. Mark cried out and let loose a glob of pre that coated Brandon's paw. He brought it to his muzzle, the scent of aroused wolf bringing his own arousal to a fever pitch and making his own cock slide out of his sheath. He slowly lapped at his paw, pushing his tongue into the cracks and folds of his fingers to scoop up the wolf's pre and feel the hot taste slide down his throat.
Mark watched with deep interest as the fox cleaned his paw, and when he found no more of the wolf's delicious preseed on his fingers he went back to the wolf's shaft, licking at the flared tip happily. Mark moaned and brought his muzzle back, digging his paws deeper into the fox's headfur, trying to push him down deeper onto his cock, to try and get a bit more contact into that warm heat. The fox murred deeply and complied; he sealed his lips over the red wolf cock and slid down, rubbing his tongue over the throbbing veins.
The wolf moaned and tried not to outright howl and sink his length completely into the fox's muzzle. It felt so good, his shaft throbbing and singing in pleasure as the fox brought his teeth into play, scraping lightly into the side of his shaft and digging his tongue into the slit, desperate for more precum.
The wolf could feel the pressure building, just behind his knot; his balls contracted close to his body, and he opened his maw to warn Brandon. Sensing this, the fox slid down the shaft, pushing the thick head into his throat as he bit down on the knot with lip covered teeth. Mark couldn't bite back the howl he let loose as he came, spraying thick jets of warm, creamy wolf-seed. Brandon murred as he drank it down, the warm spunk coating the insides of his mouth.
Mark panted as he gazed down at the fox in wonder. This was as close as he got to healing. The warm haze of pleasure, wrapping tendrils of feeling and blank thought that made him curl his toes, his balls tighten and sag against the pressure and he came down hard, floating on a sea of white before the realization that he was still nestled in the warmth of the fox's mouth, and the feeling of a warm tongue lapping at him was causing him to twitch in oversensitive pleasure.
"That was, I mean..." Mark started, but the fox pushed a paw to his lips, silencing him. Getting up and retreating from the room for a minute, Brandon returned with a small bottle. He flipped open the lid, and smiled demurely at the black wolf. He slid down his pants and underwear, revealing a tight, toned ass and the base of his large fluffy tail. Mark got a glimpse of pink when Brandon raised it. Squirting a bit of the lube into his paws, he rubbed it between his paws to warm it. Standing before the wolf, he brought a finger to his hole.
"Oh fuck--" he whined, as his digit sunk in, spreading the muscles of his tailhole around the thick finger. He worked the finger deeper in, sliding it out to the claw and plunging back in. He built up a rhythm before he added a second finger, moaning and murring as he spread himself open in front of the wolf.
Mark, in his defense, was digging his claws into the sheets, trying his best not to lose control.
Even after having come only a few minutes ago, the show the fox was putting on caused his shaft to thicken with blood again. The arousal was almost palpable, roaring to life in his chest. He wanted, no, he needed to be inside of the fox. It was only a matter of time, and if Brandon didn't get over to him soon, he was going to fuck the lithe fox into the carpet so hard he'd have rug burn for a month.
"Brandon..." he panted, trying to force the whine out of his voice. Brandon watched him with lidded eyes, and while their gaze locked together, he slid a third digit into his ass, spearing himself on his fingers with a long, drawn-out groan.
"Y-yes, Mark? C-can I -oh fuck, oh _god--_help you?" Brandon panted, the pleasure from being spread open like this causing his shaft to twitch and leak a fountain of foxy pre.
"Brandon, please..." he whined, unable to push it back. He had never been this horny before, never wanted anything, any_one_ this badly before. He would give up everything as long as it meant he could fuck the white fox in front of him.
Brandon was too horny to tease Mark anymore, so he climbed onto the bed, swung his legs over the wolf's hips, and lowered himself onto the monolith tower of wolfhood below him. The tip spread him open as much as his fingers had, and he could only hold on and cry out softly as he rocked down onto the rest of the wolf's shaft. Inch by inch it sunk into his body with alacrity, and the white fox cried and moaned and threw his head back, all of the pressure causing a tingle up through his balls that sent waves of pleasure shooting up and down his cock.
Mark cried out in euphoric bliss from the first inch, his cock enveloped by a heat tighter than anything he'd felt before, and never wanted to leave. He grabbed the fox by the hips and pulled him down, spreading the fox deeper with a yelp onto his penis, thrusting up and letting loose a torrent of pre to coat the fox's insides.
This was what it was; slow, sensual, the feeling of two beings becoming one, everything for pleasure. They were lovers for a minute, and as the fox suddenly cried out, his prostrate struck by the tip of the wolf's cock, they were each other's everything.
"Unf...fuck me," the fox panted, and Mark suddenly realized how much he needed this. How much clearer everything felt, and how nothing else mattered as long as he held this fox. It might have been only a few more thrusts after that, but the wolf reared back and came, coating the fox's insides and stretching him with come, causing him to murr and rock his dripping cock into the wolf's belly, suddenly constricting and mewling as he spewed his load all over the wolf's fur. He fell forward, panting, not tied but satisfied. He curled up into the wolf's side as Mark nuzzled him, slow, deliberate.
***
Long after Brandon had passed out, Mark stared at the ceiling in the black, defining the shapes and contours of the shadows. He glanced at the fox next to him, and sighed deeply. He couldn't deal with this, with the constant thoughts of how much he was hurting the fox. Mark tried to shake the emptiness, the overwhelming emotion of stress and worry. Mark wished he could wake Brandon up and tell him, try to explain to him that while he was flattered, sex never solves anything.
Maybe things weren't going to be okay, but things might get better. Mark could only hope. He left the fox lying there, seeking the night sky on the front porch for any kind of solace in the stars.
This was the closest he ever got to healing, but he was never healed at all.
***
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