Page 25 of Bear With Me

“Not shifting turns you into an asshole?”

Bjorn considered how to describe it to a human. “It’s like…imagine you share your brain with a pretty smart child, and only one of you can control the body at a time. You can reason with the kid, and most of the time they’re ok with you taking the lead because you understand the world better, but sometimes they get the zoomies or wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and it’s all tantrums and arguments until you give in and let them run around.”

Dennis blinked and turned his head to look at him before focusing back on the road. “Your bear is like a toddler?”

Bjorn snorted, because honestly…kinda. “It’s not exactly like that. But that’s the best description I can give of how I know when I need to let my bear out. If I don’t do it at that point, I become short-tempered and sometimes I’ll start sprouting patches of fur in random places. Which itches like hell, for the record.”

“Noted,” Dennis said dryly. “I guess it’s kind of like how some days I just really need to hit the gym and work off some excess rage. Except…hairier.” He laughed quietly. “This is fuckin’ weird as hell.”

“What?” Bjorn asked innocently. “That you’ve reached your advanced age without a basic understanding of shifter physiology? It sort of is.”

“Asshole,” Dennis snarked without much rancor. “I just…didn’t grow up knowing any shifters. And since I’ve had the pub, mostly my encounters with them have been fights, matings, and people shifting when and where they shouldn’t. Nobody ever stops to explain what’s going on to the bar owner at those moments; they’re too busy fighting, fucking, or destroying my shit.”

“Hmm.” Bjorn considered that. “And thus why you don’t want me in your life. You think shifters are chaos personified.”

“Well, you kinda are.”

“We’re not, though,” he said, trying not to sound too insistent. “I mean, at our worst moments, sure. But 90% of the time we’re just normal people, living normal lives. And can you really say that humans can’t also be destructive assholes when they’re agitated?”

Dennis shrugged. “I mean, no, but I’ve never had a rampaging human destroy six of my barstools because they met their mate, shifted, and forgot how big they were.”

Ok, that was probably fair. Bjorn winced sympathetically. “It’s…pretty overwhelming when you realize it’s your mate. And no shifter past puberty is used to not being able to control their shift. So I guess I can understand how that would happen. I wish you wouldn’t hold it against us as a species, though. It's not like humans don't get into bar fights.”

“Eh.” Dennis didn’t look persuaded, but he also didn’t look quite as grumpy as he had when they first met, so Bjorn was going to call that progress. “It’s not that I’m holding it against you -”

“You are.”

Dennis shot him a dark look and continued as if Bjorn hadn’t protested. “- so much as I just realize how messy things get around shifters. And I don’t like mess.”

Bjorn pursed his lips and tried to think of his next move. Dennis was definitely holding shifting against him. Bjorn needed to get past this block of his. But how? “You know,” he ventured slowly, “you may not be able to tell because I'm generally a happy person, but this situation is scary for me too. Suddenly I can't control my own body. I'm shifting at times and in places where I'm not prepared for it, which means I accidentally do things like knock over tables and squish bread. That's not stuff I want to do. It's actually pretty embarrassing.

"And when I try to put myself in the headspace of people who've maybe met their mates in your bar, who are startled and embarrassed and overwhelmed by a sudden urge to claim their person…I guess I can see how chairs might get broken and stuff, through no malice of the shifter's. And while yes," he added, holding up a hand to forestall Dennis's protest, "I know that doesn't fix your broken chairs, there are probably ways to help those shifters keep calm to minimize the damage. And maybe, just maybe, having a shifter in your life might give you some insight into how we work and what those strategies are. Which would, in turn, maybe let you keep things under control at your bar better.”

Dennis did not look entirely convinced, but he did look thoughtful. That was ok; Bjorn would keep working on him. They still had a couple of hours in the car, and then however long they were with Gran, and then the drive back to the cabin. Bjorn determinedly set his jaw. He’d win his mate over, one way or another.

8

Dennis

The road to the den was going to be the death of his truck, even though his truck was built to be hard-wearing. There were endless potholes. Overgrown branches scraped against the paint on both sides. Dennis was pretty sure that if their caravan of two cars, his and that of the people who'd met him at the entrance to the bears' land, encountered another car going in the other direction, one of them would have to back up a quarter-mile or more to let the other pass. He hit another unavoidable pothole and winced. “Why don’t you guys keep up this damn road?” he asked Bjorn grumpily.

Bjorn just shrugged. “Only den members use it, and I guess we’re used to it. Plus, it discourages unwanted visitors, and Escalus loves that. He’s not a people person.”

Dennis managed to avoid the next pothole and breathed a sigh of relief as the road suddenly opened up to a dirt clearing that was apparently used as a parking lot, because he counted at least a dozen cars and trucks. “Your alpha…doesn’t like people? Like, the guy who leads your people, doesn’t like people?” he asked incredulously as he brought the truck to a halt in an empty space and shifted into Park.

Bjorn just shrugged again. “He’s a good leader. He’s just…also grumpy.”

Before Dennis could reply, two men and two bears materialized out of the car that had accompanied them and took up positions surrounding the truck. “What the fuck?” he blurted. How had bears even fit in there?

One of the men strode up to his window and knocked. “Please identify yourself,” he said with a growl in his voice.

Before Dennis could react, Bjorn had thrown open his door and popped out of the truck. “Hi, guys!” he said cheerfully. “We’re here to see my Gran. Do you know how she’s doing?”

The man who’d challenged them examined Bjorn critically. “Oh. Hi, Bjorn. Why are you naked?”

As if on cue, Bjorn shifted, dropping down to all fours with a grunt. The man’s eyes widened. “The fuck?”

“Oh, shit,” the other man in human form chortled. “Did Bjorn seriously just lose control? I love it.” Meanwhile, both bears lumbered forward and started sniffing at Bjorn. One then backed up and grunted at his human companions, who acted like he’d spoken English. “No shit?" said chortling-man. “His Gran’s gonna love this.”