Wild Boy
He was nudged awake by a cold nose.
Stirring on his sleeping roll, the young boy rolled onto his side and curled into a ball as if determined to ignore his personal alarm clock. A soft growl was heard, less angry and threatening and more frustrated, before the sound of rustling was heard and a large, warm hand reached out and shook his shoulder.
“You have to get up - the dawn is breaking and the pack is moving.”
“Five more minutes,” he muttered, snuggling against the pile of furs that he used to sleep on. He was yanked up, however, flailing and crying out indignantly all the while. “Hey - oh, c’mon! Can’t I sleep for a little longer?”
“Do you want to lose the pack, wolf-boy?” his disturber asked, before nudging at him. “Grab your things. We’re already behind.”
“How do I travel today?”
“It’s a longer journey today, so you’ll ride.” Nodding, the wolf-boy turned to shake out his furs, wrapping them around his shoulders so that they kept the chill off his flesh. He grabbed the few things he carried with him always, pulling on warm fur boots that the Alpha female had made him at the beginning of winter.
Turning towards his companion, he smiled and approached the large black wolf with casualness and comfort, brushing his fingers through the fur at his neck and burying his face into his shoulder before clambering onto his back.
“Let’s go, cú faoil.”
Tightening his grip on the long black fur, he gave a whoop when the wolf began to run through the forest.
The wolf-boy was found sixteen years ago at the scene of a car accident, a wailing thing in a soiled diaper with the bodies of his parents mangled in the wreckage. How he had survived, no one knew - and no one knew that he had, for he had been found by the cú faoil and taken into their care.
The cú faoil were the wolf-men. Wolves by day and men and women by night, modern people called them werewolves and science called them impossible. They travelled in packs, keeping away from society and generally staying in the forest. Sometimes, though, they would take in human infants if they felt sorry for it. And they had felt sorry for the screaming child those sixteen years ago.
The wolf-boy blinked when the wolf stopped running, looking around to see that they were in a part of the forest he did not recognize. Feeling the rumble from his companion through his legs, he slid off of his back and watched as he changed back into a man, naked as the day he was born and sniffing the air, trying to figure out what it was he smelled.
“What is it, cú faoil? We’re not with the pack yet.”
“We were supposed to meet here to continue our travel,” the wolf growled, pale eyes narrowing as he stalked through the trees. “Stay here - do not move. Should anything come to you, use the knife the Alpha found for you.”
The wolf-boy looked down at the knife distastefully but nodded, standing very still as his companion disappeared. He listened very hard to the woods around him, but he could not hear as well as his companions no matter how hard he tried. After what felt like hours but was probably minutes, his dark-haired companion returned.
“We rest here for the day,” he said, looking at the wolf-boy. “…there have been hunters.”
“Hunters?”
“Yes. Meaning we must keep out of sight.” He shook his head, before approaching the younger man. “…I will keep you safe. I’ve sworn to it. You are mine. My wolf-boy. My Stiles.”
“I know,” Stiles murmured, lifting a hand to touch the cú faoil’s cheek with a fond smile. “Just as you’re my cú faoil. My wolf. My Derek. And I’d kill for you.”
Nodding, Derek bowed and brushed his nose along Stiles’ jawline, nipping at his throat when it was exposed to him, before pushing him towards a cluster of trees that would hide them. They crouched down low into the foliage, the wolf-boy sharing his pelt with the wolf; both listening to the sounds of the wild on the lookout for something strange and unnatural.
Both comforted by the warmth the other gave, reassuring them they so long as they were together everything would be fine.