Work Text:
With Sobieski’s belongings all shoved into garbage bags it’s hard for Decker to pretend. The smell of his pack still lingers on the empty cot beside his own, and the reality of it stings coldly whenever he opens his eyes.
An unoccupied bed that will remain so and a hole inside Decker’s chest where he realises everything right used to live.
His body lies in a tent across from the one that was once theirs, cold and wrong. The soul of his closest family, his pack, his reason stay and protect.
Werewolves aren’t meant to be alone. Need each other in ways the rest of their company will never understand. They feel each other’s lifeforce as an extension of their own, in their teeth and nails, down to the marrow of their bones.
Decker will never tell anyone about the way their fingers slotted together in the dark some nights when the realities of fighting a war seemed a little too similar to fighting to survive as a young werewolf in a world made for humans. He never really had much before Sobieski, no good reason to be the guy who just let shit go. He’d say he’s a different person now than he was back then. Can’t say that he knows how to be that person and a lone wolf at the same time.
The roughness of his bedsheets never bothered him this much before, he thinks. Made him want to wedge his hands into the tight space of his armpits. Decker thinks that maybe this is just what things are going to be like from now on, sweating the small stuff and letting every little annoyance feel like a personal attack.
He throws his head back against his pillow. He’s won’t getting any sleep tonight.