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Time passes. Well before Zeus's thirteenth birthday, he looks human-25, and then he stops, and Harley catches up; Zeus is still taller, but not by much, and burlier, but not by much.
Wolves have a lot of casual sex amongst themselves; the girl wolves can't get pregnant, and with pack telepathy it would be pretty hard to hide a secret crush. Everyone avoids getting serious - well, the lesbians don't, but any couple involving a male wolf has to avoid deep emotional entanglements that would shatter if he imprinted; the Imperial Seer helps, but she is not perfect and they will live for long enough that even a slim chance adds up. But casual sex absolutely happens. Zeus has a friend with benefits by the time he's fifteen (her name is Kitty, but she thinks this is ridiculous, and prefers "Xanthe" after her yellow fur).
He helpfully passes on to the pack that Harley thinks they are all hot; several people take advantage of this information, and Harley has more than one friend with benefits at the age of fifteen.
(Meanwhile, the masquerade is in tatters; wolves are just more convenient than looking for human partners, at least until Zeus decides he's interested in the Seer finding him a suitable imprint.)
This newfound interest does not mean Zeus and Harley don't hang out, even now that they're both sixteen. Presently, Harley is getting his ass handed to him by his wolf-reflexed sparring partner at a mo-cap fighting video game entitled Bloodsport V.
her_imperial_radiance
[You are the best. This omelet is the best. I conclude that you are this omelet.] He pauses between bites long enough to grab Harley by the arm and bite his wrist, not hard. [I may have miscalculated.]
Zeus returns to the much more rewarding task of biting his omelet instead. [This is so tasty that I don't even care that you definitely poisoned it and I shall suffer sickness unto death. What a way to go.]
"Yeeeep," laughs Harley. "I would be the best assassin, people would just line right up to be poisoned."
[You could be an executioner. People would tell you what they wanted for their last meal and then eat up their sentence.] Zeus has never lived in a world where the death penalty was standard - at least not for anyone for whom a choice of last meal would be meaningful - but there is always fiction about the past.
Zeus makes short work of the omelet despite its wolf-appropriate portion size. "Thank you," he says warmly, "you are great and that was great and I am no longer in danger of withering away to a wisp of nothing."
"I'm amazed," says Zeus in mock astonishment, flinching as though Harley is very surprising, "I cannot figure out how you happened, it must be magic that is even more magic than regular magic. Double magic. That is the only explanation for you and how amazing you are."
Pat pat pat. "Remind me which of us periodically turns into a tail-wagging fluffy canine creature?" he asks dryly.
"Oh, okay, then this makes perfect sense," says Zeus, "nothing incongruous about this picture, I must have been daydreaming."
"Very good, you get a -" Zeus scans the kitchen for something to stand in for a dog treat, and settles for a bit of mushroom that didn't make it into the omelet. "Facsimile of a biscuit."
Leg-hug.
Idly, "What's it like only wanting to kiss people with boobs? I mean, you know me, I'll kiss anybody with a face."
Idly, "What's it like only wanting to kiss people with boobs? I mean, you know me, I'll kiss anybody with a face."
"I bet you'd kiss somebody without a face, if you could figure out how the hell to do it," says Zeus. "I dunno, it's... I am aware that mouths work the same on everybody? I just don't ever feel like putting that knowledge to practical use. No matter how hot Xanthe insists it'd be."
"Pack telepathy makes it kind of confusing because I am aware of what it's like for other people to want to kiss the unboobened population," says Zeus. "Xanthe, any of your miscellaneous playmates, random traveling-pack-people, whatever. When I'm sorted out in my head I know it's not mine, though." He taps his chin again. "At least insofar as I've bothered to think about it, which, I'm not completely un-self-aware, but also am not Her Majesty, you know? Maybe kissing is boobs-only and, I dunno, blowjobs aren't." He contemplates this. "I just made that up but now I think it might be true."