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There are unidentified wolves in Geoff’s territory.
He felt it back at his house and he feels it now, a barely-there itch at the back of his head that blips wrong, wrong, wrong if he focuses on it. Geoff’s pack isn’t a big one, but he prides himself on having a pretty rock solid hold on their territory. Other packs pass through all the time, but never without paying the proper respect, the same he would offer any pack whose holdings he were in. There is a way things are done. Unidentified wolves appearing out of nowhere in an area under his control is not the way things are done.
The three of them approach the park at a brisk walk, still in human skin. They won’t shift unless it becomes very necessary. Geoff doesn’t know what they’re going to be facing, so he brought both Jack and Michael along with him- Jack if a soft touch is needed, Michael if there’s someone out for blood. They enter the park in a rough pyramid arrangement, Geoff at the point, Jack on his right in his place as Second, Michael on the left with his hands pushed deep into the front pocket of his hoodie.
“Which way?” asks Michael lowly.
Geoff scents the air, turns his head, scents again. He focuses in on a little patch of forest to the left. “That way.”
As they enter the wooded area, the smell of wolf gets stronger and stronger. Michael bristles. The approach what may have at one time been a handball court, but now was just a concrete wall standing in a small clearing. The three of them stop, eyes scanning as one. Geoff holds up one hand to stop the other two, and slowly, silently, crosses the clearing himself. He walks to the wall until he’s close enough to see behind it, but not close enough to be sensed right away by someone who is not familiar with the area. What he sees makes him stop short.
He had been expecting a rare lone alpha, maybe, or a scrawny beta with attitude problems that got kicked out of every pack they’d ever been in. He’d been expecting some petulant teenager, barely out of puppyhood, who had gotten frustrated at their family and tried to ‘run away.’
None of these are what he gets.
For a split, bizarre second, Geoff thinks he’s walked in on some kind of murder. Then he realizes it’s maybe the exact opposite.
A lanky wolf is slumped up against the wall, obviously hurt, obviously barely balancing on the tightrope between consciousness and not. His eyes are glazed and he’s slipping into appeasement positions, curling into himself, offering his neck, turning his hands to show the inside of his wrists. Omega, Geoff thinks, clarity hitting him like a ton of brick. The other wolf is short, very short, but compact in a way that implies strength. Beta, Geoff identifies, all the way through. He’s leaning over his friend, fussing in a feverish way, constantly trying to pull the other out of the positions.
“You can stop, Matt,” he murmurs, locking his hands around the other wolf’s forearms, trying to relax him. “Matt, you can stop, we’re safe. I promise we’re safe now. I’m so sorry I let it get this far but now we’re safe, I swear, please Mattie, please come back to me, we’re finally safe.”
The tone in his voice, the wounds on his hands and arms- all over both of them, actually- and the distress signals the Omega is putting out loud and clear all add up to a situation Geoff’s Alpha-instincts can’t ignore. He’s always been the caretaker kind of Alpha, and everything about this situation is pushing his buttons. Something isn’t right here. He takes a step forward, and the sound of his heel hitting the ground sends the Beta spinning towards him.
The expression of terror on his face is not, in Geoff’s book, how a Beta should be responding to an Alpha, even an unknown one. He pushes himself back, covers the Omega with his body as much as he can, as if blocking him from view can block him from harm. Something in Geoff’s chest aches.
The Beta bares his teeth and snarls. “Leave us alone,” he half-shouts. “Leave us alone, leave us alone, leave us alone!” He pushes back further, tries to shield his friend more, half-sobs, “please.”
Geoff calls Jack over.
The Beta’s name is Jeremy, they find out when they have him settled in on of the many guest rooms of the Pack house. The Omega is Matt, and he is tucked carefully into the bed by his friend who then proceeds to stand a quiet vigil over him. Matt hasn’t woken up, hasn’t responded to anything in more than half-whimpers. Geoff wants to know what happened to these boys.
He sends in Gavin first, to check up on them and see if they need anything. He hopes the presents of another Omega will calm them down, because that’s what Omega’s do, and also because it’s quite obvious that Gavin is anything but scared to be here, and anything but scared of Geoff. Geoff might have imagined it, but he thinks that Jeremy looks a little less wary of him when he enters the room. Maybe.
“Is anyone coming after you?” Is the first thing Geoff asks. Seeing how Jeremy automatically tenses right back to the state they found him in makes him realize that might have been a bad place to start, and Geoff backtracks.
“It’s okay if there is,” he says, quieter, trying to project as much calm and safety as he could. “We’re not going to kick you out, I promise. But this is my pack, you know? My family. If there’s going to be a threat that could hurt them, I need to know.”
There’s another pause, but it’s a considering pause this time. Though he still won’t meet Geoff’s eyes, Jeremy answers. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Okay, good. That’s good.” Geoff doesn’t miss the way Jeremy shivers at the praise. “Can I ask what you’re running from?”
Jeremy’s breath hitches slightly. “We’re not criminals. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Never said you were,” says Geoff mildly. “But you two look like you’ve been through some shit.” Both of their eyes dart to Matt, still motionless on the bed. Jeremy absent-mindedly reaches over and pushes a strand of hair away off his face. “I’d like to help you. We all would. But we can’t do that if we don’t know what we’re facing.”
The Beta doesn’t look convinced. He’s twitchy and anxious and everything in Geoff is screaming at him to sooth, which isn’t unusual. Wolves need contact. Betas and Omegas need reassuring touch from an Alpha just as much as most Alphas need to give it. Geoff wants to run his hands through Jeremy’s hair like he does to Michael, or toss an arm over his shoulders like he does to Jack, or kneed the back of his neck like he does to Lindsay. The fact that a wolf he isn’t trying to intimidate is scared of him isn’t sitting well in his gut.
Maybe Jeremy picks up on that a little, because he shifts so that he’s closer to Matt and licks his lips. “The Eastern packs,” he starts, “not all of them, but you know the ones I’m talking about. The…Militant ones.”
Geoff slowly nods. He already doesn’t like where this is going. There are several Militant packs on the East, though thankfully not many. The story goes that they started because of how densely populated the North-East is, and that wolves had to fight for any territory they could grab. Now it’s just packs who are vicious, who just want to claim and claim and claim, to take any smaller pack they come across and devour it, and then take its land. They’re all at least slightly nomadic, never staying in one place for longer than a few years, but thank god they stay mostly to the East. He tilts his head for Jeremy to continue.
“We were- the both of us- we were Boons from packs they had taken over. Matt’s gave him up so they could stay alive. Mine,” Jeremy swallows, “didn’t.” Geoff doesn’t really need any more explanation than that. “We were both the lowest rung there, because we were Boons, and because Matt’s, y’know, and because I’m kind of small.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Geoff snarks without really thinking about it to cover the twisting in his stomach. He knows what ‘lowest rung’ would mean in a pack like the one he’s describing. Jeremy smiles a little and keeps talking.
“So we get to be friends, because there are only so many people at the lowest rung and almost no one at all who isn’t a bloodthirsty asshole. We get to be really good friends,” he pauses, looks at Matt again, “and I guess people started noticing? And neither of us were that great at submitting, because we hated them and what they did to us, and also I’m mouthy and Matt’s not really traditional.” His lips twitch again and he glances at his friend, before pushing definitively down at some memory.
“We shouldn’t have been so obvious we were close. It was stupid. They started taunting us about it at first, you know how assholes are about Omegas, but it escalated. They started using us against each other.” When Geoff looks uncomprehending, Jeremy tries to clarify, voice starting to shake minutely. “We were each other’s collateral. It was like…Submit to me, and Matt will get to eat tonight, or Sit at my feet all day like a fucking Golden Retriever, and I won’t send Jeremy into the ring to fight three Alphas on his own, or Fight in the ring tonight, and I won’t pass Matt around like a party favor to everyone who comes to watch.” Jeremy’s whole body is shaking now, and Geoff doesn’t even try to curb his instinct to reach out and touch his shoulder lightly. Jeremy is so wrapped up in his own head he barely reacts.
“We didn’t think we could leave. We talked about it, but we never thought we could get away safely. But then,” another glance at the sleeping Matt, another hand reaches over to smooth the hair from his forehead. “Things went too far. So we ran. And we ended up here.”
Geoff wonders what ‘too far’ was. He thinks about the wounds on both of them, the appeasement positions Matt was subconsciously slipping into when they found them at the park. He doesn’t ask. All he can think of, looking at this beaten down, neglected, hurt Beta and Omega, is how easily these two’s situation could have become the situation of several in his pack. Gavin and Dan, if they hadn’t been found soon enough. Michael and Ray, if they still lived in the North-East. Geoff swallows and speaks.
“Jesus dicks, dude. That’s a story.”
“It’s a true one.”
“I never said I doubted you.”
Jeremy suddenly becomes aware of the hand on his shoulder and, after an internal debate that shows on his face, hesitantly shrugs it away.
“We’ll be out of your hair as soon as we can,” he says, turning back to Matt. “Thank you for letting us stay in the first place, really. We owe you.”
“You don’t owe us anything,” Geoff reassures quickly, “and you can stay as long as you want.”
By Jeremy’s slightly taken-aback look, the meaning of that statement isn’t lost on him. It isn’t an invitation to the pack, Geoff would never do that so quickly, let alone without discussing it with the rest of his pack, but it’s an implication that the possibility is there. Jeremy looks like he doesn’t quite know what to do with that. Mostly, though, he looks tired and scared and like there’s a bone-deep ache that’s settled in his bones, from running and fighting and being a wolf who couldn’t go to any Alpha for comfort.
Geoff rises. “Get some rest, alright? I’ll send someone in to check on Matt soon.” With a small smile tossed over his shoulder, he leaves the room.
Jeremy slumps, rubs his eyes, feels the weight of the events of the last few days weigh on him. Maybe he will sleep.
A small noise would have startled him, were he not so familiar with it. “Mmh…Jeremy?”
Relief is a physical thing that balls up in his throat and behind his eyes. “Yeah, Matt. I’m here.”
“Where-“
“At local pack’s place. Fuck, you really had me scared, man.”
Matt blinks blearily up at the ceiling. “Jeremy,” he rasps, “Is it safe?”
Jeremy feels the phantom of a kind hand on his shoulder, possibly the first positive touch he’s gotten from anyone who isn’t Matt in god-knows how long.
“Yeah, Matt.” Jeremy shuts his eyes. “We’re safe.”