Lara left Max's just as it began to get dark, and after, Max chose to stretch out on the back porch, face turned toward the forest. It was a warm night and he had no issues with relaxing in just his boxers. The smell of a cool day still sat on the breeze and an owl or two made their presence known, but nothing stirred Max to open his eyes.
Not until he smelled wolf.
Lying still, his eyes opened a sliver - just enough to watch the forest and make use of his jaguar-enhanced eyes. They weren't in sight yet, but they were getting closer. Definitely wolves. The panting and their playful yips were barely loud enough to hear, but it couldn't have come from anything else.
Three wolves passed him, eyes forward and not paying him the slightest bit of attention, until one caught his scent and paused. The other two kept running, not having noticed the third break off. It's eyes were something out of a painting. They were brown, but they glinted with flecks of gold and yellow and appeared luminescent. It's fur was a mottling of grey, black, and white, white dominating it's neck and chest.
It had its head low, approaching cautiously, not seeming to have noticed that Max was awake. Every few slow steps, it trotted forward with its ears perked up. Max was no expert in wolf behaviour, but it looked excited, if a little wary. At this point, it was close enough to be able to reach out and touch it. His fingers twitched with the desire, but Max kept still.
Max didn't even need to move his hand. The wolf pressed it's nose into Max's palm, sniffing and occasionally licking. The cold nose moved until the wolf had to get up onto the deck to be able to sniff the rest of Max's body. This continued for ten long minutes until it noticed Max's eyes. He'd stopped trying to hide that he wasn't sleeping, and settled for watching the creature with open curiosity. On seeing that Max was awake, the wolf froze, waiting for something to happen.
Max replied to the creature's frozen state by blinking both eyes slowly. And then again, until it finally came out of its terrified trance. And yawned, lying down next to Max in the crook of one of his outstretched arms. Max was going to find wolf fur all over his blankets when the wolf left, but he wasn't really complaining. The wolf was warm and it didn't seem very aggressive so Max let it sleep. Which was probably stupid, considering it was a wild animal, but there was no stopping it now. Already asleep, the wolf snored lightly, while the heat radiating off its body began to lull Max back to sleep and breathing in the scent of wolf.
When he woke up, the night was only just beginning to recede and the wolf was gone. The only evidence it was even there in the first place were the long furs shed on the blankets and on Max himself. He wondered distantly when he'd get around to sticking them in the wash.
Strolling inside, Max considered just lying back down on the floor and curling up, but decided against it - his boxers were covered in fur - going for a bath instead. He soaked in the water for a good hour before actually going to scrub the dirt off himself. It was a bit pointless. As soon as he was dressed (just barely managing to pull on a different pair of Calvin Klein briefs) he was back outside, perched on the roof to properly watch the sun rise.
Max's skin itched as he sat there, muscles twitching uncomfortably. He needed to shift again, release the excess energy that came with being a shifter. While he was in the Marines, he could last longer between shifts - two or three weeks at the most - but he'd been in his jaguar form a lot more often lately. Any resistance he'd built up to shifting before had been completely slashed and now he was forced to do so every week.
And that was why he launched himself off the roof onto the grassy ground below. A two story fall - Max was glad he wasn't human. The fall jarred his knees and he grimaced slightly, walking it off.
With his pants discarded on the back porch, among blankets and cushions, he strode into the woods and crouched down. The shift took all of ten minutes, breaking bones and reorganising organs and causing Max a shit-tonne of pain that ended with the body of a jaguar. Even after twenty years of shifting, Max couldn't describe the kind of pain that it caused. It was like burning, but cold; an ache, but sharp; constant, but inconsistent. And once it was over, the only residual effect was a stiffness that vanished with a simple stretch of his body.
Well, if it kept hurting, no one would do it, Max reasoned.
Once he'd finished raking his claws against the trees around his home, he took the trees, stalking creatures below and surveying his territory. Like the majority of mammals, he was territorial and other predatory shifters that he wasn't acquainted with were most certainly not welcome. And so he made the rounds. Until, that is, he caught sight of the wolves in the middle of a wide pond.
Keeping to the trees, he could stay out of sight of the wolves, but he made sure to be as far back as he could and stay downwind of them. Contrary to popular belief, cats had a stronger sense of smell than dogs, but Max didn't know how that translated to big cats and wolves.
They were playing, the wolves. Nipping and yipping and bouncing over each other, they knocked each other into the shallow water. Any prey animals had long since run, and at the appearance of Max, the few remaining birds on the south side of the clearing had also fled.
Despite being perfectly content to just watch them, Max couldn't let his guard down, following every inch of the direction of the wind to make sure that the wolves didn't catch his scent. Right now, though, there was barely even a breeze, and it was flowing from the wolves toward Max. Safe to relax a little. Just a little.
It was the same wolf, Max realised, seeing it's golden-brown eyes and white socks. It was with two others, again. One brown all over and the other a mix of brown and black. They seemed close.
After a while, the wolves began moving again, galloping through the forest at a scenery-blurring pace. He should've let them go. He should've leave them be, let them go where they want to go.
Max followed.
Using the trees as a highway, he could see what direction they were going in and not have to expend too much energy in trying to keep up. While jaguars were faster than wolves, they didn't have nearly as much stamina, being ambush hunters, and Max knew that he wouldn't be able to follow the group for that long.
Why was he following them anyway? Because the gold-eyed wolf was interesting? It didn't behave like a wild wolf should. It didn't keep away from humans or act aggressively - but it was still a wolf.
So Max stopped chasing and returned to his own little piece of land - well, the piece he'd marked anyway. And just as he was preparing to shift back, he heard something. Sniffing. Rustling behind him.
The gold-eyed wolf.
As Max stared, it stared right back at him, then began to approach, slow, cautious. Just like before when Max looked human. Max mimicked the wolf, moving toward it warily, paws barely making a sound on the forest floor. On reaching Max, the wolf nipped his ear and jumped back. It wanted to... play?
Max acquiesced to the wolf after another nip at his ear. They bit and tumbled over each other. A couple times, Max climbed into a tree only to jump out onto the wolf, play fighting in the dry leaves and dirt. By the time they'd tired themselves out, the sun was beginning to go down in the sky.
Max was on his back - a vulnerable position in any animal language - happy for the wolf to lie next to him. It lay its snout over Max's chest, only to suddenly shuffle closer to Max on its belly. With a single lick to Max's face and a nudge to his paw, it got up and left.
Max found himself sadly alone, and launched himself back into a tree. He could see the direction home from this height. Trying not to sulk, he made his way back as quickly as he could. He was not sad. He would not pout over a wild animal that would probably forget him by tomorrow. He would not.
He was. Max was definitely sulking as he went to lie down on the front porch. Distantly, he realised that he was really quite lucky it hadn't rained since he'd moved in or all the blankets and cushions he'd left outside would've been soaked, but he couldn't really bring himself to care too much. Closing he eyes, his body ached pleasantly and exhaustion coated his bones.
He fell asleep only seconds later.