3. Dennis #5
He stood and crawled back onto the bed, then over Bjorn’s furry form, until he was squeezed between bear and wall. Then he gave the bear a hard shove. Snorting but not waking up, Bjorn allowed himself to be moved an inch or two, just enough that Dennis could lay down and still breathe.
He’d take it. He closed his eyes, steadied his breathing, and tried to go back to sleep.
***
The next time Dennis woke up, there was a naked man cuddled up to him with his face in Dennis’s armpit. Bjorn’s leg was curled between Dennis’s, his knee lightly pressing against his balls, and half his considerable weight was pressing Dennis into the bed.
Dennis groaned quietly, unsure whether this was better or worse than being kicked out of bed by a bear.
On the one hand, no more bruises. On the other hand, he was sweating and his balls were in danger.
He shifted carefully, trying to get out from under Bjorn’s weight, with limited success.
Mostly he just succeeded in increasing the pressure on his balls, and that was suboptimal. “Bjorn?” he tried.
Silence.
“Bjorn.”
A low snore that blew against his skin. Goosebumps popped up on his skin.
“Bjorn!” he snapped, slapping the other man’s shoulder.
“Snnwhaa?” Bjorn snorted awake, lifting his head a bare inch. “Mate?”
“Not your mate,” Dennis ground out. “And move.”
“Move? Where?” Bjorn sounded like he was still mostly asleep.
“Off me,” he said through gritted teeth, wedging a hand between their torsos to push at Bjorn. “You’re heavy.”
A moment of silence as Bjorn processed that, and then he shifted back a bit, pulling his leg away from Dennis’s balls but staying within touching distance. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “Though I did warn you I’m a cuddler.”
“Just…” Dennis sighed. “Just move over and go back to sleep.”
“Mmm.” It sounded like he could do that with no problem, and Dennis let out a relieved breath and turned over onto his side.
Just as he was drifting off again, he felt Bjorn reach out and touch his hand lightly, but he was too sleepy to worry too much about that.
***
It was daylight when he opened his eyes again, and at first he wasn’t sure what had woken him up.
Then he tried to draw in a breath and realized two things: first, there was something tickling at his nose and mouth, and second, there was a heavy weight right over his diaphragm, holding him down.
He peeled his eyes open to try to figure out what was going on.
All he could see was brown…was that fur?
It all came back to him in a rush. Bjorn, the fish, mates, one bed, double-booked cabin…sharing the bed. Bjorn had apparently gone furry yet again in his sleep, judging by the fur tickling him.
He managed to wedge his upper body up in bed, dislodging what turned out to be a heavy paw from his face and neck.
Belatedly, he remembered that bear claws didn’t retract and he was lucky he hadn’t been scratched in the process, but it was a bit late for that realization now.
He looked down his body to figure out what was holding him down and discovered that Bjorn was asleep almost crossways on his body, his big head resting on Dennis’s wall-side hip and the rest of him draped over Dennis’s abdomen.
No wonder he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“Bjorn,” he said loudly, giving the bear’s shoulder - was that a shoulder?
- a shake. The fur was surprisingly soft to the touch, though still coarse in texture.
The bear grunted and nuzzled deeper into Dennis.
“Bjorn!” For fuck’s sake, this guy could sleep through anything.
He lifted a hand and flicked the top of Bjorn’s rounded ear. “Get up!”
The bear growled grumpily, but lifted his head, releasing some of the pressure on Dennis. He regarded Dennis quizzically, and Dennis could practically hear him thinking Why’d you wake me up?
“You’re fucking heavy,” he complained, shoving Bjorn again.
The bear grunted again and stuck his nose into the crook of Dennis’s neck.
Dennis practically levitated off the bed in his haste to get away.
“Ohhhh no. Nope. Nope, nope. Get that mouth away from me.” He knew what happened if his mate bit him on the neck.
Not that he believed in mates, still, but, well, everyone knew about claiming bites.
Whether mates were real or not, claiming bites definitely were.
Managing to look hurt - how could a bear’s face do that? - Bjorn pulled back and huffed, then rolled across the bed and onto the floor. He shook out his thick pelt, lifted a paw to scratch his ear, and plodded across the cabin toward the kitchen, where he started nosing around the cabinets.
Dennis watched him in stunned silence for a few seconds before he realized that Bjorn was trying to get at some food and he didn’t have opposable thumbs in this form to help himself.
Dennis sighed and climbed out of bed, pausing to pull on his jeans.
“I’ll get it,” he announced. “Don’t bite the cabinet handles. ”
Huffing again, Bjorn sat down on the kitchen floor to wait for him. As he considered the enormous bear who presumably wanted a Pop-Tart, Dennis took just a moment to consider how the fuck this was his life.