Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His phone alarm didn’t chime this evening.

He’s sure of it this time. He’s absolutely positive that he had checked that the little alarm clock icon was green this morning before he went to bed.

The sun had been shining somewhere beyond the several layers of brick and mortar of Hux’s compound. He had finished reviewing the quarterly reports from the vice presidents around 9 AM (there’s the neat stack of the evergreen folders on his side table right there) and then shuffled to bed. Sometime between stripping down and crawling into bed he must have set his phone to charge. He wouldn’t have had any reason to flick the alarm off.

And yet the icon is greyed out now.

It’s not as if he’d slept in particularly late as a result, it’s not even 7 PM, but it bothers him. It bothers him enough that when he had jerked awake 10 minutes past when the alarm should have rung he bared his fangs at the poor lump of plastic and glass.

With a huff he flops over the wooden paneling that fences in his mattress and nest of blankets.

Millicent makes herself comfortable atop the defeated slump of his back with a soft trill as the phone in his hand rings. He jabs at the screen without looking; still bent over the railing with a cat sprawled across him.

“Good evening, Hux. Sorry to jump straight into business but the Saffroni’s secretary just informed us that their representative’s flight is being delayed due to poor weather on the West Coast. Would you like that time slot backfilled by FirstBlood?”

He pulled the phone away from his face to glower at the cheery picture of his aide before pressing the phone back to his ear. “I take it they’ve been hounding you lately about this?”

“Well, all calls that get declined from your business line inevitably end up on mine,” Mitaka chimes in with saccharine sweetness.

Hux sits up slowly enough for Millicent to take the hint and hop off. Not feeling particularly athletic this evening, he carefully dismounts from the bed. He sighs away from the mic on the phone before answering, “Let’s just bite the bullet on this already so they’ll shove off finally.”

“Sir, I sincerely doubt anything less than an investment in a blimp-sized sign would sufficiently communicate that... I’ll let them know about the opening tonight.”

“All hands brace for the bombardment of inappropriate gift baskets,” Hux grumbles with the phone pressed between shoulder and ear.

“Aye, aye captain!” Mitaka laughs, followed by the muffled sounds of someone talking in the office before he hangs up.

With a quiet hum Hux locks his phone, walking over to the open wardrobe that stands opposite of his bed. He deliberates between comfort and style for a moment before slipping the phone into the pocket of his chosen suit. The whole ensemble on its neat wooden hanger goes onto the bathroom door’s hook. He only has time for a quick shower but he doesn’t need to shave today. Slow hair growth is one of the few perks of his condition.

Showering and dressing passes in a blur of muscle memory while he goes through his mental itinerary for the next 10 hours. He puts the files from this morning into a briefcase and unlocks the heavy door of his industrial-panic-room-turned-bedroom.

He’s too young to go for the vintage basement dweller arrangement and too paranoid to trust a bit of drywall to keep everyone out. Besides the doorway, there are only 3 holes in the steel cube: the two in the floor and ceiling for the water pipe and the one for the WAP/cellular repeater’s wiring.

On his way out of his quarters he tugs the laundry hamper along with him, placing it in the hallway for the housekeeping staff to collect. Millicent totters after him obediently so he can lock the room up. The electronic door lock chirps to confirm that the alarm system has been engaged. He’s escorted to the entryway by the cat and tugs the exterior door closed behind him. The staff have the pin to the exterior door lock and they’ll be by in an hour or so to feed her and collect the day’s trash and laundry. They’ve been given strict orders not to feed her anymore treats. She’s been gaining weight lately.

The rest of his night goes quick enough due to the sheer number of meetings with supplier representatives. Apparently the presence of a dhampir in this business is novel enough to have a sizeable chunk of the industry scrambling for a distribution contract with him. A few of the representatives express how great it is to have face-to-face meetings for once instead of relying on email or group calls. He’ll have to move quickly to gain ground before the novelty wears off.

Although he doubts the full bloods would make any particular effort to socialize with the vendors.

Hux isn’t exactly inviting strangers into his compound either but a night of discussing business over coffee in the office’s plush conference room isn’t a struggle. There’s a certain flush of pleasure that washes over him as he negotiates pricing and assortments with the various blood vendors. He’s good at this. At building a network of contacts and positive experiences and turning it into a business. The full bloods hate him for it and that knowledge brings a pleasure all its own. It also brings a sizeable risk on his head.

His compound has been enough so far. There isn’t much that can be taken from it while he’s gone since everything important is locked in the bedroom or kept on his person. It will have to continue to be enough until he’s made himself essential to the blood business. Hopefully by then he’ll have enough reliable income to invest in starting up a small security company for himself.

He can already imagine the pitying remarks that move will garner.

The last appointment for the night ignorantly suggests a breakfast joint “… only a few blocks from your office!” Like many establishments in the city their invitation sign is hung over the main doorframe. It’s a small hand-painted sign in neat print welcoming vampires inside. No cutesy cartoon bats or cringe-worthy slogans about “getting a bite to eat”.

Poking fun of something that scares you is a tried-and-true human coping mechanism but it burns his pride something fierce.

The establishment itself is nice in that it’s thankfully not trying to recreate some idyllic life on a sunny farm in Ohio. Nor is it gaudy in its décor like some places in town where all the pictures are of celebrities visiting the restaurant. He can see there’s a small photo of the university’s volleyball team trying to form a pyramid on the wall next to the line cooks.

Thankfully, while the vendor isn’t particularly thoughtful in regards to choosing an eatery where they serve non-solid food like soup, she also doesn’t slap a sample of her product onto the table and ask for a glass from the wait staff. He had been inordinately pleased to see that FirstBlood had not sent that particular representative to speak with him earlier in the night. He’d been surprised to hear that the man hadn’t been fired considering the absolute obliviousness regarding propriety and sensitivity (not to mention respect for FDA regulations and biological hazards).

Over the course of the meeting the waiter keeps his coffee cup filled and the vendor discusses quality controls in a vague enough manner to not upset the other patrons. This particular supplier doesn’t use a third party shipper to move their product. They’re small enough that their fleet of refrigerated trucks can deliver product directly to the retailers.

“Think of the time and money that your company would save on training employees on safe handling techniques and unloading hazards. Not to mention the very important fact of packaging!” The vendor, a Mrs. Sharlain, is particularly impassioned regarding the superiority of her company’s method of doing business. She’s squeezed everything from how they interact with the community by bringing med students to intern all the way to how their delivery representatives can help “soothe and educate the employees of stores that are transitioning from human-only policies”.

Hux finds it hard to believe that Muliner follows all of the high standards she says it does. Or at least, that it does so and stays in the black. He smiles indulgently at the vendor as she wraps up her spiel, making sure it’s as closed-lipped as ever, “You’ve given us a lot to think about regarding the offerings you are suggesting. Right off the bat, I—” A young human two tables down and to the right sputters and coughs while trying to hide their laughter at his turn of phrase. Mrs. Sharlain shoots a mortified look over his shoulder at the offending party. He can hear the teen repeating Hux’s unfortunate choice of idioms to their confused friends.

Hux continues on as if the table of teens behind him were not there. If they had nothing better to do at 3 AM on a Wednesday than sit in a diner trying to mock two adults conducting business then they really were not going to amount to anything.

“I believe it would fit best near our Health and Organics section given how your company holds itself to stringent standards. Naturally this space will need to be verified by the President that oversees that Category but…”

Soon enough the dry subject of business and space allocations bores the teens and their attention drifts to mocking the other patrons. Their discussion is finished so he collects the PowerPoint printouts the vendor brought to better illustrate her talking points. His notes are written small and dense along the margins in blue ink. There’s the usual song and dance of who will pay the bill before Hux acquiesces and offers to pay next time they have this kind of meeting.

Mrs. Sharlain isn’t the type to take offense from the action so Hux escorts her to the metro. To both Hux’s embarrassment, and equally his amusement, she does mention her wife pointedly a few times on the walk over. At the stairs that lead down to the subway Hux bids her farewell with a professional amount of space between them, a firm handshake, and a nondescript greeting to pass on to her spouse.

He is not in any way, shape, or form melancholic on his way back to his compound at the reminder. After all, there have been plenty of dhampires before him to make those mistakes for him. Human company is inevitably strained and temporary. The climate with full bloods will not be changing quickly. The pool of dhampires here on the East Coast is small with everyone already sorted into groups and content to be as they are.

This late at night the asphalt glows like the polished dark hardwood of ballrooms in the past. There are couples scrambling down the sidewalks. All of them with pupils blown wide and reflecting the colors from nearby traffic lights and neon signs. Groups of friends heading back from clubbing with glitter and foam in their hair laugh and cling to each other. There are more thralls out tonight. Some are laden down with shopping bags, others are headed towards the park for some event, and one is asking for directions from an exasperated coven-mate over the phone. Another is staring forlornly at a stray dog that is whining at the takeout bag they’re clutching to their chest.

He tries not to laugh when the thrall glances around before feeding the dog a wonton. Judging by the woeful sounds they make when the dog jumps to lick them in gratitude (and the fact that they’re carrying takeout of all things) Hux guesses that there’s a lycan back at that particular Covenant. He watches the thrall try to keep the stray from following them home for a few moments before turning to head down his street.

Millicent was the same way. It wasn’t so much that he had picked up a stray but that the cat had followed him until his patience caved in. He’s grown fond of her.

Which is why he nearly sprints to his door when he hears her pitiful meows coming from outside the house. He spares a quick glance around the immediate area but there’s only a small group of lycans chatting a bit further down the street and some humans out on their balconies across the street. Their heartbeats are slow and their postures relaxed on the long bench under a tree.

“Millicent, come here. Now.” Whomever claimed cats couldn’t follow orders hadn’t met Millicent. Or Hux. The tabby trots quickly away from the door where some intruder may be lurking in wait. She makes short, sharp inquisitive sounds from his feet while he blindly props his briefcase on the fence. The lycans have thankfully stopped chatting and he strains to try and hear inside his compound. He keeps both eyes on his front door as he feels around the pens and paper in the briefcase.

“Hey, are you al—”

Whatever the lycan was going to say is cut off when Hux pulls out the taser gun.

“Holy shit,” the lycan whispers to himself, as if Hux had just pulled out a Tommy gun or Beretta.

He spares a glance at the lycan. He’s only a little bit taller than Hux but built to be a bruiser. It makes the shocked and slightly concerned expression on his long face all the more satisfying. He pulls out two spare cartridges and shoves them in his pants pockets. He locks the briefcase and gets a feel for its slightly shifting weight. It’ll make a decent bludgeoning tool since the handle doesn’t fold or bend.

“I do believe that my compound has been broken into. I daresay that whoever was cheeky enough to do so is in for a rather unfortunate bout of muscle spasms.” There’s an audible click as the lycan swallows and then glances at Hux’s front door.

“Shouldn’t you call the police or at least wait for your lycan, Rambo?”

The sheer amount of ignorance in this city constantly surprises him. With a sniff Hux tugs the button on his suit jacket out of its hole with perhaps more force than necessary. “Haven’t needed one yet,” he bites out at the lycan before turning to Millicent with a sharp gesture to the ground, “Stay.”

She obediently sits and begins to clean a paw.

With brisk steps Hux marches to the doorstep, enters the pin for the door and surges inside with teeth bared.

He slams the door shut behind him.

Minutes pass before the other lycans tentatively make their way over to their friend. They alternate between tugging at his large frame ineffectively to glancing at the door of one Armitage Hux.

“Kylo, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…” whispers one of them as quiet as possible. Vampires may have a poor sense of smell but their hearing is second to none.

“Yeah, you heard him. He doesn’t want one lycan…. much less seven of us,” chimes in another that’s clinging to Kylo’s right arm. His entire pack is huddled up around him, anxious after the display earlier.

But he looks at the small tabby that’s already acclimated to their presence. She is just the tiniest bit overfed. Her fur is glossy and there’s no bare patches or clumps. She is healthy and has a nice collar and Kylo knew that there were plenty of supplies inside the compound just for her. There’s two of everything in that compound for her. One litterbox and food/water bowls are set up in the guest bedroom and its ensuite. The other set is in the inner most room with its high-tech security software (but shoddily installed hardware).

“I think it will be fine,” Kylo whispers back to them. He crouches down near Millicent, not confident enough to try picking her up but at least she’s not hissing at him like the first time they broke in. The sheer amount of treats they’ve given her since then might have something to do with that.

“We just might need to… adjust how we approach him about it.”

Chapter Text

He should be relieved that his compound is not ransacked. That his bedroom door still has its lock engaged. That the alarm hasn’t been triggered after too many attempts at getting in. The only difference in the state of Hux’s house since he left it are the fresh trash bags and empty laundry basket.

Of-fucking-course. Millicent probably slipped out when housekeeping took out the trash. He’s been too busy lately to entertain her and maybe she’s grown tired of just her toys for company. He’s always been paranoid but this is a new low even for him. It must be all of the focus on him lately that’s been getting to him. Too many nights of startling awake late after his alarm didn’t go off. It sets his whole routine for the day off schedule and it must have compounded without his notice…

Hux drags his hands over his face with sudden exhaustion. The adrenaline from before seems to have fled under the couch and left him slouching against the kitchen counter. He doesn’t want to go outside. Especially on the grim chance that that nosy lycan actually called the police. Phasma will hold this above him for the next twenty years if not longer.

But he can’t exactly leave Millicent out there to suffer for his pride.

He’s gathering the will to move when he hears the crunch of gravel out front. The door is too well made to make words out of the low rumble of people speaking. Hux straightens his hair, his clothes, and hopefully looks like he’s straightened out his life as well. He would like to prove that he’s gotten over this sudden upwelling of paranoia, truly he would. But knowing his luck the imaginary intruder would be on his doorstep waiting to jump him.

So he grabs the tazer off of the counter because apparently he’s not as well-adjusted as he once thought and quietly sidles up to the peep hole.

It’s not the gals from the station.

It’s worse: the entire group of lycans have migrated to his doorstep. One of them is holding his cat like they’ve been chosen to cradle baby Jesus himself. There’s enough of them that he’s not particularly comfortable with tucking the tazer away in his pocket. Besides, the dark-haired one with the spots all over his face already knew he was armed.

He cracks the door open and suddenly he’s the sole focus of seven pairs of attentive eyes. While all of them are built broad and are by no means short, the one holding Millicent is the smallest. They look nervously somewhere just below and to the right of Hux’s shoulder swallowing around whatever they want to say. The other six shift their gaze from him to Cat Holder expectantly.

He really doesn’t have the time for whatever excuse they have for being so nosy. The sky is already shifting from the dark mantle of late night into the pre-dawn haze.

“Put my cat on the ground,” he grinds out with lips pinched tight.

Cat Holder dips down to comply with his order only for Millicent to claw her way up and over their shoulder. She settles quickly on Cat Holder’s bent back, her tail delicately curling around herself as she stares up at everyone. The lycan that she’s claimed as her personal seat freezes up as if the slightest twitch will send the cat flying. The others lean away slightly, as if they’re afraid that she’ll jump and drag herself up them as well.

He regrets ever letting her have full run of the house and blames his leniency for this train wreck of an interaction. She is a pint-sized horror stuck in an unassumingly fluffy body.

One of the taller lycans with the slightly boxy face is desperately trying to keep their composure while glancing between Cat Holder and Spots. Their shoulders quake minutely with suppressed laughter as the other two stare with remarkable interest at the pavers. With a slap to Spots’ back, Square Jaw is shuffling forward to lift Millicent up and off her perch. She holds on to Cat Holder’s shirt for a few tense seconds before Square Jaw gives her a small wiggle and her claws retract.

“Riiiight. Well, you’ve obviously got it on lockdown so here’s this…” they say stepping up to the door mat to hand over the cat. Hux keeps the door open with his hip and his other hand that’s holding the tazer carefully hidden behind his back.

He leans past the door jab to get one hand under Millicent’s chest before lifting her away from the lycan’s stiff-armed hold on her. When she doesn’t oblige him by climbing up onto his shoulder he drapes her across it like a tea towel. She seems content enough with the position for now.

“Ah, one last thing then we’re out of your hair… see we kinda just got outta the Kreis and pickings are slim,” Square Jaw does a quick pat down before twisting their jacket’s right pocket inside out. The polyester lining spits out a slim cardboard box and with a swift smack! the lycan is pulling out a business card to hand to Hux.

Except his left hand is holding Millicent on his shoulder and the other has a weapon he’d rather not drop and potentially discharge just to grab a business card. The other lycans look positively appalled at Square Jaw’s spiel with the exception of Spots (who stomps off in embarrassment or frustration while dragging two of the others with him).

With a hum at Hux’s apparent reluctance to take the card, Square Jaw carefully flicks it over Hux’s head into the foyer. “Gotta love VistaPrint. I’ve got enough to papier-mâché at least 5 piñatas. Here, I’ll toss another one just in case the first gets eaten by the cat.”

Hux doesn’t close the door quick enough to keep the second card from cartwheeling in. The door doesn’t keep Square Jaw’s slightly squeaky laughter and their packmates’ admonishments from filtering in.

The bunch of them are rowdy enough that Hux can track their progress across the pave stones, out the gate, and then they’re out of earshot.

The sounds of the house seem foreign to him now. The last 6 years of growing accustomed to the whistling of the air vents and the settling of the wooden floors is suddenly gone. He wants to go back to feeling secure about what he’s doing here. About the little space in the world he’s clawed out for himself. It seems precarious now.

He slides the deadbolts into place on the front door and sets Millicent down to sniff around the house. While she’s busy investigating rooms like it’s the first time she’s seen them, he grabs a small carton of chicken stock and a Gertrude’s brand of bagged blood from the refrigerator.

It has technically been Saturday for well over 5 hours now and, as it is officially The Weekend™, Hux is planning to anxiously drink his way into a food coma.

He drafts a quick email to the cleaning agency to remind the staff to be mindful of the cat when entering or leaving on his phone. He reads it over twice as he heats the chicken stock and blood in separate pots before hitting send and putting his phone on Do Not Disturb mode. The steaming stock goes in a Thermos and the warmed blood into one of those soft pouches they gave out at the last employee wellness event. The intended use is for water but the nozzle of the bag is soft enough to hold in his mouth while he uses the computer.

Hux takes his food into the bedroom first before going to the linen closet to grab the fluffiest blanket he has. If he’s going to be pathetic lump today, then he’s going to be a comfy, pathetic lump.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“There you are, Kylo…”

The pack leader looks up from where he’s been curled up over his phone checking for responses to their various job applications. The park is empty in that twilight time where only the garbage collectors are up and about. Shri and Fair are sprawled together just to his right, getting some rest while he keeps watch.

Reev trots up to the oak they’re resting under and Kylo glances past the other lycan pointedly.

“The others went off to the gym to get cleaned up before their one-offs. To no one’s surprise, Huey thinks he may get a more consistent contract from the temp agency,” Reev grunts as plops down to Kylo’s left. He growls at the tree roots stabbing him in the ass before settling down and sighing. The little box of business cards are pulled out for him to fidget with, “That’s at least one of us… but if even Golden Boy is struggling to get an offer I doubt any of us are going to keep getting the one-offs.”

Kylo scratches the small hairs at the nape of his neck before snatching the card box from where Reev was balancing it on his pointer finger. He pulls out and examines a card: it’s a decent stock (considering it was a free tester) with a dark blue background and white script. It has all the essentials: Their Pack Name was up top in bold print with their first names listed out with little dots separating each of them. The exceptions were Fair and Shri’s names which had a neat ampersand instead of a dot between them.

Underneath that was a list of skills and experience they collectively had: everything from IT solutions to landscaping and construction. He flicks the card between his fingers to look at the little url on the back, the shame sits bitter on his tongue.

“I wish you wouldn’t bring up the Teufelskreis like we’re convicts that just got out of prison or something,” Kylo mutters before placing the card back in the box and passing the whole thing off to Reev.

He just shrugs at Kylo, dragging his fingers over the shaved sides of his head and then through the slightly wavy hair on top. “I mean, it’s better to get it out there first, right? The simplest background search or Google will bring up the whole case anyway.”

“I’m sure it’s not helping our chances of getting any offers by bringing it up first thing though. I know you don’t think of it like that but it’s not something that’s going to give anyone, especially a vampire, a good impression.” Kylo tosses an arm over Reev’s shoulders, dragging him over to lean against him.

“Lemme goooo. I know you’re not mad at me so there’s no need for the Side-Hug of Death,” Reev whines, kicking his heels against the dirt as if he’s in a chokehold.

Kylo relents even though he’s joking. He’s so much bigger than his packmates, a head taller than all of them and even Huey, who’s built like a short tank, gets a bit too roughed up when they wrestle.

“It just feels like false advertising, you know? Like, we sound like a great bunch of fully functioning members of the community on paper but there are plenty of people that consider what the Circle does to be murder!” Reev’s voice pitches up ever higher, cracking on the last word.

“Keep it down, they’re still sleeping…” Kylo glances over at the two women. They haven’t moved an inch, even with Reev’s arrival and the conversation. As a mated pair they refused to be separated so most of the jobs that came their way were for large events that needed a lot of hands and ran long hours. They’ve been losing sleep and weight as a result. He watches their even breathing for a minute before turning back to whisper sharply, “We’re not murderers. We’re not some mindless pack of beasts ripping out people’s throats. We didn’t do anything wrong by protecting ourselves.”

Reev ducks his head when Kylo turns to stare him down, shrugging while he fumbles with the card box, “Then why does all of this feel like a punishment?” Before Kylo can interject Reev starts up again, glaring at his hands, “Seriously, we’ve only been cleared for civilian employment but what covenant needs seven lycans? It doesn’t make any sense. Any company or coven big enough to consider that many at once usually has its pick of the litter. And I… I hate to say it Kylo, but you haven’t exactly been putting the best foot forward.”

He bares his teeth at that even as Reev ducks his head, “Care to clarify on that, Reev?” His jaw aches with how hard he’s clenching it. He punches at the ground to relieve the energy winding up inside of him. His packmate is silent.

“You’ve been holding them to impossible standards…” Shri mutters from behind him, sounding fully awake. Kylo glowers at her and she holds his gaze for a moment before dipping her close-cropped head down. The action is supposed to look demure but it just comes across as either disappointed or like she wants to go back to sleep.

“I have been trying to keep all of your requirements for a new patron in mind. I am not going to bind us to the first vampire that shows the barest minimum of decency. We deserve more than that. A lot more than that.”

Shri gives a quiet hum, dragging her dusty fingers through her mate’s hair. She waits until Kylo winds down a bit, his emotions flaring up today. “Short of kidnapping a fledgling and raising them to our high—and conflicting— standards, I don’t think we’re going to find anyone. We should seriously start thinking about what the case manager said about the Reserve.”

Kylo flinches at the word, shaking his head as if to remove the words from his ears. “I’m not putting any of you through that.”

Shri looks at him over her shoulder, clinging that much harder to Fair. “We won’t have a choice. Our funds have been steadily going down ever since the trial ended. The website on those cards will be deactivated once the free test period ends next week. Then it’s just whatever we can get from online applications going forward. We either ship ourselves off to the Reserve, start stealing, or starve.”

He stares down at her in disbelief before scooting forward to lean over Fair’s shoulder and look Shri in the eye, “It’s not that bad…” he whispers. “Do some more digging in the Covenant database. We’ll find someone else.”

She gives him a pitiful look before glaring over his shoulder at the rising sun. “We didn’t want to worry you. We’ve already gone through all of the eligible vampires that are registered on the database though. That last one was a personal recommendation from the assistant at the local Registry.” Shri starts to gently wake Fair up and Kylo slumps back against the oak tree, stunned.

He turns to Reev with a strangled, “Did you know?”

“Yeah. Maud went in person to ask about any potential patrons for a full pack. Said they only offered up one name, were really cheeky about it, but his description sounded fine to her…”

He nods dumbly along as Reev talks. Of course Maud went in person. The packmate with the longest list of requirements and expectations went out in a last ditch effort to find someone for them. He had written off a number of potential patrons on account of her not being comfortable with them after inspection.

“Do you think she was honest about it? About being okay with him?” Kylo growls even as Fair sleepily shuffles over to lean against him. She’s warm, soft, and a bit too bold as she pets his hair while he’s in a sulking mood.

Reev shrugs before taking her example and flopping against Kylo. He pats his pack leader’s knee stiffly before saying a quick “There, there.” It draws a quiet laugh from Fair at least.

The four of them are quiet as the light from the sun flickers in and out amongst the high-rise apartments.

“I’ll get him to agree by the end of the month.” He doesn’t expect any response from the others. He either will or will not be successful. As he’s scanning across the park Kylo locks eyes with another pack walking down the street. There’s six of them and they slow down as one by one they look over the Ren pack. As one Kylo and his packmates stand up, collecting their bags before walking away from the patrolling city pack.

They smell enough like the red-headed vampire from last night to avoid an outright confrontation but the patronless lycan packs in this city have started noticing them. They’ve noticed that the Rens don’t consistently smell of one covenant. It makes them a threat to their territory. Kylo pushes his timeline to get the vampire to agree to a patronage down to a week.

They won’t be safe in this city for much longer than that.

Chapter Text

There’s a wonderful smugness that comes with waking up only to realize one doesn’t have to get up. Several blankets have gotten twisted around Hux while he was sleeping and, rather than struggle to unwind himself, he sways in a state of semi-awareness. Music plays from the corner where he forgot to turn the internet radio off last night. The room is pitch black without the usual green blinking light from his phone alerting him to all of the things that required his immediate attention. If there was a crisis at work over the weekend they would call him rather than text or email. So he’s just going to enjoy his lie-in.

The hair along his arms and legs, thin to the point of transparency, clings to the blankets with his every small movement. Hux sighs into his pillowcase, shifting lazily just to enjoy the body-warmed softness of it all. He swats around blindly for the sheepskin; blankets and quilts and even the duvet get jostled around as he searches. He could have sworn he had laid the skin out under his pillow so he could lay down on his stomach and pet the fleece as he drifted to sleep.

After some disgruntled patting around the bed he sits up enough to look over the foot-tall siding of the bed and, sure enough, the skin has somehow ended up on the ground near the foot of his bed. He must have flailed badly last night if he chucked it that far. At least his pillows hadn’t been launched in a similar manner. But does he really want to climb out of the warm mess of cotton and batting just to get the sheepskin?

Yes. Yes he does.

The internet radio over in the corner flips over from whatever instrumental-heavy piece the algorithm had picked after 9 hours unattended to some French ballad. Water gurgles in the pipes. The wiring hums and the WAP makes that high-pitched whine as its fans work.

The wood of the bed frame creaks around its metal bolts as he gets one leg up and over the siding. He swipes at the wool, wobbling as his sleepy balance on one foot threatens to give out. With a lurch he tips forward too far, both palms slapping down sharply onto the floor to catch himself.

“Fuckin’ hell…” he grumbles, blinking the sleep from his eyes as his heart hammers.

The current position is still rather precarious: both hands brace on the floor past his head, one foot still caught in the blankets on the bed, and the other threatening to slip on the sheepskin that’s underfoot now. There’s some tenuous shifting as he gets his hands positioned better and then inches his foot closer to the center of his weight.

Oddly enough, it isn’t a particularly uncomfortable pose to hold once he’s gotten one foot squarely planted on the floor. The muscles in his shoulders and neck are no longer in a tight knot from a week of poor sleep and hours spent bent over paperwork. There’s just the loose easiness in his forearms keeping his face from intimately meeting the dark-stained hardwood. He straightens enough and the muscles along the back of his leg stretch pleasantly.

He must have needed the extra rest more than he realized if his body reacts this strongly to an extra three hours of sleep and a sodium-filled dinner.

Hux disentangles his foot from the octopus-like grip of his sheets and manages to get two feet underneath him. His palms sting from his frantic scramble to keep from falling out of bed. The flooring leeches the heat from his feet. The sheepskin is just as cold when he drapes it over his bare shoulders.

The spell keeping him blanket-bound seems to have been broken for good; he’s cold and, unfortunately, wide awake. It’s only 10 PM and idle thoughts of going out take root. He’s under the hot spray of the showerhead just long enough to warm up fully before he’s out and pulling on his workout clothes. They’re a bit old, from his Academy days, but the leggings haven’t started sagging yet so he’s kept them. He had thrown out the shorts that went over the leggings ages ago after Phasma and the other lycan gals had made the “padding out his frame” comment one to many times. Of course, she had absolutely no room to be calling him out like that considering she had stuffed her bras with tissues back then.

He still hasn’t told a soul that he was the Secret Santa that had gifted her a set of gelatinous, transparent breast forms. That particular pair did not fulfill their intended use. Rather, like most things in the lycan-filled squad hall, they were used to torment the other cadets. It had taken every ounce of willpower he had to maintain a stoic façade in the face of one adult woman chasing 10 other adult women around with a fake breast in each hand.

It was this image of Phasma that came back to mind whenever he saw the icy, composed visage of Police Captain Phasma offering statements to the press on the TV.

It still aches when he crosses paths with the girls. Especially when he catches them on-duty in their uniforms. Phasma makes sure they keep the grey-blue outfits spotless and their brass buttons shining.

He isn’t exactly ashamed of what he does for a living now… food was and will continue to be one of the most important things in anyone’s life. His mother has never commented on it but she must know why he made the sudden switch after the trial. Those first few years of living together, just the two of them, had been so difficult.

Rolling his shoulders as if to dislodge the weight of the memories, Hux cleans up the mess of blankets on his bed. The bedclothes are tucked back in, the duvet and pillows put in their places, and the spare blankets are folded up with the sheepskin draped over top.

He puts his bedroom back to order while a waltz plays on in the background. There’s a bit of a pause before each song plays as the device buffers or deliberates on the next piece. He keys the bedroom door open to put the blankets back in the linen closet. The sound travels well enough that he continues on and brings semblance of tidiness to the rest of the compound.

It’s barely half-past 11 when Hux is satisfied that the evidence of last night’s panicked sprinting through rooms and sifting through drawers for signs of tampering has been erased. Millicent hid herself somewhere but the food he had scooped into her bowl yesterday was mostly gone so at least she had eaten. Per his request, on the off chance he’s up and about during the daytime, the housekeeping agency doesn’t send anyone by on the weekends. Hux takes his time looking through the compound, checking that the first floor’s guest bedroom and the kitchen are in full order. The refrigerator is starting to look a bit bare-bones so shopping will need to be done sooner rather than later.

He finds one of the business cards that had been tossed into the compound halfway under the dish washer. It takes a firm tug to dislodge it from where Millicent wedged it and the action scrapes part of the print off. It makes the card look like someone put a strike through the names listed.

It feels like a bad omen, like he’s just brought some sort of calamity down upon the lycan busybodies by scraping up some card stock.

A sudden bout of nervous energy has him bobbing through the kitchen and back towards the entryway where he has a small table. Hux hunts through the drawer for a pen that won’t blend in with the dark blue background of the card.

He settles on a red, fine-tipped Sharpie that fills in the white cardstock core nicely. Each name is carefully traced to match the font on either side of the gouge.

Arlo * Huey * Maud* Kylo * Reev * Shri & Fair

At least the names don’t look crossed out anymore. The white line looks more like a necklace running underneath the bright red letters and holding them all together.

There’s a passing familiarity with the pack’s name. Coupled with Square Jaw’s mention of the Teufelskreis and the thoroughbred-status of the whole pack… well, he hasn’t been keeping up well with lycan news ever since he left the Academy. But then again, there are plenty of them working entry-level positions where Hux is employed. It’s entirely possible that any of his co-workers could have suggested the retailing company to the pack. Benefits wouldn’t be on the table from the get-go but it was a decent pay and, according to the chatty lycans 7 rows down from his cube, HR was very accommodating.

He knew from his first year with the company as a temp that it was a competitive position but honestly, they were better off submitting resumes to the company website. Giving him a business card when there were no job listings in his category was just a waste of time.

At least they hadn’t cornered him in an elevator or in line at the store like some of the more desperate applicants. In comparison to previous attempts at getting a foot in the door, the Ren pack’s interruption at the end of his day was almost polite.

He couldn’t just blindly recommend them for not literally waiting on his doorstep though…

Hux doubles back to the bedroom to grab his phone and wallet from the nightstand. Thumbing the lock on his phone open, he navigates to the website listed on the backside of the card. Thankfully it looks like the majority of the information is on 3 pages. He’ll read over their references while jogging. Each page of the website loads in a separate tab before Hux flicks through his menu to disable the BlueTooth and WiFi. His phone doesn’t have that great of a battery and the constant search for a connection drains it quickly.

The internet radio chimes as he deactivates the BlueTooth on his phone and the devices unpair. The phone goes in his jacket pocket along with a small bottle of mace. He locks the doors behind him before stepping out into the chill of the night. With a shake he starts walking towards the park 10 blocks down that has a decent loop to run.

Hux doesn’t hear the radio chime again as a second device disconnects.

Kylo hands the phone back to Maud after putting it on Airplane mode.

“Well, you can tell he’s a young one from the taste in music…” Maud whispers, even though there’s not much movement on the street behind them. They’re tucked into the overgrown backyard belonging to the three-story townhouse behind Hux’s compound. The humans living in the house are sound asleep and the blinds to the patio door are closed tight.

The location this candidate has chosen for a compound is… odd. It’s inside of a diurnal sector; with the exception of one or two 24-hour chain stores, all the local businesses operate during daylight hours. The area is distinctly human and there are several stomping grounds nearby for unbound city packs. But given the proximity to his job perhaps he simply traded one convenience for another.

“Have you thought of a reason he wouldn’t reapply with the NBAP?” he asks as they shuffle along the side of the townhouse to get back onto the street.

“Listen, the clerk didn’t give a lot of info. Just that he lived by himself. I figured he’d be a basket case— well, let’s be honest, he is a basket case— but that’s more because…well,” she pauses, tugging absently at the dark wavy hair that falls down past her shoulders. “Shri found something. A lot of somethings.”

Kylo keeps walking. Maud can walk and think at the same time. She huffs and staggers after him. Her shoes are too small for her and the pinching paired with the cold has probably numbed her toes. Knowing Maud, she’ll take offense if he slowed down or shortened his stride. She catches up with him quick enough, leaning against him to start whispering again. It’s far more suspicious than if she just kept an even volume.

“Ignoring everything else, that ‘bedroom’ alone is creepy as fuck… like, I get that enclosed spaces are comforting for some people. But the room is tinier than a kennel and fitted for nuclear fallout or something,” Maud rolls her eyes up at the night sky, her gusty sighs making little clouds in the cold air. She seems melancholic to Kylo after her candidate inspection earlier during the day. It doesn’t bode well for his timeline.

Kylo is silent except for the stomping of his thick, black work boots as he steps over the curb and crosses the street. He hasn’t had the time to look over all of the intel collected on their current patron candidate what with all the loose ends that needed tidying from their previous ventures. After the first ten he gave up on keeping track of all of their personal histories, likes and dislikes, all the minutiae that went into a proper proposal for patronage. Huey was in charge of a thumb drive with all of the information they have collected on a giant excel spreadsheet. When it needs to be updated one of them takes it to the local public library to add data points or the inevitable next tab for a new candidate.

If this is their last shot with their strictly civilian limitation then… Kylo supposes he’ll have to get the full file on Armitage Hux.

“What a ringing endorsement considering he was your suggestion,” Kylo rumbles as they pass into a nocturnal sector, the metal plagues on the lamp posts changing from a grinning sun to a calm half-moon. They’re in a nicer area of the city and it shows in the maintenance of the greenery and public areas.

Kylo breathes in the crisp scent of the autumn wind, free of the smell of rotting trash. The streets are newer here, wider and made for modern vehicles. Even the candidate’s compound was modern in comparison to the mildew-covered, sprawling mansion they had lived in for years. The cold here is different. Here it’s a result of the rushing breeze sucking the heat away from them rather than a perpetual creeping chill that seeps into your very marrow.

There’s bad parts of town, there always are, but he and Maud would have to intentionally walk to them. Here in the nocturnal sector, they pass plenty of bustling shops with glowing windows where they could, in theory, duck inside to warm up. Nothing like that out on the Reserves.

“So Shri found…?” he starts the conversation up again after a deep inhale to make sure they’re still on Hux’s scent trail.

Maud is unnaturally contemplative for a moment for clearing her throat, “That he’s a half-blood.” She pauses as if waiting for some significant input from him.

Now that has Kylo’s head tilting in curiosity. “Really? Which ones? I didn’t think there were any covens nowadays that were on decent enough terms to hold a ball much less inter-marry,” a laugh punches out of him at his joke. Maud isn’t amused.

“According to Shri, his name was removed from his patrilineal coven twenty years ago. There wasn’t a matrilineal coven listed at all. It’s why he never showed up in our Registry searches: he’s not in an established coven and he never applied to establish a new coven for himself,” she frowns over at Kylo, clearly vexed both by the situation and by Kylo’s apparent lack of regard. “Doesn’t that bother you? He can't be more than 50 years old and—”

Kylo cuts her off before her voice cracks with a hand on her elbow to lead her off the sidewalk. She looks frantic as he hedges her in against the brickwork so they can talk quietly. Maud gives him a dour look before clapping her hand on the curve of his trapezius. The claw-like point of her thumbnail presses in on his throat in a gesture that is more a comfort for her than it is a threat to Kylo. She’s can’t meet his gaze, preferring to keep her focus on the sharp curve of her nail and the swell of mole-flecked flesh around it.

These months after the trial have been rough on everyone and he knows Maud needs more attention than he can give. This constant interaction and clash with the public are wearing her down quicker than they can build her back up.

“I wasn’t going to tell you but… Fair said that they already told you that I gave my approval,” her voice is unsteady, fluctuating between high and low.

“I’m not going to hold you to that. If you don’t like him then—”

Maud shakes her head quickly and gives his throat the smallest of squeezes to keep him from interrupting her again. Kylo huffs in annoyance, fingers tapping against the mortar above her shoulder.

“I don’t think we should continue with a classic proposal is all, Kylo. We all saw how on-edge he was yesterday and I think, Fair agrees with me, I think that something happened with him that pushed him out of the community. Shri found it but I confirmed it this afternoon…”

He frowns at this before nudging her to continue; he’s getting colder just standing here and talking.

“Don’t be mad but… during my inspection, look, the blanket was all twisted up around his head and I saw something, okay?”

His head whips up, glaring down at her in outrage, “Tell me you didn’t, Maud.”

“He had a scar under his pec and I thought— I mean it wasn’t what I thought it was but I pulled the rest of the blanket up and… Kylo he has this giant scar right down the middle of his sternum and down over his ribs. Like someone tried to cut him open—!!”

He has to pull away from her, closing his hands into fists and grinding his knuckles into his temples. He makes two aborted attempts at pacing before leaning back into Maud’s space to hiss: “That is in violation of every code to candidate proposal, Maud. You can’t just touch them while they’re asleep! That’s not, we’re not… I gave you your privacy during inspection and that’s what you do? Out of everyone in the pack I expected you to respect that rule.”

Maud growls at him, deep and low in her chest but it cuts off when Kylo lunges and gets his forearm against her throat.

“You’ve endangered the entire pack with a violation during our leniency period, Maud. What were you thinking? Just look, don’t touch. What if he had woken up to find you mole—”

She gives a good effort at trying to shove Kylo off, fists hammering at his ribs in anger. “That. Is. Not! What I did. Don’t you dare make it sound like I’d do something like that to us— to him! To anyone!” She hisses into Kylo’s face before rushing on in a single breath, “I pulled the blankets back down immediately and— I just petted his hair.”

Kylo turns away from her, glowering down the sidewalk. He’s not sure how he’d be able to tell if someone overheard all of that. There’s plenty of people further down the street and if there were any thralls nearby they might have overheard it without being seen.

“I was out on the other side of the building and he could have bled you dry before I noticed anything was wrong! He would have been within his rights by law!” he harshly whispers back to Maud, grabbing her by the arm and hauling her down the sidewalk. If they got to Hux before someone reported them maybe he wouldn’t press charges. The vampire didn’t want to get involved with authorities yesterday so it was a possibility.

Maud is silent as she tries to keep up with his stomping half-run. He can hear her wheezing and smell the cloud of salt tinging the air around her as she cries.

“I didn’t break any laws, technically they don’t apply to— Kylo please slow down and let me explain—!” she digs her feet in, trying to slow his panicked near-sprint down the sidewalk. The other pedestrians send questioning glances at the pair of them but seem to get on with their business when Maud doesn’t call out for assistance. He’s just tunnel-visioning. The whole pack knows he can get like this when stressed. He just needs to be shocked out of it. “He’s not a vampire, Kylo!”

That gets his attention.

“…” he turns to look at her over his shoulder. Squinting down at her in disbelief.

“We didn’t realize it at first but “half-blood” means something else for them than it does for lycans. He’s not from two different clans, he’s half human, half vampire.” Maud clutches at her chest, ragged breathes stuttering out in big puffs of condensation.

Kylo lets go of her arm, holding up a hand before Maud can start explaining. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket, looking contemplatively down the street where the scent trail will inevitably lead to one Armitage Hux.

He starts walking again at a normal, if not downright sedate, pace.

His packmate follows behind him, catching her breath while he processes everything.