James straightened. He had taken off his tie and blazer and his hair was slightly messier. He must have been wringing his hands through every tuff of hair. James was just as freaked out. Eric was too blinded by his own panic to notice. Eric wanted to apologize, but James glared at him fiercely, "No. I told you. It's not fair. I don't want you to have it."
He was good at poking Eric's buttons. Eric huffed, "It's the only way."
"No. You could trust me. You could trust Delphine. I'm your..." He couldn't say it. That big confidence he was boasting, James swallowed back up. He sighed and turned away, "fine." He glanced back around and pointed to a chair at the desk on the far side of the room, "But you have to stay all the way over there, got it?"
Eric frowned. What did he think was going to happen?
Yet, as he was told, Eric sunk into the desk chair. James just stood there, but Eric saw several things happening. He could hear James' fluttering heart and feel it’s pulse create waves. He blushed. His breathing hitched. He really was a mess.
James couldn't look at Eric. He looked at his shoes and it didn't seem like anything was happening. There was no flashy light or crazy colors. The smell came slowly. It faded in like the beginning of a song and then suddenly, Eric's heart started beating faster. A thrill danced through his body and he leaned forward, the smell enrapturing him.
James smelled like home after a three course meal had been served but more fulfilling.
James smelled like a crackling perfect bonfire in the woods, but warmer.
Eric stood, even though his legs begged to give out. James shrunk and raised a warning hand, mixing his smell up in the air and Eric had to freeze just to take it all in. James might as well just slapped him across the face. His chest seized, and he couldn't breathe anymore. James' skin called out to him, like a beacon of hope. James could save him from this unquenchable agony by tasting his flesh.
The wolf inside Eric growled, reeved and ready to pounce. Go to him, his wolf begged, wishing for nothing more, but to roll around on top of him until James was his and he could never run away again. James' smell devastated Eric.
He tried taking a step. His foot hit the ground and the world seemed to quake. James retreated a step back. "Relax," James said, his voice making the hair on Eric's neck stand up. "Please relax or at least snap out of it. Please snap out of it Eric."
Eric closed his eyes, cracking his neck and fanning his fingers out. Every inch of his body was lit on fire, burning faster than paper thrown into a fireplace. He craved James' cool skin. He remembered it, when they held hands.
His wolf growled.
Eric couldn't wait.
He marched across the room, directly at James like oncoming traffic and James didn't have time to jump out of the way. He slid his hands over James cheeks, holding his neck in place. Their pulses mixed together, but Eric couldn't tell whose was whose anymore. James flinched, Eric's kiss landing hard on his mouth. Eric kissed him deeper, sucking all his breath away and James clutched his blazer, unable to keep him at bay. He wanted to kiss him so hard that James wouldn't be able to kiss anyone ever again. His face fizzed, his body rattled and he kissed him more and had James gasping. He liked the way James trembled.
That was when something strange came over him. James' skin glowed and Eric found himself somewhere else with a little freckled face boy at the bottom of some rotten steps. He saw Delphine. Different somehow. Younger and holding her hand out to the boy. He took her hand and suddenly the world spun around and James was getting spit in the face by a pink faced ugly boy.
"Trash," they called him.
"Waste," they called him.
Yet, he saw a little boy who liked to fly heavy groceries to people's cars or fix a doll when the stitching came out. He saw a little boy who didn't cry when he was alone at night, when the loneliness felt like a knife scratching into his heart.
He saw James at his first wedding. Feeling strong and invincible. He saw the happiness he brought and thought there could be no greater fulfillment. He felt powerful, like a superhero.
Eric saw a wolf. One he didn't know. Not from Eric's pack. James said something and the wolf snapped. He grabbed James by the throat and when he meant to throw James against the wall, he threw him out the window. Eric saw red. He watched James, covered in wires in a hospital, vow that he'd never date a werewolf again. That they weren't worth the pain.
And neither was he, not for love.
He'd give it to everyone else.
He saw James accidentally run into a guy in the hallway and Eric felt the terrible embarrassment and then the pain of being made foolish by that person, by himself. He could feel the uncomfortable awkwardness Eric didn't recognized through James just because Eric couldn't take a joke. And then, all of James' excitement to help dashed because James felt like he couldn't stop screwing up.
He saw James hand Izzy the cake and say "If Eric ever needs a better night's sleep, give him chamomile tea or make lavender muffins." How did he know?
Eric saw him alone in this hotel room, torturing himself over the fact he's never been more terrified in his life and letting some guy waltz in and make him feel even smaller than before.
Eric almost saw more, when everything froze and black filled his vision.
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