The first change is always fucking traumatic. Adam explains this to Kris, one bright morning as they wake up together, naked and sporting grass-stains and dirt in odd places. Somehow they've made it to the back patio, although how they actually managed that is beyond Adam.
It's sunny and nice out, warm and LA-pretty. Just like the morning after Adam's first change, and for a few seconds, it's exactly like that day. Adam shivers, jerks away from Kris, and then the words are spilling out as Kris puts his arms around Adam's shoulders.
Adam had been so fucking scared that first time. He had no idea what he was doing outside, why he was called out to the moon and the stars and the forest, and then the Change had started, his skin and muscles reshaping and stretching to fit over the completely new skeleton he suddenly found himself with. He'd seen it happen to other people, to his father and mother on ceremonial days, and to some of the Elders, but no one had thought to tell him that one day he was going to change like that, too.
He'd been so sure he'd done something wrong, come out into the moonlight at the exact wrong moment, or interrupted someone's ceremony, and the fact that he was a thirteen-year-old gawky unicorn all of a sudden did nothing to help his whole self-conscious, embarrassed teenager psyche.
“Adam,” Kris sighs, nuzzling up underneath Adam's chin, interrupting Adam's story and snapping him out of the spiraling memories.
“Sorry,” he whispers. “I was just . . . I was so scared. You can't fight the magic moon, you know that. Wolves more than anyone, I think, know that you can't fight the moon. Fae like to pretend they can fight anything, and hell, maybe they can, but I was just a kid—and I didn't know what was going on and—and suddenly I was so fundamentally different from what I'd ever expected to be—and I didn't understand, I didn't know that it was okay, that it was supposed to feel like the best thing ever and the scariest thing you'll ever do—at least, scary that first time—and no one was around, because everyone else had gone to the Marked Path for the Summer Migration, to welcome the sidhe, and--” Adam stops and sucks in a breath.
“I don't like thinking about you like that,” Kris says softly. “All alone and scared and Changing for the first time.” He rubs gently at the base of Adam's skull.
Adam makes a sound in the back of his throat. “I guess—I guess the worst part was waking up the next morning,” he admits. “I remembered the Change, and I remembered the call of the moon and how I wanted to go running through the trees, but—but I woke up on the back porch, cold and naked and freaking out, and of course, everyone was back, and I had to walk through the house naked, and no one—no one congratulated me or—or anything. It was just 'about time' and 'we'd almost given up hope,' and I still didn't know--”
“Adam,” Kris says again, and pulls Adam's head down to rest on Kris' shoulder. “I love you so much.”
Adam turns his face into Kris' neck and breathes deep. “That morning—it looked a lot like this one.”
Kris' arms come up around Adam's shoulders and neck, and he drags soft fingers through Adam's hair, making Adam sigh and relax and hug Kris back, arms tight around Kris' waist. “You ready to head back inside?” Kris asks finally.
“Yeah,” Adam nods.
Before they walk through the door, Adam grabs Kris' hand. Kris squeezes his fingers and lets Adam hold on.