Summary: The town is preparing for its first ever festival that celebrates its residents' unique heritage. During this prep, you share a sweet and promising moment with your floofy, feral mate, Curtis.
Warnings: none
A/N: This is the fill for Creature AU from last year's Fluff Bingo Spring Edition. I had to go with someone I had introduced on my old account and really need to get back to writing their story, which is our Werewolf!Curtis.
Curtis Everett Masterlist | Character Masterlist
All preparations for the town's newest festival were almost complete.
You say newest, but it's actually the first one. Ever.
The town itself was relatively new. Only a few years old when you came into it, ready to document and protect the new wolves spotted in the nearby woods. None of the town elders had really cared about celebrating anything. More so, they'd focused on surviving to live the next day.
It'd only been in the past year that new laws had come into the area, protecting it and its residents from others who would do harm to either or both.
New families had even moved into the area, eager to find a real home for themselves for the first time.
You'd lost track of how many families had moved in the last few months, but you'd enjoyed seeing the new faces and learning their names. You especially loved seeing the young werewolf pups who enjoyed following some of the elders around. The pups adored it when the elders walked around in their wolf forms as young werewolves didn't turn until their fifth birthday. Well, the full-blooded ones anyway. Half-blooded werewolves didn't typically shift until a bit older and sometimes not at all, you've since learned.
As if conjuring them with your thoughts, several pups raced by, laughing and giggling as they raced after an elder. A glance at their wolf form, and your own grin resembled theirs.
Only one elder had such a coat, and you proudly called him your husband and mate.
To think there was a time when he hadn't liked you, much less trusted you, seemed like a long time ago. He'd seen your appearance in town as a bad omen and even attempted to get the other elders to cast you back out. When that had failed, he'd done everything in his power to avoid you.
You did the same with him. His incivility towards you hadn't exactly endeared him to you, either. He'd even made your research and documentation all the harder over the first several weeks of your stay with them.
It'd been a weird, fateful mishap that had forced you two together for an extended time. During that time, you two had softened towards each other, learning more about each other and your pasts. Neither, you soon realized, had had it easy. Him being a werewolf, and you being a witch. Sure, your kind had some favor over his, but that hadn't meant you'd been free of prejudice and mistreatment because of who and what you were.
Despite the softening, it'd taken a bit more drastic happenings before you two finally admitted what you'd been denying between each other.
After that, you two had only grown closer, fully open to the idea of what could be between you. There'd been some bumps along the way, but you two were happier than you'd ever been.
Including that moment even as you felt his warm breath on your neck while you worked.
"Don't you dare," you warned though no real malice presented itself. "You're too heavy to flop on me in that form, and you know it."
A soft whine was your only answer before you heard the faint crackle of bones popping and shifting into his other form. Strong arms wrapped around you a moment later. His sweat-covered skin rubbed against your back even as you squealed, "Curtis, you're dirty!"
"Then, join me for a bath," he grumbled next to your ear, playful and loving.
Shaking your head, you craned your neck to better see him. "You're incorrigible. We still have a few things left for this festival. You know the very one that had been your idea."
"I finished my list ages ago. Not my fault you're slow," he said between nips of your shoulder and neck, not bothered by anything at the moment. It was a true rarity for him, and you were happy he could have these moments even if you did come out a bit worse for wear.
"I hope you didn't tire the pups out too much. It won't do for them to be too tired to enjoy this festival that's just for them." You glanced around the square that was visible from the porch of your shared home. A smile flitted over your features while you tried to see his face once more. "I'm really proud of you for doing this. It'll mean a lot to the pups and their parents to have something to call their own."
"Pack traditions were meant to be passed down," he whispered against your skin. His teeth and lips had ceased their playful nips as he fell silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke again, he added, "It's nice to have a pack again to share them with."
Curtis didn't often talk about his past or his pack which had been wiped out by hunters when he'd been a teenager. It'd taken a lot for him to come to trust those he called his pack now, and even more so, to trust you with his heart. You wouldn't ever take that for granted as long as you lived.
As his words settled over you, you couldn't help asking, "Would you want to keep those traditions going by building a pack of our own? Possibly one day in the future if not now?"
Curtis stilled further behind you.
His arm tightened its hold across your shoulders as his breath exhaled warmly against your neck.
At last, he asked, "You want to have my pups?"
"Maybe. One day. When we're both ready." You dropped the half-finished decoration in your hands to the steps below you. "I guess I just want to know if it's something you want, too."
A deep growl came seconds before Curtis's arms shifted to lift you and himself in one smooth movement. His lips claimed yours in a possessive kiss that would've had your knees buckling if he hadn't been holding you so preciously in his arms.
When he finally broke the kiss, he didn't stray far from your lips as he said, "Have that bath with me, dear mate, and I'll show exactly what I think about having pups together."
"As long as we're back in time for the festival," you warned even as your smile bloomed once more, "I don't want to miss out on the magic of this night with the others. Plus, this is your event. It wouldn't do if the main organizer didn't show."
He made no promises as he carried you inside and into the room where you'd placed the over-sized tub you'd ordered to share.
The night would prove one filled with new traditions, both public and private.
Welcome to the world of Wolf's Haven where you'll find a good mixture of werewolves, witches, and other beings trying to live their lives in this growing sanctuary town.
Find other verses here and all characters I write for here.
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Avoiding COVID-19 On Our Road Trip
Tomorrow morning we’ll leave for our two week stay at Wolf’s Haven. One of the benefits, to me, of our cabin in the mountains is that we are very much off the usual grid of humanity. But the 11 hour drive to get there has caused me to think and plan how we might go about avoiding COVID-19 on our road trip.
After having been isolated at home for the past 2 months the road trip is going to be quite a change, for me especially. Other than walking Bella around our neighborhood and a required one-time trip to the bank on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, I haven’t left the house. Cindy or Amber would make trips to the grocery store or Costco armed with their masks and hand sanitizer while I waited (usually working 12 hour days, until recently) safe and secure at the house.
That’s because I have three chronic (but well-managed) underlying medical conditions coupled with an age factor that make me especially susceptible to COVID-19 and that make COVID-19 possibly fatal for me. So I have maintained strict social-distancing behavior since returning from Puerto Rico 9 weeks ago, even to the point that I haven’t seen my daughter and two oldest grandchildren in person this entire time, even though they live less than two miles from us. Thank goodness for FaceTime, but you know I’d really like to give them a hug. And I’m aware that I’m not alone in that regard, as a lot of grandparents are going through the same thing.
But one thing that the past couple of weeks has shown me is that people, with their everyone-for-themselves response to this pandemic, cannot be depended on to do the right thing when it comes to social distancing and protecting other people. Leaving the house and hitting the road presents a whole new set of behaviors and exposure possibilities that we’ll have to plan for in order to avoid being another statistic in the coronavirus pandemic.
Driving Up
So, we’ll leave early Saturday morning and our first stop is usually an hour into the trip at a rest stop so that Bella can use the bathroom. She gets queasy during car trips and it upsets her stomach, especially at the beginning. We’ll pull into a spot away from everyone else and do our best not to get close to others, which is not usually a problem that early in the morning.
At about the 2 1/2 hour mark we usually stop for breakfast and eat in the dining room. This time we’ll stop, but Cindy will go in and get food to go that we’ll eat in the car in the parking lot after wiping the containers down with sanitizing wipes.
For re-fueling stops we have a supply of Bella’s doggie bags I can put over my hand before grabbing the gas handle and using the touch-screen, then I can just throw it into the trash can by the pumps before getting back in the car.
For lunch we’ll stop at another rest stop, wipe down the picnic table with sanitizer and break out food we’ve brought for our midday meal, probably a salad and some kind of bread or crackers. This gives Bella another chance to use the bathroom.
When we drive into Maggie Valley we’ll stop at Subway (man, I wish they had a Jersey Mike’s) as usual and get sandwiches to take up to the cabin since we’re only about 10 minutes away at that point.
While We’re There
Once we’re at Wolf’s Haven, it will be like quarantine heaven, lol. Nobody around, relaxing, hiking around the mountain, writing and reading. We might, MIGHT take a drive over to Cade’s Cove to take some photos and videos while maintaining social distancing from anyone else who might be out there doing the same thing.
Heading Back
Then, two weeks later, we’ll reverse course to return to Orlando and follow all the same actions as we head back into The City Beautiful. I’m truly hopeful that by then there will not be a massive resurgence of the coronavirus due to all the relaxing of restrictions to keep people safe. But I worry that there will be.
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Alone At Wolf’s Haven
This morning we put Amber and Abby on a plane back to Orlando, concluding their 10-day vacation with us here at Wolf’s Haven. Amber wanted to stay busy visiting various places in the area and that is what we did. Cindy and I are worn out, but I think everyone had a good time while visiting. I’ll continue posting photos and videos from the remainder of their visit over the next week or so.
When we came back I stripped the guest room/bathroom linens, remade the bed and laundered the sheets and towels, helped Cindy finish loading the car with her candle wares so she could go to a show in Maggie Valley, then pressure-cleaned the front deck, stairs and plate-glass windows and finally did a lot of cutting back of brush growth around the cabin that had crept back up while I was occupied the past 2 weeks.
I’ve spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing and even snuck in a 45 minute nap. But I’m still exhausted, lol.
Tomorrow we start packing for Florida and we’ll be leaving here early Tuesday morning to drive back to Orlando for a few weeks.
But for now the cabin is quiet; we’re missing the laughter of Abby and the presence of Amber. A slow, steady rain has been falling the past 2 hours and for a while a light, ethereal fog that gives the Smoky Mountains their name rolled in, making it feel like there was nothing else in the world but us and our cabin. It was a different feeling after the past 10 days.
