Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author Note: Werewolf AU. Hope you enjoy :)

HEEDLESS OF BLOOD OR BONE

The weather was cold and wolves were hunting. Davey was the more compact beast, his fur dark and speckled, his tread heavier, while Eddie was sleeker with a whiter muzzle. They moved together, clearly used to hunting side by side. They darted forward and back, communicating through abrupt sparse growls, head tilts and smells on the breeze. It wasn't long before they felled two deer, warm blood spilling across snow.

Both their muzzles became bloodied as they tore into the carcasses, enjoying their prize. No one would disturb them, this was their land, they had no pack but each other. They'd learned that lesson the hard way.

After eating, they tumbled and tusselled together, both attempting to gain dominance. Davey fitted his mouth to Eddie's neck, Eddie returned the gesture. They would never tear each other apart. They rutted as vigorously as they fought, needing to claim.

Then they shifted and they were people, naked together, neither feeling the cold bloodied snow spread out beneath them. Their eyes stayed bright and inhuman, their teeth stayed sharp and their need stayed as strong as it'd been under fur. Davey bore Eddie back and snarled in a way that Eddie knew was all affection. Eddie clawed at Davey's back and Davey pushed into his touch. They both howled at the moon.

Some called it 'moon madness', how the moon affected werewolves. Davey and Eddie had never felt as though their minds were not their own or that the choices they made in wolf form were different to how they lived as humans. Their animal states had always felt as vital and close as their human ones.

There was a reason not many ventured onto their land.

Now, they dragged what remained of the deer carcasses towards the house, to the nearby shed where they butchered meat before taking it into the house for safe keeping. They set traps every day and frequently went hunting; they would not go hungry. Inside the shed, Davey lifted the deer with easy strength and shoved it onto a large formidable table, Eddie handed him a cleaver and sat back to watch. They could have used their claws to butcher the deer but they both liked to keep their knife skills sharp. Eddie also liked to watch his partner, nude under the dim moonlight, his eyes glowing, his expression intent as he expertly broke the animal down, heedless of blood and bone. The wolves liked the bones to crunch on later. Davey licked at a rivulet of blood trickling down his arm.

Eddie took a quiet but sharp breath. Davey's sturdy figure was splattered with blood and gristle, Eddie wanted to taste it all. Davey grinned at him; he could hear how he was affecting Eddie's heartbeat. Of course Eddie looked good too; his mouth was still smeared with blood and his eyes were molten gold, his naked body was always a fucking sight to see, ripped and beautiful. Davey was just as ripped but in a more rugged solid form that was was no less attractive to Eddie.

Davey held out the cleaver – he wanted a show too.

Eddie grinned, hefted his deer up onto the table and set about using the cleaver. The blood ran down sluices and into waiting containers. Eddie was highly aware of Davey close to him, watching his every move, arousal burning off of him, as potent as sulfur.

When Eddie was done, he dropped the cleaver and turned to Davey just as Davey stepped even closer. The moon was still full and they were both still hungry.

Davey's favorite taste was warm blood. He loved licking it from Eddie's mouth. He loved the cool feel of the bronze wolf pendant that Eddie always wore on a chain around his neck. It'd been a gift from Davey, a token to initially indicate that he'd wanted Eddie as his mate. He loved running with Eddie through the snow, in either form, and he loved how refreshing the river was during summer months.

Eddie enjoyed the smell of woodsmoke in Davey's hair and fur; he frequently buried his nose in both. He loved how often he caught sight of the chain forever clasped around Davey's ankle, a couple of bronzed teeth hanging from it; Eddie's gift of reply to Davey's pendant. Eddie loved walking the boundaries of their land, how he could tell whether there'd be rain or not by the way certain clouds rolled and how he now knew the soil and the plant-life of their territory so very well.

Davey and Eddie worked their land, their territory, selling that work in the nearby town to gain the money they needed to sustain it all and each other. They protected with fierceness what was theirs.

Davey and Eddie knew that there were constant stories about them. They'd heard many of them; they were Weres who shifted even when the moon wasn't whole and bright, they were reportedly closer to animal than human. That was true; they frequently spent time in both skins. Why would they ever want to limit themselves, to be one rather than the other? A Were was both, that was their gift. But that wasn't the prevailing view.

There were tales that Davey had been rabid and that Eddie had broken him out of the silver-barred cell that the local council had locked him in. Davey still ribbed Eddie about that one. Davey had been brought before the council but he'd been rabid only because of the poison that someone had managed to slip him. In some states, he would have been shot with silver immediately. Eddie had appeared before the council wearing a sharply-tailored suit, his shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal his pendant and therefore the rights he had as Davey's mate.

Davey had been shuddering and bristling, his wolf form refusing to unbend for anyone, snapping his jaw at all who came close. The council was made up of Weres and humans, aspiring to cohesively integrate and police the two differing edgy communities that populated the surrounding area. They had little time for rabid troublesome Weres. As Eddie had spoken on Davey's behalf, Davey had shifted back into his human form and was immediately manacled and chained. Eddie and Davey had locked gazes, Davey's pained and furious, Eddie's the same.

"Don't you think that a wolf who has enough control to shift back during this kind of situation has enough control to leave any and all humans alone and alive?"

Davey had eventually walked free, Eddie by his side. They had sought reparation, particularly once the poisoner had been caught and found guilty. That was a good story and every part of it was true – the hunt that ensued, the blood that'd spilled, the howls that everyone in town had claimed to hear for nights afterward.

So often parts of stories were truer than the whole. Children from the town often dared one another to cross Davey and Eddie's land. Few actually did and those that did dare rarely made it all the way up to the large front door. Eddie usually answered it, he thought guts like that should be rewarded. He never invited any of the cubs in though, few were welcome inside the house. The children usually left with stories of shadows that they'd seen behind Eddie, the absence of his partner and the pendant he wore that glittered like his eyes.

There were stories of terrible fights that had occurred so many years ago when Eddie and Davey had first arrived, of bodies torn apart and blood that had watered the ground and yet somehow plants still grew plentifully across their land. It was said that Davey and Eddie hadn't actually been born Weres but rather that they had been cursed into such forms. Didn't they both have curse marks? Those great claw strikes, gouging down from one shoulder to cover part of both their chests? But their eyes never glowed red and they hadn't been driven mad by such a punishment, they hadn't turned on each other, had they? Instead, they seemed to relish their animalistic lives. Well, what further proof was needed?

Eddie laved his tongue against the marks that so permanently scored Davey's chest; later Davey would run his teeth over Eddie's. Some stories never needed to be spoken of aloud.

-the end