Chapter Text
Werewolves did not get along with mages. It was as common knowledge as the water cycle, the state capitals, and long division. Something constantly taught to kids through story books and fairy tales. Something touched upon in other subjects throughout elementary school, but never really dealt with in depth unless you went looking for specific information.
Most kids never have to deal with werewolves however.
For most people, werewolves remain like that - in story books. Storybooks that always pit werewolves against witches, with the occasional elf or shifter thrown in - usually still against the side of the werewolves.
They existed, of course. Everyone knew about them.
But they mostly existed in their own communities, in their own small towns in fairly remote rural areas. You would find humans living in those towns as well, of course. Those were the people that were well aware of werewolves. And you’d occasionally find a werewolf living outside of those communities. But it wasn’t common.
Werewolves thrived off of being close to each other, off of packs and bonding.
Tommy’s parents never got that memo, however.
Tommy’s mom was human. Tommy’s dad had been turned later in life. Tommy’s dad had been turned when he was well into adulthood. When he was able to shirk off the offer of a pack, saying that ‘he had his own family,’ and that ‘he could make his own way.’
Packs weren’t necessary for adult wolves, especially for werewolves turned as an adult. But they were highly encouraged and recommended.
By all historical accounts and previous scientific studies, Tommy should not have been born with werewolf blood at all.
There wasn’t really any ‘werewolf genetics’ that passed through bloodlines for turned wolves like there were born wolves.
So it was a shock to both his parents when Tommy had started screaming and writhing around in his bed one night when he was twelve.
Tommy was supposed to be human. He was supposed to be, anyway.
Maybe if Tommy’s dad had joined a pack after being turned, things would have been easier and a lot more straightforward for Tommy. But those weren't the cards Tommy was dealt.
For outside of werewolf communities. There were less safeguards and protections for werewolf youth.
If the Kinards had lived within two hundred miles, or even the same state, as a werewolf pack, it might have raised some questions or flags that his parents weren’t really doing anything to teach Tommy what being a wolf meant or trying to find a pack for their son.
They might have had the school offering resources for them, getting their family in contact with people who could help.
But they lived in San Diego, and the closest pack was all the way over in northern Nevada. And at least at the time, that particular pack was very insular, and didn’t want to either start or deal with problems outside of their pack.
So the only real support Tommy had were his father’s half thought through lessons on things he had picked up over the years. And that wasn’t much more than ‘we need to make sure we have a supply of meat before the full moons,’ and ‘don’t go mouthing off to your school friends on why you get an extra day off school each month.’
Most of the stuff Tommy knew about werewolves were in the story books and novels about them that he read in English class, and the one week they spent on the topic in high school Biology.
Of those lessons, Tommy learned five main points about werewolves:
- They picked one partner and mated with them for life (or at least the novels they read in English class told him that, real life experience told him that was not at all true).
- They placed high emphasis on pack bonds (Tommy wouldn’t know anything about that though, his dad barely even talked to their neighbors).
- At the minimum, they needed to turn into wolves each full moon (other than that though, Tommy hadn’t fully mastered the ability to change at will).
- They needed a steady supply of (preferrably red) meat in their diet. He had never met or heard of a vegetarian werewolf.
- They don’t get along with mages (Tommy couldn’t explain why werewolves didn’t get along with them, but almost every story involving them makes it a plot point. So if it happened that often, there must be some truth to it).
He didn’t tell anyone at the time. But part of his reasoning for joining the Army was a chance to possibly meet another werewolf and actually learn some things, because he sure wasn’t doing that in Southern California. If he had joined even five years later, that might have happened.
In the late 90’s however, the military was still downsizing. At one point they had had entire units and divisions made up of werewolves (And those units returned in the mid-2000’s) but when Tommy joined, he was told the personnel offices would do their best to put him in units with other werewolves.
What that meant in practice was… out of a battalion of 472 soldiers, there was one other werewolf, who worked a completely different job and schedule than Tommy did. Tommy had talked to him on a couple occasions, but the man was a good ten to fifteen years older than him. And much to Tommy’s disappointment, hadn’t been at all interested in teaching Tommy about being a werewolf.
When he left the Army, Tommy could have moved anywhere in the United States. But for some reason, that he would never understand, he moved to a place less than a two hour drive from where he grew up.
When he first arrived at the 118, there were no other werewolves working at the station, which was hardly surprising. Most of the crew were regular humans, through and through, though there were a couple people that Tommy thought might have been elves or mermaids, but they were hardly rare among the general human population, especially in a coastal city like Los Angeles.
And then, about six years after he started working there, Hen showed up. Tommy didn’t know what it was about her, but something tickled his senses.
It started with a light scent he could barely pick up off of her. Smelling like nature that was slightly out of place for the urban city of Los Angeles. Maybe she lived on the outskirts or by one of the parks? Maybe she was into gardening?
Then about a month after Gerrard left, they were called out to one of the many witch shops that darted the LA landscape. Tommy hadn’t wanted to go inside the building, on any given day if he was walking by, he’d probably cross the street just to avoid having to pass directly in front of the place. Luckily it was a medical call, and Tommy was fine with being told to wait outside.
Although he noticed, as the paramedic team walked out with a patient on the stretcher, Hen had walked out behind them in a conversation with what looked to be the store owner.
“Do you know her?” he asked Hen when they were on their way back to the fire house.
“Hmm,” Hen lifted an eyebrow as she looked over at him. “Oh, you mean Ciara?” she asked. “You could say that. We go shopping there pretty often.”
‘ We go shopping there pretty often.’ Did that mean what Tommy thought that meant? Was Hen a witch?
He didn’t get an answer to that question that day, but two weeks later, as Chimney was coming back to work after twisting his ankle the shift prior, Hen set a muffin down on the table in front of him.
“Karen made this for you so that your leg would heal faster, she infused some of her magic into it,” Hen said as she set it in front of Chimney.
“Magic?” Tommy asked from where he sat a couple seats down from Chimney. He heard that right, didn’t he? Was Hen saying that, at least her wife, was a witch?
“Yeah,” Hen said as she turned her head to look at him. “Don’t tell me I never told you Karen was a witch,” she said.
Tommy could only stare at her dumbly. Because no, she hadn’t.
“I remember you telling me she was a witch,” Chimney said as he took a bite out of the muffin.
Okay, maybe Hen had told other people her wife was a witch, apparently Tommy wasn’t there that day.
Although now, everything about Hen made sense. The scent that held just a bit of nature. Witches naturally carried that scent due to the materials they worked with and the way they decorated their houses. If he lived with one, it would make sense for the scent to rub off onto her. And it explained how she looked so familiar talking to the owner of that magic shop two weeks ago.
“You okay, Tommy?” Chimney asked at Tommy’s silence and blank expression.
Tommy shook himself out of it. “Yeah,” he said.
He would be fine. It would probably be best for himself to avoid interacting with Hen’s wife, but he would be fine.
🐕 🐕 🐕 🐕 🐕
Witches were very different from werewolves. For one thing, they were a lot more numerous. For another thing, they’re not as closed off as werewolves tend to be. And lastly, for the most part, they didn’t hide who they were, they lived in the open. In any major city, it wouldn’t take too much effort to find a witch offering their services for some money, or a shop selling witch tools and items.
Although really, those shops were only patronized by witches. Non-witch and other preternatural people had very little use for things such as goats’ blood, rabbits’ feet, and wolfsbane. Especially wolfsbane.
Evan Buckley grew up in a town with a pretty high witch population with more covens than he could count. It was probably due more to the people he grew up around that he learned proper witch techniques and stuff, his parents certainly hadn’t put much effort into teaching him.
When Evan Buckley first left home, he thought it would be much harder as a witch on the road than he expected. And for the most part, it was. But that had little to do with the witch side of things. Historically, witches placed high value on covens, and which one you belonged to and came from. Although in recent decades, with the amount of people that moved from one city, or state, or country, to another, it wasn’t seen as odd to come across a witch that was looking for a new coven. Did it raise questions among some people if they had no contact with their previous covens? Yes. Did it raise looks if people hop from one coven to another with barely any time in between? Also yes. But they were hardly the social outcast and pariah they used to be.
Although when he wound up in Los Angeles, he quickly found a family, or coven if you call it that.
Well, it wasn’t actually a coven, but the 118 was about as close as he had to one since he left Pennsylvania, and Hen’s wife was a witch - so there was that.
There was one thing about Los Angeles however. And that was that it was the last place Buck had ever expected to run into a werewolf.
He had run into a couple when he was down in Peru, although when they had realized what he was they stood well and clear away from him. Buck didn’t understand it at the time, and wouldn’t until years later.
He had never really paid attention to the history part of his witch classes growing up, much preferring the applied magic portions of the lessons.
So when he ran into Tommy Kinard on his third shift at the 118, he was totally caught off guard by the man.
At the pre-shift briefing, Buck had caught the man staring at him nearly the entire time. It was slightly… uncomfortable if he was honest. But Buck figured there was a reasonable explanation for it. The man hadn’t been there his first two shifts, he was probably just sizing the rookie up or whatever you call it.
After the shift, he hadn’t come over and talked to Buck or introduced himself, something most people have been doing over the past couple days. But again, Buck chalked it up to a number of reasons, maybe the guy just wasn’t a social person?
Then at lunch Chimney had grabbed Buck by the arm and pulled him over to the other man. “Buck, I have to introduce you to someone. This is Tommy Kinard, Tommy, this is Buck.”
“Hey, it’s great to meet you,” Buck greeted the man who had been playing hard to get. He held his hand out, as if to shake, only for Tommy to stare at the limb for half a second, before shifting his gaze to Buck’s face.
“You too,” the man, Tommy, had said, before walking away.
Chimney sighed. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Tommy can be.. Cagey around new guys, it’s nothing you did.”
For a while, Buck decided to just steer clear from Tommy. Buck was old enough to know that he didn’t have to be best friends with all of his coworkers, he figured as long as there were no problems between them, things would be alright. And well, Buck didn’t want to be the one causing the problems.
But then Buck started noticing some things that were adding up.
There was one call they had gone out to, a house fire on a suburban street. When they arrived, the fire wasn’t that large, still contained entirely in the kitchen. The family living in the house stood outside on the driveway, a mother and her two distraught kids.
“Charlie is still inside! You have to go save him!” one of the kids yelled out as they began disembarking the fire engine.
“Charlie?” Bobby asked.
“Our dog,” the mother began to explain at Bobby’s look of confusion. “When the stove went up in flames, he ran somewhere in the house, I didn’t have enough time to look for him while getting the kids out.”
“That’s okay,” Bobby said in an attempt to calm them down. “Now can you tell me more about this fire?”
As the woman was talking, the rest of the team was prepping to go inside. Bobby told Buck to follow Tommy and Chimney inside, the fire wasn’t that large, all they needed was a fire extinguisher.
As Tommy stepped out of the kitchen when the fire was put out, Buck thought he was going to go outside to tell Bobby when he saw the man start to walk up the stairwell in the middle of the house.
“Where are you going?” Buck asked when he saw that Tommy was not going outside.
“I’m going to find the dog,” Tommy said, as if it was obvious.
“Upstairs?” Buck asked as he started to walk towards Tommy.
“Don’t you hear him?” Tommy asked.
Buck was about to say no when Tommy turned around a corner on the upper level of the house. Buck ran up the steps after him, and as he walked over to the bedroom Tommy was standing in, he heard the extremely soft whimpering of a small puppy. Tommy was crouched before the open door of a closet, speaking gently to coax the dog out of the closet.
Buck thought that the dog wasn’t going to move, and Tommy would need to resort to picking up a squirming dog that wanted nothing to do with being in Tommy’s arms. But that didn’t happen. Tommy had simply reached out, putting his hands under the dog’s ribs and butt and scooped him up.
Buck watched him, transfixed… How?
“Okay, let's get you out to your family,” Tommy said as he stood up and walked out of the bedroom. “You coming Buckley?” he asked as he descended down the stairs. Buck again ran to catch up to him.
Tommy was interesting, Buck thought as he left the station at the end of their shift the next morning. And Buck slowly connected the reasons why.
“I figured it out,” Buck said one morning as he cornered Tommy alone in the locker room.
“Figured out what?” Tommy asked, caught off guard and slightly uncomfortable from the way Buck was looking at him.
Buck smiled, in a way that didn’t exactly settle Tommy’s nerves. “You’re a werewolf,” he said.
Tommy froze, staring at Buck, before something flipped inside of him. “You can’t tell anyone,” he said, rushed.
Buck took a half step back, surprised by Buck’s response. Granted, Buck had never called someone out on being a werewolf before, but he had with a few elves in high school and they had never reacted like this. Did werewolves like keeping this thing a secret?
“O- okay,” Buck said, leaning his back against the lockers opposite Tommy.
Meanwhile, Tommy’s mind ran in circles. Buck was a witch. Buck knew he was a werewolf. How did he find out? Almost no one except for Bobby and Sal knew he was a werewolf. But Sal had been out of this station for over two years now, and Tommy knew he wouldn’t tell another soul. Neither would Bobby, who Tommy only told because it was department policy to tell station Captain of all preternatural statuses.
“How- How do you know?” Tommy asked, hoping he hid the stress in his voice successfully.
“Well I had to connect a lot of signs, so it took me a while,” Buck started. And with the way Tommy continued to stare at him, he continued. “For the first couple shifts you kept staring at me from across the station, reminded me of a couple werewolves I came across down in Peru. Then there was the time you walked right up to that crazy dog on a call and they just settled right down. And then there was the last shift. It was a full moon and you weren’t here. Honestly though, if it wasn’t for Chimney telling me to be prepared for the worst shift of my life, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. But noticing you also weren’t working that day finally tied all of the strings together in my mind and…” Buck noticed Tommy’s facial expressions shifting as he kept talking, all different emotions, but none he could actually put a name on. “... I take it you don’t exactly want people to know you’re a werewolf?” Buck asked.
Tommy’s face shifted again, expression becoming more tight as he stood up taller. “No,” he said.
“Is there… a reason you don’t?” Buck asked without thinking. And from the way Tommy narrowed his eyes at him, he knew instantly it was the wrong question to ask. “S- sorry, you don’t have to-” Buck started to apologize as Tommy shouldered past him, walking out of the locker room.