"Nobody, in my entire life, has ever considered me delicate Hal." She shook her head in amazement. "I'm built like a Mack truck. I'm blunt and impatient and kind of obnoxious. Delicate is the last thing anyone would call me."
Hal was all dimples as he started to nibble on her palm. "You are built, as my grandpa used to say, like a brick house. And very tempting, but we need to be clear on something." He grew somber. "Formidable as your personality and mind may be, you can't back them up with any real physical prowess. If you were a werewolf I'd have just fought you into submission, or you'd have made me submit, and it wouldn't hurt either of us, but if I had tried that just now I could have wounded you without meaning to. For a human you might be tough, but I don't think you have any real idea how much stronger werewolves are. I only look human, or wolven. I'm really both at once."
"Got it." Addy nodded in understanding. "I could fight you into submission as a werewolf?"
Hal shrugged, "Play fighting, certainly, and in an argument depending on our respective moods and determination. We'll likely be fairly evenly matched, most mates are. How else would you make decisions when you disagree?"
"I'm going to plead ignorance on that one until I'm a werewolf. And I don't feel disagreeable just now." She took his hand and kissed his fingertips. "In turn, I should explain for you that those words are all sort of generic safewords human kids use, they tend to be regional. With friends it's like a safeword for real, where you're stopping consent to tickling or wrestling or playing in snow, for fun fights, like sparring with Rob. With enemies in real fights it's an indication of submission, but it doesn't work unless and until your enemy demands it. If you say it before then, you'll get hurt worse and labeled a coward which makes you a target in general. It's the kind of thing that induced C.S. Lewis to say fighting in the trenches in World War One was a cake walk compared to English boarding school."
He looked at her closely. "Why do you know so much about this? Do you study aggression?"
"I study sleep and its effects on nervous system connection formation. Human newborns are born palsied because of signal noise, they have a lot of possible hookups for each receptor but few of them are attached at birth. My mentor, who majored in physics, compared it to radio static. Even brutal spinal injuries before around eight months usually heal very completely, and people noted that that's when sleep drops off radically in infants."
"Interesting. And only half an answer. When did you learn about brutal children, Addy?"
She averted her eyes and remained silent. Her hand tightened almost imperceptibly in his but her stillness otherwise made him consciously aware that she was a fidget. He didn't need a dictionary to spell that out, even though there was no distress in her features. Then again, there was no expression at all.
Addy felt rather than saw Hal sit up and cradle her with his free arm. He stroked her hair gently and rubbed his head against hers in a move so canine it would have made her smile usually. He wasn't actually whining, but it seemed imminent if she didn't pull herself together, so she tried. And failed.
"Hal, don't...you can't be nice to me right now or I'll start crying."
"So start crying. Surely you don't expect me to be cruel for such a stupid reason." He continued to hold her and nuzzled her neck. Addy started shaking and he felt tears on his skin but she still made no noise. It was downright eerie, completely foreign to him, bringing home that they were truly and essentially different types of creatures. When he needed to cry he just did, howling out whatever it was until he felt better.
"Showing weakness is dangerous." Addy sobbed after a moment.
"I am your mate, you are never in danger from me or near me, Addy. You are not in danger, there is nothing to harm you here. I will shift and scent the air if it will reassure you, but though my senses are human right now I still know everything I know when I'm wolven. You felt safe before I pried, and will again soon."
Addy noticed that Hal was petting her now. Something broke inside her and she wept until she was gasping and croaking and snotting all over Hal's comforting shoulder. Noticing the last she looked around for any of her clothes and stuttered out that she was sorry.
"...Says the biologist who drank down my semen and licked me clean too just in case." Hal laughed her off. "I think I'll survive. People whose baby food consisted of steaming entrails aren't usually squeamish."
Addy made a face. "Noted. I'm never going to un-hear that, am I?"
"Nope. Now let's wash your face and call it a night."
