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English
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Part 12 of Cole Does Comfortember 2020, Part 2 of The Lone Wolf Dies
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2020-12-27
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1,465
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1/1
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Summary:

(cradle)

The newest members of Alpha’s pack are born as the first snow of the year begins to fall. Alpha had worried for a long time that something would inevitably go wrong, had feared it, because after so long of having nothing, he doesn't want to loose what he's managed to keep.

(No.23 - Exhaustion)

Work Text:

The newest members of Alpha’s pack are born as the first snow of the year begins to fall over the mountain sanctuary they call their home. It had been a long, hard labour, and all Alpha had been able to do was bring his mate water and food when he needed it, and mop away the sweat on his brow while Obi-Wan did all the hard work. Alpha had worried for a long time that something would go wrong, that he’d lose his mate or the pups he carried inside of him, or even both, and it made a sort of anxiety he hadn’t felt since Kamino crawl up his throat and grip his chest like a vice, a fear he hadn’t felt since Rex had been introduced into his pen, a sickly little thing and the only survivor of his ill-fated litter. He’d spent days curled around his pups then, baring his teeth and snarling at any of the alchemists that dared to get to close.

Back then, he hadn’t known what freedom could be like. He didn’t know what life beyond his cage could feel like, beyond the foggy dreams of when he himself had been a pup, barely weaned from his mother.

Now, he knows what it’s like to run free, to hunt and provide. He knows what it’s like to truly teach his cubs how to live, and he’d learned alongside them, taught by the very man who became his mate. Obi-Wan was a gentle teacher, a good one too, willing to teach Alpha and the cubs anything they didn’t know, always happy to answer any questions they had - and there were a lot of them, with curious cubs under foot. Alpha himself could barely hear ‘but why?’ anymore without wanting to launch himself into the fucking sun, but Obi-Wan had weathered it all with a kind smile and kinder words.

Alpha had fallen fast and hard for the sweet-smelling druid, watching him interact with his boys. At first, he had kept an eye on them at all times because after so long of being the only one looking out for his cubs, he didn’t know how to brush away the anxiety and aggression when others got too close, used to the furious fear of the Kaminoans taking his cubs from his and bringing them back hurt and scared.

Or not bringing them back at all, like Doom, Gree, Bacara, and Neyo. And all the others before them.

Then, his hypervigilance had turned into something else. Watching Obi-Wan with his cubs did funny things to his gut, made him ache to pull the man close and claim him as his own. It had set off a primal desire in him for more - a desire he’d always had, but never aimed at another person. It made him want to see the redhead with pups, little ones born to the both of them that could grow never knowing the cages and the alchemists of Tapioca City. Pups who could be Free-Born. Little pups that would follow behind his older cubs, that would give Rex the chance to have vod’ike. He wanted to experience the gentle, comforting milk smell of pups again, a smell that had long since faded from his cubs’ fur, one that never failed to soothe the ragged parts of him.

He had pushed those desires away, at first. He had pushed away his more primal instincts because Obi-Wan wasn’t a Mandalorian, wasn’t a pack-animal, so he’d had to figure out other ways to interact with the man. At the time, Alpha had known nothing about humans, hadn’t known how to talk to them - it hadn’t exactly been something he was taught in the zoo. It wasn’t something the Kaminoans cared about. He had been gruff, tense, and often aggressive, but as time passed, as he continued to learn, Alpha had softened. Obi-Wan had brought out something in him that had before been for his boys. As time had passed, it had gotten easier, they had grown closer, until they had finally given a name to what had grown between them. They had talked, whenever the boys were asleep, about their desires for the future. It had been Obi-Wan who had breached the question of children, had shared his love for them and told him about the creches from the place he had once called home. He had told Alpha that he loved his cubs as if they were his own, that he always would, even if they had children of their own one day.

And then he had been told that his mate was expecting.

All the members of their small pack had been excited to welcome their newest members. As the pregnancy had progressed, it hadn’t been uncommon to see Wolffe and Fox prowling the edges of their territory, and the twins often ended up dragging small bucks between them back into the house, tracking blood across the wood; they’d been so proud of themselves, the blood blending into their red aliike, that the heat of the scoldings they got had lessened. Ponds and Bly had accidentally trampled Obi-Wan’s herb garden while trying to help by tending to the plants, and had ended up in near tears from the guilt when they’d seen the mess they’d made, but Alpha’s mate had just laughed and showed them how to salvage the remains. Attentive, loyal Kote had been waiting on the redhead hand and foot, and had ended up stepping up as a secondary alpha among him brothers, keeping them in line as the pregnancy progressed to the point that it was hard for Obi-Wan to leave his bed for too long and most of Alpha’s attention turned to helping his mate. Rex had followed behind his closest brother, a little white and blue shadow to contrast against Kote’s black and orange-gold fur.

When the time had finally come, they had been prepared, but it hadn’t stopped Alpha’s paranoid fear that something would go wrong, and he’s never been more thankful to be wrong. The labour was long, but it had gone smoothly, and the pups had been born small, but healthy. Now, Alpha is the only one awake, standing by the foot of the crib that Obi-Wan had shown him how to carve, and watching the snowfall outside.

It’s peaceful, listening to the sound of his mate and cubs sleeping, all bundled together on one bed until there wasn’t any room for Alpha to join them. Exhausted, Obi-Wan had succumbed to sleep not long after the pups had been born, and the cubs had arranged themselves around him, a solid mass of colourfully marked fur and light breathing. Milk-scent is heavy in the air, and Alpha feels more at peace than he thinks he ever has; it brings back fuzzy memories of squirming among his brothers, searching blindly for his mother’s teat so that he could suckle until he’d had his fill and fell back to sleep.

A whining has Alpha stirring from his thoughts, and he turns to see the older twin, Fie-Vel - named for Obi-Wan’s culture but affectionately nicknamed Fives by Rex - awake and squirming, face scrunched up grumpily. It makes Alpha chuff out a gentle huff of breath, reaching in to gently lift the pup into his arms.

Already more advanced than a human infant, even at hours old, Fives’ dark eyes stare up at him as he coos. Alpha rumbles sub vocally, rubbing a thumb across the pup’s lips, watching them part so that the small infant could chew the limb with needle-sharp milk teeth. Soon he’d be crawling, shifting, and Alpha would be there for all the milestones.

Still in the crib, little surprise-baby Echo, the younger of the twins, stirs with the loss of his brother from beside him, whimpering, and Alpha reaches into the crib to rub a hand through downy-soft black curls. Echo wiggles in response, flailing his limbs, uncoordinated but determined, and as Alpha watches, the pup gives a full-body shiver, eyes shifting to golden-amber. A wide grin spreads across his face as the pup’s body morphs seamlessly, black and silver fur marked with patches of white and cyan aliike sprouting, and bones shifting to accommodate his new form. In his arms, Fives squeaks in surprise at the sight of his brother, as Echo flails puppy-large paws, tail thumping, and within moments, the larger twin is following his littermate’s example, small body shifting and twisting in Alpha’s arms until he has a small black and grey pup with similarly coloured aliike to his brother gnawing on his bicep.

Alpha had never gotten to witness his oldest cubs’ first shift, never gotten to witness so many important milestones in those first years of their lives. He wouldn’t take this opportunity for granted.

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