Exomas Day Seven - male were-yeti x reader - Part Two (v. light nsfw) (Patreon)

Part Two is here! And it's really long! *wheezes*. There's another little bonus that I'll post after all of the Exomas Extravaganza is over, but you'll have to let me know if you want it. It's NSFW...

Thank you so so much to those of you who have let me know that you're enjoying these stories, whether that's on here or on Discord! I know that not every story will be for everyone, but it means the world to me when you let me know what you liked, so thank you for taking the time! 

Content: mentions of grief and loss, some feels, some fluff (lots of fluff), and some very light nsfw right at the end. Wordcount: 7042

Within another hour of trudging, your twisted ankle was really starting to hurt again, but you were within sight of the car park at the trail head, and you’d been on the flatter ground of the path for the last mile or so. Arttu cocked his head playfully at you when you moaned luxuriantly the moment you got back to the truck. God, he had no right to be so cute as a seven foot tall wall of fur and muscle, but he was. The noticeable softness around his middle was also endearing, despite the strength you knew lay beneath. 

Unclipping your snow-shoes and tossing them into the bed of your truck along with your backpack, you fished out a water bottle from the top and downed half of it in one go. 

When you turned back, Arttu was watching you - no, staring at you - with a look on his face somewhere between ‘kicked puppy’ and ‘worried deer’, neither of which matched his fearsome physical form in that moment. Maybe he was feeling something similar to you; some vague, inarticulable reluctance to part from each other, despite the brevity of your acquaintance.

As you tried to focus on unzipping the snow-suit and extricating yourself from it without falling over, finally chucking it in beside the pack in the covered bed, you felt his gaze on you still. 

A moment later, Riuka broke the strange, still spell that had crystallised in the air between you by barrelling out of a deep bank of snow and shaking it all over both of you, cackling. That seemed to startle Arttu from his stunned reveries and he playfully shoved his son hard enough in the chest with the flat of his hand to send him tumbling back into a deep, soft drift behind him. He landed on his backside with a quiet ‘oof’ his legs splayed wide and grinned, canines on show. The two were obviously used to roughhousing with each other like that, and they reminded you a bit of puppies playing in the snow.  

“Let’s see if the truck starts,” you muttered with trepidation, praying it would. 

It was supposed to be a heavy duty battery, and to your joy, the engine turned over and the massive behemoth roared to life immediately. While you scraped the snow off the windscreen and checked that everything was in working order, you shot them a quick glance. Arttu was gently scraping his clawed hind paws through the snow and creating idle furrows while Riuka snapped at passing snowflakes like a cat. 

“Listen, if you wanted a ride into town…” you said, somehow not ready to say goodbye to these two strange and adorable furballs just yet. “I know you said you don’t go very often, but I could give you a lift if you wanted…? Since I’m going that way…”

The two of them went still and then looked at each other. Something wordless passed between them this time, and then Arttu turned back to you. “I have our human clothes with us in my bag…” he said, shrugging the little sack on one shoulder. “I didn't know how far you’d get or whether I’d need them, so I brought them with us, so we could shift and come with you.”

“How would you get back?” 

“We can hike, stupid,” Riuka snickered. “It wouldn’t take us as long as you.”

“Right, of course,” you said, rolling your eyes with playful sarcasm. “You are two truly abominable snowmen after all! What was I thinking…”

Surprisingly, Riuka seemed pleased with that and flashed you a sharp-toothed grin, as if to show just how tough he was. 

“See,” you said, gesturing to the fangs and looking at Arttu with a grin, “Proof! Well, I’ll hop in and get warmed up and you two can… you know…” You waved your hand to indicate general ‘shifter business’, and went round to the driver’s side and hopped in. 

A good few minutes later, a (disappointingly) clothed Arttu rapped politely on the passenger-side window with his knuckle and then opened it. Riuka climbed in first, looking a little shaky and pale after the transformation. Nevertheless, he made himself at home in the middle seat of the three that spread across the width of the cab, and Arttu climbed in more slowly behind him, slinging his bag down into the foot well. Riuka now wore a hand-knitted, pale grey and white jumper and jeans with scruffy boots, while Arttu had on a dark, charcoal grey, round necked sweater and his pale, ripped jeans that you recognised from before. His ankle boots were not insulated for the cold the way your snow boots were, and they were scuffed and the sole was even coming away at one point. In short, he looked delightfully dishevelled. 

“Can I choose the music?” Riuka blurted the moment you started to back out of the car park.

“Mind your manners,” Arttu quite literally growled, and you shifted slightly in your seat as you tried to tell yourself that that was not attractive. At all. Not in any way. Nope. Not.

Oh heck. 

The kid did have the grace to look a bit embarrassed by his behaviour but you grinned at him and said, “Sure you can. My phone’s there. Plug it in and pick something…” 

It only occurred to you after he’d picked an album that he actually might not have known how to use a phone if they lived in such a remote, off-grid cabin, but he seemed to be doing alright. As if he’d followed your train of thought, Riuka flushed and said, “Papa takes me into Starfall Springs sometimes.”

“You don’t go to school there?” you asked carefully and he shook his head. 

“No. I don’t want to. Papa wanted me to, but I kept running away. He’s teaching me himself at home, but I don’t need it anyway. I’m not going to live down there when I’m grown.”

You shot Arttu a look and saw how deeply uncomfortable he looked about his boy not getting a formal education. He kept stoically quiet about it, but his handsome, weathered features tightened and he looked away, staring out of the window as you eased the truck down the snowy road. 

You shrugged. “You never know…” you hedged, “It’s best to have something under your belt in case you need it one day, even if you know what you want now.” 

He seemed surprised that your reaction hadn’t been to criticise him immediately, and he smiled shyly at you before turning his eyes to the road ahead. 

Arttu didn't say another word for the entire journey into town, but after about half an hour, you glanced over and saw that he had dozed off with his head resting on the side of the car, and Riuka had nuzzled up beside him. You smiled and let them both sleep. To be fair, they had flown after you like a pair of maniacs through the snow after all. Your note had probably blown off the table when you’d opened the door and let all the weather in, and that was why they’d missed it. Part of you was grateful for that, though you weren’t about to admit it out loud just yet.

As you finally drove down the hill past the mines and over the bridge, Starfall Springs looked like a fairytale with its festive marketplace and the snow piled up on the steep-gabled roofs of the houses, though there was much less down here on the coast, of course. As you drew the truck up on the street outside the little apartment building where you were staying, the pair of them jerked awake with almost matching grunts. 

“We’re here,” you smiled. 

Arttu looked chagrined to have fallen asleep, but you just slipped out of your side and grabbed your gear from the back to give him a moment to blink the grogginess from his head. 

“You want to come up for a cup of tea or something?” you asked but Riuka looked nervous, like he might bolt. “No pressure,” you added with a smile as you turned away and put the key in the outer door. “The marketplace looks really pretty as the sun starts going down anyway.”

Hushed conversation sounded behind you and then Arttu cleared his throat as you looked back at them. “Thank you,” he said, “But… we’ll probably just head over to the market…”

“Ok. Well… I guess this is goodbye then?” you said. “I know you didn't get my note, but I did say how grateful I am that you let a complete stranger into your home - both of you,” you added, looking at Riuka who stood beside his father looking sullen and slightly wary. “And you’ve been very kind to me. You didn’t have to…”

“We couldn't just leave you,” Riuka mumbled, scuffing his toe on the slushy pavement. 

You smiled at that. “I’m glad you’re not that kind of person, Riuka. Thank you. You probably saved my life…” He looked honestly horrified at the unspoken implication that there were people out there who would actually have left someone in distress outside in all that weather, and you sighed. It showed what a good person he was, and how well Arttu was bringing him up, even if he didn’t seem to think so all of the time. “You’re both wonderful people. I’m really glad to have met you.”

Riuka looked up at his father and asked something in their native language, and he smiled. “Perhaps we could come up for a cup of tea before we go shopping?” Arttu said, ruffling his kid’s hair affectionately with a massive, paw-like hand. 

“Great!” 

In fact, a cup of tea in the apartment turned into exploring the town together afterwards. As you wound your way towards the river, you watched Riuka carefully. He stared openly at everything, from the pair of minotaurs walking hand in hand through the marketplace, eyeing up trinkets and making suggestions about possible Solstice gifts for their friends, to the way a large, spindly drider walked along the street on the very points of his delicate legs like a ballet dancer en pointe. The effect was made marginally less elegant by the fact that he was duffled up to his ears in scarves and coats and had a woolly hat pulled right down almost to his eyes. 

“Don’t suppose you feel the cold like that,” you half whispered to Riuka and he shook his head. “Handy,” you grinned. 

He’d been about to reply, his father walking half a pace behind the pair of you, when he saw a satyr and her mother walking hand in hand, sharing some kind of sugary snack from a cardboard box that steamed and smelled wonderful. The child looked perhaps two years younger than Riuka, and his eyes welled with tears at the sight of them and he kicked angrily at a stone under foot, sending the piece of gravel ricocheting off a metal dustbin nearby and startling a centaur and a cervitaur who were standing nearby and had been deep in conversation. 

“Riuka,” his father barked, but the boy just took off at a run, heading towards the snowy riverbank and plonking himself down on a bench with no care for how the settled snow would melt into his clothes. A glance up at Arttu revealed a man nearing his wit’s end. 

“Hey,” you breathed, resting your hand gently on his forearm. His muscles bunched and flexed beneath your touch and he ground his jaw. Your eyes went to the thick scar on his chin for a moment before finishing their upward journey at his eyes. “Would you like me to try and talk to him?”

He didn’t speak for a moment, but his eyes drifted from you to the figure of his son who was now tossing handfuls of gravel into the river. “I don’t know how to reach him sometimes,” he admitted. “You must think I’m a terrible father.”

“No, I don’t,” you said quietly. “He misses her - his mother - doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” Arttu rasped. 

“You both do.”

“Yes.”

“It’s alright to miss her.”

Arttu sucked in a deep breath, nostrils flaring, and he looked you directly in the eyes, though his body remained facing the river, and his son. “I’m pretty sure he blames me for the fact that she’s not here anymore…” he said. 

“Why?”

In answer, he tilted his chin up slightly to show you the scar more clearly. “Got that the day she died,” he said. “We were driving back from school, from dropping him off here for the week - he used to board because we lived so far out - and… A logging truck was coming down the road and they lost control of it somehow. I swerved, and… we crashed. She died almost instantly.”

“And he thinks that if you hadn’t been taking him to school…” you whispered, not daring to finish that sentiment, but Arttu nodded. “It’s not your fault. Or his.”

“I know,” he said. “Accidents happen. I… I’ll never stop feeling guilty over it, but…” he drew in another unsteady breath and crossed his thick arms over his broad chest as if he could hold all his tossing, heaving emotions in. “It’s been a couple of years now. Some days it’s fine, and others I don’t know how to reach him, how to help him.”

“Do you think that heading up to the bakery at the top of town might help to distract him a bit?”

After another moment’s hesitation, Arttu nodded. “Perhaps. You could ask him. I’m going to the market. Come and find me when you’re done. With or without him…” he added. “Don’t pressure him. He’s like a wildcat; he’ll come with you on his terms or not at all.”

You walked away and he watched you go for a time before he moved off to the little wooden huts with their twinkling lights and their festive trinkets and food with a far-off look in his searing blue eyes. You’d just been granted a huge amount of trust, even though Riuka could protect himself pretty well with his yeti-shifter strength and claws, and you were determined to do right by both of them. 

When you were a short way off from the riverbank, you called out softly to the boy. “Riuka… You mind if I join you?”

“Whatever,” he shrugged, hurling another handful of gravel from the path down into the frozen slush of the river as it washed by. 

You scuffed the snow off the bench with your hand and sank down onto the very edge, trying to avoid getting a wet patch on your backside from it, and watched him for a few minutes. 

Eventually he stopped flinging stones into the slush of ice and water and looked at you. “What do you want?”

What did you want? You barely knew these two, but you’d felt more of a connection to them than you had to anyone else in months, maybe even years. Seeing that you were deliberating your answer, he went still and stared at you with his supernaturally blue eyes. After a little while you said, “Right now, I guess I want you to know that even though I don’t know you very well… if you want to talk to me about anything… you can. I might not understand everything you’re feeling, but… I want to listen… if you’d like to talk.”

“I don’t,” he snapped immediately and turned away and scooped up another muddy handful of gravel. 

“Fair enough,” you said, trying not to sound disappointed. Why should he open up to you anyway? He barely knew you. “Listen, Riuka… I did have an idea,” you added with a slight smile. “Have you ever had a cinnamon bun?”

Derailed by the sudden shift in conversation, he paused again. He looked at you distrustfully for a moment and then said quickly, “Yeah?” He spoke the word as if you’d asked him if he knew that water was wet or that ice was cold

You smiled. “How about a warm one, fresh from the bakery, with the icing still all goopy?”

He was clearly intrigued. 

“Your dad is looking round the market,” you said, rubbing your hands along your thighs to warm then before standing up. “But he said it was ok to ask if you’d like to go and get some. Maybe we could bring him one back too?”

With a shrug, he said, “Ok.”

The two of you turned your backs on the river and walked silently up the street towards the bakery you’d discovered on your first day there. The werewolf who ran the business was in full shift when you pushed the door open and let Riuka inside. He clearly noticed the blue of Riuka’s eyes and his own flashed gold in recognition of another shifter. He wagged softly and grinned wolfishly at him but said nothing and turned away to load a few more fresh rolls onto the shelf behind the counter.

The place doubled as a cafe, and it was pretty full at that time of day. People with shopping bags stacked up around them warmed their fingers around mugs of spicy hot chocolate and coffee, and the whole place smelled magical. Riuka looked around with open interest at everyone, and you leaned down and said, “Why don’t you go and wash your hands in the bathroom over there, and I’ll order us some cinnamon buns, ok?” 

He nodded and did as he was told, which surprised you. You weren’t sure what you’d been expecting, but meek obedience hadn’t quite been it. Maybe he trusted you more than he was letting on.

By the time he’d returned, smearing his palms on his jeans to dry them off, you were standing by the door with a small cardboard box in your hands and a smile on your face. “Here you go,” you said, handing the box to him. 

Riuka lifted the lid curiously and inhaled deeply, his eyes flaring bright for a moment as the rich smells wafted up from the buns, and then his expression lit up and he beamed at you. “Can I have one now?”

“’Course you can,” you chuckled. “Here, let me hold the box and you can grab one. Shall we go and find your dad?”

He nodded, his mouth already opening to welcome the mass of sticky, warm pastry that was hurtling towards it. He’d finished it before you’d gone three paces down the street and looked up at you hopefully for another one. You had bought four after all. Wordlessly, you shoved the box at him and he tucked in. 

After polishing a second one off and licking the frosting off his fingers, he looked up at you again and asked, “Aren’t you having one?”

“What if your dad wants two as well?” you asked, meaning to be playful, but his face fell. “Riuka? What’s wrong?”

“I… I didn’t even think about that…”

“It’s ok; there are still two left…” You paused and he halted naturally beside you, though he didn’t meet your eyes. He worked his jaw and scowled at some internal conflict. “Riuka, can I ask you something?”

He nodded but didn’t look up. 

“How do you feel about coming into town with your dad? Do you enjoy it? Or did you just come along because you thought he might like it?”

His cheeks coloured. After a moment, he said, “Whenever we come into town, people stare at him.”

“In what way?” you asked. After all, he was gorgeous; who could blame them, but you weren’t about to put words in the kid’s mouth.

He shrugged. “Sometimes they’re attracted to him and sometimes they’re afraid of him. Sometimes both at the same time. I can smell it.”

Oh. Well, he could probably smell it on you then, but you didn’t bring that up, just in case. “How do you feel about that?”

“I… I don’t know.” He reached out to the nearby windowsill of a house and ran his finger along it, sending snow slumping off it onto the pavement. “It’s weird.” 

“Can I say something else?”

This time he did look up at you as he nodded. 

“I know it’s just the two of you now, and that you both… carry a lot of feelings around with you all the time… about what happened…”

“You do?” he asked, his face sharpening warily, eyes narrowing. 

“Mmm,” you said. “When you went down by the river earlier, your father told me a bit about what happened and how he feels about it. Not much of course, because it’s a family thing and I’m still kind of a stranger, but mostly… I think he feels worried about doing what’s best for you. It’s obvious to me that he loves you so much. He just wants to make sure you’re as happy as you can be, despite what happened…”

Riuka’s eyes teared up again but once more he stubbornly refused to let himself cry. He chewed his lip for a bit and then said, “I miss her.”

“Of course you do,” you said gently. “And it’s ok to miss her. You know that, don’t you? You don’t have to keep it all inside. You don’t need to take care of your dad all the time…” Because that was the real crux of all this. Riuka was still a child, trying to process everything that had happened two years earlier, and while Arttu was busy thinking that his son blamed him, Riuka was trying to shield his father from his own tangle of feelings, whatever they were. Maybe he didn’t even know, which would explain the way he suddenly flared up hot and lashed out. He needed an outlet for it all, and a way to work through what he was still feeling. 

Suddenly he turned to you with his face completely bare and open, and asked, “Did he say it was my fault?”

You couldn’t hold back the tears as they formed in your own eyes then, and you knelt down in the snow, resting one knee on the pavement and setting the box down beside you, and you took his strong, rough little hands in yours. “No, kiddo,” you said. “If anything, I think maybe he blames himself, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault, ok? Bad things happen, and it’s awful and painful and unbearable, but… it wasn’t your fault. Or his.”

He ground his jaw again in a way that reminded you instantly of his father, and finally his tears spilled over and rolled silently down his cheeks. He looked a little relieved, and a little nauseous. You opened your arms and he stepped in close, letting you hold him. 

Despite being a shifter, and possessing all the supernatural strength that that entailed, he was still just a skinny, ten year old boy in your arms. You stroked his back for a bit and then he pulled back, wiping his snotty nose on the cuff of his sleeve. The storm seemed to have passed a little, and with the pressure eased, you thought that perhaps he might open up to his father on their long hike back home. 

“Can we go find Papa now?” he asked. 

“Sure thing. Here, you can be in charge of these,” you said, offering him the box. 

“Don’t you want one?”

You shrugged and said, “Let’s see how hungry your dad is first?”

“Ok,” he sniffed. 

Arttu’s strides were long and relaxed when he saw you and headed towards you to meet you, but as you neared, his face sharpened just a little and he took in the slight redness to Riuka’s eyes and the blotches on his skin. “Everything ok?” he asked, eyeing you carefully, if not warily. 

“Yeah,” Riuka smiled. “We got you cinnamon buns but I ate two already.”

Arttu’s blue eyes softened then and he laughed. “My favourite,” he said as his son thrust the box at him and scampered off immediately. As Riuka darted over to peer at a display of hand-carved tree decorations, Arttu mouthed ‘Ok?’ at you and you nodded. 

“I think so,” you shrugged. 

The pair of you ate a cinnamon bun each and watched him picking up everything within reach. He rifled through almost everything on the satyr’s display, but you clocked how he went back to the same deer, carved mid-way through a leap, three times before putting it down and coming back over. “Are we going home now?”

“It’ll be dark well before you get back,” you said, looking up at Arttu. “Do you want some proper food before you go? Those cinnamon buns probably won’t last very long… You could probably stay over at the apartment if you really wanted, but it’s kind of small…”

He shot Riuka a look and the kid looked… undecided. “Up to you,” Arttu said to him firmly. “I’m easy either way. It’s been a long day though.”

Right on cue, Riuka yawned. “I’m fine,” he said, but he swallowed and blinked a few times. “But we could stay here.”

“If you don’t mind?” Arttu asked you. “Don’t feel like you have to… just because you stayed with us…”

You grinned. 

That evening you ordered enough pizza for five people, and the two shifters polished most of it, though you held up your end pretty well. You shared the beer in the fridge with Arttu, and before nine o’clock even ticked round, Riuka was fast asleep against his father’s shoulder on the couch. 

It was a small apartment, but it had a spare room. At this time of the season - two weeks before Solstice - it’d actually been pretty cheap, and you moved your suitcase out of there where you’d been storing it, and let Arttu and Riuka share the bed. Arttu just scooped his son up from the sofa and carried him like an over-sized housecat, all sleepy arms and legs, and you parted ways at the living room door. Riuka didn’t even stir. 

Come morning, you were awoken to the smell of cooking bacon and the soft murmur of voices from the kitchen. 

Emerging like a bear from hibernation, you found Arttu and Riuka prepping breakfast. “Morning,” you croaked and Arttu turned from his spot by the hob where he’d been cracking eggs into a pan to offer you a smile.  

When he saw you in your pyjamas and blinking blearily at him, the egg in his hand slipped from slackened fingers and smashed onto the lino floor. 

Riuka sniffed and then hissed, “Gross.” 

You knew the comment wasn’t for the broken egg when you spotted the way that Arttu’s cheeks coloured. “Er… sorry,” he coughed. “I’ll… I’ll clean that… Riuka, pass me some kitchen paper…”

The three of you ate at the kitchen table, the mood markedly somber. Saying goodbye to them after breakfast was astonishingly painful. Riuka looked up at you with his big blue eyes wide and baleful, and grunted, “Thanks…” before turning away and slouching off towards the front door, leaving you and Arttu in the living room together. 

He looked down at you from his enormous height and smiled sadly. “Thank you,” he said. “For… all this. For yesterday too…”

“Was he ok after our chat?” you asked in hushed tones, eyes darting over to the boy as he fiddled with the front door lock, idly swinging the door open and shut. 

“Yes, and thank you,” Arttu murmured back. “You… You did something I couldn’t…”

With a slight twitch of your lips, you said, “Sometimes it takes a stranger to show you something that your own family couldn’t… I’m just glad he’s feeling a bit better.”

“We both are. It’s not something we’re going to just… forget, but…” he licked his lips and offered an achingly sweet smile to you. “But it feels more… settled somehow. Like we could talk about it if we needed to.”

“I’m glad,” you smiled, turning away a little to hide the fact you were choking up. 

You jumped as his fingers found your hand and he turned you back to face him. “Come back with us,” he said breathlessly. “Come and stay with us. Don’t go back to the city. Not yet…”

“I have a job,” you said, regret heavy in your voice, even though you knew you didn’t want to go back to that. It had felt wrong - a bad fit - right from the start, and the fact that you were prepared to give it up almost immediately to spend another week or two - or more? - with Arttu and his son was further proof of that. He’d been about to respond when you said, “Let me work things out. Give me a couple of weeks.”

“I don’t have a phone,” he said, flushing and looking awkward. 

“I know where you live though… Shouldn’t take me as long to find it the second time,” you grinned and he chuckled back. “Seriously though, let me figure stuff out with work. I moved out of Old Trollbridge when I switched jobs, but the place I’m renting is too far to pop back and visit you every weekend or whatever. I’d… I’d need to look for something in Starfall Springs…”

“Take your time,” he said, raising his hands a little. “I don’t want to rush… I just… I want to get to know you better, and Riuka loves you - even though he probably wouldn’t admit it…”

At that, you laughed. “I’ll come back and see you both in two weeks, no matter what happens with work. I’ve got some savings anyway.”

Those blue eyes flashed softly and he smiled. “I look forward to it.”

“Come on papa!” Riuka whined from the hallway. “Stop being gross…”

“Are we being gross?” he asked you playfully. 

The pair of you laughed and you blurted, “I don’t think so, but gimme a hug before you go?”

Still laughing, he enveloped you in his massive arms and you inhaled the scent of his jumper as he practically smashed you into his chest. “Take care, ok?” he said as he stepped back and you nodded. 

After they’d gone, the apartment seemed unbearably still, and about an hour later after a cursory search of the internet for apartment rentals in and around Starfall Springs, you slammed the front door shut behind you and stumped out into the marketplace. You found yourself back at the stall with the wooden decorations, and after scanning them briefly, you spotted the deer that Riuka had seemed to like. The satyr remembered you from the day before and offered to gift-wrap them for you. With the carved deer wrapped up and carefully stowed in your pocket, you bought a cut-glass snowflake for Arttu and headed back to the apartment. 

The next two weeks dragged by, despite how insanely busy you found yourself with work, but on Saturday morning you parked up the truck at Trout Leap Creek and stepped out into the crisp un-marred snow that blanketed everything for miles around up here. Yes, this was… right somehow. New, intimidating, uncertain, perhaps even crazy, but it felt right in a way that nothing had in years. 

It took three hours to reach the cabin, but you didn't get lost this time, and when you saw a thin column of smoke rising into the air from the metal chimney, you grinned, excitement boiling up inside you. There was also a healthy shot of anxiety in there as well, along with all the questions that had plagued you like summer flies ever since you’d left your newly-rented apartment behind at stupid-o’clock that morning. What if he’d changed his mind in those two weeks? What if he realised it was insane to ask you to stay with him - even for a short while - when you barely knew each other? What if none of your other plans worked out? 

“Stop it,” you whispered to yourself as you cleared the last of the pines around the house and shuffled in your snow-shoes over to the porch. You were just unclipping them when the front door flew open and Riuka barrelled out, his face alight with open joy, and he screeched your name loudly enough to make your ears ring and a small flock of rooks take wing into the sky from the trees nearby. 

“Hey kiddo,” you grinned as you finally extricated yourself from both him and the snow-shoes and stood up again. “I made it.”

“You came back!” he breathed. 

“I promised you and your father that I would,” you said. 

He looked down and then said, “I know, but…”

You ruffled his blond hair just as his father appeared in the doorway behind him and your heart did a strange skip in your chest. His eyes were crinkled so beautifully at the corners as he beamed a welcoming smile at you. He was wearing the same creamy cable-knit jumper he’d worn on that first morning when you’d awoken in his hut, and now that you knew the man, he looked even more delicious in it now than he had then. He had it cuffed up to his elbows again, exposing his rough, muscular forearms and you felt another jolt of desire shoot through you. 

Immediately, you stepped forwards into his open arms and accepted the rib-creaking hug he offered. Riuka shot inside like a winter hare and disappeared. 

“Missed you,” he murmured into your ear as he leaned over you. Hidden by the expanse of his chest, you beamed. “I’m glad you came back.”

When he finally released you, you almost staggered, playfully clutching your ribs and moaning, and another husky, rich laugh rumbled out of him. 

“Sorry,” he said. 

“I didn’t know yeti-hugs were one up from bear-hugs,” you snorted. 

Still smiling, he turned and waved you inside. “Come on; come in and warm up.”

The moment you stepped inside, you smelled cinnamon and paused to eye them suspiciously. 

Riuka shifted his weight from one foot to the other, now standing in the doorway to the kitchen. 

“You’ve been baking?” you asked. You hadn’t known they had an oven, given that they had no electricity, but perhaps they had some kind of wood-fired oven, like an old-fashioned baker’s oven. 

With another earthy chuckle, Arttu stepped up close behind you and pulled the front door to behind him. The fire was crackling away in the other log-burner at the far end of the living room, filling the space with delicious heat, and once you’d unzipped your snow-suit and stepped out of it, Arttu took it from you silently and hung it on a peg by the door. “We’ve been practising a bit, haven’t we?” he shot at Riuka, who nodded. 

“You want one? They only came out about ten minutes ago…”

“I’m surprised there are any left,” you said and everyone smiled. “I’d love one.”

“Cup of tea?” Arttu added and you nodded. 

When you had an honestly delicious - if a bit ‘rustic’ looking - cinnamon bun and a huge cup of tea, you sank gratefully down onto the sofa. A second or two later, Arttu eased himself down beside you, and Riuka plonked himself down on the floor by the fire. Setting mug and plate down on the coffee table, you said, “I actually have something for you two as well…” at which Riuka perked up like a puppy. 

“You didn’t have to do anything,” Arttu growled softly, and you laughed, placing a hand boldly on his thick thigh as you pushed yourself up and headed over to your backpack. When you turned around to return, you saw the way his eyes glowed openly blue and Riuka was snickering to himself. 

“You first, kiddo,” you said to Riuka, handing him a small parcel wrapped in festive, Solstice-themed paper. 

He looked at you with his eyes wide for a moment and then took it with surprising trepidation. For a horrible moment after he’d ripped through the paper and pulled out the deer decoration, you thought you might have made a mistake because his eyes got even wider and turned glassy, but when his face slowly changed to a heartbreakingly sweet smile, you relaxed, practically slumping against Arttu in relief. His arm snaked around your shoulders and he hugged you while you sat there and watched Riuka set the deer on the small pine tree that they’d put up in the corner of the room. 

There were a number of carved decorations on it - most of them done by Arttu himself, you assumed - and Riuka set it near the top on a spare branch and set it gently spinning before it came to a rest facing inwards, its antlers raised proudly. “Thank you,” he said shakily. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything…”

“You made me delicious food and welcomed me back into your home,” you said earnestly. “I couldn’t ask for anything better than that.”

He smiled again and said, “Papa gave me my own axe this year!” 

“No way!” you gasped. “Wow. You must be pretty good or he wouldn’t have thought you were ready for one.”

Arttu nodded and said with quiet pride in his voice, “He is.”

“Can I go chop some more wood for later?” Riuka asked and Arttu nodded again, causing the boy to scramble for the door like a terrier. 

“Be careful. Remember what I told you about -”

“- keeping my feet away from the stump. Yes, I remember.”

Arttu chuckled and watched Riuka fly out of the door. “I can’t help it,” he murmured, rubbing his jawline and sighing. 

“I’ve got something for you too,” you said, bringing out his equally small parcel with a little flourish. 

His eyes never left your face as he took it from you, and he said bashfully, “I… I already got what I wanted…” 

You shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want it,” and you made to take it back, but he snatched it away with another slow laugh. 

When he’d unwrapped it - one handed because his other arm was still around your shoulders - he turned to face you and smiled. It was a small, almost tearful smile, but it was full of heart and his eyes flashed bright blue again. He didn’t hide it from you as he croaked, “Thank you.” 

The little glass snowflake glittered in his lap as he brought his fingertips under your chin and tilted your face upwards a little. Seeing the permission he needed in your features, he leaned down and brushed his lips almost tentatively against yours. When you moaned, he returned with more confidence, deepening the kiss and sliding his fingers through your hair. The way he touched you was almost disbelieving, as if you might just evaporate beneath his fingers at any moment. 

You nearly closed your eyes, but when you saw just how vibrantly his own eyes were glowing, you knew you couldn’t look away. He was beautiful. 

Arttu set the decoration to one side without breaking the kiss, and then he tugged you into his lap so that you were straddling him. Both his hands came up to tug on your hair, tipping your head back and giving him access to your exposed throat. He mouthed kisses up and down your neck from jaw to collarbone, growling softly under his breath all the while. Gasping, you both drew back a moment later, knowing that if you didn’t stop then, you probably wouldn’t, and that wasn’t fair on Riuka. 

Arttu was breathing hard and staring at you, looking stunned. “I want you,” he admitted hoarsely, and when he spoke, you saw that his canines were longer and thicker than they had been a moment before, and beneath your hips you could feel that he’d been growing hard. 

“We’ll figure something out,” you promised with half a glance at the front door. The steady, if halting and irregular, swish-crack of the axe swing told you that you didn’t have to leap apart like surprised teenagers just yet, but you took a deep breath and rolled your hips just once over him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

As you ground over his cock, he fell back against the sofa cushions behind him and let out a long, deep growl that reverberated around the room, his hands soft on your hips. 

“God that’s so hot…” you blurted, trailing your fingers down his throat, and the rumbling growl faltered into a bashful laugh. 

His eyes were closed, but he was smiling, canines very much on show. He wasn’t shy to show you what he was, even though you weren’t a shifter like him. Leaning down over his body, hands on his shoulders, feeling the softness of his small paunch beneath you as you rested your weight against this chest, you brought your lips to his ear and whispered, “I wonder if I can get you to shift a bit more for me next time.”

Arttu’s huge hands grabbed your hips and squeezed, kneading the muscles of your backside as he bucked his hips up just once and then went still. When he did eventually open his eyes, they were the bright, blazing blue you remembered from his full shift back in the trees. “There’s a cabin down by the lake that we use when we go fishing…” he said, his voice sounding beautifully wrecked. “Riuka won’t mind if we go there for a few hours…”

“Really?” you asked. 

He nodded. “He actually suggested that I take you if you came back…” Arttu said with a blush to his tanned cheeks. 

With his long, thick, grey-white hair all ruffled from your own hands tangling in it, he looked so inviting that you couldn’t find it within yourself to argue, and you answered him with a smile. 

“Alright. Tell me when you want to go.”

His eyes darted to the door and then he took a deep breath. “As soon as possible. Let’s go as soon as possible.”

With a grin, you nodded. 

Yes, this felt every kind of ‘right’. 

 ___

Hope you enjoyed this one! Don't forget to check out the Patreon Masterlist, in case you missed anything from before. All the xmas/Exomas stories will be going up in a separate list on the masterlist, so you should be able to find them easily enough if you want to go back later. Merry Christmas - and Happy New Year (almost)! x