They Were Just Wrestling (Toviyah)

[Ellwood]

The large brown beast groaned softly on his back, soft grasses brushing against his fur whenever he moved.

It wasn't a bad groan. He didn't sound hurt, or in pain, or weary - three things his were blood healed rapidly enough.

He sounded ... rather pleased instead - content - like a person fresh from massage, still enjoying the sense of relaxation and relief that one gets from such physical activity.

He felt good.

He felt good from the tips of his toes - large, padded toes curled and pressing at the ground - to the tips of his fingers - thick, meaty fingers scratching at the thick coat of brown on his broad, bare chest. The roaming itch must have had something to do with the mud that had attached itself to his body in patches and left him so terribly messy after the whole ordeal, but he didn't mind so much. He felt good enough in the rest of his everywhere that an itch was only the most mild of interruptions.

Dim awareness of the rest of the world reminded him of the smell of another person off to his side, whom he was feeling just a little less aggression towards. And then a bit of guilt pinged inside his chest, and made him grunt it away.

"Hope I didn't hurt you too much," the beast said as he started to stir, then chose to relax another moment with his hands pillowing behind his head. A breeze tickled against his large, largely exposed body.

"I mean, I know I can get a little too rough with someone, but you didn't seem to mind," he admitted, sounding rather proud of himself for something he possibly - probably - should have been apologizing for. But sudden recollection of why they were out there to begin with had him feeling no such regret.

He quickly added in another word to remind his companion of the same.

"Grapehead," he growled almost playfully. "Where did my pants get to?"

[Toviyah]

In all likelihood, this was going to hurt in the morning.

He lay on the ground, unmoving, silent, the better to hear the chorus of adrenaline singing its way through tired muscles. Grass against his bare back, a gentle breeze catching at his front, and a massive, rumbling mountain of fur and fang and muscle glowing with the same exhausted satisfaction - it was a gift to be simple. It was a hell - heaven - metaphorical extreme of a gift.

Every ache could be banished in the matter of a breath, if he so wished. Every tinge of exhaustion, every jot and tittle of evidence that he'd spent the last hour down in the mud in a vicious yet gentlemanly struggle with a ferocious, primal being who had a return address at the apex of the food web, pushing his body right to the limit and past - it could all be gone, and all he'd have to do was will it so.

He lay on the ground, silent, unmoving, and embraced it. The physical drain, the lingering daze, the inevitable pain that would come when a good night's sleep had whisked the euphoric chemicals away - the very limited, very mortal, very human and wholly optional things - he embraced them, and they felt good.

"Hope I didn't hurt you too much."

"Hmm?" Toby finally deigned to stir, to turn his head just a fraction to the right, to open his eyes the slightest crack.

"I mean, I know I can get a little too rough with someone, but you didn't seem to mind."

"No..." he sensed the other's smile, and felt one of his own stealing to the surface in response. "No, not at all..."

"Grapehead."

Lean muscle clenched along the length of his belly, suppressing the laugh. It hurt. The hurt felt good.

"Where did my pants get to?"

"Hmm?" Toby said again. "Your... pants... are... probably somewhere. Maybe that tree -" he lifted his leaden weight of an arm, and gestured in the wrong direction. "No, I think - " He craned his head and squinted through the weak light. "Somewhere that way." Head and arm met the ground again, grass crunching beneath as it broke their fall.

"No trouble at all," he added. "I like it rough, sometimes..."

It took a long moment for the gears in his head to grind the words down, for the double meaning to percolate through. It was bad form to smile at his own jokes, especially the accidental ones, but he did anyway.

"Told you I was flexible," he said after a pause. His hand lifted again, found an itch on the were's body, and began to scratch it away, crumbling dried mud off the center of the thick chest. "Did I?" He frowned. "Or maybe I didn't. But... there you have it. I'm very flexible. And for my part, while I suspected you were hard all over - " he clenched a fist, tapped the knuckles against the furred man's solar plexus, then went back to hunting the itch. "It was a lot different. Feeling it." He let out a breath, and turned it into a whistle. "Rock hard."

[Ellwood]

The big brown beast's laugh came out gravelly, crushing rocks against each other in his chest to pass for a humorous reaction. His body gave a flex for tapping knuckles and scratching hand, just to make the firm shell of his muscles into something even harder.

"You're welcome," he teased the older mage, for letting him do the 'feeling' like he was. Flexing limbs reminded him of the cinders of contentedness still burning through his flesh, warming and good. He breathed in deep, his whole torso expanding for the influx of air, and oxygen swept over the cinders to revitalize it all.

The crazy, accusative, judgmental grapehead got on his nerves, and rode them around like a bucking bronco.

He'd also turned around, apologized, and endeavored to make him feel better from the fur down.

So there was that.

And he grumbled softly, because he knew he should be saying those words again. Once should have been enough, for that guy. But wrestling hadn't really been a massage, and it'd been much more intense - to say nothing of the whole dangers of fighting a guy whose instincts were constantly telling him to let it all loose and kill something.

His conscience was stupid. He had a stupid conscience. It was prone to do stupid things, like feeling guilty and indebted to crazy, accusative, judgmental grapeheads.

He got up slowly from the ground, turning away as he did so.

The grumble ended in a soft, "… Thanks. For that. Again. Jerk."

He snorted once, before getting onto his feet and looking for those equally stupid missing pants of his. He didn't feel decent so unclothed anymore.

He growled again when he found them a short distance away, half caked in mud and barely suitable for human wear. At least he was only half human...

"You're paying my cleaning bill," he threatened the old man as he tried to scratch and squeeze some of it off.

[Toviyah]

The were's answering snort of laughter felt like a rockslide, the escape of energy and the force behind it matching the description in more than one sense. Solid ground, hidden under a layer of fur to better masquerade as flesh, turned unstable for an instant. Tension, built for goodness knew how long, finally snapping free.

The last of a load falling free. Rumbling like thunder. Crashing far, far away. "You're welcome."

Then that uncomfortable little silence at the end, as settled emotions stirred and rippled into something a little less at peace. Further rumbling, a deepening frown, led Toby to withdraw his hand, to fight back his own exhaustion and sit up, the better to attend to his companion.

He could feel the sulk radiating out from the back was that turned on him.

"...Thanks. For that. Again. Jerk."

Silence sounded like the most tactful answer. The younger man's pride had probably taken more bruises tonight than in the past month.

So he kept his own peace, comported his expression into the most neutral poker-face in his repertoire, and stayed on the ground while the sabertooth rose and went foraging for their clothes.

The next growl sounded like a combination of "Found them" and "You're paying my cleaning bill".

"You're paying my cleaning bill," grumbled Ellwood, holding up a pair of almost-unserviceable jeans.

"Here, let me get that." Toby offered him a cheerful smile and stood, arms outstretched to receive the offending attire.

He took the jeans and held them up. The thick layer of mud looked back in obstinate silence, clinging tight to its new home.

"I'll just shake these off, and they'll be perfectly clean again," He announced. He turned away from the were, gripped the waistband tighter and flapped the clothing out into the air. An unpleasant looking fog oozed three feet away, then came back to the earth in a shower of mud.

"Here you go." Somewhere deep in the slight smile he offered with the newly cleaned trousers, a beagle cocked its head and panted hopefully.

[Ellwood]

The big brown beast stared at him, skeptically watching the cleaning proceedings. Sludge free, he looked them over just a moment longer for any unexpected surprises, before noticing the look on Toby's face.

That … look.

"I'm not saying it again," he growled at him, eyes tight with a glare to stare him down.

Rolling his eyes and looking away, he shook his pants just once more himself, to make sure the job really was done. He didn't comment on the fact he hadn't gotten them this clean in awhile. The grapehead didn't need the satisfaction.

Then he rolled his neck side to side, to get himself ready to shift back into his (at least mostly) human form. He still hadn't gotten over the pain like others had, but all the recent shifting was good enough practice. He grimaced as muscle mass shrunk and bones popped. The thick brown coat of fur retracted and disappeared, leaving the hairy wild man etched out where the monster used to be.

He scratched himself a bit more, where dirt and grime still attached to is body, twisting this way and that. Skin clung tighter to the dense musculature, managing to highlight all the intricacies of his figure with every motion like an anatomical model.

"Now tell me more about this 'expert' you want to bring in," Ellwood rumbled, managing to sound almost as much a monstrous predatory beast of war as in his other form. Skeptical derision was outright manifest in his features and voice, as he tried to imagine what kind of person the friendly neighborhood lunatic thought was an 'expert'.

[Toviyah]

Ellwood's answer could be charitably described as a look.

In more words, the narrowed eyes and barely tightening shoulders could easily have said "I'll eat you. I'll do it. I swear I'll eat you and you'd better be full of grape juice."

"I'm not saying it again," the mountain rumbled, threatening a second rockslide. Then he turned his back, ending the conversation and denying Toby the chance for a witty retort that would have ended in his forceful discorporation.

The angel kept quiet. He kept watching. It was a good view. Fur shrank away, revealing skin that stretched tight over a back thick with layers upon layers of the lean muscle that blurred the line between man and mountain. He whistled in appreciation. It was only polite.

"Now tell me more about this 'expert' you want to bring in," Ellwood said, his skeptical tone making it sound like a dare. Big hands busied themselves scraping more mud off his bare skin.

Toby spent a few more seconds admiring the view while the other man wrestled with himself.

The silence began to sound impatient. Toby noticed before it could build to grapehead-crushing levels, and hurried over.

"Hmm? Expert? Oh, right. That expert. Here..." he reached a hand out for the broad back. "You mind?" He aimed at the lower right side and dragged down, grazing what his own senses said might be an itchy spot as he helped to clear more dirt. He withdrew his hand as Ellwood paused to consider it, and stepped clear of the were's personal space.

There was a non-commital rumble, a shrug translated into sound.

Toby stepped in close again, both hands coming in to scratch this time.

"So, about that expert..." he busied himself with the lower back first, attacking the same spot from before with both hands and listening for the faint growling approval. "He's... well... the first thing you might like to know, and you'll be very glad to hear this - he's not like me. Definitely not like me."

"He's older, for one thing." He planted his right palm against the freshly scratched spot and rubbed back and forth, friction leaving warmth behind to soothe the tingling skin while his left hand sought out another spot on the inside of the right shoulder blade, beyond the man's own reach, and began clearing mud and itch alike. "Older, and less talkative. He might understand you better too... which isn't really saying much..."

The familiar rhythm of a massage came back, with thumbs right along the sides of Ellwood's spine and fingers reaching further out, fingerpads pressing into the sections of muscle from both sides. "He knows a thing or two... or two thousand... about sticking sharp pointy things into supernatural entities." He ventured down to the were's waist, reached out to his sides and began wringing mud off skin, tension off muscles beneath, progressing back up.

"He's less of a sociopath. He's had to deal with losing loved ones. He knows what it's like to regret." He scratched back up, over the shoulder blades, until the shoulders were in reach of a massage. It wasn't easy gripping a single steel girder in each hand, but he'd gotten a fair bit of practice over the night. "He's had some experience in being a monster, and then not being a monster again."

He pressed his palms into the skin, just below Ellwood's shoulders, and ground them downwards. "I think you might like him."

[Ellwood]

The sabertooth kept a skeptical look on his face the whole time, still not ready to believe half the things that came out of the older fellow's mouth. Sometimes, he even turned his head to make sure the aged wizard could actually see just what he thought about the whole description. His body rumbled every so often, but such growls came out only half-heartedly.

Savage beast though he thought he was - and may have been - his weakness to a warm massage kept him relatively docile throughout the whole discussion. He listened, and was at least half attentive to the image Toby was painting, and he only thought a little about what kind of grapes he was made of.

Crazy grapes. I bet it's crazy grapes.

The details piled up, crafting the image of someone superhuman but otherwise everything the angel wasn't. He might have approved, if that came from someone else.

But that it was him telling the story, caused the were to snort in disbelief.

"You're not a good liar, are you?" the saber asked, almost derisively. "Shit, if you're going to make up a demon slayer, at least try to make him sound a little less perfect. Let me guess. He wears shining white armor soaked in the tears of angels and a noble sword forged in the fires of heaven, too? Whatever. Let's get this over with. I get impatient when I haven't had my share of baby squirrels in the morning."