Patreon Compilation – Fic#219 – Cole/Hanzo – spiritwolf!Cassidy; transformation; becoming a family – Love At First Smell 3

Cole/Hanzo – A more in-depth look into Hanzo's transformation once Cole kickstarts it.

This one is timeline-wise a little difficult because it comes pretty much in the middle of part 2. I'll still call this here part 3 to make it easier but I will mark in part 2 when this part might fit in the best!

Part 1 (Patreon Link)

Part 2 (Patreon Link)

Part 3 (This Part)

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Hanzo is in a half-awake state, lying on the bedding Cole has laid out for him. The stars on the ceiling keep him entranced. They are shifting slowly with the movement of his head, glinting just enough to keep him awake and interested despite fatigue lapping at his limbs.

It takes him so long to realize that the stars are reflections from his hair. Chunks of it have started turning white as the moon in the night sky, lights trapped glittering inside. He’s spent hours in the past few days staring at his reflection in the nearby pond, not thinking just… being.

He slowly lifts a hand and lightly cards his fingers through his hair, watching the stars on the ceiling shiver and dance. Would his pups like the sight? He curves a hand around his slowly growing belly, fingertips pressing against the lower curve of it. They feel warm inside him. Perfect and right.

Cole is out and about. He does not spend all his time in the cave with Hanzo. It wouldn’t… feel right if he were. His whole presence is so… big, so bombastic that it only seems right he should be running through the night sky and ensure Hanzo and his pups are save.

Still… when he thinks about him up there, racing with the light, Hanzo can feel his own feet starting to get restless. It does not help to shift into his other form. It only makes it worse, if anything. It makes him get up from his perfectly comfortable bed and slink through the cave, not wanting to get out and potentially endanger his pups but also needing to move.

Needing to see the stars in the night sky and the moon shining down on him cool and unchanging. He sits down at the mouth of the cave and just stares until his eyes water. His insides are hot and cool at the same time. His joints don’t feel like they’re really there.

The more time goes by, the more Hanzo feels… shifting away from himself. He can vaguely feel the hard ground beneath his ass but he also knows that he’s not down there anymore. Not really.

He’s up in the sky but it feels more like a homecoming than a new experience. Like his existence down on earth, in that cave, making a living for himself as he desperately tried to find his partner had been nothing but a sham. A waking nightmare.

His nose is tickled by the scent of the moon. It’s sweet yet tart. It has his body prickling and his nails dig into the ground as he remembers the scent. He can practically feel that part in his brain right at the back of his head lighting up with memories while the rest of him reels with the realization.

Why? And what? What does he remember when he has never before been like this? Cole has jumpstarted him. He is changing because of him. He doesn’t know… He doesn’t… understand-

He wakes up from his trance when the sky starts to slowly light up with the sun reappearing across the horizon. Dazed, he moves back into the cave and curls back down on his bed.

This time, he can fall asleep immediately.

.oOo.

His sleep pattern shifts markedly. There is just no way he could go to sleep at night when the whole cave is filled with the glinting of stars reflecting off his ever more pale fur.

He feels as if he is in a waking dream. His senses feel dulled, like everything is focusing on those pups growing inside of him. Everything… just not his nose. It keeps drawing him to the mouth of the cave, scenting the air for his mate and the moon high above.

When he closes his eyes it makes him feel like he is running alongside Cole, nothing but the cool night air beneath their paws, the wind dragging against his fur and pulling out the shine of the stars to distribute in the night sky.

It feels so right, so… perfect. Like it is settling back into his bones after having been displaced for such a long, agonizing time.

And he just knows… Hanzo just… knows deep inside his guts that this is the truth. That he had been meant to run among the stars. That once upon a time, millenia ago, he had been up there, wild and free… older even than Cole.

How did he end up down on earth in a dirty cave, living the live of a shifter away from society?

What happened to him? Why does the life he thought he knew feel like such a disgusting lie now?

Because it is. It is a disgusting lie. One he had not even been aware of until now. Until Cole had done… whatever he had done to him.

Setting him free.

Hanzo can feel his body changing, settling, moving on to better things; to things worthy of his pups that he is focusing his energy on. He sits outside of his cave for nights on end, soaking in the moonshine and the stars.

When Cole reappears to spend time with him and make sure his pups are nice and secure inside his belly, Hanzo can tell that he must have changed considerably since he pauses and just stares once his glittering, nearly see-through paws have touched down on the ground.

Hanzo can’t tell for certain, he has been staring at his reflection in the water for so long that he can only barely remember that once upon a time he had been jet black. Now he is almost completely white and cream colored; a lush, thick fur with an almost pearlescent sheen.

He wonders if Cole likes his new looks but is not necessarily worried. The coyote is too enamored with him. He shakes himself once, glittering stars jumping off of his see-through fur, then stalks closer with a broad grin that shows off his sharp teeth.

His scent is everything. It envelopes Hanzo within moments, warm and thick and comforting. Home. His mate.

Cole does not mention anything about Hanzo’s looks, he takes him just the way he is; though he spends a rather long time sniffing at him once they have pressed their noses against one another in a kind of canine kiss.

Cole, Hanzo realizes as he settles down on the ground to let himself and his growing belly be inspected, is born from the stars explicitly; he burns bright and fast, galaxies swirling inside his body and hypnotizing Hanzo as he tries to follow their movements across his almost gaunt body.

Cole is a survivor. Maybe that has kept him alive all these many, many years, running alone and searching for his mate.

Hanzo, on the other hand, is born from the moon, he thinks. He is more stocky than the coyote and less… ethereal. Steady like the moon whose scent keeps pushing through even though Cole is right there, warm and spicy and rubbing up all over Hanzo to mark him as his.

Not that he minds. He willingly lies down and slowly rolls onto his back to let Cole drag his snout against his stomach and sniff his genitals. It’s both relaxing and arousing in equal measures…

Yet as he does so, a weird kind of deja-vu sneaks up on him.

Like he’s been lying just like this during a less benign time. One where he had been hunted and cornered by humans who had thought strands of his fur woven into their hair would make them lucky for the rest of their lives.

He almost feels like he can hear their voices and see their shadows dancing on the cave walls. Threatening.

For the first time in many, many years, Hanzo remembers thoughts he has had once upon a time: I need to hide myself away amongst them until I am not alone anymore.

It feels like a key is moving in a rusty lock.

He hastily rolls around and sits up, chest heaving. Cole is at his side, a worried expression on his face.

What kind of memories have unlocked inside Hanzo?

Cole shuffles close, curling his neck around his in a comforting hug, scent overtaking and pushing away the shadows of ages past to calm Hanzo down once more.

It was in another life. A different, lonely life.

He is not lonely anymore. Nor is he threatened. He has Cole so they may take care of one another.