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It hits him in the middle of the cereal aisle.
Something like an electric shock running from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes, the urge to rip his clothes off and feel grass between his toes and just run . Phoenix has to stop and breathe, a few paces behind where Miles is having a staring contest with the new limited edition Steel Samurai-Os.
“I don’t like that they’ve added artificial dyes,” Miles states, going over the nutritional information on the back of the box. "It’s blood flavored, yes, but does it need to be so red?” He frowns, turning around. “Phoenix, should I just get our regular cereal? I’m rather tired of eating plain toast before work.”
“What, you don’t like it burnt?” Phoenix smiles, clearing his throat. The feeling abates slightly. “They probably didn’t think about the dorky adults who’d be eating this stuff for breakfast.”
“Hmph. Better I swallow my pride and sacrifice my health instead.” Miles smirks. “Plus, the reviews were quite positive.”
Phoenix nods. “Yeah, Google keeps showing me articles about it. You know that it’s supposed to be really good with orange juice? Something about vitamin C boosting the iron content.”
Miles makes a face. “I’ll never understand citrus in the mornings. A waste of good orange juice, honestly.” His expression turns serious again. “Did you really hear that?”
Phoenix grins, the toothpick he’d been chewing on does a little roll in his mouth, tongue quick and careless. Those sample weenies had been delicious, and the flavor lingered on the soft wood. “No, Honey. I’m fucking with you.”
Miles turns around, mouth upturned slightly. “I’m going to get these and keep them to myself. None for you.” Tossing the box in the cart, he walks down the aisle and gestures to Phoenix to follow.
“Harsh,” Phoenix mumbles, ambling forward with the cart. Another shiver runs through his body, leaving his teeth rattling. “Hey, Miles, is it cold in here or is it just me?”
“Hm? I feel fine.” Edgeworth looks back and starts at the way Phoenix is starting to sweat, big drops running down the side of his face. He barely needs to lift a hand to feel the heat coming off like waves, it’s almost too much to actually touch him, but Miles cradles his flushed cheek and Phoenix whines low in his throat, soothed but still in pain.
“You smell like you’re changing,” Confused, Miles steps back and looks him up and down. “You’re tearing through your sneakers!”
Indeed, he is. Phoenix could tell that much with the way his feet are ripping out through the front of his shoes, the way his nails lengthen into claws, and the way his teeth are starting to become too sharp and long for his still mostly-human mouth.
Further down the aisle, an older werewolf couple giggles at them. “Oh, young love.” One of the women smiles. “Remember when I kept turning every time you kissed me goodnight?” The other woman laughs and they reminisce while Phoenix shudders into Miles’ hand.
“Yes, well thank you for your input, ladies.” Miles clears his throat, turns his attention back to Phoenix. “I could try to thrall you, if you think it’ll help. Command you to calm down.”
“What if you just start turning too?” Phoenix groans. “It goes both ways, remember? You don’t want to feel what I’m feeling right now,” He looks absolutely miserable, and Miles starts to rub at his back, soothingly.
Thralling as a tool for kinky foreplay was one thing. Actually trying to stop a werewolf mid-transformation? Would probably lead to Miles going feral too and sprouting a matching set of too-long teeth and wings, and then they’d fuck each other bloody right in the goddamn Whole Foods. He takes a moment to think amongst the blast of mated pheromones now permeating the air, flooding into Miles’ throat and sitting on his tongue.
Times like this, Miles wishes he wasn’t a vampire. Every instinct in his body is screaming at him to take the enemy down while he’s weak, while he’s cowering and fighting his own body’s change. The feeling mixes with deep, blood-rich possessiveness of their mate-bond, the cross species link heavy and extra potent.
Miles is horrified to feel his own cock hardening. A werewolf changing outside their cycle isn’t cause for concern usually, but Phoenix has always been able to control it. There’s no reason he should have been triggered by anything, unless...
Miles stares at the toothpick, still dangling between Phoenix’s lips.
“I am taking this for a moment, Phoenix.” Miles reaches and is met with a soft snarl, teeth snapping the toothpick in half.
Miles can’t help but be at least a little offended, and he pulls Phoenix aside to where the cookies and tea-time biscuits line up in colorful, artificially flavored rows. Takes a moment to stare at him like one would a disobedient puppy.
“Drop the other half. Right now.” The look on Phoenix’s face shifts from hostile to surprised, and then wet-eyed and apologetic.
“Oh my god, Miles, I am so sorry.” With deftness and lack of regard for his own fingers, Miles plucks the other half of the toothpick and shoves it in his own mouth. Phoenix runs a furry hand through his lengthening hair. “Ohh, I really don’t feel great,” He groans.
Miles swears. He can taste saffron.
“Those blood sausage samples,” He glares. “They had saffron in them. Phoenix, you’re going to turn and it’s going to be bad,” Miles spits it out and picks up the other half with his handkerchief. “I am going to have a quick word with the manager, who the hell thought it was a good idea to offer samples laced with a known transformation trigger?”
“That’s great, Honey,” Phoenix takes another large lungful of air that just smells like plastic in cardboard, vanilla sugar cookies, and Miles . “Can you sue this place later? I think I’m about to-”
He doubles over, fur erupting under his clothes.
“Right, well,” Miles says, leading Phoenix out the aisle and through the self-checkouts and out the front entrance. Phoenix is whining in embarrassment and arousal, and a bunch of teenagers wolf-whistle at them from across the parking lot. He glares and hopes the flash of red in his eyes is enough for them to stop. It only spurs the teenagers into a more profane bout of heckling.
It takes Miles a second to recover from losing that staring contest so pathetically. “If you can hold it a few moments longer, we can try and get you home and - NNGHHOOO !”
As easy as picking a daisy, Phoenix has scooped up a very red-faced Miles, tossing him over his shoulder while he breaks into a sprint. “Sorry, I don’t think I’ll be in control much longer,” He grunts with a voice thrown into a double timbre that makes Miles’ stomach tremble. “I just, I need to, rrrrrun… ” The words turn into a growl as Phoenix goes faster, the wind stings in Miles’ eyes and all he can do is clutch at the warm, humid fur under him.
It takes what feels like forever, Miles’ undead heart beating hard and fast in time to the heaving beast under him, who has broken into a four-legged sprint and is fast approaching a small pathway that leads to a dog park and forest.
The cool night air feels different to how the park is during the day, and Miles can hardly recognize the clearing Phoenix is taking him to. They’ll have to find a new place to take Pess, because he isn’t sure that he’ll be able to come here publicly after Phoenix is done with him.
“Wright.” Miles murmurs, petting what he can reach of Phoenix’s upper body, his fingers caught at the locket around a giant furred neck. Phoenix slows to an amble and cocks his ear towards him. “Let me down, now, please.”
The transformation shouldn’t cloud Phoenix’s judgment, not if he’s going through a natural cycle, but saffron is the equivalent of a hormonal bomb for werewolves and he’d eaten a lot of those damn weenies. Another moment of Miles’ world turning leads to him flat on his back, flipped over like he has no strength of his own.
“Oof” Miles winces, his vision obscured by a furry head sniffing deeply at his neck. “I cannot believe this is how the evening has ended up. I just wanted cereal.” He mutters.
Phoenix whines and licks a hot stripe up to Miles’ ear.
Miles gasps. Phoenix starts rutting against his thigh and keeps licking, everywhere he can reach.
“Milesss,” He growls. “Can’t focus, need to-” Deep in his throat, rumbling and catching into a snarl. “Bite,” Phoenix’s teeth test the skin of Miles’ throat, right where they’d exchanged their bond bites. “Let me. Please,”
The pool of arousal in his belly spikes as he feels Phoenix’s massive cock slotting into the space between his thighs. The woods are quiet and serene and Miles' senses are filled to the brim with desire. He nods with a short, high noise in his throat.
“Say it,” Phoenix groans and lines his teeth up with the bite mark.
The fact that Phoenix is trying his hardest to hold on and do things right and proper sends a surge of anger and incredulousness through Miles. His eyes flash red and he reaches up in turn, to bite Phoenix where his bond mark sits.
A mouthful of fur is worth it as Phoenix starts to howl, clear and loud. Miles holds tight around thrashing arms, gets ready to keep his jaws clamped, but Phoenix simply rolls him over so that Miles straddles him instead.
He turns his face and spits to the side. Fur and blood catch on the grass. “Bite me?” Smugly, Miles wipes at his mouth. “I got you before you even had the chance, Wright.”
“Uh-huh,” Phoenix’s mouth is slack and his expression dazed. “Fuck, that was good.” He pulls Miles by his hair for a searing, bloody kiss. “Still wanna taste you” He snaps his hips up and Miles meets him halfway with a roll of his own. “Wanna come inside you.”
Miles stops rutting and raises an eyebrow. “Here? My god Wright, it’s the height of tick season.”
Phoenix runs his hands all over the front of Miles’ shirt, slicing buttons off with a careless flick of his claws, he runs one over a pebbled nipple and watches with delight as Miles gasps, head thrown back.
“Just use the comb on me after,” He grins, chasing the hollow of Miles’ throat with his tongue.
Miles scowls. “Do you know how hard it is to get you to stay still?” Not like he can talk. His cock is desperately hard and he starts to grind again. “What is that noise?” Like the sound of a seam ripping, the smell of linen fibers being released into the air. “Are you ripping my pants off right now?” He asks. “Really?”
Phoenix bares his teeth in a grin, and then really pulls at the waistband of Miles’ summer shorts, which fall away much too easily for how expensive they are, the fluid motion leads to him pulling Miles up so that he hovers on Phoenix’s face.
“Fuck!” He hisses, squirming to balance himself so that he can lean on his elbows, tries not to crush Phoenix as though that was even a possibility. A hot, dripping tongue starts to probe at his hole, and Miles bites at his lip to keep from moaning. “Okay, fine then. I won’t think about the ticks. Don’t stop,” He snarls.
An amused huff is all the warning Miles gets before Phoenix really starts to eat him out, pushing his tongue in and out until he’s shaking and close to orgasm. Just before it hits, Phoenix flips him over again and Miles has to blink the vertigo away.
“Stop doing that, just fuck me alread- ohhhh .” Miles gasps, fisting his hands in damp fur. He can see the stars just beyond the canopy of leaves above them, and Phoenix enters him and locks his jaws squarely on Miles’ bond mark. Biting down hard, he can smell his own blood mixed with Phoenix’s saliva.
It’s intoxicating. It’s hard and a little too dry, but the bite chases every inch of discomfort away. It doesn’t take much for Miles to turn his head just a little, wincing as Phoenix follows the movement while still biting. He latches onto the still-raw bite he’d left on furred skin, and as they rut and thrust against each other, they lap at each other’s blood.
For a moment, their perspectives swap, and Miles can feel the saffron coursing through werewolf blood, Phoenix feels the overwhelming desire radiating off his own body. Miles gasps and breaks the bite first, clenching down on Phoenix’s cock. He sits there and tries to catch his breath while Phoenix howls again, pulsing deep inside Miles and filling him with his come.
It takes a while for them to catch their breaths, but Miles is the first to sit up and smack a dozing Phoenix on the chest. “I understand you were poisoned, but did you have to destroy my clothing?” He tries his best murderous face but the effect is lessened by the flush that still lingers on his skin. “I’m going to have to turn into a bat, otherwise I’ll be arrested for indecent exposure.” He grumbles.
Phoenix laughs, loud and throaty, and the sound echoes in the clearing. “We can’t have that,” He pulls Miles down to kiss him thoroughly. “You still need to sue the pants off that store, remember?” He flashes a grin, still toothy but no longer as sharp.
Miles sighs, snuggling into his chest. “I’ll be taking much more than just their pants, Wright. I demand compensation for the harrowing event I’ve just experienced.” He emphasizes his point by poking Phoenix in the nipple.
“Mm, I think they’ll give you a few boxes of cereal,” Scratching his chin, Phoenix shrugs and jostles Miles, rolling him so that they can lay flush on each other. “You’d take the deal wouldn’t you?”
Miles looks at him, shakes his head, and turns into a bat.
“To hell with it,” He says in his little bat voice, beating his wings hard to avoid Phoenix grabbing him. “Race you home, first one there decides tonight’s takeout?”
The night air is cool and soothing and Phoenix grins as Miles flies away. He cracks a shoulder with a quick stretch before he takes off to catch up with his husband.