C&P from my tumblr. Brief AU of Wicklow's Odyssey. Wicklow/Rhoades as werewolves.
( Read more... )Rhoades has called him ‘mate’ from the moment they met. “Mate” with shocked awe when his eyes found Wicklow in the dark of his prison cage, in the dark like humans weren’t supposed to do. Wicklow’s mother had lived just long enough to hint to him that there were others like them, and to remind him to hide it, but he’d never met another until then.
“Mate.” In a smooth, rich man’s voice and then again, but lower, in something like a cat’s purr, although Wicklow did not think a wolf made such a sound.
He didn’t trust rich men and he didn’t know wolves, wild or wealthy or purring, so he put his back to wall and lowered his head and snarled.
The other wolf only came closer, glowing eyes steady, not a hint of fangs to be seen. “Mate,” he’d said, a third time, and added another word, one to set Wicklow to growling and make him forget his mother’s every word about caution.
“Mine.”
He doesn’t say that word again, but the other remains, as foreign as any of the Greek words he insists upon using, and the two dollar words from his books as well. Wicklow doesn’t pay it much mind. There are other wolves that run behind Alexander Rhoades, wolves as confused as Wicklow. Wicklow has to dodge them, sniff them out, keep them away. He has devices to learn, and other ways of killing besides going for the throat.
He is curious, although he keeps his questions to himself. The woman carries a rifle but shifts into a nimble brown creature. She shows her fangs when Rhoades approaches, when he looks at Wicklow and uses that word, but she frowns and follows him all the same.
The younger wolf is rangy and big and loud until he isn’t. He moves quieter than anything Wicklow’s ever seen. He smells of secrets and gunpowder and walks apart from the others when they train, but he stills when Rhoades speaks.
The grey wolf, the one-armed, three-legged Colonel feeds them, nips to keep them in line. His eyes glow so much Wicklow thinks it’s only the fact that he, too, is a rich man that has kept the world from guessing what he is.
Rhoades is a wolf who never changes, never in front of them. He does not snarl. He has soft hands and wears silk. But he speaks and even Pilar cocks her head to listen.
He stares at Wicklow, and pauses, as if waiting, and calls him Private Doyle when he is a man, and mate when the small black wolf shows up at his door.
Rhoades wears fine leather shoes. Wicklow thinks they would be equally fine to sleep on.
Rhoades does not touch him, although after a few months he touches the others. On their shoulders, once, at the back of Anthony’s neck, when he’d returned wounded and whimpering. He buys Pilar clothes. Serves hunks of meat to Anthony. Leaves cigars out for the Colonel.
For Wicklow there are plates of food Wicklow will not touch, coats he shies away from, and books.
The books Wicklow borrows, although only within the library. He will not take them from Rhoades’ home.
Rhoades makes no comment on this, although he is more man than wolf, Wicklow thinks, and is overly fond of words. He says nothing, but when he looks at Wicklow, Wicklow wants to tilt his head back and howl.
He does that, howls, for the first time on the date he chooses to be his nineteenth birthday, all alone in the acres of woods outside Rhoades’ family home in Philadelphia. He howls and jumps in surprise at the chorus of responses, and the sudden slurry of motion as Anthony and Pilar rush past him into the trees. They yip for him to follow, so he does, and they return in the morning, muddied, cold, wet, to a hot breakfast and a gaze from Rhoades so fondly amused that Wicklow can hardly meet it.
He doesn’t ask why Rhoades didn’t join them.
“Mate,” Rhoades tells him, before he leaves for another mission. They are all leaving, for weeks this time, but it is Wicklow alone in Rhoades’ library. “Be careful.”
Wicklow is always careful, but Rhoades stares him down and smells of cologne and leather and worry over the skin-scent, warm-scent, home-scent of him, so Wicklow nods. Rhoades smells good, very good, clean and whole. Rhoades smells like the others, but also himself. If he dares to come closer, Wicklow can find the salt of his sweat, the metallic hint of his blood, and the powerful center of him beneath even that. He thinks it’s like honey, or velvet, or gold, although gold itself does not smell like Rhoades at all.
If the others are pack-scent, “Pack,” Pilar tells him, “You are my pack brother. Little Brother Wolf. Little Fierce Eyes.’ then Rhoades’ scent is something else. Leader-scent. “Boss,” Anthony says. “Don Alessandro” “Alexander,” the Colonel grumbles, but with his head angled down. “Fool,” Pilar will add, but then shake her head and admit the rest in a softer voice, “The wolf among the wolves.”
Rhoades’ scent is strong. It creeps through the streets of Washington and finds Wicklow in his lab, and when he is alone in his room. It lingers in Wicklow’s clothes and makes him bite at his pillows when he cannot sleep. Wicklow flushes when he enters the library–the place where the scent is everywhere, and gets on his lips so that when he licks them he seem to taste Rhoades.
He doesn’t understand why the others don’t react to it. Even Anthony will preen for a bit of praise from Rhoades, even the Colonel will flash his eyes when Rhoades speaks, but Wicklow’s heart pounds before he even sees Rhoades, and he knows Rhoades can hear it.
But he does nothing, only continues to offer meals and clothing and a world of knowledge. He comes downstairs to see Wicklow while reeking of men and seed, and the humans he has just fucked slink out the door with bruises on their skin. He says those things, “Mate. Be careful” before sending Wicklow out to spy and lie and kill.
Wicklow wants to bite him.
Rhoades is rich and soft, but Wicklow thinks if he tried to sink his teeth in Rhoades’ throat, he would be the one to end up hurt.
In Chattanooga, they find a Reb wolf, or she finds them. Wicklow finally guts her, but it takes him too long to heal. Her fangs sank in deep, and when he returns, more worn than he’s ever been, Rhoades snarls before Wicklow can manage one word of his report, and in the next moment has Wicklow against the wall and his face to his shoulder.
The wound isn’t serious. Wicklow tells him that, shuddering when he ought to push Rhoades way. He ignores how slow he was to heal, how Pilar had been desperate enough to use their radios to try to reach Rhoades, as if the sound of Rhoades’ voice alone would have been enough to make Wicklow to heal faster.
There is a scar in the shape of her teeth. Wicklow has many scars. This one turns Rhoades’ eyes to gold, and Wicklow is too momentarily taken aback to see a glimpse of this wolf again to notice the hot breath on his neck, the teeth so near his throat.
“Mate,” Rhoades says quietly, distressed or angry, Wicklow can’t tell. The scent of him is everywhere. Wicklow licks his lips and inhales and wonders where the others went, and if they know why he cannot move until Rhoades’ stops shaking.
He stays in the library, that night, and most nights after when he isn’t working.
He eats the food, and accepts one coat.
He takes the books to his single room, and burns when the scent of Rhoades fills the small space.
“Private Doyle,” Rhoades says, over the radio, before fading into crackling silence. It’s the last Wicklow hears from him for three weeks. It’s been a month altogether he’s been away from pack leader, from Rhoades, from good-scent, home-scent, library and hot blood and Rhoades. Wicklow hasn’t been sleeping. It took all his energy to get to Rhoades’ door without shifting.
Rhoades stands in front of him with glowing eyes and smells of another man, and Wicklow is dripping with rainwater and shakes his head like a dog in the street.
Wicklow is on two legs, but he feels animal, uncertain. He doesn’t know why Rhoades would call him by his human name when Wicklow can only swallow his whimpers of confusion.
Rhoades smells of another man, human, weak, not-Wicklow, and he knows Wicklow knows this. Wicklow thinks he wants him to know, and for a moment he bares his teeth.
The surprise and hope that weave their way into Rhoades’ scent throw him enough that he backs down, lowers his head, but his glare remains, even as his heart is racing.
Rhoades should rip his throat out, hurt him, as the Colonel has suggested some older packs used to do to upstarts who challenged the pack leaders. But he thinks of Rhoades’ mouth at his throat and trembles. It is not with fear.
Rhoades will know that too. As the others must know. If it bothers him, there is no sign. His voice gentles as he asks for Wicklow’s report, and he puts one hand, one careful hand, to Wicklow’s shoulder as he urges him to sit down and rest, rest at last, mate, put these lonely weeks behind you and rest here, where you belong, and I will keep you safe.
The words are strange, moreso because Wicklow is not sure they are said out loud. He reads them in the tilt of Rhoades’ head, the warm curl of his scent, the shine in his eyes.
If Wicklow turned, even a fraction, that hand would curve over the back of his neck. Strange then, that he finds he can rest despite that.
He thinks it might even be because of it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
