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The Wander is coming; Yasha can smell it on the air frozen around the window and threaded through even the warmth of the house. It's the same sense of stirring she's felt for as long as she has memory, and yet. She can't stop thinking about what Caleb had said. All those times she's felt some vital part of herself retreating until she can't keep it up anymore - this whole time, she's had another self. A spirit, a gift, something both apart and of her, and she can feel it coming faster now as the days grow shorter.
Sometimes she can still feel the phantom weight of the collar, a baseless sense given that it was never truly a physical touch. Not until it had come off in Beau's hands. She wakes sometimes with the image of Beau's eyes boring into hers, the determined set of her brow as she'd accepted whatever would happen to her and set Yasha free. If she thinks about it for too long she can remember the feel of the bones shifting her under her teeth, the taste of Beau's blood in a mouth refusing to obey her and forcing her in the exact position to watch the light fade from those blue eyes as the electricity ravaged the both of them. The dry, heavy finality of a bone collar clattering limp against a marble floor, then a split second of horror before the merciful blankness as the wolf, newly free and out for blood, took over.
The years forced into a single shape had come with a sort of simplicity that Yasha misses sometimes, on her worst nights. There haven't been many in the eight or so weeks since everything - it's harder to dwell on what happened and nearly happened with Beau herself here with her at night, but they happen. The inability to pull herself together as a dog, the slow fade of what it meant to be a person…the Wander can't frighten what isn't there to comprehend it. But Yasha's back now, connected once more to the spirit she'd never seen for what it is, and for the first time she doesn't know what to do with herself.
But it's not the wolf's turn yet even if this body is borrowed, and the sound of the bathroom door opening brings Yasha back to the present with her ears up and alert as Beau shuffles along the hall carpet to appear in the doorway of her bedroom a moment later. Her hair is loose and wet and it smells so nice even from here, like warmth and flowers and everything good. After two months, it's getting easier to look at the faded white puncture scars standing out above the towel wrapped under her arms, but Yasha still can't help the way her head ducks on Beau's approach, the way she can't rest until she's touched her nose to the scarring. Sometimes she licks it just a little, like now, and the wave of affection that feeds through their loop to drown out her uncertainty gives her the nudge she needs to be just Yasha again, sat on the edge of Beau's bed with her temple resting over Beau's heartbeat.
"Someone got lost in thought, huh?" Beau's fingers are light through her hair, gentle.
"I can't help it," Yasha mumbles into her damp shoulder. "I got used to not having thoughts, and now they won't stop."
"See this is why you should get in the shower with me. Later, I mean. When the water stops being so scary -"
Yasha's hands are wrapped loosely around Beau's waist, and the yelp of laughter she gives when Yasha swats lightly at her upper thigh through the towel makes a contented bead of light blossom in her chest.
This stage of their life together - the one where Yasha gets to be here in spite of everything, the one where Beau knows exactly who she is and loves her anyway - it's too new for them to have any conversations that could be called old. But this is a familiar one at least, Yasha's attempts to re-negotiate her own headspace, and if there's anyone who knows how hard that can be and how to resist, it's Beau. Even if Yasha hadn't emerged from the dark with Obann's bloody throat in her jaws, even if the wolf hadn't eradicated his hold on her once and for all, she likes to think she would feel just this safe, here with Beau's fingers in her hair and the smell of her pressed close.
"Do you want to try to meditate again, or will it make it worse?"
It's tempting. There's not much about the idea of rendering her memories harmless that doesn't appeal to Yasha on her best days, but it's not something she's gotten the hang of yet and she certainly isn't going to have any easier of a time with the Wander drawing near. She turns her head, rests her chin just above the line of Beau's towel and says instead, "Will you show me how to make cookies?"
There are little amber lights strung all through the bars of Beau's headboard, a recent addition that has something to do with the holiday season and the significance of which goes neatly over Yasha's head. Doesn't matter though; it's everything, to look up and see the shine of them reflected in Beau's thoughtful expression. "At eleven thirty at night?"
"Please?"
"Aw, come on." Beau brushes away a little hair from Yasha's forehead as Yasha tilts her head a little in confusion. "I was already gonna say yes. You didn't have to deploy the puppy eyes."
Yasha considers. "I think they're just my eyes."
An unforeseen side effect of spending so long away from being a person: sometimes Yasha feels a tail wag where there can't be one, or ears that don't really exist prick atop her head. Maybe it's because she's reconnecting with the spirit inside of her. Or maybe she just really loves Beau, and the warmth in the smile that pulls crookedly over her face is there with Yasha's wash of affection and peace - and doesn't quite manage to smother the little bit of arousal underneath.
"Alright, fair enough. Should we see if Jester's up?" Beau asks, "or is this a you and me thing?"
That's a good question. "What do you think?"
The towel has withstood the two of them valiantly, but the expressive shrug Beau gives does it in and down it goes. Beau hardly spares it a glance, and though Yasha can feel the arousal bloom between them her voice doesn't change at all. "This is all you, babe. What sounds best for you? I love hanging out with Jester too, but."
She does that sometimes, just leaves a whole part of her next sentence dangling for Yasha to catch, trusting her meaning to be taken in a way that has nothing at all to do with pack bonds and everything to do with the time they've spent working to know each other. "I'm always happy to see Jester, but tonight I think I want just you and me," says Yasha. "But tomorrow when you're at work maybe she can show me how she does that thing, with the colors and the. Sweet goopy stuff."
Beau grins and brushes a thumb over Yasha's cheek before pulling away towards her dresser. "You're sweet goopy stuff. Honestly, I'm sure she'll come out and see what we're doing tonight when she smells everything. You might not even have to wait to make icing." She tosses a shirt to Yasha, the one she'd picked up from the thrift store when she'd gone back after The First Time Shopping Incident and which feels cool and smooth and not at all like any of the starchy, itchy clothes she'd worn on the rare occasions she'd been person-shaped for Obann's use. It still doesn't feel natural, but it smells less like soap every day and more like home - which is to say it smells like Beau and long evenings spent wrapped up in each other and just talking, making up for lost time the same way Yasha's thoughts are crowding her tonight.
It's because of those thoughts that Yasha almost doesn't see it, the way Beau's shoulder locks up when she goes to push the drawer shut. It's whip-swift, hardly a hiccup in the natural motion of her arm but the sight of which puts a neat hole in a decent chunk of Yasha's peaceful mood.
"Are you okay?" She gets up from the bed, tries her best to gather the guilt condensing like mist on glass and keep it apart from everything. It wouldn't matter even if she could, though. Beau's already turning with a reflexive response even as her hand reaches up to rub gently at the deepest of the marks.
"Think it's just damn cold outside," she remarks apologetically. "Hot shower, air - I'm fine, promise. Sorry."
"What for?"
Beau's fingertips whiten where she grips her skin, then she releases and inhales sharply. "Nothing, I just. I know it sucks to be reminded and it's not that big a deal so it's embarrassing when it…" she gestures vaguely, but this feels less like a sentence she trusts Yasha to finish and more like one Beau hopes she won't.
There's something wrong with that statement, but it takes a moment for Yasha to parse. "You're sorry your shoulder is hurt and you can't hide it sometimes?" A terrible thought: "Are you hiding it a lot otherwise?"
"No!" Beau thaws slowly from her immediate sincerity, hand outstretched as though to grip Yasha's bicep and hovering just above. "No. I'm not…you'd feel it, if I were lying or hiding something, yeah? I'm really okay. I just don't want to keep reminding you of something that hurts you too."
Yasha hovers the lightest of touches over the deepest part of the scar and starts up the familiar mantra in her mind. Obann did this, not me. Obann did this, and he's dead. "Your hip too?" she murmurs. Beau shakes her head, a small frown furrowing her brows and a smaller flush spreading over her cheeks. "May I?" Hesitation, then a nod. Yasha reaches within herself to the place she imagines the wolf stays when she's a person, draws gently from it in the way of a request, an acknowledgement of something borrowed. It had always been metaphorical before, a way to visualize the gift of healing, and now she wonders distantly exactly how literal it might actually be.
The thought lasts only for as long as it takes for her fingertips to begin glowing, and then she's focused again on the line of Beau's scar and the muscles that ache from the tension of it. She imagines the glow probing deep, easing some of the leftover damage and soothing the sensitivity brought on by the cold. She fills Beau with warmth, in other words, the only way she's positive she can and hopes it's enough. Not enough for Beau, because for some reason she already sees Yasha as more than adequate. Yasha hopes these small gestures she can offer might one day be enough for her, to set her free from the memory of her body used to hurt someone she loves so much - for real this time, no altered memories or a collar to keep them that way. "Better?" she asks when Beau's breath leaves her in a long, heavy exhale.
"Yeah," Beau replies quietly. "It's not yours to set right though, get me?"
"It is," Yasha says slowly, "but I feel more like it's because you're hurt and I can help you, so I should. And I want to." She tilts Beau's chin towards her ever so gently with a finger. "Get me?" It's entirely true, and she doesn't have to mention the fading guilt still holding on underneath - because it is fading, and Beau knows that as much as she knows she's safe with Yasha after everything.
Beau nods. "I get you. I'm just still not used to like…being hurt, I guess. Where other people can see. That's not a you thing. Part of how I grew up. Work in progress and all." She turns her gaze to her shoulder and rolls it. "I definitely don't know how to be okay with something fucking up after it's healed, like. It's over. Why's it still causing so many problems, you know?"
Yasha stares at her, incredulous. "Because you were bitten by a magical giant wolf, Beau. And that was before the lightning from the collar - you almost died, baby. Your heart stopped working."
Beau can't look at her, and Yasha doesn't make her. This feels as close as they've come to talking about how everything affected Beau; Yasha knows nothing about Beau's view of that day but her scars and her forgiveness. Either she hasn't reacted yet or she's keeping herself somehow from acknowledging that reaction and either way, Yasha can hardly stand it. Take her out of it - something horrible happened to Beau, and Yasha wants to help. It can be that simple.
"It's working now though," Beau says finally. "It was what - fifteen seconds between setting you free and waking up again? That was eight fucking weeks ago. When's it finished?"
There's an emotion Yasha catches sometimes in the link they share, one she mostly ignores for Beau's sake because she knows that feelings can't be helped - only actions, and Beau has only ever acted in Yasha's best interest. It's resentment, and the more Beau talks the more it bleeds through until finally, Yasha connects her words and her feeling and understands. "You're angry you're still hurt," she says softly. "At yourself."
For once, Beau doesn't pick up the implication here, that Yasha had assumed on some level that Beau had been angry at her instead. She just sniffs a bit, voice alarmingly thick. "Yeah, probably. It fits."
"With what?" Yasha gently reaches for the shirt tucked under Beau's arm and waits for her to surrender it, then gathers it from the bottom to place over her head.
"Everything." She slips her arms through the holes - with no visible protest from her scar - and ducks a little as Yasha draws her damp hair out from the collar. "I mean feelings are already hard. I spent like a year in pretty frequent therapy trying to get the tools to work on it, the idea that having a feeling at all meant having a weakness for others to…I dunno, wedge open. I guess I focused really hard on not feeling weak at all instead of learning how to deal with weakness itself, and now." She looks helplessly at Yasha. "This part's harder, Yash. I mean, I don't know what to do with the fact that I almost died or whatever. I didn't. What's to think about? I just want to keep going forward. With you, with this life we get to figure out together. Why's that so hard for my body to figure out? What part of getting bit by a monster wearing your face has anything to do with sleeping like shit sixty fucking days later, and."
Her lip gives a dangerous quiver, and Yasha wastes no time pulling her close. Fingers scratching lightly at her shaved scalp, other arm firm against her shoulder blades, Yasha's own thoughts racing but ultimately coming back to a mixture of relief and sorrow - relief that Beau doesn't count her among her demons, sorrow to know she's hurting and to be unable to talk her through it.
"I don't know, baby. You know so much more than me about your mind and all the ways it works." She feels Beau's breath harsh and hot on her shirt and closes her eyes, thumb brushing behind Beau's ear. "I do know one thing, though."
"Please don't tell me you know I'll figure it out."
"That seems like it would be a redundant thing to say," Yasha agrees. "Of course you will, but you're hurting now. And I don't have all the answers, but I know that you love, Beau. So deeply and so fiercely. This life, the people who love you, all of it. Even when it's hard. You've done so much work to even believe you're allowed to have these things, and Beau…that was almost taken from you. Horribly and suddenly."
Beau takes a long and shuddery inhale, then shakes her head against Yasha's shirt. "How can I be reacting to that if I haven't even thought of it that way? I haven't thought of it at all, not on purpose. I just want it to go away."
"You thought about it when you were dying." There's no way to soften the words, only her voice, but Beau jerks a little in her arms anyway. "I know you did," Yasha presses gently, "because that's what happens when you know it's coming. You opened that collar knowing it was set to kill. You knew in that moment what the consequences were, and surviving just means you have time to deal with something you didn't expect to live to be haunted by."
Her shirt pulls tight against her back as Beau gathers it in a fist, and her voice flattens in contrast to the emotion that flickers between them. Thorny and oozing all at once - a lockup of the belly that can only be dread. "Why do you say that like you know?"
This is delicate; Yasha's not usually one to pick up on the subtleties of a conversation, but she knows there's little Beau enjoys less than focusing on herself for too long - especially about something so painful. For right now, there's very little Yasha could say that would get to Beau more than being forced to keep going. It's an odd respite, but it's Yasha's to give and she does. "The spell in the collar that brought you back…it wasn't always there. Do you remember what Dairon said, that I was willing to die if it meant getting away from Obann?"
Beau shivers, but her grip on Yasha's shirt loosens slightly. "Hate that guy. Yeah, I remember."
"Well, he knew that too." Yasha strokes Beau's hair for a moment and carefully sorts through the memories brewing close. She doesn't dare try meditating tonight, but the visual Beau gave her of her thoughts as things to be shepherded and not fought makes it a little easier to keep going. They can't hurt her. Not with Beau right here. "After he killed Zuala and made me think I did it…I think I lost my mind a little. Maybe a lot." Her voice cracks a little in perfect time with the way Beau's arms tighten around her. "I couldn't attack him directly," she continues, stronger now, "but everyone else in his chain of command was fair game. They were very good. The best, maybe. But I was better, and desperate. When he came in to find me sitting in the middle of all the blood, when he lifted his hand and started talking…"
"You thought you were dead," Beau murmurs.
"Hoped." The room is completely still, but silence from Beau is never anything less than a sign of her full attention. "I woke up to a new spell in the collar that would keep me from dying and a promotion." Yasha takes a moment to swallow back a bit of bile there, push back the sour taste in her throat. "He was…proud of me. He told me I had to stay safe for him, and then he locked me in the wolf for a long time." Time unfreezes with the hitch of Beau's breath against her, and Yasha's heart plummets. Too much, she realizes - this isn't about her. "It's okay though," she adds hastily. "I didn't die, and because of that awful collar, neither did you. I didn't mean to…I'm sorry."
She can feel Beau trembling just slightly against her, and then she gives a great sniff and releases Yasha to stand up straight and scrub a hand over her face. "Now who's apologizing for bullshit reasons?" she jokes, but her eyes are red and shiny. "Gods." She swipes an elastic band from the dresser beside her and whips her hair up into its knot with one fluid movement, shaky hands be damned. She reaches for another band and ties of the bottom of her hair before she speaks again. "How did you even get through that?"
Her eyes find Yasha's, but she can't hold them and focuses instead on the crooked collar of Beau's t-shirt. "I'm not sure I had much to do with it. I just…let go for a long time, and then one day I woke up, kind of."
"And ran away?"
"Eventually." Not soon enough. She'd stayed for months afterwards, mauling whoever he told her to and some he didn't, just to rebel in the only way she could. Refusing to eat until he stopped feeding her anything but targets, not even thinking of escape as a possibility until the day the chance was there and so, so obvious. There's no telling how many times that same chance had passed her by, how many lives she could have saved if she'd gone sooner, if she hadn't been content to drift in her own mind for so long.
She startles at the touch of Beau's fingers to the underside of her jaw and lifts a hand in reflex, expecting Beau to flinch in return and already moving to reassure. But Beau doesn't move, doesn't even blink, just murmurs, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked, that's. That's fucking awful."
Yasha smiles and doesn't bother trying to conceal the crack of affection and sorrow that bleeds from it into their connection and across her face. "Getting mauled by me - something that looked like me -" she corrects, and a little shame trickles along the back of her mind at how good it feels to move the words around even if they don't feel right yet. "- and then dying by electrocution is 'fucking awful' too." She turns her hand into Beau's hand and reaches up to cover it with hers. "Just be kind to yourself about this, please? You're getting better. I promise. You haven't woken up in the middle of the night in almost a week."
Beau's worried face morphs into quiet bafflement. "Wait, what?"
Yasha blinks at her. "You've woken up almost every night since you stopped needing healing to sleep. I thought you knew - isn't that what you meant by sleeping poorly?"
Beau scrubs a hand over the back of her neck, looking more like herself with every passing moment and softer in the amber lights. "I mostly just meant I haven't really felt all that rested, like. On top of it taking forever to sleep at all."
It's true that her routine hasn't been the same for a while, but it's been so long that Yasha's sort of been assuming that at least for now, the way things sit are the way they're going to for a while. "Should I…I know you said it's easier to sleep with me as a dog than a person, but do you think maybe that's making it worse?"
Beau's mouth opens, then closes again. "My head says no, but apparently my head's not the one driving some of this. I don't really know, but I know I wouldn't sleep at all if you weren't there."
Yasha picks up the soft pants that had fallen by the wayside with the shirt and holds them out to Beau. "I'm not going anywhere," she says. "It's your call. You know I'm happy to hold you in both forms, right?"
Beau finishes shimmying into the pants and braces on Yasha's arm to shake a leg out, bare foot poking from the end in a whimsical undercut to their conversation and to the serious nod she gives. "I like it when you hold me. Just uh. Not used to it, I guess. Having a person I want to wake up to?"
Yasha smiles. "Well, there's one way I know of to get used to it." Beau smiles back, a real smile even if it's a little lopsided. Gods, Yasha loves her, loves the little noise in the back of Beau's throat when she cups her face and trails a thumb over that bronzed cheekbone. "Are you okay?" she murmurs. "That felt like it was a lot, I don't know."
"Yeah." She's looking at Yasha now, not entirely steady but comfortable in a way Yasha recognizes. A kind of peace with not having things figured out yet, a measure of patience for herself that Yasha has no trouble imagining how hard she fought to allow herself. She's so proud of her. "You still up for cookies, or has that ship sailed for the night?"
Again the sense of ears she doesn't have the phantom feel of fur on her throat and shoulders when Yasha tips her head. Beau can't see it any more than Yasha, but she clearly sees something because she's gone from a smile to a full-on chuckle. "Why would I not want cookies?" Yasha asks.
"No reason. You gonna join me in the world of pants, or is this more of a free-ball kind of night?"
Yasha's gotten good at figuring out what Beau means when she uses words she doesn't understand - or at least she's usually able to discern the overall tone and reply accordingly. The way Beau laughs when she confidently responds with, "I would like the ball" tells her that maybe she didn't get this one quite right, but it's fine. It's more than fine, because Beau was almost crying and now she's laughing and leaning up to press her smile against Yasha's mouth, and the only thing running through their connection is a steady ache of shared lightness and contentment. Oh, sure it's flavored with the weight of everything, but to Yasha that makes it all the sweeter.
"Come on, you goober." Beau takes her by the hand and makes for the door, Yasha content to follow with a little smile of her own lingering. "Midnight cookies and…hot chocolate, maybe?"
Yasha gasps. "Wait. I know how to make that. Can I?"
Beau turns to face her, walking backwards through a house she knows like her own body. "I thought you wanted to learn how to make cookies?" She snickers when Yasha falters and squeezes her hand. "Don't sweat it. We got two weeks before the holiday party, so we're gonna have to make another batch closer to time anyway. Show you then?"
Yasha nods enthusiastically, and then she yanks Beau towards her and shushes her between giggles when she yelps before scooping her up and walking them the rest of the way to the kitchen.
The light over the stove stays on day and night, so neither of them think anything of its glow until they turn the corner to find Jester rummaging in the fridge, at which point she stands up with a grin and lifts two sticks of butter. "Hi guys! I'm going to make midnight cookies. Wanna join?"
Beau shares a look with Yasha, eyebrows raised: this okay?
"Of course," says Yasha, setting Beau gently down. "Beau said I get to make the hot chocolate, though. And I think I get a ball." It's probably not what Beau meant, but whatever the meaning's supposed to be, her flush under the soft light is instant and endearing.
"That's not -" she sputters. "Well what the fuck am I supposed to do then?"
"Plug in the tree," Jester says from the lower cabinet. "Duh. Play some music. It's the last holiday we'll have together in this house and it's literally snowing - come on, set a mood!"
Beau squints out the sliding glass doors of the kitchen, mouth upturned just slightly and an emotion Yasha can't easily place drifting through. It feels sort of how Yasha used to when she thought of Zuala, only softer. Rounder. "Yes ma'am," she says finally. "Let me grab my phone."
"You should tell Dairon you're taking tomorrow off while you're at it!" Jester calls over her shoulder.
"Yeah, yeah, bossy."
Yasha keeps watching the empty hall even after Beau disappears into her room - their room - and for just a moment, she lets her mind drift back to the implications of what she said to Beau. She'd been ready to die, completely unaware and uncaring of what might be in store for her later. Utterly convinced there was no part of her that could accept a good thing even if one were to ever happen to her again. And here she is, standing in a warm house lit with colorful lights and listening to Jester rattle through cabinets as Beau appears in the doorway to toss her a wink and some soft pants. She leans on the frame to work her phone, as though loathe to look away lest everything fade while she's messaging Dairon.
Nothing's fixed, not really. The chances are good that Beau will still sleep fitfully tonight whether Yasha's a wolf or a person. There is still so much about what happened at the library and even before that will take a long time yet to untangle. But they're both here now, and it's snowing, and Yasha wants to tell Beau she's proud of her but she's not sure she could explain why and so says nothing - just opens her arms once Beau has slid her phone in the pocket of her pajama pants and sighs happily when she sinks against her chest.
"Love you," Beau murmurs, just for her. "I'm really glad we both made it here."
There have been enough meaningful words for tonight; Yasha wraps her more tightly and kisses the top of her head in reply and enjoys the feeling that it's still enough, that Beau hears her anyway. "I love you too."
"Helloooo," Jester calls from the kitchen. "I can't make good holiday cookies without good music and hot chocolate, you know!"
Yasha slides her thumb inside the back of Beau's waistband and gives it a playful snap. "I think that's us."
"Mmm." Beau slips a hand along the back of her thigh to give a quick scratch the way she likes in every form and grins when Yasha shivers. "Sure sounds like it. Now c'mon, the night is young."
It's not really, but the feel of Beau's hand in hers as she leads them to the kitchen and their plans for the evening certainly has something feeling youthful. That makes sense, Yasha decides as she coaxes the milk to gradual heat a few minutes later. Nothing's fixed, but there's plenty that feels like it's only properly started.
The wolf stirs in her mind again as Yasha whisks the chocolate powder into the saucepan, but this time the tinge of unease from earlier is nowhere to be found. Yasha welcomes the presence, extends some part of herself to it in acknowledgement, and quietly and confidently guides it back again for now. Soon, she thinks to it. But not tonight.