Work Text:
Anna sat on the couch, immersed in her own thoughts. Her hands were warmed by the mug of cocoa in her hands, but they really didn’t need to be. Firstly, werewolves ran warm to begin with—even if Anna made the excuse that “cozy” and “warm” were completely different. Also, Washington was getting warmer as the months ticked by. She left Chicago after Christmas, spent a brief amount of time with her family where she had sort-of introduced them to Charles, and then was off to Aspen Creek, Montana. They were there for two days and then on their way again towards Washington. She was part of Adam’s pack by the time the full moon had rolled around in January, realistically. Though, her time with them had been brief prior to her petition (that was what they called it here) and joining.
Apparently, petitioning was a thing that werewolves did even when they were already werewolves.
Now they were coming into April and the chill wasn’t as biting, even if it was present.
Charles had been by frequently since January. First, he had come every other week and now he was coming once a week or—if he couldn’t manage that—once every other but for a longer stretch. His visits definitely stressed Mercy out just a little, Anna had begun to recognize the way Mercy, too, started to withdraw slightly when the dominance in the room got stifling. It was more subtle than her own reaction and sometimes it took longer to elicit, but it was there in the way Mercy became slowly more mindful of her behavior.
It made Anna feel sorry for stirring up trouble, Mercy had been lending her a home to live in and she was bringing werewolves around more frequently.
But Charles was the perfect gentleman, certainly more so than his brother. Where Anna felt frustrated with her consistently poor response towards Samuel’s worse days, especially knowing she was supposed to be able to help him, she didn’t feel panicked by Charles’ presence. She thought, maybe, it was because he hadn’t been around her in the same sort of mood that Samuel could work himself into. But there were other things, too. Charles sort-of inherently took up space, the way she found Adam did. They didn’t blend into the background well, but they didn’t feel smothering. Samuel felt a little suffocating and she suspected that was probably because of how he had wormed his way into Mercy’s home at all when Anna considered Mercy to be less than interested.
“What are you thinking about?” Mercy came from the bedroom.
She had only just gotten home from work and showered, but she still smelled faintly of motor oil and Anna had come to find it comforting.
“Samuel.”
Anna felt a sense of pride warm her more than the cocoa when she recognized Mercy’s slight spike of anxiety. It wasn’t a secret that Charles’ older brother had caused a few small meltdowns on Anna’s part.
But, the other woman managed to pretend like she didn’t think anything of it with a casual “what about him?”
“I don’t like him.”
When Mercy spun around—she had been headed towards the fridge initially—Anna winced before realizing she wasn’t upset.
They both took a pause to let her regulate her heartbeat.
“That’s ok. He’s a bit of a luggage car.” And when Anna made a face because she didn’t understand, Mercy continued. “Lots of baggage.”
“Do you like him?”
“We aren’t going to be passing the Bechdel test tonight, are we?” Mercy sighed, sounding a little amused as she redirected herself back to the fridge.
Anna watched as she grabbed a bottle of water and then offered the pot she’d boiled for cocoa. Mercy seemed to consider it a little longer than necessary and then put the water bottle back and grabbed a mug.
“It’s ok if you like him.” Anna said as Mercy poured. “He just gives me bad vibes.”
“Bad vibes,” Mercy sounded amused, “Go on?”
Anna noted that she should ask the other woman how old she was later. She had been operating under the assumption that she wasn’t more than a few years older, but maybe she was older than that (still in the human sense). Someone in their thirties might not know about vibes.
“You said,” Charles had said, actually, “That you were sixteen when you were together?”
There wasn’t really a good way to spin that, not if Mercy was only in her thirties. If she was thirteen-hundred, maybe Anna could make an exception for her thinking it was ok.
“Sixteen when I was sent away from Aspen Creek.” Mercy agreed, but Anna wasn’t sure if she was intentionally avoiding a straight answer or if that was how Mercy thought of the situation.
Anna had learned through experience that it was easy to trick yourself into thinking something was acceptable, especially when you didn’t know any better. Sixteen was too young to know much better. Certainly it was too young to know better when you were sixteen and the person telling you it was ok was someone you were meant to trust.
“That’s creepy, Mercy.”
She was maybe a little jealous of how effortlessly beautiful the other woman was as she took a sip of her drink and pulled her hair so that the plait she’d woven it into post-shower rested on her shoulder.
“Samuel creeps you out, but Ben is ok?” They did feel a little differently about Ben versus Samuel, though Mercy didn’t sound offended when she asked it.
That was good. That was improvement.
Ben was in no way a good person, Anna didn’t kid herself. She didn’t know that much about him, but she was informed of enough from concerned third-parties that she got the gist. But Ben didn’t pity her, he didn’t coddle, and he was surprisingly good at being quiet when she needed it. It was a mutually enjoyed peace when they were together.
Plus, sometimes he was an unwilling sounding board for her feelings about Charles and he hadn’t complained yet. He had been a wolf most of the time, so maybe that was why.
“Ben’s language alone should set me off.” Anna agreed, thinking about it. “I don’t think he really means it.”
What she really meant was “it doesn’t hurt when he says it”. And he never said it to her or about her, even if he said it in front of her.
Mercy changed the subject back, very clearly noticing the moment of silence.
“Sixteen is pretty normal to someone Samuel’s age.”
By that standard, it would have been normal for Charles, too. Anna didn’t think she could picture that, but she was also of the understanding that Charles saw Mercy more as a relative.
And she didn’t think he had been lying.
“Would you ask a sixteen year old to run away with you?”
There was a moment of silence and then Mercy laughed and Anna thought she caught a hint of discomfort.
She was proud for noticing that, too.
“No, I wouldn’t.”
Anna didn’t think she could imagine a world where she, herself, did that either.
“So he tries to elope when you’re sixteen and you get punished by being forced to move from the only home you ever knew, but then he follows you here after however long and expects you to let him live with you?” She took another innocent sip from her own mug and glanced at Mercy.
Mercy didn’t respond, but she had an expression on her face that Anna couldn’t read. Body language and scent both were getting easier to understand, but she still had a hard time. And this was an expression, if she looked too long, that she thought Mercy might have learned from Charles.
She wondered idly if Mercy knew she did that.
The other woman was still unreadable even when Anna smiled.
“Methinks you are a luggage car.” Weren’t they all, though? “And you already have a very nice engine.”
She had said it at the worst time. Mercy had just thoughtfully taken a sip of her own drink and was now spluttering comically. Anna startled at the sound just instinctively, thinking she was somehow imminently dying from maybe a splash of cocoa going down the wrong pipe, and managed to spill some of her mug on herself. After a moment’s pause, they were both sort-of laughing but also trying to find where Mercy had placed the unopened paper towel rolls.
“Nice engine?”
“I don’t really know trains very well. Aren’t they called engines?” Anna was grinning again. “They’re engines, right?”
Despite living in Chicago and knowing the L, she had very little functional knowledge of trains.
“He is nice, though.”
Because Adam had been very kind helping her with all the werewolf stuff and allowing Charles to visit. He took off from work and asked his people to help her on bad days. Two days ago, he had helped her find a job that wasn’t doing Mercy’s paperwork and while she wasn’t sure she’d gotten anything yet, it was a really sweet thought. This wasn’t going to be a permanent home for her, not if Anna were being honest with how she was beginning to feel about Charles, but it was good to keep busy and be productive.
Adam was also the reason she was taking community college courses and finishing a degree, even if it wasn’t the one she had wanted.
“You just said you didn’t like Samuel.” Mercy snorted with an eye roll as she placed the new roll of paper towels on the holder.
“Not Samuel, Ad—“
Anna stopped herself because Mercy let go of the roll holder, which she’d been tilting in order to be able to get the roll onto it, and it clattered enough on the counter that it had managed to proceed to bounce onto the floor.
This was silence, true silence. Anna didn’t even think Mercy was breathing for a second.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” She backtracked quickly and softly.
Whatever thoughts Mercy had trapped herself in, she shook herself out of them. Anna watched as she grabbed the paper towels again and picked up the holder. This time, she successfully got them on the counter.
“No, actually, I want you to mention that again. You said I have Adam, as in he is already in possession—that’s a werewolf thing if no one told you.”
They had. Specifically, Mercy had. She liked that Mercy called them “werewolf things”, it made it seem fun and silly rather than the nightmare it felt like.
“Adam and I…there’s not a way to put this that doesn’t either sound harsher than I mean it or very childish.”
Mercy was gentle and polite most of the time. Anna had come to appreciate how sensible she was when it came to these types of things.
“Charles favors the term ‘courting.’” Anna said and then wrinkled her nose because she had just used ‘favors’ and ‘courting’ in a sentence.
“We definitely are not doing that. Who told you we were doing that?”
Mercy had crossed her arms, but Anna thought it looked more like she might’ve been hugging herself. There was this thing inside of her that found her, found Mercy, the sixteen year old girl with a broken heart abandoned miles away from her home. She was there still, and Anna couldn’t fix her.
It was weird. She should be scared, Mercy was intimidating at the best of times. She was strong and determined, all of the things Anna sometimes felt she wasn’t—even when she knew she was. But she wasn’t scared, she wasn’t even anxious. Anna knew hurt, it was familiar.
There was this thing that had begun happening more and more, this peace. Someone, when she had visited Aspen Creek, named Asil had told her that she couldn’t pour from an empty cup and her cup had been glass, shattered on the floor straight from the cupboard with no water in sight. She didn’t like him much, but he had been hurting too and she was too anxious at the time to help.
“What are you doing?” Mercy blinked at her curiously, but Anna watched as her shoulders subconsciously relaxed and she realized she was relaxing, too.
“I don’t know. Sometimes that just feels right. It’s been happening more.” Wolves told her they liked it, though some (like Ben) didn’t say it in as many words.
She didn’t know how Mercy felt about it, or if she even could feel it right at all. Mercy was different, not werewolf and certainly not pack. Anna was under the impression it didn’t work on humans, not in the magical sort of way, and Mercy was arguably human.
“What does it feel like, to you?” She asked, equally as curious.
“A little static-y, like pins and needles in my emotions.” That sounded probably right. “Does Charles like this?”
That felt like a bit of a loaded question. Charles did, like most wolves, like the peace. The problem was somewhere between him not thinking he deserved it and him feeling unsettled by the quiet.
That dominant wolves also felt anxiety about certain things—like how Charles felt she switched off a useful part of his brain when he felt there could be danger—was oddly comforting in itself. Of course she knew anxiety existed and that it was a natural response to surroundings, even if one didn’t develop an anxiety disorder, but dominant wolves seemed to merely exist. She knew from personal experience they weren’t perfect, maybe “complete” or “whole” was the word she wanted. They didn’t seem to have problems, but they she hadn’t had much time before know to know any real ones.
And between Charles and Adam, she had now met some “real” ones.
“He likes it or he likes you?” Mercy joked, very obviously moving the conversation from herself when Anna answered.
And Anna accepted that she could let her off the hook for a bit.
“I think he has to like me.” Anna laughed but Mercy looked suddenly serious again.
“No, he…it doesn’t work like that.”
She couldn’t help it. Anna got a little antsy. She had made her way back to the couch and now she was leaned forward in her seat. No one had really explained this to her yet. Charles expressed wanting to give her more room before talking about that part, even if she could tell it was definitely bothering him on some level.
“Did you meet Leah when you were in Aspen Creek?”
Anna couldn’t help it. The reaction was visceral because the woman had barged into Charles’ home like she owned the place.
“Yeah. That would be her.” Mercy agreed with a sigh.
“Ben could probably describe her.” Anna didn’t like thinking or speaking poorly of people when she didn’t know them, her father had taught her better than that.
But her comment did make Mercy laugh and that felt like a win.
“Bran and Leah don’t like each other, if we’re going to phrase it that way.”
Charles had said that, too. She didn’t really think about it at the time.
“Samuel says they hate each other.” Mercy supplied, as if reading Anna’s mind. “Charles always felt they were indifferent which is kind of how marriage was for a long time, so it’s not that surprising.”
She didn’t say, outside of ‘they don’t like each other’ what she thought of Bran and Leah, and Anna made note of that mentally. Mercy didn’t know much more than she did about it, then.
But Anna sat with that for a moment. It was interesting, certainly. And she thought she understood why it had happened, Charles had explained the situation with his mother and that too had kind of bothered her. It was the weird type of love story a grandmother told you as if it were romantic and you had to bite back all sorts of questions like “so you met granddad at a gentleman’s club when he was forty-five and you were in high school?”
Not, Anna bit the inside of her cheek, unlike Mercy.
“So he doesn’t have to like you. What he’s doing, or I guess the reason he’s doing what he’s doing, is just to give you the chance to know him and decide if you like him.”
“A nice engine.” Anna surmised.
“A nice engine.” Mercy agreed, seeming to think again. “You didn’t say who told you that Adam was seeing me.”
No. She hadn’t.
Anna didn’t think she was supposed to say, but she sort-of blurted it out accidentally. It felt a little like the gunshot when she had killed Isabelle, a sudden snap like she remembered she didn’t have to keep sweet.
But she still hadn’t meant to say it.
“Adam what?” Mercy was eerily calm and this was the Mercy that put Anna a little on edge.
This was the woman raised by the most dangerous werewolves in the country, the woman Charles called his sister.
Charles. She hadn’t even broke the order to tell him what Adam had done. Anna had assumed Mercy knew.
“You didn’t know.” Anna whispered so quietly that she could barely hear herself.
Again, she imagined herself as a little girl saying to an elderly Mercy “grandma, it’s a little weird that he told everyone they couldn’t have you, entirely without your consent, no?” Because that was the closest thing to layman’s terms that had happened.
“Anna, I want you to know two things.” The Charles face was back. “One, I’m not angry with you. Two, I will need you to pick if you would prefer spray paint or a tool box.”
It took Anna a moment to process the question.
And then she smiled.
“You could try just sitting out there with a recorder. Charles promised me that you’re insanely talented.”