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“DAMMIT!” with the flat of his hand Raylan slapped his locker door closed.“Hey.” Tim’s locker was right next door to Raylan’s “take it easy.” He straightened up his things. Raylan might be a locker slob, but Tim liked his squared-away. You never knew when you might need something quickly.He turned to his older companion, “what is eating you anyway?”There was a pause. “Art.” Raylan admitted gruffly.“What about Art?”Another lengthy fairly pregnant pause. Tim waited. He was good at waiting, and besides from what he had heard heading into the locker room, the chances are that Raylan needed a friend.Not that he was likely to take Tim up on the offer, but the offer was there just the same.Raylan was wearing his suspicious-of-Tim’s-motives face. Tim shook his head a little, and started to turn away.“He keeps saying that I am just like my father.” It came out all gruff and awkward like Raylan was experiencing an emotion that he didn’t know how to cope with.“So?” Tim eyed his companion thoughtfully, “if y’didn’t…”“He ain’t my father.” Raylan blurted out.Tim shut up. This was going somewhere.Raylan’s eyeline had shifted and he was staring at the hinge of his locker door. “Arlo was just someone my mother… and my aunt, married.”“How do you know that.” Tim was suspicious and a little curious, there was a mystery here. Always had been if he came to think about it.Raylan was looking right at him, a strangely resolute look in his eyes. “Because he couldn’t do this.”Do what? Tim couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried. Raylan tilted his head, the way Tim had seen him do a thousand times, but this time there was a look of determination on Raylan’s face and he completed the head roll.Something moved under Raylan’s skin and Tim nearly jumped out of his as Raylan sprouted honest to goodness fur right in front of him.“Jeezus.” Tim hissed.You could still tell it was Raylan. His face under the fur looked exactly the same, except his ears, nose and teeth were a bit pointier. Most of the fur on his face was reddish brown, his nose was black, and there was this cute patch of white under his chin, covering his throat.It looked really soft, Tim found himself stepping forward, resting two fingers on Raylan’s furry white throat and stroking.Raylan honest-to-god purred.“How… what…”There was pride in those luminous brown eyes, “I’m a Fuchsbau, Tim.” The purry quality that often appeared in Raylan’s voice when he was pleased ratched up a notch.“So who knows?”“You, Tim. Just you.” “Art?” Raylan shook his head. “No, he…”Footsteps outside the locker room, Raylan’s eyes flared in panic and he rolled his head once more, his inner fox retreating. Leaving Tim standing there with his fingers still stroking Raylan’s throat.Someone cleared their throat.Tim winced.Art’s snarky voice said “something you want to tell me boys.”Tim had fought the Taliban, he covered expertly. “Nah, Raylan was just complaining of a sore throat, just checking his glands.”It got him an odd look from Art, and a curiously grateful one from Raylan, and Tim sauntered out of the locker room, feeling oddly proud that Raylan had showed him, and wanting to ask a million questions.
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A lazy warm Sunday morning in Kentucky.Tim sprawled on his back on his bed, loosely propped against the haphazard pile of pillows that had somehow wound up crammed behind him.Raylan sprawled across Tim, head on Tim’s chest, in full woge (apparently what it was called when Raylan went all foxy), Tim’s arm curled around him, hand caressing Raylan’s soft furry white throat.Raylan was actually purring. Tim’s lips twitched into a smile, his tough, suspicious and occasionally arrogant partner was a hot mess in so many ways, but get him warm and comfortable and free to be that part of himself that was nothing to do with the marshals, or his disastrous marriage, and Raylan was a simple, gentle, content creature.It had taken a while to get his head around what Raylan showed him in the locker room. He accepted it. Tim always accepted the evidence of his own eyes. Messed up by the war he might have been, but Tim wasn’t stupid or irrational, he was well aware that the world had some very strange wonders in it.Apparently his partner was one of them.It had taken them a while to get to this. Looking back Tim wasn’t even exactly sure how it had happened, but Winona had monopolized Raylan for a while, and it had made Tim happy that somehow something was going right in Raylan’s life, because work was becoming more and more difficult.Tim didn’t know the ins and outs of the thing, but he knew that Winona had messed up Raylan’s relationship with Art. The debacle with Raylan getting shot, Winona’s return, then kicking Raylan in to touch after she had apparently gotten what she wanted from him, well, small wonder that Raylan had gone a bit off the rails over that.Two unsuitable blondes later, and Raylan’s pain was obvious to anyone who knew him and cared about him. Which in the office appeared to boil down to Rachel and Tim.Then Art punched Raylan out, and that night the distressed Fuchsbau turned to Tim.Raylan didn’t come to Tim as a marshal, or a colleague, Raylan dropped his shields and came to Tim as the creature he was. They had drunk a lot of bourbon and much later, they’d gone to Tim’s bed and made love.Tim was under no illusions, even if under the influence of alcohol. Raylan was trusting him, Raylan was giving him a piece of who Raylan truly was. And damn if the softness of Raylan’s fur wasn’t a serious turn on when it brushed against Tim’s body.Tim had no doubt the whole thing was very kinky, but in terms of what it meant to him and to Raylan. Raylan could be the Fuchsbau with Tim, and Tim was very conscious of the gift he was being given.Raylan wasn’t as asleep as Tim thought; fully woged, the Fuchsbau was doing everything in his considerable power to make Tim his. Several failed matings and Raylan finally figured who he wanted as his forever love.He turned his head, and nuzzled Tim’s chest, nipped a little with his pointed teeth, Tim’s fingers continued to stroke his throat, and Raylan really couldn’t help the purr. Over his lifetime with other human interactions, Raylan had never revealed his inner self.He’d come close once or twice, back when he had been briefly in love with Boyd Crowder, he had planned on showing the other boy his true self, then the mine cave in happened, and everything went to hell, and one week later Raylan was on his way out of Kentucky.Then there was Winona. He loved Winona. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He was startled when she agreed to go out with him, then she married him, and he’d been so excited. Then it never seemed the right time, and Winona had expectations, and suddenly he was on the outside, watching his wife waltz off with the realtor. In that moment of betrayal, Raylan was grateful Winona knew nothing of his true self. Later when she stole money from the evidence locker, despite his determination to help her, deep down inside the cynical part of Raylan’s soul nudged him and enquired what Winona might have done with the information.Back when he was a little child, his momma had told him stories of people who would cherish him for his hide. Fuchsbau hide was worth a lot of money. There were people who would kill him because he was special, just for a piece of that special.Even though that was two people he had trusted which could have been disastrous, somehow Raylan had known that Tim would never betray him. Tim could keep a secret.He nipped a little harder and followed it up with a lick.Tim’s hand continued to gently stroke his throat. Raylan closed his eyes and bit a little more firmly, continuing to nibble and lick at the place just under Tim’s collarbone.“Staking your claim, huh?”Raylan nodded.It was less girly if he didn’t confirm it vocally.“My turn,” Tim tugged hard and suddenly Raylan was half-sitting in his arms.Raylan hung his head a little because this seemed kinda dumb now he was sitting there. He flushed a little. “Woge?”Apparently Tim didn’t mind a mouthful of fur, because he was already laying his own bite mark on Raylan’s shoulder, close to the back of his neck. “Apparently, Fuchsbau blush… who knew?” Tim’s voice was the usual overlay of cheek and sarcasm, and Raylan flushed again, awkwardly.“Don’t say shit unless you think it’s helpful.” He grumped at his lover.Tim’s cocky unrepentant smirk could easily have made Raylan’s blood boil, but the younger man was pulling Raylan back close again, fingers caressing the white patch. Torn between letting Tim win this one, and the amazing sensations of having his fur stroked, and a claim made, Raylan subsided with a cautiously happy grunt.He’d win the next one.
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Rosalee Calvert stirred the drink she had prepared carefully, and bent down next to the injured Fuchsbau on her loveseat. The man was in a bad way, his right arm badly damaged, two bullet wounds and he was clearly exhausted.It was his companion that confused her. The man was a human. No Grimm, just human, yet he seemed to know that his injured friend was a Fuchsbau, that Rosalee was a Fuchsbau and she was trying to figure out how and why, and more importantly how the Fuchsbau was injured. Because the intensity of the human’s psyche was making her very nervous.“How did this happen?” She lifted the first dressing and looked at the shoulder wound.The human was watching the door. “Is this Tuesday,” he said.There was something in his tone, and Rosalee nodded, “yes, it’s Tuesday.”“Three days ago, in Kentucky, Raylan and I were tracking a fugitive, received a tip. Turned out that tip was a set up.” The human reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small bottle, “after we managed to evade the trap, found that in a trailer.”
Sauver sa peau.
His voice cracked, and Rosalee realized that tension radiating from him he was probably in shock himself. “They were going to shoot him for his skin.”And just like that, Rosalee found she had two patients.They were both exhausted and definitely in shock, from the greyish complexions and fine tremours coursing through both of them. It was the presence of the claim mark on Raylan the Fuchsbau’s shoulder which confused Rosalee, but Tim pulled aside his shirt and showed Rosalee the claim mark on his chest, which in some ways was more confusing, but explained the strength of the relationship that she could see between them.The wounds in Raylan’s shoulder and upper arm were a mess which took time to treat, Rosalee had to persuade his partner to sit down, fed them both some tea, and the muffins that Monroe had baked, and tried to figure out what to do with them next.The fact they had fled over two thousand miles and had nothing but the clothes they were wearing, said a lot.“Raylan had heard that Portland was safe for wesen.” Tim still looked shocked, and Rosalee suspected that would go on for some time. “We’re Deputy United States Marshals. How do you kill and skin a Marshal?” There were tears in his voice, and his injured mate responded, wrapping an arm around his younger human companion.She watched Tim relax into Raylan’s undamaged shoulder, and stroke the patch of white fur at Raylan’s throat. It was clearly a thing between them, because Raylan really let go for the first time since they’d arrived at the shop.Despite their horror story, Rosalee could smile at the obvious delight Tim’s gesture inspired in her fellow Fuchsbau. He was purring, it was fairly weak because of his physical condition, but the sound had a soothing effect on his mate.They were Marshals. There could be legal problems, they needed Nick and his Captain, and Monroe, because Raylan wasn’t walking out of the shop, and Tim was too exhausted himself to help carry him. Rosalee left them alone, and went to make some calls.