Chapter Text
It had taken every ounce of Hank's self control not to shove his nose in Connor's ass in greeting the next morning. The press of his lips had burned against Hank's all night, leaving him restless. Every time he dozed off he woke up with the memory of Connor's tongue pressing softly inside his mouth, and a throbbing boner. As if the way he'd smelled of old sweat and exertion all evening hadn't painted a vivid enough picture in Hank's olfactory imagination. The only thing that had kept him from dragging Connor over the table and railing him senseless right there was that Gary would be pissed at him fucking the human in front of other people's salad.
Connor had been bashful this morning. His cheeks were rosy, and his lips curved in a gentle smile that Hank was pretty sure wasn't deliberate. His voice was soft, and he didn't make eye contact much.
Hank hadn't either. The memory of that kiss still weighed heavy on his heart. Hank's fingers had brushed Connor's as he handed him his coffee and for a second the world had stopped and only that touch had existed.
Hank had it bad. He'd known he had it bad, but he had it real fucking bad. Apparently Connor did too, or at least he was even more down bad for getting himself some werewolf dick than his kindle suggested. If that was possible.
Being left alone in the apartment set off Hank's urge to pace. Or worse, howl. Hank needed to get out before the smell of Connor had him humping the guy's pillow.
Chicken Feed never closed, although the mornings were quiet. No self respecting werewolf was stopping in for a burger at nine in the morning. The place was a hangout as much as a restaurant. People didn't just come for the food.
Bringing Connor last night had been a statement. The message to every other werewolf in the room had been loud and clear; Connor was Hank's.
“You don't smell like you got some tail,” Gary declared, accusingly.
Hank rolled his eyes. “I don't jump every human to bat their eyes at me.”
If you'd looked up 'skeptical' in the dictionary, it would have included a picture of Gary's face. “Yeah? Well that one wants you to mount him so bad I could smell it from the kitchen.”
Hank cleared his throat. His wife had been human, and that had got him a bit of a reputation as a human fucker. It wasn't as if werewolf/human relationships were rare, even, they just tended to become werewolf/werewolf eventually. Dumb kids thought they'd be together forever and made stupid mistakes, or someone lost control in the heat of the moment and a human partner found out how dangerous werewolf teeth and claws could be.
Hank hadn't turned Jess. Even after--
Even when everyone kept telling him that he should. That it'd spare them both the heartbreak. He'd resisted. A whole world got closed off to humans when they were turned, and they became trapped, reliant on the werewolf that had turned them to introduce them to this new society and way of living. It shifted the power balance in a couple. He hadn't wanted to do that to Jess, or to anyone he cared about. She wanted a child so badly that they kept trying anyway.
Then Cole had come along. Their very own little miracle. Humans called them rainbow babies. Werewolves didn't have a word for them.
And then a simple car had taken it all away. Silver bullets wouldn’t kill a werewolf, but a silver Prius had done it just fine.
Jess had been so grief stricken she'd begged Hank to turn her so they could try again. Hank had refused. So Jess had left, and Hank had walked out of his home and into a bottle.
He looked away from Gary. “You said you had a lead?”
Gary sighed and folded his arms. “You're not gonna like it.”
Hank grunted. “That's a fuckin' given.” He'd set out looking for Sixty, expecting to call on a few old police buddies to help track him down. Except the trail had led right back to Detroit's very own underworld before disappearing.
The last thing he'd found about Sixty on the human side was him being treated in hospital for an animal bite – bill outstanding. Then the trail had gone not just cold, but dead. The guy had vanished.
“Delilah says she smelled him when Kamski was trying to recruit her.” Gary's face was a tight scowl. “After meeting your guy last night, she's sure.”
Hank's insides churned. The name Kamski was enough to piss him off. The possibility that he'd got his claws in Connor's brother pissed him off more. “Someone needs to fix that asshole,” he growled. “Is that bitch still running things?”
Gary's slow nod was sufficient answer. His arms were tight across his chest, shoulders hunched in. Hank raked a hand through his own hair.
You didn't tangle with Kamski. The guy was insane, with weird views about werewolf supremacy. Some of the nuttier werewolves, the sort that called themselves pureblooded, or wereborn had flocked to him, but that wasn't what made him dangerous.
It was the fact he recruited newly turned humans, ones who hadn't had an easy time of it, or had left their families, or found that the relationship they thought would last forever had turned sour. He drew them in, made them think that they were better than humans now, and they didn't need human society. And that his version of werewolf society was the right version.
One where they were second class citizens still, compared to himself and his fellow wereborn assholes, but they were still above werewolves that associated with humans, or that were sympathetic towards them.
There were stories. Occasionally someone got out, or had a narrow escape like Delilah, and they came back with tales of how he told the young ones that sex and dominance went hand in hand, and that the alpha wolf, meaning him, would prove his dominance by fucking the lower order females, who were only allowed to screw him. Beta males weren't allowed to fuck, unless he gave them explicit permission.
It was bullshit dominance and aggression dynamics that you found in wolf packs made up of strangers that were kept in zoos. Packs that hadn't formed naturally. But it was a popular enough human misconception that it sounded right to these lost, young kids who got drawn in.
Sometimes Hank fantasized about walking into the guy's compound and tearing his face off his fucking skull.
“Fuck.”
“Is he worth it?” Gary's question cut across Hank's thoughts and made him pause.
“What?”
“Connor,” Gary explained. “Is he worth it?”
Hank blinked. He hadn't even asked himself that question. He'd promised to help Connor find his brother, and that's what he was gonna do. Connor deserved it. He was a good person. He'd been helping others for years, even when there wasn't anything in it for him. He'd helped Hank, taking in an injured dog without a second thought.
Dealing with Kamski, and Amanda, wasn't even approaching an inconvenience above what Connor was worth.
“Of course.”
Gary nodded again, and unfolded his arms. His hand landed on Hank's shoulder, companionably. His fingers squeezed. “Then for god's sake, fuck him already.”
Kamski's complex had started life as a mansion, fallen into disrepair, and then failed to be rescued multiple times through Detroit's bust years. Kamski had come along in the late 2020s and offered the right people a lot less money than he should have.
There were still echoes of former splendor, from back in the days when the automotive industry had made all the white people rich. The architecture was grand and imposing, built to impress upon the casual passerby that rich assholes lived here. But to a werewolf, the gates stank of at least fifty different others leaving their mark.
They all smelled like born werewolves. Sixty sure wasn't among them. But Hank trusted Delilah's nose. If she said she'd smelled him here, then Hank believed her.
At the gates was a security intercom. Hank pressed it, and waited.
After two minutes he pressed it again. Cameras were turned down to the gated entrance. He stared up at them, his arms folded.
“I can wait here all day,” he said into the intercom at his third press. “Amanda knows how stubborn I am.”
It took another five minutes after that before there was any movement. The gates didn't swing open. Instead a lone figure made her sedate way down from the main entrance. She was dressed in glittering silk, her hair braided into a severe updo. Her expression was serene as she approached, but her scent--
Her scent made the hairs stand up on the back of Hank's neck. He had to fight not to step into his other shape, no matter how hard it bayed to rip her throat open. It would be a dumb thing to do; there were too many werewolves here that would tear him apart for laying a claw on her.
“Hello, Hank,” she said, radiating calm and control. “How can I help you?”
Hank tried not to breathe too much. “I'm looking for someone,” he growled. “Six feet tall, brown hair, brown eyes. Might have gone by the name Sixty when he came here.”
Amanda's head tilted. Hank had thrown her off guard. “And what do you want with this person?”
“Just to talk,” Hank answered. “I promised his brother I'd look for him.”
“Is his brother a werewolf?”
Hank resisted the urge to tell her to take a big long sniff and see if she didn't already know the answer to that. After a few days at Connor's place, and after last night, he must stink of him. “No.”
Amanda's face didn't change. The answer was no surprise to her. “You know our rules, Hank. You might not respect the way we live, but we all made our choices.”
“The brother isn't here,” Hank snapped. “I am. I'm asking to see him. After everything, you can grant me that.”
Amanda went still. Her eyes flickered over Hank, no doubt taking in all the ways he'd changed and become deconditioned in the three years since he'd last talked to her. She landed back on his face. “Out of all the werewolves here, he's the one you want to see?”
Hank forced himself to exhale, slowly. “Yeah.”
Amanda's mouth was perpetually fixed in a frown. Judgemental disapproval was her default expression. “Then I'll see if he'll consent to speak to you,” she answered.
She turned and walked serenely up to the old mansion. Hank spotted distant pairs of eyes in pale faces peering out through the doorway as she re-entered. The door closed. Hank folded his arms and leaned against one of the gates' support columns, making sure he was in full view of at least one of the cameras, and prepared himself for a long wait.
They kept him waiting for over an hour. Occasionally one of the cameras would move, as if someone at the controls was checking if he was still there. Hank gave it a wave at the sound of its lenses shifting.
The main door opened again. Hank peeled himself away from the wall. Amanda made her way back towards the gate, but this time there was someone with her.
Shit, he looked exactly like Connor. His hair was longer, but all the rest of his features were the same, right down to the cleft in his chin, and the stupid freckles on his face. He smelled different, too. That original smell that had been on his lacrosse glove was still there, two notes off from Connor's own scent, but there was something else now, too. Something recognizable.
Sixty hung back behind Amanda, the way Kamski liked all his subordinate werewolves to act. But he stared Hank directly in the eyes, like it was a challenge.
Amanda gestured to him with one hand, like he was a shop display mannequin. “As you can see, he's safe and well, and staying with us.”
Hank ignored Amanda. “Your brother misses you.”
“We don't allow humans to visit our territory--” Amanda began.
“He's been looking for you for the past six months,” Hank talked over her, his eyes directly on Sixty. “He just wants to know you're okay.”
“Tell him I am,” Sixty answered. Even his voice was identical to Connor's, with that same rasp, and richness. “I'm with people that don't look at me as just a copy of him. They care about me for me.”
“Connor cares about you for you,” Hank answered.
Sixty's lip curled in disgust. “Connor's pathetic, and weak. He always needed to be better than me. That's all I was to him; something to compare himself against.”
Hank frowned. That line said more about how Sixty viewed himself than about how Connor viewed him. It had to have sucked for both of them to be brought up in an environment where they were compared and used to highlight each other's successes, and by inference, failures. Sixty had got the shittier end of a stick that was covered in shit all over.
He wasn't going to get through all of that, plus the bullshit Kamski fed people, in one conversation.
“Then show him how strong you are now,” Hank answered. “You're doing well here without him, and he's living in a cramped apartment all alone. Don't you want to rub that in his face?”
Sixty paused. Whatever he'd been lining up to say was derailed by the different angle. Hank saw the flicker of realization in his eyes.
“Enough,” Amanda declared. Her voice sliced through the air and severed the thread of the conversation. “We don't allow fraternization with humans.”
Sixty drew himself up. “You stink of him,” he said. “You can tell him.”
Hank sighed. If he had the chance to talk to Sixty without Amanda breathing down both of their necks, he might be able to get through. But like this, he didn't stand a chance. Connor wouldn't either.
“I will,” he promised. “Family's important,” he added, “especially to werewolves.”
“Those are rich words,” Amanda replied, coldly, “from a man who abandoned his.”
The words set off a shiver of irritation up Hank's spine. “I never abandoned my family,” he growled.
The corner of Amanda's mouth twitched into something that might, one day, figure out how to look like a smile. “I'll tell Jess you called,” Amanda answered, wielding cruelty as casually as a blade. “She's about to have her third pup.”
The information dropped like cold lead into Hank's stomach. In the aftermath of Cole Jess had been distraught, and desperate to try again. She'd begged Hank to bite her, and turn her, so that their next pup had a chance. He'd refused.
Amanda had found her instead.
“We're his family now,” Amanda said, smoothly. “Just like we're hers.”
“Calling it a family doesn't make it one,” Hank answered. His eyes drifted to Sixty again.
“No, it doesn't,” Amanda agreed. “Don't come again without an appointment.” She ushered Sixty back up towards the doors. He turned, his eyes lingering on Hank for a longer moment than Hank knew they should. Hank stood in defiance of everything Kamski said; he'd been born a werewolf, sure, but it never stopped him interacting with the human world, or falling in love with humans. He smelled as human as he did wolf.
Family was the true nature of a pack. They were parents, and siblings, and aunts, and uncles, all working together. Lone wolves didn't last long, but a real pack also didn't need to fight for breeding rights, or bites at the meal. Deep down, maybe Sixty felt that.
Hank watched them both retreat. His skin itched. Talking to Amanda made him want to rip it off and go haring through the streets on all fours. The lure of a bottle of whiskey called as an acceptable alternative.
He turned away, and headed back to Connor's apartment.